OF SELBORNE. 121 



LETTER XXV. 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR; Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769. 



It gives me satisfaction to find that my 

 account of the ousel migration pleases you. 

 You put a very shrewd question when you 

 ask me how I know that their autumnal 

 migration is southward ? Was not candour 

 and openness the very life of natural his- 

 tory, I should pass over this query just as 

 a sly commentator does over a crabbed pas- 

 sage in a classic ; but common ingenuous- 

 ness obliges me to confess, not without 

 some degree of shame, that I only reasoned 

 in that case from analogy. For as all other 

 autumnal birds migrate from the northward 

 to us, to partake of our milder Winters, 

 and return to the northward again when 

 the rigorous cold abates, so I concluded 

 that the ring-ousels did the same, as well 

 as their congeners the fieldfares ; and 



