100 
NATURAL HISTORY 
Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in 
great abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are called 
there Tor-ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and 
return in spring. This information seems to throw some 
light on my new migration. 
Scopoli^s new work ^ (which I have just procured) has its 
merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and 
Carniola. Monographers, come from whence they may, 
have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and 
approbation from the lovers of natural history ; for, as no 
man can alone investigate all the works of nature, these 
partial writers may, each in their department, be more 
accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than 
more general writers ; and so by degrees may pave the 
way to a universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli 
is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversa- 
tion of his birds as I could wish : he advances some false 
facts; as when he says of the Hirundo urhica that " pullos 
extra nidum non nutrit." This assertion I know to be 
wrong from repeated observation this summer; for house 
martins do feed their young flying, though it must be 
acknowledged not so commonly as the house swallow ; and 
the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be per- 
ceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances some 
(I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when he says of 
the woodcock that pullos rostro portat fugiens ah hoste.'* 
But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is 
false, because I have never been witness to such a fact. 
I have only to remark that the long unwieldy bill of the 
woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the 
winged creation for such a feat of natural affection.^ 
^ " Annus Primus Historico-Xaturalis." — G. W. 
2 The fact that woodcocks carry their young has long been known to 
naturalists. Several instances are referred to by Yarrell in the third 
volume of his " History of British Birds." Others are recorded by 
Mr. Lloyd in his " Scandinavian Adventures" and " Game Birds and 
Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway," in which latter work will be found 
a woodcut (p. 194) illustrating a case witnessed by a friend of the 
author. Mr. St. John, in his " Natural History and Sport in Morav." 
