SPECIMENS OF BIRDS. 97 



I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had 

 not room to insert in the former) that the male 

 moose, in rutting time, swims from island to island, 

 in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pur- 

 suit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw 

 one killed in the water, as it was on that errand, 

 in the river of St. Lawrence : it was a monstrous 

 beast, he told me ; but he did not take the dimen^ 

 sions. 



When I was last in town, our friend Mr. 

 Harrington most obligingly carried^ me to see 

 many curious sights. As you were then writing 

 to him about horns, he carried me to see many j 

 strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I' 

 remember, at Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton, a 

 horn-room furnished with more than thirty dif- 

 ferent pairs : but I have not seen that house 

 lately. 



Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing 

 collections of stuffed and living birds from all 

 quarters of the world. After I had studied over 

 the latter for a time, I remarked that every 

 species almost that came from distant regions, 

 such as South America, the coast of Guinea, &c. 

 were thick-billed birds of the loxia and fringilla 

 genera; and no motacillce or muscicapce 1 , were 

 to be met with. When I came to consider, the 

 reason was obvious enough; for the hard-billed 

 birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried 

 on board, while the soft-billed birds, which are 

 supported by worms and insects, or, what is a 

 succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can meet 



1 This collection must have been very limited, and, of 

 course, the conclusions erroneously drawn from a few 

 species. The muscicapidce and sylviadce abound in all 

 South America. W. J. 



H 



