8o THE NATURAL HISTORY 



animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of 

 preventing their depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend 

 entomology more than some neat plates that should well 

 express the generic distinctions of insects according to 

 Linnaeus ; for I am well assured that many people would 

 study insects, could they set out with a more adequate 

 notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first 

 by words alone. 



LETTER XXXV 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, 1771. 



Dear Sir, 

 Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I 

 could not help observing that the trains of those mag- 

 nificent birds appear by no means to be their tails ; those 

 long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up 

 their backs. A range of short brown stiff feathers, about 

 six inches long, fixed ifx the uropygium, is the real tail, and 

 serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and 

 top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up, 

 nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck ; 

 but this would not be the case were those long feathers 

 fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock 

 when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular 

 vibration these birds can make the shafts of their long 

 feathers clatter like the swords of a sword-dancer; they 

 then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards 

 towards the females. 



I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus 

 aegogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is 

 perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville 

 orange ; such are, I think, usually flat. 



