Answered May 30.th.
in Thomas Pennant's hand
Dear Sir,
By my journal for last autumn it appears that that the house-martins bred very late, & stayed very late in these parts. For on Oct:1: I saw young martins in their nest pretty near fledged: & again on Oct:21: we had at the next house a nest full of young martins just ready to fly; & the old ones were hawking for flies with great alertness. The next morning the brood forsook it’s nest, & was flying round the village. From this day I never saw one of the swallow-kind ‘til Nov:3: when 20 or perhaps 30 house-martins were flying all day long by the side of the hanging wood, & over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings 12 days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the other side of the Northern tropic? Or rather is it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-pit, sand-bank; or lake or pool, as a more northern Naturalist would say, might become their hybernaculum, & afford them a ready & obvious retreat?
We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ouzels every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ouzels were seen at Χmass 1770 in the forest of Bere on the southern verge of this county. Hence we may conclude that their migrations are only internal, & not extended to the continent southward; - - - if they do at first come at all from the Northern parts of this island only, & not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will it is plain from the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed to places of resort. Navigators mention that in the isle of Ascension, & other such desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human form, that they settle on men’s shoulders; & have no more dread of a sailor than of a goat that was grazing.
A young man at Lewes in Sussex assured me that about seven years ago ring-ouzels abounded so much about that town in the autumn that he killed 16 himself in one afternoon: he added further that some had appeared since every autumn: but he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, where ever there were shrubs & bushes, from Chichester quite down to Lewes, particularly in Autumn 1770.
Please to present my humble respects to Mr Barrington: & Mr Lightfoot to whom I return thanks for his last letter.
Hoping to hear from you soon I remain with great esteem.
Your most humble servant,
GilWhite