xxr/.] 
77 
description of tliat species which you shot at Eevesby, in Lin- 
colnshire. My "bird I describe tlius : — " 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 milkwhite stroke ; the chin and throat are 
w^hite, and the under parts of a yellowish white : the rump is 
tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill is 
dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long 
and crooked." The person that shot it says that it sung so like 
OLD WKLL, ELLia'S FAKM. 
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 locusUlla, hinted at by Dr. Derharn 
in " Eay's Letters." 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 me with wonder. If one looks 
into the writers on that subject little satisfaction is to be found. 
