126 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomo- 

 logy 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. 



SELBORNE, March 30, 1771. 



LETTER XLIV. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



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

 could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent 

 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 

 in 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 vibra- 

 tion 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 

 (ryogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is per- 

 fectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange ; such 

 are, I think, usually flat. 



SELBORNE, 1771. 



