OF SELBORNE. 127 



US, as they do, in Spring, I should not be so 

 much struck with the occurrence, since it 

 would be similar to that of the other Win- 

 ter birds of passage ; but when I see them 

 for a fortnight at Michaelmas, and again for 

 about a week in the middle of April, I am 

 seized with wonder, and long to be in- 

 formed whence these travellers come, and 

 whither they go, since they seem to use 

 our hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 



Your account of the greater brambling, 

 or snow-fleck, is very amusing; and strange 

 it is, that such a short-winged bird should 

 delight in such perilous voyages over the 

 northern ocean ! Some country people in 

 the Winter time have every now and then 

 told me that they have seen two or three 

 white larks on our downs ; but, on consi- 

 dering the matter, I begin to suspect that 

 these are some stragglers of the birds we 

 are talking of, which sometimes perhaps 

 may rove so far to the southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are 

 so frequent on the Scottish mountains, and 

 especially as you inform me that it is a 



