lands 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 thirtieth of 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 beginning 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 snowfleck, is very amusing; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such perilous

* Several instances of the Fieldfare breeding in Scotland are recorded, but not often enough to interfere with the general correctness of the text.-ED.

† Mr. Pennant must have been misinformed as to Ringousels remaining in Scotland the whole year. M'Gillivray and his very intelligent correspondents never found them after October until the following April. In June, fully fledged young were found among the Pentland hills; and in July, M'Gillivray himself accidentally met with a whole brood, with the parent birds, in the picturesque valley of Coruisk in Skye.-ED.

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 fensalicaria 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 shrewouze; but still I am pleased to find you have dis

The White Hare, Lepus variabilis, is found in summer on the summit of the Grampians, and sometimes as far south as Cumberland. In size it is intermediate between the hare and the rabbit, differing essentially from both. It hides under rocks and stones, but does not burrow. In winter it descends to the valleys; its fur becomes gradually lighter, and at length wholly white, except at the nose and tops of the ears, which remain black. In spring, on the approach of warm weather it sheds its fur altogether.-ED.

covered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of the white hare.

As a neighbour was lately plowing in a dry chalky field, far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously laid up in an 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 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 by is at present a non-descript 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

* The little Bat appears almost every month in the year; but I have never seen the large one till the end of April, nor after July. They are most common in June, but never very plentiful.-AUTHOR'S NOTE.

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 phalana that are short of 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 the 31st; since which I have not seen or heard any. Swallows were observed on to November the third.

SELBORNE, Dec. 8, 1769.

T was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you were not displeased with my little methodus of birds. If there is any merit in the sketch, it must be in its exactness. For many months I carried a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be remarked on; and, as I rode or walked about, I noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird's song; so that I am as sure of my facts as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever.

I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species continued to warble after the beginning of July.

The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very late; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song: for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any