LETTER XIX. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of the willow-wrens (motacilla trochili) which constantly and in variably use distinct notes; but, at the same time, I am obliged to confess that I know nothing of your willow-lark.* In my letter of April the 18th, I had told you peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then: but, when I came to procure it, it proved, in all respects, a very motacilla trochilus; † only that it is a size larger than the two other, and the yellow-green of the whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the three sorts now lying before me; and can discern that there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two fleshcoloured ones. The yellowest bird is considerably * Brit. Zool. edit. 1776, octavo, p. 381. Sylvia loquax, black legs; Sylvia trochilus, yellowish belly; Sylvia sibilatrix, white belly. the largest, and has its quill-feathers and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others have not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in high beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopperlike noise, now and then, at short intervals shivering a little with its wings when it sings; and is, I make no doubt now, the regulus non cristatus of Ray; which he says "cantat voce stridulâ locustæ." Yet this great ornithologist never suspected that there were three species. SELBORNE, Aug. 17, 1763. G LETTER XX. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. T is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany: all nature is so full, that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have discovered this summer three species of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that was brought me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper (tringa hypoleucus): it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds near the village; and, as it had a companion, doubtless intended to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has told me since, that, on recollection, he has seen some of the same birds round his ponds in former summers. The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a male red-backed butcher bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who shot it, says that it might easily have escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chattering of the white-throats and other small birds drawn his attention to the bush where it was: * its craw was filled with the legs and wings of beetles. The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) were some ring-ousels, turdus torquatus. This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and found, he told us, on an old yew hedge where there were berries, some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks: a neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed the same; but, as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November the 4th, 1767. Last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty of these birds, shot two cocks and two hens: and says, on recollection, that he remembers to have observed these birds last spring, about Lady-day, as it were, on their return to the north. If these birds should prove the ousels of the north of Eng It is no unusual occurrence for the lurking-place of the Flusher to be betrayed by his noisy foes. The enemy combine their forces, and beset him when he comes too near their ground, and a pretty scolding noise they make. To find him, repair to some extensive woodland, or leafy dell, about the middle of May: "In days when daisies deck the ground, And blackbirds whistle clear;' ere the oak and ash have unfolded their leaves:-when the hawthorn is just putting forth its pink florets, there will he with his sparrow-like note, be found. Mark his flight, for he has fixed on his prey. In action, a miniature falcon, his flight is undulating, his tail straight out, the feathers held close together. Having seized his prey (a cockchafer), he bears it to a solitary hawthorn bush, and impales it on a thorn-a curious habit, which belongs to all the butcherbirds.-ED. land, then here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom never before remarked. It does not yet appear whether they retire beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is most probable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that they would have continued so long unnoticed in the southern counties. The ousel is larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there were no haws) it fed on yew-berries, in the spring it feeds on ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.* I must not omit to tell you (as you have been lately on the study of reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw up with a bucket of water from my well, which is 63 feet deep, a large black warty lizard,† with a fin-tail and yellow belly. How they first came down at that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without help, is more than I am able to say. My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. Hunt may find reason to give his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation. As yet I have not quite done with my history of the oedicnemus, or stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near whose house these birds *The Ring Ousel, or rather Ring Thrush, is a summer visitant in Scotland, arriving in April, and departing again in the beginning of October.-ED. ↑ Triton palustris, or water-newt.-ED. |