76 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



and in the spring on ivy-berries. I dressed one of these birds, 

 and found it juicy and well-flavoured. It is remarkable that they 

 make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, but rest near a 

 fortnight at Michaelmas. These birds, from the observations of 

 three springs and two autumns, are most punctual in their re- 

 turn, and exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the writers, who 

 supposed they never were to be seen in any of the southern 

 counties. 



One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicaria, 

 which at first I suspected might have proved your willow-lark,* 

 but, on a nicer examination, it answered much better to the de- 

 scription of that species which you shot at Revesby, in Lincoln- 

 shire. My bird I describe thus : " It is a size less than the 

 grasshopper-lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings, of a 

 dusky brown, without those dark spots of the grasshopper-lark ; 

 over each eye is a milkwhite stroke ; the chin and throat are 

 white, and the under parts of a yellowish white ; the rump is 

 tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill is 

 dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long 

 and crooked." The person that shot it says that it sung so like 

 a reed-sparrow that he took it for one ; and that it sings all 

 night : but this account merits further enquiry.f For my part, I 



* For this salicaria see letter August 30, 1769. 



t The above-mentioned garrulous little bird is the sedge-reedling (salicaria phragmitis)> a 

 common summer visitant pretty generally diffused over the country, haunting watery situations, 

 the sedgy borders of rivers and ponds, where it subsists entirely on insects, and which it enlivens 

 day and night with its peculiar and characteristic chat- 

 tering song, consisting of a variety of repeated chirrups, 

 many of which closely resemble those of the sparrow 

 and other birds, whence the spacies has been termed by 



some the English mocking-bird. Its various notes, ' ^^-^S^^l^ RV 



however, are all perfectly original, the same being alike =?^^=L2d^H \J 



uttered in every locality, often where the species it is 

 described to imitate are never found. The remark of 

 Mr. White's informant, that the individual he procured 

 " sung like a reed-sparrow/' is a mistake which a cur- 

 sory observer is very apt to fall into, the little songster 

 often chattering concealed in the thickest part of a 

 bush, while a monotonous or silent reed-bunting Sedge Keedling. 



(emberiza schceniculus) , commonly called "reed-sparrow," sitting conspicuously on one of the 

 outer twigs, obtains full credit for the music the more plausibly, from the sparrow-like tone of 

 many of the others chirpings. The sedge-reedling is a very lively and cheerful little bird, and 

 there is a briskness and a sort of artlessness about its song that renders it, at least for a time, 

 extremely pleasing. Sometimes it will mount singing a little way up into the air, and it fre- 

 quently chirrups as it flits from bush to bush ; in short, it is a most untiring songster, insomuch 

 that it often becomes at length quite an annoyance to some persons who live near the water. 

 There is a species closely allied to this in Italy and in many parts of the south of Europe, the 

 S- aquatica (trilineata would be better, as more exclusive), which has been known to visit as far 

 north as Holland. It is easily distinguishable by having a broad pale streak along the crown of 

 the Lead, simitar to that over each eye. The sedge-reedling nidificates in clumps of herbage 



