NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 125 



LETTER VI. 



SELBORNE, May 21st t 1770. 



THE severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted 

 the regular process of summer migration, that some of the 

 birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are 

 apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat, the 

 blackcap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember 

 that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40, 

 summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come 

 probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blows 

 between those points; but in that unfavourable year the 

 winds bio wed the whole spring and summer through from 

 the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvan- 

 tages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared 

 this year as early as the llth April amidst frost and snow; 

 but they withdrew again for a time. 



I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little 

 satisfied with Scopoli's new publication ; there is room to 

 expect great things from the hands of that man, who is a 

 good naturalist : and one would think that a history of the 

 birds of so distant and southern a region as Oarniola would 

 be new and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and 

 hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the 

 wretches that work in the quicksilver mines of that district. 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving 

 it seeds, I could not help wondering; because the reed- 

 sparrow which I mentioned to you (Passer arundinaceus 

 minor Rail) is a soft-billed bird ; and most probably 

 migrates hence before winter ; whereas the bird you kept 

 (Passer torquatus Raii) abides all the year, and is a thick- 

 billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a 



