may be heard a mile. Oedicncmiis is a most apt 

 and expressive name for them, since their legs seem 

 swollen like those of a gouty man. After harvest I 

 have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields. 



I make no doubt but there are three species of 

 the willow-wrens ; two I know perfectly : but have 

 not been able yet to procure the third. No two 

 birds can differ more in their notes, and that con- 

 stantly, 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 con- 

 tinues 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 a hundred yards dis- 

 tance ; and when close at your ear is scarce any 

 louder than when a great way off. Had I not been 

 a little acquainted with insects, and known that the 



grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have 



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