NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 69 



than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of 

 this month. 



An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some 

 parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those haunts about the 

 end of September, or beginning of October, and return again about the 

 end of March. 



Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great 

 abundance all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor-ousels ; 

 withdraw in October and November, and return in spring. This 

 information seems to throw some light on my new migration. 



Scopoli's* new work (which I have just procured) has its merit in 

 ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola. Mono- 

 graphers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to 

 challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural 

 history ; for, as no man can alone investigate the works of nature, these 

 partial writers may, each in their department, be more accurate in 

 their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers ; and 

 so by degrees may pave the way to an universal correct natural history. 

 Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and 

 conversation of his birds as I could wish : he advances some false facts ; 

 as when he says of the hirundo urbica that "pullos extra nidum non 

 nutrit" This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observation 

 this summer ; for house-martins do feed their young flying, though 

 it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the house-swallow ; and 

 the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be perceptible to indif- 

 ferent observers. He also advances some (I was going to say) improbable 

 facts; as when he says of the woodcock that " pullos rostro portatfugi- 

 ens ah hoste" But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact 

 is false, because I have never been witness to such a fact. I have 

 only to remark that the long unwieldy bill of the woodcock is perhaps 

 the worst adapted of any among the winged creation for such a feat of 

 natural affection. I am, &c. 



LETTEE XXXII. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, October 29th, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c., I 

 begin to suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's 

 new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of "Supra, 

 murina, subtus albida ; rectrices maculd ovali alba in latere interno ; 

 pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quam plumes 



* "Annus I. Historicp Naturalis, descriptiones avium musei proprii earum- 

 que rariorum, quos vidit in vivaria augustiss. imperatoris, et in museo excell. 

 comitis Francisci Annib. Turriani." Lipsise, MDCCLXVIII. In the preface to the 

 above work Scopoli states, " Obseryationes meas ad scientiam naturalem et 

 agriculturam pertinentes singulis annis erudito orbi in posterum communicabo, " 

 and the Anni were continued for five years, and contain some very valuable 

 papers and observations, the first is devoted entirely to ornithology. The last 

 (Annus V.) bears the date of MDCCLXXII. 



