Dear Sir,
As it had set my mind on the pleasure of yr conversation, so I was in proportion disappointed when I found that you could not come. But as yr business may be over now, I shall still live in hopes of seeing you at this beautiful season, when every hedge & field abounds with matter of entertainment for the curious. If you could come-down at the end of this week, or the beginning of next, I should be ready to partake with you in a post chaise back to town on the second of May.
The History of the Charadrius is as follows. It lays it’s eggs on the bare ground without any sort of nest in a fallow-field: so that yr country-man in stirring his fallows often plows over them. Usually it lays two eggs, seldom more than three. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, &c: & withdraw with the dam to some flinty field, where they sculk among those stone as their best security. For their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that, unless be happens to catch the eye of the young bird, the most exact observer ma be eluded, & deceived. The eggs are short & round; the ground a dirty white spotted with black. Tho’ I could not be sure to promise to procure you a bird, yet I could shew you them any day: & any evening you may hear them clamour round the village: for they raise such an out-cry that you may hear them a mile. Oedienemus is a most apt & expressive name for them: for their legs are all of a size, & seem swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnepfields. To my knowledge they will eat toads as well as Insects. For the rest see my last letter.
I make no doubt but that there are three species of the willow-wrens White here is starting to make the final steps towards identification of the three species of warbler, the Chiffchaff (a common name coined by White that is the accepted common name of the species today), the Willow Warbler, and the Wood Warbler. (See also letter 9, 17th August 1768). Two I know perfectly well: but have not been able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, & that constantly, than those two that I am so well acquainted with. For the one has a joyous easy laughing note; the other but two notes to his song, & those dissonant, harsh, & loud. The former is every way larger, & ¾ of an Inch longer than the latter; & weights two drams & an half: while the latter weights but two: so the songster is one fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper begins his two notes (chif chaf) at the end of March, & continues it thro’ the whole summer ‘til the middle of August, as appears by my Journals. The legs of the larger are flesh-coloured, of the less, black
The true Grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields on the 16th: of this month. Nothing can be more amusing than the voice of this little bird, which seems to be close by, tho’ at an 100 yards distance; & when close at yr ear is no louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, & known that the grasshopper is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a Loucusta whispering in the bushes. The country-people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is the most artful creature imaginable, sculking in the thickest part of a bush: & will sing at a yard distance provided it is concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge: & then it would run creeping between us for an 100 yards together like a mouse thro’ the thickest part of a thorn-hedge; but would never come into fair sight, or on the upmost twigs: but would fall to chirping between us when well concealed. It is somewhat darker than an hedge-sparrow, & rather larger. I call it the true grasshopper-lark because Mr Ray (or rather Mr Johnson who sent him the account) most certainly confounds the locustella with what you call the willow-lark, describing sometimes the one & sometimes the other. For the grasshopper-lark sings concealed in the bottom of a bush like the nightingale: the other on the tops of high trees: the former is much larger than the latter, & much darker: & the note of the former is much more like the note of the grassshopper (incomparably like!) than that of the latter. The latter has not appeared yet: but I know it well. It haunts the tops of high beechen-woods, gaping when it sings, & shivering with it’s wings. Mr Ray does not seem to know any thig of the grassshopper lark; but only of the latter from Mr Johnson’s letter, which is a confused account of both. He is mistaken when he says of his Regulus non cristatus, that_ “cantat voce stidula locustæ:translation: he sings with the voice of a locust(grasshopper) for he there confounds the willow wren with the willow lark.
The Stoparola has not yet appeared: it always breeds in my vine. The redstart has begun to sing, but has a poor imperfect note. It sings on from this tie ‘til the middle of August. It is much the most common of the summer tribe: they build in hollow trees, & some times in holes of walls, laying a blue egg like the Curruca.
The reguli non cristari are horrid pests in a garden destroying the pease, cherries, & currants;& are so tame that a gun will note scare’em.
The summer birds of passage round this village are as follow.
Cuckow, Cuculus canorus:
House-swallow, Hirunda rustica:
Martin, Hir: urbica:
Sand martin, Hir: riparia:
Swift,Hir: apus:
Goatsucker, Caprimulgus Europ:
Nightingale, Motacilla luscinia:
Red-start, Mot: phænicurus:
Blackcap, Mot: atricupilla: suaviter cantat.
Fly-catcher, Muscicapa grisola:
Willow wren, _ _ cantat.
Second, Motacilla trochilus:
Third,?
Wryneck,? Lynx torquilla:
Grasshopper lark, Alauda trivialis:
Willow lark _ _ _ _ _ _
White throat, Sylvia.
My country men talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with it’s bill against a dead bough or some old pales, calling it a Jar-bird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact, & it proved to be the Sitta Europæa. Mr Ray says that the less spotted wood--pecker does the same feat. This jarring noise may be heard some furlongs.
Now is the only time to ascertain the summer birds: for when the leaf is out there is no making any just remarks upon such a restless tribe: but when once the young begin to appear, it is all confusion; all distinction of Genus, species, or sex is jumbled at once. Pray what parts of G: Britain does the Strix passerina inhabit? The snipe will soon whistle & hum: I take this bird to be ventriloquos at this season, as the turkey is when he struts. This morning I saw the g:crowned-wren in my fields: his note is as minute as his person. He often hangs with his back downward.
I look back not without confusion at the length of my letter: & am, with great esteem,
Yr: obedient Servant,
Gil: White.