60 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
yew-berries, and in the spring on ivy-berries. I dressed one 
of these birds, and found it juicy and well flavored. It is re- 
markable that they make but a few days’ stay in their spring 
visit, but rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas. ‘These birds, 
from the observations of three springs and two autumns, are 
most punctual in their return; and exhibit a new migration 
unnoticed by the writers, who supposed they never were to be 
seen in any southern countries. 
One of my neighbors lately brought me a new Sa/caria, 
which at first I suspected might have proved your willow-lark, 
but on a nicer examination it answered much better to the 
description of that species which you shot at Revesby, in Lin- 
colnshire. My bird I describe thus: “It is a size less than the 
erasshopper-lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings of 
a dusky brown, without those dark spots of the grasshopper- 
lark; over each eye is a milk-white stroke; the chin and throat 
are white, and the under parts of a yellowish white; the rump | 
is tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp pointed; the bill 
is dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky; the hinder claw 
long and crooked.” ‘The person that shot it says that it sung 
so like a reed-sparrow that he took it for one; and that it 
sings all night : but this account merits farther inquiry. For 
my part, I suspect it is a second sort of Locustel/a, hinted at by 
Dr. Derham in Ray’s Letters. He also procured me a grass- 
hopper-lark. 
The question that you put with regard to those genera of 
animals that are peculiar to America, viz., how they came 
there, and whence? is too puzzling for me to answer ; and yet — 
so obvious as often to have struck me with wonder. If one 
looks into the writers on that subject, little satisfaction is to be 
found. Ingenious men will readily advance plausible argu- 
ments to support whatever theory they shall choose to main- 
tain; but then the misfortune is, every one’s hypothesis is each 
as good as another’s, since they are all founded on conjecture. 
