550 NATURAL HISTORY 
Mr. Marsliam,in narrating the circumstances of its capture, 
says : — 
" My man has just now shot me a bird, which was flying about my 
house: I am confident I have never seen its likeness before. But on 
application to Willughby, I conclude it is the Wall-creeper, or Spider- 
catcher. I find he had not seen it in England.^ It is very beautifully 
coloured, though the chief is cinereous ; but the shades of red on the 
wings, and the large spots of white and yellow, on the quill feathers, are 
uncommonly pleasing. You see Willughby does not mention them." ] 
LETTER VII. 
TO ROBERT MARSHAM, ESQUIRE. 
Selborne, ISTovember 3, 1792. 
extract from the jN'atural History of Gib- 
raltar by the late Keverend John White :^ — 
" In the first year of my residence at Gib- 
raltar^ which was 1756^ it appeared extra- 
ordinary to me to see birds of the Swallow 
kind very frequent in the streets all the winter through. 
Upon enquiry I was told that they were Bank Martins : and 
having at that time been but little conversant in l^atural 
History, they passed with me as such for some years with- 
out any farther regard. At length, when I had taken a 
more attentive survey of the physical productions of this 
climate, I soon discovered these birds to be none of the 
common British species described by authors ; and I farther 
found that they were never seen in Gibraltar through the 
whole course of the summer ; but constantly and invariably 
^ Willughby's words are : — " In Anglia nostra earn invenire aiunt, 
quamvis nobis nondum fuerit conspecta" (" Ornithologia," 1676, p. 99). 
—Ed. 
2 Another extract from this unpublished MS. was communicated to 
Daines Barrington, Letter LIIL, p. 282. — Ed. 
