106 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XIX. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Aug. 17, 17G8. 



I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct 

 species of the willow wrens (Motacillce Trochili) 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 1 . In my letter of April 

 the 18th, 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 con- 

 siderably 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, shivering a 

 little with its wings when it sings ; and is, I make no 

 doubt now, the Regulus non cristatus of Ray ; which 

 he says " cantat voce stridula locustce." Yet this great 

 ornithologist never suspected that there were three 

 species 2 . 



1 Brit. Zool. edit 1776, octavo, p. 381. 



[White subsequently determined, see Letter XXV. that the bird in 

 question was the hedge warbler; and Pennant acquiesced in, and adopted, 

 his decision. E. T. B.] 



a It is curious that the clearness with which Gilbert White distin- 

 guished in this Letter the three kinds of true Sylvia that were known to 

 him, should not have led immediately to a perfect acquaintance with the 



