AND ROBERT MARSIIAM. 209 



but 25 guineas.— I got a peep at M r Rook's sketches of the 

 Duke of Portland's Oaks*. But i fear he is a bad calculator 

 of the age of Trees from their size. I have not seen Daines 

 Barrington's controversy with D r Ducarrel f. But although 

 I respect M 1 ' Barrington, yet i must see he is too partial to 

 any opinion that he has adopted, to allow the weight of any 

 evidence that makes against him. You may remember his 

 zeal against birds migrating }. The latest bird that i have 

 noticed appearing here, I mean its first appearance, is the 

 Fern Owle. I saw one this Spring, May 2. but did not hear 

 one sing 'till June 14 th . I wonder Willoughby says nothing 

 of their migrating. — I have been much entertained with M r 

 Townsend's travels in Spain §. But i must conclude that he 

 was misinformed when he savs that " Nightum-ales sino- all 

 the year," Vol. 3. p. 45. Your friend that lived in Andalusia, 

 i doubt not, knew it is not so. With us the song of that 

 bird is confined to as short a time as any. By the bye, i was 

 as careful as in my power towards the love-making of the 



* [A plate giving " A North West View of the Green Dale Oak near 

 Welbeck," no doubt one of those to which reference is intended, is given 

 in Hunter's edition of Evelyn's work (vol. ii. to face p. 200) and bears in 

 the corner " A. Rooker Sculpsit." — A. N.] 



t [In the 'Philosophical Transactions' for 17G9 (vol. lix.)is a commu- 

 nication from Barrington " On Trees which are supposed to be indigenous 

 to Great Britain," in the course of which he maintained that the Spanish 

 Chestnut was not one of them, and controverted the opinion of Ducarel 

 previously published {Anglo-Norman Antiquities, p. 90) that not only 

 was old London built of Chestnut-timber, but that there still existed a 

 large tract of Chestnut Woods near Sittingbourne in Kent. The con- 

 troversy was continued by Ducarel and others in 1771 (Phil. Trans, vol. 

 lxi. pp. 130-100), and Barrington replied on the whole case (torn. cit. 

 pp. 107-109). Barrington seems on the whole to have been right (see 

 Loudon, Arb. Brit. p. 1987).— A. N.] 



% [Barrington contributed to the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1772 

 (vol. lxii. pp. 205-320), "An Essay on the periodical Appearance and 

 Disappearance of certain Birds at different times of the year." — A. N.] 



§ [' A Journey through Spain in the years 1780 and 1787.' By Joseph 

 Townsend, A.M., Rector of Pewsey, Wilts; and late of Clare-Hall, Cam- 

 bridge. Second Edition, 3 vols. London : 1792. The author being of 

 the same college as Marsham was very likely personally known to him. 

 —A. N.] 



