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room to expect great things from the hands of that man, 

 who is a good naturalist : 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 Rati) is a soft-billed bird ;* and most probably 

 migrates hence before winter ; whereas the bird you kept 

 {passer torquatus Rati) abides all the year, and is a thick- 

 billed bird.f I 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 suspect, is 

 attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft- 

 billed sort ; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of 

 his British Zoology, till I reminded him of his omission. 

 See British Zoology last pubhshed, p. 16. J 



I have somewhat to advance on the different manners 

 in which different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a 

 subject that I have not enough considered, and is of such 

 a nature as not to be contained in a small space, I shall 

 say nothing farther about it at present.§ 



No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first 

 plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, 

 " because they are not to pair and discharge their parental 

 functions till the ensuing spring." As colours seem to 

 he the chief external sexual distinction in many birds, 

 these colours do not take place till sexual attachments 

 begin to obtain. And the case is the same in quadrupeds ; 



* Sedge Warbler. J See Letter xxv. to Mr. Pennant, 



t Reed Sparrow. § See Letter xlii. to Mr. Harrington. 



