SELBORNE, _April 18th_, 1768.
Dear Sir,--The history of the stone-curlew, _Charadrius oedicnemus_, 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from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty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 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. _OEdicnemus_ 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 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 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 flesh-coloured; 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 "Philos. Letters," p. 108.
The fly-catcher (_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 peas,
cherries, currants, etc.; and are so tame that a gun will not scare them.
A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD,
RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR.
LINNAEI NOMINA.
Smallest willow-wren _Motacilla trochilus_
Wryneck _Jynx torquilla_
House-swallow _Hirundo rustica_
Martin _Hirundo urbica_
Sand-martin _Hirundo riparia_
Cuckoo _Cuculus canorus_
Nightingale _Motacilla luscinia_
Blackcap _Motacilla atricapilla_
Whitethroat _Motacilla sylvia_
Middle willow-wren _Motacilla trochilus_
Swift _Hirundo apus_
Stone-curlew? _Charadrius oedicnemus_?
Turtle-dove? _Turtur aldrovandi_?
Grasshopper-lark _Alauda trivialis_
Landrail _Rallus crex_
Largest willow-wren _Motacilla trochilus_
Redstart _Motacilla phoenicurus_
Goat-sucker, or fern-owl _Caprimulgus europus_
Fly-catcher _Muscicapa grisola_
My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with its 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
europoea_ (the nuthatch). Mr. Ray says that the less spotted woodpecker
does the same. This noise may be heard a furlong or more.
Now is the only time to ascertain the short-winged summer birds; for,
when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks on such a restless
tribe; and when once the young begin to appear it is all confusion: there
is no distinction of genus, species, or sex.
In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and humming; they
always hum as they are descending. Is not their hum ventriloquous like
that of the turkey? Some suspect it is made by their wings.
This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose crown glitters like
burnished gold. It often hangs like a titmouse, with its back downwards.
Yours, etc., etc.