42 The Natural History 



I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. 

 Linnaeus, perhaps, would call the species mus fninimus. 



LETTER XVI 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, April iS, 1768. 



Dear Sir, 

 The history of the stone curlew, charadrhis oedicnenitis^ 

 is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never 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 immediately from 

 the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some 

 flinty field by their dam, where they skulk 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. Oedicfiemus is a most apt and 

 expressive name for them, since their legs seem swoln 

 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. 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 



