NATURAL HISTORY 
LETTER VIL 
TO THE SAME. 
DEAR SIR, RiNGMER, near Lewes, 0£t. 8, 1770. 
I AM glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnifti you with the birds of 
'Jamaica ; a fight of the h'lrundines of that hot and diftant ifland 
would be a great entertainment to me. 
The Anni of ScopoU are now in my polTeffion ; and I have read 
the Annus Primus with fatisfaftion : for though fome parts of this 
work are exceptionable, and he may advance fome miftaken 
obfervations yet the ornithology of fo diftant a country as Carn'wla 
is very curious. Men that undertake only one diftridt are much 
more likely to advance natural knowledge than thofe that grafp at 
more than they can poffibly be acquainted with : every kingdom, 
every province, fhould have it's own monographer. 
The reafon perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray^s Ornitho- 
logy may be the extreme poverty and diftance of his country, into 
which the works of cur great naturalift may have never yet found 
their way. You have doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology 
is genuine, and really the work of ScopoU : as to myfelf, I think I 
difcover ftrong tokens of authenticity; the ftyle correfponds with 
that of his Entomology ; and his charafters of his Ordines and Genera 
are many of them new, expreflive, and mafterly. He has ventured 
to alter fome of the Linnaan genera with fufficient fliew of reafon. 
It might perhaps be mere accident that you faw fo many fwifts 
and no fwallows at Staines ; becaufe, in my long obfervation of 
thofe 
