Volume I Part 14 (1/2)

etc., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodc.o.c.ks; though little is proved concerning the place of breeding.

P.S.--There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks of this present very wet weather, seven inches and a half of rain, which is more than has fallen in any three weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the world. A mean quant.i.ty in that county for one year is twenty inches and a half.

LETTER IX.

FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, _Feb. 12th_, 1772.

Dear Sir,--You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats in a torpid state, and slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather awakens them.

But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general; because migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, both spring and fall; during which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the straits from north to south, and from south to north, according to the season.

And these vast migrations consist not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, _Oro pendolos_, or golden thrushes, etc., etc., and also of many of our soft-billed summer birds of pa.s.sage; and moreover of birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the above mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures.

Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more impatient of a sultry climate; but then I cannot help wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the severity of England, and even of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to migrate from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia.

It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, etc.; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to the Equator without launching out and exposing itself to boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence advance this obvious remark, because my brother has always found that some of his birds, and particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in crossing the Mediterranean; for when arrived at Gibraltar they do not

. . . ”Rang'd in figure wedge their way, . . . . And set forth Their airy caravan high over seas Flying, and over lands with mutual wing Easing their flight:” . . . . --MILTON.

but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in a company; and sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and water, direct their course to the opposite continent at the narrowest pa.s.sage they can find. They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and so pa.s.s over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the narrowest s.p.a.ce.

In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that woodc.o.c.ks in moons.h.i.+ny nights cross the German ocean from Scandinavia.

As a proof that birds of less speed may pa.s.s that sea, considerable as it is, I shall relate the following incident, which, though mentioned to have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter of fact:--As some people were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the county of Suss.e.x, they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a silver collar about its neck, on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark.

This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near relation of mine; and to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the rector.

At present I do not know anybody near the seaside that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodc.o.c.ks first come; if I lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which woodc.o.c.ks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them; whether this strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say.

Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, Devons.h.i.+re and Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth; the defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the narrowest pa.s.sage, and do not stroll so far westward.

Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not dust. I think they do; and if they do, whether they wash also.

The _Alauda pratensis_ of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating the b.o.o.by of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last.

Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ouzel for Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with the woodc.o.c.k; they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migration; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare?

The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, _OEnas Raii_, is the last winter bird of pa.s.sage which appears with us; it is not seen till towards the end of November: about twenty years ago they abounded in the district of Selborne; and strings of them were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more; but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. The ring-dove, _Palumbus_ _Raii_, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the summer.

Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November; and may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist summer; but more particularly from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in the year.

My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring.

I am, etc., etc.

LETTER X.