CHAP, iv.] ALDROVANDl's UNCERTAINTY. 289 



two species of the Water Rail, Rallus Aquaticus, about 

 our meadows (bordering the Avon, Wiltshire). The 

 common sort is, as described by Yarrell, about eleven 

 inches in length, but the other, a bird of more rare 

 occurrence, though now and then shot here, is much 

 smaller too in respect to the legs, and shorter in the 

 neck. Both sorts are similar in plumage, the difference 

 consisting in size. Yarrell makes no mention of any 

 difference in size between the sexes; therefore I con- 

 clude this to be another species. The people here work- 

 ing in the meadows are aware of the difference between 

 the birds, and call the small ones runners. I have 

 not as yet ascertained whether the notes of the runners 

 are the same as the large sort. Both kinds are equally 

 good for the table." H. H. 



Aldrovandi, living in Italy and never having travelled 

 northwards, was sadly puzzled between the Gallinule, 

 the Tringa (whatever he meant by that), the Water 

 Ouzel*, and the Rails. He gives what he had heard 

 respecting the feathered inhabitants of this outlandish 

 island, and leaves the reader to judge for himself, 

 "ut quilibet pro arbitratu de ea judicet." We translate 

 the passagef as a curious specimen of middle-aged 

 natural history, and also as a hint to some good- 

 natured archseologian to favour us with a paper on the 

 moats that surrounded many of the country mansions of 

 our ancestors, respecting which so little is known with 

 accuracy, either as to certain peculiarities of construc- 



* For an interesting account of the Water Ouzel the reader will 

 be obliged to us for referring him to Mr. Charles St. John's " Wild 

 Sports and Natural History of the Highlands," altogether a charming 

 and genuine little book. We still retain a vivid recollection of the 

 locality in which it was written. 



f Ornithologia, torn. iii. lib. xx. p. 487. 



U 



