OF SELBOBNE. 
151 
I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine.^ 
Your supposition that there may be some natural ohstruc- 
tion in singing birds while they are mute, and that when 
this is removed the song recommences, is new and bold ; I 
wish you could discover some good grounds for this suspicion. 
I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the 
Gaprimulgus, or fern owl ; you were, I find, acquainted with 
the bird before. 
When we meet, I shall be glad to have some conversation 
with you concerning the proposal you make of my drawing 
up an account of the animals in this neighbourhood. Your 
partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear, 
that I am able to do more than is in my power : for it is no 
small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to begin 
a natural history from his own autopsia 1 Though there is 
endless room for observation in the field of nature, which is 
boundless, yet investigation (where a man endeavours to be 
sure of his facts) can make but slow progress ; and all that 
one could collect in many years would go into a very narrow 
compass. 
Some extracts from your ingenious ^'Investigations of 
the Difference between the present Temperature of the Air in 
Italy &c., have fallen in my way; and gave me great satisfac- 
tion : they have removed the objections that always arose in 
my mind whenever I came to the passages which you quote. 
Surely the judicious Yirgil, when writing a didactic poem 
for the region of Italy, could never think of describing 
freezing rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty 
frequently occurred ! 
P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.* 
^ It has since been ascertained that cuckoos do lay more than one 
egg in a season, although Dr. Baldamus, to whose remarkable essay we 
have already referred, states that each hen bird lays but one egg in each 
nest ; and adds that the same hen bird lays eggs of similar colouring, 
as a general rule, in the nests of the same species only. — Ed. 
^ We apprehend that allusion is here made to the fact that swallows 
which arrive early in this country occasionally get caught in late frosts, 
and vice versa. — Ed. 
