92 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
freer from errors than more general writers ; and so by degrees 
may pave the way to a 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 urhica that " pullos 
extra nidum non nutrit." This asser- 
tion I know to be wrong from re- 
peated observation this summer ; for 
house-martins do feed their young 
flying, though it must be acknow- 
ledged not so commonly as the house- 
swallow ; and the feat is done in so 
quick a manner as not to be percepti- 
ble to indifferent observers. He also 
advances some (I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when 
he says of the woodcock that "pullos rostro portat fugiens 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 wood- 
cock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the winged cre- 
ation for such a feat of natural affection.* 
I am, &c. 
LETTER XXXII. To T. PENNANT, Esq. 
DEAR SIR, Selhorne, Oct. 29, 1770. 
After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c. I begin to 
suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyherna in Scopoli's 
newly discovered hirundo rupestris. His description of " Supra 
murina, subtus albidaj rectrices macula ovali alba in latere 
interno j pedes nudi, nigri j rostrum nigrum ; remiges ohscuriores 
quam plumce dorsales j rectrices remigibus concolores j caudd 
emarginatdf nec forcipatd agrees very w^ell with the bird in 
question ; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura hi- 
* The woodsuipe has been seen in this country to carry off its young, only not in the bill ; and 
the same feat is performed by some of the plovers, in which the feet would seem still less adapted 
for the purpose. There can be little doubt, too, that the motheater does the same, as the fact 
has been actually witnessed by Mr. Audubon, in an allied species. I suspect that many more 
woodsnipes breed in the south of England than is generally supposed, to judge from the many 
young which I have at different times seen. Last summer a brood of them was reared in the im- 
mediate vicinity of my residence, in a populous neighbourhood within seven miles of London. So 
hidling a species might easily evade detection in the summer months. — Ed. 
