136 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the 

 rector. 



At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that 

 will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon 

 woodcocks first come ; if I lived near the sea myself I 

 would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used 

 to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times 

 in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they 

 would drop again when flushed, just before the spaniels, 

 nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at 

 them : whether this strange laziness was the effect of a 

 recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say. 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and 

 Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire 

 and Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot 

 attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth ; the 

 defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that 

 these birds come over to us from the continent at the 

 narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks 

 do not dust. I think they do ; and if they do, whether 

 they wash also. 



The Alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that 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 



