NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 49 



LETTER XIX 



SELBORNE, August 17 th, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, I have now, past dispute, made out three dis- 

 tinct species of the willow-wrens (motacilfa trochili) which con- 

 stantly and invariably use distinct notes. But at the same time 

 I am obliged to confess that I know nothing of your willow- 

 lark. In my letter of April i8th, I had told you peremptorily 

 that I knew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then ; but 

 when I came to procure it, it proved in all respects a very 

 motacilla trochilus, only that it is a size larger than the two 

 others, and the yellow-green of the whole upper part of the 

 body is more vivid, and the belly of a clearer white. I have 

 specimens of the three sorts now lying before me, and can dis- 

 cern that there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least 

 has black legs, and the other two flesh-colored ones. The yel- 

 lowest bird is considerably the largest, and has its 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 cristatus 

 of Ray, which he says " cantat voce striduld locusta" Yet 

 this great ornithologist never suspected that there were three 

 species. 



LETTER XX 



SELBORNE, October 8t%, 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 dis- 

 covered this summer three species of birds with us, which 

 writers mention as only to be seen in the northern counties. 

 The first that was brought me (on the I4th May), was the 

 sandpiper, tringa hypoleucus : it was a cock bird, and haunted 

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