8 LETTERS TO HIS BROTHER 



have never seen it yet ; for brother Thomas writes word that it 

 has been performing quarantine in Stangate-creek. Just as 

 I had penned the last sentence a letter arrived from brother 

 Tho. informing me that the box was got safe to his house ; 

 which is good news : for I was in pain for the curiosities and 

 Jack's shirts. When the Mantis casts his skin he is in his 

 pupa state, and advancing to perfection by casting aside 

 those exuviae. Scopoli's icones will probably disappoint you ; 

 Linnseus's engravings of insects are miserable : Geoffrey's 

 are the best I have seen. The bird you call a Parus (if it be 

 not the common black-cap) is a nondescript : if it should 

 prove new, call it Motacilla atricapilloides : Mr. Pennant 

 thinks it a new bird *. Your purple-winged Vespa is no doubt 

 the Crabroni congener Baji ; and if you can find that it has 

 " thorax ad latera postice utrinque dente notatus," I shall 

 acknowledge it to be the Sphex Helens Linn. I am sending 

 all your insects to nephew Ben. White in town, and shall get 

 Mr. Lee the botanist of Hammersmith to inspect and ascertain 

 them, because he is the best entomologist that I know. The 

 reason that Linn, mentions so many insects from Barbary is, 

 because Mr. Brander the Swedish Consul at Algiers sent him 

 vast collections. In the little box which you sent me with 

 the sliding lid are two species of Myrmeleones. Geoffrey 

 seems to have a good cut of one. You will now be able to 

 measure the rain of your climate : the mean quantity per 

 ann. in Rutland is 20f inches. Learn as much as possible 

 the manners of animals; they are worth a ream of descriptions. 

 You must produce some ingenious dissertations to entertain 

 the unsystematic reader. What do the Panorpce. coce do with 

 their long remiform wings ? Frequent your markets, and 

 see what birds are offered to sale. Get some account of the 

 prickly heat, or fever, and the exact height of your mountain. 



* [Mr. Pennant seems to have been quite right. The bird was most 

 likely that which is now known as Sylvia melanocephala, and was first 

 described in 1776 by Oetti, who found it in Sardinia (Uccelli di Sard. 

 p. 218), but did not receive a name till Gmelin gave it one. If John 

 White's specimen, as his others appear to have been, was deposited in 

 the Leverian Museum, it must have been overlooked by Latham. A. N.] 



