62 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



vivid, and the belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the 

 three sorts now lying before me, and can discern that there are 

 three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and 

 the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is con- 

 siderably the largest, and has its quill feathers and secondary 

 feathers tipped with white, which the others have not. This 

 last haunts only the tops of trees in high beechen woods, 

 and makes a sibilous grasshopper- like noise, now and then, at 

 short intervals, shivering a little with its wings when it sings ; 

 and is, I make no doubt now, the Regulus non crutatus of Ray ; 

 which he says " cantat voce stridula locustse." Yet this great 

 ornithologist never suspected that there were three species. 



SELBOBNE, Aug. 17, 1768. 



WILLOW-WRESTS EGO. 



LETTER XX. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



IT is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is so full, 

 that that district produces the greatest variety which is the 

 most examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the 

 north only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have discovered 

 this summer three species of birds with us, which writers men- 

 tion as only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that was 

 brought me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper (Tringa hypo- 

 leiunts} : it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds 

 near the village ; and as it had a companion, doubtless intended 

 to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has told me 



