114 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such 
as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. Id 
a neighbouring village one was kept till Ly tradition it was 
supposed to be a hundred years old. An instance of vast 
longevity in such a poor reptile ! 
KiNGMER, Jiear Lewes, Oct. 8, 1770. 
LETTER XXXIX. 
ru THOMAS' PENNANT, ESQ. 
After an ineffectual search in Linna3us and Brisson, I begin to 
suspect that I discern my brother's Hirundo hyhcima in Scopoli's 
new discovered Hirundo rupcstris. His description of " Supra 
murina, subtus albida ; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere 
interno ; pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores 
quam plumte dorsales; rectrices remigibus concolores, cauda 
emarginata, nec forcipata ; " ^ agrees very well with the bird 
in question ; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura 
hirundinis urbicte," and that " the definition given of the bank- 
martin suits this bird also," — " definitio hirundinis ripariae Lin- 
Liei huic quoque convenit," he in some measure invalidates all 
he has said ; at least he shows at once that he compares them 
to these species merely from memory : for I have compared the 
birds themselves, and find they differ widely in every circum- 
stance of shape, size, and colour. However, as you will have 
a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in 
the matter. 
Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or not, 
he wdll have the credit of first discovering that they spend their 
winters under the warm and sheltery shores of Gibraltar and 
Barbary. 
^ " Above it is mouse-colour, below whitish, the guiding feathers with an 
oval white s]iot on the inner side, the feet bare and black, the beak black, 
the wing feathers darker than the dorsal ones, the guiders of the same colour 
as the wings, the tail well defined, not forked." 
