Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/128

106, if they do at first come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed to places of much resort. Navigators mention that in the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human form that they settle on men's shoulders; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. 1 A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon; he added further, that some had appeared since in every autumn; but he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes; particularly in the autumn of 1770.

I am, etc.

1 Even in England birds often show great confidence in man. I seem to have a peculiar knack of making friends with them and with wild animals. One evening last summer I was sitting in Jesmond Dene, Newcastle-on-Tyne, when a robin hopped close by me, and as I kept perfectly still, it inspected me closely, flew on to my boot, on to the seat by my side, and closely inspected my hand, then hopped on to my knee, and finally on to my shoulder. This familiarity was repeated on a subsequent occasion, to my great satisfaction. While lying down by some rabbit holes on a summer's afternoon, the bunnies have sat at the mouths of their burrows, coolly gazing at me, and proceeding with their toilets within three yards of my head. Squirrels, too, have made friends with me; but then, I prefer quietly watching birds and animals to killing them.