72 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
supposing that we had any of those beasts in our shallow 
brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter, brought to- 
me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the 
bank of our stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides 
the parish of Selborne from Harteley Wood. 
LETTER XXX. 
SELBORNE, Aug. 1st, 1770. 
The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their 
natural history. What Linnzus says with respect to insects 
holds good in every other branch: “The verbosity of the 
present generation is the calamity of art.” 
Pray how do you approve of Scopoli’s new work? As I 
admire his “ztomologia, I long to see it. 
When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most 
obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you 
were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see 
many strange and wonderful specimens. ‘There is, I remem- 
ber, at Lord Pembroke’s at Wilton, a horn room furnished 
with more than thirty different pairs ; but I have not seen that 
house lately. 
Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of 
stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. After 
I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked that every 
species almost that came from distant regions, such as South 
America, the coast of Guinea, etc., were thick-billed birds of 
the Joxia and fringilla genera; and no motacille or muscicape 
were to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason 
was obvious enough; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds 
which are easily carried on board; while the soft-billed birds, 
which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a sub- 
