OF SELBORNE. 123 



sion. LinncBus might with great propriety 

 have put it into his genus oi motacilla ; and 

 the motacilla salicaria of his fauna suecica 

 seems to come the nearest to it. It is no 

 uncommon bird, haunting the sides of 

 ponds and rivers where there is covert, and 

 the reeds and sedges of moors. The coun- 

 try people in some places call it the sedge- 

 bird. It sings incessantly night and day 

 during the breeding time, imitating the 

 note of a sparrow, a swallow, a sky-lark ; 

 and has a strange hurrying manner in its 

 song. My specimens correspond most mi- 

 nutely to the description of your fen-sali' 

 carta shot near Reveshy. Mr. Ray has given 

 an excellent characteristic of it when he 

 says, Rostrum ^ pedes in hac aviculd mu ltd 



majores sunt quam pro corporis rationed 

 See letter May 29, 1769. 



I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus, 

 or stone-curlew, which was picked up in a 

 fallow on the naked ground : there were 

 two ; but the finder inadvertently crushed 

 one with his foot before he saw them. 



When I wrote to you last year on rep- 



