Dear Sir,

I was much gratifyed by your communication letter on y^r: return from Scotland where you spent, I find, some considerable time, & gave yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of the Islands, as well as those of the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry: because men seldom allot themselves half the time they should do: but fixing on a day for their return, post from place to place rather as if they were on a Journey that required dispatch, than as Philosophers investigating the works of nature. You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries: & laid up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the British zoology: & will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a part of great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined ever before.

Pray when does Dr: walker propose to publish his natural history of the Hebrides?

It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so congenerous to_^^do thrushes, & blackbirds, should never chuse to breed in England: but that they should not think even the highlands cold & northerly & sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange & wonderful. The ring-ouzel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole year round: so that we have reason to conclude that those migraters that visit us for a short space every autumn do not come from thence. And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, appearing as usual about the 30th of Septem^r: but their flocks were larger than usual, & their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the whole winter with us as some of their congeners & then left us as they do in spring, I should not be so much struck with the appearance, since it would be similar to that of the other winter birds of passage: but when I see them for a fortnight at Mich: & again for about a week in mid-april, I am seized with wonder, & long to be informed whence these travellers come, & whither they go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or laiting-place

Your account of the greater brambling is very amusing: & strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such perilous voyages over the northern ocean! Some country people in the winter-time have ever now & then told me that they have seen two or three white Larks on our downs: but on considering the matter I begin to suspect that these are some straglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far southward.

It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the Scottish mountains; & especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species; for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a great acquisition.

The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us is so majestic a bird, that it would grace our Fauna much.

I never was informed before where wild-geese_^^{are known} to breed.

You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen-salicaria to be the less reed-sparrow of Ray: & I think you may be secure that I am right: for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter; & had some fair specimens; but as they were not well preserved, they are decayed already. You will no doubt insert it in it’s proper place in your next edition. Your additional plates will much improve your work.

Le Buffon, I know, has described the water-shrew-mouse but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of the white hare.

As a neighbour was lately plowing in a chalky field far removed from any water, he turned-out a water-rat that was curiously laid up in an Hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed up, on which it was to have supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me is how this amphibious creature came to fix it’s winter-station at such a distance from the water. Was it determined in it’s choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted there; or is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?

Tho’ I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how fallacious it is with respect to Natural History: yet in the following instance I can’t help being inclined to think it may conduce towards the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with respect to the invariable early retreat of the Hirundo apus so many weeks before it’s congeners; & that not only with us, but also in Andalusia, where they also retire about the beginning of August. The great large bat(x.)ⁱ (which by the by is a nondescript in England, & what I have never yet been able to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summer; it also ranges very high for it’s food, feeding in a different region of the air: & that is the reason I could never procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the swifts: for they take their food in a more exalted region than the other species, & are never seen hawking for flies near the ground or over the surface of the water. From hence I would conclude that these Hirundines & the larger bats are supported by some sorts of high-flying gnats & phalænce that are of short continuance, & that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by the defect of their food.

It is grievous to see from Dr: Solander’s letter in the Gent: Mag: dated from Rio de Janeiro with what insolence the vice-roy of Brazil treated those Gent: that have hazarded their lives in pursuit of natural knowledge: & this is not the worst of it: for when_^^they arrive in the south seas their reception will be just the same from every Spanish Governor from Chili to Mexico.

By my Journal it appears that Curlews clamoured on to Octo^r: 31; since which I have seen nor heard more. Swallows were observed on to Nov^r: 9.

In your last letter you say you propose to treat Zoology geographically; & desire some arguments to support such a new plan: but as I do not quite take the purport of y^r: Idea on that occasion, I must desire in y^r: next favour some explanation of y^r: Intension.

I am with the greatest regard & esteem your Humble Servant¹

Gil: White

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Editorial notes

1. The closer and salute are in GW's hand