hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring time traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the above-mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures.

Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more impatient of a sultry climate; but then I cannot help wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the severity of England, and even of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to migrate from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia.

It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, &c.; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to the equator without launching out and exposing itself to boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence advance this obvious remark, because my brother has always found that some of his birds, and particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in crossing the Mediterranean; for, when arrived at Gibraltar, they do not,

66 Rang'd in figure, wedge their way,

and set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight;"

MILTON.

but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in a company; and sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and water, direct their course to the opposite continent at the narrowest passage they can find. They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and so pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the narrowest space.

In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that WOODCOCKS in moonshiny nights cross the German Ocean from Scandinavia.

As a

proof that birds of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it is, I shall relate the following incident, which, though mentioned to have happened so many

years ago, was strictly a matter of fact:-As some people were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the county of Sussex, they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a silver collar about its neck,1 on which were engraven the arms of the King of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near relation of mine; and, to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the rector.

At present I do not know any body near the seaside that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come; if I lived near the sea myself, I would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy, that they would drop again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them: whether this strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey, I shall not presume to say.

Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall.2 In those two last counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth the defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward.

1 I have read a like anecdote of a swan.

2 We have the highest authority for considering that the visitation of this prince of songsters in this country is limited on the eastern side of England to a few miles beyond York, northwards. It is found in some parts of Devonshire, but in no part of Cornwall or of Wales. See YARRELL'S Brit. Birds.-T. B.

Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not dust. I think they do; and if they do, whether they wash also.

The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating the booby of a cuckoo, mentioned in my letter of October last.1

Your letter came too late for me to procure a ringousel for Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock: they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migration; for, as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so might they, in all appearance, in the summer. Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? Did he not find a misselthrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare?

The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon (anas, Raii,) is the last winter bird of passage which appears with us, and is not seen till towards the end of November. About twenty years ago they abounded in the district of Selborne, and strings of them were seen morning and evening, that reached a mile or more; but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned, they have much decreased in number. The ring-dove, (palumbus, Raii,) stays with us the whole year, and has several broods through the summer.

Before I received your letter of October last, I had just remarked in my journal that the trees were 1 Letter VII. Part II.

I

unusually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November, and may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist summer, but more particularly from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in the year.

My musical friend, at whose house [Fyfield, near Andover] I am now visiting, has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER X

Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771.

FROM What follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls hoot in B flat; but that one went almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch.

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat or F sharp, in B flat, and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, and the other in B flat. Query: Do these different notes proceed from different species, or