NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 55 



just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show 5 ou 

 them almost any day; and any evening you may hear them round 

 the village, for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile. 

 Oedicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for them, since 

 their legs seem swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I 

 have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields. 



COMMON CURLEW. 



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 every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch 

 longer, and weighs two drams and a half, while the latter weighs 

 but two ; so 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 



