116 NATURAL [II STORY 



which you shot at Ileveshi/, in Lincolmhire^ 

 My bird I describe thus : It is a size less 

 "than the grasshopper-lark; the head, 

 back, and coverts of the wings, of a dusky 

 brown without those dark spots of the 

 ''grasshopper-lark; over each eye is a 

 milk white stroke ; the chin and throat 

 are white, and the under parts of a yel- 

 lowish white ; the rump is tawny, and 

 the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed; the 

 bill is dusky and sharp, and the legs are 

 duskv; the hinderclawlono^and crooked." 

 The person that shot it says that it sung* 

 so like a reed-sparrow that he took it for 

 one ; and that it sings all night : but this 

 account merits farther inquiry. For my 

 part, I suspect it is a second sort of locus- 

 tella, hinted at by Dr. Derham in Rays 

 Letters: see p. 108. He also procured 

 me a grasshopper-lark. 



The question that you put with regard 

 to those genera of animals that are peculiar 

 to America, viz. how they came there, and 

 whence ? is too puzzling for me to answer ; 

 and yet so obvious as often to have struck 



