Letter VI
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, May 21, 1770.
Dear Sir,
The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the regular
progress of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just
begin to show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than
usual; as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-
catcher. I well remember that after the very severe spring in the
year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were very scarce. They
come probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blows
between those points; but in that unfavourable year the winds
blowed the whole spring and summer through from the opposite
quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two swallows, as I
mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the eleventh of
April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew again for a time.
I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied
with Scopoli's new publication; * there is room to expect great
things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and
one would think that an history of the birds of so distant and
southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting.
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