154 NATUB,AL HISTORY 
so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be dis- 
cernible ; 
" Quern si pueUarum insereres choro, 
Mire sagaces falleret hospites 
Discrimen obscurum, solutis 
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.'" — Hor. 
LETTER YII. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
EiNGMER, near Lewes, Oct. 8, 1770. 
AM glad to hear that Kuckahn^ is to furnish 
you with the birds of Jamaica ; a sight of the 
Hirundines of that hot and distant island 
would be a grea* entertainment to me. 
The Anni of Scopoli are now in my posses- 
sion ; and I have read the Annus Primus with satisfaction : 
for though some parts of this work are exceptionable, and 
he may advance some mistaken observations ; yet the orni- 
thology of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious. 
Men that undertake only one district are much more likely 
to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at 
more than they can possibly be acquainted with : every 
kingdom, every province, should have its own mono- 
grapher. 
The reason, perhaps, why he mentions nothing of Ray's 
Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of 
his country, into which the works of our great naturalisi 
may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, I 
know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the 
work of Scopoli: as to myself, I think I discover strong 
tokens of authenticity; the style corresponds with that of 
his Entomology; and his characters of his ordines and 
* Kuckahn was the author of a paper in the " Philosophical Transac- 
tions" for 1770 on the preservation of dead birds. — Ed. 
