56 NATURAL HISTORY 



bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round ; of a 

 dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I 

 might not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a 

 bird, yet I could show you them almost any day ; and any 

 evening you may hear them round the village, for they 

 make a clamour which may be heard a mile. (Edicnemus is 

 a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs 

 seem swollen like those of a gouty man. 1 After harvest I 

 have shot them before the pointers in turnip -fields. 



I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow 

 wrens ; two I know perfectly ; but have not been able yet 

 to procure the third." "No two birds can differ more in their 



1 It is only the young of the year which have the upper part of the 

 tarsus so much swollen. The same thing is observable, but less 

 markedly, in the young of most other agallatorial birds. ED. 



2 Gilbert White clearly distinguishes three species of these little 

 birds ; and he seems to have had some idea of a fourth ; but on this 

 point there is a confusion in the entries in the Naturalist's Calendar, 

 which has perhaps arisen from his having used different names for the 

 same bird in noting down his observations in different years. Five 

 different names are employed in the Calendar to designate some species 

 of willow wren. The first named, i.e. the " small line-rested willow 

 wren," appearing on the 19th of March, and called in the text " the 

 chirper," is said to have black legs ; this is the Chiff-chaff, Ph. rvfa. 

 The second appearing on April 11, as the " middle yellow wren," the 

 third on April 14, as the " second willow or laughing wren," and the fifth 

 on April 17, as the " middle willow wren," must all be referred to one and 



QUILL FEATHERS OF THE WOOD WREN. 



the same species, namely the Willow wren par excellence Ph. trochihis 

 of modern naturalists. The fourth, entered under date April 17, 

 as the " large shivering willow wren," must be the Wood wren Ph. 

 sibilatrix. 



The three British species of willow wrens may be thus distinguished. 

 The Wood Avren {Ph. sibilatrix) is the largest of the three, measuring in 

 length about 5'2 inches, in wing 3 inches, and tarsus 07 inches. It has 



