128 NATURAL HISTORY 



with the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The blue, marsh, 

 and great titmice will, in very severe weather, cany away 

 barley and oat straws from the sides of ricks. 



How the wheatear and whinchat support themselves in 

 winter cannot be so easily ascertained, since they spend 

 their time on wild heaths and warrens ; L the former espe- 

 cially, where there are stone quarries : most probable it is, 

 that their maintenance arises from the aureliae of the Ordo 

 Lepidoptera, which furnish them with a plentiful table in 

 the wilderness. 



LETTER XLII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, March 9, 1775. 



OME future Faunist, a man of fortune, will, I 

 hope, extend his visits to the kingdom of 

 Ireland ; a new field, and a country little 

 known to the naturalist. He will not, it is 

 to be wished, undertake that tour unaccom- 

 panied by a botanist, because the mountains have scarcely 

 been sufficiently examined ; and the southerly counties of so 

 mild an island may possibly afford some plants little to be 

 expected within the British dominions. A person of a 

 thinking turn of mind will draw many just remarks from 

 the modern improvements of that country, both in arts and 

 agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were 

 heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives, their 

 superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life, will 



1 The stonechat may have been mistaken for the whinchat, since the 

 former occasionally spends the winter here, bnt the Utter never. The 

 wheatear, from having been observed in March, may have been supposed 

 to have passed the winter with us, but we know of no instance in which 

 it has been met with in England between the end of November and 

 the beginning of March. See note 1, p. 118. ED. 



