XXXV.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
105 
nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, 
and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, culled 
and provided in this extraordinary manner. 
Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, when grain fails, 
can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There is reason to sup- 
pose that they would not long be healthy without ; for turkeys, 
though corn-fed, delight in a variety of plants, such as cabbage, 
lettuce, endive, &c. and poultry pick niucli grass ; while geese 
live for months together on commons by grazing alone. 
" Nought is useless made ; 
On the barren heath 
The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop 
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf 
Sufficient : after them the cackling goos?, 
Close-grazer, finds wherewith to ease her want." 
PiiiLips's Cyder.] 
— Observations on N"aturk. 
Selborne, May 12, 1770. 
LETTEE XXXV. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARIUKGTON. 
The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the 
regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do 
but just begin to show themselves, and others, as the white- 
throat, the blackcap, the redstart, the flycatcher, are apparently 
thinner than usual. I well remember that after the very severe 
spring in the year 1739-40, summer birds of passage were very 
scarce. They come hither probably with a south east wind, or 
when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavourable 
year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through 
from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these dis- 
advantages, two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared 
