OF SELBORNE. 50 



there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black 

 legs, and the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest 

 bird is considerably the largest, and has it's 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 cris- 

 tatus of Ray, which he says " cantat voce striduld locustce." 

 Yet this great ornithologist never suspected that there were 

 three species. 



LETTER XX. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, October 8, 1768. 



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 hypoleucus* : it was a cock bird, and haunted the 

 banks of some ponds near the village ; and, as it had a com- 

 panion, doubtless intended to have bred near that water. Be- 

 sides, the owner has told me since, that, on recollection, he has 



* [Totanus hypoleucos, Yarrell, ii. p. 539. A specimen of the common 

 sandpiper was shot at the mill-stream and brought to me in July 1860. 

 This genus has been remarka,bly represented at Selborne. The son of the 

 person who shot the one just mentioned, killed and brought me a specimen 

 of the green sandpiper ( T. ochropus, Yarrell, 1. c. p. 528) in August 1858. 

 It is in the Alton Museum. But the most interesting example is that of 

 the spotted redshank (T. fitscus, Yarrell, 1. c. p. 522). A beautiful speci- 

 men of this bird was killed at Oakhanger, and brought to me on 

 August 30, 1851. It was in an interesting state of plumage : the breast 

 and whole underpart sprinkled with a mixture of grey and white ; the 

 back blackish, spotted with white. This specimen is also in the Alton 

 Museum. T. B.] 



