62 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, 

 in the field ; so that the countryman, in stirring his 

 fallows, often destroys them. The young run immedi- 

 ately from the egg, like partridges, &c., and are with- 

 drawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they 

 sculk among the stones, which are their best security ; for 

 their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey 

 spotted 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 clamour which 

 may be heard a mile. (Edicnemus is a most apt and expres- 

 sive name for them, since their legs seem swoln like those 

 of a gouty man. 1 After harvest I have shot them before the 

 pointers in turnip-fields. 2 



I make no doubt but there are three species of the 

 willow-wrens : 3 two I know perfectly ; but have not been 

 able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ 

 more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two 

 that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy, 

 laughing note ; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is 

 every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, and 

 weighs two drams and a half ; while the latter weighs but 

 two : so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. 



the bird must still occur in the neighbourhood of Selbome, for there is plenty 

 of wild down-land suited to its habits. Lord Walsingham informs me that the 

 species is still found on his property in Norfolk, whence came the well-known 

 family group of these birds in the Natural History Museum, but that it is not so 

 frequent as formerly. It does not stay the winter. [R. B. S.] 



1 Mr. Harting, who is one of the best authorities on the Wading-birds, says, 

 that this swelling of the upper part of the tarsus is characteristic only of the 

 young birds of the year (ed. Selborne, p. 56, note). [R, B. S.] 



* See Letter XXIII. [R. B. S.] 



3 The differences between the Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) and 

 the Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus minor) could scarcely be better described than is 

 here done by Gilbert White, who was then on the track of the third species, viz. 

 the Wood Warbler (Phylloscopus sibilator). (See Letter XIX, p. 79.) [R. B. S.] 



