56 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



which proves they are late breeders ; whereas those species of the thrush 

 kind that remain with us the whole year have fledged young before that 

 time. In their crops was nothing very distinguishable, but somewhat 

 that seemed like blades of vegetables nearly digested. In autumn they 

 feed on haws and yew-berries, and in the spring on ivy-berries. I dressed 

 one of these birds, and found it juicy and well flavoured. It is remark- 

 able that they make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, but rest 

 near a fortnight at Michaelmas. These birds, from the observations of 

 three springs and two autumns, are most punctual in their return ; and 

 exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the writers, who supposed they 

 never were to be seen in any southern countries. 



One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicaria, which at 

 first I suspected might have proved your willow-lark,* but, on a nicer 

 examination, it answered much better to the description of that species 

 which you shot at Revesby,t in Lincolnshire. My bird I 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 yellowish white ; the 

 rump is tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill is 

 dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long 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 suspect it is a second 

 sort of locustela, hinted at by Dr. Derham in Ray's Letters : seep. 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 1 

 is too puzzling for me to answer ; and yet so obvious as often to have 

 struck me with wonder. If one looks into the writers on that subject 

 little satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance 

 plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to 

 maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as 

 good as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture. The late 

 writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of those 

 that have gone before, as I remember, stock America from the western 

 coast of Africa and the south of Europe ; and then break down the 

 Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But this is making use of a 



Julius Pollux, B. 9, ch. 7, says, ^ Jg /M.^AeA.cyflij, iv srT*jve 'UTTIV, yv xoii fjir,^.o^.ac>6r 

 xatXovtny, foot \x rys otvtiviTlw; ruv ftfauv % <rvv ry Mv~fM,<r(l ymiu.tvov. "The melolonthe 

 is a winged animal, which they also call inelolanthe, either from the bloom of 

 pples, or its occurring with this bloom." 



Stobceus quotes from Herodes (Sermo 76), the boys' game with the melolonthse, 

 thus >j Toutrt jAaXov0ijs u.u.u,a.r l^iifrTcav TOV xfirxsou, fjc.it rb ys^ovrat A.ai/3>jra< . "Or 

 tieing strings of tow to the cockchafers, jeer at the old man for me." 



* For this Salicaria see next letter. f The seat of Sir Joseph Banks. 



J Dr. Derham writes " Doubtless this bird was the locustela in Willoughby's 

 ornithology, and not the regulus non-cristatus, which I call the yellow wren, and of 

 which I have discovered three distinct species, but not one of them that sings as 

 here described, and as I have seen two sorts (if I mistake not) of locustelce birds 

 do." W. D. Corres. O/RAY, Ray Society, p. 96. 



The bird here meant is "the titlark that sings like a grasshopper. " WiLLoroHBY , 

 p. 207 ; and the Salicaria locustella (Selby) alluded to Letter XVI. 



