98 
NATURAL HISTORY 
LETTER XXX. 
rO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 
Selborne, Au^. 1, 1770. 
HE French, I think, in general are strangely 
prolix in their natural history. What Lin- 
naeus says with respect to insects, holds 
good in every other branch : Verhositas 
prcesentis sceculi, calamitas artis.^' 
Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work ? As I 
admire his Entomologia,^' I \oixg to see it. 
I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room 
to insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting 
time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of 
North America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the 
chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was on that errand 
in the river St. Lawrence. It was a monstrous beast, he 
told me ; but he did not take the dimensions. 
When I was last in town, our friend Mr. Barrington 
most obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. 
As you were then writing to him about horns, he carried 
me to see many strange and wonderful specimens. There 
is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton, a horn 
room furnished with more than thirty different pairs ; but I 
have not seen that house lately. 
Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections 
of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. 
After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked 
that every species almost that came from distant regions, 
such as South America, the coast of Guinea, &c., were thick- 
billed birds of the Loxia and Fringllla genera, and no 
Motacillce or Muscicapce were to be met with. When I 
came to consider, the reason was obvious enough ; for the 
hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried 
on board ; whilst the soft- billed birds, which are supported 
