SPECIMENS OF HORNS AND OF BIRDS. 95 



respect to insects, holds good in every other branch : " Verbo- 

 sitas pr<zsentis sceculi, calamitas artis" 



Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work ? As I 

 admire his Entomologia, I long to see it. 



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 pursuit 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 dimensions. 



When I was last in town, our friend Mr Barrington most 

 obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you 

 were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see 

 many strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, 

 at Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton, a horn-room furnished with 

 more than thirty different pairs : but I have not seen that 

 house lately. 



Mr Barrington shewed 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 motacillcs or 

 muscicapidce, * 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 

 with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this 

 defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are 

 defective, and we are deprived of some of the most delicate 

 and lively genera. 



LETTER XXXVII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



SELBORNE, September 14, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, You saw, I find, the ringousels again among 

 their native crags ; and are farther assured that they continue 



* The flycatchers and warblers abound in South America, so that the 

 arguments of our author are erroneous. ED. 



