OF SELBORNE,. ie 
wings when it sings; and is, I make no doubt now, 
the regulus non cristatus of Ray, which he says, 
“cantat voce stridula locuste.” Yet this great or- 
nithologist never suspected that there were three 
species. 
LETTER XX. 
Selborne, October 8, 1768. 
Ir is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany ; all 
nature is so full, that that district produces the 
greatest variety which is the most examined. Sev- 
eral birds, which are said to belong to the north 
only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have 
discovered this summer three species of birds with 
us which writers mention as only to be seen in 
the northern counties. The first that was brought 
me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper, tringa 
hypoleucus ; it was a cock bird, and haunted the 
banks of some ponds near the village ; and, as it had 
a companion, doubtless intended to have built near 
that water. Besides, the owner has told me since, 
that, on recollection, he has seen some of the same 
birds round his ponds in former summers. 
The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of 
May) was a male red-backed butcher-bird, danius 
collurio. My neighbour, who shot it, says that it 
might easily have escaped his notice, had not the 
outcries and chattering of the whitethroats and 
other small birds drawn his attention to the bush 
where it was ; its craw was filled with the legs and 
wings of beetles. 
G2 
