OF SELBORNE. 237 



LETTER XLIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, May 7, 1779. 



IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some atten- 

 tion to the ornithology of this district, without being able to 

 exhaust the subject : new occurrences still arise as long as 

 any inquiries are kept alive. 



In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, 

 too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known 

 to naturalists by the terms of himantopusj or loripes, and 

 charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the verge of Frin- 

 sham-pondj a large lake belonging to the bishop of Win- 

 chester, and lying between Wolmer-forest, and the town of 

 Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The pond keeper says 

 there were three brace in the flock ; but that, after he had 

 satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmo- 

 lested. One of these specimens I procured, and found the 

 length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first sight, 

 one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on 

 to impose on the credulity of the beholder : they were legs 



singularly complex stomach here alluded to, as it exists in the mole 

 cricket, and in the locust. The structure is similar in both as to the 

 number of stomachs, but they differ in their relative positions. The 

 first cavity or crop .... in the mole cricket is appended, like the crop 

 of a granivorous bird, to one side of the gullet, communicating with it 



by a lateral opening The gizzard is small, but armed internally 



with longitudinal rows of complex teeth. Two large lateral pouches 

 open into the lower part or termination of the gizzard. The analogy 

 between this digestive apparatus and that of the ruminants is vague, and 

 does not extend beyond the number of cavities. It is more like that of 

 the bird ; and since the comminuting or masticating organs are situated 

 .... in the stomach, it cannot be supposed that the food is again returned 

 to the mouth, where it has already received all the division which the 

 oral instruments can effect." T. B.j 



