550 NATURAL HISTORY 



Mr. Marsham, in narrating the circumstances of its capture, 

 says : 



" My man has just now shot me a bird, which was flying about my 

 house : I am confident I have never seen its likeness before. But on 

 application to Willughby, I conclude it is the Wall-creeper, or Spider- 

 catcher. I find he had not seen it in England.* It is very beautifully 

 coloured, though the chief is cinereous ; but the shades of red on the 

 wings, and the large spots of white and yellow, on the quill feathers, are 

 uncommonly pleasing. You see Willughby does not mention them." ] 



LETTER VII. 



TO ROBERT MARSHAM, ESQUIRE. 



SELBORNE, November 3, 1792. 



extract from the Natural History of Gib- 

 raltar by the late Eeverend John White: 2 

 " In the first year of my residence at Gib- 

 raltar, which was 1756, it appeared extra- 

 ordinary to me to see birds of the Swallow 

 kind very frequent in the streets all the winter through. 

 Upon enquiry I was told that they were Bank Martins : and 

 having at that time been but little conversant in Natural 

 History, they passed with me as such for some years with- 

 out any farther regard. At length, when I had taken a 

 more attentive survey of the physical productions of this 

 climate, I soon discovered these birds to be none of the 

 common British species described by authors ; and I farther 

 found that they were never seen in Gibraltar through the 

 whole course of the summer ; but constantly and invariably 



1 Willughby' s words are : " In Anglia nostra earn invenire aiunt, 

 quamvis nobis nondum fuerit conspecta" (" Ornithologia," 1676, p. 99). 

 ED. 



2 Another extract from this unpublished MS. was communicated to 

 Daines Barrington, Letter LIII., p. 282. ED. 



