OFSELBORNE. 45 
The former is every way larger, and three quarters of an inch 
longrer, and weighs two drams and an half ; while the latter 
weighs but two : fo the fongfter is one fifth heavier than the 
chirper. The chirper (being the firft fummer-bird of palTage that 
is heard, the wryneck fometimes excepted) begins his two notes 
in the middle of Marcb^ and continues them through the fpring 
and fummer till the end of Auguji, as appears by my journals. 
The legs of the larger of thefe two are flefli-colourcd ; of the 
lefs, black. 
The graf shopper-lark began his fibilous note in my fields laft 
Saturday. Nothing can be more amufing than the whifper of this 
little bird, which feems to be clofe by though at an hundred 
yards diftance ; and, when clofe at your ear, is fcarce any louder 
than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted 
with infedts, and known that the grafshopper kind is not yet 
hatched, 1 fliould have hardly believed b\it that it had been a 
hcii.jla whifpering in the bufhes. Tlie country people laugh 
when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a mofl art- 
ful creature, fculking in the thickeft part of a bulh ; and will fing 
at a yard diftance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get 
a perfon to go on the other fide of the hedge where it haunted ; 
and then it would run, creeping like a moufe, before us for an 
hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it 
would not come into fair fight : but in a morning early, and when 
undifturbed, it fings on the top of a twig, gaping and fiiivering 
with it's wings. Mr. Ray himfelf had no knowledge of this bird, 
but received his account from Mr. Johnfon, who- apparently con- 
founds it with the regidi non crijlall, from which it is very diflind. 
See R(jys rkilof. Letters, p. 108. 
The 
