OF SEL BORNE. 
73 
LETTER XXVL 
TO THE SAME. 
DEAR SIR, Selbornc, December 8, 
I WAS much gratified by your communicative letter on your 
return from Scotland, wlicre you fpent, I find, fome confiderable 
time, and gave yourfelf good room to examine the natural 
curiofities of that extenfive kingdom, both thofe of the illands, 
as well as thofe of the highlands. The ufual bane of fuch 
expeditions is hurry; becaufe men feldom allot themfelves half 
the time they fhould do : but, fixing on a day for their return, 
poft from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey that 
required difpatch, than as philofophers inveftigating the works of 
nature. You muft have made, no doubt, many dlfcoveries, 
and laid up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the 
Britijb Zoology; and will have no reafon to repent that you have 
bellowed fo much pains on a part of Great-Britian that perhaps was 
never fo well examined before. 
It has always been matter of v.onder to me that fieldfares, 
which are fo congenerous to thrufhes and blackbirds, fliould 
never chufe to breed in England: but that they fliouId not think 
even the highlands cold and northerly, and fcqueftered enough, 
is a circumfhance ftill more ftrange and wonderful. The ring- 
■oufel, you find, ftays in Scotland the whole year round ; fo that 
we have reafon to conclude that thofe migrators that vifit us for a 
fliort fpace every autumn do not come from thence. 
L And 
