Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/118

96 loxia and fringilla genera; and no motacillæ, or muscicapæ, were to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for the hard-billed 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.

I am, etc.

 

LETTER XXXI.

, Sept. 14th, 1770

,—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 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 merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol 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