XLll.] OF SELBORNE. 123 
failure of them to the want of warmth : the defect in the west 
is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over 
to us from the Continent at the narrowest passage, and do not 
stroll so far westward. 
Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks 
do not dust. I thinlv they do : and if they do, whcsther they 
wash also. 
Tlie Alauda praiensis of Eay was the poor dupe that was 
educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in Letter XXXVIIL 
in October last. 
Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 
Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I Avill endeavour 
to get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad 
that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusiau birds ; I hope 
they answered your expectation. Eoyston, or grey crows, are 
winter birds that come much about the same time with the 
woodcock : they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent 
reason for migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their 
congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. 
AVas not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? Did he not find a 
missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 
The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, ^nas Baii, is the last winter 
bird of passage which appears with ns ; and is not seen till 
towards the end of November : about twenty years ago they 
abounded in the district of Selborne ; 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 decreased in number. The ring-dove, Pahimhiis Baii, 
stays with ns 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 uncommon verdure lasted on late into November; 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, reduced whole woods to a 
leafless naked state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, 
and then retained their foliage till very late in the year. 
