142 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer.* Was 
not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel- 
thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 
The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, cenas Raii, is the last winter 
bird of passage which appears with us, and is not seen till to- 
wards the end of November : about 
twenty years ago they abounded in 
the district of Selborne ; and strings 
of them were seen morning and eve- 
ning that reached a mile or more : 
but since the beechen woods have 
been greatly thinned they are much 
decreased in number. The ring-dove, 
palumhus Raii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several 
times through the summer. 
Before I received your letter of October last I had just re- 
marked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This 
uncommon verdure lasted on late into November ; and may be 
accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist summer ; but 
more particularly from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, 
which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a leafless naked 
state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then retained 
their foliage till very late in the year. 
My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has 
tried all the owl^ that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe 
set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will 
examine the nightingales next spring. 
I am, &c. &c. 
LETTER X. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771. 
From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos 
keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his 
owls hoot in B flat ; but that one went almost half a note below 
A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown 
pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords ; it 
was the common London pitch. 
A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks 
* It should be remembered that the breeding place is ihe proper home of a species, and that 
it is a general habit in the feathered race to return annually to the same breeding-place. Were 
It not for this, northern regions would be almost deserted by them throughout the year,-— En. 
