OF SELBOENE. 157 



birds of passage crowding towards the coast in order for 

 their departure : but it was very extraordinary that I never 

 saw a redstart, whitethroat, blackcap, uncrestcd wren, fly- 

 catcher, &c. And I remember to have made the same re- 

 mark in former years, as I usually come to this place annually 

 about this time. The birds most common along the coast 

 at present are the stonechatters, whinchats, buntings, linnets, 

 some few wheatears, titlarks, &c. Swallows and house 

 martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this 

 soft, still, dry season. 



A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a 

 little walled court belonging to the house where I now am 

 visiting, retires under ground about the middle of November, 

 and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it 

 first appears in the spring it discovers very little inclination 

 towards food ; but in the height of summer grows voracious : 

 and then as the summer declines, its appetite declines ; so 

 that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. 

 Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are 

 its favourite dish. In a neighbouring village one was kept 

 till by tradition it was supposed to be a hundred years old. 

 An instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile ! 



LETTER VIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, Dec. 20, 1770. 



HE birds that I took for Aberdavines were 

 reed sparrows (Passeres torquati] . 



There are, doubtless, many home internal 

 migrations within this kingdom that want to 

 be better understood ; witness those vast 

 flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter 

 without hardly any cocks among them. Now, was there a 



