Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most pesti.ent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can be more horrible.* A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the lanius minor cinerascens cum macula in scapulis albá, Raii; Ray's lesser butcher-bird, ash-coloured, with a white spot at the insertion of the wings; which is a bird that, at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of British Zoology, I find you had not seen. You have described it well from Edwards's drawing. LETTER XXVII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Nov. 2, 1769. DEAR SIR, When I did myself the honour to write to you, about the end of last June, on the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of the summer birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood, and also a list of the winter birds of passage; I mentioned, besides, those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night. According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing birds, strictly so called) as continue in full song till after midsummer, and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring advances. 1. Woodlark, RAII NOMINA. Alauda arborea. In January, and continues to sing through all the summer and autumn. *It was formerly very much the custom with the young gentlemen of Eton College (and may be so still) to keep snakes which they trained and often carried about with them. They would eat bread and milk, and were perfectly sweet, except when irritated, and then they stunk, as Mr. White remarks, Se defendendo.-ED. Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring: Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be called singing birds : All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnæan ordo of passeres. The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnæan genera : Birds that sing as they fly are but few :— All birds that continue in full song till after midsummer, appear to me to breed more than once. Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy, somewhat in proportion to their bulk: I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and annoyed; but in Ascension Island, and many other desolate places, mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they would stand still to be taken, as is the case with boobies, &c. As an example of what is advanced, I remark that the golden-crested wren, (the smallest British bird,) will stand unconcerned till you come within three or four yards of it, while the bustard (otis,) the largest British land fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many furlongs. LETTER XXVIII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. SELBORNE, Dec. 8, 1769. DEAR SIR,-I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your return from Scotland, where you spent, I find, some considerable time, and gave yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the Highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry; because men seldom allot themselves half the time they should do; but, fixing on a day for their return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey that required dispatch, than as philosophers investigating the works of nature. You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the British Zoology, and will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined before. It has always been matter of wonder to me, that fieldfares which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in England: but that they should not think even the Highlands 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 30th 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 |