OF SELBORNE 41 



able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ 

 more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two 

 that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy, 

 laughing note ; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former 

 is every way larger, and three quarters of an inch longer, 

 and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs 

 but two : so the songster is one fifth heavier than the 

 chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of 

 passage that is heard, the 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 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 an hundred yards distance ; and, when close at 

 your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way oiF. 

 Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known 

 that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have 

 hardly believed 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, sculking 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 undis- 

 turbed, 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 Philosophical Letters, 

 p. 108. 



The fly-catcher {sto-parold) has not yet appeared : it 

 usually breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing : 

 its note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about 



