IK) XATCRAT, II1ST(7RY 



^vhich you shot at Rcvcshi/, in Liticolnalnrf.. 

 My bird T describe thus : " It is a size less 

 " than the grasshopper-lark ; the head, 

 " back, and coverts of the wings, of a dusky 

 ** brown without those dark spots of the 

 " grasshopper-lark ; over each eye is a 

 " milkwhite stroke ; the chin and throat 

 " are white, and the under parts of a yel- 

 •* lowish white ; the rump is tawny, and 

 " the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed; the 

 " bill is dusky and sharp, and the legs are 

 *' duskv; thehinderclawloni^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 susj^ect it is a second sort of locus- 

 tella, hinted at by Dr. Dcrham in Ray's 

 Letters: see p. 108. He also procured 

 me a grasshopper-lark. 



The question that you put with regard 

 to those genera of animals that are peculiar 

 to America, viz. how they came there, and 

 whence ? is too puzzling for me to answer ; 

 and yet so obvious as often to have struck 



