n, _OEnas Raii_, is the last winter bird of
passage which appears with us; it 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. 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.

SELBORNE, _Aug. 1st._, 177l.

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. The pipe
he tried their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as
masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch.

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the
owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat, or F
sharp, in B flat and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one
in A flat, and the other in B flat. _Query_: Do these different notes
proceed from different species, or only from various individuals? The
same person finds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo (of which we
have but one species) varies in different individuals; for, about
Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D: he heard two sing
together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable
concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some
in C. As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so