nearly 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 of the southern counties. * One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicaria, 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 Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus :-"It is a size less than the grasshopper-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 locustella, hinted at by Dr. Derham in " 'Ray's Letters." He also procured me a grasshopper-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 For this salicaria, or Sedge Warbler, see Letter XXVI. August 30, 1769. found. Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture. The late writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of those that have gone before, as I remember, stock America from the western coast of Africa and the south of Europe; and then break down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But this is making use of a violent piece of machinery it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god! "Incredulus odi." "I feel disgusted and disbelieving." THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK. -equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis VIRG. Georg. 1. 415, 416. Ingenium.* WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam, What time the May-fly † haunts the pool or stream; "I think their instinct is divinely bestowed." †The angler's May-fly, the Ephemera vulgata, Linn. comes forth from its aurelia state, and emerges from the water about six in the evening, and dies about eleven at night, determining its fly state in about five or six hours. It usually begins to appear about the 4th of June, and continues in succession for nearly a fortnight.-ED. I Vagrant cuckoo; so called because, being tied down by no incubation or attendance on the nutrition of its young, it wanders without control.-Ed. Charadrius oedicnemus. Belated, to support her infant train; While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein! SELBORNE, May 29, 1769. • Gryllus campestris. ↑ In hot suminer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, and float in the air while singing.-ED. I The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up the stalk of a blade of grass to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the male, which is a slender dusky Scarabæus.-ED. HEN I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would some time do myself the honour to write to you on the subject of natural history:* and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make allowances; especially where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the writings of others. The following is a List of the Summer Birds of Passage which I have discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear: 1. Wryneck, 2. Smallest willow-wren, 3. Swallow, : RAII NOMINA. Jynx, sive tor- Hirundo domes tica: APPEARS ABOUT The middle of March: April 13. It is to be observed that, in his correspondence with Mr. Barrington, White makes use of the specific names of Ray, while with Pennant he uses the Linnæan nomenclature.-ED. 14. Grasshopper-Alauda minima 13. Turtle-dove, lark, locustæ voce: Hirundo apus: Ortygometra: { tive note. Do. mean note; sings on till September. Ditto: more agreeable song. End of March: loud nocturnal whistle. Middle of April: a "crex, crex." bird. This is the latest summer bird of passage. This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten several genera of the Linnæan system; and are all of the ordo of passeres, save the jynx and cuculus, which are pica, and the charadrius (oedicnemus) and rallus (ortygometra) which are gralla. These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnæan genera:— · 1. 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18. 3, 4, 5, 15. Jynx: |