SAL1CARIA. 81 



and sharp, and the legs are dusky, the hinder claw 

 long and crooked 1 ." 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 ac - 

 count merits farther inquiry. For my part, I sus- 

 pect it is a second sort of locustella, hinted at by 

 Dr. Derham in Ray's Letters : see p. 74. 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 satis- 

 faction 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 of 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 diffi- 

 culty worthy of the interposition of a god ! " In- 

 credulus odi" 



1 Sylvia phrasmites. Bechst. Sedge-warbler. SELBY'S 

 Ornith.W.J. 



