NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 45 



that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his 

 two notes in the middle of March, and continues them 

 through the spring and summer till the end of August, as 

 appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these 

 two are flesh-coloured ; of the less black. 



The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields 

 last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the 

 whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by 

 though at a hundred yards distance ; and when close at 

 your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. 

 Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known 

 that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should 

 have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whisper- 

 ing in the bushes. The country people laugh when you 

 tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful 

 creature, skulking in the thickest part of a bush ; and will 

 sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was 

 obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge 

 where it haunted, and then it would run, creeping like a 

 mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, through the 

 bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come into fair sight ; 

 but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on 

 the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings. 

 Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of this bird, but received 

 his account from Mr. Johnson, who apparently confounds 

 it with the Reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. 

 See Ray's Philos. Letters, p. 108. 



The fly-catcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it 

 usually breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing, its 

 note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about the 

 middle of June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort) are 

 horrid pests in a garden, destroying the peas, cherries, cur- 

 rants, etc. ; and are so tame that a gun will not scare them. 



