MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 239 



LETTER V. 



FROM LIEUT.-COL. MONTAGU TO GILBERT WHITE. 



Easton Grey, June 29, 1789. 

 DEAR SIR, 



I AM exceedingly obliged to you for y r polite favor, and hope 

 you will excuse the mistake in my address. 



I am not able to boast of being an ornithologist so long as 

 you, tho' I have delighted in it from infancy, and, was I not 

 bound by conjugal attachment, should like to ride my hobby 

 to distant parts; yet I agree with you that naturalists in 

 general attempt to explore too wide a field, their researches 

 are too extensive ; whereas if persons well qualified were to 

 confine themselves to particular districts, the natural history 

 compiled from provincial authors would no doubt throw much 

 light on the subject. 



I confess myself greatly obliged to your work for the dis- 

 covery of the third species of willow-wren, and for the first 

 determined separation of the other two species, with whom I 

 was perfectly well acquainted as to their notes, but suspected 

 that the same bird might produce both notes promiscuously. 

 Your work produced in me fresh ardour, and with that degree 

 of enthusiasm necessary to such investigations ; I pervaded 

 the interior recesses of the thickest woods, and spread my re- 

 searches to every place within my reach that seemed likely. 

 I was soon convinced of two distinct species, not only in their 

 song, but in size, colour, eggs, and materials which w h they 

 build their nests. The third species, which you seem to think 

 peculiar to your beech-wood, I flatter myself I have at last 

 discovered to be an inhabitant of this part; but they are very 

 scarce and partial. Three only have I discovered; two of 

 which I brought down with my gun from the top of tall oak- 

 trees in a thick grove interspersed with brambles. From the 

 reiterated note, somewhat resembling the blue titmouse, and 

 their colour being more vivid than the other species, I do not 



