also somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in the structure of its feet.

For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these birds in Andalusia, and now he writes me word that, for the first time, he saw one dead in the market on the 3d of September.

When the ædicnemus flies, it stretches out its legs straight behind like a heron.

LETTER XXXIV.

Selborne, March 30, 1771.

DEAR SIR, THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of women and children, and raising tumours, which itch intolerably. This animal (which we call a harvest-bug) is very minute, scarce descernible to the naked eye, of a bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of acarus. They are to be met with in gardens on kidney. beans or any legumens, but prevail only in the hot months of summer. Warreners, as some have assured me, are much infested by them on chalky downs, where these insects swarm sometimes to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets and give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into fevers.

There is a small, long, shining fly in these parts, very troublesome to the housewife by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the bacon while it is drying. The eggs produce maggots,

called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone and make great waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the musca putris of Linnæus. It is to be seen in the summer in farm kitchens, on the baconracks, and about the mantelpieces, and on the ceil ings.

The insect that infests turnips, and many crops in the garden (destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves), is an animal that wants to be better known. The country people here call it the turnip-fly and black dolphin; but I know it to be one of the coleoptera, the "chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, femoribus posticis crassissimis." In very hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and, as you walk in the field or in a garden, make a pattering like rain by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or cabbages.

There is an oestrus known in these parts to every ploughboy, which, because it is omitted by Linnæus, is also passed over by late writers; and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in his Physico-Theology, p. 250: an insect worthy of remark, for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this œstrus is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions afterward, for more modern entomologists have discovered that singular produc. tion to be derived from the egg of the musca chamaleon.-See Geoffroy, t. 17, f. 4.

A full history of noxious insects, hurtful in the field, garden, and house, suggesting all the known

and likely means of destroying them, would be al lowed by the public to be a most useful and impor. tant work. What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected; great improvements would soon follow, of course. A knowl. edge of the properties, economy, and, in short, of the life and conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing their depredations.

As far as I am a judge, nothing would recom mend entomology more than some neat plates, that should well express the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnæus; for I am well assured that many people would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those dis. tinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.

LETTER XXXV.

Selborne, 1771.

DEAR SIR, HAPPENING to make a visit to my neighbour's PEACOCKS, I could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails, those long feathers grow. ing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy when set on end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the case

were these long feathers fixed only in the back, as

may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong, muscular vibration, these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run backward.

LETTER XXXVI.

Selborne, 1771.

DEAR SIR, THE summer through I have seen but two of that large species of bat which I call vespertilio altivolans, from its manner of feeding high in the air.

In the extent of their wings they measured four.

teen inches and a half, and four inches and a half from the nose to the tip of the tail: their heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular, and their whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could be more sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut col. our; their maws were full of food, but so macerated that the quality could not be distinguished; their livers, kidneys, and hearts were large, and their bowels covered with fat. They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm. Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar structure that I did not understand perfectly, but refer it to the observation of the curious anato. mist. These creatures send forth a very rancid and offensive smell.

LETTER XXXVII.

Selborne, 1771. DEAR SIR,-ON the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with scarabai solstitiales, or fern.chafers.* The powers of its wing were

* We find the following additional information regarding the goat-sucker in Mr. White's Miscellaneous Observations: "A fern-owl this evening (August 27) showed off, in a very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking round the circumference of my great spreading oak for twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the grass, but occasionally glancing up among the boughs of the tree. This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some particular phalana belonging to the oak, and exhibited on the occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to the swallow itself.