XXIV.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



77 



description of that species which you shot at Eevesby, in Lin- 

 colnshire. My bird I describe thus : " It is a size less than the 

 grasshopper-lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings of 

 a dusky brown, without those dark spots of the grasshopper-lark ; 

 over each eye is a milkwhite stroke ; the chin and throat are 

 white, and the under parts of a yellowish white : the rump is 

 tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed; the bill is 

 dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long 

 and crooked." The person that shot it says that it sung so like 



01. It WM.I, KI.I.IS S KAI:M. 



a reed-sparrow that he took it for one ; and that it sings all 

 night : but this account merits farther inquiry. For my part, I 

 suspect it is a second sort of locustella, hinted at by Dr. Derhain 

 in " Ray's Letters." lie also procured me a grasshopper-lark. 



The question that you put with regard to those genera of 

 animals that are peculiar to America, viz. how they came there, 

 and whence ? is too puzzling for me to answer ; and yet so 

 obvious as often to have struck me with wonder. If one looks 

 into the writers on that subject little satisfaction is to be found. 



