loured ones. The 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 locustae_." Yet this great ornithologist
never suspected that there were three species.

LETTER XX.

SELBORNE, _October 8th_, 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 May) was the
sand-piper, _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 bred 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 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 whitethroats 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
ring-ousels, _turdi torquati_.

This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being with us, was
amusing himself with a gun, and found, he told us, on an old yew hedge
where there were berries, some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white
round their necks: a neighbouring farmer also at the same time observed
the same; but, as no specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I
mentioned this circumstance to you in my letter of November 4th, 1767
(you, however, paid but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen
these birds myself); but last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large
flock, twenty or thirty of these birds, shot two