XXXIIL] OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER XXXIIL 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARIUNGTON. 
I HEAKD many birds of several species sing last year after Mid- 
summer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the 
period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow- 
lianimer, no doubt, persists with more steadiness than any 
other ; but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, the swallow, 
the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all 
undoubted instances of the truth of what I advance. 
If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the 
summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or three 
days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those 
songsters ; but I am no birdcatcher ; and so little used to birds 
in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would soon die for want of 
skill in feeding. 
Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick- 
billed reed-sparrow of the " Zoology," p. 30 ; or was it the less 
reed-sparrow of Eay, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's " Zoology," 
p. 16? 
As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in 
moderate frosts, I have doubt within myself what should be 
the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to arise 
altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws upon 
insensible perspiration. The case is just the same with black- 
birds, &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that 
their hogs fatten more kindly at such times, and the latter, 
that their rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle 
frost. But when frosts are severe, and of long continuance, 
the case is soon altered ; for then a want of food soon over- 
balances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. 
I have observed, moreover, that some human constitutions are 
more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer. 
