108 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER VII. 



TO THE SAME. 



Ringmer, near Lewes,' Oct. 8, 1770. 



Dear Sir, 



I AM glad to hear that Knchalm is to furnish you with the birds 

 of Jamaica ; a sight of the hirundines of that hot and distant island 

 would be a great entertainment to me.^ 



The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession ; and I have read 

 the Annus Primus with satisfaction : for though some parts of this 

 work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken obser- 

 vations ; yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola 

 is very curious. Men that undertake only one district are much 

 more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp 

 at more than they can possibly be acquainted with : every king- 

 donij every province, should have it's own moiiographer. 



The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's 

 Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of his 

 country, into which the works of our great naturalist may have 

 never yet found their way. You have doubts, I know, whether 

 this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli: as 

 to myself, I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity ; the 

 style corresponds with that of his Entomology ; and his characters 

 of his Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, 

 and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linncean 

 genera with sufficient shew of reason. 



It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many 

 swifts and no swallows at Staines ; because, in my long obser- 

 vation of those birds, I never could discover the least degree of 

 rivalry or hostility between the species. 



Ray remarks that birds of the gallince order, as cocks and hens, 

 partridges, and pheasants, &c. are pulveratrices, such as dust 

 themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and 

 ridding themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many 

 birds that dust themselves never wash : and I once thought that 



' [The residence of Gilbert White's aunt, Mrs. Snooke. On her death in 1780 

 the property descended to him.] 



'^[Gosse's Birds 0/ Jamaica (1847) at length supplied the want here indicated. 

 It does not seem that Kuckalm did anything to justify Barrington's anticipation ; a 

 paper of his on the preservation of dead birds is printed in the Phil. Trans. (1770).] 



