126 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomo- 
logy more than some neat plates that should well express the 
generic distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; for I am 
w^ell assured that many people would study insects, could they 
set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions than 
can be conveyed at first by words alone. 
Selborne, March 30, 1771. 
LETTEE XIJV. 
TO THOMAS FENXAXT, ESQ. 
Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I 
could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent 
birds appear by no means to be their tails ; those long feathers 
growing not from their uropijgmni, but all up their backs. A 
range of short, brown, stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed 
in the ifrojv/f/ium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to 
prop the train, which is long and top-heavy when set on end. 
When the train is up, notliing appears of the bird before but its 
head and neck ; but this would not be the case were those long 
feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey- 
cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibra- 
tion these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter 
like the swords of a sword-dancer : they then trample very quick 
with their feet, and run backwards towards the females. 
I should tell you that I have got an uncommon Calculus 
cegogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox; it is per- 
fectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange ; such 
are, I think, usually flat. 
Selborne, 1771. 
