Page:White - The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne.djvu/150



Letter VI To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, May 21, 1770.

Dear Sir,

The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the regular progress of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly- catcher. I well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points; but in that unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the eleventh of April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew again for a time.

I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with Scopoli's new publication; * there is room to expect great things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and one would think that an history of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver mines of that district. (* This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis.)

When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, I could not help wondering; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you (passer arundinaceus minor Raii) is a soft-billed bird; and most probably migrates hence befor