that was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned 

 in Letter XXXVIII. in 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 migration ; 

 for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so 

 might they in all appearance in the summer. Was 

 not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? Did he not find 

 a missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a 

 fieldfare? 



The stock-dove or wood-pigeon, ^nas Rail, is the 

 last winter bird of passage which appears with us ; 

 and is not seen till towards the end of November ; 

 about twenty years ago they abounded in the district 

 of Selborne ; and strings of them w^ere seen, morning 

 and evening, that reached a mile or more ; but since 

 the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they 

 are much decreased in number. The ring-dove, Pa- 

 lumbus Rail, stays with us the whole year, and breeds 

 several times through the summer. 



Before I received your letter of October last I had 

 just remarked in my journal that the trees were un- 

 usually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on 



i6o 



