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 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 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, &c., were thickbilled birds, of the loxia and fringilla genera; and no motacillæ or muscicapida,* were to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for the hardbilled 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 THE SAME. SELBORNE, Sept. 14, 1770. DEAR SIR,-You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags; and are farther assured that they continue resident in those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in their return, every April? They are more early this year than *This collection must have been very limited, and, of course, the conclusions erroneously drawn from a few species. abound in all South America.-W. J. The muscicapidæ and sylviada 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 tor-ousels, 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-martins 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,"-flying from the enemy it carries its young in its beak.t But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false because I have never been *Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis. It is an undoubted fact, of which I have had ample proof, that when woodcocks breed in this country, they deposit their eggs on some dry bank, and as soon as the young are hatched they are conveyed to the nearest swamp, or wet place, where food can be procured. I am assured that this is done by means of the beak of the old birds. I have the authority of the keeper of a friend of mine, who saw this mode of conveyance practiced.-ED. 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. LETTER XXXVIII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. RIGMER, near LEWES, October 8, 1770. DEAR SIR,-I am glad to hear that Kuekalm is to furnish you with the birds of Jamaica. A sight of the hirundines of that hot and distant island would be a great entertainment to me. The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the Annus Primus with satisfaction; for, though some parts of this work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious. Men that undertake only one district, are much more likely to advance natural knowledge, than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with. Every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer. The reason perhaps, why he mentions nothing of Ray's Ornithology, may be the extreme poverty and distance of his country, into which the works of our great naturalists may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli: as to myself, I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity; the style corresponds with that of his Entomology; and his characters of his Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linnæan genera, with sufficient show of reason. It might, perhaps, be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no swallows at Staines; because, in my long observation of those birds, I never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the species.* * There are few birds which appear to possess less of angry passions than Ray remarks, that birds of the galline order, as coc hens, partridges and pheasants, &c., are pulveratrices as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash; and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust: but here I find myself mistaken; for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads; and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark dust? Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method of purification from these pulveratrices? because I find, from travellers of credit, that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert, where no water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust. A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground: and that it was fed by the little bird. I went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing in tenui re Majores pennas nido extendisse." Though by poverty depress'd, Spreading its wings beyond the nest; and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffeting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude. the swallow. Although it "twitters sweetly," there is in its song no appearance of emulation. On the contrary it seems to proceed from feelings of happiness and complacency, which cannot be mistaken. I like to watch it darting now and then to its nest, and uttering that little note of love which is responded to by the female while she is performing her task of incubation. And then to see its airy evolutions! "I delight to see How suddenly he skims the glassy pool, How quaintly dips, and with an arrow's speed His morning song twitter'd to dawning day."-Hurdis. ED. In July, I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found, after some observation, that they were feeding on the libellulæ, or dragon-flies, some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what Linnæus says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of prey. This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at Selborne. In the first place, considerable flocks of cross-beaks (loxia curvirostræ,) have appeared this summer in the pine groves belonging to this house;* the water-ousel *The species of cross-bills are only three in number. One loxia curvirostra, pays frequent visits, in flocks of from ten to eighty or a hundred in number, during the winter. The loxia pittyopsittacus has only been once recorded as a native of this country, from a specimen killed in Ross-shire, and now in my possession; it can, therefore, only be ranked as an occasional visitant it is a native of Germany and North America. The third species, loxia falcirostra, also a native of North America, has once been shot within two miles of Belfast, Ireland,—the only authenticated instance of its visiting our coasts. In a late number of the Zoological Journal, Mr. Yarrel (whom we have already had occasion to mention as a most persevering naturalist), has supplied some very interesting facts regarding the formation and direction of the beak of the common cross-bill, and which, we think, are here worthy of notice: The beak of the cross-bill is altogether unique in its form; the mandibles do not lie upon each other, with their lateral edges in opposition, as in other birds, but curve to the right and left, and always in opposite directions to each other. In some specimens, the upper mandibles curve downwards and to the left; the under portion turned upwards, and to the right. When holding the head of this bird in my fingers, I found I could bring the under mandible in a line underneath, and touching the point of the upper, but not beyond it, towards the left side; while, on its own side, the point passed with ease to the distance of 3-8th of an inch. The upper mandible has a limited degree of motion on the cranium, the superior maxillary and nasal bones being united to the frontal by flexible bony laminæ. "The form as well as the magnitude of the processes of some of the bones of the head are also peculiar to this bird. The pterygoid processes of the palatine bones are considerably elongated downwards, to afford space for the insertion of the large pterygoid muscles. The os omoideum on each side is strongly articulated to the os quadratum, affording firm support to the upper mandible. The jugal bone is united to the superior maxillary bone in front is firmly attached by its posterior extremity to the outer side of the os quadratum: when, therefore, the os quadratum is pulled upwards and forwards by its own peculiar muscles, the jugal bone on each side, by its pressure forwards, elevates the upper mandible. "The inferior projecting process of the os quadratum, to which the lower jaw is articulated, in most other birds is somewhat linear from before backwards, and compressed at the sides, admitting vertical motion only upwards and |