62 ANIMALS OF AMERICA. 



the rump is tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp pointed j 

 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 farther inquiry. For 

 my part, I suspect 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, namely, 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 argu- 

 ments 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 difficulty worthy of the interposition of a 

 god ! " Incredulus odi" 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 



THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER EVENING 

 WALK. 



- equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 



Ingenium. VIRG. Gcorg. 



WHEN day, declining, sheds a milder gleam, 



What time the May-flyf haunts the pool or stream ; 



* The sedge bird, sylvia phragmitis, of Bechstein. Mr Sweet says, 

 " It is almost constantly in song, both, by night and by day, and may be 

 heard at a considerable distance, beginning with chit, chit, chiddy, 

 chiddy, chiddy, chit, chit, chit. It is a very lively bird, and shews 

 scarcely any symptoms of fear, approaching very near to any person 

 who does riot drive or frighten it.** ED. 



f- The angler's May-fly, the ephemera vulgata, Linn, comes forth from 

 its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water, about six in the evening, 

 and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly state in 



