1 PRIVATE LIBRARY OF HARLES A. KOFOID. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. THE NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQU ITIES OF SELBORNE, IN THE COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON. BY THE REV. GILBERT WHITE, M.A. THE STANDARD EDITION BY E. T. BENNETT. Thoroughly revised, with additional Notes. BY JAMES EDMUND HARTING, F.L.S., F.Z.S. FIFTH EDITION. WITH TEN LETTEES NOT INCLUDED IN ANY OTHER EDITION OF THE WORK. ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS BY THOMAS BEWICK AND OTHERS. LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN, LOWEEY & CO., PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 1887. oc yt Printed by Hazefl, Watson, & Vtney, Ld., London and Ayleshury PUBLISHERS' PEEFACE TO THE FOUETH EDITION. INGE the publication of our first edition of this work, in the autumn of 1875, there has appeared in the "Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society " a series often recently discovered letters from Gilbert White to Robert Marsham, with the corresponding replies. The extreme interest which attaches to these new letters, and the fact of their having been edited for the Society by Mr. Harting has enabled us to reprint them in an appendix to our present edition, and thus lay before the reader in one volume all that has hitherto come to light from the pen of the historian of Selborne. Those who desire to possess Marsham's replies to these letters, must be referred to the volume of the Society's " Transactions " for 1875-76, in which the entire corre- spondence is published. CONTENTS. PAGE ETTERS TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 1 LETTERS TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON . .136 OBSERVATIONS ON VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE. QUADRUPEDS 317 BIRDS 319 INSECTS AND VERMES 341 VEGETABLES 355 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS . 363 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER 367 A NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. DR. AIKIN'S ADVERTISEMENT 379 PREFACE TO THE NATURALIST'S CALENDAR . . . 383 A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF WHITE'S AND MARKWICK'S CALENDARS ........ 385 THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. LETTERS . 405 VI CONTENTS. POEMS. THE INVITATION TO SELBOENE SELBORNE HANGER. A Winter Piece. .To the Miss Battles ON THE RAINBOW A. HARVEST SCENE ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER, occasion- ally happening in the Winter months . APPENDIX. Ten Letters from the Rev. Gilbert White to Robert Marsham, F.R.S., 1790-1793 . INDEX * PAGE 517 520 521 522 523 525 561 THE HERMITAGE. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Page \ HE Hermitage . vi Back view of the residence, at Selborne, of the Kev. Gilbert White xiii Selborne, from Dorton . . 1 Kaven 7 Ostrea carinata .... 9 Hollow Lane and Bridge, near Norton .... 13 Approach to the village . 17 Partridge 19 Black grouse 20 Dog and hind .... 24 Fallow deer 31 Hoopoe 38 Crossbill 39 Harvest mouse .... 42 Chaffinch 46 Wheatear 48 Weasel 53 Quill-feathers of the wood wren 56 Quill-feathers of the wiUow wren 57 Quill-feathers of the chiff- chaff. ...... 57 Jackdaw 73 Swallow 79 Melolontha fullo .... 81 Eagle owl 89 Hedgehog 91 Otter 97 Stone curlew 105 Peacock 110 Fern-owl . 114 Page Redbreast ...... 123 Nest of the whitethroat . . 125 Sparrow-hawk 131 Nest of the willow wren . 135 Bustard 143 Cuckoo 147 Skylark 165 Sand martins' colony at Oak- hanger 198 Sand martin's nest . . .. 199 Missel-thrush 210 Hog 231 Hawkley Slip 263 Field cricket 265 House cricket 269 Mole cricket and nest . . 271 Black-winged stilt . . . 275 The shell of Gilbert White's tortoise 277 Peregrine falcon .... 292 Cat 318 Magpie 322 Mallard 323 Hen partridge 325 Ranatra linearis .... 346 Sphinx stellatarum . . . 348 The grindstone oak, in the Holt Forest .... 357 South view of Selborne church 411 The vicarage house . . . 419 Temple, in the parish of Selborne 438 The Plestor 440 Way leading to Gracious Street 512 PKEFACE. ;F any apology be deemed necessary for the appearance of a new edition of one of the most delightful books in the English lan- guage, the reader need only be reminded of the physical changes which have taken place since Gilbert White's day in the district of which he wrote, and of the vast additions which are daily being made to our knowledge in almost every branch of natural history. Wolmer Forest, which eighty years ago was et without one standing tree in the whole extent" (p. 18), is now partly enclosed, and planted to the extent of several hundred acres with oak, larch, and Scotch fir. Bin's Pond, a " consider- able lake/' which at one time " afforded a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, and snipe'' (p. 26), has long since been drained, and cattle now graze on its bed. The covert in which foxes and pheasants formerly abounded (p. 27) has almost entirely disappeared. The village church at various times having undergone repairs, has sustained in consequence considerable altera- tion. Ancient tombs have disappeared (p. 413), and the interior of the edifice has been entirely remodelled. The curious bridge at Oakhanger, " of considerable anti- quity and peculiar shape " (p. 504) , has given place to a more modern structure of greater convenience though of less interest, while of the ancient manor-house, called Temple, "with its massive thick walls and narrow windows" (p. 439), not a vestige now remains. No less remarkable are the changes which ha ye taken x PREFACE. place in the fauna and flora of the district. The Red-deer, which once roamed the Forest of Wolmer, and which were driven "along the vale" in a herd of 500 for the amuse- ment of Queen Anne (pp. 21-22), have long since become extinct. Black game, which " abounded much before shoot- ing flying became so common" (p. 20), though thought by Gilbert White to have been exterminated, have yet maintained their footing, and are now to be found in not inconsiderable numbers. Those noble birds the Bustards, which once frequented the downs (pp. 143, 156), and which when seen in flocks at a distance were thought to resemble Fallow-deer (p. 156, note 2), have entirely vanished as denizens of England. The Honey-buzzard has deserted Selborne Hanger (p. 130), and the Eaven is extinct on Blackmoor (p. 6) . The Chough, which formerly bred on Beachy Head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast (p. 117), has long since dis- appeared. On the other hand, birds which were unknown to Gil- bert White, or were possibly overlooked by him, have since been met with in the neighbourhood of Selborne ; while others, which he regarded as rare, or at least as acci- dental visitants to his parish, have since been found to be not uncommon there. In the former class may be instanced the Girl bunting (p. 47, note 3) and the Garden warbler (p. 59, note) ; in the latter, the Landrail (p. 328) and the Teal (p. 177) . Woodcocks, which in his day were not sup- posed to breed in England (pp. 159, 161), now do so regu- larly in Hants and Sussex, to say nothing of other localities. In regard to the botany of the district, allusion has already been made to the changes which have taken place since White's day in the aspect of the forest-land. To this may be added that while some few plants of interest have been included in the c ' Flora Selborniensis " since Gilbert White described it, others, as the Toothwort, Lathrcea squamaria, and the Marsh Cinquefoil, Comarum palustre, have never since been met with in the neighbourhood. Under these circumstances, and having regard to the time which has elapsed since any edition of White's " Selborne " P HE FACE. xi nas appeared, it need be no matter of surprise that steps should once more be taken to add, if possible, to the popu- larity of a favourite author, and render his work still more instructive by bringing the information which he has im- parted so agreeably to a par with the knowledge of the present day. Of the many editions of this work which have been pub- lished since 1789, when the original quarto appeared, it will only be necessary to refer to one. Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co. having acquired the copy- right of what has long been admitted to be the standard edition of the work, namely, that which was prepared by the late Mr. Edward Turner Bennett, a well-known naturalist and former secretary to the Zoological Society, an opportunity presented itself for thoroughly revising his notes, which, written in 1837, had grown somewhat out of date ; while the unexpected acquisition of a number of Bewick's en- gravings suggested the happy idea of illustrating the wort of a favourite author with the designs of an equally renowned engraver. With this object in view, they invited my co- operation as editor, and I need hardly say that I acceded to their request with a considerable degree of pleasure. The book is one in which I have long delighted ; the neighbourhood of Selborne I know well ; and Gilbert White's favourite theme, ornithology, I have made my special study for years. The task, therefore, has been undertaken con amore ; how far I have succeeded I must leave to critics to determine. Suffice it to say that my aim has been two-fold; to present the reader with the original text as issued by White himself (to which end the proof sheets have been carefully collated with the first quarto), and to supply such editorial notes only as are necessary to bring the subject matter on a level with our information at the present day. In this respect I have ventured to differ materially from my worthy predecessor, Mr. Bennett, whose notes, though generally of interest and value, are occasionally somewhat irrelevant and ofttimes unpardonably long. Commencing with four pages of notes on the geological xii PREFACE. features of Selborne, notwithstanding a chapter on the subject by the author, we find the same number of pages devoted to a note on bats, and as many more to the subject of migration. The author had only to allude to the infra- orbital cavities in the heads of deer to suggest to his editor a dissertation upon deer and antelopes, illustrated by an engraving of two heads of an Indian species to which, it is needless to say, no reference is made by the historian of Selborne. An equally long note, concluding with a de- scription and figure (p. 178) of a bird which Gilbert White never saw and does not even mention, is quite as irrelevant and out of place. But if four pages of notes be considered an unduly long commentary upon a single passage, what is to be thought of fifteen pages (pp. 119-213), the majority of them ap- pended to only two lines of text, upon the treatment of birds in confinement, and suggested, apparently, by a casual remark of the author that a blackcap and sedge bird " would require more nice and curious management in a cage than he should be able to give them " ? These cannot but be regarded as errors of judgment. However entertain- ing a note may be, it should never be introduced at the expense of the author. Long notes, moreover, weary the reader, distract his attention, and ofttimes cause him to lose sight of his author altogether. While I have retained, therefore, in the present edition, many valuable notes by Mr. Bennett and his coadjutors, the late Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert and Professor Kennie, it has seemed desirable, for the reasons stated, to eliminate much that they have supplied, and either to refrain altogether from dwelling on passages which in point of fact require no comment, or to substitute, where such is needed, a more modern interpre- tation than was offered to the reader five and thirty years ago. The original foot-notes by Gilbert White have been scrupulously reproduced, and are in every case distin- guished by the initials, " G. W." As the reader may expect, not unnaturally, to have pre- sented to him some brief memoir of the author, it may be PREFACE. Xlll well to reproduce here the " few Biographical Records " which have been handed down to us by his nephew John ; at the same time it may be desirable to add some little account of the eminent naturalists as well those to whom his letters were addressed, as those who have furnished a worthy supplement to his work in the " Observations " and " Calendar." m BACK VIEW OF THE RESIDENCE, AT SELBORNE, OF THE REV. GILBERT WHITE. " GILBERT WHITE was the eldest son of John White, of Selborne, Esq., and of Anne the daughter of Thomas Holt, rector of Streatham in Surrey. He was born at Selborne on July 18, 1720 ; and received his school-education at Basingstoke, under the Rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and father of those two distinguished literary cha- racters, Dr. Joseph Warton, master of Winchester School ; and Mr. Thomas Warton, poetry-professor at Oxford. He was admitted at Oriel College, Oxford, in December, 1739, and took his degree of bachelor of arts in June, 1743. In March, 1744, he was elected fellow of his college. He became master of arts in October, 1746, and was admitted one of the senior proctors of the University in April, 1752. Being of an unambitious temper, and xiv PREFACE. strongly attached to the charms of rural scenery, he early fixed his residence in his native village, where he spent the greater part of his life in literary occupations, and especially in the study of nature. This he followed with patient assiduity, and a mind ever open to the lessons of piety and benevolence which such a study is so well calculated to afford. Though several occasions offered of settling upon a college living, he could never persuade himself to quit the beloved spot, which was, indeed, a peculiarly happy situation for an observer. He was much esteemed by a select society of intelligent and worthy friends, to whom he paid occasional visits. Thus his days passed, tranquil and serene, with scarcely any other vicissitudes than those of the seasons, till they closed at a mature age on June 26, 1798." Gilbert White lived and died a bachelor, and it is to be regretted that no portrait remains to preserve a record of his personal appearance. His brother John, to whom frequent reference is made in the succeeding pages, was at one time Vicar of Blackburn, in Lancashire. He afterwards became resident at Gibraltar, where he made large collections for a Natural History of the place, from the unpublished manuscript of which an extract is given at page 282. He is honourably mentioned by Pennant in his " Literary Life," as having rendered him material assistance in connection with the birds and fishes of Gibraltar. Another brother, Thomas (to whose observations, made at his house at South Lambeth, our author occasionally refers) , was a wholesale ironmonger in London ; but quitting busi- ness with an ample fortune ; devoted much of his time to literary pursuits, especially on subjects connected with me- teorology and natural history. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and author of numerous essays which ap- peared in the ' ' Gentleman's Magazine " between the years 1780 and 1790, under the signature of T. H. W. Among these a series of articles on the trees of Great Britain are particularly deserving of notice, for the extensive informa- tion, good taste, and variety of reading which they display. PREFACE xv A third brother, Benjamin, the publisher of the first edition of the present work, was during much of the latter half of the past century the principal publisher of English books on Natural History. On the death of Gilbert he succeeded to the estate at Selborne, and transferred his business to his second son, John, who continued it until within a few years of the present time. From this estab- lishment emanated, among many other important publica- tions, most of the works of Ellis, Pennant, Montagu, Latham, Donovan, Andrews, the elder Sowerby, Curtis, Lightfoot, and other well-known naturalists. The house in which the business was carried on was originally distinguished, accord- ing to the fashion of the times, by the sign of the Horace's Head, a misreading of which gave rise to a whimsical mis- take on the part of Scopoli, who, in dedicating the several plates of his " Delicise Florae et Faunae Insubricae" to various patrons of natural history, inscribed one of them as published " Auspiciis DD. DD. Beniamini White, et Horatii Head, Bibliopol. Londinensium." It may be added, that in his " Vitas suae Vices," published at the end of the third and last part of the work just quoted, the same writer enumerates among the " eruditi viri cum quibus commerciuin litterarium colui," the name of " D. White, ex Gibraltaria." Many passages in the present work prove how highly Sco- poli was esteemed by our author, with whose family these circumstances, trivial as they are, serve in some degree to connect his name. In Gilbert White's diaries mention is also made of a " brother Harry." He too was in the church, and rector of Fyfield, near Andover, in the county of Hants, whence one of the letters to Daines Barrington is dated, and where, as appears by various references in the course of the volume, a series of meteorological observations were made for com- parison with those registered at Selborne, South Lambeth, and Lyndon, in the county of Rutland. In the commencement of his tenth letter to Pennant, the earliest in date of the entire series, Gilbert White laments the want of neighbours whose studies led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge. But from his continued cor- xvi PREFACE. respondence with the relatives just enumerated, from his occasional visits to most of them, and from the return of those visits to himself, (for his house, although that of a bachelor, was always open to his family and friends,) he must, in his latter years, have felt this want much less sensibly than at the period when it was noted as an apology for the slender progress which he then conceived himself to have made in the science. Few men have had the good fortune to possess so many near connexions engaged in pursuits so congenial with their own. THOMAS PENNANT, the correspondent for many years of Gil- bert White and the esteemed friend to whom the first series of his Letters on the Natural History of his native place were addressed, was among the most active of the scientific and literary characters of his day. At the commencement of his correspondence with White, he was busily engaged in the preparation of the octavo edition of his British Zoology: the first edition of that work had preceded it but a few years ; and it was quickly followed by others ; and by other works on zoology, and on antiquities, and by tours, topo- graphies, and other productions ; all of which were deser- vedly popular. For more than forty years his pen was never idle. Industrious himself, he was the cause also of industry in others ; and the enumeration which he gives of the services he did to the professors of the art of engraving by the multitude of plates executed by them for his several works, while it furnishes a list of the principal of his pro- ductions, will also afford some idea of the extent and variety of his labours. British Zoology, folio . . . .132 British Zoology, octavo or quarto . . 284 History of Quadrupeds .... 54 Tour in Scotland, the three volumes . 134 Journey to London .... 23 Tour in Wales, two volumes . .53 Moses Griffiths' Supplemental Plates . 10 Some Account of London, second edition . 15 PREFACE. xvii Indian Zoology . . . . .17 Genera of Birds . . . . .16 Arctic Zoology, two volumes . . .26 Systematic Index to De Buffon . . 1 Lightfoot's Flora Scotica, two volumes . 37 802 Of many of these works several editions were required, and the superintendence of them added to the demands on him for continual devotion to literary pursuits. Many minor works were also published by him, including nu- merous papers in the " Philosophical Transactions. " He maintained too an active correspondence both at home and abroad throughout the whole of his life; and numbered among his friends the most distinguished men in the several branches of knowledge which he cultivated. Linnaeus was among his earliest correspondents ; and with Pallas he was in frequent communication. " I am often astonished," he says, in his Literary Life of himself, ft at the multiplicity of my publications, espe- cially when I reflect on the various duties it has fallen to my lot to discharge, as father of a family, landlord of a small but numerous tenantry, and a not inactive magistrate. I had a great share of health during the literary part of my days. Much of this was owing to the riding exercise of my extensive tours, to my manner of living, and to my temperance. I go to rest at ten ; and rise winter and summer at seven, and shave regularly at the same hour, being a true misopogon. I avoid the meal of excess, a supper ; and my soul rises with vigour to its employs, and, I trust, does not disappoint the end of its Creator." Pennant died in 1798, in the seventy- third year of his age ; having survived for more than seven years the literary death which he had anticipated for himself in 1791. DAINES BAERINGTON, honourable by birth and respected for his talents, was well suited, by the pursuits to which from choice he had devoted himself, to become the favourite xviii PREFACE. correspondent of an observer like Gilbert White. The legal studies which he had originally cultivated as a pro- fessional duty, and in which he had been so successful as to have merited the office of recorder of Bristol, and to have become subsequently a Welsh judge, were eventually laid aside by him, although not until after they had fostered in him an attachment to antiquarian pursuits which he retained through life so strongly as to entitle him to be distinguished among his fellow-students in that department of knowledge as a vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries. To the " Transactions " of that body he was a frequent contributor. He also made numerous communications to the Royal Society, which were printed in the " Philosophical Trans- actions/' Many of them were afterwards republished by himself in a separate form, under the title of " Miscellanies ; " a work alluded to with satisfaction by our historian in his Letter LI. In his essays Barrington availed himself freely of the information imparted to him by White, whose autho- rity he repeatedly quotes, and whose merits as a "well read, ingenious, and observant " naturalist he is ever ready to acknowledge. A large proportion of the essays in the ' ' Miscellanies " are on subjects of natural history; and in many of them Daines Barrington was the advocate of views directly opposed to those of our author's other correspondent, Pennant. Thus, for instance, while Pennant felt a full conviction as to the migration of many birds, Barrington was most sceptical on the subject; and it is scarcely to be doubted that his letters to Gilbert White tended to keep alive and to increase the suspicions which the historian of Selborne always entertained that the little creatures whose presence delighted him during the summer, were still at hand, though hidden from him, in the winter. Another point on which his two correspondents disagreed was as to the authority which they attributed to Ray and to Linnaeus ; and White was evidently quite aware of the difference of their feelings on this subject, humouring them so far as to accommo- date himself to the wishes of each when addressing him in particular. When sending to Pennant, in his Letter XVI., PREFACE. xix a list of the summer birds of passage, the Latin names which he uses are " Linnaei nomina;" in his correspondence with Barrington, Letter I. and elsewhere, he designates his birds, scientifically, by " Raii Nomina." Barrington argued so warmly against the deficiencies of the Linnsean characters, and advocated so strongly the excellences of our countryman, John Ray, that he is carried on by the discussion in which he was engaged to inquire, no doubt in his estimation triumphantly, " After this comparison can there be a doubt whether the English botanist should con- sult Ray or Linnasus for an English plant ? " WILLIAM MARKWICK, who afterwards took the name of Eversfield, derived from his residence in the country op- portunities of observing nature, which he embraced with a readiness worthy of a pupil of Gilbert White. His " Naturalist's Calendar " affords ample evidence of his perseverance in attending to and noting occurrences in both the organized kingdoms of the creation ; and the remarks subjoined by him, in numerous instances, to our -author's " Observations on various Parts of Nature," show him to have been a sensible as well as a diligent observer. He communicated to the Linnean Society various essays on subjects of interest to zoologists, which were published in the earlier volumes of the " Transactions " of that body ; the first of them, " On the Migration of certain Birds, and on other Matters relating to the Feathered Tribes/' included a table of the annual appearance and disappearance of certain birds, which was continued to the end of 1794 in a subsequent communication, entitled "Aves Sussexienses ; or, a Catalogue of Birds found in the County of Sussex, with Remarks." His last paper consisted of " Observations on the Clover Weevil," and was published in 1801. His death took place in 1813. DR. JOHN AIKIN is known both as the author of numerous and popular productions, and as one of an eminently literary and scientific family. He dedicated his " Calendar of Nature" to his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, referring to her xx PREFACE. children's books as having raised the character of such pub- lications. "Had it been designed," he says, speaking of own work, " for a different class of readers, a larger compass might have been taken, and a more learned and elevated character of writing have been aimed at, yet it must still have remained essentially the same; and its merit must still have been that of compilation. The plan itself is a borrowed one ; and you must certainly recollect its model in one of your own little books, where, in a very entertain- ing manner, you give a brief description of the several months, formed of some of the most striking circumstances attending each. What you have done for a child three or four years old, I have attempted for young people from ten to fourteen/' In editing from the MSS. of White, he carried yet higher his desires of extending acquaintance with natural history ; the work compiled by him from that source being adapted to students of adult powers, and embodying many facts which were altogether new, at the time of their publication, to naturalists generally. Founded on the observation of nature their interest is calculated to endure. JAMES EDMUND HARTING. Lincoln's Inn Fields, Sept. 1874. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FIRST EDITION. HE author of the following letters takes the liberty, with all proper deference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as anti- quities. He is also of opinion that if stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county-histories, which are still wanting in several parts of this kingdom, and in particular in the county of Southampton. And here he seizes the first opportunity, though a late one, of returning his most grateful acknowledgments to the reverend the president and the reverend and worthy the fellows of Magdalen College in the university of Oxford, for their liberal behaviour in permitting their archives to be searched by a member of their own society, so far as the evidences therein contained might respect the parish and priory of Selbornc. To that gentleman also, and his assistant, whose labours and attention could only be equalled by the very kind manner in which they were bestowed, many and great obligations are also due. Of the authenticity of the documents above mentioned there can be no doubt, since they consist of the identical deeds and records that were removed to the college from the Priory at the time of its dissolution ; and, being carefully xxii ADVERTISEMENT. copied on the spot, may be depended on as genuine ; and, never having been made public before, may gratify the curiosity of the antiquary, as well as establish the credit of the history. If the writer should at all appear to have induced any of his readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the creation,, too frequently overlooked as common occur- rences ; or if he should by any means, through his researches, have lent an helping hand towards the enlargement of the boundaries of historical and topographical knowledge ; or if he should have thrown some small light upon ancient customs and manners, and especially on those that were monastic ; his purpose will be fully answered. But if he should not have been successful in any of these his intentions, yet there remains this consolation behind that these, his pursuits, by keeping the body and mind employed, have, under Provi- dence, contributed to much health and cheerfulness of spirits, even to old age ; and, what still adds to his happiness, have led him to the knowledge of a circle of gentlemen whose intelligent communications, as they have afforded him much pleasing information, so, could he natter himself with a con- tinuation of them, would they ever be deemed a matter of singular satisfaction and improvement. Selborne. January 1st, 1783. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. THE NATUKAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE. SELBORNE, PROM DORTON. See, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round, The varied valley, and the mountain ground, Wildly majestic ! What is all the pride Of flats, with loads of ornament supplied ? Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense, Compared with Nature's rude magnificence. WHITE. LETTER I. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. HE parish of SELBOENE 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 51, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Peters- E 2 NATURAL HISTORY field. 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 west- ward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley Mauduit, 1 Great Ward le ham, 2 Kings- ley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising 300 ft. 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, woodlands, 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 Farn- ham, form a noble and extensive outline. 1 Mr. Bennett, in a foot-note to this passage, which appeared in his edition of the present work, published in 1837, states that in the paro- chial registers the orthography is Harteley Maudytt. Mauduit, used by Gilbert White, is, however, a more usual reading of Malduith, the name of the earliest Norman lord, which was used subsequently to the Conquest as an adjunct to the Saxon appellation, for the purpose of dis- tinguishing this Harteley from the other Hartleys in the same county to the north of it. ED. 2 The orthography in the text, though formal in appearance, was deliberately adopted by the author, who, in his first edition, inserted all deviations from it as errata ; it is, consequently, preserved throughout. Wordlam, according to Mr. Bennett, is a pronunciation not unfrequently used in the neighbourhood : but Worldham is the more ordinary name. And in this case he suspects that the vulgar are right ; Werildeham, the oldest name which he could find for it, belonging to an era prior to the erection in England of Norman castles. ED. OF SHLBOPtfE. 3 At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the up- lands, 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 appear- ance removed from chalk ; but seeming 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. 1 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 falling 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 Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge, swells into a ^~ considerable river, navigable at Godalming ; from whence it 1 This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot sum- mer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty- four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry. G-. W. 4 NATURAL HISTORY 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 feet, 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. 1 To the north-west, north, and east of the village, is a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called 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. 2 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 into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal / growing just at hand. This 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 Blackmoor stand high in the esti- mation 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 turnirjs_. ? 1 Although this water is said to be soft to the taste, it is nevertheless what would be usually called hard, the test of which, as pointed out by Mr. Rennie, is its not producing a lather with soap, or with soap dis- solved in spirit of wine, because it contains sulphate of lime, the sul- phuric acid in which, uniting with the soda in the soap, sets free the tallow, composed of the margaric and oleic acids ; and these acids, unit- ing with the lime thus set free, form a soap that will not dissolve in water. ED. 2 This soil produces good wheat and clover. G. W. OF SELBORNE. 5 LETTER II. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. "N the court of Norton farm-house, 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, 1 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 Ike Plestor.' 2 In the midst of this spot stood, in old ^^ times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge hori- ,^ zontal 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 1 Ulmus montanus of modern botanists, and the common elm of the north of England and Scotland. It is a valuable timber tree, and of very different growth from that which is generally termed the common elm, Ulmus campestris, seldom presenting so fine a bole as the latter, or attaining so large a size. ED. 2 The Plestor, originally called Pleystow, or play -place, was granted, \xrUw as it subsequently appears, to the prior and convent of Selborne, in 1271, ( by Sir Adam Gurdon and wife, as " all his right and claim to a certain place (placed) called ' la Pleystow ' in the village aforesaid, ' in liberam, \J^^ puram, et perpetuam elemosinam?" It is still used as a place for re- ^^^^ creation by the village children. ED. 6 NATURAL HISTORY them . Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 17 Oil 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 further con- cerning this area when we enter on the antiquities of Sel- borne. 1 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 a piece. 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 1 The Plestor, as it subsequently appears, measured about forty -four yards by thirty-six, and the oak, whose branches nearly overshadowed this large space, is conjectured by Gilbert White to have been, at the time when it was blown down, four hundred and thirty-two_ years old. ED. 2 We have here a hint at the different effects of shelter and exposure on the growth of trees. Those in the interior of woods generally have their stems upright, their bark glossy, their tops small and thinly pro- Hided with branches, and their roots, in the same way, spare and scanty, but in due proportion to the tops. Those, on the other hand, in exposed situations, have their stems stout and short, their bark thick and coarse, their tops spreading, and their roots in the same way throwing them- selves out in every direction. ED. OF SELBORNE. 7 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 acknow- ledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal THE RAVEN. day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle 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. NATURAL HI8TORY I LETTER III. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. HE ^ssil_shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such, as have fallen within my obser- vation, must not be passed over in silence. And first I must mention, as a great curi- osity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and giyen to me for the singularity of its appearance, which, to an jn- curious 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 Linnsean genus of Mytilus and the species of Orista galli; called by Lister, Rastellum; by Rurnphius, 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, 1 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 preserva- tion. 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 1 This was originally the property of Sir Ashton Lever, and long known as the Leverian Museum. Pennant characterized it as "the most astonishing collection of the subjects of natural history ever col- lected, in so short a space, by any individual." The specimens of natural history and of art, which it contained, were exhibited for many years, but were finally disposed of by auction, in 1806. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the collection at that time by the duration of the sale, which lasted for sixty -five days, and by the number of the lots, which amounted to 7879. ED OF SELBORNE. 9 one into the other, the alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my specimen being much easier expressed OSTREA CARINATA. by the pencil than by words, I have caused it to be drawn and engraved. 1 Gornua Ammonis are very common about this village. 2 1 This is not the analogue of the cock's comb oyster, but belongs to a different species which has not any living analogue, so far as is known. The figures given above, which are copied from those of the original edition, represent a shell of the Ostrcea carinata of Lamarck, so called on account of the strong ridge or keel along the middle of each of its valves. Though both are plaited oysters, the plaits or folds in each are disposed in a different manner : nTthe cock's comb oyster they are in the longitudinal direction of the shell, which, moreover, is rounded in its general outline ; in the keeled oyster they pass transversely on each side from the ridge or keel. The statement in the text, that White's specimens were obtained in chalky fields, renders it necessary, as Mr. Bennett has judiciously re- marked, to caution the reader against regarding it as a chalk fossil. The fields below the chalk downs at Selborne, though white in the appearance of their soil locally termed white malm belong in truth to the formation known to geologists by the singularly inappropriate name of green sand. To this formation the keeled oyster is peculiar ; and it appears even to be limited, as a fossil, to the upper green sand, the stratum on which the village of Selborne is built, and of which the immediately adjacent enclosures consist. ED. 2 The Rev. J. Mitford has said the same thing of Keynsham, between Bath and Bristol, adding that " This has given rise to a fabulous legend, which says that St. Keyna, from whom the place takes its name, resided here in a solitary wood, full of venomous serpents, and her prayers converted them into stones, which still retain their shape." See Espri- ellrfs Letters from England, vol. iii. p. 362. ED. 10 NATURAL EI8TORY 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 Well-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. 1 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 con- siderable 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. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. S 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,' 2 1 They were in all probability casts of the ammonites, and not the shells themselves. ED. 2 There may probably be also in the chalk itself, that is burnt for lime, a proportion of sand ; for few chalks are so pure as to have none. G. W. OF SELBORNE. 11 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 chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone ; and superior in one respect, that, when sea- soned, 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. 1 On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for pavements, be- cause, probably, some degree 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, ferment 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 ex- pense. 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 1 " To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had in the quarry," says Dr. Plot, Oxfordsh. p. 77. But surbedding does not succeed in our dry walls ; neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for Teynton stone. Gr. W. 2 Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: must be close- grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts ; salt- atone perishes exposed to wet and frost. Plot's Staff", p. 152. G. W. 12 NATURAL HISTORY 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 mat- ter ; 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 Y. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 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 OF SELBORNE. 13 places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields ; and after floods, and in frosts, ex- hibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among the strata, and from the tor- rents 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 HOLLOW LANE AND BRIDGE, NEAR NORTON. 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 the curious F 'dices 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 14 NATURAL HISTORY open fields than enclosures : after harvest some few land- rails 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 ; 1 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 in measuring the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity. 2 I only know that From May From Jan. From Jan. From Jan. From Jan. From Jan. From Jan. 1 From Jan. 1 Inch. Htmd. 1779, to the end of the year, there fell 28 37 ! 1780, to Jan. 1 1781 . . . 27 32 1781, to Jan. 1 1782 . . . 30 71 1782, to Jan. 1783 . . . 50 26 ! 1783, to Jan. 1784 . . 33 71 1784, to Jan. 1785 . . . 33 80 1785, to Jan. 1786 . . . 31 55 1786, to Jan. 1787 39 57 The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, 1 This effect of trees is fully treated of in the Letter to Daines Barrington, numbered XXIX. ED. 2 A very intelligent gentleman [Thomas Barker, of ancient family in the county of Rutland ED.] assures me (and he speaks from upwards of forty years' experience) that the mean rain of any place cannot be ascertained till a person has measured it for a very long period. " If I had only measured the rain," says he, " for the four first years, from 1740 to 1743, I should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 16 in. for the year ; if from 1740 to 1750, 18 inches. The mean rain before 1763 was 20$ ; from 1763 and since, 25 ; from 1770 to 1780, 26. If only 1773, 1774, and 1775, had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32 in." G. W. Averaging fifty per cent, more than Lyndon, and upwards of fifty per cent, more than the neighbourhood of London, it may well be said that the quantity of rain that falls at Selborne is very considerable. The excess, as is stated in the text, is altogether attributable to local circumstances. ED. OF SELBORNE. 15 with the single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest,, contains upwards of 670 inhabitants. 1 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 t. stairs : mud buildings we have none. Besides the employ- ment from husbandry, the men work in hop gardens, of which we have many ; and fell and bark timber. In the 1 A State of the Parish of SELBORNE, taken Oct. 4, 1783. The number of tenements or families, 136. The number of inhabitants in the street is . . .313 in the rest of the parish . 363 Total 676 ; near five inhabitants to. each tenement. In the time of the Kev. Gilbert White, vicar, who died in 1727-8, the number of inhabitants was computed at about 500. Average of Baptisms for Sixty Years. Males. Females. From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive . 6*9 6' 12'9 1730 to 1739 . . . .8-2 7'1 15'3 1740 to 1749 . . . . 9-2 6 '6 15'8 1750 to 1759 . . . .7-6 8'1 15'7 1760 to 1769 . . . .9-1 8'9 18- 1770 to 1779 .... 10-5 9'8 20'3 Total of baptisms of males . . 515 females . . 465 Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, sixty years, 980. Average of Burials for Sixty Years. Males. Females. From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive . 4'8 5'1 9'9 1730 to 1739 . . . .4-8 5'8 10'6 1740 to 1749 .... 4-6 3'8 8'4 1750 to 1759 . . . .4-9 5'1 10* 1760 to 1769 . . . .6-9 6'5 13'4 1770 to 1779 . . . .5-5 6"2 11-7 Total of burials of males . . . 315 females. . . 325 Total of burials from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, sixty years, 640. Baptisms exceed burials by more than one-third. Baptisms of males exceed females by one-tenth, or one in ten. Burials of females exceed males by one in thirty. It appears that a child, born and bred in this parish, has an equal chance to live above forty years. Twins thirteen times, many of whom dying young have lessened the chances for life. Chances for life in men and women appear to be equal. 16 NATURAL HISTORY 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. 1 The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and lon- gevity ; and the parish swarms with children. A Table of the Baptisms, Burials, and Marriages, from January 2, 1761, to December 25, 1780, in the Parish of Selborne. BAPTISMS. BURIALS. MARRI- AGES. Males. Females. Total. Males. Females. Total. 1761 . 8 10 .18 2 4 6 3 1762 . 7 8 15 10 14 24 6 1763 . 8 10 18 3 4 7 5 1764 . 11 1 9 20 10 8 18 6 1765 . 12 6 18 9 7 16 6 1766 . 9 13 22 10 6 16 4 1767 . 14 5 19 6 5 11 2 1768 . 7 6 13 2 5 7 6 1769 . 9 1 14 23 6 5 11 2 1770 . 10 13 23 4 7 11 3 1771 . 10 | 6 16 3 4 7 4 1772 . 11 j 10 21 6 10 16 3 1773 . ft 5 13 7 5 12 3 1774 . 6 ! 13 19 2 8 10 1 1775 . 20 7 27 13 8 21 6 1776 . 11 10 21 4 6 10 6 1777 . 8 13 21 7 3 10 4 1778 . 7 13 20 3 4 7 5 1779 . 14 8 22 5 6 11 5 1780 ". 8 9 17 11 4 15 3 During this period of twenty years, the births of males exceeded those of females 10. The burials of each sex were equal. And the births exceeded the deaths 140. G. W. 1 Since the passage above was written, 1 am nappy in oeing able to say that the spinning employment is a little revived, to the no small comfort of the industrious housewife. Gr. W. OF SELBOENE. 17 APPROACH TO THE VILLAGE. LETTER VI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. HOULD 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 imper- fect ; as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vegetable ; and has oftep 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, run- ning 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, Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This c 18 NATURAL HISTORY royalty consists entirely of sand covered with heath and fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, with- out having one standing tree in the whole extent. 1 In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though Dr. Plot says positively, 2 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. 3 Besides the oak, I have also been 1 At the present time nearly 1,500 acres are enclosed and planted, chiefly with oak, larch, and Scotch fir ; and the large size to which many of the firs have attained, proves how well adapted the soil is for that kind of timber. Outside the enclosures seedling firs are springing up rapidly ; and year by year as the wind scatters the seeds, the area of the woodland increases, so that in time were the trees not felled or burned, they would extend over the whole of the district comprised in the "forest." During the hot summer of 1864, a terrible conflagration occurred, and was supposed to have been the work of incendiaries. 540 acres in Longmoor, and 170 in Brimstone Wood were destroyed before the fire burnt itself out. The amount of game destroyed, as may be supposed, was commensurate with the destruction of its haunts. ED. 2 See his History of Staffordshire. Gr. W. 3 Old people have assured me that, on a winter's morning, they have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed than on the surround- ing morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, " That the warmth of the earth, at some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a freezing to a thawing state, is manifest from this observation, viz. Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in several places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry ; as also where elm-pipes lay under ground ; a plain proof this, that those drains intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths below them : for the snow lav where the OF SELBORNE. 19 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 PAKTRIDGE. resinous in them ; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree. 1 drain had more than four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the tops of walls." See Hole's Hcema- statics, p. 360. Quere, Might not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and, in Roman stations and camps, lead to the finding of pavements, baths, and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity ? G. W See also the letter to Daines Barrington, numbered LXI. ; in which the effects of the short but intense frost of 1768 are described. ED. 1 A more recent instance of the occurrence of bog-oak is recorded in Letter LIX. to Daines Barrington : and probably the stock is by no means yet exhausted. In addition to the oak, fir and birch are also found. They are in various stages of carbonization, dependent on their position, or, in other words, on the length of time during which they have been subjected to the action of moisture and pressure. Above the peat is a layer of sand of eighteen inches or two feet in thickness. On the top of this rests a thick layer of turf ; consisting of the blended roots of many generations of heath and other plants, and approaching, in its lower part, to the character of the genuine bog. It is from this compact layer that the majority of the larger trunks are obtained. ED. 20 NATURAL HISTORY 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 BLACK GROUSE. 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, or black game. 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 gray hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsman cried out, " A hen pheasant ;" but a gentleman OF SELBORNE. 21 present, who had often seen black game in the north of England, assured me that it was a gray hen. 1 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 1 This fine game-bird, although it became extinct in Gilbert White's day, was reintroduced after the planting of the wood, by Sir Charles Taylor, then ranger of the forest, and for some time throve exceedingly well. The parent stock of the present race came from Cumberland, and in 1872 an old man who had brought the birds to Wolmer was still living in the neighbouring village of Liphook. A good sportsman and naturalist, Capt. Feilden, late of the 4th Regt., who visited Wolmer in 1872, expressly with the intention of noting the changes which had taken place there since White's day, reported of the black game as follows : " That the ground is well adapted for black game is evident ; but I think the disproportion between the sexes which now exists will, unless remedied, lead once more, and that ere long, to the destruction of the species on Wolmer. There must be as many as forty to fifty blackcocks on the ground, and I certainly have not seen above six or seven grey hens. If this polygamous species is to be kept up, the proportion of sexes ought to be reversed ; as it now is, the hens are worried and driven off the ground by the importunities of a crowd of suitors, and the result is that for several years past the warders have not come across a nest or brood on the Government lands. I am aware that in some parts of Scotland, where black game abound, the old cocks are justly looked upon as detrimental to the general interest, and are killed off as vermin at any season of the year. If this were done at Wolmer, and a fair proportion produced between the sexes, we might hope to retain this noble game-bird as a denizen of Wolraer Forest for years to come." The species occurs sparingly upon the moorlands and heaths of many of the southern counties of England, and is reported as nesting occasionally in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Hants, Sussex and Surrey. Its chief haunts, however, lie more to the north, upon the lower slopes of heathy and mountainous tracts, which are covered with a natural growth of willow, birch, and alder, and intersected by morasses. It subsists on a variety of food according to season, such as insects, wild berries, and the seeds of various rushes and other plants, but chiefly on the young and tender shoots of the heath, and in winter, when these are no longer procurable, upon the buds and tops of the birch and alder, and the embryo shoots of the different firs. These they can well obtain, since they readily perch on trees, and always roost at night on a horizontal bough like pheasants. ED. 22 NATURAL HISTORY 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 yeomen-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 yeomen- 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 any thing 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. OF SfilBOUNE. 23 LETTER VII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. HOUGH 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, 1 which now com- prehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged to restock Walthain-chase/ refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that ' ' It had done mischief enough already/' Our old race of deer-stealers are 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 1 Statute 9 Geo. I. c- 22. 2 This chase remains unstocked to this day: the Bishop was Dr. Hoadiey. G. W 24 NATURAL HISTORY 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 num- ber 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 the allurements to irregu- larities are removed, are of considerable service to neigh- bourhoods 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 ad- mitted 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. 1 The reason, I presume, why 1 For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats. G. W. OF SELSORNE. 25 sheep are excluded is because, being such close grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. 1 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 under- woods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. 2 The plea for these burnings is, that when the old coat of heath, &c. 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 1 In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. G. W. Sheep obtain the first pair of central permanent incisors when about fourteen months old, and are then occasionally referred to by the term bidentes. As remarked by Mr. Yarrell, it is singular that sheep with a single row of incisor teeth pressing against a cartilaginous pad, should be able to bite closer than a horse with a well matched double row of teeth ; but it is a well known fact that a horse would be starved on downs where sheep thrive. ED. 2 In Scotland where the extensive burnings of heath are common, the prohibited months have reference to the preservation of the eggs and young of grouse and other game, as little other inconvenience is apt to ensue when no woods are in the vicinity. The Rev. J. Mitford has observed that the description of the con- flagration arising from the heath-fires here mentioned reminds the scholar of the stubble -burning described in Virgil's Georgics, i. 84, and the commentary on the passage, by the elegant and learned Mr. Holdsworth, p. 52. Compare Virgilii JEn. u. 304, Ovid. Epist. xv. 9, and Sil. Ital. vii. 365. ED. 26 NATURAL HISTORY their smoke, and often alarm the country ; and once in par- ticular, 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 oaks ; the one called Waldon-lodge, the other Brimstone-lodge : these the keepers renew annually on the feast of St. Bar- nabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite. The farm called Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brushwood 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. LETTEE VIII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. the verge of the forest, as it is now circum- scribed, are three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing parti- cular 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 Oarex cespitosa? it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, &c. that they breed there. In the winter this covert is also 1 1 mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the foresters torrets a corruption, I suppose, of turrets. G. W. OF SELBORNE. 27 frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants ; and the bogs produce many curious plants. 1 [For which, consult Letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.] By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and The Holt, made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the First (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 Oak- woods ; a large district, now private property, though once belonging to the royal domain. 2 It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once ? mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains, c i 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; 3 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 con- siderable lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer; 4 all of 1 This pond has long since been drained, and cattle now graze in its bed. The covert in which wild ducks and foxes formerly abounded has almost entirely disappeared. ED. 2 In the beginning of the summer (1787), the royal forests of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent down by government. Gr. W. Wolmer, with but two enclosures within its precincts, extended over 5,949 acres. The royal forest of The Holt, with its enclosures, was then found to comprehend 2,744 acres. ED. 3 At the date of the survey referred to in the preceding note, the timber of The Holt was valued at 61,100. ED. 4 The name Wolmer is doubtless a corruption of Wolf-mere, or Wolve- mere : and it is not a little remarkable that the three great meres of that district Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer were named after wild animals, which are all now extinct in Britain, namely, the hog, or wild boar, the crane, and the wolf. ED. 28 NATURAL HISTORY n . ^ -^ 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 ^ ^ ne 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 con- tingency. 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 denomi- nations ; where they preen and solace and rest themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little parties OF SELBOHNE. 29 (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. 1 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. of years. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. Y 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, 2 as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for a term 1 The broad expanse of Wolmer Great Pond still affords a safe retreat to flocks of wild-fowl during the winter season ; and wild-ducks and teal still breed in the forest ; the ducks in the heath, at long distances from the swamp ; the teal nearer to the water. But the numbers of both these species are yearly decreasing. ED. 2 In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Ed. III. it is called Aisholt. In the same, " Tit. Woolmer & Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habit unam capellam in haia sua de Kingesle." " Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parcus : a Gall, haie and haye" Spelman's Glossary. Several additional documents relating to the earlier history of the forests, both that of "Wolmer and The Holt, are given in a note to Letter X. of the Autiqui ties. G. W. 30 NATURAL HISTORY The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier- General Emanuel Scroop Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who ' was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret Hughs ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry Bilson Legge and lady; and now Lord Stawel, their son. 1 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 con- structing, 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 1 On the expiration of the grant to Lord Stawel, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests resumed possession of The Holt. All the lands held by him, and two-thirds of the former open forest, were subsequently enclosed and planted. ED. 2 This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. G. W. It would perhaps be more correct to say that he was the introducer only of this art into England. The invention it seems is due to Ludwig von Siegen, who about 1654 communicated the secret to Prince Rupert (c/. Wai- pole's " Anecdotes of Painters and Engravers," Bonn's edition, vol. iii. p. 393). ED. OF SELBORNE. 31 red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of The Holt. 1 At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned and TALLOW DEER. 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 1 Mr. Bennett lias pointed out that there could scarcely be two situ- ations more dissimilar than The Holt and Wolmer Forest. The Holt ^ is on the gault, and has all the richness of meadow and nobleness of oak K^, wood that distinguish that formation. It consequently offered to the fallow deer, while they remained on it, plentiful grazing, abundance of p browzing, and open and sheltered glades ; advantages suited to the habits of that half domesticated race, introduced into this country by man, and still requiring at his hands care and protection. Wolmer Forest, on the lean and hungry sand, scarcely affords any grass, and has no high covert ; and the red deer attached to it would have been limited for their provender almost exclusively to the lichens, the heath tops, and the twigs of the very few stunted bushes that occur here and there on its surface : retirement could only have been obtained for them by plunging into the unfrequented hollows interposed between its ridges. The more tender and exotic deer was placed, and it might have seemed almost naturally, in the richer and more sheltered forest of The Holt ; the hardier and native race subsisted on the coarse fare of the dreary and cheerless waste of Wolmer. ED. 82 NATURAL HISTORY ^^ as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash ' of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonments ca^ 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 neighbour- hood ; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo : but the country rose upon them and destroyed them. 1 A very large fall of timber, consisting of about 1,000 oaks, has been cut this spring (viz. 1784) in The Holt forest ; one-fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop and top : but the poor of the parishes of Binstead 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 sacks of wood. Forty-five of these people his lord- ship has served with actions. 2 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. 3 1 Charles the First also turned out in the New Forest German boars and sows, which bred and increased. An engraving of one will be found in Gilpin's "Forest Scenery," vol. ii. p. 118. ED. 2 Mr. Bennett ascertained that the defendants in these actions, though they made a show of resistance, suffered judgment to go by default. The question of right had, in fact, been tried in 1741, and determined against the claimants. Yet notwithstanding this, so soon after as 1788, on the occasion of another fall of timber in The Holt, the people of Frinsham again assembled and carried off openly upwards of 6,000 faggots. So difficult is it to convince where interest opposes. ED. 3 The formation of the Basingstoke Canal has again reduced the dis- tance of The Holt from water-carriage ; and it is now accessible, either at Odiham or at Bagman's Castle, within about seven miles. ED. OF SELBORNE. 33 LETTER X. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. August 4, 1767. T 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, 1 have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from my childhood. As to swallows (Hirundines rusticce) 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 l ) among the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, dead ; but, on being carried toward the fire, revived. He told me that, out of his great care to preserve them, hc % 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 the eleventh, and young martins (Hirundines urbicce) 1 Cypselus apus of modern ornithologists. ED. D 34 NATURAL HISTORY were then fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again once ; for I see by my Fauna of last year, that broods came forth so late as September the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migra- tion ? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the twenty-ninth ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October. How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live exactly the same life as the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before the middle of August invariably ! L while the latter stay often to the middle of October ; and once I saw numbers of house-martins on the seventh of November. The martins and redwing fieldfares were flying in sight together an uncommon assemblage of winter birds ! 2 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 top of tall woods. 3 The Stoparola, of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the flycatcher. 4 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. 1 In quoting the above remark, under the head of Swift, in the second volume of his "British Zoology," 1768, p. 246, Pennant adds : " For these, and several other observations, we owe our acknowledgments to the Reverend Mr. White, of Selborne, Hampshire." ED. 2 An uncommon assemblage for the time of year, no doubt, though it would not have been so in the Spring ; for at that season redwings and fieldfares frequently stay with us for a month after the swallows and martins have arrived. ED. 3 By Alauda trivialis White intended the grasshopper warbler, as will be seen by referring to his list of summer birds, in the 16th Letter to Mr. Pennant. His Motacilla trochilus was the willow wren ; but the " little yellow bird," which he compared with these, was no doubt the wood wren, Ph. sibilatrix, of modern naturalists. ED. 4 The spotted flycatcher, Muscicapa grisola, of modern naturalists. ED. OF SELBORNE. 35 1 perceive there are more than one species of the Mota- villa trochilus: Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray's " Philosophical Letters/' that he has discovered three. 1 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. 2 They are delicate songsters. 3 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 pip- ing and humming notes. 4 I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those 1 Three are now well recognized, namely the willow wren, the wood wren, and the chiff-chaff. ED. 2 It is now well known that the blackcap, as White surmised, migrates southwards at the approach of the cold weather, and spends the winter in Palestine, Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, and other parts of Africa, on the west coast, as well as on the east. Many even spend the winter in Italy,. Greece, and some of the islands of the Mediterranean. ED. 3 For a description of the song of the blackcap see the letter to Mr. Pennant, numbered XL. This description was copied by Pennant, in the third edition of his "British Zoology," vol. i. p. 375. ED. 4 Amongst the many rural sounds which greet the ear of the vagrant naturalist in spring, none is more remarkable than that produced by the common snipe in pairing time. This peculiar sound, which is never heard except from a bird on the wing, has been variously termed " hum- ming," " drumming," " neighing," and " bleating," according to the fancy of the auditor ; and nothing has puzzled naturalists more, per- haps, than to discover how this noise is produced. Among German ornithologists especially, this has been a favourite theme for discussion, and various have been the opinions expressed by eminent observers on the subject. Some, like Bechstein, have main- tained that the sound is emitted through the bill ; others, like Nau- mann, considered it to result from a vibratory movement of the wings : whilst the latest and most remarkable theory, that of Herr Meves, is that it is produced by the outer tail feather on each side as it is drawn rapidly through the air in the bird's descent. In an article on this sub- ject, contributed to the Field, 27th April, 1872, we examined the vari- ous theories here referred to, and gave our reasons for believing that the view expressed by Naumann is probably the right one. ED. 36 NATURAL HISTORY 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. Kay 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, f{ 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. 1 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 . . . antehac fuisse y tales cum sint reliquice I " 1 Willughby was the originator of the confusion alluded to, as pointed out by Mr. Bennett in a note to this passage. He described the water-rat as having its toes connected together by intervening webs ; and his description was published by Ray in the " Synopsis Quadrupedum." Linnaeus, believing that such authorities were to be relied on, admitted into several editions of his " Fauna Suecica " a rat- like animal, having its hinder feet webbed. Subsequently, however, he referred to it as of doubtful existence, as being perhaps inaccurately described, and as probably to be referred to his Mus terrestris. Wil- lughby's error no doubt was occasioned by his having assumed from a certain habit that a certain structure which he regarded as indicated by it must necessarily be coexistent with it. The Mus agrestis capite grandi, brachyuros, of Ray, is the short- tailed fi^ldffiouse or vole, Arvicola agrestis, LINN. ; the water rat, or rather water vole, being the Arv. amphibia, DESM. The hybernaculum, 1 or winter nest of the water vole, is described later by White in his ~ twenty-sixth letter to Pennant. ED. OF SELBOENE. 37 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. 1 The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. LETTER XI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, September 9, 1767. i T will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts with regard to the Falco. As to its weight, breadth, &c., 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.' 2 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 seem disposed to breed 1 The species proved to be the Peregrine, Falco peregrinus of naturalists. ED. 2 The irides of all the true Falcons are brown. ED. 38 NATURAL HISTORY in my outlet; but were frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them be at rest. 1 Three gros-beaka (Loxia coccothraustes)' 2 appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot : THE HOOPOE. since that, now and then, one is occasionally seen in the same dead season. 1 The hoopoe is an irregular spring and autumn visitant to this country. It has occasionally nested here, and would do so, no doubt, more frequently if unmolested. Colonel Montagu states, in his ' Ornithological Dictionary," that a pair of hoopoes began a nest in Hampshire, but being disturbed forsook it, and went elsewhere ; and Dr. Latham, in the Supplement to his " General Synopsis." has referred to a young Hoopoe in nestling plumage, which was shot in this country in May. A pair nested for several years in the grounds of Pennsylvania Castle, Portland (c/. Garland, "Naturalist/' 1852, p. 82), and according to Mr. Turner, of Sherborne, Dorsetshire, the nest has been taken on three or four occasions by the school-boys from pollard willows on the banks of the river at Lenthay. The birds were known to the boys as " hoops." Mr. Jesse, in a note to this passage in his edition of the present work, states that a pair of hoopoes bred for many years in an old ash tree in the grounds of a lady in Sussex, near Chichester. ED. 2 Coccothraustes vulgaris of modern systematists. OF SELBOENE. 39 A cross-bill (Loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood. 1 Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end o the village, yield nothing but the bull's header miller's thumb (Gobius fluviatilis capitatus) , the trout (Trutta CROSSBILL. fluviatilis), the eel (Anguilla) , the lampern (Lampetra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back (Pisciculus aculeatus) .* d~*r*# ^f j r-* ^ c - We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many 1 In the fourth volume of the " Zoological Journal," and subsequently in the second volume of his " History of British Birds," Mr. Yarrell published an excellent account of the muscles by which the singular beak and tongue of the cross-bill are made to serve the peculiar purposes for which they are designed. ED. 2 These names were derived from Ray's " Synopsis Avium et Piscium." The more modern nomenclature, as adopted by Yarrell in his " History of British Fishes," is as follows : The river bull-head or miller's-thumb, Coitus gobio; the trout, Salmo fario ; of eel three species are admitted by Yarrell as indigenous to this country, the Sharp-nosed, Anguilla acutirostris, the Broad-nosed, A. latirostris, and the Sing, ^4. mediorostris ; but the first and third are now regarded as identical, whilst the second is as much a marine as a fresh-water species ; the Lampern, Petromyzon fluviatilis', and the Common Stickleback (there are several species), Gasterosteus aculeatus. ED. 40 NATURAL HISTORY from a great river, and therefore see but little of seabirds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams 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 a 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 twenty-first of August ; it was a straggler. Red- starts, fly-catchers, white-throats and Reguli non cristati, still appear ; x but I have seen no blackcaps 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 parapets, so late as the twentieth of November. At present I know only two species of bats, the common Vespertilio murinus 1 and the Vespertilio auritus. 2 I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it any thing to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds 1 By Reguli non cristati are intended the three species of " willow- wrens," as they are generally called, and to which allusion has been already made. ED. 2 The common pipistrelle and the long- eared bat. In giving to the former, however, the specific name murinus White fell into a mistake which many others have since made. V. murinus being the common bat of the Continent, it was assumed that the common bat of this country must be the same species, and Pennant having once stated such to be the case, every subsequent writer on bats copied the mistake. It was left to the Rev. Leonard Jenyns to correct this long established error, and he has done so most satisfactorily in a paper published in the 16th vol. of the " Linnean Society's Transactions." ED. OF SELBORNE. 41 ol 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 quadru- ped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that "bats when down on a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch 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. LETTER XII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. November 4, 1767. ;T gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the Falco turned out an uncommon one. 1 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. 1 This hawk proved to be the Falco peregrinus ; a variety. G. W. It differed from the ordinary type in having the under parts of the 42 NATURAL HISTORY I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my for- mer letter, 1 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 THE HARVKST MOUSE. species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and more slender, than the Mus domesticMs medius of Eay ; and have ^ i[^ 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 j^-.'^o 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 artifi- cially plaited, and composed of the blades of wheat, per- fectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball, with the body of a dirty yellow colour, but with the usual black bars. See Pen- nant, " Brit. Zool." 1768, p. 560. It was shot in the adjoining parish of Faringdon. ED. 1 Letter X. pp. 35, 36. OF SELBORNE. 43 aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no discover- ing to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well filled, that it would roll across the table without being dis- composed, 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 the 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. 1 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 Bolie- micus, 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 Philoso- phical Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685. 2 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. 1 We are indebted to Gilbert White for the first published account of this beautiful little animal as indigenous to this country, although it appears to have been previously seen by Montagu in Wiltshire (cf Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. vii. p. 274). White communicated his discovery to Pennant, who published it in the second edition of his "British Quadrupeds ; " and thence it has been copied, with but little addition, by almost every writer on the subject of British mammalia. ED. 2 The waxwing, or Bohemian chatterer, as it is often called (Ampclis garrulus, Linna3us), may be regarded as an irregular winter visitant to this country, occasionally appearing in large flocks. ED. 44 NATURAL HISTORY Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feed- ing on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to the description of the Merula torquata, 1 or ring-ouzel, were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without success. 2 Query Might not canary birds be naturalized to this climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nest of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, green- finches, &c. ? Before winter, perhaps, they might be hard- ened, 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 con- gregate, 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 swallow's going under water in the beginning of September as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. 3 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, per- haps, had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and from so midland a county, 1 Turdus torquatus, Linnaeus. 2 See Letters XIII. and XX. 3 Stillingfleet's " Calendar of Flora," Swedish and English, made in 1755, and published in 1761. ED. OF SELBORNE. 45 attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the equator ? l I acquiesce entirely in your opinion that, though most of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and bide 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 ! 2 1 See Adanson's Voyage to Senegal. G. W. The late Dean of Manchester, the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, famished an interesting note to this passage for Mr. Bennett's edition of this work, to the effect that late broods of young swifts, as soon as they leave the nest, are often obliged to migrate at once (see White's observations in Letter LII. to the Hon. Daines Barrington); and that the various species of hirundines remain in their nests till they are more completely feathered than any other birds, so that when they come forth at last, they are ready for flight. Whether the same individuals of a species, amongst birds, ever cross the equator is a question upon which ornithologists are not unanimously agreed. Certain it is, however, that the same species is often found on both sides of the line, as in the case of the common swallow, which, spending the summer in Europe, passes some portion of the year also at the Cape of Good Hope. On this subject the reader may be referred to an interesting article " On some new or little- known points in the Economy of the Common Swallow," by Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser, published in the " Proceedings of the Zoological Society," 1870, p. 244. ED. 2 Some further observations on this subject, tending to a solution of the difficulties referred to, will be found in Letter XXXIII. to Pennant, and Letter IX. to the Hon. Daines Barrington. ED. 46 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XIII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Jan. 22, 1768. S in one of your former letters you expressed the more satisfaction from my corre- spondence 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. CHAFFINCH. 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 all mostly females ; at least fifty to one. This extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnasus ; OF SELBORNE. 47 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 intelli- gence, 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. 1 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. 2 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 An- dover: in our woodland enclosed district it is a rare bird. 3 Wagtails, both white and yellow, 4 are with us all the 1 This separation of the sexes in winter has been noticed by other observers, but it is not universally the rule, for in some parts of the country many individuals of both sexes remain throughout the winter and do not flock. ED. 2 Linnets flock in September, and continue to congregate till March. ED. 3 Since this remark was penned by Gilbert White, another species of bunting has been observed in his parish, namely, the cirl bunting, Emberiza cirlus. Not only have we seen this bird there in autumn, but Mr. Bell (the fortunate owner of Gilbert White's old house), informs us that it has nested there to his knowledge on several occa- sions, and successfully reared its young. ED. 4 By the yellow wagtail, White here means the winter yellow wag- tail, or, as it is generally called, the grey wagtail (M. boarula, Linn.) It is a local resident, breeding regularly in Scotland and the north of England, but is generally regarded in the south of England as a winter visitant. It has, however, been found nesting in many of the southern counties, as Sussex, Dorset, Gloucester, Devon and Cornwall. ED. 48 NATURAL HISTORY 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 wheat- ear (OEnanthe) 1 does not quit England, it certainly shifts places ; for about harvest they are not to be found, where WHEAT EAR. 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 1 Saxicola cenanthe (Linn.) The popular name " wheatear " appears to have been originally local and confined to the South Downs. Elsewhere it is called " fallow- chat " and " white -tail." Willughby, referring to this bird, calls it " the fallow-smick, in Sussex the wheatear, because the time of wheat-harvest they wax very fat." Many other derivations of the name, however, have been suggested, amongst others the follow- ing is perhaps as plausible as any. Those who arc acquainted with the wheatear, know that the basal half of the tail is white, and that as the bird moves, this white patch is very conspicuous. "Wheat" may easily be a corruption of " whit" or " white," and as regards the "ear," if we affix the " e " instead of prefixing it, and insert a penultimate letter, we have the substantive by which our Saxon forefathers would have described that portion of the anatomy which is white. This view receives some support from the spelling adopted by the earlier English writers (cf. Chaucer's " Miller's Tale"), and Mr. Bennett has sug- gested that " Hwitaers " may possibly have been its Saxon name. IP France to this day the bird is called " cul-blanc." ED. OF SELtiORNE. 49 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. 1 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 Has- selquist 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. 2 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 king- dom; and should spend a year there, investigating the natural history of that vast country. Mr. Willughby 3 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 1 On this subject the reader may be referred to Knox's " Ornitho- logical Rambles in Sussex," p. 194 ; and Professor Newton's edition of YarreU's " Hist. Brit. Birds," vol. i. pp. 350, 351. ED. 2 This statement has been confirmed repeatedly by subsequent observers. ED. 3 See Ray's " Travels," p. 466. G. W. 50 NATURAL HISTORY hear any more about those birds which I suspected were MerulcB torquatce. 1 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 near 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. 2 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 domesticus medius 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. 1 1 See antea, p. 44. 2 It is perhaps not generally known that the tail of the harvest mouse is prehensile, and is in consequence of great service to the little animal when descending the wheat stalks amongst which its nest is usually suspended. In "The Zoologist" for 1843, p. 289, will be found a woodcut in illustration of this fact as observed by the Rev. Pemberton Bartlett. ED. 3 A full account of the effects of this short but intense frost will be found in Letter LXI. to the Hon. Daines Barrington. OF SELBORNE. 51 Pt_^<^-2'l 1^( tf-y LETTER XIV. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIEE. SELBORNE, March 12, 1768. ;F 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 pro- bably analogous tot he 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 inconveniejicy. 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. 1 1 In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curi- ous and pertinent reply. " I was much surprised to find in the antelope something analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one, the creature made '' as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell it through them." Or. W. Both White and Pennant, however, were here misled by appearances, for it has since been shown by anatomical investigation, that there is no communication between those cavities and the nostrils, they being rather the site of a peculiar secretion. Dr. Jacob, in a paper " On the infra- orbital cavities in deer and antelopes," published in the " Edinburgh 52 NATURAL HISTORY 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. TerpaSvpoi pivtc, Triirvpes Trvoififfi liavXoi. " 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 : 3 'AAKjCxa/wy yap OUK .aAnO*] Asyst, (po^ufi/of ctvcnrvs'ii/ rocg oc.lytx.<; xocroc roc WTO,. " Alcmaeon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their ears/' History of Animals, Book I. chap, xi. 1 Philosophical Journal" for October, 1835, says: "The passage of air through these cavities cannot take place, as they are perfectly im- pervious towards the nostril ; but I have no doubt that the fact stated [by White] is correct ; the air which escapes passing not through the infra-orbital sacs, but through the lachrymal passages, which are very large, consisting of two openings capable of admitting the end of a crow's quill, the entrance to a tortuous canal, which conducts the tears to the extremity of the nose. Introducing a pipe into the outlet of the nasal duct, at the extremity of the nose, I can without difficulty force a current of air or water through the nasal duct [Qw#re, lachrymal sinus. ED.] and it therefore appears reasonable to admit that the effect observed [by White], arose from the animal forcing the air into the nostrils while the nose and mouth were immersed in water." ED. 1 It is possible that this idea may have originated in the possession by the chamois of post-auditory sinuses ; the openings of which behind the base of the ears may have been regarded as orifices for breathing, in the same manner as a similar function was erroneously ascribed to the suborbital sinuses. There is more reason in the supposition that the ears communicate with the nose, than that the suborbital sinus has any such communication ; since in all animals that have a tympanic cavity opening upon the surface by an external passage, there is another conduit termed the Eustachian tube, leading inwards from the tympanum to the nose, the use of which is to regulate the pressure of the atmosphere upon the membrana tympani, and to convey superfluous moisture to the nose. ED. OF SELBORNE. 53 LETTER XV, TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, March 30, 1768. OMB 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 intel- ligence can be little depended on ; but farther inquiry may be made. 1 WEASEL. A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them be- fore 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 1 Cane is a provincial name for the female of the common weasel, which is usually one-fourth smaller than the male. ED. 54 NATURAL HISTORY 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 snow- flake, the Emberiza nivalis of the British Zoology ? 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 obser- ving 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, 1 and, I think, was soft-billed. It was no Parus ; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned wren, appear- ing most like the largest willow-wren. 2 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. 1 By Salicaria, White evidently means the willow-wren group, and not the reed warblers, to which the generic term Salicaria is often ap- plied. ED. ' 2 It was probably the Chiff-chaff, although the date mentioned would be an unusually early one at which to find this hardy little bird here. In 1872, the Chiff-chaff was seen at Torquay on the 2nd March, and at Chudleigh and Taunton on the 9th of that month. ED. OF SELBORNE. 55 I wonder that the stone curlew (Charadrius oedicnemus 1 ), should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird ; it abounds in all the campaign 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 classed, as they are by Mr. Ray, among birds " 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. 2 I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnaeus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. LETTER XVI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, April 18, 1768. I HE 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 fal- lows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, &c. 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 1 (Edicnemus crepitans, TEMM. 2 The stomachs of several stone curlews which we have examined at different times, were filled chiefly with the remains of beetles, but in one we found the remains of a long-tailed field mouse. ED. 56 NATURAL HISTORY 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. (Edicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem swollen like those of a gouty man. 1 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 1 It is only the young of the year which have the upper part of the tarsus so much swollen. The same thing is observable, but less markedly, in the young of most other agallatorial birds. ED. 2 Gilbert White clearly distinguishes three species of these little birds ; and he seems to have had some idea of a fourth ; but on this point there is a confusion in the entries in the Naturalist's Calendar, which has perhaps arisen from his having used different names for the same bird in noting down his observations in different years. Five different names are employed in the Calendar to designate some species of willow wren. The first named, i.e. the " small line-rested willow wren," appearing on the 19th of March, and called in the text " the chirper," is said to have black legs ; this is the Chiff-chaff, Ph. rvfa. The second appearing on April 11, as the " middle yellow wren," the third on April 14, as the " second willow or laughing wren," and the fifth on April 17, as the " middle willow wren," must all be referred to one and QUILL FEATHERS OF THE WOOD WREN. the same species, namely the Willow wren par excellence Ph. trochihis of modern naturalists. The fourth, entered under date April 17, as the " large shivering willow wren," must be the Wood wren Ph. sibilatrix. The three British species of willow wrens may be thus distinguished. The Wood Avren {Ph. sibilatrix) is the largest of the three, measuring in length about 5'2 inches, in wing 3 inches, and tarsus 07 inches. It has OF 8ELBORNE. 57 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 comparatively the longest wings, the latter when closed covering three- fourths of the tail, and the longest legs. In the wing the second primary is nearly equal in length to the fourth as shown in the cut opposite, while the third and fourth have their outer webs sloped off towards the extremity (this peculiarity seems to have been inadvertently overlooked by the artist). In colour it is much greener above, and of a purer white beneath than either of its congeners. The legs are flesh-coloured. The Willow wren (Ph. trochilus) measures in length as nearly as possible 5 inches, wing 2'6 and tarsus 07. The wing is thus comparatively shorter, the second primary being equal to the sixth, and the third, fourth and fifth with their outer webs sloped off towards the extremity. QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE WILLOW WREN. In colour it is the yellowest of the three species, and this is parti- cularly observable in young birds in the plumage of their first autumn. The legs are flesh-coloured. The Chiff-chaff (Ph. rufd) is the smallest of the three, measuring in length about 4'7 inches, wing 2'4, and tarsus 0'6. The wing is re- QTJILL-FEATHERS OF THE CHIFF-CHAFF. markably short, the second primary being about equal to or no longer than the seventh, and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth have their outer webs sloped off towards the extremity. In regard to colour, greenish brown is the prevailing tint above, white tinged with yellow beneath. The legs are hair brown. ED. 58 NATURAL HISTORY 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 1 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 grass- hopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly be- lieved 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, skulk- ing 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 Philoso- phical Letters, p. 108. The flycatcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it usually breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing ; its note is short and imper- fect, but is continued till about the middle of June. The willow wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries, currants, &c. ; 3 and are so tame that a gun will not scare them. 1 The grasshopper- warbler, Salicaria locustella (Latham). 2 The willow wrens. 3 This sentence has possibly led to the destruction of many of these little birds, which are in truth peculiarly the gardener's friends OF SELBORNE. 59 A List of the Summer Birds of Passage discovered in this Neighbour- hood, ranged somewhat in the Order in which they appear: Linruei Nomina. Smallest willow wren, Motacilla trochilus : * Wryneck, Yunx torquilla : House swallow, Hirundo rustica : Martin, Hirundo urbica: Sand martin, Hirundo riparia : Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus: Nightingale, Motacilla luscinia : Blackcap, Motacilla atricapilla : The Rev. W. Herbert observed that his gardeners were in the habit of catching the hens on their nests in the strawberry beds, and killing them, under the impression that they made great havoc among the cherries ; yet he affirmed that they never tasted the fruit, nor could those which were reared from the nest in confinement be induced to touch it. They merely peck off the Aphides which are injurious to the fruit trees. . The birds which were mistaken for them are the young of the garden warbler {Sylvia hortensis), with which species apparently White was not acquainted, as it is not mentioned by him, nor does it appear in his list of summer birds. The young of this species have a strong tinge of yellow on the sides, which disappears after the moult, and gives them very much the appearance of the willow wren when seen upon the tree, though they are larger and stouter, and in habits more nearly resemble the blackcaps, with whom they are associated in the plunder of fruit. Mr. Herbert remarks " I could not persuade my gardener that the yellow wrens did not eat the cherries, till he had shot some of the petty chaps (garden- warbler) in the act of eating them, and compared them with the wrens, when he became satisfied of the error. In order to ascertain, beyond doubt, whether the yellow wrens ever eat fruit, I left some which had been reared tame from the nest, and of course were more likely to feed upon any new thing than the wild birds, without victuals, till they were very hungry, and I then offered them little bits of ripe cherry. They seized them with avidity, but immediately threw them down again, and it was evident that they would rather have starved than eat the fruit. I had no doubt of the fact, but I wished to set the question completely at rest ; for I have seen them pulling the leaves of the cherry-trees so near the fruit, that any person might be de- ceived, and think they were eating it, and the young of the pettychaps (garden- warbler) look so like them, that I am not in the least surprised at their having got into bad repute with the gardeners." ED. 1 White seems to have applied the Latin name Motacilla trochilus to three different birds in this list, probably because he was unable to identify them with the Latin names respectively bestowed on them by older authors. He therefore employed the expression Moiacilla trochilus as he would say " a kind of willow wren." ED. 60 NATURAL HISTORY Whitethroat, Motacilla syhia : Middle willow wren, Motacilla trochilus: Swift, Hirundo apus : Stone Curlew ? Charadrius cedicnemus f Turtle-dove? Turtur Aldrovandi ? Grasshopper lark, Alauda trivialis: Landrail, Eallus crex : Largest willow wren, Motacilla trochilus : Redstart, Motacilla phcenicurus : Goatsucker or Fern-owl, Caprimulgus europceus : Flycatcher, Muscicapa grisola. My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with his 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 europcea (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 sum- mer 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. 1 This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose crown glitters like burnished gold. It often hangs, like a titmouse, with its back downwards. 1 The " humming " of the snipe has already been adverted to in Letter X., and will be found again noticed in Letter XXXIX. See foot-note antea, p. 35. In addition to the authorities there quoted, the reader may be referred on this subject to Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk," vol. ii. p. 316, and Saxby's " Birds of Shetland," p. 204. The last- named author remarks : " The many years' intimate acquaintance with the bird and its habits which I have enjoyed, confirms me in the now generally received opinion that the 'drumming' is produced by the vibration of the wings alone." ED. OF SELBORNE. 61 LETTEE XVII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, June 18, 1768. Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June the 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, &C. 1 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 ; 2 and is silent with regard to the manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps they may be sVw plv worcxot, ^co a, RAii; 2 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. 1 Salicaria phragmitis, see note 2, p. 82. ED. 2 The woodcliat, Lanius rvtilus, Latham. This is one of the earliest British specimens noticed. ED. OF SELBOENE. 87 LETTER XXVI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Dec. 8, 1769. AS much gratified by your communicative letter on your return from Scotland, where you spent, I find, some considerable time, and gave yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive king- dom, 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 dispatch, 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 field- fares, 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 Scot- land the whole year round ; so that we have reason to con- clude 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 migra- tion this autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th of September : but their flocks were larger than common, and 88 NATURAL HISTORY 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 pas- sage; but when I see them for a fortnight at Michael- mas, 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. 1 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: 2 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. 1 In the " Handbook of British Birds" (1872), pp. 94, 95, will be found enumerated at least a dozen instances of its occurrence iu different parts of the British islands. ED. 2 See p. 82, note 2, and p. 86, note 1. ED. OF SELBOENE. 89 De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lin- colnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of the white hare. THE EAGLE OWL. As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously laid up in an 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 amphilrius 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 ? 90 NATURAL HISTORY 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 diffi- culty 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 1 (which by the by 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 highflying gnats, scarabs, or Phalcence, 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 2 clamoured on to October the thirty-first : since which I have not seen or heard any. Swallows were observed on to November the third. 1 The little bat appears almost every month in the year; but I have never seen the large ones till the end of April, nor after July. They are most common in June, but never in any plenty ; are a rare species with us. G. W. 2 Stone-curlews, (Edicncmus crcpitans. The true curlew, Numenius arcuutus. was not observed at Selborne. ED. SELBORNE. 91 LETTER XXVII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Feb. 22, 1770. EDGEHOGS 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 HEDGEHOG. they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface the walks in some measure by digging little round holes. 1 It appears, by the dung that 1 The author of the " Letters of Rusticus " discovered this to be a mistake. He found that it was not the hedgehog but a night-eating caterpillar. He says : " In a grass walk I saw some flattened plants of the common plantain withering and half dead ; by the side of each I found the hole bored, as White supposed, by the long upper mandible of * Hoggy,' but it was scarcely big enough to admit a lead pencil, and 92 NATURAL HISTORY they drop upoii 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 that 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 qua- drupeds certainly do. I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the field- fare (Turdus pilaris), which I think is particular enough: this bird, though it sits on trees in the daytime, and pro- cures the greatest part of its food from whitethorn 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 redwings in the hedges, ?o round and smooth tliat I said directly to myself, ''tis the burrow of a night-eating caterpillar.' I got a trowel and in a trice the fellow was unearthed; and he afterwards turned to a 'ghost moth' or 'yellow under wing,' I cannot say which, for both came out in one cage." ED OF SELBORNE. 93 never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in the matter of roosting, should differ from all their con- geners, and from themselves also with respect to their pro- ceedings 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. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, March, 1770. N 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 ap- peared 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 green-house, 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 Grallce order. I measured it, as they do a horse, and found that, from the ground to the wither, 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 94 NATURAL HISTORY 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 Ame- rica. It is very reasonable to suppose that this creature sup- ports 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 some- where that it delights in eating the Nymphcea t 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 and a-half feet ! 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 this. 1 I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c. 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. 1 They belong, moreover, to very distinct genera of the Cervida. In addition to the peculiarities of form described by Gilbert White, the moose has broadly palmated horns instead of a rounded stem and antlers as in the red deer. ED. OF SELBORNE. 9o 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. LETTER XXIX. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, May 12, 1770. AST 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 white- throat ; and some have not been heard yet, as the grass- hopper lark and largest willow wren. 1 As to the flycatcher, 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 the llth of April, 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 easily 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. 1 The wood wren, Ph. sibilatrix. See note, p. 5G. ED. 9(5 NATURAL HISTORY 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. 1 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 1 This is contrary to the experience of the late Charles Waterton, who, in his " Essays in Natural History," 1st series, p. 14, says : " When fanners complain that the barn owl destroys the eggs of their pigeons they lay the saddle on the wrong horse. They ought to put it on the rat. Formerly I could get very few young pigeons till the rats were excluded effectually from the dove cot. Since that took place it has produced a great abundance every year, though the barn owls frequent it, and are encouraged all around it. The barn owl merely resorts to it for repose and concealment. If it were really an enemy to the dove cot we should see the pigeons in commotion as soon as it begins its evening flight ! but the pigeons heed it not ; whereas if tho sparrow hawk or hobby should make its appearance, the whole com- munity would be up at once ; proof sufficient that the barn owl is not looked upon as a bad, or even a suspicious character by the inhabitants of the dove cot." ED. OF SELBORNE. 97 water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element. THE OTTER. 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 pleas 3d 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 rivulot divides the parish of Selborne from Harteley Wood. 1 1 It is generally supposed that otters live exclusively on fish, but such is not invariably the case. They are carnivorous as well as piscivorous, and have been known to eat ducks and teal, and, while in confinement, young pigeons. Frogs form part of their bill of fare, and even mussels at times furnish food to these animals. Numbers of mussel-shells have been found in an otter's haunt, with the ends bitten off, and evident marks of teeth upon the broken fragments, the position of the shells indicating that the otter, after having crunched off one end, had sucked or scooped out the mollusc, in much the same way as those who are partial to shrimps dispose of that esculent crus- tacean. ED. NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXX. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIEE. SELBOENF, AU?. 1, 1770. HE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Lin- naeus says with respect to insects, holds good in every other branch : " Vcrlositas prcescntis sceculi, 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 sscn 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, &c., were thick- billed birds of the Loxia and Fringilla genera, and no Motacilice or fifuscicapce 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 ; whilst the soft-billed birds, which are supported OF SELBORNE. 99 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 lovely genera. l LETTER XXXI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Sept. 14, 1770. OU 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. 2 From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so regu- larly 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. 1 Since the foregoing remarks were penned, not only have the means of transport become much more rapid than was the case in W T hite's day, but greater attention having been paid to the importation of foreign birds and animals, and more consideration given to their food, enter- prising individuals have succeeded in bringing alive and well to this country many more delicate species than those referred to by our author, and from much greater distances. If he regretted the inability in 1770 to procure a soft-billed bird from the coast of Guinea, how would he have marvelled to see alive in the Zoological Society's Gardens at the present day the insectivorous Australian Pied Grallina, Grallina australis, the Black-tailed Flower-bird, Anthornis melanura, from New Zealand, and the Wood swallow, Artamus super ciliosus, from New South Wales. ED. 2 From our present knowledge of the habits of the ring-ousel, we may infer with little doubt that Pennant's informant must have con- founded the dipper or water- ousel with the ring-ousel. ED. 100 NATURAL HISTORY 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 1 (which I have just procured) has its merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol 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 all 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 a universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversa- tion 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 per- ceptible 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. 2 1 " Amrns Primus Historico-Naturalis." G. W. 2 The fact that woodcocks carry their young has long been known to naturalists. Several instances are referred to by Yarrell in the third volume of his " History of British Birds." Others are recorded by Mr. Lloyd in his " Scandinavian Adventures" and ** Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway," in which latter work will be found a woodcut (p. 194) illustrating a case witnessed by a friend of the author. Mr. St. John, in his " Natural History and Sport in Morav." OF SELBOENE. 101 p. 211, has some interesting remarks on this subject from his own obser- vation. He says: " That the old birds carried their young I had long since ascertained, having often seen them in the months of April and May in the act of doing so, as they flew, towards nightfall, from the woods down to the swamps in the low grounds. From close observa- tion, however, I found out that the old woodcock carries her young even when larger than a snipe, not in her claws, which seem quite inca- pable of holding up any weight, but by clasping the little bird tightly between her thighs, and so holding it tight towards her own body. In the summer and spring evenings the woodcocks may be seen so employed passing to and fro, and uttering a gentle cry on their way from the woods to the marshes. They not only carry their young to feed, but also, if the brood is suddenly come upon in the daytime, the old bird lifts up one of her young, flies with it fifty or sixty yards, drops it quietly, and flies silently on. The little bird immediately rnns a few yards, and then squats flat on the ground amongst the dead leaves, or what- ever the ground is covered with. The parent soon returns to the rest of her brood, and if the danger still threatens her, she lifts up and car- ries away another young bird in the same manner. I saw this take place on the 18th of May." This is confirmed by a correspondent who, writing from Rostrevor, Co. Down, in August, 1871, says : " On the 2nd of this month I started a brace of woodcocks close to me. One of them had a young one pressed between its breast and feet; it lighted on the ground again after rising, apparently to get a better grasp of its young one, and then flew off with it. They were near the edge of a wood, in the afternoon and during sunshine." Another correspondent, writing from Rohallion, Birnam, in "The Field" of 26th August, 1871, says: " This spring (1871) I have been witness repeatedly to the ability of the woodcock to carry its young and fly off with them pressed to its body by its legs. This was in May and June." Some additional evidence will be found in Mr. Stevenson's " Birds of Norfolk," vol. ii. p. 292. This curious habit has been noticed also in the North American woodcock, as testified by Audubon and others, while more recently the same thing has been observed in England of the common snipe. A well-known sportsman, who has adopted the pseudonym of " Idstone," writing in " The Field" of 30th May, 1874, says that, on the 22nd of the same month, when crossing a marsh on his way to a trout stream, a snipe rose almost at his feet, "and there was attached to it, mostly on its left or near side, a young snipe which it carried, or which clung to it, for about twenty-five yards." He could distinctly see the markings on the young one, and is therefore positive that he was not mistaken. The locality was close to Lawrence's Mill, Morden, Dorsetshire. In the same number of " The Field," Mr. John Titterton, of Ely, Cambs., says that a similar thing was observed near Ely also in May of the same year. ED. 102 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXXII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Oct. 29, 1770. FTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Bris-, son, &c., I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's Hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered Hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of f< Supra murina, subtus albida; rectrices macula- ovali alba in latere interno ; pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam plumce dor sales ; rectrices remigibus concolorcs ; cauda emarginata necforcipata;" agrees very well with the bird in question; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura Hirun- dinis urbicce," and that " definikio Hirundinis riparice Linncei huic quoque convenit" 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. 1 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 sheltery shores of Gib- raltar and Barbary. 2 1 It seems highly probable that Gilbert White's suspicion of the identity of his brother's Gibraltar swallow with the Hirundo rupestris was correct ; indeed, if the Gibraltar bird exhibited a white spot on the inner web of each of the tail feathers (except the two intermediate ones), it could have been no other than the bird first characterized by Scopoli, in his " Annus Primus," under the name quoted. According to M. Temminck the rock swallow is abundant along the shores of the Mediterranean. ED. 2 " This remark," says Mr. Bennett, " is not to be understood as miting the residence of the rock swallow at Gibraltar to the winter OF SELBORNE. 103 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 ft 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 ex- pressive, and very superior to Kramer's. 1 I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds so well with yours. LETTER XXXIII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Nov 26, 1770. WAS much P leased to see > among the col- lection of birds from Gibraltar, some of those short- wingedEnglish 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 cnly ; but merely as indicating that it does not quit the neighbourhood of that place, like the other swallows, during the colder months. It is, in fact, stationary throughout the year." M. Risso states it to be stationary also in the more northern locality of Nice ; where all the other swallows are, as in England, birds of passage. ED. 1 See his " Elenchus vegotabilium et animalium per Austriam in- feriorem," &c. G. W. 104 NATURAL HISTORY 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 a presumptive proof of their emigrations. Scopoli seems to me to have found the Hirundo mclba, 1 the great Gibraltar swift, in Tyrol, 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 melba, that " nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus," Vid. Annum Primiun. My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone curlew (CEdicnemus) , sends me the following account: a ln looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, I find the stone curlews are first mentioned on the 17th and 18th, 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 con- jecture I hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in England in the winter. 2 I believe they are 1 Cypselus mclba, ILL. (Cyps. alpinus, TEMM.) Stragglers of thii species, the large white-bellied swift, have occurred, in several instances, in the British islands. A score of such instances will be found enume- rated in the "Handbook of British Birds, 1 ' pp. 125, 126. ED. 2 One of the most interesting facts in connection with Cornish ornith- ology is that the stone curlew, which is usually met with in other parts of England as a summer visitant, is never seen in the Lizard and Land's End districts except in winter, and in the opinion of Mr. Rodd (" List Brit. Birds," 2nd ed. 1860, p. 5) the only way to account for this dcvia- OF SELBORNE. 105 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 gray 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 com- mon 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 STONE CURLEW. 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. tion is to presume that a portion of the migratory party, in their southern flight in the autumn, hold a northern limit just reaching the Land's End and the Lizard lands (the most southern in the British isles), the eorre* sponding northern migration in the spring just taking the whole number above the southern latitudes of the extreme western counties ED- 10G NATURAL HISTORY 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 of September. 1 When the (Edicnemus flies it stretches out its legs straight behind, like a heron. LETTER XXXIV. TO THOMAS PESNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBOENE, March 30, 1771. f/Tra E=Si? HERB 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 har- vest 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 some- times 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 1 Mr. Howard Saunders, in his " List of the Birds of Southern Spain" (Ibis, 1871, p. 386), includes the stone curlew as " common and resident, frequenting dry watercourses, and the most arid plains, where it deposits its eggs." ED. OF SELBOENE. 107 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 mantlepieces 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 " Clirysomela 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. 1 There is an CEstrus t known in these parts to every plough- boy ; which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by late writers, and that is the curvicauda of old Mouflet, mentioned by Derham in his " Physico-Theology," p. 250, an insect worthy of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass horses. 2 But then Derham is 1 On the subject of the Turnip-fly the reader may be referred to the " Letters of Rusticus," pp. 91-108, and to an excellent account pub- lished by Mr. Edward Newman in the " Field" of Nov. 20, 1869. Against the attacks of the black caterpillar, or " black dolphin," as White terms it, no preventive has yet been suggested. The most effectual means of keeping it under is by freely sprinkling the infested fields with lime, and renewing the sprinkling as often as the fine powder may happen to be carried a\vay by the wind. The same process appears also to have been the most successful that has yet been resorted to against the attacks of the ordinary turnip-fly. It is strongly recom- mended in a report which was published in 1834 by the Doncaster Agricultural Society, as the result of a very extensive correspondence, instituted with the especial view of collecting, from all parts of England, information on a subject of so much importance to the agriculturist. ED. 2 Gilbert White was mistaken in supposing that Linnaeus had over- looked this insect. He described it both in the " Fauna Suecica " and in his " Systema," under the name of CEstrus bovis, but the habitats which he assigned to it, namely, the stomach of the horse and the back of kine, show that he confounded together two distinct insects, the maggots of which infest the several situations referred to by him. The maggots of the one, known by the names of wormals or warbles, and 108 NATURAL HISTORY mistaken when lie advances that this (Estrus is the parent of that wonderful star- tailed maggot which he mentions afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have discovered sometimes by that of bots, are found beneath the skin of cattle : these are the larvae of the true (Estrus bovis, the perfect fly of which was probably unknown to the great Swedish naturalist. The maggots of the other, known, in common with those of some other species, by the name of bots, are found with the larvae of those other bot-flies in the stomachs of horses. The one whose habits are described by White, may be called the spotted- winged bot-fly. Mr. Bracy Clark, who has well described the habits of these insects in his " Observations on the Genus (Estrus," published in the third volume of the " Linnean Society's Transactions," and subsequently in an " Essay on the Bots of Horses," says : " The female bot-fly approaching a horse on the wing, holds her body nearly upright in the air, and her tail, which is lengthened for the' purpose, curved inwards and upwards : in this way she approaches the part where she designs to deposit the egg ; and suspending herself for a few seconds before it, suddenly darts upon it, and leaves the egg adhering to the hair : she hardly appears to settle, but merely touches the hair with the egg held out on the projected point of the abdomen. The egg is made to adhere by means of a glutinous liquor secreted with it. She then leaves the horse at a small distance, and prepares a second egg, and, poising herself before the part, deposits it in the same way. The liquor dries, and the egg becomes firmly glued to the hair : this is repeated by various flies, till four or five hundred eggs are sometimes placed on one horse. " The inside of the knee is the part on which these flies are most fond of depositing their eggs, and next to this on the side and back part of the shoulder, and less frequently on the extreme ends of the hairs of the mane. But it is a fact worthy of attention, that the fly does not place them promiscuously about the body, but constantly on those parts which are most liable to be licked with the tongue ; and the ova therefore are always scrupulously placed within its reach. Whether this be an act of reason or of instinct, it is certainly a very remarkable one." Mr. Bracy Clark suspects, with Dr. Darwin, it cannot be the latter, as that ought to direct the performance of any act in one way only. The eggs thus deposited are not, in Mr. Bracy Clark's opinion, re- moved from the hairs by the moisture of the horse's tongue, aided by its roughness, in the act of licking, and thus conveyed to the stomach : but remain, he conceives, attached to the hairs for four or five days until they have become "ripe, after which time the slightest application of warmth and moisture is sufficient to bring forth in an instant the latent larva. At this time, if the tongue of the horse touches the egg, its operculuni is thrown open, and a small active worm is produced, which readily adheres to the moist surface of the tongue, and is from thence conveyed into the stomach." For the manner in which the larva affixes OF SBLBOBNEll 109 that singular production to be derived from the egg of the Musca chamceleon : l see Geoffrey, t. 17, 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. 2 What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improvements would soon follow of course. A know- ledge 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 depre- dations. As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend ento- mology more than some neat plates that should well express the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnaeus ; itself in the stomach by means of the two hooks with which it is fur- nished at its smaller extremity ; its mode of growth ; its detachment, when fully grown, from the stomach; its passage through the intestines to remain, during its pupa state, in some convenient spot of dang or earth ; some anatomical particulars respecting it ; and many other facts relating to the fly in its various stages, as well as to other species ; the reader is referred to the paper in the " Linnean Society's Transactions," from which the above extracts are taken. Interesting as they are, the ex- planation of them would extend this note to too great a length, and would carry it altogether away from the point to which it is chiefly directed, the admirable provision adverted to in the text for securing for the bots the only habitation in which they could exist. ED. 1 The singular larva of the Stratiomys chamceleon, DE GEER, has been repeatedly figured and described ; and the use of the star-like circle of fbathered hairs appended to its tail, as a means of suspending that part and the orifice of the respiratory tube in their centre, has been often explained : it is among the most beautiful as well as the most curious contrivances resorted to for such a purpose by ever-varying Nature. The eggs from which these larvae are produced are affixed by the parent fly to plants living in the water in which the development of the mag- got is to take place : those seen by Messrs. Kirby and Spence were " arranged like tiles on a roof, one laid partly over another, on the under side of the leaves of the water-plantain." ED. 2 Since this observation was penned, the labours of Messrs. Kirby and Spence, Curtis, Newman, and others have gone far to supply the want alluded to, and have placed in the hands of students a store of most valuable and interesting facts on the subject of entomology. ED. 110 NATURAL HISTORY 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. PEACOCK.- OF SELBOENE. Ill LETTER XXXY. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, 1771. LPPENING to make a visit to my neigh- bour'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 uropy- i, but all up their backs. 1 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 back- wards towards the females. I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus agagropila, 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. 1 The peafowl is not the only bird in which the feathers of different parts sometimes assume the appearance of a tail. Familiar instances of this peculiarity are found in some of the cranes, notably in the Stanley crane, and in the beautiful Trogon resplcndens of Central America.- ED. 112 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXXVI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. Sept. 1771. HE summer through I have seen but two of that large species of bat which I call Vesper- tilio altivolans 1 , 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 mus- cular ; 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 dis- tinguished ; 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 1 This is the noctulc bat, Vespertilio noctula, Linn. ED. OF SEL BORNE. 113 not understand perfectly ; but refer it to the observation of the curious anatomist. 1 These creatures sent forth a very rancid and offensive smeli. LETTER XXXVII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE SELBORNE, 1771. the 12th of 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 Scarabcei solstitiales , 2 or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolu- tions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But the cir- cumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it dis- tinctly, 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 1 This is termed the tragus ; it is found in all our British bats except the greater and lesser horse-shoe bats. In man it exists only as a small lobe projecting in front over the auditory opening. When White first wrote to Pennant on the subject of bats, he knew but two indigenous kinds ; the long-eared, and that which he regarded as the short- eared : these, in fact, being all that were even known to Linnaeus as European. White subsequently became acquainted with another ; the great bat of the text. Pennant knew and described a fourth, the horse-shoe bat. Many years subsequently elapsed without the addition of another. The four indigenous species known in 1771 have now been increased to at least fourteen distinct species, so great have been the advances that have of late years been made in England in the search after animals and in the discrimination between them. ED. 2 Amphimalla solstitialis, LATR. I 114 NATURAL HISTORY forsaken us sooner this year than usual; for on September the 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 rose 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. THE FERN-OWL. Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd of August a rare instance ! for they usually withdraw within the first week. 1 On September the 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 ! 1 See Letter LII. to Mr. Harrington. G. W. OF SELBORNE. 115 LETTER XXXVIII. 10 THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, March 15, 1773. Y my journal for last autunm it appears that the house martins bred very late, and stayed vory late in these parts; for on the 1st of Octo- ber, I saw young martins in their nest nearly fledged ; and again, on the 21st of 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 the 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 nestlings twelvi 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 <;liff, steep covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say) , may become their hyber- naculum, 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 country. Hence wo may conclude Ihat their migrations are only internal, and not extended 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 116 NATURAL HISTORY 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, LETTER XXXIX. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Nov. 9, 1773. S you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, accord- ing as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the " British Zoology/' 1 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 at Selborne : they are rarce aves in this county. 2 1 This was the third edition, which subsequently appeared in 1776, and contained many of the notes forwarded by Gilbert White in this and the succeeding letter. ED. 2 Another butcher bird, or shrike, of which mention has been made OF SELDORNE.. 117 Crows go in pairs the whole year round. Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head and on all the clifts of the Sussex coast. 1 The common wild pigeon, or stock dove, is a bird of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till to- wards 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 3 not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but on p. 86, has also occurred at Selborne. Amongst the extracts from White's MS. diary published by Mr. Jesse (" Gleanings in Natural History," 2nd series, p. 161), is the following, under date May 22nd: " Farmer Hoare's son shot a hen Wood-chat, or small butcher-bird, as it was washing at Wellhead, attended by the cock. It is a rare bird in these parts. In its craw were insects." ED. 1 The chough, unfortunately, is no longer to be found on the Sussex coast. Mr. A. E. Knox in his delightful " Ornithological Rambles in Sussex," (1st ed. p. 210,) thus refers to it in 1849: " Late writers on British ornithology speak of this bird as a denizen of the cliffs of Beachy Head. I regret to say that it is to be found there no longer. This was certainly its last stronghold, but it disappeared from the coast about twenty years ago. I have frequently examined the entire line of cliffs between Brighton and Eastbourne, but could never even with the assistance of a spy-glass discover one, or procure a recent specimen in any part of Sussex." In 1865 the writer found choughs breeding in the limestone cliffs of the Dorsetshire coast, not far from Lulworth, and procured the eggs from two nests there in May of that year. The old birds were frequently seen, and scrupulously left unmolested. (Cf. " The Zoologist," 1S65, p. 9668.) The following summer the writer was informed that they were still in their old quarters. ED. 2 See Letter XLIV. to Pennant, and the notes thereon. ED. 3 Gilbert White here applies the name titlark to the tree pipit, al though elsewhere he thus designates the meadow pipit. ED. 118 NATURAL EISTOEY also as they play and toy about on the wing ; and particu- larly while they are descending, and sometimes as 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 0' Harass 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 the 23rd. The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house swallow, viz., about the 24th or 26th of April. Whinchats and stonechats stay with us the whole year. 1 Some wheatears continue with us the winter through. Wagtails, all sorts, 2 remain with us all the winter. Bullfinches, when fed on hempseed, often become wholly black. 3 We have vast flocks of female chaffinches 4 all the winter, with hardly any males among them. 1 We know of no instance in which the whinchat has been found here in winter, although the stonechat occasionally passes that season with ns. It is possible that female stonechats may have been mis- taken for whinchats, and may thus have given occasion to the above remark. ED. 2 The pied wagtail, Motacilla Yarrellii, and the grey wagtail, M. boarula. As to the latter, which White elsewhere calls the yellow wagtail, see p. 47, note 4. ED. 3 Bullfinches are not the only birds which have been observed to turn black from feeding on hempseed, nor is hempseed the only seed which conduces to such a change of colour. Larks have been known to become black after being fed for some time on hempseed ; and the late Mr. Blyth informed us that he had seen one of the little Amandavat finches which had become black, though fed entirely on canary seed. ED. 4 * British Zoology," vol. ii. p. 306. See also Letter XIII. to Pennant, p. 46. ED. OF SELBORNE. 119 When you say l that in breeding time the cock snipes make a bleating noise,, and I a drumming (perhaps I should have rather said a humming), I suspect v:e 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. 2 Soon after the lapwings have done breeding, they con- gregate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake them- selves 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. 3 I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer 1 " British Zoology," vol. ii. p. 358. 2 Reference has already been made to this curious sound, and to the mode in which it is supposed to be produced. See antea, p. 35, note 4. The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, in a note to the above passage, has the following pertinent remarks : "I have observed the drumming of snipes in bright days at the beginning of April, and 1 could very clearly discern the manner in which the sound is produced. After rising high, and crying peet, peet, peet, which is the snipe's vernal note, it lets itself drop obliquely through the air, keeping the wings motionless, but turning by some muscular contraction each individual quill sideways in the same manner that the bars of a Venetian blind are turned to admit more light, and having descended to the customary point, it readjusts its feathers, and rises again obliquely without sound. They will continue for hours together amusing themselves in this manner upon a mild day, and when they are in this mood, the sportsman has very little chance of getting near them. The cushat has a sportive movement a little similar, in the summer time, in the narrow wooded valleys amongst the hills ; it is less observed in flat countries. It descends obliquely without any motion of the wings, and when it has dived to the usual point of descent, flaps its wings with a loud noise, and towers again obliquely to the other side of the valley." The rook, the peewit, and the black-headed gull all produce at times a loud humming sound with the wings. ED. a Although the little auk is a sea-bird, many instances have been recorded of its having been found inland during or after stormy weather. ED. 120 NATURAL HISTORY Forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild ducks. Speaking of the swift (vol. iv. p. 15) 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, sky - lark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throw* ing 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 re- assumes its song. LETTER XL. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Sept. 2, 1774. EFORE 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 besiles, 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 OF SELBOENE. 121 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 some- times 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. 1 The threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young ; the generation of eels is very dark and mysterious. 2 Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees. When redstarts shake their tails they move them hori- zontally, 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 siknb about Midsummer, re- assume their notes again in September ; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow wren, &c. ; 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. 1 Three species of eels are described and figured in Yarrcll's " History of British Fishes." But see antea, p. 39, note 2. ED. 2 Eels are infested by several kinds of intestinal worms, which are doubtless the thread-like bodies referred to. The observations made by the late Mr. Yarrell on the reproduction of eels leave little doubt that they spawn like other fishes. ED. 122 NATURAL HISTORY House sparrows build under eaves in the spring ; as tlie 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; notwith- standing the prejudices in their favour, they do much mis- chief in gardens to the summer fruits. 1 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 Scarabceus solstitialis, 1 They eat also the berries of the ivy. the honeysuckle, and the JZuonymus europceus, or spindle-tree. G. W. The Hon. and llev. W. Herbert observed a robin feed its young en- tirely upon red currants. He thought they did not eat any other fruit, but were troublesome in the hothoiise. In one year they devoured every seed of Hcemanthus multiflorus and Griffinia liyacintlrina just as they were ripening ; nnd it was very difficult to save the berries of any Daphne from them. Mr. Hennie found that a redbreast which he had in a cage greedily devoured the berries of Solatium dulcamara, but would not touch those of privet. ED. OF SELBORNE. 123 or fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of it. These scarabs are the constant food of CaprimuJgi, 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 REDBREAST. 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 atti- tudes 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 124 NATURAL HISTORY August they bring their broods into gardens and orchards and make great havoc among the summer fruits. 1 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 birds 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 ew 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 may-pole. The flycatcher 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. 2 1 The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert thought the whole of this passage founded in error, since according to his experience there are no birds less shy and less pugnacious than whitethroats. And the late Mr. Daniel remarked on this passage that " so far from being wild and shy in the breeding season, the whitethroat frequents at that period the vicinity of London, and forms part even of the Fauna of St. Marylebone, covered as that parish now is with buildings. I have a nest taken by myself from a bramble-bush, by the side of a foot-path, just beyond the houses in the Avenue Road, Regent's Park." The fact is, Gilbert White seems to have mistaken the lesser whitethroat for the common whitethroat. The account which he gives of the habits of his bird will apply to the former, but not so well to the latter species. ED. The spotted flycatcher not unfrequently rears a second brood. ED. OF SELBORNE. 125 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. 1 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 anec- dote, I hope you will pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the information it may happen to contain. 1 Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species. G. W. The number of so-called British birds at the present time is about 395. Of these, in round numbers, 130 are residents, 100 periodical migrants, and 30 annual visitants, the remainder being rare and acci- dental visitants. ED. 126 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XLI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. T is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how 1 those species of soft-billed birds, that con- tinue 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 wood- peckers) 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. 1 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 Phrygancce, &c. 2 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 1 The golden- crested wren and the common brown wren are both very impatient of cold. In confinement, as observed by the Hon. arid Rev. W. Herbert, the least frost is immediately fatal to them. In a wild state, they keep themselves warm by constant active motion in the day, and at night they secrete themselves in places where the frost cannot reach them ; but numbers doubtless perish in severe winters. ED. 2 See Dei-ham's " Physico-Theology," p. 235. G. W. OF SELBORNE. 127 every month in the year, as any one may see that will 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 out-houses, 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 aureliae of the Ordo Lepi- doptera, 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 Linnsean genera of Fringilla, and Mo- tacilla. One species alone spends its whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating for succour in the se- verest 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 cceruleus] , the colemouse (Parus ater) , the great black -headed titmouse (Fringillago'], 1 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 mousetraps, baited with tallow or suet. It will also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained Parus major i LIMN. 128 NATURAL HISTORY with the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very severe weather, cany 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 ; L the former espe- cially, where there are stone quarries : most probable it is, that their maintenance arises from the aureliae of the Ordo Lepidoptera, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the wilderness. LETTER XLII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, March 9, 1775. OME 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 unaccom- panied 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 1 The stonechat may have been mistaken for the whinchat, since the former occasionally spends the winter here, bnt the Utter never. The wheatear, from having been observed in March, may have been supposed to have passed the winter with us, but we know of no instance in which it has been met with in England between the end of November and the beginning of March. See note 1, p. 118. ED. OF SELBOENE. 729 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 stupen- dous 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. 1 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 under- taking, 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, &c. Lord Breadal- bane's seat and beautiful policy are too curious and extra- ordinary to be omitted. The seat of the Earl of Eglintoun, near Glasgow, is worthy of notice. The pine plantations of that nobleman are very grand and extensive indeed. 1 Since these lines were penned by Gilbert White, an excellent work on the " Natural History of Ireland," in four volumes, has been pub- lished by the late Mr. William Thompson, of Belfast. ED. 130 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XLIII. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. PAIR of honey buzzards, Buteo apivorus sivc vespivorus, RAH, built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead beech en 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 gray snails without shells. The irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright yellow colour. About the 10th of 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 nume- rous, 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 alJ 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, OF SELBOENE. 131 all clean picked,, and some half devoured. The old birds had been observed to make sad havock for some days among the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being but SPARROW-HAWK. 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 XLIY. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, Nov. 30, 1780. VERY incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. As to the wild wood-pigeon, the CEnas or Vinago of Ray, 1 I am much of your mind, and see no reason for making it the origin of the common house- Columba cenas, LINN. 132 NATURAL HISTORY dove; but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often given to the (EnaSy 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 un- likely 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) ; l 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. 2 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. 3 For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock- 1 Columba palumbus, LINN. 2 The stock-dove, Columba anas, LINN., so called from its habit of building in stocks or pollards, nests also in deserted rabbit burrows, and even under thick furze bushes, where openings near the ground have been made by rabbits. Mr. Salmon, in his notice of Norfolk birds (" London's Mag. Nat. Hist.," vol. ix. p. 520), says he has known the stock-dove to make its nest high up in a fir tree, like the ring-dove ; but this was undoubtedly an exceptional case. It has fallen to the lot of the writer on different occasions to find stock-doves nesting in a church spire (cf. "The Ibis," 1867, p. 379, and "Zoologist," 1867, p. 758) and even in limestone rocks facing the sea (cf. " The Field," 14th April, 1866). In both instances the young were taken and reared, and the identity of the species thus placed beyond doubt. ED. 3 Pennant confounded the stock-dove with the rock-dove, Columba livia, TEMM. and made one species of them. ED. OF SELBORNE. 138 pigeon, for many reasons. 1 In the first place, the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house- dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which gene- rally 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. 2 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 wildfowl 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. 3 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 1 This is now the generally received opinion, although formerly naturalists, misled by the signification of the word " stock," regarded the stock-dove as the progenitor of all the domestic breeds. ED. 2 A good argument, as illustrated by the fact that the two conspicuous black bars on the wing of the rock-dove may be observed in many individuals of the numerous domestic varieties. The fact also of, the dove-cot pigeon never perching upon trees affords another proof of its relationship with the rock-dove, and not with the stock-dove. ED. 3 Although called "rockiers," these "small blue doves" must have been stock-doves. ED. 134 NATURAL HISTORY 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. 1 These are the principal circum- stances 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 them- selves 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 1 Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks used to withdraw as soon as the heavy Christmas frosts were over. Gr. W. OF 8ELBORNE. 135 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, de- scribes 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 coinmota Columba, Cui domus et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis Dat tecto ingentem mox acre lapsa quieto, Badit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas." " As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes, Boused, 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." 136 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER I. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, June 30, 1769. $ HEN I was in town last month I partly en- gaged that I would some time 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 allow- ances ; especially where the writer professes to be an out- door naturalist, one who takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the writings of others. The following is a list of summer birds of passage which I have discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear: EAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT 1. Wryneck, ( Jynx sive torquil- \ la: 1 The middle of March : harsh ) note. 2. Smallest wil- ( Regulus non cris- 1 March 23: chirps till Sep- low wren, ( tatus : ) tember. 3. Swallow,- ( Hirundo domesti- [ ca: j- April 13. 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, i Regulus non cris- 1 tatus : I Ditto : a sweet plaintive note. 10. Whitethroat, \ Ficedula Uffinis : i Ditto : mean note ; sings on j till September. 11. Redstart, Ruticilla : ( Middle of April: mqre agree- % 11 _ ] able song. 12. Stone curlew CSdicnemus: j End of March, loud nocturnal | whistle. 13. Turtle-dove Turtnr. OF SELBORNE. 137 14. Grasshopper lark, i A la uda m in ima lo - j custce voce: 15. Swift, Hirundo apus : 1G. Less reed sparrow, \ Passer arundina- 3 ecus minor 17. Land-rail, Ortygometra : 18. Largest willow wren, 1 Regulus non cris- j tatus : 19. Goatsucker, Middle of April : a small si- bilous note, till the end of July. About April 27. A sweet polyglot, but hurry- ing : it has the notes of many birds. A loud harsh note, crex, crex. " Cantat voce striduld locus - tee:" end of April, on the tops of high beeches. Beginning of May : chatters by night with a singular noise. May 12. 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 Linnasan system ; and are all of the Or do of Passer es, save the Jynx and Guculus, which are Piece, and the Charadrius (CEdicnemus] and Rallus (Orty- gometra) , which are Grallce. These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnaean genera : tsucker, ) . fernowl, } Capnmulgus : 20. Flycatcher, Stoparola : 1. 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18. 3, 4, 5, 15. 8. 12. Jynx: 13. Columba: Motacilla: 17. Rallus: Hirundo: 19. Caprimulgus: Cuculus: 14. Alauda: Charadius: 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 : BAII NOMINA. Rubecula : Passer troglo- dytes : Curruca: Redbreast, Wren, Hedge sparrow, White wagtail, Yellow wagtail, Gray wagtail, Motacilla alba : Motacilla flava : Motacilla cinerea. These frequent houses; and haunt out-buildings in the winter : eat spiders. Haunt sinks for crumbs and other sweepings. These frequent shallow rivu- lets near the spring heads, where they never freeze : eat the aureliae of Phry- ganea. The smallest birds that walk. 138 NATURAL HISTORY Wheatear, Golden-crowned wren, (EnantJie : Rcgulus cristatus : Some of these are to be seen ( with us the winter through. 1 Whin chat, (Enanthe secunda. Stone chatter, (Enanthe tertia : This is the smallest British . bird : haunts the. tops of tall trees ; stays the winter I, through. A list of the winter birds of passage round this neigh- bourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear : This is a new migration, which I have lately discovered, about Michaelmas week, and again about the four- 1. Ring-ousel, Merula torquata: V teenth of March. 2. Redwing, Turdus iliacus: About old Michaelmas. 3. Fieldfare, Turdus pilaris: ) Though a percher by day, ! roosts on the ground. 4. Roys ton crow, Comix cinerea : Most frequent on downs. 5. Woodcock, Scolopax : [ Appears about old Michael- ! mas. 6. Snipe, Gallmago minor : J Some snipes constantly breed I with us. 7. Jack snipe, Gallinago minima. 8. Wood-pigeon, (Enas: ' 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. J Anas torquata mi- nor : 12. Pochard, Anas fera fusca : 13. Wigeon, Penelope On our lakes and streams. 14. Teal, breeds I with us in Wol- \ Querquedula : . mer Forest, J j 15. Grosbeak, Coccothraustes . These are only wanderers that 16. Crossbill, Loxia : appear occasionally, and are 17. Silk tail, J Garrulus Bohe- not observant of any regu- micus ' lar migration. These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnsean 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 : 1 See note on page 128. ED. OF SELBORNE. 139 Birds that sing in the night are but few. 1 vr. t * ! 7- ( " In shadiest covert hid." Nightingale, Luscima: ( MILTON. Woodlark, Alauda wlorea: Suspended in mid air. Less reed spar- ( Passer arundina- ) . < . > Among reeds and willows, row, ] ceus 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. LETTER II. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Nov. 2, 1769. EN 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 niy 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 1 Some others might have been added, as the reed warbler, the grass- hopper warbler, and the cuckoo. The sky-lark often sings very late, and the note of the corncrake may frequently be heard in May between 11 and 12 P.M. The "less reed sparrow," Passer arundaccus minor, above mentioned is the sedge warbler, Salicaria phragmitis (Bech- stein). Er>. 140 NATURAL HISTORY in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring advances. 1. Woodlark, 2. Song-thrush, 3. Wren, 4. Redbreast, 5. Hedge spar- row, 6. Yellowham- mer, 7. Skylark, 8. Swallow, 9. Blackcap, 10. Titlark, 1 11. Blackbird, 12. Whitethroat, 13. Goldfinch, 14. Greenfinch, 15. Less reed sparrow, 16. Common lin- net, KAII NOMINA. Alauda arbor ea : Turdus simpliciter dictus : Passer troglo- dytes : Eubecula: Curruca : Eniberiza flava : Alauda vulgaris : Hirundo domesti- ca : Atricapilla : Alauda pratorum : Merula vulgaris: Ficedula affinis: Carduelis : Chloris: Passer arundina- ceus minor : Linaria vulgaris : - ( In January, and continues to \ sing through all the summer ^ and autumn. ( In February, and on to < August, reassume their ( song in autumn. j All the year, hard frost ex- ( cepted. Ditto. j Early in February, to July | the 10th. j Early in February, and on I through July to Aug. 21st. In February, and on to Oct. ! From April to September. Beginning of April to July 13. j From middle of April to July ( the 16th. ( Sometimes in February and \ March, and so on to July [ 23rd, reassumes in autumn. In April, and on to July 23rd. ( April, and through to Sep- \ tember 16. On to July and August 2nd. May, on to beginning of July. ( Breeds and whistles on till Au- gust; reassumes its note when they begin to congre- gate in October, and again early before the flocks se- parate. 1 Gilbert White, it would seem, did not clearly distinguish the tree pipit, Anthus arboreus, which he calls the titlark, from the meadow pipit, Anthus pratensis, which is the titlark of other authors. The former is a migratory bird, arriving in April and leaving in September, and a good songster (see p. 117) ; the latter is found here through- out the year, though many go southward for the winter, and is a very poor songster. The former, as its name implies, lives chiefly in trees ; the latter lives almost entirely on the ground, and in its habits and mode of feeding closely resembles the wagtail. ED. OF SELBOENE. 141 Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before Midsummer : BAII NOMINA. 17. Middle wil- ) Regulus non cris- j Middle of June: begins in low wren, f tatus : ( April. 18. Redstart, Ruticilla : Ditto: begins in May. 19. Chaffinch, Fringilla \ **ig f J e : ?* "* } in February. - -VT. , ,. , T . . ( Middle of June: sino-s first 20. Nightingale, Luscima: 1 . ^ ^ Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring : 'January 2, 1770, in February. Is called in Hampshire and Sussex the storm-cock, be- 21. Missel-bird, Turdus viscivorus : cause its song is supposed to forebode windy wet wea- ther : is the largest sing- ing bird we have. 22. Great tit- f In February, March, April: mouse or ox- \ Fringillago : I reassumes for a short time eye, j I in September. Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be called singing birds : f Its note as minute as its per- J son ; frequents the tops of : < , . , ^ , r ,, ed wren, ) high oaks and firs : the 23. Golden-crown- \ J son ; frequents the tops of r \ f Regul ) us cnstatus : smallest British bird. 24. Marsh tit- } ( Haunts great woods : two f Parus palustns { , -, mouse, ) ( harsh sharp notes. 25. Small willow- \ Regulus non cris- ( Sings in March, and on to Sep- wren, f tatus : ( tember. ,%'.,, ( Cantat voce stridula locustce; 26. Largest ditto, Ditto : 1 * -, f * ., | from end of April to August. f Chirps all night, from the 27. Grasshopper- ) Alauda minima ^^ f ^ tQ the end lark, f voce locust: -| ofjulj ( All the breeding time : from 28. Martin, Hirundo agrestis : | Maj ^ Sept | mbei , 29. Bullfinch, Pyrrhula. . ,j ,. ( From the end of January to 30. Bunting, Emberiza alba 1 T , ( July. All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to 142 NATURAL HISTORY song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnsean Or do of Passer es. The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnasan genera : 1,7,10,27. Alauda: 8,28. Hirundo: 2,11,21. Turdus: 13,16,19. Fringilla: 6, 30. Emberiza : 14, 29. Loxia. Birds that sing as they fly are but few : RAII NOMINA. Skylark, Alauda vulgaris : Rising, suspended, and falling, f In its descent ; also sitting on Titlark, Alauda pratorum : \ trees, and walking on the 1 ground. ,, r 1T , A -, j 7 ( Suspended ; in hot summer Woodlark, Alauda arborea : 1 V ,. ,, . , A , ( nights all night long. Blackbird, Merula : Sometimes from bush to bush ( Uses when singing on the Whitethroat, Ficedulce affinis : ' wing odd jerks and gesti- [ culations. c< n ( Hirundo domes- ( , swallow, > } In soft sunny weather. Wren, Passer troglodytes: Sometimes from bush to bush Birds that breed most early in these parts : * ~ ( Hatches in February and Raven, Corns: { ^.^ Song- thrush, Turdus: In March. Blackbird, Merula : In March. Rook, Cornixfrugilega: Builds the beginning of March. Woodlark, Alauda arborea : Hatches in April. ( Palumbus torqua- ) _ , . . . . .. Ring dove, < > 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 some- what in proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and annoyed ; but in Ascen- 1 To this list might have been added the robin, since it not unfrc- quently nests in January during mild winters. ED. OF SELBORNE. 143 sion 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, &c. As an example of what is advanced, I remark that the golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird) will stand BUSTARD. 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. 1 1 " Besides the barren ' brecks ' of Norfolk and Suffolk, the great bustard, on good authority, appears in former times to have been ex- tremely common on all the open parts of this island which were suited to its habits the elevated moors of Haddingtonshire and Berwickshire, the desolate wolds of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, Newmarket and Royston Heaths on the borders of Cambridgeshire, together with the downs of Berkshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Southampton, and .Sussex 144 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER III. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BABRINGTON. SELBORNE, Jan. 15, 1770. I T 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 being all more or less frequented by it; but in every one of these locali- ties it had ceased to exist before the last of the race of British bustards fell victims to the advancement of agricultural enterprise in this (Nor- folk) and the adjoining county." STEVENSON'S Birds of Norfolk, vol. ii. p. 2. It has long been extinct in Scotland, the occurrence of probably the last Scottish straggler is recorded by Dr. Fleming in his "History of British Animals," p. 115, where he states that one was shot in 1803 in Morayshire. As regards Ireland, the great bustard is included by Smith, in his " History of Cork," as one of the birds of the county of Cork in 1749, but if ever it was really found in Ireland, it has long since become extinct there. Our knowledge of the supposed gular pouch in the male bustard, originally due to a British anatomist, Dr. James Douglas, was first made known in 1740 by Albin, in his " Nat. Hist. Brit. Birds," iii. p. 36. Since that date many have been the contributions published, and various the opinions expressed, on this very curious subject. In the " Ibis " for 1862, pp. 107-27, will be found a very full and interest- ing account by Professor Newton of all that had been previously pub- lished on the matter, supplemented with observations of his own, and an important communication on the same subject by Dr. Cullen is given in the "Ibis," 1865, p. 143. ED. OF SELBOENE. 145 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 yellowhammer 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 blackcap, or a less reed-sparrow, or sedgo bird, alive. As the first is un- doubtedly, 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 brings to my mind those lines in a song in <( As You Like It." " And tune his merry note Unto tlie wild bird's throat." SHAKSPEARE. 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 notwith- standing 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 red- breast 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 tho L 146 NATURAL HISTORY 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. 1 LETTER IV. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SKLBORNE, Feb. 19, 1770. OUR 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 1 That good observer, Mr. Thompson, in his " Natural History of Ireland" (Birds, vol. ii. [> 239) states that on examination of the stomachs of thirteen woodcocks, killed at different periods and in every kind of weather, from October to March, one was found to contain only small pebbles ; ten vegetable matter, chiefly Conferva (in one instance an aquatic moss), and several of them worms of small or moderate size, insect larvae and aquatic coleoptera, together with a few pebbles. The vegetable matter, of which there is often a considerable quantity, probably remains intact after the gastric juice has acted on the worms and other animal food, and thus appears disproportionate to the other contents. As to the food of snipe, he says (toni. cit. p. 2G8), " The contents of the stomach of seven of these birds, which were particularly examined, and all from different localities, were as follows : Of three shot in the month of January, two contained a few seeds, and the third was half filled with soft vegetable matter ; two shot in March exhibited the remains of vegetable food, which resembled Conferva; of two killed OF SELBOENE. 147 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 whitethroat, and the redbreast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions CUCKOO. the nest of the ring-dove (Palumbus), and of the chaffinch 1 (Fringilla), 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. 1 It appears hardly possible In October, one contained a large worm, and two or three seeds of different kinds; the other two, insect larvre (Ascaris-like in form). Fragments of stone, of which some were the size of small peas, were found in all, the last-noted one being filled with them. In almost all moist soils, and in cow-dung, peculiar small thin worms of a uniform deep red colour (not at all the same species found in uplands and gardens) occur, and during slight frosts they come up to the surface in thousands. During such weather, both woodcocks and. snipe make these their chief food, and are then in first-rate condi- tion. ED. 1 In "The Ibis" for 1865, p. 178, Mr. Dawson Rowley, on the authority of continental as well as British .authors, has published a list 148 NATURAL HISTORY 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 farther appear that this simple bird, when divested of that natural crapyy 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. 1 of thirty -seven European species of birds in whose nests the egg of tlie cuckoo has been found more or less frequently, and to this list the editor of " The Ibis " was able to add fifteen others. On different authority, another list of twenty -two species is given in " The Birds of Middle- sex," p. 120. ED. 1 Since the above remarks were written by Gilbert White, so many extraordinary facts in relation to the habits of the cuckoo have been brought to light, mainly through the researches of modern ornithologists, that it would be impossible within the compass of a foot-note to men- tion half of them. Commencing with the observations of Dr. Jenner (Phil. Trans vol. Ixxviii. p. 225), the reader may be referred to what has been pub- lished by Col. Montagu (On. Diet. Introd.), Mr. Blackwall (Man- chester Memoirs, 2nd series), Mr. Durham Weir (Macgillivray's Hist. Brii. Birds, vol. iii. p. 128), Dr. Baldamus (Naumannia, 1853, pp. 307- 326), a very remarkable paper translated and epitomized by the Rev. A. C. Smith and Mr. George Dawson Rowley respectively in the "Zoologist," 1868, pp. 1145-1166, and "The Ibis," 1865, p. 178; Herr Adolf Muller, in " Der Zoologische Garten," for Oct. 1868; OF SELBORNE. 149 What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer con- cerning 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 wore not her's : " 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 ? 2 LETTER Y. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, April 12, 1770. 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 yellowhammer, 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 blackcap will bo here in two or three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those songsters ; but I am no birdcatcher ; and so little and Professor A. Newton, in "Nature" of Nov. 18, 1869, and his new edition of YarrelTs " History of British Birds." Reference should also be made to Mr. Stevenson's chapter on the cuckoo, in his " Birds of Norfolk," vol. i. p. 303, and, if the reader's patience is not then exhausted, to a couple of articles by the writer of this note, contributed to " Science Gossip" of May 1, 1870, and "The Field" of Nov. 22, 1873. ED. 1 Job xxxix. 16, 17. * See p. 151, note 1. ED 150 NATURAL HISTORY useql . 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. 820; or was it the less reed sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr Pennants 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, &c. ; 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 , want of food soon over-balances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human constitutions are more inclined to plump- ness 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, &c., can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalized at the vast disproportioned 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 open- ing 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?. OF SELBOENE. 151 I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine. 1 Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruc- tion 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," &c., have fallen in my way; and gave me great satisfac- tion : 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. 2 1 It has since been ascertained that cuckoos do lay more than one egg in a season, although Dr. Baldamus, to whose remarkable essay we have already referred, states that each hen bird lays but one egg in each nest ; and adds that the same hen bird lays eggs of similar colouring, as a general rule, in the nests of the same species only. ED. 2 We apprehend that allusion is here made to the fact that swallows which arrive early in this country occasionally get caught in late frosts, and vice versa. ED. 152 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER VI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, May 21, 1770. HE 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 tho^white- throat, the blackcap, the redstart, the flycatcher. 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 dis- advantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the llth of April, amidst frostand 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 ; l 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. 2 Dr. Scopoli is physi- cian to the wretches that work in the quicksilver mines of that district. When you talked of keeping a reed sparrow, and giving 1 This work be calls his " Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis." G.W. 2 Later in the same year the author procured the work here spoken of. His observations on it will be found in his Letters to Pennant, numbered XXXI. and XXXII., as well as incidentally in others. See also the following Letter. ED. OF SELBORNE. 153 it seeds, I could not help wondering : because the reed sparrow which I mentioned to you (Passer arundinaceus minor, Km 1 ) 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. 3 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. 4 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 na- ture as not to be contained in a small space, I shall say no- thing further about it at present. 5 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, &c. &c., 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 1 The sedge warbler, Salicaria phragmitis. ED. 2 The reed bunting, Emberiza schceniclus. ED. 3 See Letter XXIV. to Pennant, p. 82, note 2. ED. 4 See Letters XXIV. XXV. and XXVI. to Pennant. ED. 6 See Letter XLII. to Daines Barrington. ED. 154 NATURAL HISTORY so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be dis- cernible ; " Quern si puellarura inserercs choro, Mire sagaces fallerel hospites Discrimen pbscurum, solutis Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu." HOR. LETTER VII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. , RINGMER, near LEWES, Oct. 8, 1770. AM glad to hear that Kuckahn 1 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 posses- sion ; 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 orni- thology 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 mono- grapher. 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 1 Kuckahn was the author of a paper in the " Philosophical Transac- tions" for 1770 on the preservation of dead birds. ED. OF SELJWRNE. 155 genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly, lie has ventured to alter some of the Linnosan genera with sufficient show of reason. It might, perhaps, be mere accident that you saw o 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 Gallince order, as cocks and hens, partridges and pheasants, &c., 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 them- selves would never dust ; but here I find myself mistaken ; for common house sparrows are great pulueratrices, 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 phe- nomenon, 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 Majorca pennas nido extendissc 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 gamo-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 156 NATURAL HISTORY feeding on the Libellulce, or dragon flies ; some of wliich 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 crossbeaks (Loxice curvirostrce) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves belonging to this house ; the water-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near New- haven; and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. 1 I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ousels (my newly discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex downs from Chichester to Lewes. Lot 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. 2 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 1 This is now no longer the case. See Letter XXXIX. to Pennant, p. 117, note. ED. 2 The great bustard has long ceased to frequent the South Downs except as a rare and accidental visitant. Amongst various extracts from Gilbert White's MS. diary, published by Mr. Jesse in the second series of his "Gleanings in Natural History," is one (p. 164) wherein the author states that on Nov. 17, 1782, he spent three hours at a lone farm-house in the midst of the downs between Andover and Winton, where " the carter told us that about twelve years ago he had seen a flock of eighteen bustards at one time on that farm, and once since only two." Further on (p. 180) he adds: "Bustards when seen on the downs resemble fallow-deer at a distance." See Letter II. to Daines Barrington, p. 143, note. ED. OF SELBOENE. 157 birds of passage crowding towards the coast in order for their departure : but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a redstart, whitethroat, blackcap, uncrestcd wren, fly- catcher, &c. And I remember to have made the same re- mark 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 stonechatters, whinchats, buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, &c. 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. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Dec. 20, 1770. HE 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 158 NATURAL HISTOKY duo proportion of each sex, it should seeni 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 chaffinches (Fringillce ccelebes) , 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 birds should be interrupted in winter ; since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and docs, 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. 85, and " Systema Nature," p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of cocks. 1 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 regu- lator 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- so wing 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 1 See Letter XIII. to Pennant, p. 47, note L ED. OF SELBORNE. 159 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 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 king- doms. And I the more admire at this instance as extra- ordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer as well as in winter might support them here which main- tains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through. 1 From hence it 1 Both the redwing and fieldfare are stated on some authority to' have occasionally nested in the British Islands: see Mr. More's article on the " Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the nesting season," published in " The Ibis" for 1865, p. 19. In " Charlesworth's Magazine of Xatural History," the late Mr. Blyth reported that several instances of the redwing's nesting in Surrey were known to him ; and in the same periodical (vol. i. p. 440) he quoted the statement of a dealer that a nest of this bird had been taken at Barnet. Yarrell instances a nest found at Godalming: and one taken in Leicestershire is recorded by Mr. J. H. Ellis in'" The Zoologist" for 1864, p. 9248. In Shropshire Mr. Eyton has observed that some of these birds remain all the summer in his neighbourhood. In May, 1855, the late Dr. Saxby found a nest of the redwing at Maintwrog, North AY ales. It was placed in a tall Portugal laurel; and he repeatedly observed the bird sitting on her eggs, which he afterwards took. The circumstance was recorded by him in " The Zoologist'' "Sor 1861, p. 7427 ; but a more detailed account, copied from his private journal, has since been published by his brother, the Rev. Stephen Saxby, in his recent work on the " Birds of Shetland," p. 384. In the Outer Hebrides Mr. Bullock, in a letter to Dr. Fleming, dated 23rd Apri], 1819, mentioned the circumstance of the redwing breeding in Harris, where he had observed it in the preceding summer. (Sec Fleming's Hist. Brit. An. p. 65.) In Orkney, Mr. Low says ("Fauna Orcadensis," p. 58) that he observed a pair of these birds in Hoy throughout the greatest part of the summer, and imagined that they built amongst the bushes there, though with the strictest search he could not discover the nest. In like manner there are several reported instances of the fieldfare having remained to breed in this country. Mr. St. John in his " Tour in Sutherlandshire," vol. i. p. 206, says that he was shown a nest and eggs from near the Spey ; and the bird is reported to have nested also 160 NATURAL HISTORY appears that it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. Fieldfares and 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 kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of Juno. The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birds above mentioned in any district, is the testi- mony 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 ft nidificat in mediis arlmsculis, sive sepibus : ova sex cueruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his " Annus Primus/' of the woodcock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium vernale :" meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds, " nidificat inpaludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 5." It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria : but he says, " Avis licec septentrio- nalium provinciarum cestivo tempore incola est; ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme, australiores provincias petit : Itinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque in Selkirkshire (see Fairholme, "Mag. Nat. Hist." 1837, pp. 339 and 439). The late Mr. Blyth published an account of its having nested at Merton, in Surrey ("Mag. Kat. Hist." vol. iii. p. 467). but unfortu- nately he did not see the birds himself. Another supposed instance of the fieldfare breeding in the south of England was reported by Dr. Bree in " The Field" of June 12th and 19th, 1869. Mr. Blyth stated (" Mag. Xat. Hist." vol. vii. p. 242), that both the redwing and fieldfare had been repeatedly seen throughout the summer in a wood called the Wood of Logic, upon the estate of Sir John Forbes, at Fin try, in Aberdeenshire. On the 29th July, 1864, a fieldfare was shot in a garden near Kirby Muxloe, in Leicestershire, and forwarded to the editor of" The Field" for examination (see " Zoologist," 1864, p. 9248). It had been observed about the garden all the summer. ED. OF SELBOENE. 161 A f dst)'iam transmigrat. Tune rursus circa plefiilunhun potis- simum mensis Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit" For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see Elenchus, &c., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; though little is proved concerning the place of breeding. 1 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. TO THE HONOUKABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. 12, 1771. OU are, I know, no great friend to migra- tion ; 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, 1 It is now well known that although a large proportion of the wood- cocks which visit us in autumn leave again in the spring, numbers remain behind to breed here, and the reported instances of nests and eggs being found in different counties are becoming more and more numerous every year. ED. M IG2 NATURAL HISTORY 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 con- sist not only of Hirundines, but of bee-birds, hoopoes, Oropendolas, 1 or golden thrushes, &c., &c., 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, 200 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-men- tioned, 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. 2 It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their 1 Oropendola is the Spanish name for the Golden Oriole. ED. 2 The migration of the kites and hawks no doubt depends in a measure upon that of the smaller birds upon which they prey ; in the same way that some of the latter are influenced by the appearance or disappearance of locusts and other insects, which form their chief food. In Lloyd's " Game Birds and Wild-fowl of Norway and Sweden," p. 370, there is a wonderful picture by Wolf, entitled " The Bird- cloud," in which, in illustration of the author's remarks, the artist has depicted a vast flock of wild fowl on migration harassed by birds of prey. In Andersson's " Birds of Damaraland," p. 264, a singular account ;s given of the way in which the pratincoles (Glareola melon- optera) attend the flying swarms of locusts in South Africa. The writer says : " These birds come, I may saj r , in millions, attendant on the flying swarms of locusts ; indeed, the appearance of a few of them i< looked unon as a sure presage of the locust swarms being at hand." ED. OF SELBORNE. 103 migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, &c. ; 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, " Ranged in figure wedge their way, and set forth Their airy caravan high over seas Flying, and over lands with mutual wing Easing their flight." MILTOX. 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 tho opposite continent db the narrowest passage they can find: They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and go pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the nar- rowest 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, 1 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. 2 1 I have read a like anecdote of a swan. G. W. 2 We suspect that this bird was a cormorant, anrl that the rector of 164 NATURAL HISTORY 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 nar- rowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 1 Trotton and his friend mistook it for a duck on account of its webbed feet. Cormorants, as is well known, were formerly trained for fishing purposes, and wore collars, usually it is true of leather, but in the case of the king of Denmark, they may well have been of silver, or sufficiently ornamented with silver, to be spoken of as though made of that metal. Our own King James I., who was a great sportsman, made fishing with cormorants quite a fashionable amusement. He had a regular estab- lishment for these birds on the Thames at Westminster, and, to meet the requirements of the day, created a new office, "Master of the Royal Cormorants." See " The Ornithology of Shakespeare," pp. 260-265. As to the use of the "collar" or "strap," the reader may be referred to Freeman and Salvin's "Falconry: its claims, history and practice," to which are added remarks on training the otier and cormorant, pp. 327-350. ED. 1 In a note to this passage in his edition of the present work, the late Mr. Blyth observed that the nightingale " appears to migrate almost due north and south, deviating but a very little indeed either to the right or left. There are none in Brittany, nor in the Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, c.) ; and the most westward of them probably cross the Channel at Cape La Hogue, arriving on the coast of Dorset- shire, and thence apparently proceeding northward rather than dis- persing towards the west, so that they are only known as accidental stragglers beyond at most the third degree of western longitude, a line which cuts off the counties of Devonshire and Cornwall, together with all Wales 8 NATURAL HISTORY abounding, but near vast pools or rivers ; and in particular it has been remarked that they swarm in the banks of the Thames in some places below London bridge. It is curious to observe with what different degrees of architectonic skill Providence has endowed birds of the same genus, and so nearly correspondent in their general mode of life ! for while the swallow and the house martin discover the greatest address in raising and securely fixing crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for their young, the bank martin terebrates a round and regular hole in the sand or earth, which is serpentine, horizontal, and about two feet deep. SAND MARTINS COLONY AT OAKHANGER. At the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposit, in a good degree of safety, her rude nest, consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usually goose feathers, very inartifi- cially laid together. Perseverance will accomplish any thing : though at first one would be disinclined to believe that this weak bird, with her soft and tender bill and claws, should ever be able to bore the stubborn sand bank without entirely disabling herself; yet with these feeble instruments have I seen a pair of them make great dispatch ; and could remark how much they had scooped that day by the fresh sand which ran down OF SELBORNE. 199 the bank, and was of a different colour from that which lay loose and bleached in the sun. In what space of time these little artists are able to mine and finish these cavities I have never been able to discover, for reasons given above ; but it would be a matter worthy of observation, where it falls in the way of any naturalist to make his remarks. This I have often taken notice of, that several holes of different depths are left unfinished at the end of summer. To imagine that these beginnings were intentionally made in order to be in the greater for- wardness for next spring, is allowing perhaps too much fore- sight and rerum prudentia to a simple bird. May not the cause of these latebrce being left unfinished arise from their SAND MARTIN S NEST. meeting in those places with strata too harsh, hard, and solid, for their purpose, which they relinquish, and go to a fresh spot that works more freely? Or may they not in other places fall in with a soil as much too loose and mould- ering, liable to founder, and threatening to overwhelm them and their labours ? One thing is remarkable that, after some years, the old holes are forsaken and new ones bored ; perhaps because the old habitations grow foul and fetid from long use, or because they may so abound with fleas as to become unten- antable. This species of swallow moreover is strangely annoyed with fleas : and we have seen fleas, bed fleas (Pulex 200 NATURAL HISTORY irritans 1 ) , swarming at the mouths of these holes, like bees 011 the stools of their hives. The following circumstance should by no means be omitted that these birds do not make use of their caverns by way of hybernacula, as might be expected ; since banks so perforated have been dug out with care in the winter, when nothing was found but empty nests. The sand martin arrives much about the same time with the swallow, and lays, as she does, from four to six white eggs. But as this species is cryptogame, carrying on the business of nidification, incubation, and the support of its young in the dark, it would not be so easy to ascertain the time of breeding, were it not for the coming forth of the broods, which appear much about the time, or rather some- what earlier than those of the swallow The nestlings are supported, in common like those of their congeners, with gnats and other small insects ; and sometimes they are fed with LibelluloB (dragon- flies) almost as long as themselves. In the last week in June we have seen a row of these sitting on a rail near a great pool as perchers, and so young and helpless as easily to be taken by hand ; but whether the dams ever feed them on the wing, as swallows and house martins do, we have never yet been able to determine ; nor do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of prey. When they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures, they are dispossessed of their breeding holes by the house sparrow, which is on the same account a fell adversary to house martins. These Hirundines are no songsters, but rather mute, making only a little harsh noise when a person approaches their nests. They seem not to be of a sociable turn, never with us congregating with their congeners in the autumn. Undoubtedly they breed a second time, like the house mar- tin and swallow ; and withdraw about Michaelmas. 1 The flea of the sand martin, although so similar to the bed flea as to be scarcely distinguishable from it, is really distinct. It appears even to be distinct from the flea of the swallow, Pulex Mrundinis (Stephens), and has been described as P. bifasciatus (Curtis). ED. OF SELBORNE. 201 Though in some particular districts they may happen to abound, yet in the whole, in the south of England at least, is this much the rarest species. For there are few towns or large villages but what abound with house martins ; few churches, towers, or steeples but what are haunted by some swifts ; scarce a hamlet or single cottage chimney that has not its swallow ; while the bank martins, scattered here and there, live a sequestered life among some abrupt sand hills, and in the banks of some few rivers. These birds have a peculiar manner of flying; flitting about with odd jerks and vacillations, not unlike the motions of a butterfly. Doubtless the flight of all Hirundines is influenced by and adapted to the peculiar sort of insects which furnish their food. Hence, it would be worth inquiry to examine what particular genus of insects afford s the prin- cipal food of each respective species of swallow. Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few sand martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, fre- quenting the dirty pools in St. George's Fields, and about Whitechapel. The question is where these build, since there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood : perhaps they nestle in the scaffold-holes of some old or new deserted building. They dip and wash as they fly some- times, like the house martin and swallow. Sand martins differ from their congeners in the diminutive- ness of their size and in their colour, which is what is usu- ally called a mouse colour. Near Valencia, in Spain, they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets for the table ; and are called by the country people, probably from their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion di mon- tagna. 1 1 Mr. Howard Saunders, in his " List of the Birds of Southern Spain " ("Ibis," 1871, p. 205), says: "To my surprise I found this species nesting in the banks of the Guadalquivir in May. I had imagined it was a more noithern breeder." ED 202 NATURAL HISTOEJ \ LETTER XXI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Sept. 28, 1774. S the swift or black martin is the largest of the British Hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April ; and in some of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs. The swift, like the sand martin, is very defective in archi- tecture, making no crust or shell for its nest ; but forming it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and inartificially put together. With all my attention to these birds, I have never been able once to discover one in the act of collecting or carrying in materials ; so that I have suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, as sparrows do the house and sand martin, well remembering that I have seen them squabbling together at the entrance of their holes, and the sparrows up in arms, and much disconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am assured by a nice observer in such matters, that they do collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia ; and that he has shot them with such mate- rials in their mouths. Swifts, like sand martins, carry on the business of nidifi- cation quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and steeples, and upon the tops of the walls of churches under the roof; and therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as those species that build more openly ; but, from what I could ever observe, they begin nesting about the middle of May; and I have remarked, from eggs taken, that they have sat hard by the 9th of June. In general they haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and breed only in such : yet OF SELBOENE. 203 in this village some pairs frequent the lowest and meanest cottages, and educate their young under those thatched roofs. We remember but one instance where they breed out of buildings ; and that is in the sides of a deep chalk-pit near the town of Odiham, in this county, where we have seen many pairs entering the crevices, and skimming and squeaking round the precipices. As I have regarded these amusive birds with no small attention, if I should advance something new and peculiar with respect to them, and different from all other birds, I might perhaps be credited, especially as my assertion is the result of many years' exact observation. The fact that I would advance is, that swifts pair on the wing ; and I would wish any nice observer, that is startled at this supposition, to use his own eyes, and I think he will soon be convinced. In another class of animals, viz. the insect, nothing is so common as to see the different species of many genera pair- ing as they fly. The swift is almost continually on the wing; and as it never settles on the ground, on trees, or roofs, would seldom find opportunity for pairing, except in the air. If any person would watch these birds of a fine morn- ing in May, as they are sailing round at a great height from the ground, he would see, every now and then, two meet, and both of them sink down together for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek. As the swift eats, drinks, collects materials for its nest, and, as it seems, propagates on the wing, it appears to live more in the air than any other bird, and to perform all functions there save those of sleeping and incubation. This Hirundo differs widely from its congeners in laying invariably but two eggs at a time, 1 which are milk-white, long, and peaked at the small end; whereas the other species lay at each brood from four to six. It is a most alert bird, rising very early, and retiring to roost very late, and is on the wing in the height of summer at least sixteen hours. In the longest days it does not withdraw to rest till 1 We have occasionally found three eggs in a nest, and these were taken from under the eaves of some old cottages in TVest Sussex. ED. 204 NATURAL HISTORY a quarter before nine in the evening, being the latest of all day birds. Just before they retire, whole groups of them assemble high in the air, and squeak, and shoot about with wonderful rapidity. But this bird is never so much alive as in sultry thundry weather, when it expresses great alac- rity, and calls forth all its powers. In hot mornings, several, getting together in little parties, dash round the steeples and churches, squeaking as they go in a very clamorous manner : these, by nice observers, are supposed to be males serenading their sitting hens ; and not without reason, since they seldom squeak till they come close to the walls or eaves, and since those within utter at the same time a little inward note of complacency. When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth just as it is almost dark, and stretches and relieves her weary limbs, and snatches a scanty meal for a few minutes, and then returns to her duty of incubation. Swifts, when wan- tonly and cruelly shot while they have young, discover a little lump of insects in their mouths, which they pouch and hold under their tongue. In general they feed in a much higher district than the other species : a proof that gnats and other insects do also abound to a considerable height in the air : they also range to vast distances ; since locomotion is no labour to them, who are endowed with such wonderful powers of wing. Their powers seem to be in proportion to their levers ; and their wings are longer in proportion than those of almost any other bird. When they mute, or ease themselves in flight, they raise their wings, and make them meet over their backs. At some certain times in the summer I had remarked that swifts were hawking very low for hours together over pools and streams; and could not help inquiring into the object of their pursuit that induced them to descend so much below their usual range. After some trouble, I found that they were taking Phryganea, Ephemera, and Libellulce (cadew-flies, may-flies, and dragon-flies), that were just emerged out of their aurelia state. I then no longer won- dered that they should be so willing to stoop for a prey that afforded them such plentiful and succulent nourishment. OF SELBORNE. 205 They bring out their young about the middle or latter end of July : but as these never become perchers, nor, that ever I could discern, are fed on the wing by their dams, the coming forth of the young is not so notorious as in the other species. On the 30th of last June I untiled the eaves of a house where many pairs build, and found in each nest only two squab, naked pulli : on the 8th of July I repeated the same inquiry, and found they had made very little progress to- wards a fledged state, but were still naked and helpless. From whence we may conclude that birds whose way of life keeps them perpetually on the wing, would not be able to quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows and martins, that have numerous families, are continually feeding them every two or three minutes; while swifts, that have but two young to maintain, are much at their leisure, and do not attend on their nests for hours together. Sometimes they pursue and strike at hawks that come in their way; but not with that vehemence and fury that swallows express on the same occasion. They are out all day long in wet days, feeding about, and disregarding still rain : from whence two things may be gathered ; first, that many insects abide high in the air, even in rain ; and next, that the feathers of these birds must be well preened to resist so much wet. Windy, and particularly windy weather with heavy showers, they dislike; and on such days withdraw, and are scarce ever seen. There is a circumstance respecting the colour of swifts, which seems not to be unworthy our attention. When they arrive in the spring they are all over of a glossy, dark soot colour, except their chins, which are white ; but by being all day long in the sun and air, they become quite weather- beaten and bleached before they depart, 1 and yet they return glossy again in the spring. Now, if they pursue the sun 1 Yarrell has remarked, that our swift departs before its moult, and when its plumage is at the worst from wear and tear. Our summer visitors generally complete their moult before they leave us, but not the Hirundinida. See also foot-note, p. 172. ED. 206 NATURAL HISTORY into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not return bleached ? Do they not rather, perhaps, retire to rest for a season, and at that juncture moult and change their feathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon after the season of breeding. Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting from all their congeners not only in the number of their young, but in breeding but once in a summer ; whereas all the other British Hirundines breed invariably twice. It is past all doubt that swifts can breed but once, since they withdraw in a short time after the flight of their young, and some time before their congeners bring out their second broods. We may here .remark, that, as swifts breed but once in a summer, and only two at a time, and the other Hirundines twice, the latter, who lay from four to six eggs, increase at an average five times as fast as the former. But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their early retreat. They retire, as to the main body of them, by the 10th of August, and sometimes a few days sooner: and every straggler invariably withdraws by the 20th, while their congeners, all of them, stay till the beginning of October ; many of them all through that month, and some occasionally to the beginning of November. This early retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time is often the sweetest season in the year. But, what is more extra- ordinary, they begin to retire still earlier in the most southerly parts of Andalusia, where they can be no ways influenced by any defect of heat ; or, as one might suppose, defect of food. Are they regulated in their motions with us by a failure of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what ? This is one of those incidents in natural history that not only baffles our researches, but almost eludes our guesses ! These Hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so never congregate with their congeners. They are fearless while haunting their nesting places, and are not to be scared with a gun, and are often beaten down with poles and cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are OF SELBORNE. 207 infested with those pests to the genus called Hippo- boscce hirundinis ; and often wriggle and scratch them selves , in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance. Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh screaming note : yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing, from an agreeable association of ideas, since that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer weather. They never settle on the ground but through accident; and when down can hardly rise, on account of the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings : neither can they walk, but only crawl ; but they have a strong grasp with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies being flat they can enter a very narrow crevice ; and where they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn up edge- wise. The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift from all the British Hirundines ; and indeed from all other known birds, the Hirundo melba, or great white- bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed as to carry " omnes quatuor digitos anticos," all its four toes forward ; besides, the least toe, which should be the back toe, consists of one bone alone, and the other three only of two apiece : a construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed. This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and under mandible, have induced a discerning naturalist l to suppose that this species might constitute a genus per S6? In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, playing 1 John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. G. W. 2 The genus suggested by Scopoli has been adopted by modern zoologists, and has been made to include all the species of swifts : but the name which he gave to it has been superseded by that of Cypseius, applied to it by Illiger and adopted from Aristotle, which is considered as indicating the habit of hiding their nests in holes. The great white-bellied swift above referred to, an inhabitant of Central and Southern Europe, Western Asia, and Africa, is an occasional straggler to our shores. Since the days of Gilbert White a score of instances have been recorded of its occurrence in the British Islands. See the "Handbook of British Birds," p. 125. ED. 208 NATURAL HISTORY and feeding over the river just below the bridge : others haunt some of the churches of the Borough next the fields ; but do not venture, like the house martin, into the close crowded part of the town. The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swallow, calling it ring-swala, from the perpetual rings or circles that it takes round the scene of its nidification. Swifts feed on Qoleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases over their wings, as well as on the softer insects ; but it does not appear how they can procure gravel 1 to grind their food, as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young ones, overrun with Hippoboscce, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to the ground ; the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this village several abject cottages ; yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs : a good proof this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing. On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly was she affected by natural (rropyy for her brood, which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new- born child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor ; 1 Very few of the soft-billed birds eat gravel, and we are inclined to think that the particles of grit found in the stomachs of swallows have found their way there accidentally whilst the birds have been collecting mud for their nests. ED. OF SELBORNE. 209 and, perhaps, in their emigration, must traverse vast conti- nents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature advance small birds to their *iXixi'a, or state of per- fection; while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! LETTER XXII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Sept. 13, 1774. Y means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportunity this summer of re* marking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft : but my pleasure in contemplating the address with which this feat was performed to a considerable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit. 1 Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what times the different species of Hirundines arrived this spring in three very distant counties of this kingdom. With us the swallow was seen first on April the 4th, the swift on April the 24th, the bank martin on April the 12th, and the house martin not till April the 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th ; swifts in plenty, on May the 1st; and house martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburne, in Lancashire, swifts were seen April the 28th; swallows, April the 29th ; house martins, May the 1st. Do these different dates in such distant districts, prove anything for or against migration ?* 1 Tobit, ii. 10. 2 See the " Field Calendar of Ornithology ;" General Report for 1872; published in "The Field" of May 31 and June 7, 1873, and subsequently reprinted. ED. P 210 NATURAL HISTORY A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams of asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the afternoon. When these animals have done their work, they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung. Linnaeus says, that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat:" but it appears to me that, during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges. The missel- thrash 1 is, while breeding, fierce and pugna- MISSEL-THRUSH. cious, driving such birds as approach its nest, with great fury, to a distance. The Welsh call it pen y llwyn, the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird, to enter the garden where he haunts ; and is, for the time, a good guard to the new sown legumens. In general he is very successful in the defence of his family : but once I observed in my garden, that several magpies 1 As to the proper mode of spelling the name of this bird, see Pro- fessor Newton's edition of Yarrell's *' History of British Birds," vol. i. p. 260, note. ED. OF SELBORNE. 211 came determined to storm the nest of a miss el- thrush : the dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro aris et focis ; but numbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive. In the season of nidification the wildest birds are compa- ratively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are continually frequented; and the missel- thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people are pass- ing all day long. Wall fruit abounds with me this year; but my grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all precedent: and this is not the worst of the story ; for the same ungenial weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large. Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for when those fits are upon me I lose all the pleasing notices and little intima- tions arising from rural sounds ; and May is to me as silent and mute with respect to the notes of birds, &c., as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good; but with respect to the other sense, I am, at times, disabled : "And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." LETTER XXIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BAIIRINGTON. SELCORNE, June 8, 1775. September the 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and intent on field diversions, I rose before daybreak : when I came into the en- closures, I found the stubbles and clover- grounds matted all over with a thick coat of jobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew 212 NATURAL HISTORY hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the incumbrances from their faces with their fore feet, so that, finding my sport interrupted, I returned home musing in my mind on the oddness of the occurrence. As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, and the day turned out one of those most lovely ones which no season but the autumn produces ; cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the south of France itself. About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing without any interruption till the close of the day. These webs were not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes or rags ; some near an inch broad, and five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity, that showed they were con- siderably heavier than the atmosphere. On every side as the observer turned his eyes might he behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned their sides towards the sun. How far this wonderful shower extended would be diffi- cult to say ; but we know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, and Alresford, three places which lie in a sort of a triangle, the shortest of whose sides is about eight miles in extent. At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for whose veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest veneration) who observed it the moment he got abroad; but concluded that, as soon as he came upon the hill above his house, where he took his morning rides, he should be higher than this meteor, which he imagined might have been blown like thistle-down from the common above ; but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the most elevated part of the down, 300 feet above his fields, he found the webs in appearance still as much above him as before, still descending into sight in a constant succession, and twink- OF SELBOENE. 213 ling in the sun, so aa to draw the attention of the most incurious. Neither before nor after was any such fall observed ; but on this day the flakes hung in the trees and hedges so thick, that a diligent person sent out might have gathered baskets full. The remark that I shall make on these cobweblike appear- ances, called gossamer, is that, strange and superstitious as the notions about them were formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that they are the real production of small spiders, which swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs from their tails, so as to render themselves buoyant and lighter than air. But why these apterous insects should that day take such a wonderful aerial excursion, and why their webs should at once become so gross and material as to be considerably more weighty than air, and to descend with precipitation, is a matter beyond my skill. If I might be allowed to hazard a supposition, I should imagine that those filmy threads, when first shot, might be entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk evaporation into the regions where clouds are formed; and if the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister says they have [see his Letters to Mr. Kay], then, when they were become heavier than the air, they must fall. Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see those spiders shooting out their webs and mounting aloft : they will go off from your finger if you will take them into your hand. Lalt summer one alighted on my book as I was reading in the parlour ; and, running to the top of the page, and shooting out a web, took its departure from thence. But what I most wondered at was, that it went off with considerable velocity in a place where no air was stirring ; and I am sure that I did not assist it with my breath : so that these little crawlers seem to have, while mounting, some locomotive power without the use of wings, and to move in the air faster than the air itself. 214 NAT VEAL HISTORY LETTER XXIV. 1 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTOX. SELBORNB, Aug. 15, 1775. HERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation, independent of sexual attach- ment: the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance. Many horses, though quiet with com- pany, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves : the strongest fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour's horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without dis- covering the utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger with his fore feet : he has been known to leap out at a stable window, through which dung was thrown, after company; and yet in other respects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by themselves ; but will neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended by society. It would be needless to instance sheep, which constantly flock together. But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same species ; for we know a doe, still alive, that was brought up from a little fawn with a dairy of cows ; with them it goes afield, and with them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of this deer, being used to her but, if strange dogs come by, a chase ensues j while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to the cows, who, with fierce lo wings and 1 Barrington has inserted this Letter in his "Miscellanies," p. 251 ; prefacing it thus : " I shall here, on this head, subjoin part of a letter which I have received from my often-mentioned correspondent, the Rev. Mr. White, of Selborne, in Hampshire." ED. OF SELBOMNE. 215 menacing horns, drive the assailants quite out of the pasture. Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social advances and mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and observant person has assured me that, in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take place between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would ap- proach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs ; while the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminu- tive companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours of the other : so that Milton, when he puts the following sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken : " Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl, So well converse ; nor with the ox the ape." LETTER XXV. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON SELBORNE, Oct. 2, 1775. ,E have two gangs or hordes of gipsies which infest the south and west of England, and come round in their circuit two or three times in the year. One of these tribes calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of which I have nothing particular to say ; but the other is distinguished by an appellative somewhat remarkable. As far as their harsh gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the name of their clan is Curleople : now the 216 NATURAL HISTOBY termination of this word is apparently Grecian : and as Mezeray and the gravest historians all agree that these vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the East, two or three centuries ago, and so spread by degrees over Europe, may not this family-name, a little corrupted, be the very name they brought with them from the Levant? It would be matter of some curiosity, could one meet with an intelligent person among them, to inquire whether, in their jargon, they still retain any Greek words : the Greek radicals will appear in hand, foot, head, water, earth, &c. It is possible that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect many mutilated remains of their native language might still be discovered. With regard to those peculiar people, the gipsies, one thing is very remarkable, and especially as they came from warmer climates; and that is, that while other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses, these sturdy savages seem to pride themselves in braving the severities of winter, and in living sub dio the whole year round. Last September was as wet a month as ever was known ; and yet during those deluges did a young gipsy girl lie-in in the midst of one of our hop gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing over her but a piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel rods bent hoop fashion, and stuck into the earth at each end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same condition : yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object worthy her attention. Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings of these vagabonds : for Mr. Bell, in his return from Pekin, met a gang of these people on the confines of Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate those deserts and try their fortune in China. 1 Gipsies are called in French, Bohcmicns, in Italian and modern Greek, Zingari. 1 See Bell's Travels in China.- -G. W. OF SELBOENE. 217 LETTER XXVI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Nov. 1, 1775. " Hie tsedas pingues, hie plurimus ignis Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri." SHALL make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a very simple piece of domestic economy, being satisfied that you think nothing beneath your attention that tends to utility : the matter alluded to is the use of rushes instead of candles, which I am well aware prevails in many districts besides this ; but as I know there are countries also where it docs not obtain, and as I have considered the subject with some degree of exactness, I shall proceed in my humble story, and leave you to judge of the expediency. The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the Juncus conglomerate, or common soft rush, which is to be found in most moist pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges. These rushes are in best condition in the height of summer ; but may be gathered so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be need- less to add that the largest and longest are best. Decayed labourers, women, and children, make it their business to procure and prepare them. As soon as they are cut they must be flung into water, and kept there ; for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. At first a person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib from top to bottom that may support the pith : but this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar even to children ; and we have seen an old woman, stone-blind, performing this business with great dispatch, and seldom failing to 218 NATURAL HISTORY strip them with the nicest regularity. When these Junci are thus far prepared, they must lie out on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and afterwards be dried in the sun. Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the scalding fat or grease ; but this knack also is to be attained by practice. The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing; for she saves the scummings of her bacon pot for this use ; and if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipi- tate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by the seaside, the coarser animal oils will come very cheap. A pound of common grease may be procured for four pence; and about six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes ; and one pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling : so that a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease, it would give it a consistency, and render it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn longer : mutton suet would have the same effect. A good rush, which measured in length two feet four inches and a half, being minuted, burned only three minutes short of an hour : and a rush of still greater length has been known to burn one hour and a quarter. These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights (coated with tallow) , it is true, shed a dismal one, " dark- ness visible ;" but then the wick of those has two ribs of the rind, or peel, to support the pith, while the wick of the dipped rush has but one. The two ribs are intended to impede the progress of the flame and make the candle last. In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to be weighed and numbered, we found upwards of 1,600 individuals. Now, suppose each of these burns, one with another, only half an hour, then a poor man will purchase 800 hours of light, a time exceeding thirty-three entire days, for three shillings. According to this account each rush, before dipping, costs one-thirty-third of a farthing, and one- eleventh afterwards. Thus a poor family will OF SELBORNE. 219 enjoy five hours and a half of comfortable light for a far- thing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that one pound and a half of rushes completely supplies his family the year round; since working people burn no candle in the long days, because they rise an go to bed by daylight. Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both morning and evening, in the dairy and kitchen ; but the very poor, who are always the worst economists, and there- fore must continue very poor, buy a halfpenny candle every evening, which, in their blowing, open rooms, does not burn much more than two hours. Thus have they only two hours' light for their money instead of eleven. While on the subject of rural economy, it may not bo improper to mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen no where else ; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters make from the stalks of the Polytrichum commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which they call silk- wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut colour ; and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. If these besoms were known to the brush-makers in town, it is probable they might come much in use for the purpose above mentioned. 1 1 A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum. G. W. This Museum, to which allusion has been already made, was disposed of by auction in 1806. See p. 3, footnote. ED. 220 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXVII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRING TON. SELBORNE, Dec. 12, 1775. jE had in this village, more than twenty years ago, an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propen- sity to bees ; they were his food, his amuse- ment, his sole object: and as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his father's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney-corner ; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. Honey bees, humble bees, and wasps, were his prey wherever he found them : he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize them nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes ho would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives : and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very Merops apiaster, or bee- bird; and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion ; and, except in his favourite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of under- OF SELBOENE. 221 standing. Had his capacity been better, and directed to the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees ; and we may justly say of him now, " Thou, Had thy presiding star propitious shone, Shouldst Wildman be." When a tall youth, he was removed from hence to a distant village, where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at manhood. LETTER XXVIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON". SELBORNE, Jan. 8, 1776. T is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices : they are sucked in, as it were, with our mother's milk, and, growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold, and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion. Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be sus- pected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened age. But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well to remember that no longer ago than the year 1751, and within twenty miles of the capital, they seized on two super- annuated wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed with 222 NATURAL HISTORY infirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft, and, by trying experiments, drowned them in a horse-pond. In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands at this day, a row pf pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured ; but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of which did not grow together. We have several persons now living in the village, who, in their childhood, were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down, perhaps, from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to Christianity. 1 1 " Much nearer to the metropolis than Selborne," says Mr. Bennett, in a note to this passage, " and in days later than those alluded to by White, the ceremony described by him has been practised. The ash resorted to for the charm, in the instance referred to, is in the hedge of an orchard belonging to a house near Enfield, in which some of my earlier years were spent. A man living in the neighbourhood, and at the time when I was best acquainted with it (1810) about sixty years of age, was indicated as the individual on whose behalf recourse had been had to the observance. The tree had healed, and the cure had, of course, been performed." He adds : " Is it worth the remark that, as ashes seem seldom to fail to grow together after having been split, so also does it rarely happen that infants affected with umbilical hernia fail to be relieved from it at a very early age ; and that, consequently, the charm-tree would, almost beyond the probability of an exception, accord in its healing with that of the infant whose fate was thus supposed to have been mysteriously connected with it ?" ED. OF SELBOENE. 223 At the south corner of the Plestor, or area near the church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew- mouse over the part affected; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus: 1 Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt with several quaint incantations long since for- gotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecra- tion are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. 1 For a similar practice, see Plot's Staffordshire G W. Dr. Plot relates that two workmen, on sawing the trunk of a solid oak, cut through the body of " a Hardishrew or Nursrow (as they here call them), i.e., a field-mouse" and that "the case remains an inexplic- able riddle to all those about to this very day. But methinks, to any one that considers the superstitious custom they have in this country of making Nursrow-trees for the cure of unaccountable swellings in their cattle, the thing should not seem strange. For to make any tree, whether oak, ash, or elm, it being indifferent which, a Nursrow -tree, they catch one or more of these mice (which they fancy bite their cattle, and make them swell), and having bored a hole to the centre in the body of the tree, they put the mice in, and then drive a peg in after them of the same wood, where they, starving at last, communicate forsooth such a virtue to the tree that the cattle thus swoln, being whipped with the boughs of it, presently recover ; of which trees they have not so many, thcugrh so easily made, but that at some places they go eight or ten miles to procure this remedy. 1 ' ED. 224 NATURAL HISTORY As to that on the Plestor, " The late vicar stubb'd and burn'd it," when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preserva- tion, urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been " Reli^ione patrum multos servata per annos." LETTER XXIX. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Feb. 7. 1776. heavy fogs, on elevated situations, espe- cially, trees are perfect alembics ; and no one that has not attended to such matters can imagine how much water one tree will distil in a night's time, by condensing the vapour which trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in a float. In Newton Lane, in October, 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak in leaf dropped so fast that the cartway stood in puddles, and the ruts ran with water, though the ground in general was dusty. In some of our smaller islands in the West Indies, if I mistake not, there are no springs or rivers ; but the people are supplied with that necessary element, water, merely by the dripping of some large tall trees, which, standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their heads constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, from which they dispense their kindly never-ceasing moisture ; and so render those districts habit- able by condensation alone. Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface than those that are naked that, in theory, their condensa- tions should greatly exceed those that are stripped of their leaves ; but as the former imbibe also a great quantity of moisture, it is difficult to say which drip most : but this I OF SELBORNE. 225 know, that deciduous trees that are entwined with much ivy seem to distil the greatest quantity. Ivy leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold, and, therefore, condense very fast ; and, besides, evergreens imbibe very little. These facts may furnish the intelligent with hints concerning what sorts of trees they should plant round small ponds that they would wish to be perennial, and show them how advan- tageous some trees are in preference to others. Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evaporation so much that woods are always moist : no wonder therefore that they contribute much to pools and streams. That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers, appears from a well-known fact in North America; for, since the woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies of watei are much diminished ; so that some streams that were very considerable a century ago, will not now drive a common mill. 1 Besides, most woodlands, forests, and chases, with us, abound with pools and mo- rasses, no doubt for the reason given above. To a thinking mind, few phenomena are more strange than the state of little ponds on the summits of chalk-hills, many of which are never dry in the most trying droughts of summer. On chalk- hills I say, because in many rocky and gravelly soils, springs usually break out pretty high on the sides of elevated grounds and mountains ; but no person acquainted with chalky districts will allow that they ever saw springs in such a soil, but in valleys and bottoms, since the waters of so pervious a stratum as chalk all lie on one dead level, as well-diggers have assured me agnin and again. Now, we have many such little round ponds in this dis- trict; and one in particular on our sheep-down, 300 feet above my house, which, though never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in diameter, and containing perhaps not more than two or three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it 1 Vide Kalm's " Travels to North America." G. W. Q 22G NATURAL HISTORY affords drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle beside. This pond, it is true, is overhung with two moderate beeches, that, doubtless, at times, afford it much supply; but then we have others as small, that, without the aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind, and perpetual con- sumption by cattle, yet constantly maintain a moderate share of water, without overflowing in the wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied by springs. By my journal of May, 1775, it appears that " the small and even considerable ponds in the vales are now dried up, while the small ponds on the very tops of hills arc but little affected." Can this difference be accounted for from evaporation alone, which certainly is more prevalent in bottoms ? or rather, have not thoso elevated pools some unnoticed recruits, which in the night-time counterbalance the waste of the day, without which, the cattle alone must soon exhaust them ? And here it will be necessary to enter more minutely into the cause. Dr. Hales, in his " Vegetable Statics/' advances, from experiment, that "the moister the earth is, the more dew falls on it in a night; and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of watT than there docs on an equal surface of moist earth." Hence we see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to itself a large quantity of moisture nightly, by condensation, and that the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and cv 7 en with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable and never- failing resource. Persons that are much abroad, and travel early and late, such as shepherds, fishermen, &c., can tell what prodigious fogs prevail in the night on elevated downs, even in the hottest parts of summer, and how much the surfaces of things are drenched by those swimming va- pours, though, to the senses, all the while, little moisture seems to fall. OF SELBORNE. 227 LETTER XXX. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARTUNGTON. SELBORNE, April 3, 1776. OXSIEUR HERISSANT, a French anato- mist^ seems persuaded that he has discovered the reason why cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs : the impediment, he supposes, arises from the internal structure of their parts, which incapacitates them for incubation. According to this gentleman, the crop, or craw, of a cuckoo does not lie before the sternum at the bottom of the neck, as in poultry (GaUincc) , pigeons (Columbce) , &c., but immediately behind it, on and over the bowels, so as to make a large protuber- ance in the belly. 1 Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo, and cutting open the breast-bone and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pin- cushion, with food, which, upon nice examination, we found to consist of various insects, such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last of which, as they were just emerging out of the aurelia state, we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing. Among this farrago a 1 so were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit ; so that these birds apparently subsist on insects and fruits : nor was there the least appearance of bones, feathers, or fur, to support the idle notion of their being birds oi prey. The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be remarkably short, between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw, and immediately behind that, the bowels against the back- bone. It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the 1 "Ilistoire de rAcaclcmie Royale," 1752. G. W. 228 NATVRAL HISTORY crop placed just upon the bowels must, especially when full, be in a very uneasy situation during the business of incuba- tion ; yet the test will be to examine whether birds that are actually known to sit for certain are not formed in a similar manner. This inquiry I proposed to myself to make with a fern-owl, or goat-sucker, as soon as opportunity offered ; because, if their formation proves the same, the reason for incapacity in the cuckoo will be allowed to have been taken up somewhat hastily. Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from its aabit and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo in its internal construction. Nor were our suspicions ill- grounded; for upon the dissection, the crop, or craw, also lay behind the sternum, immediately on the viscera, between them and the skin of the belly. It was bulky, and stuffed hard with large Phalcence of several sorts, and their eggs, which, no doubt, had been forced out of those insects by the action of swallowing. Now, as it appears that this bird, which is so well known to practise incubation, is formed in a similar manner with cuckoos, Monsieur Herissant's conjecture that cuckoos are incapable of incubation from the disposition of their intes- tines seems to fall to the ground ; and we are still at a loss for the cause of that strange and singular peculiarity in the instance of the Cuculus canorus. 1 We found the case to be the same with the ring-tail hawk 2 in respect to formation ; and, as far as I can recollect, with the swift ; and probably it is so with many more sorts of birds that are not granivorous. 1 The cuckoo has no true crop, and the position of its proventriculus does not differ from that of other scansorial birds ; the oesophagus de- scends along the posterior or dorsal part of the thorax, inclining to the left side, and, when opposite to the lower margin of the left lung, it begins to expand into the glandular cavity or proventriculus. The giz- zard, which is neither large nor strong, is in immediate contact with the abdominal parietes, and not separated from them by an intervening stratum of intestines ; but this position cannot be supposed to interfere with the power of incubation, since it occurs also in other birds that du incubate. ED. 2 This is a provincial name for the female Hen harrier, Circus cyaneus OF SELBORNE. 229 LETTER XXXI. TO TIIE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELHORNE, April 29, 1770. August the 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper, which seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut it up, we found that the abdomen was crowded with young, fif- teen in number; 1 the shortest of which measured full seven inches, and were about the size of full grown earthworms. This little fry issued into the world with the true viper spirit about them, showing great alertness as soon as disengaged from the belly of the dam; they twisted and wriggled about, and set themselves up, and gaped very wide when touched with a stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and de- fiance, though as yet they had no manner of fangs that wo could find, even with the help of our glasses. To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than that early instinct which impresses young animals with the notion of the situation of their natural weapons, and of using them properly in their own defence, even before those weapons subsist or are formed. Thus, a young cock will spar at his adversary before his spurs are grown; and a calf or lamb will push with its head before its horns are sprouted. In the same manner did these young adders attempt to bite before their fangs were in being. The dam, however, was furnished with very formidable ones, which we lifted up (for they fold down when not used) , and cut them off with the point of our scissars. 1 Bearing in mind the much vexed question, whether vipers, in time of danger, swallow their young, it may be here observed, that the ex- pression " abdomen," as used by Gilbert White, must not be regarded a,s synonymous with the true stomach, but only as implying that larger cavity in which both stomach and uterus are contained. The young, of course, were in the latter and most natural receptacle. ED. 230 NATURAL HISTORY Thoro was little room to suppose that this brood had ever been in the open air before ; and that they were taken in for refuge, at the mouth of the dam, when she perceived that danger was approaching, because then probably we should have found them somewhere in the neck, and not in the abdomen. LETTER XXXII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. ASTRATION has a strange effect; it emas- culates both man, beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of the other sex. Thus, eunuchs have smooth unmuscular arms, thighs, and legs, and broad hips, and beard- less chins, and squeaking voices. Gelt stags and bucks have hornless heads, like hinds and does. Thus wethers have small horns, like ewes ; and oxen large bent horns, and hoarse voices when they low, like cows : for bulls have short straight horns ; and though they mutter and grumble in a deep tremendous tone, yet they low in a shrill high key. Capons have small combs and gills, and look pallid about the head, like pullets ; they also walk without any parade, and hover chickens like hens. 1 Barrow-hogs have also small tusks like sows. Thus far it is plain that it puts a stop to the growth of those appendages that are looked upon as its insignia. But the ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on husbandry, carries it much farther ; for he says that the loss of those insignia alone has sometimes a strange effect : he had a boar so fierce and amorous, that, to prevent mischief, orders were given 1 Reaumur trained capons to nurse the chickens which he hatched by artificial heat. They clucked exactly like a hen, and proved as good nurses as a real mother could have been. ED. OF SELBOENE. 231 for his tusks to be broken off. No sooner had the beast suffered this injury than his powers forsook him, and he neglected those females to whom before he was passionately attached, and from whom no fences could restrain him. LETTER XXXIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. HE natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the reason is plain ; because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep that turbu- lent animal to the full extent of its time ; however, my neighbour, a man of substance, who had no occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety, kept a half-bred Bantam sow, who was as thick as HOG. she was long, and whose belly swept on the ground, till she was advanced to her seventeenth year, at which period she showed some tokens of age, by the decay of her teeth and the decline of her fertility. 232 NATURAL HISTORY For about ton years this prolific mother produced two litters in the year, of about ten at a time, and once above twenty at a litter ; but, as there were near double the num- ber of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long expe- rience in the world, this female was grown very sagacious and artful ; when she found occasion to converse with a boar, she used to open all the intervening gates, and march by herself up to a distant farm where one was kept; and when her purpose was served, would return by the same means. At the age of about fifteen, her litters began to be reduced to four or five; and such a litter she exhibited when in her fatting pen. She proved when fat, good bacon, juicy, and tender ; the rind, or sward, was remarkably thin. At a moderate computation, she was allowed to have been the fruitful parent of 300 pigs a prodigious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was killed in spring, 1775. LETTER XXXIV. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BAKRINGTON. SELBORNE, May 9, 177G. " admorunt ubera tigres." ;E have remarked in a former letter how much incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to each other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not be amiss to re- count a different motive which has been known to create as strange a fondness. My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the same time his cat kittened, and the young were dispatched and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be gone the way of most fondlings, to be killed by some dog or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was OF SELBOENE. 233 sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he ob- served his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling with little short inward notes of complacency, such as they use towards their kittens, and something gamboling after, which proved to be the leveret that the cat had sup- ported with her milk, and continued to support with great affection. Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivor- ous and predaceous one ! l Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the ferocious genus of Fells, the murium leo, as Linnscus calls it, should be affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine. This strange affection probably was occasioned by that desidcrium, those tender maternal feelings which the loss of her kittens had awakened in her breast; and by the com- placency and ease she derived to herself from the procuring her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended with milk, till, from habit, she became as much delighted with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circum- stance which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that a poor little sucking leveret should be fostered and cherished by a blood-thirsty grimalkin. " viridi foetam Mavortis in antro Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentcs pueros, et lambere matrem Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." 1 An additional instance, in the case of a cat and squirrels, will be found mentioned later in the " Observations on Quadrupeds." ED. 234 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXXV. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTOX. SELBORXE, May 20, 1777. AN.DS that are subject to frequent inunda- tions are always poor ; and probably the rea- son may be because the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects and reptiles are of much more consequence and have much more influence in the economy of Nature than the incurious are aware of; and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention ; and from their numbers and fecundity. Earthworms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants ; by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass. Worms probably provide new soil for hills and slopes where the rain washes the earth away ; and they affect slopes probably to avoid being flooded. Gar- deners and farmers express their detestation of worms ; the former because they render their walks unsightly, and make them much work ; and the latter because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would find that the earth without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void of fermentation, and consequently sterile; and besides, in favour of worms, it should be hinted that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much in- jured by them as by many species of Coleoptera (scarabs) OF SELBORNE. 235 and Tipulce (long-legs) , in their larva, or grub state ; and by unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havock in the field and garden. Farmer Young, of Norton Farm, says that this spring (1777) about four acres of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, whicli swarmed on the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. These hints we think proper to throw out, in order to set the inquisitive and discerning to work. A good monography of worms would afford much enter- tainment and information at the same time, and would open a large and new field in natural history. Worms work most in the spring; but by no means lie torpid in the dead months are out every mild night in the winter, as any person may be convinced that will take the pains to examine his grassplots with a candle ; are hermaphrodites, and very prolific. LETTER XXXVI. 1 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGT.ON. SELDORXE, Nov. 22, 1777. OU cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th of last March were very hot days; so sultry that everybody complained, and were restless under those sensations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual ap- proaches. This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer coincidences ; for on those two days the thermo- meter rose to 66 in the shade ; many species of insects 1 This letter was first printed in " Barrington's Miscellanies" (1781), p. 225. " I shall here,*' he says, " subjoin a letter which I have re- ceived from that ingenious and observant naturalist, the llev. Mr. White, of Sclborne, Hampshire." ED. 236 NATURAL HISTORY revived and came forth ; some bees swarmed in this neigh- bourhood ; the old tortoise near Lewes, in Sussex, awakened and came forth oat of its dormitory ; and, what is most to my present purpose, many house swallows appeared, and were very alert in many places, and particularly at Cobham, in Surrey. But as that short warm period was succeeded, as well as preceded, by harsh severe weather, with frequent frosts and ice, and cutting winds, the insects withdrew, the tortoise retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen no more until the 10th of April, when, the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began to prevail. Again : it appears by my journals for many years past, that house martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of October ; so that a person not very observant of such mat- ters would conclude that they had taken their last farewell ; but then it may be seen in my diaries also, that considerable flocks have discovered themselves again in the first week of November, and often on the fourth day of that month only for one day ; and that not as if they were in actual migration, but playing about at their leisure and feeding calmly, as if no enterprise of moment at all agitated their spirits. And this was the case in the beginning of this very month ; for, on the 4th of November, more than twenty house martins, which in appearance had all departed about the 7th of Oc- tober, were seen again, for that one morning only, sporting between my fields and the Hanger, and feasting on insects which swarmed in that sheltered district. The preceding day was wet and blustering, but the 4th was dark and mild, and soft, the wind at south-west, and the thermometer at 58^; a pitch not common at that season of the year. Moreover, it may not be amiss to add in this place, that whenever the thermometer is above .50, the bat comes flit- ting out in every autumnal and winter month. From all these circumstances laid together, it is obvious that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds, are awakened from their profound est slumbers by a little untimely warmth ; and therefore that nothing so much promotes this death-like stupor as a defect of heat. And farther, it is reasonable to OF SELBORNE. 237 suppose that two whole species, or at least many individuals of those two species of British Hirundines do never leave this island at all, but partake of the same benumbed state ; for we cannot suppose that, after a month's absence, house martins can return from southern regions to appear for one morning in November, or that house swallows should leave the districts of Africa to enjoy, in March, the transient summer of a couple of days. 1 LETTER XXXVII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRING TON. SELBORNE, Jan. 8, 1778. HERE was in this village, several years ago, a miserable pauper, who, from his birth, was afflicted with a leprosy, as far as we are aware, of a singular kind, since it affected only the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring and fall ; and, by peeling away, left the skin so thin and tender, that neither his hands nor feet were able to perform their functions ; so that the poor object was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a burthen to himself and his parish, which was obliged to support him till he was relieved by death, at more than thirty years of age. The good women, who love to accouut for every defect in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother felt a violent propensity for oysters, which she was unable to gratify ; and that the black rough scurf on his hands and 1 A more obvious explanation of the appearance of swallows in No- vember is that they are late broods from the north ; and those seen in March are early arrivals on their way northwards. ED. 238 NATURAL EISTOEY feet were the shells of that fish. We knew his parents, neither of which were lepers ; his father, in particular, lived to be far advanced in years. In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among mankind. The Israelites seem to have been greatly afflicted with it from the most remote times ; as appears from the peculiar and repeated injunctions given them in the Levi- tical law. 1 Nor was the rancour of this foul disorder much abated in the last period of their commonwealth, as may be seen in many passages of the New Testament. Some centuries ago, this horrible distemper prevailed all Europe over; and our forefathers were by no means exempt, as appears by the large provision made for objects labouring under this calamity. There was an hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in London and Southwark, and perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor people as languished under this hopeless infirmity. It must, therefore, in these days be, to a humane, and thinking person, a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and observes that a leper now is a rare sight. He will, moreover, when engaged in such a train of thought, natu- rally inquire for the reason. This happy change perhaps may have originated and been continued from the much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now eaten in these kingdoms; from the use of linen next the skin ; from the plenty of better bread ; and from the profusion of fruits, roots, legumes, and greens, so common in every family. Three or four centuries ago, before there were any enclo- sures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months; so that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the 1 Sec Leviticus, cliap. xiii. and xiv. OF SELBORNE. 239 marvellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the larder of the eldest Spencer 1 in the days of Edward the Second, even so late in the spring as the 3rd of May. It was from magazines like these that the turbulent barons supported in idleness their riotous swarms of retainers, ready for any disorder or mischief. But agriculture is now arrived at such a pitch of perfection, that our best and fat- test meats are killed in the winter ; and no man needs eat salted flesh, unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh. One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the commonalty at all seasons as well as in Lent, which our poor now would hardly be persuaded to touch. The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of neatness comparatively modern ; but must prove a great means of preventing cutaneous ails. At this very time, woollen instead of linen prevails among the poorer Welsh, who are subject to foul eruptions. The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort which used in old days to be made of barley or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening their blood and correcting their juices; for ,thc inhabitants of mountainous districts to this day are still liable to the itch and other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness and poverty of diet. As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged per- son of observation may perceive, within his own memory, both in town and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners get for- tunes. Every decent labourer also has his garden, which is half his support, as well as his delight; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon; and those few that do not are 1 Viz. 600 bacons, eighty carcases of beef, and GOO muttons. Cr. W. 240 NATURAL HIS20RY despised for their sordid parsimony, and looked upon ag regardless of the welfare of their dependents. Potatoes have prevailed in this little district, by means of premiums, within these twenty years only ; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign. Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, because they call the month of February sproutcale; 1 but long after their days, the cultivation of gardens was little attended to. The religious, being men of leisure, and keep- ing up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the first people among us that had gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection within the walls of their abbeys and priories. 2 The barons neglected every pursuit that did not lead to war or tend to the pleasure of the chase. It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticul- ture themselves that the knowledge of gardening made such hasty advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr. Waller of Beaconsfield, were some of the first people of rank that promoted the elegant science of ornamenting, without de- spising, the superintendence of the kitchen quarters and fruit walls. A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray, in his Tour of Europe, at once surprises us, and corroborates what has been advanced above ; for we find him observing, so late as his days, that "the Italians use several herbs for sallets, which are not yet or have not been but lately used in Eng- land, viz. selleri (celery), which is nothing else but the sweet smallage ; the young shoots whereof, with a little of the head of the root cut off, they eat raw with oil and 1 The Saxon names of many other months were equally significant ; e.g. March, stormy month; May, Thrimilchi, the cows then being milked three times a day ; June, dig and weed month ; September, bar- ley month, &c. ED. 2 " In monasteries, the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however dimly. In them, men of business were formed for the state : the art of writing was cultivated by the monks ; they were the only proficients in mechanics, gardening, and architecture." See Dalrymple's " Annals of Scotland." G. W. OF SELBORNE. 241 pepper." And farther, lie adds, " curled endive blanched is much used beyond seas ; and, for a raw sallet, seemed to excel lettuce itself." Now, this journey was undertaken no longer ago than in the year 1663. LETTER XXXVIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. " Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido, Dixerat, ecquis adest ? et, adest, responderat echo. Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes, Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat ilia vocantem." SELBORNE, Feb. 12, 1778. a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return the cry of a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting horn, a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds, very agreeably j but we were still at a loss for a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted from his com- pany in a summer evening walk, and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected. At first he was much surprised, and could not be persuaded but that he was mocked by some boy ; but, repeating his trials in several languages, and find- ing his respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned the deception. This echo, in an evening, before rural noises cease, would repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, espe- cially if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of <{ Tityre, tu patulae recubans " were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first ; and there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at R 242 NATURAL HISTORY midnight, when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one or two syllables more might have been ob- tained; but the distance rendered so late an experiment very inconvenient. Quick dactyls we observed succeeded best ; for when we came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed spondees of the same number of syllables, "Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens " we could perceive a return but of four or five. All echoes have some one place to which they are returned stronger and more distinct than to any other ; and that is always the place that lies at right angles with the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor too far off. Build- ings or naked rocks re-echo much more articulately than hanging woods or vales ; because in the latter the voice is, as it were, entangled and embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the rebound. The true object of this echo, as we found by various ex- periments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gaily Lane, which measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to the eaves twelve feet. The true centrum plionicum, or just distance, is one particular spot in the King's Field, in the path to Nore Hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart- way. In this case there is no choice of dis- tance ; but the path, by mere contingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below the object. We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exact- ness, and found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's rule for distinct articulation ; for the Doctor, in his " History of Oxfordshire," allows 120 feet for the return of each syl- lable distinctly ; hence this echo, which gives ten distinct syllables, ought to measure 400 yards, or 120 feet to each syllable ; whereas our distance is only 258 yards, or near seventy-five feet to each syllable. Thus our measure falls short of the Doctor's, as five to eight ; but then it must be acknowledged that this candid philosopher was convinced OF SELSORNE. 243 afterwards that some latitude must be admitted of in the distance of echoes according to time and place. 1 When experiments of this sort are making, it should always be remembered that weather and the time of day have a vast influence on an echo ; for a dull, heavy, moist air deadens and clogs the sound ; and hot sunshine renders the air thin and weak, and deprives it of all its springiness ; and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole. In a still, clear, dewy evening, the air is most elastic ; and perhaps the later the hour the more so. Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, that the poets have personified her ; and in their hands she has been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor need the gravest man be ashamed to appear taken with such a phenomenon, since it may become the subject of philoso- phical or mathematical inquiries. One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertain- ing, must at least have been harmless and inoffensive ; yet Virgil advances a strange notion, that they are injurious to bees. After enumerating some probable and reasonable annoyances, such as prudent owners would wish, far re- moved from their bee-gardens, he adds, *' aut ubi concava pulsa Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago." This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by the philosophers of these days ; especially as they all now seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs of hearing at all. 2 But, if it should be urged, that 1 It is evident too, as. Mr. B&nnett hag observed, from the previous statement of the different number of syllables returned by the echo, according to whether they were quick dactyls or heavy spondees, that some allowance must be made on this account also. ED. 2 This was the opinion of Linnaeus and Bonnet, naturalists of the highest authority. But, as Mr. Bennett has remarked, " repeated ob- servations and experiments have since shown that many insects possesa the sense of hearing. Without the aid of experiment it might, indeed, almost be regarded as established, that in those cases in which the faculty of producing sound is possessed by one sex of an animal, that of hearing it should belong to the other sex ; and it would seem rather 244 NATURAL HISTORY though they cannot hear, yet perhaps they may feel the re- percussion of sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I deny; because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, where the echoes are very strong : for this village is an- other Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes. Besides, it does not appear from experiment that bees are in any way capable of being affected by sounds : 1 for I have often tried my own with a large speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and still these insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and without showing the least sensibility or resentment. preposterous to grant tlie existence of a sense in one sex of an insect, and deny it to the other. Gilbert White, in his Letter respecting the field cricket (XLVL), although in the earlier part of it he seems to guard himself from admitting that these insects hear by assuming that they feel ; a person's footsteps as he advances,' must be regarded as insinuating the possession of that sense when he subsequently remarks that ' the males only make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of rivalry and emulation ' a rivalry and emulation which could not be excited in others by a sound unheard by them. " But reasoning and conjecture are both equally unnecessary in a case in which direct observation may be adduced in proof. Brunelli's experiments seem on this point altogether satisfactory, and to prove that both the males and the females possess the sense of hearing. He kept several males of the large green grasshopper in a closet, where they were very merry and continued singing all the day ; but a tap at the door would immediately silence them. In this instance they might, perhaps, have been affected by the concussion of the air ; and the result might rather have been owing to acuteness of touch than to hearing. But his subsequent experiments were not open to such an objection. Pie learned to imitate the chirping of these grasshoppers : and when he did this at the door of the closet in which they were kept, they soon began to answer him; at first by the gentle chirpings of a few, and then by a full chorus of the whole of them. He afterwards enclosed a male grasshopper in a box, and placed it in one part of his garden, leaving a female at liberty in a distant part of it : as soon as the male began to sing, the female immediately hopped away towards him. This latter experiment was frequently repeated, and in every case the female, as soon as the male began to chirp, hastened to join him." 1 ThL statement has recently received some confirmation from the experiments of Sir John Lubbock, " Journ. Linn. Soc." 1874. ED. OF SELBORNE: 245 Some time since its discovery, this echo is become totally silent, though the object or hop-kiln remains: nor is there any mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted as a hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally ab- sorbed and lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when the poles are removed in autumn, the disappointment is the same, because a tall quickset hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of shelter to the hop- ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and repercussion of the voice : so that, till those obstructions are removed, no more of its garrulity can be expected. Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his park, or outlet, a pleasing incident, he might build one at little or no expense. For whenever he had occasion for a new barn, stable, dog-kennel, or the like structure, it would be only needful to erect this building on the gentle declivity of a hill, with a like rising opposite to it, at a few hundred yards' distance; and perhaps success might be the easier ensured, could some canal, lake, or stream intervene. From a seat at the centrum plwnicum, he and his friends might amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle of this loquacious nymph ; of whose complacency and decent reserve more may be said than can with truth of every in- dividual of her sex ; since she is " qua nee reticere loquenti, Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo.* 1 P. S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the follow- ing lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically accounting for their causes from popular super- stition : " Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos Quserimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. Haec loca eapripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ; Quorum noetivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 246 NATURAL HISTORY Aclfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum : Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans, Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musatn." LUCBETIUS, lib. iv. 1. 576. LETTER XXXIX. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBOBNE, May 13, 1778. ONG tlie many singularities attending those amusing birds, the swifts, I am now confirmed in the opinion that we have every year the same number of pairs invariably; at least, the result of my inquiry has been exactly the same for a long time past. 1 The swallows and martins are so numerous, and so widely distributed over the village, that it is hardly possible to recount them ; while the swifts, though they do not all build in the church, yet so frequently haunt it, and play and rendezvous round it, that they are easily enumerated. The number that I constantly find are eight pairs ; about half of which reside in the church, and the rest build in some of the lowest and meanest thatched cottages. Now, as these eight pairs, allowance being made for accidents, breed yearly eight pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase ; and, what determines every spring which pairs shall visit us, and reoccupy their ancient haunts ? 1 It has been proved by experiment that swallows and swifts return to haunts where in previous years they have successfully reared their young. The birds have been caught upon their nests, and after being marked by having particular claws cut, or by having a little bit of ribbon or silver wire fastened round the foot, have been again liberated. The following year the marked birds have been recaptured in the same locality. ED. OF SELBORNE. 247 Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology, I have always supposed that that sudden reverse of affection, that strange avrurTopyy which immediately succeeds in the feathered kind to the most passionate fondness, is the occa- sion of an equal dispersion of birds over the face of the earth. Without this provision, one favourite district would be crowded with inhabitants, while others would be desti- tute and forsaken. But the parent birds seem to maintain a jealous superiority, and to oblige the young to seek for new abodes; and the rivalry of the males in many kinds prevents their crowding the one on the other. Whether the swallows and house martins return in the same exact number annually is not easy to say, for rea- sons given above ; but it is apparent, as I have remarked before in my Monographies, that the numbers returning bear no manner of proportion to the numbers retiring. LETTER XL. TO THE HONOURABLE DAlNES BARRINGTOX. SELBORNE, June 2, 1778. standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without im- proving the mind, or advancing any real knowledge ; and, where the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion, should be by no means content with a list of npmes; he should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation ; and graft the gardener, the planter, and the husbandman on the phytologist. Not that system is by any means to be thrown aside without system the field of 248 NATURAL HISTORY Nature would be a pathless wilderness ; but system should be subservient to, not the main object of, pursuit. Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention; and in itself is of the utmost consequence to mankind, and produc- tive of many of the greatest comforts and elegancies of life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, &c., what not only strengthens our hearts and exhilarates our spirits, but what secures us from inclemencies of weather, and adorns our persons. Man, in his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by spontaneous vegetation ; in middle climes, where grasses prevail, he mixes some animal food with the produce of the field and garden ; and it is towards the polar extremes only that, like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with flesh alone, and is driven, to what hunger has never been known to compel the very beasts, to prey on his own species. 1 The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on the commerce of nations, and have been the great pro- moters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, paper, &c. As every climate has its peculiar produce, our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse ; so that by means of trade each distant part is supplied with the growth of every lati- tude. But without the knowledge of plants and their cul- ture, we must have been content with our hips and haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India, and the salu- tiferous drugs of Peru. Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that are useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley from another. But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to dis- tinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from the ten- der, nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. 1 See the late voyages to the South Seas. G. W. OF SELBORNE. 249 The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could im- prove the sward of the district where he lived, would be a useful member of society to raise a thick turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge ; and he would be the best commonwealth's man that could occa- sion the growth of " two blades of grass where one alone was seen before." LETTER XLI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BABRINGTON. SELBORNE, July 3, 1778. a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale, aspects and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields, cannot but furnish an ample Flora. The deep rocky lanes abound with Filices, 1 and the pastures and moist woods with Fungi. If in any branch of botany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants, which are not to be expected on a spot far removed from rivers, and lying up amidst the hill country at the spring heads. To enumerate all the plants that have been discovered within our limits would be a needless work ; but a short list of the more rare, and the spots where they are to be found, may be neither unacceptable nor unentertain- ing : Helleborus fcetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's foot, or set- ter wort, all over the High Wood and Coney Croft Hanger; this continues a great branching plant the winter through, blossoming about January, and is very ornamental in shady 1 The ferns, though abundant in this district, belong comparatively to few species. ED. 250 NATURAL HISTORY walks and shrubberies. The good women give the leaves powdered to children troubled with worms ; but it is a violent remedy, and ought to be administered with caution. Helleborus viridis, green hellebore, in the deep stony lane on the left hand just before the turning to Norton Farm, and at the top of Middle Dorton under the hedge : this plant dies down to the ground early in autumn, and springs again about February, flowering almost as soon as it appears above ground. Vaccinium oxycoccos, creeping bilberries, or cranberries, in the bogs of Bin's Pond ; Vaccinium myrtillus, whortle, or bleaberries, on the dry hillocks of Wolmer Forest ; Drosera rotundifoUa, round-leaved sundew, in the bogs of Bin's Pond ; Drosera longifolia, long-leaved sundew, in the bogs of Bin's Pond ; Comarum palustre, purple comarurn, or marsh cinquefoil, in the bogs of Bin's Pond ; Hypericum androscemum, Tutsan St. John's Wort, in the stony, hollow lanes ; Vinca minor , lesser periwinkle, in Selborne Hanger and Shrub Wood; Monotropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or bird's nest, in Selborne Hanger under the shady beeches, to whose roots it seems to be parasitical at the north-west end of the Hanger ; Chlora perfoliata, Blackstonia perfoliata, Hudsoni, per- foliated yellow wort, on the banks in the King's Field ; Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true love, or one berry, in the Church Litten Coppice ; Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxifrage, in the dark and rocky hollow lanes ; Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian, or fellwort, on the Zigzag and Hanger ; Lathrcea squamaria, toothwort, in the Church Litten Coppice under some hazels near the foot bridge in Trim- ming's garden hedge, and on the dry wall opposite Grange Yard; OF SELBORNE. 251 Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel, in the Short and Long Lith; Lathy rus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathyrus, in the bushes at the foot of the Short Lith, near the path ; Ophrys spiralis, 1 ladies' traces, in the Long Lith, and towards the south corner of the common ; Ophrys nidus avis* bird's nest ophrys, in the Long Lith under the shady beeches among the dead leaves, in Great Dorton among the bushes, and on the Hanger plenti- fully; Serapias latifolia? helleborine, in the High Wood under the shady beeches ; Daphne laureola, spurge laurel, in Selborne Hanger and the High Wood ; Daphne mezereum, the mezereon, in Selborne Hanger among the shrubs at the south-east end above the cottages ; Lycoperdon tuber,* truffles, in the Hanger and High Wood ; Sambucus elulus, dwarf elder, wallwort, or danewort, among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory. 5 1 Spiranthes autumnalis, Rich. 2 Neottia nidus-avis, Rich. 3 Epipactis latifolia, All. 4 Tuber cestivum, Vitt. 5 From this letter and the previous one it would appear that Gilbert White paid comparatively but slight attention to the vegetable produc- tions of the neighbourhood in which he resided. His strictures on " mere systematic classification" were perhaps not uncalled-for at the period when they were written, for the science of botany was then in a very unsatisfactory state in this country, little else b*ung attempted beyond an arrangement of our indigenous plants according to the sexual system of Linnasus. It is to be regretted, however, that our author thought it " needless work " to enumerate the plants found about Selborne, for the possession of such a catalogue at the present day would be of considerable interest and utility to those who are occupied with an investigation of the laws affecting plant distribution. In regard to the botany of Selborne, Dr. Trimen informs us that Gilbert White's scanty observations on the subject have been supple- mented by the late Dr. Bell Salter, who published in the " Phy tologist " (vol. i. p. 1132) a list of the flowering plants observed by him at Selborne during three days' botanizing in the month of September, 1844, and subsequently in the same periodical (vol. ii. pp. 97 and 131) he gave an elaborate account of the Brambles (Rubi). Many notices of 252 NATURAL HISTORY Of all the propensities of plants none seem more strange than their different periods of blossoming. Some produce their flowers in the winter, or very first dawnings of spring ; many when the spring is established ; some at midsummer ; and some not till autumn. When we see the Hellelorus foetidus and Helleborus niger blowing at Christmas, the Helleborus hyemalis 1 in January, and the Helleborus viridis as soon as ever it emerges out of the ground, we do not wonder, because they are kindred plants that we expect should keep pace the one with the other. But other con- generous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flower- ing, that we cannot but admire. I shall only instance at present in the Crocus sativus, the vernal, and the autumnal crocus, which have such an affinity, that the best botanists only make them varieties of the same genus, of which there is only one species ; not being able to discern any differ- ence in the corolla,, or in the internal structure. Yet the vernal crocus expands its flowers by the beginning of March at farthest, and often in very rigorous weather ; and cannot be retarded but by some violence offered : while the autumnal (the Saffron) defies the influence of the spring and summer, and will not blow till most plants begin to fade and run to seed. This circumstance is one of the wonders of the creation, little noticed, because a common occurrence ; yet ought not to be overlooked on account of its being familiar, since it would be as difficult to Selborne as a locality will be found scattered throughout Dr. Brom- field's Catalogue of Hampshire Plants (op. cit. vols. iii. iv.) Dr. Trim en adds : " The singular parasitic Tooth wort, Laihr&a squamaria, and the pretty Marsh Cinquefoil, Comarum palustre, do not seem to have been recorded since Gilbert White's day for this part of Hampshire. The Mezereon above noticed may have been planted in the Hanger (see ' Phytologist,' vol. iii. p. 794). As an indication of the advance which has been made in the knowledge of plants since White's observations were penned, it may be mentioned that upon the lowest computation the species of Crocus now known to botanists amount to forty-seven. The three mentioned by White, Crocus sativus, C. vcrnus, and C. nudiflorus, are now universally considered to be distinct and well-defined species." ED. 1 Eranthis hyemalis of recent authors. OF. SELBOENE. 253 be explained as the most stupendous phenomenon in nature. " Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow Congeal'd, the crocus' flamy bud to glow ? Say, what retards, amidst the summer's blaze, TV autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days ? The GOD of SEASONS ; whose pervading power Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower : He bids each flower his quickening word obey ; Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay." LETTER XLIL TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON. " Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi et in suo cuique genere incessus est : aves solas vario meatu feruntur et in terra et in aere." PLIN. Nat. Hist. lib. x. cap. 38. SELBORNE, Aug. 7, 1778. GOOD ornithologist should be able to dis- tinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape ; on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. For, though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some certainty. Put a bird in motion " et vera incessu patuit .** Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings expanded and motionless ; and it is from their gliding manner that the former are still called in the north of England gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan, to glide. The kestril, or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode of hanging In the air in one place, his wings all the while being briskly agitated. Hen harriers fly low over heaths or fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a pointer or setting- 251 NATURAL HISTORY dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air ; they seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish ; and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner ; crows and daws swagger in their walk ; woodpeckers fly volatu undosOj opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which incline downward, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all other hooked- clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution. All the Gallince parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no dispatch ; herons seem encumbered with too much sail for their light bodies ; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burthens, such as large fishes, and the like ; pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings the one against the other over their backs with a loud snap ; another variety called tumblers turn themselves over in the air. Some birds have movements peculiar to the season of pairing : thus ring-doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner ; thus the cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air like the wind- hover ; and the greenfinch in particular exhibits such languishing and faltering gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird ; the kingfisher darts along like an arrow ; fern- owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a meteor ; starlings, as it were, swim along, while missel-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight; swallows OF SELBORNE. 255 sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions ; swifts dash round in circles, and the bank martin moves with frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance. Most small birds hop, but wagtails and larks walk, moving their legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as they sing ; woodlarks hang poised in the air ; and titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent. The whitethroat uses odd jerks and gesticula- tions over the tops of hedges and bushes. All the duck kind waddle ; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails : these are the compedes of Linnaeus. 1 Geese and cranes, and most wild fowls, move in figured flights, often changing their position. The secondary remiges of Tringce, wild ducks, and some others, are very long, and give their wings, when in motion, a hooked ap- pearance. 2 Dabchicks, moorhens, and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and hardly make any dispatch ; the reason is plain, their wings are placed too forward out of the true centre of gravity, as the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward. LETTER XLIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBOBNE, Sept. 9, 1778. the motion of birds, the transition is natural enough to their notes and language, of which I shall say something. Not that I would pretend to understand their language like the vizier, who, by the recital of a con- 1 " Pedes compedes," Genus Colymbns, " Syst. Nat." i. p. 220. ED. 2 These are not the secondaries, however, but the tertials. The secondaries are always short. En. 256 NATURAL HISTORY versation which passed between two owls, reclaimed a sultan, before delighting in conquest and devastation ;* but I would be thought only to mean that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted to express their various passions, wants, and feelings ; such as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally eloquent ; some are copious and fluent, as it were, in their utterance, while others are confined to a few im- portant sounds : no bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent. The language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and understood. The notes of the eagle kind are shrill and piercing ; and about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often assured by a curious observer of Nature who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox humana, and reducible by a pitch- pipe to a musical key. 2 This note seems to express com- placency and rivalry among the males : they use also a quick call and a horrible scream ; and can snore and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens, beside their loud croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woods to echo; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous ; rooks, in the breeding season, attempt sometimes, in the gaiety of their hearts, to sing, but with no great success ; the parrot kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds ; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers ; the woodpecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl or goat-sucker, from the dusk till daybreak, sere- nades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful Passer es express their complacency by sweet modu- lations, and a variety of melody. The swallow, as has been 1 See "Spectator," vol. vii. No. 512. G. W. a The brown owl hoots ; tlie white owl screams. G. W. But see p. 177, note 2. ED. OF SELBORNE. 257 observed in a former letter, by a shrill alarm, bespeaks the attention of the other Hirundincs, and bids them be aware that the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, especially the nocturnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loquacious, as cranes, wild geese, wild ducks, and the like; their perpetual clamour prevents them from dispersing and losing their companions. In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as much as can be expected, for it would be endless to instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation. We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known and therefore best understood. And first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our attention ; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the ear : the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like, and clanking; and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave historians assert: the hiss also of the gander is formidable and full of menace, and " protective of his young." Among ducks the sexual distinction of voice is remarkable ; for while the quack of the female is loud and sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward and harsh, and feeble, and scarce dis- cernible. The cock turkey struts and gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner; he hath also a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood she keeps a watchful eye ; and if a bird of prey appear, though ever so high in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy with a little inward moan, and watches him with a steady and attentive look ; but, if he approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled. No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of expression and so copious a language as common poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize its prey, with little twitterings of complacency; but if you tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh and expressive of disapprobation and a sense of danger. S 258 NATURAL HISTORY When a pullet is ready to lay, she intimates the event by a joyous and easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of their life that of laying seems to be the most important ; for no sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within hearing-, till at last the whole village is in an uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a mother, her new relation demands a new language ; she then runs clucking and screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary : if he finds food, he calls a favourite concubine to partake ; and if a bird of prey passes over, with a warning voice he bids his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has, at command, his amorous phrases and his terms of defiance. But the sound by which he is best known is his crowing ; by this he has been distinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or larum, as the watch- man that proclaims the divisions of the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles him " the crested cock, whose clarion sounds The silent hours." A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding down between a faggot pile and the end of his house to the place where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see his flock thus diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and the house, into which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Eesentment suggested the law of retalia- tion: he therefore clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood-hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued ; the expressions that fear, rage, and revenge in- spired were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before : the exasperated matrons upbraided, they execrated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never de- sisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in a hundred pieces. OF SELBORSE. 259 LETTER XLIY. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNEi monstrent Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet." ENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make ornament subservient to utility : a pleasing eyetrap might also contribute to promote science : an obelisk in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and a heliotrope. Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two helio- tropes ; the one for the winter, the other for the summer solstice : and these two erections might be constructed with very little expense, for two pieces of timber framework, about ten or twelve feet high, and four feet broad at the base, and close lined with plank, would answer the purpose. The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed within sight of some window in the common sitting parlour, because men, at that dead season of the year, are usually within doors at the close of the day ; while that for the latter might be fixed for any given spot in the garden or outlet, whence the owner might contemplate, in a fine summer's evening, the utmost extent that the sun makes to the northward at the season of the longest days. Now nothing would be necessary but to place these two objects with so much exactness that the westerly limb of the sun, at setting, might but just clear the winter heliotrope to the west of it on the shortest day, and that the whole disc of the sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it. 260 NATURAL HISTORY By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice : for, from the shortest day, the owner would, every clear evening, see the disc advancing, at its setting, to the westward of the object; and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring backwards every evening at its setting towards the object westward, till, in a few nights, it would set quite behind it, and so by degrees to the west of it : for when the sun comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it would at first set behind the object. After a time, the northern limb would first appear, and so every night gradually more, till at length the whole diameter would set northward of it for about three nights; but on the middle night of the three, sensibly more remote than the former or following. When beginning its recess from the summer tropic, it would continue more and more to be hidden every night, till at length it would descend quite behind the object again; and so nightly more and more to the westward. LETTER XLY. TO THE HONOURABLE DAIKES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE. " Mug-ire videbis Sub pedibus terrain, et descendere montibus ornos." HEN I was a boy, I used to read, with astonishment and implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his " Cider/ ; alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the " Splendid Shilling." '* I nor advise, nor reprehend, the choice Of Marcley Hill ; the apple nowhere finds A kinder mould : yet 'tis nnsafe to trust Deceitful ground : who knows but that, once more, OF SELJ30ENE. 261 This mount may journey, and, his present site Forsaking, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer The goodly plants, affording matter strange For law debates ! " But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet that the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham Hills, and especially with the ridge between Harteley Park and Word-le-ham, where the ground has slid into vast swellings and furrows, and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A strange event, that happened not long since, justifies our suspicions, which, though it befell not within the limits of this parish, yet, as it was within the hundred of Selborne, and as the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature. The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain; so that, by the end of the latter month, the land- springs, or lavants, began to prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor, when, in the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and fell down, leaving a high free-stone cliff naked and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped and undermined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going down in a perpendicular direction ; for a gate which stood in the field, on the top of the hill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position as to open and shut with great exactness, just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still standing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below is plain also from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free and :262 NATURAL HISTORY unencumbered, but would have been buried in heaps of rubbish, had the fragment parted and fallen forward. 1 About a hundred yards from the foot of this hanging- coppice stood a cottage by the side of a lane ; and two hundred yards lower, on the other side of the lane, was a /arm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family; and just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inhabited by an old woman and her son, and his wife. These people, in the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began to heave and part, and that the walls seemed to open, and the roofs to crack ; but they all agreed that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt, only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion, ex- pecting every moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered edifices. When daylight came they were at leisure to contemplate the devastations of the night. They then 1 In a note to this passage Mr. Bennett expresses the opinion that it i? not necessary to assume the existence of a gulf into which the mass was absorbed. The geological relations of the strata, he says, point to a much easier, as well as a more correct, explanation of the occurrence. Here, as elsewhere throughout the district, the malm rock or freestone of the upper greensand formation rests upon the gault or blue clay : a rock upon a yielding base. An adequate weight, placed upon so unfirm a soil as the lower of these formations, must of necessity sink into it. So prodigious a mass as that which, on the occasion described in the text, was separated from its adhesion to its native rock, and left to be supported by the soft clay alone, was more than its pulpy nature could support, and it gave way accordingly ; receiving into its yielding sub- stance, and burying almost entirely beneath its surface the detached face of the cliff, which subsided into it so easily and so perpendicularly as not to disturb the adjustment of a gate upon the sunken mass, once on the top, and now at the foot of the escarpment. In other situations, and particularly on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight, slips similar to that of Hawkley have taken place, and from the same cause : either the separation of a portion of the freestone rock of the upper greensand formation and its subsidence into the gault ; or the loosening of the gault, and the subsequent separation and subsidence of a portion of the freestone, which could no longer be supported when its natural foundation had thus given way. ED. OF SELBORNE. 263 found that a deep rift or chasm had opened under their houses, and torn them, as it were, in two ; and that one end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner ; that a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa; that many large oaks were removed out of their perpendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees; and that a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six HAWKLEY SLIP. feet, so as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the cliff, the general course of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted in every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began; and running across the lane, and under the buildings, made such vast 'shelves that the road was impassable for some time; and so over to an arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn and disordered. The second pasture field, 264 NATURAL HISTORY being more soft and springy, was protruded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure, the soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farther course, and terminated this awful commotion. The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is twenty-three yards : the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-one ; and a partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more ; so that the total length of this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violent convulsion : two houses were entirely destroyed ; one end of a new barn was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock ; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered, for a time, neither fit for the plough nor safe for pasturage, till con- siderable labour and expense had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures. LETTER XLVI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE. resonant arbusta HERE is a steep abrupt pasture field inter- spersed with furze close to the back of this village, well known by the name of tho Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the Gryllus campestris, or field cricket, which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many other counties. OF SELBORNE. 265 As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the economy of these grylli, and study their mode of life ; but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy matter to get a sight of them ; for, feeling a person's footsteps as he advances, they stop short in the midst of their song, and retire backward nimbly into their burrows, where they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over. At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade, but without any great success : for either we could not get to the bottom of the hole, which often terminated under a great stone ; or else, in breaking up the ground, we inad- FIELI) CRICKET. vertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very tough skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish the male from the female : the former of which is shining black, with a golden stripe across his shoulders ; the latter is more dusky, more capacious about the abdomen, and carries a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and safe receptacles. Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will often succeed ; and so it proved in the present case : for though a spade be too boisterous and rough an imple- ment, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and quickly 2GG NATURAL HISTORY bring out tlie inhabitant ; and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. It is remarkable that, though these insects are furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers, yet when driven from their holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken; and again, though provided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of rivalry and emulation, as is the case with many animals which exert some sprightly note during their breeding time : it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the other. They are solitary beings, living singly, male or female, each as it may happen ; but there must be a time when they pair, and then the wings may be useful, perhaps during the hours of night. When the males meet they will fight fiercely, as I found by some which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I should have been glad to have made them settle. For though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks would seize on any that were obtruded upon them with a vast row of serrated fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed like the shears of a lobster's claws, they perforate and round their curious regular cells, having no fore-claws to dig like the mole cricket. When taken in hand, I could not but wonder that they never offered to defend themselves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscriminately ; and on a little platform, which they make just by, they drop their dung ; and never, in the daytime, seem to stir more than two or three inches from home. Sitting in the entrance of their caverns, they chirp all night as well as day from the middle of the month of May to the middle of July ; and in hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo ; and, in the stiller hours of darkness, may be heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning of the season their notes are more faint and inward ; but become OF SELBOENE. 267 louder as the summer advances, and so die away again by degrees. Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to tlieir sweetness and melody, nor do harsh sounds always dis- please. We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associations which they promote, than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer ideas of everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. About the 10th of March the crickets appear at the mouths of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very elegantly. All that I ever have seen at that season were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments of wings lying under a skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect can arrive at its perfect state; 1 from whence I should suppose that the old ones of last year do not always survive the winter. In August their holes begin to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till spring. Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a Colony to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time, and fed and sung, but wandered away by degrees, and were heard at a farther distance every morning; so that it appears that on this emergency they made use of their wings in attempting to return to the spot from which they were taken. One of these crickets, when confined in a paper cage and set in the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry and loud as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sitting : if the plants are not wetted it will die. 1 We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen lying at the mouths of their holes. G. W. 268 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XLVII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARHIXGTON. SELBORNE. " Far from all resort of mirth, Save the cricket on the hearth." MILTON'S 77 Penseroso. HILE many other insects must be sought after in fields, and woods, and waters, the Gryllus domesticuSj or house-cricket, resides altogether within our dwellings, intruding itself upon our notice, whether we will or no. This species delights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased with the moisture of the walls ; and besides, the softness of the mortar enables them to burrow and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communications from one room to another. They are par- ticularly fond of kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of their perpetual warmth. Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold un- comfortable months in profound slumbers ; but these, residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert and merry : a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard by day, yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come running forth, and are from the size of a flea to that of their full stature. As one should suppose, from the burning atmo- sphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and show a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. What- ever is moist they affect ; and, therefore, often gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire : they are the housewife's barometer, foretelling her OF SELBORNE. 269 when it will rain, and are prognostic sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck ; of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant com- panions of her solitary hours, they naturally become the objects of her superstition. These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread, and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have observed them to fly, when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in which they often leave their haunts, as it does for the method by which they come to houses where they were not known before. It is remarkable that many sorts of insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind to sjiift their quar- HOUSE CRICKET. ters and settle new colonies. When in the air they move volatu undoso, in waves or curves, like woodpeckers, opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or sinking. When they increase to a great degree, as they did once in the house where I am now writing, they become noisome pests, flying into the candles and dashing into people's faces, but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies. In families, at such times, they are, like Pharaoh's plague of frogs, "in their bed-chambers and upon their beds, and in their ovens, and in their kneading- troughs.-" 1 Their shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch hearth- crickets, and, playing with them as they do with 1 Exod. viii. 3. 270 NATURAL HISTORY mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials half filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in their haunts ; for, being always eager to drink, they will crowd in till the bottles are full. 1 LETTER XLVIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE. OW diversified are the modes of life not only of incongruous but even of congenerous animals ; and yet their specific distinctions are not more various than their propensities. Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the Gryllus gryttotalpa* or mole cricket, haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks. As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters, they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and flowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day, but at night they come abroad and make long excursions, as I have been con- 1 Some additional particulars respecting the house-cricket will be found hereafter in the Observations on Insects. ED. 2 Gryttotalpa vulgaris, LATR. ED. OF SELBOENE. 271 vinced by finding stragglers in a morning in improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl or goat- sucker, but more inward. MOLE CRICKET AND NEST. About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once an eye-witness ; for a gardener, at a house where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy : " in^entem lato dedit ore fenestram : Apparet doinus intus, et atria longa patescunt : Apparent penetralia." There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret 272 NATURAL HISTORY nursery were deposited near a hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately ex- cluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The egga lay but shallow, and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh moved mould, like that which is raised by ants. When mole crickets fly, they move cursu undoso, rising and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts of this kingdom people call them fen crickets, churr worms, and eve churrs, all very apposite names. Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects, astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that, from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like many quadrupeds ! ! 1 In tlie Hunterian Collection are preparations of the singularly complex stomach here alluded to as it exists in the mole cricket (No. 611) and in the locust (Nos. 474, 610). "The structure," says Professor Owen, in a note to this passage, " is similar in both, as to the number of cavities, but differs in their relative positions. The first cavity, or crop, is formed in the locust by a gradual dilatation of the gullet ; but in the mole cricket it is appended, like the crop of a granivorous bird, to one side of the gullet, communicating with it bv a lateral opening. The canal which intervenes between the crop and gizzard is relatively longer in the mole cricket than in the locust. Its gi/zard is small, but armed internally with longitudinal rows of com- plex teeth. Two large lateral pouches open into the lower part, or termination, of the gizzard. The analogy between this digestive appa- ratus and that of the ruminants is vague, and does not extend beyond the number of cavities. It is more like that of the bird ; and since the comminuting or masticating organs are situated, as in the feathered class, in the stomach, it cannot be supposed that the food is again re- turned to the mouth, where it has already received all the division which the oral instruments can effect." ED. OF SELBOENE. 273 LETTER XLIX. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, May 7, 1779. >T is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject : new occurrences stiU arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive. In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by the terms of Himantopus, or Loripes, and Cliaradrius Himantopus, 1 were shot upon the verge of Frinsham Pond, a large lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer Forest and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. Tho pond-keeper says there were three brace in the flock ; but that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens I procured, and found the length of the legs to be so extra- ordinary, that, at first sight, one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on to impose on the credulity of the beholder : they were legs in caricatura ; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughts- man. These birds are of the plover family, and might with propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the apposite name of L'Echasse. My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter ; though the naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the legs 1 Himantopus candidus, Bonnaterre ; H. melanopterus, Temminck. In the first edition of the present work, which appeared in quarto in 1789, amongst other illustrations is a full-page one of this singular-looking bird. ED. T 274 NATURAL HISTORY four inches and a half. Hence we may safely assert that these birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the Himantopus ; for a cock flamingo weighs, at an average, about four pounds avoirdupois ; and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a frac- tion more than four ounces and one quarter; and if four ounces and a quarter have eight inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred and twenty inches and a fraction of legs ; viz. somewhat more than ten feet ; such a monstrous proportion as the world never saw ! If you should try the experiment in still larger birds, the disparity would still increase. It must be matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover move ; to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to be but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder is, that it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop to support its steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacil- lations, and seldom able to preserve the true centre of gravity. The old name of Himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn : and a most accu- rate observer of nature has assured me that he has found it on the banks of the streams in Andalusia. Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain. 1 From all these relations it plainly appears 1 The two specimens here referred to are doubtless those recorded by Sibbald and Pennant as having been procured near Dumfries (cf. Sibbald, " Hist. Scot." lib. iii. p. 18 ; and Pennant, " Caledonian OF SELBORNE. 275 that these long-legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our island ; and when they do, are wan- derers and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant and northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which we are not able to account. One thing may fairly be BLACK-WINGED STILT. deduced, that these birds come over to us from the conti- nent, since nobody can suppose that a species not noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can con- stantly breed unobserved in this kingdom. Zoology," p. 35, pi. 4). Gilbert White's notice of this species was the next in order of date, and since that time some thirty additional in- stances of its occurrence have been placed on record (cf. " Handbook of British Birds," pp. 135, 136). One of these relates to the occur- rence of a specimen in 1832 at the very pond where some fifty years previously it had been noticed by White. The author of " Ornitho- logical Rambles in Sussex" has given a very pleasing account of the habits of this singular bird, as observed on its occurrence in Sussex, in the "Ibis" for 1859 (p. 395), to which account the reader would do well to refer. ED. 276 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER L. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, April 21, 1780. HE old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to ex- press its resentment by hissing ; and, pack- ing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it, that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden : however, in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still concealed. As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an oppor- tunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life and propensities ; and perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer ; for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower ; and does not move at all in wet days. When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two- thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the pro- foundest of slumbers. While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm after- OF SELBORNE. 277 noon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell-snails ; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head ; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead ; and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious coin- cidence ! a very amusing occurrence ! to see such a simi- larity of feelings between the two (p*pfxot ! for so the Greeks call both the shell- snail and the tortoise. Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, un- usually late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This con- formity with the weather convinces me more and more that they sleep in the winter. 1 More particulars respecting the old family tortoise. THE SHELL OF GILBERT WHITE S TORTOISE. Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, " Much too wise to walk into a well : " and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha ; but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun ; because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour " scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella 1 In the original 4to. this letter ends here, and the " particulars" which follow are given by way of supplement at the end of tht Antiquities. It seems more appropriate, however, to reprint them here. ED. 278 NATURAL HISTORY of a large cabbage leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the reflection of a fruit- wall: and, though he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth, 1 he inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile ; to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside ; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year -(usually the beginning of June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning ; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The motives that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the amorous kind : his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment. 2 1 Several years ago a book was written entitled " Fruit-walls im- proved by inclining them to the Horizon : " in which the author has shown, by calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on those which are perpendicular. G. W. 2 This tortoise survived its master about a year, dying, it is believed, in the spring of 1794, after an existence in England of about fifty-four years, the last fourteen of which were spent at Selborne. Its shell, which is still preserved at Selborne, in the residence of the former owner, is considered by Mr. Bell to be that of Testudo mar- ginata, the largest of the three European tortoises ; but Mr. Bennett, for reasons stated by him in a note to this passage in his edition of the present work, was of opinion that it should be referred to a distinct species, and he proposed for it the specific name Whitei, in compliment to our author. ED. OF SELBORNE. 279 LETTER LI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. SELBORNE, Sept. 3, 1781. HAVE now read your Miscellanies through with much care and satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for the honour- able mention made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish I may deserve. In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the house martins do not depart in the winter far from this village. I therefore determined to make some search about the south-east end of the hill, where I imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable months of winter. But supposing that the examination would be made to the best advantage in the spring, and observing that no martins had appeared by the llth of April last; on that day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot. The persons took pains, but without any success ; however, a remarkable incident occurred in the midst of our pursuit while the labourers were at work, a house martin, the first that had been seen this year, came down the village in the sight of several people, and went at once into a nest, where it stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses ; for some days after no martins were observed, not till the 16th of April, and then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late this year. 280 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER LII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BAREINGTON. SELBORNE, Sept. 9, 1781. HAVE just met with a circumstance respect- ing swifts, which furnishes .an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of Hirundines. Our swifts, in gene- ral, withdrew this year about the first day of August, all save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made me suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an attach- ment to her young, could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched therefore till the 24th of August, and then dis- covered that, under the eaves of the church, she attended upon two young, which were fledged, and now put out their white chins from a crevice. These remained till the 27th, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once; nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently do. On the 31st I caused the eaves to be searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. This double nest was full of the black shining cases of the Hippobosca hirundinis. The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to remain beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can subsist longer is undeniable. The second is, that this uncommon event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, so it corroborates my former remark, that swifts breed regularly but once ; since, was the contrary the case, the occurrence above could neither be new nor rare. P.S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, in 1782, so late as the 3rd of September. OF SELB011NE. 281 LETTER LIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. S I have sometimes known you make in- quiries about several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort which I little expected to have found in this king- dom.. I had often observed that one par- ticular part of a vine growing on the walls of my house was covered in the autumn with a black, dustlike appear- ance, on which the flies fed eagerly ; and that the shoots and leaves thus affected did not thrive ; nor did the fruit ripen. To this substance I applied my glasses ; but could not discover that it had anything to do with animal life, as I at first expected : but, upon a closer examination behind the larger boughs, we were surprised to find that they were coated over with husky shells, from whose sides proceeded a cotton-like substance, surrounding a multitude of eggs. This curious and uncommon production put me upon recollecting what I have heard and read concerning the Coccus vitis viniferce of Linnasus, which, in the south of Europe, infests many vines, and is a horrid and loathsome pest. As soon as I had turned to the accounts given of this insect, I saw at once that it swarmed on my vine ; and did not appear to have been at all checked by the pre- ceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe. Not being then at all aware that it had anything to do with England, I was much inclined to think that it came from Gibraltar among the many boxes and packages of plants and birds which I had formerly received from thence ; and especially as the vine infested grew im- mediately under my study-window, where I usually kept my specimens. True it is that I had received nothing from thence for some years : but as insects, we know, are conveyed from one country to another in a very unex- 282 NATURAL HISTORY pected manner, and have a wonderful power of maintaining their existence till they fall into a nidus proper for their support and increase, I cannot but suspect still that these Cocci came to me originally from Andalusia. Yet, all the while, candour obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot has written me word, that he once, and but once, saw these insects on a vine at Weymouth in Dorsetshire ; which, it is here to be observed, is a seaport town to which the Coccus might be conveyed by shipping. As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a passage from a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the Eeverend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lan- cashire, but not yet published : " In the year 1770 a vine which grew on the east side of my house, and which had produced the finest crops of grapes for years past, was suddenly overspread on all the woody branches with large lumps of a white fibrous sub- stance resembling spiders' webs, or rather raw cotton. It was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to every thing that touched it, and capable of being spun into long threads. At first I suspected it to be the product of spiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be seen connected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which by no means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set, when this pest appeared upon it ; but the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul incumbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled off great quantities by handfuls ; but it was so slimy and tenacious that it could by no means be cleared. The grapes never filled to their natural perfection, but turned watery and vapid. Upon perusing the works afterwards of M. de Reaumur, I found this matter perfectly described and accounted for. Those husky shells, which I had ob- served, were no other than the female Coccus, from whose sides this cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering and security for their eggs." OF SELSORNE. 283 To this account I think proper to add, that, although the female Cocci are stationary, and seldom remove from the place to which they stick, yet the male is a winged insect ; and that the black dust which I saw was undoubtedly the excrement of the females, which is eaten by ants as well as flies. Though the utmost severity of our winter did not destroy these insects, yet the attention of the gardener in a summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from this filthy annoyance. 1 As we have remarked above, that insects are often con- veyed from one country to another in a very unaccountable manner, I shall here mention an emigration of small Aphides, which was observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago than August the 1st, 1785. At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which was very hot, the people of this village were sur- prised by a shower of Aphides, or smother-flies, which fell in these parts. Those that were walking in the street at that juncture found themselves covered with these insects, which settled also on the hedges and gardens, blackening all the vegetables where they alighted. My annuals were discoloured with them, and the stalks of a bed of onions were quite coated over for six days after. These armies were then, no doubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters ; and might have come, as far as we know, from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex, the wind being all that day in the easterly quarter. They were ob- served at the same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to Alton. 2 1 It is not usual, as Mr. Bennett has remarked, for the Coccus of the vine to remain attached for several years in succession to a tree in the open air in England, for the severity of the winter generally destroys it at an early period. But to plants in greenhouses it often proves a serious evil. It can scarcely be regarded as an indigenous insect, and has probably been introduced into this country, from time to time, with exotic plants. ED. 2 For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see Perham's Physico-Theology. G. \V. 284 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER LIV. 1 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRIXGTON. I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with the occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of observing the actions and propensities of those beings with whom we can be little acquainted in their natural state. Not long since I spent a fortnight at the house of a friend where there was such a vivary, to which I paid no small attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed within its narrow limits. It was here that I first observed the manner in which fishes die. As soon as the creature sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands, as it were, on its head, till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of the water with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes, when dead, swim in that manner is very obvious, because, when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly, the broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity, and turns the belly uppermost, as lighter from its being a cavity, and because it contains the swim- ming-bladders, which contribute to render it buoyant. Some that delight in gold and silver fishes have adopted a notion that they need no aliment. True it is that they will subsist for a long time without any apparent food but what they can collect from pure water frequently changed ; yet they must draw some support from animalcula and other nourishment supplied by the water, because, though they seem to eat nothing, yet the consequences of eating often 1 This letter was first published in the " Gentleman's Magazine " for 1786 (vol. Ivi. p. 488), with the date of June 12th, and under the signa- ture of V. ED. OF SELBORNE. 285 drop from them. That they are best pleased with such jejune diet may easily be confuted, since, if you toss them crumbs they will seize them with great readiness, not to say greediness: however, bread should be given sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed on the water-plant called Lemna (duck's meat), and also on small fry. When they want to move a little, they gently protrude themselves with their pinnae pectorales ; but it is with their strong muscular tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable ; but these appa- rently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as their occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung, especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open. Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl contain- ing such fishes : the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours ; while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly ; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner. Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnseus ranks this species of fish under the genus of Cyprinus, or carp, and calls it Cyprinus auratus. Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way, for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space within, that does not communicate with it. In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so that you may 286 NATURAL HISTORY see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping, as it were, in the midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable and pleasant, but in so complicated a way becomes whimsical and un- natural, and liable to the objection due to him, " Qui variare cuoit rem prodigialiter unam." LETTER LV. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. October 10, 1781. , THINK I have observed before that much the most considerable part of the house martins withdraw from hence about the first week in October ; but that some, the latter broods, I am now convinced, linger on till towards the middle of that month ; and that at times, once perhaps in two or three years, a flight, for one day only, has shown itself in the first week in November. Having taken notice, in October, 1780, that the last flight was numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred and fifty, and that the season was soft and still, I was re- solved to pay uncommon attention to these late birds, to find, if possible, where they roosted, and to determine the precise time of their retreat. The mode of life of these latter Hirundines is very favourable to such a design, for they spend the whole day in the sheltered districts, between me and the Hanger, sailing about in a placid, easy manner, and feasting on those insects which love to haunt a spot so secure from ruffling winds. As my principal object was to discover the place of their roosting, I took care to wait on them before they retired to rest, and was much pleased to find that, for several evenings together, just at a quarter past five in the afternoon, they all scudded away in great haste towards the south-east, and darted down among the OF SELBORNE. 287 low shrubs above the cottages at the end of the hill. This spot in many respects seems to be well calculated for their winter residence: for in many parts it is as steep as the roof of any house, and, therefore, secure from the annoyances of water; and it is, moreover, clothed with beechen shrubs, which, being stunted and bitten by sheep, make the thickest covert imaginable, and are so entangled as to be impervious to the smallest spaniel : besides, it is the nature of under- wood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter, so that, with the leaves on the ground, and those on the twigs, no shelter can be more complete. I watched them on to the 13th and 14th of October, and found their evening retreat was exact and uniform ; but after this they made no regular appear- ance. Now and then a straggler was seen; and, on the 22nd of October, I observed two, in the morning, over the village, and with them my remarks for the season ended. From all these circumstances put together, it is more than probable that this lingering flight, at so late a season of the year, never departed from the island. 1 Had they indulged me that autumn with a November visit, as I much desired, I presume that, with proper assistants, I should have settled the matter past all doubt ; but though the 3rd of November was a sweet day, and in appearance exactly suited to my wishes, yet not a martin was to be seen, and so I was forced, reluctantly, to give up the pursuit. I have only to add, that were the bushes, which cover some acres, and are not my own property, to be grubbed and carefully examined, probably those late broods, and perhaps the whole aggregate bodj of the house martins of 1 Upon this passage the Rev. Mr. Herbert remarks that the author appears to have a strong bias to believe that martins, &c., remain dor- mant in this country, having " taken up a very erroneous notion of the difficulty of the passage," and "drawing from circumstances probabilities which are not justified by his statements." It is scarcely necessary at the present day, either to follow or support Mr. Herbert in his argu- ments against hybernation, and in favour of migration, since all well- informed naturalists are now agreed that the theory advanced by Gilbert White is untenable. Were any proof of migration required, much stronger evidence than that adduced by Mr. Herbert could readily be supplied. ED. 288 NATURAL HISTORY this district, might be found there, in different secret doi mitories; and that, so far from withdrawing into warmer climes, it would appear that they never depart 300 yards from the village. LETTER LYI. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. HEY who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which, in some instances, raises the brute creation as it were above reason, and in others leaves them so far below it. Philosophers have defined instinct to be that secret influence by which every species is impelled naturally to pursue, at all times, the same way or track, without any teaching or example ; whereas reason, without instruction, would often vary and do that by many methods which in- stinct effects by one alone. Now this maxim must be taken in a qualified sense ; for there are instances in which instinct does vary and conform to the circumstances of place and convenience. It has been remarked that every species of bird has a mode of nidification peculiar to itself; so that a schoolboy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him. This is the case among fields and woods and wilds ; but in the villages round London, where mosses and gossamer, and cotton from vegetables, are hardly to be found, the nest of the chaffinch has not that elegant, finished appearance, nor is it so beautifully studded with lichens, as in a more rural district ; and the wren is obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little architect. 1 Again, the regular nest of the house 1 May not the use of bright and fresh materials in the country, and OF SELBOENE. 289 martin is hemispheric ; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so con- trived as to conform to the obstruction, and becomes flat or oval or compressed. In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and consistent. There are three creatures, the squirrel, the field-mouse, and the bird called the nuthatch (Sitta europcea) ,* which live much on hazel-nuts; and yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore teeth, as a man does with his knife ; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it ; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill : but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit work- man, he fixes it, as it were, in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice ; when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post where nuthatches have been known to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily pene- trated them. While at work they make a rapping noise that may be heard at a considerable distance. You that understand both the theory and practical part of music may best inform us why harmony or melody should so strangely affect some men, aa it were by recollec- tion, for days after a concert is over. What I mean the following passage will most readily explain : " Prsehabebat porro vocibus humanis instrumentisque harmonicis musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque non dclectaretur; sed quod ex musica humana relinquerctur in of those of a more sombre description in the neighbourhood of London be intended to answer the same purpose, namely, to render the nests secure from observation ? ED 1 The Scandinavian nuthatch, described by Linnaeus (" Syst. Nat." i. p. 177,) as Sitta europcea, differs from that found in Great Britain, and the latter, therefore, should be distinguished as Sitta cccsia, that being the oldest name applied by Meyer (** Taschenb. Deutsch. Vogel," i. p. 128) to the aip pere- grine falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The Falco peregrinus, or liaggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. 2 In winter, 1767, one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Faringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales. 3 Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the shot; it White supposed. His description of its appearance and habits points to the lesser whitethroat. ED. 1 This attachment of swallows to the neighbourhood of water at roosting-time may be easily accounted for by the circumstance that the willow brandies not only afford them most convenient perches, but enable the birds to crowd close together and so secure greater warmth to individuals than they could possibly enjoy if each roosted upon a separate twig in trees or shrubs of different growth. The noisy flut- tering which ensues in a struggle for inside places must frequently have attracted the notice of attentive observers. ED. 2 The peregrine breeds in the sea-cM's of Sussex, Dorset, and the Isle of Wight, and doubtless did so in the days of Gilbert White, al- though the fact was unknown to him. ED. 8 See my tenth and eleventh [and twelfth] Letters to that gentleman. G. W. 292 NATURAL HISTORY measured forty- two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standing weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine : its breast was plump and muscular \ its thighs long, thick, and brawny ; and its legs remarkably short and well set : the feet were armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons : the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow, but the irides of the eyes dusky ; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour, and had a jagged process near PEREGRINE FALCON. the end of the upper mandible on each side: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body : yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be sup- posed to have been a female ; but I was not permitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which are usually lean, this was in high case : in its craw were many barleycorns, which probably came from the crop of the wood pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot : for voracious birds do not eat grain ; but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence swallow bones OF SELBORNE. 293 and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and deep snows that had lately fallen. 1 LETTER LVIII. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton ; such as are fattened in that country for the purpose of being eaten : they are about the size of a moderate spaniel ; of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on their b^cks ; sharp upright cars, and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are un- usually straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in motion their tails are curved high over their backs like those of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the outside, from the tip midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes are jet black, small, and piercing : the insides of their lips and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The bitch has a dew-claw on each hind-leg ; the dog has none. When taken out into a field the bitch showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a covey of partridges till she sprung them, giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in South America are dumb ; but these bark much in a short thick manner, like foxes ; and 1 Although it is possible that this bird may have been migrating from the north, it is not unlikely to have been a wanderer from the Sussex or Dorsetshire sea-cliffs. See page 291, note 2. ED. 294 NATURAL HISTORY have a surly, savage demeanour like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they arc fed for the table with rice-meal and other farinaceous food. These dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn much from their dam ; yet they did not relish flesh when they came to England. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean the dogs are bred up on vegetables, and would not eat flesh when ofl'ered them by our circum- navigators. We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp, upright, fox -like ears ; and that hanging ears, which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding and cultivation. Thus, in the " Travels of Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China," the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow sledges near the river Oby are engraved with prick-ears, like those from Canton. The Kamtschatdales also train the same sort of sharp-eared, peaked-nosed dogs to draw their sledges ; as may be seen in an elegant print engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage round the world. r^ J o Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be im- pertinent to add, that spaniels, as all sportsmen know, though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were by instinct, and with much delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touch their bones when offered as food ; nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though he is remarkable for finding that sort of game. But, when we came to offer the bones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them with much greediness, and licked the platter clean. No sporting dogs will flush woodcocks till inured to the scent and trained to the sport, which they then pursue with vehemence and transport ; but then they will not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when they are hungry. Now that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no wonder; but why they reject and do not care to eat their natural game is not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting seems to be, that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the more rancid water-fowls, nor indeed the OF SELBOENE. 295 bones of any wild-fowls ; nor will they touch the foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage : and indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance of dislike ; for vultures, 1 and kites, and ravens, and crows, &c. were intended to be messmates with dogs 2 over their carrion ; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow- scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth. LETTER LIX. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.. HE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer Forest is not yet all exhausted ; for the peat cutters now and then stumble upon a log. 3 I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village -, this was the b-ut-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what purpose he had procured it, he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner at Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet work, by inlaying it along with whiter woods. Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short quick note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could 1 Hasselquist, in his " Travels to the Levant," observes that the dogs and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring up their young together in the same place. G. W. 2 The Chinese word for a dog to a European ear sounds like quihloh.G. W. 3 See Letter VI. to Pennant, p. 19, note 1. ED. 296 NATURAL HISTORY make out till lately. I am assured now that it is the stone- curlew (Charadrius oedicncmus) .* Some of them pass over or near my house almost every evening after it is dark, from the uplands of the hill and North Field, away down towards Dorton, where, among the streams and meadows, they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged to be noisy; their notes often repeated become signals or watch- words to keep them together, that they may not stray or lose each the other in the dark. The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne Down, where they wheel round in the air, and sport and dive in a playful manner, all the while exerting their voices, and making a loud cawing, which,, being blended and softened by the distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a confused noise or chiding ; or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and not unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night to the deep beecnfn woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on such an occurrence, in the true spirit of physico-theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers ; and yet this child was much too young to be aware that the Scriptures have said of the Deity that