I wonder that the stone curlew (Charadrius ædicnemus1), should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird; it abounds in all the campaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be classed, as they are by Mr. Ray, among birds "circa aquas versantes ;" for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheepwalks, far removed from water; what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads and frogs.*

2

I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnæus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus.

LETTER XVI.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

SELBORNE, April 18, 1768.

HE history of the stone curlew (Charadrius ædicnemus) is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, &c. and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young

1 Edicnemus crepitans, TEMM.

2 The stomachs of several stone curlews which we have examined at different times, were filled chiefly with the remains of beetles, but in one we found the remains of a long-tailed field mouse.-ED.

bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I might not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show you them almost any day; and any evening you may hear them round the village, for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile. Edicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem swollen like those of a gouty man.' After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields.

I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow wrens; two I know perfectly; but have not been able yet. to procure the third." No two birds can differ more in their

1 It is only the young of the year which have the upper part of the tarsus so much swollen. The same thing is observable, but less markedly, in the young of most other agallatorial birds.-ED.

2 Gilbert White clearly distinguishes three species of these little birds; and he seems to have had some idea of a fourth; but on this point there is a confusion in the entries in the Naturalist's Calendar, which has perhaps arisen from his having used different names for the same bird in noting down his observations in different years. Five different names are employed in the Calendar to designate some species of willow wren. The first named, i.e. the "small uncrested willow wren," appearing on the 19th of March, and called in the text the chirper," is said to have black legs; this is the Chiff-chaff, Ph. rufa. The second appearing on April 11, as the "middle yellow wren," the third on April 14, as the "second willow or laughing wren," and the fifth on April 17, as the "middle willow wren," must all be referred to one and

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the same species, namely the Willow wren par excellence Ph. trochilus of modern naturalists. The fourth, entered under date April 17, as the "large shivering willow wren," must be the Wood wren Ph. sibilatrix.

The three British species of willow wrens may be thus distinguished. The Wood wren (Ph. sibilatrix) is the largest of the three, measuring in length about 5.2 inches, in wing 3 inches, and tarsus 0.7 inches. It has

notes, and that constantly, than those two that I am acquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy laughing note; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs but two; so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the

comparatively the longest wings, the latter when closed covering threefourths of the tail, and the longest legs. In the wing the second primary is nearly equal in length to the fourth as shown in the cut opposite, while the third and fourth have their outer webs sloped off towards the extremity (this peculiarity seems to have been inadvertently overlooked by the artist). In colour it is much greener above, and of a purer white beneath than either of its congeners. The legs are flesh-coloured. The Willow wren (Ph. trochilus) measures in length as nearly as possible 5 inches, wing 26 and tarsus 07. The wing is thus comparatively shorter, the second primary being equal to the sixth, and the third, fourth and fifth with their outer webs sloped off towards the extremity.

QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE WILLOW WREN.

In colour it is the yellowest of the three species, and this is particularly observable in young birds in the plumage of their first autumn. The legs are flesh-coloured.

The Chiff-chaff (Ph. rufa) is the smallest of the three, measuring in length about 47 inches, wing 2:4, and tarsus 06. The wing is re

QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE CHIFF-CHAFF.

markably short, the second primary being about equal to or no longer than the seventh, and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth have their outer webs sloped off towards the extremity.

In regard to colour, greenish brown is the prevailing tint above, white tinged with yellow beneath. The legs are hair brown.-ED.

wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in the middle of March, and continues them through the spring and summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these two are fleshcoloured; of the less, black.

The grasshopper-lark' began his sibilous note in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by, though at a hundred yards distance; and when close at your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a Locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, skulking in the thickest part of a bush; and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted; and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it would not come into fair sight; but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings. Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of this bird, but received his account from Mr. Johnson, who apparently confounds it with the Reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. See Ray's Philosophical Letters, p. 108.

The flycatcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared; it usually breeds in my vine.

The redstart begins to sing; its note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about the middle of June.

The willow wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries, currants, &c.;3 and are so tame that a gun will not scare them.

1 The grasshopper-warbler, Salicaria locustella (Latham).

2 The willow wrens.

3 This sentence has possibly led to the destruction of many of these little birds, which are in truth peculiarly the gardener's friends

A List of the Summer Birds of Passage discovered in this Neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the Order in which they appear:

The Rev. W. Herbert observed that his gardeners were in the habit of catching the hens on their nests in the strawberry beds, and killing them, under the impression that they made great havoc among the cherries; yet he affirmed that they never tasted the fruit, nor could those which were reared from the nest in confinement be induced to touch it. They merely peck off the Aphides which are injurious to the fruit trees.

The birds which were mistaken for them are the young of the garden warbler (Sylvia hortensis), with which species apparently White was not acquainted, as it is not mentioned by him, nor does it appear in his list of summer birds. The young of this species have a strong tinge of yellow on the sides, which disappears after the moult, and gives them very much the appearance of the willow wren when seen upon the tree, though they are larger and stouter, and in habits more nearly resemble the blackcaps, with whom they are associated in the plunder of fruit.

Mr. Herbert remarks—“ I could not persuade my gardener that the yellow wrens did not eat the cherries, till he had shot some of the pettychaps (garden-warbler) in the act of eating them, and compared them with the wrens, when he became satisfied of the error. In order to ascertain, beyond doubt, whether the yellow wrens ever eat fruit, I left some which had been reared tame from the nest, and of course were more likely to feed upon any new thing than the wild birds, without victuals, till they were very hungry, and I then offered them little bits of ripe cherry. They seized them with avidity, but immediately threw them down again, and it was evident that they would rather have starved than eat the fruit. I had no doubt of the fact, but I wished to set the question completely at rest; for I have seen them pulling the leaves of the cherry-trees so near the fruit, that any person might be deceived, and think they were eating it, and the young of the pettychaps (garden-warbler) look so like them, that I am not in the least surprised at their having got into bad repute with the gardeners.”—ED.

1 White seems to have applied the Latin name Motacilla trochilus to three different birds in this list, probably because he was unable to identify them with the Latin names respectively bestowed on them by older authors. He therefore employed the expression Motacilla trochilus as he would say 66 a kind of willow wren."-ED.