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Sir, .lis 



Nothing in literature is more exclusively a man's pro- 

 perty than any feigned name under which itma.y>beihiS whhft 

 or interest to write ; and it would scarcely be a grosser impo- 

 sition to publish a book with>th6>:tiaiB£ ttf/isoitaGotornHknovhia 

 author in its titlepage, instead of one's own unknown cog- 

 nomen, than it is to pirate a pseudonym under which a writer 

 has earned honest laurels. I find I have committed this 

 offence, and I am heartily sorry for it, and that is all I can 

 say ; and I hope you will convey to that other Rusticus, 

 whose name and whose contributions have often enriched your 

 work, this message, "Please to excuse me, Mr. Rusticus; 1 

 did not do it on purpose, and I won't do so again.'' I. never 

 3irtoote(ydugfer»fe(1|wO'JjeJtt«te & lhe^>we^jpiftb&lhMcl«atbpK QQiMif 

 Vol. V., and p. 25. of Vol. VI. I mention this, not that my 

 double, the other Rusticus, will think them worth claiming; 

 I am well aware they are worth no one's having; but lest 

 he should suppose that I wish to obtain notice under a title 

 which he has made known by his own excellent communi- 

 cations. I detest explanations of all kinds, pen or powder; 

 but I thought common honesty required this. Should you 

 think these notes, or any thing I may hereafter send, worth 

 printers' ink, please to call me Rusticus of Godalming, and 

 then " there can be no mistake." Miltsm 9il} "to v^bnsbi 



It seems that in my last (p. 27.) I made a blunder in speak- 

 ing of the great grey gull. I understand, from tip-top autho- 

 rity, that no gull is grey when arrived at years of discretion ; 

 that, unlike us men-people, their greyness is a sign of youth. 

 May I. ask at what period of its life a gull is supposed to 

 become adult ? I have known an instance of one of/ these 

 great fellows strutting about a poultry-yard for three years, 

 and he continued a great grey gull all the time, and died the 

 same; and I have another fact of a great grey gull being 

 shot, while sitting on four eggs, on Lundy Isle, in the Bristol 

 Channel. Along the southern coast of England, at Hastings, 

 Brighton, Bognor, &c, this bird is called the burgomaster. 

 I once saw nearly a thousand of them on a shingly marsh 

 near Little Hampton, on the west side of the river Arun, of 

 which not a single individual had arrived at sufficient maturity 

 to change his colour. If Mr. Swainson or Mr. Yarrell would 

 explain this matter, I am sure your readers generally would 

 be ■interested thereby, and none more than a Johnny Raw 

 like myself, who has never had an opportunity of using but 

 one pair of eyes, and those his own. [See p. 171.] 



