To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Nov. 9, 1773.
Dear Sir,
As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the British Zoology.
The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinshampond, a great lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a plough and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the water, and so take its prey by surprise.
A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted-park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne: they are rarae aves in this country.
Crows go in pairs the whole year round.
Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.
The common wild-pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually the latest winter bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed. They leave us early in spring; where do they breed?
The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery weather; its song often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards.