PRELIMINARY NOTICES, 



finch feeds in winter principally on thistle seed," objected 

 to this statement, because, he says, " the only thistle seed 

 which he can procure in winter must be unproductive, all 

 the fertile seeds being scattered by the winds during the 

 autumn." Really this point blank contradiction is too bad 

 even for an anonymous reviewer. Had I not been well 

 aware of this habit of the Goldfinch, I should not have stated 

 it. Lest, however, any one should be still disposed to ques- 

 tion it, I say, once for all, that the seed of the Common 

 Thistle, serratula arvensis, is not, in Somersetshire, usually 

 dissipated by the winds in autumn ; and that I have seen 

 a hundred goldfinches at a time feeding upon its seed in 

 the winter season. And, notwithstanding the seeds of the 

 Bull Thistle, carduus lanceolatus, are more readily dissi- 

 pated by the wind, these seeds do also occasionally furnish 

 food in the winter to those birds. But there is, in fact, no 

 end to objections and objectors of this sort. Some years 

 since, happening to enter into conversation with a farmer, 

 a very knowing one, too, in his way, I mentioned that the 

 world was a globe, and that persons had sailed round it ; 

 the only answer he made was, " I dont believe it." If a 

 reviewer be pleased to dispute a fact of which he does 

 not himself happen to be cognisant, although stated by 

 respectable authority, argument with him must be thrown 

 away. The Inquisitors imprisoned Galileo ; but he still 

 contended the earth moved for all that. I acquit, however, 

 the respectable Editor of the Magazine of Natural History, 

 from having any hand in that review, being convinced that 

 it was got up by another person, and most probably while 

 he (Mr. Loudon) was out of the kingdom. 



By a singular coincidence, Mr. Sweet, in the same number 

 of the Mag. of Nat. Hist, in which the above letter appears, 

 (March 1829,) and whose account of the songs, See. of his 



