62 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
vivid, and the belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the 
three sorts now lying before me, and can discern that there are 
three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and 
the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is con- 
siderably the largest, and has its quill feathers and secondary 
feathers tipped with white, which the others have not. This 
last haunts only the tops of trees in high beechen woods, 
and makes a sibilous grasshopper- like noise, now and then, at 
short intervals, shivering a little with its wings when it sings ; 
and is, I make no doubt now, the Regulus non cristatus of Kay ; 
which he says ''cantat voce stridula locusta3." Yet this great 
ornithologist never suspected that there were three species. 
Selborne, A ufj. 17, 1768. 
LETTEE XX. 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, EHQ. 
It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is so full, 
that that district produces the greatest variety which is the 
most examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the 
north only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have discovered 
this summer three species of birds with us, which writers men- 
tion as only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that was 
brought me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper {Tringa liyjjo- 
hncus) : it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds 
near the village ; and as it had a companion, doubtless intended 
to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has told me 
