ii8 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



supposed to be an hundred years old. An instance of 

 vast longevity in such a poor reptile 1 



LETTER VIII 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



Selborne, Dec. 20, 1770. 



Dear Sir, 

 The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows 

 {passer es torquati.') 



There are doubtless many home internal migrations 

 within this kingdom that want to be better understood : 

 witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear 

 with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among 

 them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it 

 should seem very improbable that any one district should 

 produce such numbers of these little birds ; and much 

 more when only one half of the species appears : therefore 

 we may conclude that xhs, fringillae caelebes, for some good 

 purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which 

 the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the 

 intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should be 

 interrupted in winter; since in many animals, and par- 

 ticularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, 

 except at the season when commerce is necessary for the 

 continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaf- 

 finches see Fauna Suecica, p. 85> ^i^d Systema Naturae, 

 p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, 

 but none of cocks. 



Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of 

 the British singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very prob- 

 able one ; since the matter of food is a great regulator of 

 the actions and proceedings of the brute creation : there is 

 but one that can be set in competition with it, and that 

 is love. But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one 



