44 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XVI. 



SELBORNE, April 18^, 1768. 



THE history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius oedicnemus, 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 like patridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field 

 by the 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. Oedicnemus 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 drachms and a-half, while the latter weighs 

 but two ; so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the 

 chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage 



