98 SINGING BIRDS 



Qiiadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal ; but, when pressed 

 hard bj dogs and men, it can eject such a most pestilent 

 and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can be more 

 horrible.* 



A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the lanius 

 minor cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba, Raii ; Ray's 

 lesser butcher-bird, ash-coloured, with a white spot at the 

 insertion of the wings ; which is a bird that, at the time of 

 your publishing your two first volumes of British Zoology, 

 I find you had not seen. You have described it well from 

 Edwards's drawing. 



LETTER XXYII. 



TO THE HON". DAINES BAEEINGTON. 



Selborne, Nov. 2, 1769. 

 Deak Sie, — ^When I did myself the honour to write to 

 you, about the end of last Jime, on the subject of natural 

 history, I sent you a list of the summer birds of passage 

 which I have observed in this neighbourhood, and also a list 

 of the vdnter birds of passage ; I mentioned, besides, those 

 soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the 

 south of England, and those that are remarkable for singing 

 in the night. 



According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such 

 birds (singing birds, strictly so called) as continue in full 

 Bong till after midsummer, and shall range them somewhat 

 in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring 

 advances. 



RAII NOMINA. 



( In January, and continues 

 1. Woodlark, Alauda arborea. < to sing through all th« 



( summer and autumn. 



* It was formerly very much the custom with the young gentlemen of 

 Eton College (and may be so still) to keep snakes which they trained and 

 often carried about with them. They would eat bread and milk, and wero 

 perfectly sweet, except when irritated, and then they stunk, as Mr. W} Uo 

 remarks, Se defendendo. — Ed. 



