SELBORNE, _December 8th_, 1769.
Dear Sir,--I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your
return from Scotland, where you spent some considerable time, and gave
yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive
kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the highlands.
The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry, because men seldom allot
themselves half the time they should do, but, fixing on a day for their
return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey
that required despatch than as philosophers investigating the works of
nature. You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a
good fund of materials for a future edition of the "British Zoology;" and
will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a
part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined before.
It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so
congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in
England; but that they should not think even the highlands cold and
northerly, and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange
and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole
year round, so that we have reason to conclude that those migrators that
visit us for a short space every autumn do not come from thence.
And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds
were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, appearing, as
before, about the 30th September; but their flocks were larger than
common, and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If
they came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of their congeners
do, and then left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so much
struck with the occurrence, since it would be similar to that of the
other winter birds of passage; but when I see them for a fortnight at
Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I am
seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these travellers come,
and whither they go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or
baiting place.
Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very amusing;
and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such
perilous voyages over the northern ocean. Some country people in the
winter time have, every now and then, told me that they have seen two or
three white larks on our downs, but, on considering the matter, I begin
to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds we are talking of,
which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward.
It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the Scottish
mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species,
for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a
great acquisition.
The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a bird,
that it would grace our _fauna_ much. I never was informed before where
wild geese are known to breed.
You admit, I find, that I have proved your _fen salicaria_ to be the
lesser reed-sparrow of Ray; and I think you may be secure that I am
right, for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter, and had
some fair specimens, but, as they were not well preserved, they are
decayed already. You will, no doubt, insert it in its proper place in
your next edition. Your additional plates will much improve your work.
De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse; but still I am
pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I
have given in the article of the white hare.
As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, far removed from
any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously lain up in a
hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the
burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was
to have supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me is
how this _amphibius mus_ came to fix its winter station at such a
distance from the water. Was it determined in its choice of that place
by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted there, or
is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the
neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?
Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how
fallacious it is with respect to natural history, yet, in the following
instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may conduce towards
the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with
respect to the invariable early retreat of the _hirundo apus_, or swift,
so many weeks before its congeners; and that not only with us, but also
in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire about the beginning of
August.
The great large bat (which, by-the-bye, is at present a nondescript in
England, and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires or
migrates very early in the summer. It also ranges very high for its
food, feeding in a different region of the air, and that is the reason I
never could procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the swifts;
for they take their food in a more exalted region than the other species,
and are very seldom seen hawking for flies near the ground, or over the
surface of the water. From hence I would conclude that these
_hirundines_ and the larger bats are supported by some sorts of
high-flying gnats, scarabs, or _phaloenae_, that are of short
continuance, and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by
the defect of their food.
By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to October 31st, since
which I have not seen nor heard any. Swallows were observed on to
November 3rd.