66 I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria and mine, with a white stroke over its eye, and a tawny rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and have procured several specimens; and am perfectly persuaded myself (and trust you will soon be convinced of the same) that it is neither more nor less than the passer arundinaceus minor of Ray. This bird, by some means or other, seems to be entirely omitted in the British Zoology;" and one reason probably was, because it is so strangely classed in Ray, who ranges it among his pici affines. It ought no doubt to have gone among his small birds with the tail of one-colour (aviculæ caudá unicolore), and among your slender-billed birds of the same division. Linnæus might with great propriety have put it into his genus of motacilla, and the motacilla salicaria of his fauna suecica seems to come the nearest to it. It is no uncommon bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors. The country people in some places call it the sedge-bird.* It sings incessantly night and day during the breeding time, imitating the note of a sparrow, a swallow, a skylark; and has a strange hurrying manner in its song. My specimens correspond most minutely to the description of your fen-salicaria shot near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent characteristic of it when * Salicaria phragmites, Selby, and Sylvia salicaria of Latham, here described, abounds in the midland counties, in moist hedge-rows, especially those choked up with reeds, hippuris, or horse-tails, and rushes. It reaches its summer quarters in April, and leaves in September. At first it is shy, and keeps close to the aquatic herbage which it affects. This shyness continues till May, when pairing takes place, and he becomes quite vociferous, a thorough mocking-bird, as described in the text.-ED. he says,-"Rostrum et pedes in hac avicula multò majores sunt quam pro corporis ratione." "The beak and feet of this little bird are much too large for its body." I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus, or stonecurlew, which was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground: there were two; but the finder inadvertently crushed one with his foot before he saw them. When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking to defend themselves, se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any animal while in good humour and unalarmed; but as soon as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable. Thus the skunck, or stonck, of Ray's Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, than which nothing can be more horrible. A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the lanius minor cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba, Rai; which is a bird that, at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of British Zoology, I find you had not seen. You have described it well from Edwards's drawing. SELBORNE, Aug. 30, 1769. HEN I did myself the honour to write to you about the end of last June on the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of the summer-birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood; and also a list of the winter-birds of passage: I mentioned besides those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night. According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after Midsummer; and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring advances. 3. Wren, 4. Redbreast, 5. Hedge-sparrow, 6. Yellowhammer, 7. Skylark, 8. Swallow, RAII NOMINA. Passer troglo- Curruca: Emberiza Alauda vulga- Alauda prato rum: 9. Black-cap, 10. Titlark, 11. Blackbird, Merula vulga- 12. White-throat, 13. Goldfinch, 14. Greenfinch, 115 Beginning of April to ( From middle of April Ficedula af- In April, and on to finis: Carduelis: Chloris: July the 23rd. April, and through to Breeds and whistles assumes when they begin to congregate in October, and again early before the separate. flocks Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before Midsummer : 17. Middle willow- Regulus non wren, 18. Redstart, cristatus: Ruticilla: Middle of June: be- in the spring: Beginning of June, sings first in Feb ruary. Middle of June: sings first in April. Birds that sing for a short time, and very early 21. Missel-bird, {Turdus visci 22. Great titmouse, Fringillago: or ox-eye, January the 2nd, 1770, in February. Is called in Hampshire and Sussex the storm-cock, because its song is supposed to forbode windy wet weather: is the largest singing bird we have. In February, March, April: reassumes for a short time in September. Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be called singing 23. Golden-crowned ( Regulus crista wren, 24. Marsh-tit mouse, tus: Parus palus- 25. Small willow- Regulus non wren, cristatus: 26. Largest ditto, Ditto: 27. Grasshopper lark, birds :— Its note as minute as its person; frequents the tops of high oaks and firs: the smallest British bird. Haunts great woods: two harsh sharp notes. Sings in March, and on to September. "Cantat voce stridulâ locustæ;" from end of April to August. Alauda minima Chirps all night, from |