NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORKE. 47 



LETTEE XIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, August Vlth, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct species 

 of the willow-wrens (motacillce trochili) which constantly and invariably 

 use distinct notes. But at the same time I am obliged to confess that I 

 know nothing of your willow-lark.* In my letter of April the 18th, I 

 had told you peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not 

 seen it then ; but when I came to procure it, it proved in all respects a 

 very motacilla trochilus, only that it is a size larger than the two other, 

 and the yellow-green of the whole upper part of the body is more vivid, 

 and the belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the three sorts now 

 lying before me, and can discern that there are three gradations of 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 of 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 cristatus of Ray, which he says " cantat 

 voce stridula locustce." Yet this great ornithologist never suspected 

 that there were three species. 



LETTEE XX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, October 8th, 1768. 



IT is I find in zoology as it is in botany ; all nature is so full that that 

 district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined. 

 Several birds, which are said to belong to the north only, are it seems 

 often in the south. I have discovered this summer three species of 

 birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen in the northern 

 counties. The first that was brought me (on the 14th of May), was the 

 sandpiper, tringa hypoleucus : it was a cockbird, and haunted the banks 

 of some ponds near the village ; and, as it had a companion, doubtless 

 intended to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has told me 

 since, that on recollection, he has seen some of the same birds round 

 his ponds in former summers.t 



* "Brit. Zool." edit. 1776, 8vo, p. 381. 



t Of the sandpiper we may remark that it would be the unfavourable localities 

 in the vicinity of Selborne that caused its scarcity. The common sandpiper, 

 totanus (tringa of Linnaeus) hypoleucus, is not particularly a northern bird. It has 



