66 
NATURAL HISTORY 
bird_, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round ; of a 
dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I 
might not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a 
bird, yet I could show you them almost any day ; and any 
evening you may hear them round the village, for they 
make a clamour which may be heard a mile. GEdicnemus 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 
^ It is only the young of the year which have the upper part of the 
tarsus so much swollen. The same thing is observable, but less 
markedly, in the young of most other agallatorial birds. — Ed. 
Gilbert White clearly distinguishes three species of these little 
birds ; and he seems to have had some idea of a fourth ; but on this 
point there is a confusion in the entries in the ^Naturalist's Calendar, 
which has perhaps arisen from his having used different names for the 
same bird in noting down his observations in different years. Five 
different names are employed in the Calendar to designate some species 
of willow wren. The first named, i.e. the " small uncrested willow 
wren," appearing on the 19th of March, and called in the text " the 
chirper," is said to have black legs; this is the Chiff-chaff, Ph.rvfa. 
The second appearing on April 11, as the " middle yellow wren," the 
third on April 14, as the " second willow or laughing wren," and the fifth 
on April 17, as the " middle willow wren," must all be referred to one and 
QUILL FEATHERS OF THE WOOD WREN. 
the same species, namely the Willow wren par excellence Ph. trochilus 
of modern naturalists. The fourth, entered under date April 17, 
as the " large shivering wUlow wren," must be the Wood wren Ph. 
sihilatrix. 
The three British species of willow wrens may be thus distinguished. 
The Wood wren {Ph. sihilatrix) is the largest of the three, measuring in 
length about 5*2 inches, in win^- iv>ohes, and tarsus 0*7 inches. It h;.**. 
