L E T T E R X V I.
TO TH E S A M E .
D E A R S IR ) Sel bor n e , April 18, j;6 8 .
T he hiftory of the ftone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus, is as follows.
It lays it’s eggs, ufually two, never more than three, on the bare
ground, without any neft, in the field; fo that the countryman, in
ftirring his fallows, often deftroys them. The young run immediately
from the egg like partridges,. &c. and are withdrawn to
fome flinty field by the dam, where they fculk among the ftones,
which are their belt fe cu r ity fo r their feathers are fo exaftly of
the colour of our grey fpotted flints, that the moft exadt obferver,
unlefs he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The
eggs are fhort and round; of a dirty white, fpotted with dark
bloody blotches. Though I might not be able, juft when I
pleafed, to procure you a bird, yet I could fhew you them almoft
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 moft apt and expreflive name for them, fince their legs feem
fwoln like thofe of a gouty man. After harveft I have fhot them
before the pointers in turnip-fields.
I make no doubt but there are three fpecies of the wiUow-wrenst
two I know perfedtlybut have not been able yet to procure, the
third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that con-
ftantly, than thofe two that I am acquainted with ; for the one
has a joyous, eafy, laughing note j the other a harlh loud chirp. The
The former is every way larger, and three quarters of an inch
longer, and weighs two drams and an half; while the latter
weighs but two: fo the fongfter is one fifth heavier than the
chirper. The chirper (being the firft fummer-bird of paffage that
is heard, the wryneck fometimes excepted) begins his two notes
in the middle of March, and continues them- through the fpring
and fummer till' the- end of Auguft, as appears by my journals.
The legs of the larger of thefe two are flefti-cofoured; of the
lefs, black.
The grafshopper-lark began his fibilous note in my fields laft
Saturday. Nothing can be more amufing than the whifper of this-
little bird, which feems. to be clofe by though at an hundred
yards diftance; and, when, clofe at your ear, is fcarce any.' louder
than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted
with infedts, and known that the grafshopper kind is not yet
hatched, 1 fhould have hardly believed but that it had been a
locujla whifpering in the bufhes. The country people laugh-
when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a moft artful
creature, fculking in the thickeft part of a bufh; and will ling
at a yard diftance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get
a perfon to goon the other fide of the hedge where it haunted;
and then it would run, creeping like a moufe, before us- for an
hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it
would not come into fair fight: but in a morning early, and when
undifturbed, it fings on the top of a twig, gaping and fhivering
with it’s wings. Mr. Ray himfelf had.no knowledge of this bird,
but received his account from. Mr. Johnfon, who apparently confounds
it with the reguli non crijlati, from which it is very diftinft.
See Ray’s P h ib f Letters, p. 108.
The