morning the brood forfook their neft, and were flying round the
village. From this day I never faw one of the fwallow kind till
November the third; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, houfe-mar-
tins were playing all day long by the fide of the hanging wood,
and over my fields. Did thefe fmall weak birds, fome of which
were neftlings twelve days ago, fhift their quarters at this late fea-
fon of the year to the other fide o f the northern tropic ? Or rather,
is it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff,
fteep covert, or perhaps fandbank, lake or pool (as a more
northern naturalift would fay), may become their hybenuiculnw, and
afford them a ready and obvious retreat ?
We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-oufels
every week. Perfons worthy of credit allure me that ring-oufels
were feen at Chrijlmas 177° in the foreft of Bere, on the fouthern
verge of this county. Hence we may conclude that their migrations
are only internal, and not extended to the continent fouth-
ward, if they do at firft come at all from the northern parts of
this ifland only, and not from the north of Europe. Come from
whence they will, it is plain, from the fearlefs difregard that they
fhew for men or guns, that they have been little accuftomed to
places of much refort. Navigators mention that in the IJle of
Afcenjion, and other fuch defolate diftrifts, birds are fo little acquainted
with the human form that they fettle on men’s fhoulders ; and
have no more dread of a failor than they would have of a goat
that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Suffer, affured me
that about feven years ago ring-oufels abounded fo about that
town in the autumn that he killed fixteen himfelf in one afternoon:
he added further, that fome had appeared fince in every autumn;
bu.t he could not find that any had been obferved before the feafon
in which he fhot fo many, I myfelf have found thefe birds in
little
little parties in the autumn cantoned all along the Sujfex downs,
Wherever there were fhrubs and bufhes, from Chichefter to Lewes’,
particularly in the autumn of 1770. I am, &c.
L E T T E R XXXIX.
TO THE SAME.
D E A R S I R , SsiBORNK, Nov. 9, , 77J.
A s you defire me to fend you fuch obfervations as may occur I
take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may
according as you think me right or wrong, admit or rejedt what
I here advance, in your intended new edition of the Britifh Zoolory.
The ofpreyr was fhot about a year ago at Frinjham-pond, a
great lake, at about fix miles from hence, while it was fitting on
the handle of a plough and devouring a fifh: it ufed to precipitate
itfelf into the water, and fo take it’s prey by furprife.
A great afh-coloured s butcher-bird was fhot laft winter in Tified-
park, and a red backed butcher-bird at Selborne: they are rara aves
in this county.
■ Crowsr go in pairs the whole year round.
Cornijh choughs = abound, and breed on Beacfy-head and on all
the cliffs of the Sujfex coaft.
3* Britifli Zoology, vol. i , p. ms. 9 p. 161.
O
* p. 167, | p. 192.
The