He also advances some (I was going to say)
improbable facts; as when he says of the woodcock that, 'pullos
rostra portat fugiens ab hoste.' But candour forbids me to say
absolutely that any fact is false, because I have never been witness
to such a fact. I have only to remark that the long unwieldy bill of
the woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the
winged creation for such a feat of natural affection.
(*Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis.)
I am, etc.
Letter XXXII
T Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, October 29, 1770.
Dear Sir,
After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I begin to
suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's
new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of ' Supra
murina, subtus albida; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere inferno;
pedes nudi, nigri; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam
plumae dorsales; rectrices remigibus concolores; cauda
emarginata, nec forcipata,' agrees very well with the bird in
question; but when he comes to advance that it is 'statura hirundinis
urbicae,' and that 'definitio hirundinis ripariae Linnaei huic quoque
convenit,' he in some measure invalidates all he has said; at least
he shows at once that he compares them to these species merely
from memory: for I have compared the birds themselves, and find
they differ widely in every circumstance of shape, size, and colour.
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