OF SELSORNE. 553 



LETTER VIII. 



TO ROBERT MARSHAM, ESQUIRE. 



UR two last letters seeni as if they had crossed 

 each other on the road ; but whether they 

 conversed when they met, does not appear. 

 If you have got the Certhia murarittf or 

 true Wall-creeper, you are in possession of a 

 very rare and curious bird. For in all my researches here 

 at home for fifty years past, and in all the vast collections 

 that I have seen in London, I have never met with it. No 

 wonder that the great Mr. Willughby is not very copious 

 on the subject, for he acknowledges fairly that he had not 

 seen it ; though he supposes it may be found in this island. 1 

 The best person I can refer you to is, Dr. John Antony 

 Scopoli, a modern, elegant, foreign naturalist, born in the 

 Tyrol, but late deceased in Pavia, where he was professor of 

 Botany. This curious and accurate writer was in possession 

 of one in his own museum, and gives the following descrip- 

 tion of his specimen in his " Annus primus hisiorico-natu- 

 ralis : " " That its bill is somewhat longer than its shanks, 

 slender, and somewhat bent ; that the tongue is bifid, and 

 the feet consisting of three toes forward and one behind." 

 Again he adds, " that the upper part is cinereous, the throat 

 whitish ; the abdomen, wings in part, tail and feet black ; the 

 wings at their base, and the quill feathers at their base on one 

 side reddish/' " It was taken in Carniola. It is the size of 



1 Willughby 's observation is as follows : " They say it is found in 

 England; but we have not had as yet the hap to meet with it." His 

 description of the bird which he calls the Wall-creeper, or Spider-catcher, 

 Picus murarius, Aldrov., is borrowed from Aldrovandus, and he places 

 it after the Woodpeckers, and amongst the " Woodpeckers less properly 

 so called." (" Ornithology," Book II. p. 143, tab. 23.) ED. 



