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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1, by Gilbert White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1
+
+Author: Gilbert White
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2007 [eBook #20933]
+[Most recently updated: October 10, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Les Bowler
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, VOL. 1 ***
+
+
+
+
+                       CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                            NATURAL HISTORY
+                                   OF
+                                SELBORNE
+
+
+                                    BY
+                       THE REV. GILBERT WHITE A.M.
+
+                                 VOL. I.
+
+                       CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
+                _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
+                                   1887
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Gilbert White was born in the village of Selborne on the 18th of July, in
+the year 1720.  His father was a gentleman of good means, with a house at
+Selborne and some acres of land.  Gilbert had his school training at
+Basingstoke, from Thomas Warton, the father of the poet of that name, who
+was born at Basingstoke in 1728, six years younger than his brother
+Joseph, who had been born at Dunsford, in Surrey.  Thomas Warton, their
+father, was the youngest of three sons of a rector of Breamore, in the
+New Forest, and the only son of the three who was not deaf and dumb.
+This Thomas, the elder, was an able man, who obtained a fellowship at
+Magdalen College, Oxford, became vicar of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, and
+was there headmaster of the school to which young Gilbert White was sent.
+He was referred to in Amhurst's "Terrae Filius" as "a reverend poetical
+gentleman;" he knew Pope, and had credit enough for his verse to hold the
+office of Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728.  His genius
+for writing middling verse passed on to his more famous sons, Joseph and
+Thomas, and they both became in due time Oxford Professors of Poetry.
+
+Gilbert White passed on from school to Oxford, where he entered Oriel
+College in 1739.  He became a Fellow of Oriel, graduated M.A. in 1746, at
+the age of six-and-twenty, and six years afterwards he served as one of
+the Senior Proctors of the University.  His love of nature grew with him
+from boyhood, and was associated with his earliest years of home.  His
+heart abided with his native village.  When he had taken holy orders he
+could have obtained college livings, but he cared only to go back to his
+native village, and the house in which he was born, paying a yearly visit
+to Oxford, and in that house, after a happy life that extended a few
+years over the threescore and ten, he died on the 26th of June, 1793.
+
+Gilbert White never married, but lived in peaceful performance of light
+clerical duties and enjoyment of those observations of nature which his
+book records.  His brothers, who shared his love of nature, aided instead
+of thwarting him in his studies of the natural history of Selborne, and
+as their lives were less secluded and they did not remain unmarried, they
+provided him with a family of young people to care about, for he lived to
+register the births of sixty-three nephews and nieces.
+
+It was one of his brothers, who was a member of the Royal Society, by
+whom Gilbert White was persuaded, towards the close of his life, to
+gather his notes into a book.  It was first published in a quarto volume
+in the year of the outbreak of the French Revolution with the fall of the
+Bastile.  He was more concerned with the course of events in a martin's
+nest than with the crash of empires, and no man ever made more evident
+the latent power of enjoyment that is left dead by those who live
+uneventful lives surrounded by a world of life and change and growth
+which they want eyes to see.  Gilbert White was in his seventieth year
+when his book appeared, four years before his death.  It was compiled
+from letters addressed to Thomas Pennant and the Hon. Daines Barrington.
+
+Thomas Pennant was a naturalist six years younger than Gilbert White.  He
+was born at Downing, in Flintshire, in 1726, and died in 1798, like
+White, in the house in which he had been born.  His love of Natural
+History made him a traveller at home and abroad.  He counted Buffon among
+his friends.  He had written many books before the date of the
+publication of White's "Selborne."  Pennant's "British Zoology," his
+"History of Quadrupeds" and "Arctic Zoology," had a high reputation.  He
+wrote also a Tour in Wales and a History of London.
+
+Daines Barrington, fourth son of the first Viscount Barrington, was a
+year younger than Pennant, and died in 1800.  He became Secretary to
+Greenwich Hospital, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and President
+of the Royal Society.  His "Miscellanies," published in 4to in 1781, deal
+with questions of Natural History, and of Antiquities, including a paper
+first published in 1775 asserting the possibility of approaching the
+North Pole.  His most valued book was one of "Observations on the more
+Ancient Statutes."
+
+                                                                      H.M.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+
+The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county
+of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the
+county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude
+fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns of Alton and Petersfield.
+Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which
+are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate.  If you begin from the south and
+proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence,
+Faringdon, Hartley Mauduit, Great Ward le Ham, Kingsley, Hadleigh,
+Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lyffe, and Greatham.  The soils of this
+district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects.
+The high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising
+three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheep-down,
+the high wood and a long hanging wood, called The Hanger.  The covert of
+this eminence is altogether _beech_, the most lovely of all forest trees,
+whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or
+graceful pendulous boughs.  The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing,
+park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the
+verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains,
+and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale,
+wood-lands, heath, and water.  The prospect is bounded to the south-east
+and east by the vast range of mountains  called the Sussex Downs, by
+Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in
+Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the country beyond
+Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.
+
+At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the
+village, which consists of one single straggling street, three-quarters
+of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with the
+Hanger.  The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay
+(good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in
+appearance removed from chalk; but seems so far from being calcareous,
+that it endures extreme heat.  Yet that the freestone still preserves
+somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches, which
+descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well
+on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.
+
+The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two very
+incongruous soils.  To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires the
+labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east,
+and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould,
+called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal
+manure; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town;
+while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank.
+
+At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west,
+arises a small rivulet: that at the north-west end frequently fails; but
+the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet
+seasons, called Well-head.  This breaks out of some high grounds joining
+to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two
+streams into two different seas.  The one to the south becomes a branch
+of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel:
+the other to the north.  The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey;
+and, meeting the Black-down stream at Hadleigh, and the Alton and Farnham
+stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at
+Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into the Thames at
+Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean.
+
+Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three foot, and when sunk to
+that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the
+taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which
+does not lather well with soap.
+
+To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair
+enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten
+or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to
+pieces, and becomes manure to itself.
+
+Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land,
+neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet
+kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and have their poles
+and wood for charcoal growing just at hand.  The white soil produces the
+brightest hops.
+
+As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the juncture
+of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for
+timber, and infamous for roads.  The oaks of Temple and Black-moor stand
+high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval
+timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen
+call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing.  Beyond
+the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry, lean sand, till it mingles with
+the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and
+turnips.
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+
+In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor farm to the north-west of the
+village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a
+broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, _ulmus folio latissimo scabro_ of Ray,
+which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm
+in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained
+eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off
+at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in the
+diameter.  This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may
+attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation.
+
+In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of
+ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called "The Plestor."  In the
+midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat
+body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the
+area.  This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above
+them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in
+summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter
+frolicked and danced before them.  Long might it have stood, had not the
+amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of
+the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it
+in its place again: but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted
+for a time, then withered and died.  This oak I mention to show to what a
+bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and planted this tree must certainly
+have been, as will appear from what will be said farther concerning this
+area, when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne.
+
+On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few
+acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth
+and great value; they were tall and taper-like firs, but standing near
+together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large
+limbs.  About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court,
+being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were
+fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter
+at the little end.  Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little
+wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the description at
+sixty feet.  These trees were sold for twenty pounds apiece.
+
+In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and
+tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle
+of the stem.  On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such
+a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the
+Raven Tree.  Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at
+this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was
+ambitious of surmounting the arduous task.  But when they arrived at the
+swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their
+grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the
+undertaking to be too hazardous: so the ravens built on, nest upon nest,
+in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to
+be levelled.  It was in the month of February, when these birds usually
+sit.  The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the
+opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blow of the beetle or mall or
+mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on.  At last,
+when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest, and, though her
+parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs
+which brought her dead to the ground.
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+
+The fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have
+fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence.  And
+first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed
+up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for
+the singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like
+a petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for a head
+and mouth.  It is in reality a bivalve of the Linnaean Genus of Mytilus,
+and the species of Crista Galli; called by Lister, _Rastellum_; by
+Rumphius, _Ostreum plicatum minus_; by D'Argenville, _Auris Porci_, s.
+_Crista Galli_; and by those who make collections, Cock's Comb.  Though I
+applied to several such in London, I never could meet with an entire
+specimen; nor could I ever find in books any engraving from a perfect
+one.  In the superb museum at Leicester House, permission was given me to
+examine for this article; and, though I was disappointed as to the
+fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of several of the shells
+themselves in high preservation.  This bivalve is only known to inhabit
+the Indian Ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name
+Gorgonia.  The curious foldings of the suture the one into the other, the
+alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my specimen, are
+much easier expressed by the pencil than by words.
+
+_Cornua Ammonis_ are very common about this village.  As we were cutting
+an inclining path up the Hanger, the labourers found them frequently on
+that steep, just under the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable
+size.  In the lane above Wall-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound in
+the bank in a darkish sort of marl, and are usually very small and soft;
+but in Clay's Pond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where the
+soil is dug out for manure, I have occasionally observed them of large
+dimensions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter.  But as these
+did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of terra
+lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed to the rains and
+frost they mouldered away.  These seemed as if they were a very recent
+production.  In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of the Hanger, large
+nautili are sometimes observed.
+
+In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths,
+well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having both shells
+deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately.  They are highly
+impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone of the quarry.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+
+As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only mentioned
+incidentally, I shall here become more particular.
+
+This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the beds of ovens;
+and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account, for the workmen use
+sandy loam instead of mortar, the sand of which fluxes, and runs by the
+intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong
+vitrified coat-like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of
+weather, and endures thirty or forty years.  When chiseled smooth, it
+makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to Bath stone;
+and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale.
+Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer grain
+than Portland, and rooms are floored with it, but it proves rather too
+soft for this purpose.  It is a freestone cutting in all directions, yet
+has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should
+not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the
+quarry.  On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for
+pavements, because, probably some degrees of saltness prevailing within
+it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces.  Though this stone is too hard to
+be acted on by vinegar, yet both the white part, and even the blue rag,
+ferments strongly in mineral acids.  Though the white stone will not bear
+wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue rag,
+which resist rain and frost, and are excellent for pitching of stables,
+paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks, a
+valuable species of fencing much in use in this village, and for mending
+of roads.  This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth
+face, but is very durable; yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep,
+large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense.  Among
+the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust
+colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now and
+then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls.
+
+In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand,
+or forest-stone.  This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and
+might probably be worked as iron ore, is very hard and heavy, and of a
+firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit,
+cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter; will not cut
+without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel.  Being often found
+in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses,
+never becoming slippery in frost or rain, is excellent for dry walls, and
+is sometimes used in buildings.  In many parts of that waste it lies
+scattered on the surface of the ground, but is dug on Weaver's Down, a
+vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow
+and the stratum thin.  This stone is imperishable.
+
+From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a
+finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the
+head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along
+the joints of their freestone walls.  This embellishment carries an odd
+appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly,
+"whether we fastened our walls together with tenpenny nails."
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+
+Among the singularities of this place the two rocky, hollow lanes, the
+one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention.  These
+roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and
+the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our
+freestone, and partly through the second; so that they look more like
+water-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs
+together.  In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet
+beneath the level of the fields; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit
+very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are
+twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken
+sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles,
+hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work.  These rugged, gloomy
+scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths
+above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but
+delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particularly with
+their curious filices with which they abound.
+
+The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with all its kindly
+aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game; even now
+hares, partridges, and pheasants abound; and in old days woodcocks were
+as plentiful.  There are few quails, because they more affect open fields
+than enclosures; after harvest some few landrails are seen.
+
+The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast
+district.  Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days in
+the business, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and
+indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles.
+
+The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the Hanger from the
+strong westerly winds.  The air is soft, but rather moist from the
+effluvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues.
+
+The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may be
+supposed in so woody and mountainous a district.  As my experience of
+measuring the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to give the
+mean quantity.  I only know that
+
+                        Inch.                   Hund.
+From May 1, 1779, to    28                      37!
+the end of the year,
+there fell
+   Jan. 1, 1780, to     27                      32
+Jan. 1, 1781
+   Jan. 1, 1781, to     30                      71
+Jan. 1, 1782
+   Jan. 1, 1782, to     50                      26!
+Jan. 1, 1783
+   Jan. 1, 1783, to     33                      71
+Jan. 1, 1784
+   Jan. 1, 1784, to     33                      80
+Jan. 1, 1785
+   Jan. 1, 1785, to     31                      55
+Jan. 1, 1786
+   Jan. 1, 1786, to     39                      57
+Jan. 1, 1787
+
+The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single
+farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contain
+upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabitants.
+
+We abound with poor, many of whom are sober and industrious, and live
+comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have
+chambers above stairs; mud buildings we have none.  Besides the
+employment from husbandry, the men work in hop-gardens, of which we have
+many, and fell and bark timber.  In the spring and summer the women weed
+the corn, and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking.
+Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning
+wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at
+that time for summer wear, and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a
+neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers; but from
+circumstances this trade is at an end.  The inhabitants enjoy a good
+share of health and longevity; and the parish swarms with children.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+
+Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of
+which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne
+would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious
+productions, both animal and vegetable, and has often afforded me much
+entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist.
+
+The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in
+length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from north to south,
+and is abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed eastward, by
+the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of
+Sussex; by Bramshot, Hadleigh, and Kingsley.  This royalty consists
+entirely of sand covered with heath and fern, but is somewhat diversified
+with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole
+extent.  In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which
+formerly abounded with subterraneous trees, though Dr. Plot says
+positively, that "there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses
+of the southern counties."  But he was mistaken: for I myself have seen
+cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a
+black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they
+procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such
+instruments: but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so
+well examined, that none has been found of late.  Besides the oak, I have
+also been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour, and softer
+nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon a nice examination,
+and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them, and
+therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or
+some such aquatic tree.
+
+This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild
+fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the
+summer: such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have discovered
+within these few years, teals.  Partridges in vast plenty are bred in
+good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make
+excursions; and in particular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, and
+some years after, they swarmed to such a degree that parties of
+unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day.
+
+But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which
+I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became
+so common, and that was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse.  When I
+was a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my father's
+table.  The last pack remembered was killed about thirty-five years ago;
+and within these ten years one solitary greyhen was sprung by some
+beagles in beating for a hare.  The sportsmen cried out, "A hen
+pheasant!" but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse in the
+north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen.
+
+Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna
+Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is
+wanting.  I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this century
+amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance.
+There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great grandfather
+(mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and
+self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more
+than a hundred years.  This person assures me, that his father has often
+told him that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road,
+did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard.  For she
+came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing
+herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile to
+the east of Wolmer Pond, and still called Queen's Bank, saw with great
+complacency and satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the
+keepers along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred
+head.  A sight this, worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign!  But
+he farther adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own
+expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to about
+fifty head, and so continued decreasing till the time of the late Duke of
+Cumberland.  It is now more than thirty years ago that His Highness sent
+down a huntsman, and six yeoman-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with
+gold, attended by the staghounds, ordering them to take every deer in
+this forest alive, and to convey them in carts to Windsor.  In the course
+of the summer they caught every stag, some of which showed extraordinary
+diversion; but in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried
+off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for
+matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards.  I saw myself one of the
+yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it
+was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to anything
+in Mr. Astley's riding-school.  The exertions made by the horse and deer
+much exceeded all my expectations, though the former greatly excelled the
+latter in speed.  When the devoted deer was separated from his
+companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for
+twenty minutes; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted
+to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+
+Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the
+injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of
+their crops.  The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen
+by constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in
+human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain.  Hence, towards the
+beginning of this century all this country was wild about deer-stealing.
+Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to call themselves, no young
+person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or gallantry.  The Waltham
+blacks at length committed such enormities, that Government was forced to
+interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called the "Black Act,"
+which now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed
+before.  And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged to
+re-stock Waltham Chase, refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate,
+replying "that it had done mischief enough already."
+
+Our old race of deer-stealers is hardly extinct yet: it was but a little
+while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of
+their youth; such as watching the pregnant hind to her lair, and, when
+the calf was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to
+prevent its escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the
+shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by
+moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the
+following extraordinary manner: Some fellows, suspecting that a calf
+new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a
+lurcher, to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake,
+and, taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon
+the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two.
+
+Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of rabbits,
+which possessed all the hillocks and dry places: but these being
+inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when they came
+to take away the deer, they permitted the country people to destroy them
+all.
+
+Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are
+removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon
+them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel
+for the burning their lime; and with ashes for their grasses; and by
+maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no
+expense.
+
+The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted claim, I see (by
+an old record taken from the Tower of London) of turning all live stock
+on the forest, at proper seasons, "bidentibus exceptis."  The reason, I
+presume, why sheep are excluded, is because, being such close grazers,
+they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from
+thriving.
+
+Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) "to burn on any waste,
+between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or
+fern, is punishable with whipping and confinement in the house of
+correction;" yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the
+dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they
+often get to a masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes
+been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great
+damage has ensued.  The plea for these burnings is that, when the old
+coat of heath, etc., is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford much
+tender browze for cattle; but, where there is large old furze, the fire,
+following the roots, consumes the very ground; so that for hundreds of
+acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit
+round looking like the cinders of a volcano; and, the soil being quite
+exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for years.  These
+conflagrations, as they take place usually with a north-east or east
+wind, much annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm the
+country; and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, who lives
+beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got on the downs between that
+town and Winchester, at twenty-five miles' distance, was surprised much
+with smoke and a hot smell of fire, and concluded that Alresford was in
+flames; but, when he came to that town, he then had apprehensions for the
+next village, and so on to the end of his journey.
+
+On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand two arbours
+or bowers, made of the boughs of oak; the one called Waldon Lodge, the
+other Brimstone Lodge: these the keepers renew annually on the feast of
+St. Barnabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite.  The farm called
+Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brush-wood
+for the former; while the farms at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the
+latter, and are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the
+spot.  This custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very remote
+antiquity.
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII.
+
+
+On the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three
+considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing particular
+to say; and one called Bin's, or Bean's Pond, which is worthy the
+attention of a naturalist or a sportsman.  For, being crowded at the
+upper end with willows, and with the carex cespitosa, it affords such a
+safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc., that they
+breed there.  In the winter this covert is also frequented by foxes, and
+sometimes by pheasants; and the bogs produce many curious plants.  (For
+which consult Letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.)
+
+By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, made in 1635, and the
+eleventh year of Charles I. (which now lies before me), it appears that
+the limits of the former are much circumscribed.  For, to say nothing of
+the farther side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on
+this side, in old times, came into Binswood, and extended to the ditch of
+Ward le Ham Park, in which stands the curious mount called King John's
+Hill, and Lodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit
+Hatch; comprehending also Short Heath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods--a large
+district, now private property, though once belonging to the royal
+domain.
+
+It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in this
+long roll of parchment.  It contains, besides the perambulation, a rough
+estimate of the value of the timbers, which were considerable, growing at
+that time in the district of the Holt, and enumerates the officers,
+superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time being, and
+their ostensible fees and perquisites.  In those days, as at present,
+there were hardly any trees in Wolmer Forest.
+
+Within the present limits of the forest are three considerable lakes,
+Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer, all of which are stocked with carp, tench,
+eels, and perch: but the fish do not thrive well, because the water is
+hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand.
+
+A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means peculiar to
+them, I cannot pass over in silence; and that is, that instinct by which
+in summer all the kine, whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire
+constantly to the water during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt
+from flies, and inhaling the coolness of that element, some belly deep,
+and some only to mid-leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about
+ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, and then return to their
+feeding.  During this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in
+which insects nestle, and so supply food for the fish, which would be
+poorly subsisted but from this contingency.  Thus Nature, who is a great
+economist, converts the recreation of one animal to the support of
+another!  Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did
+not let this pleasing circumstance escape him.  He says, in his "Summer,"
+
+    "A various group the herds and flocks compose;
+    . . . on the grassy bank
+    Some ruminating lie; while others stand
+    Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip
+    The circling surface."
+
+Wolmer Pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake, is a vast lake for
+this part of the world, containing, in its whole circumference, 2,646
+yards, or very near a mile and a half.  The length of the north-west and
+opposite side is about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end
+about 456 yards.  This measurement, which I caused to be made with good
+exactness, gives an area of about sixty-six acres, exclusive of a large
+irregular arm at the north-east corner, which we did not take into the
+reckoning.
+
+On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly secure from fowlers,
+lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and
+widgeons, of various denominations, where they preen and solace, and rest
+themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little parties
+(for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed in
+the brooks and meadows, returning again with the dawn of the morning.
+Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick
+covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy.
+
+Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort of
+various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can
+render this mere so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were
+found in its bed about forty years ago.  But, as such discoveries more
+properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all
+particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my series of
+letters respecting the more remote history of this village and district.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+
+
+By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to
+inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, _alias_ Alice
+Holt, as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for
+a term of years.
+
+The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-General Emanuel
+Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of Prince
+Rupert by Margaret Hughes; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family,
+who married a dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson Legge and lady; and now
+Lord Stawell, their son.
+
+The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her
+husband, and, at her death, left behind her many curious pieces of
+mechanism of her father's constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic
+and artist, as well as warrior; and among the rest, a very complicated
+clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game painter, at
+Farnham, in the county of Surrey.
+
+Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of enclosures,
+yet no two soils can be more different; for the Holt consists of a strong
+loam, of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks
+that grow to be large timber; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry,
+sandy, barren waste.  The former being all in the parish of Binsted, is
+about two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much from east
+to west, and contains within it many woodlands and lawns, and the great
+lodge where the grantees reside, and a smaller lodge called Goose Green;
+and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and
+Bentley; all of which have right of common.
+
+One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been of old well
+stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences more than a
+common hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of Wolmer; nor
+were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of
+the Holt.
+
+At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by the night
+hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of numerous
+keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against
+them as often as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash
+of the law.  Neither fines nor imprisonments can deter them, so
+impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting which seems to be
+inherent in human nature.
+
+General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests,
+to the great terror of the neighbourhood, and, at one time, a wild bull
+or buffalo; but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.
+
+A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has
+been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest: one fifth of which,
+it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell.  He lays claim also to
+the lop and top; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham,
+Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them, and assembling in a
+riotous manner, have actually taken it all away.  One man, who keeps a
+team, has carried home for his share forty stacks of wood.  Forty-five of
+these people his lordship has served with actions.  These trees, which
+were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz., in
+February and March, before the bark would run.  In old times the Holt was
+estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure from water-carriage,
+viz., from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now it is not half
+that distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of
+Godalming, in the county of Surrey.
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+
+
+                                                       _August 4th_, 1767.
+
+It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies
+have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want
+of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have
+made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been
+attached from my childhood.
+
+As to swallows (_hirundines rusticae_) being found in a torpid state
+during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any part of this country, I
+never heard any such account worth attending to.  But a clergyman, of an
+inquisitive turn, assures me, that when he was a great boy, some workmen,
+in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in the spring,
+found two or three swifts (_hirundines apodes_) among the rubbish, which
+were at first appearance dead, but on being carried towards the fire
+revived.  He told me, that out of his great care to preserve them, he put
+them in a paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they were
+suffocated.
+
+Another intelligent person has informed me, that while he was a schoolboy
+at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk cliff fell
+down one stormy winter on the beach, and that many people found swallows
+among the rubbish; but on my questioning him whether he saw any of those
+birds himself, to my no small disappointment, he answered me in the
+negative; but that others assured him they did.
+
+Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July 11th, and
+young martins (_hirundines urbicae_) were then fledged in their nests.
+Both species will breed again once.  For I see by my fauna of last year,
+that young broods came forth so late as September 18th.  Are not these
+late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migration?  Nay, some young
+martins remained in their nests last year so late as September 29th; and
+yet they totally disappeared with us by the 5th October.
+
+How strange it is that the swift, which seems to live exactly the same
+life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before the middle
+of August invariably! while the latter stay often till the middle of
+October; and once I saw numbers of house-martins on the 7th November.
+The martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together, an
+uncommon assemblage of summer and winter birds!
+
+A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the _alauda trivialis_,
+or rather perhaps of the _motacilla trochilus_) still continues to make a
+sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods.  The stoparola of Ray
+(for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is called in your
+zoology the fly-catcher.  There is one circumstance characteristic of
+this bird which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, it takes
+its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth
+on its prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the
+ground, but returning still to the same stand for many times together.
+
+I perceive there are more than one species of the _motacilla trochilus_.
+Mr. Derham supposes, in "Ray's Philos. Letters," that he has discovered
+three.  In these there is again an instance of some very common birds
+that have as yet no English name.
+
+Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap (_motacilla
+atricapilla_) be a bird of passage or not: I think there is no doubt of
+it: for, in April, in the first fine weather, they come trooping, all at
+once, into these parts, but are never seen in the winter.  They are
+delicate songsters.
+
+Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory ground on the verge of
+this parish.  It is very amusing to see the cock bird on wing at that
+time, and to hear his piping and humming notes.
+
+I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those mice which I
+mentioned to you in town.  The person that brought me the last says they
+are plenty in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more; and
+will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt whether it be a nondescript
+species or not.
+
+I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats.  Ray says, and
+Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind.  Now I have
+discovered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not
+web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly
+to the _mus amphibius_ of Linnaeus (see _Syst. Nat_.), which he says
+"_natat in fossis et urinatur_."  I should be glad to procure one
+"_plantis palmatis_."  Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle about his _mus
+amphibius_, and to doubt whether it differs from his _mus terrestris_;
+which if it be, as he allows, the "_mus agrestis capite grandi
+brachyuros_," of Ray, is widely different from the water-rat, both in
+size, make, and manner of life.
+
+As to the _falco_, which I mentioned in town, I shall take the liberty to
+send it down to you into Wales; presuming on your candour that you will
+excuse me if it should appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me.
+Though mutilated "_qualem dices . . . ante hac fuisse tales cum sint
+reliquiae_!"
+
+It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-ducks and snipes;
+but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, which it was tearing
+in pieces.  I cannot make it answer to any of our English hawks; neither
+could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in
+Spring Gardens.  I found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the
+countryman's museum.
+
+The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and
+woods, and therefore full of birds.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI.
+
+
+                                          SELBORNE, _September 9th_, 1767.
+
+It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts
+with regard to the _falco_; as to its weight, breadth, etc., I wish I had
+set them down at the time; but, to the best of my remembrance, it weighed
+two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing,
+thirty-eight inches.  Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of
+its eyelids a bright yellow.  As it had been killed some days, and the
+eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation on the colour of the
+pupils and the irides.
+
+The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a pair of
+hoopoes (_upupa_), which came several years ago in the summer, and
+frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my garden, for
+some weeks.  They used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in the
+walks, many times in the day; and seemed disposed to breed in my outlet;
+but were frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them
+be at rest.
+
+Three grossbeaks (_loxia coccothraustes_) appeared some years ago in my
+fields, in the winter; one of which I shot.  Since that, now and then,
+one is occasionally seen in the same dead season.
+
+A crossbill (_loxia curvirostra_) was killed last year in this
+neighbourhood.
+
+Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village,
+yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb (_gobius fluviatilis
+capitatus_), the trout (_trutta fluviatilis_), the eel (_anguilla_), the
+lampern (_lampoetra parva et fluviatilis_), and the stickleback
+(_pisciculus aculeatus_).
+
+We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river,
+and therefore see but little of sea birds.  As to wild fowls, we have a
+few teems of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and
+multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes in
+the forest.
+
+Having some acquaintance with the tame brown owl, I find that it casts up
+the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner
+of hawks: when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.
+
+The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they want a constant
+supply of fresh mice; whereas the young of the brown owl will eat
+indiscriminately all that is brought: snails, rats, kittens, puppies,
+magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal.
+
+The house-martins have eggs still, and squab young.  The last swift I
+observed was about the 21st August; it was a straggler.
+
+Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and _reguli non cristati_, still
+appear; but I have seen no black-caps lately.
+
+I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church College quadrangle
+in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-martin flying about, and
+settling on the parapet, so late as the 20th November.
+
+At present I know only two species of bats, the common _vespertilio
+murinus_ and the _vespertilio auribus_.
+
+I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take
+flies out of a person's hand.  If you gave it anything to eat, it brought
+its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the
+manner of birds of prey when they feed.  The adroitness it showed in
+shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always rejected, was
+worthy of observation, and pleased me much.  Insects seemed to be most
+acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered; so that the
+notion, that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon, seems no
+improbable story.  While I amused myself with this wonderful quadruped, I
+saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down upon
+a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease
+from the floor.  It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware
+of, but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner.
+
+Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface as they
+play over pools and streams.  They love to frequent waters, not only for
+the sake of drinking, but on account of insects, which are found over
+them in the greatest plenty.  As I was going some years ago, pretty late,
+in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm summer's evening, I think I
+saw myriads of bats between the two places.  The air swarmed with them
+all along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII.
+
+
+                                                     _November 4th_, 1767.
+
+Sir,--It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the _falco_ turned
+out an uncommon one.  I must confess I should have been better pleased to
+have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen before; but
+that, I find, would be a difficult task.
+
+I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young
+one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy.
+From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but
+that the species is nondescript.  They are much smaller, and more
+slender, than the _mus domesticus medius_ of Ray, and have more of the
+squirrel or dormouse colour; their belly is white, a straight line along
+their sides divides the shades of their back and belly.  They never enter
+into houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves, abound in
+harvest; and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above the
+ground, and sometimes in thistles.  They breed as many as eight at a
+litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat.
+
+One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, and
+composed of the blades of wheat, perfectly round, and about the size of a
+cricket ball, with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no
+discovering to what part it belonged.  It was so compact and well filled,
+that it would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it
+contained eight little mice that were naked and blind.  As this nest was
+perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively, so as
+to administer a teat to each?  Perhaps she opens different places for
+that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she
+could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which
+moreover would be daily increasing in bulk.  This wonderful procreant
+cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a
+wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle.
+
+A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his servant had shot
+one last January, in that severe weather, which he believed would puzzle
+me.  I called to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect, but the
+moment I took it in hand I pronounced it the male _garrulus bohemicus_ or
+German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or points which it
+carries at the ends of five of the short remiges.  It cannot, I suppose,
+with any propriety, be called an English bird, and yet I see, by Ray's
+"Philosophical Letters," that great flocks of them, feeding on haws,
+appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685.
+
+The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of that
+wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation.
+For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the
+produce of the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of the
+more hardy and common.
+
+Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on the berries
+of the yew tree, which answered to the description of the _merula
+torquata_, or ring-ouzel, were lately seen in this neighbourhood.  I
+employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without success.  (See
+Letter VIII.)
+
+_Query_.--Might not canary birds be naturalised to this climate, provided
+their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their
+congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, etc?  Before winter perhaps they
+might be hardened, and able to shift for themselves.
+
+About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which
+is one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton
+Court.  In the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those
+myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts.  But what
+struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate,
+forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the
+osier-beds of the aits of that river.  Now, this resorting towards that
+element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to
+the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water.  A
+Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that he talks, in
+his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water in
+the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a
+little before sunset.
+
+An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a
+house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying in and out of
+its nest in the Borough.  And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of last
+October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five swallows
+hovering round and settling on the roof of the county hospital.
+
+Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been
+hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and
+from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as
+far as the equator?
+
+I acquiesce entirely in your opinion--that, though most of the swallow
+kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and hide with us during
+the winter.
+
+As to the short-winged, soft-billed birds, which come trooping in such
+numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to suspect about them.  I
+watched them narrowly this year, and saw them abound till about
+Michaelmas, when they appeared no longer.  Subsist they cannot openly
+among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive; and, as to their
+hiding, no man pretends to have found any of them in a torpid state in
+the winter.  But with regard to their migration, what difficulties attend
+that supposition! that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never
+flit but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast seas and
+continents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the regions of Africa!
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Jan. 22nd_, 1768.
+
+Sir,--As in one of your former letters you expressed the more
+satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my living in the most
+southerly county, so now I may return the compliment, and expect to have
+my curiosity gratified by your living much more to the North.
+
+For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast flocks of
+chaffinches have appeared in the fields; many more, I used to think, than
+could be hatched in any one neighbourhood.  But, when I came to observe
+them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed to me to be
+almost all hens.  I communicated my suspicions to some intelligent
+neighbours, who, after taking pains about the matter, declared that they
+also thought them mostly females--at least fifty to one.  This
+extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnaeus, that
+"before winter all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland into
+Italy."  Now I want to know, from some curious person in the north,
+whether there are any large flocks of these finches with them in the
+winter, and of which sex they mostly consist?  For from such
+intelligence, one might be able to judge whether our female flocks
+migrate from the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us
+from the continent.  We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common
+linnets; more, I think, than can be bred in any one district.  These, I
+observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the sunshine,
+and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break
+up their winter quarters and betake themselves to their proper summer
+homes.  It is well known, at least, that the swallows and the fieldfares
+do congregate with a gentle twittering before they make their respective
+departure.
+
+You may depend on it that the bunting, _Emberiza miliaria_, does not
+leave this county in the winter.  In January, 1767, I saw several dozen
+of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the bushes on the downs
+near Andover: in our woodland-enclosed district it is a rare bird.
+
+Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter.  Quails
+crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in numbers by people
+that go on purpose.
+
+Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that "if the wheatear (_oenanthe_)
+does not quit England, it certainly shifts places; for about harvest they
+are not to be found, where there was before great plenty of them."  This
+well accounts for the vast quantities that are caught about that time on
+the south downs near Lewes, where they are esteemed a delicacy.  There
+have been shepherds, I have been credibly informed, that have made many
+pounds in a season by catching them in traps.  And though such multitudes
+are taken, I never saw (and I am well acquainted with those parts) above
+two or three at a time, for they are never gregarious.  They may perhaps
+migrate in general, and, for that purpose, draw towards the coast of
+Sussex in autumn: but that they do not all withdraw I am sure, because I
+see a few stragglers in many counties, at all times of the year,
+especially about warrens and stone quarries.
+
+I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of the navy; but
+have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the late war,
+desiring him to look into his minutes, with respect to birds that settled
+on their rigging during their voyage up or down the Channel.  What
+Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable; there were little
+short-winged birds frequently coming on board his ship all the way from
+our channel quite up to the Levant, especially before squally weather.
+
+What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly probable.  The winters
+of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the soft-billed birds
+that leave us at that season may find insects sufficient to support them
+there.
+
+Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, should make an
+autumnal voyage into that kingdom, and should spend a year there,
+investigating the natural history of that vast country.  Mr. Willughby
+passed through that kingdom on such an errand; but he seems to have
+skirted along in a superficial manner and an ill-humour, being much
+disgusted at the rude dissolute manners of the people.
+
+I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the swallows
+roosting on the aits of the Thames: nor can I hear any more about those
+birds which I suspected were _Meruloe torquatoe_.
+
+As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though they hang
+their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the standing corn, above
+the ground, yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow deep in the
+earth, and make warm beds of grass: but their grand rendezvous seems to
+be in corn-ricks, into which they are carried at harvest.  A neighbour
+housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled
+nearly a hundred, most of which were taken, and some I saw.  I measured
+them, and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a
+quarter, and their tails just two inches long.  Two of them, in a scale,
+weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an
+ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in
+this island.  A full-grown _Mus medius domesticus_ weighs, I find, one
+ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse
+above; and measures from nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and the
+same in its tail.  We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this
+month.  My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the
+freezing-point, within doors.  The tender evergreens were injured pretty
+much.  It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground
+well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered
+prodigiously.  There is reason to believe that some days were more severe
+than any since the year 1739-40.
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 12th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a
+fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two
+spiracula, or breathing places, besides the nostrils; probably analogous
+to the _puncta lachrymalia_ in the human head.  When deer are thirsty
+they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water, while
+in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a
+considerable time: but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can open two
+vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication with
+the nose.  Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy
+our attention, and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any
+naturalist.  For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated,
+though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped.  This curious
+formation of the head may be of singular service to beasts of chase, by
+affording them free respiration: and no doubt these additional nostrils
+are thrown open when they are hard run.  Mr. Ray observed that at Malta
+the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked: for
+they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit air sufficient to
+serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate.  And we
+know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils
+necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.
+
+Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some
+notion that stags have four spiracula:
+
+    "Τετράδυμοι ῥινὲς, πίσυρες πνοίῃσι δίαυλοι.."
+
+    "Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales."
+
+                                                OPP. CYN. Lib. ii. 1. 181.
+
+Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats
+breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary: "Ἀλκμαίων
+γὰρ οὐκ ἀληθῆ λέγει, φάμενος ἀναπνεῖν τὰς αἶγας κατὰ τὰ ὠτά." "Alcmaeon
+does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through
+their ears."--"History of Animals." Book I., chap xi.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER XV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 30th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have in
+these parts a species of the _genus mustelinum_, besides the weasel,
+stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than
+a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a _cane_.  This piece of
+intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made.
+
+A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest.
+A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw
+them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have
+been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery.  I saw the
+birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to find
+that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white.
+
+A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down above my house
+this winter: were not these the _Emberiza nivalis_, the snow-flake of the
+Brit. Zool.?  No doubt they were.
+
+A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had been caught
+in the fields after it was come to its full colours.  In about a year it
+began to look dingy; and, blackening every succeeding year, it became
+coal-black at the end of four.  Its chief food was hempseed.  Such
+influence has food on the colour of animals!  The pied and mottled
+colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be owing to high,
+various, and unusual food.
+
+I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pint (_arum_) was
+frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, and eaten in severe
+snowy weather.  After observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting
+others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it
+out.  The root of the _arum_ is remarkably warm and pungent.
+
+Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us.  The
+blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by that fierce weather
+in January.
+
+In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, a little bird
+that raised my curiosity: it was of that yellow-green colour that belongs
+to the _salicaria_ kind, and, I think, was soft-billed.  It was no
+_parus_; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned wren,
+appearing most like the largest willow-wren.  It hung sometimes with its
+back downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same place.  I
+shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed my aim.
+
+I wonder that the stone-curlew, _Charadrius oedicnemus_, should be
+mentioned by the writers as a rare bird: it abounds in all the champaign
+parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer,
+having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn.  Already they begin
+clamouring in the evening.  They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be
+called, as they are by Mr. Ray, "_circa aquas versantes_;" for with us,
+by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and
+sheep-walks, far removed from water: what they may do in the night I
+cannot say.  Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads and
+frogs.
+
+I can show you some good specimens of my new mice.  Linnaeus perhaps
+would call the species _Mus minimus_.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI.
+
+
+                                             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.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _June 18th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June 10th.
+It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these studies
+still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to
+reptiles and fishes.
+
+The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I
+could wish, with regard to their natural history.  There is a degree of
+dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of
+animals, something analogous to that of the _cryptogamia_ in the sexual
+system of plants: and the case is the same with regard to some of the
+fishes, as the eel, etc.
+
+The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to be very
+much in the dark. Some authors say that they are viviparous, and yet
+Ray classes them among his oviparous animals, and is silent with regard
+to the manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps they may be ἔσω μὲν
+ὠοτὸκοι, ἔξω δε ζωοτόκοι, as is known to be the case with the viper.
+
+The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it) is notorious
+to everybody, because we see them sticking upon each other's backs, for a
+month together in the spring: and yet I never saw, or read, of toads
+being observed in the same situation.  It is strange that the matter with
+regard to the venom of toads has not been yet settled.  That they are not
+noxious to some animals is plain, for ducks, buzzards, owls,
+stone-curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my knowledge, with impunity.  And
+I well remember the time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though
+numbers of persons were), when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to
+make the country people stare; afterwards he drank oil.
+
+I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that some ladies
+(ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, which
+they nourished, summer after summer, for many years, till he grew to a
+monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies.  The reptile
+used to come forth every evening from a hole under the garden steps, and
+was taken up, after supper, on the table to be fed.  But at last a tame
+raven, kenning him as he put forth his head, gave him such a severe
+stroke with his horny beak as put out one eye.  After this accident the
+creature languished for some time and died.
+
+I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the excellent
+account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's "Wisdom of God in the
+Creation" (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs from their breeding
+ponds.  In this account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their
+dropping from the clouds in rain, showing that it is from the grateful
+coolness and moisture of those showers that they are tempted to set out
+on their travels, which they defer till those fall.  Frogs are as yet in
+their tadpole state; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will
+swarm for a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than my
+little finger nail.  Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the
+method and situation in which the male impregnates the spawn of the
+female.  How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the
+limbs of so vile a reptile!  While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like
+tail, and no legs; as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as
+useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land!
+
+Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances that the _rana
+arborea_ is an English reptile; it abounds in Germany and Switzerland.
+
+It is to be remembered that the _salamandra aquatica_ of Ray (the
+water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and is
+often caught on his hook.  I used take it for granted that the
+_salamandra aquatica_ was hatched, lived, and died, in the water.  But
+John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter to
+the Royal Society, dated June 5th, 1766, in his account of the _mud
+inguana_, an amphibious biped from South Carolina, that the water-eft, or
+newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs.  Lest
+I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in
+his own words.  Speaking of the _opercula_ or coverings to the gills of
+the _mud inguana_, he proceeds to say that, "The form of these pennated
+coverings approaches very near to what I have some time ago observed in
+the larva or aquatic state of our  English _lacerta_, known by the name
+of eft, or newt, which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for
+fins to swim with while in this state; and which they lose, as well as
+the fins of their tails, when they change their state and become land
+animals, as I have observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself."
+
+Linnaeus, in his "Systema Naturae," hints at what Mr. Ellis advances more
+than once.
+
+Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous
+reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper.  As
+you propose the good of mankind to be an object of your publications you
+will not omit to mention common salad-oil as sovereign remedy against the
+bite of the viper.  As to the blind worm (_anguis fragilis_, so-called
+because it snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have found, on
+examination, that it is perfectly innocuous.  A neighbouring yeoman (to
+whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female viper
+about the 27th May: he found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs,
+about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so
+far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young.
+Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their
+young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth.  Whereas snakes
+lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my
+people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring
+following, as I have often experienced.  Several intelligent folks assure
+me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless
+young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum
+does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies;
+and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that
+no such thing ever happens.  The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in
+a year; or rather, but only just at one season of the year.  Country
+people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure, without any
+reason; for the common snake (_coluber natrix_) delights much to sport in
+the water, perhaps with a view to procure frogs and other food.
+
+I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve species of
+reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather varieties, of
+our _lacerti_, of which Ray enumerates five.  I have not had opportunity
+of ascertaining these; but remember well to have seen formerly several
+beautiful green _lacerti_ on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in Surrey;
+and Ray admits there are such in Ireland.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _July 27th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--I received your obliging and communicative letter of June
+28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where I had neither
+books to turn to nor leisure to sit down, to return you an answer to many
+queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best manner that I am able.
+
+A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could find no such
+fish as the _gasterosteus pungitius_; he found the _gasterosteus
+aculeatus_ in plenty.  This morning, in a basket, I packed a little
+earthen pot full of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, male and
+female, the females big with spawn; some lamperns; some bull's heads; but
+I could procure no minnows.  This basket will be in Fleet Street by eight
+this evening; so I hope Mazel will have them fresh and fair to-morrow
+morning.  I gave some directions, in a letter, to what particulars the
+engraver should be attentive.
+
+Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable distance
+of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that town, and procured several
+living specimens of loaches, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a glass
+decanter.  They were taken in the gullies that were cut for watering the
+meadows.  From these fishes (which measured from two to four inches in
+length) I took the following description: "The loach, in its general
+aspect, has a pellucid appearance; its back is mottled with irregular
+collections of small black dots, not reaching much below the _linea
+lateralis_, as are the back and tail fins; a black line runs from each
+eye down to the nose; its belly is of a silvery white; the upper jaw
+projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with six feelers, three on
+each side; its pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller; the fin
+behind its anus small; its dorsal-fin large, containing eight spines; its
+tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any
+taperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus; the tail-fin is
+broad, and square at the end.  From the breadth and muscular strength of
+the tail it appears to be an active, nimble fish."
+
+In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did not forget to
+make some inquiries concerning the wonderful method of curing cancers by
+means of toads.  Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do
+I find give a great deal of credit to what is asserted in the papers, and
+I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is
+related is matter of fact; but, when I came to attend to his account, I
+thought I discerned circumstances which did not a little invalidate the
+woman's story of the manner in which she came by her skill.  She says of
+herself, "that, labouring under a virulent cancer, she went to some
+church where there was a vast crowd; on going into a pew, she was
+accosted by a strange clergyman, who, after expressing compassion for her
+situation, told her that if she would make such an application of living
+toads as is mentioned she would be well."  Now is it likely that this
+unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single
+sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish
+under this terrible disorder?  Would he not have made use of this
+invaluable nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of
+publication or other, have found a method of making it public for the
+good of mankind?  In short, this woman (as it appears to me), having set
+up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with
+this dark and mysterious relation.
+
+The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance of any
+gills; for want of which it is continually rising to the surface of the
+water to take in fresh air.  I opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found
+it full of spawn.  Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the
+assertion that they are _larvae_, for the _larvae_ of insects are full of
+eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last state.  The
+water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, within
+which we keep it in water, and wandering away; and people every summer
+see numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched up the dry
+banks.  There are varieties of them, differing in colour; and some have
+fins up their tail and back, and some have not.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _August 17th_, 1768
+
+Dear Sir,--I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of
+the willow-wrens (_motacillae trochili_) which constantly and invariably
+use distinct notes.  But at the same time I am obliged to confess that I
+know nothing of your willow-lark.  In my letter of April 18th, I had told
+you peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then;
+but when I came to procure it, it proved in all respects a very
+_motacilla trochilus_, only that it is a size larger than the two other,
+and the yellow-green of the whole upper part of the body is more vivid,
+and the belly of a clearer white.  I have specimens of the three sorts
+now lying before me, and can discern that there are three gradations of
+sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two
+flesh-coloured 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 cocks and two hens, and
+says, on recollection, that he remembers to have observed these birds
+again last spring, about Lady-day, as it were on their return to the
+north.  Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of
+England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe, and may retire
+before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those parts, and return to
+breed in the spring, when the cold abates.  If this be the case, here is
+discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the
+writers are silent; but if these birds should prove the ousels of the
+north of England, then here is a migration disclosed within our own
+kingdom never before remarked.  It does not yet appear whether they
+retire beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is most
+probable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that they would
+have continued so long unnoticed in the southern countries.  The ousel is
+larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there
+were no haws) it fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feeds on
+ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.
+
+I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the study of
+reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw up with a
+bucket of water from my well, which is sixty-three feet deep, a large
+black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly.  How they first came
+down at that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without
+help, is more than I am able to say.
+
+My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of
+a buck's head.  As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem
+much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. --- may find reason to
+give his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance this
+extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God
+in the creation.
+
+As yet I have not quite done with my history of the _oedicnemus_, or
+stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near whose house
+these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely
+when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return again in
+the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and saw several single
+birds.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Nov. 28th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--With regard to the _oedicnemus_, or stone-curlew, I intend to
+write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose neighbourhood
+these birds seem most to abound, and shall urge him to take particular
+notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards to watch them most
+narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead of the
+winter.  When I have obtained information with respect to this
+circumstance, I shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew, which
+I hope will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near
+the truth.  This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and
+is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions of
+these birds; and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the
+Naturalist's Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall expect
+that he will be very exact in his dates.  It is very extraordinary, as
+you observe, that a bird so common with us should never struggle to you.
+
+And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think of it, an
+anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me when I was last at
+his house; which was that, in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws
+(_corvi moneduloe_) build every year in the rabbit-burrows under ground.
+The way he and his brothers used to take their nests, while they were
+boys, was by listening at the mouths of the holes, and, if they heard the
+young ones cry, they twisted the nest out with a forked stick.  Some
+water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner; but I
+should never have suspected the daws of building in holes on the flat
+ground.
+
+Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed in,
+and that is Stonehenge.  These birds deposit their nests in the
+interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing
+work of antiquity; which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height
+of the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to secure those
+nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys, who are always idling round
+that place.
+
+One of my neighbours last Saturday, November 26th, saw a martin in a
+sheltered bottom: the sun shone warm, and the bird was hawking briskly
+after flies.  I am now perfectly satisfied that they do not all leave
+this island in the winter.
+
+You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and caution
+concerning the cures done by toads; for, let people advance what they
+will on such subjects, yet there is such a propensity in mankind towards
+deceiving and being deceived, that one cannot safely relate anything from
+common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of
+doubt and suspicion.
+
+Your approbation with regard to my new discovery of the migration of the
+ring-ousel gives me satisfaction; and I find you concur with me in
+suspecting that they are foreign birds which visit us.  You will be sure,
+I hope, not to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave your
+rocks in the autumn.  What puzzles me most is the very short stay they
+make with us, for in about three weeks they are all gone.  I shall be
+very curious to remark whether they will call on us at their return in
+the spring, as they did last year.
+
+I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology.  If fortune had
+settled me near the seaside, or near some great river, my natural
+propensity would soon have urged me to have made myself acquainted with
+their productions; but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in an
+upland district, my knowledge of fishes extends little farther than to
+those common sorts which our brooks and lakes produce.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Jan. 2nd_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the
+ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in
+reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this county.  And
+perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished
+with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom.  We have many
+livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship
+make little better appearance than dovecots.  When I first saw
+Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of
+Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which presented
+themselves in every point of view.  As an admirer of prospects, I have
+reason to lament this want in my own county; for such objects are very
+necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.
+
+What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my curiosity.  An
+ancient author, though no naturalist, has well remarked that "every kind
+of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and things in the sea, is
+tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind."
+
+It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually been
+procured for you in Devonshire, because it corroborates my discovery,
+which I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank near
+Farnham, in Surrey.  I am well acquainted with the South Hams of
+Devonshire, and can suppose that district, from its southerly situation,
+to be a proper habitation for such animals in their best colours.
+
+Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not forsake
+them against winter, our suspicions that those which visit this
+neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, but driven from the
+more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable;
+and it will be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they
+come, and to inquire why they make so very short a stay.
+
+In your account of your error with regard to the two species of herons,
+you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your description of the
+heronry at Cressi Hall, which is a curiosity I never could manage to see.
+Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride
+half as many miles to have a sight of.  Pray be sure to tell me in your
+next whose seat Cressi Hall is, and near what town it lies.  I have often
+thought that those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently
+explored.  If half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength of
+water-spaniels, were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly
+find more species.
+
+There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that
+of the _caprimulgus_ (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious
+creature; but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as
+it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note
+sitting on a bough; and I have for many a half hour watched it as it sat
+with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer.  It
+perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an
+attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio "British
+Zoology."  This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at
+the close of day--so exactly that I have known it strike up more than
+once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we
+can hear when the weather is still.  It appears to me past all doubt that
+its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of
+its windpipe formed for sound, just as cats purr.  You will credit me, I
+hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an
+hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these
+churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice and
+began to chatter, and continued his note for many minutes: and we were
+all struck with wonder to find that the organs of that little animal,
+when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration to the whole building!
+This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated four or five
+times; and I have observed that to happen when the cock has been pursuing
+the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a tree.
+
+It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have procured,
+should prove a new one, since five species have been found in a
+neighbouring kingdom.  The great sort that I mentioned is certainly a
+nondescript; I saw but one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of
+taking.
+
+Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining.  I am no angler
+myself; but inquiring of those that are, what they supposed that part of
+their tackle to be made of?--they replied, "Of the intestines of a
+silkworm."
+
+Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet I cannot say
+that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge; I may now and then perhaps
+be able to furnish you with a little information.
+
+The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and
+since we have had delicate weather.  Mr. Barker, who has measured the
+rain for more than thirty years, says, in a late letter, that more has
+fallen this year than in any he ever attended to; though from July, 1763,
+to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of this year.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Feb. 28th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--It is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our green
+lizards may be specifically the same; all that I know is, that, when some
+years ago many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke College
+garden, in the University of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed
+to enjoy themselves very well, but never bred.  Whether this circumstance
+will prove anything either way I shall not pretend to say.
+
+I return you thanks for your account of Cressi Hall; but recollect, not
+without regret, that in June, 1746, I was visiting for a week together at
+Spalding, without ever being told that such a curiosity was just at hand.
+Pray send me word in your next what sort of tree it is that contains such
+a quantity of herons' nests, and whether the heronry consists of a whole
+grove of wood, or only of a few trees.
+
+It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about the
+_caprimulgus_; all I contended for was to prove that it often chatters
+sitting as well as flying; and therefore the noise was voluntary, and
+from organic impulse, and not from the resistance of the air against the
+hollow of its mouth and throat.
+
+If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas Day.
+I was travelling, and out early in the morning; at first there was a vast
+fog, but, by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from home
+towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day.  We were
+then on a large heath or common, and I could discern, as the mist began
+to break away, great numbers of swallows (_hirundines rusticae_)
+clustering on the stunted shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there
+all night.  As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they were all on
+the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on
+southward towards the sea; after this I did not see any more flocks, only
+now and then a straggler.
+
+I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow kind
+disappear some and some gradually, as they come, for the bulk of them
+seem to withdraw at once; only some stragglers stay behind a long while,
+and do never, there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this island.
+Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come forth in a warm day, as
+bats do continually of a warm evening, after they have disappeared for
+weeks.  For a very respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was
+walking with some friends under Merton Wall on a remarkably hot noon,
+either in the last week in December or the first week in January, he
+espied three or four swallows huddled together on the moulding of one of
+the windows of that college.  I have frequently remarked that swallows
+are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere; is it owing to the vast massy
+buildings of that place, to the many waters round it, or to what else?
+
+When I used to rise in the morning last autumn, and see the swallows and
+martins clustering on the chimneys and thatch of the neighbouring
+cottages, I could not help being touched with a secret delight, mixed
+with some degree of mortification; with delight, to observe with how much
+ardour and punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the strong impulse
+towards migration, or hiding, imprinted on their minds by their great
+Creator; and with some degree of mortification when I reflected that,
+after all our pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what
+regions they do migrate, and are still farther embarrassed to find that
+some do not actually migrate at all.
+
+These reflections made so strong an impression on my imagination, that
+they became productive of a composition that may perhaps amuse you for a
+quarter of an hour when next I have the honour of writing to you.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _May 29th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--The _scaraboeus fullo_ I know very well, having seen it in
+collections, but have never been able to discover one wild in its natural
+state.  Mr. Banks told me he thought it might be found on the sea-coast.
+
+On the 13th April I went to the sheep-down, where the _ring-ousels_ have
+been observed to make their appearance at spring and fall, in their way
+perhaps to the north or south, and was much pleased to see these birds
+about the usual spot.  We shot a cock and a hen; they were plump and in
+high condition.  The hen had but very small rudiments of eggs within her,
+which proves they are late breeders; whereas those species of the thrush
+kind that remain with us the whole year have fledged young before that
+time.  In their crops was nothing very distinguishable, but somewhat that
+seemed like blades of vegetables nearly digested.  In autumn they feed on
+haws and yew-berries, and in the spring on ivy-berries.  I dressed one of
+these birds, and found it juicy and well-flavoured.  It is remarkable
+that they make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, but rest near
+a fortnight at Michaelmas.  These birds, from the observations of three
+springs and two autumns, are most punctual in their return, and exhibit a
+new migration unnoticed by the writers, who supposed they never were to
+be seen in any southern countries.
+
+One of my neighbours lately brought me a new _salicaria_, which at first
+I suspected might have proved your willow-lark, but, on a nicer
+examination, it answered much better to the description of that species
+which you shot at Revesby, in Lincolnshire.  My bird I describe thus: "It
+is a size less than the grasshopper-lark; the head, back, and coverts of
+the wings, of a dusky brown, without those dark spots of the
+grasshopper-lark; over each eye is a milk-white stroke; the chin and
+throat are white; and the under parts of a yellowish white; the rump is
+tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed; the bill is dusky and
+sharp, and the legs are dusky; the hinder claw long and crooked."  The
+person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed sparrow that he took
+it for one; and that it sings all night: but this account merits farther
+inquiry.  For my part I suspect it is a second sort of _locustela_,
+hinted at by Dr. Derham in Ray's Letters: see p. 108.  He also procured
+me a grasshopper-lark.
+
+The question that you put with regard to those genera of animals that are
+peculiar to America, viz., how they came there, and whence? is too
+puzzling for me to answer, and yet so obvious as often to have struck me
+with wonder.  If one looks into the writers on that subject, little
+satisfaction is to be found.  Ingenious men will readily advance
+plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to
+maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as
+good as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture.  The late
+writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of those that
+have gone before, as I remember, stock America from the western coast of
+Africa and the south of Europe, and then break down the Isthmus that
+bridged over the Atlantic.  But this is making use of a violent piece of
+machinery; it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god!
+"_Incredulus odi_."
+
+
+
+TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.
+THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK.
+
+
+    --equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
+    Ingenium.
+
+                                                            VIRG. _Georg_.
+
+When day declining sheds a milder gleam,
+What time the may-fly haunts the pool or stream;
+When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
+What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;
+Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
+And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale;
+To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
+Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
+To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain
+Belated, to support her infant train;
+To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
+Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing:
+Amusive birds!--say where your hid retreat
+When the frost rages and the tempests beat;
+Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
+When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head:
+Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
+The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide!
+
+While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day,
+To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,
+Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
+And all the fading landscape sinks in night;
+To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
+With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;
+To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
+To catch the distant falling of the flood;
+While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung
+Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;
+While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
+Unseen, the soft-enamour'd woodlark sings:
+These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ,
+Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:
+As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
+Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
+
+Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine;
+The tinkling sheep-bell or the breath of kine;
+The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
+Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
+
+The chilling night-dews fall--away, retire!
+For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!
+Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky,
+Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
+True to the signal, by love's meteor led,
+Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Aug. 30th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the _ousel
+migration_ pleases you.  You put a very shrewd question when you ask me
+how I know that their autumnal migration is southward?  Was not candour
+and openness the very life of natural history, I should pass over this
+query just as a sly commentator does over a crabbed passage in a classic;
+but common ingenuousness obliges me to confess, not without some degree
+of shame, that I only reasoned in that case from analogy.  For as all
+other autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our
+milder winters, and return to the northward again when the rigorous cold
+abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same, as well as
+their congeners the fieldfares; and especially as ring-ousels are known
+to haunt cold mountainous countries: but I have good reason to suspect,
+since, that they may come to us from the westward, because I hear from
+very good authority, that they breed on Dartmoor, and that they forsake
+that wild district about the time that our visitors appear, and do not
+return till late in the spring.
+
+I have taken a great deal of pains about your _salicaria_ and mine, with
+a white stroke over its eye and a tawny rump.  I have surveyed it alive
+and dead, and have procured several specimens, and am perfectly persuaded
+myself (and trust you will soon become convinced of the same) that it is
+no more nor less than the _passer arundinaceus minor_ of Ray.  This bird,
+by some means or other, seems to be entirely omitted in the British
+Zoology; and one reason probably was because it is so strangely classed
+in Ray, who ranges it among his _picis affines_.  It ought, no doubt, to
+have gone among his _aviculae cauda unicolore_, and among your
+slender-billed small birds of the same division.  Linnaeus might with
+great propriety have put it into his genus of _motacilla_; and _motacilla
+salicaria_ of his _fauna suecica_ seems to come the nearest to it.  It is
+no uncommon bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is
+covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors.  The country people in some
+places call it the sedge-bird.  It sings incessantly night and day during
+the breeding-time, imitating the note of a sparrow, a swallow, a skylark,
+and has a strange hurrying manner in its song.  My specimens correspond
+most minutely to the description of your _fen salicaria_ shot near
+Revesby.  Mr. Ray has given an excellent characteristic of it when he
+says, "_Rostrum et pedes in hac avicula multo majores sunt quam pro
+corporis ratione_."  See letter, May 29th, 1769.  (Preceding letter
+xxiv.)
+
+I have got you the egg of an _oedicnemus_, or stone-curlew, which was
+picked up in a fallow on the naked ground.  There were two, but the
+finder inadvertently crushed one with his foot before he saw them.
+
+When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had not forgot to
+mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking _se defendendo_.  I knew
+a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as
+any animal while in good humour and unalarmed, but as soon as a stranger,
+or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with
+such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable.  Thus the
+squnck, or stonck, of Ray's "Synop. Quadr." is an innocuous and sweet
+animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most
+pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can be more
+horrible.
+
+A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the _lanius minor
+cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba_, _Raii_; which is a bird that,
+at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of "British
+Zoology," I find you had not seen.  You have described it well from
+Edwards's drawing.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVI.
+
+
+                                           SELBORNE, _December 8th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your
+return from Scotland, where you spent some considerable time, and gave
+yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive
+kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the highlands.
+The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry, because men seldom allot
+themselves half the time they should do, but, fixing on a day for their
+return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey
+that required despatch than as philosophers investigating the works of
+nature.  You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a
+good fund of materials for a future edition of the "British Zoology;" and
+will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a
+part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined before.
+
+It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so
+congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in
+England; but that they should not think even the highlands cold and
+northerly, and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange
+and wonderful.  The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole
+year round, so that we have reason to conclude that those migrators that
+visit us for a short space every autumn do not come from thence.
+
+And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds
+were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, appearing, as
+before, about the 30th September; but their flocks were larger than
+common, and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time.  If
+they came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of their congeners
+do, and then left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so much
+struck with the occurrence, since it would be similar to that of the
+other winter birds of passage; but when I see them for a fortnight at
+Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I am
+seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these travellers come,
+and whither they go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or
+baiting place.
+
+Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very amusing;
+and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such
+perilous voyages over the northern ocean.  Some country people in the
+winter time have, every now and then, told me that they have seen two or
+three white larks on our downs, but, on considering the matter, I begin
+to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds we are talking of,
+which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward.
+
+It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the Scottish
+mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species,
+for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a
+great acquisition.
+
+The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a bird,
+that it would grace our _fauna_ much.  I never was informed before where
+wild geese are known to breed.
+
+You admit, I find, that I have proved your _fen salicaria_ to be the
+lesser reed-sparrow of Ray; and I think you may be secure that I am
+right, for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter, and had
+some fair specimens, but, as they were not well preserved, they are
+decayed already.  You will, no doubt, insert it in its proper place in
+your next edition.  Your additional plates will much improve your work.
+
+De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse; but still I am
+pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I
+have given in the article of the white hare.
+
+As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, far removed from
+any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously lain up in a
+hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves.  At one end of the
+burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was
+to have supported itself for the winter.  But the difficulty with me is
+how this _amphibius mus_ came to fix its winter station at such a
+distance from the water.  Was it determined in its choice of that place
+by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted there, or
+is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the
+neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?
+
+Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how
+fallacious it is with respect to natural history, yet, in the following
+instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may conduce towards
+the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with
+respect to the invariable early retreat of the _hirundo apus_, or swift,
+so many weeks before its congeners; and that not only with us, but also
+in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire about the beginning of
+August.
+
+The great large bat (which, by-the-bye, is at present a nondescript in
+England, and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires or
+migrates very early in the summer.  It also ranges very high for its
+food, feeding in a different region of the air, and that is the reason I
+never could procure one.  Now this is exactly the case with the swifts;
+for they take their food in a more exalted region than the other species,
+and are very seldom seen hawking for flies near the ground, or over the
+surface of the water.  From hence I would conclude that these
+_hirundines_ and the larger bats are supported by some sorts of
+high-flying gnats, scarabs, or _phaloenae_, that are of short
+continuance, and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by
+the defect of their food.
+
+By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to October 31st, since
+which I have not seen nor heard any.  Swallows were observed on to
+November 3rd.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Feb. 22nd_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--Hedgehogs abound in my gardens and fields.  The manner in
+which they eat the roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very
+curious; with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their
+lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards,
+leaving the tuft of leaves untouched.  In this respect they are
+serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but they deface the
+walks in some measure by digging little round holes.  It appears, by the
+dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable
+part of their food.  In June last I procured a litter of four or five
+young hedgehogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old: they, I
+find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they came to
+my hands.  No doubt their spines are soft and flexible at the time of
+their birth, or else the poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the
+critical moment of parturition, but it is plain they soon harden; for
+these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as
+would easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled with caution.
+Their spines are quite white at this age; and they have little hanging
+ears, which I do not remember to be discernible in the old ones.  They
+can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over their faces, but are
+not able to contract themselves into a ball, as they do, for the sake of
+defence, when full grown.  The reason, I suppose, is, because the curious
+muscle that enables the creature to roll itself up in a ball was not then
+arrived at its full tone and firmness.  Hedgehogs make a deep and warm
+_hybernaculum_ with leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for
+the winter: but I never could find that they stored in any winter
+provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do.
+
+I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the fieldfare (_turdus
+pilaris_) which I think is particular enough; this bird, though it sits
+on trees in the daytime, and procures the greatest part of its food from
+white-thorn hedges, yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be
+seen by the _fauna suecica_; yet always appears with us to roost on the
+ground.  They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to
+settle and nestle among the heath on our forest.  And besides, the
+larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the
+wheat stubbles; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings in the
+hedges, never entangle any of this species.  Why these birds, in the
+matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and from
+themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for
+which I am by no means able to account.
+
+I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the _moose-deer_; but in
+general foreign animals fall seldom in my way; my little intelligence is
+confined to the narrow sphere of my own observations at home.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVIII.
+
+
+                                                  SELBORNE, _March_, 1770.
+
+On Michaelmas Day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of the female moose
+belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly
+disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after
+having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the morning
+before.  However, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded to
+examine this rare quadruped; I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under
+the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; but, though it
+had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the
+stench was hardly supportable.  The grand distinction between this deer,
+and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange
+length of its legs, on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the
+birds of the _gralloe_ order.  I measured it, as they do a horse, and
+found that, from the ground to the withers, it was just five feet four
+inches, which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few
+horses arrive at: but then, with this length of legs, its neck was
+remarkably short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with
+one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground,
+with the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the ears were vast and
+lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches long,
+and ass-like, and had such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw
+before, with huge nostrils.  This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a
+dainty dish in North America.  It is very reasonable to suppose that this
+creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by wading
+after water plants; towards which way of livelihood the length of legs
+and great lip must contribute much.  I have read somewhere that it
+delights in eating the _nymphoea_, or water-lily.  From the fore-feet to
+the belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches:
+the length of the legs before and behind consisted a great deal in the
+_tibia_, which was strangely long; but in my haste to get out of the
+stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly.  Its scut seemed to be
+about an inch long; the colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four
+inches long; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat and
+splayed.  The spring before it was only two years old, so that most
+probably it was not then come to its growth.  What a vast, tall beast
+must a full-grown stag be!  I have been told some arrive at ten feet and
+a half!  This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same
+species, which died the spring before.  In the same garden was a young
+stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there
+might have been a breed; but their inequality of height must have always
+been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind.  I should have been glad
+to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely, but the
+putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity.  This animal, the keeper
+told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former
+winter.  In the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had
+no front antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edge.  The
+noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.
+
+Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw,
+and whether you think still that the American moose and European elk are
+the same creature.
+
+                                      I am, with the greatest esteem, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIX.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _May 12th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--Last month we had such a series of cold, turbulent weather,
+such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest,
+that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds was much
+interrupted.  Some did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till
+weeks after their usual time, as the blackcap and whitethroat; and some
+have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren.
+As to the fly-catcher, I have not seen it; it is indeed one of the
+latest, but should appear about this time: and yet, amidst all this
+meteorous strife and war of the elements, two swallows discovered
+themselves, as long ago as April 11th, in frost and snow; but they
+withdrew quickly, and were not visible again for many days.
+House-martins, which are always more backward than swallows, were not
+observed till May came in.
+
+Among the monogamous birds several are to be found, after pairing-time,
+single, and of each sex; but whether this state of celibacy is matter of
+choice or necessity, is not so easy discoverable.  When the
+house-sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one
+to be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and
+so for several times following.
+
+I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls which made
+great havoc among the young pigeons: one of the owls was shot as soon as
+possible, but the survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went
+on.  After some time the new pair were both destroyed, and the annoyance
+ceased.
+
+Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal for the increase
+of his game being greater than his humanity, after pairing-time he always
+shot the cock-bird of every couple of partridges upon his grounds;
+supposing that the rivalry of many males interrupted the breed: he used
+to say, that, though he had widowed the same hen several times, yet he
+found she was still provided with a fresh paramour, that did not take her
+away from her usual haunt.
+
+Again; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who has often told me
+that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of
+partridges, consisting of cock-birds alone; these he pleasantly used to
+call old bachelors.
+
+There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats that is very
+remarkable; I mean their violent fondness for fish, which appears to be
+their most favourite food: and yet nature in this instance seems to have
+planted in them an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to
+gratify; for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards water,
+and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to
+plunge into that element.
+
+Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is the otter, which by
+nature is so well formed for diving, that it makes great havoc among the
+inhabitants of the waters.  Not supposing that we had any of those beasts
+in our shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter, brought to
+me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank of our
+stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne
+from Harteley Wood.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXX.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Aug. 1st_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their
+natural history.  What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds good
+in every other branch: "_Verbositas praesentis saeculi_, _calamitas
+artis_."
+
+Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work?  As I admire his
+"Entomologia," I long to see it.
+
+I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert in the
+former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to
+island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pursuit of the
+females.  My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was
+on that errand in the river St. Lawrence: it was a monstrous beast, he
+told me; but he did not take the dimensions.
+
+When I was last in town, our friend Mr. Barrington most obligingly
+carried me to see many curious sights.  As you were then writing to him
+about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful specimens.
+There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke's at Wilton, a horn room furnished
+with more than thirty different pairs; but I have not seen that house
+lately.
+
+Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed and
+living birds from all quarters of the world.  After I had studied over
+the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that came
+from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, etc.,
+were thick-billed birds of the _loxia_ and _fringilla_ genera; and no
+_motacillae_, or _muscicapae_, were to be met with.  When I came to
+consider, the reason was obvious enough, for the hard-billed birds
+subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board, while the soft-billed
+birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a
+_succedaneum_ for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and
+tedious voyages.  It is from this defect of food that our collections
+(curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the
+most delicate and lively genera.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXI.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _Sept. 14th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native
+crags, and are farther assured that they continue resident in those cold
+regions the whole year.  From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so
+regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in
+their return, every April?  They are more early this year than common,
+for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this month.
+
+An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some parts
+of Dartmoor, and breed there, but leave those haunts about the end of
+September, or beginning of October, and return again about the end of
+March.
+
+Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great abundance
+all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor-ousels, withdraw in
+October and November, and return in spring.  This information seems to
+throw some light on my new migration.
+
+Scopoli's new work (which I have just procured) has its merit in
+ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola.  Monographers,
+come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some
+regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history; for, as no man
+can alone investigate the works of nature, these partial writers may,
+each in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and
+freer from errors, than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave
+the way to an universal correct natural history.  Not that Scopoli is so
+circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as
+I could wish: he advances some false facts; as when he says of the
+_hirundo urbica_ that "_pullos extra nidum non nutrit_."  This assertion
+I know to be wrong from repeated observation this summer; for
+house-martins do feed their young flying, though it must be acknowledged
+not so commonly as the house-swallow; and the feat is done in so quick a
+manner as not to be perceptible to indifferent observers.  He also
+advances some (I was going to say) improbable facts; as when he says of
+the woodcock that "_pullos rostro portat fugiens ab hoste_."  But candour
+forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false, because I have never
+been witness to such a fact.  I have only to remark that the long
+unwieldy bill of the woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among
+the winged creation for such a feat of natural affection.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXII.
+
+
+                                           SELBORNE, _October 29th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I
+begin to suspect that I discern my brother's _hirundo hyberna_ in
+Scopoli's new discovered _hirundo rupestris_, p. 167.  His description of
+"_Supra murina_, _subtus albida_; _rectrices macula ovali alba in latere
+interno_; _pedes nudi_, _nigri_; _rostrum nigrum_; _remiges obscuriores
+quam plumae dorsales_; _rectrices remigibus concolores_; _cauda
+emarginata_, _nec forcipata_," agrees very well with the bird in
+question: but when he comes to advance that it is "_statura hirundinis
+urbicae_," and that "_definitio hirundinis ripariae Linnaei huic quoque
+conveniit_," he in some measure invalidates all he has said; at least, he
+shows at once that he compares them to these species merely from memory:
+for I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in
+every circumstance of shape, size, and colour.  However, as you will have
+a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in the matter.
+
+Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or not, he will have
+the credit of first discovering that they spend their winters under the
+warm and sheltry shores of Gibraltar and Barbary.
+
+Scopoli's characters of his ordines and genera are clear, just, and
+expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnaeus.  These few remarks are
+the result of my first perusal of Scopoli's "Annus Primus."
+
+The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to the other by
+memory; for want of caution in this particular Scopoli falls into errors;
+he is not so full with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as
+might be wished, as you justly observe; his Latin is easy, elegant, and
+expressive, and very superior to Kramer's.
+
+I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds so well
+with yours.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Nov. 26th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--I was much pleased to see, among the collection of birds from
+Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer birds of passage,
+concerning whose departure we have made so much inquiry.  Now if these
+birds are found in Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may
+easily be supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the
+continent, and spend their winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe.
+This is certain, that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar
+appear there only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs
+towards the northward for the sake of breeding during the summer months,
+and retiring in parties and broods towards the south at the decline of
+the year; so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous and place
+of observation, from whence they take their departure each way towards
+Europe or Africa.  It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find
+that our small short-winged summer birds of passage are to be seen spring
+and autumn on the very skirts of Europe; it is presumptive proof of their
+emigrations.
+
+Scopoli seems to me to have found the _hirundo melba_, the great
+Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it.  For what is his _hirundo
+alpina_ but the afore-mentioned bird in other words?  Says he, "_Omnia
+prioris_" (meaning the swift); "_sed pectus album_; _paulo major
+priore_."  I do not suppose this to be a new species.  It is true also of
+the _melba_, that "_nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus_."  _Vid. Annum
+Primum_.
+
+My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no naturalist,
+to whom I applied on account of the stone-curlew, _oedicnemus_, sends me
+the following account: "In looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the
+month of April, I find the stone-curlews are first mentioned on the
+seventeenth and eighteenth, which date seems to me rather late.  They
+live with us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning of autumn
+prepare to take leave by getting together in flocks.  They seem to me a
+bird of passage that may travel into some dry, hilly country south of us,
+probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep-walks in that country;
+for they spend their summers with us in such districts.  This conjecture
+I hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in England
+in the winter.  I believe they are not fond of going near the water, but
+feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks and downs.  They
+breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with grey mossy flints, which
+much resemble their young in colour, among which they skulk and conceal
+themselves.  They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground,
+producing in common but two at a time.  There is reason to think their
+young run soon after they are hatched, and that the old ones do not feed
+them, but only lead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the
+most part, is in the night."  Thus far, my friend.
+
+In the manners of this bird you see there is something very analogous to
+the bustard whom it also somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in
+the structure of its feet.
+
+For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these birds in
+Andalusia, and now he writes me word that, for the first time, he saw one
+dead in the market on the 3rd September.
+
+When the _oedicnemus_ flies it stretches out its legs straight behind,
+like a heron.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 30th_, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--There is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts,
+which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer,
+getting into people's skins, especially those of women and children, and
+raising tumours which itch intolerably.  This animal (which we call a
+harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye, of a
+bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of Acarus.  They are to be met
+with in gardens on kidney-beans, or any legumens, but prevail only in the
+hot months of summer.  Warreners, as some have assured me, are much
+infested by them on chalky downs, where these insects swarm sometimes to
+so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and to give them a
+reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into fevers.
+
+There is a small, long, shining fly in these parts very troublesome to
+the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the
+bacon while it is drying; these eggs produce maggots called jumpers,
+which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to
+the bone, and make great waste.  This fly I suspect to be a variety of
+the _musca putris_ of Linnaeus; it is to be seen in the summer in
+farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and about the mantel-pieces, and on the
+ceilings.
+
+The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden (destroying
+often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an animal that
+wants to be better known.  The country people here call it the turnip-fly
+and black-dolphin; but I know it to be one of the _coleoptera_; the
+"_chrysomela oleracea_, _saltatoria_, _femoribus posticis crassissimis_."
+In very hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and, as you walk in
+a field or in a garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping on the
+leaves of the turnips or cabbages.
+
+There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy, which,
+because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by late writers;
+and that is the _curvicauda_ of old Mouset, mentioned by Derham in his
+"Physico-Theology," p. 250; an insect worthy of remark for depositing its
+eggs as it flies in so dextrous manner on the single hairs of the legs
+and flanks of grass-horses.  But then Derham is mistaken when he advances
+that this oestrus is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot
+which he mentions afterwards; for more modern entomologists have
+discovered that singular production to be derived from the egg of the
+_musca chamaeleon_; see Geoffroy, t. xvii.  f. 4.
+
+A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, and
+house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying them,
+would be allowed by the public to be a most useful and important work.
+What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be
+collected; great improvements would soon follow, of course.  A knowledge
+of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in short, of the life and
+conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some
+method of preventing their depredations.
+
+As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology more than some
+neat plates that should well express the generic distinctions of insects
+according to Linnaeus; for I am well assured that many people would study
+insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those
+distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXV.
+
+
+                                                           SELBORNE, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could
+not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by
+no means to be their tails, those long feathers growing not from their
+_uropygium_, but all up their backs.  A range of short brown stiff
+feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the _uropygium_, is the real
+tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and
+top-heavy, when set on end.  When the train is up, nothing appears of the
+bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the case were
+those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey
+cock when in a strutting attitude.  By a strong muscular vibration these
+birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords
+of a sword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run
+backwards towards the females.
+
+I should tell you that I have got an uncommon _calculus aegogropila_,
+taken out of the stomach of a fat ox; it is perfectly round, and about
+the size of a large Seville orange; such are, I think, usually flat.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVI.
+
+
+                                                            _Sept._, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--The summer through I have seen but two of that large species
+of bat which I call _vespertilio altivolans_, from its manner of feeding
+high in the air; I procured one of them, and found it to be a male, and
+made no doubt, as they accompanied together, that the other was a female;
+but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was
+somewhat disappointed, when it appeared to be also of the same sex.  This
+circumstance, and the great scarcity of this sort, at least in these
+parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a
+species, or whether it may not be the male part of the more known
+species, one of which may supply many females, as is known to be the case
+in sheep and some other quadrupeds.  But this doubt can only be cleared
+by a farther examination, and some attention to the sex, of more
+specimens: all that I know at present is, that my two were amply
+furnished with the parts of generation, much resembling those of a boar.
+
+In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen inches and a half,
+and four inches and a half from the nose to the tip of the tail; their
+heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and
+muscular, and their whole bodies fleshy and plump.  Nothing could be more
+sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut colour;
+their maws were full of food, but so macerated that the quality could not
+be distinguished; their livers, kidneys, and hearts were large, and their
+bowels covered with fat.  They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce
+and one drachm.  Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar
+structure that I did not understand perfectly; but refer it to the
+observation of the curious anatomist.  These creatures sent forth a very
+rancid and offensive smell.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVII.
+
+
+                                                           SELBORNE, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--On the 12th July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the
+motions of the _caprimulgus_, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a
+large oak that swarmed with _scarabaei solstitiales_, or fern-chafers.
+The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the
+various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus.  But the
+circumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it distinctly, more
+than once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and, by a bend of the
+head, deliver somewhat into its mouth.  If it takes any part of its prey
+with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose it does these
+chafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is
+curiously furnished with a serrated claw.
+
+Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have forsaken us sooner
+this year than usual; for on September 22nd they rendezvoused in a
+neighbour's walnut-tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up their
+lodging for the night.  At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they
+arose all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing from
+the strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to a
+considerable distance: since that no flock has appeared, only a few
+stragglers.
+
+Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd August--a rare instance! for they
+usually withdraw within the first week.
+
+On September 24th three or four ring-ousels appeared in my fields for the
+first time this season; how punctual are these visitors in their autumnal
+and spring migrations!
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVIII.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 15th_, 1773.
+
+Dear Sir,--By my journal for last autumn it appears that the
+house-martins bred very late, and stayed very late in these parts; for,
+on the 1st October, I saw young martins in their nest nearly fledged; and
+again, on the 21st October, we had at the next house a nest full of young
+martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were hawking for insects with
+great alertness.  The next morning the brood forsook their nest, and were
+flying round the village.  From this day I never saw one of the swallow
+kind till November 3rd, when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins
+were playing all day long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my
+field.  Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestling twelve
+days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the
+other side of the northern tropic?  Or rather, is it not more probable
+that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps
+sandbank, lake, or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say), may
+become their _hybernaculum_, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat?
+
+We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every week.
+Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were seen at
+Christmas, 1770, in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge of this
+county.  Hence we may conclude that their migrations are only internal,
+and not extending to the continent southward, if they do at first come at
+all from the northern parts of this island only, and not from the north
+of Europe.  Come from whence they will, it is plain, from the fearless
+disregard that they show for men or guns, that they have been little
+accustomed to places of much resort.  Navigators mention that in the Isle
+of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are so little
+acquainted with the human form that they settle on men's shoulders, and
+have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was
+grazing.  A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven
+years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he
+killed sixteen himself in one afternoon; he added further, that some had
+appeared since in every autumn, but he could not find that any had been
+observed before the season in which he shot so many.  I myself have found
+these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex
+downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes,
+particularly in the autumn of 1770.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIX.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Nov. 9th_, 1773.
+
+Dear Sir,--As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I
+take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, according
+as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in
+your intended new edition of the "British Zoology."
+
+The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, a great lake, at
+about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a
+plough and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the
+water, and so take its prey by surprise.
+
+A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted Park,
+and a red-backed butcher-bird [shrike] at Selborne: they are _rarae aves_
+in this county.
+
+Crows go in pairs all the year round.
+
+Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head, and on all the cliffs
+of the Sussex coast.
+
+The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south
+of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually
+the latest winter-bird of passage.  Before our beechen woods were so much
+destroyed we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together
+as they went out in a morning to feed.  They leave us early in spring:
+where do they breed?
+
+The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock,
+because it sings early in the spring in blowing, showery weather; its
+song often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards.
+
+A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels on Dartmoor:
+they build in banks on the sides of streams.
+
+Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they
+play and toy about on the wing, and particularly while they are
+descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground.
+
+Adanson's testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that European
+swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal: he does not talk at all
+like an ornithologist; and probably saw only the swallows of that
+country, which I know build within Governor O'Hara's hall against the
+roof.  Had he known European swallows, would he not have mentioned the
+species?
+
+The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies: this
+species appears commonly about a week before the house-martin, and about
+ten or twelve days before the swift.
+
+In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till October 23rd.
+
+The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house-swallow:
+viz., about the 24th or 26th April.
+
+Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole year.
+
+Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.
+
+Wag-tails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter.  Bullfinches, when
+fed on hempseed, often become wholly black.
+
+We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the winter, with hardly any
+males among them.
+
+When you say that in breeding-time the cock snipes make a bleating noise,
+and I a drumming (perhaps I should rather have said a humming), I suspect
+we mean the same thing.  However, while they are playing about on the
+wing they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths: but whether
+that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of
+their wings, I cannot say; but this I know, that when this noise happens,
+the bird is always descending, and his wings are violently agitated.
+
+Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congregate, and, leaving
+the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks.
+
+Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive and unhurt, but
+fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few miles from Alresford,
+where there is a great lake: it was kept awhile, but died.
+
+I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer Forest in the
+beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild ducks.
+
+Speaking of the swift, that page says "its drink the dew;" whereas it
+should be "it drinks on the wing;" for all the swallow kind sip their
+water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers: like Virgil's bees,
+they drink flying; "_flumina summa libant_."  In this method of drinking
+perhaps this genus may be peculiar.
+
+Of the sedge-bird, be pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its
+notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds;
+as the sparrow, swallow, skylark.  When it happens to be silent in the
+night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you
+immediately set it a-singing; or, in other words, though it slumbers
+sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it reassumes its song.
+
+
+
+LETTER XL.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Sept. 2nd_, 1774.
+
+Dear Sir,--Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been
+remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and
+this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of
+confounding the dams with their _pulli_: and besides, as they were then
+always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be
+no room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different
+chimneys the one for the other.  From all my observations, it constantly
+appeared that each sex has the long feathers in its tail that give it
+that forked shape; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail
+of the male than in that of the female.
+
+Nightingales, when their young first come abroad and are helpless, make a
+plaintive and a jarring noise, and also a snapping or cracking, pursuing
+people along the hedges as they walk; these last sounds seem intended for
+menace and defiance.
+
+The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.
+
+Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.
+
+Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in
+mole-traps.
+
+Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the kestril in
+churches and ruins.
+
+There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely.  The
+threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the
+generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.
+
+Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.
+
+When redstarts shake their tails they move them horizontally, as dogs do
+when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, bobs up and down
+like that of a jaded horse.
+
+Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in breeding-time;
+as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping, plaintive noise.
+
+Many birds, which become silent about Midsummer, reassume their notes
+again in September, as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren,
+etc.; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer,
+and autumn through.  Are birds induced to sing again because the
+temperament of autumn resembles that of spring?
+
+Linnaeus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics, grasses
+the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles; no doubt
+animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety.
+
+House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather becomes
+hotter, they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and
+apple-trees.  These birds have been known sometimes to build in rooks'
+nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks' nests.
+
+As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his dogs devoured
+all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the common
+mice; and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing the red.
+
+Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn.  The reason
+that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first
+seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the
+latter their song becomes distinguishable.  Many songsters of the autumn
+seem to be the young cock redbreasts of that year: nothwithstanding the
+prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the
+summer fruits.
+
+The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint notes,
+like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse; the great titmouse
+sings with three cheerful, joyous notes, and begins about the same time.
+
+Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.  House-martins came
+remarkably late this year both in Hampshire and Devonshire.  Is this
+circumstance for or against either hiding or migration?
+
+Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long continued
+draught, like quadrupeds.  Notwithstanding what I have said in a former
+letter, no grey crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor; it was my
+mistake.
+
+The appearance and flying of the _Scaraboeus solstitialis_, or
+fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of
+it.  These scarabs are the constant food of _Caprimulgi_, or fern-owls,
+through that period.  They abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy
+districts, but not in the clays.
+
+In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the town of Reading, is a stream
+or canal running under the stables and out into the fields on the other
+side of the road.  In this water are many carps, which lie rolling about
+in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing them
+bread; but as soon as the weather grows at all severe these fishes are no
+longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where they remain
+till the return of spring.  Do they lie in a torpid state?  If they do
+not, how are they supported?
+
+The note of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often
+attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing.
+These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition, for they sing with an
+erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in
+breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and
+commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there are
+bushes and covert, but in July and August they bring their broods into
+gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among the summer fruits.
+
+The blackcap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet
+that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but
+when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth
+very sweet but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and
+gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the
+nightingale excepted.
+
+Blackcaps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble their
+throats are wonderfully distended.
+
+The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat like that of the
+whitethroat; some birds have a few more notes than others.  Sitting very
+placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from
+morning to night.  He affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and
+loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the
+vane of a tall maypole.
+
+The fly-catcher is, of all our summer birds, the most mute and the most
+familiar; it also appears the last of any.  It builds in a vine, or a
+sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, or in the hole of a wall, or on
+the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where
+people are going in and out all day long.  This bird does not make the
+least pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note when it
+thinks its young in danger from cats or other annoyances; it breeds but
+once, and retires early.
+
+Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than half the
+birds that are ever seen in all Sweden; the former has produced more than
+one hundred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred and
+twenty-one.  Let me add, also, that it has shown near half the species
+that were ever known in Great Britain.
+
+On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a quaint
+and magisterial air, and is very sententious; but when I recollect that
+you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you will pardon the didactic
+manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLI.
+
+
+It is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of
+soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter through subsist during
+the dead months.  The imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason
+why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wryneck (so much
+resembling the hardy race of woodpeckers) migrates, while the feeble
+little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest
+frosts without availing himself of houses or villages, to which most of
+our winter birds crowd in distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in
+fields and woods; but perhaps this may be the reason why they may often
+perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird we know.
+
+I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which winter
+with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state.  All the
+species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams near their
+spring-heads, where they never freeze, and, by wading, pick out the
+aurelias of the genus of _Phryganeae_, etc.
+
+Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they
+pick up crumbs and other sweepings, and in mild weather they procure
+worms, which are stirring every month in the year, as any one may see
+that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on
+any mild winter's night.  Redbreasts and wrens in the winter haunt
+outhouses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders and flies that
+have laid themselves up during the cold season.  But the grand support of
+the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of aurelia of
+the _Lepidoptera ordo_, which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their
+trunks, to the pales and walls of gardens and buildings, and is found in
+every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in the ground itself.
+
+Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have what I call a kind
+of intermediate bill between the hard and the soft, between the Linnaean
+genera of _Fringilla_ and _Motacilla_.  One species alone spends its
+whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating for succour in the
+severest seasons to houses and neighbourhoods; and that is the delicate
+long-tailed titmouse, which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned
+wren; but the blue titmouse or nun (_Parus caeruleus_), the cole-mouse
+(_Parus ater_), the great black-headed titmouse (_Fringillago_), and the
+marsh titmouse (_Parus palustris_), all resort at times to buildings, and
+in hard weather particularly.  The great titmouse, driven by stress of
+weather, much frequents houses; and, in deep snows, I have seen this
+bird, while it hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight and
+admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched
+houses, in order to pull out the flies that were concealed between them,
+and that in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it
+a ragged appearance.
+
+The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a general
+devourer.  Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh, for it frequently
+picks bones on dunghills: it is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts
+butchers' shops.  When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught
+with snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or suet.  It will also pick
+holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained with the
+seeds on the head of a sunflower.  The blue, marsh, and great titmice
+will, in very severe weather, carry away barley and oat-straws from the
+sides of ricks.
+
+How the wheatear and whinchat support themselves in winter cannot be so
+easily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and
+warrens; the former especially, where there are stone quarries: most
+probably it is that their maintenance arises from the aureliae of the
+_Lepidoptera ordo_, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the
+wilderness.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _March 9th_, 1775.
+
+Dear Sir,--Some future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend
+his visits to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field and a country little
+known to the naturalist.  He will not, it is to be wished, undertake that
+tour unaccompanied by a botanist, because the mountains have scarcely
+been sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so mild an
+island may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the
+British dominions.  A person of a thinking turn of mind will draw many
+just remarks from the modern improvements of that country, both in arts
+and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of
+with us.  The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions, their
+prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many useful
+reflections.  He should also take with him an able draughtsman, for he
+must by no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the extensive and
+picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and the lofty stupendous mountains, so
+little known, and so engaging to the imagination when described and
+exhibited in a lively manner; such a work would be well received.
+
+As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I cannot pretend to say how
+accurate or particular any such may be; but this I know, that the best
+old maps of that kingdom are very defective.
+
+The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of Scotland
+that have fallen in my way is a want of a coloured line, or stroke, that
+shall exactly define the just limits of that district called the
+Highlands.  Moreover, all the great avenues to that mountainous and
+romantic country want to be well distinguished.  The military roads
+formed by General Wade are so great and Roman-like an undertaking that
+they well merit attention.  My old map, Moll's Map, takes notice of Fort
+William, but could not mention the other forts that have been erected
+long since; therefore a good representation of the chain of forts should
+not be omitted.
+
+The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed over.  Moll
+takes notice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such capital houses; but a
+new survey, no doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable
+for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, etc.  Lord
+Breadalbane's seat and beautiful _policy_ are too curious and
+extraordinary to be omitted.
+
+The seat of the Earl of Eglingtoun, near Glasgow, is worthy of notice.
+The pine plantations of that nobleman are very grand and extensive
+indeed.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIII.
+
+
+A pair of honey-buzzards, _Buteo opivorus_, _sive Vespivorus Raii_, built
+them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead beechen
+leaves, upon a tall, slender beech near the middle of Selborne Hanger, in
+the summer of 1780.  In the middle of the month of June a bold boy
+climbed this tree though standing on so steep and dizzy a situation, and
+brought down an egg, the only one in the nest, which had been sat on for
+some time, and contained the embryo of a young bird.  The egg was
+smaller, and not so round as those of the common buzzard; was dotted at
+each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with a broad
+bloody zone.  The hen bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. Ray's
+description of that species; had a black cere, short thick legs, and a
+long tail.  When on the wing this species may be easily distinguished
+from the common buzzard by its hawk-like appearance, small head, wings
+not so blunt, and longer tail.  This specimen contained in its craw some
+limbs of frogs and many grey snails without shells.  The irides of the
+eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright yellow colour.
+
+About the 10th July in the same summer a pair of sparrow-hawks bred in an
+old crow's nest on a low beech in the same hanger; and as their brood,
+which was numerous, began to grow up, became so daring and ravenous, that
+they were a terror to all the dames in the village that had chickens or
+ducklings under their care.  A boy climbed the tree, and found the young
+so fledged that they all escaped from him, but discovered that a good
+house had been kept: the larder was well-stored with provisions, for he
+brought down a young blackbird, jay, and house-martin, all clean picked,
+and some half devoured.  The old birds had been observed to make sad
+havoc for some days among the new-flown swallows and martins, which,
+being but lately out of their nests, had not acquired those powers and
+command of wing that enable them, when more mature, to set such enemies
+at defiance.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIV.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Nov. 30th_, 1780.
+
+Dear Sir,--Every incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence
+will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.
+
+As to the wild wood-pigeon, the _OEnas_, or _Vinago_, of Ray, I am much
+of your mind, and see no reason for making it the origin of the common
+house-dove: but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have
+been misled by another appellation, often given to the _OEnas_, which is
+that of stock-dove.
+
+Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from itself
+in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated, and to make
+a house-dove.  We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor
+does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays with
+us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the
+ring-dove, _Palumbus torquatus_; frequents coppices and groves, supports
+itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches.
+Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be
+settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on trees,
+like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do.
+
+You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex, and are
+informed that they sometimes breed in that county.  But why did not your
+correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks,
+cliffs, or trees?  If he was not an adroit ornithologist I should doubt
+the fact, because people with us perpetually confound the stock-dove with
+the ring-dove.
+
+For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves
+are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons.  In the
+first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common
+house-dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which generally
+enlarges the breed.  Again, those two remarkable black spots on the
+remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of
+the species, would not, one should think, be totally lost by its being
+reclaimed, but would often break out among its descendants.  But what is
+worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's
+house-doves in Caernarvonshire; which, though tempted by plenty of food
+and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on to inhabit their cote for
+any time; but as soon as they begin to breed, betake themselves to the
+fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety amidst the
+inaccessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory.
+
+    "Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret."
+
+I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who tells
+me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods were much more
+extensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing;
+that he has often killed near twenty in a day, and that with a long
+wild-fowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they
+came wheeling over his head: he moreover adds, which I was not aware of,
+that often there were among them little parties of small blue doves,
+which he calls rockiers.  The food of these numberless emigrants was
+beech-mast and some acorns, and particularly barley, which they collected
+in the stubbles.  But of late years, since the vast increase of turnips,
+that vegetable has furnished a great part of their support in hard
+weather; and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop.
+From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which occasions
+them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who thought them before a
+delicate dish.  They were shot not only as they were feeding in the
+fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also at the close of the
+evening, by men who lay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill them
+as they came in to roost.  These are the principal circumstances relating
+to this wonderful internal migration, which with us takes place towards
+the end of November, and ceases early in the spring.  Last winter we had
+in Selborne high wood about a hundred of these doves; but in former times
+the flocks were so vast, not only with us but all the district round,
+that on mornings and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in
+strings, reaching for a mile together.  When they thus rendezvoused here
+by thousands, if they happened to be suddenly roused from their
+roost-trees on an evening,
+
+    "Their rising all at once was like the sound
+    Of thunder heard remote."--
+
+It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, that I had
+a relation in this neighbourhood who made it a practice, for a time,
+whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to place them under a
+pair of doves that were sitting in his own pigeon-house; hoping thereby,
+if he could bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his
+own doves to beat out into the woods, and to support themselves by mast;
+the plan was plausible, but something always interrupted the success; for
+though the birds were usually hatched, and sometimes grew to half their
+size, yet none ever arrived at maturity.  I myself have seen these
+foundlings in their nest displaying a strange ferocity of nature, so as
+scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping with their bills by way of
+menace.  In short, they always died, perhaps for want of proper
+sustenance: but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild demeanour
+they frighted their foster mothers, and so were starved.
+
+Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes a dove
+haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, that I cannot
+refrain from quoting the passage: and John Dryden has rendered it so
+happily in our language, that without further excuse I shall add his
+translation also.
+
+     "Qualis spelunca subito commota Columba,
+    Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,
+    Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis,
+    Dat tecto ingentem--mox aere lapsa quieto,
+    Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas."
+
+     "As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes,
+    Rous'd, in a fright her sounding wings she shakes;
+    The cavern rings with clattering:--out she flies,
+    And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies:
+    At first she flutters:--but at length she springs
+    To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings."
+
+                                                               I am,  etc.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _June 30th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--When I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would
+sometimes do myself the honour to write to you on the subject of natural
+history; and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you
+are a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make allowances,
+especially where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one
+that takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the
+writings of others.
+
+THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE WHICH I HAVE
+DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH
+THEY APPEAR:--
+
+                               RAII NOMINA.          USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT
+1.       Wryneck.              _Jynx_, _sive         The middle of March:
+                               Torquilla_.           harsh note.
+2.       Smallest              _Regulus non          March 23rd: chirps till
+         willow-wren.          cristatus_.           September.
+3.       Swallow.              _Hirundo              April 13th.
+                               domestica_.
+4.       Martin.               _Hirundo rustica_.    Ditto.
+5.       Sand-martin.          _Hirundo riparia_.    Ditto.
+6.       Blackcap.             _Atricapilla_.        Ditto: a sweet, wild
+                                                     note.
+7.       Nightingale.          _Luscinia_.           Beginning of April.
+8.       Cuckoo.               _Cuculus_.            Middle of April.
+9.       Middle willow-wren.   _Regulus non          Ditto: a sweet,
+                               cristatus_.           plaintive note.
+10.      Whitethroat.          _Ficedulae affinis_   Ditto: mean note; sings
+                                                     on till September.
+11.      Redstart.             _Ruticilla_.          Ditto: more agreeable
+                                                     song.
+12.      Stone-curlew.         _OEdicnemus_          End of March: loud
+                                                     nocturnal whistle.
+13.      Turtle-dove.          _Turtur_.
+14.      Grasshopper-lark.     _Alauda minima        Middle April: a small
+                               locustae voce_        sibilous note, till the
+                                                     end of July.
+15.      Swift.                _Hirundo apus_.       About April 27th.
+16.      Less reed-sparrow.    _Passer               A sweet polyglot, but
+                               arundinaceus          hurrying; it has the
+                               minor_.               notes of many birds.
+17.      Land-rail.            _Ortygometra_.        A loud, harsh
+                                                     note--crex, crex.
+18.      Largest willow        _Regulus non          _Cantat voce stridula
+         wren.                 cristatus_.           locustae_; end of April,
+                                                     on the tops of high
+                                                     beeches.
+19.      Goat-sucker, or       _Caprimulgus_.        Beginning of May:
+         fern-owl.                                   chatters by night with a
+                                                     singular noise.
+20.      Fly-catcher.          _Stoparola_.          May 12th: a very mute
+                                                     bird: this is the latest
+                                                     summer bird of passage.
+
+This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten several
+genera of the Linnaean system, and are all of the _ordo_ of _passeres_
+save the _Jynx_ and _Cuculus_, which are _picae_, and the _Charadrius_
+(_OEdicnemus_) and _Rallus_ (_Ortygometra_), which are _grallae_.
+
+These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnaean
+genera:--
+
+1,                       _Jynx_.          13.              _Columba_.
+2,6,7,9,10,11,16,18,     _Motacilla_.     17.              _Rallus_.
+3,4,5,15,                _Hirundo_.       19.              _Caprimulgus_.
+8,                       _Cuculus_.       14.              _Alauda_.
+12,                      _Charadrius_.    20.              _Muscicapa_.
+
+Most soft-billed birds live on insects, and not on grain and seeds, and
+therefore at the end of summer they retire: but the following soft-billed
+birds, though insect-eaters, stay with us the year round:--
+
+                        RAII NOMINA.
+Redbreast, Wren,        _Rubecula. Passer       These frequent houses,
+                        troglodytes_.           and haunt out-buildings
+                                                in the winter: eat
+                                                spiders.
+Hedge-sparrow,          _Curruca_.              Haunt sinks for crumbs
+                                                and other sweepings.
+White-wagtail,
+Yellow-wagtail,
+Grey-wagtail,           _Motacilla alba_.       These frequent shallow
+                        _Motacilla flava_.      rivulets near the spring
+                        _Motacilla cinerea_.    heads, where they never
+                                                freeze: eat the aureliae
+                                                of _Phryganea_.  The
+                                                smallest birds that walk.
+Wheatear,               _OEnanthe_.             Some of these are to be
+                                                seen with us the winter
+                                                through.
+Whinchat,
+Stone-chatter,          _OEnanthe secunda_.
+                        _OEnanthe tertia_.
+Golden-crowned wren,    _Regulus cristatus_.    This is the smallest
+                                                British bird: haunts the
+                                                tops of tall trees; stays
+                                                the winter through.
+
+A LIST OF THE WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE ROUND THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED
+SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR.
+
+                            RAII NOMINA.
+1.    Ring-ousel,           _Merula torquata_.    This is a new migration,
+                                                  which I have lately
+                                                  discovered about
+                                                  Michaelmas week, and
+                                                  again about the 14th
+                                                  March.
+2.    Redwing,              _Turdus iliacus_.     About old Michaelmas.
+3.    Fieldfare,            _Turdus pilaris_.     Though a percher by day,
+                                                  roosts on the ground.
+4.    Royston-crow,         _Cornix cinerea_.     Most frequent on downs.
+5.    Woodcock,             _Scolopax_.           Appears about old
+                                                  Michaelmas.
+6.    Snipe,                _Gallinago minor_.    Some snipes constantly
+                                                  breed with us.
+7.    Jack-snipe,           _Gallinago minima_.
+8.    Wood-pigeon,          _OEnas_.              Seldom appears till
+                                                  late; not in such plenty
+                                                  as formerly.
+9.    Wild-swan,            _Cygnus ferus_.       On some large waters.
+10.   Wild-goose,           _Anser ferus_.        )
+11.   Wild-duck,            _Anas torquata        )
+                            minor_.
+12.   Pochard,              _Anas fera fusca_.    )
+13.   Wigeon,               _Penelope_.           ) On our lakes and
+                                                  streams.
+14.   Teal, breeds with     _Querquedula_.        )
+      us in Wolmer
+      Forest,
+15.   Gross-beak,           _Coccothraustes_.     ) These are only
+                                                  wanderers that
+16.   Cross-bill,           _Loxia_.              ) appear occasionally,
+                                                  and are not
+17.   Silk-tail,            _Garrulus             ) observant of any
+                            bohemicus_.           regular migration.
+
+The birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnaean
+genera:--
+
+1,2,3,          Turdus.               9,10,11,12,13,14,     Anas.
+4,              Corvus.               15,16,                Loxia.
+5,6,7,          Scolopax.             17,                   Ampelis.
+8,              Columba.
+
+Birds that sing in the night are but few.
+
+Nightingale,            _Luscinia_.             "In shadiest covert hid."
+                                                MILTON.
+Woodlark,               _Alauda arborea_.       Suspended in mid air.
+Less reed-sparrow,      _Passer arundinaceus    Among reeds and willows.
+                        minor_.
+
+I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing after Midsummer,
+but, as they are rather numerous, they would exceed the bounds of this
+paper: besides, as this is now the season for remarking on that subject,
+I am willing to repeat my observations on some birds concerning the
+continuation of whose song I seem at present to have some doubt.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Nov. 2nd_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--When I did myself the honour to write to you about the end of
+last June on the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of the
+summer birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood, and
+also a list of the winter birds of passage: I  mentioned besides those
+soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of
+England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night.
+
+According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing
+birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after Midsummer,
+and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to
+open as the spring advances.
+
+                                    RAII NOMINA.
+1.                Woodlark,         _Alauda           In January, and
+                                    arborea_.         continues to sing
+                                                      through all the
+                                                      summer and autumn.
+2.                Song thrush,      _Turdus           In February, and on
+                                    simpliciter       to August;
+                                    dictus_.          re-assume their
+                                                      song in autumn.
+3.                Wren,             _Passer           All the year, hard
+                                    troglodytes_.     frost excepted.
+4.                Redbreast,        _Rubecula_.       Ditto.
+5.                Hedge-sparrow.    _Curruca_.        Early in February
+                                                      to July 10th.
+6.                Yellow-hammer,    _Emberiza         Early in February,
+                                    flava_.           and on through July
+                                                      to August 21st.
+7.                Skylark,          _Alauda           In February and on
+                                    vulgaris_.        to October.
+8.                Swallow,          _Hirundo          From April to
+                                    domestica_.       September.
+9.                Blackcap,         _Atricapilla_.    Beginning of April
+                                                      to July 13th.
+10.               Titlark,          _Alauda           From middle of
+                                    pratorum_.        April to July 16th.
+11.               Blackbird,        _Merula           Sometimes in
+                                    vulgaris_.        February and March,
+                                                      and so on to July
+                                                      23rd; re-assumes in
+                                                      autumn.
+12.               Whitethroat,      _Ficedulae        In April, and on to
+                                    affinis_.         July 23rd.
+13.               Goldfinch,        _Carduelis_.      April, and through
+                                                      to September 16th.
+14.               Greenfinch,       _Chloris_.        On to July and
+                                                      August 2nd.
+15.               Less              _Passer           May, on to
+                  reed-sparrow.     arundinaceus      beginning of July.
+                                    minor_.
+16.               Common linnet,    _Linaria          Breeds and whistles
+                                    vulgaris_.        on till August;
+                                                      re-assumes its note
+                                                      when they begin to
+                                                      congregate in
+                                                      October, and again
+                                                      early before the
+                                                      flocks separate.
+
+Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before
+Midsummer:--
+
+                                    RAII NOMINA.
+17.               Middle            _Regulus non      Middle of June;
+                  willow-wren,      cristatus_.       begins in April.
+18.               Redstart,         _Ruticilla_.      Ditto; begins in
+                                                      May.
+19.               Chaffinch,        _Fringilla_.      Beginning of June;
+                                                      sings first in
+                                                      April.
+20.               Nightingale,      _Luscinia_.       Middle of June;
+                                                      sings first in
+                                                      April.
+
+Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring:--
+
+                                    RAII NOMINA.
+21.               Missel-bird,      _Turdus           January 2nd, 1770,
+                                    viscivorus_.      in February.  Is
+                                                      called Hampshire
+                                                      and Sussex the
+                                                      storm-cock, because
+                                                      its song is
+                                                      supposed to
+                                                      forebode windy wet
+                                                      weather: it is the
+                                                      largest singing
+                                                      bird we have.
+22.               Great             _Fringillago_.    In February, March,
+                  tit-mouse, or                       April; re-assumes
+                  ox-eye.                             for a short time in
+                                                      September.
+
+Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be
+called singing birds:--
+
+                        RAII NOMINA.
+23.    Golden-crowned        _Regulus              Its note as minute as
+       wren,                 cristatus_.           its person; frequents
+                                                   the tops of high oaks
+                                                   and firs; the smallest
+                                                   British bird.
+24.    Marsh tit-mouse,      _Parus palustris_.    Haunts great woods; two
+                                                   harsh, sharp notes.
+25.    Small willow-wren,    _Regulus non          Sings in March, and on
+                             cristatus_.           to September.
+26.    Largest ditto,        _Ditto_.              _Cantat voce stridula
+                                                   locustae_; from end of
+                                                   April to August.
+27.    Grasshopper-lark,     _Alauda minima voce   Chirps all night, from
+                             locustae_.            the middle of April to
+                                                   the end of July.
+28.    Martin,               _Hirundo agrestis_.   All the breeding time;
+                                                   from May to September.
+29.    Bullfinch,            _Pyrrhula_.
+30.    Bunting,              _Emberiza alba_.      From the end of January
+                                                   to July.
+
+All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to song, not only
+in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnaean _ordo_
+of _Passeres_.
+
+The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the
+following Linnaean genera:--
+
+1,7,10,27,        _Alauda_          8,28,             _Hirundo_.
+2,11,21,          _Turdus_.         13,16,19,         _Fringilla_.
+3,4,5,9,12,   )                     22,24,            _Parus_.
+15,17,18,20,      _Motacilla_       14,29,            _Loxia_.
+)
+23,25,26,   )
+6,20,             _Emberiza_.
+
+Birds that sing as they fly are but few:--
+
+                   RAII NOMINA.
+Skylark,           _Alauda vulgaris_.      Rising, suspended, and
+                                           falling.
+Titlark,           _Alauda pratorum_.      In its descent; also
+                                           sitting on trees, and
+                                           walking on the ground.
+Woodlark,          _Alauda arborea_.       Suspended; in hot summer
+                                           nights all night long.
+Blackbird,         _Merula_.               Sometimes from bush to
+                                           bush.
+Whitethroat,       _Ficedula affinis_.     Uses when singing on the
+                                           wing odd jerks and
+                                           gesticulations.
+Swallow,           _Hirundo domestica_.    In soft sunny weather.
+Wren,              _Passer troglodytes_.   Sometimes from bush to
+                                           bush.
+
+Birds that breed most early in these parts:--
+
+                   RAII NOMINA.
+Raven,             _Corvus_.               Hatches in February and
+                                           March.
+Song-thrush,       _Turdus_.               In March.
+Blackbird,         _Merula_.               In March.
+Rook,              _Cornix frugilega_.     Builds the beginning of
+                                           March.
+Woodlark,          _Alauda arborea_.       Hatches in April.
+Ring-dove,         _Palumbus torquatus_.   Lays the beginning of
+                                           April.
+
+All birds that continue in full song till after Midsummer appear to me to
+breed more than once.
+
+Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in proportion
+to their bulk: I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and
+annoyed; but in Ascension Island, and many other desolate places,
+mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they
+would stand still to be taken, as is the case with boobies, etc.  As an
+example of what is advanced, I remark that the golden-crested wren (the
+smallest British bird) will stand unconcerned till you come within three
+or four yards of it, while the bustard (_Otis_), the largest British land
+fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many furlongs.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Jan. 15th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--It was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you
+were not displeased with my little _methodus_ of birds.  If there was any
+merit in the sketch, it must be owing to its punctuality.  For many
+months I carried a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be
+remarked, and, as I rode or walked about my business, I noted each day
+the continuance or omission of each bird's song, so that I am as sure of
+the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever.
+
+I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put in your
+two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able.  Perhaps
+Eastwick and its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a
+woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such songsters.  If you
+will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species
+continued to warble after the beginning of July.
+
+The titlark and yellow-hammer breed late, the latter very late; and
+therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song: for I lay it
+down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any incubation
+going on there is music.  As to the redbreast and wren, it is well known
+to the most incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard
+frost excepted--especially the latter.
+
+It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less
+reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive.  As the first is undoubtedly, and the
+last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, they would
+require more nice and curious management in a cage than I should be able
+to give them: they are both distinguished songsters.  The note of the
+former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to my mind those
+lines in a song in "As You Like It":
+
+    "And tune his merry note
+    Unto the _wild_ bird's throat."--SHAKESPEARE.
+
+The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the song of
+several other birds; but then it has also a hurrying manner, not at all
+to its advantage: it is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot.
+
+It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night; perhaps only
+caged birds do so.  I once knew a tame redbreast in a cage that always
+sang as long as candles were in the room; but in their wild state no one
+supposes they sing in the night.
+
+I should be almost ready to doubt the fact that there are to be seen much
+fewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithstanding so many
+young are hatched daily.  Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect
+to the swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer
+advances: and I saw at the time mentioned many hundreds of young wagtails
+on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the meadows.  If the
+matter appears as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to
+the dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed by
+the leaves.
+
+Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs of woodcocks and
+snipes: but nothing ever occurred that helped to explain to me what their
+subsistence might be: all that I could ever find was a soft mucus, among
+which lay many pellucid small gravels.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Feb. 19th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--Your observation that "the cuckoo does not deposit its egg
+indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in its way,
+but probably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous with whom to
+intrust its young," is perfectly new to me, and struck me so forcibly
+that I naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider
+whether the fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I came
+to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any cuckoo had ever
+been seen in these parts, except in the nest of the wagtail, the
+hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-throat, and the redbreast, all
+soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions
+the nest of the _Palumbus_ (ring-dove), and of the _Fringilla_
+(chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard
+food: but then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge, but
+says afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It
+appears hardly possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the
+same food with the hard-billed: for the former have thin membranaceous
+stomachs suited to their soft food, while the latter, the granivorous
+tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which, like mills, grind, by the
+help of small gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed. This proceeding
+of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such a
+monstrous outrage on maternal affection, one of the first great
+dictates of nature, and such a violence on instinct, that, had it only
+been related of a bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it would never have
+merited our belief. But yet, should it further appear that this simple
+bird, when divested of that natural στοργὴ that seems to raise the kind
+in general above themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary
+degrees of cunning and address, may be still endued with a more
+enlarged faculty of discerning what species are suitable and
+congenerous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and young, and may
+deposit them only under their care, this would be adding wonder to
+wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that the methods of
+Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in
+new lights, and in various and changeable appearances.
+
+What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the defect
+of natural affection in the ostrich may be well applied to the bird we
+are talking of:
+
+"She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers:
+
+ "Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath He imparted to
+her understanding."
+
+_Query_.--Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, or does
+she drop several in different nests according as opportunity offers?
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _April 12th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--I heard many birds of several species sing last year after
+Midsummer, enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the period
+that puts a stop to the music of the woods.  The yellow-hammer no doubt
+persists with more steadiness than any other: but the woodlark, the wren,
+the redbreast, the swallow, the whitethroat, the goldfinch, the common
+linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I advanced.
+
+If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the summer
+migrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three days.  I wish it
+was in my power to procure you one of those songsters; but I am no
+bird-catcher, and so little used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had
+one it would soon die for want of skill in feeding.
+
+Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick-billed
+reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320; or was it the less reed-sparrow of
+Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's last publication, p. 16?
+
+As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frosts,
+I have no doubt within myself what should be the reason.  The thriving at
+those times appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check which
+the cold throws upon insensible perspiration.  The case is just the same
+with blackbirds, etc.; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that
+their hogs fat more kindly at such times, and the latter that their
+rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle frost.  But when
+frosts are severe, and of long continuance, the case is soon altered, for
+then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a
+checked perspiration.  I have observed, moreover, that some human
+constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.
+
+When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the first that
+fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and then the song-thrushes.
+
+You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, etc., can be
+induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalised
+at the vast disproportionate size of the supposititious egg; but the
+brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or
+number.  For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on
+her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a nest full of eggs
+that have been withdrawn: and, moreover, a hen-turkey, in the same
+circumstances, would sit on in the empty nest till she perished with
+hunger.
+
+I think the matter might easily be determined whether a cuckoo lays one
+or two eggs, or more, in a season, by opening a female during the
+laying-time.  If more than one was come down out of the ovary and
+advanced to a good size, doubtless then she would that spring lay more
+than one.
+
+I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine.
+
+Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing
+birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song
+recommences, is new and bold: I wish you could discover some good grounds
+for this suspicion.
+
+I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the caprimulgus, or
+fern-owl; you were, I find, acquainted with the bird before.
+
+When we meet I shall be glad to have some conversation with you
+concerning the proposal you make of my drawing up an account of the
+animals in this neighbourhood.  Your partiality towards my small
+abilities persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do more than is in my
+power: for it is no small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to
+begin a natural history from his own autopsia!  Though there is endless
+room for observation in the field of nature, which is boundless, yet
+investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make
+but slow progress; and all that one could collect in many years would go
+into a very narrow compass.
+
+Some extracts from your ingenious "Investigations of the Difference
+between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy," etc., have fallen
+in my way, and gave me great satisfaction: they have removed the
+objections that always arose in my mind whenever I came to the passages
+which you quote.  Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic
+poem for the region of Italy, could never think of describing freezing
+rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty frequently occurred!
+
+P.S.--Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _May 21st_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the
+regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just
+begin to show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual;
+as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher.  I
+well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40,
+summer birds of passage were very scarce.  They come probably hither with
+a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points: but in that
+unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through
+from the opposite quarters.  And yet amidst all these disadvantages two
+swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the
+11th April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew again for a time.
+
+I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with
+Scopoli's new publication; there is room to expect great things from the
+hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and one would think that a
+history of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola
+would be new and interesting.  I could wish to see that work, and hope to
+get it sent down.  Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in
+the quicksilver mines of that district.
+
+When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, I could
+not help wondering; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you
+(_Passer arundinaceus minor Raii_) is a soft-billed bird; and most
+probably migrates hence before winter; whereas the bird you kept (_Passer
+torquatus Raii_) abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird.  I
+question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in this matter I
+want to be better informed.  The former has a variety of hurrying notes,
+and sings all night.  Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is
+attributed to the latter.  We have plenty of the soft-billed sort; which
+Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his "British Zoology," till I
+reminded him of his omission.  See "British Zoology" last published, p.
+16.
+
+I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which different
+birds fly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough
+considered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small
+space, I shall say nothing further about it at present.
+
+No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so
+difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, "because they are not to
+pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring."  As
+colours seem to be the chief external sexual distinction in many birds,
+these colours do not take place till sexual attachments begin to obtain.
+And the case is the same in quadrupeds; among whom, in their younger
+days, the sexes differ but little: but, as they advance to maturity,
+horns and shaggy manes, beards, and brawny necks, etc., etc., strongly
+discriminate the male from the female.  We may instance still farther in
+our own species, where a beard and stronger features are usually
+characteristic of the male sex: but this sexual diversity does not take
+place in earlier life; for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful
+girl that the difference shall not be discernible;
+
+    "Quem si puellarum insereres choro,
+    Mire sagaces falleret hospites
+    Discrimen obscurum, solutis
+    Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu."
+
+                              HOR. ODES, II. od. 5-21, p. 131, orig. edit.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+
+                                   RINGMER _near_ LEWES, _Oct. 8th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the
+birds of Jamaica; a sight of the _hirundines_ of that hot and distant
+island would be a great entertainment to me.
+
+The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the _Annus
+Primus_ with satisfaction; for though some parts of this work are
+exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the
+ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious.  Men
+that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural
+knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be
+acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own
+monographer.
+
+The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's Ornithology may be
+the extreme poverty and distance of his country into which the works of
+our great naturalist may have never yet found their way.  You have
+doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work
+of Scopoli; as to myself I think I discover strong tokens of
+authenticity; the style corresponds with that of his Entomology; and his
+characters of his Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive,
+and masterly.  He has ventured to alter some of the Linnaean genera with
+sufficient show of reason.
+
+It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no
+swallows at Staines; because, in my long observation of those birds, I
+never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the
+species.
+
+Ray remarks that birds of the _gallinoe_ order, as cocks and hens,
+partridges, and pheasants, etc., are _pulveratrices_, such as dust
+themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and ridding
+themselves of their vermin.  As far as I can observe, many birds that
+dust themselves never wash; and I once thought that those birds that wash
+themselves would never dust; but here I find myself mistaken: for common
+house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling
+and wallowing in dusty roads; and yet they are great washers.  Does not
+the skylark dust?
+
+_Query_.--Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method of
+purification from these pulveratrices? because I find from travellers of
+credit, that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where
+no water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and
+most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust.
+
+A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of a small
+bird on the ground; and that it was fed by the little bird.  I went to
+see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo
+hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for its
+nest, appearing
+
+    ". . . . . in tenui re
+    Majores pennas nido extendisse . . "
+
+and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger as I teased it,
+for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffeting with its wings
+like a game-cock.  The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering
+about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude.
+
+In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found,
+after some observation, that they were feeding on the _Libellulae_ or
+dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and
+some as they were on the wing.  Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I
+cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of prey.
+
+This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at
+Selborne.  In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks (_Loxiae
+curvirostrae_) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves belonging to
+this house; the water-ouzel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes
+river, near Newhaven; and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along
+the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore.
+
+I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ouzels (my newly
+discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex
+downs, from Chichester to Lewes.  Let them come from whence they will, it
+looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast in order to
+pass the channel when severe weather advances.  They visit us again in
+April, as it should seem, in their return; and are not to be found in the
+dead of winter.  It is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to
+have no manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun.
+There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone.  No doubt you
+are acquainted with the Sussex downs; the prospects and rides round Lewes
+are most lovely!
+
+As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look-out in the lanes
+and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some
+of the summer short-winged birds of passage crowding towards the coast in
+order for their departure: but it was very extraordinary that I never saw
+a red-start, white-throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, etc.
+And I remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually
+come to this place annually about this time.  The birds most common along
+the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whinchats, buntings,
+linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc.  Swallows and house-martins
+abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft, still, dry
+season.
+
+A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled
+court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires under
+ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the
+middle of April.  When it first appears in the spring it discovers very
+little inclination towards food; but in the height of summer grows
+voracious; and then as the summer declines its appetite declines; so that
+for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all.  Milky plants,
+such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish.  In a
+neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be
+a hundred years old.  An instance of vast longevity in such a poor
+reptile!
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Dec. 20th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows
+(_Passeres torquati_).
+
+There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom
+that want to be better understood: witness those vast flocks of
+hen-chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any
+cocks among them.  Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it should
+seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of
+these little birds; and much more when only one-half of the species
+appears; therefore we may conclude that the _Fringilloe coelebes_, for
+some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which the
+sexes part.  Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of
+sexes in this species of bird should be interrupted in winter; since in
+many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd
+separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for the
+continuance of the breed.  For this matter of the chaffinches see "Fauna
+Suecica," p. 58, and "Systema Naturae," p. 318.  I see every winter vast
+flights of hen-chaffinches, but none of cocks.
+
+Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the British
+singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one; since the
+matter of food is a great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the
+brute creation; there is but one that can be set in competition with it,
+and that is love.  But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one
+circumstance when you advance that, "when they have thus feasted, they
+again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare
+they can within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest
+of fresh turned earth."  Now if you mean that the business of
+congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat sowing to
+the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; for larks and
+chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in
+the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs
+and harrows.
+
+Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in
+the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to some districts
+more suitable to the purpose of breeding.  That the former pair before
+they retire, and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was
+a sportsman, have often experienced.  It cannot indeed be denied but that
+now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest, or young birds, discovered in
+some part or other of this island; but then they are all always mentioned
+as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of things: but as to
+redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I
+could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of those species in
+any part of these kingdoms.  And I the more admire at this instance as
+extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer as well
+as in winter might support them here which maintains their congeners, the
+black-birds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through.
+From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some
+species of birds with regard to their stay or departure.  Fieldfares or
+redwings disappear sooner or later according as the warm weather comes on
+earlier or later.  For I well remember, after that dreadful winter
+1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow on through April
+and May, and that these kind of birds (what few remained of them) did not
+depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of
+June.
+
+The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birds
+above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have
+written professedly the natural history of particular countries.  Now as
+to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his "Fauna Suecica," says of it, that
+"_maximis in arboribus nidificat_;" and of the redwing he says, in the
+same place, that "_nidificat in mediis arbusculis_, _sive sepibus_; _ova
+sex coeruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis_."  Hence we may be assured
+that fieldfares and redwings build in Sweden.  Scopoli says, in his
+"Annus Primus," of the woodcock, that "_nupta ad nos venit circa
+oequinoctium vernale_;" meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native.  And
+afterwards he adds "_nidificat in paludibus alpinis: ova ponit_ 3-5."  It
+does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria; but
+he says, "_Avis hoec septentrionalium provinciarum oestivo tempore incola
+est_; _ubi plerumque nidificat_.  _Appropinquante hyeme australiores
+provincias petit_; _hinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque
+Austriam transmigrat_.  _Tunc rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis
+Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias
+redit_."  For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see "Elenchus,"
+etc., p. 351.  This seems to be a full proof of the migration of
+woodcocks; though little is proved concerning the place of breeding.
+
+P.S.--There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks of this present
+very wet weather, seven inches and a half of rain, which is more than has
+fallen in any three weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the
+world.  A mean quantity in that county for one year is twenty inches and
+a half.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+
+
+                                 FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, _Feb. 12th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the
+well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify
+you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not
+leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats in a
+torpid state, and slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the
+return of the sun and fine weather awakens them.
+
+But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general; because
+migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in
+Andalusia has fully informed me.  Of the motions of these birds he has
+ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, both spring and fall;
+during which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the straits
+from north to south, and from south to north, according to the season.
+And these vast migrations consist not only of hirundines but of
+bee-birds, hoopoes, _Oro pendolos_, or golden thrushes, etc., etc., and
+also of many of our soft-billed summer birds of passage; and moreover of
+birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and
+kites.  Old Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the
+incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time
+traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe.  Besides the above
+mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled by whole troops of
+eagles and vultures.
+
+Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat before
+the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially
+birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more
+impatient of a sultry climate; but then I cannot help wondering why kites
+and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the severity of
+England, and even of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to migrate
+from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of
+Andalusia.
+
+It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty
+and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast
+oceans, cross winds, etc.; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from
+England to the Equator without launching out and exposing itself to
+boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, and again at
+Gibraltar.  And I with the more confidence advance this obvious remark,
+because my brother has always found that some of his birds, and
+particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in
+crossing the Mediterranean; for when arrived at Gibraltar they do not
+
+    . . . "Rang'd in figure wedge their way,
+    . . . . And set forth
+    Their airy caravan high over seas
+    Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
+    Easing their flight:" . . . . --MILTON.
+
+but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in a
+company; and sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and water,
+direct their course to the opposite continent at the narrowest passage
+they can find.  They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and
+so pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the narrowest
+space.
+
+In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that
+woodcocks in moonshiny nights cross the German ocean from Scandinavia.
+As a proof that birds of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it
+is, I shall relate the following incident, which, though mentioned to
+have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter of fact:--As some
+people were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the county of Sussex,
+they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a silver collar
+about its neck, on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark.
+This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near
+relation of mine; and to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in
+the possession of the rector.
+
+At present I do not know anybody near the seaside that will take the
+trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come; if I
+lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter.  One
+thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in
+which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again
+when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun
+that had been fired at them; whether this strange laziness was the effect
+of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say.
+
+Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, but also,
+as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall.  In those two last
+counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth;
+the defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that these birds
+come over to us from the continent at the narrowest passage, and do not
+stroll so far westward.
+
+Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not dust.  I
+think they do; and if they do, whether they wash also.
+
+The _Alauda pratensis_ of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating the
+booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last.
+
+Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ouzel for Mr. Tunstal
+during their autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when
+they call on us again in April.  I am glad that you and that gentleman
+saw my Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation.  Royston,
+or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with
+the woodcock; they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent
+reason for migration; for as they fare in the winter like their
+congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer.  Was not
+Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and
+take it for the nest of a fieldfare?
+
+The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, _OEnas Raii_, is the last winter bird of
+passage which appears with us; it is not seen till towards the end of
+November: about twenty years ago they abounded in the district of
+Selborne; and strings of them were seen morning and evening that reached
+a mile or more; but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned
+they are much decreased in number.  The ring-dove, _Palumbus_ _Raii_,
+stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the
+summer.
+
+Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked in my
+journal that the trees were unusually green.  This uncommon verdure
+lasted on late into November; and may be accounted for from a late
+spring, a cool and moist summer; but more particularly from vast armies
+of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods
+to a leafless naked state.  These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then
+retained their foliage till very late in the year.
+
+My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the
+owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch,
+and finds they all hoot in B flat.  He will examine the nightingales next
+spring.
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Aug. 1st._, 177l.
+
+Dear Sir,--From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor
+cuckoos keep to one note.  A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls
+hoot in B flat; but that one went almost half a note below A.  The pipe
+he tried their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as
+masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch.
+
+A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the
+owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat, or F
+sharp, in B flat and A flat.  He heard two hooting to each other, the one
+in A flat, and the other in B flat.  _Query_: Do these different notes
+proceed from different species, or only from various individuals?  The
+same person finds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo (of which we
+have but one species) varies in different individuals; for, about
+Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D: he heard two sing
+together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable
+concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some
+in C.  As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, and
+their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key.
+Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more
+distinguishable.  This person has tried to settle the notes of a swift,
+and of several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any criterion.
+
+As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first birds that
+suffer with us in severe weather, it is no wonder at all that they
+retreat from Scandinavian winters: and much more the _ordo_ of _gralloe_,
+who, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach
+of winter.  "_Grallae tanquam conjuratae_, _unanimiter in fugam se
+cojiciunt_; _ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem invenire
+possimus_; _ut enim aestate in australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum
+lumbricorum_, _terramque siccam_; _ita nec in frigidis ob eandem
+causam_," says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise called
+"Migrationes Avium," which by all means you ought to read while your
+thoughts run on the subject of migration.  See "Amoenitates Academicae,"
+vol. iv., p. 565.
+
+Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country,
+and not in another: but the _grallae_ (which procure their food from
+marshes and boggy grounds), must in winter forsake the more northerly
+parts of Europe, or perish for want of food.
+
+I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus concerning the woodcock;
+it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the motions
+and manner of life of the animals of his own "Fauna."
+
+Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare descriptions,
+and a few synonyms: the reason is plain; because all that may be done at
+home in a man's study, but the investigation of the life and conversation
+of animals, is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty, and is not
+to be attained but by the active and inquisitive, and by those that
+reside much in the country.
+
+Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specific
+differences, which are almost universally constituted by one or two
+particular marks, the rest of the description running in general terms.
+But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that
+conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his
+superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the advantage of
+fresh discoveries and modern information.
+
+At this distance of years it is not in my power to recollect at what
+periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert when I was a sportsman:
+but, upon my mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has
+observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather; if
+this should be the case, then the inaptitude for flying arises only from
+an eagerness for food; as sheep are observed to be very intent on grazing
+against stormy wet evenings.
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Feb. 8th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--When I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious
+flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these
+congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for those
+appearances almost peculiar to the season.  The two great motives which
+regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger; the
+former incites animals to perpetuate their kind; the latter induces them
+to preserve individuals: whether either of these should seem to be the
+ruling passion in the matter of congregating is to be considered.  As to
+love, that is out of the question at a time of the year when that soft
+passion is not indulged: besides, during the amorous season, such a
+jealousy prevails between the male birds that they can hardly bear to be
+together in the same hedge or field.  Most of the singing and elation of
+spirits of that time seem to me to be the effect of rivalry and
+emulation: and it is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute
+the equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the country.
+
+Now as to the business of food: as these animals are actuated by instinct
+to hunt for necessary food, they should not, one would suppose, crowd
+together in pursuit of sustenance at a time when it is most likely to
+fail; yet such associations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and
+thicken as the severity increases.  As some kind of self-interest and
+self-defence is no doubt the motive for the proceeding, may it not arise
+from the helplessness of their state in such rigorous seasons; as men
+crowd together, when under great calamities, though they know not why.
+Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold, and a crowd may
+make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey and
+other dangers.
+
+If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate, I
+am the more struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict amity.  If
+we do not much wonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train
+of daws, yet it is strange that the former should so frequently have a
+flight of starlings for their satellites.  Is it because rooks have a
+more discerning scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots
+more productive of food?  Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two
+large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible,
+have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed
+birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight.  Perhaps, then,
+their associates attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds
+wait on the motions of their finders, and as lions are said to do on the
+yelpings of jackals.  Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII.
+
+
+                                                        _March 9th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--As a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of last
+November, round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes
+river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three
+house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us.  That morning was rather
+chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the tenor of the weather for
+some time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm.  From
+this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more
+and more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not depart
+from this island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns, and do,
+insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then retire again
+to their _latebroe_.  Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at
+Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the chalk
+cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows
+stirring at periods of the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting,
+and the sun warm and invigorating.  And I am the more of this opinion
+from what I have remarked during some of our late springs, that though
+some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time, viz., the
+13th or 14th April, yet meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering
+cold north-east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several
+days, till the weather gave them better encouragement.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII.
+
+
+                                                       _April 12th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at the
+village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to
+you.  On the 1st November I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly
+mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming its
+hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of
+hepaticas.  It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it
+up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is
+ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock, and
+suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in
+performing one feat of copulation.  Nothing can be more assiduous than
+this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great
+body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually
+warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the
+heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the 13th
+November, yet the work remained unfinished.  Harsher weather, and frosty
+mornings, would have quickened its operations.  No part of its behaviour
+ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with
+regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against
+the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about
+rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the
+first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner.  If attended to,
+it becomes an excellent weather-glass, for as sure as it walks elate, and
+as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so
+sure will it rain before night.  It is totally a diurnal animal, and
+never pretends to stir after it becomes dark.  The tortoise, like other
+reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from
+eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year.  When first
+awakened it eats nothing, nor again in the autumn before it retires;
+through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the
+food that comes in its way.  I was much taken with its sagacity in
+discerning those that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old
+lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it
+hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity, but remains
+inattentive to strangers.  Thus, not only "the ox knoweth his owner, and
+the ass his master's crib," but the most abject reptile and torpid of
+beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the
+feelings of gratitude!
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+P.S.--In about three days after I left Sussex, the tortoise retired into
+the ground under the hepatica.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 26th_, 1773.
+
+Dear Sir,--The more I reflect on the στοργὴ of animals, the more I am
+astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more
+wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her
+turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her
+brood, and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those
+chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with
+relentless cruelty.
+
+This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and
+sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation.  Thus a hen, just become a
+mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feathers
+standing on end, wings hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like
+one possessed.  Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest
+danger in order to avert it from their progeny.  Thus a partridge will
+tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her
+helpless covey.  In the time of nidification the most feeble birds will
+assault the most rapacious.  All the hirundines of a village are up in
+arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that
+district.  A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair of ravens
+nesting in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to
+rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with an
+amazing fury; even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart
+out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or the
+sparrow-hawk.  If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she
+will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but will
+wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together.
+
+Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced above by some anecdotes
+which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet you will,
+I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration.
+
+The fly-catcher of the "Zoology" (the _Stoparola_ of Ray), builds every
+year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house.  A pair of these
+little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked
+bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that
+followed.  But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half
+fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must
+inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested
+an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all
+the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for
+breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring.
+
+A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow-wren, which
+had built in a bank in my fields.  This bird a friend and myself had
+observed as she sat in her nest; but were particularly careful not to
+disturb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy.
+Some days after, as we passed that way, we were desirous of remarking how
+this brood went on, but no nest could be found, till I happened to take a
+large bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the
+nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder.
+
+A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct occurred to me
+one day as my people were pulling off the lining of a hot-bed, in order
+to add some fresh dung.  From out of the side of this bed leaped an
+animal with great agility, that made a most grotesque figure; nor was it
+without great difficulty that it could be taken, when it proved to be a
+large white-bellied field-mouse with three or four young clinging to her
+teats by their mouths and feet.  It was amazing that the desultory and
+rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their
+hold, especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both
+naked and blind!
+
+To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be
+daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed
+that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the στοργὴ, which
+induces some females of the brute creation to devour their young
+because their owners have handled them too freely, or removed them from
+place to place! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and
+cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. When I hear
+now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am
+not so much amazed, since reason perverted, and the bad passions let
+loose, are capable of any enormity; but why the parental feelings of
+brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor should sometimes be
+so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to
+determine.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+                              END OF VOL. I.
+
+  Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.
+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1, by Gilbert White</title>
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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1, by Gilbert White</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Gilbert White</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: Henry Morley</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 29, 2007 [eBook #20933]<br />
+[Most recently updated: October 10, 2021]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Les Bowler</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, VOL. 1 ***</div>
+
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">cassell&rsquo;s national
+library</span>.</p>
+<h1><span class="smcap">the</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Natural History</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">of</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">Selborne</span></h1>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br />
+THE REV. GILBERT WHITE A.M.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">Vol.</span> I.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL &amp; COMPANY, Limited:<br />
+<i><span class="smcap">london</span></i><span class="smcap">,
+</span><i><span class="smcap">paris</span></i><span class="smcap">,
+</span><i><span class="smcap">new york &amp; melbourne</span></i>.<br />
+1887</p>
+<h2><!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+5</span>INTRODUCTION.</h2>
+<p>Gilbert White was born in the village of Selborne on the 18th of July,
+in the year 1720. His father was a gentleman of good means, with a
+house at Selborne and some acres of land. Gilbert had his school
+training at Basingstoke, from Thomas Warton, the father of the poet of that
+name, who was born at Basingstoke in 1728, six years younger than his
+brother Joseph, who had been born at Dunsford, in Surrey. Thomas
+Warton, their father, was the youngest of three sons of a rector of
+Breamore, in the New Forest, and the only son of the three who was not deaf
+and dumb. This Thomas, the elder, was an able man, who obtained a
+fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, became vicar of Basingstoke, in
+Hampshire, and was there headmaster of the school to which young Gilbert
+White was sent. He was referred to in Amhurst&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Terræ Filius&rdquo; as &ldquo;a reverend poetical
+gentleman;&rdquo; he knew Pope, and had credit enough for his verse to hold
+the office of Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728. His
+genius for writing middling verse passed on to his <!-- page 6--><a
+name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>more famous sons, Joseph
+and Thomas, and they both became in due time Oxford Professors of
+Poetry.</p>
+
+<p>Gilbert White passed on from school to Oxford, where he entered Oriel
+College in 1739. He became a Fellow of Oriel, graduated M.A. in 1746,
+at the age of six-and-twenty, and six years afterwards he served as one of
+the Senior Proctors of the University. His love of nature grew with
+him from boyhood, and was associated with his earliest years of home.
+His heart abided with his native village. When he had taken holy
+orders he could have obtained college livings, but he cared only to go back
+to his native village, and the house in which he was born, paying a yearly
+visit to Oxford, and in that house, after a happy life that extended a few
+years over the threescore and ten, he died on the 26th of June, 1793.</p>
+
+<p>Gilbert White never married, but lived in peaceful performance of light
+clerical duties and enjoyment of those observations of nature which his
+book records. His brothers, who shared his love of nature, aided
+instead of thwarting him in his studies of the natural history of Selborne,
+and as their lives were less secluded and they did not remain unmarried,
+they provided him with a family of young people to care about, for he lived
+to register the births of sixty-three nephews and nieces.</p>
+
+<p>It was one of his brothers, who was a member of the Royal Society, by
+whom Gilbert White was persuaded, towards the close of his life, to gather
+his <!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+7</span>notes into a book. It was first published in a quarto volume
+in the year of the outbreak of the French Revolution with the fall of the
+Bastile. He was more concerned with the course of events in a
+martin&rsquo;s nest than with the crash of empires, and no man ever made
+more evident the latent power of enjoyment that is left dead by those who
+live uneventful lives surrounded by a world of life and change and growth
+which they want eyes to see. Gilbert White was in his seventieth year
+when his book appeared, four years before his death. It was compiled
+from letters addressed to Thomas Pennant and the Hon. Daines
+Barrington.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas Pennant was a naturalist six years younger than Gilbert
+White. He was born at Downing, in Flintshire, in 1726, and died in
+1798, like White, in the house in which he had been born. His love of
+Natural History made him a traveller at home and abroad. He counted
+Buffon among his friends. He had written many books before the date
+of the publication of White&rsquo;s &ldquo;Selborne.&rdquo;
+Pennant&rsquo;s &ldquo;British Zoology,&rdquo; his &ldquo;History of
+Quadrupeds&rdquo; and &ldquo;Arctic Zoology,&rdquo; had a high
+reputation. He wrote also a Tour in Wales and a History of
+London.</p>
+
+<p>Daines Barrington, fourth son of the first Viscount Barrington, was a
+year younger than Pennant, and died in 1800. He became Secretary to
+Greenwich Hospital, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and President
+of the Royal Society. His &ldquo;Miscellanies,&rdquo; <!-- page
+8--><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>published in 4to
+in 1781, deal with questions of Natural History, and of Antiquities,
+including a paper first published in 1775 asserting the possibility of
+approaching the North Pole. His most valued book was one of
+&ldquo;Observations on the more Ancient Statutes.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">H.M.</p>
+<h2>LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.</h2>
+<h3><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+9</span>LETTER I.</h3>
+<p>The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county
+of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the
+county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude
+fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns of Alton and
+Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve
+parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If
+you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are
+Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Hartley Mauduit, Great Ward le Ham,
+Kingsley, Hadleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lyffe, and Greatham.
+The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the
+views and aspects. The high part of the south-west consists of a vast
+hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided
+into a <!-- page 10--><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+10</span>sheep-down, the high wood and a long hanging wood, called The
+Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether <i>beech</i>, the
+most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or
+bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or
+sheep-walk, is a pleasing, park-like spot, of about one mile by half that
+space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins to
+break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an
+assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect
+is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains
+called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs
+round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether,
+with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive
+outline.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the
+village, which consists of one single straggling street, three-quarters of
+a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with the
+Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay
+(good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appearance
+removed from chalk; but seems so far from being calcareous, that it endures
+extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is
+analogous to chalk, is plain from the <!-- page 11--><a
+name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>beeches, which descend
+as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well on them,
+where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.</p>
+
+<p>The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two very
+incongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires
+the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the
+north-east, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward,
+crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with
+vegetable and animal manure; and these may perhaps have been the original
+site of the town; while the woods and coverts might extend down to the
+opposite bank.</p>
+
+<p>At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west,
+arises a small rivulet: that at the north-west end frequently fails; but
+the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet
+seasons, called Well-head. This breaks out of some high grounds
+joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending
+forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the south
+becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so sailing into the
+British Channel: the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes
+one branch of the Wey; and, meeting the Black-down stream at Hadleigh, and
+the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable
+river, navigable at Godalming; <!-- page 12--><a name="page12"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 12</span>from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into
+the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three foot, and when sunk
+to that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the
+taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which
+does not lather well with soap.</p>
+
+<p>To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair
+enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or
+rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to
+pieces, and becomes manure to itself.</p>
+
+<p>Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land,
+neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet
+kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and have their poles and
+wood for charcoal growing just at hand. The white soil produces the
+brightest hops.</p>
+
+<p>As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the juncture
+of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for
+timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Black-moor
+stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval
+timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen
+call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. <!--
+page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>Beyond the
+sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry, lean sand, till it mingles with the
+forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and
+turnips.</p>
+<h3>LETTER II.</h3>
+<p>In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor farm to the north-west of the
+village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved
+elm, or wych hazel, <i>ulmus folio latissimo scabro</i> of Ray, which,
+though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the
+year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight
+loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven
+feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in the
+diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may
+attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of
+ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called &ldquo;The
+Plestor.&rdquo; In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast
+oak, with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to
+the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, <!-- page 14--><a
+name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>surrounded with stone
+steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place
+of much resort in summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate,
+while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have
+stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the
+infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several
+pounds in setting it in its place again: but all his care could not avail;
+the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This oak I
+mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and planted
+this tree must certainly have been, as will appear from what will be said
+farther concerning this area, when we enter on the antiquities of
+Selborne.</p>
+
+<p>On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel&rsquo;s, of a
+few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar
+growth and great value; they were tall and taper-like firs, but standing
+near together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large
+limbs. About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton
+Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were
+fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at
+the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little
+wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the <!-- page 15--><a
+name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>description at sixty
+feet. These trees were sold for twenty pounds apiece.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely
+and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle
+of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for
+such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the
+Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get
+at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was
+ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at
+the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their
+grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the
+undertaking to be too hazardous: so the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in
+perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be
+levelled. It was in the month of February, when these birds usually
+sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into
+the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blow of the beetle or mall or
+mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At
+last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest, and, though her
+parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs
+which brought her dead to the ground.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 16--><a name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+16</span>LETTER III.</h3>
+<p>The fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have
+fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence. And
+first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up
+in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for the
+singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a
+petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for a head and
+mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of the Linnæan Genus of
+Mytilus, and the species of Crista Galli; called by Lister,
+<i>Rastellum</i>; by Rumphius, <i>Ostreum plicatum minus</i>; by
+D&rsquo;Argenville, <i>Auris Porci</i>, s. <i>Crista Galli</i>; and by
+those who make collections, Cock&rsquo;s Comb. Though I applied to
+several such in London, I never could meet with an entire specimen; nor
+could I ever find in books any engraving from a perfect one. In the
+superb museum at Leicester House, permission was given me to examine for
+this article; and, though I was disappointed as to the fossil, I was highly
+gratified with the sight of several of the shells themselves in high
+preservation. This bivalve is only known to inhabit the Indian Ocean,
+where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name Gorgonia. The
+curious foldings of the suture the one into <!-- page 17--><a
+name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 17</span>the other, the
+alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my specimen, are much
+easier expressed by the pencil than by words.</p>
+
+<p><i>Cornua Ammonis</i> are very common about this village. As we
+were cutting an inclining path up the Hanger, the labourers found them
+frequently on that steep, just under the soil, in the chalk, and of a
+considerable size. In the lane above Wall-head, in the way to Emshot,
+they abound in the bank in a darkish sort of marl, and are usually very
+small and soft; but in Clay&rsquo;s Pond, a little farther on, at the end
+of the pit, where the soil is dug out for manure, I have occasionally
+observed them of large dimensions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in
+diameter. But as these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed
+of a kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed
+to the rains and frost they mouldered away. These seemed as if they
+were a very recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the north-west
+end of the Hanger, large nautili are sometimes observed.</p>
+
+<p>In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable
+depths, well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having both
+shells deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are
+highly impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone of the
+quarry.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 18--><a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+18</span>LETTER IV.</h3>
+<p>As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only
+mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular.</p>
+
+<p>This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the beds of ovens;
+and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account, for the workmen use
+sandy loam instead of mortar, the sand of which fluxes, and runs by the
+intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong
+vitrified coat-like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of
+weather, and endures thirty or forty years. When chiseled smooth, it
+makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to Bath stone;
+and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale.
+Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer grain
+than Portland, and rooms are floored with it, but it proves rather too soft
+for this purpose. It is a freestone cutting in all directions, yet
+has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should
+not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the
+quarry. On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for
+pavements, because, probably some degrees of saltness prevailing within it,
+the rain tears the slabs to pieces. Though this stone is too hard to
+<!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>be
+acted on by vinegar, yet both the white part, and even the blue rag,
+ferments strongly in mineral acids. Though the white stone will not
+bear wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue
+rag, which resist rain and frost, and are excellent for pitching of
+stables, paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks, a
+valuable species of fencing much in use in this village, and for mending of
+roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth
+face, but is very durable; yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep,
+large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense.
+Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or
+rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now
+and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust
+balls.</p>
+
+<p>In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen
+sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron,
+and might probably be worked as iron ore, is very hard and heavy, and of a
+firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit,
+cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter; will not cut
+without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often
+found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses,
+never becoming <!-- page 20--><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+20</span>slippery in frost or rain, is excellent for dry walls, and is
+sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies
+scattered on the surface of the ground, but is dug on Weaver&rsquo;s Down,
+a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow
+and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable.</p>
+
+<p>From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a
+finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the
+head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along
+the joints of their freestone walls. This embellishment carries an
+odd appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us
+pleasantly, &ldquo;whether we fastened our walls together with tenpenny
+nails.&rdquo;</p>
+<h3>LETTER V.</h3>
+<p>Among the singularities of this place the two rocky, hollow lanes, the
+one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention.
+These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages,
+and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our
+freestone, and partly through the second; so that they look more like
+water-courses <!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+21</span>than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs
+together. In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet
+beneath the level of the fields; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit
+very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are
+twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken
+sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles, hanging
+in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged, gloomy scenes
+affright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths above, and
+make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but delight the
+naturalist with their various botany, and particularly with their curious
+filices with which they abound.</p>
+
+<p>The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with all its kindly
+aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game; even now
+hares, partridges, and pheasants abound; and in old days woodcocks were as
+plentiful. There are few quails, because they more affect open fields
+than enclosures; after harvest some few landrails are seen.</p>
+
+<p>The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast
+district. Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days
+in the business, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and
+indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 22--><a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+22</span>The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the Hanger from
+the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but rather moist from the
+effluvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues.</p>
+
+<p>The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may be
+supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my experience of
+measuring the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to give the
+mean quantity. I only know that</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Inch. </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Hund.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year, there fell</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>28</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>37!</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>27 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>32</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>30 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>71</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>50 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>26!</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1783, to Jan. 1, 1784 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>33 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>71</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>33 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>80</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1785, to Jan. 1, 1786 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>31</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>55</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>  Jan. 1, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>39</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>57</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single
+farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contain
+upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>We abound with poor, many of whom are sober and industrious, and live
+comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have
+chambers above stairs; mud buildings we have none. Besides <!-- page
+23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 23</span>the employment
+from husbandry, the men work in hop-gardens, of which we have many, and
+fell and bark timber. In the spring and summer the women weed the
+corn, and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking.
+Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning
+wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at
+that time for summer wear, and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a
+neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers; but from
+circumstances this trade is at an end. The inhabitants enjoy a good
+share of health and longevity; and the parish swarms with children.</p>
+<h3>LETTER VI.</h3>
+<p>Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of
+which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would
+be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious
+productions, both animal and vegetable, and has often afforded me much
+entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist.</p>
+
+<p>The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in
+length, by two and a half in <!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 24</span>breadth, running nearly from north to south,
+and is abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed eastward, by
+the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of
+Sussex; by Bramshot, Hadleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists
+entirely of sand covered with heath and fern, but is somewhat diversified
+with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole
+extent. In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs,
+which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees, though Dr. Plot says
+positively, that &ldquo;there never were any fallen trees hidden in the
+mosses of the southern counties.&rdquo; But he was mistaken: for I
+myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers
+consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured
+me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such
+instruments: but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so
+well examined, that none has been found of late. Besides the oak, I
+have also been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour, and softer
+nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon a nice examination, and
+trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them, and therefore
+rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such
+aquatic tree.</p>
+
+<p>This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for <!-- page 25--><a
+name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>many sorts of wild
+fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the
+summer: such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have discovered
+within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in
+good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make
+excursions; and in particular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, and
+some years after, they swarmed to such a degree that parties of
+unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a
+day.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct,
+which I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying
+became so common, and that was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse.
+When I was a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my
+father&rsquo;s table. The last pack remembered was killed about
+thirty-five years ago; and within these ten years one solitary greyhen was
+sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsmen cried
+out, &ldquo;A hen pheasant!&rdquo; but a gentleman present, who had often
+seen grouse in the north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna
+Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is
+wanting. I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this
+century amounted to about five hundred head, and made a <!-- page 26--><a
+name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>stately
+appearance. There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose
+great grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635),
+grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest
+in succession for more than a hundred years. This person assures me,
+that his father has often told him that Queen Anne, as she was journeying
+on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her
+royal regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is
+just by, and, reposing herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying
+about half a mile to the east of Wolmer Pond, and still called
+Queen&rsquo;s Bank, saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole
+herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before her,
+consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight this, worthy the
+attention of the greatest sovereign! But he farther adds that, by
+means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own expression, as soon as they
+began blacking, they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued
+decreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cumberland. It is now
+more than thirty years ago that His Highness sent down a huntsman, and six
+yeoman-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by the
+staghounds, ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and to
+convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the summer they
+<!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+27</span>caught every stag, some of which showed extraordinary diversion;
+but in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried off, such
+fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk
+and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the
+yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it
+was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to anything
+in Mr. Astley&rsquo;s riding-school. The exertions made by the horse
+and deer much exceeded all my expectations, though the former greatly
+excelled the latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated
+from his companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called
+it, for twenty minutes; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were
+permitted to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued.</p>
+<h3>LETTER VII.</h3>
+<p>Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the
+injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their
+crops. The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by
+constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human
+nature, as scarce <!-- page 28--><a name="page28"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 28</span>any inhibitions can restrain. Hence,
+towards the beginning of this century all this country was wild about
+deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to call
+themselves, no young person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or
+gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities,
+that Government was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary act
+called the &ldquo;Black Act,&rdquo; which now comprehends more felonies
+than any law that ever was framed before. And, therefore, a late
+Bishop of Winchester, when urged to re-stock Waltham Chase, refused, from a
+motive worthy of a prelate, replying &ldquo;that it had done mischief
+enough already.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Our old race of deer-stealers is hardly extinct yet: it was but a little
+while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of their
+youth; such as watching the pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf
+was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its
+escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the shooting at one
+of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking
+him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner:
+Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain
+spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to surprise it; when the
+parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her
+feet close <!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+29</span>together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short in
+two.</p>
+
+<p>Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of rabbits,
+which possessed all the hillocks and dry places: but these being
+inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when they came
+to take away the deer, they permitted the country people to destroy them
+all.</p>
+
+<p>Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are
+removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon
+them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel for
+the burning their lime; and with ashes for their grasses; and by
+maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no
+expense.</p>
+
+<p>The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted claim, I see
+(by an old record taken from the Tower of London) of turning all live stock
+on the forest, at proper seasons, &ldquo;bidentibus exceptis.&rdquo;
+The reason, I presume, why sheep are excluded, is because, being such close
+grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer
+from thriving.</p>
+
+<p>Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) &ldquo;to burn on any
+waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath and furze,
+goss or fern, is punishable with whipping and confinement in the house of
+correction;&rdquo; yet, in this forest, about <!-- page 30--><a
+name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>March or April,
+according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted
+up, that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the hedges,
+have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices,
+where great damage has ensued. The plea for these burnings is that,
+when the old coat of heath, etc., is consumed, young will sprout up, and
+afford much tender browze for cattle; but, where there is large old furze,
+the fire, following the roots, consumes the very ground; so that for
+hundreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desolation, the
+whole circuit round looking like the cinders of a volcano; and, the soil
+being quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for
+years. These conflagrations, as they take place usually with a
+north-east or east wind, much annoy this village with their smoke, and
+often alarm the country; and, once in particular, I remember that a
+gentleman, who lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got on the
+downs between that town and Winchester, at twenty-five miles&rsquo;
+distance, was surprised much with smoke and a hot smell of fire, and
+concluded that Alresford was in flames; but, when he came to that town, he
+then had apprehensions for the next village, and so on to the end of his
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand two
+arbours or bowers, made of the <!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 31</span>boughs of oak; the one called Waldon Lodge, the
+other Brimstone Lodge: these the keepers renew annually on the feast of St.
+Barnabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite. The farm called
+Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brush-wood for
+the former; while the farms at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the
+latter, and are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the
+spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very
+remote antiquity.</p>
+<h3>LETTER VIII.</h3>
+<p>On the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three
+considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing particular to
+say; and one called Bin&rsquo;s, or Bean&rsquo;s Pond, which is worthy the
+attention of a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being crowded at the
+upper end with willows, and with the carex cespitosa, it affords such a
+safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc., that they
+breed there. In the winter this covert is also frequented by foxes,
+and sometimes by pheasants; and the bogs produce many curious plants.
+(For which consult Letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.)</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 32--><a name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>By
+a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, made in 1635, and the
+eleventh year of Charles I. (which now lies before me), it appears that the
+limits of the former are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing of
+the farther side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on
+this side, in old times, came into Binswood, and extended to the ditch of
+Ward le Ham Park, in which stands the curious mount called King
+John&rsquo;s Hill, and Lodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit,
+called Mauduit Hatch; comprehending also Short Heath, Oakhanger, and
+Oakwoods&mdash;a large district, now private property, though once
+belonging to the royal domain.</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in this
+long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambulation, a
+rough estimate of the value of the timbers, which were considerable,
+growing at that time in the district of the Holt, and enumerates the
+officers, superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time
+being, and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In those days, as
+at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer Forest.</p>
+
+<p>Within the present limits of the forest are three considerable lakes,
+Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer, all of which are stocked with carp, tench,
+eels, and perch: but the fish do not thrive well, because the water is
+hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>A
+circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means peculiar to them, I
+cannot pass over in silence; and that is, that instinct by which in summer
+all the kine, whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to
+the water during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt from flies, and
+inhaling the coolness of that element, some belly deep, and some only to
+mid-leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about ten in the morning
+till four in the afternoon, and then return to their feeding. During
+this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in which insects
+nestle, and so supply food for the fish, which would be poorly subsisted
+but from this contingency. Thus Nature, who is a great economist,
+converts the recreation of one animal to the support of another!
+Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did not let this
+pleasing circumstance escape him. He says, in his
+&ldquo;Summer,&rdquo;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;A various group the herds and flocks compose;<br />
+. . . on the grassy bank<br />
+Some ruminating lie; while others stand<br />
+Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip<br />
+The circling surface.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>Wolmer Pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake, is a vast lake for
+this part of the world, containing, in its whole circumference, 2,646
+yards, or very near a mile and a half. The length of the north-west
+<!-- page 34--><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>and
+opposite side is about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end
+about 456 yards. This measurement, which I caused to be made with
+good exactness, gives an area of about sixty-six acres, exclusive of a
+large irregular arm at the north-east corner, which we did not take into
+the reckoning.</p>
+
+<p>On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly secure from
+fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks,
+teals, and widgeons, of various denominations, where they preen and solace,
+and rest themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little
+parties (for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to
+feed in the brooks and meadows, returning again with the dawn of the
+morning. Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round
+with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable
+decoy.</p>
+
+<p>Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort
+of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can
+render this mere so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were
+found in its bed about forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more
+properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all
+particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my series of
+letters respecting the more remote history of this village and
+district.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+35</span>LETTER IX.</h3>
+<p>By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to
+inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, <i>alias</i>
+Alice Holt, as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown
+for a term of years.</p>
+
+<p>The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-General Emanuel
+Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of Prince
+Rupert by Margaret Hughes; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who
+married a dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson Legge and lady; and now Lord
+Stawell, their son.</p>
+
+<p>The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her
+husband, and, at her death, left behind her many curious pieces of
+mechanism of her father&rsquo;s constructing, who was a distinguished
+mechanic and artist, as well as warrior; and among the rest, a very
+complicated clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game
+painter, at Farnham, in the county of Surrey.</p>
+
+<p>Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of
+enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different; for the Holt consists
+of a strong loam, of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and abounding
+<!-- page 36--><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>with
+oaks that grow to be large timber; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry,
+sandy, barren waste. The former being all in the parish of Binsted,
+is about two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much from
+east to west, and contains within it many woodlands and lawns, and the
+great lodge where the grantees reside, and a smaller lodge called Goose
+Green; and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham,
+and Bentley; all of which have right of common.</p>
+
+<p>One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been of old well
+stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences more than a
+common hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of Wolmer; nor
+were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of
+the Holt.</p>
+
+<p>At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by the
+night hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of
+numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force
+against them as often as they have been detected, and rendered liable to
+the lash of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonments can deter them,
+so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting which seems to be
+inherent in human nature.</p>
+
+<p>General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests,
+to the great terror of the <!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 37</span>neighbourhood, and, at one time, a wild bull or
+buffalo; but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.</p>
+
+<p>A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has
+been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest: one fifth of which,
+it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell. He lays claim also
+to the lop and top; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham,
+Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them, and assembling in a
+riotous manner, have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps a
+team, has carried home for his share forty stacks of wood. Forty-five
+of these people his lordship has served with actions. These trees,
+which were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz., in
+February and March, before the bark would run. In old times the Holt
+was estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure from water-carriage,
+viz., from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now it is not half that
+distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of Godalming, in
+the county of Surrey.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 38--><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+38</span>LETTER X.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><i>August 4th</i>, 1767.</p>
+
+<p>It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies
+have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want
+of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made
+but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached
+from my childhood.</p>
+
+<p>As to swallows (<i>hirundines rusticæ</i>) being found in a torpid
+state during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any part of this country, I
+never heard any such account worth attending to. But a clergyman, of
+an inquisitive turn, assures me, that when he was a great boy, some
+workmen, in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in the
+spring, found two or three swifts (<i>hirundines apodes</i>) among the
+rubbish, which were at first appearance dead, but on being carried towards
+the fire revived. He told me, that out of his great care to preserve
+them, he put them in a paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where
+they were suffocated.</p>
+
+<p>Another intelligent person has informed me, that while he was a
+schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk
+cliff fell down one stormy <!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 39</span>winter on the beach, and that many people found
+swallows among the rubbish; but on my questioning him whether he saw any of
+those birds himself, to my no small disappointment, he answered me in the
+negative; but that others assured him they did.</p>
+
+<p>Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July 11th, and
+young martins (<i>hirundines urbicæ</i>) were then fledged in their
+nests. Both species will breed again once. For I see by my
+fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so late as September
+18th. Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than
+migration? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests last year
+so late as September 29th; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the
+5th October.</p>
+
+<p>How strange it is that the swift, which seems to live exactly the same
+life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before the middle
+of August invariably! while the latter stay often till the middle of
+October; and once I saw numbers of house-martins on the 7th November.
+The martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together, an
+uncommon assemblage of summer and winter birds!</p>
+
+<p>A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the <i>alauda
+trivialis</i>, or rather perhaps of the <i>motacilla trochilus</i>) still
+continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall
+woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which <!-- page 40--><a
+name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>we have as yet no name
+in these parts) is called in your zoology the fly-catcher. There is
+one circumstance characteristic of this bird which seems to have escaped
+observation, and that is, it takes its stand on the top of some stake or
+post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a fly in the air,
+and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning still to the same stand
+for many times together.</p>
+
+<p>I perceive there are more than one species of the <i>motacilla
+trochilus</i>. Mr. Derham supposes, in &ldquo;Ray&rsquo;s Philos.
+Letters,&rdquo; that he has discovered three. In these there is again
+an instance of some very common birds that have as yet no English name.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap (<i>motacilla
+atricapilla</i>) be a bird of passage or not: I think there is no doubt of
+it: for, in April, in the first fine weather, they come trooping, all at
+once, into these parts, but are never seen in the winter. They are
+delicate songsters.</p>
+
+<p>Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory ground on the verge
+of this parish. It is very amusing to see the cock bird on wing at
+that time, and to hear his piping and humming notes.</p>
+
+<p>I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those mice which I
+mentioned to you in town. The person that brought me the last says
+they are plenty in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more;
+<!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>and
+will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt whether it be a nondescript
+species or not.</p>
+
+<p>I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray says,
+and Linnæus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind.
+Now I have discovered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not
+web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly
+to the <i>mus amphibius</i> of Linnæus (see <i>Syst. Nat</i>.), which
+he says &ldquo;<i>natat in fossis et urinatur</i>.&rdquo; I should be
+glad to procure one &ldquo;<i>plantis palmatis</i>.&rdquo;
+Linnæus seems to be in a puzzle about his <i>mus amphibius</i>, and
+to doubt whether it differs from his <i>mus terrestris</i>; which if it be,
+as he allows, the &ldquo;<i>mus agrestis capite grandi
+brachyuros</i>,&rdquo; of Ray, is widely different from the water-rat, both
+in size, make, and manner of life.</p>
+
+<p>As to the <i>falco</i>, which I mentioned in town, I shall take the
+liberty to send it down to you into Wales; presuming on your candour that
+you will excuse me if it should appear as familiar to you as it is strange
+to me. Though mutilated &ldquo;<i>qualem dices . . . ante hac fuisse
+tales cum sint reliquiæ</i>!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-ducks and snipes;
+but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, which it was tearing
+in pieces. I cannot make it answer to any of our English hawks;
+neither could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds
+in Spring Gardens. I found it nailed <!-- page 42--><a
+name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>up at the end of a
+barn, which is the countryman&rsquo;s museum.</p>
+
+<p>The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and
+woods, and therefore full of birds.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>,
+<i>September 9th</i>, 1767.</p>
+
+<p>It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts
+with regard to the <i>falco</i>; as to its weight, breadth, etc., I wish I
+had set them down at the time; but, to the best of my remembrance, it
+weighed two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing,
+thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of
+its eyelids a bright yellow. As it had been killed some days, and the
+eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation on the colour of the
+pupils and the irides.</p>
+
+<p>The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a pair of
+hoopoes (<i>upupa</i>), which came several years ago in the summer, and
+frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my garden, for
+some weeks. They used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in
+the walks, many times in the day; and seemed disposed to breed in my
+outlet; <!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+43</span>but were frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let
+them be at rest.</p>
+
+<p>Three grossbeaks (<i>loxia coccothraustes</i>) appeared some years ago
+in my fields, in the winter; one of which I shot. Since that, now and
+then, one is occasionally seen in the same dead season.</p>
+
+<p>A crossbill (<i>loxia curvirostra</i>) was killed last year in this
+neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village,
+yield nothing but the bull&rsquo;s head or miller&rsquo;s thumb (<i>gobius
+fluviatilis capitatus</i>), the trout (<i>trutta fluviatilis</i>), the eel
+(<i>anguilla</i>), the lampern (<i>lampœtra parva et
+fluviatilis</i>), and the stickleback (<i>pisciculus aculeatus</i>).</p>
+
+<p>We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river,
+and therefore see but little of sea birds. As to wild fowls, we have
+a few teems of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and
+multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes in the
+forest.</p>
+
+<p>Having some acquaintance with the tame brown owl, I find that it casts
+up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner
+of hawks: when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.</p>
+
+<p>The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they want a constant
+supply of fresh mice; whereas the young of the brown owl will eat
+indiscriminately <!-- page 44--><a name="page44"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 44</span>all that is brought: snails, rats, kittens,
+puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal.</p>
+
+<p>The house-martins have eggs still, and squab young. The last swift
+I observed was about the 21st August; it was a straggler.</p>
+
+<p>Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and <i>reguli non cristati</i>,
+still appear; but I have seen no black-caps lately.</p>
+
+<p>I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church College quadrangle
+in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-martin flying about, and
+settling on the parapet, so late as the 20th November.</p>
+
+<p>At present I know only two species of bats, the common <i>vespertilio
+murinus</i> and the <i>vespertilio auribus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take
+flies out of a person&rsquo;s hand. If you gave it anything to eat,
+it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head
+in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it
+showed in shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always rejected,
+was worthy of observation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be
+most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered; so that
+the notion, that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men&rsquo;s bacon, seems no
+improbable story. While I amused myself with this wonderful <!-- page
+45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>quadruped, I
+saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down upon a
+flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from
+the floor. It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware
+of, but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner.</p>
+
+<p>Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface as they
+play over pools and streams. They love to frequent waters, not only
+for the sake of drinking, but on account of insects, which are found over
+them in the greatest plenty. As I was going some years ago, pretty
+late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm summer&rsquo;s evening,
+I think I saw myriads of bats between the two places. The air swarmed
+with them all along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a
+time.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><i>November 4th</i>, 1767.</p>
+
+<p>Sir,&mdash;It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the
+<i>falco</i> turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have
+been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had
+never seen before; but that, I find, would be a difficult task.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 46--><a name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>I
+have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young one
+and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy.
+From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but
+that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and more
+slender, than the <i>mus domesticus medius</i> of Ray, and have more of the
+squirrel or dormouse colour; their belly is white, a straight line along
+their sides divides the shades of their back and belly. They never
+enter into houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves,
+abound in harvest; and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn
+above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as
+eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass
+or wheat.</p>
+
+<p>One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted,
+and composed of the blades of wheat, perfectly round, and about the size of
+a cricket ball, with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no
+discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well
+filled, that it would roll across the table without being discomposed,
+though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As
+this nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter
+respectively, so as to administer a teat to each? Perhaps she opens
+different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business
+<!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>is
+over; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her
+young, which moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. This
+wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct,
+was found in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his servant had shot
+one last January, in that severe weather, which he believed would puzzle
+me. I called to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect, but
+the moment I took it in hand I pronounced it the male <i>garrulus
+bohemicus</i> or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or
+points which it carries at the ends of five of the short remiges. It
+cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, be called an English bird, and yet I
+see, by Ray&rsquo;s &ldquo;Philosophical Letters,&rdquo; that great flocks
+of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this kingdom in the winter of
+1685.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of
+that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged
+nation. For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut
+off all the produce of the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also
+that of the more hardy and common.</p>
+
+<p>Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on the
+berries of the yew tree, which answered to the description of the <i>merula
+torquata</i>, or <!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 48</span>ring-ouzel, were lately seen in this
+neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but
+without success. (See Letter VIII.)</p>
+
+<p><i>Query</i>.&mdash;Might not canary birds be naturalised to this
+climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of
+some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, etc? Before
+winter perhaps they might be hardened, and able to shift for
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which
+is one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton
+Court. In the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those
+myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what
+struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking
+the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the
+aits of that river. Now, this resorting towards that element, at that
+season of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion
+(strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedish
+naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that he talks, in his
+calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water in the
+beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little
+before sunset.</p>
+
+<p>An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a
+house-martin, on the twenty-third of last <!-- page 49--><a
+name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>October, flying in and
+out of its nest in the Borough. And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of
+last October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five
+swallows hovering round and settling on the roof of the county
+hospital.</p>
+
+<p>Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not
+been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and
+from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as
+far as the equator?</p>
+
+<p>I acquiesce entirely in your opinion&mdash;that, though most of the
+swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and hide with us
+during the winter.</p>
+
+<p>As to the short-winged, soft-billed birds, which come trooping in such
+numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to suspect about
+them. I watched them narrowly this year, and saw them abound till
+about Michaelmas, when they appeared no longer. Subsist they cannot
+openly among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive; and, as to
+their hiding, no man pretends to have found any of them in a torpid state
+in the winter. But with regard to their migration, what difficulties
+attend that supposition! that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long
+never flit but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast seas
+and continents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the regions of
+Africa!</p>
+<h3><!-- page 50--><a name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+50</span>LETTER XIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Jan.
+22nd</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Sir,&mdash;As in one of your former letters you expressed the more
+satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my living in the most
+southerly county, so now I may return the compliment, and expect to have my
+curiosity gratified by your living much more to the North.</p>
+
+<p>For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast flocks
+of chaffinches have appeared in the fields; many more, I used to think,
+than could be hatched in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to
+observe them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed to me to
+be almost all hens. I communicated my suspicions to some intelligent
+neighbours, who, after taking pains about the matter, declared that they
+also thought them mostly females&mdash;at least fifty to one. This
+extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnæus,
+that &ldquo;before winter all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland
+into Italy.&rdquo; Now I want to know, from some curious person in
+the north, whether there are any large flocks of these finches with them in
+the winter, and of which sex they mostly consist? For from such
+intelligence, one might be able to judge whether our <!-- page 51--><a
+name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 51</span>female flocks migrate
+from the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us from the
+continent. We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common linnets;
+more, I think, than can be bred in any one district. These, I
+observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the sunshine,
+and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break
+up their winter quarters and betake themselves to their proper summer
+homes. It is well known, at least, that the swallows and the
+fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering before they make their
+respective departure.</p>
+
+<p>You may depend on it that the bunting, <i>Emberiza miliaria</i>, does
+not leave this county in the winter. In January, 1767, I saw several
+dozen of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the bushes on the
+downs near Andover: in our woodland-enclosed district it is a rare
+bird.</p>
+
+<p>Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter.
+Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in numbers by
+people that go on purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that &ldquo;if the wheatear
+(<i>œnanthe</i>) does not quit England, it certainly shifts places;
+for about harvest they are not to be found, where there was before great
+plenty of them.&rdquo; This well accounts for the vast quantities
+that are caught about that time on the south downs near Lewes, <!-- page
+52--><a name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>where they are
+esteemed a delicacy. There have been shepherds, I have been credibly
+informed, that have made many pounds in a season by catching them in
+traps. And though such multitudes are taken, I never saw (and I am
+well acquainted with those parts) above two or three at a time, for they
+are never gregarious. They may perhaps migrate in general, and, for
+that purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex in autumn: but that they do
+not all withdraw I am sure, because I see a few stragglers in many
+counties, at all times of the year, especially about warrens and stone
+quarries.</p>
+
+<p>I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of the navy; but
+have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the late war, desiring
+him to look into his minutes, with respect to birds that settled on their
+rigging during their voyage up or down the Channel. What Hasselquist
+says on that subject is remarkable; there were little short-winged birds
+frequently coming on board his ship all the way from our channel quite up
+to the Levant, especially before squally weather.</p>
+
+<p>What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly probable. The
+winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the soft-billed
+birds that leave us at that season may find insects sufficient to support
+them there.</p>
+
+<p>Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and <!-- page 53--><a
+name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>leisure, should make an
+autumnal voyage into that kingdom, and should spend a year there,
+investigating the natural history of that vast country. Mr. Willughby
+passed through that kingdom on such an errand; but he seems to have skirted
+along in a superficial manner and an ill-humour, being much disgusted at
+the rude dissolute manners of the people.</p>
+
+<p>I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the swallows
+roosting on the aits of the Thames: nor can I hear any more about those
+birds which I suspected were <i>Merulœ torquatœ</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though they hang
+their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the standing corn, above
+the ground, yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow deep in the earth,
+and make warm beds of grass: but their grand rendezvous seems to be in
+corn-ricks, into which they are carried at harvest. A neighbour
+housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled nearly
+a hundred, most of which were taken, and some I saw. I measured them,
+and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter,
+and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale,
+weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an
+ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in
+this island. A full-grown <i>Mus medius domesticus</i> weighs, I
+find, <!-- page 54--><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+54</span>one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as
+the mouse above; and measures from nose to rump four inches and a quarter,
+and the same in its tail. We have had a very severe frost and deep
+snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a
+half below the freezing-point, within doors. The tender evergreens
+were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air was
+still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general
+must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some
+days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc., etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XIV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>March
+12th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a
+fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two
+spiracula, or breathing places, besides the nostrils; probably analogous to
+the <i>puncta lachrymalia</i> in the human head. When deer are
+thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water,
+while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a
+<!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+55</span>considerable time: but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can
+open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication
+with the nose. Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature
+worthy our attention, and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by
+any naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be
+suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped. This
+curious formation of the head may be of singular service to beasts of
+chase, by affording them free respiration: and no doubt these additional
+nostrils are thrown open when they are hard run. Mr. Ray observed
+that at Malta the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard
+worked: for they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit air
+sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot
+climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think
+large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some
+notion that stags have four spiracula:</p>
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Τετράδυμοι ῥινὲς, πίσυρες πνοίῃσι δίαυλοι.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem
+canales.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Opp. Cyn.</span> Lib. ii.
+1. 181.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>
+Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at
+their ears; whereas he asserts <!-- page 56--><a name="page56"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 56</span>just the contrary: &ldquo;Ἀλκμαίων γὰρ οὐκ ἀληθῆ
+λέγει, φάμενος ἀναπνεῖν τὰς αἶγας κατὰ τὰ ὠτά.&rdquo; &ldquo;Alcmæon does not
+advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their
+ears.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;History of Animals.&rdquo; Book I., chap xi.
+</p>
+
+<h3>LETTER XV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>March
+30th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Some intelligent country people have a notion that we
+have in these parts a species of the <i>genus mustelinum</i>, besides the
+weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger
+than a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a <i>cane</i>.
+This piece of intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry
+may be made.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one
+nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly,
+threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would
+have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I
+saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to
+find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white.</p>
+
+<p>A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on <!-- page 57--><a
+name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>a down above my house
+this winter: were not these the <i>Emberiza nivalis</i>, the snow-flake of
+the Brit. Zool.? No doubt they were.</p>
+
+<p>A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had been caught
+in the fields after it was come to its full colours. In about a year
+it began to look dingy; and, blackening every succeeding year, it became
+coal-black at the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed.
+Such influence has food on the colour of animals! The pied and
+mottled colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be owing to high,
+various, and unusual food.</p>
+
+<p>I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pint
+(<i>arum</i>) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, and
+eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing, with some exactness,
+myself, and getting others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind
+that searched it out. The root of the <i>arum</i> is remarkably warm
+and pungent.</p>
+
+<p>Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us. The
+blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by that fierce weather
+in January.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, a little bird
+that raised my curiosity: it was of that yellow-green colour that belongs
+to the <i>salicaria</i> kind, and, I think, was soft-billed. It was
+no <i>parus</i>; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned <!--
+page 58--><a name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>wren,
+appearing most like the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with
+its back downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same
+place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed my
+aim.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder that the stone-curlew, <i>Charadrius œdicnemus</i>,
+should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird: it abounds in all the
+champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the
+summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already
+they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any
+propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, &ldquo;<i>circa aquas
+versantes</i>;&rdquo; for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the
+most dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed from water: what
+they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food,
+but they also eat toads and frogs.</p>
+
+<p>I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnæus
+perhaps would call the species <i>Mus minimus</i>.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XVI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>April
+18th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The history of the stone-curlew, <i>Charadrius
+œdicnemus</i>, is as follows. It lays its eggs, <!-- page
+59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>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.
+<i>Œdicnemus</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 <!-- page
+60--><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&rsquo; 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 <i>locusta</i> 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 <!-- page 61--><a
+name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>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 <i>reguli non
+cristati</i>, from which it is very distinct. See Ray&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Philos. Letters,&rdquo; p. 108.</p>
+
+<p>The fly-catcher (<i>stoparola</i>) 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.</p>
+
+<p>A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD,
+RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR.</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>LINNÆI NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Smallest willow-wren</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla trochilus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Wryneck</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Jynx torquilla</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>House-swallow</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo rustica</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Martin</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo urbica</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Sand-martin</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo riparia</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Cuckoo</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cuculus canorus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Nightingale</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla luscinia</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Blackcap</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla atricapilla</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Whitethroat</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla sylvia</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Middle willow-wren</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla trochilus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Swift</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo apus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Stone-curlew?</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Charadrius œdicnemus</i>?</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p><!-- page 62--><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+62</span>Turtle-dove?</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turtur aldrovandi</i>?</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Grasshopper-lark</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda trivialis</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Landrail</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Rallus crex</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Largest willow-wren</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla trochilus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Redstart</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla phœnicurus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Goat-sucker, or fern-owl</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Caprimulgus europus</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Fly-catcher</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Muscicapa grisola</i></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>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 <i>Sitta
+europœa</i> (the nuthatch). Mr. Ray says that the less spotted
+woodpecker does the same. This noise may be heard a furlong or
+more.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose crown glitters like
+burnished gold. It often hangs like a titmouse, with its back
+downwards.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">Yours, etc., etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+63</span>LETTER XVII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>June
+18th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June
+10th. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these
+studies still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to
+reptiles and fishes.</p>
+
+<p>The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I
+could wish, with regard to their natural history. There is a degree
+of dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of
+animals, something analogous to that of the <i>cryptogamia</i> in the
+sexual system of plants: and the case is the same with regard to some of
+the fishes, as the eel, etc.</p>
+
+<p>
+The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to be very much in
+the dark. Some authors say that they are viviparous, and yet Ray classes them
+among his oviparous animals, and is silent with regard to the manner of their
+bringing forth. Perhaps they may be ἔσω μὲν ὠοτὸκοι, ἔξω δε ζωοτόκοι, as is
+known to be the case with the viper.
+</p>
+
+<p>The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it) is notorious
+to everybody, because we see them sticking upon each other&rsquo;s backs,
+for a month together <!-- page 64--><a name="page64"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 64</span>in the spring: and yet I never saw, or read, of
+toads being observed in the same situation. It is strange that the
+matter with regard to the venom of toads has not been yet settled.
+That they are not noxious to some animals is plain, for ducks, buzzards,
+owls, stone-curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my knowledge, with
+impunity. And I well remember the time, but was not eye-witness to
+the fact (though numbers of persons were), when a quack, at this village,
+ate a toad to make the country people stare; afterwards he drank oil.</p>
+
+<p>I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that some ladies
+(ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, which they
+nourished, summer after summer, for many years, till he grew to a monstrous
+size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies. The reptile used to
+come forth every evening from a hole under the garden steps, and was taken
+up, after supper, on the table to be fed. But at last a tame raven,
+kenning him as he put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke with
+his horny beak as put out one eye. After this accident the creature
+languished for some time and died.</p>
+
+<p>I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the excellent
+account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray&rsquo;s &ldquo;Wisdom of God in
+the Creation&rdquo; (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs from their
+breeding ponds. In this account he at once subverts <!-- page 65--><a
+name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>that foolish opinion of
+their dropping from the clouds in rain, showing that it is from the
+grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that they are tempted to
+set out on their travels, which they defer till those fall. Frogs are
+as yet in their tadpole state; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths,
+fields, will swarm for a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no
+larger than my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate
+account of the method and situation in which the male impregnates the spawn
+of the female. How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard
+to the limbs of so vile a reptile! While it is an aquatic it has a
+fish-like tail, and no legs; as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off
+as useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land!</p>
+
+<p>Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances that the <i>rana
+arborea</i> is an English reptile; it abounds in Germany and
+Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be remembered that the <i>salamandra aquatica</i> of Ray (the
+water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler&rsquo;s bait, and is
+often caught on his hook. I used take it for granted that the
+<i>salamandra aquatica</i> was hatched, lived, and died, in the
+water. But John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis), asserts,
+in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June 5th, 1766, in his account of
+the <i>mud inguana</i>, an amphibious biped from South Carolina, that the
+water-eft, or newt, is <!-- page 66--><a name="page66"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 66</span>only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are
+of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning, I
+shall give it in his own words. Speaking of the <i>opercula</i> or
+coverings to the gills of the <i>mud inguana</i>, he proceeds to say that,
+&ldquo;The form of these pennated coverings approaches very near to what I
+have some time ago observed in the larva or aquatic state of our
+English <i>lacerta</i>, known by the name of eft, or newt, which serve them
+for coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim with while in this
+state; and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, when they
+change their state and become land animals, as I have observed, by keeping
+them alive for some time myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Linnæus, in his &ldquo;Systema Naturæ,&rdquo; hints at what
+Mr. Ellis advances more than once.</p>
+
+<p>Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous
+reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper.
+As you propose the good of mankind to be an object of your publications you
+will not omit to mention common salad-oil as sovereign remedy against the
+bite of the viper. As to the blind worm (<i>anguis fragilis</i>,
+so-called because it snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have found, on
+examination, that it is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman
+(to whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female
+viper about the 27th May: he found her filled with a chain <!-- page
+67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 67</span>of eleven eggs,
+about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so
+far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young.
+Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their
+young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth. Whereas
+snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all
+that my people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the
+spring following, as I have often experienced. Several intelligent
+folks assure me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her
+helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female
+opossum does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like
+emergencies; and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr.
+Barrington, that no such thing ever happens. The serpent kind eat, I
+believe, but once in a year; or rather, but only just at one season of the
+year. Country people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty
+sure, without any reason; for the common snake (<i>coluber natrix</i>)
+delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view to procure frogs
+and other food.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve species of
+reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather varieties, of our
+<i>lacerti</i>, of which Ray enumerates five. I have not had
+opportunity of ascertaining these; but remember well to have seen <!-- page
+68--><a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>formerly
+several beautiful green <i>lacerti</i> on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham,
+in Surrey; and Ray admits there are such in Ireland.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XVIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>July
+27th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I received your obliging and communicative letter of
+June 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman&rsquo;s house, where I had
+neither books to turn to nor leisure to sit down, to return you an answer
+to many queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best manner that I am
+able.</p>
+
+<p>A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could find no such
+fish as the <i>gasterosteus pungitius</i>; he found the <i>gasterosteus
+aculeatus</i> in plenty. This morning, in a basket, I packed a little
+earthen pot full of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, male and female,
+the females big with spawn; some lamperns; some bull&rsquo;s heads; but I
+could procure no minnows. This basket will be in Fleet Street by
+eight this evening; so I hope Mazel will have them fresh and fair to-morrow
+morning. I gave some directions, in a letter, to what particulars the
+engraver should be attentive.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+69</span>Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable
+distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that town, and procured
+several living specimens of loaches, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a
+glass decanter. They were taken in the gullies that were cut for
+watering the meadows. From these fishes (which measured from two to
+four inches in length) I took the following description: &ldquo;The loach,
+in its general aspect, has a pellucid appearance; its back is mottled with
+irregular collections of small black dots, not reaching much below the
+<i>linea lateralis</i>, as are the back and tail fins; a black line runs
+from each eye down to the nose; its belly is of a silvery white; the upper
+jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with six feelers, three on
+each side; its pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller; the fin
+behind its anus small; its dorsal-fin large, containing eight spines; its
+tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any
+taperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus; the tail-fin is broad,
+and square at the end. From the breadth and muscular strength of the
+tail it appears to be an active, nimble fish.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did not forget to
+make some inquiries concerning the wonderful method of curing cancers by
+means of toads. Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy,
+do <!-- page 70--><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>I
+find give a great deal of credit to what is asserted in the papers, and I
+myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is
+related is matter of fact; but, when I came to attend to his account, I
+thought I discerned circumstances which did not a little invalidate the
+woman&rsquo;s story of the manner in which she came by her skill. She
+says of herself, &ldquo;that, labouring under a virulent cancer, she went
+to some church where there was a vast crowd; on going into a pew, she was
+accosted by a strange clergyman, who, after expressing compassion for her
+situation, told her that if she would make such an application of living
+toads as is mentioned she would be well.&rdquo; Now is it likely that
+this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single
+sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish under
+this terrible disorder? Would he not have made use of this invaluable
+nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of publication or
+other, have found a method of making it public for the good of
+mankind? In short, this woman (as it appears to me), having set up
+for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with this
+dark and mysterious relation.</p>
+
+<p>The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance of any
+gills; for want of which it is continually rising to the surface of the
+water to take in <!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 71</span>fresh air. I opened a big-bellied one
+indeed, and found it full of spawn. Not that this circumstance at all
+invalidates the assertion that they are <i>larvæ</i>, for the
+<i>larvæ</i> of insects are full of eggs, which they exclude the
+instant they enter their last state. The water-eft is continually
+climbing over the brims of the vessel, within which we keep it in water,
+and wandering away; and people every summer see numbers crawling out of the
+pools where they are hatched up the dry banks. There are varieties of
+them, differing in colour; and some have fins up their tail and back, and
+some have not.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XIX.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>August
+17th</i>, 1768</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct
+species of the willow-wrens (<i>motacillæ trochili</i>) which
+constantly and invariably use distinct notes. But at the same time I
+am obliged to confess that I know nothing of your willow-lark. In my
+letter of April 18th, I had told you peremptorily that I knew your
+willow-lark, but had not seen it then; but when I came to procure it, it
+proved in all respects a very <i>motacilla trochilus</i>, only that it is a
+size larger than <!-- page 72--><a name="page72"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 72</span>the two other, and the yellow-green of the
+whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the belly of a clearer
+white. I have specimens of the three sorts now lying before me, and
+can discern that there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least
+has black legs, and the other two flesh-coloured 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
+<i>regulus non cristatus</i> of Ray, which he says &ldquo;<i>cantat voce
+stridulâ locustæ</i>.&rdquo; Yet this great ornithologist
+never suspected that there were three species.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XX.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>,
+<i>October 8th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+73</span>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, <i>tringa hypoleucus</i>: 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.</p>
+
+<p>The next bird that I procured (on the 21st May) was a male red-backed
+butcher bird, <i>lanius collurio</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) were some
+ring-ousels, <i>turdi torquati</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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 <!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 74</span>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 cocks and two hens, and says, on
+recollection, that he remembers to have observed these birds again last
+spring, about Lady-day, as it were on their return to the north. Now
+perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of England, but belong
+to the more northern parts of Europe, and may retire before the excessive
+rigour of the frosts in those parts, and return to breed in the spring,
+when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is discovered a new
+bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the writers are silent;
+but if these birds should prove the ousels of the north of England, then
+here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom never before
+remarked. It does not yet appear whether they retire beyond the
+bounds of our island to the south; but it is most probable that they
+usually do, or else one cannot suppose that they would have continued so
+long unnoticed in the southern countries. The ousel is larger than a
+blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there were no haws) it
+fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feeds on ivy-berries, which ripen only
+at that season, in March and April.</p>
+
+<p>I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the study of
+reptiles) that my people, every <!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 75</span>now and then of late, draw up with a bucket of
+water from my well, which is sixty-three feet deep, a large black warty
+lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. How they first came down at
+that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without help, is
+more than I am able to say.</p>
+
+<p>My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of
+a buck&rsquo;s head. As far as your discoveries reach at present,
+they seem much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. --- may find
+reason to give his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance
+this extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of
+God in the creation.</p>
+
+<p>As yet I have not quite done with my history of the
+<i>œdicnemus</i>, or stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in
+Sussex (near whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the
+autumn) to observe nicely when they leave him (if they do leave him), and
+when they return again in the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and
+saw several single birds.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 76--><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+76</span>LETTER XXI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Nov.
+28th</i>, 1768.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;With regard to the <i>œdicnemus</i>, or
+stone-curlew, I intend to write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in
+whose neighbourhood these birds seem most to abound, and shall urge him to
+take particular notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards to
+watch them most narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the
+dead of the winter. When I have obtained information with respect to
+this circumstance, I shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew,
+which I hope will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very
+near the truth. This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his
+own, and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the
+motions of these birds; and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the
+Naturalist&rsquo;s Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall
+expect that he will be very exact in his dates. It is very
+extraordinary, as you observe, that a bird so common with us should never
+struggle to you.</p>
+
+<p>And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think of it, an
+anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me when I was last at his
+house; which was that, in a warren joining to his <!-- page 77--><a
+name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 77</span>outlet, many daws
+(<i>corvi monedulœ</i>) build every year in the rabbit-burrows under
+ground. The way he and his brothers used to take their nests, while
+they were boys, was by listening at the mouths of the holes, and, if they
+heard the young ones cry, they twisted the nest out with a forked
+stick. Some water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that
+manner; but I should never have suspected the daws of building in holes on
+the flat ground.</p>
+
+<p>Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed
+in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their nests in the
+interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing work
+of antiquity; which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of the
+upright stones, that they should be tall enough to secure those nests from
+the annoyance of shepherd-boys, who are always idling round that place.</p>
+
+<p>One of my neighbours last Saturday, November 26th, saw a martin in a
+sheltered bottom: the sun shone warm, and the bird was hawking briskly
+after flies. I am now perfectly satisfied that they do not all leave
+this island in the winter.</p>
+
+<p>You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and caution
+concerning the cures done by toads; for, let people advance what they will
+on such subjects, yet there is such a propensity in mankind <!-- page
+78--><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>towards
+deceiving and being deceived, that one cannot safely relate anything from
+common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of doubt
+and suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Your approbation with regard to my new discovery of the migration of the
+ring-ousel gives me satisfaction; and I find you concur with me in
+suspecting that they are foreign birds which visit us. You will be
+sure, I hope, not to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave
+your rocks in the autumn. What puzzles me most is the very short stay
+they make with us, for in about three weeks they are all gone. I
+shall be very curious to remark whether they will call on us at their
+return in the spring, as they did last year.</p>
+
+<p>I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology. If
+fortune had settled me near the seaside, or near some great river, my
+natural propensity would soon have urged me to have made myself acquainted
+with their productions; but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in
+an upland district, my knowledge of fishes extends little farther than to
+those common sorts which our brooks and lakes produce.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+79</span>LETTER XXII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Jan.
+2nd</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under
+the ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for,
+in reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this
+county. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as
+meanly furnished with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom.
+We have many livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of
+worship make little better appearance than dovecots. When I first saw
+Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of
+Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which presented
+themselves in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I have
+reason to lament this want in my own county; for such objects are very
+necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.</p>
+
+<p>What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my
+curiosity. An ancient author, though no naturalist, has well remarked
+that &ldquo;every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and things
+in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 80--><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>It
+is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually been
+procured for you in Devonshire, because it corroborates my discovery, which
+I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank near Farnham,
+in Surrey. I am well acquainted with the South Hams of Devonshire,
+and can suppose that district, from its southerly situation, to be a proper
+habitation for such animals in their best colours.</p>
+
+<p>Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not forsake
+them against winter, our suspicions that those which visit this
+neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, but driven from the
+more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable; and
+it will be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they come,
+and to inquire why they make so very short a stay.</p>
+
+<p>In your account of your error with regard to the two species of herons,
+you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your description of the
+heronry at Cressi Hall, which is a curiosity I never could manage to
+see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I
+would ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray be sure to
+tell me in your next whose seat Cressi Hall is, and near what town it
+lies. I have often thought that those vast extents of fens <!-- page
+81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>have never been
+sufficiently explored. If half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a
+good strength of water-spaniels, were to beat them over for a week, they
+would certainly find more species.</p>
+
+<p>There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that
+of the <i>caprimulgus</i> (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and
+curious creature; but I have always found that though sometimes it may
+chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its
+jarring note sitting on a bough; and I have for many a half hour watched it
+as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this
+summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than
+its tail, in an attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio
+&ldquo;British Zoology.&rdquo; This bird is most punctual in
+beginning its song exactly at the close of day&mdash;so exactly that I have
+known it strike up more than once or twice just at the report of the
+Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the weather is still.
+It appears to me past all doubt that its notes are formed by organic
+impulse, by the powers of the parts of its windpipe formed for sound, just
+as cats purr. You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you that, as
+my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill
+where we drink tea, one of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross
+of that little straw edifice and began to <!-- page 82--><a
+name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>chatter, and continued
+his note for many minutes: and we were all struck with wonder to find that
+the organs of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible
+vibration to the whole building! This bird also sometimes makes a
+small squeak, repeated four or five times; and I have observed that to
+happen when the cock has been pursuing the hen in a toying way through the
+boughs of a tree.</p>
+
+<p>It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have procured,
+should prove a new one, since five species have been found in a
+neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I mentioned is certainly a
+nondescript; I saw but one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of
+taking.</p>
+
+<p>Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining. I am no angler
+myself; but inquiring of those that are, what they supposed that part of
+their tackle to be made of?&mdash;they replied, &ldquo;Of the intestines of
+a silkworm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet I cannot say
+that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge; I may now and then perhaps be
+able to furnish you with a little information.</p>
+
+<p>The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and
+since we have had delicate weather. Mr. Barker, who has measured the
+rain for <!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+83</span>more than thirty years, says, in a late letter, that more has
+fallen this year than in any he ever attended to; though from July, 1763,
+to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of this year.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Feb.
+28th</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;It is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our
+green lizards may be specifically the same; all that I know is, that, when
+some years ago many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke College
+garden, in the University of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed
+to enjoy themselves very well, but never bred. Whether this
+circumstance will prove anything either way I shall not pretend to say.</p>
+
+<p>I return you thanks for your account of Cressi Hall; but recollect, not
+without regret, that in June, 1746, I was visiting for a week together at
+Spalding, without ever being told that such a curiosity was just at
+hand. Pray send me word in your next what sort of tree it is that
+contains such a quantity of herons&rsquo; nests, <!-- page 84--><a
+name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 84</span>and whether the heronry
+consists of a whole grove of wood, or only of a few trees.</p>
+
+<p>It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about the
+<i>caprimulgus</i>; all I contended for was to prove that it often chatters
+sitting as well as flying; and therefore the noise was voluntary, and from
+organic impulse, and not from the resistance of the air against the hollow
+of its mouth and throat.</p>
+
+<p>If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas
+Day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning; at first there
+was a vast fog, but, by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from
+home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day.
+We were then on a large heath or common, and I could discern, as the mist
+began to break away, great numbers of swallows (<i>hirundines
+rusticæ</i>) clustering on the stunted shrubs and bushes, as if they
+had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became clear and
+pleasant they were all on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy
+flight, proceeded on southward towards the sea; after this I did not see
+any more flocks, only now and then a straggler.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow kind
+disappear some and some gradually, as they come, for the bulk of them seem
+to withdraw at once; only some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do
+never, there is the greatest reason to believe, <!-- page 85--><a
+name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 85</span>leave this
+island. Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come forth in a
+warm day, as bats do continually of a warm evening, after they have
+disappeared for weeks. For a very respectable gentleman assured me
+that, as he was walking with some friends under Merton Wall on a remarkably
+hot noon, either in the last week in December or the first week in January,
+he espied three or four swallows huddled together on the moulding of one of
+the windows of that college. I have frequently remarked that swallows
+are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere; is it owing to the vast massy
+buildings of that place, to the many waters round it, or to what else?</p>
+
+<p>When I used to rise in the morning last autumn, and see the swallows and
+martins clustering on the chimneys and thatch of the neighbouring cottages,
+I could not help being touched with a secret delight, mixed with some
+degree of mortification; with delight, to observe with how much ardour and
+punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the strong impulse towards
+migration, or hiding, imprinted on their minds by their great Creator; and
+with some degree of mortification when I reflected that, after all our
+pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions they do
+migrate, and are still farther embarrassed to find that some do not
+actually migrate at all.</p>
+
+<p>These reflections made so strong an impression on <!-- page 86--><a
+name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>my imagination, that
+they became productive of a composition that may perhaps amuse you for a
+quarter of an hour when next I have the honour of writing to you.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXIV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>May
+29th</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The <i>scarabœus fullo</i> I know very well,
+having seen it in collections, but have never been able to discover one
+wild in its natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought it might be
+found on the sea-coast.</p>
+
+<p>On the 13th April I went to the sheep-down, where the <i>ring-ousels</i>
+have been observed to make their appearance at spring and fall, in their
+way perhaps to the north or south, and was much pleased to see these birds
+about the usual spot. We shot a cock and a hen; they were plump and
+in high condition. The hen had but very small rudiments of eggs
+within her, which proves they are late breeders; whereas those species of
+the thrush kind that remain with us the whole year have fledged young
+before that time. In their crops was nothing very distinguishable,
+but somewhat that seemed like blades of vegetables nearly digested.
+In <!-- page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+87</span>autumn they feed on haws and yew-berries, and in the spring on
+ivy-berries. I dressed one of these birds, and found it juicy and
+well-flavoured. It is remarkable that they make but a few days&rsquo;
+stay in their spring visit, but rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas.
+These birds, from the observations of three springs and two autumns, are
+most punctual in their return, and exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the
+writers, who supposed they never were to be seen in any southern
+countries.</p>
+
+<p>One of my neighbours lately brought me a new <i>salicaria</i>, which at
+first I suspected might have proved your willow-lark, but, on a nicer
+examination, it answered much better to the description of that species
+which you shot at Revesby, in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus:
+&ldquo;It is a size less than the grasshopper-lark; the head, back, and
+coverts of the wings, of a dusky brown, without those dark spots of the
+grasshopper-lark; over each eye is a milk-white stroke; the chin and throat
+are white; and the under parts of a yellowish white; the rump is tawny, and
+the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed; the bill is dusky and sharp, and
+the legs are dusky; the hinder claw long and crooked.&rdquo; The
+person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed sparrow that he took
+it for one; and that it sings all night: but this account merits farther
+inquiry. For my part I suspect it is a second sort of
+<i>locustela</i>, <!-- page 88--><a name="page88"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 88</span>hinted at by Dr. Derham in Ray&rsquo;s Letters:
+see p. 108. He also procured me a grasshopper-lark.</p>
+
+<p>The question that you put with regard to those genera of animals that
+are peculiar to America, viz., how they came there, and whence? is too
+puzzling for me to answer, and yet so obvious as often to have struck me
+with wonder. If one looks into the writers on that subject, little
+satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance
+plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to
+maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one&rsquo;s hypothesis is each
+as good as another&rsquo;s, since they are all founded on conjecture.
+The late writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of
+those that have gone before, as I remember, stock America from the western
+coast of Africa and the south of Europe, and then break down the Isthmus
+that bridged over the Atlantic. But this is making use of a violent
+piece of machinery; it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a
+god! &ldquo;<i>Incredulus odi</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+<h3><!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+89</span>TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.</h3>
+<h3>THE NATURALIST&rsquo;S SUMMER-EVENING WALK.</h3>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&mdash;equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis<br />
+Ingenium.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Virg.</span>
+<i>Georg</i>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>When day declining sheds a milder gleam,<br />
+What time the may-fly haunts the pool or stream;<br />
+When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,<br />
+What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;<br />
+Then be the time to steal adown the vale,<br />
+And listen to the vagrant cuckoo&rsquo;s tale;<br />
+To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,<br />
+Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;<br />
+To see the swallow sweep the dark&rsquo;ning plain<br />
+Belated, to support her infant train;<br />
+To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring<br />
+Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing:<br />
+Amusive birds!&mdash;say where your hid retreat<br />
+When the frost rages and the tempests beat;<br />
+Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,<br />
+When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head:<br />
+Such baffled searches mock man&rsquo;s prying pride,<br />
+The <span class="smcap">God</span> of <span class="smcap">Nature</span> is
+your secret guide!</p>
+
+<p>While deep&rsquo;ning shades obscure the face of day,<br />
+<!-- page 90--><a name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>To
+yonder bench leaf-shelter&rsquo;d let us stray,<br />
+Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,<br />
+And all the fading landscape sinks in night;<br />
+To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by<br />
+With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;<br />
+To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;<br />
+To catch the distant falling of the flood;<br />
+While o&rsquo;er the cliff th&rsquo; awaken&rsquo;d churn-owl hung<br />
+Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;<br />
+While high in air, and poised upon his wings,<br />
+Unseen, the soft-enamour&rsquo;d woodlark sings:<br />
+These, <span class="smcap">Nature&rsquo;s</span> works, the curious mind
+employ,<br />
+Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:<br />
+As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain<br />
+Steals o&rsquo;er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!</p>
+
+<p>Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine;<br />
+The tinkling sheep-bell or the breath of kine;<br />
+The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,<br />
+Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>The chilling night-dews fall&mdash;away, retire!<br />
+For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!<br />
+Thus, ere night&rsquo;s veil had half obscured the sky,<br />
+Th&rsquo; impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:<br />
+True to the signal, by love&rsquo;s meteor led,<br />
+Leander hasten&rsquo;d to his Hero&rsquo;s bed.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+91</span>LETTER XXV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Aug.
+30th</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the
+<i>ousel migration</i> pleases you. You put a very shrewd question
+when you ask me how I know that their autumnal migration is
+southward? Was not candour and openness the very life of natural
+history, I should pass over this query just as a sly commentator does over
+a crabbed passage in a classic; but common ingenuousness obliges me to
+confess, not without some degree of shame, that I only reasoned in that
+case from analogy. For as all other autumnal birds migrate from the
+northward to us, to partake of our milder winters, and return to the
+northward again when the rigorous cold abates, so I concluded that the
+ring-ousels did the same, as well as their congeners the fieldfares; and
+especially as ring-ousels are known to haunt cold mountainous countries:
+but I have good reason to suspect, since, that they may come to us from the
+westward, because I hear from very good authority, that they breed on
+Dartmoor, and that they forsake that wild district about the time that our
+visitors appear, and do not return till late in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>I have taken a great deal of pains about your <i>salicaria</i> and mine,
+with a white stroke over its eye <!-- page 92--><a name="page92"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 92</span>and a tawny rump. I have surveyed it
+alive and dead, and have procured several specimens, and am perfectly
+persuaded myself (and trust you will soon become convinced of the same)
+that it is no more nor less than the <i>passer arundinaceus minor</i> of
+Ray. This bird, by some means or other, seems to be entirely omitted
+in the British Zoology; and one reason probably was because it is so
+strangely classed in Ray, who ranges it among his <i>picis
+affines</i>. It ought, no doubt, to have gone among his
+<i>aviculæ caudâ unicolore</i>, and among your slender-billed
+small birds of the same division. Linnæus might with great
+propriety have put it into his genus of <i>motacilla</i>; and <i>motacilla
+salicaria</i> of his <i>fauna suecica</i> seems to come the nearest to
+it. It is no uncommon bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers
+where there is covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors. The country
+people in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings incessantly
+night and day during the breeding-time, imitating the note of a sparrow, a
+swallow, a skylark, and has a strange hurrying manner in its song. My
+specimens correspond most minutely to the description of your <i>fen
+salicaria</i> shot near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent
+characteristic of it when he says, &ldquo;<i>Rostrum et pedes in hâc
+aviculâ multò majores sunt quâm pro corporis
+ratione</i>.&rdquo; See letter, May 29th, 1769. (Preceding
+letter xxiv.)</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>I
+have got you the egg of an <i>œdicnemus</i>, or stone-curlew, which
+was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground. There were two, but
+the finder inadvertently crushed one with his foot before he saw them.</p>
+
+<p>When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had not forgot to
+mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking <i>se
+defendendo</i>. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which was
+in its person as sweet as any animal while in good humour and unalarmed,
+but as soon as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing,
+and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly
+supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of Ray&rsquo;s &ldquo;Synop.
+Quadr.&rdquo; is an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed hard by
+dogs and men, it can eject such a most pestilent and fetid smell and
+excrement, that nothing can be more horrible.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the <i>lanius minor
+cinerascens cum maculâ in scapulis albâ</i>, <i>Raii</i>; which
+is a bird that, at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of
+&ldquo;British Zoology,&rdquo; I find you had not seen. You have
+described it well from Edwards&rsquo;s drawing.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 94--><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+94</span>LETTER XXVI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>,
+<i>December 8th</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I was much gratified by your communicative letter on
+your return from Scotland, where you spent some considerable time, and gave
+yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive
+kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the
+highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry, because men
+seldom allot themselves half the time they should do, but, fixing on a day
+for their return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a
+journey that required despatch than as philosophers investigating the works
+of nature. You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid
+up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the &ldquo;British
+Zoology;&rdquo; and will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so
+much pains on a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well
+examined before.</p>
+
+<p>It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so
+congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in
+England; but that they should not think even the highlands cold and
+northerly, and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange and
+wonderful. The <!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 95</span>ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland the
+whole year round, so that we have reason to conclude that those migrators
+that visit us for a short space every autumn do not come from thence.</p>
+
+<p>And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds
+were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, appearing, as
+before, about the 30th September; but their flocks were larger than common,
+and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If they
+came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of their congeners do, and
+then left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so much struck with
+the occurrence, since it would be similar to that of the other winter birds
+of passage; but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas, and again
+for about a week in the middle of April, I am seized with wonder, and long
+to be informed whence these travellers come, and whither they go, since
+they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting place.</p>
+
+<p>Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very amusing;
+and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such
+perilous voyages over the northern ocean. Some country people in the
+winter time have, every now and then, told me that they have seen two or
+three white larks on our downs, but, on considering the matter, I begin to
+<!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+96</span>suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds we are talking
+of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward.</p>
+
+<p>It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the Scottish
+mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species,
+for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a great
+acquisition.</p>
+
+<p>The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a
+bird, that it would grace our <i>fauna</i> much. I never was informed
+before where wild geese are known to breed.</p>
+
+<p>You admit, I find, that I have proved your <i>fen salicaria</i> to be
+the lesser reed-sparrow of Ray; and I think you may be secure that I am
+right, for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter, and had
+some fair specimens, but, as they were not well preserved, they are decayed
+already. You will, no doubt, insert it in its proper place in your
+next edition. Your additional plates will much improve your work.</p>
+
+<p>De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse; but still I am
+pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I
+have given in the article of the white hare.</p>
+
+<p>As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, far removed
+from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously lain up in a
+hybernaculum <!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+97</span>artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the
+burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to
+have supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me is
+how this <i>amphibius mus</i> came to fix its winter station at such a
+distance from the water. Was it determined in its choice of that
+place by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted
+there, or is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the
+neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?</p>
+
+<p>Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how
+fallacious it is with respect to natural history, yet, in the following
+instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may conduce towards the
+explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with respect to
+the invariable early retreat of the <i>hirundo apus</i>, or swift, so many
+weeks before its congeners; and that not only with us, but also in
+Andalusia, where they also begin to retire about the beginning of
+August.</p>
+
+<p>The great large bat (which, by-the-bye, is at present a nondescript in
+England, and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires or
+migrates very early in the summer. It also ranges very high for its
+food, feeding in a different region of the air, and that is the reason I
+never could procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the
+swifts; for they take their food in a <!-- page 98--><a
+name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 98</span>more exalted region
+than the other species, and are very seldom seen hawking for flies near the
+ground, or over the surface of the water. From hence I would conclude
+that these <i>hirundines</i> and the larger bats are supported by some
+sorts of high-flying gnats, scarabs, or <i>phalœnæ</i>, that
+are of short continuance, and that the short stay of these strangers is
+regulated by the defect of their food.</p>
+
+<p>By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to October 31st,
+since which I have not seen nor heard any. Swallows were observed on
+to November 3rd.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXVII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Feb.
+22nd</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Hedgehogs abound in my gardens and fields. The
+manner in which they eat the roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is
+very curious; with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their
+lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving
+the tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable,
+as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but they deface the walks in some
+<!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+99</span>measure by digging little round holes. It appears, by the
+dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable part
+of their food. In June last I procured a litter of four or five young
+hedgehogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old: they, I find,
+like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they came to my
+hands. No doubt their spines are soft and flexible at the time of
+their birth, or else the poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the
+critical moment of parturition, but it is plain they soon harden; for these
+little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as would
+easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled with caution.
+Their spines are quite white at this age; and they have little hanging
+ears, which I do not remember to be discernible in the old ones. They
+can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over their faces, but are
+not able to contract themselves into a ball, as they do, for the sake of
+defence, when full grown. The reason, I suppose, is, because the
+curious muscle that enables the creature to roll itself up in a ball was
+not then arrived at its full tone and firmness. Hedgehogs make a deep
+and warm <i>hybernaculum</i> with leaves and moss, in which they conceal
+themselves for the winter: but I never could find that they stored in any
+winter provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do.</p>
+
+<p>I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the <!-- page 100--><a
+name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>fieldfare (<i>turdus
+pilaris</i>) which I think is particular enough; this bird, though it sits
+on trees in the daytime, and procures the greatest part of its food from
+white-thorn hedges, yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be
+seen by the <i>fauna suecica</i>; yet always appears with us to roost on
+the ground. They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark,
+and to settle and nestle among the heath on our forest. And besides,
+the larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the
+wheat stubbles; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings in the
+hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in the
+matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and from
+themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for
+which I am by no means able to account.</p>
+
+<p>I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the <i>moose-deer</i>; but
+in general foreign animals fall seldom in my way; my little intelligence is
+confined to the narrow sphere of my own observations at home.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+101</span>LETTER XXVIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>,
+<i>March</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>On Michaelmas Day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of the female moose
+belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly
+disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after
+having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the morning
+before. However, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded
+to examine this rare quadruped; I found it in an old greenhouse, slung
+under the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; but, though
+it had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the
+stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this
+deer, and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the
+strange length of its legs, on which it was tilted up much in the manner of
+the birds of the <i>grallœ</i> order. I measured it, as they do
+a horse, and found that, from the ground to the withers, it was just five
+feet four inches, which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth
+that few horses arrive at: but then, with this length of legs, its neck was
+remarkably short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with
+one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground,
+with <!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+102</span>the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the ears were vast and
+lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches long,
+and ass-like, and had such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before,
+with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty
+dish in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose that this
+creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by wading after
+water plants; towards which way of livelihood the length of legs and great
+lip must contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in
+eating the <i>nymphœa</i>, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to
+the belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches: the
+length of the legs before and behind consisted a great deal in the
+<i>tibia</i>, which was strangely long; but in my haste to get out of the
+stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be
+about an inch long; the colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four
+inches long; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat and
+splayed. The spring before it was only two years old, so that most
+probably it was not then come to its growth. What a vast, tall beast
+must a full-grown stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet
+and a half! This poor creature had at first a female companion of the
+same species, which died the spring before. In the same garden was a
+young stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose <!-- page 103--><a
+name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 103</span>it was hoped that
+there might have been a breed; but their inequality of height must have
+always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should have
+been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely,
+but the putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity. This animal,
+the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the
+former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of a male moose,
+which had no front antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the
+edge. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton
+of her bones.</p>
+
+<p>Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw,
+and whether you think still that the American moose and European elk are
+the same creature.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, with the greatest esteem, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXIX.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>May
+12th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Last month we had such a series of cold, turbulent
+weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and
+tempest, that the regular <!-- page 104--><a name="page104"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 104</span>migration or appearance of the summer birds
+was much interrupted. Some did not show themselves (at least were not
+heard) till weeks after their usual time, as the blackcap and whitethroat;
+and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and largest
+willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I have not seen it; it is indeed
+one of the latest, but should appear about this time: and yet, amidst all
+this meteorous strife and war of the elements, two swallows discovered
+themselves, as long ago as April 11th, in frost and snow; but they withdrew
+quickly, and were not visible again for many days. House-martins,
+which are always more backward than swallows, were not observed till May
+came in.</p>
+
+<p>Among the monogamous birds several are to be found, after pairing-time,
+single, and of each sex; but whether this state of celibacy is matter of
+choice or necessity, is not so easy discoverable. When the
+house-sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to
+be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and so
+for several times following.</p>
+
+<p>I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls which made
+great havoc among the young pigeons: one of the owls was shot as soon as
+possible, but the survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went
+on. After some time the <!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 105</span>new pair were both destroyed, and the
+annoyance ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal for the increase
+of his game being greater than his humanity, after pairing-time he always
+shot the cock-bird of every couple of partridges upon his grounds;
+supposing that the rivalry of many males interrupted the breed: he used to
+say, that, though he had widowed the same hen several times, yet he found
+she was still provided with a fresh paramour, that did not take her away
+from her usual haunt.</p>
+
+<p>Again; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who has often told
+me that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of
+partridges, consisting of cock-birds alone; these he pleasantly used to
+call old bachelors.</p>
+
+<p>There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats that is very
+remarkable; I mean their violent fondness for fish, which appears to be
+their most favourite food: and yet nature in this instance seems to have
+planted in them an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify;
+for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards water, and will
+not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge into
+that element.</p>
+
+<p>Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is the otter, which by
+nature is so well formed for <!-- page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 106</span>diving, that it makes great havoc among the
+inhabitants of the waters. Not supposing that we had any of those
+beasts in our shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter,
+brought to me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank
+of our stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of
+Selborne from Harteley Wood.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXX.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Aug.
+1st</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in
+their natural history. What Linnæus says with respect to
+insects holds good in every other branch: &ldquo;<i>Verbositas
+præsentis sæculi</i>, <i>calamitas artis</i>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Pray how do you approve of Scopoli&rsquo;s new work? As I admire
+his &ldquo;Entomologia,&rdquo; I long to see it.</p>
+
+<p>I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert in the
+former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to island,
+in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pursuit of the females.
+My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was on that
+errand in the river St. <!-- page 107--><a name="page107"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 107</span>Lawrence: it was a monstrous beast, he told
+me; but he did not take the dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>When I was last in town, our friend Mr. Barrington most obligingly
+carried me to see many curious sights. As you were then writing to
+him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful
+specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke&rsquo;s at Wilton,
+a horn room furnished with more than thirty different pairs; but I have not
+seen that house lately.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed and
+living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied over
+the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that came from
+distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, etc., were
+thick-billed birds of the <i>loxia</i> and <i>fringilla</i> genera; and no
+<i>motacillæ</i>, or <i>muscicapæ</i>, were to be met
+with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough, for the
+hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board, while
+the soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what
+is a <i>succedaneum</i> for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in
+long and tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our
+collections (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of
+some of the most delicate and lively genera.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 108--><a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+108</span>LETTER XXXI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Sept.
+14th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their
+native crags, and are farther assured that they continue resident in those
+cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring-ousels
+migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as
+if in their return, every April? They are more early this year than
+common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this
+month.</p>
+
+<p>An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some parts
+of Dartmoor, and breed there, but leave those haunts about the end of
+September, or beginning of October, and return again about the end of
+March.</p>
+
+<p>Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great abundance
+all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor-ousels, withdraw in
+October and November, and return in spring. This information seems to
+throw some light on my new migration.</p>
+
+<p>Scopoli&rsquo;s new work (which I have just procured) has its merit in
+ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola.
+Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to
+challenge some regard and approbation from the lovers of <!-- page 109--><a
+name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 109</span>natural history; for,
+as no man can alone investigate the works of nature, these partial writers
+may, each in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and
+freer from errors, than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave
+the way to an universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli is
+so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds
+as I could wish: he advances some false facts; as when he says of the
+<i>hirundo urbica</i> that &ldquo;<i>pullos extra nidum non
+nutrit</i>.&rdquo; This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated
+observation this summer; for house-martins do feed their young flying,
+though it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the house-swallow; and
+the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be perceptible to
+indifferent observers. He also advances some (I was going to say)
+improbable facts; as when he says of the woodcock that &ldquo;<i>pullos
+rostro portat fugiens ab hoste</i>.&rdquo; But candour forbids me to
+say absolutely that any fact is false, because I have never been witness to
+such a fact. I have only to remark that the long unwieldy bill of the
+woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the winged creation for
+such a feat of natural affection.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 110--><a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+110</span>LETTER XXXII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>,
+<i>October 29th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;After an ineffectual search in Linnæus, Brisson,
+etc., I begin to suspect that I discern my brother&rsquo;s <i>hirundo
+hyberna</i> in Scopoli&rsquo;s new discovered <i>hirundo rupestris</i>, p.
+167. His description of &ldquo;<i>Supra murina</i>, <i>subtus
+albida</i>; <i>rectrices maculâ ovali albâ in latere
+interno</i>; <i>pedes nudi</i>, <i>nigri</i>; <i>rostrum nigrum</i>;
+<i>remiges obscuriores quam plumæ dorsales</i>; <i>rectrices
+remigibus concolores</i>; <i>caudâ emarginatâ</i>, <i>nec
+forcipatâ</i>,&rdquo; agrees very well with the bird in question: but
+when he comes to advance that it is &ldquo;<i>statura hirundinis
+urbicæ</i>,&rdquo; and that &ldquo;<i>definitio hirundinis
+ripariæ Linnæi huic quoque convenïit</i>,&rdquo; he in
+some measure invalidates all he has said; at least, he shows at once that
+he compares them to these species merely from memory: for I have compared
+the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in every circumstance of
+shape, size, and colour. However, as you will have a specimen, I
+shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or not, he will
+have the credit of first discovering that they spend their winters under
+the warm and sheltry shores of Gibraltar and Barbary.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+111</span>Scopoli&rsquo;s characters of his ordines and genera are clear,
+just, and expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnæus. These
+few remarks are the result of my first perusal of Scopoli&rsquo;s
+&ldquo;Annus Primus.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to the other by
+memory; for want of caution in this particular Scopoli falls into errors;
+he is not so full with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as
+might be wished, as you justly observe; his Latin is easy, elegant, and
+expressive, and very superior to Kramer&rsquo;s.</p>
+
+<p>I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds so well
+with yours.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXXIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Nov.
+26th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I was much pleased to see, among the collection of birds
+from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer birds of passage,
+concerning whose departure we have made so much inquiry. Now if these
+birds are found in Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may easily
+be supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the <!-- page
+112--><a name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>continent,
+and spend their winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe. This
+is certain, that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar appear there
+only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards the
+northward for the sake of breeding during the summer months, and retiring
+in parties and broods towards the south at the decline of the year; so that
+the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous and place of observation,
+from whence they take their departure each way towards Europe or
+Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find that our
+small short-winged summer birds of passage are to be seen spring and autumn
+on the very skirts of Europe; it is presumptive proof of their
+emigrations.</p>
+
+<p>Scopoli seems to me to have found the <i>hirundo melba</i>, the great
+Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it. For what is his
+<i>hirundo alpina</i> but the afore-mentioned bird in other words?
+Says he, &ldquo;<i>Omnia prioris</i>&rdquo; (meaning the swift);
+&ldquo;<i>sed pectus album</i>; <i>paulo major priore</i>.&rdquo; I
+do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of the
+<i>melba</i>, that &ldquo;<i>nidificat in excelsis Alpium
+rupibus</i>.&rdquo; <i>Vid. Annum Primum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no
+naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone-curlew,
+<i>œdicnemus</i>, sends me the following <!-- page 113--><a
+name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>account: &ldquo;In
+looking over my Naturalist&rsquo;s Journal for the month of April, I find
+the stone-curlews are first mentioned on the seventeenth and eighteenth,
+which date seems to me rather late. They live with us all the spring
+and summer, and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by getting
+together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that may travel
+into some dry, hilly country south of us, probably Spain, because of the
+abundance of sheep-walks in that country; for they spend their summers with
+us in such districts. This conjecture I hazard, as I have never met
+with any one that has seen them in England in the winter. I believe
+they are not fond of going near the water, but feed on earth-worms, that
+are common on sheep-walks and downs. They breed on fallows and
+lay-fields abounding with grey mossy flints, which much resemble their
+young in colour, among which they skulk and conceal themselves. They
+make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground, producing in common
+but two at a time. There is reason to think their young run soon
+after they are hatched, and that the old ones do not feed them, but only
+lead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the most part, is in the
+night.&rdquo; Thus far, my friend.</p>
+
+<p>In the manners of this bird you see there is something very analogous to
+the bustard whom it also <!-- page 114--><a name="page114"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 114</span>somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in
+the structure of its feet.</p>
+
+<p>For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these birds
+in Andalusia, and now he writes me word that, for the first time, he saw
+one dead in the market on the 3rd September.</p>
+
+<p>When the <i>œdicnemus</i> flies it stretches out its legs straight
+behind, like a heron.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXXIV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>March
+30th</i>, 1771.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;There is an insect with us, especially on chalky
+districts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the
+summer, getting into people&rsquo;s skins, especially those of women and
+children, and raising tumours which itch intolerably. This animal
+(which we call a harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discernible to the
+naked eye, of a bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of Acarus.
+They are to be met with in gardens on kidney-beans, or any legumens, but
+prevail only in the hot months of summer. Warreners, as some have
+assured me, are much infested by them on chalky downs, where these insects
+swarm sometimes <!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 115</span>to so infinite a degree as to discolour their
+nets, and to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be
+thrown into fevers.</p>
+
+<p>There is a small, long, shining fly in these parts very troublesome to
+the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the
+bacon while it is drying; these eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which,
+harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone,
+and make great waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the
+<i>musca putris</i> of Linnæus; it is to be seen in the summer in
+farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and about the mantel-pieces, and on the
+ceilings.</p>
+
+<p>The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden (destroying
+often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an animal that wants
+to be better known. The country people here call it the turnip-fly
+and black-dolphin; but I know it to be one of the <i>coleoptera</i>; the
+&ldquo;<i>chrysomela oleracea</i>, <i>saltatoria</i>, <i>femoribus posticis
+crassissimis</i>.&rdquo; In very hot summers they abound to an
+amazing degree, and, as you walk in a field or in a garden, make a
+pattering like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or
+cabbages.</p>
+
+<p>There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy, which,
+because it is omitted by Linnæus, is also passed over by late
+writers; and that is the <i>curvicauda</i> of old Mouset, mentioned by
+Derham in his <!-- page 116--><a name="page116"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 116</span>&rdquo;Physico-Theology,&rdquo; p. 250; an
+insect worthy of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dextrous
+manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses.
+But then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is the
+parent of that <!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 117</span>wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions
+afterwards; for more modern entomologists have discovered that singular
+production to be derived from the egg of the <i>musca chamæleon</i>;
+see Geoffroy, t. xvii. f. 4.</p>
+
+<p>A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, and
+house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying them, would
+be allowed by the public to be a most useful and important work. What
+knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected;
+great improvements would soon follow, of course. A knowledge of the
+properties, economy, propagation, and, in short, of the life and
+conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some
+method of preventing their depredations.</p>
+
+<p>As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology more than
+some neat plates that should well express the generic distinctions of
+insects according to Linnæus; for I am well assured that many people
+would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of
+those distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 118--><a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+118</span>LETTER XXXV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, 1771.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Happening to make a visit to my neighbour&rsquo;s
+peacocks, I could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent
+birds appear by no means to be their tails, those long feathers growing not
+from their <i>uropygium</i>, but all up their backs. A range of short
+brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the <i>uropygium</i>,
+is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is
+long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up, nothing
+appears of the bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the
+case were those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the
+turkey cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular
+vibration these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter
+like the swords of a sword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their
+feet, and run backwards towards the females.</p>
+
+<p>I should tell you that I have got an uncommon <i>calculus
+ægogropila</i>, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox; it is perfectly
+round, and about the size of a large Seville orange; such are, I think,
+usually flat.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+119</span>LETTER XXXVI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sept.</i>, 1771.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The summer through I have seen but two of that large
+species of bat which I call <i>vespertilio altivolans</i>, from its manner
+of feeding high in the air; I procured one of them, and found it to be a
+male, and made no doubt, as they accompanied together, that the other was a
+female; but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise,
+I was somewhat disappointed, when it appeared to be also of the same
+sex. This circumstance, and the great scarcity of this sort, at least
+in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a
+species, or whether it may not be the male part of the more known species,
+one of which may supply many females, as is known to be the case in sheep
+and some other quadrupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared by a
+farther examination, and some attention to the sex, of more specimens: all
+that I know at present is, that my two were amply furnished with the parts
+of generation, much resembling those of a boar.</p>
+
+<p>In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen inches and a half,
+and four inches and a half from the nose to the tip of the tail; their
+heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and
+muscular, <!-- page 120--><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+120</span>and their whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could be
+more sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut colour;
+their maws were full of food, but so macerated that the quality could not
+be distinguished; their livers, kidneys, and hearts were large, and their
+bowels covered with fat. They weighed each, when entire, full one
+ounce and one drachm. Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar
+structure that I did not understand perfectly; but refer it to the
+observation of the curious anatomist. These creatures sent forth a
+very rancid and offensive smell.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XXXVII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, 1771.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;On the 12th July I had a fair opportunity of
+contemplating the motions of the <i>caprimulgus</i>, or fern-owl, as it was
+playing round a large oak that swarmed with <i>scarabæi
+solstitiales</i>, or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing were
+wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions and quick turns
+of the swallow genus. But the circumstance that pleased me most was,
+that I saw it distinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on
+the wing, and, by a bend of the head, deliver somewhat into its
+mouth. If it takes <!-- page 121--><a name="page121"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 121</span>any part of its prey with its foot, as I have
+now the greatest reason to suppose it does these chafers, I no longer
+wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiously furnished with a
+serrated claw.</p>
+
+<p>Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have forsaken us sooner
+this year than usual; for on September 22nd they rendezvoused in a
+neighbour&rsquo;s walnut-tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up
+their lodging for the night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy,
+they arose all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing
+from the strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to
+a considerable distance: since that no flock has appeared, only a few
+stragglers.</p>
+
+<p>Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd August&mdash;a rare instance! for
+they usually withdraw within the first week.</p>
+
+<p>On September 24th three or four ring-ousels appeared in my fields for
+the first time this season; how punctual are these visitors in their
+autumnal and spring migrations!</p>
+<h3><!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+122</span>LETTER XXXVIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>March
+15th</i>, 1773.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;By my journal for last autumn it appears that the
+house-martins bred very late, and stayed very late in these parts; for, on
+the 1st October, I saw young martins in their nest nearly fledged; and
+again, on the 21st October, we had at the next house a nest full of young
+martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were hawking for insects with
+great alertness. The next morning the brood forsook their nest, and
+were flying round the village. From this day I never saw one of the
+swallow kind till November 3rd, when twenty, or perhaps thirty,
+house-martins were playing all day long by the side of the hanging wood,
+and over my field. Did these small weak birds, some of which were
+nestling twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the
+year to the other side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is it not
+more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or
+perhaps sandbank, lake, or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say),
+may become their <i>hybernaculum</i>, and afford them a ready and obvious
+retreat?</p>
+
+<p>We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every
+week. Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were seen
+at Christmas, <!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 123</span>1770, in the forest of Bere, on the southern
+verge of this county. Hence we may conclude that their migrations are
+only internal, and not extending to the continent southward, if they do at
+first come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and not from
+the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, it is plain, from
+the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that they have been
+little accustomed to places of much resort. Navigators mention that
+in the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are so
+little acquainted with the human form that they settle on men&rsquo;s
+shoulders, and have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a
+goat that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me
+that about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the
+autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon; he added further,
+that some had appeared since in every autumn, but he could not find that
+any had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I
+myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all
+along the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from
+Chichester to Lewes, particularly in the autumn of 1770.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 124--><a name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+124</span>LETTER XXXIX.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Nov.
+9th</i>, 1773.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;As you desire me to send you such observations as may
+occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may,
+according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here
+advance, in your intended new edition of the &ldquo;British
+Zoology.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, a great lake, at
+about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a plough
+and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the water, and so
+take its prey by surprise.</p>
+
+<p>A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted Park,
+and a red-backed butcher-bird [shrike] at Selborne: they are <i>raræ
+aves</i> in this county.</p>
+
+<p>Crows go in pairs all the year round.</p>
+
+<p>Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head, and on all the cliffs
+of the Sussex coast.</p>
+
+<p>The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south
+of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually
+the latest winter-bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so
+much destroyed we had myriads of them, <!-- page 125--><a
+name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>reaching in strings
+for a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed. They leave
+us early in spring: where do they breed?</p>
+
+<p>The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock,
+because it sings early in the spring in blowing, showery weather; its song
+often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards.</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels on
+Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides of streams.</p>
+
+<p>Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they
+play and toy about on the wing, and particularly while they are descending,
+and sometimes they stand on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Adanson&rsquo;s testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that
+European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal: he does not talk at
+all like an ornithologist; and probably saw only the swallows of that
+country, which I know build within Governor O&rsquo;Hara&rsquo;s hall
+against the roof. Had he known European swallows, would he not have
+mentioned the species?</p>
+
+<p>The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies: this
+species appears commonly about a week before the house-martin, and about
+ten or twelve days before the swift.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 126--><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+126</span>In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till October
+23rd.</p>
+
+<p>The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house-swallow:
+viz., about the 24th or 26th April.</p>
+
+<p>Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole year.</p>
+
+<p>Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.</p>
+
+<p>Wag-tails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter. Bullfinches,
+when fed on hempseed, often become wholly black.</p>
+
+<p>We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the winter, with hardly
+any males among them.</p>
+
+<p>When you say that in breeding-time the cock snipes make a bleating
+noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should rather have said a humming), I
+suspect we mean the same thing. However, while they are playing about
+on the wing they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths: but
+whether that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the
+motion of their wings, I cannot say; but this I know, that when this noise
+happens, the bird is always descending, and his wings are violently
+agitated.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congregate, and, leaving
+the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+127</span>Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive and
+unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few miles from
+Alresford, where there is a great lake: it was kept awhile, but died.</p>
+
+<p>I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer Forest in the
+beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild ducks.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of the swift, that page says &ldquo;its drink the dew;&rdquo;
+whereas it should be &ldquo;it drinks on the wing;&rdquo; for all the
+swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over the face of pools or
+rivers: like Virgil&rsquo;s bees, they drink flying; &ldquo;<i>flumina
+summa libant</i>.&rdquo; In this method of drinking perhaps this
+genus may be peculiar.</p>
+
+<p>Of the sedge-bird, be pleased to say it sings most part of the night;
+its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds;
+as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the
+night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you
+immediately set it a-singing; or, in other words, though it slumbers
+sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it reassumes its song.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 128--><a name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+128</span>LETTER XL.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Sept.
+2nd</i>, 1774.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had
+been remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and
+this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of
+confounding the dams with their <i>pulli</i>: and besides, as they were
+then always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could
+be no room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different
+chimneys the one for the other. From all my observations, it
+constantly appeared that each sex has the long feathers in its tail that
+give it that forked shape; with this difference, that they are longer in
+the tail of the male than in that of the female.</p>
+
+<p>Nightingales, when their young first come abroad and are helpless, make
+a plaintive and a jarring noise, and also a snapping or cracking, pursuing
+people along the hedges as they walk; these last sounds seem intended for
+menace and defiance.</p>
+
+<p>The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.</p>
+
+<p>Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.</p>
+
+<p>Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in
+mole-traps.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+129</span>Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows&rsquo; nests, and the
+kestril in churches and ruins.</p>
+
+<p>There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely.
+The threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the
+generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.</p>
+
+<p>Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.</p>
+
+<p>When redstarts shake their tails they move them horizontally, as dogs do
+when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, bobs up and down
+like that of a jaded horse.</p>
+
+<p>Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in
+breeding-time; as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping,
+plaintive noise.</p>
+
+<p>Many birds, which become silent about Midsummer, reassume their notes
+again in September, as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, etc.;
+hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer, and autumn
+through. Are birds induced to sing again because the temperament of
+autumn resembles that of spring?</p>
+
+<p>Linnæus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics,
+grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles; no
+doubt animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety.</p>
+
+<p>House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as <!-- page 130--><a
+name="page130"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 130</span>the weather becomes
+hotter, they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and
+apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build in
+rooks&rsquo; nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks&rsquo;
+nests.</p>
+
+<p>As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his dogs devoured
+all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the common
+mice; and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing the red.</p>
+
+<p>Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The
+reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first
+seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the
+latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the
+autumn seem to be the young cock redbreasts of that year: nothwithstanding
+the prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the
+summer fruits.</p>
+
+<p>The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint notes,
+like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse; the great titmouse sings
+with three cheerful, joyous notes, and begins about the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted. House-martins
+came remarkably late this year both in Hampshire and Devonshire. Is
+this circumstance for or against either hiding or migration?</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+131</span>Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long
+continued draught, like quadrupeds. Notwithstanding what I have said
+in a former letter, no grey crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor; it
+was my mistake.</p>
+
+<p>The appearance and flying of the <i>Scarabœus solstitialis</i>, or
+fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of
+it. These scarabs are the constant food of <i>Caprimulgi</i>, or
+fern-owls, through that period. They abound on the chalky downs and
+in some sandy districts, but not in the clays.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the town of Reading, is a stream
+or canal running under the stables and out into the fields on the other
+side of the road. In this water are many carps, which lie rolling
+about in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing
+them bread; but as soon as the weather grows at all severe these fishes are
+no longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where they remain
+till the return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid state? If
+they do not, how are they supported?</p>
+
+<p>The note of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often
+attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and
+displeasing. These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition, for they
+sing with an erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are <!--
+page 132--><a name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>shy and
+wild in breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes
+and commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there are
+bushes and covert, but in July and August they bring their broods into
+gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among the summer fruits.</p>
+
+<p>The blackcap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet
+that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but
+when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth
+very sweet but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and
+gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the
+nightingale excepted.</p>
+
+<p>Blackcaps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble their
+throats are wonderfully distended.</p>
+
+<p>The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat like that of the
+whitethroat; some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting
+very placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from
+morning to night. He affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and
+loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the vane
+of a tall maypole.</p>
+
+<p>The fly-catcher is, of all our summer birds, the most mute and the most
+familiar; it also appears the last <!-- page 133--><a
+name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>of any. It
+builds in a vine, or a sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, or in the
+hole of a wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the
+post of a door where people are going in and out all day long. This
+bird does not make the least pretension to song, but uses a little inward
+wailing note when it thinks its young in danger from cats or other
+annoyances; it breeds but once, and retires early.</p>
+
+<p>Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than half the
+birds that are ever seen in all Sweden; the former has produced more than
+one hundred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred and
+twenty-one. Let me add, also, that it has shown near half the species
+that were ever known in Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a quaint
+and magisterial air, and is very sententious; but when I recollect that you
+requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you will pardon the didactic
+manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 134--><a name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+134</span>LETTER XLI.</h3>
+<p>It is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of
+soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter through subsist during
+the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to be the only
+reason why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wryneck (so
+much resembling the hardy race of woodpeckers) migrates, while the feeble
+little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest
+frosts without availing himself of houses or villages, to which most of our
+winter birds crowd in distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields
+and woods; but perhaps this may be the reason why they may often perish,
+and why they are almost as rare as any bird we know.</p>
+
+<p>I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which winter
+with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state. All the
+species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams near their
+spring-heads, where they never freeze, and, by wading, pick out the
+aurelias of the genus of <i>Phryganeæ</i>, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they
+pick up crumbs and other sweepings, and in mild weather they procure worms,
+which are stirring every month in the year, as any one <!-- page 135--><a
+name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>may see that will
+only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild
+winter&rsquo;s night. Redbreasts and wrens in the winter haunt
+outhouses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders and flies that have
+laid themselves up during the cold season. But the grand support of
+the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of aurelia of
+the <i>Lepidoptera ordo</i>, which is fastened to the twigs of trees and
+their trunks, to the pales and walls of gardens and buildings, and is found
+in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in the ground
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have what I call a kind
+of intermediate bill between the hard and the soft, between the
+Linnæan genera of <i>Fringilla</i> and <i>Motacilla</i>. One
+species alone spends its whole time in the woods and fields, never
+retreating for succour in the severest seasons to houses and
+neighbourhoods; and that is the delicate long-tailed titmouse, which is
+almost as minute as the golden-crowned wren; but the blue titmouse or nun
+(<i>Parus cæruleus</i>), the cole-mouse (<i>Parus ater</i>), the
+great black-headed titmouse (<i>Fringillago</i>), and the marsh titmouse
+(<i>Parus palustris</i>), all resort at times to buildings, and in hard
+weather particularly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of
+weather, much frequents houses; and, in deep snows, I have seen this bird,
+while it hung with its back downwards (to my no <!-- page 136--><a
+name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>small delight and
+admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses,
+in order to pull out the flies that were concealed between them, and that
+in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a
+general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh, for it
+frequently picks bones on dunghills: it is a vast admirer of suet, and
+haunts butchers&rsquo; shops. When a boy, I have known twenty in a
+morning caught with snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or suet. It
+will also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained
+with the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The blue, marsh, and great
+titmice will, in very severe weather, carry away barley and oat-straws from
+the sides of ricks.</p>
+
+<p>How the wheatear and whinchat support themselves in winter cannot be so
+easily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and warrens;
+the former especially, where there are stone quarries: most probably it is
+that their maintenance arises from the aureliæ of the <i>Lepidoptera
+ordo</i>, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the wilderness.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 137--><a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+137</span>LETTER XLII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>March
+9th</i>, 1775.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Some future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope,
+extend his visits to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field and a country
+little known to the naturalist. He will not, it is to be wished,
+undertake that tour unaccompanied by a botanist, because the mountains have
+scarcely been sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so mild
+an island may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the
+British dominions. A person of a thinking turn of mind will draw many
+just remarks from the modern improvements of that country, both in arts and
+agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of with
+us. The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions, their
+prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many useful
+reflections. He should also take with him an able draughtsman, for he
+must by no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the extensive and
+picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and the lofty stupendous mountains, so
+little known, and so engaging to the imagination when described and
+exhibited in a lively manner; such a work would be well received.</p>
+
+<p>As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I <!-- page 138--><a
+name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 138</span>cannot pretend to say
+how accurate or particular any such may be; but this I know, that the best
+old maps of that kingdom are very defective.</p>
+
+<p>The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of Scotland
+that have fallen in my way is a want of a coloured line, or stroke, that
+shall exactly define the just limits of that district called the
+Highlands. Moreover, all the great avenues to that mountainous and
+romantic country want to be well distinguished. The military roads
+formed by General Wade are so great and Roman-like an undertaking that they
+well merit attention. My old map, Moll&rsquo;s Map, takes notice of
+Fort William, but could not mention the other forts that have been erected
+long since; therefore a good representation of the chain of forts should
+not be omitted.</p>
+
+<p>The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed over.
+Moll takes notice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such capital houses; but
+a new survey, no doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable
+for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, etc. Lord
+Breadalbane&rsquo;s seat and beautiful <i>policy</i> are too curious and
+extraordinary to be omitted.</p>
+
+<p>The seat of the Earl of Eglingtoun, near Glasgow, is worthy of
+notice. The pine plantations of that nobleman are very grand and
+extensive indeed.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 139--><a name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+139</span>LETTER XLIII.</h3>
+<p>A pair of honey-buzzards, <i>Buteo opivorus</i>, <i>sive Vespivorus
+Raii</i>, built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with
+dead beechen leaves, upon a tall, slender beech near the middle of Selborne
+Hanger, in the summer of 1780. In the middle of the month of June a
+bold boy climbed this tree though standing on so steep and dizzy a
+situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the nest, which had
+been sat on for some time, and contained the embryo of a young bird.
+The egg was smaller, and not so round as those of the common buzzard; was
+dotted at each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with
+a broad bloody zone. The hen bird was shot, and answered exactly to
+Mr. Ray&rsquo;s description of that species; had a black cere, short thick
+legs, and a long tail. When on the wing this species may be easily
+distinguished from the common buzzard by its hawk-like appearance, small
+head, wings not so blunt, and longer tail. This specimen contained in
+its craw some limbs of frogs and many grey snails without shells. The
+irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright yellow
+colour.</p>
+
+<p>About the 10th July in the same summer a pair of sparrow-hawks bred in
+an old crow&rsquo;s nest on a low <!-- page 140--><a
+name="page140"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 140</span>beech in the same
+hanger; and as their brood, which was numerous, began to grow up, became so
+daring and ravenous, that they were a terror to all the dames in the
+village that had chickens or ducklings under their care. A boy
+climbed the tree, and found the young so fledged that they all escaped from
+him, but discovered that a good house had been kept: the larder was
+well-stored with provisions, for he brought down a young blackbird, jay,
+and house-martin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. The old
+birds had been observed to make sad havoc for some days among the new-flown
+swallows and martins, which, being but lately out of their nests, had not
+acquired those powers and command of wing that enable them, when more
+mature, to set such enemies at defiance.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XLIV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Nov.
+30th</i>, 1780.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Every incident that occasions a renewal of our
+correspondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.</p>
+
+<p>As to the wild wood-pigeon, the <i>Œnas</i>, or <i>Vinago</i>, of
+Ray, I am much of your mind, and see no reason for making it the origin of
+the common house-dove: but <!-- page 140--><a name="page140"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 140</span>suppose those that have advanced that opinion
+may have been misled by another appellation, often given to the
+<i>Œnas</i>, which is that of stock-dove.</p>
+
+<p>Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from
+itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated, and to
+make a house-dove. We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at
+all, nor does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays
+with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with
+the ring-dove, <i>Palumbus torquatus</i>; frequents coppices and groves,
+supports itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest
+beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the
+doubt would be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests
+on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do.</p>
+
+<p>You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex, and are
+informed that they sometimes breed in that county. But why did not
+your correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether on
+rocks, cliffs, or trees? If he was not an adroit ornithologist I
+should doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually confound the
+stock-dove with the ring-dove.</p>
+
+<p>For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves
+are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons. In the
+first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the <!-- page
+141--><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>common
+house-dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which generally
+enlarges the breed. Again, those two remarkable black spots on the
+remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the
+species, would not, one should think, be totally lost by its being
+reclaimed, but would often break out among its descendants. But what
+is worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger
+Mostyn&rsquo;s house-doves in Cærnarvonshire; which, though tempted
+by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on to
+inhabit their cote for any time; but as soon as they begin to breed, betake
+themselves to the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety
+amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous
+promontory.</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Naturam expellas furcâ . . . tamen usque
+recurret.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who tells
+me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods were much more
+extensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing; that
+he has often killed near twenty in a day, and that with a long wild-fowl
+piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they came
+wheeling over his head: he moreover adds, which I was not aware of, that
+often there were among them little parties of small blue doves, which he
+calls <!-- page 142--><a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+142</span>rockiers. The food of these numberless emigrants was
+beech-mast and some acorns, and particularly barley, which they collected
+in the stubbles. But of late years, since the vast increase of
+turnips, that vegetable has furnished a great part of their support in hard
+weather; and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the
+crop. From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which
+occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who thought them
+before a delicate dish. They were shot not only as they were feeding
+in the fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also at the close of
+the evening, by men who lay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill
+them as they came in to roost. These are the principal circumstances
+relating to this wonderful internal migration, which with us takes place
+towards the end of November, and ceases early in the spring. Last
+winter we had in Selborne high wood about a hundred of these doves; but in
+former times the flocks were so vast, not only with us but all the district
+round, that on mornings and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in
+strings, reaching for a mile together. When they thus rendezvoused
+here by thousands, if they happened to be suddenly roused from their
+roost-trees on an evening,</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Their rising all at once was like the sound<br />
+Of thunder heard remote.&rdquo;&mdash;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><!-- page 144--><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+144</span>It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add,
+that I had a relation in this neighbourhood who made it a practice, for a
+time, whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to place them
+under a pair of doves that were sitting in his own pigeon-house; hoping
+thereby, if he could bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and
+teach his own doves to beat out into the woods, and to support themselves
+by mast; the plan was plausible, but something always interrupted the
+success; for though the birds were usually hatched, and sometimes grew to
+half their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. I myself have
+seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a strange ferocity of
+nature, so as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping with their
+bills by way of menace. In short, they always died, perhaps for want
+of proper sustenance: but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild
+demeanour they frighted their foster mothers, and so were starved.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+145</span>Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes a
+dove haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, that I cannot
+refrain from quoting the passage: and John Dryden has rendered it so
+happily in our language, that without further excuse I shall add his
+translation also.</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p> &ldquo;Qualis speluncâ subitò commota Columba,<br />
+Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,<br />
+<!-- page 144--><a name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+144</span>Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis,<br />
+Dat tecto ingentem&mdash;mox aere lapsa quieto,<br />
+Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p> &ldquo;As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes,<br />
+Rous&rsquo;d, in a fright her sounding wings she shakes;<br />
+The cavern rings with clattering:&mdash;out she flies,<br />
+And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies:<br />
+At first she flutters:&mdash;but at length she springs<br />
+To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h2><!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+145</span>LETTERS TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.</h2>
+<h3>LETTER I.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>June
+30th</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;When I was in town last month I partly engaged that I
+would sometimes do myself the honour to write to you on the subject of
+natural history; and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I
+see you are a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make
+allowances, especially where the writer professes to be an out-door
+naturalist, one that takes his observations from the subject itself, and
+not from the writings of others.</p>
+
+<p>THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE WHICH I HAVE
+DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH
+THEY APPEAR:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>1.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wryneck.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Jynx</i>, <i>sive Torquilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>The middle of March: harsh note.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>2.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Smallest willow-wren.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus non cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>March 23rd: chirps till September.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>3.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Swallow.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo domestica</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>April 13th.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>4.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Martin.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo rustica</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p><!-- page 147--><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+147</span>5.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Sand-martin.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo riparia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>6.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Blackcap.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Atricapilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto: a sweet, wild note.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>7.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Nightingale.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Luscinia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Beginning of April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>8.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Cuckoo.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cuculus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Middle of April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>9.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Middle willow-wren.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus non cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto: a sweet, plaintive note.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>10.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Whitethroat.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ficedulæ affinis</i></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto: mean note; sings on till September.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>11.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Redstart.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ruticilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto: more agreeable song.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>12.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Stone-curlew.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Œdicnemus</i></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>End of March: loud nocturnal whistle.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>13.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Turtle-dove.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turtur</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>14.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Grasshopper-lark.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda minima locustæ voce</i></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Middle April: a small sibilous note, till the end of July.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>15.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Swift.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo apus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>About April 27th.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>16.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Less reed-sparrow.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Passer arundinaceus minor</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>A sweet polyglot, but hurrying; it has the notes of many birds.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>17.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Land-rail.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ortygometra</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>A loud, harsh note&mdash;crex, crex.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>18.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Largest willow wren.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus non cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cantat voce stridulâ locustæ</i>; end of April, on the
+tops of high beeches.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>19.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Goat-sucker, or fern-owl.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Caprimulgus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Beginning of May: chatters by night with a singular noise.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>20.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Fly-catcher.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Stoparola</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>May 12th: a very mute bird: this is the latest summer bird of
+passage.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten several
+genera of the Linnæan system, and are all of the <i>ordo</i> of
+<i>passeres</i> save the <i>Jynx</i> and <i>Cuculus</i>, which are
+<i>picæ</i>, and the <i>Charadrius</i> (<i>Œdicnemus</i>) and
+<i>Rallus</i> (<i>Ortygometra</i>), which are <i>grallæ</i>.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 148--><a name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+148</span>These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following
+Linnæan genera:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>1,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Jynx</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>13.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Columba</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>2,6,7,9,10,11,16,18,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>17.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Rallus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>3,4,5,15,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>19.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Caprimulgus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>8,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cuculus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>14.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>12,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Charadrius</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>20.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Muscicapa</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Most soft-billed birds live on insects, and not on grain and seeds, and
+therefore at the end of summer they retire: but the following soft-billed
+birds, though insect-eaters, stay with us the year round:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Redbreast, Wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Rubecula. Passer troglodytes</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>These frequent houses, and haunt out-buildings in the winter: eat
+spiders.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Hedge-sparrow,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Curruca</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Haunt sinks for crumbs and other sweepings.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>White-wagtail, Yellow-wagtail,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Grey-wagtail,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla alba</i>. <i>Motacilla flava</i>. <i>Motacilla
+cinerea</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>These frequent shallow rivulets near the spring heads, where they never
+freeze: eat the aureliæ of <i>Phryganea</i>. The smallest birds
+that walk.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Wheatear,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Œnanthe</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Some of these are to be seen with us the winter through.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Whinchat,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Stone-chatter,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Œnanthe secunda</i>. <i>Œnanthe tertia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Golden-crowned wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>This is the smallest British bird: haunts the tops of tall trees; stays
+the winter through.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p><!-- page 149--><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+149</span>A LIST OF THE WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE ROUND THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD,
+RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR.</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>1.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ring-ousel,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Merula torquata</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>This is a new migration, which I have lately discovered about Michaelmas
+week, and again about the 14th March.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>2.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Redwing,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turdus iliacus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>About old Michaelmas.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>3.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Fieldfare,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turdus pilaris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Though a percher by day, roosts on the ground.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>4.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Royston-crow,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cornix cinerea</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Most frequent on downs.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>5.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Woodcock,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Scolopax</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Appears about old Michaelmas.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>6.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Snipe,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Gallinago minor</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Some snipes constantly breed with us.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>7.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Jack-snipe,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Gallinago minima</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>8.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wood-pigeon,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Œnas</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Seldom appears till late; not in such plenty as formerly.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>9.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wild-swan,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cygnus ferus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>On some large waters.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>10.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wild-goose,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Anser ferus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>)</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>11.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wild-duck,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Anas torquata minor</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>)</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>12.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Pochard,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Anas fera fusca</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>)</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>13.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wigeon,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Penelope</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>) On our lakes and streams.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>14.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Teal, breeds with us in Wolmer Forest,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Querquedula</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>)</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>15.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Gross-beak,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Coccothraustes</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>) These are only wanderers that</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>16.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Cross-bill,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Loxia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>) appear occasionally, and are not</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>17.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Silk-tail,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Garrulus bohemicus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>) observant of any regular migration.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p><!-- page 150--><a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+150</span>The birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following
+Linnæan genera:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>1,2,3,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Turdus.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>9,10,11,12,13,14,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Anas.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>4,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Corvus.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>15,16,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Loxia.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>5,6,7,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Scolopax.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>17,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ampelis.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>8,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Columba.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Birds that sing in the night are but few.</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Nightingale,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Luscinia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>&ldquo;In shadiest covert hid.&rdquo; <span
+class="smcap">Milton</span>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Woodlark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda arborea</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Suspended in mid air. </p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Less reed-sparrow,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Passer arundinaceus minor</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Among reeds and willows.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing after Midsummer,
+but, as they are rather numerous, they would exceed the bounds of this
+paper: besides, as this is now the season for remarking on that subject, I
+am willing to repeat my observations on some birds concerning the
+continuation of whose song I seem at present to have some doubt.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER II.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Nov.
+2nd</i>, 1769.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;When I did myself the honour to write to you about the
+end of last June on the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of
+the summer birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood,
+and also a list of the winter birds of passage: I <!-- page 150--><a
+name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>mentioned besides
+those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south
+of England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night.</p>
+
+<p>According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing
+birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after Midsummer,
+and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to
+open as the spring advances.</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>1.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Woodlark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda arborea</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In January, and continues to sing through all the summer and autumn.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>2.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Song thrush,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turdus simpliciter dictus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In February, and on to August; re-assume their song in autumn.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>3.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Passer troglodytes</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>All the year, hard frost excepted.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>4.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Redbreast,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Rubecula</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>5.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Hedge-sparrow.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Curruca</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Early in February to July 10th.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>6.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Yellow-hammer,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Emberiza flava</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Early in February, and on through July to August 21st.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>7. </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Skylark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda vulgaris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In February and on to October.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>8.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Swallow,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo domestica</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>From April to September.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>9.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Blackcap, </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Atricapilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Beginning of April to July 13th.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>10.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Titlark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda pratorum</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>From middle of April to July 16th.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>11.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Blackbird,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Merula vulgaris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Sometimes in February and March, and so on to July 23rd; re-assumes in
+autumn.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p><!-- page 151--><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+151</span>12.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Whitethroat,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ficedulæ affinis</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In April, and on to July 23rd.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>13.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Goldfinch,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Carduelis</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>April, and through to September 16th.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>14.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Greenfinch,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Chloris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>On to July and August 2nd.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>15.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Less reed-sparrow.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Passer arundinaceus minor</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>May, on to beginning of July.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>16.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Common linnet,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Linaria vulgaris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Breeds and whistles on till August; re-assumes its note when they begin
+to congregate in October, and again early before the flocks separate.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before
+Midsummer:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>17.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Middle willow-wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus non cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Middle of June; begins in April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>18.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Redstart,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ruticilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Ditto; begins in May.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>19.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Chaffinch,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Fringilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Beginning of June; sings first in April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>20.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Nightingale,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Luscinia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Middle of June; sings first in April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the
+spring:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>21.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Missel-bird,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turdus viscivorus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>January 2nd, 1770, in February. Is called Hampshire and Sussex the
+storm-cock, because its song is supposed to forebode windy wet weather: it
+is the largest singing bird we have.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p><!-- page 152--><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+152</span>22.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Great tit-mouse, or ox-eye.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Fringillago</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In February, March, April; re-assumes for a short time in September.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be
+called singing birds:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>23.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Golden-crowned wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Its note as minute as its person; frequents the tops of high oaks and
+firs; the smallest British bird.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>24.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Marsh tit-mouse,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Parus palustris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Haunts great woods; two harsh, sharp notes.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>25.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Small willow-wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Regulus non cristatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Sings in March, and on to September.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>26.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Largest ditto,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ditto</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cantat voce stridulâ locustæ</i>; from end of April to
+August.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>27.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Grasshopper-lark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda minima voce locustæ</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Chirps all night, from the middle of April to the end of July.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>28.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Martin,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo agrestis</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>All the breeding time; from May to September.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>29. </p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Bullfinch,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Pyrrhula</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>30.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Bunting,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Emberiza alba</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>From the end of January to July.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to song, not only
+in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnæan
+<i>ordo</i> of <i>Passeres</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the
+following Linnæan genera:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p><!-- page 153--><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+153</span>1,7,10,27,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda</i></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>8,28,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>2,11,21,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turdus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>13,16,19,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Fringilla</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>3,4,5,9,12,  )</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>22,24,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Parus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>15,17,18,20,  )</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Motacilla</i></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>14,29,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Loxia</i>.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>23,25,26,  )</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>6,20,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Emberiza</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Birds that sing as they fly are but few:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Skylark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda vulgaris</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Rising, suspended, and falling.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Titlark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda pratorum</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In its descent; also sitting on trees, and walking on the ground.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Woodlark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda arborea</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Suspended; in hot summer nights all night long.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Blackbird,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Merula</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Sometimes from bush to bush.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Whitethroat,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Ficedula affinis</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Uses when singing on the wing odd jerks and gesticulations.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Swallow,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Hirundo domestica</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In soft sunny weather.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Wren,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Passer troglodytes</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Sometimes from bush to bush.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>Birds that breed most early in these parts:&mdash;</p>
+<table>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>RAII NOMINA.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p></p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Raven,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Corvus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Hatches in February and March.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Song-thrush,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Turdus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In March.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Blackbird,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Merula</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>In March.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Rook,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Cornix frugilega</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Builds the beginning of March.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Woodlark,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Alauda arborea</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Hatches in April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td>
+<p>Ring-dove,</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p><i>Palumbus torquatus</i>.</p>
+</td>
+<td>
+<p>Lays the beginning of April.</p>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+<p>All birds that continue in full song till after Midsummer appear to me
+to breed more than once.</p>
+
+<p>Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy <!-- page 154--><a
+name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>somewhat in
+proportion to their bulk: I mean in this island, where they are much
+pursued and annoyed; but in Ascension Island, and many other desolate
+places, mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that
+they would stand still to be taken, as is the case with boobies, etc.
+As an example of what is advanced, I remark that the golden-crested wren
+(the smallest British bird) will stand unconcerned till you come within
+three or four yards of it, while the bustard (<i>Otis</i>), the largest
+British land fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many
+furlongs.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER III.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Jan.
+15th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;It was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find
+that you were not displeased with my little <i>methodus</i> of birds.
+If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be owing to its
+punctuality. For many months I carried a list in my pocket of the
+birds that were to be remarked, and, as I rode or walked about my business,
+I noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird&rsquo;s song, so
+that I am as sure of the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any
+transaction whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 155--><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+155</span>I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put
+in your two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able.
+Perhaps Eastwick and its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is
+not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such
+songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find
+that many species continued to warble after the beginning of July.</p>
+
+<p>The titlark and yellow-hammer breed late, the latter very late; and
+therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song: for I lay it down
+as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any incubation going on
+there is music. As to the redbreast and wren, it is well known to the
+most incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard frost
+excepted&mdash;especially the latter.</p>
+
+<p>It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less
+reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, and
+the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, they would
+require more nice and curious management in a cage than I should be able to
+give them: they are both distinguished songsters. The note of the
+former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to my mind those
+lines in a song in &ldquo;As You Like It&rdquo;:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;And tune his merry note<br />
+Unto the <i>wild</i> bird&rsquo;s throat.&rdquo;&mdash;<span
+class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p><!-- page 156--><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+156</span>The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the song
+of several other birds; but then it has also a hurrying manner, not at all
+to its advantage: it is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot.</p>
+
+<p>It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night; perhaps only
+caged birds do so. I once knew a tame redbreast in a cage that always
+sang as long as candles were in the room; but in their wild state no one
+supposes they sing in the night.</p>
+
+<p>I should be almost ready to doubt the fact that there are to be seen
+much fewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithstanding so many
+young are hatched daily. Sure I am that it is far otherwise with
+respect to the swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer
+advances: and I saw at the time mentioned many hundreds of young wagtails
+on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the meadows. If
+the matter appears as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to
+the dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed by the
+leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs of woodcocks
+and snipes: but nothing ever occurred that helped to explain to me what
+their subsistence might be: all that I could ever find was a soft mucus,
+among which lay many pellucid small gravels.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+157</span>LETTER IV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Feb.
+19th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;Your observation that &ldquo;the cuckoo does not deposit
+its egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in its
+way, but probably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous with whom to
+intrust its young,&rdquo; is perfectly new to me, and struck me so forcibly
+that I naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider
+whether the fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I
+came to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any cuckoo had ever
+been seen in these parts, except in the nest of the wagtail, the
+hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-throat, and the redbreast, all
+soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions
+the nest of the <i>Palumbus</i> (ring-dove), and of the <i>Fringilla</i>
+(chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food:
+but then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge, but says
+afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears
+hardly possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food
+with the hard-billed: for the former have thin membranaceous stomachs
+suited to their soft food, while the latter, the granivorous tribe, <!--
+page 158--><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 158</span>have
+strong muscular gizzards, which, like mills, grind, by the help of small
+gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed. This proceeding of the cuckoo, of
+dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous outrage on maternal
+affection, one of the first great dictates of nature, and such a violence on
+instinct, that, had it only been related of a bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it
+would never have merited our belief. But yet, should it further appear that
+this simple bird, when divested of that natural στοργὴ that seems to raise the
+kind in general above themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees
+of cunning and address, may be still endued with a more enlarged faculty of
+discerning what species are suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers for its
+disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care, this
+would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that the
+methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in
+new lights, and in various and changeable appearances.</p>
+
+<p>What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the defect
+of natural affection in the ostrich may be well applied to the bird we are
+talking of:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not
+hers:</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 159--><a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+159</span> &ldquo;Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath He
+imparted to her understanding.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><i>Query</i>.&mdash;Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season,
+or does she drop several in different nests according as opportunity
+offers?</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER V.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>April
+12th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I heard many birds of several species sing last year
+after Midsummer, enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the period
+that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow-hammer no
+doubt persists with more steadiness than any other: but the woodlark, the
+wren, the redbreast, the swallow, the whitethroat, the goldfinch, the
+common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I
+advanced.</p>
+
+<p>If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the summer
+migrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three days. I wish
+it was in my power to procure you one of those songsters; but I am no
+bird-catcher, and so little used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had
+one it would soon die for want of skill in feeding.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 160--><a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+160</span>Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick-billed
+reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320; or was it the less reed-sparrow of
+Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant&rsquo;s last publication, p. 16?</p>
+
+<p>As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frosts,
+I have no doubt within myself what should be the reason. The thriving
+at those times appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check
+which the cold throws upon insensible perspiration. The case is just
+the same with blackbirds, etc.; and farmers and warreners observe, the
+first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such times, and the latter that
+their rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle frost. But
+when frosts are severe, and of long continuance, the case is soon altered,
+for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a
+checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human
+constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.</p>
+
+<p>When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the first that
+fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and then the song-thrushes.</p>
+
+<p>You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, etc., can be
+induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalised at
+the vast disproportionate size of the supposititious egg; but the brute
+creation, I suppose, have very little idea of <!-- page 161--><a
+name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>size, colour, or
+number. For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on
+her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a nest full of eggs
+that have been withdrawn: and, moreover, a hen-turkey, in the same
+circumstances, would sit on in the empty nest till she perished with
+hunger.</p>
+
+<p>I think the matter might easily be determined whether a cuckoo lays one
+or two eggs, or more, in a season, by opening a female during the
+laying-time. If more than one was come down out of the ovary and
+advanced to a good size, doubtless then she would that spring lay more than
+one.</p>
+
+<p>I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine.</p>
+
+<p>Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing
+birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song
+recommences, is new and bold: I wish you could discover some good grounds
+for this suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the caprimulgus, or
+fern-owl; you were, I find, acquainted with the bird before.</p>
+
+<p>When we meet I shall be glad to have some conversation with you
+concerning the proposal you make of my drawing up an account of the animals
+in this neighbourhood. Your partiality towards my small abilities
+persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do more than is in my power: for
+it is no small <!-- page 162--><a name="page162"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 162</span>undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to
+begin a natural history from his own autopsia! Though there is
+endless room for observation in the field of nature, which is boundless,
+yet investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make
+but slow progress; and all that one could collect in many years would go
+into a very narrow compass.</p>
+
+<p>Some extracts from your ingenious &ldquo;Investigations of the
+Difference between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy,&rdquo;
+etc., have fallen in my way, and gave me great satisfaction: they have
+removed the objections that always arose in my mind whenever I came to the
+passages which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a
+didactic poem for the region of Italy, could never think of describing
+freezing rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty frequently
+occurred!</p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.</p>
+<h3>LETTER VI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>May
+21st</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted
+the regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just
+begin to <!-- page 163--><a name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+163</span>show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual; as
+the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I
+well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40, summer
+birds of passage were very scarce. They come probably hither with a
+south-east wind, or when it blows between those points: but in that
+unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from
+the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two
+swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the
+11th April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew again for a time.</p>
+
+<p>I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with
+Scopoli&rsquo;s new publication; there is room to expect great things from
+the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and one would think that a
+history of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would
+be new and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and hope to
+get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work
+in the quicksilver mines of that district.</p>
+
+<p>When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, I could
+not help wondering; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you
+(<i>Passer arundinaceus minor Raii</i>) is a soft-billed bird; and most
+probably migrates hence before winter; whereas <!-- page 164--><a
+name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>the bird you kept
+(<i>Passer torquatus Raii</i>) abides all the year, and is a thick-billed
+bird. I question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in
+this matter I want to be better informed. The former has a variety of
+hurrying notes, and sings all night. Some part of the song of the
+former, I suspect, is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the
+soft-billed sort; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his
+&ldquo;British Zoology,&rdquo; till I reminded him of his omission.
+See &ldquo;British Zoology&rdquo; last published, p. 16.</p>
+
+<p>I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which different
+birds fly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough
+considered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small
+space, I shall say nothing further about it at present.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so
+difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, &ldquo;because they are not
+to pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing
+spring.&rdquo; As colours seem to be the chief external sexual
+distinction in many birds, these colours do not take place till sexual
+attachments begin to obtain. And the case is the same in quadrupeds;
+among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but little: but, as
+they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards, and brawny necks,
+etc., etc., strongly discriminate the male from the female. We may
+instance still farther <!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 165</span>in our own species, where a beard and stronger
+features are usually characteristic of the male sex: but this sexual
+diversity does not take place in earlier life; for a beautiful youth shall
+be so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be
+discernible;</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Quem si puellarum insereres choro,<br />
+Mire sagaces falleret hospites<br />
+Discrimen obscurum, solutis<br />
+Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.&rdquo;</p>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Hor. Odes</span>, II. od.
+5-21, p. 131, orig. edit.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<h3>LETTER VII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Ringmer</span> <i>near</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lewes</span>, <i>Oct. 8th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with
+the birds of Jamaica; a sight of the <i>hirundines</i> of that hot and
+distant island would be a great entertainment to me.</p>
+
+<p>The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the
+<i>Annus Primus</i> with satisfaction; for though some parts of this work
+are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the
+ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very <!-- page 166--><a
+name="page166"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 166</span>curious. Men
+that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural
+knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be
+acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own
+monographer.</p>
+
+<p>The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray&rsquo;s Ornithology
+may be the extreme poverty and distance of his country into which the works
+of our great naturalist may have never yet found their way. You have
+doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work of
+Scopoli; as to myself I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity; the
+style corresponds with that of his Entomology; and his characters of his
+Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly. He
+has ventured to alter some of the Linnæan genera with sufficient show
+of reason.</p>
+
+<p>It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no
+swallows at Staines; because, in my long observation of those birds, I
+never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the
+species.</p>
+
+<p>Ray remarks that birds of the <i>gallinœ</i> order, as cocks and
+hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc., are <i>pulveratrices</i>, such as
+dust themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and ridding
+themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds <!--
+page 167--><a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 167</span>that
+dust themselves never wash; and I once thought that those birds that wash
+themselves would never dust; but here I find myself mistaken: for common
+house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling
+and wallowing in dusty roads; and yet they are great washers. Does
+not the skylark dust?</p>
+
+<p><i>Query</i>.&mdash;Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method
+of purification from these pulveratrices? because I find from travellers of
+credit, that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where no
+water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and most
+scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust.</p>
+
+<p>A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of a
+small bird on the ground; and that it was fed by the little bird. I
+went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young
+cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for
+its nest, appearing</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;. . . . . in tenui re<br />
+Majores pennas nido extendisse . . &rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger as I teased it,
+for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffeting with its wings like
+a game-cock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering <!--
+page 168--><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 168</span>about
+with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude.</p>
+
+<p>In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found,
+after some observation, that they were feeding on the
+<i>Libellulæ</i> or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they
+settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing.
+Notwithstanding what Linnæus says, I cannot be induced to believe
+that they are birds of prey.</p>
+
+<p>This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at
+Selborne. In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks
+(<i>Loxiæ curvirostræ</i>) have appeared this summer in the
+pine-groves belonging to this house; the water-ouzel is said to haunt the
+mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven; and the Cornish chough builds, I
+know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore.</p>
+
+<p>I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ouzels (my newly
+discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex downs,
+from Chichester to Lewes. Let them come from whence they will, it
+looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast in order to
+pass the channel when severe weather advances. They visit us again in
+April, as it should seem, in their return; and are not to be found in the
+dead of winter. It is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to
+have no manner of apprehensions of <!-- page 169--><a
+name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>danger from a person
+with a gun. There are bustards on the wide downs near
+Brighthelmstone. No doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex downs;
+the prospects and rides round Lewes are most lovely!</p>
+
+<p>As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look-out in the lanes
+and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some
+of the summer short-winged birds of passage crowding towards the coast in
+order for their departure: but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a
+red-start, white-throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, etc.
+And I remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually
+come to this place annually about this time. The birds most common
+along the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whinchats, buntings,
+linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc. Swallows and
+house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft,
+still, dry season.</p>
+
+<p>A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled
+court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires under ground
+about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of
+April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers very little
+inclination towards food; but in the height of summer grows voracious; and
+then as the summer declines its appetite declines; so that for the last six
+weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky <!-- page 170--><a
+name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>plants, such as
+lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. In a
+neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be a
+hundred years old. An instance of vast longevity in such a poor
+reptile!</p>
+<h3>LETTER VIII</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Dec.
+20th</i>, 1770.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows
+(<i>Passeres torquati</i>).</p>
+
+<p>There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom
+that want to be better understood: witness those vast flocks of
+hen-chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any cocks
+among them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it should
+seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of
+these little birds; and much more when only one-half of the species
+appears; therefore we may conclude that the <i>Fringillœ
+cœlebes</i>, for some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of
+their own in which the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful
+that the intercourse of sexes in this species of bird should be interrupted
+in winter; since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the
+sexes herd separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for
+the continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches see
+&ldquo;Fauna Suecica,&rdquo; p. 58, and &ldquo;Systema Naturæ,&rdquo;
+p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen-chaffinches, but none
+of cocks.</p>
+
+<p>Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the British
+singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one; since the matter
+of food is a great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the brute
+creation; there is but one that can be set in competition with it, and that
+is love. But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one circumstance
+when you advance that, &ldquo;when they have thus feasted, they again
+separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can
+within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh
+turned earth.&rdquo; Now if you mean that the business of
+congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat sowing to the
+season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; for larks and
+chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in the
+very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs and
+harrows.</p>
+
+<p>Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in
+the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to some districts
+more suitable to the purpose of breeding. That the former pair before
+they retire, and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was a
+sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied but
+that now and then we hear of a woodcock&rsquo;s nest, or young birds,
+discovered in some part or other of this island; but then they are all
+always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of
+things: but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has
+ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of
+those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I the more admire at
+this instance as extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in
+summer as well as in winter might support them here which maintains their
+congeners, the black-birds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer
+through. From hence it appears that it is not food alone which
+determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or
+departure. Fieldfares or redwings disappear sooner or later according
+as the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well remember,
+after that dreadful winter 1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to
+blow on through April and May, and that these kind of birds (what few
+remained of them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering about
+till the beginning of June.</p>
+
+<p>The best authority that we can have for the <!-- page 173--><a
+name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 173</span>nidification of the
+birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that
+have written professedly the natural history of particular countries.
+Now as to the fieldfare, Linnæus, in his &ldquo;Fauna Suecica,&rdquo;
+says of it, that &ldquo;<i>maximis in arboribus nidificat</i>;&rdquo; and
+of the redwing he says, in the same place, that &ldquo;<i>nidificat in
+mediis arbusculis</i>, <i>sive sepibus</i>; <i>ova sex
+cœruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis</i>.&rdquo; Hence we may
+be assured that fieldfares and redwings build in Sweden. Scopoli
+says, in his &ldquo;Annus Primus,&rdquo; of the woodcock, that
+&ldquo;<i>nupta ad nos venit circa œquinoctium vernale</i>;&rdquo;
+meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds
+&ldquo;<i>nidificat in paludibus alpinis: ova ponit</i> 3-5.&rdquo;
+It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria; but
+he says, &ldquo;<i>Avis hœc septentrionalium provinciarum
+œstivo tempore incola est</i>; <i>ubi plerumque nidificat</i>.
+<i>Appropinquante hyeme australiores provincias petit</i>; <i>hinc circa
+plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat</i>.
+<i>Tunc rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam
+matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit</i>.&rdquo; For
+the whole passage (which I have abridged) see &ldquo;Elenchus,&rdquo; etc.,
+p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks;
+though little is proved concerning the place of breeding.</p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;There fell in the county of Rutland, in three <!-- page
+174--><a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>weeks of
+this present very wet weather, seven inches and a half of rain, which is
+more than has fallen in any three weeks for these thirty years past in that
+part of the world. A mean quantity in that county for one year is
+twenty inches and a half.</p>
+<h3>LETTER IX.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Fyfield</span>, near <span
+class="smcap">Andover</span>, <i>Feb. 12th</i>, 1772.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the
+well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify
+you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not leave
+us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats in a torpid
+state, and slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the return of
+the sun and fine weather awakens them.</p>
+
+<p>But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general; because
+migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in Andalusia
+has fully informed me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular
+demonstration, for many weeks together, both spring and fall; during which
+periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the straits from north to <!--
+page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 175</span>south,
+and from south to north, according to the season. And these vast
+migrations consist not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, <i>Oro
+pendolos</i>, or golden thrushes, etc., etc., and also of many of our
+soft-billed summer birds of passage; and moreover of birds which never
+leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old
+Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the incredible
+armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing the
+Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the above mentioned,
+he remarks that the procession is swelled by whole troops of eagles and
+vultures.</p>
+
+<p>Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat before
+the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially birds
+of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more impatient
+of a sultry climate; but then I cannot help wondering why kites and hawks,
+and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the severity of England, and
+even of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to migrate from the south
+of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia.</p>
+
+<p>It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty
+and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast
+oceans, cross winds, etc.; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from
+England to the Equator without launching out and <!-- page 176--><a
+name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>exposing itself to
+boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, and again at
+Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence advance this obvious
+remark, because my brother has always found that some of his birds, and
+particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in crossing
+the Mediterranean; for when arrived at Gibraltar they do not</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>. . . &ldquo;Rang&rsquo;d in figure wedge their way,<br />
+. . . . And set forth<br />
+Their airy caravan high over seas<br />
+Flying, and over lands with mutual wing<br />
+Easing their flight:&rdquo; . . . . &mdash;MILTON.</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in
+a company; and sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and water,
+direct their course to the opposite continent at the narrowest passage they
+can find. They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and so
+pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the narrowest space.</p>
+
+<p>In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that
+woodcocks in moonshiny nights cross the German ocean from
+Scandinavia. As a proof that birds of less speed may pass that sea,
+considerable as it is, I shall relate the following incident, which, though
+mentioned to have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter of
+fact:&mdash;As some people <!-- page 177--><a name="page177"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 177</span>were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the
+county of Sussex, they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with
+a silver collar about its neck, on which were engraven the arms of the king
+of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has
+often told to a near relation of mine; and to the best of my remembrance,
+the collar was in the possession of the rector.</p>
+
+<p>At present I do not know anybody near the seaside that will take the
+trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come; if I lived
+near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. One
+thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in
+which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again when
+flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had
+been fired at them; whether this strange laziness was the effect of a
+recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say.</p>
+
+<p>Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, but also,
+as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two
+last counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of
+warmth; the defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that these
+birds come over to us from the continent at the narrowest passage, and do
+not stroll so far westward.</p>
+
+<p><!-- page 178--><a name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+178</span>Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not
+dust. I think they do; and if they do, whether they wash also.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Alauda pratensis</i> of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating
+the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last.</p>
+
+<p>Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ouzel for Mr. Tunstal
+during their autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when they
+call on us again in April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw
+my Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation. Royston,
+or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with the
+woodcock; they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for
+migration; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so might
+they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, when a boy,
+mistaken? did he not find a missel-thrush&rsquo;s nest, and take it for the
+nest of a fieldfare?</p>
+
+<p>The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, <i>Œnas Raii</i>, is the last
+winter bird of passage which appears with us; it is not seen till towards
+the end of November: about twenty years ago they abounded in the district
+of Selborne; and strings of them were seen morning and evening that reached
+a mile or more; but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they
+are much decreased in number. The ring-dove, <i>Palumbus</i> <!--
+page 179--><a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+179</span><i>Raii</i>, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several
+times through the summer.</p>
+
+<p>Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked in my
+journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon verdure
+lasted on late into November; and may be accounted for from a late spring,
+a cool and moist summer; but more particularly from vast armies of chafers,
+or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a leafless
+naked state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then retained
+their foliage till very late in the year.</p>
+
+<p>My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the
+owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch,
+and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightingales
+next spring.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc., etc.</p>
+<h3>LETTER X.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Aug.
+1st.</i>, 177l.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor
+cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his
+owls hoot in B flat; <!-- page 180--><a name="page180"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 180</span>but that one went almost half a note below
+A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown
+pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the
+common London pitch.</p>
+
+<p>A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the
+owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat, or F
+sharp, in B flat and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the
+one in A flat, and the other in B flat. <i>Query</i>: Do these
+different notes proceed from different species, or only from various
+individuals? The same person finds upon trial that the note of the
+cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in different individuals;
+for, about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D: he heard two sing
+together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable
+concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some
+in C. As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, and
+their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key.
+Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more
+distinguishable. This person has tried to settle the notes of a
+swift, and of several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any
+criterion.</p>
+
+<p>As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first birds that
+suffer with us in severe weather, it is no wonder at all that they retreat
+from Scandinavian <!-- page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span
+class="pagenum">p. 181</span>winters: and much more the <i>ordo</i> of
+<i>grallœ</i>, who, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of
+Europe at the approach of winter. &ldquo;<i>Grallæ tanquam
+conjuratæ</i>, <i>unanimiter in fugam se cojiciunt</i>; <i>ne earum
+unicam quidem inter nos habitantem invenire possimus</i>; <i>ut enim
+æstate in australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum</i>,
+<i>terramque siccam</i>; <i>ita nec in frigidis ob eandem
+causam</i>,&rdquo; says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise
+called &ldquo;Migrationes Avium,&rdquo; which by all means you ought to
+read while your thoughts run on the subject of migration. See
+&ldquo;Amœnitates Academicæ,&rdquo; vol. iv., p. 565.</p>
+
+<p>Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one
+country, and not in another: but the <i>grallæ</i> (which procure
+their food from marshes and boggy grounds), must in winter forsake the more
+northerly parts of Europe, or perish for want of food.</p>
+
+<p>I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnæus concerning the
+woodcock; it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the
+motions and manner of life of the animals of his own
+&ldquo;Fauna.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare descriptions,
+and a few synonyms: the reason is plain; because all that may be done at
+home in a man&rsquo;s study, but the investigation of the life and
+conversation of animals, is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty,
+and is not to be attained but by the active <!-- page 182--><a
+name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 182</span>and inquisitive, and
+by those that reside much in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specific
+differences, which are almost universally constituted by one or two
+particular marks, the rest of the description running in general
+terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only
+describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining
+his superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the advantage
+of fresh discoveries and modern information.</p>
+
+<p>At this distance of years it is not in my power to recollect at what
+periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert when I was a sportsman: but,
+upon my mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has observed
+them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather; if this should
+be the case, then the inaptitude for flying arises only from an eagerness
+for food; as sheep are observed to be very intent on grazing against stormy
+wet evenings.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc., etc.</p>
+<h3><!-- page 183--><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+183</span>LETTER XI.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>Feb.
+8th</i>, 1772.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;When I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious
+flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these
+congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for those
+appearances almost peculiar to the season. The two great motives
+which regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger;
+the former incites animals to perpetuate their kind; the latter induces
+them to preserve individuals: whether either of these should seem to be the
+ruling passion in the matter of congregating is to be considered. As
+to love, that is out of the question at a time of the year when that soft
+passion is not indulged: besides, during the amorous season, such a
+jealousy prevails between the male birds that they can hardly bear to be
+together in the same hedge or field. Most of the singing and elation
+of spirits of that time seem to me to be the effect of rivalry and
+emulation: and it is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute
+the equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>Now as to the business of food: as these animals are actuated by
+instinct to hunt for necessary food, <!-- page 184--><a
+name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>they should not, one
+would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of sustenance at a time when it is
+most likely to fail; yet such associations do take place in hard weather
+chiefly, and thicken as the severity increases. As some kind of
+self-interest and self-defence is no doubt the motive for the proceeding,
+may it not arise from the helplessness of their state in such rigorous
+seasons; as men crowd together, when under great calamities, though they
+know not why. Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold,
+and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds
+of prey and other dangers.</p>
+
+<p>If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate, I
+am the more struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict amity.
+If we do not much wonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a
+train of daws, yet it is strange that the former should so frequently have
+a flight of starlings for their satellites. Is it because rooks have
+a more discerning scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots
+more productive of food? Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two
+large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have
+a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and
+can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, then, their
+associates attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the
+<!-- page 185--><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+185</span>motions of their finders, and as lions are said to do on the
+yelpings of jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><i>March 9th</i>, 1772.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;As a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of
+last November, round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes
+river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three
+house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather
+chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the tenor of the weather for some
+time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From
+this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and
+more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not depart from
+this island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns, and do,
+insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then retire again
+to their <i>latebrœ</i>. Nor make I the least doubt but that,
+if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns
+near the chalk cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper <!-- page 186--><a
+name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>observations, I
+should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter, when the noons were
+soft and inviting, and the sun warm and invigorating. And I am the
+more of this opinion from what I have remarked during some of our late
+springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance about the
+usual time, viz., the 13th or 14th April, yet meeting with a harsh
+reception, and blustering cold north-east winds, they immediately withdrew,
+absconding for several days, till the weather gave them better
+encouragement.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XIII.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><i>April 12th</i>, 1772.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at
+the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing
+to you. On the 1st November I remarked that the old tortoise,
+formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming
+its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of
+hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws
+it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is
+ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand <!-- page 187--><a
+name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>of a clock, and
+suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in
+performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than
+this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great
+body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually
+warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the
+heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the 13th
+November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and
+frosty mornings, would have quickened its operations. No part of its
+behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses
+with regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against
+the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about
+rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first
+sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it
+becomes an excellent weather-glass, for as sure as it walks elate, and as
+it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure
+will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never
+pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other
+reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from
+eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first
+awakened it eats nothing, nor again in the autumn before it retires; <!--
+page 188--><a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 188</span>through
+the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that
+comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning
+those that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old lady comes in
+sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards
+its benefactress with awkward alacrity, but remains inattentive to
+strangers. Thus, not only &ldquo;the ox knoweth his owner, and the
+ass his master&rsquo;s crib,&rdquo; but the most abject reptile and torpid
+of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the
+feelings of gratitude!</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;In about three days after I left Sussex, the tortoise retired
+into the ground under the hepatica.</p>
+<h3>LETTER XIV.</h3>
+<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Selborne</span>, <i>March
+26th</i>, 1773.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Sir,&mdash;The more I reflect on the στοργὴ of animals, the more I am
+astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful
+than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of
+the yard, in proportion to the <!-- page 189--><a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 189</span>
+helplessness of her brood, and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in
+defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with
+relentless cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and
+sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus a hen, just become
+a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feathers
+standing on end, wings hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like one
+possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest
+danger in order to avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will
+tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her
+helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble birds
+will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village are
+up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves
+that district. A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair
+of ravens nesting in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or
+eagle to rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with
+an amazing fury; even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart
+out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or the
+sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young,
+she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but will
+<!-- page 190--><a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+190</span>wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced above by some
+anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet
+you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the
+illustration.</p>
+
+<p>The fly-catcher of the &ldquo;Zoology&rdquo; (the <i>Stoparola</i> of
+Ray), builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my
+house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed
+their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of
+the inconvenience that followed. But a hot sunny season coming on
+before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became
+insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not
+affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover
+over the nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths
+gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering
+offspring.</p>
+
+<p>A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow-wren,
+which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend and myself
+had observed as she sat in her nest; but were particularly careful not to
+disturb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy.
+Some days after, as we passed that way, we were desirous of remarking how
+this <!-- page 191--><a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+191</span>brood went on, but no nest could be found, till I happened to
+take a large bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over
+the nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder.</p>
+
+<p>A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct occurred to me
+one day as my people were pulling off the lining of a hot-bed, in order to
+add some fresh dung. From out of the side of this bed leaped an
+animal with great agility, that made a most grotesque figure; nor was it
+without great difficulty that it could be taken, when it proved to be a
+large white-bellied field-mouse with three or four young clinging to her
+teats by their mouths and feet. It was amazing that the desultory and
+rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their hold,
+especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both naked and
+blind!</p>
+
+<p>To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be daily
+discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed that rage of
+affection, that monstrous perversion of the στοργὴ, which induces some females
+of the brute creation to devour their young because their owners have handled
+them too freely, or removed them from place to place! Swine, and sometimes the
+more gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous
+murder. When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother
+<!-- page 192--><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
+192</span>that destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed, since
+reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable of any
+enormity; but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one
+most uniform tenor should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave
+to abler philosophers than myself to determine.</p>
+<p style="text-align: right">I am, etc.</p>
+<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">end of vol. i.</span></p>
+<p style="text-align: center">Printed by Cassell &amp; Company, Limited, La
+Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.</p>
+
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, VOL. 1 ***</div>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1, by
+Gilbert White, Edited by Henry Morley
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1
+
+
+Author: Gilbert White
+
+Editor: Henry Morley
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2007  [eBook #20933]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,
+VOL. 1***
+
+
+This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
+
+
+                       CASSELL'S NATIONAL LIBRARY.
+
+
+
+
+
+                                   THE
+                            NATURAL HISTORY
+                                   OF
+                                SELBORNE
+
+
+                                    BY
+                       THE REV. GILBERT WHITE A.M.
+
+                                 VOL. I.
+
+                       CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
+                _LONDON_, _PARIS_, _NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_.
+                                   1887
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+Gilbert White was born in the village of Selborne on the 18th of July, in
+the year 1720.  His father was a gentleman of good means, with a house at
+Selborne and some acres of land.  Gilbert had his school training at
+Basingstoke, from Thomas Warton, the father of the poet of that name, who
+was born at Basingstoke in 1728, six years younger than his brother
+Joseph, who had been born at Dunsford, in Surrey.  Thomas Warton, their
+father, was the youngest of three sons of a rector of Breamore, in the
+New Forest, and the only son of the three who was not deaf and dumb.
+This Thomas, the elder, was an able man, who obtained a fellowship at
+Magdalen College, Oxford, became vicar of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, and
+was there headmaster of the school to which young Gilbert White was sent.
+He was referred to in Amhurst's "Terrae Filius" as "a reverend poetical
+gentleman;" he knew Pope, and had credit enough for his verse to hold the
+office of Professor of Poetry at Oxford from 1718 to 1728.  His genius
+for writing middling verse passed on to his more famous sons, Joseph and
+Thomas, and they both became in due time Oxford Professors of Poetry.
+
+Gilbert White passed on from school to Oxford, where he entered Oriel
+College in 1739.  He became a Fellow of Oriel, graduated M.A. in 1746, at
+the age of six-and-twenty, and six years afterwards he served as one of
+the Senior Proctors of the University.  His love of nature grew with him
+from boyhood, and was associated with his earliest years of home.  His
+heart abided with his native village.  When he had taken holy orders he
+could have obtained college livings, but he cared only to go back to his
+native village, and the house in which he was born, paying a yearly visit
+to Oxford, and in that house, after a happy life that extended a few
+years over the threescore and ten, he died on the 26th of June, 1793.
+
+Gilbert White never married, but lived in peaceful performance of light
+clerical duties and enjoyment of those observations of nature which his
+book records.  His brothers, who shared his love of nature, aided instead
+of thwarting him in his studies of the natural history of Selborne, and
+as their lives were less secluded and they did not remain unmarried, they
+provided him with a family of young people to care about, for he lived to
+register the births of sixty-three nephews and nieces.
+
+It was one of his brothers, who was a member of the Royal Society, by
+whom Gilbert White was persuaded, towards the close of his life, to
+gather his notes into a book.  It was first published in a quarto volume
+in the year of the outbreak of the French Revolution with the fall of the
+Bastile.  He was more concerned with the course of events in a martin's
+nest than with the crash of empires, and no man ever made more evident
+the latent power of enjoyment that is left dead by those who live
+uneventful lives surrounded by a world of life and change and growth
+which they want eyes to see.  Gilbert White was in his seventieth year
+when his book appeared, four years before his death.  It was compiled
+from letters addressed to Thomas Pennant and the Hon. Daines Barrington.
+
+Thomas Pennant was a naturalist six years younger than Gilbert White.  He
+was born at Downing, in Flintshire, in 1726, and died in 1798, like
+White, in the house in which he had been born.  His love of Natural
+History made him a traveller at home and abroad.  He counted Buffon among
+his friends.  He had written many books before the date of the
+publication of White's "Selborne."  Pennant's "British Zoology," his
+"History of Quadrupeds" and "Arctic Zoology," had a high reputation.  He
+wrote also a Tour in Wales and a History of London.
+
+Daines Barrington, fourth son of the first Viscount Barrington, was a
+year younger than Pennant, and died in 1800.  He became Secretary to
+Greenwich Hospital, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and President
+of the Royal Society.  His "Miscellanies," published in 4to in 1781, deal
+with questions of Natural History, and of Antiquities, including a paper
+first published in 1775 asserting the possibility of approaching the
+North Pole.  His most valued book was one of "Observations on the more
+Ancient Statutes."
+
+                                                                      H.M.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+
+The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county
+of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the
+county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude
+fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns of Alton and Petersfield.
+Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which
+are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate.  If you begin from the south and
+proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence,
+Faringdon, Hartley Mauduit, Great Ward le Ham, Kingsley, Hadleigh,
+Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lyffe, and Greatham.  The soils of this
+district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects.
+The high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising
+three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheep-down,
+the high wood and a long hanging wood, called The Hanger.  The covert of
+this eminence is altogether _beech_, the most lovely of all forest trees,
+whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or
+graceful pendulous boughs.  The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing,
+park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the
+verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains,
+and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale,
+wood-lands, heath, and water.  The prospect is bounded to the south-east
+and east by the vast range of mountains  called the Sussex Downs, by
+Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in
+Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the country beyond
+Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.
+
+At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the
+village, which consists of one single straggling street, three-quarters
+of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with the
+Hanger.  The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay
+(good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in
+appearance removed from chalk; but seems so far from being calcareous,
+that it endures extreme heat.  Yet that the freestone still preserves
+somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches, which
+descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well
+on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.
+
+The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two very
+incongruous soils.  To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires the
+labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east,
+and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould,
+called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal
+manure; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town;
+while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank.
+
+At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west,
+arises a small rivulet: that at the north-west end frequently fails; but
+the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet
+seasons, called Well-head.  This breaks out of some high grounds joining
+to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two
+streams into two different seas.  The one to the south becomes a branch
+of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel:
+the other to the north.  The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey;
+and, meeting the Black-down stream at Hadleigh, and the Alton and Farnham
+stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at
+Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into the Thames at
+Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean.
+
+Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three foot, and when sunk to
+that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the
+taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which
+does not lather well with soap.
+
+To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair
+enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten
+or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to
+pieces, and becomes manure to itself.
+
+Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land,
+neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet
+kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and have their poles
+and wood for charcoal growing just at hand.  The white soil produces the
+brightest hops.
+
+As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the juncture
+of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for
+timber, and infamous for roads.  The oaks of Temple and Black-moor stand
+high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval
+timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen
+call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing.  Beyond
+the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry, lean sand, till it mingles with
+the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and
+turnips.
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+
+In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor farm to the north-west of the
+village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a
+broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, _ulmus folio latissimo scabro_ of Ray,
+which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm
+in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained
+eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off
+at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in the
+diameter.  This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may
+attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation.
+
+In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of
+ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called "The Plestor."  In the
+midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat
+body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the
+area.  This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above
+them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in
+summer evenings; where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter
+frolicked and danced before them.  Long might it have stood, had not the
+amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of
+the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it
+in its place again: but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted
+for a time, then withered and died.  This oak I mention to show to what a
+bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and planted this tree must certainly
+have been, as will appear from what will be said farther concerning this
+area, when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne.
+
+On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few
+acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth
+and great value; they were tall and taper-like firs, but standing near
+together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large
+limbs.  About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court,
+being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were
+fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter
+at the little end.  Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little
+wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the description at
+sixty feet.  These trees were sold for twenty pounds apiece.
+
+In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and
+tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle
+of the stem.  On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such
+a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the
+Raven Tree.  Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at
+this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was
+ambitious of surmounting the arduous task.  But when they arrived at the
+swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their
+grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the
+undertaking to be too hazardous: so the ravens built on, nest upon nest,
+in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to
+be levelled.  It was in the month of February, when these birds usually
+sit.  The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the
+opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blow of the beetle or mall or
+mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on.  At last,
+when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest, and, though her
+parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs
+which brought her dead to the ground.
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+
+The fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have
+fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence.  And
+first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed
+up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for
+the singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like
+a petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for a head
+and mouth.  It is in reality a bivalve of the Linnaean Genus of Mytilus,
+and the species of Crista Galli; called by Lister, _Rastellum_; by
+Rumphius, _Ostreum plicatum minus_; by D'Argenville, _Auris Porci_, s.
+_Crista Galli_; and by those who make collections, Cock's Comb.  Though I
+applied to several such in London, I never could meet with an entire
+specimen; nor could I ever find in books any engraving from a perfect
+one.  In the superb museum at Leicester House, permission was given me to
+examine for this article; and, though I was disappointed as to the
+fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of several of the shells
+themselves in high preservation.  This bivalve is only known to inhabit
+the Indian Ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name
+Gorgonia.  The curious foldings of the suture the one into the other, the
+alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my specimen, are
+much easier expressed by the pencil than by words.
+
+_Cornua Ammonis_ are very common about this village.  As we were cutting
+an inclining path up the Hanger, the labourers found them frequently on
+that steep, just under the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable
+size.  In the lane above Wall-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound in
+the bank in a darkish sort of marl, and are usually very small and soft;
+but in Clay's Pond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where the
+soil is dug out for manure, I have occasionally observed them of large
+dimensions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter.  But as these
+did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of terra
+lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed to the rains and
+frost they mouldered away.  These seemed as if they were a very recent
+production.  In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of the Hanger, large
+nautili are sometimes observed.
+
+In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths,
+well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having both shells
+deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately.  They are highly
+impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone of the quarry.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+
+As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only mentioned
+incidentally, I shall here become more particular.
+
+This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the beds of ovens;
+and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account, for the workmen use
+sandy loam instead of mortar, the sand of which fluxes, and runs by the
+intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong
+vitrified coat-like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of
+weather, and endures thirty or forty years.  When chiseled smooth, it
+makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to Bath stone;
+and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale.
+Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer grain
+than Portland, and rooms are floored with it, but it proves rather too
+soft for this purpose.  It is a freestone cutting in all directions, yet
+has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should
+not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the
+quarry.  On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for
+pavements, because, probably some degrees of saltness prevailing within
+it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces.  Though this stone is too hard to
+be acted on by vinegar, yet both the white part, and even the blue rag,
+ferments strongly in mineral acids.  Though the white stone will not bear
+wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin strata of blue rag,
+which resist rain and frost, and are excellent for pitching of stables,
+paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks, a
+valuable species of fencing much in use in this village, and for mending
+of roads.  This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth
+face, but is very durable; yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep,
+large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense.  Among
+the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust
+colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now and
+then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls.
+
+In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand,
+or forest-stone.  This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and
+might probably be worked as iron ore, is very hard and heavy, and of a
+firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit,
+cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter; will not cut
+without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel.  Being often found
+in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses,
+never becoming slippery in frost or rain, is excellent for dry walls, and
+is sometimes used in buildings.  In many parts of that waste it lies
+scattered on the surface of the ground, but is dug on Weaver's Down, a
+vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow
+and the stratum thin.  This stone is imperishable.
+
+From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a
+finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the
+head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along
+the joints of their freestone walls.  This embellishment carries an odd
+appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly,
+"whether we fastened our walls together with tenpenny nails."
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+
+Among the singularities of this place the two rocky, hollow lanes, the
+one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention.  These
+roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and
+the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our
+freestone, and partly through the second; so that they look more like
+water-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs
+together.  In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet
+beneath the level of the fields; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit
+very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are
+twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken
+sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles,
+hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work.  These rugged, gloomy
+scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths
+above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but
+delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particularly with
+their curious filices with which they abound.
+
+The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with all its kindly
+aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game; even now
+hares, partridges, and pheasants abound; and in old days woodcocks were
+as plentiful.  There are few quails, because they more affect open fields
+than enclosures; after harvest some few landrails are seen.
+
+The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast
+district.  Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days in
+the business, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and
+indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles.
+
+The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the Hanger from the
+strong westerly winds.  The air is soft, but rather moist from the
+effluvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues.
+
+The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may be
+supposed in so woody and mountainous a district.  As my experience of
+measuring the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to give the
+mean quantity.  I only know that
+
+                        Inch.                   Hund.
+From May 1, 1779, to    28                      37!
+the end of the year,
+there fell
+   Jan. 1, 1780, to     27                      32
+Jan. 1, 1781
+   Jan. 1, 1781, to     30                      71
+Jan. 1, 1782
+   Jan. 1, 1782, to     50                      26!
+Jan. 1, 1783
+   Jan. 1, 1783, to     33                      71
+Jan. 1, 1784
+   Jan. 1, 1784, to     33                      80
+Jan. 1, 1785
+   Jan. 1, 1785, to     31                      55
+Jan. 1, 1786
+   Jan. 1, 1786, to     39                      57
+Jan. 1, 1787
+
+The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single
+farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contain
+upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabitants.
+
+We abound with poor, many of whom are sober and industrious, and live
+comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have
+chambers above stairs; mud buildings we have none.  Besides the
+employment from husbandry, the men work in hop-gardens, of which we have
+many, and fell and bark timber.  In the spring and summer the women weed
+the corn, and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking.
+Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning
+wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at
+that time for summer wear, and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a
+neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers; but from
+circumstances this trade is at an end.  The inhabitants enjoy a good
+share of health and longevity; and the parish swarms with children.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+
+Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of
+which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne
+would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious
+productions, both animal and vegetable, and has often afforded me much
+entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist.
+
+The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in
+length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from north to south,
+and is abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed eastward, by
+the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of
+Sussex; by Bramshot, Hadleigh, and Kingsley.  This royalty consists
+entirely of sand covered with heath and fern, but is somewhat diversified
+with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole
+extent.  In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which
+formerly abounded with subterraneous trees, though Dr. Plot says
+positively, that "there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses
+of the southern counties."  But he was mistaken: for I myself have seen
+cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a
+black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they
+procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such
+instruments: but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so
+well examined, that none has been found of late.  Besides the oak, I have
+also been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour, and softer
+nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon a nice examination,
+and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them, and
+therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or
+some such aquatic tree.
+
+This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild
+fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the
+summer: such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have discovered
+within these few years, teals.  Partridges in vast plenty are bred in
+good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make
+excursions; and in particular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, and
+some years after, they swarmed to such a degree that parties of
+unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day.
+
+But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which
+I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became
+so common, and that was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse.  When I
+was a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my father's
+table.  The last pack remembered was killed about thirty-five years ago;
+and within these ten years one solitary greyhen was sprung by some
+beagles in beating for a hare.  The sportsmen cried out, "A hen
+pheasant!" but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse in the
+north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen.
+
+Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna
+Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is
+wanting.  I mean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this century
+amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance.
+There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great grandfather
+(mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and
+self, enjoyed the head keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more
+than a hundred years.  This person assures me, that his father has often
+told him that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road,
+did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard.  For she
+came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing
+herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile to
+the east of Wolmer Pond, and still called Queen's Bank, saw with great
+complacency and satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the
+keepers along the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred
+head.  A sight this, worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign!  But
+he farther adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own
+expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to about
+fifty head, and so continued decreasing till the time of the late Duke of
+Cumberland.  It is now more than thirty years ago that His Highness sent
+down a huntsman, and six yeoman-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with
+gold, attended by the staghounds, ordering them to take every deer in
+this forest alive, and to convey them in carts to Windsor.  In the course
+of the summer they caught every stag, some of which showed extraordinary
+diversion; but in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried
+off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for
+matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards.  I saw myself one of the
+yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it
+was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to anything
+in Mr. Astley's riding-school.  The exertions made by the horse and deer
+much exceeded all my expectations, though the former greatly excelled the
+latter in speed.  When the devoted deer was separated from his
+companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for
+twenty minutes; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted
+to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+
+Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the
+injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of
+their crops.  The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen
+by constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in
+human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain.  Hence, towards the
+beginning of this century all this country was wild about deer-stealing.
+Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to call themselves, no young
+person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or gallantry.  The Waltham
+blacks at length committed such enormities, that Government was forced to
+interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called the "Black Act,"
+which now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed
+before.  And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged to
+re-stock Waltham Chase, refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate,
+replying "that it had done mischief enough already."
+
+Our old race of deer-stealers is hardly extinct yet: it was but a little
+while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of
+their youth; such as watching the pregnant hind to her lair, and, when
+the calf was dropped, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to
+prevent its escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the
+shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by
+moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and the losing a dog in the
+following extraordinary manner: Some fellows, suspecting that a calf
+new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a
+lurcher, to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake,
+and, taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon
+the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two.
+
+Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of rabbits,
+which possessed all the hillocks and dry places: but these being
+inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when they came
+to take away the deer, they permitted the country people to destroy them
+all.
+
+Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are
+removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon
+them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel
+for the burning their lime; and with ashes for their grasses; and by
+maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no
+expense.
+
+The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted claim, I see (by
+an old record taken from the Tower of London) of turning all live stock
+on the forest, at proper seasons, "bidentibus exceptis."  The reason, I
+presume, why sheep are excluded, is because, being such close grazers,
+they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from
+thriving.
+
+Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) "to burn on any waste,
+between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or
+fern, is punishable with whipping and confinement in the house of
+correction;" yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the
+dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they
+often get to a masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes
+been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great
+damage has ensued.  The plea for these burnings is that, when the old
+coat of heath, etc., is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford much
+tender browze for cattle; but, where there is large old furze, the fire,
+following the roots, consumes the very ground; so that for hundreds of
+acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit
+round looking like the cinders of a volcano; and, the soil being quite
+exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found for years.  These
+conflagrations, as they take place usually with a north-east or east
+wind, much annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm the
+country; and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, who lives
+beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got on the downs between that
+town and Winchester, at twenty-five miles' distance, was surprised much
+with smoke and a hot smell of fire, and concluded that Alresford was in
+flames; but, when he came to that town, he then had apprehensions for the
+next village, and so on to the end of his journey.
+
+On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand two arbours
+or bowers, made of the boughs of oak; the one called Waldon Lodge, the
+other Brimstone Lodge: these the keepers renew annually on the feast of
+St. Barnabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite.  The farm called
+Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brush-wood
+for the former; while the farms at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the
+latter, and are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the
+spot.  This custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very remote
+antiquity.
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII.
+
+
+On the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three
+considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing particular
+to say; and one called Bin's, or Bean's Pond, which is worthy the
+attention of a naturalist or a sportsman.  For, being crowded at the
+upper end with willows, and with the carex cespitosa, it affords such a
+safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc., that they
+breed there.  In the winter this covert is also frequented by foxes, and
+sometimes by pheasants; and the bogs produce many curious plants.  (For
+which consult Letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.)
+
+By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, made in 1635, and the
+eleventh year of Charles I. (which now lies before me), it appears that
+the limits of the former are much circumscribed.  For, to say nothing of
+the farther side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on
+this side, in old times, came into Binswood, and extended to the ditch of
+Ward le Ham Park, in which stands the curious mount called King John's
+Hill, and Lodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit
+Hatch; comprehending also Short Heath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods--a large
+district, now private property, though once belonging to the royal
+domain.
+
+It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in this
+long roll of parchment.  It contains, besides the perambulation, a rough
+estimate of the value of the timbers, which were considerable, growing at
+that time in the district of the Holt, and enumerates the officers,
+superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time being, and
+their ostensible fees and perquisites.  In those days, as at present,
+there were hardly any trees in Wolmer Forest.
+
+Within the present limits of the forest are three considerable lakes,
+Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer, all of which are stocked with carp, tench,
+eels, and perch: but the fish do not thrive well, because the water is
+hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand.
+
+A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means peculiar to
+them, I cannot pass over in silence; and that is, that instinct by which
+in summer all the kine, whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire
+constantly to the water during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt
+from flies, and inhaling the coolness of that element, some belly deep,
+and some only to mid-leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about
+ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, and then return to their
+feeding.  During this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in
+which insects nestle, and so supply food for the fish, which would be
+poorly subsisted but from this contingency.  Thus Nature, who is a great
+economist, converts the recreation of one animal to the support of
+another!  Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did
+not let this pleasing circumstance escape him.  He says, in his "Summer,"
+
+    "A various group the herds and flocks compose;
+    . . . on the grassy bank
+    Some ruminating lie; while others stand
+    Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip
+    The circling surface."
+
+Wolmer Pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake, is a vast lake for
+this part of the world, containing, in its whole circumference, 2,646
+yards, or very near a mile and a half.  The length of the north-west and
+opposite side is about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end
+about 456 yards.  This measurement, which I caused to be made with good
+exactness, gives an area of about sixty-six acres, exclusive of a large
+irregular arm at the north-east corner, which we did not take into the
+reckoning.
+
+On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly secure from fowlers,
+lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and
+widgeons, of various denominations, where they preen and solace, and rest
+themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little parties
+(for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed in
+the brooks and meadows, returning again with the dawn of the morning.
+Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick
+covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy.
+
+Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort of
+various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can
+render this mere so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were
+found in its bed about forty years ago.  But, as such discoveries more
+properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all
+particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my series of
+letters respecting the more remote history of this village and district.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+
+
+By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to
+inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, _alias_ Alice
+Holt, as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for
+a term of years.
+
+The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-General Emanuel
+Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of Prince
+Rupert by Margaret Hughes; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family,
+who married a dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson Legge and lady; and now
+Lord Stawell, their son.
+
+The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her
+husband, and, at her death, left behind her many curious pieces of
+mechanism of her father's constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic
+and artist, as well as warrior; and among the rest, a very complicated
+clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game painter, at
+Farnham, in the county of Surrey.
+
+Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of enclosures,
+yet no two soils can be more different; for the Holt consists of a strong
+loam, of a miry nature, carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks
+that grow to be large timber; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry,
+sandy, barren waste.  The former being all in the parish of Binsted, is
+about two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much from east
+to west, and contains within it many woodlands and lawns, and the great
+lodge where the grantees reside, and a smaller lodge called Goose Green;
+and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and
+Bentley; all of which have right of common.
+
+One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been of old well
+stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales or fences more than a
+common hedge, yet they were never seen within the limits of Wolmer; nor
+were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of
+the Holt.
+
+At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by the night
+hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of numerous
+keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against
+them as often as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash
+of the law.  Neither fines nor imprisonments can deter them, so
+impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sporting which seems to be
+inherent in human nature.
+
+General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests,
+to the great terror of the neighbourhood, and, at one time, a wild bull
+or buffalo; but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.
+
+A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has
+been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest: one fifth of which,
+it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell.  He lays claim also to
+the lop and top; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham,
+Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them, and assembling in a
+riotous manner, have actually taken it all away.  One man, who keeps a
+team, has carried home for his share forty stacks of wood.  Forty-five of
+these people his lordship has served with actions.  These trees, which
+were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz., in
+February and March, before the bark would run.  In old times the Holt was
+estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure from water-carriage,
+viz., from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now it is not half
+that distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of
+Godalming, in the county of Surrey.
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+
+
+                                                       _August 4th_, 1767.
+
+It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies
+have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want
+of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have
+made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been
+attached from my childhood.
+
+As to swallows (_hirundines rusticae_) being found in a torpid state
+during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any part of this country, I
+never heard any such account worth attending to.  But a clergyman, of an
+inquisitive turn, assures me, that when he was a great boy, some workmen,
+in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in the spring,
+found two or three swifts (_hirundines apodes_) among the rubbish, which
+were at first appearance dead, but on being carried towards the fire
+revived.  He told me, that out of his great care to preserve them, he put
+them in a paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they were
+suffocated.
+
+Another intelligent person has informed me, that while he was a schoolboy
+at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk cliff fell
+down one stormy winter on the beach, and that many people found swallows
+among the rubbish; but on my questioning him whether he saw any of those
+birds himself, to my no small disappointment, he answered me in the
+negative; but that others assured him they did.
+
+Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July 11th, and
+young martins (_hirundines urbicae_) were then fledged in their nests.
+Both species will breed again once.  For I see by my fauna of last year,
+that young broods came forth so late as September 18th.  Are not these
+late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migration?  Nay, some young
+martins remained in their nests last year so late as September 29th; and
+yet they totally disappeared with us by the 5th October.
+
+How strange it is that the swift, which seems to live exactly the same
+life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before the middle
+of August invariably! while the latter stay often till the middle of
+October; and once I saw numbers of house-martins on the 7th November.
+The martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together, an
+uncommon assemblage of summer and winter birds!
+
+A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the _alauda trivialis_,
+or rather perhaps of the _motacilla trochilus_) still continues to make a
+sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods.  The stoparola of Ray
+(for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is called in your
+zoology the fly-catcher.  There is one circumstance characteristic of
+this bird which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, it takes
+its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth
+on its prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the
+ground, but returning still to the same stand for many times together.
+
+I perceive there are more than one species of the _motacilla trochilus_.
+Mr. Derham supposes, in "Ray's Philos. Letters," that he has discovered
+three.  In these there is again an instance of some very common birds
+that have as yet no English name.
+
+Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap (_motacilla
+atricapilla_) be a bird of passage or not: I think there is no doubt of
+it: for, in April, in the first fine weather, they come trooping, all at
+once, into these parts, but are never seen in the winter.  They are
+delicate songsters.
+
+Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory ground on the verge of
+this parish.  It is very amusing to see the cock bird on wing at that
+time, and to hear his piping and humming notes.
+
+I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those mice which I
+mentioned to you in town.  The person that brought me the last says they
+are plenty in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more; and
+will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt whether it be a nondescript
+species or not.
+
+I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats.  Ray says, and
+Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind.  Now I have
+discovered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not
+web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly
+to the _mus amphibius_ of Linnaeus (see _Syst. Nat_.), which he says
+"_natat in fossis et urinatur_."  I should be glad to procure one
+"_plantis palmatis_."  Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle about his _mus
+amphibius_, and to doubt whether it differs from his _mus terrestris_;
+which if it be, as he allows, the "_mus agrestis capite grandi
+brachyuros_," of Ray, is widely different from the water-rat, both in
+size, make, and manner of life.
+
+As to the _falco_, which I mentioned in town, I shall take the liberty to
+send it down to you into Wales; presuming on your candour that you will
+excuse me if it should appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me.
+Though mutilated "_qualem dices . . . ante hac fuisse tales cum sint
+reliquiae_!"
+
+It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-ducks and snipes;
+but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, which it was tearing
+in pieces.  I cannot make it answer to any of our English hawks; neither
+could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in
+Spring Gardens.  I found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the
+countryman's museum.
+
+The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and
+woods, and therefore full of birds.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI.
+
+
+                                          SELBORNE, _September 9th_, 1767.
+
+It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts
+with regard to the _falco_; as to its weight, breadth, etc., I wish I had
+set them down at the time; but, to the best of my remembrance, it weighed
+two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing,
+thirty-eight inches.  Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of
+its eyelids a bright yellow.  As it had been killed some days, and the
+eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation on the colour of the
+pupils and the irides.
+
+The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a pair of
+hoopoes (_upupa_), which came several years ago in the summer, and
+frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my garden, for
+some weeks.  They used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in the
+walks, many times in the day; and seemed disposed to breed in my outlet;
+but were frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them
+be at rest.
+
+Three grossbeaks (_loxia coccothraustes_) appeared some years ago in my
+fields, in the winter; one of which I shot.  Since that, now and then,
+one is occasionally seen in the same dead season.
+
+A crossbill (_loxia curvirostra_) was killed last year in this
+neighbourhood.
+
+Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village,
+yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's thumb (_gobius fluviatilis
+capitatus_), the trout (_trutta fluviatilis_), the eel (_anguilla_), the
+lampern (_lampoetra parva et fluviatilis_), and the stickleback
+(_pisciculus aculeatus_).
+
+We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river,
+and therefore see but little of sea birds.  As to wild fowls, we have a
+few teems of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and
+multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes in
+the forest.
+
+Having some acquaintance with the tame brown owl, I find that it casts up
+the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner
+of hawks: when full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.
+
+The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they want a constant
+supply of fresh mice; whereas the young of the brown owl will eat
+indiscriminately all that is brought: snails, rats, kittens, puppies,
+magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal.
+
+The house-martins have eggs still, and squab young.  The last swift I
+observed was about the 21st August; it was a straggler.
+
+Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and _reguli non cristati_, still
+appear; but I have seen no black-caps lately.
+
+I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church College quadrangle
+in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-martin flying about, and
+settling on the parapet, so late as the 20th November.
+
+At present I know only two species of bats, the common _vespertilio
+murinus_ and the _vespertilio auribus_.
+
+I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take
+flies out of a person's hand.  If you gave it anything to eat, it brought
+its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the
+manner of birds of prey when they feed.  The adroitness it showed in
+shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always rejected, was
+worthy of observation, and pleased me much.  Insects seemed to be most
+acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered; so that the
+notion, that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon, seems no
+improbable story.  While I amused myself with this wonderful quadruped, I
+saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down upon
+a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease
+from the floor.  It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware
+of, but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner.
+
+Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface as they
+play over pools and streams.  They love to frequent waters, not only for
+the sake of drinking, but on account of insects, which are found over
+them in the greatest plenty.  As I was going some years ago, pretty late,
+in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm summer's evening, I think I
+saw myriads of bats between the two places.  The air swarmed with them
+all along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII.
+
+
+                                                     _November 4th_, 1767.
+
+Sir,--It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the _falco_ turned
+out an uncommon one.  I must confess I should have been better pleased to
+have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen before; but
+that, I find, would be a difficult task.
+
+I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young
+one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy.
+From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but
+that the species is nondescript.  They are much smaller, and more
+slender, than the _mus domesticus medius_ of Ray, and have more of the
+squirrel or dormouse colour; their belly is white, a straight line along
+their sides divides the shades of their back and belly.  They never enter
+into houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves, abound in
+harvest; and build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above the
+ground, and sometimes in thistles.  They breed as many as eight at a
+litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat.
+
+One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, and
+composed of the blades of wheat, perfectly round, and about the size of a
+cricket ball, with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no
+discovering to what part it belonged.  It was so compact and well filled,
+that it would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it
+contained eight little mice that were naked and blind.  As this nest was
+perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively, so as
+to administer a teat to each?  Perhaps she opens different places for
+that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she
+could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which
+moreover would be daily increasing in bulk.  This wonderful procreant
+cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a
+wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle.
+
+A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his servant had shot
+one last January, in that severe weather, which he believed would puzzle
+me.  I called to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect, but the
+moment I took it in hand I pronounced it the male _garrulus bohemicus_ or
+German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or points which it
+carries at the ends of five of the short remiges.  It cannot, I suppose,
+with any propriety, be called an English bird, and yet I see, by Ray's
+"Philosophical Letters," that great flocks of them, feeding on haws,
+appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685.
+
+The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of that
+wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation.
+For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the
+produce of the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of the
+more hardy and common.
+
+Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on the berries
+of the yew tree, which answered to the description of the _merula
+torquata_, or ring-ouzel, were lately seen in this neighbourhood.  I
+employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without success.  (See
+Letter VIII.)
+
+_Query_.--Might not canary birds be naturalised to this climate, provided
+their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their
+congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, etc?  Before winter perhaps they
+might be hardened, and able to shift for themselves.
+
+About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which
+is one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton
+Court.  In the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those
+myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts.  But what
+struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate,
+forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the
+osier-beds of the aits of that river.  Now, this resorting towards that
+element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to
+the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water.  A
+Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that he talks, in
+his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water in
+the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a
+little before sunset.
+
+An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a
+house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying in and out of
+its nest in the Borough.  And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of last
+October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five swallows
+hovering round and settling on the roof of the county hospital.
+
+Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been
+hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and
+from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as
+far as the equator?
+
+I acquiesce entirely in your opinion--that, though most of the swallow
+kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and hide with us during
+the winter.
+
+As to the short-winged, soft-billed birds, which come trooping in such
+numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to suspect about them.  I
+watched them narrowly this year, and saw them abound till about
+Michaelmas, when they appeared no longer.  Subsist they cannot openly
+among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive; and, as to their
+hiding, no man pretends to have found any of them in a torpid state in
+the winter.  But with regard to their migration, what difficulties attend
+that supposition! that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never
+flit but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast seas and
+continents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the regions of Africa!
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Jan. 22nd_, 1768.
+
+Sir,--As in one of your former letters you expressed the more
+satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my living in the most
+southerly county, so now I may return the compliment, and expect to have
+my curiosity gratified by your living much more to the North.
+
+For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast flocks of
+chaffinches have appeared in the fields; many more, I used to think, than
+could be hatched in any one neighbourhood.  But, when I came to observe
+them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed to me to be
+almost all hens.  I communicated my suspicions to some intelligent
+neighbours, who, after taking pains about the matter, declared that they
+also thought them mostly females--at least fifty to one.  This
+extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnaeus, that
+"before winter all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland into
+Italy."  Now I want to know, from some curious person in the north,
+whether there are any large flocks of these finches with them in the
+winter, and of which sex they mostly consist?  For from such
+intelligence, one might be able to judge whether our female flocks
+migrate from the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us
+from the continent.  We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common
+linnets; more, I think, than can be bred in any one district.  These, I
+observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the sunshine,
+and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break
+up their winter quarters and betake themselves to their proper summer
+homes.  It is well known, at least, that the swallows and the fieldfares
+do congregate with a gentle twittering before they make their respective
+departure.
+
+You may depend on it that the bunting, _Emberiza miliaria_, does not
+leave this county in the winter.  In January, 1767, I saw several dozen
+of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the bushes on the downs
+near Andover: in our woodland-enclosed district it is a rare bird.
+
+Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter.  Quails
+crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in numbers by people
+that go on purpose.
+
+Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that "if the wheatear (_oenanthe_)
+does not quit England, it certainly shifts places; for about harvest they
+are not to be found, where there was before great plenty of them."  This
+well accounts for the vast quantities that are caught about that time on
+the south downs near Lewes, where they are esteemed a delicacy.  There
+have been shepherds, I have been credibly informed, that have made many
+pounds in a season by catching them in traps.  And though such multitudes
+are taken, I never saw (and I am well acquainted with those parts) above
+two or three at a time, for they are never gregarious.  They may perhaps
+migrate in general, and, for that purpose, draw towards the coast of
+Sussex in autumn: but that they do not all withdraw I am sure, because I
+see a few stragglers in many counties, at all times of the year,
+especially about warrens and stone quarries.
+
+I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of the navy; but
+have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the late war,
+desiring him to look into his minutes, with respect to birds that settled
+on their rigging during their voyage up or down the Channel.  What
+Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable; there were little
+short-winged birds frequently coming on board his ship all the way from
+our channel quite up to the Levant, especially before squally weather.
+
+What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly probable.  The winters
+of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the soft-billed birds
+that leave us at that season may find insects sufficient to support them
+there.
+
+Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, should make an
+autumnal voyage into that kingdom, and should spend a year there,
+investigating the natural history of that vast country.  Mr. Willughby
+passed through that kingdom on such an errand; but he seems to have
+skirted along in a superficial manner and an ill-humour, being much
+disgusted at the rude dissolute manners of the people.
+
+I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the swallows
+roosting on the aits of the Thames: nor can I hear any more about those
+birds which I suspected were _Meruloe torquatoe_.
+
+As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though they hang
+their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the standing corn, above
+the ground, yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow deep in the
+earth, and make warm beds of grass: but their grand rendezvous seems to
+be in corn-ricks, into which they are carried at harvest.  A neighbour
+housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled
+nearly a hundred, most of which were taken, and some I saw.  I measured
+them, and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a
+quarter, and their tails just two inches long.  Two of them, in a scale,
+weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an
+ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in
+this island.  A full-grown _Mus medius domesticus_ weighs, I find, one
+ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse
+above; and measures from nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and the
+same in its tail.  We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this
+month.  My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the
+freezing-point, within doors.  The tender evergreens were injured pretty
+much.  It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground
+well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered
+prodigiously.  There is reason to believe that some days were more severe
+than any since the year 1739-40.
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 12th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a
+fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two
+spiracula, or breathing places, besides the nostrils; probably analogous
+to the _puncta lachrymalia_ in the human head.  When deer are thirsty
+they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water, while
+in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a
+considerable time: but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can open two
+vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication with
+the nose.  Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy
+our attention, and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any
+naturalist.  For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated,
+though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped.  This curious
+formation of the head may be of singular service to beasts of chase, by
+affording them free respiration: and no doubt these additional nostrils
+are thrown open when they are hard run.  Mr. Ray observed that at Malta
+the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked: for
+they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit air sufficient to
+serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate.  And we
+know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils
+necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.
+
+Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some
+notion that stags have four spiracula:
+
+    "[Greek text]."
+
+    "Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales."
+
+                                                OPP. CYN. Lib. ii. 1. 181.
+
+Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe
+at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary: "[Greek text]."
+"Alcmaeon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe
+through their ears."--"History of Animals." Book I., chap xi.
+
+
+
+LETTER XV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 30th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have in
+these parts a species of the _genus mustelinum_, besides the weasel,
+stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than
+a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a _cane_.  This piece of
+intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made.
+
+A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest.
+A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw
+them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have
+been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery.  I saw the
+birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to find
+that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white.
+
+A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down above my house
+this winter: were not these the _Emberiza nivalis_, the snow-flake of the
+Brit. Zool.?  No doubt they were.
+
+A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had been caught
+in the fields after it was come to its full colours.  In about a year it
+began to look dingy; and, blackening every succeeding year, it became
+coal-black at the end of four.  Its chief food was hempseed.  Such
+influence has food on the colour of animals!  The pied and mottled
+colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be owing to high,
+various, and unusual food.
+
+I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pint (_arum_) was
+frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, and eaten in severe
+snowy weather.  After observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting
+others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it
+out.  The root of the _arum_ is remarkably warm and pungent.
+
+Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us.  The
+blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by that fierce weather
+in January.
+
+In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, a little bird
+that raised my curiosity: it was of that yellow-green colour that belongs
+to the _salicaria_ kind, and, I think, was soft-billed.  It was no
+_parus_; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned wren,
+appearing most like the largest willow-wren.  It hung sometimes with its
+back downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same place.  I
+shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed my aim.
+
+I wonder that the stone-curlew, _Charadrius oedicnemus_, should be
+mentioned by the writers as a rare bird: it abounds in all the champaign
+parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer,
+having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn.  Already they begin
+clamouring in the evening.  They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be
+called, as they are by Mr. Ray, "_circa aquas versantes_;" for with us,
+by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and
+sheep-walks, far removed from water: what they may do in the night I
+cannot say.  Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads and
+frogs.
+
+I can show you some good specimens of my new mice.  Linnaeus perhaps
+would call the species _Mus minimus_.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVI.
+
+
+                                             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.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _June 18th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June 10th.
+It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these studies
+still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to
+reptiles and fishes.
+
+The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I
+could wish, with regard to their natural history.  There is a degree of
+dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of
+animals, something analogous to that of the _cryptogamia_ in the sexual
+system of plants: and the case is the same with regard to some of the
+fishes, as the eel, etc.
+
+The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to be very much
+in the dark.  Some authors say that they are viviparous, and yet Ray
+classes them among his oviparous animals, and is silent with regard to
+the manner of their bringing forth.  Perhaps they may be [Greek text],
+as is known to be the case with the viper.
+
+The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it) is notorious
+to everybody, because we see them sticking upon each other's backs, for a
+month together in the spring: and yet I never saw, or read, of toads
+being observed in the same situation.  It is strange that the matter with
+regard to the venom of toads has not been yet settled.  That they are not
+noxious to some animals is plain, for ducks, buzzards, owls,
+stone-curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my knowledge, with impunity.  And
+I well remember the time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though
+numbers of persons were), when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to
+make the country people stare; afterwards he drank oil.
+
+I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that some ladies
+(ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, which
+they nourished, summer after summer, for many years, till he grew to a
+monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies.  The reptile
+used to come forth every evening from a hole under the garden steps, and
+was taken up, after supper, on the table to be fed.  But at last a tame
+raven, kenning him as he put forth his head, gave him such a severe
+stroke with his horny beak as put out one eye.  After this accident the
+creature languished for some time and died.
+
+I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the excellent
+account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's "Wisdom of God in the
+Creation" (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs from their breeding
+ponds.  In this account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their
+dropping from the clouds in rain, showing that it is from the grateful
+coolness and moisture of those showers that they are tempted to set out
+on their travels, which they defer till those fall.  Frogs are as yet in
+their tadpole state; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will
+swarm for a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than my
+little finger nail.  Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the
+method and situation in which the male impregnates the spawn of the
+female.  How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the
+limbs of so vile a reptile!  While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like
+tail, and no legs; as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as
+useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land!
+
+Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances that the _rana
+arborea_ is an English reptile; it abounds in Germany and Switzerland.
+
+It is to be remembered that the _salamandra aquatica_ of Ray (the
+water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and is
+often caught on his hook.  I used take it for granted that the
+_salamandra aquatica_ was hatched, lived, and died, in the water.  But
+John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter to
+the Royal Society, dated June 5th, 1766, in his account of the _mud
+inguana_, an amphibious biped from South Carolina, that the water-eft, or
+newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs.  Lest
+I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in
+his own words.  Speaking of the _opercula_ or coverings to the gills of
+the _mud inguana_, he proceeds to say that, "The form of these pennated
+coverings approaches very near to what I have some time ago observed in
+the larva or aquatic state of our  English _lacerta_, known by the name
+of eft, or newt, which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for
+fins to swim with while in this state; and which they lose, as well as
+the fins of their tails, when they change their state and become land
+animals, as I have observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself."
+
+Linnaeus, in his "Systema Naturae," hints at what Mr. Ellis advances more
+than once.
+
+Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous
+reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper.  As
+you propose the good of mankind to be an object of your publications you
+will not omit to mention common salad-oil as sovereign remedy against the
+bite of the viper.  As to the blind worm (_anguis fragilis_, so-called
+because it snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have found, on
+examination, that it is perfectly innocuous.  A neighbouring yeoman (to
+whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female viper
+about the 27th May: he found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs,
+about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so
+far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young.
+Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their
+young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth.  Whereas snakes
+lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my
+people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till the spring
+following, as I have often experienced.  Several intelligent folks assure
+me that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless
+young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum
+does her brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies;
+and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that
+no such thing ever happens.  The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in
+a year; or rather, but only just at one season of the year.  Country
+people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure, without any
+reason; for the common snake (_coluber natrix_) delights much to sport in
+the water, perhaps with a view to procure frogs and other food.
+
+I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve species of
+reptiles, unless it be by the various species, or rather varieties, of
+our _lacerti_, of which Ray enumerates five.  I have not had opportunity
+of ascertaining these; but remember well to have seen formerly several
+beautiful green _lacerti_ on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in Surrey;
+and Ray admits there are such in Ireland.
+
+
+
+LETTER XVIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _July 27th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--I received your obliging and communicative letter of June
+28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where I had neither
+books to turn to nor leisure to sit down, to return you an answer to many
+queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best manner that I am able.
+
+A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could find no such
+fish as the _gasterosteus pungitius_; he found the _gasterosteus
+aculeatus_ in plenty.  This morning, in a basket, I packed a little
+earthen pot full of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, male and
+female, the females big with spawn; some lamperns; some bull's heads; but
+I could procure no minnows.  This basket will be in Fleet Street by eight
+this evening; so I hope Mazel will have them fresh and fair to-morrow
+morning.  I gave some directions, in a letter, to what particulars the
+engraver should be attentive.
+
+Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable distance
+of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that town, and procured several
+living specimens of loaches, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a glass
+decanter.  They were taken in the gullies that were cut for watering the
+meadows.  From these fishes (which measured from two to four inches in
+length) I took the following description: "The loach, in its general
+aspect, has a pellucid appearance; its back is mottled with irregular
+collections of small black dots, not reaching much below the _linea
+lateralis_, as are the back and tail fins; a black line runs from each
+eye down to the nose; its belly is of a silvery white; the upper jaw
+projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with six feelers, three on
+each side; its pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller; the fin
+behind its anus small; its dorsal-fin large, containing eight spines; its
+tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any
+taperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus; the tail-fin is
+broad, and square at the end.  From the breadth and muscular strength of
+the tail it appears to be an active, nimble fish."
+
+In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did not forget to
+make some inquiries concerning the wonderful method of curing cancers by
+means of toads.  Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do
+I find give a great deal of credit to what is asserted in the papers, and
+I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is
+related is matter of fact; but, when I came to attend to his account, I
+thought I discerned circumstances which did not a little invalidate the
+woman's story of the manner in which she came by her skill.  She says of
+herself, "that, labouring under a virulent cancer, she went to some
+church where there was a vast crowd; on going into a pew, she was
+accosted by a strange clergyman, who, after expressing compassion for her
+situation, told her that if she would make such an application of living
+toads as is mentioned she would be well."  Now is it likely that this
+unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for this single
+sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languish
+under this terrible disorder?  Would he not have made use of this
+invaluable nostrum for his own emolument; or at least, by some means of
+publication or other, have found a method of making it public for the
+good of mankind?  In short, this woman (as it appears to me), having set
+up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with
+this dark and mysterious relation.
+
+The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance of any
+gills; for want of which it is continually rising to the surface of the
+water to take in fresh air.  I opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found
+it full of spawn.  Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the
+assertion that they are _larvae_, for the _larvae_ of insects are full of
+eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last state.  The
+water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel, within
+which we keep it in water, and wandering away; and people every summer
+see numbers crawling out of the pools where they are hatched up the dry
+banks.  There are varieties of them, differing in colour; and some have
+fins up their tail and back, and some have not.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIX.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _August 17th_, 1768
+
+Dear Sir,--I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of
+the willow-wrens (_motacillae trochili_) which constantly and invariably
+use distinct notes.  But at the same time I am obliged to confess that I
+know nothing of your willow-lark.  In my letter of April 18th, I had told
+you peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then;
+but when I came to procure it, it proved in all respects a very
+_motacilla trochilus_, only that it is a size larger than the two other,
+and the yellow-green of the whole upper part of the body is more vivid,
+and the belly of a clearer white.  I have specimens of the three sorts
+now lying before me, and can discern that there are three gradations of
+sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two
+flesh-coloured 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 cocks and two hens, and
+says, on recollection, that he remembers to have observed these birds
+again last spring, about Lady-day, as it were on their return to the
+north.  Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of
+England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe, and may retire
+before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those parts, and return to
+breed in the spring, when the cold abates.  If this be the case, here is
+discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations the
+writers are silent; but if these birds should prove the ousels of the
+north of England, then here is a migration disclosed within our own
+kingdom never before remarked.  It does not yet appear whether they
+retire beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is most
+probable that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that they would
+have continued so long unnoticed in the southern countries.  The ousel is
+larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there
+were no haws) it fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feeds on
+ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.
+
+I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the study of
+reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw up with a
+bucket of water from my well, which is sixty-three feet deep, a large
+black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly.  How they first came
+down at that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without
+help, is more than I am able to say.
+
+My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of
+a buck's head.  As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem
+much to corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. --- may find reason to
+give his decision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance this
+extraordinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God
+in the creation.
+
+As yet I have not quite done with my history of the _oedicnemus_, or
+stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near whose house
+these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely
+when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return again in
+the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and saw several single
+birds.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXI.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Nov. 28th_, 1768.
+
+Dear Sir,--With regard to the _oedicnemus_, or stone-curlew, I intend to
+write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose neighbourhood
+these birds seem most to abound, and shall urge him to take particular
+notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards to watch them most
+narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead of the
+winter.  When I have obtained information with respect to this
+circumstance, I shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew, which
+I hope will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near
+the truth.  This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and
+is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions of
+these birds; and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the
+Naturalist's Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall expect
+that he will be very exact in his dates.  It is very extraordinary, as
+you observe, that a bird so common with us should never struggle to you.
+
+And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think of it, an
+anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me when I was last at
+his house; which was that, in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws
+(_corvi moneduloe_) build every year in the rabbit-burrows under ground.
+The way he and his brothers used to take their nests, while they were
+boys, was by listening at the mouths of the holes, and, if they heard the
+young ones cry, they twisted the nest out with a forked stick.  Some
+water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner; but I
+should never have suspected the daws of building in holes on the flat
+ground.
+
+Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place to breed in,
+and that is Stonehenge.  These birds deposit their nests in the
+interstices between the upright and the impost stones of that amazing
+work of antiquity; which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height
+of the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to secure those
+nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys, who are always idling round
+that place.
+
+One of my neighbours last Saturday, November 26th, saw a martin in a
+sheltered bottom: the sun shone warm, and the bird was hawking briskly
+after flies.  I am now perfectly satisfied that they do not all leave
+this island in the winter.
+
+You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and caution
+concerning the cures done by toads; for, let people advance what they
+will on such subjects, yet there is such a propensity in mankind towards
+deceiving and being deceived, that one cannot safely relate anything from
+common report, especially in print, without expressing some degree of
+doubt and suspicion.
+
+Your approbation with regard to my new discovery of the migration of the
+ring-ousel gives me satisfaction; and I find you concur with me in
+suspecting that they are foreign birds which visit us.  You will be sure,
+I hope, not to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave your
+rocks in the autumn.  What puzzles me most is the very short stay they
+make with us, for in about three weeks they are all gone.  I shall be
+very curious to remark whether they will call on us at their return in
+the spring, as they did last year.
+
+I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology.  If fortune had
+settled me near the seaside, or near some great river, my natural
+propensity would soon have urged me to have made myself acquainted with
+their productions; but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in an
+upland district, my knowledge of fishes extends little farther than to
+those common sorts which our brooks and lakes produce.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXII.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Jan. 2nd_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the
+ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in
+reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this county.  And
+perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished
+with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom.  We have many
+livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship
+make little better appearance than dovecots.  When I first saw
+Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of
+Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which presented
+themselves in every point of view.  As an admirer of prospects, I have
+reason to lament this want in my own county; for such objects are very
+necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.
+
+What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my curiosity.  An
+ancient author, though no naturalist, has well remarked that "every kind
+of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and things in the sea, is
+tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind."
+
+It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually been
+procured for you in Devonshire, because it corroborates my discovery,
+which I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank near
+Farnham, in Surrey.  I am well acquainted with the South Hams of
+Devonshire, and can suppose that district, from its southerly situation,
+to be a proper habitation for such animals in their best colours.
+
+Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not forsake
+them against winter, our suspicions that those which visit this
+neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, but driven from the
+more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable;
+and it will be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence they
+come, and to inquire why they make so very short a stay.
+
+In your account of your error with regard to the two species of herons,
+you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your description of the
+heronry at Cressi Hall, which is a curiosity I never could manage to see.
+Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride
+half as many miles to have a sight of.  Pray be sure to tell me in your
+next whose seat Cressi Hall is, and near what town it lies.  I have often
+thought that those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently
+explored.  If half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength of
+water-spaniels, were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly
+find more species.
+
+There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that
+of the _caprimulgus_ (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious
+creature; but I have always found that though sometimes it may chatter as
+it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note
+sitting on a bough; and I have for many a half hour watched it as it sat
+with its under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer.  It
+perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an
+attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio "British
+Zoology."  This bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at
+the close of day--so exactly that I have known it strike up more than
+once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we
+can hear when the weather is still.  It appears to me past all doubt that
+its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of
+its windpipe formed for sound, just as cats purr.  You will credit me, I
+hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an
+hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these
+churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice and
+began to chatter, and continued his note for many minutes: and we were
+all struck with wonder to find that the organs of that little animal,
+when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration to the whole building!
+This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated four or five
+times; and I have observed that to happen when the cock has been pursuing
+the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a tree.
+
+It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have procured,
+should prove a new one, since five species have been found in a
+neighbouring kingdom.  The great sort that I mentioned is certainly a
+nondescript; I saw but one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of
+taking.
+
+Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining.  I am no angler
+myself; but inquiring of those that are, what they supposed that part of
+their tackle to be made of?--they replied, "Of the intestines of a
+silkworm."
+
+Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet I cannot say
+that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge; I may now and then perhaps
+be able to furnish you with a little information.
+
+The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as with you, and
+since we have had delicate weather.  Mr. Barker, who has measured the
+rain for more than thirty years, says, in a late letter, that more has
+fallen this year than in any he ever attended to; though from July, 1763,
+to January, 1764, more fell than in any seven months of this year.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Feb. 28th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--It is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our green
+lizards may be specifically the same; all that I know is, that, when some
+years ago many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke College
+garden, in the University of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed
+to enjoy themselves very well, but never bred.  Whether this circumstance
+will prove anything either way I shall not pretend to say.
+
+I return you thanks for your account of Cressi Hall; but recollect, not
+without regret, that in June, 1746, I was visiting for a week together at
+Spalding, without ever being told that such a curiosity was just at hand.
+Pray send me word in your next what sort of tree it is that contains such
+a quantity of herons' nests, and whether the heronry consists of a whole
+grove of wood, or only of a few trees.
+
+It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about the
+_caprimulgus_; all I contended for was to prove that it often chatters
+sitting as well as flying; and therefore the noise was voluntary, and
+from organic impulse, and not from the resistance of the air against the
+hollow of its mouth and throat.
+
+If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas Day.
+I was travelling, and out early in the morning; at first there was a vast
+fog, but, by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from home
+towards the coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day.  We were
+then on a large heath or common, and I could discern, as the mist began
+to break away, great numbers of swallows (_hirundines rusticae_)
+clustering on the stunted shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there
+all night.  As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they were all on
+the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on
+southward towards the sea; after this I did not see any more flocks, only
+now and then a straggler.
+
+I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow kind
+disappear some and some gradually, as they come, for the bulk of them
+seem to withdraw at once; only some stragglers stay behind a long while,
+and do never, there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this island.
+Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come forth in a warm day, as
+bats do continually of a warm evening, after they have disappeared for
+weeks.  For a very respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was
+walking with some friends under Merton Wall on a remarkably hot noon,
+either in the last week in December or the first week in January, he
+espied three or four swallows huddled together on the moulding of one of
+the windows of that college.  I have frequently remarked that swallows
+are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere; is it owing to the vast massy
+buildings of that place, to the many waters round it, or to what else?
+
+When I used to rise in the morning last autumn, and see the swallows and
+martins clustering on the chimneys and thatch of the neighbouring
+cottages, I could not help being touched with a secret delight, mixed
+with some degree of mortification; with delight, to observe with how much
+ardour and punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the strong impulse
+towards migration, or hiding, imprinted on their minds by their great
+Creator; and with some degree of mortification when I reflected that,
+after all our pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what
+regions they do migrate, and are still farther embarrassed to find that
+some do not actually migrate at all.
+
+These reflections made so strong an impression on my imagination, that
+they became productive of a composition that may perhaps amuse you for a
+quarter of an hour when next I have the honour of writing to you.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIV.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _May 29th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--The _scaraboeus fullo_ I know very well, having seen it in
+collections, but have never been able to discover one wild in its natural
+state.  Mr. Banks told me he thought it might be found on the sea-coast.
+
+On the 13th April I went to the sheep-down, where the _ring-ousels_ have
+been observed to make their appearance at spring and fall, in their way
+perhaps to the north or south, and was much pleased to see these birds
+about the usual spot.  We shot a cock and a hen; they were plump and in
+high condition.  The hen had but very small rudiments of eggs within her,
+which proves they are late breeders; whereas those species of the thrush
+kind that remain with us the whole year have fledged young before that
+time.  In their crops was nothing very distinguishable, but somewhat that
+seemed like blades of vegetables nearly digested.  In autumn they feed on
+haws and yew-berries, and in the spring on ivy-berries.  I dressed one of
+these birds, and found it juicy and well-flavoured.  It is remarkable
+that they make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, but rest near
+a fortnight at Michaelmas.  These birds, from the observations of three
+springs and two autumns, are most punctual in their return, and exhibit a
+new migration unnoticed by the writers, who supposed they never were to
+be seen in any southern countries.
+
+One of my neighbours lately brought me a new _salicaria_, which at first
+I suspected might have proved your willow-lark, but, on a nicer
+examination, it answered much better to the description of that species
+which you shot at Revesby, in Lincolnshire.  My bird I describe thus: "It
+is a size less than the grasshopper-lark; the head, back, and coverts of
+the wings, of a dusky brown, without those dark spots of the
+grasshopper-lark; over each eye is a milk-white stroke; the chin and
+throat are white; and the under parts of a yellowish white; the rump is
+tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed; the bill is dusky and
+sharp, and the legs are dusky; the hinder claw long and crooked."  The
+person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed sparrow that he took
+it for one; and that it sings all night: but this account merits farther
+inquiry.  For my part I suspect it is a second sort of _locustela_,
+hinted at by Dr. Derham in Ray's Letters: see p. 108.  He also procured
+me a grasshopper-lark.
+
+The question that you put with regard to those genera of animals that are
+peculiar to America, viz., how they came there, and whence? is too
+puzzling for me to answer, and yet so obvious as often to have struck me
+with wonder.  If one looks into the writers on that subject, little
+satisfaction is to be found.  Ingenious men will readily advance
+plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to
+maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as
+good as another's, since they are all founded on conjecture.  The late
+writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments of those that
+have gone before, as I remember, stock America from the western coast of
+Africa and the south of Europe, and then break down the Isthmus that
+bridged over the Atlantic.  But this is making use of a violent piece of
+machinery; it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god!
+"_Incredulus odi_."
+
+
+
+TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.
+THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK.
+
+
+    --equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
+    Ingenium.
+
+                                                            VIRG. _Georg_.
+
+When day declining sheds a milder gleam,
+What time the may-fly haunts the pool or stream;
+When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
+What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;
+Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
+And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale;
+To hear the clamorous curlew call his mate,
+Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
+To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain
+Belated, to support her infant train;
+To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
+Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing:
+Amusive birds!--say where your hid retreat
+When the frost rages and the tempests beat;
+Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
+When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head:
+Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
+The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide!
+
+While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day,
+To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,
+Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
+And all the fading landscape sinks in night;
+To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
+With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;
+To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
+To catch the distant falling of the flood;
+While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung
+Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;
+While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
+Unseen, the soft-enamour'd woodlark sings:
+These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ,
+Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:
+As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
+Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
+
+Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine;
+The tinkling sheep-bell or the breath of kine;
+The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
+Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
+
+The chilling night-dews fall--away, retire!
+For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!
+Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky,
+Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
+True to the signal, by love's meteor led,
+Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXV.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Aug. 30th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the _ousel
+migration_ pleases you.  You put a very shrewd question when you ask me
+how I know that their autumnal migration is southward?  Was not candour
+and openness the very life of natural history, I should pass over this
+query just as a sly commentator does over a crabbed passage in a classic;
+but common ingenuousness obliges me to confess, not without some degree
+of shame, that I only reasoned in that case from analogy.  For as all
+other autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our
+milder winters, and return to the northward again when the rigorous cold
+abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same, as well as
+their congeners the fieldfares; and especially as ring-ousels are known
+to haunt cold mountainous countries: but I have good reason to suspect,
+since, that they may come to us from the westward, because I hear from
+very good authority, that they breed on Dartmoor, and that they forsake
+that wild district about the time that our visitors appear, and do not
+return till late in the spring.
+
+I have taken a great deal of pains about your _salicaria_ and mine, with
+a white stroke over its eye and a tawny rump.  I have surveyed it alive
+and dead, and have procured several specimens, and am perfectly persuaded
+myself (and trust you will soon become convinced of the same) that it is
+no more nor less than the _passer arundinaceus minor_ of Ray.  This bird,
+by some means or other, seems to be entirely omitted in the British
+Zoology; and one reason probably was because it is so strangely classed
+in Ray, who ranges it among his _picis affines_.  It ought, no doubt, to
+have gone among his _aviculae cauda unicolore_, and among your
+slender-billed small birds of the same division.  Linnaeus might with
+great propriety have put it into his genus of _motacilla_; and _motacilla
+salicaria_ of his _fauna suecica_ seems to come the nearest to it.  It is
+no uncommon bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is
+covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors.  The country people in some
+places call it the sedge-bird.  It sings incessantly night and day during
+the breeding-time, imitating the note of a sparrow, a swallow, a skylark,
+and has a strange hurrying manner in its song.  My specimens correspond
+most minutely to the description of your _fen salicaria_ shot near
+Revesby.  Mr. Ray has given an excellent characteristic of it when he
+says, "_Rostrum et pedes in hac avicula multo majores sunt quam pro
+corporis ratione_."  See letter, May 29th, 1769.  (Preceding letter
+xxiv.)
+
+I have got you the egg of an _oedicnemus_, or stone-curlew, which was
+picked up in a fallow on the naked ground.  There were two, but the
+finder inadvertently crushed one with his foot before he saw them.
+
+When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had not forgot to
+mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking _se defendendo_.  I knew
+a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as
+any animal while in good humour and unalarmed, but as soon as a stranger,
+or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with
+such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable.  Thus the
+squnck, or stonck, of Ray's "Synop. Quadr." is an innocuous and sweet
+animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most
+pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can be more
+horrible.
+
+A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the _lanius minor
+cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba_, _Raii_; which is a bird that,
+at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of "British
+Zoology," I find you had not seen.  You have described it well from
+Edwards's drawing.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVI.
+
+
+                                           SELBORNE, _December 8th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your
+return from Scotland, where you spent some considerable time, and gave
+yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive
+kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the highlands.
+The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry, because men seldom allot
+themselves half the time they should do, but, fixing on a day for their
+return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey
+that required despatch than as philosophers investigating the works of
+nature.  You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a
+good fund of materials for a future edition of the "British Zoology;" and
+will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a
+part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined before.
+
+It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so
+congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in
+England; but that they should not think even the highlands cold and
+northerly, and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange
+and wonderful.  The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole
+year round, so that we have reason to conclude that those migrators that
+visit us for a short space every autumn do not come from thence.
+
+And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds
+were most punctual again in their migration this autumn, appearing, as
+before, about the 30th September; but their flocks were larger than
+common, and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time.  If
+they came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of their congeners
+do, and then left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so much
+struck with the occurrence, since it would be similar to that of the
+other winter birds of passage; but when I see them for a fortnight at
+Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I am
+seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these travellers come,
+and whither they go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or
+baiting place.
+
+Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very amusing;
+and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such
+perilous voyages over the northern ocean.  Some country people in the
+winter time have, every now and then, told me that they have seen two or
+three white larks on our downs, but, on considering the matter, I begin
+to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds we are talking of,
+which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward.
+
+It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the Scottish
+mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species,
+for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a
+great acquisition.
+
+The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a bird,
+that it would grace our _fauna_ much.  I never was informed before where
+wild geese are known to breed.
+
+You admit, I find, that I have proved your _fen salicaria_ to be the
+lesser reed-sparrow of Ray; and I think you may be secure that I am
+right, for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter, and had
+some fair specimens, but, as they were not well preserved, they are
+decayed already.  You will, no doubt, insert it in its proper place in
+your next edition.  Your additional plates will much improve your work.
+
+De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse; but still I am
+pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I
+have given in the article of the white hare.
+
+As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, far removed from
+any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously lain up in a
+hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves.  At one end of the
+burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was
+to have supported itself for the winter.  But the difficulty with me is
+how this _amphibius mus_ came to fix its winter station at such a
+distance from the water.  Was it determined in its choice of that place
+by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted there, or
+is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the
+neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?
+
+Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how
+fallacious it is with respect to natural history, yet, in the following
+instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may conduce towards
+the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with
+respect to the invariable early retreat of the _hirundo apus_, or swift,
+so many weeks before its congeners; and that not only with us, but also
+in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire about the beginning of
+August.
+
+The great large bat (which, by-the-bye, is at present a nondescript in
+England, and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires or
+migrates very early in the summer.  It also ranges very high for its
+food, feeding in a different region of the air, and that is the reason I
+never could procure one.  Now this is exactly the case with the swifts;
+for they take their food in a more exalted region than the other species,
+and are very seldom seen hawking for flies near the ground, or over the
+surface of the water.  From hence I would conclude that these
+_hirundines_ and the larger bats are supported by some sorts of
+high-flying gnats, scarabs, or _phaloenae_, that are of short
+continuance, and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by
+the defect of their food.
+
+By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to October 31st, since
+which I have not seen nor heard any.  Swallows were observed on to
+November 3rd.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Feb. 22nd_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--Hedgehogs abound in my gardens and fields.  The manner in
+which they eat the roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very
+curious; with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their
+lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards,
+leaving the tuft of leaves untouched.  In this respect they are
+serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but they deface the
+walks in some measure by digging little round holes.  It appears, by the
+dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable
+part of their food.  In June last I procured a litter of four or five
+young hedgehogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old: they, I
+find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they came to
+my hands.  No doubt their spines are soft and flexible at the time of
+their birth, or else the poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the
+critical moment of parturition, but it is plain they soon harden; for
+these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as
+would easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled with caution.
+Their spines are quite white at this age; and they have little hanging
+ears, which I do not remember to be discernible in the old ones.  They
+can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over their faces, but are
+not able to contract themselves into a ball, as they do, for the sake of
+defence, when full grown.  The reason, I suppose, is, because the curious
+muscle that enables the creature to roll itself up in a ball was not then
+arrived at its full tone and firmness.  Hedgehogs make a deep and warm
+_hybernaculum_ with leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for
+the winter: but I never could find that they stored in any winter
+provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do.
+
+I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the fieldfare (_turdus
+pilaris_) which I think is particular enough; this bird, though it sits
+on trees in the daytime, and procures the greatest part of its food from
+white-thorn hedges, yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be
+seen by the _fauna suecica_; yet always appears with us to roost on the
+ground.  They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to
+settle and nestle among the heath on our forest.  And besides, the
+larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the
+wheat stubbles; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings in the
+hedges, never entangle any of this species.  Why these birds, in the
+matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and from
+themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for
+which I am by no means able to account.
+
+I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the _moose-deer_; but in
+general foreign animals fall seldom in my way; my little intelligence is
+confined to the narrow sphere of my own observations at home.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXVIII.
+
+
+                                                  SELBORNE, _March_, 1770.
+
+On Michaelmas Day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of the female moose
+belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly
+disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after
+having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the morning
+before.  However, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded to
+examine this rare quadruped; I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under
+the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; but, though it
+had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the
+stench was hardly supportable.  The grand distinction between this deer,
+and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange
+length of its legs, on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the
+birds of the _gralloe_ order.  I measured it, as they do a horse, and
+found that, from the ground to the withers, it was just five feet four
+inches, which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few
+horses arrive at: but then, with this length of legs, its neck was
+remarkably short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with
+one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground,
+with the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the ears were vast and
+lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches long,
+and ass-like, and had such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw
+before, with huge nostrils.  This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a
+dainty dish in North America.  It is very reasonable to suppose that this
+creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by wading
+after water plants; towards which way of livelihood the length of legs
+and great lip must contribute much.  I have read somewhere that it
+delights in eating the _nymphoea_, or water-lily.  From the fore-feet to
+the belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches:
+the length of the legs before and behind consisted a great deal in the
+_tibia_, which was strangely long; but in my haste to get out of the
+stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly.  Its scut seemed to be
+about an inch long; the colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four
+inches long; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat and
+splayed.  The spring before it was only two years old, so that most
+probably it was not then come to its growth.  What a vast, tall beast
+must a full-grown stag be!  I have been told some arrive at ten feet and
+a half!  This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same
+species, which died the spring before.  In the same garden was a young
+stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there
+might have been a breed; but their inequality of height must have always
+been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind.  I should have been glad
+to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely, but the
+putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity.  This animal, the keeper
+told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former
+winter.  In the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had
+no front antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edge.  The
+noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.
+
+Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw,
+and whether you think still that the American moose and European elk are
+the same creature.
+
+                                      I am, with the greatest esteem, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXIX.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _May 12th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--Last month we had such a series of cold, turbulent weather,
+such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest,
+that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds was much
+interrupted.  Some did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till
+weeks after their usual time, as the blackcap and whitethroat; and some
+have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren.
+As to the fly-catcher, I have not seen it; it is indeed one of the
+latest, but should appear about this time: and yet, amidst all this
+meteorous strife and war of the elements, two swallows discovered
+themselves, as long ago as April 11th, in frost and snow; but they
+withdrew quickly, and were not visible again for many days.
+House-martins, which are always more backward than swallows, were not
+observed till May came in.
+
+Among the monogamous birds several are to be found, after pairing-time,
+single, and of each sex; but whether this state of celibacy is matter of
+choice or necessity, is not so easy discoverable.  When the
+house-sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one
+to be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and
+so for several times following.
+
+I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls which made
+great havoc among the young pigeons: one of the owls was shot as soon as
+possible, but the survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went
+on.  After some time the new pair were both destroyed, and the annoyance
+ceased.
+
+Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal for the increase
+of his game being greater than his humanity, after pairing-time he always
+shot the cock-bird of every couple of partridges upon his grounds;
+supposing that the rivalry of many males interrupted the breed: he used
+to say, that, though he had widowed the same hen several times, yet he
+found she was still provided with a fresh paramour, that did not take her
+away from her usual haunt.
+
+Again; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who has often told me
+that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of
+partridges, consisting of cock-birds alone; these he pleasantly used to
+call old bachelors.
+
+There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats that is very
+remarkable; I mean their violent fondness for fish, which appears to be
+their most favourite food: and yet nature in this instance seems to have
+planted in them an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to
+gratify; for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards water,
+and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to
+plunge into that element.
+
+Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is the otter, which by
+nature is so well formed for diving, that it makes great havoc among the
+inhabitants of the waters.  Not supposing that we had any of those beasts
+in our shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter, brought to
+me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank of our
+stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne
+from Harteley Wood.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXX.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Aug. 1st_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their
+natural history.  What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds good
+in every other branch: "_Verbositas praesentis saeculi_, _calamitas
+artis_."
+
+Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work?  As I admire his
+"Entomologia," I long to see it.
+
+I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert in the
+former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to
+island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pursuit of the
+females.  My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was
+on that errand in the river St. Lawrence: it was a monstrous beast, he
+told me; but he did not take the dimensions.
+
+When I was last in town, our friend Mr. Barrington most obligingly
+carried me to see many curious sights.  As you were then writing to him
+about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful specimens.
+There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke's at Wilton, a horn room furnished
+with more than thirty different pairs; but I have not seen that house
+lately.
+
+Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed and
+living birds from all quarters of the world.  After I had studied over
+the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that came
+from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, etc.,
+were thick-billed birds of the _loxia_ and _fringilla_ genera; and no
+_motacillae_, or _muscicapae_, were to be met with.  When I came to
+consider, the reason was obvious enough, for the hard-billed birds
+subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board, while the soft-billed
+birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a
+_succedaneum_ for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and
+tedious voyages.  It is from this defect of food that our collections
+(curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the
+most delicate and lively genera.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXI.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _Sept. 14th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native
+crags, and are farther assured that they continue resident in those cold
+regions the whole year.  From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so
+regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in
+their return, every April?  They are more early this year than common,
+for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this month.
+
+An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some parts
+of Dartmoor, and breed there, but leave those haunts about the end of
+September, or beginning of October, and return again about the end of
+March.
+
+Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great abundance
+all over the peak of Derby, and are called there tor-ousels, withdraw in
+October and November, and return in spring.  This information seems to
+throw some light on my new migration.
+
+Scopoli's new work (which I have just procured) has its merit in
+ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola.  Monographers,
+come from whence they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some
+regard and approbation from the lovers of natural history; for, as no man
+can alone investigate the works of nature, these partial writers may,
+each in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and
+freer from errors, than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave
+the way to an universal correct natural history.  Not that Scopoli is so
+circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as
+I could wish: he advances some false facts; as when he says of the
+_hirundo urbica_ that "_pullos extra nidum non nutrit_."  This assertion
+I know to be wrong from repeated observation this summer; for
+house-martins do feed their young flying, though it must be acknowledged
+not so commonly as the house-swallow; and the feat is done in so quick a
+manner as not to be perceptible to indifferent observers.  He also
+advances some (I was going to say) improbable facts; as when he says of
+the woodcock that "_pullos rostro portat fugiens ab hoste_."  But candour
+forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false, because I have never
+been witness to such a fact.  I have only to remark that the long
+unwieldy bill of the woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among
+the winged creation for such a feat of natural affection.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXII.
+
+
+                                           SELBORNE, _October 29th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I
+begin to suspect that I discern my brother's _hirundo hyberna_ in
+Scopoli's new discovered _hirundo rupestris_, p. 167.  His description of
+"_Supra murina_, _subtus albida_; _rectrices macula ovali alba in latere
+interno_; _pedes nudi_, _nigri_; _rostrum nigrum_; _remiges obscuriores
+quam plumae dorsales_; _rectrices remigibus concolores_; _cauda
+emarginata_, _nec forcipata_," agrees very well with the bird in
+question: but when he comes to advance that it is "_statura hirundinis
+urbicae_," and that "_definitio hirundinis ripariae Linnaei huic quoque
+conveniit_," he in some measure invalidates all he has said; at least, he
+shows at once that he compares them to these species merely from memory:
+for I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in
+every circumstance of shape, size, and colour.  However, as you will have
+a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in the matter.
+
+Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or not, he will have
+the credit of first discovering that they spend their winters under the
+warm and sheltry shores of Gibraltar and Barbary.
+
+Scopoli's characters of his ordines and genera are clear, just, and
+expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnaeus.  These few remarks are
+the result of my first perusal of Scopoli's "Annus Primus."
+
+The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to the other by
+memory; for want of caution in this particular Scopoli falls into errors;
+he is not so full with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as
+might be wished, as you justly observe; his Latin is easy, elegant, and
+expressive, and very superior to Kramer's.
+
+I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds so well
+with yours.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Nov. 26th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--I was much pleased to see, among the collection of birds from
+Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer birds of passage,
+concerning whose departure we have made so much inquiry.  Now if these
+birds are found in Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may
+easily be supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the
+continent, and spend their winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe.
+This is certain, that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar
+appear there only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs
+towards the northward for the sake of breeding during the summer months,
+and retiring in parties and broods towards the south at the decline of
+the year; so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous and place
+of observation, from whence they take their departure each way towards
+Europe or Africa.  It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find
+that our small short-winged summer birds of passage are to be seen spring
+and autumn on the very skirts of Europe; it is presumptive proof of their
+emigrations.
+
+Scopoli seems to me to have found the _hirundo melba_, the great
+Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it.  For what is his _hirundo
+alpina_ but the afore-mentioned bird in other words?  Says he, "_Omnia
+prioris_" (meaning the swift); "_sed pectus album_; _paulo major
+priore_."  I do not suppose this to be a new species.  It is true also of
+the _melba_, that "_nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus_."  _Vid. Annum
+Primum_.
+
+My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no naturalist,
+to whom I applied on account of the stone-curlew, _oedicnemus_, sends me
+the following account: "In looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the
+month of April, I find the stone-curlews are first mentioned on the
+seventeenth and eighteenth, which date seems to me rather late.  They
+live with us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning of autumn
+prepare to take leave by getting together in flocks.  They seem to me a
+bird of passage that may travel into some dry, hilly country south of us,
+probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep-walks in that country;
+for they spend their summers with us in such districts.  This conjecture
+I hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in England
+in the winter.  I believe they are not fond of going near the water, but
+feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks and downs.  They
+breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with grey mossy flints, which
+much resemble their young in colour, among which they skulk and conceal
+themselves.  They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground,
+producing in common but two at a time.  There is reason to think their
+young run soon after they are hatched, and that the old ones do not feed
+them, but only lead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the
+most part, is in the night."  Thus far, my friend.
+
+In the manners of this bird you see there is something very analogous to
+the bustard whom it also somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in
+the structure of its feet.
+
+For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these birds in
+Andalusia, and now he writes me word that, for the first time, he saw one
+dead in the market on the 3rd September.
+
+When the _oedicnemus_ flies it stretches out its legs straight behind,
+like a heron.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 30th_, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--There is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts,
+which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer,
+getting into people's skins, especially those of women and children, and
+raising tumours which itch intolerably.  This animal (which we call a
+harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye, of a
+bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of Acarus.  They are to be met
+with in gardens on kidney-beans, or any legumens, but prevail only in the
+hot months of summer.  Warreners, as some have assured me, are much
+infested by them on chalky downs, where these insects swarm sometimes to
+so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and to give them a
+reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into fevers.
+
+There is a small, long, shining fly in these parts very troublesome to
+the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the
+bacon while it is drying; these eggs produce maggots called jumpers,
+which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to
+the bone, and make great waste.  This fly I suspect to be a variety of
+the _musca putris_ of Linnaeus; it is to be seen in the summer in
+farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and about the mantel-pieces, and on the
+ceilings.
+
+The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden (destroying
+often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an animal that
+wants to be better known.  The country people here call it the turnip-fly
+and black-dolphin; but I know it to be one of the _coleoptera_; the
+"_chrysomela oleracea_, _saltatoria_, _femoribus posticis crassissimis_."
+In very hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and, as you walk in
+a field or in a garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping on the
+leaves of the turnips or cabbages.
+
+There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy, which,
+because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by late writers;
+and that is the _curvicauda_ of old Mouset, mentioned by Derham in his
+"Physico-Theology," p. 250; an insect worthy of remark for depositing its
+eggs as it flies in so dextrous manner on the single hairs of the legs
+and flanks of grass-horses.  But then Derham is mistaken when he advances
+that this oestrus is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot
+which he mentions afterwards; for more modern entomologists have
+discovered that singular production to be derived from the egg, or the
+_musca chamaeleon_; see Geoffroy, t. xvii.  f. 4.
+
+A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, and
+house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying them,
+would be allowed by the public to be a most useful and important work.
+What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be
+collected; great improvements would soon follow, of course.  A knowledge
+of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in short, of the life and
+conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some
+method of preventing their depredations.
+
+As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology more than some
+neat plates that should well express the generic distinctions of insects
+according to Linnaeus; for I am well assured that many people would study
+insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those
+distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXV.
+
+
+                                                           SELBORNE, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could
+not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by
+no means to be their tails, those long feathers growing not from their
+_uropygium_, but all up their backs.  A range of short brown stiff
+feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the _uropygium_, is the real
+tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and
+top-heavy, when set on end.  When the train is up, nothing appears of the
+bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the case were
+those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey
+cock when in a strutting attitude.  By a strong muscular vibration these
+birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords
+of a sword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run
+backwards towards the females.
+
+I should tell you that I have got an uncommon _calculus aegogropila_,
+taken out of the stomach of a fat ox; it is perfectly round, and about
+the size of a large Seville orange; such are, I think, usually flat.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVI.
+
+
+                                                            _Sept._, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--The summer through I have seen but two of that large species
+of bat which I call _vespertilio altivolans_, from its manner of feeding
+high in the air; I procured one of them, and found it to be a male, and
+made no doubt, as they accompanied together, that the other was a female;
+but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was
+somewhat disappointed, when it appeared to be also of the same sex.  This
+circumstance, and the great scarcity of this sort, at least in these
+parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a
+species, or whether it may not be the male part of the more known
+species, one of which may supply many females, as is known to be the case
+in sheep and some other quadrupeds.  But this doubt can only be cleared
+by a farther examination, and some attention to the sex, of more
+specimens: all that I know at present is, that my two were amply
+furnished with the parts of generation, much resembling those of a boar.
+
+In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen inches and a half,
+and four inches and a half from the nose to the tip of the tail; their
+heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and
+muscular, and their whole bodies fleshy and plump.  Nothing could be more
+sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut colour;
+their maws were full of food, but so macerated that the quality could not
+be distinguished; their livers, kidneys, and hearts were large, and their
+bowels covered with fat.  They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce
+and one drachm.  Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar
+structure that I did not understand perfectly! but refer it to the
+observation of the curious anatomist.  These creatures sent forth a very
+rancid and offensive smell.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVII.
+
+
+                                                           SELBORNE, 1771.
+
+Dear Sir,--On the 12th July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the
+motions of the _caprimulgus_, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a
+large oak that swarmed with _scarabaei solstitiales_, or fern-chafers.
+The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the
+various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus.  But the
+circumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it distinctly, more
+than once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and, by a bend of the
+head, deliver somewhat into its mouth.  If it takes any part of its prey
+with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose it does these
+chafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is
+curiously furnished with a serrated claw.
+
+Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have forsaken us sooner
+this year than usual; for on September 22nd they rendezvoused in a
+neighbour's walnut-tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up their
+lodging for the night.  At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they
+arose all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing from
+the strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to a
+considerable distance: since that no flock has appeared, only a few
+stragglers.
+
+Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd August--a rare instance! for they
+usually withdraw within the first week.
+
+On September 24th three or four ring-ousels appeared in my fields for the
+first time this season; how punctual are these visitors in their autumnal
+and spring migrations!
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXVIII.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 15th_, 1773.
+
+Dear Sir,--By my journal for last autumn it appears that the
+house-martins bred very late, and stayed very late in these parts; for,
+on the 1st October, I saw young martins in their nest nearly fledged; and
+again, on the 21st October, we had at the next house a nest full of young
+martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were hawking for insects with
+great alertness.  The next morning the brood forsook their nest, and were
+flying round the village.  From this day I never saw one of the swallow
+kind till November 3rd, when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins
+were playing all day long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my
+field.  Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestling twelve
+days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the
+other side of the northern tropic?  Or rather, is it not more probable
+that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps
+sandbank, lake, or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say), may
+become their _hybernaculum_, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat?
+
+We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every week.
+Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were seen at
+Christmas, 1770, in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge of this
+county.  Hence we may conclude that their migrations are only internal,
+and not extending to the continent southward, if they do at first come at
+all from the northern parts of this island only, and not from the north
+of Europe.  Come from whence they will, it is plain, from the fearless
+disregard that they show for men or guns, that they have been little
+accustomed to places of much resort.  Navigators mention that in the Isle
+of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are so little
+acquainted with the human form that they settle on men's shoulders, and
+have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was
+grazing.  A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven
+years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he
+killed sixteen himself in one afternoon; he added further, that some had
+appeared since in every autumn, but he could not find that any had been
+observed before the season in which he shot so many.  I myself have found
+these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex
+downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes,
+particularly in the autumn of 1770.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XXXIX.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Nov. 9th_, 1773.
+
+Dear Sir,--As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I
+take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, according
+as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in
+your intended new edition of the "British Zoology."
+
+The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, a great lake, at
+about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a
+plough and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the
+water, and so take its prey by surprise.
+
+A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted Park,
+and a red-backed butcher-bird [shrike] at Selborne: they are _rarae aves_
+in this county.
+
+Crows go in pairs all the year round.
+
+Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head, and on all the cliffs
+of the Sussex coast.
+
+The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south
+of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually
+the latest winter-bird of passage.  Before our beechen woods were so much
+destroyed we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together
+as they went out in a morning to feed.  They leave us early in spring:
+where do they breed?
+
+The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock,
+because it sings early in the spring in blowing, showery weather; its
+song often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards.
+
+A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels on Dartmoor:
+they build in banks on the sides of streams.
+
+Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they
+play and toy about on the wing, and particularly while they are
+descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground.
+
+Adanson's testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that European
+swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal: he does not talk at all
+like an ornithologist; and probably saw only the swallows of that
+country, which I know build within Governor O'Hara's hall against the
+roof.  Had he known European swallows, would he not have mentioned the
+species?
+
+The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies: this
+species appears commonly about a week before the house-martin, and about
+ten or twelve days before the swift.
+
+In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till October 23rd.
+
+The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house-swallow:
+viz., about the 24th or 26th April.
+
+Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole year.
+
+Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.
+
+Wag-tails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter.  Bullfinches, when
+fed on hempseed, often become wholly black.
+
+We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the winter, with hardly any
+males among them.
+
+When you say that in breeding-time the cock snipes make a bleating noise,
+and I a drumming (perhaps I should rather have said a humming), I suspect
+we mean the same thing.  However, while they are playing about on the
+wing they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths: but whether
+that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of
+their wings, I cannot say; but this I know, that when this noise happens,
+the bird is always descending, and his wings are violently agitated.
+
+Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congregate, and, leaving
+the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks.
+
+Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive and unhurt, but
+fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few miles from Alresford,
+where there is a great lake: it was kept awhile, but died.
+
+I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer Forest in the
+beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild ducks.
+
+Speaking of the swift, that page says "its drink the dew;" whereas it
+should be "it drinks on the wing;" for all the swallow kind sip their
+water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers: like Virgil's bees,
+they drink flying; "_flumina summa libant_."  In this method of drinking
+perhaps this genus may be peculiar.
+
+Of the sedge-bird, be pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its
+notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds;
+as the sparrow, swallow, skylark.  When it happens to be silent in the
+night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you
+immediately set it a-singing; or, in other words, though it slumbers
+sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it reassumes its song.
+
+
+
+LETTER XL.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Sept. 2nd_, 1774.
+
+Dear Sir,--Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been
+remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and
+this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of
+confounding the dams with their _pulli_: and besides, as they were then
+always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be
+no room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different
+chimneys the one for the other.  From all my observations, it constantly
+appeared that each sex has the long feathers in its tail that give it
+that forked shape; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail
+of the male than in that of the female.
+
+Nightingales, when their young first come abroad and are helpless, make a
+plaintive and a jarring noise, and also a snapping or cracking, pursuing
+people along the hedges as they walk; these last sounds seem intended for
+menace and defiance.
+
+The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.
+
+Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.
+
+Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in
+mole-traps.
+
+Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the kestril in
+churches and ruins.
+
+There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely.  The
+threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the
+generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.
+
+Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.
+
+When redstarts shake their tails they move them horizontally, as dogs do
+when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, bobs up and down
+like that of a jaded horse.
+
+Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in breeding-time;
+as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping, plaintive noise.
+
+Many birds, which become silent about Midsummer, reassume their notes
+again in September, as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren,
+etc.; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer,
+and autumn through.  Are birds induced to sing again because the
+temperament of autumn resembles that of spring?
+
+Linnaeus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics, grasses
+the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles; no doubt
+animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety.
+
+House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather becomes
+hotter, they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and
+apple-trees.  These birds have been known sometimes to build in rooks'
+nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks' nests.
+
+As my neighbour was housing a rick, he observed that his dogs devoured
+all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the common
+mice; and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing the red.
+
+Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn.  The reason
+that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first
+seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the
+latter their song becomes distinguishable.  Many songsters of the autumn
+seem to be the young cock redbreasts of that year: nothwithstanding the
+prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the
+summer fruits.
+
+The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint notes,
+like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse; the great titmouse
+sings with three cheerful, joyous notes, and begins about the same time.
+
+Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.  House-martins came
+remarkably late this year both in Hampshire and Devonshire.  Is this
+circumstance for or against either hiding or migration?
+
+Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long continued
+draught, like quadrupeds.  Notwithstanding what I have said in a former
+letter, no grey crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor; it was my
+mistake.
+
+The appearance and flying of the _Scaraboeus solstitialis_, or
+fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of
+it.  These scarabs are the constant food of _Caprimulgi_, or fern-owls,
+through that period.  They abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy
+districts, but not in the clays.
+
+In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the town of Reading, is a stream
+or canal running under the stables and out into the fields on the other
+side of the road.  In this water are many carps, which lie rolling about
+in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing them
+bread; but as soon as the weather grows at all severe these fishes are no
+longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where they remain
+till the return of spring.  Do they lie in a torpid state?  If they do
+not, how are they supported?
+
+The note of the whitethroat, which is continually repeated, and often
+attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing.
+These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition, for they sing with an
+erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild in
+breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and
+commons; nay, even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there are
+bushes and covert, but in July and August they bring their broods into
+gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among the summer fruits.
+
+The blackcap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe; yet
+that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory; but
+when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth
+very sweet but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and
+gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the
+nightingale excepted.
+
+Blackcaps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble their
+throats are wonderfully distended.
+
+The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat like that of the
+whitethroat; some birds have a few more notes than others.  Sitting very
+placidly on the top of a tall tree in a village, the cock sings from
+morning to night.  He affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and
+loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the
+vane of a tall maypole.
+
+The fly-catcher is, of all our summer birds, the most mute and the most
+familiar; it also appears the last of any.  It builds in a vine, or a
+sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, or in the hole of a wall, or on
+the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where
+people are going in and out all day long.  This bird does not make the
+least pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note when it
+thinks its young in danger from cats or other annoyances; it breeds but
+once, and retires early.
+
+Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than half the
+birds that are ever seen in all Sweden; the former has produced more than
+one hundred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred and
+twenty-one.  Let me add, also, that it has shown near half the species
+that were ever known in Great Britain.
+
+On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a quaint
+and magisterial air, and is very sententious; but when I recollect that
+you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you will pardon the didactic
+manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLI.
+
+
+It is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of
+soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter through subsist during
+the dead months.  The imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason
+why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wryneck (so much
+resembling the hardy race of woodpeckers) migrates, while the feeble
+little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest
+frosts without availing himself of houses or villages, to which most of
+our winter birds crowd in distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in
+fields and woods; but perhaps this may be the reason why they may often
+perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird we know.
+
+I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which winter
+with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state.  All the
+species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams near their
+spring-heads, where they never freeze, and, by wading, pick out the
+aurelias of the genus of _Phryganeae_, etc.
+
+Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they
+pick up crumbs and other sweepings, and in mild weather they procure
+worms, which are stirring every month in the year, as any one may see
+that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on
+any mild winter's night.  Redbreasts and wrens in the winter haunt
+outhouses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders and flies that
+have laid themselves up during the cold season.  But the grand support of
+the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of aurelia of
+the _Lepidoptera ordo_, which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their
+trunks, to the pales and walls of gardens and buildings, and is found in
+every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in the ground itself.
+
+Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have what I call a kind
+of intermediate bill between the hard and the soft, between the Linnaean
+genera of _Fringilla_ and _Motacilla_.  One species alone spends its
+whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating for succour in the
+severest seasons to houses and neighbourhoods; and that is the delicate
+long-tailed titmouse, which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned
+wren; but the blue titmouse or nun (_Parus caeruleus_), the cole-mouse
+(_Parus ater_), the great black-headed titmouse (_Fringillago_), and the
+marsh titmouse (_Parus palustris_), all resort at times to buildings, and
+in hard weather particularly.  The great titmouse, driven by stress of
+weather, much frequents houses; and, in deep snows, I have seen this
+bird, while it hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight and
+admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched
+houses, in order to pull out the flies that were concealed between them,
+and that in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it
+a ragged appearance.
+
+The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a general
+devourer.  Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh, for it frequently
+picks bones on dunghills: it is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts
+butchers' shops.  When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught
+with snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or suet.  It will also pick
+holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained with the
+seeds on the head of a sunflower.  The blue, marsh, and great titmice
+will, in very severe weather, carry away barley and oat-straws from the
+sides of ricks.
+
+How the wheatear and whinchat support themselves in winter cannot be so
+easily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and
+warrens; the former especially, where there are stone quarries: most
+probably it is that their maintenance arises from the aureliae of the
+_Lepidoptera ordo_, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the
+wilderness.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLII.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _March 9th_, 1775.
+
+Dear Sir,--Some future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend
+his visits to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field and a country little
+known to the naturalist.  He will not, it is to be wished, undertake that
+tour unaccompanied by a botanist, because the mountains have scarcely
+been sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so mild an
+island may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the
+British dominions.  A person of a thinking turn of mind will draw many
+just remarks from the modern improvements of that country, both in arts
+and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of
+with us.  The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions, their
+prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many useful
+reflections.  He should also take with him an able draughtsman, for he
+must by no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the extensive and
+picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and the lofty stupendous mountains, so
+little known, and so engaging to the imagination when described and
+exhibited in a lively manner; such a work would be well received.
+
+As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I cannot pretend to say how
+accurate or particular any such may be; but this I know, that the best
+old maps of that kingdom are very defective.
+
+The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of Scotland
+that have fallen in my way is a want of a coloured line, or stroke, that
+shall exactly define the just limits of that district called the
+Highlands.  Moreover, all the great avenues to that mountainous and
+romantic country want to be well distinguished.  The military roads
+formed by General Wade are so great and Roman-like an undertaking that
+they well merit attention.  My old map, Moll's Map, takes notice of Fort
+William, but could not mention the other forts that have been erected
+long since; therefore a good representation of the chain of forts should
+not be omitted.
+
+The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed over.  Moll
+takes notice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such capital houses; but a
+new survey, no doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable
+for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, etc.  Lord
+Breadalbane's seat and beautiful _policy_ are too curious and
+extraordinary to be omitted.
+
+The seat of the Earl of Eglingtoun, near Glasgow, is worthy of notice.
+The pine plantations of that nobleman are very grand and extensive
+indeed.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIII.
+
+
+A pair of honey-buzzards, _Buteo opivorus_, _sive Vespivorus Raii_, built
+them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead beechen
+leaves, upon a tall, slender beech near the middle of Selborne Hanger, in
+the summer of 1780.  In the middle of the month of June a bold boy
+climbed this tree though standing on so steep and dizzy a situation, and
+brought down an egg, the only one in the nest, which had been sat on for
+some time, and contained the embryo of a young bird.  The egg was
+smaller, and not so round as those of the common buzzard; was dotted at
+each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with a broad
+bloody zone.  The hen bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. Ray's
+description of that species; had a black cere, short thick legs, and a
+long tail.  When on the wing this species may be easily distinguished
+from the common buzzard by its hawk-like appearance, small head, wings
+not so blunt, and longer tail.  This specimen contained in its craw some
+limbs of frogs and many grey snails without shells.  The irides of the
+eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright yellow colour.
+
+About the 10th July in the same summer a pair of sparrow-hawks bred in an
+old crow's nest on a low beech in the same hanger; and as their brood,
+which was numerous, began to grow up, became so daring and ravenous, that
+they were a terror to all the dames in the village that had chickens or
+ducklings under their care.  A boy climbed the tree, and found the young
+so fledged that they all escaped from him, but discovered that a good
+house had been kept: the larder was well-stored with provisions, for he
+brought down a young blackbird, jay, and house-martin, all clean picked,
+and some half devoured.  The old birds had been observed to make sad
+havoc for some days among the new-flown swallows and martins, which,
+being but lately out of their nests, had not acquired those powers and
+command of wing that enable them, when more mature, to set such enemies
+at defiance.
+
+
+
+LETTER XLIV.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Nov. 30th_, 1780.
+
+Dear Sir,--Every incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence
+will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.
+
+As to the wild wood-pigeon, the _OEnas_, or _Vinago_, of Ray, I am much
+of your mind, and see no reason for making it the origin of the common
+house-dove: but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have
+been misled by another appellation, often given to the _OEnas_, which is
+that of stock-dove.
+
+Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from itself
+in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated, and to make
+a house-dove.  We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor
+does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays with
+us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the
+ring-dove, _Palumbus torquatus_; frequents coppices and groves, supports
+itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches.
+Could it be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be
+settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on trees,
+like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do.
+
+You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex, and are
+informed that they sometimes breed in that county.  But why did not your
+correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks,
+cliffs, or trees?  If he was not an adroit ornithologist I should doubt
+the fact, because people with us perpetually confound the stock-dove with
+the ring-dove.
+
+For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves
+are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons.  In the
+first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common
+house-dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which generally
+enlarges the breed.  Again, those two remarkable black spots on the
+remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, which are so characteristic of
+the species, would not, one should think, be totally lost by its being
+reclaimed, but would often break out among its descendants.  But what is
+worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir Roger Mostyn's
+house-doves in Caernarvonshire; which, though tempted by plenty of food
+and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on to inhabit their cote for
+any time; but as soon as they begin to breed, betake themselves to the
+fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in safety amidst the
+inaccessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory.
+
+    "Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret."
+
+I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who tells
+me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods were much more
+extensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing;
+that he has often killed near twenty in a day, and that with a long
+wild-fowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they
+came wheeling over his head: he moreover adds, which I was not aware of,
+that often there were among them little parties of small blue doves,
+which he calls rockiers.  The food of these numberless emigrants was
+beech-mast and some acorns, and particularly barley, which they collected
+in the stubbles.  But of late years, since the vast increase of turnips,
+that vegetable has furnished a great part of their support in hard
+weather; and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop.
+From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which occasions
+them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who thought them before a
+delicate dish.  They were shot not only as they were feeding in the
+fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also at the close of the
+evening, by men who lay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill them
+as they came in to roost.  These are the principal circumstances relating
+to this wonderful internal migration, which with us takes place towards
+the end of November, and ceases early in the spring.  Last winter we had
+in Selborne high wood about a hundred of these doves; but in former times
+the flocks were so vast, not only with us but all the district round,
+that on mornings and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in
+strings, reaching for a mile together.  When they thus rendezvoused here
+by thousands, if they happened to be suddenly roused from their
+roost-trees on an evening,
+
+    "Their rising all at once was like the sound
+    Of thunder heard remote."--
+
+It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, that I had
+a relation in this neighbourhood who made it a practice, for a time,
+whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to place them under a
+pair of doves that were sitting in his own pigeon-house; hoping thereby,
+if he could bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his
+own doves to beat out into the woods, and to support themselves by mast;
+the plan was plausible, but something always interrupted the success; for
+though the birds were usually hatched, and sometimes grew to half their
+size, yet none ever arrived at maturity.  I myself have seen these
+foundlings in their nest displaying a strange ferocity of nature, so as
+scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping with their bills by way of
+menace.  In short, they always died, perhaps for want of proper
+sustenance: but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild demeanour
+they frighted their foster mothers, and so were starved.
+
+Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes a dove
+haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, that I cannot
+refrain from quoting the passage: and John Dryden has rendered it so
+happily in our language, that without further excuse I shall add his
+translation also.
+
+     "Qualis spelunca subito commota Columba,
+    Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,
+    Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis,
+    Dat tecto ingentem--mox aere lapsa quieto,
+    Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas."
+
+     "As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes,
+    Rous'd, in a fright her sounding wings she shakes;
+    The cavern rings with clattering:--out she flies,
+    And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies:
+    At first she flutters:--but at length she springs
+    To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings."
+
+                                                               I am,  etc.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _June 30th_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--When I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would
+sometimes do myself the honour to write to you on the subject of natural
+history; and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you
+are a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make allowances,
+especially where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one
+that takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the
+writings of others.
+
+THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE WHICH I HAVE
+DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH
+THEY APPEAR:--
+
+                               RAII NOMINA.          USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT
+1.       Wryneck.              _Jynx_, _sive         The middle of March:
+                               Torquilla_.           harsh note.
+2.       Smallest              _Regulus non          March 23rd: chirps till
+         willow-wren.          cristatus_.           September.
+3.       Swallow.              _Hirundo              April 13th.
+                               domestica_.
+4.       Martin.               _Hirundo rustica_.    Ditto.
+5.       Sand-martin.          _Hirundo riparia_.    Ditto.
+6.       Blackcap.             _Atricapilla_.        Ditto: a sweet, wild
+                                                     note.
+7.       Nightingale.          _Luscinia_.           Beginning of April.
+8.       Cuckoo.               _Cuculus_.            Middle of April.
+9.       Middle willow-wren.   _Regulus non          Ditto: a sweet,
+                               cristatus_.           plaintive note.
+10.      Whitethroat.          _Ficedulae affinis_   Ditto: mean note; sings
+                                                     on till September.
+11.      Redstart.             _Ruticilla_.          Ditto: more agreeable
+                                                     song.
+12.      Stone-curlew.         _OEdicnemus_          End of March: loud
+                                                     nocturnal whistle.
+13.      Turtle-dove.          _Turtur_.
+14.      Grasshopper-lark.     _Alauda minima        Middle April: a small
+                               locustae voce_        sibilous note, till the
+                                                     end of July.
+15.      Swift.                _Hirundo apus_.       About April 27th.
+16.      Less reed-sparrow.    _Passer               A sweet polyglot, but
+                               arundinaceus          hurrying; it has the
+                               minor_.               notes of many birds.
+17.      Land-rail.            _Ortygometra_.        A loud, harsh
+                                                     note--crex, crex.
+18.      Largest willow        _Regulus non          _Cantat voce stridula
+         wren.                 cristatus_.           locustae_; end of April,
+                                                     on the tops of high
+                                                     beeches.
+19.      Goat-sucker, or       _Caprimulgus_.        Beginning of May:
+         fern-owl.                                   chatters by night with a
+                                                     singular noise.
+20.      Fly-catcher.          _Stoparola_.          May 12th: a very mute
+                                                     bird: this is the latest
+                                                     summer bird of passage.
+
+This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten several
+genera of the Linnaean system, and are all of the _ordo_ of _passeres_
+save the _Jynx_ and _Cuculus_, which are _picae_, and the _Charadrius_
+(_OEdicnemus_) and _Rallus_ (_Ortygometra_), which are _grallae_.
+
+These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnaean
+genera:--
+
+1,                       _Jynx_.          13.              _Columba_.
+2,6,7,9,10,11,16,18,     _Motacilla_.     17.              _Rallus_.
+3,4,5,15,                _Hirundo_.       19.              _Caprimulgus_.
+8,                       _Cuculus_.       14.              _Alauda_.
+12,                      _Charadrius_.    20.              _Muscicapa_.
+
+Most soft-billed birds live on insects, and not on grain and seeds, and
+therefore at the end of summer they retire: but the following soft-billed
+birds, though insect-eaters, stay with us the year round:--
+
+                        RAII NOMINA.
+Redbreast, Wren,        _Rubecula. Passer       These frequent houses,
+                        troglodytes_.           and haunt out-buildings
+                                                in the winter: eat
+                                                spiders.
+Hedge-sparrow,          _Curruca_.              Haunt sinks for crumbs
+                                                and other sweepings.
+White-wagtail,
+Yellow-wagtail,
+Grey-wagtail,           _Motacilla alba_.       These frequent shallow
+                        _Motacilla flava_.      rivulets near the spring
+                        _Motacilla cinerea_.    heads, where they never
+                                                freeze: eat the aureliae
+                                                of _Phryganea_.  The
+                                                smallest birds that walk.
+Wheatear,               _OEnanthe_.             Some of these are to be
+                                                seen with us the winter
+                                                through.
+Whinchat,
+Stone-chatter,          _OEnanthe secunda_.
+                        _OEnanthe tertia_.
+Golden-crowned wren,    _Regulus cristatus_.    This is the smallest
+                                                British bird: haunts the
+                                                tops of tall trees; stays
+                                                the winter through.
+
+A LIST OF THE WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE ROUND THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED
+SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR.
+
+                            RAII NOMINA.
+1.    Ring-ousel,           _Merula torquata_.    This is a new migration,
+                                                  which I have lately
+                                                  discovered about
+                                                  Michaelmas week, and
+                                                  again about the 14th
+                                                  March.
+2.    Redwing,              _Turdus iliacus_.     About old Michaelmas.
+3.    Fieldfare,            _Turdus pilaris_.     Though a percher by day,
+                                                  roosts on the ground.
+4.    Royston-crow,         _Cornix cinerea_.     Most frequent on downs.
+5.    Woodcock,             _Scolopax_.           Appears about old
+                                                  Michaelmas.
+6.    Snipe,                _Gallinago minor_.    Some snipes constantly
+                                                  breed with us.
+7.    Jack-snipe,           _Gallinago minima_.
+8.    Wood-pigeon,          _OEnas_.              Seldom appears till
+                                                  late; not in such plenty
+                                                  as formerly.
+9.    Wild-swan,            _Cygnus ferus_.       On some large waters.
+10.   Wild-goose,           _Anser ferus_.        )
+11.   Wild-duck,            _Anas torquata        )
+                            minor_.
+12.   Pochard,              _Anas fera fusca_.    )
+13.   Wigeon,               _Penelope_.           ) On our lakes and
+                                                  streams.
+14.   Teal, breeds with     _Querquedula_.        )
+      us in Wolmer
+      Forest,
+15.   Gross-beak,           _Coccothraustes_.     ) These are only
+                                                  wanderers that
+16.   Cross-bill,           _Loxia_.              ) appear occasionally,
+                                                  and are not
+17.   Silk-tail,            _Garrulus             ) observant of any
+                            bohemicus_.           regular migration.
+
+The birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnaean
+genera:--
+
+1,2,3,          Turdus.               9,10,11,12,13,14,     Anas.
+4,              Corvus.               15,16,                Loxia.
+5,6,7,          Scolopax.             17,                   Ampelis.
+8,              Columba.
+
+Birds that sing in the night are but few.
+
+Nightingale,            _Luscinia_.             "In shadiest covert hid."
+                                                MILTON.
+Woodlark,               _Alauda arborea_.       Suspended in mid air.
+Less reed-sparrow,      _Passer arundinaceus    Among reeds and willows.
+                        minor_.
+
+I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing after Midsummer,
+but, as they are rather numerous, they would exceed the bounds of this
+paper: besides, as this is now the season for remarking on that subject,
+I am willing to repeat my observations on some birds concerning the
+continuation of whose song I seem at present to have some doubt.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Nov. 2nd_, 1769.
+
+Dear Sir,--When I did myself the honour to write to you about the end of
+last June on the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of the
+summer birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood, and
+also a list of the winter birds of passage: I  mentioned besides those
+soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of
+England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night.
+
+According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing
+birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after Midsummer,
+and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to
+open as the spring advances.
+
+                                    RAII NOMINA.
+1.                Woodlark,         _Alauda           In January, and
+                                    arborea_.         continues to sing
+                                                      through all the
+                                                      summer and autumn.
+2.                Song thrush,      _Turdus           In February, and on
+                                    simpliciter       to August;
+                                    dictus_.          re-assume their
+                                                      song in autumn.
+3.                Wren,             _Passer           All the year, hard
+                                    troglodytes_.     frost excepted.
+4.                Redbreast,        _Rubecula_.       Ditto.
+5.                Hedge-sparrow.    _Curruca_.        Early in February
+                                                      to July 10th.
+6.                Yellow-hammer,    _Emberiza         Early in February,
+                                    flava_.           and on through July
+                                                      to August 21st.
+7.                Skylark,          _Alauda           In February and on
+                                    vulgaris_.        to October.
+8.                Swallow,          _Hirundo          From April to
+                                    domestica_.       September.
+9.                Blackcap,         _Atricapilla_.    Beginning of April
+                                                      to July 13th.
+10.               Titlark,          _Alauda           From middle of
+                                    pratorum_.        April to July 16th.
+11.               Blackbird,        _Merula           Sometimes in
+                                    vulgaris_.        February and March,
+                                                      and so on to July
+                                                      23rd; re-assumes in
+                                                      autumn.
+12.               Whitethroat,      _Ficedulae        In April, and on to
+                                    affinis_.         July 23rd.
+13.               Goldfinch,        _Carduelis_.      April, and through
+                                                      to September 16th.
+14.               Greenfinch,       _Chloris_.        On to July and
+                                                      August 2nd.
+15.               Less              _Passer           May, on to
+                  reed-sparrow.     arundinaceus      beginning of July.
+                                    minor_.
+16.               Common linnet,    _Linaria          Breeds and whistles
+                                    vulgaris_.        on till August;
+                                                      re-assumes its note
+                                                      when they begin to
+                                                      congregate in
+                                                      October, and again
+                                                      early before the
+                                                      flocks separate.
+
+Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before
+Midsummer:--
+
+                                    RAII NOMINA.
+17.               Middle            _Regulus non      Middle of June;
+                  willow-wren,      cristatus_.       begins in April.
+18.               Redstart,         _Ruticilla_.      Ditto; begins in
+                                                      May.
+19.               Chaffinch,        _Fringilla_.      Beginning of June;
+                                                      sings first in
+                                                      April.
+20.               Nightingale,      _Luscinia_.       Middle of June;
+                                                      sings first in
+                                                      April.
+
+Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring:--
+
+                                    RAII NOMINA.
+21.               Missel-bird,      _Turdus           January 2nd, 1770,
+                                    viscivorus_.      in February.  Is
+                                                      called Hampshire
+                                                      and Sussex the
+                                                      storm-cock, because
+                                                      its song is
+                                                      supposed to
+                                                      forebode windy wet
+                                                      weather: it is the
+                                                      largest singing
+                                                      bird we have.
+22.               Great             _Fringillago_.    In February, March,
+                  tit-mouse, or                       April; re-assumes
+                  ox-eye.                             for a short time in
+                                                      September.
+
+Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be
+called singing birds:--
+
+                        RAII NOMINA.
+23.    Golden-crowned        _Regulus              Its note as minute as
+       wren,                 cristatus_.           its person; frequents
+                                                   the tops of high oaks
+                                                   and firs; the smallest
+                                                   British bird.
+24.    Marsh tit-mouse,      _Parus palustris_.    Haunts great woods; two
+                                                   harsh, sharp notes.
+25.    Small willow-wren,    _Regulus non          Sings in March, and on
+                             cristatus_.           to September.
+26.    Largest ditto,        _Ditto_.              _Cantat voce stridula
+                                                   locustae_; from end of
+                                                   April to August.
+27.    Grasshopper-lark,     _Alauda minima voce   Chirps all night, from
+                             locustae_.            the middle of April to
+                                                   the end of July.
+28.    Martin,               _Hirundo agrestis_.   All the breeding time;
+                                                   from May to September.
+29.    Bullfinch,            _Pyrrhula_.
+30.    Bunting,              _Emberiza alba_.      From the end of January
+                                                   to July.
+
+All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to song, not only
+in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnaean _ordo_
+of _Passeres_.
+
+The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the
+following Linnaean genera:--
+
+1,7,10,27,        _Alauda_          8,28,             _Hirundo_.
+2,11,21,          _Turdus_.         13,16,19,         _Fringilla_.
+3,4,5,9,12,   )                     22,24,            _Parus_.
+15,17,18,20,      _Motacilla_       14,29,            _Loxia_.
+)
+23,25,26,   )
+6,20,             _Emberiza_.
+
+Birds that sing as they fly are but few:--
+
+                   RAII NOMINA.
+Skylark,           _Alauda vulgaris_.      Rising, suspended, and
+                                           falling.
+Titlark,           _Alauda pratorum_.      In its descent; also
+                                           sitting on trees, and
+                                           walking on the ground.
+Woodlark,          _Alauda arborea_.       Suspended; in hot summer
+                                           nights all night long.
+Blackbird,         _Merula_.               Sometimes from bush to
+                                           bush.
+Whitethroat,       _Ficedula affinis_.     Uses when singing on the
+                                           wing odd jerks and
+                                           gesticulations.
+Swallow,           _Hirundo domestica_.    In soft sunny weather.
+Wren,              _Passer troglodytes_.   Sometimes from bush to
+                                           bush.
+
+Birds that breed most early in these parts:--
+
+                   RAII NOMINA.
+Raven,             _Corvus_.               Hatches in February and
+                                           March.
+Song-thrush,       _Turdus_.               In March.
+Blackbird,         _Merula_.               In March.
+Rook,              _Cornix frugilega_.     Builds the beginning of
+                                           March.
+Woodlark,          _Alauda arborea_.       Hatches in April.
+Ring-dove,         _Palumbus torquatus_.   Lays the beginning of
+                                           April.
+
+All birds that continue in full song till after Midsummer appear to me to
+breed more than once.
+
+Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in proportion
+to their bulk: I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and
+annoyed; but in Ascension Island, and many other desolate places,
+mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they
+would stand still to be taken, as is the case with boobies, etc.  As an
+example of what is advanced, I remark that the golden-crested wren (the
+smallest British bird) will stand unconcerned till you come within three
+or four yards of it, while the bustard (_Otis_), the largest British land
+fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many furlongs.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Jan. 15th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--It was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you
+were not displeased with my little _methodus_ of birds.  If there was any
+merit in the sketch, it must be owing to its punctuality.  For many
+months I carried a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be
+remarked, and, as I rode or walked about my business, I noted each day
+the continuance or omission of each bird's song, so that I am as sure of
+the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any transaction whatsoever.
+
+I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put in your
+two obliging letters, in the best manner that I am able.  Perhaps
+Eastwick and its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a
+woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such songsters.  If you
+will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species
+continued to warble after the beginning of July.
+
+The titlark and yellow-hammer breed late, the latter very late; and
+therefore it is no wonder that they protract their song: for I lay it
+down as a maxim in ornithology, that as long as there is any incubation
+going on there is music.  As to the redbreast and wren, it is well known
+to the most incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard
+frost excepted--especially the latter.
+
+It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less
+reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive.  As the first is undoubtedly, and the
+last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, they would
+require more nice and curious management in a cage than I should be able
+to give them: they are both distinguished songsters.  The note of the
+former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to my mind those
+lines in a song in "As You Like It":
+
+    "And tune his merry note
+    Unto the _wild_ bird's throat."--SHAKESPEARE.
+
+The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the song of
+several other birds; but then it has also a hurrying manner, not at all
+to its advantage: it is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot.
+
+It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night; perhaps only
+caged birds do so.  I once knew a tame redbreast in a cage that always
+sang as long as candles were in the room; but in their wild state no one
+supposes they sing in the night.
+
+I should be almost ready to doubt the fact that there are to be seen much
+fewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithstanding so many
+young are hatched daily.  Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect
+to the swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer
+advances: and I saw at the time mentioned many hundreds of young wagtails
+on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the meadows.  If the
+matter appears as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to
+the dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed by
+the leaves.
+
+Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs of woodcocks and
+snipes: but nothing ever occurred that helped to explain to me what their
+subsistence might be: all that I could ever find was a soft mucus, among
+which lay many pellucid small gravels.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Feb. 19th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--Your observation that "the cuckoo does not deposit its egg
+indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in its way, but
+probably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous with whom to
+intrust its young," is perfectly new to me, and struck me so forcibly
+that I naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider
+whether the fact was so, and what reason there was for it.  When I came
+to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any cuckoo had ever been
+seen in these parts, except in the nest of the wagtail, the
+hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-throat, and the redbreast, all
+soft-billed insectivorous birds.  The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions
+the nest of the _Palumbus_ (ring-dove), and of the _Fringilla_
+(chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food:
+but then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge, but says
+afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo.  It appears
+hardly possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food
+with the hard-billed: for the former have thin membranaceous stomachs
+suited to their soft food, while the latter, the granivorous tribe, have
+strong muscular gizzards, which, like mills, grind, by the help of small
+gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed.  This proceeding of the cuckoo,
+of dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous outrage on
+maternal affection, one of the first great dictates of nature, and such a
+violence on instinct, that, had it only been related of a bird in the
+Brazils, or Peru, it would never have merited our belief.  But yet,
+should it further appear that this simple bird, when divested of that
+natural [Greek text] that seems to raise the kind in general above
+themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees of cunning and
+address, may be still endued with a more enlarged faculty of discerning
+what species are suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers for its
+disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care,
+this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner,
+that the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but
+astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable appearances.
+
+What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the defect
+of natural affection in the ostrich may be well applied to the bird we
+are talking of:
+
+"She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers:
+
+ "Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath He imparted to
+her understanding."
+
+_Query_.--Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, or does
+she drop several in different nests according as opportunity offers?
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _April 12th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--I heard many birds of several species sing last year after
+Midsummer, enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the period
+that puts a stop to the music of the woods.  The yellow-hammer no doubt
+persists with more steadiness than any other: but the woodlark, the wren,
+the redbreast, the swallow, the whitethroat, the goldfinch, the common
+linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I advanced.
+
+If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the summer
+migrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three days.  I wish it
+was in my power to procure you one of those songsters; but I am no
+bird-catcher, and so little used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had
+one it would soon die for want of skill in feeding.
+
+Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick-billed
+reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320; or was it the less reed-sparrow of
+Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's last publication, p. 16?
+
+As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frosts,
+I have no doubt within myself what should be the reason.  The thriving at
+those times appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check which
+the cold throws upon insensible perspiration.  The case is just the same
+with blackbirds, etc.; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that
+their hogs fat more kindly at such times, and the latter that their
+rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle frost.  But when
+frosts are severe, and of long continuance, the case is soon altered, for
+then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a
+checked perspiration.  I have observed, moreover, that some human
+constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.
+
+When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the first that
+fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and then the song-thrushes.
+
+You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, etc., can be
+induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalised
+at the vast disproportionate size of the supposititious egg; but the
+brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or
+number.  For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on
+her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a nest full of eggs
+that have been withdrawn: and, moreover, a hen-turkey, in the same
+circumstances, would sit on in the empty nest till she perished with
+hunger.
+
+I think the matter might easily be determined whether a cuckoo lays one
+or two eggs, or more, in a season, by opening a female during the
+laying-time.  If more than one was come down out of the ovary and
+advanced to a good size, doubtless then she would that spring lay more
+than one.
+
+I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine.
+
+Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing
+birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song
+recommences, is new and bold: I wish you could discover some good grounds
+for this suspicion.
+
+I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the caprimulgus, or
+fern-owl; you were, I find, acquainted with the bird before.
+
+When we meet I shall be glad to have some conversation with you
+concerning the proposal you make of my drawing up an account of the
+animals in this neighbourhood.  Your partiality towards my small
+abilities persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do more than is in my
+power: for it is no small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to
+begin a natural history from his own autopsia!  Though there is endless
+room for observation in the field of nature, which is boundless, yet
+investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make
+but slow progress; and all that one could collect in many years would go
+into a very narrow compass.
+
+Some extracts from your ingenious "Investigations of the Difference
+between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy," etc., have fallen
+in my way, and gave me great satisfaction: they have removed the
+objections that always arose in my mind whenever I came to the passages
+which you quote.  Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic
+poem for the region of Italy, could never think of describing freezing
+rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty frequently occurred!
+
+P.S.--Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _May 21st_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the
+regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just
+begin to show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual;
+as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher.  I
+well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40,
+summer birds of passage were very scarce.  They come probably hither with
+a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points: but in that
+unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through
+from the opposite quarters.  And yet amidst all these disadvantages two
+swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the
+11th April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew again for a time.
+
+I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with
+Scopoli's new publication; there is room to expect great things from the
+hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and one would think that a
+history of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola
+would be new and interesting.  I could wish to see that work, and hope to
+get it sent down.  Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in
+the quicksilver mines of that district.
+
+When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, I could
+not help wondering; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you
+(_Passer arundinaceus minor Raii_) is a soft-billed bird; and most
+probably migrates hence before winter; whereas the bird you kept (_Passer
+torquatus Raii_) abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird.  I
+question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in this matter I
+want to be better informed.  The former has a variety of hurrying notes,
+and sings all night.  Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is
+attributed to the latter.  We have plenty of the soft-billed sort; which
+Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his "British Zoology," till I
+reminded him of his omission.  See "British Zoology" last published, p.
+16.
+
+I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which different
+birds fly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough
+considered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small
+space, I shall say nothing further about it at present.
+
+No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so
+difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, "because they are not to
+pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring."  As
+colours seem to be the chief external sexual distinction in many birds,
+these colours do not take place till sexual attachments begin to obtain.
+And the case is the same in quadrupeds; among whom, in their younger
+days, the sexes differ but little: but, as they advance to maturity,
+horns and shaggy manes, beards, and brawny necks, etc., etc., strongly
+discriminate the male from the female.  We may instance still farther in
+our own species, where a beard and stronger features are usually
+characteristic of the male sex: but this sexual diversity does not take
+place in earlier life; for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful
+girl that the difference shall not be discernible;
+
+    "Quem si puellarum insereres choro,
+    Mire sagaces falleret hospites
+    Discrimen obscurum, solutis
+    Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu."
+
+                              HOR. ODES, II. od. 5-21, p. 131, orig. edit.
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+
+                                   RINGMER _near_ LEWES, _Oct. 8th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the
+birds of Jamaica; a sight of the _hirundines_ of that hot and distant
+island would be a great entertainment to me.
+
+The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the _Annus
+Primus_ with satisfaction; for though some parts of this work are
+exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the
+ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious.  Men
+that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural
+knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be
+acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own
+monographer.
+
+The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's Ornithology may be
+the extreme poverty and distance of his country into which the works of
+our great naturalist may have never yet found their way.  You have
+doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work
+of Scopoli; as to myself I think I discover strong tokens of
+authenticity; the style corresponds with that of his Entomology; and his
+characters of his Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive,
+and masterly.  He has ventured to alter some of the Linnaean genera with
+sufficient show of reason.
+
+It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no
+swallows at Staines; because, in my long observation of those birds, I
+never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the
+species.
+
+Ray remarks that birds of the _gallinoe_ order, as cocks and hens,
+partridges, and pheasants, etc., are _pulveratrices_, such as dust
+themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and ridding
+themselves of their vermin.  As far as I can observe, many birds that
+dust themselves never wash; and I once thought that those birds that wash
+themselves would never dust; but here I find myself mistaken: for common
+house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling
+and wallowing in dusty roads; and yet they are great washers.  Does not
+the skylark dust?
+
+_Query_.--Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method of
+purification from these pulveratrices? because I find from travellers of
+credit, that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where
+no water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and
+most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust.
+
+A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of a small
+bird on the ground; and that it was fed by the little bird.  I went to
+see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo
+hatched in the nest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for its
+nest, appearing
+
+    ". . . . . in tenui re
+    Majores pennas nido extendisse . . "
+
+and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger as I teased it,
+for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffeting with its wings
+like a game-cock.  The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering
+about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude.
+
+In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found,
+after some observation, that they were feeding on the _Libellulae_ or
+dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and
+some as they were on the wing.  Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I
+cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of prey.
+
+This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at
+Selborne.  In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks (_Loxiae
+curvirostrae_) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves belonging to
+this house; the water-ouzel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes
+river, near Newhaven; and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along
+the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore.
+
+I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ouzels (my newly
+discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex
+downs, from Chichester to Lewes.  Let them come from whence they will, it
+looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast in order to
+pass the channel when severe weather advances.  They visit us again in
+April, as it should seem, in their return; and are not to be found in the
+dead of winter.  It is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to
+have no manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun.
+There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone.  No doubt you
+are acquainted with the Sussex downs; the prospects and rides round Lewes
+are most lovely!
+
+As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look-out in the lanes
+and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some
+of the summer short-winged birds of passage crowding towards the coast in
+order for their departure: but it was very extraordinary that I never saw
+a red-start, white-throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, etc.
+And I remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually
+come to this place annually about this time.  The birds most common along
+the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whinchats, buntings,
+linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc.  Swallows and house-martins
+abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft, still, dry
+season.
+
+A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled
+court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires under
+ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the
+middle of April.  When it first appears in the spring it discovers very
+little inclination towards food; but in the height of summer grows
+voracious; and then as the summer declines its appetite declines; so that
+for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all.  Milky plants,
+such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish.  In a
+neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be
+a hundred years old.  An instance of vast longevity in such a poor
+reptile!
+
+
+
+LETTER VIII
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Dec. 20th_, 1770.
+
+Dear Sir,--The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows
+(_Passeres torquati_).
+
+There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom
+that want to be better understood: witness those vast flocks of
+hen-chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any
+cocks among them.  Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it should
+seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of
+these little birds; and much more when only one-half of the species
+appears; therefore we may conclude that the _Fringilloe coelebes_, for
+some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which the
+sexes part.  Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of
+sexes in this species of bird should be interrupted in winter; since in
+many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd
+separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for the
+continuance of the breed.  For this matter of the chaffinches see "Fauna
+Suecica," p. 58, and "Systema Naturae," p. 318.  I see every winter vast
+flights of hen-chaffinches, but none of cocks.
+
+Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the British
+singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one; since the
+matter of food is a great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the
+brute creation; there is but one that can be set in competition with it,
+and that is love.  But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one
+circumstance when you advance that, "when they have thus feasted, they
+again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare
+they can within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest
+of fresh turned earth."  Now if you mean that the business of
+congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat sowing to
+the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; for larks and
+chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in
+the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs
+and harrows.
+
+Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in
+the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to some districts
+more suitable to the purpose of breeding.  That the former pair before
+they retire, and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was
+a sportsman, have often experienced.  It cannot indeed be denied but that
+now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest, or young birds, discovered in
+some part or other of this island; but then they are all always mentioned
+as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of things: but as to
+redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I
+could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of those species in
+any part of these kingdoms.  And I the more admire at this instance as
+extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer as well
+as in winter might support them here which maintains their congeners, the
+black-birds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through.
+From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some
+species of birds with regard to their stay or departure.  Fieldfares or
+redwings disappear sooner or later according as the warm weather comes on
+earlier or later.  For I well remember, after that dreadful winter
+1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow on through April
+and May, and that these kind of birds (what few remained of them) did not
+depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of
+June.
+
+The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birds
+above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have
+written professedly the natural history of particular countries.  Now as
+to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his "Fauna Suecica," says of it, that
+"_maximis in arboribus nidificat_;" and of the redwing he says, in the
+same place, that "_nidificat in mediis arbusculis_, _sive sepibus_; _ova
+sex coeruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis_."  Hence we may be assured
+that fieldfares and redwings build in Sweden.  Scopoli says, in his
+"Annus Primus," of the woodcock, that "_nupta ad nos venit circa
+oequinoctium vernale_;" meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native.  And
+afterwards he adds "_nidificat in paludibus alpinis: ova ponit_ 3-5."  It
+does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria; but
+he says, "_Avis hoec septentrionalium provinciarum oestivo tempore incola
+est_; _ubi plerumque nidificat_.  _Appropinquante hyeme australiores
+provincias petit_; _hinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque
+Austriam transmigrat_.  _Tunc rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis
+Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias
+redit_."  For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see "Elenchus,"
+etc., p. 351.  This seems to be a full proof of the migration of
+woodcocks; though little is proved concerning the place of breeding.
+
+P.S.--There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks of this present
+very wet weather, seven inches and a half of rain, which is more than has
+fallen in any three weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the
+world.  A mean quantity in that county for one year is twenty inches and
+a half.
+
+
+
+LETTER IX.
+
+
+                                 FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, _Feb. 12th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the
+well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify
+you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not
+leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats in a
+torpid state, and slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the
+return of the sun and fine weather awakens them.
+
+But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general; because
+migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in
+Andalusia has fully informed me.  Of the motions of these birds he has
+ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, both spring and fall;
+during which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the straits
+from north to south, and from south to north, according to the season.
+And these vast migrations consist not only of hirundines but of
+bee-birds, hoopoes, _Oro pendolos_, or golden thrushes, etc., etc., and
+also of many of our soft-billed summer birds of passage; and moreover of
+birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and
+kites.  Old Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the
+incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time
+traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe.  Besides the above
+mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled by whole troops of
+eagles and vultures.
+
+Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should retreat before
+the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, and especially
+birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot animal food, are more
+impatient of a sultry climate; but then I cannot help wondering why kites
+and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the severity of
+England, and even of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to migrate
+from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of
+Andalusia.
+
+It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty
+and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast
+oceans, cross winds, etc.; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from
+England to the Equator without launching out and exposing itself to
+boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, and again at
+Gibraltar.  And I with the more confidence advance this obvious remark,
+because my brother has always found that some of his birds, and
+particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in
+crossing the Mediterranean; for when arrived at Gibraltar they do not
+
+    . . . "Rang'd in figure wedge their way,
+    . . . . And set forth
+    Their airy caravan high over seas
+    Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
+    Easing their flight:" . . . . --MILTON.
+
+but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or seven in a
+company; and sweeping low, just over the surface of the land and water,
+direct their course to the opposite continent at the narrowest passage
+they can find.  They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and
+so pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the narrowest
+space.
+
+In former letters we have considered whether it was probable that
+woodcocks in moonshiny nights cross the German ocean from Scandinavia.
+As a proof that birds of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it
+is, I shall relate the following incident, which, though mentioned to
+have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter of fact:--As some
+people were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the county of Sussex,
+they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a silver collar
+about its neck, on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark.
+This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near
+relation of mine; and to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in
+the possession of the rector.
+
+At present I do not know anybody near the seaside that will take the
+trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come; if I
+lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter.  One
+thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in
+which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again
+when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun
+that had been fired at them; whether this strange laziness was the effect
+of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say.
+
+Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, but also,
+as I have been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall.  In those two last
+counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth;
+the defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that these birds
+come over to us from the continent at the narrowest passage, and do not
+stroll so far westward.
+
+Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not dust.  I
+think they do; and if they do, whether they wash also.
+
+The _Alauda pratensis_ of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating the
+booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last.
+
+Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ouzel for Mr. Tunstal
+during their autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when
+they call on us again in April.  I am glad that you and that gentleman
+saw my Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation.  Royston,
+or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with
+the woodcock; they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent
+reason for migration; for as they fare in the winter like their
+congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer.  Was not
+Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a missel-thrush's nest, and
+take it for the nest of a fieldfare?
+
+The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, _OEnas Raii_, is the last winter bird of
+passage which appears with us; it is not seen till towards the end of
+November: about twenty years ago they abounded in the district of
+Selborne; and strings of them were seen morning and evening that reached
+a mile or more; but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned
+they are much decreased in number.  The ring-dove, _Palumbus_ _Raii_,
+stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the
+summer.
+
+Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked in my
+journal that the trees were unusually green.  This uncommon verdure
+lasted on late into November; and may be accounted for from a late
+spring, a cool and moist summer; but more particularly from vast armies
+of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole woods
+to a leafless naked state.  These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then
+retained their foliage till very late in the year.
+
+My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the
+owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at concert pitch,
+and finds they all hoot in B flat.  He will examine the nightingales next
+spring.
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER X.
+
+
+                                              SELBORNE, _Aug. 1st._, 177l.
+
+Dear Sir,--From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor
+cuckoos keep to one note.  A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls
+hoot in B flat; but that one went almost half a note below A.  The pipe
+he tried their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as
+masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch.
+
+A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the
+owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat, or F
+sharp, in B flat and A flat.  He heard two hooting to each other, the one
+in A flat, and the other in B flat.  _Query_: Do these different notes
+proceed from different species, or only from various individuals?  The
+same person finds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo (of which we
+have but one species) varies in different individuals; for, about
+Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D: he heard two sing
+together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable
+concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some
+in C.  As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, and
+their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key.
+Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more
+distinguishable.  This person has tried to settle the notes of a swift,
+and of several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any criterion.
+
+As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first birds that
+suffer with us in severe weather, it is no wonder at all that they
+retreat from Scandinavian winters: and much more the _ordo_ of _gralloe_,
+who, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach
+of winter.  "_Grallae tanquam conjuratae_, _unanimiter in fugam se
+cojiciunt_; _ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem invenire
+possimus_; _ut enim aestate in australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum
+lumbricorum_, _terramque siccam_; _ita nec in frigidis ob eandem
+causam_," says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise called
+"Migrationes Avium," which by all means you ought to read while your
+thoughts run on the subject of migration.  See "Amoenitates Academicae,"
+vol. iv., p. 565.
+
+Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country,
+and not in another: but the _grallae_ (which procure their food from
+marshes and boggy grounds), must in winter forsake the more northerly
+parts of Europe, or perish for want of food.
+
+I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus concerning the woodcock;
+it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the motions
+and manner of life of the animals of his own "Fauna."
+
+Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare descriptions,
+and a few synonyms: the reason is plain; because all that may be done at
+home in a man's study, but the investigation of the life and conversation
+of animals, is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty, and is not
+to be attained but by the active and inquisitive, and by those that
+reside much in the country.
+
+Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specific
+differences, which are almost universally constituted by one or two
+particular marks, the rest of the description running in general terms.
+But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that
+conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his
+superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the advantage of
+fresh discoveries and modern information.
+
+At this distance of years it is not in my power to recollect at what
+periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert when I was a sportsman:
+but, upon my mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has
+observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather; if
+this should be the case, then the inaptitude for flying arises only from
+an eagerness for food; as sheep are observed to be very intent on grazing
+against stormy wet evenings.
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+
+
+LETTER XI.
+
+
+                                               SELBORNE, _Feb. 8th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--When I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious
+flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these
+congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for those
+appearances almost peculiar to the season.  The two great motives which
+regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger; the
+former incites animals to perpetuate their kind; the latter induces them
+to preserve individuals: whether either of these should seem to be the
+ruling passion in the matter of congregating is to be considered.  As to
+love, that is out of the question at a time of the year when that soft
+passion is not indulged: besides, during the amorous season, such a
+jealousy prevails between the male birds that they can hardly bear to be
+together in the same hedge or field.  Most of the singing and elation of
+spirits of that time seem to me to be the effect of rivalry and
+emulation: and it is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute
+the equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the country.
+
+Now as to the business of food: as these animals are actuated by instinct
+to hunt for necessary food, they should not, one would suppose, crowd
+together in pursuit of sustenance at a time when it is most likely to
+fail; yet such associations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and
+thicken as the severity increases.  As some kind of self-interest and
+self-defence is no doubt the motive for the proceeding, may it not arise
+from the helplessness of their state in such rigorous seasons; as men
+crowd together, when under great calamities, though they know not why.
+Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold, and a crowd may
+make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey and
+other dangers.
+
+If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate, I
+am the more struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict amity.  If
+we do not much wonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train
+of daws, yet it is strange that the former should so frequently have a
+flight of starlings for their satellites.  Is it because rooks have a
+more discerning scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots
+more productive of food?  Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two
+large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible,
+have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed
+birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight.  Perhaps, then,
+their associates attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds
+wait on the motions of their finders, and as lions are said to do on the
+yelpings of jackals.  Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.
+
+
+
+LETTER XII.
+
+
+                                                        _March 9th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--As a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of last
+November, round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes
+river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three
+house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us.  That morning was rather
+chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the tenor of the weather for
+some time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm.  From
+this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more
+and more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not depart
+from this island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns, and do,
+insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then retire again
+to their _latebroe_.  Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at
+Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the chalk
+cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows
+stirring at periods of the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting,
+and the sun warm and invigorating.  And I am the more of this opinion
+from what I have remarked during some of our late springs, that though
+some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time, viz., the
+13th or 14th April, yet meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering
+cold north-east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several
+days, till the weather gave them better encouragement.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIII.
+
+
+                                                       _April 12th_, 1772.
+
+Dear Sir,--While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at the
+village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to
+you.  On the 1st November I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly
+mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming its
+hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of
+hepaticas.  It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it
+up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is
+ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock, and
+suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in
+performing one feat of copulation.  Nothing can be more assiduous than
+this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great
+body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually
+warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the
+heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the 13th
+November, yet the work remained unfinished.  Harsher weather, and frosty
+mornings, would have quickened its operations.  No part of its behaviour
+ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with
+regard to rain; for though it has a shell that would secure it against
+the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about
+rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the
+first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner.  If attended to,
+it becomes an excellent weather-glass, for as sure as it walks elate, and
+as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so
+sure will it rain before night.  It is totally a diurnal animal, and
+never pretends to stir after it becomes dark.  The tortoise, like other
+reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from
+eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year.  When first
+awakened it eats nothing, nor again in the autumn before it retires;
+through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the
+food that comes in its way.  I was much taken with its sagacity in
+discerning those that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old
+lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it
+hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity, but remains
+inattentive to strangers.  Thus, not only "the ox knoweth his owner, and
+the ass his master's crib," but the most abject reptile and torpid of
+beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the
+feelings of gratitude!
+
+                                                          I am, etc., etc.
+
+P.S.--In about three days after I left Sussex, the tortoise retired into
+the ground under the hepatica.
+
+
+
+LETTER XIV.
+
+
+                                             SELBORNE, _March 26th_, 1773.
+
+Dear Sir,--The more I reflect on the [Greek text] of animals, the more I
+am astonished at its effects.  Nor is the violence of this affection more
+wonderful than the shortness of its duration.  Thus every hen is in her
+turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her
+brood, and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those
+chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless
+cruelty.
+
+This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and
+sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation.  Thus a hen, just become a
+mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feathers
+standing on end, wings hovering, and clocking note, she runs about like
+one possessed.  Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest
+danger in order to avert it from their progeny.  Thus a partridge will
+tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her
+helpless covey.  In the time of nidification the most feeble birds will
+assault the most rapacious.  All the hirundines of a village are up in
+arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that
+district.  A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair of ravens
+nesting in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to
+rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with an
+amazing fury; even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart
+out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or the
+sparrow-hawk.  If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she
+will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but will
+wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together.
+
+Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced above by some anecdotes
+which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet you will,
+I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration.
+
+The fly-catcher of the "Zoology" (the _Stoparola_ of Ray), builds every
+year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house.  A pair of these
+little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked
+bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that
+followed.  But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half
+fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must
+inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested
+an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all
+the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for
+breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring.
+
+A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow-wren, which
+had built in a bank in my fields.  This bird a friend and myself had
+observed as she sat in her nest; but were particularly careful not to
+disturb her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy.
+Some days after, as we passed that way, we were desirous of remarking how
+this brood went on, but no nest could be found, till I happened to take a
+large bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the
+nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder.
+
+A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct occurred to me
+one day as my people were pulling off the lining of a hot-bed, in order
+to add some fresh dung.  From out of the side of this bed leaped an
+animal with great agility, that made a most grotesque figure; nor was it
+without great difficulty that it could be taken, when it proved to be a
+large white-bellied field-mouse with three or four young clinging to her
+teats by their mouths and feet.  It was amazing that the desultory and
+rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their
+hold, especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both
+naked and blind!
+
+To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be
+daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed
+that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the [Greek text],
+which induces some females of the brute creation to devour their young
+because their owners have handled them too freely, or removed them from
+place to place!  Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and
+cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder.  When I hear now
+and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am not so
+much amazed, since reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are
+capable of any enormity; but why the parental feelings of brutes, that
+usually flow in one most uniform tenor should sometimes be so
+extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to
+determine.
+
+                                                                I am, etc.
+
+                              END OF VOL. I.
+
+  Printed by Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,
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