THE REV. JOHN WHITE. 9 



It seems to me no doubt that your Motacilla No. 5 is the Junco 

 of Ray ; but he does not seem to be so exact as usual, and 

 talks of a stiff tail, and omits mentioning the white and black 

 bars at the end of it's tail *. It will be worth our while to find 

 out Mr. Moore the botanist, or his representatives ; and to 

 endeavour to procure his flora of your district. 



Ray does not take notice that the thighs of the Merops are 

 naked. 



I had written thus far when your curious box of birds 

 shipped in October, and Jack's shirts and sweetmeats arrived : 

 the insects were left in town for the reason above mentioned. 

 Your kind letter of December 9 came the same day. Geoffroy 

 no doubt is too verbose; so are all his countrymen. Mr. Pen- 

 nant makes sad complaint of Gouan's book of fishes, and of 

 the obscurity of the Labrus and Spams genera. Dr. Shaw's 

 Natural part of his travels is said to be good. 



You will do well to have two columns of thermometer 

 observations, especially as 1769 and 1770 were both on the 

 extremes. As matter flows in upon me I begin to think of 

 composing a Natural History of Selborne in the form of a 

 journal for 1769; we shall then be able to compare the cli- 

 mates. You mention the great eagle owl, and send me, I 

 think, a wing and claw of that majestic bird ; and yet you 

 call it Strix otus; sure you mean Strix bubo: the otus is our 

 common horned owl. I see none of your plants ; perhaps 

 they are lost : the sweet-smelling clammy shrub must be, I 

 suppose, a cistus ; has it not a single, rose-like, fugacious 

 flower ? You have classed all your last fine cargo of birds 

 so justly that there is no room for objection; where you 

 doubt, I doubt, though I think there is little room to doubt 

 about the Alauda cristata; but the pair of birds (if they are a 



* [This statement of White's proves that this bird (already mentioned 

 p. 6) was not the Junco of Ray, which is the Great Heed- Warbler 

 (Acroeephalus arundinaceus) ; but it is doubtless the Reed-Thrush, var. A, 

 of Latham (Gen. Synops. ii. p. 33), who described a specimen from 

 Gibraltar in the Leverian Museum — most likely the very one sent by 

 John White. The species did not receive a name till 1^20, and is the 

 Aedon galactodes of modern ornithologists. See Yarrell, 'Brit. Birds,* 

 Ed. 4, i. p. 355.— A. N.] 



