102 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XXXII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, Oct. 29, 1770. 



FTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Bris-, 

 son, &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 f< Supra murina, subtus albida; 

 rectrices macula- ovali alba in latere interno ; pedes nudi, 

 nigri ; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam plumce 

 dor sales ; rectrices remigibus concolorcs ; cauda emarginata 

 necforcipata;" agrees very well with the bird in question; 

 but when he comes to advance that it is " statura Hirun- 

 dinis urbicce," and that " definikio Hirundinis riparice Linncei 

 huic quoque convenit" he in some measure invalidates all he 

 has said ; at least he shows at once that he compares them 

 to these species merely from memory : for I have compared 

 the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in every 

 circumstance of shape, size and colour. However, as you 

 will have a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your 

 judgment is in the matter. 1 



Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or 

 not, he will have the credit of first discovering that they spend 

 their winters under the warm and sheltery shores of Gib- 

 raltar and Barbary. 2 



1 It seems highly probable that Gilbert White's suspicion of the 

 identity of his brother's Gibraltar swallow with the Hirundo rupestris 

 was correct ; indeed, if the Gibraltar bird exhibited a white spot on the 

 inner web of each of the tail feathers (except the two intermediate 

 ones), it could have been no other than the bird first characterized by 

 Scopoli, in his " Annus Primus," under the name quoted. According to 

 M. Temminck the rock swallow is abundant along the shores of the 

 Mediterranean. ED. 



2 " This remark," says Mr. Bennett, " is not to be understood as 

 miting the residence of the rock swallow at Gibraltar to the winter 



