OF SELBORNE. 95 



sizes, and that the least has black legs and 

 the other two flesh-coloured ones. The 

 yellowest bird is considerably the largest, 

 and has its quill-feathers and secondary 

 feathers tipped with white, which the others 

 have not. This last haunts only the tops 

 ol trees in high beechen woods, and makes 

 a sibilous grasshopper-like noise, now and 

 then, at short intervals shivering a little 

 with its wings when it sings ; and is, I 

 make no doubt now, the regulus non oris- 

 tatus of Ray ; which he says *' cantat voce 

 striduld locustce." Yet this great ornitho- 

 logist never suspected that there were 

 three species. 



LETTER XX. 



TO THE SAME. 



DEAR SIR; Selborne, Oct. 8, 17^8. 



It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : 

 all nature is so full, that that district pro- 



