LETTER XXXIV 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, March ^otA, 1771. 



DEAR SIR, [Your agreeable letter of Feb : 15 th arrived 

 while I was from home : & since my return some what 

 still has prevented my sitting down to pay it that regard 

 which it deserved. 



You may probably have heard by means of M r - Bar- 

 rington, who saw the contents while they lay in town, 

 that I have received another small cargo of birds from 

 Gibraltar, with a curious collection of insects. The birds 

 were as follow : 



Merops apiaster, 3 specim* Rallus aquat : 



Loxia curvirostra : Motacilla flava : 



Scolopax (zgocephala, M : & F : (Enanthe f 



- - - - ph&opus : Charadrius hiaticula : 



Oriolus galbula, 2 spec : Hematopus ostralegus : 



Alauda cristata : Leg & wing of strix bubo : 



Alauda f 2 spec : Leg of ardea nycticorax : 



Coturnix tridact : mas : Turdus arundinaceus 

 Mot. cenanthe, M : & F : 



Where a wing or a leg or an head only are sent you 

 are to suppose that the whole specimen was too stale 

 & too far gone to be preserved before it reached my 

 Bro r ' s hands. The alauda unknown answers well in many 

 respects to the Spipoletta Florentines of Ray. But as that 

 most accurate writer says that the rostrum of the spipoletta 

 is nigerrimum, & pedes etiam nigri, I must by no means 

 pretend to say that my birds are the above-mentioned 



