the bird you kept (Passer torquatus Raii) abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The former has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings all night. Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed sort; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his “British Zoology,” till I reminded him of his omission. See “British Zoology” last published, p. 16.
I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which different birds fly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough considered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small space, I shall say nothing further about it at present.
No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, “because they are not to pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring.” As colours seem to be the chief external sexual distinction in many birds, these colours do not take place till sexual attachments begin to obtain. And the case is the same in quadrupeds; among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but little: but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards, and brawny necks, etc., etc., strongly discriminate the male from the female. We may instance still farther
in our own species, where a beard and stronger features are usually characteristic of the male sex: but this sexual diversity does not take place in earlier life; for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible;
“Quem si puellarum insereres choro,
Mire sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum, solutis
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.”Hor. Odes, II. od. 5-21, p. 131, orig. edit.
LETTER VII.
Ringmer near Lewes, Oct. 8th, 1770.
Dear Sir,—I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the birds of Jamaica; a sight of the hirundines of that hot and distant island would be a great entertainment to me.
The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the Annus Primus with satisfaction; for though some parts of this work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very
curious. Men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer.