the viper. As to the blind worm, (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in sunder with a small blow,) I have found, on examination, that it is. perfectly innocuous. Snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as I have often experienced. Several intelligent folks assure me, that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her brood into the pouch under her belly upon the like emergencies; and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that no such thing ever happens. The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in a year, or, rather, but only just at one season of the year. Country people talk much of a water-snake, but I am pretty sure, without any reason; for the common snake (coluber natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view to procure frogs and other food.

I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve species of reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather varieties, of our lacerti, of which Ray enumerates five. I have not had opportunity of ascertaining these, but remember well to have seen, formerly, several beautiful green lacerti on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham in Surrey; and Ray admits there are such in Ireland.1

1 This is probably the lacerta agilis of Linnæus, a handsome species, much larger than the common lizard of our healthy zoolora vivipara. See "History of British Reptiles."—T. B.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XVIII.

Selborne, July 27, 1768.

I RECEIVED your obliging and communicative letter of June the 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure to sit down, to return you an answer to many queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best manner I am able.

A person, by my order, has searched our brooks but could find no such fish as the gasterosteus pungitius; he found the gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This morning, in a basket, I packed a little earthen pot full of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, some lamperns, some bull-heads; but I could procure no minnows. This basket will be in Fleet-street by eight this evening; so I hope Mazel will have them fresh and fair to-morrow morning. I gave some directions, in a letter, to what particulars the engraver should be attentive.

Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that town and procured several living specimens of LOACHES, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a glass decanter. They were taken in the gulleys that were cut for watering the meadows. From these fishes (which measured from two to four inches in length) I took the following description: "The Loach, in its general aspect, has a pellucid appearance; its back is mottled with irregular collections of small

black dots, not reaching much below the linea lateralis, as are the back and tail fins; a black line runs from each eye down to the nose; its belly is of a silvery white; the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with six feelers, three on each side; its pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller the fin behind is small; its dorsal fin large, containing eight spines; its tail, where it joins to the tail fin, remarkably broad, without any taperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus; the tail fin is broad, and square at the end. From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail, it appears to be an active nimble fish."

The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance of any gills; for want of which it is continually rising to the surface of the water to take in fresh air. It is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, within which we keep it in water, and wandering away; and people every summer see numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched up the dry banks. There are varieties of them, differing in colour; and some have fins up their tail and back, and some have not.1

1 All the newts have gills, and breathe water in their early stage of existence; these become gradually wasted as the lungs become developed. Many of them leave the water, and remain on the land from the autumn to the spring. The existence of the fin-like membrane on the back in the spring, and its disappearance in the autumn, as well as its being confined to the males, gave rise to the supposition in the text that the two conditions indicate distinct animals.-T. B.

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XIX.

Selborne, August 17, 1768.

I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of the willow-wrens, (motacilla trochili,) which constantly and invariably 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 trochilis; 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. This yellowest bird is considerably 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 grasshopper-like 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 stridula locustœ." Yet this great ornithologist never suspected that there were three species.

1 Brit. Zool. edit. 1776, octavo, p. 381.

LETTER XX.

Selborne, October 8, 1768.

IT 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 built 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 RINGOUSELS (turdi torquati).

This week twelvemonths a gentleman from London, being with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and