78 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



first come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and not 

 from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, 

 from the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that they 

 have been little accustomed to places of much resort. Navigators 

 mention that in the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, 

 birds are so little acquainted with the human form that they settle on 

 men's shoulders ; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would 

 have of a goat that was grazing.* A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, 

 assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about 

 that town in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon ; 

 he added further, that some had appeared since in every autumn ; but 

 he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which 

 he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in 

 the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were 

 shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes; particularly in the 

 autumn of 1770. I am, &c. 



LETTEE XXXIX.f 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, Nov. 9th, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, As you desire me to send you such observations as may 

 occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you 

 may, according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject 

 what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the " British 

 Zoology." 



The ospreyj was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, a great 

 lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle 

 of a plough and devouring a fish : it used to precipitate itself into the 

 water, and so take its prey by surprise. 



A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted 

 Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they are rarce aves 

 in this county. 



Crows || go in pairs all the year round. 



Cornish choughs H abound, and breed on Beechy Head, and on all the 

 cliffs of the Sussex coast. 



The common wild-pigeon,** or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the 

 south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November j 



* Darwin, writing of the Galapagos islands remarks of the birds, "there is not 

 one which will not approach sufficiently near to be killed with a switch, and 

 sometimes with a cap or hat ; a gun is here almost superfluous, for with the 

 muzzle of one I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One day a mocking-bird 

 alighted on the edge of a pitcher which I held in my hand lying down, it 

 began very quietly to sip the water, and allowed me to lift it with the vessel from 

 the ground. I often tried, and very nearly succeeded in catching these birds by 

 their legs." Voyage of Adventure and Beagle, iii. p. 475. 



I This with the following letter were written apparently at the request of 

 Mr. Pennant for the use of his "British Zoology," in which they were used as 

 the references show. 



J British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128. p 161. 



I p. 167. 1 p. 198. ** p- 216. 



