78 
NATURAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE 
first come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and not 
from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, 
from the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that they 
have been little accustomed to places of much resort. Navigators 
mention that in the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, 
birds are so little acquainted with the human form that they settle on 
men's shoulders ; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would 
have of a goat that was grazing.^ A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, 
assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about 
that town in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon ; 
he added further, that some had appeared since in every autumn ; but 
he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which 
he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in 
the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were 
shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the 
autumn of 1770. I am, &c. 
LETTEE XXXIXt 
TO THE SAME. 
Selborne, Nov. 9th, 1773. 
Dear Sir, — As you desire me to send you such observations as may 
occur, I , take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you 
may, according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject 
what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the " British 
Zoology." 
i The ospreyj was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, a great 
lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle 
of a plough and devouring a fish : it used to precipitate itself into the 
water, and so take its prey by surprise. 
A great ash-coloured § butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted 
Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they are rarce aves 
in this county. 
Crows II go in pairs all the year round. 
Cornish choughs ^ abound, and breed on Beechy Head, and on all the 
clifi*s of the Sussex coast. 
The common wild-pigeon,** or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the 
south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November ; 
* Darwin, -writing of the Galapagos islands remarks of the birds, *' there is not 
one which will not approach sufi&ciently near to be killed with a switch, and 
sometimes with a cap or hat ; a gun is here almost superfluous, for with the 
muzzle of one I pushed a hawk off the branch of a tree. One day a mocking-bird 
alighted on the edge of a pitcher which I held in my hand lying down, it 
began very quietly to sip the water, and allowed me to lift it with the vessel from 
the ground. I often tried, and very nearly succeeded in catching these birds by 
their legs." — Voyage of Adventure and Beagle, iii. p. 475. 
t This with the following letter were written apparently at the request of 
Mr. Pennant for the use of his "British Zoology," in which they were used as 
the references show. 
X British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128. § p 161. 
II p. 167. ^ p. 198. p. 216. 
