WILLOW WREN GRASSHOPPER LARK. 61 



their legs seem swollen like those of a gouty man. 

 After harvest, I have shot them before the pointers 

 in turnip fields. 



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 

 drachms and a half, while the latter weighs but two ; 

 so that the songster is one-fifth heavier than the 

 chirper. The chirper (being the first summer bird of 

 passage that is heard, the wry-neck sometimes ex- 

 cepted,) begins his two notes in 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 grasshopper lark began his sibilous note in 

 my fields last Saturday, f Nothing can be more 

 amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which 

 seems to be close by, though at an 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 whis- 

 pering in the bushes. The country people laugh when 



* Sylvia trocltilus, S. sibilatrix, and S. hippolais, are the spe- 

 cies found in Great Britain. Mr. White afterwards discovers 

 three distinct species, but may probably confound S. hortensis, 

 the greater petty-chaps, as one of them. W. J. 



f Sylvia locustella. Lath. Grasshopper warbler. SELBY'S 

 Ornith.W. J. 



