NATURAL HISTORY. 



S2S 



lour, edged with green on the ex- 

 terior webs, and uith white on 

 the interior, the first feather want- 

 ing the green edge ; under part of 

 the shoulder, bright yellow ; legs 

 rather more than an inch long, of a 

 horn-colour ; claws paler. 



This is undoubtedly a new spe- 

 cies in England, and I believe a 

 non-descript : it inhabits woods, 

 and comes with the rest of the 

 summer warblers, and in manners 

 is much the same, running up and 

 down trees in search of insects. 



I h-jard it first, early in May, in 

 Whitenight's Park, near Reading ; 

 it was there hopping about on the 

 upper branch of a very high pine, 

 and having a very singular and sin- 

 gle note, it attracted my attention, 

 being ver)- much hke that of the 

 Ember'fz,a Miliaria (Linn.), but so 

 astonishingly shrill, that I heard it 

 at more than a hundred yards di- 

 rtance: this it repeated once in three 

 or four minutes. 



I never heard these birds before 

 last s-pring, and nevertheless I have 

 heard nine in the course of a 

 month ; four in Whitenight's Park, 

 and five in my tour to the Isle of 

 Wight, viz. one in a wood at 

 Stratficld-sea, one at East Stratton- 

 park, two in the New Forest, and 

 one in a wood near Highcltre : I 

 have not heard it since June 6. — 

 Colonel Montague informed me, he 

 had met with it in Wiltfliire, and 

 had called it the Wood Wren ; it 

 has also been heard near Uxbridgc. 



It differs from the Mot a cilia hip- 

 folais (Linn.), in being much lar- 

 ger, of a finer green colour on the 

 tjpper parts, and more beautiful 

 v.'hite beneath ; also in the vello^v 

 streak passingthroughtheeye,v.liich 

 in the Hippolais passes above and 

 below ihi; tyc. It differs also from 



the Motacilla Trochihs (I^inn.) in 

 being larger, and white on the un- 

 der parts, which are yellow in the 

 Trochihs. The three which 1 o- 

 pened were all males : I shall still 

 continue my researches tor the fe- 

 male v.-ith the nest and eggs ; and 

 if I should at any time meet with 

 them, I shall with pleasure submit 

 my observations to the Linuean So- 

 ciety. 



Objections against the percepti-vily of 

 plants, so far as is evinced by their 

 external motions, in answer to Dr. 

 Pcrcivai's memoir in tb: Manches- 

 ter Ti^ansactions, by Robert Toivn' 

 sou, esq. F. R. S, Edinburgh ; 

 from the same. 



HOWEVER sanguine we may 

 be in our expectations of ex- 

 tending the limits of human know- 

 ledge, we cannot avoid perceivingj 

 that there are boundaries which it 

 never can exceed. These bounda- 

 ries are the limited faculties of tiie 

 human mind, which, though fully 

 sufficient to answer all the purposes 

 of common life, are an insuperable? 

 barrier to the enquiries of sp'.'cula- 

 tive men. None feel more tlie 

 truth of this observation, than those 

 engaged in physiological enquiries; 

 the operations of nature being so 

 complicated, and at the same time 

 carried on in so Sf^cret a manner, as 

 to keep us ig;norant of the most 

 common phenomena. 



If physiologists have been unsuc- 

 cessful m many of their enquiries 

 into the animal economy, they have 

 been still more so with respect to 

 vegetables: for how little do v/e 

 know at this day of the course of 

 their fluids, and of tlie power by 

 whi'.-h they are moved? Arc we 

 Y 2 not 



