34 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my 

 letter of October last. 



Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring- 

 ousel for Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I 

 will endeavour to get him one when they call on us again 

 in April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my 

 Andalusian birds ; I hope they answered your expectation. 

 Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much 

 about the same time with the woodcock ; they, like the 

 fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migra- 

 tion ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, 

 so might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not 

 Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel- 

 thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? * 



The stock-dove, 2 or wood-pigeon, cenas Rail, is the last 

 winter bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not 

 seen till towards the end of November : about twenty 

 years ago they abounded in the district of Selborne\ and 

 strings of them were seen morning and evening that 

 reached a mile or more ; but since the beechen woods 

 have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in 

 number. The ring-dove, palumbus Raii, stays with us 

 the whole year, and breeds several times through the 

 summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had just 

 remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. 

 This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November ; 

 and may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and 

 moist summer ; but more particularly from vast armies of 

 chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced 

 whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot 

 again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till 

 very late in the year. 



1 See note to vol. i. p. in. [R. B. S.] 



2 See note to vol. i. p. 183. The Stock-Dove breeds plentifully in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Selborne at the present day. There was a nest in an old beech-tree 

 at The Wakes this summer (1900) : it was pointed out to me by Mr. Paxton 

 Parkin. Mr. W. H. Hudson also tells me that many nest around the old Manor 

 House at Newton Valence. [R. B. S.] 



