I f
day during the breeding-time, imitating the note of a fparrow, a
fwallow, a fky-lark; and has a ftrange hurrying manner in it’s
fong. My fpecimens correfpond mod minutely to the defcrip-
tion of your fen falicaria (hot near Revejby. Mr. Ray has given an
excellent charadteriftic of it when he fays, “ Rojlrum & pedes in
“ hdc aviculd multb majoresfunt qudm pro corporis ratione,” See letter
May 29, 1769.
I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus, or ftone-curlew, which
was- picked up in a fallow on the naked ground: there were two;
but-the finder inadvertently crufhed one with his foot before he
law them. _
When I wrote to you laft year on reptiles, I wilh I had not
forgot to mention the faculty that fnakes have of ftinking fe
defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame fnake, which
was in it’s perfon as fweet as any animal while in good humour
and unalarmed; but as foon as a ftranger, or a dog or cat, came
in, it fell to hilling, and filled the room with fuch naufeous
effluvia as rendered it hardly fupportable. Thus thfe fqunck,
or ftonck, of Ray’s Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and fweet animal;
but, wheriprelfed hard by dogs and men, it can ejedt fuch a moll
peftilent and fetid fmell and excrement, that nothing can be
more horrible,
A gentleman fent me lately a fine fpecimen of the lanius minor
cinerafcens cum macula in fcapulis alba, Raii-, which is a bird that,
at the time of your publilhing your two firft volumes of Britijh.
Zoology, I find you had not feen. You have defcribed it well
from Edwards’s drawing.
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L E T T E R XXVI.
TO TH E S AM E .
D E A R S IR , Seaborne, December 8, 1769.
I wa s much gratified by your communicative letter on your
return from Scotland, where you fpent, 1 find, fome confiderable
time, and gave yourfelf good room to examine the natural
curiofities of that extenlive kingdom, both thofe of the illands,
as well as thofe of the highlands. The ufual bane of fuch
expeditions is hurry; becaufe men feldom allot themfelves half
She .time they Ihould do : but, fixing on a day for their return,
poll from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey that
required difpatch, than as philofophers inveftigatiiig the works of
nature. You mull: 'have made, no doubt, many difcoveries,
and laid up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the
Britijh Zoology; and will have no reafon to repent that you have
bellowed fo much pains on a part of Great-Britian that perhaps was
never fo well examined before.
I t has always been matter of wonder ro me that fieldfares,
which are fo congenerous to thrulhes and blackbirds, Ihould
never chufe to breed in England: but that they Ihould not think
even the highlands cold and northerly, and fequeltered enough,
is a circumftance ftill more ftrange and wonderful. The ring-
oufel, you find, Hays in Scotland the whole year round; fo that
we have reafon to conclude, that thofe migrators that vifit us for a
Ihort fpaee every autumn do not come from thence.
L And