AUTHOR OF THE DELTA LETTERS. 107 



The hurricane that whistled shrill, 

 The thunders echoing round each hill, 

 Though wild and pitiless, had still 



Far more than Spanish clemency. 

 Long have my harp's best notes been gone, 

 Few are its strings, and faint their tone ; 

 They can but sound in desert lone 



Their grey-haired master's misery. 

 Were each grey hair a minstrel string, 

 Each chord should imprecations fling. 

 Till startled earth aloud should ring 

 Revenge for blood and treachery. 



Amongst these " tigers in human form" there were, however, 

 some who could pause in their career of blood and cast a 

 glance — a short one, truly ! — over the pure page of nature. 

 They read that page wrongly, or did not read it enough to 

 have their minds softened by its perusal. The auri sacra 

 fames was their ruling passion, and that. 



Like Aaron's serpent, swallowed up the rest. 



However, amongst the Conquistadares, some were curious in 

 investigating the nature of the country, the customs of the 

 people, &c. whom they were destroying, and from these many 

 an interesting fact has been handed down to the more regular 

 chroniclers, sometimes, however, not unmixed with fable. 



In my perusals of these Chronicles, which often occupy my 

 leisure hours, I sometimes find little scraps of natural history, 

 which may serve to amuse some of your readers, if they do 

 not profit them much. Of these I mean, if you so please, 

 to forward you occasionally a few small extracts. Though I 

 may not always keep quite close to Entomology, I shall 

 expect that you will not be more severe to me than you have 

 been to other of your correspondents, whose wanderings you 

 have overlooked until they have run into dissertations on 

 patten-rings, saints, blacksmiths, Windsor Castle, Versailles, 

 et de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis. 



At present I mean to confine myself to Entomology, to the 

 narration of a fact purely entomological. I will neither enter 

 into the history of the marvellous bird seen by muchos y muy 

 huenos Christianos, which was very like a kittiwake, but had 

 one foot like a hawk's, and one like a duck's, by means of which 

 structure it played the part of a hawk on land, and a gull on 



