SELBORNE, _October 8th_, 1768.
It is I find in zoology as it is in botany; all nature is so full that
that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined.
Several birds, which are said to belong to the north only, are it seems
often in the south. I have discovered this summer three species of birds
with us, which writers mention as only to be seen in the northern
counties. The first that was brought me (on the 14th May) was the
sand-piper, _tringa hypoleucus_: it was a cock bird, and haunted the
banks of some ponds near the village; and, as it had a companion,
doubtless intended to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has
told me since that, on recollection, he has seen some of the same birds
round his ponds in former summers.
The next bird that I procured (on the 21st May) was a male red-backed
butcher bird, _lanius collurio_. My neighbour, who shot it, says that it
might easily have escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chattering
of the whitethroats and other small birds drawn his attention to the bush
where it was; its craw was filled with the legs and wings of beetles.
The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) were some
ring-ousels, _turdi torquati_.
This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being with us, was
amusing himself with a gun, and found, he told us, on an old yew hedge
where there were berries, some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white
round their necks: a neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed
the same; but, as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I
mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November 4th, 1767
(you, however, paid but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen
these birds myself); but last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large
flock, twenty or thirty of these birds, shot two cocks and two hens, and
says, on recollection, that he remembers to have observed these birds
again last spring, about Lady-day, as it were on their return to the
north. Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of
England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe, and may retire
before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those parts, and return to
breed in the spring, when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is
discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the
writers are silent; but if these birds should prove the ousels of the
north of England, then here is a migration disclosed within our own
kingdom never before remarked. It does not yet appear whether they
retire beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is most
probable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that they would
have continued so long unnoticed in the southern countries. The ousel is
larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there
were no haws) it fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feeds on
ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.
I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the study of
reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw up with a
bucket of water from my well, which is sixty-three feet deep, a large
black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. How they first came
down at that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without
help, is more than I am able to say.
My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of
a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem
much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. --- may find reason to
give his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance this
extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God
in the creation.
As yet I have not quite done with my history of the _oedicnemus_, or
stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near whose house
these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely
when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return again in
the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and saw several single
birds.