OF CORNWALL. 247 
light-pink yellow. The ftructure of the mufcles by which this bird 
is enabled to dart forth its tongue upon infe&s, (its proper food) 
and recover it again into its {heath, is admirable, and may be read 
at large in Ray’s Willughby, page 136: the legs are very fhort 
but ftrong, and the toes {land two forwards and two backwards, 
enabling them (fuitably to their determined courfe of life) to climb 
trees, and fix their footing firmly on boughs, to which alfo the 
ftiffnefs of their tail-feathers not a little conduce. Ray’s Creat. page 
143. The prefent Ipecimen, Plate xxiv. Fig. xv. was killed at 
Godolphin, Odober 11, 1757. 
The golden-crowned wren, Regulus crijiatus Aldrovandi , wood- 
titmoufe of Gefner, ( Ray’s Willughby, page 243. Ray’s Synopf. av. 
page 79) the leaft bird I have yet feen in Cornwall, remarkable for 
its beautiful faftron-coloured and fcarlet creft, and fmallnefs of its 
body By the fcale of the reft, Plate xxiv. Fig. xvi. 
The Pittrel (Catefby, Append, page and plate 14) or little Pe- 
teril of Edwards (page and plate 90) is fometimes met with here, 
as may be feen Plate xxix. Fig. x. in the explication of which it 
will be further taken notice of. 
Of water and fea-fowls, that we fhould have a great variety in 
Cornwall is no wonder, confidering the great extent of our ffiores. 
Here we have coots, fanderlings, (which, from the noife they make 
when flying, we call Towillees f ), fea-larks, fea-pies ; of puffins 
great abundance in their feafon, and extremely fat, but of lo fiffiy 
a tafte, that fome have lalted them to eat as fiffi s ; all forts of gulls, 
mews, tarrocks, gannets, murres, heron, bittern, lapwing, curliew, 
bernacle, fhagg (in the north called the Crane, fays Mr. Ray, Syn. 
page 123); we have alfo the didapper, to whofe inftantaneous 
plunge into the fea after its prey, Virgil fo well compares the de- 
scent of Mercury from Heaven to Carthage. 
He primum paribus nitens Cyllenius alts 
Confhtit , hinc toto preeceps fe corpore ad undas 
Mifit avi Jimilis quee circum littora y circum 
Pijcofos f copulas humilis volat cequora juxta. ffin. iv. ver. 253. 
Of mifcoloured birds, I have known a white thrufh, ( the Merula 
vulgaris , Ray’s Willughby, page 190) kept for fome time. It 
was living in the year 1724, in the pofieffion of John Bennett, 
blackfmith, of Ludgvan ; a white ruddock, or robin-red-breaft, in 
the pofieffion of the late Reverend Mr. Collins, vicar of St. Erth, 
in 1754 ; but I ffiall be more particular in noting the deviations of a 
white woodcock’s feathers : It was brought to me January 1, 1739; 
at the infer tion of the bill it had a fmall cinereous tuft of feathers 
f Not Curwillet, as in Mr. Ray’s Syn. page 109, edit. 1 Car. page 36. 
half 
