of Selborne 75 



LETTER XXXI 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, Sept. 14, 1770. 



Dear Sir, 

 Yoii saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native 

 crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident 

 in those cold regions the whole year. From whence, 

 then, do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly every 

 September, and make their appearance again, as if in 

 their return, every April ? They are more early this year 

 than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on 

 the fourth of this month. 



An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they 

 frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but 

 leave those haunts about the end of September or 

 beginning of October, and return again about the end 

 of March. 



Another intelligent person assures me that they breed 

 in great abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are 

 called there Tor-ousels ; withdraw in October and Novem- 

 ber, and return in spring. This information seems to 

 throw some light on my new migration. 



Scopoli's ^ new work (which I have just procured) has 

 its merits in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol 

 and Carniola. Monographers, come from whence they 

 may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some 

 regard and approbation from the lovers of natural 

 history ; for, as no man can alone investigate all the 

 works of nature, these partial writers may, each in their 

 department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and 

 freer from errors, than more general writers ; and so by 

 degrees may pave the way to an universal correct natural 

 history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and 

 attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as I 



^ Annus Primus Historico-Naiuralis. 



