OF SELBORNE. 79 



known that the grasshopper kind is not yet 

 hatched, I should have hardly believed but 

 that it had been a locusta v^hispering 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 an hundred yards to- 

 gether, through the bottom of the thorns ; 

 yet it would not come into fair sight : but 

 in a morning early, and when undisturbed, 

 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 appa- 

 rently confounds it with the reguli nan 

 cristaiiy from which it is very distinct. See 

 Rays Philos. Letters, p. 108. 



The fly-catcher f stoparola ) has not yet 

 appeared : it usually breeds in my vine. 

 The redstart begins to sing : its note is 



