of Selborne 5.1 



of your willow-lark.i In my letter of April the i8th, I 

 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 vioiacilla hvchilus ; only 

 that it is a size larger than the two other, and tiie 

 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 considerably the largest, and has its 

 quill-feathers and secondary feathers ti{)ped 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 mth its wings when it sings ; and is, I 

 make no doubt now, the 7'egulus ?ion cristahis of Ray, 

 which he says ^'' caiitat voce stridula /oaisfce." Yet this 

 great ornithologist never suspected that there were three 

 species. 



LETTER XX 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, October 8, 1768. 



It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is 

 so full, that that district produces the greatest variety 

 which is the most examined. Several birds, which are 

 said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in 

 the south. I have discovered this summer three species 

 of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen 

 in the northern counties. The first that was brought me 

 (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper, tringa hypoleucus : 

 it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds 

 near the village ; and, as it had a companion, doubtless 

 intended to have bred near that water. Besides, the 



^ Biit. ZooL edit. 1776, octavo, p. 381. 



