Wood-wren 



LETTER XIX. 



'To the same. 



SELBORNE, August ijth, 1768. 



1AR SIR, I have now, past dispute, made out 

 three distinct species of the willow-wrens (mota- 

 cill<e tro chili) which constantly 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 the 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 other, 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 discern 

 that there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black 

 legs, and the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest 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, 



* "Brit. ZooL," edit. 1776, 8vo, p. 381. 



