240 



NATURAL HISTORY 



mistaken ? did he not find a missel-thrush's 

 nest, and take it for the nest of a field- 

 fare ? 



The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, cenas 

 Raii^ is the last Winter bird of passage 

 which appears with us ; and is not seen till 

 towards the end of November: about twenty 

 years ago they abounded in the district of 

 Selhorne ; and strings of them were seen 

 morning and evening that reached a mile 

 or more : but since the beechen woods have 

 been greatly thinned, they are much de- 

 creased in number. The ring-dove, palum- 

 bus Rati, stays with us the whole year, and 

 breeds several times through the Summer. 



Before I received your letter of October 

 last I had just remarked in my journal that 

 the trees were unusually green. This un- 

 common verdure lasted on late into Novem- 

 ber ; and may be accounted for from a late 

 Spring, a cool and moist Summer; but more 

 particularly from vast armies of chafers, or 

 tree-beetles, which, in many places, redu- 

 ced whole woods to a leafless naked state. 

 These trees shot again at Midsummer, and 



