tl6 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTERS 

 TO THE HON. DAINES BARRIXGTON ♦ 



LETTER I 



Selbobn'E, June 30, 1769. 

 Dear Sir, 



When I was in town last month I partly engaged that 

 I would sometime do myself the honour to write to you 

 on the subject of natural history : and I am the more 

 ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a 

 gentleman of great candour, and one that will make 

 allowances ; especially where the writer professes to be 

 an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations 

 from the subject itself, and not from Ihe writings of others. 



The following is a LIST of ihe Summer Birds of 

 Passage which I have discovered in this neighbour- 

 hood, ranged somewhat in Ihe order in which they appear. 



RA.II NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT 



1. AYry-neck, Jijnx, swe torquilla : The miilcUe of March: 



harsh note. 



2. Smallest Regulus non oris- March 2'S : chirps UIl Sep- 



willow-wreii, tatus : tember. 



3. Swallow, Ilirando domestica : April 13. 



4. -Martin, Hirundo nistica : Ditto. 



5. Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia : Ditto. 



* Daines Barrington, fourth son of the first Viscount Barrington, 

 was a year younger than Pennant, and died in 1800. He became 

 Secretary to Greenwich Hospital, a Fellow of the Society of Anti- 

 quaries, and President of the Royal Society. His " Miscellanies," 

 published in 4to in 1781, deal with questions of Natural History, 

 and of Antiquities, including a paper first published in 1775 asserting 

 the possibility of approaching the North Pole. His most valued 

 book was one of " Observations on the more Ancient Statutes." 



