OF SELBORNE 75 



mentions afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have dis- 

 covered that singular production to be derived from the egg 

 of the musca chamwleon : see Geoffroy, t. 17, f. 4.i 



A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, 

 and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of de- 

 stroying them, would be allowed by the public to be a most 

 usefiil and important work. What knowledge there is of this 

 sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improve- 

 ments would soon follow of course. A knowledge of the pro- 

 perties, oeconomy, propagation, and in short of the life and 

 conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to 

 some method of preventing their depredations. 



As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology 

 more than some neat plates that should well express the generic 

 distinctions of insects according to Linnwus ; for I am well assured 

 that many people would study insects, could they set out with a 

 more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed 

 at first by words alone. 



LETTER XXXV. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, 1771. 

 Dear Sir, 



Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could 

 not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds 

 appear by no means to be their tails ; those long feathers 

 growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A 

 range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed 

 in the uropygiwm, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to 

 prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. 

 When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but it's 

 head and neck ; but this would not be the case were those long 

 feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey- 

 cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibra- 

 tion these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter 

 like the swords of a sword-dancer ; they then trample very quick 

 with their feet, and run backwards towards the females. 



^ [Siratiamys chajntehon, L.] 



