procured for you in Devonshire; because it corroborates my
discovery, which I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a
sunny sandbank near Farnham in Surrey. I am well acquainted with
the south hams of Devonshire; and can suppose that district, from
its southerly situation, to be a proper habitation for such animals in
their best colours.

Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not
forsake them against winter, our suspicions that those which visit
this neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, but
driven from the more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are
still more reasonable: and it will be worth your pains to endeavour
to trace from whence they come, and to inquire why they make so
very short a stay.

In your account of your error with regard to the two species of
herons, you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your
description of the heronry at Cressi-hall; which is a curiosity I
could never manage to see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on one
tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles to have a
sight of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi-hall
is, and near what town it lies.* I have often thought that those vast
extents of fens have never been sufficiently explored. If half a
dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength of water-spaniels,
were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly find more
species.
(* Cressi-hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire .)

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more
than that of the caplimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful