72 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange 

 and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland 

 the whole year round ; so that we have reason to conclude 

 that those migrators that visit us for a short space every 

 autumn do not come from thence. 



And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention 

 that those birds were most punctual again in their migration 

 this autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th Sep- 

 tember ; but their flocks were /larger than common, and 

 their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If 

 they came to spend the whole winter with uSj as some of 

 their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, in spring, I 

 should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since it 

 would be similar to that of the other winter birds of 

 passage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas, 

 and again for about a week in the middle of April, I am 

 seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these 

 travellers come, and whither they go, since they seem to 

 use our hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is 

 very amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged 

 bird should delight in such perilous voyages over the northern 

 ocean ! Some country people in the winter time have every 

 now and then told me that they have seen two or three 

 white larks on our downs ; but, on considering the matter, I 

 begin to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds 

 we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far 

 to the southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on 

 the Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me 

 that it is a distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain 

 are so few, that ev^ery new species is a great acquisition. 



The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so 



