Q2 NATURAL HISTORY 



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. 



LETTER XXXV. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, 1771. 

 DEAR SIR, 



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 it's 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 vibration 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 

 cegogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is perfectly 

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

 I think, usually flat. 



LETTER XXXVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



Sept. 1771. 

 DEAR SIR, 



THE summer through I have seen but two of that large species 



