yo The Natural tiistory of Se I borne 



best security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of 

 our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless 

 he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The 

 eggs are short and round ; of a dirty white, spotted with dark 

 bloody blotches. Though I might not be able, just when I 

 pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show you them 

 almost any day ; and any evening you may hear them round 

 the village, for they make a clamour which may be heard a 

 mile. (Edicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for 

 them, since their legs seem swollen like those of a gouty man. 

 After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip- 

 fields. 



I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow- 

 wrens ; ] two I know perfectly, but have not been able yet to 

 procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their 

 notes, and that constantly, than those two that I am ac- 

 quainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note, 

 the other a harsh, loud chirp. The former is every way larger, 

 and three-quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams 

 and a half, while the latter weighs but two ; so the songster is 

 one- fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the 

 first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wryneck some- 

 times excepted) begins his two notes in the middle of March, 

 and continues them through the spring and summer till the 

 end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the 

 larger of these two are flesh-coloured ; of the less black. 



The grasshopper-lark 2 began his sibilous note in my fields 

 last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the 

 whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by though 

 at a 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 



1 These are doubtless the wood-wren, Sylvia (Phylloscopns} sibilatrix^ 

 called by White the songster ; the willow-wren, Sylvia (Phylloscopus) 

 trochihis ; and the chiff-chaff, Sylvia, hippolais (or Phylloscopus rttfrrs), 

 called by White the chirper. ED. ^ Now called the grasshopper- 

 warbler, Salicaria locustella (Loctistella navia). ED. 



