NATUHAL HISTORY OE SELBOllNE. 
101 
you kept {Passer torquatus Raii) abides all the year, and is a thick- 
billed bird.* I question whether the letter be much of a songster; 
but in this matter I want to be 
better informed. The former has 
a variety of hurrying notes, and 
sings all night. Some part of the 
song of the former, I suspect, is 
attributed to the latter. We have 
plenty of the soft-billed sort ; 
which Mr. Pennant had entirely 
left out of his "British Zoology, 
till I reminded him of his omission. 
See "British Zoology" last pub- 
lished, p. 16.t 
I have somewhat to advance on 
the different manners in which 
different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a subject that I have not 
enough considered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a 
small space, 1 shall say nothing further about it at present. J 
No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so 
difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, " because they are not to 
pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring." 
As colours seem to be the chief external sexual distinction in many 
birds, these colours do not take place till sexual attachments begin to 
obtain. And the case is the same in quadrupeds ; among whom, in 
their younger days, the sexes differ but little : but, as they advance to 
maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards and brawny necks, &c. &c., 
strongly discriminate the male from the female. We may instance still 
farther in our own species, where a beard and stronger features are 
usually characteristic of the male sex : but this sexual diversity does 
not take place in earlier life ; for a beautiful youth shall be so like a 
beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible ; 
Queni si puellamm insereres clioro, 
Mirb sagaces falleret hospites 
DisGrimen obscurum, solutis 
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu. " 
HoR. Odes. II. od. 5 — 21, p. 131, orig. edit.f 
REED-BUNTING. 
* Erriberiza schoeniclus, reed-bunting of British ornithologists, 
t See Letter XXV. to Mr. Pennant. X See Letter XLII. to Mr. Barrington. 
§ " Nor the Cnidian fair and young, 
Who the virgin quire among, 
Might deceive, in female guise, 
Stranger-guests, though wondrous wise ; 
With the difference between 
Sexes hardly to be seen, 
With his hair of flowing grace 
And his boyish, girlish face." — Kev. Phil, Francis. 
There are somewhat similar passages in various Latin authors, viz., 
* ' Beneath whose virgin locks, while flowing tears 
Bedew his cheek, a doubtful face appears."— J uven. 
