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
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771.
Dear Sir,
From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos
keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls
hoot in B flat: but that one went almost half a note below A.
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