OF SELBORNE 107 



suspect, is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the 

 soft-billed sort ; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his 

 British Zoology, till I reminded him of his omission. See British 

 Zoohgy last published, p. 16.^ 



I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which 

 different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a subject that I have 

 not enough considered, and is of such a nature as not to be 

 contained in a small space, I shall say nothing further about it 

 at present. 2 



No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage 

 is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, "because they 

 " are not to pair and discharge their parental functions till the 

 "ensuing spring". As colours seem to be the chief external 

 sexual distinction in many birds, these colours do not take place 

 till sexual attachments begin to obtain.^ And the case is the 

 same in quadrupeds ; among whom, in their younger days, the 

 sexes differ but little : but, as they advance to maturity, horns 

 and shaggy manes, beards and brawny necks, &c. &c. strongly 

 discriminate the male from the female. We may instance still 

 farther in our own species, where a beard and stronger features 

 are usually characteristic of the male sex : but this sexual diversity 

 does not take place in earlier life ; for a beautiful youth shall be 

 so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible ; 



" Quem si puellarum insereres choro, 



" Mir6 sagaces falleret hospites 



' ' Discriraen obscurum, solutis 



" Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu. " HoK.'* 



1 See letter xxv. to Mr. Pennant. 



2 See letter xlii. to Mr. Barrington. 



^ [White seems to have regarded sexual colouration in birds only as a distinction 

 of the sexes, without discerning its use either as attractive in the male or protective 

 in the female when sitting. Yet he was aware of the use of the peacock's train in 

 attracting the peahen (see Letter XXXV. to Pennant), and of the protective 

 colouration of the young stone-curlews (Letter XVI. to Pennant). Here, as often 

 elsewhere, he gets upon a good train of thought, without following it up ; but every 

 naturalist needs the help of the ideas of others, and White stood alone in England 

 as a real student of nature.] 



*\Carm., IL, v.] 



