of Selborne 6i 



punctual in their return ; and exhibit a new migration un- 

 noticed by the writers, who supposed they never were to 

 be seen in any of the southern counties. 



One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicat-ia, 

 which at first I suspected might have proved your willow- 

 lark,^ but, on a nicer examination, it answered much 

 better to the description of that species which you shot 

 at Revesby, in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus : 

 ** It is a size less than the grasshopper-lark ; the head, 

 back, and coverts of the wings of a dusky brown, without 

 those dark spots of the grasshopper-lark ; over each eye 

 is a milk-white stroke ; the chin and throat are white, 

 and the under parts of a yellowish white ; the rump is 

 tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill 

 is dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky ; the hinder 

 claw long and crooked." The person that shot it says 

 that it sung so like a reed-sparrow that he took it for one; 

 and that it sings all night : but this account merits further 

 inquiry. For my part, I suspect it is a second sort of 

 locustella^ hinted at by Dr. Derham in Ray's Letters : see 

 p. 1 08. He also procured me a grasshopper-lark. 



The question that you put with regard to those genera 

 of animals that are peculiar to America, viz. how they 

 came there, and whence ? is too puzzling for me to 

 answer ; and yet so obvious as often to have struck me 

 with wonder. If one looks into the writers on that 

 subject little satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men 

 will readily advance plausible arguments to support 

 whatever theory they shall choose to maintain ; but then 

 the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good 

 as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture. 

 The late writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all 

 the arguments of those that have gone before, as I 

 remember, stock America from the western coast ot 

 Africa and the south of Europe ; and then break down 

 the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But this 

 is making use of a violent piece of machinery : it is a 

 difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god ! ^'Incredulus 

 odi," 



^ For this salicaria see letter August 30, 1769. 



