OF SELBOENE. 161 



A f dst)'iam transmigrat. Tune rursus circa plefiilunhun potis- 

 simum mensis Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad 

 septentrionales provincias redit" For the whole passage 

 (which I have abridged) see Elenchus, &c., p. 351. This 

 seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; 

 though little is proved concerning the place of breeding. 1 



P.S. -There fell in the county of Rutland, in three 

 weeks of this present very wet weather, seven inches and a 

 half of rain, which is more than has fallen in any three 

 weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the world. 

 A mean quantity in that county for one year is twenty 

 inches and a half. 



LETTER IX. 



TO THE HONOUKABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. 12, 1771. 

 OU are, I know, no great friend to migra- 

 tion ; and the well attested accounts from 

 various parts of the kingdom seem to justify 

 you in your suspicions, that at least many 

 of the swallow kind do not leave us in the 

 winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats, in a 

 torpid state, and slumber away the more uncomfortable 

 months till the return of the sun and fine weather awakens 

 them. 



But then we must not, I think, deny migration in 

 general; because migration certainly does subsist in some 

 places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. 

 Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration, 



1 It is now well known that although a large proportion of the wood- 

 cocks which visit us in autumn leave again in the spring, numbers 

 remain behind to breed here, and the reported instances of nests and 

 eggs being found in different counties are becoming more and more 

 numerous every year. ED. 



M 



