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NATURAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE 
LETTEE XXX. 
' TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Aug. 1st, 1170. 
Dear Sir, — The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in 
their natural history. What Linnaeus 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 long to see it. 
I forgot to mention in my last latter (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 pur- 
suit 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, an 
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 fringilla 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 ; while the soft-billed birds, 
which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum 
for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious 
voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as 
they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most 
delicate and lively genera. I am, &c. 
LETTER XXXI. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Sept. litk, 1770. 
Dear Sir, — You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their 
native crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident in 
those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring- 
ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance 
again, as if in their return, every April ] They are more early this year 
