OF SELBORNE. 
277 
LETTER. LVn. 
TO THE SAME. 
A RARE, and I diink a new, little bird frequents my garden, 
which I have great reafon to think is the peltichaps: it is common 
in fome parts of the kingdom ; and I have received formerly 
feveral dead fpecimens from Gibraltar. This bird much rcfembles 
the white-throat, but has a more white or rather filvcry breaft and 
belly; is reftlefs and adive, \\kt xhe zv'illow-ucrens, and hops from 
bough to bough, examining every part for food ; it alfo runs up 
theftems of the cro:vii-i>fiperials, and, putting it's head into the bells 
of thofe flowers, fips the liquor which fliands in the neBarium of 
each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like the hedge- 
fparrow, by hopping about on the grafs-plots and mown walks. 
One of my neighbours, an intelligent and obferving man, in- 
forms me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes 
before eight o'clock in the evening, he difcovered a great clufter 
of houfe-fivallozvs, thirty at leaft he fuppofes, perching on a willow 
that hung over the verge of James Knight's upper- pond. His 
attention was firft drawn by the twittering of thefe birds, which 
fat motionlefs in a row on the bough, with their heads all one 
way, and, by their weight, preffing down the twig fo that it nearly 
touched the water. In this htuation he watched them till he could 
fee no longer. Repeated accounts of this fort, fpring and fall, 
induce us greatly to fufped that honfe-fivallows have fome ftrong 
attachment 
