106 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER VI. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, May 21, 1770. 



Dear Sir, 



The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the 

 regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do 

 but just begin to shew themselves, and others are apparently 

 thinner than usual ; as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red- 

 start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the very 

 severe spring in the year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were 

 very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east 

 wind, or when it blows between those points ; ^ but in that 

 unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and 

 summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst 

 all these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, 

 appeared this year as early as the eleventh of April amidst frost 

 and snow ; but they withdrew again for a time. 



1 am not pleased to find that some people seem so little 

 satisfied with Scopoli's new publication ; ^ there is room to expect 

 great things from the hands of that man, who is a good natur- 

 alist : and one would think that an history of the birds of so 

 distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and 

 interesting. I could wish to see that work, and hope to get it 

 sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work 

 in the quicksilver mines of that district. 



When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it 

 seeds, I could not help wondering ; because the reed-sparrow 

 which I mentioned to you {passer arundinaceus minor Raii) ^ is a 

 soft-billed bird ; and most probably migrates hence before 

 winter ; whereas the bird you kept {passer torquatus Raii) * abides 

 all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. 1 question whether the 

 latter be much of a songster ; but in this matter I want to be 

 better informed. The former has a variety of hurrying notes, 

 and sings all night. Some part of the song of the former, I 



^ [We now know that migrating birds prefer a wind on the beam rather than one 

 astern ; the latter, if strong, would interfere both with their comfort and their 

 steering power.] 



2 This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis. 

 ^[The sedge- warbler.] 



■•fThe reed-bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus, L.).] 



