64 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER XX. To T. PENNANT, Esq. 
Selborne, October 8, 1768. 
It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is so full, 
that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most 
examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the north 
only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have discovered this 
summer three species of birds with us, which writers mention as 
only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that was 
brought me (on the 14th of May,) was the sandpiper, tringa 
six or eight in number, rather large for the size of the bird, semi-translucent white, thickly dotted 
all over with dark reddish brown spots, which are sometimes confluent, and are generally thickest 
at the large end ; they can never be confounded with those of the others. The young differ but 
very little from their parents, and acquire their fixed colours before leaving us in the autumn, 
not, as in the two other species, becoming of a uniform yellow on the under parts after moulting. 
I suspect they never breed but once in the season. 
The warbling pettychaps (S. melodia)y "yellow," or " willow- wren of authors, is by far the 
most abundant of the genus, haunting alike every situation : the fields and the woods, gardens 
and the road-side, and the brambles and furze upon open and extensive commons. It is a trifle 
smaller than the last species, and of a darker and more dingy colour, inclining to olive brown ; 
the eye-streak, though tolerably well defined, .is smaller, 
and not so bright, and the under tail-coverts are tinged 
with yellow, those of the sibilous pettychaps being of 
the purest snow white ; its legs and feet are of a yellow 
brown, forming the most obvious distinctive character 
between it and the chiffchaff pettychaps, in which latter 
these are of a brownish black ; its wings are shorter than 
in the former species, and longer than in the latter; and 
it is more a bush bird than either, less confined to the 
vicinity of trees, but where there are trees is as com- 
monly found upon them. It is eminently distinguished 
from the others by its charming and truly melodious i i- 
^ , ^ . , f Warbling Pettychaps. 
song, which, however, consists but of a simple run of 
notes, uttered in a descending scale, yet is extremely sweet and musical, and at times very pleas 
ingly varied, contributing in no small degree to the cheerfulness of our vernal concert. I think 
nothing can be more delightful than to listen to these little vocalists, upon a fine sunny morning 
ill April, when, just after their arrival in the country, thousands of them are everywhere singing 
upon the furzes; and " a joyous, easy, laughing note" they have, as is well expressed by Mr. 
White: callous and saturnine must he be who is not'enlivened by it. At the season of incubation, 
or rather after the exclusion of the young, this species also has a soft and plaintive cry (resembling 
hui, or rather heu-ee), when the nest is approached, and so clamorously is this repeated, and at 
such a distance from the object of their care, that this monotonous plaint is not unfrequently the 
only sound to be heard, as we traverse the woods upon a sultry day in summer. The young at 
first closely resemble their parents ; but, after moulting, have the eye-streak and whole under 
parts of a much brighter and uniform yellow, which fades gradually into the mature hue. The 
same also takes place in the next species, the adults of both being known in Surrey by the term 
** grass-wren," and the moulted young ones by the name " golden-wren," which latter appellation 
8 not (as some have said) applied to the golden-crowned regulus.— The warbling pettychaps moults 
very early, having often completed its change of feathers by the end of July, at which time it 
partially resumes its song ; only partially, for it sings but occasionally, and rather weakly, in 
autumn. The eggs vary more than those of the othpr species, but are in general easily enough 
