OF SELBORNE. 67 
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. 
The GrassHopreR-Lark began his sibilous note 
in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more 
amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which 
seems to be close by, though at a hundred yards’ 
distance ; and, when close at your ear, is scarce 
any louder than when a great way off. Had I not 
been a little acquainted with insects, and known that 
the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should 
have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta 
whispering in the bushes. The country people 
laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a 
bird. It isthe most artful creature, skulking in the 
thickest part of a bush, and will sing at a yard’s dis- 
tance provided it be concealed. I was obliged to 
get a person to go on the other side of the hedge 
where it haunted, and then it would run creeping 
like a mouse before us for a hundred yards together, 
