_, _Raii_; 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 XXVI.

SELBORNE, _December 8th_, 1769.

Dear Sir,--I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your
return from Scotland, where you spent 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 despatch 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 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 middle 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 brambl