LETTER XLIX. 



To the same. 



SELPORNE, May "jth, 1779. 



T is now more than forty years that I have 

 paid some attention 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, two uncommon to 

 have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by 

 the terms of himantopus, or toripes, and charadrius himantopus, 1 

 were shot upon the verge of Frinsham-pond [Frensham-pond], 

 a large lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, 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, 



1 This bird is apparently the Himantopus melanopterus of modern orni- 

 thology. ED. 



