100 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 1 (which I have just procured) has its 

 merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and 

 Carniola. Monographers, 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 all 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 a universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli 

 is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversa- 

 tion 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 per- 

 ceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances some 

 (I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when he says of 

 the woodcock that "pullos rostro portat fugiens ab 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. 2 



1 " Amrns Primus Historico-Naturalis." G. W. 



2 The fact that woodcocks carry their young has long been known to 

 naturalists. Several instances are referred to by Yarrell in the third 

 volume of his " History of British Birds." Others are recorded by 

 Mr. Lloyd in his " Scandinavian Adventures" and ** Game Birds and 

 Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway," in which latter work will be found 

 a woodcut (p. 194) illustrating a case witnessed by a friend of the 

 author. Mr. St. John, in his " Natural History and Sport in Morav." 



