NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 41 



hundred yards distance ; and when close at your ear, is scarce 

 any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little 

 acquainted with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind 

 is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it 

 had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country 

 people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. 

 It is a most artful creature, skulking in the thickest part of a 

 bush ; and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be con- 

 cealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side 

 of the hedge where it haunted, and then it would run, creep- 

 ing like a mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, 

 through the bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come into 

 fair sight; but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it 

 sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings. 

 Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of this bird, but received 

 his account from Mr. Johnson, who apparently confounds it 

 with the reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. 

 See Ray's " Philos. Letters," p. 108. 



The fly-catcher (stoparold) has not yet appeared ; it usually 

 breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing, its note is 

 short and imperfect, but is continued till about the middle of 

 June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in 

 a garden, destroying the peas, cherries, currants, etc. ; and are 

 so tame that a gun will not scare them. 



A LIST OF THE SUMMER BlRDS OF PASSAGE DISCOVERED IN THIS 



NEIGHBORHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY 

 APPEAR 



NOMINA 



Smallest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus. 



Wryneck, Jynxtorquitta. 



House-swallow, Hirundo rustica. 



Martin, Hirundo urbica. 



Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia. 



Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus. 



Nightingale, Motacilla Ittscinia. 



Black-cap, Motacilla atricapilla. 



Whitethroat, Motacilla sylvia. 



Middle willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus. 



Swift, Hirundo apus. 



Stone-curlew? Charadrius cedicnemus? 



Turtle-dove ? Turtur aldrovandi ? 



Grasshopper-lark, Alauda trivialis. 



