NATURAL HISTORY Off SELBORNE. 53 



as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that 

 this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness 

 for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the many 

 thousands that daily languish under this terrible disorder 1 

 Would he not have made use of this invaluable nostrum for 

 his own emolument ; or, at least, by some means of publica- 

 tion or other, have found a method of making it public for 

 the good of mankind ? In short, this woman (as it appears 

 to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient 

 to amuse the country with this dark and mysterious 

 relation. 



The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least 

 appearance of any gills ; for want of which it is continually 

 rising to the surface of the water to take in fresh air. I 

 opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found it full of spawn. 

 Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the assertion 

 that they are larvce ; for the larvae of insects are full of 

 eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last 

 state. The water-eft is continually climbing over the 

 brims of the vessel within which we keep it in water, and 

 wandering away ; and people every summer see numbers 

 crawling out of the pools where they are hatched, up the dry 

 banks. There are varieties of them, differing in colour ; 

 and some have fins up their tail and back, and some have 

 not. 



LETTER XIX. 



SELBORNE, August \ltk t 1768. 



I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species 

 of the willow-wrens (Notacillce trochili) which constantly 

 and invariably use distinct notes. But at the same time 



