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THE KEY. GILBERT WHITE'S THREE WILLOW WRENS. 



By John Ranson. . 



In that delightful, gossiping book, *• The -Natural History of Sel- 

 borne," in a letter (No. 16) to Thomas Pennant, Esq., the Rev. Gilbert 

 White first mentions his discovery of three species of the Willow Wren, 

 as follows : — ** I make no doubt but there are three species of the Willow 

 Wrens ; two I know perfectly, but have not been able yet to procure the 

 third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constantly, 

 than those two that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy, 

 laughing note, the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is everyway 

 larger, and three quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and a 

 half, while the latter weighs but two ; so that the songster is one-fifth 

 heavier than the chirper. The chirper being the first summer bird of 

 passage that is heard (the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes 

 in the middle of March, and continues them through the spring and 

 summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of 

 the larger of these two are flesh-coloured ; of the less black." In letter 

 10, he writes " Mr. Derham supposes, in ' Ray's Philosophical Letters,' 

 that he has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of some 

 very common birds that have as yet no English names." The three birds 

 here mentioned are Sylvia sibilatrix, Sylvia trochilus, and Sylvia hippolais, 

 and the dates of the letters are 1768. This gives us an insight into the 

 state of English Natural History one hundred years ago; when birds 

 differing so much from one another in habits, song, nesting, and other 

 peculiarities, had no English name, and had not been clearly distinguished 

 by the learned as three species. 



The Wood Ween (Sylvia sibilatrix J This little bird is aboat the 

 earliest of our summer visitors, and, as White has well observed, the 

 male may be heard as early as the middle of March, and continues to 

 pipe his little song until his departure in August. The song is a very 

 poor one indeed, consisting of two or three notes, and it by no means 

 entitles him to the appellation of the wood warbler which some writers 

 give him. The male birds are said, and I believe truly, to arrive some days 



