FLY-CATCHER. 53 



that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I 

 should have hardly believed but that it had been 

 a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country 

 people laugh when you tell them that it is the 

 note of a bird. It is the most artful creature, 

 skulking in the thickest part of a bush, and will 

 sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. 

 I was obliged to get a person to go on the other 

 side of the hedge where it haunted ; and then it 

 would run, creeping like a mouse before us for an 

 hundred yards together, through the bottom of 

 the thorns, yet it would not come into fair sight ; 

 but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it 

 sings on the top of a twig, gaping, and shivering 

 with its wings. Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge 

 of this bird, but received his account from Mr. 

 Johnson, who apparently confounds it with the 

 reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. 

 See RAY'S Philos. Letters, p. 108. 



The fly-catcher (stoparola) has not yet appeared ; 

 it usually breeds in my vine. The redstart be- 

 gins to sing ; its note is short and imperfect, but 

 is continued till about the middle of June. The 

 w T illow-wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests 

 in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries, cur- 

 rants, &c., and are so tame that a gun will not 

 scare them. 



