68 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTEE XXX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Aug. 1st, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in 

 their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds 

 good in every other branch : " Verbositas prcesentis smculi, calamitas 

 artis." 



Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work ? As I admire his 

 " Entomologia," I long to see it. 



I forgot to mention in my last latter (and had not room to insert 

 in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from 

 island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pur- 

 suit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the 

 water as it was on that errand in the river St. Lawrence : it was a 

 monstrous beast, he told me ; but he did not take the dimensions. 



When I was last in town our friend Mr. Harrington most obligingly 

 carried me to see many curious sights. As you were then writing to 

 him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful 

 specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton, an 

 horn room furnished with more than thirty different pairs ; but I have 

 not seen that house lately. 



Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed 

 and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied 

 over the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that 

 came from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, 

 &c., were thick-billed birds of the loxia and fringilla genera ; and no 

 motacillce, or muscicapm, were to be met with. When I came to consider, 

 the reason was obvious enough ; for the hard-billed birds subsist on 

 seeds which are easily carried on board ; while the soft-billed birds, 

 which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum 

 for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious 

 voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as 

 they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some' of the most 

 delicate and lively genera. I am, &c. 



LETTEE XXXI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Sept. Uth, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their 

 native crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident in 

 those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring- 

 ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance 

 again, as if in their return, every April ] They are more early this year 



