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Thomas Gray to George Ashby, [January or February 1771]

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To the President of St Johns

The bird you send me is the Bohemian Chatterer, or Silk-tail (see Pennant, V: 1. p: 173) the Lanius Garrulus of Linnæus, but in his last edition removed to the Genus Ampelis. it is no native of our island, but sometimes comes over in little flocks during a hard winter. this is a young one, varying in some particulars, especially in the remiges, where the scarlet points (ye character of ye species) do but begin to appear. &c:

Letter ID: letters.0621 (Source: TEI/XML)

Correspondents

Writer: Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771
Writer's age: 54
Addressee: Ashby, George, 1724-1808
Addressee's age: 46

Dates

Date of composition: [January or February 1771]
Calendar: Gregorian

Places

Place of composition: [Cambridge, United Kingdom]
Place of addressee: [Cambridge, United Kingdom]

Physical description

Addressed: To the President of St Johns

Content

Language: English
Incipit: The bird you send me is the Bohemian Chatterer, or Silk-tail...
Mentioned: Pennant, Thomas

Holding Institution

Location:
(confirmed)
GBR/1058/GRA/3/1/1, College Library, Pembroke College, Cambridge , Cambridge, UK <http://www.pem.cam.ac.uk/>
Availability: The original letter is extant, but there is no further information about its availability

Print Versions

  • Correspondence of Thomas Gray, 3 vols. Ed. by the late Paget Toynbee and Leonard Whibley, with corrections and additions by H. W. Starr. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971 [1st ed. 1935], letter no. 541*, vol. iii, 1163