NATURAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE. 
69 
than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of 
this month. 
An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some 
parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those haunts about the 
end of September, or beginning of October,^and return again about the 
end of March. 
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 Tirol and Carniola. Mono- 
graphers, 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 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 mky pave the way to an universal correct natural history. 
Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and 
conversation of his birds as I could wish : he advances some false facts ; 
as when he says of the hirundo urbica that "puUos 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 perceptible to indif- 
ferent observers. He also advances some (I was going to say) improbable 
facts ; as when he says of the woodcock that " pullos rostro portat fugi- 
ens 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. I am, &c. 
LETTEE XXXII. 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, October 29th, 1770. 
Dear Sir, — After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c., I 
begin to suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyherna in Scopoli's 
new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of Supra 
murina, subtus alhida ; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere interno ; 
pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quam plumes 
* "Annus I. Historico Naturalis,— descriptiones avium musei proprii earum- 
que rarioriim, quos vidit in vivaria augustiss. imperatoris, et in museo excell. 
comitis Francisci Annib. Turriani." Lipsise, mdcclxviii. In the preface to the 
above work Scopoli states, '* Observationes meas ad scientiam naturalem et 
agriculturam pertinentes singulis annis erudito orbi in posterum communicabo, " 
and the Anni were continued for five years, and contain some very valuable 
papers and observations, the first is devoted entirely to ornithology. The last 
(Annus V.) bears the date of mdcclxxii. 
