58 NATURAL HISTORY 



wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in the 

 middle of March, and continues them through the spring 

 and summer till the end of August, as appears by my 

 journals. The legs of the larger of these two are flesh- 

 coloured ; of the less, black. 



The grasshopper-lark 1 began his sibilous note in my fields 

 last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the 

 whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by, though 

 at a hundred yards distance ; and when close at your ear, is 

 scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been 

 a little acquainted with insects, and known that the grass- 

 hopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly be- 

 lieved but that it had been a Locusta whispering in the 

 bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that 

 it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, skulk- 

 ing in the thickest part of a bush ; and will sing at a yard 

 distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a 

 person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted ; 

 and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for a 

 hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns ; 

 yet it would not come into fair sight ; but in a morning early, 

 and when undisturbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping 

 and shivering with its wings. Mr. Ray himself had no 

 knowledge of this bird, but received his account from Mr. 

 Johnson, who apparently confounds it with the Reguli non 

 cristati? from which it is very distinct. See Ray's Philoso- 

 phical Letters, p. 108. 



The flycatcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it 

 usually breeds in my vine. 



The redstart begins to sing ; its note is short and imper- 

 fect, but is continued till about the middle of June. 



The willow wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a 

 garden, destroying the pease, cherries, currants, &c. ; 3 and 

 are so tame that a gun will not scare them. 



1 The grasshopper- warbler, Salicaria locustella (Latham). 



2 The willow wrens. 



3 This sentence has possibly led to the destruction of many of 

 these little birds, which are in truth peculiarly the gardener's friends 



