DEAR SIR,- The French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnæus says with breed was allowed to live as long as possible, because her chickens became so renowned in the cock-pit. When, however, she had attained the age of fifteen years, she was observed, after moulting, to have acquired some arched cock's feathers in her tail, whilst others (old feathers) remained straight and brown, as formerly. By degrees, and during one moulting season, the whole of her dusky plumage was thrown off, and succeeded by a covering of red, and more beautiful feathers, quite like those of the cock of her own breed. In the course of the single season, the change was so fully accomplished, that, as she walked about, any stranger might have pronounced her rather to have been a cock than a hen. Spurs, likewise, sprouted out on her legs; she acquired a comb and wattles on her head; and even crowed hoarsely, not unlike a young cock. Her wattles were, however, cut off afterwards, for the purpose of making her look like a fighting cock. After the completion of this change of plumage, she discontinued to lay eggs; and lived no very considerable time to enjoy her recently acquired, but splendid costume.' This bird is now in Dr Butter's collection. This gentleman adduces other evidence of a similar change, in two old hens, kept for him by a Mrs Adams, of Bowden, near Totness, on purpose to ascertain if the change was general. One of these was fifteen years old, and the other thirteen. Of these she says, "I bought them both when pullets. They were of the common domestic breed, and excellent layers, which was the reason I kept them so long. I first observed the change on them after an absence of five months; when I inquired of my dairy-maid, From whence come these two young cocks?' for such they appeared to me in their plumage and crowing. I was greatly surprised at being informed, that they were my two old hens."

In Tucker's Ornithologia Danmoniensis, there is an account of a domestic hen, which changed her feathers to those of the cock; and Aristotle, in his Hist. Anim. lib. ix. c. 36, makes mention of a domestic hen assuming the male plumage.

When we were in Downpatrick, our friend, William Johnstone, Esq. informed us of a circumstance which, no doubt, was referable to this cause. He had succeeded to a large fortune by the will of an uncle, and among the animals which he acquired was an old cock, a favourite of the old gentleman. It was, out of respect for his memory, permitted to live until it died a natural death. Mr Johnstone shewed me the cock, which was then alive, and which he considered as a very miraculous one, having, at short intervals, laid two small eggs, not larger than those of a blackbird, and nearly circular, with very strong shells. He was quite certain that they were extruded by this supposed cock, as no other fowl could possibly get into the place where he was kept at the time. We told him we had no doubt but it was a hen, with the male plumage from age; but he was firmly of belief that it was an old cock. From circumstances of this kind have arisen, no doubt, the fable of the cockatrice. -En.

respect to insects, holds good in every other branch: " Verbositas præsentis sæculi, calamitas artis."

Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work? As I admire his Entomologia, I long to see it.

I forgot to mention in my last letter, and had not room to insert in the former, that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the water, as it was on that errand, in the river of St Lawrence: it was a monstrous beast, he told me; but he did not take the dimensions.

As you

When I was last in town, our friend Mr Barrington most obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, 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 shewed 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, &c. were thick-billed birds, of the loxia and fringilla genera; and no motacilla or muscicapide, 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 succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and lively genera.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

SELBORNE, September 14, 1770.

DEAR SIR,-You saw, I find, the ringousels again among their native crags; and are farther assured that they continue

*The flycatchers and warblers abound in South America, and these of many beautiful and curious species.-ED.

resident in those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ringousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in their return, every April? They are more early this year than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this month.

An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me, that they frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there, but leave those haunts about the end of September, or beginning of October, and return again about the end of March.

Another intelligent person assures me, that they breed in great abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are called there torousels, withdraw in October and November, and return in spring. This information seems to throw some light on my new migration.

Scopoli's new work * (which I have just procured) has its merits, in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and Carniola. Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history; for, as no man can alone investigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each in his department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers, and so by degrees may pave the way to an 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 urbica, that "pullos extra nidum non nutrit." This assertion I know to be wrong, from repeated observation this summer; for house-martens do feed their young flying, though, it must be acknowledged, not so commonly as the house-swallow : and the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be perceptible 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 ab hoste." 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 woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the winged creation for such a feat of natural affection.

* Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis.

But