SINGING BIRDS. 99 



as sweet as any animal, while in good humour and 

 unalarmed ; but, as soon as a stranger, or a dog or 

 cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room 

 with such nauseous effluvia, as rendered it hardly 

 supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of Ray's 

 Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal ; 

 but, when pressed hard by 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 maculd 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 XXVII. 



*.-. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, Nov. 2, 1769. 

 DEAR SIR, 



WHEN I did myself the honour to write to you, 

 about the end of last June, on the subject of natural 

 history, I sent you a list of the summer birds of pas- 

 sage which I have observed in this neighbourhood, 

 and also a list of the winter birds of passage ; I men- 

 tioned, 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 con- 

 H 2 



