sons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry.

While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom, a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After some examination, he found that it was congeries of the bones of mice, and perhaps of birds and bats, that had been heaping together for ages, being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur, and feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of substance.

When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as a hen's egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full year without any water. Perhaps the case may be the same with all birds of prey. When owls fly they stretch out their legs behind them as a balance to their large heavy heads: for, as most nocturnal birds have large eyes and ears they must have large heads to contain them. Large eyes I presume are necessary to collect every ray of light, and large concave ears to command the smallest degree of sound or noise.*

* It will be proper to premise here that the Letters LIII LV, LVII, and Lx, have been published already in the "Phi

The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, social, and useful tribe of birds: they touch no fruit in our gardens; delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to our houses; amuse us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous agility; and clear our outlets from the annoyances of gnats and other troublesome insects. Some districts in the south seas, near Guiaquil,* are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of venomous mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those coasts insupportable. It would be worth inquiring whether any species of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sun-beams of a summer evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked with them were it not for the friendly interposition of the swallows.

Many species of birds have their peculiar lice; but the hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with dipterous insects, which infest every species, and are so large, in proportion to themselves, that they must be extremely irksome and injurious to them. These are the hippoboscæ hirundinis, with narrow subulated wings, abounding in every nest; † and are losophical Transactions:" but nicer observation has furnished several corrections and additions.

* See Ulloa's Travels.

† All created beings seem to have their parasites, each species apparently having its own peculiar pest, which prey upon them, and no doubt punish them severely when cleanliness, or those other laws of nature by which they are kept in check are neglected. The ornithomyia, of which there are two species known in Europe, infest the sparrow-hawks, magpies, partridges, thrushes, farks, redbreasts, and the tits. The swallows have their own peculiar pests in several species of parasite which live upon them, clinging to their bodies by means of their forked claws, while the stenopteryx hirundinis of Leach is found in great abundance in their nests. The

hatched by the warmth of the bird's own body during incubation, and crawl about under its feathers.

A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of England under the name of forest-fly; and to some of side-fly, from its running sideways like a crab. It creeps under the tails, and about the groins, of horses, which, at their first coming out of the north, are rendered half frantic by the tickling sensation; while our own breed little regards them.

The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or rather pupa, of these flies as big as the flies themselves, which he hatched in his own bosom. Any person that will take the trouble to examine the old nests of either species of swallows may find in them the black shining cases or skins of the pupa of these insects: but for other particulars, too long for this place, we refer the reader to "l'Histoire d'Insects" of that admirable entomologist. Tom. iv. pl. 11.

SELBORNE, July 8, 1773.

bats are infested by two species of nycteribia, and even the honey bee has its parasite which fixes itself upon it, sometimes two or three on one bee, rendering them restless and unfit for their usual labours. Our dogs, it is well known, have their own peculiar louse, the dog-tick, and the common flea sucks his blood in common with that of his master. Hares, rabbits, and the ox have each their greatest plague in life; and "the horse," says Kirby, "is sometimes bathed in blood flowing from innumerable wounds inflicted by the knives and lancets of the various horse-flies (tabanea) which assail him as he goes, and allow him no respite."

"Myriads of insects flutter in the gloom,

(Estrus in Greece, Asilus named in Rome,)
Fierce and of cruel hum. By the dire sound
Driven from the woods and shady glens around,
The universal herds in terror fly,

Their lowings shake the woods and shake the sky."

ED.

you desire me to send you such observations 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 reject what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the "British Zoology."*

The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frin

The substance of the letters addressed to Mr. Pennant about this time were incorporated in the third edition of his "Zoology" which appeared in 1776.-ED.

†The Osprey is so rare even in the Grampians and in Caithness and Sutherlandshire that few naturalists can pretend to describe it from observation. They have been hot, however, on the Tweed, on the islands of Loch Lomond, on Loch Tay, and, according to Montagu, in Devon. Incidents like that recorded in the text are not uncommon; one was observed hovering over the Avon, at Aveton Gifford, in April, 1811. After a pause it descended to within fifty yards of the surface of the water, hovered for another short interval, and then precipitated itself into the water with such celerity as to be nearly immersed; rising again in three or four seconds with a trout of moderate size, with which it soared away to a prodigious height. Such occurrences, however, are very rare indeed, and the habits of the bird must be studied in other lands, for it is now rarely observed in this country.-ED.

sham-pond, a great lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a plough and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the water, and so take its prey by surprise.

A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted-park, and a red-backed butcherbird at Selborne: they are rare aves in this county. Crows go in pairs the whole year round.

*

Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.

The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed.† They leave us early in spring; where do they breed?

The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock, because it sings early

* The Common Crow, Corvus corone, as well as the Hooded Crow, Corvus cornix, are both solitary birds, but both live much in pairs, except when food is very abundant, then several individuals may be seen together. The common carrion crow is most common in the South of England.-ED.

†The Stock-dove, Columba anas, Linn. has not been observed in Scotland, and is not much known in the North of England. Selby describes it as a constant inhabitant of the woods, breeding in the hollows of old trees; associating in winter in large flocks with the ring-dove, C. palumbus. In Norfolk it is found during the spring and summer months on the heaths, building its nest among deserted rabbit-burrows or under furze-bushes on the commons.--ED.

The Missel-thrush, Turdus viscivorus, remains all the year, but the native race is supposed to be joined by others from over the sea. Their song is strong, shrill, and monotonous. They are quarrelsome among themselves, and tyrants to their congeners, driving them from their feeding-places with harsh screams.-ED.