OFSELBORNE. 47 
My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with 
it's bill againft a dead bough, or fome old pales, calling it a jar- 
bird. I procured one to be Ihot in the very fad ; it proved to 
be the Jitta europaa {the nuthatch.) Mr. Ray fays that the lefs 
fpotted woodpecker does the fame. This noife may be heard a 
furlong or more. 
Now is the only time to afcertain the fliort-winged fummer 
birds ; for, when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks on 
fuch a reftlefs tribe ; and, when once the young begin to appear, it 
is all confufion : there is no diftinction of genus, fpecies, or fex. 
In breeding-time fnipes play over the moors, piping and hum- 
ming : they always hum as they are defcending. Is not their hum 
ventriloquous like that of the turkey ? Some fufped it is made by 
their wings. 
This morning I faw the golden-crowned wren, whofe crown 
glitters like burnilhed gold. It often hangs like a titmoufe, with, 
it's back downwards. 
Yours, he. he. 
LETTER XVIL 
TO THE SAME, 
DEAR SlRj Selborne, June 18, 1768. 
O N JVednefday laft arrived your agreeable letter of Jime the loth. 
It gives me great fatisfadion to find that you purfue thefe ftvidies 
ftill with fuch vigour, and are in fuch forvvardnefs with regard to 
reptiles and fifhes. 
The 
