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 booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last.
Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel 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 woodcock: 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 passage which appears with us; and 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.
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