NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXX. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIEE. 



SELBOENF, AU?. 1, 1770. 



HE French, I think, in general are strangely 

 prolix in their natural history. What Lin- 

 naeus says with respect to insects, holds 

 good in every other branch : " Vcrlositas 

 prcescntis sceculi, 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 letter (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 pursuit 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. Barrington 

 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, a horn 

 room furnished with more than thirty different pairs; but I 

 have not sscn 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 

 Motacilice or fifuscicapce 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 ; whilst the soft-billed birds, which are supported 



