80 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 cla- 

 mour 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 1 . No two birds can 



1 Mr. White clearly distinguishes three species of these little birds ; 

 and he seems to have had some idea of a fourth: but ou this point there 

 is a confusion in the entries in the Naturalist's Calendar, which has per- 

 haps arisen from his having used different names for the same bird in 

 noting down his observations in different years. The small uncrested 

 wren of the calendar, appearing on the 9th of March, is called in the 

 Natural History, p. 84, the chirper, and is said to have black legs: it 

 must be either Sylvia ri(/u or Sylv. loquax ; I believe the former, for I 

 doubt the fact of Sylv. loqutuc, the chiffchaff, which seems not to reach 

 the north of England, arriving so early. The third entry in the Calendar, 

 second willow or laughing wren, is certainly Sylv. Trochilus ; because he 

 says in the Natural History, p. 82, that the songster has a laughing note. 

 The fourth entry, large shivering wren, is unquestionably Sylv. Sylticola. 

 It appears to me that the second and fifth entries, middle yellow wren, 

 and middle willow wren, mean the same thing as second willow wren, and 

 refer alike to Sylv. Trochilus: but it is possible that, at a later period 

 than the date of Letter XIX. written in 1768, he may have suspected 

 the existence of a fourth species. 



There has existed very great confusion in the works of British and 

 continental ornithologists concerning these nearly allied species, which 

 I am now enabled to clear up, by the examination of a considerable num- 

 ber killed in this country, compared with continental specimens of Sylr. 

 rufa, and the bird called Sylc. llippolais, or pouillot, by M. Temminck. 

 In the former edition of these notes I stated that I had never had in hand 

 the Sylv. Hippolais of M. Temminck, which I then understood to be the 

 monotonous wren or chingching, and acknowledged as an inhabitant of 

 this country in the summer time. It now appears that the Hippolais of 

 Temminck is not ascertained to have been ever seen in Great Britain : and 

 it becomes necessary to inquire, what is the bird to which the name 



