Putnam's Xtbrars 
 StanfcarD Xiterature 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY AND 
 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 
 
THE 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 AND ANTIQUITIES OF 
 
 SELBORNE 
 
 BY 
 
 GILBERT WHITE 
 
 EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 
 
 L. C. MIALL, F.R.S., AND W. WARDE FOWLER, M.A. 
 
 ... 
 
 NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 LONDON: METHUEN & CO, 
 
 1901 
 
ERRATA 
 
 P. ix, last line. Gilbert White was not born at the Wakes, but at Selborne 
 
 Vicarage. 
 P. xii, line 17. The verses were written by another Hester Mulso, the niece of 
 
 Mrs. Chapone. 
 
 P. xii, line 27. Dele. "as". Line 28. For "also as" read "as also". 
 P. 70, note 2. For "beneath which, etc." read "between which, etc." 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . ix 
 
 REDUCED FACSIMILE OF ORIGINAL TITLE PAGE . opposite xxxvi 
 ADVERTISEMENT TO ORIGINAL EDITION .... xxxix 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE . . . .1 
 
 THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE . ... 237 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i 
 
 Sections I. -III. of this Introduction are by L. C. MIALL ; Section IV. by 
 W. WARDE FOWLER. 
 
 I. GILBERT WHITE. 1 
 
 THE events of Gilbert White's life are not striking. He was 
 born at Selborne, in 1720, being the son of a banister and 
 country gentleman, John White, and Anne Holt, daughter 
 of Thomas Holt, rector of Streatham. His grandfather, 
 Gilbert White (1650-1728), had been vicar of Selborne. 
 "This Gilbert White was apparently a well-to-do man, for 
 he left considerable bequests to the village, and doubtless 
 inherited wealth from his father, who had been an eminent 
 citizen of Oxford in the time of Cromwell. Sampson White, 
 whom we may call the founder of the family, was a draper in 
 the High Street ; he had migrated to the city from Coggs, 
 near Witney, where his family had been settled for many 
 generations. He was mayor in 1660, served as ' butler of 
 the beer-cellar' at the coronation of Charles II., and was 
 knighted among many others at that gay time." 2 About a 
 year after the naturalist's birth his parents removed to Comp- 
 ton, near Guildford, returning to Selborne, however, some ten 
 years later. John White died there in 1758, his wife in 
 1739. The Wakes, 3 the house in which the naturalist was 
 
 1 Bell's memoir, and other parts of his edition of White's Selborne (2 vols. 8vo, 
 1877), contain a pretty full account of the life of Gilbert White, which has been 
 freely drawn upon for this sketch. Some interesting facts and suggestions have 
 been taken from Mr. Warde Fowler's "Gilbert White of Selborne" (Macmillan's 
 Magazine for July, 1893, reprinted in Summer Studies of Birds and Books). A 
 full and very careful Life by Prof. Alfred Newton has lately appeared in the Dic- 
 tionary of National Biography. 
 
 2 Warde Fowler, Summer Studies of Birds and Books, p. 207. 
 
 3 Named after one Wake, a former owner of the land. 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 born, and where he spent the last thirty-five years of his life, 
 was built by Gilbert White, the vicar of Selborne, bequeathed 
 to his son-in-law, the Rev. Charles White, and by him to 
 Gilbert White, the naturalist, his nephew by marriage. 
 
 Gilbert White, the naturalist, was the eldest of eleven 
 children, three of whom died in infancy. Those of his 
 brothers and sisters who are in any degree memorable, either 
 for what they did, or for their close association with the 
 naturalist, were : 
 
 (1) Thomas Holt (1724-1797), who made a fortune as a 
 London ironmonger, and wrote papers on natural history, 
 particularly on the trees of Great Britain. He was elected 
 to the Royal Society in 1777. 
 
 (2) Benjamin (1725-1794), a London bookseller, who 
 brought out the History of Selborne^ besides most of the 
 works of Ellis, Pennant, Montagu, and other English natur- 
 alists ; he succeeded Gilbert in the enjoyment of the estate 
 at Selborne. 
 
 (3) Rebecca (b. 1726), married to Henry Woods, of Shop- 
 wyke, near Chichester. 
 
 (4) John (1727-1781), who was chaplain at Gibraltar, and 
 after 1772 vicar of Blackburn in Lancashire. He corre- 
 sponded with Linnaeus about the animals of Andalusia, and 
 wrote a Natural History of Gibraltar + which did not, however, 
 get into print. Gilbert White 1 calls him " a very exact 
 observer," and often cites him as an authority. 
 
 (5) Ann (b. 1731), who married Thomas Barker, and had 
 a son Samuel and three daughters, who often appear in 
 Gilbert Whitens correspondence. 
 
 (6) Henry (1733-1788), who became rector of Fyfield, and 
 took pupils there. He kept meteorological observations, no 
 doubt at Gilbert's request, for comparison with those made 
 at Selborne. Thomas White at South Lambeth, and Thomas 
 Barker (Gilbert White's brother-in-law) at Lyndon, in Rut- 
 land, did the same. Extracts from Henry White's Diary 
 have been printed in Notes on the Parishes of Fyfield., etc., 
 by E. D. Webb (Salisbury, 1898). 
 
 i Letter XIV. 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 Gilbert was sent to school at Basingstoke, where his master 
 was the Rev. Thomas Warton, father of Joseph and Thomas 
 Warton, who still hold places in English literary history. In 
 December, 1739, he was admitted a commoner of Oriel College, 
 Oxford, where he became fellow in 1744. He took holy orders 
 in 1747. 
 
 Mr. Warde Fowler remarks that " as a Fellow he [Gilbert 
 White] was of course ordained, and later on he took a small 
 college living in Northamptonshire [Moreton Pinckney] ; but 
 he took it on the understanding that he should never reside 
 there, and to this resolution, which in these days seems shock- 
 ing, he steadily adhered all his life. I do not wish to dwell 
 on this, or on his other relations to his college, which were 
 not wholly of a pleasant character ; but Oxford men are aware 
 that a non-resident who insists on his right to take his turn 
 as Proctor, or who holds his Fellowship for fifty years, is not 
 likely to be popular with his college." l We have to admit 
 that for fifty years White steadily refused all preferment that 
 would vacate his fellowship, and though he held curacies 
 (Swarraton, Selborne, Durley, Selborne again, Farringdon, 
 Selborne a third -time) he passed the bulk of his life in a 
 somewhat indolent comfort at the old family house in Selborne. 
 
 We must not judge Gilbert White by the standard of work 
 which is now set in Church and University. In the. eighteenth 
 century it was enough for the parson to lead a decent life, to 
 conform to the rules of good society, and to meet the statu- 
 tory claims upon his time. White lost nothing in the esteem 
 of his parishioners by living like a squire of small fortune. 
 Neither he nor they thought it a duty to multiply Church 
 services, or to abstain from the usual diversions of the country 
 gentleman. He was attentive to his set duties, a good neigh- 
 bour, a kind master, and a friend to the poor. It was re- 
 marked as a sentiment of his " that a clergyman should not 
 be idle and unemployed ". If he was content, for the love of 
 Selborne and lettered ease, to give up all hopes of preferment, 
 that was, in the view of his contemporaries, his own affair. 
 Even strict judges, born in a later and less indulgent age, 
 
 1 Summer Studies of Birds and Books, p. 210. 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 will not place Gilbert White in the common herd of non- 
 resident fellows, non-resident parsons, holders of sinecures, 
 and pensioners who had never served. Late in life he gave 
 the world assurance that he was not only one of the keenest 
 and surest of naturalists, but also a charming writer of English. 
 It was by no dull and formal piece of scholarship that he re- 
 paid the debt imposed upon him by the long tenure of a 
 college fellowship and a college living, but by a masterpiece, 
 now to be counted among those possessions of the English 
 race which are above price. 
 
 White never married. It has been conjectured that he 
 was attached, perhaps engaged, to Hester Mulso, the sister 
 of an old college friend. Hester Mulso, once widely known 
 as Mrs. Chapone, was a blue-stocking, and a notable friend of 
 virtue in young ladies. Her literary parties are described by 
 Fanny Burney, who thought that they would be prodigiously 
 mended by a little rattling. Her verses to Gilbert White's 
 tortoise, Timothy, suggested the amusing letter from " your 
 sorrowful reptile," which is to be found in Whitens correspon- 
 dence. In thje long series of letters from John Mulso to White, 
 Professor Newton finds no confirmation of the story of an 
 attachment between White and Hester Mulso. 
 
 It is not likely that we shall ever know what made a 
 naturalist of Gilbert White. Was it some school-fellow at 
 Basingstoke ? Was it the example of Dr. Stephen Hales, 
 who among other livings held that of Farringdon, the next 
 parish to Selborne, and was as well known to Gilbert White 
 also as to his father and grandfather? In Letter X. to 
 Pennant, White says : " It has been my misfortune never to 
 have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards 
 the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of a 
 companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, 
 I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to 
 which I have been attached from my childhood ". Yet his 
 brothers, two of them more particularly, were fond of natural 
 history, so that, but for this express statement, we should 
 have been ready to suppose that the taste ran in the family. 
 With English squires and parsons natural history links on to 
 field-sports and planting. White and some of his elders seem 
 
INTRODUCTION xiii 
 
 to have been fond of both pursuits, though their opportunities 
 were limited. Books cannot have helped him much. There 
 were, it is true, Willughby and Ray, but, to say nothing of 
 the Latin in which many of their works were written, they 
 were fitter to satisfy than to excite curiosity. In White's 
 youth there was nothing in the least like the Natural History 
 of Selborne, but only dry treatises and collections of mar- 
 vellous tales, little better than the bestiaries of the dark 
 ages. 
 
 White's notes, many of which are preserved in manuscript 
 in the British Museum, were written down at short intervals, 
 while the circumstances were fresh. They were often copied 
 into private letters; they formed the groundwork of his 
 published papers, and in the end they yielded the best part 
 of the Natural History of Selborne. From 1768 onwards 
 White recorded his observations in the Naturalists Journal 
 (London: Printed for W. Sandby, in Fleet St., MDCCLXVII). 
 His copy of the first year's journal is marked : " Gil. White, 
 1768. The gift of the Honourable Mr. Barrington the In- 
 venter. The Insects are named according to Linnaeus : the 
 plants according to the sexual system : the birds according to 
 Ray.' 1 In 1771 and following years the Naturalists Journal 
 is marked as " Printed by Benjamin White, at Horace's 
 Head, in Fleet Street " (no date). The later issues have an 
 engraved instead of a letterpress title-page. White some- 
 times ruled his own books, or if he returned to Barrington's 
 form, wrote across many of the columns. The diaries, of 
 which there are six bound volumes, are now in the British 
 Museum, having been purchased of the Rev. G. Taylor in 
 1881. It was from them that Dr. Aikin compiled the 
 Naturalises Calendar and the Observations on Various Parts 
 of Nature. 
 
 It is characteristic of Gilbert White that he takes little 
 note of the progress made by natural history in his own life- 
 time. It was the age of Linnaeus, and White cannot be 
 reproached with inattention to him at least. But the reader 
 of his published and private letters might fail to be reminded 
 that Buffon and Reaumur and De Geer were then writing 
 their histories, that John Hunter was dissecting and making 
 
xiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 experiments, that the British Museum and the Botanic 
 Gardens at Kew were being set up, or that Cook's voyages 
 were making known the natural productions of another 
 hemisphere. Some of these tokens of scientific activity are 
 passed over altogether ; others are slightly mentioned ; upon 
 none of them does White dwell repeatedly and with interest. 
 
 White's education in natural history, so far as it was a 
 matter of books, consisted mainly in the study of Ray and 
 Linnaeus. Swammerdam he quotes in one or two places, but 
 he shows no general acquaintance with the Biblia Natures. 
 Reaumur and De Geer were, for some reason that we can only 
 guess at, inaccessible to him. In a letter of 1774 he says, 
 " I wish I could read Reaumur and De Geer ". Two years 
 later we have him getting Reaumur's account of Hippobosca 
 transcribed for his own use. It is not to be supposed that 
 White was unable to read the French of Reaumur and De 
 Geer; he means that their works were not to be had in 
 Selborne. Yet so many copies of Reaumur's Histoire des 
 Insectes had been printed (it is still a very common book), 
 that the difficulty of studying his writings is not quite in- 
 telligible. De Geer's great work may well have been hard to 
 get at in 1774, but one would have thought it worth the 
 trouble. White died in almost complete ignorance of the 
 discoveries of these great naturalists. Leeuwenhoeck and 
 Malpighi he never names ; their work was largely anatomical 
 and microscopic, and White was not trained in either method. 1 
 Nor does he seem to have known Buffon, who could have told 
 him that the noctule had already been described. It is 
 probable that the poet Gray, and others who gained no fame 
 as naturalists, were much better read in zoology than Gilbert 
 White. His knowledge of plants was slight, and we find in 
 his books or letters few references to the great development 
 of scientific botany which took place during his lifetime, 
 though he was deeply impressed with the systematic work of 
 Linnaeus. Ray, Willughby, Hudson and Linnaeus taught 
 
 1 In a Better of November 15, 1775, he derides the microscope. " O fie ! for so 
 young a man to use glasses that magnify two hundred times, when Linnaeus 
 planned and perfected his whole sexual system nudis oculis. " But eight years later 
 (Letter to Churton, August 20, 1783) he bids his correspondent apply a magnifying 
 glass to Nostoc and " try to discover the seeds". 
 
INTRODUCTION xv 
 
 him to name many of his beasts, birds, insects and flowers, 
 and thus furnished he turns to the work in which his real 
 strength lay, to what he calls (October 31, 1777) "true 
 natural history, because it abounds with anecdote and cir- 
 cumstance," the natural history which seeks above all to study 
 the animals and plants that we have about us as living* things. 
 " Learn as much as possible the manners of animals," he writes 
 to his brother John ; " they are worth a ream of descriptions." 
 
 In the Natural History of Selborne White frequently 
 quotes or makes use of the following books: 
 
 Linnaeus, Systema Natures; Linnaeus, Synopsis Stirpium ; 
 Ray, Synopsis Methodica Avium et Pisdum; Ray, The Wis- 
 dom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation ; Ray, 
 Select Remains of, with his life, by the late W. Derham ; Ray, 
 Historia Insectorum ,* Hudson, Flora Anglica ; Derham, 
 Physico-Theology ; Scopoli, Anni Historico-Naturales ; Stil- 
 lingfleet, Miscellaneous Tracts relating to Natural History ; 
 Pennant, British Zoology ; Hales, Statical Essays ; Willughby, 
 Ornithology ; Geoffroy, Histoire des Insectes. 
 
 Whenever he wished to decorate a letter with quotations, 
 Virgil, Milton and the Bible seem to have come first into his 
 thoughts. Chance quotations show that he had read more 
 widely at some time, but without keeping up (we suppose) 
 any great familiarity with the majority of his authors. All 
 the books which were essential to the Natural History of 
 Selborne would have gone into a single shelf. 
 
 Three of White's correspondents are very particularly 
 associated with the History and Antiquities of Selborne. 
 These are Thomas Pennant, the Hon. Daines Barrington, 
 and the Rev. Dr. Chandler. 
 
 Thomas Pennant (1726-98) was a country gentleman of 
 Downing, near Holywell, in Flintshire. His character and 
 methods are sufficiently delineated in The Literary Life of 
 the late Thomas Pennant, Esq., by Himself (London, 4to, 
 1793), not a posthumous, but as he styles it a "post-existent 
 performance". It relates the career of a man of boundless 
 activity and much self-esteem. He tells how he got a taste 
 for natural history at the age of twelve by reading Willughby's 
 Ornithology, searched Cornwall for minerals, wrote an account 
 
xvi INTEODUCTION 
 
 of an earthquake which got printed among other narratives 
 of the same kind in the Philosophical Transactions, described 
 fossils and corals from Coalbrookdale, and corresponded with 
 Linnaeus. In 1761 he began to publish the British Zoology, 
 which gave what was then considered to be a fair account of 
 most of the groups of British animals, the insects, however, 
 being left out altogether. Many other books followed : Tours 
 in Scotland, A Tour in Wales, A History of Quadrupeds, 
 Arctic Zoology, London, etc. Some of his books went through 
 several editions, and he was one of the most successful writers 
 of the age. Opinions differed as to their value. Percy ran 
 down his descriptions, and declared that " a carrier, who goes 
 along the side of Loch Lomond, would describe it better". 
 Johnson defended Pennant vigorously. " He's a Whig, sir, a 
 sad dog, but he's the best traveller I ever read." A hundred 
 years later one is obliged to admit that Pennant's merits were 
 only moderate. He was not enough of a zoologist to write 
 books on zoology, and the gap left by the death of John 
 Ray was first filled to some extent by George Montagu in 
 zoology, as by Sir J. E. Smith in botany. Some of Pen- 
 nant's books on natural history are readable ; others are not ; 
 both kinds are mainly compilations from Linnaeus, Buffon, 
 Pallas and other writers. His topographical books are the 
 offhand productions of an inquisitive man, who loved riding 
 about the country, and wrote with ease. 
 
 White had no great love for Pennant. He seems in the 
 correspondence to complain of Pennant's stinginess and un- 
 gentlemanly behaviour to his brother John. Bell, in his 
 edition of White's Selborne? says much about Pennant's use 
 of White's information without acknowledgment. Yet in 
 the British Zoology 2 Pennant announces his debt. In the 
 Synopsis, however (1771), and the History of Quadrupeds 
 (1781) the noctule and the harvest-mouse are included with- 
 out mention of Gilbert White. I do not observe that White 
 resented this treatment. Our present usage in the matter of 
 acknowledgment was not then firmly established. Linnaeus 
 is very careless about it, and White himself never mentions 
 
 *Vol. i., p. xli. 
 
 2 8vo ed., 1768 ; see Preface, p. xiii, Appendix, p. 498. 
 
INTRODUCTION xvii 
 
 by name Dr. Chandler, to whom he was under great obliga- 
 tions in his account of the antiquities of Selbome. 
 
 To Pennant, as a man who had the ear of the public, and 
 was the best-known English zoologist of the day, Gilbert 
 White communicated his discoveries and observations. His 
 first letters to Pennant (beginning with Letter X.) were 
 written without any intention of independent publication. 
 When he collected these and others into a book, he not only 
 retained Pennant's name, but addressed to him additional 
 letters, which had been written to complete the history. The 
 first forty-four letters profess to be letters to Pennant, but 
 only those which bear a date were actually sent by the post. 
 
 The Hon. Daines Barrington (1727-1800), to whom the 
 rest of the letters in the Natural History of Selborne were 
 addressed, was a son of the first Viscount Barrington. He 
 entered at the Bar, and became a Welsh judge. His Obser- 
 vations on the Statutes are said to contain much curious 
 information, which has been ransacked by writers on juris- 
 prudence. He edited (very badly) King Alfred's Orosius. 
 But his chief contributions to knowledge related to natural 
 history and kindred subjects. 
 
 If the reader should happen to come across the quarto 
 volume of Miscellanies, by the Hon. Daines Barrington 
 (London, 1781, pp. 558 and viii), he will easily learn from it 
 a good deal respecting White's favourite correspondent, and 
 also something about the state of natural history in England 
 when the History of' Selborne was preparing for the press. 
 
 The early pages are occupied by " Tracts on the Possibility 
 of Reaching the North Pole ". Instances are quoted of sea- 
 captains who got within 2, 1 and even 30 7 of the Pole, 
 which leads the modern reader to conclude that old log-books 
 may be very untrustworthy. One result of the information 
 respecting the polar regions which he brought together was 
 that the Royal Society applied to the Admiralty for an 
 Arctic expedition. The request was granted, and Captain 
 Phipps was sent out in 1773. The expedition returned the 
 same year, having reached a latitude of 80*5, a very moderate 
 success if Barrington's expectations had been just. The essay 
 on the Turkey seeks to prove that, though the bird was 
 b 
 
xviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 indigenous to Virginia, it was not peculiar to America, and 
 first reached Europe from Asia. The account of the Rein- 
 deer collects many miscellaneous observations from books, 
 and notes some facts respecting a reindeer which was kept 
 three years at Homerton. The essay on the " Bat or Rere- 
 Mouse" owes all its interest to some observations on the 
 hibernation of bats, communicated by Mr. Cornish, a surgeon 
 of Totness ; the rest is taken from Pennant and other authors, 
 and indirectly brings in some of White's information, which 
 had been communicated to Pennant's British Zoology. There 
 is also the well-known essay on the "Periodical Appearing 
 and Disappearing of Certain Birds at Different Times of 
 the Year," which is here reprinted, with additions, from 
 the Philosophical Transactions. He admits that periodical 
 migrations may take place from one part of a continent to 
 another, or even across a narrow strait, but it seems to him 
 highly improbable that birds should traverse seas and oceans. 
 He criticises the accounts of Adanson and Wager, and de- 
 fends the theory of winter- torpidity, though he owns that 
 he had never seen birds in the torpid state. He quotes from 
 White's Letter VIII. 1 the observations that woodcocks pair 
 before they retire, and that the hens are then forward with 
 egg ; also from Letter VII. the mention of the migration of 
 the ring-ousel. An essay on the torpidity of the swallow 
 tribe follows, in which White's Letter XXXVI. first appeared 
 in print. Another essay contains Barrington's sceptical 
 thoughts upon the common belief that the cuckoo neither 
 hatches nor rears its young, which he finds to take its rise in 
 a passage of Aristotle. It may be that some of the cases 
 quoted, in which the cuckoo is said to have hatched and fed 
 her own young, are well-founded. White's Letter XXIV. is 
 rather awkwardly introduced into this essay. Then we have 
 a weak and petulant criticism of the Linnaean system. Bar- 
 rington would have what White calls the " life and conversa- 
 tion " of animals more attended to. To give a better idea 
 of his meaning, he refers to White's letters on the British 
 swallows. White himself never disparaged system, though he 
 
 1 The numbers refer to the letters to Barrington in the History of Selborne. 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 was so intent upon the study of live natural history. More 
 than once in his correspondence he dwells upon the necessity 
 of a systematic foundation for work that is meant to last. 
 Thus, writing to his brother John (May 26, 1770), he says : 
 "I am glad you begin to relish Linnaeus; there is nothing 
 to be done in the wide, boundless field of natural history 
 without system," and other passages to the same effect might 
 be quoted. Several very interesting accounts of remarkable 
 young musicians are to be found in the Miscellanies. Bar- 
 rington had personally witnessed and critically examined the 
 early performances of Mozart, Charles and Samuel Wesley, 
 and Crotch. His anecdotes have often been drawn upon by 
 later writers. 
 
 These are the best things which the naturalist finds in 
 Barrington's Miscellanies. He also contributed to the Philo- 
 sophical Transactions a number of papers which were never 
 collected. The chief of these is one on the " Singing of Birds ". 
 The sounds uttered by birds are, he thinks, no more innate 
 than language is in man. He gives instances of birds which 
 have caught the song of a foster-parent or a fellow-captive. 
 He thinks that hen birds are commonly mute and dull- 
 coloured, for their own safety during incubation. The 
 repeated references to Barrington in Darwin's Descent of 
 Man show that his observations still constitute an important 
 part of the literature of animal instinct. He wrote also on 
 the temperature of Italy in ancient and modern times (see 
 White's Letter V.) ; on the trees indigenous to Great Britain 
 (where he very properly decides that the Spanish chestnut 
 is not among the number); on rain at different heights, 
 and on Dolly Pentreath, the last person who spoke the 
 Cornish language. His plan of a Naturalist' *s Calendar was 
 put into practice by Gilbert White and others. Barrington 
 was F.R.S., and presented White's papers on Swallows to 
 the Royal Society. A tropical myrtle, Barringtonia, named 
 after him by Forster, still keeps his name familiar to the new 
 generations of botanists. He survived long enough to become 
 one of the oddities among Charles Lamb's Old Benchers. By 
 a singular fate the correspondent of Gilbert White is the 
 bencher whose bill for sparrow-poison is disallowed. 
 
xx INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the eyes of many naturalists (Gilbert White among the 
 rest) Barrington did good service by issuing a form for the 
 observation of periodical natural phenomena. This was the 
 Naturalists Calendar, which was published regularly for 
 many years. Here were provided columns for meteorological 
 readings, and for the appearance or disappearance of leaves, 
 flowers, insects and birds. It was hoped that the Calendar 
 would rescue many facts which would find a use at some 
 future day. Even in White's diligent hands little seems to 
 have come of these formal entries. He did, it is true, fill his 
 own copy of the Naturalist's Calendar with valuable notes, 
 but it is not the things demanded by Barrington, it is the 
 thoughts of Gilbert White himself which give them all their 
 present interest. Any book of blank paper would have done 
 just as well for a vehicle. In natural history and meteorology 
 mere facts are cheap as summer dust ; we want not heaps of 
 crude facts, but facts arranged and interpreted, questions and 
 the answers to questions. From Bacon's time to ours sanguine 
 men have vainly hoped that records of occurrence, bald notes 
 of time and place, and so forth, would furnish valuable material 
 to the future worker. But the fruits of such labours have not 
 answered expectation ; perhaps we might say that there were 
 no fruits at all, or at least that they were never gathered in. 
 Real scientific investigators have not troubled the dusty piles 
 of records and statistics ; they have trusted to fresh and living 
 experience. After nearly a century and a half, crowded with 
 unavailing labours, we may claim to be wiser in some particu- 
 lars than Barrington and White ; we can see better than was 
 then possible which of their schemes were hopeful and which 
 hopeless. It is now time to recognise that the mechanical 
 exploration of nature is barren. Nothing has come or will 
 come (as Biot long ago declared) of systematic observations 
 made without special object by men who record with busy 
 pen but unreflecting mind. 
 
 Dr. Richard Chandler (1738-1810), to whose learning and 
 diligence White's account of the antiquities of Selborrie owed 
 so much, was first made widely known by his description of 
 the Oxford marbles (Marmora Oxoniensia, 1763). He was 
 afterwards sent with two companions by the Society of Dilet- 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 tanti to visit Asia Minor, and procure drawings of ancient 
 monuments and inscriptions. After two years of exploration 
 Chandler returned to England, and published the materials 
 collected in a series of volumes (Ionian Antiquities, 1769 ; 
 Inscriptiones antiques, 1774; Travels in Asia Minor, 1775; 
 Travels in Greece, 1776). In 1779 he was presented by his 
 college (Magdalen) to the livings of East Worldham and 
 West Tisted, and thus became for a few years neighbour to 
 Gilbert White. In 1800 he removed 'to Tilehurst, near 
 Reading, where he died. His life of W. Waynflete, Bishop 
 of Winchester, was published posthumously in 1811. 
 
 In 1767 White seems to have met Pennant in London, 
 and to have held conversation with him on natural history. 
 Pennant encouraged White to send him notes, and at length 
 a correspondence was begun, which was the germ of the 
 History ofSelborne. Both Pennant and Barrington favoured, 
 if they did not originate, the notion of an account of the 
 natural history of the parish. In 1774 and 1775 White 
 sent to the Royal Society his account of the swallows and 
 swifts, 1 and this formed a substantial instalment of the pro- 
 jected history. He carried out the work of collection and 
 revision in an extremely leisurely way, and the History did 
 not appear till 1789. 
 
 White died after a short illness in 1793, and was buried in 
 Selborne churchyard, to the north of the chancel, where his 
 gravestone, inscribed " G. W., June 26, 1793," may still be 
 seen. 
 
 In person White was small, only five feet three inches high, 
 and was described by one who knew him well 2 as of spare 
 form and remarkably upright carriage. He would never sit 
 for his portrait. Even in middle life he had to complain of 
 " the infirmities of a deaf man," but his sight was particularly 
 good up to old age. In his younger days he had been a 
 sportsman. All his life he was fond of music, though he 
 neither played nor sang. Tradition and his own writings 
 preserve a tolerable picture of his character. We cannot fail 
 to remark his old-fashioned courtesy, his good humour, his 
 
 1 Phil. Trans., vols. Ixiv., p. 196, Ixv., p. 258. 
 
 2 His nephew, the Rev. Francis White, in Bell's memoir. 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 liberality to all about him, his care about small things, and 
 his exactness in relation. We are told of his many Christmas 
 presents to his parishioners, of his paying for the schooling 
 of poor children, of the indulgence which he showed to old 
 servants. His nephew thought that he particularly excelled 
 in addressing his poor neighbours, and making them feel that 
 he was their friend. 
 
 No explanation of the merit of the Natural History of' 
 Selborne can be at all adequate which does not dwell upon 
 the reality and truth of White's descriptions. His personal 
 knowledge of nature was great, not in relation to the know- 
 ledge accumulated in books, but in comparison with the direct 
 experience of most other naturalists of any age. Here is one 
 great difference between him and the imitators who have 
 hoped to succeed by mere picturesque writing. White is 
 interesting because nature is interesting ; his descriptions are 
 founded upon natural fact, exactly observed and sagaciously 
 interpreted. Very few of his observations and not many of 
 his inferences need correction more than a hundred years after 
 his death. 
 
 Then there is the human interest of the History ! What 
 White calls his " anecdotes," his pieces of unpublished infor- 
 mation, had rested in his mind for years, and grown warm 
 there. Some of them had already been related to more than 
 one correspondent, and the best way of telling the story had 
 been found out by repeated trial. The book bears witness to 
 White's love of all that bears upon the daily life of men. 
 The agricultural value of the different soils of Selborne, the 
 means of subsistence of the poor of the parish, deer-stealing, 
 the long shining fly that lays its eggs in bacon drying in the 
 chimneys, the making of rushlights, the causes of leprosy and 
 its cure by improved food and cleanliness, the injury done to 
 garden shrubs by repeated freezing and thawing and the way 
 to prevent it these and other homely practical topics occupy 
 White as pleasantly as song-birds or curious insects. 
 
 White now and then foresaw the importance of inquiries 
 which had not as yet been instituted. See, for instance, what 
 he says about the knowledge of noxious insects (Letter 
 XXXIV. to Pennant), about the improvement of pastures 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 by means of the study of grasses (Letter XL. to Barrington), 
 and his recognition of the effect of earthworms on the fertility 
 of soils (Letter XXXV. to Barrington). He does not, it is 
 true, expressly remark that earthworms, by perpetually bring- 
 ing up earth from below and depositing it on the surface of 
 the land, cause stones and other objects to sink into the 
 ground. The full importance of their operations and the 
 exact manner in which they are carried out was left to be 
 set forth by Charles Darwin, one of those "inquisitive and 
 discerning persons " whom White longed to set working upon 
 the economy of the earthworm. 
 
 Mr. Warde Fowler x gives White credit for being the first, 
 so far as he knows, to notice protective resemblance, which 
 has since become so fruitful a study. In Letter XVI. (April 
 18, 1768) White gives the following description of the stone 
 curlew : " The young run immediately from the egg, like 
 partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the 
 dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best 
 security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our 
 gray spotted flints that the most exact observer, unless he 
 catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded". It is 
 very singular that White's friend, whom he calls " a man of 
 observation and good sense, but no naturalist," John Woods 
 of Chilgrove, near Chichester, 2 should give the same account 
 of the stone curlew in much the same words (Letter 
 XXXIII., November 26, 1770). " They breed on fallows and 
 layfields abounding with gray mossy flints, which much re- 
 semble their young in colour, among which they skulk and 
 conceal themselves/' The date of Woods 1 observation cannot 
 be ascertained ; he quotes from his own Naturalists Journal. 
 The mere documentary evidence fails to show whether the 
 words are those of White or Woods, but we can hardly doubt 
 that it was really White who hit upon this capital observation, 
 worthy of the best passages in the History of Selborne. 
 
 Whitens almost total lack of ambition enhances, as it 
 happens, the literary quality of his History. There is none 
 
 1 Summer Studies of Birds and Books, p. 217. 
 
 2 John Woods was brother to Henry Woods, who married Gilbert White's 
 sister, Rebecca. 
 
xxiv INTEODUCTION 
 
 of the bustle of the man who carries on a wide correspondence, 
 none of the hurry and excitement of the discoverer who fears to 
 be forestalled. I can find no indication that White ever left 
 England, and his travels were confined, for all that we know, 
 to the southern and central counties. He visited Devonshire 
 in 1750. In one place he speaks of having seen Eldon Hole 
 in Derbyshire, but he has not been traced further north. 
 Nor did he greatly enlarge his knowledge of the world by 
 books. I have met with no proof that he was in the habit of 
 reading any modern foreign language. Selborne was to White 
 a kind of Robinson Crusoe^s island, which comprehended with- 
 in itself all his daily interests. Whatever a pair of particularly 
 quick eyes could discover there is set down for us, but the 
 outer world, though not shut out, is seen only on the horizon. 
 We have glimpses of London smoke and Oxford spires ; letters 
 come in now and then from distant parts of the country, but 
 there is no distraction or complication. All White's letters 
 breathe the same air and reflect one mind. 
 
 While Gilbert White was penning letters at Selborne 
 Horace Walpole was penning letters at Strawberry Hill. 
 Walpole's life overlaps White's a little at both ends. How 
 totally unlike are the two collections unlike in bulk, in style 
 and in the topics chosen ! They might have been written in 
 different centuries. That WaJpole cares nothing for natural 
 history is easy to understand, but it is singular that White 
 should care so little for what was passing in the outer world. 
 Not only the fashionable circles, which were so much to Horace 
 Walpole, but the conquest of Canada, the conquest of India, 
 and the loss of the American colonies are at most barely 
 mentioned in any letter of his. The French Revolution does 
 indeed suggest a remark or two in his letters to Marsh am, 
 but White gets back immediately to the wet fallows and the 
 woodpeckers. I do not know that he ever names Chatham 
 or William Pitt, Clive, Warren Hastings, Burke or John 
 Wesley. 1 Gibbon is mentioned once or twice as a Hampshire 
 gentleman, who is about to publish a work on the later 
 Roman Empire. It is an element in the rustic charm of 
 
 1 This statement will very likely require modification if more of White's 
 letters should appear in print. 
 
INTEODUCTION xxv 
 
 the History that White's attention was perpetually fixed upon 
 one narrow spot of English ground. 
 
 White was a man of few books and of no great range of 
 thought. His mind was a lens exquisite in definition, but of 
 small field. When it was truly focussed upon any object, it 
 revealed many details which escape the ordinary observer. 
 He not only saw well, but described well, rapidly gathering 
 round the point of interest all the illustrative facts which his 
 experience yielded. At such times White is at his very best 
 modern, anticipatory and scientific. Outside this small 
 field of clear light there naturally existed a hazy region of 
 imperfectly apprehended facts and notions. The existence of 
 such a region of half-knowledge is not remarkable; it is 
 probably to be found in every mind ; what distinguished 
 White was the exceptional clearness and the narrow compass 
 of the illuminated tract. In the Natural History of Selborne 
 we pass from a passage which is for ever memorable in biology, 
 and there are many such, to discussions in which we feel that 
 his mind was only half awake, that he was merely giving out 
 the teaching of his own age. Of this kind are his medita- 
 tions on physico-theology, reflections of the not very vigorous 
 thought of Ray and Derham. Like them, and like most 
 English and German naturalists of the eighteenth century, 
 White multiplies instances of natural contrivance, but ignores 
 all the difficult cases. 
 
 I have noticed a few of the special features of the Natural 
 History of Selborne, but no analysis can fully explain its 
 peculiar charm. There is genius in the book, which makes 
 things for ever memorable which another might have at- 
 tempted to tell without ever catching our attention. Think 
 of the common man's tiresome details of the weather which 
 he has known in past years, and then recollect Gilbert White's 
 account of his great frosts, his hot summers and his thunder- 
 storms. Of all English books on natural history this has 
 been most read and most enjoyed. Learned and simple, 
 practical and contemplative, working naturalists and poets 
 all find in Gilbert White an author to their taste. Probably 
 no book in any language has incited more people to take up 
 the study of natural history. Many have tried to write letters 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 on White's plan, but their eyes were not so good as his ; they 
 failed to pick out the points of real interest, and they had no 
 Selbornes to describe. By the use of natural gifts exactly 
 suited to the task a man who was sagacious rather than 
 profound, and well-read rather than learned, wrote us a book 
 which will endure for ever, a small thing perfectly done. 
 
 II. SELBORNE. 
 
 I have heard people say that Selborne is only a commonplace 
 English village, which owes all its interest to the circumstance 
 that a man of genius once lived there. With this view of the 
 matter I totally disagree. Selborne is not at all commonplace ; 
 its variety of soil and of elevation, its terraces, woods, heaths 
 and waters, its antiquities and historical associations, make 
 it both remarkable and charming. White says of it : " The 
 parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills 
 and woods, and therefore full of birds ". It is not less full of 
 flowers and insects. Selborne is beautiful, calm, but not in 
 the least dull. There are few parishes in England fitter to 
 rear a naturalist, and Selborne had no doubt a great share in 
 the making of Gilbert White. 
 
 The seclusion of Selborne was somewhat more complete in 
 White's time than now. The hollow lanes, though practi- 
 cable for horsemen and post-chaises, must have made the home- 
 end of every journey slow and fatiguing. 1 The great roads 
 once gained, either the Portsmouth Road or the Winchester 
 Road, the way to London was particularly good. White 
 could visit cities whenever he pleased to make the effort, and 
 the cities which he most frequented were of notable interest 
 London, where two of his brothers carried on business, and 
 Oxford, whither he was often drawn by college affairs and 
 lifelong friendships. London was a day's journey, Oxford a 
 two days' journey by post-chaise. Selborne was exactly the 
 
 1 Visitors to Selborne must not suppose that the old road to Alton, now impass- 
 able, was the only one in White's day. In 1780 he recommends Churton to drive 
 from Alton to Selborne by Farringdon and the Horse and Jockey. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxvii 
 
 place for a man of White's habits; without being in any 
 sense a prison, it was secluded and romantic. 
 
 The natural features of Selborne cannot be rightly under- 
 stood without some tincture of geological knowledge. The 
 chalk formation of the south of England comprises the fol- 
 lowing members : 
 
 [Tertiaries of London and Hampshire basins.] 
 
 Upper Chalk. Gault. 
 
 Lower Chalk. Lower Greensand. 
 
 Chalk Marl. Wealden. 
 
 Upper Greensand. [Jurassic.] 
 
 The top bed of the upper greensand is a chalky marl, 
 with phosphatic nodules, learnedly styled the chloritic marl. 
 This is the "black malm" 1 of Gilbert White. The upper 
 greensand (white malm) contains beds of hard blue limestone 
 ("ragstone") and sandstone (" firestone "), besides marls. 
 The lower beds are all marly, and pass into the clay of the 
 gault. The gault yields a wet soil, stiff and hard to plough, 
 but excellent agricultural land. This is the "strong loam of 
 Alice Holt," which White describes as "of a miry nature, 
 carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to 
 be large timber". The lower greensand, which stretches to 
 the east beyond the gault, forms a picturesque but sterile tract, 
 overgrown with heather, fern and gorse, and dotted with plan- 
 tations of pines and other trees the " rascally heaths of Cob- 
 bett ". White says of Wolmer Forest, which lies on the lower 
 greensand, that it " is nothing but a hungry, sandy, barren 
 waste," and that it had no standing tree in its whole extent. 
 The more elevated parts of the forest have since 1825 been 
 to a considerable extent planted with Scotch fir. The forest 
 is controlled by the War Office and the Department of 
 Woods and Forests, who allow no shooting except pheasant 
 shooting and the firing inevitable during military manoeuvres. 
 On certain adjoining estates also the gamekeepers are kept 
 under some restraint. Many birds, such as woodpeckers, 
 fern-owls and herons, are on the increase, and there are hopes 
 
 1 Malm seems to be a local synonym of marl, a chalky clay. 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 that Wolmer Forest may become a sanctuary for many 
 creatures which are destroyed without mercy by people who 
 profess to be fond of natural history. 
 
 From Wiltshire and Dorsetshire the chalk ranges into 
 Hampshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Kent and Sussex, form- 
 ing a great expanse of downs with wide curving valleys 
 between. This rather monotonous country is disturbed by 
 the upheaval of the Weald, which brings up a mass of 
 wealden (lower cretaceous) beds in the heart of Surrey, 
 Kent and Sussex. The wealden beds are encircled on all 
 sides but one, where the sea comes in, by chalk hills, the 
 North Downs of Kent and Surrey, the Hog's Back, the 
 Hampshire Downs and the South Downs of Sussex. Between 
 the outer chalk hills, whose steep sides face inwards, and the 
 wealden beds, come on in their order the intermediate for- 
 mations (upper greensand, gault, lower greensand), all 
 dipping away from the central mass of the Weald. Selborne 
 lies just within the circle of chalk hills. The escarpment of 
 the Hanger, a chalk hill, rises above it, the meadows between 
 the Hanger and the village are underlain by chalk marl ; 
 then come the "black malm" or chloritic marl, the ragstones 
 and firestones of the Lythes, Hartley Hanger, Temple Farm, 
 etc., the " white malm " or upper greensand, the gault of Alice 
 Holt, Bin's Wood, Hartley Wood, the Priory Farm, etc., 
 and lastly the lower greensand of Blackmoor and the 
 forest. 
 
 The visitor to Selborne can drive over from Alton, making 
 a short stay at Norton Farm, where the old road to Alton, 
 long disused, can be seen. Selborne itself, the church, the 
 Wakes, the Hanger and the Lythe will first be visited. Then 
 he can drive to Blackmoor and Wolmer Pond, Greatham, Liss, 
 Hawkley (the site of the famous landslip of 1774), Empshott, 
 Newton Valence, Farringdon, and so back to Alton. This 
 round brings in many of White's favourite haunts, and gives 
 a good notion of the whole parish. By staying one night at 
 Selborne many other spots, interesting to readers of the 
 Natural History, can be brought in. The views from Sel- 
 borne Hanger and Hawkley Hanger are remarkable, extend- 
 ing far over Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 III. THE HISTORY OF GILBERT WHITE'S BOOK. 
 
 The original Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, 
 published in 1789, is a handsome quarto of 468 + 13 pp. and 
 nine plates, mostly after Grimm's drawings. The large 
 folding frontispiece, giving a general view of Selborne, is 
 particularly attractive. Good copies now command high 
 prices. 
 
 In 1795, two years after Gilbert White's death, Dr. Aikin, 
 joint author with his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, of the Evenings 
 at Home, produced A Naturalises Calendar, with Observations 
 in various branches of Natural History, extracted from the 
 papers of the late Rev. Gilbert White, M.A., of Selborne, 
 Hampshire, Senior Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford (Lon- 
 don, B. & J. White, 8vo, pp. 170 + 6). Dr. Aikin, when at 
 Warrington, had published a Natural History of the Year, 
 which White notices at the end of his last letter on the Natural 
 History of Selborne. The advertisement to the Naturalist's 
 Calendar explained that White had left behind him a series 
 of yearly books containing his observations on rural nature 
 between the year 1768 and his death. From these books 
 he had himself extracted what he required for the History 
 of Selborne, but some curious facts not selected for publica- 
 tion and all the observations subsequent to 1787 remained 
 untouched. The Naturalist's Calendar in its present form is 
 Dr. Aikin's work. He notes that the dates of flowering of 
 plants are chiefly extracted from the book of 1768 alone, and 
 that this was a rather backward year. 
 
 White's materials were altogether insufficient for a natural 
 history of the year. Even when supplemented by Markwick's 
 observations made at Catsfield, near Battle, in Sussex, from 
 1768 to 1793 (and this is the form in which they are usually 
 reprinted), they are merely specimens of this sort of informa- 
 tion. I cannot say that I thirst for more. Naturalists are 
 only too prone to draw up registers, which exercise their 
 diligence without taxing their powers of reflection. To learn 
 why birds, insects and flowers observe particular seasons would 
 be much, but the mere accumulation of isolated facts has 
 already gone far enough. 
 
xxx INTRODUCTION 
 
 In 1802 there appeared in two volumes, 8vo, the Works 
 in Natural History of the late Rev. G. White, comprising 
 the Natural History of Selborne, the Naturalist's Calendar, 
 the Miscellaneous Observations and MarJcwick's Notes. 
 
 The Natural History and Antiquities, edited by Mitford 
 (4to, 587 + 5 pp. and 12 plates), appeared in 1813. 
 
 Rennie's edition (1831) was furnished with notes and figures 
 by the Rev. W. Herbert, Dean of Manchester. Edward 
 Turner Bennett edited an edition of the Natural History, 
 Antiquities, Calendar and Miscellaneous Observations, which 
 appeared in 1837 (London, 8vo, xxiv -f 640 pp., woodcuts 
 by Harvey). The editor died when the book was nearly 
 through the press, and his brother, J. J. Bennett, completed 
 what remained to be done. This edition contains numerous 
 notes by the editor, Bell, Owen, Yarrell and G. Daniell, 
 which are often useful, though too profuse. Bennett's edition 
 was re-edited by Harting in 1875. The next edition of import- 
 ance was Professor Bell's, in two volumes 8vo, with plates and 
 woodcuts (London, 1877). This edition was very careful and 
 complete; it included all White's published writings; some 
 unpublished notes on natural history ; his correspondence ; 
 letters by members of his family ; four unpublished letters 
 from Linnaeus to John White ; notes and a memoir by the 
 editor, who had for many years owned and inhabited White's 
 house in Selborne ; notes, chiefly on the birds, by Professor 
 Alfred Newton ; accounts of the botany and geology of 
 Selborne; a chapter on the Romano-British Antiquities by 
 the late Lord Selborne ; a specimen of the Garden Kalendar, 
 White's account book, and one of his sermons. Bowdler 
 Sharpe's edition, now in course of publication, contains the 
 Garden Kalendar. Other editions, which add little or 
 nothing to our knowledge, either of White or of Selborne, 
 need not be specified; they number altogether eighty or 
 more. 
 
 The most attractive and useful of these editions, to those 
 purchasers who cannot command the original, are Bell's and 
 Bennett's. Harting's edition contains not a few good notes. 
 But almost any copy of the Natural History is sufficient for 
 use and enjoyment. White owes little to his many editors, 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 who can but correct mistakes of no great moment, or help to 
 gratify the natural curiosity which seeks to learn something 
 more about so entertaining a writer. 
 
 IV. WHITE'S VIEW OF THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 1 
 
 BY W. WARDE FOWLER. 
 
 Readers of the Natural History of Selborne are naturally 
 surprised to find that throughout the series of letters, i.e. 9 to 
 the end of his life, this most careful observer was never able 
 to free himself entirely from the old belief that birds of the 
 swallow kind do not all leave us in autumn, and that many 
 remain in a torpid state during the winter, hidden away in 
 holes or other convenient winter quarters. His general ideas 
 of migration were indeed sensible enough, and were supported 
 by the observations of his brother John at Gibraltar. He 
 never seems to have doubted that the majority of our summer 
 migrants, the " short- winged birds of passage," as he calls 
 them, leave our shores for the south in autumn, and return 
 again in spring, and he was the first to discover that the ring- 
 ousel is a passing visitor to the south of England both in 
 spring and autumn. But in the case of swallows and martins 
 the traditional idea kept at least an intermittent hold on his 
 mind, and even led him to misinterpret his own careful obser- 
 vations. In Letter LI. to Barrington we find him actually 
 employing some labourers to explore the shrubs and cavities 
 of a spot near Selborne, in which he fancied that the martins 
 might be lying hid. 
 
 This loyalty to an old delusion is so remarkable in a man 
 of White's mental acuteness and out-of-door habits that it 
 seems worth while to ask how English ornithologists came 
 by it, and why it was that White was unable to clear his 
 mind of it. Even at the present day it has not entirely 
 disappeared. 2 
 
 1 On migration in general the reader may consult the article " Migration " in 
 Newton's Dictionary of Birds, and for animal hibernation the article " Hibernation " 
 in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 2 See Mr. C. Dixon's Migration of Birds, p. 8 f. 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 If we go back to Aristotle, the father of natural history, 
 we find that he gives a perfectly rational account of migration 
 in general, including that of birds and fishes. 1 The pheno- 
 mena of migration are indeed sufficiently obvious to the eyes 
 of all observant dwellers on the Mediterranean coasts; and 
 many allusions in ancient literature 2 show that the passage 
 of birds in spring and autumn was familiar to the ordinary 
 Greek and Roman as well as to the learned. But a few pages 
 further on Aristotle goes on to tell us that many birds, and 
 especially those which live at a long distance from warm 
 countries, i.e., in the far north, do not migrate, but "hide 
 themselves " in the cold weather. Many swallows, he says, 
 have been found in the winter so hiding, and entirely without 
 feathers. 3 This, so far as I know, is the first account of the 
 so-called hibernation of birds. 
 
 Remembering that Aristotle was born and bred in a city 
 on the Thracian coast, where he might well hear stories 
 coming from the mountainous region to the north, we may 
 perhaps surmise that in this passage we have an echo of that 
 northern folklore which in more recent times, as will be shown 
 directly, has been the origin of the whole misconception. 
 How far Aristotle himself has been responsible for the spread 
 of this misconception it is impossible to say ; but considering 
 his immense vogue in the middle ages it is not unlikely that 
 his authority added weight to it. In any case it reappeared 
 in literature, and in an exaggerated form, at the close of the 
 middle ages, and so found its way into the writings of English 
 ornithologists. 
 
 Olaus Magnus, Bishop of Upsala in the first half of the 
 sixteenth century, gives an explicit and amusing account of 
 the hibernation of swallows under water ; and in the copy of 
 his work which lies before me 4 there is a quaint woodcut 
 supposed to represent two fishermen extracting the birds from 
 their winter home with a fishing-net. As this account was 
 reproduced not long afterwards by our own Richard Burton 
 
 1 Historia A?timalium < viii., 12. 
 
 2 E.g., Homer, Iliad, iii., 2 ; Virgil, JEneid, vi., 309. 
 
 3 Historia Animalium, viii., 15. 
 
 4 Page 732 of the Basle edition of 1567. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxiii 
 
 in his Anatomy of Melancholy, I cannot do better than quote 
 a few lines from that curious treasure-house of undigested 
 learning : * 
 
 " And if I could (I would) observe what becomes of swallows, 
 storks, cranes, cuckowes, nightingales, redstarts, and many 
 other kinds of singing birds, water-fowles, hawkes, etc. Some 
 of them are only scene in summer, some in winter ; some are 
 observed in the snow, and at no other times : each have their 
 seasons. In winter not a bird is in Muscovie to bee found, 
 but at the spring in an instant the woods and hedges are full 
 of them, saith Herbastein : how comes it to pass ? Doe they 
 sleepe in winter, like Gesner's Alpine mice ; or doe they lie hid 
 (as Olaus affirmes) in the bottome of lakes and rivers, spiritum 
 continentes: often so found by fisJiermen in Poland and Scandia, 
 two together, mouth to mouth, wing to wing , and when the 
 spring comes they revive againe, or if they bee brought into a 
 stove, or to the fireside. ... Or lye they hid in caves, rockes, 
 and hollow trees, as most thinke, in deepe tin-mines or sea- 
 cliffes, as Mr. Carew gives out ? I conclude of them all, for 
 my part, as Munster doth of cranes and storkes : whence they 
 come, whither they go, incompertum adhuc, as yet we know 
 not." 
 
 The Carew here quoted wrote a survey of Cornwall, of 
 which the first edition was published in 1602. As is well 
 known, swallows and martins do occasionally pass the winter 
 in warm places on the Cornish coast; and this fact Carew 
 reports without committing himself to hibernation. But 
 even he was caught by Olaus' wonderful tales, as will be seen 
 in the following passage : 2 
 
 " In the west parts of Cornwall, during the winter season, 
 swallows are found sitting in old deep tin-works, and holes of 
 the sea cliffes ; but touching their lurking-places, Olaus Magnus 
 rnaketh a far stronger report ; for he saith that in the north 
 parts of the world, as summer weareth out, they clap mouth 
 to mouth, wing to wing, and leg to leg, and so after a sweet 
 singing fall down into great lakes or pools amongst the caves, 
 from which whence at the next spring they receive a new 
 
 1 First edition (1628), p. 243. 
 
 2 Page 85 of the reprint edited by Lord de Dunstanville in i8n. 
 C 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 resurrection; and he addeth, for proof thereof, that the 
 fishermen, who make holes in the ice to dip up such fish with 
 their nets as resort thither for breathing, do sometimes light 
 on these swallows, congealed in clods of a shiny substance, 
 and that carrying them home to their stoves, the warmth 
 restoreth them to life and flight. This I have seen confirmed 
 also by the relation of a Venetian ambassador employed in 
 Poland, and heard avowed by travellers in those parts ; 
 wherethrough I am induced to give it a place of probability 
 in my mind, and of report in this treatise." 
 
 This passage well illustrates the way in which a mischievous 
 legend may spread in an unscientific age through the medium 
 of a single book, like an epidemic from a single spot, and 
 infect the ideas even of sensible observers of nature. Nearly 
 a century later we find that the best ornithologist of his day 
 had not altogether escaped the infection. Willughby, whose 
 Ornithology was edited by Ray in English in 1678, wrote 
 thus of the swallows : * 
 
 " What becomes of swallows in winter time, whether they 
 fly into other countries, or lie torpid in hollow trees, and the 
 like places, neither are natural historians agreed, nor indeed 
 can we certainly determine. To us it seems more probable 
 that they fly away into hot countries, viz., Egypt, Ethiopia, 
 etc., than that they lurk in hollow trees, or holes of rocks and 
 ancient buildings, or lie in water under the ice, as Olaus 
 Magnus reports." 
 
 If Willughby had lived longer and pursued his travels he 
 might have succeeded in stamping out all traces of this in- 
 fectious myth in England ; but he died young, and though 
 disinclined himself to believe it, his language in this passage 
 only served to perpetuate the false tradition. 2 Another 
 century passed, and even then the most acute observer who 
 had yet appeared in England was unable wholly to rid his 
 mind of it. We may well ask how this was : for to anyone 
 accustomed to weigh evidence it will be quite clear that none 
 of the passages quoted above could be said to contain a 
 
 1 Page 211. 
 
 2 Twenty years later Olaus' tales were reproduced in full in Dr. O'Connor's 
 History of Poland, vol. ii., p. 85 (1698). 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 particle of well authenticated fact supporting the theory of 
 hibernation. 
 
 The explanation is not difficult for anyone who carefully 
 follows the movements of the swallows and martins before 
 they leave us in the autumn, and then turns to White's 
 letters on the subject of migration, giving them his close 
 attention. These letters are X., XII., XXIII. and XXXVIII. 
 to Pennant, and IX., XII., XVIIL, LI. and LV. to Bar- 
 rington. 
 
 Swallows and martins between mid-September and mid- 
 October travel leisurely in parties towards and along our 
 south coast. At first, especially if they are following the 
 coast line, these parties consist of large numbers, but they 
 gradually grow smaller and smaller, until only a few stragglers 
 pass at long intervals. But it is by no means easy to discover 
 that these parties are travelling. A stationary observer sees 
 them dallying round his garden, or collecting on his house- 
 roof, like those that have been with him all the summer, and 
 very naturally fails to notice that they are successive parties, 
 which remain for a short while and then go on their way, 
 giving place to others. It may need several hours of close 
 attention to the flocks to convince one that this is so, and 
 the observer should be in a commanding position, and should 
 have the necessary leisure at a time when the migration is 
 in full flow, and the parties numerous and full. White, 
 though he moved about a good deal, never seems to have 
 discovered this movement in parties : his rides along the 
 South Downs never seem to have taken place just at the right 
 time. And thus he also failed to discover the fact that as 
 October advances the parties become smaller and fewer, with 
 long intervals between them, until at last, it may be after an 
 interval of some days, a dozen belated stragglers may appear 
 for a few hours and then vanish, while still later on two or 
 three may possibly be seen for a day or so. These stragglers 
 will probably be late broods from the north of England or 
 Ireland, which for one reason or another have been slow in 
 making their way south. 
 
 Now, if the observer have a preconception, as White had, 
 that swallows can go into hiding for the winter, what is more 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 natural than that he should fancy that these late stragglers 
 are birds which have retired to their place of hibernation 
 somewhere at hand, and which are only enticed out of it once 
 more by genial sunshine in late October or early November ? 
 A glance at the letters just mentioned will show that when- 
 ever White noticed these late parties, his preconception woke 
 to new life, and interrupted his usually clear mental vision. 
 He took them for the birds of his own village which had gone 
 into hiding and then reappeared. This happened to him on 
 November 3, 1772 (Letter XXVIII. to Pennant), on No- 
 vember 4, 1771 (Letter XII. to Barrington), and again in 
 October and November, 1780 (Letter LV. to Barrington). 
 On this last occasion his preconception became so strong that 
 he affirms his belief that the whole body of martins of his 
 district might be found in "secret dormitories" in some 
 shrubby ground not more than three hundred yards from the 
 village, where he had observed that they were in the habit of 
 roosting in October. Thus a preconception, based on the false 
 tradition handed down to him by Olaus and his followers, led 
 to a misinterpretation of the facts before him ; and as those 
 facts were limited for the most part to the range of his 
 observation in his own parish (see above, p. xxiv), it is 
 hardly to be wondered at that the true explanation of them 
 was beyond his reach. 
 
TH B 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 AND 
 
 ANTIQUITIES 
 o P 
 
 SELBORNE, 
 
 IK THE 
 
 COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON: 
 
 WITH 
 
 ENGRAVINGS, AND AN APPENDIX. 
 
 "ego Apis Matinae 
 
 More roodoque 
 
 Grata carpcntls per laborem 
 PluriraunV* Ho*. 
 
 * Omnla bene defcribere, quae in hoc mundo, a Deo faVa, aut Naturae create viribui , 
 tlaborata fuerunt, opus eft non unius hominis, nee iinius xvi. Hinc Fauna Se f&rvr 
 utiliflunasj bine Monc S rafbi prsftantiffimi." ScoPOLl AJiM. HisT. NAT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY T. BENSLEY; 
 ?OR B. WHITE AMD SON, AT HORACE'S htAO, FLSCT $TIT 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION 
 
 THE Author of the following Letters takes the liberty, with all 
 proper deference, of laying before the public his idea of paro- 
 chial history , which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural 
 productions and occurrences as well as antiquities. He is 
 also of opinion that if stationary men would pay some atten- 
 tion 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 tirst opportunity, though a late 
 one, of returning his most grateful acknowledgments to the 
 reverend the President 1 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, 2 so far as the 
 evidences therein contained might respect the parish and 
 priory of Selborne. To that gentleman also, and his assis- 
 tant, 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 
 
 ^Dr. Home, known by his work on the Psalms.] 
 2 [Dr. Richard Chandler.] 
 
xl 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 flatter himself with a con- 
 tinuation of them, would they ever be deemed a matter of 
 singular satisfaction and improvement. 
 
 GIL. WHITE. 
 
 Selborne, 
 January 1st, 1788. 
 
THE 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 
 
 THE parish of SELBORNE lies in the extreme eastern corner of the 
 county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not 
 far from the county of Surrey ; is about fifty miles south-west of 
 London, in latitude 51, and near midway between the towns of 
 Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive it abuts 
 on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz. Trotton and 
 JRogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward the 
 adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence? Faringdon, Harteley 
 Mauduit, Great Ward le ham, 2 Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, 
 Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. f 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 three 
 hundred feet above the village ; and is divided into a sheep down, 
 the high wood, and a long hanging wood called The Hanger. 
 The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely 
 of all forest trees, whether we consider it's smooth rind or bark, 
 it's 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 
 
 1 " Newton Valence derives its adjunct from William de Valentin, half-brother 
 to Henry III., who held the manor in 1273." Moody. The name in Domesday 
 Book is spelt Newentone. Bell. 
 
 2 [ White spells the name thus on theoretical grounds. Worldham is the present 
 form.] 
 1 
 
2 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, 
 heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east 
 and east by the vast range of mountains called The Sussex Downs, 
 by Guild-down near GuUdford, and by the Downs round Dorking 
 and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with 
 the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive 
 outline. 
 
 At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies 
 the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three 
 quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running 
 parallel with The Hanger. 1 The houses are divided from the hill 
 by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of 
 white stone, little in appearance removed from chalk ; but seems 
 so far from being calcarious, 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. 2 This breaks out of 
 some high grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promon- 
 
 1 [The Hanger and Nore Hill are of chalk ; the " vein of stiff clay " consists of 
 chalk marl ; the " rock of white stone " belongs to the upper greensand ; the " rank 
 clay" is the chalk marl again, while the "black malm" is the chloritic marl, a 
 greenish sand, which forms the top bed of the upper greensand (see the Introduc- 
 tion).] 
 
 2 This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and a 
 preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is five 
 hundred and forty in an hour, and twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty, or two 
 hundred and sixteen 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. 
 
 [One Mr. Mills, since White's time, enclosed the spring by a cast-iron plate 
 bearing a lion's mouth and two windmills. After the centenary celebration of 
 Gilbert White's death, a subscription was made to bring the water from the Well- 
 head stream to stand-pipes in the village.] 
 
OF SELBOKNE 3 
 
 tory, remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different 
 seas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Anm, 
 running to Arundel, and so falling into the British channel : the 
 other to the north, 1 the Selborne stream, makes one branch of 
 the Wey ; and, meeting the Black-doivn stream at Hedleigh, and 
 the Alton and Farnham stream at Til ford-bridge, swells into a con- 
 siderable river, navigable at Godalming ; 2 from whence it passes 
 to Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge ; and thus at 
 the Nore into the German ocean. 
 
 Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, 3 and 
 when sunk to that depth seldom fail ; but produce a fine limpid 
 water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who 
 drink the pure element, but which does not lather well with 
 soap. 
 
 To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of 
 fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, 4 a sort 
 of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and 
 rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself. 5 
 
 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 W aimer-forest, at the 
 juncture of the clays and sand 6 the soil becomes a wet, sandy 
 loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks 
 of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, 
 and have furnished much naval timber ; while the trees on the 
 freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shakey, and so 
 brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy 
 
 1 [In orig. there is a full stop at north.'] 
 
 2 [ Artificially navigable, by canal. The distance of the Holt from water-carriage 
 is now still further reduced.] 
 
 3 [The usual depth of the porous upper greensand, which rests upon an imper- 
 vious stratum, the gault.] 
 
 4 [The upper greensand, which includes the "white land" mentioned below. 
 " Malm," or marl, denotes a clayey bed, the sandstones being locally known as 
 "firestones," or "freestones," and the limestones as "ragstones". The upper 
 greensand is the hop-country of Hampshire. ] 
 
 5 This soil produces good wheat and clover. 
 
 6 [ Junction of the gault and lower greensand. Temple farm stands on the upper 
 greensand, close to the gault, Blackmoor on the lower greensand. The " hungry 
 lean sand " marks the upper measures of the lower greensand (Folkestone Beds), 
 which are marked in the south-eastern counties by the prevalence of heaths and 
 commons.] 
 
4 THE NATUEAL HISTOEY 
 
 loam the soil becomes an hungry lean sand, till it mingles with 
 the forest ; and will produce little without the assistance of lime 
 and turnips. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 IN 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, ulmiis folio latissimo scabro 
 of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in 
 the great storm in the year 1 703, 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 it's situation. 
 
 In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square 
 piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly called The 
 Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, 
 with a short squat body, and huge horizontal arms extending 
 almost to the extremity of the area. 1 This venerable tree, sur- 
 rounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight 
 of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings ; 
 where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked 
 and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not 
 the amazing tempest in 1 703 overturned it at once, to the infinite 
 regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed several 
 pounds in setting it in it's place again : but all his care could 
 not avail ; the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. 
 This oak I mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may 
 arrive : and planted this tree must certainly have been, as will 
 appear from what will be said farther concerning this area, when 
 we enter on the antiquities of Selborne. ' 
 
 On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, 
 of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a 
 peculiar growth and great value ; they were tall and taper like 
 firs, but standing near together had very small heads, only a little 
 brush without any large limbs. About twenty years ago the 
 
 J [The site of the oak is now marked by a sycamore of moderate size.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 5 
 
 bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, 
 some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long 
 without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the 
 little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little 
 wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered the 
 description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for twenty 
 pounds apiece. 
 
 In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though 
 shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence 
 about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed 
 their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was dis- 
 tinguished by the title of The Raven-tree. Many were the attempts 
 of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty 
 whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting 
 the arduous task. But, when they arrived at the swelling, it 
 jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, 
 that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the 
 undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest 
 upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which 
 the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, 
 when 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 it's 
 fall ; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the 
 bird was flung from her nest ; and, though her parental affection 
 deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which 
 brought her dead to the ground. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 THE fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have 
 fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence. 
 And first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that 
 was plowed up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Donm, 
 and given to me for the singularity of it's appearance, which, to 
 an incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of about four inches 
 long, the cardo passing for an head and mouth. It is in reality 
 a bivalve of the Linncean Genus of Mytilus, and the species of Crista 
 Galli ; called by Lister, Rastellum ; by Rumphius, Ostreum plicatum 
 
6 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 l permission was given me 
 to examine for this article ; and, though I was disappointed as 
 to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of several of 
 the shells themselves in high preservation. This bivalve is only 
 known to inhabit the Indian ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoo- 
 phyte, known by the name Gorgonia. The curious foldings of the 
 suture the one into the other, the alternate flutings or grooves, 
 and the curved form of my specimen being much easier expressed 
 by the pencil than by words, I have caused it to be drawn and 
 engraved.'^ 
 
 Cornua Ammonis 3 are very common about this village. As we 
 were cutting an inclining path up The Hanger, the labourers found 
 them frequently on that steep, just under the soil, in the chalk, 
 and of a considerable size. In the lane above 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 dimen- 
 sions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But as 
 these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of 
 terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed to 
 the rains and frost they mouldered away. These seemed as if 
 they were a very recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the 
 north-west end of The Hanger, large nautili are sometimes 
 observed. 
 
 In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable 
 depths, well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines, having 
 both shells deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately. 
 They are highly impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, 
 the stone of the quarry. 
 
 1 [The museum at Leicester House was formed by Sir Ashton Lever at Alkring- 
 ton, near Manchester, and afterwards removed to London. In Letter XVIII. to 
 Harrington, White calls it " the most elegant private museum in Great Britain". 
 It was sold by lottery in 1785, and dispersed by auction in 1806.] 
 
 2 [White's fossil is Ostrea carinata, Schloth, a well-known cretaceous species. 
 O&trea crista-galli y L., the cockscomb oyster of the Indian Ocean, is similar, but not 
 identical. ] 
 
 3 [Ammonites.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 7 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 As in a former letter the freestone 1 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 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 seasoned, it does not scale. 
 Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and 
 finer grain than Portland ; and rooms are floored with it ; but it 
 proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone, cutting 
 in all directions ; yet has something of a grain parallel with the 
 horizon, and therefore should not be surbedded, but laid in the 
 same position that it grows in the quarry. 3 On the ground abroad 
 this fire-stone will not succeed for pavements, because, probably 
 some degree of saltness prevailing within it, the rain tears the 
 slabs to pieces. 4 Though this stone is too hard to be acted on 
 by vinegar ; yet both the white part, and even the blue rag, 
 ferments strongly in mineral acids. Though the white stone 
 will not bear wet, yet in every quarry at intervals there are thin 
 strata of blue rag, 5 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 dur- 
 
 1 [The sandy beds of the upper greensand.] 
 
 2 There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime a pro- 
 portion of sand : for few chalks are so pure as to have none. 
 
 3 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. 
 
 4 "Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur : must be close grained, and 
 " have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts ; saltstone perishes exposed 
 "to wet and frost." Plofs Staff., p. 152. 
 
 6 [Calcareous bands of the upper greensand.] 
 
8 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 able : yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, large quantities 
 cannot be procured but at considerable expense. Among the 
 blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust 
 colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue ; and every 
 now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called 
 rust balls. 
 
 In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the 
 workmen sand, or forest-stone. 1 This is generally of the colour of 
 rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore ; is very 
 hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of 
 a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown, 
 terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor 
 easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat 
 pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never 
 becoming slippery in frost or rain ; is excellent for dry walls, and 
 is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it 
 lies scattered on the surface of the ground ; but is dug on Weaver s 
 Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the 
 pits are shallow, and the stratum thin. This stone is imperish- 
 able. 
 
 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 ". 2 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, 
 the one to Alton, 2 and the other to the forest, deserve our atten- 
 tion. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the 
 traffick of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the 
 first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second ; so 
 
 1 [The Folkestone beds (top of upper greensand).] 
 
 2 [This curious embellishment still exists in some old walls, and notably in the 
 western wall of the church. Bell.'] 
 
 3 [Parts of this road, now impassable, are still to be seen at Norton farm.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 9 
 
 that they look more like water-courses than roads ; and are 
 bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places 
 they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of 
 the fields ; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque 
 and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted 
 among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken 
 sides ; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles, 
 hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged 
 gloomy scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them 
 from the paths above, and make timid horsemen shudder while 
 they ride along them ; but delight the naturalist with their 
 various botany, and particularly with their curious Jilices with 
 which they abound. 
 
 The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with all it's 
 kindly aspects, and all it's sloping coverts, would swarm with 
 game ; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants abound ; and 
 in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few quails, 
 because they more affect open fields than enclosures ; after 
 harvest some few 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 it's curves and indentings, does not comprise less than 
 thirty miles. 
 
 The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by The Hanger 
 from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but rather moist 
 from the effluvia of so many trees ; yet perfectly healthy and free 
 from agues. 
 
 The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as 
 may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my 
 experience in measuring the water is but of short date, I am not 
 qualified to give the mean quantity. 1 I only know that 
 
 1 A very intelligent gentleman 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^ inch, 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, ^77^ an d J 77S had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would 
 " have been called 32 inches." 
 
 [The gentleman here alluded to was Thomas Barker, Esq. , of Lyndon Hall, in 
 the county of Rutland, Gilbert White's brother-in-law. -&?//. 
 
 Bell found the average for twenty-five years (1850-1874) to be 32*074 in., which 
 is much above the average for England.] 
 
10 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Inch. Hund. 
 
 From May 
 From Jan. 
 From Jan. 
 From Jan. 
 From Jan. 
 From Jan. 
 From Jan. 
 From Jan. 
 
 , I 779 to the en 
 , 1780, to Jan. 
 , 1781, to Jan. 
 , 1782, to Jan. 
 , 1783, to Jan. 
 , 1784, to Jan. 
 , 1785, to Jan. 
 c, 1786, to Jan. 
 
 dof th 
 1781 
 1782 
 
 1783 
 1784 
 
 1785 
 1786 
 1787 
 
 28 
 27 
 30 
 50 
 33 
 33 
 3i 
 39 
 
 37 ! 
 
 3 2 
 71 
 26! 
 7i 
 
 8 
 55 
 57 
 
 The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with 
 the single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of 
 the forest, contain upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabi- 
 tants. 1 We abound with poor ; many of whom are sober and 
 
 1 A STATE of the Parish of SELBORNE, taken October 4, 1783. 
 
 The number of tenements or families, 136. 
 
 The number of inhabitants in the street is 313 \ Total, 676 : near five inhabitants 
 In the rest of the parish .... 363 J to each tenement. 
 
 In the time of the Rev. Gilbert White, vicar, who died in 1727-8, the number of 
 inhabitants was computed at about 500. 
 
 Average of baptisms for 60 years. 
 
 From 1720 to 1729, both/ 
 years inclus. \ 
 
 From 1730 to 1739, both/ 
 years inclus. \ 
 
 From 1740 to 1749, incl. -j 
 From 1750 to 1759, incl. ! 
 From 1760 to 1769, incl. -j 
 From 1770 to 1779, incl. | 
 
 Males 
 
 Females 
 
 Males 
 
 Females 
 
 Males 
 
 Females 
 
 Males 
 
 Females 
 
 Males 
 
 6,9 \ 
 6,0 / 
 8,2 1 
 7,i( 
 9,2 \ 
 6,6 j 
 7,61 
 
 12,9 
 15,3 
 15,8 
 15.7 
 18,0 
 20,3 
 
 Males 10,5 
 Females 9,8, 
 Total of baptisms of Males, 515 ) 
 
 Females, 465) 98 
 
 Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive ... 60 years 
 Average of burials for 60 years. 
 
 980. 
 
 From 1720 to 1729, both/ Males 4,8\ 
 
 
 years inclus. \ Females 5,1]" 
 
 9,9 
 
 From 1730 to 1739, both / Males 4,8) 
 
 
 years inclus. \ Females 5,8J 
 
 IO,6 
 
 From I74 o to X749, incl. { j^ jjj} 
 
 8,4 
 
 From I75 o to ,759, incl. { Jg^e, J,?} 
 
 10,0 
 
 From I7 6o to I7 6 9 , incl. { ^ ^} 
 
 13,4 
 
 From 1770 to 1779, incl. { ^^ |'j} 
 
 n,7 
 
 Total of burials of Males, 315 \ 6 
 
 
 a >, Females, 325 / ^ 
 
 
OF SELBORNE 
 
 11 
 
 industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, 
 which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs : mud buildings 
 we have none. Besides the employment from husbandry, the 
 men work in hop gardens, of which we have many ; and fell and 
 bark timber. In the spring and summer the women weed the 
 corn ; and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop picking. 
 Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly 
 by spinning wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, 
 much in vogue at that time for summer wear ; and chiefly 
 manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some of the 
 people called Quakers : but from circumstances this trade is at 
 
 Total of burials from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive ... 60 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 chance 
 
 for life. 
 Chances for life in men and women appear to be equal. 
 
 A TABLE of the Baptisms, Burials, and Marriages, from January, 2, 1761, to 
 December 25, 1780, in the Parish of SELBORNE. 
 
 BAPTISMS. 
 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 Tot. 
 
 M. 
 
 F. 
 
 Tot. 
 
 
 1761. 
 
 8 
 
 IO 
 
 18 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 1762. 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 IS 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 24 
 
 6 
 
 1763. 
 1764. 
 
 8 
 ii 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 18 
 20 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 8 
 
 7 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 1765- 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 18 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 1766. 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 22 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 1767. 
 
 14 
 
 5 
 
 19 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 ii 
 
 2 
 
 1768. 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 1769. 
 
 9 
 
 14 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 ii 
 
 2 
 
 1770. 
 1771. 
 
 10 
 IO 
 
 J 3 
 
 S 
 
 4 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 ii 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 1772. 
 
 II 
 
 10 
 
 21 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 1773- 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 1774- 
 
 6 
 
 X 3 
 
 19 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 i 
 
 1775. 
 
 20 
 
 7 
 
 27 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 21 
 
 6 
 
 1776. 
 
 ii 
 
 10 
 
 21 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 1777. 
 
 8 
 
 13 
 
 21 
 
 7 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 1778. 
 
 7 
 
 i3 
 
 20 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 1779. 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 22 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 ii 
 
 5 
 
 1780. 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 17 
 
 ii 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 
 198 
 
 1 88 
 
 386 
 
 123 
 
 123 
 
 ^6 
 
 83~ 
 
 During this period of twenty years the births of males exceeded those cf 
 
 females . . . 10. 
 
 The burials of each sex were equal. 
 And the births exceeded the deaths . . . 140. 
 
12 THE NATUKAL HISTORY 
 
 an end. 1 The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and 
 Jongevity ; and the parish swarms with children. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 SHOULD I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of 
 Wolmer, of which three fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my 
 account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district 
 abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vege- 
 table ; and has often afforded me much entertainment both as a 
 sportsman and as a naturalist. 
 
 The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven 
 miles in length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly 
 from North to South, and is abutted on, to begin to the South, 
 and so to proceed eastward, by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, 
 Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of Sussex ; by Bramshot, Hed- 
 leigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists entirely of sand covered 
 with heath and fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and 
 dales, without having one standing tree in the whole extent. 2 
 In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which 
 formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though Dr. Plot 
 says positively, 3 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 exa- 
 mined, that none has been found of late. 4 Besides the oak, I 
 
 1 Since the passage above was written, I am happy in being able to say that the 
 spinning employment is a little revived, to the no small comfort of the industrious 
 housewife. 
 
 2 [Much of Wolmer Forest is now enclosed and planted.] 
 
 3 See his Hist, of Staffordshire. 
 
 4 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 surrounding 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 
 4 ' fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the 
 
OF SELBOENE 13 
 
 have also been shown pieces of fossil-wood of a paler colour, and 
 softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir : but, upon a nice 
 examination, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous 
 in them ; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a 
 willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree. 
 
 This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of 
 wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed 
 there in the summer ; such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, 
 as I have discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in 
 vast plenty are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, 
 into which they love to make excursions : and in particular, in 
 the dry summer of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they 
 swarmed to such a degree that parties of unreasonable sportsmen 
 killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day. 
 
 But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now 
 extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded much 
 before shooting flying became so common, and that was the heath- 
 cock, black game, or grouse. When I was a little boy I recollect 
 one coming now and then to my father's table. The last pack 
 remembered was killed about thirty-five years ago ; and within 
 these ten years one solitary grey hen was sprung by some 
 beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsmen cried out, "A hen 
 pheasant " ; but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse 
 in the north of England, assured me that it was a greyhen. 1 
 
 Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the 
 Fauna Selbornieims ; for another beautiful link in the chain of 
 beings is wanting, I mean the red deer, which toward the be- 
 ginning of this century amounted to about five hundred head, 
 
 ' 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 lay where the drain had 
 
 1 more than four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, 
 
 ' tiles, and the tops of walls." See Hales 's Hsemastatics : 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? 
 
 * [In orig. Bushy is misprinted Busby.} 
 
 1 [ Tetrao tetrix. L. Bell (1877) notes that this grouse is still occasionally met with 
 at Wolmer, and this not as the result of any recent importation from other localities, 
 but as a voluntary visitant. From Hampshire westwards to Exmoor it may still 
 be found in suitable places.] 
 
14 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 and made a stately appearance. There is an old keeper, now 
 alive, named Adams, whose great grandfather (mentioned in a 
 perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father and self, en- 
 joyed the head keepership of Wolmer forest in succession for 
 more than an 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 Queens-bank, saw with great complacency and satis- 
 faction 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 further 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 an huntsman, and six 
 yeomen -prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by 
 the stag-hounds ; ordering them to take every deer in this forest 
 alive, and convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the 
 summer they caught every stag, some of which showed extraor- 
 dinary 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 after- 
 wards. 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 anything in Mr. Astleys 
 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. 1 
 
 1 [See " Hounds " in Observations on Quadrupeds.] 
 
OF SELBOENE 15 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 THOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, 
 yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment 
 than the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible ; for 
 most men are sportsmen by constitution : and there is such an 
 inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibi- 
 tions 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 Wal- 
 tham 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 comprehends more felonies than any 
 law that ever was framed before. And, therefore, a late bishop 
 of Winchester, when urged to re-stock Waliham chase,' 2 ' 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 it's escape, till it was large 
 and fat enough to be killed ; the shooting at one of their neigh- 
 bours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him 
 for a deer ; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary 
 manner : Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was 
 deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to 
 surprise it ; when the parent-hind rushed out of the brake, and, 
 taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched 
 upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two. 
 
 Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of 
 rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places : but these 
 being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, 
 when they came to take away the deer, they permitted the 
 country people to destroy them all. 
 
 Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities 
 
 1 Statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22. 
 
 2 This chase remains un-stocked to this day ; the bishop was Dr. Hoadly. 
 
16 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that 
 verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their 
 firing ; with fuel for the burning their lime ; and with ashes for 
 their grasses ; and by maintaining their geese and their stock of 
 young cattle at little or no expense. 
 
 The manor-farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted 
 claim, I see, (by an old record taken from the Tower of London) 
 of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus 
 exceptis. 1 The reason, I presume, why sheep 2 are excluded, is, 
 because, being such close grazers, they would pick out all the 
 finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. 
 
 Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Manj, c. 23) " to burn on 
 " any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, 
 " heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable with whipping and 
 " confinement in the house of correction " ; yet, in this forest, 
 about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, 
 such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they often get to a 
 masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been 
 communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where 
 great damage has ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that, 
 when the old coat of heath, &c., is consumed, young will sprout 
 up, and afford much tender brouze 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 conflagra- 
 tions, as they take place usually with a north-east or east wind, 
 much annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm the 
 country ; and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, 
 who lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got on 
 the downs between that town and Winchester, at twenty-five miles' 
 distance, was surprised much with smoke and a hot smell of fire ; 
 and concluded that Alresford was in flames ; but, when he came 
 to that town, he then had apprehensions for the next village, 
 and so on to the end of his journey. 
 
 On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand 
 two arbours or bowers, made of the boughs of oaks ; the one called 
 
 1 For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually 
 seven bushels of oats. 
 
 2 In The Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, no 
 sheep are admitted to this day. 
 
OF SELBOENE 17 
 
 Waldon- lodge, the other Brimstone-lodge : these the keepers renew 
 annually on the feast of St. Barnabas, taking the old materials for 
 a perquisite. The farm called Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged 
 to find the posts and brush-wood for the former ; while the farms 
 at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the latter ; and are all 
 enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the spot. This 
 custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very remote 
 antiquity. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three 
 considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing 
 particular to say ; and one called Bin's, or Bean's pond, 1 which is 
 worthy the attention of a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being 
 crowded at the upper end with willows, and with the carex 
 cespitosa, 2 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 frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants ; 
 and the bogs produce many curious plants (for which consult 
 Letter XLII. 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 Oakwoods ; a large district, now private property, though once 
 belonging to the royal domain. 
 
 It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned 
 in this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambu- 
 lation, a rough estimate of the value of the timbers, which were 
 
 1 [Now drained. The covert has disappeared.] 
 
 2 I mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the foresters 
 torrets ; a corruption, I suppose, of turrets. 
 
 Note. In the beginning of the summer 1787 the royal forests of Wolmer and 
 Holt were measured by persons sent down by government. 
 a 
 
18 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 considerable, growing at that time in the district of The Holt ; 
 and enumerates the officers, superior and inferior, of those joint 
 forests, for the time being, and their ostensible fees and per- 
 quisites. In those days, as at present, there were hardly any 
 trees in Wolmer forest. 
 
 Within the present limits of the forest are three considerable 
 lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer ; all of which are stocked 
 with carp, tench, eels, and perch : but the fish do not thrive well, 
 because the water is hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand. 1 
 
 A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means 
 peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence ; and that is, that 
 instinct by which in summer all the kine, whether oxen, cows, 
 calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water during the hotter 
 hours ; where, being more exempt from flies, and inhaling the 
 coolness of that element, some belly deep, and some only to mid- 
 leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about ten in the 
 morning till four in the afternoon, and then return to their feeding. 
 During this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in 
 which insects nestle ; and so supply food for the fish, which 
 would be poorly subsisted but from this contingency. Thus 
 Nature, who is a great economist, converts the recreation of one 
 animal to the support of another ! Thomson, who was a nice 
 observer of natural occurrences, did not let this pleasing circum- 
 stance escape him. He says, in his Summer, 
 
 1 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 it's whole circum- 
 ference, 2,646 yards, or very nearly a mile and an 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 measure- 
 ment, 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. 
 
 1 [It is remarkable that these three ponds are named respectively after three 
 animals which, formerly indigenous in this country, are now extinct. Hogmer 
 after the wild boar, Cranmer after the crane, and Wolmer^ anciently Wolvemere, 
 after the wolf, which doubtless formerly haunted this wild district. The fish 
 mentioned in the text are now, I believe, quite extinct in these ponds. Bell.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 19 
 
 On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly secure 
 from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of 
 ducks, teals, and widgeons, of various denominations ; where they 
 preen and solace, and rest themselves, till towards sun-set, when 
 they issue forth in little parties (for in their natural state they 
 are all birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows ; 
 returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake 
 an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick covert 
 (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy. 
 
 Yet neither it's extent, nor the clearness of it's water, nor the 
 resort of various and curious fowls, nor it's picturesque groups of 
 cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the great quantity 
 of coins that were found in it's 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. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this 
 subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles 
 Holt, alias Alice Holt, 1 as it is called in old records, is held by 
 grant from the crown for a term of years. 
 
 The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier- General 
 Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural 
 daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret Hughs ; a Mr. Mordaunt, 
 of the Peterborough family, who married a dowager lady Pem- 
 broke ; Henry Bilson Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawel, their 
 son. 
 
 The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long 
 surviving her husband ; and, at her death, left behind her many 
 curious pieces of mechanism of her father's constructing, who 
 was a distinguished mechanic and artist, 2 as well as warrior ; 
 
 1 " In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36. Ed. 3. it is called Aisholt." 
 In the same, " Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam 
 
 " capellam in haia sua de Kingesle". " Haia, sepes } sepimentum, parcus : a Gall. 
 
 haie and haye." Spelman's Glossary. 
 
 2 This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. [Not the inventor, who was 
 
 Ludwig von Siegen, but the introducer of mezzotint into England.] 
 
20 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 and, among the rest, a very complicated clock, lately in pos- 
 session 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. 1 
 
 The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is about two 
 miles in extent from north to south, and near as much from 
 east to west ; and contains within it many woodlands and lawns, 
 and the great lodge where the grantees reside ; and a smaller 
 lodge, called Goose-green ; and is abutted on by the parishes 
 of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley ; all of which have 
 right of common. 
 
 One thing is remarkable ; that, though The Holt has been 
 of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any pales 
 or fences more than a common hedge, yet they were never seen 
 within the limits of Wolmer ; nor were the red deer of Wolmer 
 ever known to haunt the thickets or glades of The Holt. 
 
 At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned and reduced 
 by the night-hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of 
 the efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that 
 have been put in force against them as often as they have been 
 detected, and rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither 
 fines nor imprisonments can deter them : so impossible is it to 
 extinguish the spirit of sporting, which seems to be inherent 
 in human nature. 
 
 General Horve turned out some German wild boars and sows 
 in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood ; and, 
 at one time, a wild bull or buffalo : but the country rose upon 
 them and destroyed them. 
 
 A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand 
 oaks, has been cut this spring (viz. 1784) in The Holt forest ; 
 one fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord StaweL 
 He lays claim also to the lop and top : but the poor of the 
 parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert 
 that it belongs to them ; and, assembling in a riotous manner, 
 have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps a team, 
 has carried home, for his share, forty stacks of wood. Forty- 
 
 1 [Alice Holt lies upon gault, Wolmer on lower greensand.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 21 
 
 five of these people his lordship has served with actions. These 
 trees, which were very sound, and in high perfection, were 
 winter-cut, viz. in February and March, before the bark would 
 run. In old times The Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, 
 computed measure, from water-carriage, vis. from the town of 
 Chertsey, on the Thames ; but now it is not half that distance, 
 since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of Godalming in 
 the county of Surrey. 
 
 LETTER X. 1 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 August 4, 1767. 
 
 IT has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours 
 whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural 
 knowledge : so that, for want of a companion to quicken my 
 industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender 
 progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached 
 from my childhood. 
 
 As to swallows (hirundines rustics) 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)' 2 among the rubbish, which were, at first 
 appearance, dead ; but, on being carried toward the fire, revived. 
 
 1 [The original of this letter, the first ever written to Pennant by Gilbert White, 
 commences with the following passage, omitted in the copy as sent to the 
 printer : 
 
 " Nothing but the obliging notice which you were so kind as to take of my 
 trifling observations in the natural way when I was in town in the spring, and 
 your repeated mention of me in some late letters to my brother, could have 
 emboldened me to enter into a correspondence with you, in which, though my 
 vanity cannot suggest to me that I shall send any information worthy your 
 attention, yet the communication of my thoughts to a gentleman so distinguished 
 for these kinds of studies will unavoidably be attended with satisfaction and 
 improvement on my side." At this time so little was he acquainted with Pennant, 
 
 that he did not know his Christian name, and the letter is addressed "To 
 
 Pennant, Esq., at Downing, in Flintshire, North Wales. "Bell. ] 
 
 2 [It has been suggested that these supposed swifts were really bats, which is 
 not impossible. No swift has ever been known to pass the winter in this country.] 
 
22 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 He told me that, out of his great care to preserve them, he put 
 them in a paper-bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where 
 they were suffocated. 
 
 Another intelligent person has informed me that, while he 
 was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment 
 of the chalk-cliff fell down one stormy winter on the beach ; and 
 that many people found swallows among the rubbish : but, on my 
 questioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself; to 
 my 110 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 llth, and young martins (hirundines urbicce) were then fledged 
 in their nests. Both species will breed again once. For I see 
 by my fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so late 
 as September the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings more 
 in favour of hiding than migration ? Nay, some young martins 
 remained in their nests last year so late as September 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 with the swallow and house-martin, should leave 
 us before the middle of August invariably ! while the latter stay 
 often till the middle of October ; and once I saw numbers of 
 house-martins on the seventh of November. 1 The martins and 
 red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together ; an uncommon 
 assemblage of summer and winter-birds ! 
 
 A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda trivialis, 
 or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to make 
 a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods. 2 The stoparola 
 of Ray (for which we have as yet no name in these parts) is 
 called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. There is one circumstance 
 characteristic of this bird, which seems to have escaped observa- 
 tion, and that is, that it takes it's stand on the top of some stake 
 or post, from whence it springs forth on it's prey, catching a fly 
 
 1 [Later instances are recorded : White mentions one in Letter XI. to Pennant.] 
 
 2 [See below (Letters XVI. and XIX. to Pennant). The "little yellow bird" 
 was undoubtedly the wood-wren (Phylloscopus sibilatrix, Bechst.). In this sen- 
 tence the word species seems to be loosely used: in its technical sense it is 
 rare in White's writings. The alauda trivialis was (and is) the tree-pipit ; the 
 motacilla trochilus was the willow-wren (Phylloscopus trochilus, L.). All that 
 White meant to say was that the little yellow bird might be closely related to 
 either of these ; he had probably as yet not seen it clearly, or he would not have 
 compared it to the tree-pipit.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 23 
 
 in the air, and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning 
 still to the same stand for many times together. 
 
 I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla 
 trochilus : Mr. Derkam supposes, in Ray's Philos. Letters, that he 
 has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of some 
 very common birds that have as yet no English name. 
 
 Mr. Stillingjleet makes a question whether the black-cap (mota- 
 cilla atricapilld) be a bird of passage or not : I think there is 
 no doubt of it : for, in April, in the first fine weather, they come 
 trooping, all at once, into these parts, but are never seen in 
 the winter. They are delicate songsters. 
 
 Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory ground 
 on the verge of this parish. It is very amusing to see the cock 
 bird on wing at that time, and to hear his piping and humming 
 notes. 1 
 
 I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those mice 
 which I mentioned to you in town. The person that brought 
 me the last says they are plenty in harvest, at which time I will 
 take care to get more ; and will endeavour to put the matter out 
 of doubt, whether it be a iion-descript species or not. 2 
 
 I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray 
 says, and Lijinceus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed 
 behind. Now I have discovered a rat on the banks of our little 
 stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer 
 and diver : it answers exactly to the mus amphibius of Linnaeus 
 (See Syst. Nat.), which he says " natat in fossis fy urinaiur".* I 
 should be glad to procure one " plantis palmatis ". Linnceus 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 [See Letters XVI. and XXXIX. to Pennant.] 
 
 2 [This is the first mention of the harvest-mouse (Mus minutus, Pall.). Pennant 
 inserted the species from White's description in the Appendix to his British Zoology, 
 8vo ed., 1768. The harvest-mouse has been known to weave its nest from the 
 panicles and leaves of the common reed. Bingley observed that, when kept in 
 a cage, it hid away grains of maize, taking care to bite out the embryo, as the 
 harvesting ants also do. Although well supplied with food, it devoured most 
 of the grains in the following November. See also Letters XII., XIII., XV. to 
 Pennant.] 
 
 3 [The water-vole (Arvicola amphibia, L.). Linnaeus followed Willughby and 
 Ray in saying (erroneously) that the hind feet are webbed. The mus terrestris 
 of Linnaeus is the common field-vole (Arvicola agrestis, L.).] 
 
24 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 As to the falco, 1 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, tales cum sint reliquiae ! " 
 
 It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-ducks 
 and snipes : but, when it was shot, had just knocked down a 
 rook, which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer 
 to any of our English hawks ; neither could I find any like it 
 at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring-Gardens. I 
 found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the country- 
 man's museum. 
 
 The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of 
 hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, September 9, 1767. 
 
 IT will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your 
 thoughts with regard to the falco ; as to it's 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. It's cere 
 and feet were yellow, and the circle of it's eyelids a bright yellow. 
 As it had been killed some days, and the eyes were sunk, I could 
 make no good observation on the colour of the pupils and the 
 irides. 
 
 The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a 
 pair of hoopoes (upupa), which came several years ago in the 
 summer, and frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which 
 joins to my garden, for some weeks. They used to march about 
 in a stately manner, feeding in the walks, many times in the day ; 
 and seemed disposed to breed in my outlet ; 2 but were frighted 
 and persecuted by idle boys, who would never let them be at 
 rest. 
 
 1 [See Letter XI. and the beginning of Letter XII. It is curious that White 
 should leave us in the dark about this falcon. It seems that Pennant identified it 
 as a variety of the peregrine. ] 
 
 2 [By outlet White denotes the pleasure-grounds about a house.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 25 
 
 Three gross-beaks (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some years 
 ago in ray fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot : since that, 
 now and then one is occasionally seen in the same dead season. 
 
 A cross-bill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the 
 village, yield nothing but the bull's head or millers thumb (gobius 
 fluviatilis capitatus), 1 the trout (trutta fluviatilis}, 2 the eel (anguilla), 
 the lampern (lampcetra parva 3 et fluviatilis* and the stickle-back 
 (pisciculus aculeatus}.^ 
 
 We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a 
 
 freat river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild 
 3wls, 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, 6 still 
 appear ; but I have seen no black-caps lately. 
 
 I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church college 
 quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house 
 martin flying about, and settling on the parapets, so late as the 
 twentieth of November. 
 
 At present I know only two species of bats, the common 
 vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auritusJ 
 
 1 [ Cottus gobio, L. ] 2 [ Salmofario, L. ] 
 
 *[Petromyzonbranchialis,lj.} [P. faviatilis, L.] 
 
 5 [ Of the five or six species of stickleback described as British one only was 
 known to Bell as inhabiting the stream at Selborne, viz., the three-spined stickle- 
 back (Gastrosteus aculeatus, L.).] 
 
 6 [The three species of willow- wren. ] 
 
 7 [The Vespertilio murinus is a common bat on the continent, but very rare in 
 Britain. White meant no doubt the Pipistrelle, as former editors have seen ; Pennant 
 led him astray on this point. Plecotus auritus is the long-eared bat. White 
 
26 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 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 it's wings round before the mouth, hovering 
 and hiding it's head in the manner of birds of prey when they 
 feed. The adroitness it shewed 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 chimnies and gnaw men's bacon, seems 
 no improbable story. While I amused myself with this wonderful 
 quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that 
 bats when down 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 November 4, 1767. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that thefalco 1 turned 
 out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have been better 
 pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had 
 never seen before ; but that, I find, would be a difficult task. 
 
 himself added the Noctule (Vesperugo noctula, Schreb.) to the list of Selborne 
 (and British) bats. It had been described, with a figure of its head, by Daubenton 
 in 1759, while Buffon had included it in his Histoire Naturelle. Fifteen British bats 
 are now known.] 
 
 1 This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus ; a variety. [See Letters X. and 
 XI. to Pennant.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 27 
 
 I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former 
 letters, a young one and a female with young, both of which I 
 have preserved in brandy. From the colour, shape, size, and 
 manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is 
 non-descript. They are much smaller, and more slender, than the 
 mus domesticus medius of Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or 
 dormouse colour : their belly is white ; a straight line along their 
 sides divides the shades of their back and belly. They never 
 enter into houses ; are carried into ricks and barns with the 
 sheaves ; abound in harvest ; and build their nests amidst the 
 straws of the corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. 
 They breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest 
 composed of the blades of grass or wheat. 
 
 One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially 
 platted, and composed of the blades of wheat ; perfectly round, 
 and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with the aperture so ingeni- 
 ously closed, that there was no discovering to what part it 
 belonged. It was so compact and well filled, that it would roll 
 across the table without being discomposed, though it contained 
 eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this nest was 
 perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively 
 so as to administer a teat to each ? perhaps she opens different 
 places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business 
 is over : but she could not possibly be contained herself in the 
 ball with her young, which moreover would be daily increasing 
 in bulk. This wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance 
 of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat-field suspended in 
 the head of a thistle. 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 bohemicus or German silk-tail, 2 
 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 Rays 
 Philosoph. letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, 
 appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685. 
 
 The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total 
 
 1 [See Letter X. to Pennant, and note thereon.] 
 
 z [Ampelis garrulus, L. Waxwings were common in 1866-67, and again in 
 1872-73.] 
 
28 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of 
 the winged nation. For the same severe weather, late in the 
 spring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender and 
 curious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy and common. 
 
 Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on 
 the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to the description of 
 the merula torquata or ring- ouzel, were lately seen in this neighbour- 
 hood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but 
 without success. See Letter VIII. 
 
 Query Might not Canary birds be naturalized to this climate, 
 provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of 
 some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c. ? Be- 
 fore winter perhaps they might be hardened, and able to shift 
 for themselves. 
 
 About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at 
 Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on the 
 Thames, near Hampton-court. In the autumn, I could not help 
 being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind 
 which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, 
 that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the 
 chimnies 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 counten- 
 ance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring 
 under water. A Swedish naturalist l 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. 2 
 
 An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he 
 saw an house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, flying in 
 and out of it's nest in the Borough. And I myself, on the twenty- 
 ninth of last October (as I was travelling through Oxford), saw 
 four or five swallows hovering round and settling on the roof of 
 the county- hospital. 
 
 Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps 
 had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late 
 season of the year, and from so midland a county, attempt a 
 voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the equator ? 3 
 
 1 \Calendarium Florce, A. M. Berger, 1756. A thesis published in the Amoeni- 
 tates Academics, vol. iv. (1759). Translated, with the addition of an English 
 Calendar of Flora, by Stillingfleet (Misc. Tracts, 1755).] 
 
 2 [See Introduction, p. xxxii.] 
 
 3 See Adanson's Voyage to Senegal. [See also Letter XXXIX. to Pennant.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 29 
 
 I acquiesce entirely in your opinion that, though most of the 
 swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind and 
 hide with us during the winter. 
 
 As to the short-winged soft-billed birds, which come trooping 
 in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to sus- 
 pect 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 I 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 22, 1768. 
 SIR, 
 
 As in one of your former letters you expressed the more satis- 
 faction from my correspondence on account of my living in the 
 most southerly county ; so now I may return the compliment, 
 and expect to have my curiosity gratified by your living much 
 more to the North. 
 
 For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas 
 vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the fields ; many 
 more, I used to think, than could be hatched in any one neigh- 
 bourhood. But, when I came to observe them more narrowly, 
 I was amazed to find that they seemed to me to be almost 
 all hens. 1 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 Linnaeus; that " before winter all their hen chaffinches 
 
 1 [See the fourth edition of Yarrell's British. Birds, vol. ii., p. 70 f., where the 
 question is discussed of the separation of the sexes of the chaffinch in winter. This 
 separation is only " partial and temporary " (H. Saunders), but has given the bird 
 its specific name (Fringilla coelebs). See Letter VIII. to Harrington.] 
 
30 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 "migrate through Holland into Italy ". Now I want to know, from 
 some curious person in the north, whether there are any large 
 flocks of these finches with them in the winter, and of which sex 
 they mostly consist ? For, from such intelligence, one might be 
 able to judge whether our female flocks migrate from the other 
 end of the island, or whether they come over to us from the 
 continent. 
 
 We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common linnets ; 
 more, I think, than can be bred in any one district. These, I 
 observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the 
 sunshine, and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were 
 about to break up their winter quarters and betake themselves to 
 their proper summer homes. It is well known, at least, that the 
 swallows and the fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering 
 before they make their respective departure. 
 
 You may depend on it that the bunting, emberiza miliaria, does 
 not leave this country in the winter. In January 1767, I saw 
 several dozen of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the 
 bushes on the downs near Andover : in our woodland enclosed 
 district it is a rare bird. 1 
 
 Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter. 2 
 Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in numbers 
 by people that go on purpose. 
 
 Mr. Stillingjleet, in his Tracts, says that "if the wheatear 
 " (cenanthe) does not quit England, it certainly shifts places ; for 
 " about harvest they are not to be found, where there was before 
 "great plenty of them". This well accounts for the vast 
 quantities that are caught about that time on the south downs 
 near Lewes, where they are esteemed a delicacy. There have 
 been shepherds, I have been credibly informed, that have made 
 many pounds in a season by catching them in traps. And though 
 
 1 [The common bunting is almost exclusively a bird of the corn lands, and there- 
 fore rare at Selborne. Bell notes on this passage that the cirl bunting (Emberiza 
 cirlus, L. ) is now resident in the district. Whether it was to be found there in 
 White's time we cannot guess ; it was not known as a British bird till the year 
 1800. White, in spite of his occasional deafness (see Letter XXII. to Barrington), 
 seems to have been quicker with his ears than with his eyes in observing birds, but 
 it is quite possible that he failed to distinguish the song of the cirl bunting from 
 that of the yellow hammer. Even with our knowledge of the voices and appearance 
 of the two species, it is not always easy to distinguish them at a glance.] 
 
 2 [By "yellow wagtail" White must here mean the grey wagtail (Motacilla 
 melanope, Pall. ), as the yellow wagtail (M. raii, Bonap. ) never winters in England. 
 The so-called grey species shows much sulphur yellow on its under parts. But 
 White has little to tell us of the wagtails, and evidently had not bent his mind to 
 observe them closely.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 31 
 
 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 Hasselquist says on that subject is re- 
 markable : there were little short-winged birds frequently coming 
 on board his ship all the way from our channel quite up to the 
 Levant, especially before squally weather. 
 
 What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly probable. 
 The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the 
 soft-billed birds that leave us at that season may find insects 
 sufficient to support them there. 
 
 Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, 
 should make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom ; and should 
 spend a year there, investigating the natural history of that vast 
 country. Mr. Willughby 2 passed through that kingdom on such 
 an errand ; but he seems to have skirted along in a superficial 
 manner and an ill humour, being much disgusted at the rude 
 dissolute manners of the people. 
 
 I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the 
 swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames : nor can I hear any 
 more about those birds which I suspected were merulce torquatce. 
 
 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 an hundred, 
 most of which were taken ; and some I saw. I measured them ; 
 
 1 [Though the wheatear is rarely seen in winter, there seems to be no doubt that 
 White was not here in error. See Yarrell's British Birds (ed. Newton), vol. i., p. 
 350. Further particulars respecting the wheatear are given in Letter XVII. to 
 Harrington.] 
 
 2 See Ra^s Travels, p. 466. 
 
32 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and 
 a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in 
 a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about 
 the third of an ounce avoirdupois : so that I suppose they are the 
 smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown mus medius 
 domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is 
 more than six times as much as the mouse above ; and measures 
 from nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and the same in it's 
 tail. 1 We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. 
 My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and an half 
 below the freezing-point, within doors. The tender evergreens 
 were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air 
 was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation 
 in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to 
 believe that some days were more severe than any since the year 
 1739-40. 
 
 I am, &c., &c. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March 12, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IF some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow- 
 deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two 
 spiracula, or breathing-places, besides the nostrils ; probably ana- 
 logous to ihepuncta lachrymalia in the human head. 2 When deer 
 
 1 [See preceding letter. " 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 sus- 
 pended. In The Zoologist for 1843, p. 289, will be found a woodcut in illustration 
 of this fact as observed by the Rev. Pemberton Bartlett." Harting.~\ 
 
 2 [Hunter and Owen have shown by dissection that these cavities are closed 
 internally, and do not communicate with the air passages. E. T. Bennett, in his 
 edition of White's Selborne, notes that the Indian antelopes kept in the Zoological 
 Society's gardens were fond of everting the sacs, and rubbing them against an 
 observer's hand. ' ' After the finger has been subjected for some time to this 
 rubbing, it will be found to have acquired a heavy odour, of a salt and peculiar 
 character" (Bennett}. Other observers describe the odour as musky. Objects 
 rubbed with the waxy secretion of the glands attract the attention of the antelopes, 
 which sniff at and lick them. The glands are usually larger in the male than in 
 the female. They occur, not only in many deer, but also in most species of sheep 
 and goat. The most probable explanation of their function is that the secretion is 
 alluring to the females.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 33 
 
 are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep 
 under water, while in the act of drinking, and continue them in 
 that situation for a considerable time : but, to obviate any 
 inconveniency, they can open two vents, one at the inner corner 
 of each eye, having a communication with the nose. Here seems 
 to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention ; 
 and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any naturalist. 
 For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated, though 
 both their mouths and nostrils were stopped. This curious for- 
 mation 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 Mr. Ray 
 observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such 
 asses as were hard worked : for they, being naturally strait 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 : 
 
 'pives, iritrupes irvonr}ffi 5tauA.oi." 
 " Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." 
 
 Opp., Cyn., Lib. ii., L 181. 
 
 Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that 
 goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the contrary : 
 " AA.K/AOI<OV yct/o OVK aXrjOrj Aeyei, <a^tevos (tva.Trvf.iv ras aiyas Kara 
 "TO. ami". " Alcmceon does not advance what is true, when he 
 "avers that goats breathe through their ears." History of 
 Animals, Book I., chap. xi. 
 
 1 In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious and 
 pertinent reply. " I was much surprised to find in the antelope something ana- 
 logous 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," 
 
34 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March 30, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 SOME intelligent country people have a notion that we have, in 
 these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, 
 stoat, ferret, and polecat ; a little reddish beast, not much 
 bigger than a field mouse, but much longer, which they call a 
 cane. 1 This piece of intelligence can be little depended on ; but 
 farther inquiry may be made. 
 
 A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milkwhite rooks 
 in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were 
 able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret 
 of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such 
 a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against 
 the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, 
 legs, feet, and claws were milkwhite. 
 
 A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down 
 above my house this winter : were not these the emberiza nivalis, 
 the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool. ? No doubt they were. 
 
 A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had 
 been caught in the fields after it was come to it's 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. It's 
 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.2 
 
 1 had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pint 
 (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, 
 and eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing, with some 
 exactness, myself, and getting others to do the same, we found 
 
 1 [This is probably nothing but a female weasel, the female in this species being 
 decidedly smaller than the male.] 
 
 2 [Many like cases of change of colour induced by change of food are now re- 
 corded. Larks have been observed to turn black when fed on hemp seed ; canaries 
 to redden on cayenne pepper ; green parrots to develop red and yellow feathers 
 when fed on fish or pounded maize. A shipwrecked crew subsisted for a long 
 time on penguins' eggs, and it was remarked that their hair and complexion 
 turned lighter, black tiair becoming brown or red. See Distant on "Assimilative 
 Coloration," Zoologist, 4th ser., vol. ii., p. 400 (1898).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 35 
 
 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 salicana kind, and, I think, was soft- 
 billed. It was no panis ; and was too long and too big for the 
 golden-crowned wren, appearing most like the largest willow- 
 wren. It hung sometimes with it's 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 
 
 I wonder that the stone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus, 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 called, as they are by Mr. 
 Ray, "circa aquas versantes" ; for with us, by day at least, they 
 haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep walks, 
 far removed from water : what they may do in the night I 
 cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads 
 and frogs. 
 
 I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnaeus 
 perhaps, would call the species mus minimus. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, April 18, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE history of the stone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus, is as follows. 
 It lays it's eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare 
 ground, without any nest, in the field ; so that the countryman, 
 in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run 
 
 ] [This may have been the chiffchaff (Phylloscopus rufus, Bechst.), as Mr. 
 Harting has suggested in his edition ; this bird occasionally winters in England. 
 Or it may have been a stray siskin (Chrysomitris spinus^ L. ), a bird more apt to hang 
 with its back downwards than the chiffchaff, and one which White does not seem 
 to have known well. See note on Letter VIII. to Barrington. By desultory White 
 means to describe the restless and apparently capricious movements of the bird.] 
 
36 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 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 bird, may 
 be eluded. The eggs are short and round ; of a dirty white, 
 spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I might not be able, 
 just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show 
 you them almost any day ; and any evening you may hear them 
 round the village, for they make a clamour which may be heard 
 a mile. Oedicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for them, 
 since their legs seem swoln like those of a gouty man. After 
 harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields. 1 
 
 1 make no doubt but there are three species of the willorv- 
 ivren : two I know perfectly ; but have not been able yet to 
 procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, 
 and that constantly, than those two that I am acquainted with ; 
 for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note ; the other a harsh 
 loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three quarters 
 of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and an half; while the 
 latter weighs but two : so the songster is one fifth heavier than 
 the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage 
 that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his two 
 notes in the middle of March, and continues them through the 
 spring and summer till the end of August, as appears by my 
 journals. The legs of the larger of these two are flesh-coloured ; 
 of the less, black. 2 
 
 ![This bird is not a curlew, which it resembles only in its cry, but is related to 
 the bustards and plovers. See also Letters XXL, XXXIII. to Pennant, LIX. to 
 Barrington, and the Observations on Nature. White's account of the stone 
 curlew is one of his best contributions to ornithology ; it was supplemented, as we 
 learn from Letter XXL , by the observations of a friend in Sussex. The observa- 
 tion of the protective colouration of the young seems to be White's own. The bird 
 is not common in the Selborne district, which is not well suited to its mode of life. 
 Even in White's day it seems to have been on the chalk downs of Sussex that 
 new observations on this bird were to be made. On the cry of the stone curlew 
 see Letter LIX. to Barrington.] 
 
 2 [This passage is an important one in the history of British ornithology. The 
 three common species of Phylloscopus have only been clearly distinguished since it 
 was written: (i) the chiffchaff (P. rufus, Bechst.), whose loud chirp (harsh seems 
 hardly appropriate), black legs and early arrival are accurately noted ; (2) the 
 willow- wren (P. trochilus, L.), slightly larger and heavier, with pale legs and 
 " laughing" note ; (3) the wood-wren (P. sibilatrix, Bechst.), which White had not 
 yet procured, the bird alluded to in Letter X. to Pennant, which makes "a 
 sibilous shivering noise in the top of tall woods", It is accurately described in 
 Letter XIX. to Pennant.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 37 
 
 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 an hundred 
 yards distance ; and, when close at your ear, is scarce any louder 
 than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted 
 with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet 
 hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a 
 locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when 
 you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful 
 creature, sculking 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 an 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 it's 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,' 2 from which 
 it is very distinct. See Ray's Philos. Letters, p. 108. 
 
 The fly-catcher 3 (stoparola) has not yet appeared : it usually 
 breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing : it's note is short 
 and imperfect, but is continued till about the middle of June. 
 The willow-wrens 4 (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a garden, 
 destroying the pease, cherries, currants, &c. ; and are so tame 
 that a gun will not scare them. 
 
 A LIST of the SUMMER BIRDS of PASSAGE discovered in this 
 neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the Order in which they 
 appear : 5 
 
 Linnasi Nomina. 
 
 Smallest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus : 
 
 Wryneck, Jynx torquilla : 
 
 House-swallow, Hirundo rustica : 
 
 1 [Now called the grasshopper warbler (Locustella ncevia, Bodd.),] 
 
 2 [The willow- wrens.] 
 
 '' [The spotted flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola, L.).] 
 
 4 [Chiffchafts and willow- wrens come into gardens after their moult in August, 
 but feed chiefly on aphides and other insects, in pursuit of which they may do a 
 certain amount of damage to fruit. Garden-warblers and blackcaps, on the other 
 hand, certainly eat fruit ; and Mr. Harting has suggested that the young of the 
 former (a species unknown to White) were mistaken by him for willow- wrens.] 
 
 5 [In preparing this list for Pennant's use White adopts the Linnaean names ; 
 in Letters I. and II. to Barrington he gives the names used in Ray's Synopsis 
 
38 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Martin, Hirundo urbica : 
 
 Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia : 
 
 Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus : 
 
 Nightingale, Motacilla luscinia : 
 
 Blackcap, Motacilla atricapilla : 
 
 Whitethroat, Motacilla sylvia : 
 
 Middle willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus: 
 
 Swift, Hirundo apus : 
 Stone curlew ?, Charadrius oedicnemus f 
 
 Turtle-dove ?, Turtur aldrovandi f * 
 
 Grasshopper-lark, A lauda trivialis : 2 
 
 Landrail, Rallus crex : 
 
 Largest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus : 
 
 Redstart, Motacilla phcenicunts : 
 Goatsucker, or fern-owl, Caprimulgus europceus : 
 
 Fly-catcher, Muscicapa grisola. 
 
 My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with 
 it's 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 summer 
 birds ; for, when the leaf is out, there is no making any remarks 
 on such a restless tribe ; and, when once the young begin to 
 appear, it is all confusion: there is no distinction of genus, 
 species, or sex. 3 
 
 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. 4 
 
 Avium. In each case he considers the prejudices or convenience of his correspon- 
 dent. Barrington has a chapter in his Miscellanies written to prove the superiority 
 of Ray's nomenclature and descriptions.] 
 
 1 \Columba turtur, L.] 
 
 2 [" Linnaeus's^4/awt/a trivialis is the tree-pipit. See Yarr., 4th edit., i., pp. 369, 
 370. Linnaeus did not know the grasshopper lark or warbler." Newton, in 
 Bell's Ed.] 
 
 3 [Had White lived in the days of field-glasses, he would not have worded this 
 paragraph so strongly, but it is true enough that the days before the leaf is fully 
 out are invaluable to a field ornithologist.] 
 
 4 [See Letters X. and XXXIX. to Pennant. The " drumming" of the snipe is 
 now generally believed to be made both by wings and tail, but chiefly by the 
 wings.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 39 
 
 This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose crown 
 glitters like burnished gold. It often hangs like a titmouse, 
 with it's back downwards. 
 
 Yours, &c., &c. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, June 18, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 ON 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 propaga- 
 tion 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. 
 
 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 ani- 
 mals ; and is silent with regard to the manner of their bringing 
 forth. Perhaps they may be etrw /xev WOTOKOI, eo> Sc O>OTOKOI, as is 
 known to be the case with the viper. 1 
 
 The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it ; for 
 Smammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans} is notorious 
 to every body : because we see them sticking upon each others' 
 backs for a month together in the spring : and yet I never saw, 
 or read, of toads being observed in the same situation. It is 
 strange that the matter with regard to the venom of toads has 
 not been yet settled. That they are not noxious to some animals 
 is plain : for ducks, buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat 
 them, to my knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember 
 the time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though numbers of 
 
 1 [The reproductive process in the toad is very similar to that of the frog, but 
 the eggs, instead of being densely clustered, form a rope, often many yards long.] 
 
40 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 persons were), when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to make 
 the country-people stare ; afterwards he drank oil. 1 
 
 I have been informed also, from undoubted authority, that 
 some ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to 
 a toad, which they nourished summer after summer, for many 
 years, till he grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which 
 turn to flesh flies. The reptile used to come forth every evening 
 from an hole under the garden-steps ; and was taken up, after 
 supper, on the table to be fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning 
 him as he put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke with 
 his horny beak as put out one eye. After this accident the 
 creature languished for some time and died. 
 
 I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of 
 the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Hay s Wisdom 
 of God in the Creation (p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs 
 from their breeding ponds. In this account he at once subverts 
 that foolish opinion of their dropping from the clouds in rain ; 
 shewing that it is from the grateful coolness and moisture of 
 those showers that they are tempted to set out on their travels, 
 which they defer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole 
 state ; but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm for 
 a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than my 
 little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of 
 the method and situation in which the male impregnates the 
 
 1 [Bell gives the following account of the toad from a paper found among 
 White's MSS. It is in a boy's handwriting, and was probably written to dictation. 
 The gardener was doubtless White's old gardener, Thomas Hoar. 
 
 " The benevolence of modern naturalists hath induced them to pronounce the 
 toad harmless, in contradiction to the extravagant tales of the ancients concerning 
 its poisonous qualities, which exposed it to many cruelties. But by what I saw the 
 other day, I am convinced it hath some venomous properties, which it exerts in its 
 defence. There seems to be some resemblance between the toad and the viper, 
 and the frog and the snake : the frog and the snake have a power of escaping from 
 their enemies by their agility, and therefore are harmless ; but the toad and viper 
 being sluggish, and having no powers of escaping, are armed with poison. As I 
 passed the gardener the other day, he turned up a toad in digging, which I desired 
 him not to destroy, as it was an inoffensive animal, and helped to clear the ground 
 of grubs and insects ; upon which, to convince me that it was not altogether harm- 
 less, he took the toad up by the skin of its back, and placing it on a gravel walk, 
 set a little terrier bitch at it, who, from former experiments, was aware of its 
 venomous quality, and tho' naturally very fierce and eager, she touched it very 
 gently with her nose, nothing equal to the gardener's grasp when he took it up, 
 and instantly the foam came from her mouth, and her face and eyes were strongly 
 convulsed. This continued upon her half an hour, during which time she would 
 not eat any thing that was offered her. How the venom was communicated I am 
 not able to say. Those who make this part of physiology their study would do 
 well to try the experiment."] 
 
OF SELBORNE 41 
 
 spawn of the female. How wonderful is the oeconomy of Provi- 
 dence with regard to the limbs of so vile a reptile ! While it is 
 an aquatic it has a fish-like tail, and no legs : as soon as the legs 
 sprout, the tail drops off as useless/ and the animal betakes 
 itself to the land ! 
 
 Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances that the 
 rana arborea is an English reptile ; it abounds in Germany and 
 Switzerland. 
 
 It is to be remembered that the salamandra aquatica of Ray 
 (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, 
 and is often caught on his hook. I used to take it for granted 
 that the salamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, and died, in the 
 water. But John Ellis, Esq. F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis) asserts, 
 in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th, ]?66, in 
 his account of the mud inguana, an amphibious tripes from South 
 Carolina, 2 that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the 
 land-eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to 
 misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own words. 
 Speaking of the opercula or coverings to the gills of the mud 
 inguana, he proceeds to say that "The form of these pennated 
 " coverings approach very near to what I have some time ago 
 " observed in the larva or aquatic state of our English lacerta, 
 " known by the name of eft, or newt ; which serve them for 
 " coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim with while in this 
 " state ; and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, 
 " when they change their state and become land animals, as I have 
 "observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself." 
 
 Linnceus, in his Systema Natures, hints at what Mr. Ellis advances 
 more than once. 
 
 Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one 
 venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and 
 that is the viper. As you propose the good of mankind to be an 
 object of your publications, you will not omit to mention common 
 sallad-oil as a sovereign remedy against the bite of the viper. As 
 to the blind worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in 
 sunder with a small blow), I have found, on examination, that it 
 
 1 [The tadpole's tail does not drop off, but is absorbed and shrinks.] 
 
 2 [The Siren lacertina of Linnaeus. Some of the elder naturalists took this to be 
 the tadpole of some salamander, but it is now known to retain its gills throughout 
 life. These gills are the "opercula" or "pennated coverings" mentioned in the 
 text. They are true external gills, like those of the fresh-hatched tadpole, and are 
 not used as fins by any amphibian.] 
 
42 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am 
 indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female viper 
 about the twenty-seventh of May : he found her filled with a 
 chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird ; but 
 none of them were advanced so far towards a state of maturity 
 as to contain any rudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, 
 yet they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their 
 bellies, and then bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains 
 of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all that my 
 people can do to prevent them ; which eggs do not hatch till 
 the spring following, as I have often experienced. Several 
 intelligent folks assure me that they have seen the viper open 
 her mouth and admit her helpless young down her throat on 
 sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her brood 
 into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies ; and 
 yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Harrington, that 
 no such thing ever happens. The serpent kind eat, I believe, 
 but once in a year ; or, rather, but only just at one season of the 
 year. Country people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am 
 pretty sure, without any reason ; for the common snake (coluber 
 natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view 
 to procure frogs and other food. 
 
 I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve 
 species of reptiles, 1 unless it be by the various species, or rather 
 varieties, of our lacerti, of which Ray enumerates five. I have 
 not had opportunity of ascertaining these ; but remember well 
 to have seen, formerly, several beautiful green lacerti on the 
 
 1 [The following fourteen species of reptiles and amphibians are now known as 
 British ; those marked " S " have been found at Selborne. 
 
 Reptiles. 
 
 Common snake ( Tropidonotus natrix, L. ), S. 
 Smooth snake (Coronella Icevis, Lac6p.). 
 Viper ( Viper berus, L.), S. 
 Common lizard (Lacerta vivipara^ Jacq. ), S. 
 Sand lizard (L. agilis, L.). 
 Green lizard (L. viridis, L.). 
 Slowworm (Anguis fragilis, L. ), S. 
 
 Amphibians. 
 
 Great crested newt (Triton cristatus, Laur.), S. 
 Smooth newt (T. taeniatus, Schn.), S. 
 Palmated newt (T palmipes, Latr.), S. 
 Common toad (Bafo vulgaris, Laur.), S. 
 Natterjack (B. calamita, Laur.), S. 
 Common frog (Rana temporaria, L.), S. 
 Edible frog (R. esculenta, L.).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 43 
 
 sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in Surrey ; and Ray admits there 
 are such in Ireland. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, July 27, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I RECEIVED your obliging and communicative letter of June the 
 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where I had 
 neither books to turn to, nor leisure to sit down, to return you an 
 answer to many queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best 
 manner that I am able. 
 
 A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could 
 find no such fish as the gasterostem pungitius : l he found the 
 gasterosteus aculeatus' 2 in plenty. This morning, in a basket, 
 I packed a little earthen pot full of wet moss, and in it some 
 sticklebacks, male and female ; the females big with spawn : 
 some lamperns ; some bulls heads ; but I could procure no 
 minnows. This basket will be in Fleet-street by eight this even- 
 ing ; so I hope Mazel 3 will have them fresh and fair to-morrow 
 morning. I gave some directions, in a letter, to what particulars 
 the engraver should be attentive. 
 
 Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable 
 distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that town, and 
 procured several living specimens of loaches, which he brought, 
 safe and brisk, in a glass decanter. They were taken in the 
 gullies that were cut for watering the meadows. From these 
 fishes (which measured from two to four inches in length) I took 
 the following description : " The loach, in it's general aspect, has 
 " a pellucid appearance : it's back is mottled with irregular col- 
 lections of small black dots, not reaching much below the 
 " linea lateralis, as are the back and tail fins : a black line runs 
 " from each eye down to the nose ; it's belly is of a silvery white ; 
 "the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded 
 
 1 [Ten-spined stickleback.] 
 
 2 [Three-spined stickleback.] 
 
 3 [Peter Mazell, the engraver of the plates in Pennant's " British Zoology," and 
 of three of those in the original edition of this work, namely the two of the church 
 and that of the Plestor. Bell.] 
 
44 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 " with six feelers, three on each side : it's pectoral fins are large, 
 " it's ventral much smaller ; the fin behind it's anus small ; it's 
 "dorsal-fin large, containing eight spines ; it's tail, where it joins 
 "to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any taperness, so as 
 " to be characteristic of this genus : the tail-fin is broad, and 
 "square at the end. From the breadth and muscular strength 
 "of the tail it appears to be an active nimble fish." 
 
 In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did not 
 forget to make some inquiries concerning the wonderful method 
 of curing cancers by means of toads. Several intelligent persons, 
 both gentry and clergy, do, I find, give a great deal of credit to 
 what was asserted in the papers : and I myself dined with a 
 clergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is related is 
 matter of fact ; but, when I came to attend to his account, I 
 thought I discerned circumstances which did not a little invali- 
 date the woman's story of the manner in which she came by her 
 skill. She says of herself "that, labouring under a virulent 
 cancer, she went to some church where there was a vast crowd : 
 on going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergyman ; 
 who, after expressing compassion for her situation, told her that 
 if she would make such an application of living toads as is 
 mentioned she would be well ". Now is it likely that this un- 
 known gentleman should express so much tenderness for this 
 single sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that 
 daily languish under this terrible disorder ? Would he not have 
 made use of this invaluable nostrum for his own emolument ; or, 
 at least, by some means of publication or other, have found a 
 method of making it public for the good of mankind ? In short, 
 this woman (as it appears to me) having set up for a cancer- 
 doctress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with this dark 
 and mysterious relation. 
 
 The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least appearance 
 of any gills ; x for want of which it is continually rising to the 
 surface of the water to take in- fresh air. I opened a big-bellied 
 one indeed, and found it full of spawn. Not that this circum- 
 stance at all invalidates the assertion that they are lamias : for the 
 larvce of insects are full of eggs, which they exclude the instant 
 they enter their last state. The water-eft is continually climbing 
 over the brims of the vessel, within which we keep it in water, 
 
 1 [This is true of full-grown efts, but the efts pass through a tadpole-stage, in 
 which they breathe by gills.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 45 
 
 and wandering away : and people every summer see numbers 
 crawling out of the pools where they are hatched, up the dry 
 banks. There are varieties of them, differing in colour; and 
 some have fins up their tail and back, and some have not. 1 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Aug. 17, 1768. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of the 
 willow-wrens (motacillce Irochili) which constantly and invariably 
 use distinct notes. But, at the same time, I am obliged to con- 
 fess that I know nothing of your willow-lark. 2 In my letter of 
 April the 1 8th, I had told you peremptorily that I knew your willow- 
 lark, but had not seen it then : but, when I came to procure it, 
 it proved, in all respects, a very motacilla trochilus ; only that it 
 is a size larger than the two other, and the yellow-green of the 
 whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the belly of a 
 clearer white. I have specimens of the three sorts now lying 
 before me ; and can discern that there are three gradations of 
 sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two flesh- 
 coloured ones. The yellowest bird is considerably the largest, 
 and has it's quill-feathers and secondary feathers tipped with 
 white, which the others have not. This last haunts only the 
 tops of trees in high beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grass- 
 hopper-like noise, now and then, at short intervals, shivering a 
 little with its wings when it sings ; and is, I make no doubt now, 
 the regains non cristatus of Ray ; which he says " cantat voce striduld 
 locustce ". Yet this great ornithologist never suspected that there 
 were three species. 3 
 
 1 [In the breeding season the males of several species of triton have fins along 
 the tail and back, which are not found at other times.] 
 
 2 Brit. Zool. edit. 1776, octavo, p. 381. 
 
 3 [See note to p. 36.] 
 
46 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, October 8, 1768. 
 
 IT is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is so full, 
 that that district produces the greatest variety which is the most 
 examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the north 
 only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have discovered this 
 summer three species of birds with us, which writers mention as 
 only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that was 
 brought me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper, tringa 
 hypoleuciM : it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of some 
 ponds near the village ; and, as it had a companion, doubtless 
 intended to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has 
 told me since, that, on recollection, he has seen some of the same 
 birds round his ponds in former summers. 
 
 The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a male 
 red-backed butcher bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who 
 shot it, says that it might easily have escaped his notice, had 
 not the outcries and chattering of the white-throats and other 
 small birds drawn his attention to the bush where it was : it's 
 craw was filled with the legs and wings of beetles. 
 
 The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) 
 were some ring-ousels, turdi torquatL 
 
 This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being 
 with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and found, he told us, 
 on an old yew hedge where there were berries, some birds like 
 blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks : a neighbouring 
 farmer also at the same time observed the same ; but, as no 
 specimens were procured, little notice was taken. I mentioned 
 this circumstance to you in my letter of November the 4th, 1767 : 
 (you however paid but small regard to what I said, as I had not 
 seen these birds myself) : but last week the aforesaid farmer, 
 seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty of these birds, shot two 
 cocks and two hens : and says, on recollection, that he remembers 
 to have observed these birds again last spring, about Lady-day, 
 as it were, on their return to the north. Now perhaps these 
 ousels are not the ousels of the north of England, but belong to 
 the more northern parts of Europe ; and may retire before the 
 excessive rigor of the frosts in those parts ; and return to breed 
 
OF SELBORNE 47 
 
 in the spring, when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is 
 discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migra- 
 tions the writers are silent : but if these birds should prove the 
 ousels of the north of England, then here is a migration disclosed 
 within our own kingdom never before remarked. It does not 
 yet appear whether they retire beyond the bounds of our island 
 to the south ; but it is most probable that they usually do, or else 
 one cannot suppose that they would have continued so long 
 unnoticed in the southern counties. The ousel is larger than a 
 blackbird, and feeds on haws ; but last autumn (when there were 
 no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds on ivy- 
 berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April. 1 
 
 I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the 
 study of reptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, 
 draw up with a bucket of water from my well, which is 63 feet 
 deep, a large black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. 2 
 How they first came down at that depth, and how they were 
 ever to have got out thence without help, is more than I am able 
 to say. 
 
 My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the ex- 
 amination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at 
 present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions ; and I 
 
 hope Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my favour ; 
 
 and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision 
 of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation. 
 
 As yet I have not quite done with my history of the oedicnemus, 
 or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near 
 whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) 
 to observe nicely when they leave him, (if they do leave him) 
 and when they return again in the spring : I was with this 
 gentleman lately, and saw several single birds. 
 
 1 [White's further notes on the ring- ouzel will be found in Letters XXL, XXIV., 
 XXV., XXVI., XXXI. , XXXVIII. to Pennant, and VII. to Harrington. He was 
 the first writer to record its arrival and brief stay near the south coast in spring and 
 autumn. These movements stimulated his curiosity, and led, in spite of inaccurate 
 information from Pennant (see Letter XXI. ), to much enlightenment on the question 
 of migration. The ring-ouzel is strictly a summer migrant, as White seems to have 
 guessed when he wrote Letter VII. to Harrington ; in the present letter he is in- 
 clined to class it with the winter migrants, fieldfares, etc.] 
 
 3 [The great crested newt.] 
 
48 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 28, 1768. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WITH regard to the oedicnemus, or stone-curlew, I intend to write 
 very soon to my friend near Chickester, 1 in whose neighbourhood 
 these birds seem most to abound ; and shall urge him to take 
 particular notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards 
 to watch them most narrowly whether they do not withdraw 
 themselves during the dead of the winter. When I have obtained 
 information with respect to this circumstance, I shall have finished 
 my history of the stone-curlew ; which I hope will prove to your 
 satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the truth. This 
 gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and is abroad 
 early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions of 
 these birds : and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the 
 Naturalist's Journal 2 (with which he is much delighted), I shall 
 expect that he will be very exact in his dates. It is very extra- 
 ordinary, as you observe, that a bird so common with us should 
 never straggle to you. 
 
 And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think 
 of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me 
 when I was last at his house ; which was that, in a warren joining 
 to his outlet, many daws (corvi monedtilce) build every year in the 
 rabbit-burrows under ground. The way he and his brothers used 
 to take their nests, while they were boys, was by listening at the 
 mouths of the holes ; and, if they heard the young ones cry, they 
 twisted the nest out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls (viz. 
 the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner ; but I should never 
 have suspected the daws of building in holes on the flat ground. 
 
 Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a place 
 to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds deposit their 
 nests in the interstices between the upright and the impost 
 stones of that amazing work of antiquity : which circumstance 
 
 1 [This was his brother-in-law's brother, John Woods, of Chilgrove, about six 
 miles from Chichester.] 
 
 z [TAe Naturalist's Journal, printed for W. Sandby, Fleet Street, London, 
 1767. Price one shilling and sixpence. This was drawn up on the plan recom- 
 mended by Daines Harrington. A copy was sent every year to Gilbert White, and 
 these diaries, filled up by him, are now preserved in the British Museum.] 
 
OF SELBOENE 49 
 
 alone speaks the prodigious height of the upright stones, that 
 they should be tall enough to secure those nests from the annoy- 
 ance of shepherd-boys, who are always idling round that place. 
 
 One of my neighbours last Saturday, November the 26th, saw a 
 martin in a sheltered bottom : the sun shone warm, and the bird 
 was hawking briskly after flies. I am now perfectly satisfied 
 that they do not all leave this island in the winter. 
 
 You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve and 
 caution concerning the cures done by toads : for, let people ad- 
 vance what they will on such subjects, yet there is such a pro- 
 pensity in mankind towards deceiving and being deceived, that 
 one cannot safely relate any thing from common report, especially 
 in print, without expressing some degree of doubt and suspicion. 
 
 Your approbation, with regard to my new discovery of the 
 migration of the ring-ousel, gives me satisfaction ; and I find you 
 concur with me in suspecting that they are foreign birds which 
 visit us. You will be sure, I hope, not to omit to make inquiry 
 whether your ring-ousels leave your rocks in the autumn. What 
 puzzles me most, is the very short stay they make with us ; for 
 in about three weeks they are all gone. I shall be very curious 
 to remark whether they will call on us at their return in the 
 spring, as they did last year. 
 
 I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology. If 
 fortune had settled me near the sea-side, or near some great 
 river, my natural propensity would soon have urged me to have 
 made myself acquainted with their productions : but as I have 
 lived mostly in inland parts, and in an upland district, my know- 
 ledge of fishes extends little farther than to those common sorts 
 which our brooks and lakes produce. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 2, 1769. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the 
 ground in rabbit -burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason ; 
 for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this 
 country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex 
 4 
 
50 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 are as meanly furnished with churches as almost any counties 
 in the kingdom. We have many livings of two or three hundred 
 pounds a year, whose houses of worship make little better appear- 
 ance than dovecots. When I first saw Northamptonshire, Cam- 
 bridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of Lincolnshire, I 
 was amazed at the number of spires which presented themselves 
 in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I have 
 reason to lament this want in my own country ; for such objects 
 are very necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape. 
 
 What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises 
 my curiosity. An ancient author, though no naturalist, has 
 well remarked that " Every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of 
 " serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of 
 " mankind ". l 
 
 It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually 
 been procured for you in Devonshire ; because it corroborates my 
 discovery, which I made many years ago, of the same sort, 
 on a sunny sandbank near Farnham in Surrey.^ 1 I am well 
 acquainted with the south hams of Devonshire ; and can suppose 
 that district, from its southerly situation, to be a proper habi- 
 tation for such animals in their best colours. 
 
 Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not 
 forsake them against winter, our suspicions that those which 
 visit this neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not English birds, 
 but driven from the more northern parts of Europe by the frosts, 
 are still more reasonable ; and it will be worth your pains to 
 endeavour to trace from whence they come, and to inquire why 
 they make so very short a stay. 3 
 
 In your account of your error with regard to the two species 
 of herons, you incidentally gave me great entertainment in your 
 description of the heronry at Cressi-hall ; which is a curiosity 
 I never could manage to see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on 
 one tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles to 
 have a sight of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat 
 Cressi-hall is, and near what town it lies. 4 I have often thought 
 
 1 James, chap. Hi. 7. 
 
 2 [The green lizards of this and the following letter were no doubt sand lizards 
 (Lacerta agilis, L.). The green lizard of Guernsey and Southern Europe (L. 
 viridis, L.) has not been found in Great Britain or Ireland.] 
 
 3 [Pennant was wrong in supposing that the ring-ouzels wintered in the "vast 
 mountains " (i.e. , of North Wales and Scotland) ; and thus for a time misled White 
 in his speculations on the migration of this species.] 
 
 4 Cressi-hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire 
 
OF SELBORNE 51 
 
 that those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently 
 explored. If half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good 
 strength of water-spaniels, were to beat them over for a week, 
 they would certainly find more species. 
 
 There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied 
 more than that of the caprimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it is a 
 wonderful and curious creature : but I have always found that 
 though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, 
 yet in general it utters it's jarring note sitting on a bough ; and 
 I have for many an half hour watched it as it sat with it's under 
 mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It perches 
 usually on a bare twig, with it's head lower than it's tail, in an 
 attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the folio British 
 Zoology. This bird is most punctual in beginning it's song 
 exactly at the close of day ; so exactly that I have known it 
 strike up more than once or twice just at the report of the 
 Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the weather 
 is still. It appears to me past all doubt that it's notes are formed 
 by organic impulse, by the powers of the parts of it's windpipe, 
 formed for sound, just as cats pur. 1 You will credit me, I hope, 
 when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an 
 hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of 
 these churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little 
 straw edifice and began to chatter, and continued his note for 
 many minutes : and we were all struck with wonder to find that 
 the organs of that little animal, when put in motion, gave 
 a sensible vibration to the whole building ! This bird also 
 sometimes makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times ; 
 and I have observed that to happen when the cock has been 
 pursuing the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a 
 tree. 
 
 It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have 
 procured, should prove a new one, since five species have been 
 found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I men- 
 
 1 [In the original letter, as sent to Pennant, the following passage occurs, which 
 is omitted from the book (it precedes the paragraph in the text relative to this 
 bird) : "There is a passage in the article Goatsucker, page 247 " [of the " British 
 Zoology"] "which you will pardon me for objecting to, as 1 always thought it 
 exceptionable ; and that is, ' This noise being made only in its flight, we suppose 
 it to be caused by the resistance of the air against the hollow of its vastly extended 
 mouth and throat ; for it flies with both wide open, to take its prey '. Now, as 
 the first line appears to me to be a false fact, the supposition of course falls to 
 the ground, if it should prove so." Bell.} 
 
52 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 tioned is certainly a noii-descript : I saw but one this summer, 
 and that I had no opportunity of taking. 1 
 
 Your account of the Indian-grass was entertaining. I am 110 
 angler myself; but inquiring of those that are, what they sup- 
 posed that part of their tackle to be made of? they replied "of 
 the intestines of a silkworm ". 
 
 Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet 
 I cannot say that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge : I 
 may now and then perhaps be able to furnish you with a little 
 information. 
 
 The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as 
 with you, and since we have had delicate weather. Mr. Barker, 
 who has measured the rain for more than thirty years, says, in 
 a late letter, that more has fallen this year than in any he ever 
 attended to ; though, from July 1763 to January 1764, more fell 
 than in any seven months of this year. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, February 28, 1769. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IT is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our green 
 lizards may be specifically the same ; all that I know is, that, 
 when some years ago many Guernsey lizards were turned loose 
 in Pembroke college garden, in the university of Oxford, they 
 lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy themselves very well, 
 but never bred. Whether this circumstance will prove any thing 
 either way I shall not pretend to say. 
 
 I return you thanks for your account of Cressi-hall ; but re- 
 collect, not without regret, that in June 1746 I was visiting for 
 a week together at Spalding, without ever being told that such 
 a curiosity was just at hand. Pray send me word in your next 
 what sort of tree it is that contains such a quantity of herons' 
 nests ; and whether the heronry consists of a whole grove or 
 wood, or only of a few trees. 
 
 It gave me satisfaction to find that we accorded so well about 
 the caprimulgus : all I contended for was to prove that it often 
 
 1 [Fifteen species of bat are now recorded from the British Islands. For the 
 noctule, here called " the great sort," see note to Letter XXXVI. to Pennant.] 
 
OF SELBOENE 53 
 
 chatters sitting as well as flying ; and therefore the noise was 
 voluntary, and from organic impulse, and not from the resistance 
 of the air against the hollow of its mouth and throat. 
 
 If ever I saw any thing like actual migration, it was last 
 Michaelmas-day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning : 
 at first there was a vast fog ; but, by the time that I was got 
 seven or eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke 
 out into a delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath 
 or common, and I could discern, as the mist began to break 
 away, great numbers of swallows (hirundines rusticce) clustering 
 on the stunted shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there 
 all night. As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they 
 all were on the wing at once ; and, by a placid and easy flight, 
 proceeded on southward towards the sea : after this I did not 
 see any more flocks, only now and then a straggler. 
 
 I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow 
 kind disappear some and some gradually, as they come, for the 
 bulk of them seem to withdraw at once : l only some stragglers 
 stay behind a long while, and do never, there is the greatest 
 reason to believe, leave this island. Swallows seem to lay them- 
 selves up, and to come forth in a warm day, as bats do continually 
 of a warm evening, after they have disappeared for weeks. For 
 a very respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was walking 
 with some friends under Merton-wall on a remarkably hot noon, 
 either in the last week in December or the first week in January, 
 he espied three or four swallows huddled together on the mould- 
 ing of one of the windows of that college. I have frequently 
 remarked that swallows are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere : 
 is it owing to the vast massy buildings of that place, to the 
 many waters round it, or to what else ? 2 
 
 When I used to rise in a morning last autumn, and see the 
 swallows and martins clustering on the chimnies and thatch 
 of the neighbouring cottages, I could not help being touched 
 with a secret delight, mixed with some degree of mortification : 
 with delight, to observe with how much ardour and punctuality 
 those poor little birds obeyed the strong impulse towards migra- 
 
 1 [White was here in error ; swallows and martins leave gradually, travelling 
 from their haunts to the coast in successive parties. Had he discovered this, 
 he would have been saved much needless speculation, as will be seen further on. 
 See Introduction, p. xxxv.] 
 
 2 [Merton College, and particularly the southern side of it, looking on Christ 
 Church meadow, is still a favourite haunt of belated swallows, owing no doubt to 
 its sunny aspect and the abundance of insects in the meadow.] 
 
54 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 tion, or hiding, imprinted on their minds by their great Creator ; 
 and with some degree of mortification, when I reflected that, 
 after all our pains and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to 
 what regions they do migrate ; and are still farther embarrassed 
 to find that some do not actually migrate at all. 
 
 These reflections made so strong an impression on my imagina- 
 tion, that they became productive of a composition that may 
 perhaps amuse you for a quarter of an hour when next I have 
 the honour of writing to you. 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May 29, 1769. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE scarabasus fullo l I know very well, having seen it in collec- 
 tions ; but have never been able to discover one wild in its 
 natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought it might be found 
 on the sea-coast. 
 
 On the thirteenth of April I went to the sheep-down, where 
 the ring-ousels have been observed to make their appearance at 
 spring and fall, in their way perhaps to the north or south ; and 
 was much pleased to see three birds about the usual spot. We 
 shot a cock and a hen ; they were plump and in high condition. 
 The hen had but very small rudiments of eggs within her, which 
 proves they are late breeders ; whereas those species of the 
 thrush kind that remain with us the whole year have fledged 
 young before that time. In their crops was nothing very dis- 
 tinguishable, but somewhat that seemed like blades of vegetables 
 nearly digested. In autumn they feed on haws and yew-berries, 
 and in the spring on ivy-berries. I dressed one of these birds, 
 and found it juicy and well-flavoured. It is remarkable that 
 they make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, but rest near 
 a fortnight at Michaelmas. These birds, from the observations of 
 three springs and two autumns, are most punctual in their return ; 
 and exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the writers, who sup- 
 posed they never were to be seen in any of the southern counties. 
 
 1 \Melolonthafullo, F. This large cockchafer has often been taken on the 
 Kentish coast, but is believed to be always imported from France.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 55 
 
 One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicaria, 
 which at first I suspected might have proved your willow-lark, 1 
 but, on a nicer examination, it answered much better to the 
 description of that species which you shot at Revesby, in Lincoln- 
 shire. 2 My bird I describe thus : " It is a size less than the 
 " grasshopper-lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings, 
 " of a dusky brown, without those dark spots of the grasshopper- 
 " lark ; over each eye is a milkwhite stroke ; the chin and throat 
 " are white, and the under parts of a yellowish white ; the rump 
 "(is tawny, and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill is 
 " dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long 
 "and crooked". The person that shot it says that it sung so 
 like a reed-sparrow that he took it for one ; and that it sings all 
 night : but this account merits farther inquiry. For my part, 
 I suspect it is a second sort of locustella, hinted at by Dr. Derham 
 in Ray's Letters : see p. 108. He also procured me a grasshopper- 
 lark. 
 
 The question that you put with regard to those genera of 
 animals that are peculiar to America, viz. how they came there, 
 and whence ? is too puzzling for me to answer ; and yet so 
 obvious as often to have struck me with wonder. If one looks 
 into the writers on that subject little satisfaction is to be found. 
 Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to sup- 
 port whatever theory they shall chuse to maintain ; but then 
 the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis is each as good as 
 another's, since they are all founded on conjecture. The late 
 writers of this sort, in whom may be seen all the arguments 
 of those that have gone before, as I remember, stock America 
 from the western coast of Africa and the south of Europe ; and 
 then break down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic.* 
 
 1 For this salicaria see letter August 30, 1769. 
 
 [The Sedge-warbler. See next letter. ' ' The remark of White's informant 
 that the bird he procured ' sung so like a reed sparrow ' is a mistake which a 
 casual observer might easily make, since the sedge-warbler often sings concealed in 
 a patch of reeds or sedge, while the unmusical reed-bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus), 
 sitting conspicuously on a reed top, gets all the credit for the song" (Harting). 
 The late Mr. Seebohm (British Birds, vol. i., p. 353) needlessly accused White of 
 confusing this bird with the reed-warbler (Acrocepkalus streperus, Vieill.), a bird 
 apparently unknown to him, because he describes the upper parts as being " with- 
 out those dark spots of the grasshopper-lark ". Neither reed-warbler nor sedge- 
 warbler has dark spots in the centre of the feathers answering exactly to those in 
 the grasshopper- war bier.] 
 
 2 [The seat of Sir Joseph Banks.] 
 
 3 [Among the "late writers of this sort" was Buffon (Histoire Naturelle). 
 Those who remember what a facile expedient writers on geographical distribution 
 
56 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 But this is making use of a violent piece of machinery : it is 
 a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god ! " Incredulus 
 odi." 
 
 TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 
 
 THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK. 
 
 equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis 
 
 Ingenium. ViRG. Georg. 
 
 WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam, 
 
 What time the may-fly * haunts the pool or stream ; 
 
 When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, 
 
 What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ; 
 
 Then be the time to steal adown the vale, 
 
 And listen to the vagrant 2 cuckoo's tale ; 
 
 To hear the clamorous 3 curlew call his mate, 
 
 Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 
 
 To see the swallow sweep the dark'ning plain 
 
 Belated, to support her infant train ; 
 
 To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring 
 
 Dash round the steeple, unsubdu'd of wing : 
 
 Amusive birds ! say where your hid retreat 
 
 When the frost rages and the tempests beat ; 
 
 Whence your return, by such nice instinct led, 
 
 When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ? 
 
 Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride, 
 
 The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide ! 
 
 have found in land-bridges, even between distant continents, and how seldom 
 a land-bridge will bear the weight of any other foot than that of the speculator who 
 made it, will share White's distrust. We now expect the constructor of land- 
 bridges to attend to distances and soundings, and to bear in mind the great 
 stability of the larger land-masses. Practical identity of flora and fauna on both 
 sides of a strait may prove former land-connection, but it is a very different thing 
 to infer such connection from the occurrence of a few species, even though closely 
 allied, in widely distant lands.] 
 
 1 The angler's may-fly, the ephemera vulgata, Linn., comes forth from it's 
 aurelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in the evening, and dies 
 about eleven at night, determining the date of it's fly state in about five or six 
 hours. They usually begin to appear about the 4th of June, and continue in 
 succession for near a fortnight. See Swammerdam, Derham, Scopoli, &>c. 
 
 2 Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no incubation or 
 attendance about the nutrition of it's young, it wanders without control. 
 
 3 Charadrius oedicnemus. 
 
OF SELBORNE 57 
 
 While deep'ning shades obscure the face of day 
 
 To yonder bench leaf-shelter' d, let us stray, 
 
 Till blended objects fail the swimming sight, 
 
 And all the fading landscape sinks in night ; 
 
 To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by 
 
 With buzzing wing, or the shrill l cricket cry ; 
 
 To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ; 
 
 To catch the distant falling of the flood ; 
 
 While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung 
 
 Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song ; 
 
 While high in air, and pois'd upon his wings, 
 
 Unseen, the soft enamour' d 2 woodlark sings : 
 
 These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ, 
 
 Inspire a soothing melancholy joy : 
 
 As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain 
 
 Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein ! 
 
 Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine ; 
 
 The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine ; 
 
 The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze, 
 
 Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees. 
 
 The chilling night-dews fall : away, retire ; 
 
 For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire ! 3 
 
 1 Gryllus campestris. 
 
 2 In hot summer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height and hang sing- 
 ing in the air. 
 
 3 The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up the stalk of a grass 
 to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the male, which is a slender dusky 
 scarabceus. 
 
 \Lampyris noctiluca, L. 
 
 " The use of the bright light of the female glow-worm has been subject to much 
 discussion. The male is feebly luminous, as are the larvae and even the eggs. It 
 has been supposed by some authors that the light serves to frighten away enemies, 
 and by others to guide the male to the female. At last, Mr. Belt ( The Naturalist 
 in Nicaragua, 1874, pp. 316-320) appears to have solved the difficulty : he finds 
 that all the Lampyridce which he has tried are highly distasteful to insectivorous 
 mammals and birds. Hence it is in accordance with Mr. Bates' view, hereafter to 
 be explained, that many insects mimic the Lampyridce closely, in order to be mis- 
 taken for them, and thus to escape destruction. He further believes that the 
 luminous species profit by being at once recognised as unpalatable. It is probable 
 that the same explanation may be extended to the Elaters, both sexes of which are 
 highly luminous. It is not known why the wings of the female glow-worm have not 
 been developed ; but in her present state she closely resembles a larva, and as 
 larvae are so largely preyed on by many animals, we can understand why she has 
 been rendered so much more luminous and conspicuous than the male ; and why 
 the larvae themselves are likewise luminous" (Darwin, Descent of Man, chap. x. ). 
 
 In the glow-worm and some other Lampyridce the female resembles a larva, 
 while the male is fully winged ; in these the eyes of the male are much larger than 
 those of the female. In the majority of the species, however, the wings are well 
 
58 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 Thus, e'er night's veil had half obscur'd the sky, 
 Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high : 
 True to the signal, by love's meteor led, 
 Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed. 1 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IT gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the ousel 
 migration pleases you. You put a very shrewd question when you 
 ask me how I know that their autumnal migration is southward ? 
 Was not candour and openness the very life of natural history, I 
 should pass over this query just as a sly commentator does over a 
 crabbed passage in a classic ; but common ingenuousness obliges 
 me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I only 
 reasoned in that case from analogy. For as all other autumnal 
 birds migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our milder 
 winters, and return to the northward again when the rigorous 
 cold abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same, as 
 well as their congeners the fieldfares ; and especially as ring- 
 developed in both sexes, and there is little difference in the eyes. This fact seems 
 to indicate that the perception of the light by the male is of importance to the 
 species. 
 
 The light is emitted from the ventral surface of the 6th, 7th and 8th ventral seg- 
 ments, more particularly from the 6th and 7th. It proceeds from a yellowish fatty 
 substance, which shines through the transparent skin. Moderate stimulation in- 
 creases the emission of light, but anything which alarms the insect diminishes or 
 extinguishes it, and captured glow-worms often cease to shine. The light is inter- 
 mittent, flashes succeeding one another rapidly (80-100 in the minute). In the 
 Observations (p. 344) White says that they put out their lamps between eleven and 
 twelve, and shine no more that night. This is not always the case ; we have seen 
 them shine long after midnight. The light in both sexes is quenched after pairing, 
 but the female glows again during egg-laying. The luminous segments glow when 
 removed from the body ; in oxygen they are said to become more luminous, and to 
 go out in carbonic acid, hydrogen, sulphurous acid or in a vacuum. The lumini- 
 ferous substance is fatty, and contains no phosphorus. 
 
 Glow-worms usually keep close by day, but climb up stems or low shrubs at 
 night. The larvae are carnivorous, feeding upon small molluscs, dead or alive. 
 The adults feed upon plants, or, as appears to be the case with the males, not at 
 all. 
 
 In the fire-flies (Luciola) of Southern Europe it is the gregarious males that 
 shine ; they possess large eyes, while the non-luminous female has small ones. The 
 fire-flies of tropical America belong to a different family of beetles (Elaters).~\ 
 
 1 See the story of Hero and Leander, 
 
OF SELBORNE 59 
 
 ousels are known to haunt cold mountainous countries : but I 
 have good reason to suspect since that they may come to us from 
 the westward ; because I hear, from very good authority, that 
 they breed on Dartmore ; and that they forsake that wild dis- 
 trict about the time that our visitors appear, and do not return till 
 late in the spring. 
 
 I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria and 
 mine, with a white stroke over it's eye and a tawny rump. 1 I 
 have surveyed it alive and dead, and have procured several speci- 
 mens ; and am perfectly persuaded myself (and trust you will 
 soon be convinced of the same) that it is no more nor less than 
 the passer arundinaceus minor of Ray. This bird, by some means 
 or other, seems to be entirely omitted in the British Zoology ; and 
 one reason probably was because it is so strangely classed in Ray, 
 who ranges it among his picis affines. It ought no doubt to have 
 gone among his aviculce caudd unicolore, and among your slender- 
 billed small birds of the same division. Linnceus might with great 
 propriety have put it into his genus of motacilla ; and the 
 motacilla salicaria of his fauna suecica seems to come the nearest 
 to it. It is no uncommon bird, haunting the sides of ponds and 
 rivers where there is covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors. 
 The country people in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings 
 incessantly night and day during the breeding-time, imitating the 
 note of a sparrow, a swallow, a sky-lark ; and has a strange 
 hurrying manner in it's song. My specimens correspond most 
 minutely to the description of your Jen salicaria shot near Revesby. 
 Mr. Ray has given an excellent characteristic of it when he says, 
 " Rostrum fy pedes in hoc aviculd mulib majores sunt quam pro corporis 
 ratione ". See letter May 29, 176.9. [Letter XXIV.] 
 
 I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus, or stone-curlew, which 
 was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground : there were two ; 
 but the finder inadvertently crushed one with his foot before he 
 saw them. 
 
 When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had not 
 forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of stinking se 
 defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which 
 was in it's person as sweet as any animal while in good humour 
 and unalarmed ; but as soon as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came 
 in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia 
 as rendered it hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, 
 
 1 [The sedge- warbler (Acrocephalus phragmitis, Bechst.). See preceding letter.] 
 
60 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 of Ray's Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal ; but, 
 when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most 
 pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can be 
 more horrible. 
 
 A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the lanius minor 
 cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba, Raii ; l which is a bird that, 
 at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of British 
 Zoology, I find you had not seen. You have described it well 
 from Edwards' s drawing. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, December 8, 1769. 
 
 I WAS 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 kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those 
 of the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry ; 
 because men seldom allot themselves half the time they should 
 do : but, fixing on a day for their return, post from place to 
 place, rather as if they were on a journey that required 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 fieldfares, 
 which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should 
 never chuse to breed in England : but that they should not think 
 even the highlands cold and northerly, and sequestered enough, 
 is a circumstance still more strange and wonderful. The ring- 
 ousel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole year round ; so that 
 we have reason to conclude that those migrators that visit us for 
 a short space every autumn do not come from thence. 
 
 And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that 
 
 1 [Probably the woodchat shrike (Lanius pomeranus, Sparrm.), but it is curious 
 that White does not mention the red crown and nape of this beautiful bird.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 61 
 
 those birds were most punctual again in their migration this 
 autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th of September : but 
 their flocks were larger than common, and their stay protracted 
 somewhat beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the 
 whole winter with us, as some of their congeners do, and then 
 left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so much struck with 
 the occurrence, since it would be similar to that of the other 
 winter birds of passage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at 
 Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I 
 am seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these 
 travellers come, and whither they go, since they seem to use our 
 hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 
 
 Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, 1 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. 2 
 
 The eagle-owl, 3 could it be proved to belong to us, is so ma- 
 jestic a bird, that it would jgrace our fauna much. I never was 
 informed before where wild-geese are known to breed. 
 
 You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen salicaria to be 
 the lesser reed-sparrow of Ray : and I think that you may be 
 secure that I am right ; for I took very particular pains to clear 
 
 x [The snow-bunting (Emberiza nivalis, L.), a species which visits the south of 
 England every hard winter, and is often described by country people as a white 
 lark.] 
 
 2 [In Russia, Scandinavia and Iceland our common hare (Lepus timidus, L. ) is 
 replaced by the blue or mountain hare (L. variabilis, Pall.), which occurs in 
 Scotland and Ireland also. The mountain hare is characteristic of arctic and 
 alpine regions in the old world. It is structurally distinguished by the shortness of 
 the ears. In winter the fur changes to white, except at the tips of the ears. In 
 Scotland the change is often only partial, and in Ireland it does not occur at all, a 
 difference which led Yarrell to regard the Irish hare as a distinct species {L. hiber- 
 nicus}. The polar hare (L. glacialis) is not, so far as is known, structurally 
 different from L. variabilis. It is white all the year round, and produces more 
 young in a litter, seven or eight instead of four or five.] 
 
 ' A [Bubo ignavus, Forst., an occasional migrant to the Orkneys, Shetlands, and 
 northern Scotland.] 
 
62 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 it's proper place in your next edition. Your additional 
 plates will much improve your work. 
 
 De Bujfon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : but 
 still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, 
 for the reason I have given in the article on the white hare. 1 
 
 As a neighbour was lately plowing 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 
 amphibius mus came to fix it's winter station at such a distance 
 from the water. Was it determined in it's choice of that place 
 by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted 
 there ; or is it the constant practice of the aquatic-rat to forsake 
 the neighbourhood of the water in the colder months ? 
 
 Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing 
 how fallacious it is with respect to natural history ; yet, in the 
 following instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may 
 conduce towards the explanation of a difficulty that I have men- 
 tioned 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 2 (which by the by is at present a non- 
 descript in England, and what I have never been able yet to pro- 
 cure) retires or migrates very early in the summer : it also ranges 
 very high for it's 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 
 
 1 [Some years since I observed the water-shrew (Crossopus fodiens] in the stream 
 which passes in front of the Grange Farm in Selborne. It was hunting at the 
 bottom of the water among the aquatic plants for insects, and was so flattened that 
 the white of the belly was conspicuous as a narrow margin on each side of the black 
 back, forming a striking and pretty object. I found also in my garden a specimen, 
 recently killed, of the black-bellied variety, formerly known as Sorex remifer. It 
 was far from any water. Bell^\ 
 
 2 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. 
 
OF SELBORNE 63 
 
 water. From hence I would conclude that these hirundines, and 
 the larger bats, are supported by some sorts of high-flying 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 l clamoured on to October 
 the thirty-first ; since which I have not seen or heard any. 
 Swallows were observed on to November the third. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 HEDGE-HOGS abound in my gardens and fields. The manner in 
 which they eat their 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. 2 In this respect 
 they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed ; 
 but they deface the walks in some measure by digging little 
 round holes. It appears, by the dung that they drop upon the 
 turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In 
 June last I procured a litter of four or five young hedge-hogs, 
 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 
 
 1 [" Curlew" is always used by White for stone curlew. The common curlew 
 
 . saw some 
 
 , _, the side of 
 
 each I found the hole bored, as White supposed, by the long upper mandible of 
 1 Hoggy,' but it was scarcely big enough to admit a lead pencil, and so round and 
 smooth that 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 underwing,' I cannot say which, for both came out in 
 one cage." Quoted from Harting's ed.] 
 
64 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 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 con- 
 tract 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 it's full tone and firmness. 1 Hedge-hogs make a 
 deep and warm hybernaculum with leaves and moss, in which they 
 conceal themselves for the winter : but I never could find that 
 they stored in any winter provision, as some quadrupeds certainly 
 do. 
 
 I have discovered an anecdote 2 with respect to the fieldfare 
 (turdus pilaris], which I think is particular enough : 3 this bird, 
 though it sits on trees in the day-time, and procures the greatest 
 part of it's food from white-thorn hedges ; yea, moreover, builds 
 on very high trees ; as may be seen by the fauna suecica ; yet 
 always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen to 
 come in flocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle 
 among the heath on our forest. And besides, the larkers, in 
 dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat- 
 stubbles ; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings in the 
 hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in 
 the matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and 
 from themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is 
 a fact for which I am by 110 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 observa- 
 tions at home. 
 
 1 [There is one use of the hedgehog's armour which I have never seen mentioned, 
 but which I had repeated opportunities of verifying in one which I kept myself. 
 Running about a small yard at the back of the house, which overhung an area, it 
 would go to the very edge ; and looking over as if to ascertain if the descent were safe, 
 it would roll up into a ball in the very act of throwing itself down ; and, falling 
 upon its elastic spines, it would, in a few seconds after alighting upon the stones, 
 open and run off, wholly unhurt by this voluntary fall of at least ten feet. Bell.~\ 
 
 2 [Here and elsewhere in the Letters Gilbert White uses the word anecdote in the 
 original sense of a piece of unpublished information. Thus in a letter to his brother 
 John he says : " Be so good as not to forestall my cobweb-shower. I wish I had 
 two or three dozen more of such anecdotes." The word was of recent introduction 
 (from the French) at this time.] 
 
 3 [" Particular," i.e., noteworthy. The fieldfare is not averse to nesting as well 
 as roosting on the ground where trees are scarce or absent, and certainly does not 
 affect " very high trees" in the extreme north of Scandinavia, but rather birches, 
 alders, etc.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 65 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March, 1770. 
 
 ON Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the female 
 moose belonging to the duke of Richmond, at Goodwood ; but 
 was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that 
 it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some 
 time, on the morning before. However, understanding that it 
 was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped : I 
 found it in an old 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 it's legs ; on which it was tilted up much in the 
 manner of the birds of the gralla order. I measured it, as they 
 do an 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, it's neck was remarkably short, no more than 
 twelve inches ; so that, by straddling with one foot forward and 
 the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the 
 greatest difficulty, between it's legs : the ears were vast and 
 lopping, and as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty 
 inches long, and ass-like ; and had such a redundancy of upper 
 lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers 
 say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is very 
 reasonable to suppose that this creature supports itself chiefly 
 by browsing of trees, and by wading after water plants ; towards 
 which way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must 
 contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in 
 eating the nymphaza, 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. It's 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 
 5 
 
66 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 only two years old, so that most probably it was not then come to 
 it's growth. What a vast tall beast must a full grown stag be ! 
 I have been told some arrive at ten feet and an half ! This poor 
 creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which 
 died the spring before. In the same garden was a young stag, 
 or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that 
 there might have been a breed ; but their inequality of height 
 must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous 
 kind. I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, 
 tongue, lips, hoofs, etc., minutely ; but the putrefaction precluded 
 all further curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed 
 to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In 
 the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had 
 no front-antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the 
 edge. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a 
 skeleton of her bones. 
 
 Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that 
 you saw ; and whether you think still that the American moose 
 and European elk are the same creature. 1 I am, 
 
 With the greatest esteem, etc. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 2 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May 12, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 LAST month we had such a series of cold turbulent weather, such 
 a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, 
 that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds 
 
 1 [The American moose is probably identical with the European elk, though 
 some naturalists have attempted to distinguish the species by slight differences in 
 the horns. 
 
 2 [In the original letter sent to Pennant, but not retained in the copy sent to 
 the press, is the following paragraph, which appeared to me to be quite worth 
 preserving. 
 
 " Though you are embarked in a more extensive plan of natural history, yet I 
 am glad to find that you do by no means give up the Brit. Zoology. That, I think, 
 should be your principal object ; and I hope you will continue to revise it at your 
 leisure, and to retouch it until you have made it as perfect as the nature of the 
 work will admit of. If people who live in the country would take a little pains, 
 daily observations might be made with respect to animals, and particularly regarding 
 their life and conversation, their actions and economy, which are the life and soul 
 of natural history," - 
 
OF SELBORNE 67 
 
 was much interrupted. Some did not shew themselves (at least 
 were not heard) till weeks after their usual time ; as the black- 
 cap and white-throat ; and some have not been heard yet, as the 
 grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I 
 have not seen it ; it is indeed one of the latest, but should 
 appear about this time : and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife 
 and war of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves as 
 long ago as the eleventh 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 discover- 
 able. 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 
 
 I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls, 
 which made great havock 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. 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 [This paragraph deserves to be noted as a good example of White's manner, 
 at once terse and clear, of recording the results of long and accurate observation. 
 The first sentence of the next letter seems to indicate that he was at this time 
 taking special pains to be brief, from annoyance at the prolixity of French writers ; 
 and indeed he almost overdoes it. We should have been glad of more facts, both 
 as to the bachelor birds and the depredations of the sparrows. It is interesting, 
 though melancholy, to find that the persecution of the martins by house sparrows 
 has been going on for at least a hundred and thirty years.] 
 
 2 [Bell refers to Waterton's Essays (ist series, p. 14), where this charge against 
 the barn owl is repudiated. It is of course not impossible that an individual barn 
 owl may take a fancy to young pigeons ; but the regular food is rats and mice, and 
 the species should be carefully preserved. See some valuable facts collected by Mr. 
 Norgate, in Seebohm's British Birds, vol i., p. 149.] 
 
68 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 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, un- 
 assisted, they know not how to gratify : for of all quadrupeds 
 cats are the least disposed towards water ; and will not, when 
 they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge into 
 that element. 
 
 Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious : such is the 
 otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that it makes 
 great havock among the inhabitants of the waters. Not supposing 
 that we had any of those beasts in our shallow brooks, I was 
 much pleased to see a male otter brought to me, weighing 
 twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank of our 
 stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of 
 Sclborne from Harteley-wood. 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Aug. i, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their 
 natural history. 1 What Linnceus says with respect to insects 
 holds good in every other branch : " Verbositas prcesentls sceculi, 
 " catamites 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 
 
 1 [In a letter to his brother John, Jan. 25, 1771, Gilbert White says : "Geoffroy 
 no doubt is too verbose ; so are all his countrymen " . Besides Geoffrey he may have 
 had Reaumur and Buffon in his mind. White's acquaintance with them was 
 probably slight, and the remark seems a little harsh to those who have read these 
 naturalists, and especially Reaumur, with never-ending pleasure and profit.] 
 
OF SELBOKNE 69 
 
 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, an horn room furnished with more 
 than thirty different pairs ; but I have not seen that house lately. 
 
 Mr. Barrington shewed 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 motacilUe, or muscicapve, were to be met 
 with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough ; 
 for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried 
 on board ; while the soft-billed birds, which are supported by 
 worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh 
 raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. 
 It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as they 
 are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most 
 delicate and lively genera. 1 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 14, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags ; 
 and are farther assured that they continue resident in those cold 
 regions the whole year. 2 From whence then do our ring-ousels 
 migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance 
 again, as if in their return, every April ? They are more early 
 
 1 [This difficulty has of course been since overcome, as may be abundantly 
 illustrated in the Zoological Gardens.] 
 
 2 [See Letter XXII. to Pennant, note. Mr. Harting suggests that Pennant's 
 informant confused the ring-ouzel and the water-ouzel or dipper.] 
 
70 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 this year than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on 
 the fourth of this month. 
 
 An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent 
 some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those haunts 
 about the end of September or beginning of October, and return 
 again about the end of March. 
 
 Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in great 
 abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are called there Tor- 
 ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and return in spring. 
 This information seems to throw some light on my new migration. 
 
 Scopoli's l new work (which I have just procured) has it's merit 
 in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola. 
 Monographers, come from whence they may, have, I think, fair 
 pretence to challenge some regard and approbation from the 
 lovers of natural history ; for, as no man can alone investigate 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 an universal correct natural history. Not that Scopoli 
 is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and conversation of 
 his birds as I could wish : he advances some false facts ; as when 
 he says of the hirundo urbica that " pullos extra nidum non nutrit ". 
 This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observation 
 this summer; for house-martins do feed their young flying, 
 though it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the house- 
 swallow ; and the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be 
 perceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances some (I 
 was going to say) improbable facts ; as when he says of the 
 woodcock that "pullos rostro portal 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 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis. 
 
 2 [Prof. Newton contributed the following succinct note to Bell's edition : 
 ' ' That the bill assists materially in carrying off and particularly in steadying the 
 young bird while being carried seems to be established; but the most efficient 
 instruments are the parent's thighs, beneath which the chick is grasped, while the 
 head and bill are recurved beneath ".] 
 
OF SELBORNE 71 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, October 29, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 AFTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c., I begin to 
 suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's 
 new discovered hirundo rupesttis, p. 167. His description of 
 " Supra murina, subtus albida ; rectrices maculd ovali albd in latere 
 " interno ; pedes nudi, ?iigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores 
 " quam plumes dorsales ; rectrices remigibus concolores ; caudd emar- 
 " ginald, nee forcipatd ; " agrees very well with the bird in 
 question : but when he comes to advance that it is " statura 
 " hirundinis urbicce," and that " definitio hirundinis riparice Linncei 
 "hide quoque convenit," he in some measure invalidates all he 
 has said ; at least he shews 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 circum- 
 stance of shape, size, and colour. However, as you will have a 
 specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in 
 the matter. 
 
 Whether my brother is forestalled in his non-descript or not, 
 he will have the credit of first discovering that they spend their 
 winters under the warm and sheltery shores of Gibraltar and 
 Barbary. 
 
 Scopoli's characters of his ordines and genera are clean, just, 
 and expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnaeus. These few 
 remarks are the result of my first perusal of Scopoli's Annus 
 Primus. 
 
 The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to the 
 other by memory : for want of caution in this particular Scopoli 
 falls into errors : he is not so full with regard to the manners of 
 his indigenous birds as might be wished, as you justly observe : 
 his Latin is easy, elegant, and expressive, and very superior to 
 Kramers. 1 
 
 I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corre- 
 sponds so well with yours. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 See his Elenchvs -vegetabilium et animalium per Austriam inferiorem, &c. 
 
72 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 26, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I WAS much pleased to see, among the collection of birds from 
 Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer-birds of 
 passage, concerning whose departure we have made so much 
 inquiry. Now if these birds are found in Andalusia to migrate 
 to and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed that those that 
 come to us may migrate back to the continent, and spend their 
 winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe. This is certain, 
 that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar appear there 
 only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards 
 the northward, for the sake of breeding during the summer 
 months ; and retiring in parties and broods toward 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. 1 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 melba, the 
 great Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it. 2 For what 
 is his hirundo alpina but the afore-mentioned bird in other words ? 
 Says he " Omnia prioris " (meaning the swift) (< sed pectus album ; 
 paulo major priore ". I do not suppose this to be a new species. 
 It is true also of the melba, that "nidi/teat in excelsis Alpium 
 rupibus ". Vid. Annum Primum. 
 
 My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but 
 no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone-curlew, 
 oedicnemus, sends me the following account : " In looking over 
 "my Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, I find the 
 "stone-curlews are first mentioned on the seventeenth and eigh- 
 teenth, which date seems to me rather late. They live with 
 
 1 [Col. Irby's Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar has recently made us 
 fully acquainted with migration at this point.] 
 
 * [The alpine swift (Cypselus melba, L. ) was no doubt the bird described by 
 Scopoli, with white breast (pectus album), and also that found by John White at 
 Gibraltar. See Irby, of. cit. t p. 214.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 73 
 
 " us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning of autumn 
 "prepare to take leave by getting together in flocks. They 
 " seem to me a bird of passage that may travel into some dry hilly 
 " country south of us, probably Spain, because of the abundance 
 " of sheep-walks in that country ; for they spend their summers 
 "with us in such districts. This conjecture I hazard, as I have 
 "never met with any one that has seen them in England in the 
 " winter. I believe they are not fond of going near the water, 
 ( ' but feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks and 
 " downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with 
 " grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in colour ; 
 "among which they skulk and conceal themselves. They make 
 "no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground, producing in 
 "common but two at a time. There is reason to think their 
 " young run soon after they are hatched ; and that the old ones 
 "do not feed them, but only lead them about at the time of 
 " feeding, which, for the most part, is in the night." Thus far 
 my friend. 
 
 In the manners of this bird you see there is something very 
 analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat resembles in 
 aspect and make, and in the structure of it's feet. 
 
 For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for 
 these birds in Andalusia ; and now he writes me word that, for 
 the first time, he saw one dead in the market on the 3rd of 
 September. 
 
 When the oedicnemus flies it stretches out it's legs straight 
 behind, like an heron. 1 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March 30, 1771. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, 
 which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of 
 the summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of 
 women and children, and raising tumours which itch intolerably. 
 
 1 [See Letters XVI., XXL, XXXIII. to Pennant, LIX. to Harrington, and the 
 Observations on Nature.] 
 
74 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 This animal (which we call an harvest bug) is very minute, scarce 
 discernible to the naked eye ; of a bright scarlet colour, and of 
 the genus of Acarus. 1 They are to be met with in gardens on 
 kidney-beans, or any legumens ; but prevail only in the hot 
 months of summer. Warreners, as some have assured me, are 
 much infested by them on chalky downs ; where these insects 
 swarm sometimes to so infinite a degree as to discolour their 
 nets, and to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so 
 bitten as to be thrown into fevers. 
 
 There is a small long shining fly in these parts very trouble- 
 some to the housewife, by getting into the chimnies, and laying 
 it's eggs in the bacon while it is diying : these eggs produce 
 maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and 
 best parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone, and make great 
 waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the musca putris of 
 Linnaeus : it is to be seen in the summer in farm-kitchens on the 
 bacon-racks and about the mantel-pieces, and on the ceilings. 2 
 
 The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden 
 (destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is 
 an animal that wants to be better known. The country people 
 here call it the turnip-fly and black-dolphin ; but I know it to be 
 one of the coleoptera ; the " chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, femori- 
 " bus 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. 3 
 
 There is an Oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy ; 
 which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by 
 late writers, and that is the cwvicauda of old Moiifet, mentioned 
 by Derham in his Physico-theology, p. 250 : an insect worthy of 
 remark for depositing it's eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner 
 on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. 4 But 
 then Derham is mistaken when he advances that this Oestrus 
 is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he 
 
 1 [The harvest-bug is usually an immature acarus, having only six legs ; the 
 young of Tetranychus autumnalis, Shaw.] 
 
 2 [The bacon-fly is very similar to (perhaps identical with) the cheese-fly (Piophila 
 casei, L.), whose larvae, the well-known "cheese-hoppers," are described by 
 Swammerdam in the Biblia Natures. The bacon-fly has been described hy Hali- 
 day as P. luteata. It is said to be stouter than the cheese-fly, with shorter and 
 thicker legs and yellower wings.] 
 
 3 [The turnip-flea beetle (Haltica or Phyllotreta nemorum, L.).] 
 
 4 [The horse-bot (Gastrophilus equi, Fab.).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 75 
 
 mentions afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have dis- 
 covered that singular production to be derived from the egg 
 of the musca chamceleon : see Geoff roy, t. 17, f. 4. 1 
 
 A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, garden, 
 and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of de- 
 stroying them, would be allowed by the public to be a most 
 useful and important work. What knowledge there is of this 
 sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improve- 
 ments would soon follow of course. A knowledge of the pro- 
 perties, oeconomy, propagation, and in short of the life and 
 conversation of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to 
 some method of preventing their depredations. 
 
 As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology 
 more than some neat plates that should well express the generic 
 distinctions of insects according to Linn&us ; for I am well assured 
 that many people would study insects, could they set out with a 
 more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed 
 at first by words alone. 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, 1771. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 HAPPENING to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could 
 not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds 
 appear by no means to be their tails ; those long feathers 
 growing not from their uropt/gium, but all up their backs. A 
 range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed 
 in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to 
 prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. 
 When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but it's 
 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 vibra- 
 tion these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter 
 like the swords of a sword-dancer ; they then trample very quick 
 with their feet, and run backwards towards the females. 
 
 1 \Stratiomys chamteleon, L.] 
 
76 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus cegogro- 
 pila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is perfectly round, 
 and about the size of a large Seville orange ; such are, I think, 
 usually flat. 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Sept. 1771. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE summer through I have seen but two of that large species 
 of bat which I call vespertilio altivolans, 1 from it's 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 an half; and four inches and an half from the nose to the 
 tip of the tail : their heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, 
 their shoulders broad and muscular ; and their whole bodies 
 fleshy and plump. Nothing could be more sleek and soft than 
 their fur, which was of a bright chestnut colour ; their maws 
 were full of food, but so macerated that the quality could not be 
 distinguished ; their livers, kidnies, 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 some- 
 
 1 [See Letter XXII. to Pennant. White's Vespertilio altivolans is the noctule 
 ( Vesperugo noctula, Schreb.). White first discovered it in Britain, but it had been 
 previously found in France by Daubenton and Buffon. The noctule is widely 
 distributed throughout the southern counties, reaching as far north as Yorkshire.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 77 
 
 what of a peculiar structure that I did not understand perfectly ; 
 but refer it to the observation of the curious anatomist. These 
 creatures sent forth a very rancid and offensive smell. 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, 1771. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 ON the twelfth 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, or fern- 
 chafers. The powers of it's wing were wonderful, exceeding, 
 if possible, the various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow 
 genus. But the circumstance that pleased me most was, that 
 I saw it distinctly, more than once, put out it's 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 it's middle toe, which is curiously 
 furnished with a serrated claw. 1 
 
 Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have forsaken 
 us sooner this year than usual ; for, on September the twenty- 
 second, they rendezvoused in a neighbour's walnut-tree, where 
 it seemed probable they had taken up their lodging for the 
 night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they arose 
 all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing from 
 the strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard 
 to a considerable distance : since that no flock has appeared, 
 only a few stragglers. 
 
 Some swifts staid late, till the twenty-second of August a 
 
 1 [The use of this claw, serrated (i.e., toothed) on the inner side, has never yet 
 been determined. A good account of the explanations advanced will be found in 
 Mr. Harting's Summer Migrants, p. 215 f. White's observation may certainly 
 indicate one use to which the claw is put, and this is not invalidated by the fact 
 that other birds, which do not take their food on the wing, e.g., the stone curlew, 
 also have the middle claw more or less serrated. The position of the serration, 
 and the fact that in some birds the teeth have been found crammed with insects 
 which infest the plumage, suggests that the claw may in some cases be used as a 
 comb. But see Coues' Field and General Ornithology, p. 196.] 
 
78 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 rare instance ! for they usually withdraw within the first 
 week. 1 
 
 On September the twenty-fourth three or four ring-ousels 
 appeared in ray fields for the first time this season : how punctual 
 are these visitors in their autumnal and spring migrations ! 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March 15, 1773. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 BY my journal for last autumn it appears that the house-martins 
 bred very late, and staid very late in these parts ; for, on the 
 first of October, I saw young martins in their nests nearly fledged ; 
 and again, on the twenty-first 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 third ; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house- 
 martins were playing all day long by the side of the hanging 
 wood, and over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some of 
 which were nestlings twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this 
 late season of the year to the other side of the northern tropic ? 
 Or rather, is it not more probable that the next church, ruin, 
 chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as a 
 more northern naturalist would say), may become their hyberna- 
 culum, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat ? 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 See letter lii. to Mr. Harrington. 
 
 [It is not uncommon to find a solitary swift as late as the first week of 
 September.] 
 
 8 [White here assumes that the martins he saw on November 3 were the same 
 late broods that he had noted in October, and was thus led to guess that they had 
 gone into some " hibernaculum " in the meantime. But his assumption was pro- 
 bably incorrect ; the party seen in November 3 was no doubt composed of travellers 
 from some other quarter. Had his curiosity taken him on a journey along the 
 coast during the time of migration, he would have become aware of the gradual 
 method of travelling adopted by these birds, and so have dispensed with the theory 
 of the " hibernaculum ".] 
 
OF SELBORNE 79 
 
 verge of this county. 1 Hence we may conclude that their migra- 
 tions are only internal, and not extended to the continent south- 
 ward, 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 shew for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed 
 to places of much resort. Navigators mention that in the Isle of 
 Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are so little 
 acquainted with the human form that they settle on men's 
 shoulders ; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would 
 have of a goat that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in 
 Sussex, assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels 
 abounded so about that town in the autumn that he killed 
 sixteen himself in one afternoon : he added further, that some 
 had appeared since in every autumn ; but he could not find that 
 any had been observed before the season in which he shot so 
 many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the 
 autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there 
 were shrubs and bushes, from Ckichester to Lewes; particularly 
 in the autumn of 1770. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 9, 1773. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I 
 take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, 
 according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what 
 I here advance, in your intended new edition of the British 
 Zoology. 
 
 The osprey 2 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 pre- 
 cipitate itself into the water, and so take it's prey by surprise. 
 
 A great ash-coloured 3 butcher-bird was shot last winter in 
 
 1 [Either the " persons worthy of credit " were not really such, or the occurrence 
 was quite exceptional. In any case White's inference (that the migration was 
 only internal) was too hasty.] 
 
 * British Zoology, vol. i., p. 128, 3 p. 161. 
 
80 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Tisted-park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they 
 are rarce aves in this country. 1 
 
 Crows 2 go in pairs the whole year round. 
 
 Cornish choughs 3 abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all 
 the cliffs of the Sussex coast. 4 
 
 The common wild-pigeon, 5 or stock-dove, is a bird of passage 
 in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end 
 of November ; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. Before 
 our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had myriads of 
 them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out 
 in a morning to feed. They leave us early in spring ; where do 
 they breed ? 6 
 
 The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel -bird 7 the 
 storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery 
 weather ; it's 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 8 
 on Dartmoor : they build in banks on the sides of streams. 
 
 Titlarks 9 not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as 
 they play and toy about on the wing ; and particularly while they 
 are descending, and sometimes as they stand on the ground. 10 
 
 Adanson's n testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence 
 that European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal : he 
 does not talk at all like an ornithologist ; and probably saw only 
 the swallows of that country, which I know build within 
 Governor O'Hara's hall against the roof. Had he known 
 European swallows, would he not have mentioned the species ? 
 
 The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it 
 flies : this species appears commonly about a week before the 
 house-martin, and about ten or twelve days before the swift. 
 
 I [The two species of shrikes here mentioned are (i) the great grey shrike 
 (Lanius excubitor, L.), a straggler to England in winter only, and (2) the red- 
 backed shrike (Lanius collurio, L.), a familiar summer migrant. White can 
 hardly have meant that the latter was shot at Selborne in winter, though his 
 language seems to imply it.] 
 
 *[Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 167. 3 i98. 
 
 4 [The chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus, L.) has not bred on Beachy Head or 
 any part of the coast east of Dorset for very many years. From Dorset to Corn- 
 wall it is still occasionally found.] 
 
 6 [Brit. ZooL, vol. L, p.] 216. 6 [See note on Letter XLIV. to Pennant.] 
 
 7 [Brit. ZooL , vol. i. , p. ] 224. 8 229. 9 vol. ii. , p. 237. 
 
 10 [The tree-pipit (Anthus trivialis, L.). In Letter IX. to Harrington the same 
 name is used apparently of the meadow-pipit, the Alauda pratensis of Ray ; and 
 it is at least doubtful whether he distinguished the two species.] 
 
 II {Brit. ZooL, vol. i., p.] 242. 
 
OF SELBOENE 81 
 
 In 1772 there were young house-martins 1 in their nest till 
 October the twenty-third. 
 
 The swift 2 appears about ten or twelve days later than the house- 
 swallow : viz. about the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of April. 
 
 Whin-chats and stone-cliatters 3 stay with us the whole year. 4 
 
 Some wheat-ears 5 continue with us the winter through. 6 
 
 Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter. 7 
 
 Bullfinches, 8 when fed on hempseed, often become wholly 
 black. 
 
 We have vast flocks of female chaffinches 9 all the winter, with 
 hardly any males among them. 
 
 When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes 10 make a 
 bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should have rather 
 said an humming), I suspect we mean the same thing. However, 
 while they are playing about on the wing they certainly make a 
 loud piping with their mouths : but whether that bleating or 
 humming is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of their 
 wings, I cannot say ; but this I know, that when this noise 
 happens the bird is always descending, and his wings are 
 violently agitated. 11 
 
 Soon after the lapwings 12 have done breeding they congregate, 
 and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs 
 and sheep-walks. 
 
 Two years ago 18 last spring the little auk 14 was found alive and 
 unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few miles 
 
 I [Brit. ZooL, vol. ii., p.] 244. 2 245. 3 270, 271. 
 
 4 As the whinchat (Pratincola rubelra, L. ) does not remain with us in winter, 
 as do a considerable number of stonechats (P. rubicola, L.), Mr. Harting has aptly 
 suggested that White may have mistaken female stonechats for whinchats, a not 
 unlikely blunder for one unprovided with a field-glass.] 
 
 5 [Brit. ZooL, vol. ii., p.] 269. 6 [The wheatear migrates regularly.] 
 
 7 [See note on Letter XIII. to Pennant.] 
 
 8 [Brit. ZooL, vol. ii., p.] 300. 9 306. 10 358. 
 
 II [" I have observed the drumming of snipes in bright days at the beginning of 
 April, and I could very clearly discern the manner in which the sound is produced. 
 After rising high and crying //, 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." Herbert, in Bennett 's ed.~\ 
 
 12 [Brit. ZooL, vol. ii., p.] 360. 409. 
 
 14 [Mergulus alle, L. , not uncommonly driven southward and inland in stormy 
 winters from its northern haunts.] 
 
 6 
 
82 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 from Alresford, where there is a great lake : it was kept awhile, 
 but died. 
 
 I saw young teals l taken alive in the ponds of W olmer-forest 
 in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild 
 ducks. 
 
 Speaking of the swift, 2 that page says " it's 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 Firgil's bees, they drink flying, "flumina summa libant ". 3 In 
 this method of drinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar. 
 
 Of the sedge-bird 4 be pleased to say it sings most part of the 
 night ; it's 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 throwing a stone or clod 
 into the bushes where it sits you immediately set it a singing ; 
 or in other words, though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as 
 it is awakened it reassumes it's song. 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 2, 1774. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 BEFORE your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been 
 remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female 
 swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared ; so that there 
 was no danger of confounding the dams with their pulli : and 
 besides, as they were then always in pairs, and busied in the 
 employ of nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the 
 sexes, nor the individuals of different chimnies the one for the 
 other. From all my observations, it constantly appeared that 
 each sex has the long feathers in it's tail that give it that forked 
 shape ; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail of 
 the male than in that of the female. 
 
 Nightingales, when their young first come abroad, and are 
 helpless, make a plaintive and a jarring noise ; and also a 
 snapping or cracking, pursuing people along the hedges as they 
 walk : these last sounds seem intended for menace and defiance. 
 
 1 [Brit. Zool., voL ii., p.] 475. 2 15. 
 
 3 [Georg., IV., 54.] 4 [Brit. Zool., voL ii., p.] 16. 
 
OF SELBOKNE 83 
 
 The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer. 1 
 
 Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third. 
 
 Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes 
 caught in mole-traps. 
 
 Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the 
 kestril in churches and ruins. 
 
 There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. 
 The threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their 
 young : the generation of eels is very dark and mysterious. 2 
 
 Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on 
 trees. 
 
 When redstarts shake their tails they move them horizontally, 
 as dogs do when they fawn : the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, 
 bobs up and down like that of a jaded horse. 3 
 
 Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in 
 breeding-time ; as soon as frosty mornings come they make a 
 very piping plaintive noise. 
 
 Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume 
 their notes again in September ; as the thrush, blackbird, 4 wood- 
 
 1 [" Chirp" is an inappropriate word for the reel of the grasshopper-warbler. 
 White was probably at a loss for a verb to express the peculiar stridulation which 
 he had well described in Letter XVI. to Pennant.] 
 
 2 [The most important new light upon the generation of eels is that furnished 
 by the observations of Grassi and Calandruccio (Atti della Reale Accademia dei 
 Lincei, vol. vi., 1897). It was long ago ascertained that the eel descends to the 
 sea in autumn or early winter, and that it never spawns, nor even becomes mature 
 in fresh waters. The eels which descend to the sea never return, but young eels or 
 elvers come up from the sea in spring, millions at a time. The elvers have been 
 seen to travel along the bank of a river in a continuous band or eel-rope, which has 
 been known to glide upwards for fifteen days together. We now know something 
 of that part of the history which is transacted in the sea. When it leaves the river 
 the eel makes its way to very deep water, and there undergoes a change. The eyes 
 dilate ; the pectoral fin and the border of the gill-cover turn black ; the reproductive 
 organs enlarge. The eels lay their eggs in water of not less than 250 fathoms' 
 depth, the young which are hatched out being tape-like, transparent, colourless, 
 devoid of red blood, and armed with peculiar teeth. Such fishes had been captured 
 from time to time, and described as a peculiar kind of deep-water fish, to which 
 the name of Leptocephalus was given. After a time the Leptocephalus ceases to feed, 
 loses bulk, and develops pigment on the surface of the body. The larval teeth are 
 cast, and the larval skeleton is replaced by a new one. Then the fish comes to the 
 surface, enters the mouth of a river, and if caught is immediately recognised as an 
 elver. It is now a year old, and about two inches long.] 
 
 3 [The " flicker " of the redstart's tail has been a curious puzzle to ornithologists. 
 Macgillivray, most careful of observers, affirmed that it was a vertical, not a hori- 
 zontal movement, and Seebohm follows him. Mr. Harting and others agree with 
 White. The fact is that the motion is so quick that it is almost impossible to be 
 quite sure of the way in which it is done.] 
 
 4 [This is probably a slip, and the missel-thrush may have been meant ; the 
 blackbird rarely, if ever, sings after the moult. The question of the cause of 
 autumn song, which White here raises, has never yet been scientifically explained.] 
 
84 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 lark, 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. 
 
 House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring ; as the weather 
 becomes hotter they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees 
 and apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to 
 build in rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs 
 under rooks' nests. 
 
 As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his 
 dogs devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but 
 rejected the common mice ; and that his cats ate the common 
 mice, refusing the red. 
 
 Red-breasts 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 red- 
 breasts of that year : notwithstanding the prejudices in their 
 favour, they do much mischief 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. 2 
 
 House-martins came remarkably late this year both in Hamp- 
 shire 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, or fern- 
 chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the 
 
 1 They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honey-suckle, and the euonymvs 
 europ<zus, or spindle-tree. 
 
 2 [Wrens will often sing in severe frost, which does not silence the winter singers, 
 unless prolonged and sunless.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 85 
 
 end of it. These scarabs are the constant food of caprimulgi, or 
 fern-owls, through that period. They abound on the chalky 
 downs and in some sandy districts, but not in the clays. 
 
 In the garden of the Black-bear inn in the town of Reading is 
 a stream or canal running under the stables and out into the 
 fields on the other side of the road : in this water are many carps, 
 which lie rolling about in sight, being fed by travellers, who 
 amuse themselves by tossing them bread : but as soon as the 
 weather grows at all severe these fishes are no longer seen, 
 because they retire under the stables, where they remain till the 
 return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid state ? if they do not, 
 how are they supported ? 
 
 The note of the white-throat, which is continually repeated, 
 and often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh 
 and displeasing. 1 These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition ; 
 for they sing with an erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and 
 defiance ; are shy and wild in breeding-time, avoiding neigh- 
 bourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons ; nay even 
 the very tops of the Sussex-downs, where there are bushes and 
 covert ; but in July and August they bring their broods into 
 gardens and orchards, and make great havock among the summer- 
 fruits. 
 
 The black-cap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud, and 
 wild pipe ; yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions 
 are desultory ; but when that bird sits calmly and engages in 
 song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet, but inward melody, 
 and expresses great variety of soft and gentle modulations, 
 superior perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale 
 excepted. 
 
 Black-caps 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 white-throat : some birds have a few more notes 
 
 1 [White's impressions of the songs of birds are always interesting, and in this 
 and the three following paragraphs we have good evidence of his care in noting 
 them ; but it is singular that he should have found the vivacious song of the 
 whitethroat displeasing, in spite of its lack of sweetness. Objection has been 
 made to this account of the whitethroat on the ground that it is not a "shy and 
 wild bird in breeding time"; and Mr. Harting has even suggested that White 
 confused it with the lesser whitethroat. But it would be equally untrue to describe 
 the latter as wild or shy where it is common, for it frequently breeds in gardens ; 
 and its song and attitude when singing are inconsistent with White's description. 
 White is only at fault in slightly exaggerating the fact that the greater whitethroat 
 is, in the breeding season, a bird of the fields and hedgerows.] 
 
86 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 or- 
 chards and about houses ; with us he perches on the vane of a 
 tall maypole. 
 
 The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most mute and 
 the most familiar ; it also appears the last of any. It builds in a 
 vine, or a sweetbriar, against the wall of an 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 it's young in danger 
 from cats or other annoyances : it breeds but once, and retires 
 early. 1 
 
 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.' 2 ' 
 
 On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it 
 a quaint and magisterial air, and is very sententious ; but, when 
 I recollect that you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you 
 will pardon the didactic manner for the sake of the information 
 it may happen to contain. 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of 
 soft-billed birds, that continue with us the winter through, subsist 
 during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to 
 be the only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters ; 
 for the robust wry-neck (so much resembling the hardy race 
 of wood-peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden-crowned 
 
 1 [" The song is very faint and low " (H. Saunders, Manual of British Birds, 
 p. 150). It must be remembered that White's hearing was defective ; the writer of 
 this note, who suffers in the same way, has never heard the song of the flycatcher.] 
 
 2 Sweden, 221, Great-Britain, 252 species. 
 
 [The list ot British birds now includes about 370, of which about no are rare and 
 accidental visitors.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 87 
 
 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. 2 
 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 3 Phryganece, &c. 
 
 Hedge-sparrvrvs frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, 
 where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings : and in mild 
 weather they procure worms, which are stirring every month in 
 the year, as any one may see that will only be at the trouble of 
 taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter's night. Red- 
 breasts 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 aurelice of the 
 lepidoptera ordo, which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their 
 trunks ; to the pales and walls of gardens and buildings ; and is 
 found in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in 
 the ground itself. 
 
 Every species of titmouse winters with us ; they have what I 
 call a kind of intermediate bill between the hard and the soft, 
 between the Linncean genera of fringilla and motacilla. One 
 species alone spends it's whole time in the woods and fields, 
 never retreating for succour in the severest seasons to houses and 
 neighbourhoods ; and that is the delicate long-tailed titmouse, 
 which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned wren : but the 
 blue titmouse, or nun (parus cceruleus), the cole-mouse (pants 
 ater), the great black-headed titmouse (fringillago), and the 
 marsh titmouse (parm 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 it's back downwards (to 
 
 1 [It is now a well-known fact that this minute bird, though resident in small 
 numbers, migrates to our eastern shores in vast numbers every autumn.] 
 
 2 [The truth of this conjecture, which is amplified in the next paragraph, has 
 recently been remarkably confirmed by experiments made by Prof. Poulton. See 
 Report of British Association for 1898.] 
 
 3 See Derham's Physico-theology, p. 235. 
 
88 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 my no small delight and admiration), draw straws lengthwise from 
 out the eaves of thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies 
 that were concealed between them, and that in such numbers that 
 they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance. 
 
 The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and 
 a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh ; for 
 it frequently picks bones on dunghills : it is a vast admirer of 
 suet, and haunts butchers' shops. When a boy, I have known 
 twenty in a morning caught with snap mouse-traps, baited with 
 tallow or suet. It will also pick holes in apples left on the 
 ground, and be well entertained with the seeds on the head of 
 a sun-flower. The blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very 
 severe weather, carry away barley and oat straws from the sides 
 of ricks. 
 
 How the wheat-ear and whin-chat support themselves in winter 
 cannot be so easily ascertained, 1 since they spend their time on 
 wild heaths and warrens ; the former especially, where there are 
 stone quarries : most probably it is that their maintenance arises 
 from the aurelice of the lepidoptera ordo, which furnish them with 
 a plentiful table in the wilderness. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March 9, 1775. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 SOME future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend his 
 visits to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field, and a country 
 little known to the naturalist. He will not, it is to be wished, 
 undertake that tour unaccompanied by a botanist, because the 
 mountains have scarcely been sufficiently examined ; and the 
 southerly counties of so mild an island may possibly afford some 
 plants little to be expected within the British dominions. A 
 person of a thinking turn of mind will draw many just remarks 
 from the modern improvements of that country, both in arts 
 and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they 
 were heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives, their 
 
 1 [Both the wheatear and the whinchat migrate regularly.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 89 
 
 superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort 
 from him many useful reflections. He should also take with 
 him an able draughtsman ; for he must by no means pass over 
 the noble castles and seats, the extensive and picturesque lakes 
 and waterfalls, and the lofty stupendous mountains, so little 
 known, and so engaging to the imagination when described and 
 exhibited in a lively manner : such a work would be well 
 received. 
 
 As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I cannot pretend 
 to say how accurate or particular any such may be ; but this I 
 know, that the best old maps of that kingdom are very defective. 
 The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of 
 Scotland that have fallen in my way is, a want of a coloured line, 
 or stroke, that shall exactly define the just limits of that district 
 called The Highlands. Moreover, all the great avenues to that 
 mountainous and romantic country want to be well distinguished. 
 The military roads formed by general Wade are so great and 
 Roman-like an undertaking that they well merit attention. My 
 old map, Moll's Map, takes notice of Fort William ; but could not 
 mention the other forts that have been erected long since : 
 therefore a good representation of the chain of forts should not 
 be omitted. 
 
 The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed 
 over. Moll takes notice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such 
 capital houses ; but a new survey, no doubt, should represent 
 every seat and castle remarkable for any great event, or celebrated 
 for it's paintings, &c. Lord Breadalbane's seat and beautiful 
 policy are too curious and extraordinary 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 A PAIR of honey-buzzards, buteo apivorus, 1 sive vespivorus Raii, built 
 them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with 
 
 1 [Pernis apivorus, L. This interesting and quite harmless migrant, which 
 formerly bred in some numbers in Hampshire, is now believed to have been driven 
 away, chiefly by the ravages of collectors.] 
 
90 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the middle of 
 Selborne-hanger, in the summer of 1780. In the middle of the 
 month of June a bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on 
 so steep and dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the 
 only one in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, and 
 contained the embrio 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 it's hawk-like appear- 
 ance, small head, wings not so blunt, and longer tail. This 
 specimen contained in it's craw some limbs of frogs and many 
 grey snails without shells. The irides of the eyes of this bird 
 were of a beautiful bright yellow colour. 
 
 About the tenth 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 numerous, began to grow 
 up, became so daring and ravenous, that they were a terror to all 
 the dames in the village that had chickens or ducklings under 
 their care. A boy climbed the tree, and found the young so 
 fledged that they all escaped from him ; but discovered that a 
 good house had been kept : the larder was well-stored with 
 provisions ; for he brought down a young blackbird, jay, and 
 house-martin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. The 
 old birds had been observed to make sad havock for some days 
 among the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being but 
 lately out of their nests, had not acquired those powers and 
 command of wing that enable them, when more mature, to set 
 such enemies at defiance. 
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 EVERY incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence 
 will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 
 
OF SELBORNE 91 
 
 As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, 1 I am 
 much of your mind ; and see no reason for making it the origin 
 of the common house-dove : but suppose those that have advanced 
 that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often 
 given to the oenas, which is that of stock-dove. 
 
 Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners 
 from itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be 
 domesticated, and to make an 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 
 tor qua! us ; frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly 
 by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it 
 be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would 
 be settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests 
 on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do. 
 
 You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex ; and 
 are informed that they sometimes breed in that country. But 
 why did not your correspondent determine the place of it's nidi- 
 ncation, whether on rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an 
 adroit ornithologist I should doubt the fact, because people with 
 us perpetually confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove. 
 
 For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that 
 house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many 
 reasons. 2 In the first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly 
 larger than the common house-dove, against the usual rule of 
 domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. Again, those 
 two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each wing of the 
 stock-dove, which are so characteristic of the species, would not, 
 one should think, be totally lost by it's being reclaimed ; but 
 would often break out among its descendants. But what is 
 worth an hundred arguments is, the instance you give in Sir 
 Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Caernarvonshire ; which, though 
 
 1 \Columba oenas, L. White evidently regarded this species as the most abun- 
 dant which frequented Selborne, but only as a winter " internal " migrant. Borrer 
 (Birds of Sussex, p. 178) says that it assembles in large flocks in the winter. It breeds 
 in great numbers in trees, cliffs, and even in rabbit-burrows (as, e.g., at Lulworth) 
 along the south coast, and packs in autumn, with the ring-dove, to feed in woods 
 and fields. See Letter XXXIX. to Pennant.] 
 
 2 [In this passage White foreshadowed both the argument and the conclusion 
 of Darwin (see Animals and Plants under Domestication, vol. i., chap. vi.). There 
 is now no doubt that the domestic pigeon is descended from the small rock-dove 
 (Columba livia, L. ), or that the name stock-dove is derived from stock = free, and not 
 stock = race. White's observation and perspicuity are nowhere better illustrated than 
 in this .letter.] 
 
92 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 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 inac- 
 cessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory. 
 
 " Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret." l 
 
 1 have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, 
 who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen 
 woods were much more extensive than at present, the number 
 of wood-pigeons was astonishing ; that he has often killed near 
 twenty in a day ; and that with a long wild-fowl piece he has 
 shot seven or eight at a time on the wing as they came wheeling 
 over his head : he moreover adds, which I was not aware of, that 
 often there were among them little parties of small blue doves, 
 which he calls rockiers. 2 The food of these numberless emigrants 
 was beech-mast and some acorns ; and particularly barley, which 
 they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the 
 vast increase of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a great 
 part of their support in hard weather ; and the holes they pick 
 in these roots greatly damage the crop. From this food their 
 flesh has contracted a rancidness which occasions them to be 
 rejected by nicer judges of eating, who thought them before a 
 delicate dish. They were shot not only as they were feeding 
 in the fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also at the 
 close of the evening, by men who lay in ambush among the 
 woods and groves to kill them as they came in to roost. 3 These 
 are the principal circumstances relating to this wonderful internal 
 migration, which with us takes place towards the end of November, 
 and ceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in Selborne 
 high wood about an 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." 4 
 
 ^Hor., Ep. t I., 10, 24.] 
 
 2 [The name suggests rock-pigeons, but they were no doubt stock-doves.] 
 
 3 Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks used to withdraw 
 as soon as the heavy Christmas frosts were over. 
 
 * [Paradist Lost, II., 476-7.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 93 
 
 It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, 
 that I had a relation in this neighbourhood who made it a practice, 
 for a time, whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to 
 place them under a pair of doves that were sitting in his own 
 pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, if he could bring about a coalition, 
 to enlarge his breed, and teach his own doves to beat out into 
 the woods and to support themselves by mast : the plan was 
 plausible, but something always interrupted the success ; for 
 though the birds were usually hatched, and sometimes grew to 
 half their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. I myself have 
 seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a strange ferocity 
 of nature, so as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping 
 with their bills by way of menace. In short, they always died, 
 perhaps for want of proper sustenance : but the owner thought 
 that by their fierce and wild demeanour they frighted their 
 foster-mothers, and so were starved. 
 
 Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes a 
 dove haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, 
 that I cannot refrain from quoting the passage : and John Dryden 
 has rendered it so happily in our language, that without farther 
 excuse I shall add his translation also. 
 
 1 Qualis spelunca subito commota Columba, 
 
 ' Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 
 
 ' Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis 
 
 ' Dat tecto ingentem mox acre lapsa quieto, 
 
 ' Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas." 1 
 
 1 As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes, 
 ' Rous'd, in a fright her sounding wings she shakes ; 
 1 The cavern rings with clattering : out she flies, 
 4 And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies : 
 ' At first she flutters : but at length she springs 
 1 To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings." 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON. 
 
 Selborne, June 30, 1769. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WHEN I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would 
 sometime do myself the honour to write to you on the subject of 
 
 , V., 213-7.] 
 
94 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 natural history : and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, 
 because I see you are a gentleman of great candour, and one that 
 will make allowances ; especially where the writer professes to 
 be an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations from the 
 subject itself, and not from the writings of others. 
 
 The following is a LIST of the SUMMER BIRDS of PASSAGE which I 
 have discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order 
 in which they appear : 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 1. Wryneck, 
 
 2. Smallest willow-wren, 1 
 
 3. Swallow, 
 
 USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT 
 
 /The middle of March : harsh 
 \ note. 
 
 . / March 23 : chirps till Sep- 
 y tember. 
 April 13. 
 Ditto. 
 Ditto. 
 
 Ditto : a sweet wild note. 
 Beginning of April. 
 Middle of April. 
 Ditto : a sweet plaintive note . 
 / Ditto : mean note ; sings on till 
 \ September. 
 
 Ditto : more agreeable song. 
 / End of March : loud nocturnal 
 ^ whistle. 
 Turtur : 
 
 ( Alauda minima lo- / Middle of April : asmallsibil- 
 1^ ous note, till the end of July. 
 About April 27. 
 
 / Passer arundinaceus ( A sweet polyglot, but hurrying : 
 \ minor: \ it has the notes of many birds. 
 
 Ortygometra : A loud harsh note, crex, crex. 
 
 {Cantat voce stridula locustae ; 
 end of April, on the tops of 
 high beeches. 
 
 / Beginning of May : chatters by 
 \ night with a singular noise. 
 CMay 12. A very mute bird : 
 
 Stoparola : -j this is the latest summer 
 
 (^ bird of passage. 
 
 This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten 
 several genera of the Linncean system ; and are all of the ordo of 
 
 Martin, 
 
 5. Sand-martin, 
 
 6. Black-cap, 
 
 7. Nightingale, 
 
 8. Cuckoo, 
 
 9. Middle willow- wren, 2 
 
 10. White-throat, 
 
 11. Red-start, 
 
 12. Stone-curlew, 
 
 13. Turtle-dove, 
 
 14. Grasshopper-lark, 5 
 
 15. Swift, 
 
 1 6. Less reed-sparrow, 6 
 
 17. Land-rail, 7 
 
 1 8. Largest willow- wren, 8 
 
 19. Goat-sucker, or fern- 
 
 owl, 
 
 20. Fly-catcher, 9 
 
 fynx, sive torquilla : 
 
 Regulus non cristatus : 
 
 Hirundo domestica : 
 Hirundo rustica : 
 Hirundo riparia : 
 Atricapilla : 
 Luscinia : 
 Cuculus : 
 Regulus non cristatus . 
 
 Ficedula affinis : 3 
 Ruticilla : 4 
 Oedicnemus : 
 
 \ custce voce : 
 Hirundo apus : 
 
 - Caprimulgus : 
 
 The chiffchaff (Phylloscopus rufus, Bechst.).] 
 The willow- wren (P. trochilus, L.).] 
 
 Sylvia rufa, Bodd.] 
 
 . phoenicurus, L.] 
 
 The grasshopper- warbler (Locustella ntzvia, Bodd.).] 
 The sedge-warbler (Acrocephalus phragmitis, Bechst.)/ 
 Crexpratensis, Bechst.] 
 
 8 The wood-wren (Phylloscopus sibilatrix, Bechst.).] 
 Muscicapa grisola, L.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 
 
 95 
 
 passeres save the jynx and cuculus, which are piece, and the char- 
 adrius (oedicnemus} and rallus (ortygometra), which are grallce. 
 
 These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following 
 Linncean genera : 
 
 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, ii, 16, 18. 
 3- 4, 5. IS- 
 
 Jynx : 
 Motacilla : 
 Hirundo : 
 Cuculus : 
 Charadrius : 
 
 13. Columba : 
 17. Rallus : 
 
 19. Caprimulgus 
 
 14. Alauda : 
 
 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 : 
 
 Redbreast, 
 Wren, 
 
 Hedge-sparrow, 
 
 White-wagtail,* 
 Yellow-wagtail, 
 Grey- wagtail, 
 
 Wheat-ear, 2 
 
 Whin-chat, 
 Stone-chatter, 3 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 Rubecula : 
 Passer troglodytes 
 
 Curruca : 
 
 Motacilla alba : 
 Motacilla flava : 
 Motacilla cinerea 
 
 Oenanthe : 
 
 Oenanthe secunda 
 Oenanthe tertia : 
 
 Golden-crowned wren, Regulus cristatus : 
 
 ( These frequent houses ; and 
 -j haunt outbuildings in the 
 
 t winter : eat spiders. 
 /Haunt sinks for crumbs and 
 \ other sweepings. 
 
 -'These frequent shallow rivulets 
 
 near the spring heads, where 
 
 -( they never freeze : eat the 
 
 aureliae of Phryganea. The 
 
 v smallest birds that walk. 
 /Some of these are to be seen 
 \ with us the winter through. 
 
 f This is the smallest British bird : 
 -I haunts the tops of tall trees ; 
 ^ stays the winter through. 
 
 A Lisrrofthe WINTER BIRDS of PASSAGE round this neighbourhood, 
 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 fourteenth of 
 March. 
 
 1 [By the white wagtail White means our common pied wagtail (M. lugubris, 
 Temm.), which was not then distinguished from our white wagtail (M. alba, L.). 
 What species are to be understood by the other two names which White gives we 
 cannot be sure ; by the yellow wagtail he probably means our grey wagtail (M. 
 melanope, Pall.) ; see note on Letter XLIII. to Pennant. By grey wagtail it is not 
 impossible that he meant the young of the pied wagtail, mistaking them for a differ- 
 ent species. Our white wagtail is an uncommon summer visitant, our grey wagtail 
 a resident, our yellow wagtail (M. raii, Bonap.) a summer visitant.] 
 
 2 [The wheatear is a summer visitant.] 
 
 3 [Most of our stone-chats migrate before winter.] 
 
 4 [A summer visitant.] 
 
96 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 2. Redwing, Turdus iliacus : About old Michaelmas. 
 
 3. Fiddfare, Turin, fUaris : IFZ&gSg*"* 
 
 4. Royston-crow, Comix cinerea : Most frequent on downs. 
 
 5. Woodcock, 1 Sc olopax : Appears about old Michaelmas. 
 
 6. Snipe,' Gallinago minor : { ^^^P 65 constantl y breed 
 
 7. Jack-snipe, Gallinago minima : 
 
 8. Wood-pigeon,3 Oena, : 
 
 9. Wild-swan, Cygnus ferus : On some large waters. 
 
 10. Wild-goose, Anser ferus : 
 
 11. Wild-duck, 4 Anas tor quata minor :\ 
 
 12. Pochard, 6 Anas f era fusca : 
 
 13. Wigeon, Penelope : f On our lakes and streams. 
 
 3 gS* 23^*- 
 
 17! SUk!tail,v ' ^rr*/^ A******, : 
 
 These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following 
 Linncean genera : 
 
 i, 2, 3, Turdus: 9, 10, n, 12, 13, 14, 
 
 4, Corvus : Anas: 
 
 5, 6, 7, Scolopax : 15, 16, ^orz'a : 
 8, Columba : 17. Ampelis. 
 
 Birds that sing in the night are but few. 
 
 " hid '' 
 
 Nightingale. LuscMa: {" 
 
 Woodlark, Alauda arborea : Suspended in mid air. 
 
 Less reed-sparrow.s Paser arundinacens AmQng reeds and 
 
 ^ 
 
 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 
 
 The woodcock is a resident as well as a winter visitant.] 
 
 The common snipe is a resident as well as a winter visitant.] 
 
 Both the wood-pigeon and the stock-dove are residents.] 
 
 The mallard (Anas boscas, L. ) is a resident as well as a winter visitant.] 
 
 6 The pochard (Fuligulaferina, L.) is a resident as well as a winter visitant.] 
 The common crossbill (l^oxia curvirostra, L. ) is an irregular visitant, chiefly in 
 
 autumn and winter. White has "cross-beak (Coccothraustes) " and " gross- 
 bill (Loxia) ".] 
 
 7 The waxwing (Ampelis gar rulus , L.) is an occasional winter visitant.] 
 
 8 [The sedge- warbler (Acrocephalus phragmitis, Bechst.).] 
 
OF SELBOENE 97 
 
 on some birds concerning the continuation of whose song I seem 
 at present to have some doubt. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 2, 1769. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WHEN I did myself the honour to write to you about the end of 
 last June on the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of the 
 summer-birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbour- 
 hood ; and also a list of the winter-birds of passage : I mentioned 
 besides those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through 
 in the south of England, and those that are remarkable for singing 
 in the night. 
 
 According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds 
 (singing birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after 
 Midsummer ; and shall range them somewhat in the order in which 
 they first begin to open as the spring advances. 1 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 In January, and continues to 
 sing through all the summer 
 and autumn. 
 
 Scng-hrush, 
 
 autumn. 
 
 3. Wren, Passer troglodytes : All the year, hard frost excepted. 
 
 4. Redbreast, Rubecula: Ditto. 
 
 5. Hedge-sparrow, Curruca : { F^uary to July the 
 
 (Early in February, and on 
 through July to August the 
 2 1 St. 
 
 7. Skylark, Alauda vulgaris : In February, and on to October. 
 
 8. Swallow, Hirundo domestica : From April to September. 
 
 9. Black-cap, Atricapilla : Beginning of Apriltojulyi 3th. 
 
 10. Titlark,' Alauda pratorum : {** ^ dle of A ** 1 to W 
 
 1 [The list that follows seems to be the result of only one year's observation, as we 
 may gather from the first paragraph of the next letter. The same method carried 
 over a series of years would no doubt have modified some of the results here given 
 as to dates, etc.] 
 
 2 [The meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis, L. ). White does not distinguish between 
 this and the tree pipit (Anthus trivialis, L.).] 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 11. Blackbird, 
 
 12. White-throat, 
 
 13. Goldfinch, 
 
 14. Greenfinch, 
 
 15. Less reed-sparrow, 1 
 
 16. Common linnet, 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 Merula vulgaris : 
 
 Ficedulce affinis : 
 Carduelis : 
 
 Chloris : 
 
 f Passer arundinaceus 1 
 \ minor : 
 
 Linaria vulgaris : 
 
 {Sometimes in February and 
 March, and so on to July the 
 twenty-third ; reassumes in 
 autumn. 
 
 In April and on to July 23. 
 /April and through to September 
 \ 16. 
 On to July and August 2. 
 
 \May, on to beginning of July. 
 
 /'Breeds and whistles on till Au- 
 I gust ; reassumes it's note when 
 -| they begin to congregate in 
 October, and again early be- 
 fore the flock separate. 
 
 Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or 
 before Midsummer : 
 
 17. Middle willow- wren, 2 
 
 1 8. Redstart, 
 
 19. Chaffinch, 
 
 20. Nightingale, 
 
 of June ' 
 
 Regulus non cristatus : 
 
 Ruticilla ; Ditto : begins in May. 
 
 Fringilla : { B $gf ' ! si "* S fet 
 
 Luscinia /Middle of June : sings first in 
 
 \ April. 
 
 Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring : 
 
 21. Missel -bird, 
 
 22. Great titmouse, or ox- 
 eye. 
 
 Turdus viscivorus 
 
 \ Fringillago : 
 
 January the 2d, 1770, in Febru- 
 ary. Is called in Hampshire 
 and Sussex the storm-cock, 
 because it's song is supposed 
 to forebode windy wet wea- 
 ther : is the largest singing 
 bird we have. 
 
 I" In February, March, April : re- 
 assumes for a short time in 
 
 V. September. 
 
 Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly 
 to be called singing birds : 
 
 23. Golden-crowned wren, Regulus cristatus : 
 
 24. Marsh titmouse, Parus palustris : 
 
 It's note as minute as it's per- 
 son ; frequents the tops of 
 high oaks and firs : the small- 
 est British bird. 
 
 / Haunts great woods : two harsh 
 
 \ sharp notes. 
 
 1 [The sedge- war bier.] 
 
 2 [The willow-wren (Phylloscopus trochilus, L.).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 
 
 99 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 25. Small willow-wren,i Regulus non cristatus : { 
 
 26. Largest ditto, 2 
 
 27. Grasshopper-lark, 
 
 28. Martin, 
 
 29. Bullfinch, 
 
 30. Bunting, 
 
 Ditto : 
 
 Hirundo agrestis : 
 
 $ Cantat voce stridula locustee ; 
 from end of April to August. 
 
 <&?"'" ""fSA 3& oTe ^1 
 i of /*/y. 
 
 /All the breeding time; from 
 I May to September. 
 
 Pyrrhula : 
 
 Emberiza alba : { ^ ^ Cnd f Januar y tO 
 
 All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to song, 
 not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under 
 the Unnaean ordo of passeres. 
 
 The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong 
 to the following Linncean genera. 
 
 1, 7. io, 27. 
 
 2, II, 21. 
 
 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, ) 
 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26. / 
 6, 30. 
 
 Alauda : 
 Turdus : 
 
 Motacilla : 
 Emberiza : 
 
 8, 28. 
 
 13, 16, 19. 
 
 22. 24. 
 
 14, 29. 
 
 Hirundo. 
 Fringilla. 
 
 Parus. 
 Loxia. 
 
 Birds that sing as they fly are but few. 
 
 Skylark, 
 Titlark, 
 
 Woodlark, 
 Blackbird, 
 White-throat, 
 
 Swallow, 
 Wren, 
 
 Alauda vulgaris : 
 Alauda pratorum : 
 
 Alauda arborea : 
 Merula : 
 Ficedula affinis : 
 
 Hirundo domestica : 
 Passer troglodytes : 
 
 Rising, suspended, and falling, 
 fin it's descent ; also sitting on 
 trees, and walking on the 
 t ground. 
 
 / Suspended ; in hot summer 
 \ nights all night long. 
 
 Sometimes from bush to bush. 
 ( Uses when singing on the wing 
 \ odd jerks and gesticulations. 
 
 In soft sunny weather. 
 
 Sometimes from bush to bush. 
 
 Birds that breed most early in these parts. 
 
 Raven, 
 
 Song-thrush, 
 
 Blackbird, 
 
 Rook, 
 
 Woodlark, 
 
 Ring-dove, 
 
 Corvus : 
 
 Turdus : 
 
 Merula : 
 
 Cornix frugilega : 
 
 Alauda arborea : 
 
 Palumbus torquatus , 
 
 ( Hatches in February and 
 \ March. 
 
 In March. 
 
 In March. 
 
 Builds the beginning of March. 
 
 Hatches in April. 
 
 Lays the beginning of April. 3 
 
 1 [The chiffchaff (P. rufus, Bechst.).] 
 
 2 [The wood- wren (P. sibilatrix, Bechst.).] 
 
 3 [" To this list might have been added the robin, since it not unfrequently nests 
 January during mild winters." Harting.~\ 
 
100 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 All birds that continue in full song till after Midsummer appear 
 to me to breed more than once. 
 
 Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat 
 in proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this island, where they are 
 much pursued and annoyed : but in Ascension Island, and many 
 other desolate places, mariners have found fowls so unacquainted 
 with an 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 unconcerned till you come within three or four yards 
 of it, while the bustard (otis), the largest British land fowl, does 
 not care to admit a person within so many furlongs. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 15, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IT was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you were 
 not displeased with my little methodm- of birds. If there was any 
 merit in the sketch, it must be owing to it's 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 it's environs, where you heard so 
 very few birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not 
 stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my 
 last letter, you will find that many species continued to warble 
 after the beginning of July. 
 
 The titlark and 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. 
 
OF SELBORNE 
 
 It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less 
 reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, and 
 the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer bird of passage, they 
 would require more nice and curious management in a cage than 
 I should be able to give them : they are both distinguished 
 songsters. The note of the former has such a wild sweetness 
 that it always brings to my mind those lines in a song in " As 
 You Like It ". 
 
 ' ' And tune his merry note 
 
 " Unto the wild bird's throat." SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling the 
 song of several other birds ; but then it has also an hurrying 
 manner, not at all to it's advantage : it is notwithstanding a 
 delicate polyglot. 
 
 It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night ; 
 perhaps only caged birds do so. I once knew a tame redbreast 
 in a cage that always sang as long as candles were in the room ; 
 but in their wild state no one supposes they sing in the night. 
 
 I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are to 
 be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former month, 
 notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily. Sure I am 
 that it is far otherwise with respect to the swallow tribe, which 
 increases prodigiously as the summer advances : and I saw, at 
 the time mentioned, many hundreds of young wagtails on the 
 banks of the Cherrvell, which almost covered the meadows. If 
 the matter appears as you say in the other species, may it not be 
 owing to the dams being engaged in incubation, while the young 
 are concealed by the leaves ? 
 
 Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomachs of 
 woodcocks and snipes ; but nothing ever occurred that helped to 
 explain to me what their subsistence might be : all that I could 
 ever find was a soft mucus, among which lay many pellucid small 
 gravels. 1 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 [Mr. Harting in his note on this passage refers to some valuable observations 
 on the contents of the stomachs of woodcocks in Thompson's Birds of Ireland, 
 vol. ii. , p. 239, and adds, by way of explaining the soft mucus to which White 
 refers: "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 ". On the 
 other hand, Sedgwick (Textbook oj c Zoology, p. 237) says: "It maybe of interest 
 to gourmets to know that the trail of a woodcock largely consists of distomic 
 trematodes" (parasitic flat-worms).] 
 
102 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 19, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 YOUR observation that "the cuckoo does not deposit it's egg 
 " indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in it's 
 " way, but probably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous, 
 "with whom to intrust it's young," is perfectly new to me ; and 
 struck me so forcibly, that I naturally tell into a train of thought 
 that led me to consider whether the fact was so, and what 
 reason there was for it. When I came to recollect and inquire, 
 I could not find that any cuckoo had ever been seen in these 
 parts, except in the nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the 
 titlark, the white-throat, and the redbreast, all soft-billed insecti- 
 vorous birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest 
 of the palumbus (ring-dove), and of the J'ringilla (chaffinch}, birds 
 that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food : but then 
 he does not mention them as of his own knowledge ; but says 
 afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. 1 It 
 appears hardly possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on 
 the same food with the hard-billed : for the former have thin 
 membranaceous stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the 
 latter, the granivorous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, 
 which, like mills, grind, by the help of small gravels and pebbles, 
 what is swallowed. This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping 
 it's 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 arropy^ 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 con- 
 
 1 [The list of birds in whose nests the cuckoo is now known to deposit her eggs 
 is very large ; Mr. Bidwell has brought it up to 120 in the Bulletin of the British 
 Ornithological Club for March, 1896. The more usual victims are insect-eating 
 birds, such as those White mentions ; but almost all our common seed-eating 
 birds are occasionally duped. These, however, it should be noted, feed their 
 own young largely on caterpillars and other insects.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 103 
 
 generous nursing-mothers for it's disregarded eggs and young, 
 and may deposit them only under their care, 1 this would be add- 
 ing wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that 
 the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or 
 rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable 
 appearances. 
 
 What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concern- 
 ing the defect of natural affection in the ostrich, may be well 
 applied to the bird we are talking of: 
 
 " She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not 
 " hers : 
 
 " Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he im- 
 " parted to her understanding." 2 
 
 Query. Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, 
 or does she drop several in different nests according as oppor- 
 tunity offers ? 3 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, April 12, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I HEARD many birds of several species sing last year after Mid- 
 summer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the 
 period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow- 
 hammer no doubt persists with more steadiness than any other ; 
 but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, the swallow, the 
 white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted 
 instances of the truth of what I advanced. 
 
 1 [It is now regarded as probable that each cuckoo deposits her egg always in a 
 nest of the same species, and that species the one to which that individual cuckoo 
 (and her progenitors) were indebted for nurture ; further, that her egg as a rule, 
 though not invariably, more or less resembles those of the victim.] 
 
 2 Job xxxix. 16, 17. 
 
 3 [This question has not yet been certainly answered ; but the general result of 
 the evidence seems to be that one cuckoo lays five eggs, or sometimes one or two 
 more, in a season. See A. H. Evans' Birds (1898), p. 354. 
 
 White does not mention Jenner's paper on the cuckoo in the Phil. Trans, 
 for 1788, which appeared after the foregoing letter was written, but before its 
 publication. This celebrated paper contains the most important observations 
 hitherto made on the habits of the cuckoo. The chief results of more recent 
 inquiry will be found in Harting's Summer Migrants, and in Newton's Dictionary 
 of Birds.] 
 
104 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the 
 summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or three 
 days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those 
 songsters ; but I am no birdcatcher ; and so little used to birds 
 in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would soon die for want of 
 skill in feeding. 
 
 Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick- 
 billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320 ; or was it the less 
 reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's last publica- 
 tion, 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 a want of food soon overbalances the repletion 
 occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, more- 
 over, 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 sup- 
 posititious egg ; 1 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 circum- 
 stances, would sit on in the empty nest till she perished with 
 hunger. 
 
 I think the matter might easily be determined whether a 
 
 1 [It is singular that White should have written as if he were not aware of the 
 very small size of the cuckoo's egg in proportion to that of the bird. In many 
 cases it is not easy at a glance to distinguish the supposititious egg ; for which 
 reason it is probable that the blue eggs which the cuckoo is now known sometimes 
 to lay often escape detection in the nests of the hedge-sparrow.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 105 
 
 cuckoo lays one or two eggs, or more, in a season, by opening 
 a female during the laying-time. If more than one was come 
 down out of the ovary, and advanced to a good size, doubtless then 
 she would that spring lay more than one. 1 
 
 I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine. 
 
 Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction 
 in singing birds while they are mute, and that when this is 
 removed the song recommences, is new and bold : I wish you 
 could discover some good grounds for this suspicion. 
 
 I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the capri- 
 mulgus, or fern-owl ; 2 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 satisfaction : 
 they have removed the objections that always arose in my mind 
 whenever I came to the passages which you quote. Surely the 
 judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic poem for the region of 
 Italy, could never think of describing freezing rivers, unless such 
 severity of weather pretty frequently occurred ! 
 
 P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost. 
 
 1 [In the cuckoo, as in other birds, only one egg is found in the oviduct at one 
 time. Anatomical examination does not settle the question.] 
 
 2 [The nightjar or goatsucker, also called churn-owl, puckeridge, and wheel- 
 bird.] 
 
106 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May ai, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the 
 regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do 
 but just begin to shew themselves, and others are apparently 
 thinner than usual ; as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red- 
 start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the very 
 severe spring in the year 1739-4-0 summer birds of passage were 
 very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east 
 wind, or when it blows between those points ; 1 but in that 
 unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and 
 summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst 
 all these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, 
 appeared this year as early as the eleventh of April amidst frost 
 and snow ; but they withdrew again for a time. 
 
 I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little 
 satisfied with Scopoli's new publication ; 2 there is room to expect 
 great things from the hands of that man, who is a good natur- 
 alist : and one would think that an history of the birds of so 
 distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and 
 interesting. I could wish to see that work, and hope to get it 
 sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work 
 in the quicksilver mines of that district. 
 
 When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it 
 seeds, I could not help wondering ; because the reed-sparrow 
 which I mentioned to you (passer arundinaceus minor Rail) 3 is a 
 soft-billed bird ; and most probably migrates hence before 
 winter ; whereas the bird you kept (passer torquatus Raii) 4 abides 
 all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the 
 latter be much of a songster ; but in this matter I want to be 
 better informed. The former has a variety of hurrying notes, 
 and sings all night. Some part of the song of the former, I 
 
 1 [We now know that migrating birds prefer a wind on the beam rather than one 
 astern ; the latter, if strong, would interfere both with their comfort and their 
 steering power.] 
 
 2 This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis. 
 
 3 [The sedge- warbler.] 
 
 4 [The reed-bunting (Emberiza schoeniclus, L.).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 107 
 
 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. 1 
 
 I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which 
 different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a subject that I have 
 not enough considered, and is of such a nature as not to be 
 contained in a small space, I shall say nothing further about it 
 at present. 2 
 
 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. 3 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 
 so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible ; 
 
 " Quern si puellarum insereres choro, 
 
 " Mir6 sagaces falleret hospites 
 
 " Discrimen obscurum, solutis 
 
 " Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu. " HOR. 4 
 
 1 See letter xxv. to Mr. Pennant. 
 
 2 See letter xlii. to Mr. Harrington. 
 
 3 [White seems to have regarded sexual colouration in birds only as a distinction 
 of the sexes, without discerning its use either as attractive in the male or protective 
 in the female when sitting. Yet he was aware of the use of the peacock's train in 
 attracting the peahen (see Letter XXXV. to Pennant), and of the protective 
 colouration of the young stone-curlews (Letter XVI. to Pennant). Here, as often 
 elsewhere, he gets upon a good train of thought, without following it up ; but every 
 naturalist needs the help of the ideas of others, and White stood alone in England 
 as a real student of nature.] 
 
 *[Carm., II., v.] 
 
108 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Ringmer, near Lewes, 1 Oct. 8, 1770. 
 
 I AM glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the birds 
 of Jamaica ; a sight of the hirundines of that hot and distant island 
 would be a great entertainment to me. 2 
 
 The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession ; and I have read 
 the Annus Primus with satisfaction : for though some parts of this 
 work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken obser- 
 vations ; yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola 
 is very curious. Men that undertake only one district are much 
 more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp 
 at more than they can possibly be acquainted with : every king- 
 dom, every province, should have it's own monographer. 
 
 The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's 
 Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of his 
 country, into which the works of our great naturalist may have 
 never yet found their way. You have doubts, I know, whether 
 this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli : as 
 to myself, I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity ; the 
 style corresponds with that of his Entomology ; and his characters 
 of his Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, 
 and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linncean 
 genera with sufficient shew of reason. 
 
 It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many 
 swifts and no swallows at Staines ; because, in my long obser- 
 vation 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 
 
 1 [The residence of Gilbert White's aunt, Mrs. Snooke. On her death in 1780 
 the property descended to him.] 
 
 2 [Gosse's Birds of Jamaica (1847) at length supplied the want here indicated. 
 It does not seem that Kuckalm did anything to justify Harrington's anticipation ; a 
 paper of his on the preservation of dead birds is printed in the Phil. Trans. (1770).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 109 
 
 those birds that wash themselves would never dust ; but here I 
 find myself mistaken ; for common house-sparrows are great 
 pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in 
 dusty roads ; and yet they are great washers. Does not the 
 skylark dust ? 
 
 Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method 
 of purification from these pulveratrices ? because I find from tra- 
 vellers of credit, that if a strict mussulman is journeying in a 
 sandy desert where no water is to be found, at stated hours he 
 strips off his clothes, and most scrupulously rubs his body over 
 with sand or dust. 
 
 A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the 
 nest of a small bird on the ground ; and that it was fed by the 
 little bird. I went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and 
 found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark : 
 it was become vastly too big for it's nest, appearing 
 
 " in tenui re 
 
 " Majores pennas nido extendisse " x 
 
 and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I 
 teazed it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffetting 
 with it's wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a dam appeared 
 at a distance, hovering about with meat in it's mouth, and ex- 
 pressing the greatest solicitude. 
 
 In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond ; 
 and found, after some observation, that they were feeding on the 
 libellulce, or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they 
 settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. 
 Notwithstanding what Linnceus says, 2 I cannot be induced to 
 believe that they are birds of prey. 
 
 ^Hor., Bp. I., 20, ai.] 
 
 2 [In the Systema Natures, under Cuculus canorus, Linnaeus gives the following 
 account of its habits: "Coccyx, incubandi ipse impotens, semper parit in alienis 
 nidis, imprimis in Motacillae, majori ex parte singula ova, auferatis prioribus. 
 Educat subditum adulterate foeta nido et sequitur nutrix fidelissima mensibus 
 aestatis pulcherrimis frondescentiae, florescentiae, grossificationis, dum ille aridis 
 insidens arborum ramis famelicus semper cuculans advocat nutricem, donee sub 
 ortu caniculae ingratus earn occidat devoretque, unde orbus victitet rapina Avicularum 
 Larvisque Brassicae aliarumque; non tamen in Falconem transformatur " (i2thed. 
 (1766), vol. i., p. 168). 
 
 " The cuckoo, being unable to sit her own eggs, always lays them in the nests 
 of other birds, especially of wagtails, for the most part one by one, after removing 
 any that were there before. The attentive foster-parent brings up the supposititious 
 chick, and waits upon it through the fairest months of summer, the seasons of 
 fresh leaves, flowers and berries. During all this time the voracious cuckoo perched 
 
110 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at 
 Selborne. In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks l 
 (loxice curvirostrce) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves 
 belonging to this house; 2 the water-ousel* is said to haunt the 
 mouth of the Lewes river, near NewJiaven ; and the Cornish chough 4 
 builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. 
 
 I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ousels (my 
 newly discovered migraters) scattered, at intervals, all along 
 the Sussex downs from Chichester to Lewes. Let them come from 
 whence they will, it looks very suspicious that they are cantoned 
 along the coast in order to pass the channel when severe weather 
 advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem, in 
 their return ; and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It 
 is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to have no 
 manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. 
 There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstonef No 
 doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex downs : the prospects 
 and rides round Lewes are most lovely ! 
 
 As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look out in 
 the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, 
 have discovered some of the summer short-winged birds of 
 passage crowding towards the coast in order for their departure : 
 but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a redstart, white- 
 throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, &c. 6 And I re- 
 
 on bare boughs incessantly summons her by his cry of cuckoo. At last, in mid- 
 summer, he rewards her by killing and eating her. When thus deprived of her 
 care, he gets a living by preying upon small birds and insect-larvae, such as that 
 of the cabbage butterfly ; it is not true, however, that he is transformed into a 
 hawk."] 
 
 1 [See Letter XVII. to Harrington.] 
 The letter is dated from Ringmer, near Lewes.] 
 
 3 [The water-ouzel, or dipper (Cinclus aquaticus, Bechst.), is a rare visitor to 
 south-eastern England.] 
 
 4 [See Letter XXXIX. to Pennant.] 
 
 5 [Mr. Hartinghas the following note : "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 November 17, 1782, he spent three hours at a lone farmhouse 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 ' ". 
 
 The bustard is now extinct in the British Isles, except as a rare casual visitant.] 
 
 6 [White does not mention the exact date of his ride near the coast ; but his 
 letter is dated October 8. If the ride was early in October, he might well have 
 been too late for the mass of redstarts, etc., which are usually gone by the end of 
 
OF SELBORNE 111 
 
 member to have made the same remark in former years, as I 
 usually come to this place annually about this time. The birds 
 most common along the coast at present are the stone-chatters, 
 whinchats, buntings, linnets, some few wheat-ears, 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. 1 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 it's appetite declines ; so that for the last six 
 weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as let- 
 tuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are it's favourite dish. In a neigh- 
 bouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to 
 be an hundred years old. An instance of vast longevity in such 
 a poor reptile ! 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Dec. 20, 1770. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE birds that I took for aberdavines 2 were reed-sparrows (passeres 
 torquati). 
 
 There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this 
 
 September, leaving only a few stragglers. Even on September 24, at Bexhill, also 
 on the Sussex coast, the writer of this note saw none of these birds, only those 
 species mentioned by White, viz., linnets, pipits, stonechats, wheat-ears, etc. See 
 p. 277 of Summer Studies of Birds and Books. 
 
 By " uncreated wren " White probably means chiffchaff, willow- wren, and their 
 kind.] 
 
 1 [The tortoise is further described in Letters VII. and L. to Harrington, while 
 "More Particulars respecting the Old Family Tortoise " are given at the end of the 
 Antiquities. Bell identified it with Testudo marginata, a. North African species. 
 The shell is preserved in the British Museum, and has been figured in Bennett's 
 edition of White's Selborne (p. 361).] 
 
 2 \Aberdavine or aberdevine is an old name for the siskin (Chrysomitris spinus, 
 L.). The name siskin is probably of German origin. This is a kind of bird of 
 which White could have had no personal knowledge, or he would not have mistaken 
 it for the reed-sparrow (i.e., reed-bunting). There is no resemblance between the 
 two species except the black head and throat in the breeding season.] 
 
112 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 kingdom that want to be better understood : witness those vast 
 flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter 
 without hardly any cocks among them. Now was there a due 
 proportion of each sex, it should seem very improbable that any 
 one district should produce such numbers of these little birds ; and 
 much more when only one half of the species appears : therefore 
 we may conclude that the fringillce ccelebes, for some good pur- 
 poses, 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 does, the 
 sexes herd separately, except at the season when commerce is 
 necessary for the continuance of the breed. For this matter of 
 the chaffinches see Fauna Suecica, p. 85, and Sy sterna Natures, p. 
 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none 
 of cocks. 
 
 Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the 
 British singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one ; 
 since the matter of food is a great regulator of the actions and 
 proceedings of the brute creation : there is but one that can be 
 set in competition with it, and that is love. But I cannot quite 
 acquiesce with you in one circumstance when you advance that, 
 "when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small 
 " parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can within a 
 " certain district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh- 
 " turned earth ". Now if you mean that the business of congre- 
 gating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat-sowing to 
 the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us ; for larks 
 and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as 
 much in the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is 
 busy with his ploughs and harrows. 
 
 Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares 
 leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to 
 some districts more suitable to the purpose of breeding. That 
 the former pair before they retire, and that the hens are forward 
 with egg, I myself, when I was a sportsman, have often experi- 
 enced. 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 
 
OF SELBOENE 113 
 
 young of those species in any part of these kingdoms. 1 And I 
 the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since, to all 
 appearance, the same food in summer as well as in winter might 
 support them here which maintains their congeners, the black- 
 birds and thrushes, did they chuse to stay the summer through. 
 From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines 
 some species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. 
 Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or later according as 
 the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well re- 
 member, after that dreadful winter of 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 June. 
 The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the 
 birds above mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists 
 that have written professedly the natural history of particular 
 countries. Now, as to the fieldfare, Linnceus, in his Fauna 
 Suecica, says of it that " maximis in arboribus nidificat " : and of 
 the redwing he says, in the same place, that " nidificat in mediis 
 " arbusculis, sive sepibus : ova sex cceruleo-viridia maculis nigris 
 "variis". Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and red- 
 wings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of the 
 wood-cock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium vernale " : 
 meaning in Tirol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he 
 
 adds " nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 5 ". It 
 
 does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in 
 Austria : but he says " Avis hcec septentrionalium provinciarum 
 ' cestivo tempore incola est ; ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante 
 c hyeme australiores provincias petit : hinc circa plenilunium mensis 
 ' Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat. Tune rursus circa 
 'plenilunium potissimum 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. 
 
 P.S. There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks of 
 this present very wet weather, seven inches and an 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 an half. 
 
 1 [Mr. Harting quotes a number of instances in which both the redwing and the 
 fieldfare are reported to have nested in the British Islands.] 
 
 8 
 
114 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Fyfield, near Andover, Feb. 12, 1771. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 You are, I know, no great friend to migration ; l and the well 
 attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to 
 justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow 
 kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like 
 insects and bats, in a torpid state, and slumber away the more 
 uncomfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather 
 awakens them. 
 
 But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general ; 
 because migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my 
 brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of 
 these birds he has ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, 
 both spring and fall : during which periods myriads of the swallow 
 kind traverse the Straits from north to south, and from south to 
 north, according to the season. And these vast migrations con- 
 sist not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, oro pendolos? 
 or golden thrushes, &c. &c. and also 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. 3 Old Belon, 
 two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the incred- 
 ible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time 
 traversing the Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides 
 the above mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled 
 by whole troops of eagles and vultures. 
 
 Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should re- 
 
 1 [In Harrington's Miscellanies (1781) is an essay " On the periodical appearing 
 and disappearing of certain birds at different times of the year," and another " On 
 the torpidity of the swallow tribe when they disappear " . Both are very sceptical 
 as to migration, and probably affected White's view of the question.] 
 
 2 [Golden orioles (Oriolus galbula, L.).] 
 
 3 [One or two species of hawks are migrants even with us : e.g. , the honey-buzzard 
 (see above, Letter XLIII. to Pennant), which comes in spring, and the rough-legged 
 buzzard, which is an irregular autumnal visitor. The kestrel migrates in winter 
 from north to south within our island. White's difficulty about these movements, 
 which he expresses in the next paragraph, does not admit of a complete solution, 
 nor can the movements of other birds be satisfactorily explained ; but to some 
 extent, no doubt, the hawks are influenced by the movements of the small birds on 
 which they prey (Harting) ; they will gather in numbers where there is a plague of 
 field-voles.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 115 
 
 treat before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder regions, 
 and especially birds of prey, whose blood being heated with hot 
 animal food, are more impatient of a sultry climate : but then I 
 cannot help wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy 
 birds as are known to defy all the severity of England, and even 
 of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to migrate from the 
 south of Europe, and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia. 
 It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the 
 difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by 
 reason of vast oceans, cross winds, &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 
 
 4 Easing their flight : " MILTON. a 
 
 but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six or 
 seven in a company ; and sweeping low, just over the surface of 
 the land and water, direct their course to the opposite continent 
 at the narrowest passage they can find. They usually slope 
 across the bay to the south-west, and so pass over opposite to 
 Tangier, which, it seems, is the narrowest space. 2 
 
 In former letters we have considered whether it was probable 
 that woodcocks in moon-shiny 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 1 708-9, with a silver collar about it's neck, 3 
 on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark. This 
 
 1 [Paradise Lost, vii. , 426-30. ] 
 P 
 
 [See Col. Irby's Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar, p. 14. So, too, 
 though White was not aware of it, our own swallows and other birds pass in parties 
 along our south coast eastwards, until the Channel has narrowed sufficiently for 
 their purposes.] 
 
 3 I have read a like anecdote of a swan. 
 
116 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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. 1 
 
 At present I do not know any body near the sea-side 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 pre- 
 sumptive argument that these birds come over to us from the 
 continent at the narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far 
 westward. 2 
 
 Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do 
 not dust. I think they do : and if they do, whether they wash 
 also. 
 
 The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 
 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of 
 October last. 
 
 Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring- ousel for 
 Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavour 
 to get him one when they call on us again in April. I am glad 
 that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds ; I hope 
 they answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are 
 winter birds that come much about the same time with the wood- 
 cock : they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent 
 reason for migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their 
 congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. 
 
 1 [Mr. Harting has an interesting note on this passage, in which he maintains 
 that the "duck" was really a cormorant ; he points out that cormorants were in 
 the seventeenth century often trained for fishing purposes, and wore collars, usually 
 of leather. But it is hardly likely that a cormorant could be mistaken for a duck.] 
 
 2 [White was here correct in his view of the nightingale's distribution. A line 
 drawn from Start Point to the mouth of the Humber will include, to the south and 
 east, all our nightingales but a few stragglers (Newton). If it be true, as has been 
 maintained, that this species migrates "almost due north and south" (Blyth), 
 White's inference that they come over to us at the narrowest passage is not correct ; 
 but the facts do not seem to be as yet accurately ascertained.] 
 
OF SELBOENE 117 
 
 Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a 
 missel-thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 
 
 The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, cenas Rail, is the last winter 
 bird of passage which appears with us ; and is not seen till 
 towards the end of November : l about twenty years ago they 
 abounded in the district of Selbome ; and strings of them were 
 seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more : but 
 since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they are 
 much decreased in number. The ring-dove, palumbus Raii, stays 
 with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the 
 summer. 
 
 Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked 
 in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This un- 
 common verdure lasted on late into November; and may be 
 accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist summer ; but 
 more particularly from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, 
 which, in many places, reduced whole woods to a leafless naked 
 state. These trees shot again at Midsummer, and then retained 
 their foliage till very late in the year. 
 
 My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried 
 all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at 
 concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine 
 the nightingales next spring. 
 
 I am, &c. &c. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Aug. i, 1771. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 FROM what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos 
 keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls 
 hoot in B flat ; but that one went almost half a note below A. 
 The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown 
 pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords ; it 
 was the common London pitch. 
 
 A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks 
 that the owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G 
 
 1 [See note on Letter XLIV. to Pennant.] 
 
118 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 flat, or F sharp, in B flat and A flat. He heard two hooting to 
 each other, the one in A flat, and the other in B flat. Query : 
 Do these different notes proceed from different species, or only 
 from various individuals ? The same person finds upon trial that 
 the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies 
 in different individuals ; for, about Selborne wood, he found they 
 were mostly in D : he heard two sing together, the one in D, 
 the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable concert : he 
 afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer-forest some 
 in C. 1 As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, 
 and their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their 
 key. Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more 
 distinguishable. This person has tried to settle the notes of a 
 swift, and of several other small birds, but cannot bring them to 
 any criterion. 
 
 As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first 
 birds that suffer with us in severe weather, it is 110 wonder at all 
 that they retreat from Scandinavian winters : and much more the 
 ordo of grallce, who, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of 
 Europe at the approach of winter. " Grallie tanquam conjiimtw 
 " unanimiter in fugam se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem inter 
 " nos habitantem invenire possimus ; ut enim (Estate in australibus 
 " degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque siccam ; ita 
 " nee in frigidis ob eandem causam," says Eckmarck the Swede, in 
 his ingenious little treatise called Migrationes Avium, which by 
 all means you ought to read while your thoughts run on the 
 subject of migration. See Amcenitates Academicce, vol. 4, p. 565. 
 
 Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in 
 one country and not in another : but the grallce, (which procure 
 their food from marshes and boggy grounds) must in winter 
 forsake the more northerly parts of Europe, or perish for want 
 of food. 
 
 I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnceus concerning 
 the woodcock : it is expected of him that he should be able to 
 account for the motions and manner of life of the animals of his 
 own Fauna. 
 
 1 [The attempt to express the keys in which birds sing is useless, simply because 
 they do not use our, or any musical scale (see the quotation from Gassendus in 
 Letter LVI. to Harrington). Single notes of any kind can be accurately set down 
 in musical notation, and it may happen that the interval agrees with some interval 
 in a musical scale. White does not distinguish between musical notes and keys.'] 
 
OF SELBORNE 119 
 
 Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare 
 descriptions, and a few synonyms : the reason is plain ; because 
 all that may be done at home in a man's study, but the investi- 
 gation of the life and conversation of animals, is a concern of 
 much more trouble and difficulty, and is not to be attained but 
 by the active and inquisitive, and by those that reside much in 
 the country. 
 
 Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their 
 specific differences ; which are almost universally constituted by 
 one or two particular marks, the rest of the description running 
 in general terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, 
 is the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every 
 term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and 
 imitators in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and 
 modern information. 
 
 At this distance of years it is not in my power to recollect at 
 what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert when I was 
 a sportsman : but, upon my mentioning this circumstance to a 
 friend, he thinks he has observed them to be remarkably listless 
 against snowy foul weather : if this should be the case, then the 
 inaptitude for flying arises only from an eagerness for food ; as 
 sheep are observed to be very intent on grazing against stormy 
 wet evenings. 
 
 I am, &c. &c. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 8, 1772 . 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WHEN I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious flocks 
 of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these con- 
 gregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for 
 those appearances almost peculiar to the season. 1 The two 
 
 1 [The natural tendency of most birds is to associate together except in the 
 breeding season, when they separate in pairs for the propagation of the species. 
 There are, however, exceptions to both parts of this general statement. Some 
 birds, and especially those which pair for life, e.g., the hawks and eagles, rarely 
 flock, except for migration. Others, as rooks, herons, gulls, even breed 'in company. 
 White's remarks are acute and sensible ; but the subject still calls both for observa- 
 tion and explanation. Probably the advantages to be gained by flocking may be 
 best illustrated by observing the habits of the starling, which is seen in flocks nearly 
 
120 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 great motives which regulate the proceedings of the brute creation 
 are love and hunger ; the former incites animals to perpetuate 
 their kind, the latter induces them to preserve individuals : 
 whether either of these should seem to be the ruling passion in 
 the matter of congregating is to be considered. As to love, that 
 is out of the question at a time of the year when that soft passion 
 is not indulged : besides, during the amorous season, such a 
 jealousy prevails between the male birds that they can hardly 
 bear to be together in the same hedge or field. Most of the 
 singing and elation of spirits of that time seem to me to be the 
 effect of rivalry and emulation : and it is to this spirit of jealousy 
 that I chiefly attribute the equal dispersion of birds in the spring 
 over the face of the country. 
 
 Now as to the business of food : as these animals are actuated 
 by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they should not, one 
 would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of sustenance at a 
 time when it is most likely to fail ; yet such associations do take 
 place in hard weather chiefly, and thicken as the severity 
 increases. As some kind of self-interest and self-defence is no 
 doubt the motive for the proceeding, may it not arise from the 
 helplessness of their state in such rigorous seasons ; as men 
 crowd together, when under great calamities, though they know 
 not why ? Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of 
 cold ; and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from 
 the ravages of birds of prey and other dangers. 
 
 If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to 
 congregate, I am the more struck when I see incongruous ones 
 in such strict amity. If we do not much wonder to see a flock 
 of rooks usually attended by a train of daws, yet it is strange 
 that the former should so frequently have a flight of starlings 
 for their satellites. Is it because rooks have a more discerning 
 scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots more 
 productive of food? Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of 
 two large nerves which run down between the eyes into the 
 upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than 
 other round-billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out 
 of sight. Perhaps then their associates attend them on the 
 motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their 
 finders ; and as lions are said to do on the yelpings of jackalls. 
 Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate. gfr 
 
 all the year round ; often, as White notes, in company with birds of other species. 
 See a useful paper by H. E. Forrest in the Zoologist for March, 1900 ; also Letter 
 XXIV. to Harrington.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 121 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 March 9, 1772. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 As a gentleman and myself were walking on the fourth of last 
 November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of 
 the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were 
 surprised to see three house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us. 
 That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west ; 
 but the tenor of the weather for some time before had been 
 delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, 
 and from repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and 
 more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not 
 depart from this island ; but lay themselves up in holes and 
 caverns ; and do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild 
 times, and then retire again to their latebrce. 1 Nor make I the 
 least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelm- 
 stone, or any of those towns near the chalk-cliffs of the Sussex 
 coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows stirring at 
 periods of the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting, 
 and the sun warm and invigorating. And I am the more of 
 this opinion from what I have remarked during some of our late 
 springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance 
 about the usual time, viz. the thirteenth or fourteenth of April, 
 yet meeting with an harsh reception, and blustering cold north- 
 east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several 
 days, till the weather gave them better encouragement. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 April 12, 1772. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WHILE I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the 
 village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of 
 writing to you. On the first of November I remarked that the 
 
 1 [It is strange that it should not have occurred to White that these swallows 
 might be stragglers following in the wake of a migrating body.] 
 
122 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 old tortoise, 1 formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground 
 in order to the forming it's hybernaculum, which it had fixed on 
 just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground 
 with it's fore-feet, and throws it up over it's back with it's hind ; 
 but the motion of it's legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding 
 the hour-hand of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an 
 animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of 
 copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature 
 night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing it's great body 
 into the cavity ; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually 
 warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth 
 by the heat in the middle of the day ; and though I continued 
 there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained 
 unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have 
 quickened it's operations. No part of it's behaviour ever struck 
 me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with 
 regard to rain ; for though it has a shell that would secure it 
 against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much 
 solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, 
 shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running it's head up 
 in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather- 
 glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, 
 feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain 
 before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and never pretends 
 to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, 
 has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs ; and can refrain from 
 eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When 
 first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in the autumn before 
 it retires : through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, 
 devouring all the food that comes in it's way. I was much 
 taken with it's sagacity in discerning those that do it kind 
 offices : for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has 
 waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards it's 
 benefactress with aukward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to 
 strangers. Thus not only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass 
 his master's crib," 2 but the most abject reptile and torpid of 
 beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with 
 the feelings of gratitude ! 
 
 I am, &c. &c. 
 
 P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise 
 retired into the ground under the hepatica. 
 
 1 [See Letters VII. and L. to Harrington.] 2 Isaiah i. 3. 
 
DEAR SIR, 
 
 OF SELBORNE 123 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, March 26, 1773. 
 
 THE more I reflect on the o-ropyr/ of animals, the more I am 
 astonished at it's effects. Nor is the violence of this affection 
 more wonderful than the shortness of it's duration. Thus every 
 hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the 
 helplessness of her brood; and will fly in the face of a dog or 
 a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she 
 will drive before her with relentless cruelty. 
 
 This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, 
 and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus an hen, 
 just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to 
 be, but with feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and 
 clocking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will 
 throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to 
 avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along 
 before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her 
 helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble 
 birds will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a 
 village are up in arms at the sight of an hawk, whom they will 
 persecute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer 1 
 has often remarked that a pair of ravens nesting in the rock of 
 Gibraltar would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their 
 station, but would drive them from the hill with an amazing 
 fury : even the blue thrush at the season of breeding would 
 dart out from the clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, 
 or the sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that 
 has young, she will not be induced to betray them by an 
 inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance with 
 meat in her mouth for an hour together. 
 
 Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced above by 
 some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in 
 conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the 
 sake of the illustration. 
 
 The flycatcher of the Zoology (the stoparola of Ray) builds 
 
 1 [His brother John, chaplain at Gibraltar.] 
 
124 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A 
 pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their 
 nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware 
 of the inconvenience that followed. But an hot sunny season 
 coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of 
 the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed 
 the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and 
 prompted the parent-birds to hover over the nest all the hotter 
 hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, 
 they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring. 
 
 A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a willow- 
 wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend 
 and myself had observed as she sat in her nest; but were 
 particularly careful not to disturb her, though we saw she eyed 
 us with some degree of jealousy. Some days after as we passed 
 that way we were desirous of remarking how this brood went on ; 
 but no nest could be found, till I happened to take up a large 
 bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the 
 nest in order to dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder. 
 
 A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct 
 occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the 
 lining of an hotbed, in order to add some fresh dung. From out 
 of the side of this bed leaped an animal with great agility that 
 made a most grotesque figure ; nor was it without great difficulty 
 that it could be taken ; when it proved to be a large white-bellied 
 field-mouse with three or four young clinging to her teats by 
 their mouths and feet. It was amazing that the desultory and 
 rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit 
 their hold, especially when it appeared that they were so young 
 as to be both naked and blind ! 
 
 To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which 
 might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, 
 may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion 
 of the o-Topyv), which induces some females of the brute creation 
 to devour their young because their owners have handled them 
 too freely, or removed them from place to place ! Swine, and 
 sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty of 
 this horrid and preposterous murder. When I hear now and 
 then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am 
 not so much amazed ; since reason perverted, and the bad 
 passions let loose, are capable of any enormity : but why the 
 parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform 
 
OF SELBORNE 125 
 
 tenor, should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to 
 abler philosophers than myself to determine. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, July 8, 1773. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 SOME young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of 
 Wolmer-forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of 
 which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet 
 well -fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found 
 to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred 
 in the south of England, and was much pleased with the 
 discovery : this I look upon as a great stroke in natural 
 history. 
 
 We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls 
 that constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have 
 paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during 
 their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through, the 
 following remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable : About 
 an hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) they sally 
 forth in quest of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows 
 and small enclosures for them, which seem to be their only food. 
 In this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see 
 them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop down 
 in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watch 
 for an hour together, and have found that they return to their 
 nests, the one or the other of them, about once in five minutes ; 
 reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every animal is 
 possessed of as far as regards the well being of itself and offspring. 
 But a piece of address, which they shew when they return loaded, 
 should not, I think, be passed over in silence. As they take 
 their prey with their claws, so they carry it in their claws to 
 their nest : but, as the feet are necessary in their ascent under 
 the tiles, they constantly perch first on the roof of the chancel, 
 and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, that the feet 
 may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they 
 are rising under the eaves. 
 
126 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot at 
 all : all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from the 
 wood kinds. 1 The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a 
 tremendous manner ; and these menaces well answer the inten- 
 tion of intimidating : for I have known a whole village up in 
 arms on such an occasion, imagining the church-yard to be full 
 of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly 
 as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the 
 common people's imaginary species of screech-vrt>l t which they 
 superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. 
 The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of 
 owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. 
 Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should 
 not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled 
 to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful 
 quarry. 
 
 While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to mention 
 what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. As 
 they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the 
 mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom a 
 mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After 
 some examination, he found it was a congeries of the bones of 
 mice (and perhaps of birds and bats) that had been heaping 
 together for ages, being cast up in pellets out of the crops of 
 many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, 
 fur, and feathers, of what they devour, after the manner of 
 hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this 
 kind of substance. 2 
 
 When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as an hen's 
 egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full year 
 without any water. Perhaps the case may be the same with all 
 birds of prey. When owls fly they stretch out their legs behind 
 them as a balance to their large heavy heads : for as most 
 nocturnal birds have large eyes and ears they must have large 
 heads to contain them. Large eyes I presume are necessary to 
 
 1 [The question whether the white owl hoots like the brown owl has often been 
 discussed. The evidence seems to point to the conclusion that it occasionally does 
 so. White's reservation, "but in this I am not positive," may be noted with 
 advantage ; it illustrates the difficulties which attend the conscientious observation 
 of birds. We learn from the beginning of this letter that White had paid constant 
 attention to this species for many summers ; yet he will not be positive on this 
 point.] 
 
 2 [Bones of frogs sometimes abound in such accumulations.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 127 
 
 collect every ray of light, and large concave ears to command 
 the smallest degree of sound or noise. 
 
 I am, etc. 
 
 It will be proper to premise here that the sixteenth, eighteenth, twentieth and 
 twenty-first letters have been published already in the Philosophical Transactions : 
 but as nicer observation has furnished several corrections and additions, it is hoped 
 that the republication of them will not give offence ; especially as these sheets would 
 be very imperfect without them, and as they will be new to many readers who had 
 no opportunity of seeing them when they made their first appearance. 
 
 The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, 
 social, and useful tribe of birds : they touch no fruit in our gardens ; 
 delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to our 
 houses ; amuse us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous 
 agility ; and clear our outlets from the annoyances of gnats and 
 other troublesome insects. Some districts in the south seas, near 
 Guiaquil, 1 are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of 
 venomous mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those coasts 
 insupportable. It would be worth inquiring whether any species 
 of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates 
 the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer 
 evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degree 
 our atmosphere would be choaked with them was it not for the 
 friendly interposition of the swallow tribe. 
 
 Many species of birds have their peculiar lice; but the 
 hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with dipterous insects, 2 
 which infest every species, and are so large, in proportion to 
 themselves, that they must be extremely irksome and injurious 
 to them. These are the hippoboscce hirundinis, with narrow 
 subulated wings, abounding in every nest ; and are hatched by 
 the warmth of the bird's own body during incubation, and crawl 
 about under its feathers. 
 
 A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of 
 England under the name of forest-fly ; 3 and to some of side-fly , 
 from it's running sideways like a crab. It creeps under the 
 tails, and about the groins, of horses, which, at their first coming 
 out of the north, are rendered half frantic by the tickling sen- 
 sation ; while our own breed little regards them. 
 
 1 See Ulloa's Travels. 
 
 2 [Dipterous insects infest various other birds, each as a rule frequenting one 
 particular host ; others are parasitic upon quadrupeds (sheep, horse, deer, bats) ; 
 or upon bees.] 
 
 3 \jHippobosca equina, L.] 
 
128 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or rather 
 pupce, of these flies as big as the flies themselves, which he 
 hatched in his own bosom. Any person that will take the 
 trouble to examine the old nests of either species of swallows 
 may find in them the black shining cases or skins of the pupce 
 of these insects : but for other particulars, too long for this 
 place, we refer the reader to I'Histoire d' Insectes of that admir- 
 able entomologist. Tom. iv. pi. II. 1 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 20, 1773. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IN obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some 
 account of the house-martin, or martlet ; and, if my monography 
 of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen to meet 
 with your approbation, I may probably soon extend my enquiries 
 to the rest of the British hirundines the swallow, the swift, and 
 the bank-martin. 
 
 A few house-martins begin to appear about the sixteenth of 
 April ; usually some few days later than the swallow. For some 
 time after they appear the hirundines in general pay no attention 
 to the business of nidification, but play and sport about, either to 
 recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate at 
 all, or else that their blood may recover it's true tone and texture 
 after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. 
 About the middle of May, if the weather be fine, the martin 
 begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for it's family. 
 The crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed of such dirt 
 or loam as comes most readily to hand, and is tempered and 
 wrought together with little bits of broken straws to render it 
 tough and tenacious. As this bird often builds against a per- 
 pendicular wall without any projecting ledge under, it requires 
 it's utmost efforts to get the first foundation firmly fixed, so that 
 it may safely carry the superstructure. On this occasion the 
 bird not only clings with it's claws, but partly supports itself by 
 
 1 \Mtmoires pour servir d I'Histoire des Insectes, par M. de Rtaumur. Paris : 
 6 vols., 410, 1734-42.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 129 
 
 strongly inclining it's tail against the wall, making that a fulcrum ; 
 and thus steadied it works and plasters the materials into the 
 face of the brick or stone. But then, that this work may not, 
 while it is soft and green, pull itself down by it's own weight, 
 the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough 
 not to advance her work too fast ; but by building only in the 
 morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and 
 amusement, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About 
 half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus 
 careful workmen when they build mud-walls (informed at first 
 perhaps by this little bird) raise but a moderate layer at a time, 
 and then desist ; lest the work should become top-heavy, and so 
 be ruined by it's own weight. By this method in about ten or 
 twelve days is formed an hemispheric nest with a small aperture 
 towards the top, strong, compact, and warm ; and perfectly fitted 
 for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing 
 is more common than for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell 
 is finished, to seize on it as it's own, to eject the owner, and to 
 line it after it's own manner. 
 
 After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as 
 Nature seldom works in vain, martins will breed on for several 
 years together in the same nest, where it happens to be well 
 sheltered and secure from the injuries of weather. The shell or 
 crust of the nest is a sort of rustic-work full of knobs and pro- 
 tuberances on the outside : nor is the inside of those that I have 
 examined smoothed with any exactness at all ; but is rendered 
 soft and warm, and fit for incubation, by a lining of small straws, 
 grasses, and feathers ; and sometimes by a bed of moss inter- 
 woven with wool. In this nest they tread, or engender, frequently 
 during the time of building ; and the hen lays from three to five 
 white eggs. 
 
 At first when the young are hatched, and are in a naked and 
 helpless condition, the parent birds, with tender assiduity, carry 
 out what comes away from their young. Was it not for this 
 affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, 
 and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic 
 excrement. In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution 
 is made use of ; particularly among dogs and cats, where the 
 dams lick away what proceeds from their young. But in birds 
 there seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of 
 nestlings is enveloped into a tough kind of jelly, and therefore 
 is the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet, as 
 9 
 
130 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 nature is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this office 
 for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails out at the 
 aperture of their nest. As the young of small birds presently 
 arrive at their fjXiKta, or full growth, they soon become im- 
 patient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at 
 the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nests, supply 
 them with food from morning to night. For a time the young 
 are fed on the wing by their parents ; but the feat is done by so 
 quick and almost imperceptible a slight, that a person must 
 have attended very exactly to their motions before he would 
 be able to perceive it. As soon as the young are able to shift 
 for themselves, the dams immediately turn their thoughts to 
 the business of a second brood : while the first flight, shaken off 
 and rejected by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and are 
 the birds that are seen clustering and hovering on sunny morn- 
 ings and evenings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs 
 of churches and houses. These congregatings usually begin to 
 take place about the first week in August; and therefore we 
 may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well 
 over. The young of this species do not quit their abodes all 
 together ; but the more forward birds get abroad some days 
 before the rest. These approaching the eaves of buildings, and 
 playing about before them, make people think that several old 
 ones attend one nest. They are often capricious in fixing on 
 a nesting-place, beginning many edifices, and leaving them 
 unfinished ; but when once a nest is completed in a sheltered 
 place, it serves for several seasons. Those which breed in a 
 ready finished house get the start in hatching of those that 
 build new by ten days or a fortnight. These industrious 
 artificers are at their labours in the long days before four in 
 the morning : when they fix their materials they plaster them 
 on with their chins, moving their heads with a quick vibratory 
 motion. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hot 
 weather, but not so frequently as swallows. It has been observed 
 that martins usually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, 
 that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests : 
 but instances are also remembered where they bred for many 
 years in vast abundance in an hot stifled inn-yard, against a wall 
 facing to the south. 
 
 Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation : but in 
 this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the 
 contrary at an house without eaves in an exposed district, where 
 
OF SELBOENE 131 
 
 some martins build year by year in the corners of the windows. 
 But, as the corners of these windows (which face to the south- 
 east and south-west) are too shallow, the nests are washed down 
 every hard rain ; and yet these birds drudge on to no purpose 
 from summer to summer, without changing their aspect or house. 
 It is a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest 
 
 is washed away and bringing dirt "generis lapsi sarcire 
 
 minus". 1 Thus is instinct a most wonderful unequal faculty; 
 in some instances so much above reason, in other respects so far 
 below it ! Martins love to frequent towns, especially if there are 
 great lakes and rivers at hand ; nay they even affect the close air 
 of London. And I have not only seen them nesting in the 
 Borough, but even in the Strand and Fleet-street ; but then 
 it was obvious from the dinginess of their aspect that their 
 feathers partook of the filth of that sooty atmosphere. Martins 
 are by far the least agile of the four species ; their wings and 
 tails are short, and therefore they are not capable of such 
 surprising turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow. 
 Accordingly they make use of a placid easy motion in a middle 
 region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and 
 never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground 
 or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect sheltered 
 districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in 
 some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They breed the 
 latest of all the swallow kind: in 1772 they had nestlings on to 
 October the twenty-first, and are never without unfledged young 
 as late as Michaelmas. 
 
 As the summer declines the congregating flocks increase in 
 numbers daily by the constant accession of the second broods : 
 till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the 
 villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they 
 frequent the aits of that river, where they roost They retire, 
 the bulk of them I mean, in vast flocks together about the 
 beginning of October : but have appeared of late years in a 
 considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, 
 as late as November the third and sixth, after they were supposed 
 to have been gone for more than a fortnight. They therefore 
 withdraw with us the latest of any species. Unless these birds 
 are very short-lived indeed, or unless they do not return to the 
 district where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations 
 
 1 [Virg., Georg., iv., 249.] 
 
132 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 some how, and some where ; for the birds that return yearly bear 
 no manner of proportion to the birds that retire. 
 
 House-martins are distinguished from their congeners by 
 having their legs covered with soft downy feathers down to their 
 toes. They are no songsters ; but twitter in a pretty inward soft 
 manner in their nests. During the time of breeding they are 
 often greatly molested with fleas. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Ringmer, near Lewes, Dec. 9, 1773. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I RECEIVED your last favour just as I was setting out for this 
 place ; and am pleased to find that my monography met with 
 your approbation. My remarks are the result of many years 
 observation ; and are, I trust, true in the whole : though I do 
 not pretend to say that they are perfectly void of mistake, or 
 that a more nice observer might not make many additions, since 
 subjects of this kind are inexhaustible. 
 
 If you think my letter worthy the notice of your respectable 
 society, you are at liberty to lay it before them ; and they will 
 consider it, I hope, as it was intended, as an humble attempt to 
 promote a more minute inquiry into natural history ; into the 
 life and conversation of animals. Perhaps hereafter I may be 
 induced to take the house-swallow under consideration ; and 
 from that proceed to the rest of the British hirundines. 
 
 Though I have now travelled the Sussex-downs upwards of 
 thirty years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic moun- 
 tains with fresh admiration year by year ; and think I see new 
 beauties every time I traverse it. This range, which runs from 
 Chichester eastward as far as East-Bourn, is about sixty miles in 
 length, and is called The South Downs, properly speaking, only 
 round Lewes. As you pass along you command a noble view 
 of the wild, or weald, on one hand, and the broad downs and sea 
 on the other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family l just at the foot of 
 these hills, and was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton- 
 
 1 Mr. Courthope of Danny. 
 
OF SELBOKNE 133 
 
 plain near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes in his " Wisdom 
 of God in the Works of the Creation " with the utmost satisfac- 
 tion, and thinks them equal to any thing he had seen in the 
 finest parts of Europe. 
 
 For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet 
 and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk-hills in pre- 
 ference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and 
 shapeless. 
 
 Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as 
 to convey to you the same idea ; but I never contemplate these 
 mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to 
 growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like pro- 
 tuberances, their fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes, 
 that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatation and expansion 
 
 Or was there ever a time when these immense masses 
 
 of calcarious matter were thrown into fermentation by some 
 adventitious moisture ; were raised and leavened into such shapes 
 by some plastic power ; and so made to swell and heave their 
 broad backs into the sky so much above the less animated clay 
 of the wild below ? 1 
 
 By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the hills 
 that have been taken round my house, I should suppose that 
 these hills surmount the wild at an average at about the rate 
 of five hundred feet. 
 
 One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from the 
 westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks have horns, 
 and smooth white faces, and white legs ; and a hornless sheep 
 is rarely to be seen : but as soon as you pass that river eastward, 
 and mount feeding-hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, 
 or, as they call them, poll-sheep ; and have moreover black 
 faces with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, and speckled 
 and spotted legs : so that you would think that the flocks of 
 Laban were pasturing on one side of the stream, and the varie- 
 gated breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the 
 other. And this diversity holds good respectively on each side 
 from the valley of Bramber and Seeding to the eastward, and 
 westward all the whole length of the downs. If you talk with 
 the shepherds on this subject, they tell you that the case has 
 
 1 [ Wild (see above) = weald. White had no suspicion that these Sussex downs 
 might have been shaped by denudation.] 
 
134 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 been so from time immemorial : and smile at your simplicity if 
 you ask them whether the situation of these two different breeds 
 might not be reversed ? However, an intelligent friend of mine 
 near Chichester is determined to try the experiment ; and has 
 this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, introduced a 
 parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned western 
 ewes. The black-faced poll-sheep have the shortest legs and 
 the finest wool. 
 
 As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late 
 a season of the year, I was determined to keep as sharp a look- 
 out as possible so near the southern coast, with respect to the 
 summer short-winged birds of passage. We make great inquiries 
 concerning the withdrawing of the swallow kind, without ex- 
 amining enough into the causes why this tribe is never to be seen 
 in winter : for, entre nous, the disappearing of the latter is more 
 marvellous than that of the former, and much more unaccountable. 
 The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of migration ; 
 and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state : but redstarts, 
 nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, &c., &c., are very ill pro- 
 vided for long flights ; have never been once found, as I ever 
 heard of, in a torpid state, and yet can never be supposed, in 
 such troops, from year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the 
 curious and inquisitive, which from day to day discern the other 
 small birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwith- 
 standing all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of 
 passage : l and, what is more strange, not one wheat-ear, though 
 they abound so in the autumn as to be a considerable perquisite to 
 the shepherds that take them ; and though many are to be seen 
 to my knowledge all the winter through in many parts of the 
 south of England. The most intelligent shepherds tell me that 
 some few of these birds appear on the downs in March, and then 
 withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone-quarries : now 
 and then a nest is plowed up in a fallow on the downs under a 
 furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time of wheat-harvest 
 they begin to be taken in great numbers ; are sent for sale in 
 vast quantities to Brighthelmstone and Tunbridge ; and appear at 
 
 1 [White dates this letter December 9, but does not tell us the day on which he 
 rode along the downs. If it was in December, the absence of the summer migrants 
 is of course natural. For the wheatear, see note on Letter XXXIX. to Pennant ; 
 the statement below, at the end of this paragraph, that they are not taken west of 
 the Arun, if it means that they are not found, is of course erroneous. Wheatears 
 are common all along the south coast.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 135 
 
 the tables of all the gentry that entertain with any degree of 
 elegance. About Michaelmas they retire and are seen no more 
 till March. Though these birds are, when in season, in great 
 plenty on the south downs round Lewes, yet at East-Bourn, 
 which is the eastern extremity of those downs, they abound 
 much more. One thing is very remarkable that though in 
 the height of the season so many hundreds of dozens are taken, 
 yet they never are seen to flock ; and it is a rare thing to see 
 more than three or four at a time : so that there must be a 
 perpetual flitting and constant progressive succession. It does 
 not appear that any wheat- ears are taken to the westward of 
 Houghton-bridge, which stands on the river Arun. 
 
 I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of 
 ring-ousels ; and to take notice whether they continued on the 
 downs to this season of the year ; as I had formerly remarked 
 them in the month of October all the way from Chichester to 
 Lewes wherever there were any shrubs and covert : but not one 
 bird of this sort came within my observation. I only saw a 
 few larks and whin-chats, some rooks, and several kites and 
 buzzards. 
 
 About Midsummer a flight of cross-bills comes to the pine-groves 
 about this house, 1 but never makes any long stay. 
 
 The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former letter, 
 still continues in this garden ; and retired under ground about 
 the twentieth of November, and came out again for one day on 
 the thirtieth : it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under 
 a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud 
 and mire ! 
 
 Here is a large rookery round this house, the inhabitants of 
 which seem to get their livelihood very easily ; for they spend 
 the greatest part of the day on their nest-trees when the weather 
 is mild. These rooks retire every evening all the winter from 
 this rookery, where they only call by the way, as they are going 
 to roost in deep woods : at the dawn of day they always revisit 
 their nest-trees, and are preceded a few minutes by a flight of 
 daws, that act, as it were, as their harbingers. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 [It is to be noted that White dates this letter from Ringmer in Sussex, not 
 from Selborne.j 
 
136 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 29, 1774. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the 
 first comer of all the British hirundines ; and appears in general 
 on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have remarked from 
 many years observation. Not but now and then a straggler is 
 seen much earlier : and, in particular, when I was a boy I 
 observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm 
 Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the 
 middle of March, and often happened early in February. 
 
 It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about 
 lakes and mill-ponds ; and it is also very particular, that if these 
 early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of 
 the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immediately 
 withdraw for a time. A circumstance this much more in favour 
 of hiding than migration ; since it is much more probable that a 
 bird should retire to it's hybernaculum just at hand, than return 
 for a week or two only to warmer latitudes. 
 
 The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means 
 builds together in chimnies, but often within barns and out- 
 houses against the rafters ; and so she did in Virgil's time : 
 
 " Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo." 1 
 
 In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu srvala, the 
 barn- swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are 
 no chimnies to houses, except they are English-built : in these 
 countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gate-ways, and 
 galleries, and open halls. 
 
 Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place ; as 
 we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, 
 through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the 
 purpose of manure : but in general with us this hirundo breeds 
 in chimnies ; and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a 
 constant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can 
 
 irg., Georg. t iv., 307.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 137 
 
 subsist in the immediate shaft where there is a fire ; but prefers 
 one adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual 
 smoke of that funnel, as I have often observed with some degree 
 of wonder. 
 
 Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little 
 bird begin to form her nest about the middle of May, which 
 consists, like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed 
 of dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw to render it 
 tough and permanent ; with this difference, that whereas the 
 shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is 
 open at the top, and like half a deep dish : this nest is lined 
 with fine grasses, and feathers which are often collected as they 
 float in the air. 
 
 Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shews all day 
 long in ascending and descending with security through so narrow 
 a pass. When hovering over the mouth of the funnel, the vibra- 
 tions of her wings acting on the confined air occasion a rumbling 
 like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam submits to this 
 inconvenient situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her 
 broods from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which 
 frequently fall down chimnies, perhaps in attempting to get at 
 these nestlings. 
 
 The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with 
 red specks ; and brings out her first brood about the last week in 
 June, or the first week in July. The progressive method by 
 which the young are introduced into life is very amusing : first, 
 they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall 
 down into the rooms below : for a day or so they are fed on the 
 chimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough 
 of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with 
 great assiduity, and may then be called perchers. In a day or 
 two more they become flyers, but are still unable to take their 
 own food ; therefore they play about near the place where the 
 dams are hawking for flies ; and, when a mouthful is collected, 
 at a certain signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, 
 rising towards each other, and meeting at an angle ; the young 
 one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and 
 complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard to 
 the wonders of Nature that has not often remarked this feat. 
 
 The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a second 
 brood as soon as she is disengaged from her first ; which at once 
 associates with the first broods of house-martins ; and with them 
 
138 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers, and trees. This 
 hirundo brings out her second brood towards the middle and end 
 of August. 
 
 All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive pattern 
 of unwearied industry and affection ; for, from morning to night, 
 while there is a family to be supported, she spends the whole day 
 in skimming close to the ground, and exerting the most sudden 
 turns and quick evolutions. Avenues, and long walks under 
 hedges, and pasture-fields, and mown meadows where cattle graze, 
 are her delight, especially if there are trees interspersed ; because 
 in such spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken a smart 
 snap from her bill is heard, resembling the noise at the shutting 
 of a watch-case ; but the motion of the mandibles are too quick 
 for the eye. 
 
 The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to house- 
 martins, and other little birds, announcing the approach of birds 
 of prey. For as soon as an hawk appears, with a shrill alarming 
 note he calls all the swallows and martins about him ; who pursue 
 in a body, and buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven 
 him from the village, darting down from above on his back, and 
 rising in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird also 
 will sound the alarm, and strike at cats when they climb on the 
 roofs of houses, or otherwise approach the nests. Each species of 
 hirundo drinks as it flies along, sipping the surface of the water ; 
 but the swallow alone, in general, washes on the wing, by dropping 
 into a pool for many times together : in very hot weather house- 
 martins and bank-martins dip and wash a little. 
 
 The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny weather 
 sings both perching and flying ; on trees in a kind of concert, and 
 on chimney tops : is also a bold flyer, ranging to distant downs 
 and commons even in windy weather, which the other species 
 seem much to dislike ; nay, even frequenting exposed sea-port 
 towns, and making little excursions over the salt water. Horse- 
 men on wide downs are often closely attended by a little party of 
 swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind them, 
 sweeping around, and collecting all the sculking insects that are 
 roused by the trampling of the horses' feet : when the wind blows 
 hard, without this expedient, they are often forced to settle to 
 pick up their lurking prey. 
 
 This species feeds much on little coleoptera, as well as on gnats 
 and flies ; and often settles on dug ground, or paths, for gravels 
 to grind and digest it's food. Before they depart, for some weeks, 
 
OF SELBORNE 139 
 
 to a bird, they forsake houses and chimnies, and roost in trees ; 
 and usually withdraw about the beginning of October ; though 
 some few stragglers may appear on at times till the first week in 
 November. 
 
 Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of L&nd<m next 
 the fields, but do not enter, like the house-martin, the close and 
 crowded parts of the city. 
 
 Both male and female are distinguished from their congeners 
 by the length and forkedness of their tails. They are undoubtedly 
 the most nimble of all the species : and when the male pursues 
 the female in amorous chase, they then go beyond their usual 
 speed, and exert a rapidity almost too quick for the eye to follow. 
 
 After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning <rropyrj 
 of the swallow, I shall add, for your farther amusement, an anec- 
 dote or two not much in favour of her sagacity : 
 
 A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles 
 of a pair of garden-shears, that were stuck up against the boards 
 in an out-house, and therefore must have her nest spoiled when- 
 ever that implement was wanted : and, what is stranger still, 
 another bird of the same species built it's nest on the wings and 
 body of an owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry 
 from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on it's wings, 
 and with eggs in the nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy the 
 most elegant private museum in Great-Britain. The owner, struck 
 with the oddity of the sight, furnished the bringer with a large 
 shell, or conch, desiring him to fix it just where the owl hung : 
 the person did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, 
 probably the same pair, built their nest in the conch, and laid 
 their eggs. 
 
 The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque appearance, 
 and are not the least curious specimens in that wonderful collec- 
 tion of art and nature. 1 
 
 Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of it's way, an 
 undistinguishing, limited faculty ; and blind to every circumstance 
 that does not immediately respect self-preservation, or lead at 
 once to the propagation or support of their species. 
 
 I am, 
 With all respect, &c. &c. 
 
 1 Sir Ashton Lever's Musaeum. 
 
140 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I RECEIVED your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to find 
 that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual 
 candour : nor was I the less pleased to find that you made 
 objections where you saw reason. 
 
 As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which 
 species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, 
 since the ancients did not attend to specific differences like 
 modern naturalists : yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to 
 incline me to suppose that in the two passages quoted the poet 
 had his eye on the swallow. 
 
 In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, 
 who is a great songster ; and not the martin, which is rather a 
 mute bird ; and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. 
 Besides, if lignum in that place signifies a rafter rather than a 
 beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it must be the 
 swallow that is alluded to, and not the martin ; since the former 
 does frequently build within the roof against the rafters ; while 
 the latter always, as far as I have been able to observe, builds 
 without the roof against eaves and cornices. 
 
 As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it : yet 
 the epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose 
 back and wings are very black ; while the rump of the martin is 
 milk-white, it's back and wings blue, and all it's under part 
 white as snow. Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively 
 clumsy) of the martin well represent the sudden and artful 
 evolutions and quick turns which Juturna gave to her brother's 
 chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit of the enraged JEneas. 
 The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat 
 loquacious. 1 
 
 i ' Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes 
 ' ' Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, 
 " Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 
 " Et nunc porticibus vacuis, mine humida circum 
 " Stagna sonat, ." * 
 
 *[,-*., xii., 473-477-] 
 
OF SELBORNE 141 
 
 We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to raise the 
 springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 1764; which was a 
 remarkable year for floods and high waters. The land-springs, 
 which we call lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex, 
 Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say when the 
 lavants rise corn will always be dear ; meaning that when the 
 earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the 
 downs and uplands, that the corn-vales must be drowned : and 
 so it has proved for these ten or eleven years past. For land- 
 springs have never obtained more since the memory of man than 
 during that period ; nor has there been known a greater scarcity 
 of all sorts of grain, considering the great improvements of 
 modern husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two 
 ago would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore 
 pamphlets and newspaper letters, that talk of combinations, tend 
 to inflame and mislead ; since we must not expect plenty till 
 Providence sends us more favourable seasons. 
 
 The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the 
 county of Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad : and 
 our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes 
 from fierce frosts to pouring rains, looks poorly ; and the turnips 
 rot very fast. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 26, 1774. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least of any of 
 the British hirundines ; and, as far as we have ever seen, the 
 smallest known hirundo : though Brisson asserts that there is one 
 much smaller, and that is the hirundo esculenta. 
 
 But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any 
 observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the 
 circumstances attending the life and conversation of this little 
 bird, since it is fera naturd, at least in this part of the kingdom, 
 disclaiming all domestic attachments, and haunting wild heaths 
 and commons where there are large lakes : while the other 
 species, especially the swallow and house-martin, are remarkably 
 
142 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 gentle and domesticated, and never seem to think themselves 
 safe but under the protection of man. 
 
 Here are in this parish, in the sand-pits and banks of the 
 lakes of Wolmer-forest, several colonies of these birds ; and yet 
 they are never seen in the village ; nor do they at all frequent 
 the cottages that are scattered about in that wild district. The 
 only instance I ever remember where this species haunts any 
 building is at the town of Bishop's Waltham, in this county, 
 where many sand-martins nestle and breed in the scaffold-holes 
 of the back-wall of William of Wykeham's stables : but then this 
 wall stands in a very sequestered and retired enclosure, and 
 faces upon a large and beautiful lake. And indeed this species 
 seems so to delight in large waters, that no instance occurs of 
 their 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 archi- 
 tectonic 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. 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 inartificially laid together. 
 
 Perseverance will accomplish anything : 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 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 obser- 
 vation, 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 
 
OF SELBORNE 143 
 
 imagine that these beginnings were intentionally made in order 
 to be in the greater forwardness for next spring, is allowing 
 perhaps too much foresight and rerum prudentia to a simple bird. 
 Mav not the cause of these latebrce being left unfinished arise 
 from their 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 mouldering, liable 
 to flounder, 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 untenantable. This 
 species of swallow moreover is strangely annoyed with fleas : and 
 we have seen fleas, bed-fleas (pulex irntans), swarming at the 
 mouths of these holes, like bees on the stools of their hives. 1 
 
 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 cri/ptogame, carrying on the business of nidifica- 
 tion, incubation, and the support of it's 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 somewhat 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 libellulce (dragon-flies) almost as long as them- 
 selves. 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 
 
 1 [The flea of the sand-martin is distinct, not only from the bed-flea, but from 
 the flea of the swallow. ] 
 
144 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 congre- 
 gating with their congeners in the autumn. Undoubtedly they 
 breed a second time, like the house -martin and swallow ; and 
 withdraw about Michaelmas. 
 
 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 parti- 
 cular genus of insects affords the principal food of each respective 
 species of swallow. 
 
 Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few 
 sand-martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, frequenting the 
 dirty pools in Saint George s- Fields, and about White -Chapel. 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 sometimes, like the house -mart in and swallow. 
 
 Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminutiveness 
 of their size, and in their colour, which is what is usually 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 de Montagna. 
 
OF SELBORNE 145 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British hirundines, 1 
 so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one 
 instance of it's 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 architecture, 
 making no crust, or shell, for it's 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 remember- 
 ing 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 materials in their mouths. 2 
 
 Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidification 
 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 ninth of June. 
 In general they haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and 
 breed only in such : yet in this village some pairs frequent the 
 lowest and meanest cottages, and educate their young under those 
 
 1 [The swift (Cypselus apus, L.) is now included with the woodpeckers, bee-eaters, 
 etc. , in the order Picaria, and is removed far away from the Hirundinidce. White 
 notes in this letter several of the points of difference between the two European 
 swifts and the Hirundinidce^ which they superficially resemble, and also mentions 
 Scopoli's proposal to place them in a genus by themselves ; but he naturally accented 
 the Linnean classification. He never interfered in matters which demanded a wider 
 knowledge than his own.] 
 
 2 [His brother, John White, then chaplain at Gibraltar.] 
 
 10 
 
146 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 thatched roofs. We remember but one instance where they breed 
 out of buildings ; and that is in the sides of a deep chalkpit 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 
 tread, or copulate, 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 in conjunction 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 
 amorous rites, was it not enabled to indulge them in the air. If 
 any person would watch these birds of a fine morning in May, as 
 they are sailing round at a great height from the ground, he would 
 see, every now and then, one drop on the back of another, and 
 both of them sink down together for many fathoms with a loud 
 piercing shriek. This I take to be the juncture when the business 
 of generation is carrying on. 
 
 As the swift eats, drinks, collects materials for it's 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 it's congeners in laying invari- 
 ably but two eggs at a time, 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 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 alacrity, and 
 calls forth all it's powers. In hot mornings several, getting to- 
 gether in little parties, dash round the steeples and churches, 
 squeaking as they go in a very clamorous manner : these, by nice 
 
OF SELBORNE 147 
 
 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 wantonly 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 loco-motion 
 is no labour to them, who are endowed with such wonderful powers 
 of wing. Their powers seem to be in proportion to their leavers ; 
 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 phry- 
 ganecB, ephemeras, and libellulw (cadew-flies, may-flies, and dragon- 
 flies) that were just emerged out of their aurelia state. I then 
 no longer wondered that they should be so willing to stoop for a 
 prey that afforded them such plentiful and succulent nourishment. 
 
 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 thirtieth of last June I untiled the eaves of an house 1 
 where many pairs build, and found in each nest only two squab 
 naked pulli : on the eighth of July I repeated the same inquiry, 
 and found they had made very little progress towards 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 
 
 1 [His brother Henry's house at Fyfield. See Letter to John White, July 15, 1774 
 (Bell's ed., voL ii. f p. 33).] 
 
148 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 with- 
 draw, 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, and yet they return glossy again in the spring. Now, 
 if they pursue the sun 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 ? l 
 
 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 brood. 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 tenth 
 of August, and sometimes a few days sooner : and every straggler 
 invariably withdraws by the twentieth, while their congeners, all 
 of them, stay till the beginning of October ; many of them all 
 
 1 [The swift, like the swallow, moults after it leaves us. The ' ' bleaching " of the 
 feathers here alluded to, is not so much the result of the sun's heat, as of the wear 
 and tear of constant rapid flight. The edges of the feathers become worn, and lose 
 their glossy appearance.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 149 
 
 through that month, and some occasionally to the beginning of 
 \orember. This early retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since 
 that time is often the sweetest season in the year. But, what is 
 more extraordinary, 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. 1 
 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 searches, but almost 
 eludes our guesses ! 
 
 These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so never 
 congregate with their congeners. They are fearless while haunt- 
 ing 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 much infested with those pests 
 to the genus called kippoboscce hirundinis ; and often wriggle and 
 scratch themselves, 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 edgewise. 
 
 The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift 
 from all the British hirundines ; and indeed from all other known 
 birds, the hirundo inelba, or great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar, 
 excepted ; for it is so disposed as to carry " omues quatuor digitos 
 anticofi" all it's 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 em- 
 
 1 [This observation of John White, chaplain at Gibraltar, is hardly confirmed 
 by Col. Irby, who says that the majority of the swifts leave by the end of August, 
 some staying on till the middle of September (Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar, 
 p. 122).] 
 
150 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 ployed. This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and 
 under mandible, have induced a discerning l naturalist to suppose 
 that this species might constitute a genus per se. 
 
 In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower, playing 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 it's nidification. 
 
 Swifts feed on coleoptera, 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 to grind their food, as 
 swallows do, since they never settle on the ground. Young 
 ones, over-run 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 fifth of July, 177 '5, 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 a-ropyq 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 help- 
 less 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 ; and perhaps, in their 
 emigration, must traverse vast continents and oceans as distant 
 as the equator. So soon does Nature advance small birds to 
 their fjXuaa., or state of perfection ; while the progressive growth 
 of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D, 
 
OF SELBORNE 151 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 BY means of a straight cottage-chimney I had an opportunity 
 this summer of remarking, 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 Blackburn, 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 any thing for or against migration ? 
 
 A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams of 
 asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the after- 
 noon. 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. 
 
 Linnaus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum ambus, quamdiu 
 cuculus cuculat " : 2 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-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, 
 driving such birds as approach it's nest, with great fury, to a 
 
 1 Tobit, ii. 10. 
 
 2 [This curious statement of Linnaeus that hawks ' ' make a truce with small birds 
 as long as the cuckoo's voice is heard" may possibly have its origin in Aristotle, 
 who, while combating the vulgar notion that the cuckoo changes into a hawk, 
 admits that few hawks can be seen during the time when the cuckoo is singing (,7w/. 
 A nim. , Bk. vi. , p. 7). This may be explained by the spring migration of hawks north- 
 ward in the east of Europe.] 
 
152 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 distance. The Welch call it pen y llrvyn, 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 came determined to storm the nest of a 
 missel-thrush : the dams defended their mansion with great 
 vigour, and fought resolutely pro arts fy 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 comparatively 
 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 passing all day long. 1 
 
 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 intimations 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." 2 
 
 1 [Bell notes on this passage that these two species still keep up their familiarity 
 with the same spots. The ringdove builds in the grounds near the house, and the 
 missel-thrush "has its nest every year in the spot indicated in the text". (As I 
 write this note, a missel-thrush is building in an apple-tree close to my garden-walk, 
 and not twenty yards from the house.)] 
 
 2 [Paradise Lost, iii., 50.] 
 
DEAR SIR, 
 
 OF SELBORNE 153 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, June 8, 1775. 
 
 ON September the 21st, 174], being then on a visit, and intent on 
 field-diversions, I rose before daybreak : when I came into the 
 enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all 
 over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a 
 copious and heavy dew 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 
 which shewed they were considerably 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 difficult 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-donm, from the 
 
154 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 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 twinkling 
 in the sun, so as 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 cobweb-like appearances, 
 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 region 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. Ray~\ 
 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. Last 
 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 
 it's 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 mount- 
 ing, some loco-motive power without the use of wings, and to 
 move in the air faster than the air itself. 1 
 
 1 [Since White's time the curious subject of gossamer has been investigated by 
 Blackwall (Linn. Trans. , xv., and British Spiders). Dr. Lincecum's account of the 
 gossamer spider of Texas (Amer. Nat., viii.) and Darwin's Naturalist's Voyage, 
 chap, viii., may also be read with advantage. White's excellent description needs no 
 comment, except that his supposition that the filmy threads " might be entangled 
 in the rising dew" is quite impossible. His physical notions were evidently taken 
 from Hales' Statical Essays.~\ 
 
DEAR SIR, 
 
 OF SELBORNE 155 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775. 
 
 THERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation, 
 independent of sexual attachment : the congregating of gregarious 
 birds in the winter is a remarkable instance. 1 
 
 Many horses, though quiet with company, 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 discovering the utmost impatience, and endeavour- 
 ing 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 remark- 
 ably 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 in 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 a-field, 
 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; 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 lowings and 
 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 approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, 
 
 1 [See Letter XI. to Harrington. The present letter is printed in Harrington's 
 Miscellanies, p. 251.] 
 
156 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 diminutive 
 companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to con- 
 sole the vacant hours of the other : so that Milton, when he puts 
 the following sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be some- 
 what mistaken : 
 
 " Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl, 
 "So well converse, nor with the ox the ape." l 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Oct. 2, 1775. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WE have two gangs or hordes of gypsies 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 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 in- 
 telligent 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 gypsies, 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 them- 
 selves in braving the severities of winter, and in living sub dio the 
 
 1 [Paradise Lost, viii., 395.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 157 
 
 whole year round. Last September was as wet a month as ever 
 was known ; and yet during those deluges did a young gypsy-girl 
 lie-in in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, 
 with nothing over her but a piece of 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 Peking, 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 
 
 Gypsies are called in French Bohemiens ; in Italian and modern 
 Greek, Zingani. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. i, 1775. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 " Hie - - - - taedae pingues, hie plurimus ignis 
 "Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri." 2 
 
 I SHALL make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a 
 very simple piece of domestic oecoiiomy, 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 does 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 couglomeratus, 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 
 
 1 See Bell's Travels in China. 2 [Virg. , Eel , vii. , 49, 50.] 
 
158 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 may be gathered, so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to 
 autumn. It would be needless 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 
 it's 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 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 precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a 
 warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by 
 the sea-side, 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 
 will 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 an half, being minuted, burnt only three minutes short of an 
 hour : and a rush still of 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, "darkness visible" ; 
 but then the wicks of those have 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 one thousand six 
 
OF SELBOENE 159 
 
 hundred individuals. Now suppose each of these burns, one 
 with another, only half an hour, then a poor man will purchase 
 eight hundred hours of light, a time exceeding thirty-three entire 
 days, for three shillings. According to this account each rush, 
 before dipping, costs ^ of a farthing, and ^ afterwards. Thus 
 a poor family will enjoy 5j hours of comfortable light for a 
 farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that one 
 pound and an half of rushes completely supplies his family the year 
 round, since working people burn no candle in the long days, 
 because they rise and 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 oeconomists, and therefore must continue 
 very poor, buy an 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. 1 
 
 While on the subject of rural oeconomy, it may not be 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 polyiricum 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 it's 
 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 brushmakers in town, it is probable they might come 
 much in use for the purpose above-mentioned. 2 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 [White does not mention the " rush-burners" used to keep the draughts from 
 wasting the rush-lights. Dickens describes the contrivance thus : "As I had asked 
 for a night -light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good 
 old constitutional rush-light of those virtuous days an object like the ghost of a 
 walking-cane, which instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could 
 ever be lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom of a 
 high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly wide-awake pattern 
 on the walls" (Great Expectations, chap. xlv.). The pattern was a frequent cause 
 of night-fears to children a hundred years ago. A rush-burner may be seen in the 
 museum at Kew Gardens. Rush-holders of various constructions, spring clips, 
 sockets, etc., are still preserved. Some are figured in the Illustrated Archceologist, 
 September, 1894, p. 99, and in Trans. Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiq. Soc. t 
 vol. xii.] 
 
 2 A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum. 
 
160 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Dec. 12, 1775. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WE had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, 
 whom I well remember, who, from a child, shewed a strong 
 propensity to bees ; they were his food, his amusement, 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 dosed away his time, within his father's 
 house, by the fire side, 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 nudiv manibus, and at once disarm them of their 
 weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. 
 Sometimes he 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 understanding. 
 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 exhibiter of bees ; and we may justly say of him now, 
 
 Thou, 
 
 " Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 
 " Should' st Wildman^ be ." 
 
 1 [Thomas Wildman, a noted beemaster, and author of a Treatise on the 
 Management of Bees, London, 1768, 410.] 
 
OF SELBOKNE 161 
 
 When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a distant 
 village, where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at 
 manhood. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 8, 1776. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IT 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 suspected 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 superannuated 
 wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed with 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 of 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 opera- 
 tion was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with 
 loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and 
 11 
 
162 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was per- 
 formed 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. 
 
 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 pro- 
 vident fore-fathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, 
 when once medicated, would maintain it's 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 forgotten. As the ceremonies 
 necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all 
 succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in 
 the manor, or hundred. 
 
 As to that on the Plestor, 
 
 " The late vicar stubb'd and burnt it," 
 
 when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of 
 the by-standers, who interceded in vain for it's preservation, 
 urging it's power and efficacy, and alledging that it had been 
 
 " Religione patrum multos servata per annos". 2 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 For a similar practice, see Plot's Staffordshire. 
 2[Virg., ^.,i 
 
OF SELBOENE 163 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 7, 1776. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IN heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, 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 cart-way 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 habitable by condensation alone. 
 
 Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface 
 than those that are naked, that, in theory, their condensations 
 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 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 there- 
 fore condense very fast ; and besides ever-greens 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 shew them 
 how advantageous some trees are in preference to others. 
 
 Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evapora- 
 tion 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 water 
 are much diminished ; so that some streams, that were very 
 
164 THE NATUKAL HISTORY 
 
 considerable a century ago, will not now drive a common 
 mill. 1 Besides, most woodlands, forests, and chases, with us 
 abound with pools and morasses ; 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 vallies and bottoms, since the waters of so pervious a stratum 
 as chalk all lie on one dead level, as well-diggers have assured 
 me again and again. 
 
 Now we have many such little round ponds in this district ; 
 and one in particular on our sheep-down, three hundred 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 hogs- 
 heads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it 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 
 over-hung with two moderate beeches, 2 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 consumption 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 Mat/ 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 are but little affected". 
 Can this difference be accounted for from evaporation alone, 
 which certainly is more prevalent in bottoms ? or rather have not 
 those elevated pools some unnoticed recruits, which in the night 
 time counter- balance 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 
 
 1 Vide Kalnfs Travels to North- America. 
 
 2 [One of the identical beeches here referred to was, for at least fifty or sixty years, 
 leaning at a considerable angle over the pond, and has fallen prone into the water 
 only very recently. It was not a large tree ; it had become somewhat decayed, but 
 retained its leafy head until it fell uprooted. Bell.} 
 
OF SELBORNE 165 
 
 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 water 
 " than there does on an equal surface of moist earth ". Hence 
 we see that water, by it's 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 even 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 vapours, though, to the senses, all 
 the while, little moisture seems to fall. 1 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 [White's account of the dew-ponds of Hampshire and Sussex can be largely 
 confirmed by recent observations. A good modern description of such ponds is 
 to be found in a prize essay on " Water Supply," by the Rev. J. Clutterbuck (fourn. 
 Roy. Agric. Soc., 2nd ser., vol. i., 1865, pp. 271-87). He says that the tops of chalk- 
 hills, where no surface-water or springs can furnish a supply, are often chosen as 
 the sites of dew-ponds. They "are constructed by persons of experience and 
 skill. At the spot selected an excavation is made in the surface of the chalk, either 
 round or rectangular, from 30 to 40 feet or more in diameter, from 4 to 6 feet deep. 
 The bottom, of a basin shape, is covered in portions with clay carefully tempered, 
 mixed with a considerable quantity of lime to prevent the working of the earth- 
 worms. As the portions are finished they are protected from the action of the sun 
 and atmosphere by a covering of straw ; when the whole bottom of the pond is so 
 covered with an efficient and impermeable coating or puddle, a layer of broken 
 chalk is placed upon it to prevent its injury by cattle or other means. Their cost 
 varies from 30 to ^50. When all is finished, water is introduced by artificial 
 means. If there is a fall of snow, this is collected and piled up in the pond, as the 
 readiest and least expensive method of accomplishing the object. . . . Ponds so 
 constructed and filled have been known for periods of twenty or thirty years never 
 to become dry ; the summer of 1864 was a notable exception " (1887 was another). 
 
 Mr. Clutterbuck believes that dew-ponds are "not easily accounted for by re- 
 cognised physical causes". Nevertheless, an explanation may be attempted. It 
 is plain that the water in such ponds is not drawn from springs, nor from surface- 
 drainage, nor wholly from rain. Part of the supply, and probably a large part, 
 comes from the invisible moisture of the atmosphere. Moisture-laden winds, rising 
 from lower levels, become chilled by expansion, and throw down their water, either 
 in the form of clouds, such as often gather round a mountain-top, or dew. Such 
 condensation takes place on a very large scale on the Alps, where the great excess 
 of condensation over evaporation is very clearly and simply shown by the large and 
 rapid rivers which flow out of Switzerland. 
 
 Hales' view (quoted by White) that more than twice as much dew is deposited 
 upon water as upon an equal surface of moist earth cannot be accepted. He does 
 not take into account circumstances which may greatly affect the rate of cooling 
 and consequently the amount of condensation. Thus it may often be observed 
 that when a copious dew has been deposited upon the seats of an open boat, none 
 is to be seen on the bottom. Contact with a large body of insufficiently cooled 
 
166 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 TO THE SAME 
 
 Selborne, April 3, 1776. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 MONSIEUR HERISSANT, a French anatomist, seems persuaded that 
 he has discovered the reason why cuckoos do not hatch their 
 own eggs ; the impediment, he supposes, arises from the internal 
 
 water (as of a deep lake) has kept the bottom of the boat at a temperature above 
 the dew-point. 
 
 Water is so bad a conductor of heat that some difficulty may be found in under- 
 standing how a pond can cool sufficiently during a summer night to act as an 
 efficient condenser. But though water conducts heat very badly, every surface- 
 layer, as it cools by radiation, becomes denser, and sinks. Continual replacement 
 of the surface-layer by convection-currents may thus cool down the water as effec- 
 tually as if the heat were freely conducted away. A shallow pond on a hill-top 
 may in the course of a few hours become colder than the surrounding rocks and 
 earth, and act as an efficient condenser. 
 
 Dew-ponds abound in Sussex, and are not uncommon elsewhere on the chalk- 
 hills of the south-eastern counties. Buttermere pond, near Inkpen Beacon (Berk- 
 shire), at a height of considerably over 900 feet, is never dry, though it waters a 
 large flock of sheep. (T. W. Shore.) But in Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire and 
 Yorkshire few or none are to be found. The "meres" of upland farms in 
 Derbyshire have much in common with dew-ponds, but they are not characteristic 
 examples. Advantage is taken, whenever possible, of the wash from a road, and 
 of any surface-drainage, and the "meres" frequently dry up altogether. The 
 presence or absence of true dew-ponds in a particular district may depend upon the 
 distance from the sea in a north-east to a south-west line. The south-west winds, 
 which bring the chief part of our atmospheric moisture, can reach the South Downs 
 almost direct from the sea, while they can only reach the chalk-hills of the midlands 
 and the north of England after traversing a great extent of country, and crossing 
 many ranges of hills. 
 
 Mr. Clement Reid, F.R.S., of the Geological Survey, favours us with the follow- 
 ing additional information : 
 
 "The conditions that are required for a permanent dew-pond do not seem 
 generally to be understood ; failure or success appearing to be the result of chance 
 rather than of any clear comprehension of the principle on which the dew-pond 
 acts. On comparing, at the end of a long drought, the dried-up ponds with those 
 that still contain water, we find that, other things being equal, the best dew-pond 
 has the following characteristics : 
 
 "It is sheltered on the south-west side by an overhanging tree, often only a 
 stunted, ivy-covered thorn or oak, or by a bush of holly. Or else the hollow is 
 sufficiently deep for the south bank to cut off much of the sun. The depth or 
 shallowness of the water does not appear to make so great a difference as would 
 be expected. 
 
 " When one of these ponds is examined in the middle of a hot summer day it 
 would appear that the few inches of water in it could only last a week. But in 
 early morning or towards evening, or whenever a sea-mist drifts in, there is a 
 continuous drip from the smooth leaves of the overhanging tree. There appears 
 also to be a considerable amount of condensation on the surface of the water itself, 
 though roads adjoining may be quite dry and dusty. In fact, whenever dew is on 
 
OF SELBORNE 167 
 
 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 the 
 gallinae, culumbce, &c., but immediately behind it, on and over the 
 bowels, so as to make a large protuberance 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 we have 
 seen cuckoos catching on the wing as they were just emerging 
 out of the aurelia state. Among this farrago also were to be 
 seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to goose- 
 berries, 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 of 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. 
 
 the grass the dew-pond is receiving moisture, and this moisture, owing to the shade 
 of the overhanging tree, is partly preserved throughout the day, so that sheep or 
 cattle may drink daily from a small shallow pond which receives no rain, and yet 
 the pond be not exhausted unless the nights are exceptionally dry." 
 
 In "The Natural History of Isolated Ponds," a paper contributed to the 
 Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, vol. v., Mr. Reid 
 points out that isolated dew-ponds contain many forms of animal and vegetable 
 life. Human agency is not likely to be concerned, for it is rare that a vehicle, a 
 spade, or even the boots of a shepherd are brought to a dew-pond from the low 
 levels. " The sheep remain on the downs, and when taken to the lower lands to 
 fatten they do not come back again ; when transferred to lower ground during 
 severe weather they are kept as far as possible on dry spots." Among the 
 plants are enumerated species of Ranunculus, Potamogeton, Elodea, Zannichellia, 
 Juncus and Chara ; the animals include species of Limncsa and Planorbi s ; the 
 stickleback was found once. Mr. Reid believes that these species are most often 
 transported on the feet of birds. Dr. G. S. Brady, F.R.S. , finds in dew-ponds 
 "a somewhat restricted entomostracan fauna, similar in kind to that of the 
 surrounding country". Owing to the artificial, and in most cases the recent origin 
 of these isolated ponds, examination of their fauna and flora gives valuable infor- 
 mation as to the facility with which certain aquatic species can be dispersed. 
 
 Mr. T. W. Shore has observed dew-ponds near ancient British camps, and 
 believes that this method of obtaining water may have been known to the people 
 (probably of the Bronze Age) who made the camps. 
 
 A discussion on dew-ponds will be found in the Report of the British Association 
 for 1900.] 
 
 1 Histoire de I'Acadtmie Roy ale, 1752. 
 
168 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the crop 
 placed just upon the bowels, must, especially when full, be in a 
 very uneasy situation during the business of incubation ; 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 it's habit 
 and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo in it's 
 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, moths 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 intestines, 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. 
 
 We found the case to be the same with the ring-tail hawk, 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, April 29, 1776. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 ON 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, fifteen in number; the 
 shortest of which measured full seven inches, and were about 
 
OF SELBORNE 169 
 
 the size of full-grown earth-worms. This little fry issued into 
 the world with the true viper-spirit about them, shewing 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, shewing manifest tokens 
 of menace and defiance, though as yet they had no manner of 
 fangs that we 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 a lamb will push with their 
 heads before their 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. 
 
 There 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 SAME. 
 
 CASTRATION has a strange effect : it emasculates 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 beardless 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 ; tney also walk without any parade, and hover 
 chickens like hens. Barrow-hogs have also small tusks like sows. 
 Thus far it is plain that the deprivation of masculine vigour 
 
170 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 puts a stop to the growth of those parts or appendages that 
 are looked upon as it's insignia. But the ingenious Mr. Ilisle, 
 in his book on husbandry, carries it much farther ; for he says 
 that the loss of those insignia alone has sometimes a strange 
 effect on the ability itself : he had a boar so fierce and venereous, 
 that, to prevent mischief, orders were given 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 SAME. 
 
 THE natural term of an hog's life is little known, and the reason 
 is plain because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep 
 that turbulent animal to the full extent of it's time : however, 
 my neighbour, a man of substance, who had 110 occasion to study 
 every little advantage to a nicety, kept an half bred Bantam-sow, 
 who was as thick as she was long, and whose belly swept on the 
 ground till she was advanced to her seventeenth year ; at which 
 period she shewed some tokens of age by the decay of her teeth 
 and the decline of her fertility. 
 
 For about ten 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 number of pigs to 
 that of teats many died. From long experience 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 inter- 
 vening 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 ex- 
 hibited 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 three hundred pigs : a prodigious instance 
 of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was killed in spring 
 1775. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
OF SELBORNE 171 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May 9, 1776. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 " admorunt ubera tigres." 
 
 WE 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 recount 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 sitting in his garden in the 
 dusk of the evening, he observed his cat, with tail erect, trotting 
 towards him, and calling with little short inward notes of com- 
 placency, such as they use towards their kittens, and something 
 gamboling after, which proved to be the leveret that the cat 
 had supported with her milk, and continued to support with 
 great affection. 
 
 Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivorous 
 and predaceous one ! 
 
 Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the ferocious 
 genus of Feles, the murium leo, as Uuuunu calls it, should be 
 affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is it's 
 natural prey, is not so easy to determine. 
 
 This strange affection probably was occasioned by that desi- 
 derium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss of her 
 kittens had awakened in her breast ; and by the complacency 
 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 become as much delighted with this foundling as if it 
 had been her real offspring. 
 
 This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance 
 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 
 
172 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 bloody grimalkin. 
 
 " viridi foetam Mavortis in antro 
 
 ' ' Procubuisse lupam : gerninos huic ubera circum 
 " Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 
 " Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 
 " Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." l 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May 20, 1770. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 LANDS that are subject to frequent inundations are always poor ; 
 and probably the reason 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 oeconomy 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. Earth-worms, 
 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 the 
 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. Gardeners 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 ; 
 
 n., viii., 630-34.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 173 
 
 and consequently steril : and besides, in favour of worms, it should 
 be hinted that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much 
 injured by them as by many species of coleoptera (scarabs), and 
 tipulci' (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. 1 
 
 These hints we think proper to th/ow out in order to set the 
 inquisitive and discerning to work. 2 
 
 A good monography of worms would afford much entertain- 
 ment 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 grass-plots with a candle ; 
 are hermaphrodites, and much addicted to venery, and conse- 
 quently very prolific. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 3 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Nov. 22, 1777. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 You cannot but remember that the twenty-sixth and twenty- 
 seventh of last March were very hot days so sultry that every- 
 body complained and were restless under those sensations to 
 which they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches. 
 
 This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer 
 coincidences ; for on those two days the thermometer rose to 
 sixty-six in the shade ; many species of insects revived and came 
 forth ; some bees swarmed in this neighbourhood ; the old tor- 
 toise, near Lewes, in Sussex, awakened and came forth out of it's 
 
 1 Farmer Young, of Norton-farm, says that this spring (1777) about four acres 
 of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, which swarmed on the 
 blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. 
 
 2 [It is now only necessary to refer the reader to Darwin's paper ' ' On the 
 Formation of Mould" (Geol. Trans., 2nd series, vol. v., p. 505), and his book on 
 The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of Worms (1881). Darwin 
 only quotes this anticipatory letter in a cursory way, and seems hardly aware of its 
 importance.] 
 
 3 [This letter is printed in Barrington's Miscellanies, p. 225.] 
 
174 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 tenth 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 matters would conclude 
 that they had taken their last farewell : but then it may be seen 
 in my diaries also that considerable flocks have discovered them- 
 selves 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 enterprize of moment at all agitated their spirits. 1 
 And this was the case in the beginning of this very month ; for, 
 on the fourth of November, more than twenty house-martins, which, 
 in appearance, had all departed about the seventh of October, 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 fourth was dark and mild, and soft, the wind at south- 
 west, and the thermometer at 58'i ; 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 
 flitting out in every autumnal and winter-month. 2 
 
 From all these circumstances laid together, it is obvious that 
 torpid insects, reptiles } and quadrupeds, are awakened from their 
 profoundest 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 suppose that two whole 
 species, or at least many individuals of those two species, of British 
 
 1 [This description well suits the swallow kind on their autumnal migration, which 
 is always leisurely. It needs an attentive observer to discover that they are actually 
 travelling, so much do they seem to dally on the way. White had apparently never 
 seen them thus travelling in sufficient numbers to attract his attention ; hence the 
 erroneous conclusion in the last paragraph of this letter. See Introduction, p. xxxv.] 
 
 2 [I have seen the Pipistrelle, the commonest of our bats, flying in every month 
 in the year ; and whenever gnats are tempted to come forth, the bat is sure to 
 follow for a meal. Bell.} 
 
OF SELBORNE 175 
 
 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THERE 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 or 
 feet were able to perform their functions ; so that the poor object 
 was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languish- 
 ing 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 burden 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 account 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 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 havock among man- 
 kind. 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 Levitical 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. 
 
 1 See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xiv. 
 
176 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 South- 
 rvark, 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 an humane and think- 
 ing 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, naturally enquire 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 enclosures, 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 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 third 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 fattest meats are killed in the winter ; and no man 
 need 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 neat- 
 
 1 Viz. six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred muttons. 
 
OF SELBORNE 177 
 
 ness comparatively modern ; but must prove a great means of 
 preventing cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen instead of 
 linen prevails among the poorer Welch, 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 correct- 
 ing their juices ; for the 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 person 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 fortunes. 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 despised for their sordid parsimony, and looked upon as 
 regardless of the welfare of their dependants. 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 sprout-cale ; but, long 
 after their days, the cultivation of gardens was little attended to. 
 The religious, being men of leisure, and keeping 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 abbies l and priories. 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 horticulture 
 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 
 
 1 " In monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however dim 1 /. 
 " In them men of business were formed for the state : the art of writing was culti- 
 " vated by the monks ; they were the only proficients in mechanics, gardening, and 
 " architecture." See Dalrymples Annals of Scotland. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 science of ornamenting without despising 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 England, 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 pepper". And farther he 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 " Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido, 
 " Dixerat, ecquis adest? et, adest, responderat echo. 
 " Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes di visit in omnes ; 
 " Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat ilia vocantem." * 
 
 Selborne, Feb. 12, 1778. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IN 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 : but we were still at a loss for a poiy- 
 syllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had parted 
 from his company 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 finding his 
 respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned the 
 deception. 
 
 This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease, would repeat 
 
 ^Ov., Met.,i\\. t 379-80.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 179 
 
 ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially 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 midnight, 
 when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one or 
 two syllables more might have been obtained ; but the distance 
 rendered so late an experiment very inconvenient. 
 
 Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when we 
 came to try it's 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. Buildings, or naked rocks, 
 re-echo much more articulately than hanging wood or vales ; 
 because in the latter the voice is as it were entangled, and em- 
 barrassed in the covert, and weakened in the rebound. 
 
 The true object of this echo, as we found by various experiments, 
 is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gally-lane, which measures 
 in front 40 feet, and from the ground to the eaves 12 feet. The 
 true centrum phonicum, or just distance, is one particular spot in 
 the Kings-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 distance ; but the path, by meer 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 exactness, 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 syllable 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 75 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 after- 
 
180 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 wards, that some latitude must be admitted of in the distance of 
 echoes according to time and place. 
 
 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 it's 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. 1 
 
 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 philosophical or mathematical 
 inquiries. 
 
 One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertaining, 
 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 removed from their bee-gardens, 
 he adds 
 
 " aut ubi concava pulsu 
 
 "Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago." 2 
 
 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. 3 But if it should be urged, that though they cannot hear 
 yet perhaps they may feel the repercussions 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 
 
 1 [Tyndall's experiments have shown that there is no connection between a clear 
 atmosphere and ready transmission of sound. Rain, hail, snow and fog have no 
 power to obstruct sound, but " acoustic clouds," due to differences of heat or water- 
 vapour, may render days of extraordinary optical transparency days of equally 
 extraordinary acoustic opacity. (Lectures on Sound ; Lecture VII.).] 
 
 ^[Georgics, iv., 19.] 
 
 3 [It is now known that certain insects possess elaborate organs of hearing. 
 The experimental proof that they are really concerned with the perception of sound 
 is particularly clear in the case of the male gnat, where the organ is lodged in an 
 enlarged joint at the base of the antenna. Auditory organs have also been described 
 in the forelegs of crickets and grasshoppers, as well as in the first abdominal seg- 
 ment of locusts.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 181 
 
 another 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 : 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 employ- 
 ments undisturbed, and without shewing the least sensibility or 
 resentment. 
 
 Some time since it's 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 an 
 hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed 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 quick-set 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 re- 
 moved no more of it's 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 an 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 phonicum 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 
 individual of her sex ; since she is 
 
 " quse nee rettcere \oq\ient\, 
 
 " Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo." * 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following 
 lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically 
 accounting for their causes from popular superstition : 
 
 1 ' Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 
 " Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 
 " Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 
 
 >[Ov., Met., iii., 357-58.] 
 
182 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 ' Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 
 ' Quaerimus, 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. 
 ' Hasc loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 
 
 Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ; 
 ' Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 
 ' Adfirmant 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 musam. ' ' 
 
 Lucretius, Lib. iv., 1. 576. 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May 13, 1778. 
 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 AMONG the 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. 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 ? 
 
 Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology, I 
 have always supposed that that sudden reverse of affection, that 
 strange avrio-ropyr), which immediately succeeds in the feathered 
 kind to the most passionate fondness, is the occasion of an equal 
 dispersion of birds over the face of the earth. Without this 
 provision one favourite district would be crowded with inhabi- 
 tants, while others would be destitute and forsaken. But the 
 parent birds seem to maintain a jealous superiority, and to oblige 
 
OF SELBORNE 183 
 
 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 reasons 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 SAME. 
 
 Selborne, June 2, 1778. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a 
 pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without 
 improving the mind or advancing any real knowledge : and where 
 the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classifica- 
 tion, 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 names ; 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 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 productive 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 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 
 
 1 See the late Voyages to the South-seas. 
 
184 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on 
 the commerce of nations, and have been the great promoters 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 latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants 
 and their culture, we must have been content with our hips and 
 haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the 
 salutiferous 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 ; l neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to distin- 
 guish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, 
 nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. 
 
 The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a 
 northerly, and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could im- 
 prove the swerd of the district where he lived would be an 
 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 occasion the growth 
 of " two blades of grass where one alone was seen before ". 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, July 3, 1778. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 IN a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale, 
 aspects, and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants 
 
 1 [Even in White's day the importance of a scientific knowledge of grasses had 
 been recognised. Gahn published in the Amosnitates Academiccs (1767), under the 
 direction of Linnaeus, an account of the common grasses, with mention of the writers 
 who had studied the order. The subject has since received much attention.] 
 
OF SELBOENE 185 
 
 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 Jilices, 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 unentertaining : 
 
 Helleborus foetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's foot, or setterwort, 
 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 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 adminis- 
 tered 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 Bins-pond ; 
 
 Vaccinium myrtillus, whortle, or bilberries, on the dry hillocks 
 of Wolmer-forest ; 
 
 Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sundew. | In the bogs of 
 
 longifolia, long-leaved ditto. ) Bins-pond. 
 
 Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh cinque foil, in 
 the bogs of Bins-pond ; 
 
 Hypericum androscemum, Tutsan, St. John's Wort, in the stony, 
 hollow lanes ; 
 
 Vinca minor, less 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 Kings-Jield ; 
 
 Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true-love, or one-berry, in the 
 Church-litten-coppice ; 
 
186 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxifrage, in the 
 dark and rocky hollow lanes ; 
 
 Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian, or fellwort, on the Zig- 
 zag and Hanger ; 
 
 Lathrcea squammaria, tooth-wort, in the Church-litten-coppice 
 under some hazels near the foot-bridge, in Trimmings garden- 
 hedge, and on the dry wall opposite Grange-yard ; 
 
 Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel, in the Short and Long Lith ; 
 
 Lathyrus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathyrus, in the 
 bushes at the foot of the Short Lith, near the path ; 
 
 Ophrys spiralis, ladies traces, in the Long Lith, and towards 
 the south corner of the common; 
 
 Ophrys nidus avis, birds' nest ophrys, in the Long Lith under 
 the shady beeches among the dead leaves ; in Great Dorton 
 among the bushes, and on the Hanger plentifully ; 
 
 Serapias latifolia, helleborine, in the High-mood 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 ebulus, dwarf elder, wallwort, or danewort, among 
 the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory. 1 
 
 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 helleborus fcetidus and helleborus niger 
 blowing at Christmas, the helleborus hyemalis^ 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 
 congenerous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flowering 
 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 difference in the corolla, or in the 
 
 1 [The rest of this letter was given in the original edition as an appendix, and 
 printed at the end of the Antiquities.] 
 
 2 [The Eranthis of our gardens.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 187 
 
 internal structure. 1 Yet the vernal crocus expands it's 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 it's being familiar, 
 since it would be as difficult to be explained as the most stupen- 
 dous 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, 
 Th' 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 quick'ning word obey ; 
 Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay." 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 "Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique genere 
 " incessus est : aves solae vario meatu feruntur, et in terra, et in acre." 
 
 PLIN., Hist. Nat., lib. x., cap. 38. 
 
 Selborne, Aug. 7, 1778. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 A GOOD ornithologist should be able to distinguish 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 ." 
 
 1 [White's vernal crocus is probably C. vernus, and his autumnal crocus C. 
 sativus. The inner spathe consists of two leaves in sativus, while it is single and 
 tubular in vernus.] 
 
188 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings ex- 
 panded 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 kestrel, 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- 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 center of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble 
 in a frolicksome manner ; crows and daws swagger in their walk ; 
 wood-peckers fly volatu undoso, 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 aukwardly, and make use of their bill as a 
 third foot, climbing and ascending 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 incumbered with too much sail for 
 their light bodies ; but these vast hollow wings are necessary 
 in carrying burdens, 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 love : 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 green-finch in 
 particular exhibits such languishing and faultering gestures as 
 to appear like a wounded and dying bird ; the king- fisher 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 
 
OF SELBORNE 189 
 
 along, while missel-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight ; swal- 
 lows 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. 
 Ski/larks 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 white-throat uses odd jerks and 
 gesticulations 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 Linnceus. Geese 
 and cranes, and most wild-fowls, move in figured flights, often 
 changing their position. The secondary remiges 1 of Tringce, 
 wild-ducks, and some others, are very long, and give their wings, 
 when in motion, an hooked appearance. Dabchicks, moor-hem, 
 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 SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 9, 1778. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 FROM 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 conversation which passed 
 between two owls, reclaimed a sultan, 2 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 
 
 1 [These are the inner secondaries, or tertials, as they were formerly called, 
 which are long in these birds ; the true secondaries are short.] 
 
 2 See Spectator, Vol. vii., No. 512. 
 
190 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 as it were in their utterance, while others are confined to a few 
 important 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. This 
 note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males : 
 they use also a quick call and an horrible scream ; and can snore 
 and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides 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 day-break, serenades his mate with the 
 clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their 
 complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. 
 The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill 
 alarm bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids 
 them be aware that the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and grega- 
 rious 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. 
 At first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our atten- 
 tion ; 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- 
 
OF SELBORNE 191 
 
 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 discernible. 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 it's prey, with 
 little twitterings of complacency ; but if you tender it a wasp or 
 a bee, at once it's note becomes harsh, and expressive of disap- 
 probation and a sense of danger. 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 
 clocking 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 watchman 
 that proclaims the divisions of the night. Thus the poet ele- 
 gantly stiles him : 
 
 " the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 
 "The silent hours." l 
 
 1 [Paradise Lost, vii., 443-44.] 
 
192 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 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. 
 Resentment suggested the law of retaliation ; 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, inspired, were new, or at least such as had been un- 
 noticed before : the exasperated matrons upbraided, they exe- 
 crated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never 
 desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in 
 an hundred pieces. 
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne. 
 " monstrent 
 
 " Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles 
 " Hyberni ; vel quas tardis mora noctibus obstet." l 
 
 GENTLEMEN who have outlets 2 might contrive to make ornament 
 subservient to utility : a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute 
 to promote science : an obelisk in a garden or park might be 
 both an embellishment and an heliotrope. 
 
 Any person that is curious, and enj oys the advantage of a good 
 horizon, might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes ; 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 frame-work, 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 
 
 1 [Virg., Ge 
 
 2 {Outlet is ; 
 
 jeorg., ii., 481-82.] 
 
 is a favourite word with White in his letters to denote a garden or park 
 belonging to a house. Apparently the word originally meant prospect. ] 
 
OF SELBORNE 193 
 
 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 helio- 
 trope to the north of it. 1 
 
 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 it's setting, to the westward of the object ; and, from 
 the longest day, observe the sun retiring backwards every evening 
 at it's 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 it's 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. 
 
 1 [No one, it is likely, has ever made heliotropes on White's plan. A surveying 
 or prismatic compass, a theodolite, glass screens (such as windows) suitably 
 marked, or two vertical rods temporarily fixed in the ground, would do as well as an 
 ugly timber frame. White does not explain why his winter heliotrope is to all but 
 hide the sun at setting, while his summer heliotrope is to hide none of it. The 
 arrangement which is best in one case would also be best in the other.] 
 
 13 
 
194 THE NATURAL HISTOKY 
 
 LETTER XLV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne. 
 
 " Mugire videbis 
 
 "Sub pedibus terrain, et descendere montibus ornos." l 
 
 WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and implicit 
 assent, accounts in Bakers Chronicle of walking hills and travelling 
 mountains. John Philips, in his Cyder, 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 no where finds 
 
 ' A kinder mould ; yet 'tis unsafe to trust 
 
 ' Deceitful ground : who knows but that once more 
 
 ' This mount may journey, and his present site 
 
 ' Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer 
 
 ' Thy 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 Ward 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 Febrtiary, 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 o^^March also went on in the same tenor ; 
 when, in the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a 
 
 En., iv. 3 490-91.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 195 
 
 considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley l was 
 torn from it's 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 engulfed, going down 
 in a perpendicular direction ; for a gate which stood in the field, 
 on the top of the hill, after sinking with it's 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 it's 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 unincumbered ; but would have been buried in heaps of 
 rubbish, had the fragment parted and fallen forward. About an 
 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 farm-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 tempestu- 
 ous, 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 agree that no tremor of the ground, 
 indicating an earthquake, was ever felt ; only that the wind con- 
 tinued 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, expecting every 
 moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered edifices. 
 When day-light came they were at leisure to contemplate the 
 devastations of the night : they then 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 perpen- 
 dicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of 
 neighbouring trees ; and that a gate Mfes thrust forward, with 
 
 1 [Hawkley is about three miles south of Selborne. Hawkley Hanger had once 
 belonged to Gilbert White's father. (Bell.} Here, as between Hartley Park and 
 Worldham, the freestone is underlain by the clay of the gault, which has proved 
 an insufficient support.] 
 
196 THE NATUEAL HISTOEY 
 
 it's hedge, full six 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, being more soft and springy, was pro- 
 truded 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 or safe for pasturage, till 
 considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in levelling 
 the surface and filling in the gaping fissures. 
 
 LETTER XLVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selbornc. 
 " resonant arbusta " 
 
 THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furze 
 close to the back of this village, well known by the name of the 
 Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the 
 afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the gryllus campestris, or 
 
OF SELBORNE 197 
 
 Jield-cricket ; which, though frequent in these parts, is by no 
 means a common insect in many other counties. 
 
 As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of 
 a naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the oeconomy 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 dip 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 inadvertently 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 implement,- a pliant stalk 
 of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their 
 windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out the 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 the sexes 
 have some intercourse, 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 
 
198 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 day time, 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 louder as the summer advances, and so die away 
 again by degrees. 
 
 Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweet- 
 ness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always displease. 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 ^eld-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously 
 delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer 
 ideas of every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. 
 
 About the tenth of March the crickets appear at the mouths 
 of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very 
 elegantly. All that ever I 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 
 it's perfect state ; * 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 
 
 1 We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen 
 lying at the mouths of their holes. 
 
OF SELBOENE 199 
 
 turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time, and fed and sung ; 
 but wandered away by degrees, and were heard at a farther dis- 
 tance 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. 
 
 LETTER XLVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 ' ' Far from all resort of mirth 
 
 " Save the cricket on the hearth." MILTON'S // Penseroso. 
 
 WHILE many other insects must be sought after in fields and 
 woods, and waters, the gryllus domesticus, 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 particularly 
 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 uncomfortable 
 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 burn- 
 ing atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and 
 show a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned 
 
200 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 in pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. Whatever 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 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 companions 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 
 shift their quarters and settle new colonies. When in the air 
 they move "volatu undoso," in waves or curves, like wood-peckers, 
 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 ". l Their 
 shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. 
 Cats catch hearth-crickets, and, playing with them as they do 
 with 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 Exod. viii. 3. 
 
OF SELBORNE 201 
 
 LETTER XLVIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne. 
 
 How diversified are the modes of life not only of incongruous 
 but even of congenerous animals ; and yet their specific distinc- 
 tions are not more various than their propensities. Thus, while 
 the ^eld-cricket delights in sunny dry banks, and the house-cricket 
 rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, 
 the gnjllus gn/l/o talpa (the mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, 
 and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing 
 all it's 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 convinced 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. 
 
 About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was 
 once an eye-witness : for a gardener at an 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 oeconomy : 
 
 " ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram : 
 
 " Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 
 " Apparent penetralia." l 
 
 a [Virg., sn., ii., 482-84.] 
 
202 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 nursery were 
 deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and 
 enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain 
 any rudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The 
 eggs 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 Jen-crickets, churr- 
 rvorms, 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 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, May 7, 1779. 
 
 IT 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 still 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 charadrius 
 himantopus? were shot upon the verge of Frinskam-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. 
 The 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 
 
 1 [The only foundation for the supposition that crickets and mole-crickets 
 ruminate is that, like many other insects, they have a gizzard, set with hard ridges 
 or teeth, behind the crop.] 
 
 2 [The black- winged stilt, an uncommon visitor to this country.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 203 
 
 found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary, 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 draughtsman. 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 I'echasse. My speci- 
 men, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four 
 ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh 
 measured three inches and an half, and the legs four inches and 
 an 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 hirnantopus ; 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 
 fraction 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 ! l 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 it's steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual 
 vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true center of 
 gravity. 
 
 The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by an 
 aukward 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 : 
 
 1 [There is an obvious miscalculation here, corrected in Bell's edition. The 
 weight of similar structures varies as the cube of corresponding linear dimensions ; 
 White's comparison implies that it varies directly.] 
 
204 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 and a most accurate 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. From all these relations it plainly appears that these 
 long legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and rarely visit our 
 island ; and when they do are wanderers 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 deduced, that these birds come over to us 
 from the continent, since nobody can suppose that a species not 
 noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can 
 constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom. 
 
 LETTER L. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, April 21, 1780. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 THE old Sussex tortoise, 1 that I have mentioned to you so often, 
 is become my property. I dug it out of it's winter dormitory in 
 March last, when it was enough wakened to express it's resent- 
 ments by hissing ; and, packing 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 opportunity 
 of enlarging my observations on it's mode of life, and propensi- 
 ties ; and perceive already that, towards the time of coming 
 forth, it opens a breathing place in the ground near it's 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. 
 
 1 [See Letters VII. and XIII. to Harrington.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 205 
 
 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 it's existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all 
 sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers. 
 
 While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, 
 with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell-snath ; 
 and, at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould, and 
 put out it's head ; and the next morning came forth, as it were 
 raised from the dead ; and walked about till four in the after 
 noon. This was a curious coincidence ! a very amusing occur- 
 rence ! to see such a similarity of feelings between the two 
 (beptoiKOL ! for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and the tortoise. 
 
 Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually 
 late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This conformity with 
 the weather convinces me more and more that they sleep in the 
 winter. 
 
 More PARTICULARS respecting the OLD FAMILY TORTOISE, omitted in 
 the Natural History. 1 
 
 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 an haha ; but 
 to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. 
 
 Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun ; be- 
 cause 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 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, 2 
 
 1 [In the original edition this passage was printed at the end of the Antiquities.] 
 
 2 Several years ago a book was written entitled " Fruit-walls improved by ir.clin- 
 " ing them to the horizon " : in which the author has shewn, by calculation, that a 
 much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on those 
 which are perpendicular. 
 
206 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 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 enter- 
 prize. 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. 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 3, 1781. 
 
 I HAVE now read your miscellanies through with much care and 
 satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for the 
 honourable 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, 
 
OF SELBORNE 207 
 
 not till the l6th of April y and then only a pair. Martins in 
 general were remarkably late this year. 
 
 LETTER LII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Selborne, Sept. 9, 1781. 
 
 I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting 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 general, 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 attachment to her young, could alone occasion so late a stay. 
 I watched therefore till the twenty-fourth of August, and then 
 discovered 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 twenty-seventh, 
 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 thirty-first 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 hippoboscce 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. 1 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 third of September. 
 
 1 [It was a mere accident that White had seen no swifts later than the first week 
 in August. They may be seen now and then all through August, and even in 
 September, especially in the south.] 
 
208 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER LIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about several 
 kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort 
 which I little expected to have found in this kingdom. I had 
 often observed that one particular part of a vine growing on the 
 walls of my house was covered in the autumn with a black dust- 
 like appearance, 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 any thing 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 Linnaeus, 
 which, in the south of Europe, infests many vines, and is an 
 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 
 preceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe. 
 
 Not being then at all aware that it had any thing 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 immediately 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 unexpected 
 manner, and have a wonderful power of maintaining their exist- 
 ence till they fall into a nidus proper for their support and in- 
 crease, 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 sea-port town 
 to which the coccus might be conveyed by shipping. 
 
 As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this 
 
OF SELBOKNE 209 
 
 strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a passage from 
 a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the Reverend John 
 White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lancashire, but not yet pub- 
 lished : 
 
 " In the year 1 770, 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 substance 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, 1 
 " I found this matter perfectly described and accounted for. 
 "Those husky shells, which I had observed, were no other than 
 " the female coccus, from whose sides this cotton-like substance 
 "exsudes, and serves as a covering and security for their eggs." 
 
 To this account I think proper to add, that, though 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. 
 
 As we have remarked above that insects are often conveyed 
 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. 
 
 1 \Hist. des Insectes, vol. iv., tab. vi., figs. 5-7.] 
 
 14 
 
210 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which was 
 very hot, the people of this village were surprised 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 observed at the same 
 time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from 
 Farnham to Alton. 1 
 
 LETTER LIV.2 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 WHEN 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 it's 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 it's head ; till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, 
 the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of the water 
 with it's 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 it's own gravity, and turns the belly 
 uppermost, as lighter from it's being a cavity, and because it 
 
 1 For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see Derham's 
 Physico-Theology. 
 
 2 [First published in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1786 (vol. Ivi., p. 488), with 
 the date of June 12, and under the signature of V. Bennett.} 
 
OF SELBOENE 211 
 
 contains the swimming-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 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 pinnce pectorales ; but it is with their strong muscular 
 tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with such incon- 
 ceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are 
 immoveable : but these apparently 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 containing 
 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 it's 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. Linnceus 
 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 
 
212 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 put a bird occasionally ; so that you may 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 unnatural, and liable to the objection 
 due to him, 
 
 " Qui variare cupit rera prodigialiter unam." l 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER LV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 October 10, 1781. 
 DEAR SIR, 
 
 I 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 of 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 resolved 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 
 district, 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 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 
 
 i [Hor., De Arte Poetica, 29.] 
 
OF SELBOENE 213 
 
 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 
 underwood beech never to cast it's 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 thirteenth and 
 fourteenth of October, and found their evening retreat was exact 
 and uniform ; but after this they made no regular appearance. 
 Now and then a straggler was seen ; and, on the twenty-second 
 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. 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 third 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 body of the house-martins of this district, might be 
 found there, in different secret dormitories ; and that, so far 
 from withdrawing into warmer climes, it would appear that 
 they never depart three hundred yards from the village. 
 
 LETTER LVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 THEY 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 denned 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, 
 
214 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 would often vary and do that by many methods which instinct 
 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 school-boy 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 
 it's house with straws and dry grasses, which do not give it 
 that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices 
 of that little architect. Again, the regular nest of the house- 
 martin is hemispheric ; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, 
 may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived 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 Jield- 
 mouse, and the bird called the nut-hatch (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 it's bill : but as this artist has no 
 paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit 
 workman, 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 nut-hatches have been known to haunt, and 
 have always found that those birds have readily penetrated 
 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, as it were by recollection, for days 
 after a concert is over. What I mean the following passage will 
 most readily explain : 
 
 "Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque har- 
 
OF SELBOKNE 215 
 
 " monicis musicara illam avium : non quod alia quoque non 
 " delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica humana relinqueretur in 
 "animo continens quaedam, attentionemque et soranum con- 
 " turbans agitatio ; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac muta- 
 " tiones illae sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque, redeuntque 
 " per phantasiam : cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modulationi- 
 " bus avium, quae, quod non sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non 
 "possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere." 
 
 Gassendus in VitA Peireskii. 
 
 This curious quotation strikes me much by so well represent- 
 ing my own case, and by describing what I have so often felt, 
 but never could so well express. When I hear fine music I am 
 haunted with passages therefrom night and day ; and especially 
 at first waking, which, by their importunity, give me more un- 
 easiness than pleasure : elegant lessons still tease my imagination, 
 and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even 
 when I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters. 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER LVII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, which 
 I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : l it is common in 
 some parts of the kingdom ; and I have received formerly several 
 dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the 
 white-throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breast and 
 belly ; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from 
 bough to bough, examining every part for food ; it also runs up the 
 stems of the cr -own-imperials -, and, putting it's head into the bells 
 of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the nectarium of 
 each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground, like the hedge- 
 sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots and mown walks. 
 
 One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, in- 
 forms me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes 
 before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster 
 
 1 [Mr. Harting believes that White's little bird was not the garden warbler, but 
 the lesser whitethroat. Ray (Synopsis Avium, p. 79) and Willughby (Ornithologia, 
 p. 158) indicate that the name/ttftafc^f was peculiar to Yorkshire.] 
 
216 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 of house-swallows, thirty at least he supposes, perching on a willow 
 that hung over the verge of James Knight's upper-pond. His 
 attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which 
 sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one 
 way, and, by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it 
 nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them 
 till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, 
 spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows 
 have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter 
 of food ; and, though they may not retire into that element, yet 
 they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers 
 during the uncomfortable months of winter. 
 
 One of the keepers of Wolmer-forest sent me a peregrine-falcon, 
 which he shot on the verge of that district as it was devouring a 
 wood-pigeon. The falco peregrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble 
 species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. 1 In 
 winter 1767 one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Faring- 
 don, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North- Wales. 2 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 
 measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one 
 from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and an half standing 
 weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for 
 rapine : it's breast was plump and muscular ; it's thighs long, 
 thick, and brawny ; and it's 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 the end of the upper 
 mandible on each side : it's tail, or train, was short in proportion 
 to the bulk of it's body : yet the wings, when closed, did not 
 extend to the end of the train. From it's large and fair propor- 
 tions it might be supposed 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 it's craw were 
 many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the 
 
 1 ["This is a complete mistake. The species breeds, or used to breed, all along 
 the south coast, where the cliffs are steep enough, from Sussex to Devonshire, if 
 not from Kent to Cornwall. White does not seem to have known that this was 
 the common falcon used by falconers. Its occurrence in the interior is by no 
 means infrequent." Newton, in Bell's edition.] 
 
 2 See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman. 
 
OF SELBORNE 217 
 
 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 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER LVI1I. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 MY 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 backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, 
 which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs 
 are unusually straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to 
 such a degree as to give them an aukward 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 
 have a surly, savage demeanour like their ancestors, which are 
 not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they are 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 offered 
 them by our circumnavigators. 
 
218 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 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 Kam- 
 schatdales 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. 
 
 Now we are upon the subject of dogs it may not be impertinent 
 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 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. 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 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. 
 
 2 The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like quihloh. 
 
OF SELBOENE 219 
 
 LETTER LIX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 THE 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. 
 I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger 
 to a carpenter of this village ; this was the but-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 make out till lately. I 
 am assured now that it is the Stone-curlew (charadrius oedicnemus). 
 Some of them pass over or near my house almost every evening 
 after it is dark, from the uplands of the hill and North Jield, 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 beechen 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 ofphysico- 
 
220 THE NATURAL HISTOEY 
 
 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 "he feedeth the ravens who call upon 
 him ". 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 LETTER LX. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 IN reading Dr. Huxhams Obse?*vationes de A ere, &c. written at 
 Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate remarks, which 
 contain an account of the weather from the year 1727 to the year 
 1748, inclusive, that though there is frequent rain in that district 
 of Devonshire, yet the quantity falling is not great ; and that 
 some years it has been very small : for in 1731 the rain measured 
 only 17 inch . 266 thou . and in 1741, 20354; and again, in 1743 
 only 20 908. Places near the sea have frequent scuds, that 
 keep the atmosphere moist, yet do not reach far up into the 
 country ; making thus the maritime situations appear wet, when 
 the rain is not considerable. In the wettest years at Plymouth 
 the Doctor measured only once 36; and again once, viz. 1734, 
 37 114: a quantity of rain that has twice been exceeded at 
 Selborne in the short period of my observations. Dr. Huxham 
 remarks, that frequent small rains keep the air moist ; while 
 heavy ones render it more dry, by beating down the vapours. 
 He is also of opinion that the dingy, smoky appearance in the sky, 
 in very dry seasons, arises from the want of moisture sufficient 
 to let the light through, and render the atmosphere transparent ; 
 because he had observed several bodies more diaphanous when 
 wet than dry ; and did never recollect that the air had that look 
 in rainy seasons. 
 
 My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down, brought 
 his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet, with their muzzles 
 towards the Hanger, supposing that the report would have had a 
 great effect ; but the experiment did not answer his expectation. 
 He then removed them to the Alcove on the Hanger ; when the 
 sound, rushing along the Lythc and Comb-wood, was very grand : 
 but it was at the Hermitage that the echoes and repercussions 
 delighted the hearers ; not only filling the Lythe with the roar, 
 as if all the beeches were tearing up by the roots ; but, turning 
 
OF SELBORNE 221 
 
 to the left, they pervaded the vale above Combrvood-ponds ; and 
 after a pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to extend 
 round Harteley- hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices 
 and coverts of Ward le ham. It has been remarked before that 
 this district is an anathoth, a place of responses or echoes, and 
 therefore proper for such experiments : we may farther add that 
 the pauses in echoes, when they cease and yet are taken up again, 
 like the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and have a fine 
 effect on the imagination. 
 
 The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a barometer in 
 his parlour at Newton Valence. The tube was first filled here (at 
 Selborne) twice with care, when the mercury agreed and stood 
 exactly with my own ; but, being filled again twice at Newton, 
 the mercury stood, on account of the great elevation of that 
 house, three-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at this 
 village, and so continues to do, be the weight of the atmosphere 
 what it may. The plate of the barometer at Newton is figured 
 as low as 27 ; because in stormy weather the mercury there will 
 sometimes descend below 28. We have supposed Newton-house 
 to stand two hundred feet higher than this house : but if the 
 rule holds good, which says that mercury in a barometer sinks 
 one-tenth of an inch for every hundred feet elevation, then the 
 Newton barometer, by standing three-tenths lower than that of 
 Selborne, proves that Newton-house must be three hundred feet 
 higher than that in which I am writing, instead of two hundred. 
 
 It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers at 
 Selborne stand three-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers 
 at South Lambeth : whence we may conclude that the former 
 place is about three hundred feet higher than the latter ; and 
 with good reason, because the streams that rise with us run into 
 the Thames at Weybridge, and so to London. Of course therefore 
 there must be lower ground all the way from Selborne to South 
 Lambeth; the distance between which, all the windings and 
 indentings of the streams considered, cannot be less than an 
 hundred miles. 1 
 
 I am, &c. 
 
 1 [I find by means of a good aneroid barometer that the highest part of Selborne 
 Hill is nearly or quite 300 feet above the house at Selborne ; and Newton Vicarage, 
 on the same hill, is not far from that elevation. The barometer fitted by Gilbert 
 White himself, and doubtless the one to which he alludes in this letter, is stiU in 
 the old place, fixed at the end of his own bookcase ; and what is worthy of notice, 
 besides the graduation marked on the tube itself, there is by its side a small ivory 
 plate, graduated nearly '3 of an inch lower than the Selborne reading, and which 
 
222 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 
 
 LETTER LXI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of it's natural 
 history, I shall make no further apology for the four following 
 letters, which will contain many particulars concerning some of 
 the great frosts and a few respecting some very hot summers, 
 that have distinguished themselves from the rest during the 
 course of my observations. 
 
 As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time it lasted, 
 the most severe that we had then known for many years, and 
 was remarkably injurious to ever-greens, some account of it's 
 rigour, and reason of it's ravages, may be useful, and not unac- 
 ceptable to persons that delight in planting and ornamenting ; 
 and may particularly become a work that professes never to lose 
 sight of utility. 
 
 For the last two or three days of the former year there were 
 considerable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform on the 
 ground without any drifting, wrapping up the more humble 
 vegetation in perfect security. From the first day to the fifth 
 of the new year more snow succeeded ; but from that day the 
 air became entirely clear ; and the heat of the sun about noon 
 had a considerable influence in sheltered situations. 
 
 It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's ever- 
 greens was melted every day, and frozen intensely every night ; 
 so that the laurustines, bays, laurels, and arbutuses looked, in 
 three or four days, as if they had been burnt in the fire ; while a 
 neighbour's plantation of the same kind, in a high cold situation, 
 where the snow was never melted at all, remained uninjured. 
 
 From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting and 
 freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation, rather than 
 the severity of the cold. Therefore it highly behoves every 
 planter, who wishes to escape the cruel mortification of losing 
 
 doubtless was intended to show at a glance the height of the mercury at his 
 nephew's parsonage at Newton Valence, where a similar instrument still exists, 
 attached to the bookcase in the study, with a graduated ivory plate by its side, 
 and the tube of the same size. The Newton tradition assigns the construction 
 and fixing of this instrument to Gilbert White ; and there can be no doubt of its 
 correctness. Thus both the barometers mentioned in the letter are still in existence, 
 and in working order. My friend and neighbour, the Rev. A. N. C. Maclachlan, 
 the present incumbent, preserves the Newton one with a sacred care. Bell.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 223 
 
 in a few days the labour and hopes of years, to bestir himself 
 on such emergencies ; and, if his plantations are small, to avail 
 himself of mats, cloths, pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such 
 covering, for a short time ; or, if his shrubberies are extensive, 
 to see that his people go about with prongs and forks, and care- 
 fully dislodge the snow from the boughs, since the naked foliage 
 will shift much better for itself, than where the snow is partly 
 melted and frozen again. 
 
 It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox ; but doubtless 
 the more tender trees and shrubs should never be planted in hot 
 aspects ; not only for the reason assigned above, but also because, 
 thus circumstanced, they are disposed to shoot earlier in the 
 spring, and grow on later in the autumn, than they would other- 
 wise do, and so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this 
 reason also plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate ; 
 because, on the very first advances of spring, they shoot away, 
 and so are cut off by the severe nights of March or April. 
 
 Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same incon- 
 venience with respect to the more tender shrubs from North- 
 America ; which they therefore plant under north-walls. There 
 should also perhaps be a wall to the east to defend them from 
 the piercing blasts from that quarter. 
 
 This observation might without any impropriety be carried 
 into animal life ; for discerning bee-masters now find that their 
 hives should not in the winter be exposed to the hot sun, because 
 such unseasonable warmth awakens the inhabitants too early 
 from their slumbers ; and, by putting their juices into motion 
 too soon, subjects them afterwards to inconveniences when 
 rigorous weather returns. 
 
 The coincidents attending this short but intense frost were, 
 that the horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper, which 
 injured the winds of many, and killed some ; that colds and 
 coughs were general among the human species ; that it froze 
 under people's beds for several nights ; that meat was so hard 
 frozen that it could not be spitted, and could not be secured 
 but in cellars ; that several redwings and thrushes were killed 
 by the frost ; and that the large titmouse continued to pull 
 straws lengthwise from the eaves of thatched houses and barns 
 in a most adroit manner, for a purpose that has been explained 
 already. 1 
 
 1 See Letter XLI. to Mr. Pennant. 
 
224 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 On the 3d of January Benjamin Martin's thermometer within 
 doors, in a close parlour where there was no fire, fell in the night 
 to 20, and on the 4th to 18, and the 7th to 17J, a degree of cold 
 which the owner never since saw in the same situation ; and he 
 regrets much that he was not able at that juncture to attend his 
 instrument abroad. All this time the wind continued north and 
 north-east ; and yet on the 8th roost-cocks, which had been silent, 
 began to sound their clarions, and crows to clamour, as prognostic 
 of milder weather ; and, moreover, moles began to heave and 
 work, and a manifest thaw took place. From the latter circum- 
 stance we may conclude that thaws often originate under ground 
 from warm vapours which arise ; l else how should subterraneous 
 animals receive such early intimations of their approach ? More- 
 over, we have often observed that cold seems to descend from 
 above ; 2 for, when a thermometer hangs abroad in a frosty night, 
 the intervention of a cloud shall immediately raise the mercury 
 ten degrees ; and a clear sky shall again compel it to descend to 
 it's former gage. 
 
 And here it may be proper to observe, on what has been said 
 above, that though frosts advance to their utmost severity by 
 somewhat of a regular gradation, yet thaws do not usually come 
 on by as regular a declension of cold ; but often take place 
 immediately from intense freezing ; as men in sickness often 
 mend at once from a paroxysm. 
 
 To the great credit of Portugal laurels and American junipers, 
 be it remembered that they remained untouched amidst the 
 general havock : hence men should learn to ornament chiefly 
 with such trees as are able to withstand accidental severities, 
 and not subject themselves to the vexation of a loss which may 
 befall them once perhaps in ten years, yet may hardly be re- 
 covered through the whole course of their lives. 
 
 As it appeared afterwards the ilexes were much injured, the 
 cypresses were half destroyed, the arbutuses lingered on, but 
 never recovered ; and the bays, laurustines, and laurels, were 
 killed to the ground ; and the very wild hollies, in hot aspects, 
 were so much affected that they cast all their leaves. 
 
 1 [This notion was perhaps put into White's mind by some remarks in Hales' 
 Statical Essays, e.g., vol. ii. , p. 360. It is almost needless to point out that 
 changes of weather arise not in the earth, but in the atmosphere, as the power of 
 prediction by observation of the barometer implies.] 
 
 2 [We now explain the fact which White goes on to relate by the radiation of 
 heat into space.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 225 
 
 By the 14th of January the snow was entirely gone; the 
 turnips emerged not damaged at all, save in sunny places ; the 
 wheat looked delicately, and the garden plants were well pre- 
 served ; for snow is the most kindly mantle that infant vegetation 
 can be wrapped in : were it not for that friendly meteor l no 
 vegetable life could exist at all in northerly regions. Yet in 
 Sweden the earth in April is not divested of snow for more 
 than a fortnight before the face of the country is covered with 
 flowers. 
 
 LETTER LXII. 2 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost 
 in January 1776 so singular and striking, that a short detail of 
 them may not be unacceptable. 
 
 The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages 
 from my journal, which were taken from time to time as things 
 occurred. But it may be proper previously to remark that the 
 first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with 
 vast rains from every quarter : from whence may be inferred, as 
 there is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts 
 seldom take place till the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled 
 with water ; 3 and hence dry autumns are seldom followed by 
 rigorous winters. 
 
 January 7th. Snow driving all the day, which was followed 
 by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 12th, when a prodigious 
 mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the tops 
 of the gates and filling the hollow lanes. 
 
 On the 1 4th the writer was obliged to be much abroad ; and 
 thinks he never before or since has encountered such ru^ 
 Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were now f 
 
 1 [The primary meaning of meteor is high in the air; thus the heavenly bodies 
 and at length any kind of natural phenomenon came to be denoted by this word. 
 White learned from Ray and Derham to call rain, snow, cloud and wind meteors, 
 an usage which is still commemorated by the word meteorology. ~\ 
 
 2 [In orig. this Letter is wrongly numbered LXI., and the rest of the Letters on 
 Natural History, following in regular sequence, bear wrong numbers.] 
 
 3 The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the month 
 of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, six inches 
 and an half oi rain. And the terrible long frost of 1739-40 set in after a rainy 
 season, and when the springs were very high. 
 
 15 
 
226 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 above the tops of the hedges ; through which the snow was 
 driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to 
 the imagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. 
 The poultry dared not to stir out of their roosting places ; for 
 cocks and hens are so dazzled and confounded by the glare of 
 snow that they would soon perish without assistance. The hares 
 also lay sullenly in their seats, and would not move till compelled 
 by hunger; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts and 
 heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to 
 numbers of them. 
 
 From the 14-th the snow continued to increase, and began to 
 stop the road waggons and coaches, which could no longer keep 
 on their regular stages ; and especially on the western roads, 
 where the fall appears to have been deeper than in the south. 
 The company at Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birth- 
 day, were strangely incommoded : many carriages of persons, 
 who got in their way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, 
 after strange embarrassments, here met with a ne plus ultra. The 
 ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers, if they 
 would shovel them a track to London : but the relentless heaps 
 of snow were too bulky to be removed ; and so the 1 8th passed 
 over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances 
 at the Castle and other inns. 
 
 On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since the 
 frost began ; a circumstance that has been remarked before 
 much in favour of vegetation. All this time the cold was not 
 very intense, for the thermometer stood at 29, 28, 25, and there- 
 about ; but on the 21st it descended to 20. The birds now 
 began to be in a very pitiable and starving condition. Tamed 
 by the season, sky-larks settled in the streets of towns, because 
 they saw the ground was bare ; rooks frequented dunghills close 
 to houses ; and crows watched horses as they passed, and greedily 
 devoured what dropped from them ; hares now came into men's 
 gardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured such plants as 
 they could find. 
 
 On the 22d the author had occasion to go to London through 
 a sort of Laplandian- scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. But 
 the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appearance 
 than the country ; for, being bedded deep in snow, the pavement 
 of the streets could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' 
 feet, so that the carriages ran about without the least noise. 
 Such an exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not 
 
OF SELBORNE 227 
 
 pleasant ; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desola- 
 tion : 
 
 ipsa silentia terrent." 
 
 On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the 
 frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four 
 following nights, the thermometer fell to 11, 7, 6, 6; and at 
 Selborne to 7, 6', 10; and on the 31st of January, just before 
 sun-rise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, the 
 quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 degrees below the 
 freezing point: but by eleven in the morning, though in the 
 shade, it sprung up to 1 6|- 2 a most unusual degree of cold this 
 for the south of England ! During these four nights the cold 
 was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm chambers and 
 under beds ; and in the day the wind was so keen that persons 
 of robust constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The 
 Thames was at once so frozen over both above and below bridge 
 that crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely 
 incumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty ; and, 
 turning grey, resembled bay-salt : what had fallen on the roofs 
 was so perfectly dry that, from first to last, it lay twenty-six 
 days on the houses in the city ; a longer time than had been 
 remembered by the oldest housekeepers living. According to 
 all appearances we might now have expected the continuance 
 of this rigorous weather for weeks to come, since every night 
 increased in severity ; but behold, without any apparent cause, 
 on the 1 st of February a thaw took place, and some rain followed 
 before night ; making good the observation above, that frosts 
 often go off as it were at once, without any gradual declension 
 of cold. On the 2d of February the thaw persisted ; and on 
 the 3d swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a 
 court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no frost. Why 
 the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs of such minute 
 beings are not frozen is a matter of curious inquiry. 3 
 
 Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; for, at 
 
 2 At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the author could 
 hear of with certainty : though some reported at the time that at a village in Kent 
 the thermometer fell two degrees below zero, vis. 34 degrees below the freezing 
 point. 
 
 The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin. 
 
 3 [It seems paradoxical, but it is experimentally ascertained, that it is extremely 
 difficult to freeze fluids in capillary tubes.] 
 
228 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 the same juncture, as the author was informed by accurate cor- 
 respondents, at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, the thermometer 
 stood at 19 ; at Blackburn, in Lancashire, at 19 ; and at Manchester 
 at 21, 20, and 18. Thus does some unknown circumstance 
 strangely overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes 
 much greater in the southern than the northern parts of this 
 kingdom. 
 
 The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, 
 at the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the 
 turnips came forth little injured. The laurels and laurustines 
 were somewhat damaged, but only in hot aspects. No evergreens 
 wer*e quite destroyed ; and not half the damage sustained that 
 befell in January 1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched 
 on the south-sides were perfectly untouched on their north-sides. 
 The care taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches 
 seemed greatly to avail the author's evergreens. A neighbour's 
 laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was 
 perfectly green and vigorous ; and the Portugal laurels remained 
 unhurt. 
 
 As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly de- 
 stroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, were 
 so thinned that few remained to breed the following year. 
 
 LETTER LXIII. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I trust, 
 will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and especially 
 when I promise to say no more about the severities of winter 
 after I have finished this letter. 
 
 The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer 
 very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at 28 five tenths, 
 came on a vast snow, which continued all that day and the next, 
 and most part of the following night ; so that by the morning of 
 the 9th the works of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes 
 filled so as to be impassable, and the ground covered twelve or 
 fifteen inches without any drifting. In the evening of the 9th 
 the air began to be so very sharp that we thought it would be 
 curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer : we therefore 
 hung out two ; one made by Martin and one by Dollond, which 
 
OF SELBORNE 229 
 
 soon began to shew us what we were to expect ; for, by ten 
 o'clock, they fell to 21, and at eleven to 4, when we went to 
 bed. On the 10th, in the morning, the quicksilver of Do/land's 
 glass was down to half a degree below zero ; and that of Martin's, 
 which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees above zero, 
 sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball ; so that when the 
 weather became most interesting this was useless. On the 10th, 
 at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dollond's 
 glass went down to one degree beloiv zero ! This strange severity 
 of the weather made me very desirous to know what degree of 
 cold there might be in such an exalted and near situation as 
 Newton. We had therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written 
 
 to Mr. , and entreated him to hang out his thermometer, 
 
 made by Adams ; and to pay some attention to it morning and 
 evening ; expecting wonderful phaenomena, in so elevated a 
 region, at two hundred feet or more above my house. But, 
 behold ! on the 1 Oth, at eleven at night, it was down only to 1 7, 
 and the next morning at 22, when mine was at ten ! We were 
 so disturbed at this unexpected reverse of comparative local cold, 
 
 that we sent one of my glasses up, thinking that of Mr. 
 
 must, some how, be wrongly constructed. But, when the instru- 
 ments came to be confronted, they went exactly together : so 
 that, for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 18 degrees 
 less than at Selborne ; and, through the whole frost, 10 or 12 
 degrees ; l and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, 
 we could readily credit this ; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, 
 arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels? and (which 
 occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel hedge, were scorched 
 up; while, at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf! 
 
 We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the thermometer in 
 the morning was down to 10 with us, and at Newton only to 21. 
 Strong frost continued till the 31st, when some tendency to thaw 
 was observed ; and, by January the 3d, 1 785, the thaw was con- 
 firmed, and some rain fell. 
 
 A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to 
 us, is, that on Friday, December the 10th, being bright sun-shine, 
 
 1 [In the still weather which usually accompanies a very hard frost, the coldest 
 air settles in the hollows, and here the lowest temperatures are observed.] 
 
 2 Mr. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says positively that the Portugal 
 laurels remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739-40. So that either 
 that accurate observer was much mistaken, or else the frost of December- 1784 was 
 much more severe and destructive than that in the year above-mentioned. 
 
230 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 the air was full of icy spiculce, floating in all directions, like atoms 
 in a sun-beam let into a dark room. We thought them at first 
 particles of the rime falling from my tall hedges ; but were soon 
 convinced to the contrary, by making our observations in open 
 places where no rime could reach us. Were they watery particles 
 of the air frozen as they floated ; or were they evaporations from 
 the snow frozen as they mounted ? 
 
 We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early in- 
 formation they gave us ; and hurried our apples, pears, onions, 
 potatoes, &c. into the cellar, and warm closets ; while those who 
 had not, or neglected such warnings, lost all their stores of roots 
 and fruits, and had their very bread and cheese frozen. 
 
 I must not omit to tell you that, during those two Siberian 
 days, my parlour-cat was so electric, that had a person stroked 
 her, and been properly insulated, the shock might have been 
 given to a whole circle of people. 
 
 I forgot to mention before, that, during the two severe days, 
 two men, who were tracing hares in the snow, had their feet 
 frozen ; and two men, who were much better employed, had 
 their fingers so affected by the frost, while they were thrashing 
 in a barn, that a mortification followed, from which they did not 
 recover for many weeks. 
 
 This frost killed all the furze l and most of the ivy, and in many 
 places stripped the hollies of all their leaves. It came at a very 
 early time of the year, before old November ended ; and yet may 
 be allowed from it's effects to have exceeded any since 1739-40. 
 
 LETTER LXIV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the northerly 
 climate of England, where the summers are often so defective in 
 warmth and sun-shine as not to ripen the fruits of the earth so 
 well as might be wished, I shall be more concise in my account 
 of the severity of a summer season, and so make a little amends 
 for the prolix account of the degrees of cold, and the inconveni- 
 ences that we suffered from late rigorous winters. 
 
 The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and dry; 
 
 1 [Furze is near its northern limit in England. Even in Scotland it is by com- 
 parison scanty, and on the continent it does not extend north of Denmark.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 231 
 
 to them therefore I shall turn back in my journals, without 
 recurring to any more distant period. In the former of these 
 years my peach and nectarine-trees suffered so much from the 
 heat that the rind on the bodies was scalded and came off; 
 since which the trees have been in a decaying state. This may 
 prove a hint to assiduous gardeners to fence and shelter their 
 wall-trees with mats or boards, as they may easily do, because 
 such annoyance is seldom of long continuance. During that 
 summer also, I observed that my apples were coddled, as it 
 were, on the trees ; so that they had no quickness of flavour, 
 and would not keep in the winter. This circumstance put me 
 in mind of what I have heard travellers assert, that they never 
 ate a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe, where the 
 heats were so great as to render the juices vapid and insipid. 
 
 The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all the 
 finer fruits just as they are coming into perfection. In 1781 
 we had none; in 1783 there were myriads; which would have 
 devoured all the produce of my garden, had not we set the boys 
 to take the nests, and caught thousands with hazel twigs tipped 
 with bird-lime : we have since employed the boys to take and 
 destroy the large breeding wasps in the spring. Such expedients 
 have a great effect on these marauders, and will keep them under. 
 Though wasps do not abound but in hot summers, yet they do 
 not prevail in every hot summer, as I have instanced in the two 
 years above-mentioned. 
 
 In the sultry season of 1783 honey-dews were so frequent as 
 to deface and destroy the beauties of my garden. My honey- 
 suckles, which were one week the most sweet and lovely objects 
 that the eye could behold, became the next the most loathsome ; 
 being enveloped in a viscous substance, and loaded with black 
 aphides, or smother-flies. The occasion of this clammy appearance 
 seems to be this, that in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields 
 and meadows and gardens are drawn up in the day by a brisk 
 evaporation, and then in the night fall down again with the dews, 
 in which they are entangled ; l that the air is strongly scented, 
 
 1 [White's explanation of the origin of honey-dew is quite impossible. Perhaps 
 he got his fanciful explanation from Hales (Statical Essays, vol. ii. , p. 357), who 
 suggests that the chief use of pollen is to disperse ' ' an atmosphere of sublimed sul- 
 phurous pounce (for many trees and plants abound with it), which uniting with the- 
 air particles, they, or a very sublimed spirit from them, may perhaps be inspired or 
 imbibed at several parts of the plant, and especially at the Pistillum, and be thence 
 conveyed to the Capsula seminalis, etc." ; or he may have read in Pliny that honey- 
 dew falls from heaven. Reaumur (Hist, des Insectes, voL ill, Mtm. ix.) long ago 
 
232 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 and therefore impregnated with the particles of flowers in summer 
 weather, our senses will inform us ; and that this clammy sweet 
 substance is of the vegetable kind we may learn from bees, to 
 whom it is very grateful : and we may be assured that it falls in 
 the night, because it is always seen first in warm still mornings. 
 On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about London, 
 the thermometer has been often observed to mount as high as 
 83 or 84 ; but with us, in this hilly and woody district, I have 
 hardly ever seen it exceed 80 ; nor does it often arrive at that 
 pitch. The reason, I conclude, is, that our dense clayey soil, 
 so much shaded by trees, is not so easily heated through as those 
 above-mentioned : and, besides, our mountains cause currents of 
 air and breezes ; and the vast effluvia from our woodlands temper 
 and moderate our heats. 
 
 LETTER LXV. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous 
 one, and full of horrible phaenomena ; for, besides the alarming 
 
 showed that aphides discharge a sugary fluid from the intestine, which collects on 
 leaves in dry summer weather ; he was also aware, like Goedaert before him, that 
 ants are fond of this excretion, and protect and caress the aphides for the sake of it. 
 It was, however, long believed that there is also a true vegetable honey-dew, not 
 excreted by insects at all. This was taught by Treviranus, Boussingault and 
 Hooker, and Darwin vigorously maintained the same doctrine (Cross- and Self- 
 fertilisation, p. 404). It cannot, however, stand the observations and experiments 
 of Biisgen (Jen. Zeits. f. Nat., 1891), who shows that except small quantities 
 excreted by sundry insects and by the parasitic fungus, Claviceps purpurea, all 
 honey-dew is formed by aphides and scale-insects. The fluid is dropped or squirted 
 out, and may fall in a fine shower on distant objects. When fresh drops are ob- 
 served on a leaf, it is instructive to place a piece of paper or a glass slip on the 
 same spot. It will generally become sprinkled with honey-dew before long, and 
 thus will show that the sugary fluid does not exude from the leaf, but is dropped 
 from above. Moreover, the drops do not grow steadily, as we should expect them 
 to do if they exuded from the plant, but increase only by running together. The 
 tongue or proboscis of an aphis is beautifully contrived for penetrating the tissues 
 of a leaf or shoot. It works its way in between the hard and impenetrable structures, 
 often taking a sinuous course till it reaches the soft bast, whose vessels are then 
 tapped. Linnaeus originated the oft-repeated error, still to be found in modern 
 books, that the tubes on the abdomen of the aphis discharge the sugary excretion. 
 The tubes emit a fluid which sets on exposure to air, and is believed in some measure 
 to protect the aphis from its many insect-enemies (lady-bird larvse, Chrysopa-larvae, 
 Syrphus-larvae, &c.). The tubes can be pointed towards the place of attack, the 
 fluid is discharged, and the face or jaws of the assailant are at times so clogged that 
 he retires to rub them clean. But neither this artifice nor the friendly aid of the ants 
 are altogether adequate, for the aphides are often devoured in countless numbers.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 233 
 
 meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and dis- 
 tressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, 
 or smokey fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, 
 and in every part of Europe, and even beyond it's limits, was a 
 most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within 
 the memory of man. 1 By my journal I find that I had noticed 
 this strange occurrence from June 23 to July 20 inclusive, during 
 which period the wind varied to every quarter without making 
 any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as 
 a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the 
 ground, and floors of rooms ; but was particularly lurid and blood- 
 coloured at rising and setting. All the time the heat was so 
 intense that butchers' meat could hardly be eaten on the day 
 after it was killed ; and the flies swarmed so in the lanes and 
 hedges that they rendered the horses half frantic, and riding 
 irksome. The country people began to look with a superstitious 
 awe at the red, louring aspect of the sun; and indeed there was 
 reason for the most enlightened person to be apprehensive ; for, 
 all the while, Calabria and part of the isle of Sicily, were torn 
 and convulsed with earthquakes ; and about that juncture a 
 volcano sprung out of the sea on the coast of Norway. 2 On this 
 
 1 [This has become a classical passage, and is often quoted in illustration of 
 the phenomena which attended the great eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 (See 
 Report of the Krakatoa Committee of the Royal Society, 1888). It is believed that 
 hazes with red after-glows and other optical effects spread over wide areas after 
 volcanic eruptions in which much fine dust is shot into the air. Three instances 
 have been noted, belonging to the years 1783, 1831 and 1883. 
 
 The great eruption of Skaptar Jokull in Iceland is supposed to be connected 
 with the dry fog of 1783. The eruption began in May, and continued for nearly 
 two years. In the end of May a dry fog was observed at Copenhagen, which 
 gradually spread to North Africa, Asia and North America. In Caithness the 
 crops were destroyed, and 1783 was long remembered as the " year of the ashie ". 
 
 The year 1831 was marked by great eruptions in the Mediterranean (Graham 
 Island), Equador and the Bahujan Islands. Red after-glows were seen in England, 
 South Europe and Washington. 
 
 During the Krakatoa eruption (August 26-27, 1883) much fine volcanic dust 
 filled the air along the neighbouring coasts. On 8th September dust fell upon the 
 deck of the Scotia, which was 3,700 miles from the volcano. The dust-haze spread 
 at a rate of over 70 miles an hour, at first westward, but afterwards northward and 
 southward. Within the equatorial belt it was often so dense as to hide the sun 
 when near the horizon. In November and December unusual twilight effects 
 were seen in England, the red after-glows in particular being generally remarked. 
 Similar appearances were noted in Honolulu, the United States, Chili, Brazil, New 
 Zealand, Australia, the Cape, Iceland, and many parts of Europe. The density 
 of the haze at different places and the dates of occurrence were believed to indicate 
 propagation from Krakatoa.] 
 
 2 [White's information may have been taken from Sir W. Hamilton's account, 
 printed in the Philosophical Transactions, vol. Ixxiii., and largely quoted in the 
 
234 THE NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 occasion Milton's noble simile of the sun, in his first book of 
 Paradise Lost, frequently occurred to my mind ; and it is indeed 
 particularly applicable, because, towards the end, it alludes to a 
 superstitious kind of dread, with which the minds of men are 
 always impressed by such strange and unusual phaenomena. 
 
 1 As when the sun, new risen, 
 
 ' Looks through the horizontal, misty air, 
 
 ' Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon, 
 
 ' In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
 
 ' On half the nations, and with/^ar of change. 
 
 ' Perplexes monarchs. 1 " 
 
 LETTER LXVI. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 WE are very seldom annoyed with thunder-storms : and it is no 
 less remarkable than true, that those which arise in the south 
 have hardly been known to reach this village ; for, before they 
 get over us, they take a direction to the east or to the west, or 
 sometimes divide into two, and go in part to one of those quar- 
 ters, and in part to the other ; as was truly the case in summer 
 1783, when, though the country round was continually harassed 
 with tempests, and often from the south, yet we escaped them 
 all ; as appears by my journal of that summer. The only way 
 that I can at all account for this fact for such it is is that, on 
 that quarter, between us and the sea, there are continual moun- 
 tains, hill behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser-hill, 
 and Ports-down, which some how divert the storms, and give 
 them a different direction. High promontories, and elevated 
 grounds, have always been observed to attract clouds and disarm 
 them of their mischievous contents, which are discharged into 
 the trees and summits as soon as they come in contact with those 
 turbulent meteors ; while the humble vales escape, because they 
 are so far beneath them. 
 
 But, when I say I do not remember a thunder-storm from the 
 south, I do not mean that we never have suffered from thunder- 
 storms at all; for on June 5th, 1784, the thermometer in the 
 
 Annual Register for 1783. Hamilton estimates the loss of life at 40,000. An 
 " island just risen out of the ocean near Iceland " is mentioned in the Gentleman s 
 Magazine for April, 1783, and in the Annual Register for the same year.] 
 
 1 [Paradise Lost, L, 594.] 
 
OF SELBORNE 235 
 
 morning being at 64, and at noon at 70, the barometer at 29 
 six tenths one-half, and the wind north, I observed a blue mist, 
 smelling strongly of sulphur, hanging along our sloping woods, 
 and seeming to indicate that thunder was at hand. I was called 
 in about two in the afternoon, and so missed seeing the gathering 
 of the clouds in the north ; which they who were abroad assured 
 me had something uncommon in it's appearance. At about a 
 quarter after two the storm began in the parish of Hartley, mov- 
 ing slowly from north to south ; and from thence it came over 
 Norton-farm, and so to Grange-farm, both in this parish. It 
 began with vast drops of rain, which were soon succeeded by 
 round hail, and then by convex pieces of ice, which measured 
 three inches in girth. Had it been as extensive as it was 
 violent, and of any continuance (for it was very short), it must 
 have ravaged all the neighbourhood. In the parish of Hartley it 
 did some damage to one farm ; but Norton, which lay in the 
 center of the storm, was greatly injured ; as was Grange, which 
 lay next to it. It did but just reach to the middle of the village, 
 where the hail broke my north windows, and all my garden- 
 lights and hand-glasses, and many of my neighbours' windows. 
 The extent of the storm was about two miles in length and one 
 in breadth. We were just sitting down to dinner ; but were 
 soon diverted from our repast by the clattering of tiles and the 
 jingling of glass. There fell at the same time prodigious torrents 
 of rain on the farms above-mentioned, which occasioned a flood 
 as violent as it was sudden ; doing great damage to the meadows 
 and fallows, by deluging the one and washing away the soil of 
 the other. The hollow lane towards Alton was so torn and 
 disordered as not to be passable till mended, rocks being re- 
 moved that weighed 200 weight. Those that saw the effect 
 which the great hail had on ponds and pools say that the dashing 
 of the water made an extraordinary appearance, the froth and 
 spray standing up in the air three feet above the surface. The 
 rushing and roaring of the hail, as it approached, was truly 
 tremendous. 
 
 Though the clouds at South Lambeth, near London, were at 
 that juncture thin and light, and no storm was in sight, nor 
 within hearing, yet the air was strongly electric ; for the bells 
 of an electric machine at that place rang repeatedly, and fierce 
 sparks were discharged. 
 
 When I first took the present work in hand I proposed to have 
 added an Annus Historico-naturalis, or the Natural History of the 
 
236 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 
 
 Twelve Months of the Year ; which would have comprised many 
 incidents and occurrences that have not fallen in my way to be 
 mentioned in my series of letters ; but, as Mr. Aikin of War- 
 rington has lately published somewhat of this sort, and as the 
 length of my correspondence has sufficiently put your patience to 
 the test, I shall here take a respectful leave of you and natural 
 history together ; 
 
 And am, 
 
 With all due deference and regard, 
 Your most obliged, 
 
 And most humble servant, 
 
 GIL. WHITE. 
 
 Selborne, June 25, 1787. 
 
THE 
 
 ANTIQUITIES 
 
 OF 
 
 SELBORNE, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON, 
 
 JUVAT IRE 
 
 DESERTOSQUE VIDERE LOCOS VIRGIL. 
 
THE 
 
 ANTIQUITIES 
 
 OF 
 
 SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 IT is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this woody and 
 mountainous district was inhabited only by bears and wolves. 
 Whether the Britons ever thought it worthy their attention, is 
 not in our power to determine ; but we may safely conclude, 
 from circumstances, that it was not unknown to the Romans. 
 Old people remember to have heard their fathers and grand- 
 fathers say that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces 
 of money were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer-pond ; 
 and tradition had inspired the foresters with a notion that the 
 bottom of that lake contained great stores of treasure. During 
 the spring and summer of 1 740 there was little rain ; and the 
 following summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that 
 many springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular, whose 
 bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths and wastes. 
 This favourable juncture induced some of the forest -cottagers 
 to begin a search, which was attended with such success, that 
 all the labourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and 
 with spades and hoes turned up great part of that large area. 
 Instead of pots of coins, as they expected, they found great heaps, 
 the one lying on the other, as if shot out of a bag ; many of 
 which were in good preservation. Silver and gold these in- 
 quirers expected to find ; but their discoveries consisted solely 
 
 (239) 
 
240 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 of many hundreds of Roman copper-coins, and some medallions, 
 all of the lower empire. There was not much virtu stirring at 
 that time in this neighbourhood ; however, some of the gentry 
 and clergy around bought what pleased them best ; and some 
 dozens fell to the share of the author. 
 
 The owners at first held their commodity at an high price ; 
 but, finding that they were not likely to meet with dealers at 
 such a rate, they soon lowered their terms, and sold the fairest 
 as they could. The coins that were rejected became current, 
 and passed for farthings at the petty shops. Of those that we 
 saw, the greater part were of Marcus Aurelius, and the Empress 
 Faustina, his wife, the father and mother of Commodus. Some 
 of Faustina were in high relief, and exhibited a very agreeable 
 set of features, which probably resembled that lady, who was 
 more celebrated for her beauty than for her virtues. The 
 medallions in general were of a paler colour than the coins. 
 To pretend to account for the means of their coming to this 
 place would be spending time in conjecture. The spot, I think, 
 could not be a Roman camp, because it is commanded by hills 
 on two sides ; nor does it shew the least traces of entrench- 
 ments ; nor can I suppose that it was a Roman town, because I 
 have too good an opinion of the taste and judgment of those 
 polished conquerors to imagine that they would settle on so 
 barren and dreary a waste. 1 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the 
 time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, 
 as there are few if any accounts of villages before Domesday, 
 it will be best to begin with that venerable record. " Ipse rex 
 "tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. 
 " De isto manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam 
 " hidam cum ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit 
 " duodecim solidos et sex denarios ; modo octo solidos et quatuor 
 
 1 [" A large pot of medals " was found in Wolmer pond about 1774, the dates 
 ranging from Claudius to Commodus (see Letter from W. Sewell to Gilbert 
 White, printed in Bell's edition, vol. ii., p. 393). In digging the foundations for 
 Lord Selborne's buildings at Blackmoor, and in planting the estate, many more 
 finds were made, among others, of two large earthenware vases containing about 
 30,000 Roman and Roman-British coins (see Lord Selborne's communication on 
 the Roman-British antiquities of Selborne, Bell's edition, vol. ii. , p. 378).] 
 
OF SELBORNE 241 
 
 " denarios." Here we see that Selborne was a royal manor ; and 
 that Editha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, had been lady 
 of that manor ; and was succeeded in it by the Conqueror ; and 
 that it had a church. Besides these, many circumstances concur 
 to prove it to have been a Saxon village ; such as the name of 
 the place itself, 1 the names of many fields, and some families, 2 
 with a variety of words in husbandry and common life, still 
 subsisting among the country people. 
 
 What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to this 
 spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called Well-head f which 
 induced them to build by the banks of that perennial current ; for 
 ancient settlers loved to reside by brooks and rivulets, where they 
 could dip for their water without the trouble and expense of 
 digging wells and of drawing. 
 
 It remains still unsettled among the antiquaries at what time 
 tracts of land were first appropriated to the chase alone for the 
 amusement of the sovereign. Whether our Saxon monarchs had 
 any royal forests does not, I believe, appear on record ; but the 
 Constitutiones de Foresta of Canute, the Dane, are come down to 
 us. We shall not therefore pretend to say whether Wolmer-forest 
 
 1 Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as it has been 
 variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ; for Set signifies great, 
 and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet : so that the name seems to be derived from 
 the great perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village. Sel 
 also signifies bonus, item, fcecundus,fertilis. " bel-gaepr-tun : faecunda graminis 
 clausura ; fertile pascuum : a meadow in the parish of Godelming is still called 
 Sal-gars-ton." Lye's Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning. 
 
 2 Thus the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp means a 
 soldier. Thus we have a church- litton, or enclosure for dead bodies, and not a 
 church-yard: there is also a Culver-croft near the Grange-farm, being the en- 
 closure where the priory pigeon-house stood, from culver a pigeon. Again there 
 are three steep pastures in this parish called the Lithe, from Hlithe, clivus. The 
 wicker-work that binds and fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from 
 ether an hedge. When the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic* not 
 knowing that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brush wood our 
 countrymen call rise, from hris, frondes ; and talk of a load of rise. Within the 
 author's memory the Saxon plurals, housen a.nd Reason, were in common use. But 
 it would be endless to instance in every circumstance : he that wishes for more 
 specimens must frequent a farmer's kitchen. I have therefore selected some words 
 to show how familiar the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven 
 hundred years it is far from being obliterated. 
 
 3 Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we draw 
 water. For particulars about which see Letter I. to Mr. Pennant. 
 
 *2ica, porcus, apud Lacones ; un Porceau chez les Lactdtmoniens : ce mot a 
 sans doute este" pris des Celtes, qui disoient sic, pour marquer un porceau. Encore 
 aujourd'huy quand les Bretons chassent ces animaux, ils ne disent point autrement, 
 que sic, sic. Antiquitt de la Nation, et de la Langue des Celtes, par Pezron. 
 
 16 
 
242 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 existed as a royal domain before the conquest. If it did not, we 
 may suppose it was laid out by some of our earliest Norman kings, 
 who were exceedingly attached to the pleasures of the chase, 
 and resided much at Winchester, which lies at a moderate distance 
 from this district. The Plantagenet princes seem to have been 
 pleased with Wolmer ; for tradition says that king John resided 
 just upon the verge, at Ward-le-ham, on a regular and remarkable 
 mount, still called King John's Hill and Lodge Hill ; and Edward 
 III. had a chapel in his park, or enclosure, at Kingsley. 1 Hum- 
 phrey, duke of Gloucester, and Richard, duke of York, say my 
 evidences, were both, in their turns, wardens of Wolmer- forest ; 
 which seems to have served for an appointment for the younger 
 princes of the royal family, as it may again. 
 
 I have intentionally mentioned Edward III. and the dukes 
 Humphrey and Richard, before king Edward II. because I have 
 reserved, for the entertainment of my readers, a pleasant anecdote 
 respecting that prince, with which I shall close this letter. 
 
 As Edward II. was hunting on Wolmer- forest, Morris Ken, of 
 the kitchen, fell from his horse several times ; at which accidents 
 the king laughed immoderately : and, when the chase was over, 
 ordered him twenty shillings ; 2 an enormous sum for those days ! 
 Proper allowances ought to be made for the youth of this monarch, 
 whose spirits also, we may suppose, were much exhilarated by the 
 sport of the day : but, at the same time, it is reasonable to remark 
 that, whatever might be the occasion of Ken's first fall, the sub- 
 sequent ones seem to have been designed. The scullion appears 
 to have been an artful fellow, and to have seen the king's foible ; 
 which furnishes an early specimen of that his easy softness and 
 facility of temper, of which the infamous Gaveston took such 
 advantages, as brought innumerable calamities on the nation, 
 and involved the prince at last in misfortunes and sufferings too 
 deplorable to be mentioned without horror and amazement. 
 
 1 The parish of Kingsley lies between, and divides W aimer-forest from Ayles 
 Holt-forest. See Letter IX. to Mr. Pennant. 
 
 2 " Item, paid at the lodge at Wolmer, when the king was stag-hunting there, 
 to Morris Ken, of the kitchen, because he rode before the king and often fell from 
 his horse, at which the king laughed exceedingly a gift, by command, of twenty 
 shillings." A MS. in possession of Thomas Astle, esq. containing the private 
 expenses of Edward II. 
 
OF SELBORNE 243 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 FROM the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has been 
 supposed that few villages had any at the time when that record 
 was taken ; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the benefit of one : 
 hence we may conclude, that this place was in no abject state 
 even at that very distant period. How many fabrics have 
 succeeded each other since the days of Radfredus the presbyter, 
 we cannot pretend to say ; our business leads us to a description 
 of the present edifice, in which we shall be circumstantial. 
 
 Our church, which was dedicated to the Firgin Mary, consists 
 of three ailes, and measures fifty-four feet in length by forty- 
 seven in breadth, being almost as broad as it is long. The 
 present building has no pretensions to antiquity ; and is, as I 
 suppose, of no earlier date than the beginning of the reign of 
 Henry VII. It is perfectly plain and unadorned, without painted 
 glass, carved work, sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it has 
 no claim to antiquity, I would mean to be understood of the fabric 
 in general ; for the pillars which support the roof, are undoubtedly 
 old, being of that low, squat, thick order, usually called Saxon. 
 These, I should imagine, upheld the roof of a former church, 
 which, falling into decay, was rebuilt on those massy props, 
 because their strength had preserved them from the injuries of 
 time. 1 Upon these rest blunt got hie arches, such as prevailed in 
 the reign above-mentioned, and by which, as a criterion, we would 
 prove the date of the building. 
 
 At the bottom of the south aile, between the west and south 
 doors, stands the font, which is deep and capacious, and consists 
 of three massy round stones, piled one on another, without the 
 least ornament or sculpture : the cavity at the top is lined with 
 lead, and has a pipe at bottom to convey off the water after the 
 sacred ceremony is performed. 
 
 The east end of the south aile is called the South Chancel, 
 and, till within these thirty years, was divided off by old carved 
 gothic frame-work of timber, having been a private chantry. In 
 this opinion we are more confirmed by observing two gothic niches 
 within the space, the one in the east wall and the other in the 
 south, near which there probably stood images and altars. 
 
 1 In the same manner, to compare great things with small, did Wykeham, when 
 he new-built the cathedral of Winchester, from the tower westward, apply to his 
 purpose the old piers or pillars of Bishop Walkelins church, by blending Saxon. 
 and Gothic architecture together. See LowtKs Life of Wykeham. 
 
244 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 In the middle aile there is nothing remarkable : but I re- 
 member when it's beams were hung with garlands in honour of 
 young women of the parish, reputed to have died virgins ; and 
 recollect to have seen the clerk's wife cutting, in white paper, the 
 resemblances of gloves, and ribbons to be twisted into knots and 
 roses, to decorate these memorials of chastity. In the church of 
 Faringdon, which is the next parish, many garlands of this sort still 
 remain. 
 
 The north aile is narrow and low, with a sloping ceiling, reach- 
 ing within eight or nine feet of the floor. It had originally a flat 
 roof covered with lead, till, within a century past, a churchwarden, 
 stripping off the lead, in order, as he said, to have it mended, sold 
 it to a plumber, and ran away with the money. This aile has no 
 door, for an obvious reason ; because the north-side of the church- 
 yard, being surrounded by the vicarage-garden, affords no path to 
 that side of the church. Nothing can be more irregular than the 
 pews of this church, which are of all dimensions and heights, being 
 patched up according to the fancy of the owners : but whoever 
 nicely examines them will find that the middle aile had, on each 
 side, a regular row of benches of solid oak, all alike, with a low 
 back-board to each. These we should not hesitate to say are 
 coeval with the present church : and especially as it is to be ob- 
 served that, at their ends, they are ornamented with carved blunt 
 gothic niches, exactly correspondent to the arches of the church, 
 and to a niche in the south wall. The south aile also has a row 
 of these benches ; but some are decayed through age, and the rest 
 much disguised by modern alterations. 
 
 At the upper end of this aile, and running out to the north, 
 stands a transept, known by the name of the North Chancel, 
 measuring twenty-one feet from south to north, and nineteen feet 
 from east to west : this was intended, no doubt, as a private 
 chantry ; and was also, till of late, divided off by a gothic frame- 
 work of timber. In it's north wall, under a very blunt gothic arch, 
 lies perhaps the founder of this edifice, which, from the shape of 
 it's arch, may be deemed no older than the latter end of the reign 
 of Henry VII. The tomb was examined some years ago, but con- 
 tained nothing except the scull and thigh-bones of a large tall 
 man, and the bones of a youth or woman, lying in a very irregular 
 manner, without any escutcheon or other token to ascertain the 
 names or rank of the deceased. The grave was very shallow, and 
 lined with stone at the bottom and on the sides. 1 
 
 1 [This tomb has since been removed.] 
 
OF SELBOKNE 245 
 
 From the east wall project four stone brackets, which I conclude 
 supported images and crucifixes. In the great thick pilaster, jut- 
 ting out between this transept and the chancel, there is a very 
 sharp gothic niche, of older date than the present chantry or church. 
 But the chief pieces of antiquity are two narrow stone coffin-lids, 
 which compose part of the floor, and lie from west to east, with 
 the very narrow ends eastward : these belong to remote times ; 
 and, if originally placed here, which I doubt, must have been part 
 of the pavement of an older transept. At present there are no 
 coffins under them, whence I conclude they have been removed 
 to this place from some part of a former church. One of these 
 lids is so eaten by time, that no sculpture can be discovered upon 
 it ; or, perhaps, it may be the wrong side uppermost ; but on the 
 other, which seems to be of stone of a closer and harder texture, 
 is to be discerned a discus, with a cross on it, at the end of a staff 
 or rod, the well-known symbol of a Knight-Templar, 1 
 
 This order was distinguished by a red cross on the left shoulder 
 of their cloak, and by this attribute in their hand. Now, if these 
 stones belonged to Knights Templars, they must have lain here 
 many centuries ; for this order came into England early in the 
 reign of king Stephen in 1113 ; and was dissolved in the time of 
 Edward II. in 1312, having subsisted only one hundred and ninety- 
 nine years. Why I should suppose that Knights Templars were 
 occasionally buried at this church, will appear in some future letter, 
 when we come to treat more particularly concerning the property 
 they possessed here, and the intercourse that subsisted between 
 them and the priors of Selborne. 
 
 We must now proceed to the chancel, properly so called, which 
 seems to be coeval with the church, and is in the same plain 
 unadorned style, though neatly kept. This room measures 
 thirty-one feet in length, and sixteen feet and an half in breadth, 
 and is wainscoted all round, as high as to the bottom of the 
 windows. The space for the communion table is raised two 
 steps above the rest of the floor, and railed in with oaken bal- 
 usters. Here I shall say somewhat of the windows of the 
 chancel in particular, and of the whole fabric in general. They 
 are mostly of that simple and unadorned sort called Lancet, some 
 single, some double, and some in triplets. At the east end of 
 the chancel are two of a moderate size, near each other ; and in 
 
 1 See Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, Vol. II. where there is a fine engraving 
 of a Knight- Templar by Hollar. 
 
246 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 the north wall two very distant small ones, unequal in length 
 and height : and in the south wall are two, one on each side of 
 the chancel door, that are broad and squat, and of a different 
 order. At the east end of the south aile of the church there 
 is a large lancet-window in a triplet ; and two very small, narrow, 
 single ones in the south wall, and a broad squat window beside, 
 and a double lancet one in the west end ; so that the appearance 
 is very irregular. In the north aile are two windows, made 
 shorter when the roof was sloped ; and in the north transept a 
 large triple window, shortened at the time of a repair in 1721 ; 
 when over it was opened a round one of considerable size, which 
 affords an agreeable light, and renders that chantry the most 
 cheerful part of the edifice. 
 
 The church and chancels have all coved roofs, ceiled about 
 the year 1683 ; before which they were open to the tiles and 
 shingles, showing the naked rafters, and threatening the con- 
 gregation with the fall of a spar, or a blow from a piece of loose 
 mortar. 
 
 On the north wall of the chancel is fixed a large oval white 
 marble monument, with the following inscription ; and at the 
 foot of the wall, over the deceased, and inscribed with his name, 
 age, arms, and time of death, lies a large slab of black marble : 
 
 Prope hunc parietem sepelitur 
 GILBERTUS WHITE, SAMSONIS WHITE, de 
 
 Oxon. militis filius tertius, Collegii Magdale- 
 
 -nensis ibidem alumnus, & socius. Tandem faven- 
 
 -te collegio ad hanc ecclesiam promotus ; ubi primae- 
 
 -va morum simplicitate, et diffusa erga omnes bene- 
 
 -volentia feliciter consenuit. 
 Pastor fidelis, comis, affabilis, 
 Maritus, et pater amantissimus, 
 A conjuge invicem, et liberis, atque 
 A parochianis impense dilectus. 
 Pauperibus ita beneficus 
 ut decimam partem census 
 
 moribundus 
 piis usibus consecravit. 
 Meritis demum juxta et annis plenus 
 ex hac vita migravit Feb. 13. 
 
 anno salutis 1725 
 ^Etatis suse 77. 
 Hoc posuit Rebecca 
 Conjux illius maestissima, 
 mox secutura. 
 
 On the same wall is newly fixed a small square table-monu- 
 ment of white marble, inscribed in the following manner, 
 
OF SELBOENE 247 
 
 Sacred to the memory 
 
 of the Rev*. ANDREW ETTY, B. D. 
 
 23 Years Vicar of this parish : 
 
 In whose character 
 The conjugal, the parental, and the sacerdotal virtues 
 
 were so happily combined 
 
 as to deserve the imitation of mankind. 
 
 And if in any particular he followed more invariably 
 
 the steps of his blessed Master, 
 
 It was in his humility. 
 
 His parishioners, 
 
 especially the sick and necessitous, 
 as long as any traces of his memory shall remain, 
 
 must lament his death. 
 
 To perpetuate such an example, this stone is erected ; 
 as while living he was a preacher of righteousness, 
 
 so, by it, he being dead yet speaketh. 
 He died April 8 th . 1784. Aged 66 years. 1 
 
 1 [It was not until long after the Antiquities of Selborne was written, that any 
 knowledge of ecclesiastical architecture became general ; and the account of Selborne 
 church in the text is a remarkable proof of the ignorance which at that time prevailed 
 both with regard to the principles of church-building, and the details in which those 
 principles were developed. The church at Selborne still retains a large portion of 
 the original structure, and exhibits an interesting and consistent example of the 
 architecture of the period of its erection, which is sufficiently marked to preclude 
 any considerable error. The arches, the pillars with their bases and capitals, the 
 windows which remain, and other details, point to the close of the iath or the 
 beginning of the i3th century, and the reign of Henry III. as the true date of the 
 present structure, which is therefore of the Early English period, just as the Norman 
 style was becoming extinct. I can find no traces of an earlier building remaining, 
 although it is very clear that at the time when Domesday book was composed there 
 was a church here. 
 
 The pillars of the nave are of that simple and massive form which belongs to 
 the transition from the Norman to the Early English style. The base of the pillars 
 is a simple square plinth with round mouldings, on which rests the massive body of 
 the pillar, the diameter of which is 2 ft. 7 in. , and its height from base to capital 
 5 ft. 7 in. The capital is square, plain and bold ; and from it springs a nearly 
 equilateral pointed arch of 10 ft. span. There is still remaining in the south wall 
 to the west of the doorway a single well-proportioned lancet window ; and there is 
 a double one of nearly similar proportions in the west wall. The south aisle termin- 
 ates eastward in what was a chapel, dedicated probably to the tutelar saint of the 
 church, with a fine well-proportioned triplet window, to the left of which is a 
 handsome niche, which doubtless contained a figure of the saint ; and on its base 
 is a neat strip of diaper-work. In the south wall of this chantry is a piscina be- 
 longing to the altar of the chapel. Of this piscina Gilbert White makes the curious 
 mistake of supposing that it formerly held a statue of some saint. Although all 
 traces of a screen separating this chancel from the aisle have long since disappeared, 
 yet its boundary is very clearly indicated by a stone step which raises it a few inches 
 above the level of the aisle. The string-course, extending along the east, south, 
 and west walls of the south aisle, is simple and very perfect. The mouldings of 
 the south doorway are very beautiful and nearly perfect. The door itself is solid, 
 and the hinges of a good but not elaborate pattern. The north transept, described 
 in the text, is evidently more recent than the body of the church. Of the four 
 brackets mentioned, three are similar in form, the centre one being placed higher 
 than the others. These certainly supported figures. The fourth bracket has no 
 relation to the others, is placed nearer to the chancel, and is of ruder form. In 
 
248 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 WE have now taken leave of the inside of the church, and shall 
 pass by a door at the west end of the middle aile into the belfry. 
 This room is part of a handsome square embattled tower of forty- 
 five feet in height, and of much more modern date than the 
 church ; but old enough to have needed a thorough repair in 
 1781, when it was neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by 
 a set of workmen who were employed on it for the greatest part 
 of the summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of 
 tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast into four ; to which Sir 
 Simeon Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, added a 
 fifth at his own expense : and, bestowing it in the name of his 
 favourite daughter Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with 
 the following motto round it : 
 
 " Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria : 
 " Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sono." 
 
 The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed as an 
 high festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, by an order 
 from the donor, that the treble-bell should be fixed bottom upward 
 in the ground, and filled with punch, of which all present were 
 permitted to partake. 
 
 The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and would 
 not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp gothic door- 
 way. This is undoubtedly much older than the present fabric ; 
 and, being found in good preservation, was worked into the wall, 
 and is the grand entrance into the church : nor are the folding- 
 doors to be passed over in silence ; since, from their thick and 
 clumsy structure, and the rude flourished-work of their hinges, 
 they may possibly be as ancient as the door-way itself. 
 
 the wall between the transept and the chancel there is the appearance of a small 
 door having formerly existed, which from its position must have formed the 
 entrance to the rood-loft ; and I think it possible that the fourth bracket may 
 have supported the stairs which led to it. There is a good piscina belonging 
 to this transept-chantry, of later character than that in the south wall. In the 
 north wall of the transept are the remains of a large window of three lights, the 
 mullions of which show it to be of a later date than the church, probably towards 
 the latter part of the century. This fine window has been curtailed of its fair pro- 
 portions by the bottom of it being blocked up, and the whole upper part being cut 
 off by a heavy beam carried quite across the wall, above which is a hideous circular 
 window. The chancel of the church itself retains very little of its original features, 
 and has no remains of a piscina or any other adjuncts of an altar ; but there is in 
 the north wall a small lancet window, and another in the vestry. Bell.'} 
 
OF SELBORNE 249 
 
 The whole roof of the south aile, and the south-side of the 
 roof of the middle aile, is covered with oaken shingles instead 
 of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours the ancient 
 and crazy timber-frame. And, indeed, the consideration of acci- 
 dents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing is much more eligible 
 than tiles. For shingles well seasoned, and cleft from quartered 
 timber, never warp, nor let in drifting snow ; nor do they shiver 
 with frost ; nor are they liable to be blown off, like tiles ; but, 
 when well nailed down, last for a long period, as experience has 
 shown us in this place, where those that face to the north are 
 known to have endured, untouched, by undoubted tradition for 
 more than a century. 
 
 Considering the size of the church, and the extent of the parish, 
 the church-yard is very scanty ; and especially as all wish to be 
 buried on the south-side, which is become such a mass of mortality 
 that no person can be there interred without disturbing or dis- 
 placing the bones of his ancestors. There is reason to suppose 
 that it once was larger, and extended to what is now the vicarage 
 court and garden ; because many human bones have been dug up 
 in those parts several yards without the present limits. At the 
 east end are a few graves ; yet none till very lately on the north- 
 side ; but, as two or three families of best repute have begun to 
 bury in that quarter, prejudice may wear out by degrees, and 
 their example be followed by the rest of the neighbourhood. 
 
 In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of the east 
 and west-end, as if the chancel stood exactly true to those points 
 of the compass ; but this is by no means the case, for the fabric 
 bears so much to the north of the east that the four corners of 
 the tower, and not the four sides, stand to the four cardinal points. 
 The best method of accounting for this deviation seems to be, 
 that the workmen, who probably were employed in the longest 
 days, endeavoured to set the chancels to the rising of the sun. 
 
 Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage- 
 house ; an old, but roomy and convenient edifice. It faces very 
 agreeably to the morning sun, and is divided from the village by 
 a neat and cheerful court. According to the manner of old times, 
 the hall was open to the roof ; and so continued probably, till the 
 vicars became family-men, and began to want more conveniences ; 
 when they flung a floor across, and, by partitions, divided the 
 space into chambers. In this hall we remember a date, some 
 time in the reign of Elizabeth ; it was over the door that leads to 
 the stairs. 
 
250 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape, but well 
 laid out ; whose terrace commands so romantic and picturesque 
 a prospect, that the first master in landscape might contemplate 
 it with pleasure, and deem it an object well worthy of his pencil. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 IN the church-yard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect 
 bespeaks it to be of a great age : it seems to have seen several 
 centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore 
 may be deemed an antiquity : the body is squat, short, and 
 thick, and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting 
 an head of suitable extent to it's bulk. This is a male tree, 
 which in the spring sheds clouds of dust, and fills the atmosphere 
 around with it's farina. 
 
 As far as we have been able to observe, the males of this 
 species become much larger than the females ; and it has so 
 fallen out that most of the yew-trees in the churchyards of this 
 neighbourhood are males : but this must have been matter of 
 mere accident, since men, when they first planted yews, little 
 dreamed that there were sexes in trees. 
 
 In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately grew a 
 middle-sized female tree of the same species, which commonly 
 bore great crops of berries. By the high winds usually prevailing 
 about the autumnal equinox, these berries, then ripe, were blown 
 down into the road, where the hogs ate them. And it was very 
 remarkable, that, though barrow-hogs and young sows found no 
 inconvenience from this food, yet milch-sows often died after 
 such a repast : a circumstance that can be accounted for only by 
 supposing that the latter, being much exhausted and hungry, 
 devoured a larger quantity. 
 
 ^ While mention is making of the bad effects of yew-berries, lit 
 may be proper to remind the unwary that the twigs and leaves 
 of yew, though eaten in a very small quantity, are certain death 
 to horses and cows, and that in a few minutes. An horse tied 
 to a yew-hedge, or to a faggot-stack of dead yew, shall be found 
 dead before the owner can be aware that any danger is at hand : 
 and the writer has been several times a sorrowful witness to losses 
 of this kind among his friends ; and in the island of Ely had once 
 the mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks of his own 
 all lying dead in an heap from browzing a little on an hedge of 
 
OF SELBORNE 251 
 
 yew in an old garden, into which they had broken in snowy 
 weather. 1 Even the clippings of a yew-hedge have destroyed a 
 whole dairy of cows when thrown inadvertently into a yard. 
 And yet sheep and turkies, and, as park-keepers say, deer, will 
 crop these trees with impunity. 
 
 Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew, while 
 green, are not noxious ; and that they will kill only when dead 
 and withered, by lacerating the stomach : but to this assertion we 
 cannot by any means assent, because, among the number of cattle 
 that we have known fall victims to this deadly food, not one has 
 been found, when it was opened, but had a lump of green yew in 
 it's paunch. True it is, that yew-trees stand for twenty years or 
 more in a field, and no bad consequences ensue : but at some 
 time or other cattle, either from wantonness when full, or from 
 hunger when empty, (from both which circumstances we have 
 seen them perish), will be meddling, to their certain destruction ; 
 the yew seems to be a very improper tree for a pasture-field. 
 
 Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what period 
 this tree first obtained a place in church-yards. A statute passed 
 A.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of which is " Ne rector 
 arbores in cemeterio prosternat ". Now if it is recollected that we 
 seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a church-yard 
 but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species 
 of tree ; and consequently their being planted in church-yards is 
 of much more ancient date than the year 1 307. 
 
 As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable 
 parishioners were buried under their shade before the improper 
 custom was introduced of burying within the body of the church, 
 where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekak's nurse, 2 was 
 buried under an oak ; the most honourable place of interment 
 probably next to the cave of Machpelah, 3 which seems to have 
 been appropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone. 
 
 The farther use of yew-trees might be as a screen to churches, 
 by their thick foliage, from the violence of winds ; perhaps also 
 for the purpose of archery, the best long bows being made of that 
 material : and we do not hear that they are planted in the church- 
 yards of other parts of Europe, where long bows were not so much 
 in use. They might also be placed as a shelter to the congrega- 
 tion assembling before the church-doors were opened, and as an 
 
 1 [This was in 1746, when Gilbert White had gone to Thorney as executor to an 
 uncle Thomas, whose property was left to Gilbert's brother Thomas.] 
 
 2 Gen. xxxv, 8. 3 Gen. xxiii, 9. 
 
252 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 emblem of mortality by their funereal appearance. In the south 
 of England every church-yard almost has it's tree, and some two ; 
 but in the north, we understand, few are to be found. 
 
 The idea of R. C. that the yew-tree afforded it's branches instead 
 of palms for the processions on Palm-Sunday, is a good one, and 
 deserves attention. See Gent. Mag. Vol. L. p. 128. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 THE living of Selborne was a very small vicarage ; but, being in 
 the patronage of Magdalen-college, in the university of Oxford, 
 that society endowed it with the great tithes of Selborne, more 
 than a century ago : and since the year 1758 again with the great 
 tithes of Oakhanger, called Bene's parsonage : so that, together, it 
 is become a respectable piece of preferment, to which one of the 
 fellows is always presented. The vicar holds the great tithes, by 
 lease, under the college. The great disadvantage of this living is, 
 that it has not one foot of glebe near home. 1 
 
 ITS PAYMENTS ARE, S. d. 
 
 King's books 821 
 
 Yearly tenths 16 2j 
 
 Yearly procurations for Blackmore and Oakhanger 1 A i 7 
 
 Chap : with acquit : j 
 
 Selborne procurations and acquit : 090 
 
 I am unable to give a complete list of the vicars of this parish 
 till towards the end of the reign of queen Elizabeth ; from which 
 period the registers furnish a regular series. 
 
 In Domesday we find thus " De isto manerio dono dedit Rex 
 " Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia." So that 
 before Domesday, which was compiled between the years 1081 
 and 1086, there 2 was an officiating minister at this place. 
 
 After this, among my documents, I find occasional mention of 
 a vicar here and there : the first is 
 
 Roger, instituted in 1 254. 
 
 In 1410 John L,ynne was vicar of Selborne. 
 
 In 1411 Hugo Tybbe was vicar. 
 
 1 At Bene's, or Bin's parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and seven acres 
 of glebe. Bene's parsonage is three miles from the church. 
 *[Here in orig.j 
 
OF SELBORNE 253 
 
 The presentations to the vicarage of Selborne generally ran in 
 the name of the prior and the convent ; but Tybbe was presented 
 by prior John Wynechestre only. 
 
 June 29, 1528, William Fisher, vicar of Selborne, resigned to 
 Miles Peyrson. 
 
 1594, * William White appears to have been vicar to this time. 
 Of this person there is nothing remarkable, but that he hath made 
 a regular entry twice in the register of Selborne of the funeral of 
 Thomas Cowper, bishop of Winchester, as if he had been buried at 
 Selborne ; yet this learned prelate, who died 1 594, was buried at 
 Winchester, in the cathedral, near the episcopal throne. 1 
 
 1595, Richard Boughton, vicar. 
 
 1596, William Inkforbye, vicar. 
 May 1606, Thomas Phippes, vicar. 
 June 1631, Ralph Ausline, vicar. 
 
 July 1632, John Longrvorth. This unfortunate gentleman, living 
 in the time of CromwelFs usurpation, was deprived of his prefer- 
 ment for many years, probably because he would not take the 
 league and covenant : for I observe that his father-in-law, the 
 Reverend Jethro Beal, rector of Faringdon, which is the next 
 parish, enjoyed his benefice during the whole of that unhappy 
 period. Longrvorth, after he was dispossessed, retired to a little 
 tenement about one hundred and fifty yards from the church, where 
 he earned a small pittance by the practice of physic. During 
 those dismal times it was not uncommon for the deposed clergy 
 to take up a medical character ; as was the case in particular, I 
 know, with the Reverend Mr. Yalden, rector of Campion, near 
 Guildford, in the county of Surrey. Vicar Longrvorth used fre- 
 quently to mention to his sons, who told it to my relations, that, the 
 Sunday after his deprivation, his puritanical successor 2 stepped into 
 
 1 See Godwin de praesulibus, folio Cant. 1743, page 239. 
 
 2 [John Ferrol, M. A. , Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. That the interloper 
 had his turn of persecution on the change of Government appears from the follow- 
 ing account taken from Calamy's Nonconformists' Memorial: "He was an 
 humble, peaceable, laborious divine ; prudent and inoffensive in his conduct. Of 
 an healthful constitution, and of a meek and even temper, not much resenting the 
 injuries of his adversaries. He was of an active disposition, and, being a noted 
 botanist and herbalist, made his garden his diversion when his labouring mind called 
 for a relaxation from his studies. Upon Mr. L(ongworth)'s sequestration he was 
 settled in his place ; but after the Restoration he was advised to resign his living to 
 the former incumbent, which he accordingly did, and then retired to Guildford, in 
 Surrey, where he kept boarders who went to the free school. When the corporation 
 oath was imposed, not being satisfied to take it, he removed to Farnham. On 
 January 14, 1669, he was taken up near Godalming, and sent to the Marshalsea in 
 Southwark, for having been found within five miles of the corporation of Guildford 
 
254 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 the pulpit with no small petulance and exultation ; and began his 
 sermon from Psalm xx. 8. " They are brought down and fallen ; 
 " but we are risen and stand upright." This person lived to be re- 
 stored in 1 660, and continued vicar for eighteen years ; but was so 
 impoverished by his misfortunes, that he left the vicarage-house 
 and premises in a very abject and dilapidated state. 
 
 July 1678. Richard Bitfield, who left eighty pounds by will, 
 the interest to be applied to apprentice out poor children : but 
 this money, lent on private security, was in danger of being lost, 
 and the bequest remained in an unsettled state for near twenty 
 years, till 1700 ; so that little or no advantage was derived from 
 it. About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by the 
 failure of a borrower ; but, by prudent management, has since been 
 raised to one hundred pounds stock in the three per cents reduced. 
 The trustees are the vicar and the renters or owners of Temple, 
 Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger-house, for the time being. 
 This gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises 
 in a comfortable state ; and began, by building a solid stone wall 
 round the front-court, and another in the lower yard, between 
 that and the neighbouring garden ; but was interrupted by death 
 from fulfilling his laudable intentions. 
 
 April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 
 
 June 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in 
 Magdalen-college, that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert 
 White, M.A. 1 who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of 
 his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored 
 and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved 
 with stone, and had naked walls ; he enlarged the kitchen and 
 brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well : he also built a large new 
 barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, 
 which he laid out in walks and borders ; and entirely planned 
 the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst 
 of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed " the sum of forty 
 
 and Godalming, and also for preaching at Godalming. He continued six months 
 in prison, and sometimes said that this was one of the most comfortable parts of his 
 life, through the kindness of friends whom God raised up to administer relief to him 
 in his troubles." It appears that Bishop Morley was very kind to him, and certainly 
 Ferrol was no bigot, as ' ' his custom was to go to the public church as his people 
 also did". After some changes of residence he finally "retired to Lymington, in 
 Hampshire, where he was not idle, but preached frequently . . . till by a gentle 
 decay, the candle of life burning down to the socket, he expired, not with a stink, 
 but a sweet savour ... in the Both year of his age." /te//.] 
 
 1 The author's grandfather and godfather. 
 
OF SELBOENE 255 
 
 "pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the 
 " church ; that is, in strengthening and securing such parts as 
 "seem decaying and dangerous". With this sum two large 
 buttresses were erected to support the east end of the south wall 
 of the church ; and the gable-end wall of the west end of the south 
 aile was new built from the ground. 
 
 By his will also he gave "One hundred pounds to be laid 
 
 " out on lands ; the yearly rents whereof shall be employed in 
 
 f teaching the poor children of Selbourn parish to read and write, 
 
 ' and say their prayers and catechism, and to sew and knit : and 
 
 ' be under the direction of his executrix as long as she lives ; 
 
 'and, after her, under the direction of such of his children and 
 
 ' their issue, as shall live in or within five miles of the said 
 
 " parish : and on failure of any such, then under the direction 
 
 " of the vicar of Selbourn for the time being ; but still to the 
 
 " uses above-named ". With this sum was purchased, of Thomas 
 
 Turville, of Hawkeley, in the county of Southampton, yeoman, and 
 
 Hannah his wife, two closes of freehold land, commonly called 
 
 Collier's, containing, by estimation, eleven acres, lying in Hawkeley 
 
 aforesaid. These closes are let at this time, 1785, on lease, at 
 
 the rate of three pounds by the year. 
 
 This vicar also gave by will two hundred pounds towards the 
 repairs of the highways 1 in the parish of Selborne. That sum 
 was carefully and judiciously laid out in the summer of the year 
 1730, by his son John White, 2 who made a solid and firm causey 
 from Rood-green, all down Honey- lane, to a farm called Oak-woods, 
 where the sandy soil begins. This miry and gulfy lane was 
 chosen as worthy of repair, because it leads to the forest, and 
 thence through the Holt to the town of Farnham in Surrey, the 
 only market in those days for men who had wheat to sell in this 
 neighbourhood. This causey was so deeply bedded with stone, 
 so properly raised above the level of the soil, and so well drained, 
 that it has, in some degree, withstood fifty-four years of neglect 
 and abuse ; and might, with moderate attention, be rendered a 
 solid and comfortable road. The space from Rood-green to Oak- 
 woods measures about three quarters of a mile. 
 
 In 1727, William Henry Cane, B.D. became vicar; and, among 
 several alterations and repairs, new-built the back front of the 
 vicarage-house. 
 
 1 "Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effectual laws 
 were made for the repairs of highways." Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, p. 15. 
 
 2 [Father of Gilbert White.] 
 
256 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 On February I, 1740, Duncombe Bristowe, D.D. was instituted 
 to this living. What benefactions this vicar bestowed on the 
 parish will be best explained by the following passages from his 
 will : "Item, I hereby give and bequeath to the minister and 
 " churchwardens of the parish of Selboum, in the county of South- 
 " ampton, a mahogany table, which I have ordered to be made 
 " for the celebration of the Holy Communion ; and also the sum 
 " of thirty pounds, in trust, to be applied in manner following ; 
 " that is, ten pounds towards the charge of erecting a gallery at 
 " the west end of the church ; and ten pounds to be laid out for 
 " cloathing, and such like necessaries, among the poor (and es- 
 " pecially among the ancient and infirm) of the said parish : and 
 " the remaining ten pounds to be distributed in bread, at twenty 
 " shillings a week, at the discretion of John White, esq. or any of 
 " his family, who shall be resident in the said parish." 
 
 On November 12, 1758, Andrew Etty, B.D. became vicar. 
 Among many useful repairs he new-roofed the body of the 
 vicarage-house ; and wainscoted, up to the bottom of the win- 
 dows, the whole of the chancel ; to the neatness and decency of 
 which he always paid the most exact attention. 
 
 On September 25, 1784, Christopher Taylor, B.D. was inducted 
 into the vicarage of Selborne. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 I SHALL now proceed to the Priory, which is undoubtedly the 
 most interesting part of our history. 
 
 The Priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la Roche, or de 
 Rupibus, 1 one of those accomplished foreigners that resorted to 
 the court of king John, where they were usually caressed, and 
 met with a more favourable reception than ought, in prudence, 
 to have been shown by any monarch to strangers. This adventurer 
 was a Poictevin by birth, had been bred to arms in his youth, and 
 distinguished by knighthood. Historians all agree not to speak 
 very favourably of this remarkable man ; they allow that he was 
 possessed of courage and fine abilities, but then they charge him 
 with arbitrary principles, and violent conduct. By his insinuat- 
 ing manners he soon rose high in the favour of John; and in 
 1205, early in the reign of that prince, was appointed bishop of 
 
 1 See Godwin de Praesulibus Angliae. Folio. London, 1743, P- 2I 7- 
 
OF SELBOENE 257 
 
 Winchester. In 1214 he became lord chief justiciary of England, 
 the first magistrate in the state, and a kind of viceroy, on whom 
 depended all the civil affairs in the kingdom. After the death 
 of John, and during the minority of his son Henry, this prelate 
 took upon him the entire management of the realm, and was 
 soon appointed protector of the king and kingdom. 
 
 The barons saw with indignation a stranger possessed of all 
 the power and influence, to part of which they thought they had 
 a claim ; they therefore entered into an association against him, 
 and determined to wrest some of that authority from him which 
 he had so unreasonably usurped. The bishop discerned the 
 storm at a distance ; and, prudently resolving to give way to that 
 torrent of envy which he knew not how to withstand, withdrew 
 quietly to the Holy Land, where he resided some time. 
 
 At this juncture a very small part of Palestine remained in the 
 hands of the Christians : they had been by Saladine dispossessed 
 of Jerusalem, and all the internal parts, near forty years before ; 
 and with difficulty maintained some maritime towns and garrisons : 
 yet the busy and enterprising spirit of de Rupibus could not be at 
 rest ; he distinguished himself by the splendour and magnificence 
 of his expenses, and amused his mind by strengthening for- 
 tresses and castles, and by removing and endowing of churches. 
 Before his expedition to the east he had signalized himself 
 as a founder of convents, and as a benefactor to hospitals and 
 monasteries. 
 
 In the year 1231 be returned again to England ; and the very 
 next year, in 1232, began to build and endow the PRIORY of 
 SELBORNE. As this great work followed so close upon his return, 
 it is not improbable that it was the result of a vow made during 
 his voyage ; and especially as it was dedicated to the Virgin 
 Mary. Why the bishop made choice of Selborne for the scene of 
 his munificence can never be determined now : it can only be 
 said that the parish was in his diocese, and lay almost midway 
 between Winchester and Farnham, or South Waltham and Farnkam ; 
 from either of which places he could without much trouble over- 
 look his workmen, and observe what progress they made ; and 
 that the situation was retired, with a stream running by it, and 
 sequestered from the world, amidst woods and meadows, and so 
 far proper for the site of a religious house. 1 
 
 1 The institution at Selborne was a priory of Black-Canons of the order of St. 
 Augustine, called also Canons-Regular. Regular-Canons were such as lived in a 
 conventual manner, under one roof, had a common refectory and dormitory, and 
 
 17 
 
258 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 The first person with whom the founder treated about the pur- 
 chase of land was Jacobus de Achangre, or Ochangre, a gentleman 
 of property who resided at that hamlet ; and, as appears, at the 
 house now called Oakhanger-house. With him he agreed for a 
 croft, or little close of land, known by the name of La liega, or 
 La lyge, which was to be the immediate site of the Priory. 
 
 De Achangre also accommodated the bishop at the same instant 
 with three more adjoining crofts, which for a time was all the 
 footing that this institution obtained in the parish. The seller in 
 the conveyance says " Warantizabimus, defendemus, et acquieta- 
 " bimus l contra omnes gentes " ; vis. " We will warrant the thing 
 "sold against all claims from any quarter". In modern con- 
 veyancing this would be termed a covenant for further assurance. 
 Afterwards is added " Pro hac autem donacione, &c. dedit mihi 
 " pred. Episcopus sexdecem marcas argenti in Gersumam " : i. e. 
 " the bishop gave me sixteen silver marks as a consideration for 
 " the thing purchased ". 
 
 As the grant from Jac. de Achangre was without date, 2 and the 
 next is circumstanced in the same manner, we cannot say exactly 
 what interval there was between the two purchases ; but we find 
 that Jacobus de Nortun, a neighbouring gentleman, also soon sold 
 to the bishop of Winchester some adjoining grounds, through 
 which our stream passes, that the priory might be accommodated 
 with a mill, which was a common necessary appendage to every 
 manor : he also allowed access to these lands by a road for carts 
 and waggons. <( Jacobus de Nortun concedit Petro Winton episcopo 
 " totum cursum aque que descendit de Molendino de Durton usq ; ad 
 " boscum Will. Mauduit, et croftam terre vocat : Edriche croft, cum 
 "extensione ejusdem et abuttamentis ; ad fundandam domum 
 "religiosam de ordine Sti. Augustini. Concedit etiam viam ad 
 " carros, et caretas," &c. This vale, down which runs the brook, 
 is now called the Long Lithe, or Lythe. Bating the following 
 
 were bound by vows to observe the rules and statutes of their order : in fine, they 
 were a kind of religious, whose discipline was less rigid than the monks'. The chief 
 rule of these canons was that of St. Augustine, who was constituted bishop of 
 Hippo, A. D. 395 : but they were not brought into England till after the conquest ; 
 and seem not to have obtained the appellation of Augustine canons till some years 
 after. Their habit was a long black cassock, with a white rochet over it ; and over 
 that a black cloak and hood. The monks were always shaved : but these canons 
 wore their hair and beards, and caps on their heads. There were of these canons, 
 and women of the same order called Canonesses, about 175 houses. 
 
 in orig.] 
 
 2 The custom of affixing dates to deeds was not become general in the reign of 
 Henry III. 
 
OF SELBORNE 259 
 
 particular expression, this grant runs much in the style of the 
 former ; " Dedit mihi episcopus predictus triginta quinque marcas 
 " argenti ad me acquietandum versus Judceos ". That is, " the bishop 
 "advanced me thirty-five marks of silver to pay my debts to the 
 "jews," who were then the only lenders of money. 
 
 Finding himself still streightened for room, the founder applied 
 to his royal master, Henry, who was graciously pleased to bestow 
 certain lands in the manor of Selborne on the new priory of his 
 favourite minister. These grounds had been the property of 
 Stephen de Lucy ; and abutting upon the narrow limits of the con- 
 vent, became a very commodious and agreeable acquisition. This 
 grant, I find, was made on March the 9th, in the eighteenth year 
 of Henry, viz. 1234, being two years after the foundation of the 
 monastery. The royal donor bestowed his favour with a good 
 grace, by adding to it almost every immunity and privilege that 
 could have been specified in the law-language of the times. 
 Quare volumus prior, &c. habeant totam terrain, &c. cum omni- 
 bus libertatibus in bosco et piano, in viis et semitis, pratis et 
 ' pascuis ; aquis et piscariis ; infra burgum, et extra burgum cum 
 ' soka et saca, Thol et Them, Infangenethef et Utfangenethef, et 
 ' hamsocne et blodwite, et pecunia que dari solet pro murdro et 
 'forstal, et flemenestrick, et cum quietancia de omni scotto et 
 ' geldo, et de omnibus auxiliis regum, vice comitum, et omn : 
 * ministralium suorum ; et hidagio et exercitibus, et scutagiis, et 
 ' tallagiis, et shiris et hundredis, et placitis et querelis, et warda 
 ' et wardpeny, et opibus castellorum et pontium, et clausuris par- 
 ' corum, et omni carcio et sumagio, et domor : regal : edificatione, 
 'et omnimoda reparatione, et cum omnibus aliis libertatibus." 
 This grant was made out by Richard bishop of Chichester, then 
 chancellor, at the town of Northampton, before the lord chief 
 justiciary, who was the founder himself. 
 
 The charter of foundation of the Priory, dated 1233, comes next 
 in order to be considered ; but being of some length, I shall not 
 interrupt my narrative by placing it here ; and therefore refer the 
 reader to the Appendix, N I. This my copy, taken from the 
 original, I have compared with Dugdale's copy, and find that they 
 perfectly agree ; except that in the latter the preamble and the 
 names of the witnesses are omitted. Yet I think it proper to 
 quote a passage from this charter "Et ipsa domus religiosa a 
 " cujuslibet alterius domus religiosce subjectione libera permaiieat, et 
 " in omnibus absoluta " to shew how much Dttgdale was mistaken 
 when he inserted Selborne among the alien priories ; forgetting 
 
260 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 that this disposition of the convent contradicted the grant he had 
 published. In the Monasticon Anglicanum in English, p. 119, is 
 part of his catalogue of alien priories, suppressed 2 Henry V. viz. 
 14-14, where may be seen as follows, 
 
 S. 
 Sele, Sussex. 
 
 SELEBURN. 
 
 Shirburn. 
 
 This appeared to me from the first to have been an oversight, 
 before I had seen my authentic evidences. For priories alien, a 
 few conventual ones excepted, were little better than granges to 
 foreign abbies ; and their priors little more than bailiffs, remov- 
 able at will : whereas the priory of Selborne possessed the valuable 
 estates and manors of Selborne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Bas- 
 singes, Basingstoke, and Natele ; and the prior challenged the right 
 of Pillory, Thurcet, and Furcas, and every manerial privilege. 
 
 I find next a grant from Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, to the prior of 
 Selborne " de tota mora [a moor or bog] ubi Berne oritur, usque 
 " ad campum vivarii, et de prato voc. Sydenmeade cum abutt : et 
 " de cursu aque molendini ". And also a grant in reversion " unius 
 " virgate terra " [a yard land], in Achangre at the death of Richard 
 Actedene his sister's husband, who had no child. He was to pre- 
 sent a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and canons, 
 to be given annually by the said Richard ; and to quit all claim to 
 the said lands in reversion, provided the prior and canons would 
 engage annually to pay to the king, through the hands of his 
 bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly payments, "pro 
 " omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis ". 
 
 This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and lived 
 probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant bears 
 date the 17th year of the reign of Henry III. [viz. 1233]. 
 
 It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands or 
 tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall 
 therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this 
 letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person with 
 some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution 
 got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched with a 
 secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to 
 promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift 
 in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. They who 
 had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the infant 
 
OF SELBORNE 261 
 
 foundation. The religious were not backward in keeping up this 
 pious propensity, which they observed so readily influenced the 
 breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent monasteries add 
 house to house, and field to field ; and by degrees manor to 
 manor: till at last "there was no place left" ; but every district 
 around became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, and 
 every precinct was drawn into the vortex. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 OUR forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and bustling, 
 and as important, as ourselves : yet have their names and trans- 
 actions been forgotten from century to century, and have sunk 
 into oblivion ; nor has this happened only to the vulgar, but even 
 to men remarkable and famous in their generation. I was led 
 into this train of thinking by finding in my vouchers that Sir 
 Adam Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the 
 first rank and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gurdon I 
 would be understood to mean that leading and accomplished 
 malecontent in the Mountforl faction, who distinguished himself 
 by his daring conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first that 
 we hear of this person in my papers is, that with two others he 
 was bailiff of Alton before the sixteenth of Henry III. viz. about 
 1231, and then not knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he 
 came, does not appear : yet there is reason to suspect that he 
 was originally a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised himself 
 by marrying women of property. The name of Gurdon does not 
 seem to be known in the south ; but there is a name so like it in 
 an adjoining kingdom, and which belongs to two or three noble 
 families, that it is probable this remarkable person was a North 
 Briton ; and the more so, since the Christian name of Adam is a 
 distinguished one to this day among the family of the Gordons. 
 But, be this as it may, Sir Adam Gurdon has been noticed by all 
 the writers of English history for his bold disposition and dis- 
 affected spirit, in that he not only figured during the successful 
 rebellion of Leicester, but kept up the war after the defeat and 
 death of that baron, entrenching himself in the woods of Hamp- 
 shire, towards the town of Farnham. After the battle of Evesham, 
 in which Mountfort fell, in the year 1265, Gurdon might not think 
 it safe to return to his house for fear of a surprise ; but cautiously 
 fortified himself amidst the forests and woodlands with which he 
 
262 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 was so well acquainted. Prince Edward, desirous of putting an 
 end to the troubles which had so long harassed the kingdom, 
 pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses ; attacked his camp ; 
 leaped over the entrenchments ; and. singling out Gurdon, ran 
 him down, wounded him, and took him prisoner. 1 
 
 There is not perhaps in all history a more remarkable instance 
 of command of temper, and magnanimity, than this before us : 
 that a young prince, in the moment of victory, when he had the 
 fell adversary of the crown and royal family at his mercy, should 
 be able to withhold his hand from that vengeance which the 
 vanquished so well deserved. A cowardly disposition would 
 have been blinded by resentment : but this gallant heir apparent 
 saw at once a method of converting a most desperate foe into a 
 lasting friend. He raised the fallen veteran from the ground, 
 he pardoned him, he admitted him into his confidence, and 
 introduced him to the queen, then lying at Guildford, that very 
 evening. This unmerited and unexpected lenity melted the 
 heart of the rugged Gurdon at once ; he became in an instant a 
 loyal and useful subject, trusted and employed in matters of 
 moment by Edward when king, and confided in till the day of 
 his death. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 IT has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam Gurdon had 
 availed himself by marrying women of property. By my evidences 
 it appears that he had three wives, and probably in the following 
 order : Constantia, Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies, 
 who was the companion of his middle life, seems to have been a 
 person of considerable fortune, which she inherited from Thomas 
 Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either her father or 
 uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the quondam wife of 
 Sir Adam, "quae fui uxor," &c. and talks of her sons under age. 
 Now Gurdon had no son : and beside Agnes in another document 
 says, " Ego Agnes quondam uxor Domini Adce Gurdon in pura et 
 " ligea viduitate mea " : but Gurdon could not leave two widows ; 
 and therefore it seems probable that he had been divorced from 
 Ameria, who afterwards married, and had sons. By Agnes Sir 
 Adam had a daughter Johanna, who was his heiress, to whom 
 
 1 M. Paris, p. 675, & Triveti Annales. 
 
OF SELBORNE 263 
 
 Agnes in her life-time surrendered part of her jointure : he had 
 also a bastard son. 
 
 Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called Temple, 
 lying about two miles east of the church, which had been the 
 property of Thomas Makerel. 
 
 In the year 1 262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne in his own 
 name, and that of his wife Constantia only, for leave to build him 
 an oratory in his manor-house, " in curia sua ". Licenses of this 
 sort were frequently obtained by men of fortune and rank from 
 the bishop of the diocese, the archbishop, and sometimes, as I 
 have seen instances, from the pope ; not only for convenience- 
 sake, and on account of distance, and the badness of the roads, 
 but as a matter of state and distinction. Why the owner should 
 apply to the prior, in preference to the bishop of the diocese, and 
 how the former became competent to such a grant, I cannot say ; 
 but that the priors of Selborne did take that privilege is plain, 
 because some years afterward, in 1 280, Prior Richard granted to 
 Henry Waterford and his wife Nicholaa a license to build an 
 oratory in their court-house, " curia sua de Waterford," in which 
 they might celebrate divine service, saving the rights of the 
 mother church of Basynges. Yet all the while the prior of Sel- 
 borne grants with such reserve and caution, as if in doubt of his 
 power, and leaves Gurdon and his lady answerable in future to 
 the bishop, or his ordinary, or to the vicar for the time being, 
 in case they should infringe the rights of the mother church of 
 Selborne. 
 
 The manor-house called Temple is at present a single building, 
 running in length from south to north, and has been occupied as 
 a common farm house from time immemorial. The south end is 
 modern, and consists of a brew-house, and then a kitchen. The 
 middle part is an hall twenty-seven feet in length, and nineteen 
 feet in breadth ; and has been formerly open to the top ; but 
 there is now a floor above it, and also a chimney in the western 
 wall. The roofing consists of strong massive rafter-work orna- 
 mented with carved roses. I have often looked for the lamb and 
 flag, the arms of the knights templars, without success ; but in one 
 corner found a fox with a goose on his back, so coarsely executed, 
 that it required some attention to make out the device. 
 
 Beyond the hall to the north is a small parlour with a vast 
 heavy stone chimney-piece ; and, at the end of all, the chapel or 
 oratory, whose massive thick walls and narrow windows at once 
 bespeak great antiquity. This room is only sixteen feet by 
 
264 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 sixteen feet eight inches ; and full seventeen feet nine inches in 
 height. The ceiling is formed of vast joists, placed only five or 
 six inches apart. Modern delicacy would not much approve of 
 such a place of worship : for it has at present much more the 
 appearance of a dungeon than of a room fit for the reception of 
 people of condition. For the outside I refer the reader to the 
 plate, in which Mr. Grimm has represented it with his usual 
 accuracy. The field on which this oratory abuts is still called 
 Chapel-field. The situation of this house is very particular, for 
 it stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill. 1 
 
 Not many years since this place was used for an hop-kiln, and 
 was divided into two stories by a loft, part of which remains at 
 present, and makes it convenient for peat and turf, with which it 
 is stowed. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 THE Priory at times was much obliged to Gurdon and his family. 
 As Sir Adam began to advance in years he found his mind influenced 
 by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and efficacy of 
 prayers for the dead ; and, therefore, in conjunction with his 
 wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent 
 of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place, placea, called 
 La Pleystow, in the village aforesaid, "in liberam, puram, et per- 
 petuam elemosinam". This Pleystorv? locus ludorum, or play-place, 
 is a level area near the church of about forty-four yards by 
 thirty-six, and is known now by the name of the Plestor. 3 
 
 It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of 
 recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood ; 
 and impresses an idea on the mind that this village, even in 
 Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places, when the 
 inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the 
 sports and amusements of it's young people. 4 
 
 1 [This reference is to the plate in the quarto editions. I regret to say that the 
 house as it stood in Gilbert White's time no longer exists. It has long been pulled 
 down, giving place to as uninteresting and ugly a building as can be imagined. 
 The old wall, however, still remains, and probably without any important change. 
 Bell.] 
 
 2 In Saxon Plegertop, or Plegrcop ; viz. Plegestow, or Plegstow. 
 
 3 At this juncture probably the vast oak, mentioned p. 4, was planted by the 
 prior, as an ornament to his new acquired market place. According to this sup- 
 position the oak was aged 432 years when blown down. 
 
 4 For more circumstances respecting the Pies tor, see Letter II. to Mr. Pennant. 
 
OF SELBORNE 265 
 
 As soon as the prior became possessed of this piece of ground, 
 he procured a charter for a market 1 from king Henry III. and 
 began to erect houses and stalls, " seldas," around it. From this 
 period Selborne became a market town : but how long it enjoyed 
 that privilege does not appear. At the same time Gurdon 
 reserved to himself, and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor 
 to a tenement and some crofts at the upper end, abutting on the 
 south corner of the church-yard. This was, in old days, the 
 manerial house of the street manor, though now a poor cottage ; 
 and is known at present by the modern name of Elliot's. Sir 
 Adam also did, for the health of his own soul, and that of his wife 
 Constantia, their predecessors and successors, grant to the prior 
 and canons quiet possession of all the tenements and gardens, 
 " curtillagia," which they had built and laid out on the lands in 
 Selborne, on which he and his vassals, " homines" had undoubted 
 right of common : and moreover did grant to the convent the 
 full privilege of that right of common ; and empowered the 
 religious to build tenements and make gardens along the king's 
 highway in the village of Selborne. 
 
 From circumstances put together it appears that the above 
 were the first grants obtained by the Priory in the village of 
 Selborne, after it had subsisted about thirty-nine years : moreover 
 they explain the nature of the mixed manor still remaining in 
 and about the village, where one field or tenement shall belong 
 to Magdalen-college in the university of Oxford, and the next to 
 Norton Potvlet, esq. of Rotherfield house ; and so down the whole 
 street. The case was, that the whole was once the property of 
 Gurdon, till he made his grants to the convent ; since which some 
 belongs to the successors of Gurdon in the manor, and some to 
 the college ; and this is the occasion of the strange jumble of 
 property. It is remarkable that the tenement and crofts which 
 Sir Adam reserved at the time of granting the Plestor should still 
 remain a part of the Gurdon-manor, though so desirable an 
 addition to the vicarage that is not as yet possessed of one inch 
 of glebe at home: but of late, viz. in January 1785, Magdalen- 
 
 1 Bishop Tanner, in his Notitia Monastica, has made a mistake respecting the 
 market and/air at Selborne : for in his references to Dodsworth, cart. 54 Hen. III. 
 m. 3. he says, " De mercatu, et feria de Seleburn". But this reference is wrong; 
 for, instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place there meant was Lekebornt, or 
 Legeborne, in the county of Lincoln. This error was copied from the index of the 
 Cat. MSS. Angl. It does not appear that there ever was a chartered fair at Sel- 
 borne. For several particulars respecting the present fair at Selborne see Letter 
 XXVI. of these Antiquities. 
 
266 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 college purchased that little estate, which is life-holding, in 
 reversion, for the generous purpose of bestowing it, and it's lands, 
 being twelve acres (three of which abut on the church-yard and 
 vicarage-garden) as an improvement hereafter to the living, and 
 an eligible advantage to future incumbents. 
 
 The year after Gurdon had bestowed the Plestor on the Priory, 
 viz. in 1272, Henry III. king of England died, and was succeeded 
 by his son Edward. This magnanimous prince continued his 
 regard for Sir Adam, whom he esteemed as a brave man, and 
 made him warden, " custos," of the forest of Wolmer. 1 Though 
 little emolument might hang to this appointment, yet there are 
 reasons why it might be highly acceptable ; and, in a few reigns 
 after, it was given to princes of the blood. 2 In old days gentry 
 
 1 Since the letters respecting Wolmer-forest and Ayles-holt, from p. 14 to 26, were 
 printed, the author has been favoured with the following extracts : 
 
 In the " Act of Resumption, i Hen. VII." it was provided, that it be not pre- 
 judicial to ' ' Harry at Lode, ranger of our forest of Wolmere, to him by cure letters 
 " patents before tyme gevyn ". Rolls of Parl. Vol. VI. p. 370. 
 
 In the ii Hen. VII. 1495 " Warlham [Wardleham] and the office of forest 
 [forester] of Wolmere" were held by Edmund duke of Suffolk. Rolls, ib. 474. 
 
 Act of general pardon, 14 Hen. VIII. 1523, not to extend to "-Rich. Bp. of 
 ' Wynton [bishop Fox] for any seizure or forfeiture of liberties, &c. within the 
 'forest of Wolmer, Alysholt, and N ewe Forest ; nor to any person for waste, &c. 
 ' within the manor of Wardlam, or parish of Wardlam [ Wardleham] ; nor to 
 ' abusing, &c. of any office or fee, within the said forests of Wolmer or Alysholt, 
 ' or the said park of Wardlam." County Suth't. 
 
 Rolls prefixt to ist Vol. of Journals of the Lords, p. xciii. b. 
 
 To these may be added some other particulars, taken from a book lately 
 published, entitled " An Account of all the Manors, Messuages, Lands, &c. in the 
 "different Counties of England and Wales, held by Lease from the Crown ; as 
 " contained in the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State 
 " and Condition of the Royal Forests," &c. London, 1787. 
 
 "Southampton." 
 /. s. d. 
 
 P. 64, " A fee-farm rent of 31 2 n out of the manors of East and West Wardle- 
 " ham ; and also the office of lieutenant or keeper of the forest or chase of Aliceholt 
 ' ' and Wolmer, with all offices, fees, commodities, and privileges thereto belonging. 
 
 " Names of lessees, William earl of Dartmouth and others (in trust). 
 
 " Date of the last lease, March 23, 1780 ; granted for such term as would fill up 
 " the subsisting term to 31 years. 
 
 "Expiration March 23, 1811." 
 
 "Appendix, No HI." 
 " Southampton." 
 
 " Hundreds Selborne and Finchdeane." 
 " Honours and manors," &c. 
 
 " A Uceholt forest, three parks there. 
 
 " Bensted and King s ley ; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three 
 " parks in Aliceholt forest." 
 
 William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the present lord 
 Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier-general 
 Emanuel Scroope Howe. 
 
 2 See Letter II. of these Antiquities. 
 
OF SELBORNE 267 
 
 resided more at home on their estates, and, having fewer resources 
 of elegant in-door amusement, spent most of their leisure hours 
 in the field and the pleasures of the chase. A large domain, 
 therefore, at little more than a mile distance, and well stocked 
 with game, must have been a very eligible acquisition, affording 
 him influence as well as entertainment ; and especially as the 
 manerial house of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command 
 a view of near two-thirds of the forest. 
 
 That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an outlaw, 
 and at the head of an army of insurgents, was, for a considerable 
 time, in high rebellion against his sovereign, should have been 
 guilty of some outrages, and should have committed some 
 depredations, is by no means matter of wonder. Accordingly 
 we find a distnngas against him, ordering him to restore to the 
 bishop of Winchester some of the temporalities of that see, which 
 he had taken by violence and detained ; viz. some lands in 
 Hocheleye, and a mill. 1 By a breve, or writ, from the king he is 
 also enjoined to readmit the bishop of Winchester, and his tenants 
 of the parish and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and 
 other larger cattle, " averia " in the forest of Wolmer, as had been 
 the usage from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the 
 tenth year of the reign of Edward, viz. 1282. 
 
 All the king's writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in the 
 following manner : " Edwardus, Dei gratia, &c. dilecto et fideli 
 "suo Ade Gurdon salutem " ; and again, "Custodi foreste sue de 
 " Wolvemere ". 
 
 In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an English 
 and a Norman ship, about some trifle, brought on by degrees such 
 serious consequences, that in 1295 a war broke out between the 
 two nations. The French king, Philip the Hardy, gained some 
 advantages in Gascony ; and, not content with those, threatened 
 England with an invasion, and, by a sudden attempt, took and 
 burnt Dover. 
 
 Upon this emergency Edward sent a writ to Gurdon, ordering 
 him and four others to enlist three thousand soldiers in the 
 counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able-bodied men, " tarn 
 sagittare quam balistare potentes " : and to see that they were 
 marched, by the feast of All Saints, to Winchelsea, there to be 
 embarked aboard the king's transports. 
 
 1 Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selbome, and has a mill 
 at this day. 
 
268 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 The occasion of this armament appears also from a summons 
 to the bishop of Winchester to parliament, part of which I shall 
 transcribe on account of the insolent menace which is said therein 
 to have been denounced against the English language : " qualiter 
 " rex Francice de terra nostra Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose 
 " decepit, earn nobis nequiter detinendo . . . vero predictis fraude 
 " et nequitia non contentus, ad expurgationem regni nostri classe 
 " maxima et bellatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis,cumquibus 
 " regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam invasurus, 
 " linguam Anglicam, si concepte iniquitatis proposito detestabili 
 " potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat, omnino de terra delere 
 "proponit ". Dated 30th September, in the year of king Edward's 
 reign xxiii. 1 
 
 The above are the last traces that I can discover of Gurdon s 
 appearing and acting in public. The first notice that my evi- 
 dences give of him is, that, in 1232, being the l6th of Henry III. 
 he was the king's bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. 
 Now, from 1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years; a long 
 period for one man to be employed in active life ! Should any 
 one doubt whether all these particulars can relate to one and the 
 same person, I should wish him to attend to the following reasons 
 why they might. In the first place, the documents from the 
 priory mention but one Sir Adam Gurdon, who had no son law- 
 fully begotten : and in the next, we are to recollect that he must 
 have probably been a man of uncommon vigour both of mind 
 and body ; since no one, unsupported by such accomplishments, 
 could have engaged in such adventures, or could have borne 
 up against the difficulties which he sometimes must have en- 
 countered : and, moreover, we have modern instances of persons 
 that have maintained their abilities for near that period. 
 
 Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of age in 
 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three ; after which advanced 
 period it could not be expected that he should live long. From 
 the silence, therefore, of my evidences it seems probable that 
 this extraordinary person finished his life in peace, not long after, 
 at his mansion of Temple. Gurdons seal had for it's device a 
 man, with a helmet on his head, drawing a cross-bow ; the 
 legend, " Sigillum Ade de Gurdon" ; his arms were, "Goulis, iii 
 "floures argent issant de testes de leopards ". a 
 
 1 Reg. Wynton, Stratford, but query Stratford ; for Stratford was not bishop 
 of Winton till 1323, near thirty years afterwards. 
 
 2 From the collection of Thomas Martin, Esq. in the Antiquarian Repertory, 
 p. 109, NO XXXI. 
 
OF SELBORNE 269 
 
 If the stout and unsubmitting spirit of Gurdon could be so 
 much influenced by the belief and superstition of the times, 
 much more might the hearts of his ladies and daughter. And 
 accordingly we find that Ameria, by the consent and advice of 
 her sons, though said to be all under age, makes a grant for ever 
 of some lands down by the stream at Durton ; and also of her 
 right of the common of Durton itself. 1 Johanna, the daughter 
 and heiress of Sir Adam, was married, I find, to Richard Achard ; 
 she also grants to the prior and convent lands and tenements in 
 the village of Selborne, which her father obtained from Thomas 
 Makerel; and also all her goods and chattels in Selborne for the 
 consideration of two hundred pounds sterling. This last business 
 was transacted in the first year of Edward II. viz. 1307. It has 
 been observed before that Gurdon had a natural son : this person 
 was called by the name of John Dastard, alias Wastard, but more 
 probably Bastard ; since bastardy in those days was not esteemed 
 any disgrace, though dastardy was deemed the greatest. He 
 was married to Gunnorie Duncun ; and had a tenement and some 
 land granted him in Selborne by his sister Johanna. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 THE Knights Templars,' 1 who have been mentioned in a former 
 letter, had considerable property in Selborne ; and also a precep- 
 
 1 Durton, now called Dorton, is still a common for the copyholders of Selbornt 
 manor. 
 
 2 The MILITARY ORDERS of the RELIGIOUS. 
 
 The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called Knights 
 of Rhodes, now of Malta, came into England about the year uoo. i Hen. I. 
 
 The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's reign, which 
 commenced 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and their estates given by act 
 of Parliament to the Hospitalars, in 1323 (all in Edw. II. ) though many of their 
 estates were never actually enjoyed by the said Hospitalars. 
 
 Vid. Tanner, p. xxiv. x. 
 
 The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, were each 
 subordinate to the principal house of their respective religion in London. Although 
 these are the different denominations, which Tanner at p. xxviii. assigns to the cells 
 of these different orders, yet throughout the work very frequent instances occur of 
 preceptories attributed to the Hospitalars ; and if in some passages of Notitia 
 Monast. commandries are attributed to the Templars, it is only where the place 
 afterwards became the property of the Hospitalars, and so is there indifferently 
 styled preceptory or command ry ; see p. 243, 263, 276, 577, 678. But, to account 
 for the first observed inaccuracy, it is probable the preceptories of the Templars, 
 when given to the Hospitalars, were still vulgarly, however, called by their old 
 
270 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 lory at Sudington, now called Southington, a hamlet lying one mile 
 to the east of the village. Bishop Tanner mentions only two 
 such houses of the Templars in all the county of Southampton, 
 viz. Godesfield, founded by Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester, 
 and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Templars, and 
 afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one hundred and 
 eighteen pounds sixteen shillings and seven pence per annum. 
 Here then was a preceptory unnoticed by antiquaries, between the 
 village and Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory might 
 have been,, it has long since been dilapidated ; and the whole 
 hamlet contains now only one mean farm-house, though there 
 were two in the memory of man. 
 
 It has been usual for the religious of different orders to fall 
 into great dissensions, and especially when they were near neigh- 
 bours. Instances of this sort we have heard of between the 
 monks of Canterbury ; and again between the old abbey of St. 
 Swythun, and the comparatively new minister of Hyde in the city 
 of Winchester. 1 These feuds arose probably from different orders 
 
 name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety the societies of the Hospitalars were 
 indeed (as has been said) commandries. And such deviation from the strictness of 
 expression in this case might occasion those societies of Hospitalars also to be 
 indifferently called preceptories, which had originally been vested in them, having 
 never belonged to the Templars at all. See in Archer, p. 609. Tanner, p. 300. 
 col. i. 720. note e. 
 
 It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars holds 
 the same language ; for there, in the enumeration of particulars, occur ' ' cotn- 
 mandries, preceptories" . Codex, p. 1190. Now this intercommunity of names, and 
 that in an act of parliament too, made some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a 
 preceptory and commandry as strictly synonymous ; accordingly we find Camden, 
 in his Britannia, explaining prceceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, 
 p. 356, 510. J. L. 
 
 Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, &c. belonging to the priory 
 of St. John of Jerusalem ; and he who had the government of such house was called 
 the commander, who could not dispose of it but to the use of the priory, only taking 
 thence his own sustenance, according to his degree, who was usually a brother of 
 the same priory. Co-well. He adds (confounding these with preceptories] they are 
 in many places termed Temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, &c. Pre- 
 ceptories were possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief 
 master created and called Prceceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to Stephens de 
 Jurisd. lib. 4. c. 10. num. 27. 
 
 Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic. Itiner. 
 apud Wynton. &c. anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. " et Magr. 
 " Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasse panis, & suis [cerevisias] in Sodington, & 
 "nescint q. war. et et magist. Milicie Templi non ven io distr." 
 
 Chapter-house Westminster. 
 
 1 Notitia Monastica, p. 155. 
 
 " Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a house and 
 "chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought out of Flanders : 
 
OF SELBORNE 271 
 
 being crowded within the narrow limits of a city, or garrison- 
 town, where every inch of ground was precious, and an object of 
 contention. But with us, as far as my evidences extend, and 
 while Robert Saunford was master, 1 and Richard Carpenter was 
 preceptor, the Templars and the Priors lived in an intercourse of 
 mutual good offices. 
 
 My papers mention three transactions, the exact time of which 
 cannot be ascertained, because they fell out before dates were 
 usually inserted ; though probably they happened about the 
 middle of the thirteenth century ; not long after Saunford be- 
 came master. The first of these is that the Templars shall pay to 
 the priory of Selborne, annually, the sum of ten shillings at two 
 half yearly payments from their chamber, "camera," at Sudington, 
 " per manum preceptoris, vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit 
 "ibidem," till they can provide the prior and canons with an 
 equivalent in lands or rents within four or five miles of the said 
 convent. It is also further agreed that, if the Templars shall be 
 in arrears for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered 
 to distrain upon their live stock in Bradeseth. The next matter 
 was a grant from Robert de Saunford to the priory for ever, of 
 a good and sufficient road, " cheminum," capable of admitting 
 carriages, and proper for the drift of their larger cattle, from the 
 way which extends from Sudington towards Blakemere, on to the 
 lands which the convent possesses in Bradeseth. 
 
 The third transaction (though for want of dates we cannot say 
 which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert 
 
 ' but afterwards projected, and by his will ordered, a noble church or religious 
 1 house to be built in the cemetery on the north side of the old minster or cathedral ; 
 ' and designed that Grimbald should preside over it. This was begun A.D. 901, 
 ' and finished to the honour of the Holy Trinity, Virgin Mary, and St. Peter, by 
 ' his son king Edward, who placed therein secular canons : but A. D. 963 they 
 ' were expelled, and an abbot and monks put in possession by bishop Ethelwold. 
 "Now the churches and habitations of these two societies being so very near 
 ' together, the differences which were occasioned by their singing, bells, and other 
 ' matters, arose to so great a height, that the religious of the new monastery thought 
 ' fit, about A. D. 1119, to remove to a better and more quiet situation without the 
 ' walls, on the north part of the city called HYDE, where king Henry I. at the 
 ' instance of Will, Gifford, bishop of Winton, founded a stately abbey for them. 
 ' St. Peter was generally accounted patron ; though it is sometimes called the 
 'monastery of St. Grimbald, and sometimes of St. Barnabas," &c. 
 
 Note. A few years since a county bridewell, or house of correction, has been 
 
 built on the immediate site of Hide Abbey. In digging up the old foundations the 
 
 workmen found the head of a crosier in good preservation. 
 
 1 Robert Saunforde was master of the Temple in 1241 ; Guido de Foresta was the 
 next in 1292. The former is fifth in a list of the masters in a MS. Bib. Cotton. 
 Nero. E. VI. 
 
272 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the 
 village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci. 1 
 This property, by the manner of describing it, "totum tene- 
 "mentum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, & 
 " hominibus, in pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus," &c. seems to 
 have been no inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two 
 hundred marks sterling, to be applied for the buying of more 
 land for the support of the holy war. 
 
 Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci 's land is 
 conveyed. But in Willis's list there is no prior John till 1339, 
 several years after the dissolution of the order of the Templars in 
 1312 ; so that unless Willis is wrong, and has omitted a prior 
 John since 1262 (that being the date of his first prior) these 
 transactions must have fallen out before that date. 
 
 I find not the least traces of any concerns between Gurdon and 
 the Knights Templars ; but probably after his death his daughter 
 Johanna might have, and might bestow, Temple on that order in 
 support of the holy land : and, moreover, she seems to have been 
 moving from Selborne when she sold her goods and chattels to 
 the priory, as mentioned above. 
 
 Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may be asserted, 
 not only from it's name, but also from another corroborating 
 circumstance of it's being still a manor tithe-free ; " for, by virtue 
 " of their order," says Dr. Blackstone, " the lands of the Knights 
 " Templars were privileged by the pope with a discharge from 
 " tithes." 
 
 Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms preceptores 
 and preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer or 
 edifice was meant. But perhaps all the while the passage quoted 
 above from one of my papers " per manum preceptoris vel ballivi 
 "nostri, qui pro tempore fuerit ibidem," may help to explain the 
 difficulty. For if it be allowed here that preceptor and ballivus 
 are synonymous words, then the brother who took on him that 
 office resided in the house of the Templars at Sudington, a pre- 
 ceptory ; where he was there preceptor, superintended their 
 affairs, received their money ; and, as in the instance there 
 mentioned, paid from their chamber, " camera," as directed : so 
 that, according to this explanation, a preceptor was no other than 
 a steward, and a preceptorium was his residence. I am well aware 
 
 1 Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and bad been 
 probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon' s captains. Americus Vespucio, 
 the person who gave name to the new world was a Florentine. 
 
OF SELBORNE 273 
 
 that, according to strict Latin, the vel should have been sen or 
 sive, and the order of the words " preceptoris nostri, vel ballivi, 
 "qui" et "ibidem" should have been ibi ; ibidem necessarily 
 having reference to two or more persons : but it will hardly be 
 thought fair to apply the niceties of classic rules to the Latinity of 
 the thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to have aimed 
 at nothing farther than to render themselves intelligible. 
 
 There is another remark that we have made, which, I think, 
 corroborates what has been advanced ; and that is, that Richard 
 Carpenter, preceptor of Sudington, at the time of the transactions 
 between the Templars and Selborne Priory, did always sign last as 
 a witness in the three deeds : he calls himself f rater, it is true, 
 among many other brothers, but subscribes with a kind of defer- 
 ence, as if, for the time being, his office rendered him an inferior in 
 the community. 1 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 THE ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the only 
 benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne; for, in the year 1281, 
 Ela Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her soul's 
 health ; and the prior entered into an engagement that one of 
 the convent should every day say a special mass for ever for the 
 said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also engaged 
 within five years to pay to the said convent one hundred marks 
 of silver for the support of a chantry and chantry-chaplain, who 
 should perform his masses daily in the parish church of Selborne. 2 
 
 1 In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's hospital in the city of 
 Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, p. 227 and 228, of his collections for the history 
 
 of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria signify the mastership of 
 the said hospital : " ad preceptorium sive magisterium presentavit /rar^/forzY sive 
 1 ' magisterii patronus. Vacavit dicta preceptoria seu magisterium ad preceptoriam 
 " et regimen dicti hospitalis Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus." 
 
 Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean the 
 master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, whatsoever may have been 
 the office or employment of the said preceptor. 
 
 A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's Ducatus Leodinensis, or History of Leeds, 
 p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain before dates were 
 inserted. Du Fresne's Supplement: " Preceptorice, praedia preceptoribus assig- 
 "nata". Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, enumerates sixteen preceptoria, or pre- 
 ceptories, in England; but Sudington is not among them. It is remarkable that 
 Gurtlerus, in his Historia Templariorum Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the 
 words preceptor or preceptorium. 
 
 2 A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church, and en- 
 dowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more priests to sing 
 mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others. 
 
 18 
 
274 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 In the east end of the south aile there are two sharp-pointed 
 gothic niches ; one of these probably was the place under which 
 these masses were performed ; and there is the more reason to 
 suppose as much, because, till within these thirty years, this space 
 was fenced off with gothic wooden railing, and was known by the 
 name of the south chancel. 1 
 
 The solicitude expressed by the donor plainly shews her piety 
 and firm persuasion of the efficacy of prayers for the dead ; for 
 she seems to have made every provision for the payment of the 
 sum stipulated within the appointed time ; and to have felt much 
 anxiety lest her death, or the neglect of her executors or assigns, 
 might frustrate her intentions. " Et si contingat me in solucione 
 "predicte pecunie annis predictis in parte aut in toto deficere, 
 " quod absit ; concedo et oblige pro me et assignatis meis, quod 
 
 " Vice-Comes Oxon et qui pro tempore fuerint, per 
 
 " omnes terras et tenementa, et omnia bona mea mobilia et im- 
 " mobilia ubicunque in balliva sua fuerint inventa ad solucionem 
 "predictam faciendam possent nos compellere." And again 
 "Et si contingat dictos religiosos labores seu expensas facere 
 " circa predictam pecuniam, seu circa partem dicte pecunie ; volo 
 " quod dictorum religiosorum impense et labores levantur ita quod 
 " predicto priori vel uni canonicorum suorum superhiis simplici 
 " verbo credatur sine alterius honore probacionis ; et quod utrique 
 " predictorum virorum in unam marcam argenti pro cujuslibet 
 " distrincione super me facienda tenear. Dat. apud Warebom 
 " die sabati proxima ante festum St. Marci evangeliste, anno regni 
 " regis Edwardi tertio decimo." 2 
 
 But the reader perhaps would wish to be better informed 
 respecting this benefactress, of whom as yet he has heard no 
 particulars. 
 
 The Ela Longspee therefore above-mentioned was a lady of high 
 birth and rank, and became countess to Thomas de Nervburgh, the 
 sixth earl of Warwick : she was the second daughter of the famous 
 Ela Longspee, countess of Salisbury, by William Longspee, natural 
 son of King Henry II. by Rosamond. 
 
 !For what is said more respecting this chantry see Letter III. of these Anti- 
 quities. Mention is made of a Nicholas Langrish, capellanus de Selborne, in the 
 time of Henry VIII. Was he chantry-chaplain to Ela Longspee, whose masses 
 were probably continued to the time of the reformation ? More will be said of this 
 person hereafter. 
 
 2 Ancient deeds are often dated on a Sunday, having been executed in churches 
 and church-yards for the sake of notoriety, and for the conveniency of procuring 
 several witnesses to attest 
 
OF SELBORNE 275 
 
 Our lady, following the steps of her illustrious mother, 1 "was 
 " a great benefactress to the university of Oxford, to the canons 
 " of Oseney, the nuns of Godstorv, and other religious houses in 
 " Oxfordshire. She died very aged in the year 1 300, 2 and was 
 " buried before the high altar in the abbey church of Oseney, at 
 "the head of the tomb of Henry D'Oily, under a flat marble, 
 " on which was inlaid her portraiture, in the habit of a vowess, 
 " engraved on a copper-plate." Edmonsons History and Genea- 
 logical Account of the Grevilles, p. 23. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 THE reader is here presented with five forms respecting the 
 choosing of a prior ; but as they are of some length they must 
 be reserved for the Appendix ; their titles are N. 108. "Charta 
 "petens licentiam elegendi prelatum a Domino episcopo Win- 
 "toniensi : " " Forma licentie concesse : " " Forma decreti 
 "post electionem conficiendi:" 108. "Modus procedendi ad 
 " electionem per formam scrutinii : " et " Forma ricte presen- 
 "tandi electum." Such evidences are rare and curious, and 
 throw great light upon the general monastico-ecclesiastical history 
 of this kingdom, not yet sufficiently understood. 
 
 In the year 1324 there was an election for a prior at Selborne ; 
 when some difficulties occurring, and a devolution taking place, 
 application was made to Stratford, who was bishop of Winchester 
 at that time, and of course the visitor and patron of the convent 
 at the spot above-mentioned. 3 
 
 An extract from REG. STRATFORD. W'mion. 
 
 P. 4. " Commissio facta sub-priori de Selebourne " by the bishop 
 enjoining him to preserve the discipline of the order in the con- 
 vent during the vacancy made by the late death of the prior, 
 ("nuper pastoris solatio destituta,") dated 4*. kal. Maii. ann. 2 do 
 sc. of his consecration, [sc. 1324.] 
 
 1 Ela Lortgspee, countess of Salisbury, in 1232 founded a monastery at Lacock, 
 in the county of Wilts, and also another at Hendon, in the county of Somerset, in 
 her widowhood, to the honour of the Blessed Virgin and St. Bernard. CAMDEN. 
 
 2 Thus she survived the foundation of her chantry at Selborne fifteen years. 
 
 About this lady and her mother consult Dugdale's Baronage, I. 72, 175, 177. 
 
 Dugdale 1 ^ Warwickshire, I. 383, Leland's Itin. II. 45. 
 
 s Stratford was bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333, when he was translated 
 to Canterbury. 
 
276 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 P. 6. "Custodia Prioratus de Seleburne vacantis/' committed 
 
 by the bishop to Nicholas de la , a layman, it belonging to the 
 
 bishop "ratione vacationis ejusdem/' in July 1324, ibid, "nego- 
 "tium electionis de Selebourne. Acta coram Johanne Episcopo, 
 "&c. 1324 in negotio electionis de fratre Waltero de Insula con- 
 "canonico prioratus de Selebourne," lately elected by the sub-prior 
 and convent, by way of scrutiny : that it appeared to the bishop, 
 by certificate from the dean of Alton, that solemn citation and 
 proclamation had been made in the church of the convent where 
 the election was held, that any who opposed the said election or 
 elected should appear. Some difficulties were started, which the 
 bishop over-ruled, and confirmed the election, and admitted the 
 new prior sub hac forma : 
 
 " In Dei nomine Amen. Ego Johannes permissione divina, &c. 
 " te Walterum de Insula ecclesie de Selebourne nostre dioceseos nos- 
 " trique patronatus vacantis, canonicum et cantorem, virum utique 
 " providum, et discretum, literarum scientia preditum, vita moribus 
 " et conversatione merito commendatum, in ordine sacerdotali et 
 " etate legitima constitutum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum, 
 " in ordine et religione Sancti Augustini de Selebourne expresse pro- 
 " fessum, in spiritualibus et temporalibus circumspectum^'wre nobis 
 " hac vice devoluto in hac parte, in dicte ecclesie de Selebourne 
 " perfectum priorem ; curam et administrationem ejusdem tibi 
 " in spiritualibus et temporalibus committ elites. Dat. apud Sele- 
 (t bourne XIII kalend. Augusti anno supradicto." 
 
 There follows an order to the sub-prior and convent pro obe- 
 dientia : 
 
 A mandate to Nicholas above-named to release the Priory to 
 the new prior : 
 
 A mandate for the induction of the new prior. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 " IN the year 1373 Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, held a visitation 
 " of his whole diocese ; not only of the secular clergy through the 
 " several deaneries, but also of the monasteries, and religious 
 " houses of all sorts, which he visited in person. The next year 
 " he sent his commissioners with power to correct and reform the 
 " several irregularities and abuses which he had discovered in the 
 " course of his visitation. 
 
 " Some years afterwards, the bishop having visited three several 
 
OF SELBORNE 277 
 
 " times all the religious houses throughout his diocese, and being 
 " well informed of the state and condition of each, and of the 
 "particular abuses which required correction and reformation, 
 " besides the orders which he had already given, and the remedies 
 "which he had occasionally applied by his commissioners, now 
 " issued his injunctions to each of them. They were accommodated 
 " to their several exigencies, and intended to correct the abuses 
 " introduced, and to recall them all to a strict observation of the 
 "rules of their respective orders. Many of these injunctions are 
 " still extant, and are evident monuments of the care and attention 
 " with which he discharged this part of his episcopal duty." l 
 
 Some of these injunctions I shall here produce; and they are 
 such as will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the antiquary, 
 both as never having been published before, and as they are a 
 curious picture of monastic irregularities at that time. 
 
 The documents that I allude to are contained in the Notabilis 
 Visitatio de Selebume, held at the Priory of that place, by Wykeham 
 in person, in the year 1387. 
 
 This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of parch- 
 ment ; the one large, and the other smaller, and consists of a 
 preamble, 36 items, and a conclusion, which altogether evince the 
 patient investigation of the visitor, for which he had always been 
 so remarkable in all matters of moment, and how much he had 
 at heart the regularity of those institutions, of whose efficacy in 
 their prayers for the dead he was so firmly persuaded. As the 
 bishop was so much in earnest, we may be assured that he had 
 nothing in view but to correct and reform what he found amiss ; 
 and was under no bias to blacken, or misrepresent, as the com- 
 missioners of Thomas Lord Cromwell seem in part to have done at 
 the time of the reformation. 2 We may therefore with reason 
 suppose that the bishop gives us an exact delineation of the morals 
 and manners of the canons of Selborne at that juncture ; and that 
 what he found they had omitted he enjoins them ; and for what 
 they have done amiss, and contrary to their rules and statutes, he 
 reproves them ; and threatens them with punishment suitable to 
 their irregularities. 
 
 This visitatio is of considerable length, and cannot be introduced 
 into the body of this work ; we shall therefore refer the reader to 
 the Appendix, where he will find every particular, while we shall 
 
 1 See Lowtk's Life of Wykeham. 
 
 2 Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell are still extant. 
 
278 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 take some notice, and make some remarks, on the most singular 
 items as they occur. 
 
 In the preamble the visitor says "Considering the charge 
 "lying upon us, that your blood may not be required at our 
 " hands, we came down to visit your Priory, as our office required : 
 "and every time we repeated our visitation we found something 
 " still not only contrary to regular rules but also repugnant to 
 " religion and good reputation." 
 
 In the first article after the preamble " he commands them 
 " on their obedience, and on pain of the greater excommunication, 
 " to see that the canonical hours by night and by day be sung in 
 " their choir, and the masses of the Blessed Mary, and other ac- 
 " customed masses, be celebrated at the proper hours with devotion, 
 " and at moderate pauses ; and that it be not allowed to any to 
 " absent themselves from the hours and masses, or to withdraw 
 "before they are finished." 
 
 Item 2d. He enjoins them to observe that silence to which 
 they are so strictly bound by the rule of Saint Augustine at stated 
 times, and wholly to abstain from frivolous conversation. 
 
 Item 4th. " Not to permit such frequent passing of secular 
 " people of both sexes through their convent, as if a thoroughfare, 
 " from whence many disorders may and have arisen." 
 
 Item 5th. " To take care that the doors of their church and 
 " Priory be so attended to that no suspected and disorderly 
 " females, ' suspectae et aliae inhonestae,' pass through their choir 
 " and cloister in the dark ; " and to see that the doors of their 
 church between the nave and the choir, and the gates of their 
 cloister opening into the fields, be constantly kept shut until their 
 first choir-service is over in the morning, at dinner time, and when 
 they meet at their evening collation. 1 
 
 Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are found to be 
 very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to see that they 
 be better instructed by a proper master. 
 
 Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to accept 
 of their statutable clothing year by year, and of demanding a 
 certain specified sum of money, as if it were their annual rent 
 and due. This the bishop forbids, and orders that the canons 
 shall be clothed out of the revenue of the Priory, and the old 
 garments be laid by in a chamber and given to the poor, accord- 
 ing to the rule of Saint Augustine. 
 
 1 A collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper, 
 
OF SELBORNE 279 
 
 In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons are given 
 to wander out of the precincts of the convent without leave ; and 
 that others ride to their manors and farms, under pretence of 
 inspecting the concerns of the society, when they please, and stay 
 as long as they please. But they are enjoined never to stir either 
 about their own private concerns or the business of the convent 
 without leave from the prior : and no canon is to go alone, but 
 to have a grave brother to accompany him. 
 
 The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time, appears 
 rather ludicrous ; but the visitor seems to be very serious on the 
 occasion, and says that it has been evidently proved to him that 
 some of the canons, living dissolutely after the flesh, and not after 
 the spirit, sleep naked in their beds without their breeches and 
 shirts, " absque femoralibus et camisiis "^ He enjoins that these 
 culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, especially if they 
 shall be found to be faulty a third time ; and threatens the prior 
 and sub-prior with suspension if they do not correct this enormity. 
 
 In Item 1 1 th the good bishop is very wroth with some of the 
 canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen, 
 keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting-matches. These 
 pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul 
 and body, and frequent expense ; he, therefore, wishing to extir- 
 pate this vice wholly from the convent, " radicibus extirpare" does 
 absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally to be present at 
 any public noisy tumultuous huntings ; or to keep any hounds, 
 by themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, within the 
 convent, or without. 2 
 
 In Item 1 2th he forbids the canons in office to make their busi- 
 ness a plea for not attending the service of the choir ; since by 
 these means either divine worship is neglected or their brother- 
 canons are over-burdened. 
 
 By Item 14th we are informed that the original number of 
 canons at the Priory of Selborne was jourteen ; but that at this 
 visitation they were found to be let down to eleven. The visitor 
 
 1 The rule alluded to in Item xoth, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the 
 Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine. 
 
 See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum. 
 
 2 Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of 
 the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Selborne should languish after 
 hunting, when, from their situation so near the precincts of Wolmer-forest, the kirg's 
 hounds must have been often in hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows. 
 
 If the bishop was so offended at these sporting canons, what would he have said 
 
 to our modern fox-hunting divines ? 
 
280 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 therefore strongly and earnestly enjoins them that, with all due 
 speed and diligence, they should proceed to the election of proper 
 persons to fill up the vacancies, under pain of the greater ex- 
 communication. 
 
 In Item 17th the prior and canons are accused of suffering, 
 through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among their 
 manerial houses and tenements, and in the walls and enclosures 
 of the convent itself, to the shame and scandal of the institution ; 
 they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspension, to repair 
 all defects within the space of six months. 
 
 Item 18th charges them with grievously burthening the said 
 Priory by means of sales, and grants of liveries l and corrodies. 2 
 
 The bishop, in Item 19th, accuses the canons of neglect and 
 omission with respect to their perpetual chantry-services. 
 
 Item 20th. The visitor here conjures the prior and canons not 
 to withhold their original alms, " eleemosynas" ; nor those that 
 they were enjoined to distribute for the good of the souls of 
 founders and benefactors : he also strictly orders that the frag- 
 ments and broken victuals, both from the hall of their prior and 
 their common refectory, should be carefully collected together 
 by their eleemosynarius, and given to the poor without any diminu- 
 tion ; the officer to be suspended for neglect or omission. 
 
 Item 23d. He bids them distribute their pittances, <e pitancias," B 
 regularly on obits, anniversaries, festivals, &c. 
 
 Item 25th. All and every one of the canons are hereby in- 
 hibited from standing godfather to any boy for the future, "lie 
 " compatres alicujus pueri de cetero fieri presumatis," unless by 
 express license from the bishop obtained ; because from such 
 relationship favour and affection, nepotism, and undue influence, 
 arise, to the injury and detriment of religious institutions. 4 
 
 1 ' ' Liberationes, or liberaturce, allowances of corn, &c. to servants delivered at 
 "certain times, and in certain quantities, as clothes, were among the allowances 
 " from religious houses to their dependants. See the corrodies granted by Cray land 
 " abbey." Hist, of Croyland, Appendix, N XXXIV. 
 
 "It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined to the 
 "uniform of the retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery 
 "servants." Sir John Cullum's Hist, of Hawsted. 
 
 2 A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory. 
 
 3 " Pitancia, an allowance of bread and beer, or other provision to any pious 
 "use, especially to the religious in a monastery, &c. for augmentation of their 
 "commons." Gloss, to Kennefs Par. Antiq. 
 
 4 "The relationship between sponsors and their god-children, who were called 
 "spiritual sons and daughters, was formerly esteemed much more sacred than at 
 "present. The presents at christenings were sometimes very considerable: the 
 " connection lasted through life, and was closed with a legacy. This last mark of 
 
OF SELBORNE 281 
 
 Item 26th. The visitor herein severely reprimands the canons 
 for appearing publicly in what would be called in the universities 
 an unstatutable manner, and for wearing of boots, "caligae de 
 
 " Burneto, et sotularium in ocrearum loco, ad modum 
 
 "sotularium". 1 
 
 It is remarkable that the bishop expresses more warmth against 
 this than any other irregularity ; and strictly enjoins them, under 
 pain of ecclesiastical censures, and even imprisonment if necessary 
 (a threat not made use of before), for the future to wear boots, 
 " ocreis seu botis," according to the regular usage of their ancient 
 order. 
 
 Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness, forbids 
 them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of appearing like 
 beaux with garments edged with costly furs, with fringed gloves, 
 and silken girdles trimmed with gold and silver. It is remarkable 
 that no punishment is annexed to this injunction. 
 
 Item 31st. He here singly and severally forbids each canon 
 not admitted to a cure of souls to administer extreme unction, or 
 the sacrament, to clergy or laity ; or to perform the service of 
 matrimony, till he has taken out the license of the parish priest. 
 
 Item 32d. The bishop says in this item that he had observed 
 and found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate 
 and cloths of the altar, surplices, &c. were sometimes left in such 
 an uncleanly and disgusting condition as to make the beholders 
 shudder with horror ; " quod aliquibus sunt horrori ; " 2 he there- 
 
 " attention seems to have been thought almost indispensable: for, in a will, from 
 " whence no extracts have been given, the testator left every one of his god-children 
 1 ' a bushel of barley. ' ' Sir John Cullum's Hist, of Hawsted. 
 
 " D. Margarets filiae Regis primogenitas, quam Jlliota.m, quia ejus in baptismo 
 " compater fuit, appellat, cyphum aureum et quadraginta libras, legavit." Arch- 
 bishop Parker de Antiquitate Eccles. Brit, speaking of Archbishop Morton. 
 
 1 Du Fresne is copious on caligce of several sorts. "Hoc item de Clericis, 
 ' presertim beneficiatis : caligis scacatis (chequered) rubeis, et viridibus publice 
 'utentibus dicimus esse censendum." Statut. Eccles. Tutel. The chequered 
 x>ots seem to be the highland plaid stockings. " Burnetum, i.e. Brunetum, 
 ' pannus non ex lana nativi coloris confectus." " Sotularium, i. e. subtalaris, quia 
 ' sub talo est. Peculium genus, quibus maxime Monachi nocte utebantur in 
 ' aestate : in hyeme vero Soccis." 
 
 This writer gives many quotations concerning Sotularia, which were not to be 
 made too shapely ; nor were the caligce to be laced on too nicely. 
 
 2 " Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." i Sam. chap. ii. v. 17. Strange as 
 this account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders, 
 twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches 
 belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he found the inside of the chalice 
 covered with birds' dung; and in the other the communion-cloth soiled with 
 cabbage and the greasy drippings of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the 
 
282 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 fore enjoins them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and 
 vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent order : and, what 
 must surprise the reader, adds that he expects for the future 
 that the sacrist should provide for the sacrament good wine, pure 
 and unadulterated ; and not, as had often been the practice, that 
 which was sour, and tending to decay : he says farther, that it 
 seems quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that attention 
 to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace a 
 common convivial meeting. 1 
 
 Item 33d says that, though the relics of saints, the plate, holy 
 vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canoni- 
 cal institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn ; yet, as the 
 visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he 
 therefore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those 
 pledges, and to restore them to the convent ; and orders that 
 all the papers and title deeds thereto belonging should be safely 
 deposited, and kept under three locks and keys. 
 
 In the course of the Visitatio Notabilis the constitutions of Legate 
 Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was afterwards 
 Pope AdrianV. and died in 1276. His constitutions are in Lynde- 
 wood's Provinciate, and were drawn up in the 52d of Henry III. 
 
 In the Visitatio Notabilis the usual punishment is fasting on 
 bread and beer ; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread 
 and water. On these occasions quarta feria et sexta Jeria, are 
 mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the 
 week numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 THOUGH bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in his 
 visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he was 
 on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent, 
 which, like every other society or individual that fell in his way, 
 partook of the generosity and benevolence of that munificent 
 prelate. 
 
 great farm-house, who was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it 
 best to save her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own 
 table for two or three Sundays before. 
 
 111 ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa 
 
 " Corruget nares ; ne non et cantharus, et lanx 
 " Ostendat tibi te " 
 
OF SELBORNE 283 
 
 "In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his mere good 
 " will and liberality, discharged the whole debts of the prior and 
 "convent of Selborne, to the amount of one hundred and ten 
 " marks eleven shillings and sixpence ; 1 and, a few years before 
 " he died, he made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same 
 " Priory : on which account the prior and convent voluntarily 
 " engaged for the celebration of two masses a day by two canons 
 "of the convent for ten years, for the bishop's welfare, if he 
 " should live so long ; and for his soul if he should die before the 
 " expiration of this term." 2 
 
 At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder to us 
 how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose members were 
 exempt by their very institution from every means of personal and 
 family expense, could possibly run in debt without squandering 
 their revenues in a manner incompatible with their function. 
 
 Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their re- 
 venues by fires among their buildings, or large dilapidations from 
 storms, &c. ; but no such accident appears to have befallen the 
 Priory at Selborne. Those situate on public roads, or in great 
 towns, where there were shrines of saints, were liable to be in- 
 truded on by travellers, devotees, and pilgrims ; and were subject 
 to the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to 
 partake of doles and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages 
 some convents used to complain, and especially those at Canter- 
 bun/ ; but this Priory, from it's sequestered situation, could seldom 
 be subject to either of these inconveniences, and therefore we 
 must attribute it's frequent debts and embarrassments, well en- 
 dowed as it was, to the bad conduct of it's members, and a general 
 inattention to the interests of the institution. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 BEAUFORT was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447 ; and yet, 
 notwithstanding this long episcopate, only torn. I. of Beaufort's 
 Register is to be found. This loss is much to be regretted, as it 
 must unavoidably make a gap in the history of Selborne Priory, 
 and perhaps in the list of it's priors. 
 
 1 Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all their relics, 
 plate, vestments, 'title-deeds, &c. were in pawn. 
 
 2 Lowth's Life of Wykeham, 
 
284 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in 1411. 
 
 In vol. I. p. 24, of Beaufort's Register, is the instrument of 
 the election of John Wynchestre to be prior the substance as 
 follows : 
 
 Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop that brother 
 Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October 18th, 1410, and was 
 buried November llth. That the bishop's license to elect having 
 been obtained, he and the whole convent met in the chapter- 
 house, on the same day, about the hour of vespers, to consider of 
 the election : that brother John Wynchestre, then sub-prior, with 
 the general consent, appointed the 12th of November, ad horam 
 ejusdem diei capitularem, for the business : when they met in the 
 chapter-house, post missam de sancto Spiritu, solemnly celebrated in 
 the church ; to wit, Richard Elstede ; Thomas Halyborne ; John 
 Lemyngton, sacrista ; John Stepe, cantor : Walter Ffarnham ; Rich- 
 ard Putrvorth, celarius ; Hugh London ; Henry Brampton, alias 
 Brompton ; John Wynchestre, senior; John Wynchestre, junior; 
 then "Proposito primitus verbo Dei," and then ympno "Veni 
 Creator Spiritus" being solemnly sung, " cum versiculo et oratione/' 
 as usual, and his letter of license, with the appointment of the hour 
 and place of election, being read, (< altavoce, in valvis" of the chapter- 
 house ; John Wynchestre, senior, the sub-prior, in his own behalf 
 and that of all the canons, and by their mandate, "quasdam 
 " monicionem et protestacionem in scriptis redactas fecit, legit, et 
 " interposuit " that all persons disqualified, or not having right to 
 be present, should immediately withdraw ; and protesting against 
 their voting, &c. that then having read the constitution of the 
 general council " Quia propter," and explained the modes of pro- 
 ceeding to election, they agreed unanimously to proceed " per 
 "viam seu formam simplids compromissi" ; when John Wynchestre, 
 sub-prior, and all the others (the commissaries undernamed 
 excepted) named and chose brothers Richard Elstede, Thomas 
 Halyborne, John Lemyngton the sacrist, John Stepe, chantor, and 
 Richard Putrvorth, canons, to be commissaries, who were sworn 
 each to nominate and elect a fit person to be prior : and em- 
 powered by letters patent under the common seal, to be in force 
 only until the darkness of the night of the same day ; that they, 
 or the greater part of them, should elect for the whole convent, 
 within the limited time, from their own number, or from the rest 
 of the convent ; that one of them should publish their consent 
 in common before the clergy and people : they then all promised 
 to receive as prior the person these five canons should fix on, 
 
OF SELBORNE 285 
 
 These commissaries seceded from the chapter-house to the re- 
 fectory of the Priory, and were shut in with master John Penkester, 
 bachelor of laws ; and John Couke and John Lynne, perpetual vicars 
 of the parish churches of Newton and Selborne ; and with Sampson 
 Maycock, a public notary ; where they treated of the election ; 
 when they unanimously agreed on John Wynchestre, and appointed 
 Thomas Halyborne, to chuse him in common for all, and to publish 
 the election, as customary ; and returned long before it was dark 
 to the chapter-house, where Thomas Halyborne read publicly the 
 instrument of election ; when all the brothers, the new prior ex- 
 cepted, singing solemnly the hymn " Te Deum laudamus," fecerunt 
 deportari novum electum, by some of the brothers, from the chapter- 
 house to the high altar of the church ; 1 and the hymn being sung, 
 dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis in hac parte, Thomas Haly- 
 borne, mox time ibidem, before the clergy and people of both sexes 
 solemnly published the election in vulgari. Then Richard Elstede, 
 and the whole convent by their proctors and nuncios appointed for 
 the purposes, Thomas Halyborne and John Stepe required several 
 times the assent of the elected ; " et tandem post diutinas inter- 
 " pellationes, et deliberationem providam penes se habitam, in hac 
 " parte divine nolens, ut asseruit, resistere voluntati," within the 
 limited time he signified his acceptance in the usual written form 
 of words. The bishop is then supplicated to confirm their election, 
 and do the needful, under common seal, in the chapter-house. 
 November 14, 1410. 
 
 The bishop, January 6, 1410, apud Esher in camera inferiori, 
 declared the election duly made, and ordered the new prior to 
 be inducted for this the archdeacon of Winchester was written 
 to; "stallumque in choro, et locum in capitulo juxta morem 
 " preteriti temporis," to be assigned him ; and every thing beside 
 necessary to be done. 
 
 BEAUFORT'S REGISTER, Vol. I. 
 
 P. 2. Taxatio spiritualis Decanatus de Aulton, Ecclesia de Sele- 
 bourn, cum Capella, xxx marc, decima x lib. iii sol. Vicaria de 
 Selebourn non taxatur propter exilitatem. 
 
 P. 9- Taxatio bonorum temporalium religiosorum in Archidiac. 
 
 Wynton. 
 
 1 It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior from the 
 chapter-house to the high altar of their convent-church. In letter XXI, on the same 
 occasion, it is said ' ' et sic canentes dictum electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduxi- 
 " mus, ut apud nos moris est ". 
 
286 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 Prior de Selebourn habet maneria de 
 
 Bromdene taxat. ad-------- xxx s. ii d. 
 
 Apud Schete ad --------- xvii s. 
 
 P. Selebourn ad --------- vi lib. 
 
 In civitate Wynton de reddit ----- vi lib. viii ob. 
 
 Tannaria sua taxat. ad-------x lib. s. 
 
 Summa tax. xxxviii lib. xiiii d. ob. Inde decima vi lib. s. q. ob. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 INFORMATION being sent to Rome respecting the havock and spoil 
 that was carrying on among the revenues and lands of the Priory 
 of Selborne, as we may suppose by the bishop of Winchester, it's 
 visitor, Pope Martin, 1 as soon as the news of these proceedings 
 came before him, issued forth a bull, in which he enjoins his com- 
 missary immediately to revoke all the property that had been 
 alienated. 
 
 In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and canons of 
 having granted away (they themselves and their predecessors) to 
 certain clerks and laymen their tithes, lands, rents, tenements, 
 and possessions, to some of them for their lives, to others for an 
 undue term of years, and to some again for a perpetuity, to the 
 great and heavy detriment of the monastery : and these leases 
 were granted, he continues to add, under their own hands, with 
 the sanction of an oath and the renunciation of all right and 
 claims, and under penalties, if the right was not made good. 
 But it will be best to give an abstract from the bull. 
 
 N. 298. Pope Martins bull touching the revoking of certaine 
 things alienated from the Priory of Seleburne. Pontif. sui. ann. 1. 
 
 " Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei. Dilecto filio Priori de 
 "Suthvale 2 Wyntonien. dioc. Salutem & apostolicam ben. Ad 
 "audientiam nostram pervenit quam tarn dilecti filii prior et 
 "conventus monasterii de Seleburn per Priorem soliti gubernari 
 " ordinis S tl . Augustini Winton. dioc. quam de predecessores eorum 
 " decimas, terras, redditus, domos, possessiones, vineas* et quedam 
 
 1 Pope Martin V. chosen about 1417. He attempted to reform the church, but 
 died in 1431, just as he had summoned the council of Basil. 
 
 2 Should have been no doubt Southwick, a priory under Portsdown. 
 
 3 Mr. Barrington is of opinion that anciently the English vinea was in almost 
 every instance an orchard ; not perhaps always of apples merely, but of other 
 
OF SELBOENE 287 
 
 "alia bona ad monasterium ipsum spectantia, datis super hoc 
 "litteris, interpositis juramentis, factis renuntiationibus, et penis 
 "adjectis, in gravem ipsius monasterii lesionem, nonnullis clericis 
 " et laicis, aliquibus eorum ad vitam, quibusdam vero ad non 
 "modicum tempus, & aliis perpetuo ad firmam, vel sub censu 
 " annuo concesserunt ; quorum aliqui dicunt super hiis a sede 
 "aplica in communi forma confirmationis litteras impetrasse. 
 " Quia vero nostra interest lesis monasteriis subvenire [He the 
 "Pope here commands] ea ad jus et proprietatem monasterii 
 "studeas legitime revocare," &c. 
 
 The conduct of the religious had now for some time been 
 generally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being very 
 opulent, were become voluptuous and licentious, and had deviated 
 entirely from their original institutions. The laity saw with in- 
 dignation the wealth and possessions of their pious ancestors 
 perverted to the service of sensuality and indulgence ; and spent 
 in gratifications highly unbecoming the purposes for which they 
 were given. A total disregard to their respective rules and dis- 
 cipline drew on the monks and canons a heavy load of popular 
 odium. Some good men there were who endeavoured to oppose 
 the general delinquency ; but their efforts were too feeble to 
 stem the torrent of monastic luxury. As far back as the year 
 1381 Wickliffes principles and doctrines had made some progress, 
 were well received by men who wished for a reformation, and 
 were defended and maintained by them as long as they dared ; 
 till the bishops and clergy began to be so greatly alarmed, that 
 they procured an act to be passed by which the secular arm was 
 empowered to support the corrupt doctrines of the church ; but 
 the first lollard was not burnt until the year 1401. 
 
 The wits also of those times did not spare the gross morals of 
 the clergy, but boldly ridiculed their ignorance and profligacy. 
 The most remarkable of these were Chaucer, and his contem- 
 porary Robert Langelande, better known by the name of Piers 
 Plowman. The laughable tales of the former are familiar to almost 
 every reader ; while the visions of the latter are but in few hands. 
 With a quotation from the Passus Decimus of this writer I shall 
 conclude my letter ; not only on account of the remarkable pre- 
 diction therein contained, which carries with it somewhat of the 
 
 fruits ; as cherries, plums, and currants. We still say a plum or cherry-orchard. 
 See vol. III. of Archceologia. 
 
 In the instance above the pope's secretary might insert vineas merely because 
 they were a species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy. 
 
288 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 air of a prophecy ; but also as it seems to have been a striking 
 picture of monastic insolence and dissipation ; and a specimen 
 of one of the keenest pieces of satire now perhaps subsisting 
 in any language, ancient or modern. 
 
 " Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate ; 
 " A leader of love-days, and a loud begger ; 
 " A pricker on a palfrey from maner to maner, 
 " A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were. 
 " And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring, 
 " He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie. 
 " Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs, 
 " To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars. 
 " In many places ther they persons be, by himself at ease : 
 " Of the poor have they no pity, and that is her charitie ; 
 " And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad. 
 " And there shal come a king, 1 and confess you religious ; 
 " And beate you, as the bible telleth, for breaking your rule, 
 " And amend monials, and monks, and chanons, 
 " And put hem to her penaunce ad pristinum statum ire." 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 WILLIAM of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in the year 
 1447, and seems to have pursued the generous plan of Wykeham 
 in endeavouring to reform the Priory of Selbome. 
 
 When Waynflete came to the see he found prior Stype, alias 
 Stepe, still living, who had been elected as long ago as the year 
 1411. 
 
 Among my documents I find a curious paper of the things put 
 into the custody of Peter Bernes the sacrist, and especially some 
 relics : the title of this evidence is " N 50, Indentura prioris de 
 " Selborne quorundam tradit. Petro Bernes sacristae, ibidem, ann. 
 
 1 F. i. a. "This prediction, although a probable conclusion concerning a king 
 " who after a time would suppress the religious houses, is remarkable. I imagined 
 " it might have been foisted into the copies in the reign of king Henry VIII. but it 
 " is to be found in MSS. of this poem, older than the year 1400." fol. 1. a. b. 
 
 "Again, where he, Piers Plowman, alludes to the Knights Templars, lately 
 suppressed, he says, 
 
 " Men of holie kirk 
 
 1 ' Shall turn as Templars did ; the tyme approacheth nere. ' ' 
 " This, I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffe"^ discourses." 
 
 Warton's Hist, of English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 282. 
 
OF SELBOENE 289 
 
 " Hen. VI. una cum confiss. ejusdem Petri script." The 
 
 occasion of this catalogue, or list of effects, being drawn between 
 the prior and sacrist does not appear, nor the date when ; only 
 that it happened in the reign of Hen. VI. This transaction pro- 
 bably took place when Bernes entered on his office ; and there is 
 the more reason to suppose that to be the case, because the list 
 consists of vestments and implements, and relics, such as belonged 
 to the church of the Priory, and fell under the care of the sacrist. 
 For the numerous items I shall refer the curious reader to the 
 Appendix, and shall just mention the relics, although they are 
 not all specified ; and the state of the live stock of the monastery 
 at that juncture. 
 
 11 Item 2. osculatdr. argent. 
 
 "Item 1. osculatorium cum osse digiti auricular. S fi . Johannis 
 Baptistce. 1 
 
 "Item 1. parvam crucern cum V. reliquiis. 
 
 "Item 1. anulum argent, et deauratum St. Edmundi. 2 
 
 "Item 2. osculat. de coper. 
 
 "Item I.junctorium St. Ricardi. 3 
 
 " Item 1. pecten St. Ricardi." 4 
 
 The staurum, or live stock, is quite ridiculous, consisting only 
 of " 2 vacce, 1 sus, 4 hoggett. et 4 porcell." viz. two cows, one sow, 
 four porkers, and four pigs. 
 
 1 How the convent came by the bone of the little finger of Saint John the Baptist 
 does not appear ; probably the founder, while in Palestine, purchased it among the 
 Asiatics, who were at that time great traders in relics. We know from the best 
 authority that as soon as Herod had cruelly beheaded that holy man " his disciples 
 " came and took up the body and buried it, and went and told Jesus ". Matt. iv. 
 12. Farther would be difficult to say. 
 
 2 November 20, in the calendar, Edmund king and martyr, in the 9th century. 
 See also a Sanctus Edmundus in God-win, among the archbishops of Canterbury \ 
 in the i3th century ; his surname Rich, in 1234. 
 
 3 April 3, ibid. Richard bishop of Chichester, in the i3th century ; his surname 
 De la Wich, in 1245. 
 
 Junctorium, perhaps a joint or limb of St. Richard ; but what particular joint 
 the religious were not such osteologists as to specify. This barbarous word was 
 not to be found in any dictionary consulted by the author. 
 
 4 "Pecten inter ministeria sacra recensetur, quo scil. sacerdotes ac clerici, ante- 
 " quam in ecclesiam procederent, crines pecterent. E quibus colligitur monachos, 
 " tune temporis, non omnino tonsos fuisse." Du Fresne. 
 
 The author remembers to have seen in great farm houses a family comb 
 chained to a post for the use of the hinds when they came into their meals. 
 
 19 
 
290 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 STEPE died towards the end of the year 1453, as we may suppose 
 pretty far advanced in life, having been prior forty-four years. 
 
 On the very day that the vacancy happened, viz. January 26, 
 1453-4, the sub-prior and convent petitioned the visitor "vos 
 " unicum levamen nostrum, et spem unanimiter rogamus, quatinus 
 " eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio nostro, in nostra 
 "religione probatum et expertem, licenciam vestram paternalem 
 " cum plena libertate nobis concedere dignemini graciose ". 
 
 Reg. Waynflete, torn. I. 
 
 Instead of the licence requested we find next a commission 
 " custodie prioratus de Selebourne durante vacatione," addressed 
 to brother Peter Berne, canon-regular of the priory of Selebourne, 
 and of the order of St. Augustine, appointing him keeper of the 
 said priory, and empowering him to collect and receive the profits 
 and revenues, and "alia bona " of the said priory ; and to exercise 
 in every respect the full power and authority of a prior ; but to be 
 responsible to the visitor finally, and to maintain this superiority 
 during the bishop's pleasure only. This instrument is dated 
 from the bishop's manor-house in Southwark, March 1, 1453-4, 
 and the seventh of his consecration. 
 
 After this transaction it does not appear that the chapter of 
 the Priory proceeded to any election ; on the contrary, we 
 find that at six months end from the vacancy the visitor declared 
 that a lapse had taken place ; and that therefore he did confer 
 the priorship on canon Peter Berne. " Prioratum vacantem et ad 
 "nostram collationem, seu provisionem jure ad nos in hac parte 
 "per lapsum temporis legitime devoluto spectantem, tibi (sc. P. 
 " Berne) de legitimo matrimonio procreate, &c. conferimus," &c. 
 This deed bears date July 28, 1454. 
 
 Reg. Waynflete, torn. I. p. 69- 
 
 On February 8, 1462, the visitor issued out a power of seques- 
 tration against the Priory of Selborne on account of notorious 
 dilapidations, which threatened manifest ruin to the roofs, walls, 
 and edifices, of the said convent ; and appointing John Ham- 
 mond, B.D. rector of the parish church of Hetlegh, John Hylling, 
 vicar of the parish church of Newton Valence, and Walter Gorfin, 
 inhabitant of the parish of Selborne, his sequestrators, to exact, 
 collect, levy, and receive, all the profits and revenues of the said 
 
OF SELBORNE 291 
 
 convent : he adds " ac ea sub arcto, et tuto custodiatis, custo- 
 " dirive faciatis " ; as they would answer it to the bishop at their 
 peril. 
 
 In consequence of these proceedings prior Berne, on the last 
 day of February, and the next year, produced a state of the 
 revenues of the Priory, N. 381, called "A paper conteyning the 
 "value of the manors and lands pertayning to the Priory of 
 " Selborne. 4 Edward III. with a note of charges yssuing out 
 "of it." 
 
 This is a curious document, and will appear in the Appendix. 
 From circumstances in this paper it is plain that the sequestration 
 produced good effects ; for in it are to be found bills of repairs 
 to a considerable amount. 
 
 By this evidence also it appears that there were at that juncture 
 only four canons at the Priory ; * and that these, and their four 
 household servants, during this sequestration for their clothing, 
 wages, and diet, were allowed per ann. xxx lib. ; and that the 
 annual pension of the lord prior, reside where he would, was to 
 be x lib. 
 
 In the year 1468, prior Berne, probably wearied out by the 
 dissensions and want of order that prevailed in the convent, 
 resigned his priorship into the hands of the bishop. 
 
 REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. I. pars l ma , fol. 157. 
 
 March 28, A.D. 1468. "In quadam alta camera juxta magnam 
 " portam manerii of the bishop of Wynton de Waltham coram eodem 
 "rev. patre ibidem tune sedente, Peter Berne, prior of Selbome, 
 " ipsum prioratum in sacras, et venerabiles manus of the bishop, viva 
 " voce libere resignavit " : and his resignation was admitted before 
 two witnesses and a notary-public. In consequence, March 29th, 
 before the bishop, " in capella manerii sui ante dicti pro tribunali 
 " sedente, comparuerunt fratres " Peter Berne, Thomas London, 
 William Wyndesor, and William Paynell, alias Stretford, canons 
 regular of the priory, " capitulum, et conventum ejusdem ecclesie 
 " facientes ; ac jus et voces in electione futura prioris dicti prio- 
 " ratus solum et in solidum, ut asseruerunt, habentes " ; and after 
 the bishop had notified to them the vacancy of a prior, with his 
 free license to elect, deliberated awhile, and then, by way of 
 compromise, as they affirmed, unanimously transferred their right 
 
 1 If bishop Wykeham was so disturbed (see Notab. Visitatio] to find the number 
 of canons reduced from fourteen to eleven, what would he have said to have seen 
 it diminished below one third of that number? 
 
292 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 of election to the bishop before witnesses. In consequence of 
 this the bishop, after full deliberation, proceeded, April 7th, " in 
 " capella manerii sui de Waltham," to the election of a prior : " et 
 "fratrem Johannem Morton, priorem ecclesie conventualis de 
 " Reygate dicti ordinis S u . Augustini Wynton. dioc. in priorem vice et 
 "nomine omnium et singulorum canonicorum predictorum elegit, 
 "in ordine sacerdotali, et etate licita constitutum, c." And on 
 the same day, in the same place, and before the same witnesses, 
 John Morton resigned to the bishop the priorship of Reygate viva 
 voce. The bishop then required his consent to his own election ; 
 " qui licet in parte renitens tanti reverendi patris se confirmans," 
 obeyed, and signified his consent oraculo vive vocis. Then was there 
 a mandate citing any one who would gainsay the said election to 
 appear before the bishop or his commissary in his chapel at Farn- 
 ham on the second day of May next. The dean of the deanery 
 of Aulton then appeared before the chancellor, his commissary, 
 and returned the citation or mandate dated April 22d, 14-68, 
 with signification, in writing, of his having published it as re- 
 quired, dated Newton Valence, May 1st, 1468. This certificate 
 being read, the four canons of Selborne appeared and required the 
 election to be confirmed ; et ex super abundanti appointed William 
 Long their proctor to solicit in their name that he might be 
 canonically confirmed. John Morton also appeared, and pro- 
 clamation was made ; and no one appearing against him, the 
 commissary pronounced all absentees contumacious, and pre- 
 cluded them from objecting at any other time ; and, at the 
 instance of John Morton and the proctor, confirmed the election 
 by his decree, and directed his mandate to the rector of Hedley, 
 and the vicar of Newton Valence to install him in the usual form. 
 Thus, for the first time, was a person, a stranger to the convent 
 of Selborne, and never canon of that monastery, elected prior ; 
 though the style of the petitions in former elections used to run 
 
 thus, " Vos rogamus quatinus eligendum ex nobis unum 
 
 " confratrem de gremio nostro, licentiam vestram nobis con- 
 " cedere dignemini ". 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 PRIOR Morton dying in 1471, two canons, by themselves, pro- 
 ceeded to election, and chose a prior ; but two more (one of them 
 Berne) complaining of not being summoned, objected to the 
 
OF SELBORNE 293 
 
 proceedings as informal ; till at last the matter was compromised 
 that the bishop should again, for that turn, nominate as he had 
 before. But the circumstances of this election will be best 
 explained by the following extract : 
 
 REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. II. pars l m *, fol. 7. 
 Memorandum. A.D. 1471. August 22. 
 
 William Wyndesor, a canon -regular of the Priory of Selborne, 
 having been elected prior on the death of brother John, appeared 
 in person before the bishop in his chapel at South Waltham. He 
 was attended on this occasion by Thomas London and John Bromes- 
 grove, canons, who had elected him. Peter Berne and William 
 Stratfeld, canons, also presented themselves at the same time, 
 complaining that in this business they had been overlooked, and 
 not summoned ; and that therefore the validity of the election 
 might with reason be called in question, and quarrels and dissen- 
 sions might probably arise between the newly chosen prior and 
 the parties thus neglected. 
 
 After some altercation and dispute they all came to an agree- 
 ment with the new prior that what had been done should be 
 rejected and annulled ; and that they would again, for this turn, 
 transfer to the bishop their power to elect, order, and provide 
 them another prior, whom they promised unanimously to admit. 
 
 The bishop accepted of this offer before witnesses ; and on Sep- 
 tember 27, in an inner chamber near the chapel above-mentioned, 
 after full deliberation, chose brother Thomas Fainvise, vicar of 
 Somborne, a canon-regular of Saint Augustine in the Priory of 
 Bru-scough, in the diocese of Coventry and Litchfield, to be prior of 
 Selborne. The form is nearly as above in the last election. The 
 canons are again enumerated ; W. Wyndesor, sub-prior, P. Berne, 
 T. London, W. Stratfeld, J. Bromesgrove, who had formed the 
 chapter, and had requested and obtained license to elect, but 
 had unanimously conferred their power on the bishop. In con- 
 sequence of this proceeding, the bishop taking the business upon 
 himself, that the Priory might not suffer detriment for want of a 
 governor, appoints the aforesaid T. Fainvise to be prior. A 
 citation was ordered as above for gainsayers to appear October 
 4th, before the bishop or his commissaries at South Walthaw ; 
 but none appearing, the commissaries admitted the said Thomas, 
 ordered him to be installed, and sent the usual letter to the 
 convent to render him due obedience. 
 
294 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 Thus did the bishop of Winchester a second time appoint a 
 stranger to be prior of Selborne, instead of one chosen out of 
 the chapter. For cliis seeming irregularity the visitor had no 
 doubt good and sufficient reasons, as probably may appear here- 
 after. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 WHATEVER might have been the abilities and disposition of Prior 
 Fairwise, it could not have been in his power to have brought 
 about any material reformation in the Priory of Selhorne, because 
 he departed this life in the month of August 1 472, before he had 
 presided one twelvemonth. 
 
 As soon as their governor was buried the chapter applied to 
 their visitor for leave to choose a new prior, which being granted, 
 after deliberating for a time, they proceeded to an election by a 
 scrutiny. But as this mode of voting has not been described but 
 by the mere form in the Appendix, an extract from the bishop's 
 register, representing the manner more fully, may not be dis- 
 agreeable to several readers. 
 
 WAYNFLETE REG. torn. II. pars l ma , fol. 15. 
 
 " Reverendo &c. ac nostro patroiio graciosissimo vestri humiles, 
 "et devote obedientie filii," &c. 
 
 To the right reverend Father in God, and our most gracious 
 patron, we, your obedient and devoted sons, William Wyndesor, 
 president of the chapter of the Priory of Selborne, and the convent 
 of that place, do make known to your lordship, that our priorship 
 being lately vacant by the death of Thomas Fairwise, our late 
 prior, who died August llth, 1472, having committed his body 
 to decent sepulture, and having requested, according to custom, 
 leave to elect another, and having obtained it under your seal, 
 we, William Wyndesor, president of the convent, on the 29th of 
 August, in our chapter-house assembled, and making a chapter, 
 taking to us in this business Richard ap Jenkyn, and Gal/rid Bryan, 
 chaplains, that our said priory might not by means of this vacancy 
 incur harm or loss, unanimously agreed on August the last for the 
 day of the election ; on which day, having first celebrated mass, 
 " De sancto spiritu," at the high altar, and having called a chap- 
 ter by tolling a bell about ten o' the clock, we, William Wyndesor, 
 
OF SELBOENE 295 
 
 president, Peter Berne, Thomas London, and William Siratfeld, 
 canons, who alone had voices, being the only canons, about ten o' 
 the clock, first sung " Veni Creator," the letters and license being 
 read in the presence of many persons there. Then William 
 Wyndesor, in his own name, and that of all the canons, made 
 solemn proclamation, enjoining all who had no right to vote to 
 depart out of the chapter-house. When all were withdrawn 
 except Guyllery de Lacuna, in decretis Baccalarius, and Robert 
 Peverell, notary-public, and also the two chaplains, the first was 
 requested to stay, that he might direct and inform us in the 
 mode of election; the other, that he might record and attest 
 the transactions ; and the two last that they might be witnesses 
 to them. 
 
 Then, having read the constitution of the general council 
 " Quia propter," and the forms of elections contained in it being 
 sufficiently explained to them by De Lacuna, as well in Latin as 
 the vulgar tongue, and having deliberated in what mode to proceed 
 in this election, they resolved on that of scrutiny. Three of the 
 canons, Wyndesor, Berne, and London, were made scrutators : 
 Berne, London, and Stratfeld, chusing Wyndesor ; Wyndesor, Lon- 
 don, and Stratfeld, chusing Berne; Wyndesor, Berne, and Strat- 
 feld, chusing London. 
 
 They were empowered to take each other's vote, and then 
 that of Stratfeld ; " et ad inferiorem part em angularem " of the 
 chapter-house, "juxta ostium ejusdem declinentes," with the 
 other persons (except Stratfeld, who staid behind), proceeded to 
 voting, two swearing, and taking the voice of the third, in suc- 
 cession, privately. Wyndesor voted first : " Ego credo Petrum 
 "Berne meliorem et utiliorem ad regimen istius ecclesie, et in 
 " ipsum consentio, ac eum nomino/' &c. Berne was next sworn, 
 and in like manner nominated Wyndesor; London nominated 
 Berne : Stratfeld was then called and sworn, and nominated 
 Berne. 
 
 "Quibus in scriptis redactis," by the notary-public, they re- 
 turned to the upper part of the chapter-house, where by Wyndesor 
 " sic purecta l fecerunt in communi," and then solemnly, in form 
 written, declared the election of Berne : when all, " antedicto 
 " nostro electo excepto, approbantes et ratificantes, cepimus de- 
 " cantare solemniter ' Te Deum Laudamus,' et sic canentes dictum 
 "electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos est 
 
 1 \Peracta f\ 
 
296 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 "moris." Then Wyndesor "electionem clero et populo infra 
 " chorum dicte ecclesie congregatis publicavit, et personam electi 
 "publice et personaliter ostendit". We then returned to the 
 chapter-house, except our prior ; and Wyndesor was appointed by 
 the other two their proctor, to desire the assent of the elected, 
 and to notify what had been done to the bishop ; and to desire 
 him to confirm the election, and do whatever else was necessary. 
 Then their proctor, before the witnesses, required Berne's assent 
 in the chapter-house : " qui quidem instanciis et precibus multi- 
 "plicatis devictus," consented, "licet indignus electus," in 
 writing. They therefore requested the bishop's confirmation of 
 their election "sic canonice et solemniter celebrata," &c. &c. 
 Sealed with their common seal, and subscribed and attested by 
 the notary. Dat. in the chapter-house September 5th, 1472. 
 
 In consequence, September llth, 1472, in the bishop's chapel at 
 Esher, and before the bishop's commissary, appeared W. Wyndesor, 
 and exhibited the above instrument, and a mandate from the 
 bishop for the appearance of gainsayers of the election there on 
 that day : and no one appearing, the absentees were declared 
 contumacious, and the election confirmed ; and the vicar of 
 Aulton was directed to induct and install the prior in the usual 
 manner. 
 
 Thus did canon Berne, though advanced in years, reassume his 
 abdicated priorship for the second time, to the no small satisfac- 
 tion, as it may seem, of the bishop of Winchester, who professed, 
 as will be shown not long hence, an high opinion of his abilities 
 and integrity. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 As prior Berne, when chosen in 1454, held his priorship only to 
 1468, and then made a voluntary resignation, wearied and dis- 
 gusted, as we may conclude, by the disorder that prevailed in 
 his convent ; it is no matter of wonder that, when re-chosen in 
 1472, he should not long maintain his station ; as old age was 
 then coming fast upon him, and the increasing anarchy and 
 misrule of that declining institution required unusual vigour and 
 resolution to stem that torrent of profligacy which was hurrying 
 it on to it's dissolution. We find, accordingly, that in 1478 he 
 resigned his dignity again into the hands of the bishop. 
 
OF SELBOKNE 297 
 
 WAYNFLETE REG. fol. 55. 
 
 Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne. 
 
 May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship. May 16 
 the bishop admitted his resignation " in manerio suo de Waltham," 
 and declared the priorship void ; " et priorat. solacio destitu- 
 " turn esse " ; and granted his letters for proceeding to a new 
 election : when all the religious, assembled in the chapter-house, 
 did transfer their power under their seal to the bishop, by the 
 following public instrument. 
 
 "In Dei nomine Amen," &c. A.D. 1478, Maii 19. In the 
 chapter-house for the election of a prior for that day, on the free 
 resignation of Peter Berne, having celebrated in the first place 
 mass at the high altar "De spiritu sancto," and having called a 
 chapter by tolling a bell, ut moris est ; in the presence of a notary 
 and witnesses appeared personally Peter Berne, Thomas Ashford, 
 Stephen Clydegrove, and John Ashton, presbyters, and Henry Can- 
 wood, 1 in chapter assembled ; and after singing the hymn " Veni 
 Creator Spiritus," " cum versiculo et oratione ' Deus qui corda ' ; 
 " declarataque licentia Fundatoris et Patroni ; futurum priorem 
 " eligendi concessa, et constitutione consilii generalis que incipit 
 " ' Quia propter ' declaratis ; viisque per quas possent ad hanc 
 "electionem procedere," by the decretorum doctorem, whom the 
 canons had taken to direct them they all and every one 
 " dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquam viam procedere " : 
 but, for this turn only, renounced their right, and unanimously 
 transferred their power to the bishop the ordinary of the place, 
 promising to receive whom he should provide ; and appointed a 
 proctor to present the instrument to the bishop under their seal ; 
 and required their notary to draw it up in due form, &c. sub- 
 scribed by the notary. 
 
 After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he pro- 
 ceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the following 
 instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury. 
 
 Fol. 56. PROVISIO PRIORIS per EPM. 
 
 Willtnus, &c. to our beloved brother in CHRIST John Sharp, alias 
 Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, of the order of St. 
 
 1 Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years ; and that there was 
 quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478 ; for, instead of 
 Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clydegrove, Ashton, and Can- 
 wood, all new men, who were soon gone in their turn o'ff the stage, and are heard 
 of no more. For, in six years after, there seem to have been no canons at all. 
 
298 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular salutem, 
 &c. "De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, 
 " et te virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et mori- 
 "bus merito coramendandum/' &c. do appoint you prior under 
 our seal. " Dat. in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 20, 
 " 1478, et nostre Consec. 31." 
 
 Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he was 
 at liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance, a stranger 
 to the place, to govern the convent of Selborne, hoping by this 
 method to have broken the cabal, and to have interrupted that 
 habit of mismanagement that had pervaded the society : but he 
 acknowledges, in an evidence lying before us, that he never did 
 succeed to his wishes with respect to those late governors, 
 "quos tamen male se habuisse, et inutiliter administrare, et 
 " administrasse usque ad presentia tempora post debitam in- 
 " vestigationem, &c. invenit". The only time that he appointed 
 from among the canons, he made choice of Peter Berne, for whom 
 he had conceived the greatest esteem and regard. 
 
 When prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he returned 
 again to his former condition of canon, in which he continued 
 for some years : but when he was re-chosen, and had abdicated 
 a second time, we find him in a forlorn state, and in danger of 
 being reduced to beggary, had not the bishop of Winchester 
 interposed in his favour, and with great humanity insisted on a 
 provision for him for life. The reason for this difference seems 
 to have been, that, in the first case, though in years, he might 
 have been hale and capable of taking his share in the duty of 
 the convent ; in the second, he was broken with age, and no 
 longer equal to the functions of a canon. 
 
 Impressed with this idea the bishop very benevolently in- 
 terceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions on the new-elected 
 prior in the following manner. 
 
 Fol. 56. "In Dei nomine Amen. Nos Willmus, &c. con- 
 " siderantes Petrum Berne," late prior, " in administratione 
 " spiritualium et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et 
 " rexisse ; ipsumque senio et corporis debilitate confractum ; ne 
 "in opprobrium religionis mendicari cogatur ; eidem annuam 
 " pensionem a Domino Johanne Sharp, alias Glastonbury, priore 
 " moderno," and his successors, and, from the Priory or church, 
 to be payed every year during his life, " de voluntate et ex con- 
 "sensu expressis" of the said John Sharp, "sub ea que sequitur 
 " forma verborum assignamus " ; 
 
OF SELBOENE 299 
 
 1st. That the said prior and his successors, for the time being, 
 honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of the priorship, "eidem 
 "esculenta et poculenta," while he remained in the Priory "sub 
 "consimili portione eorundem prout convenienter priori/' for the 
 time being, ministrari contigcrit ; and in like manner uni famulo, 
 whom he should chuse to wait on him, as to the servientibus of 
 the prior. 
 
 Item. " Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem imam honestam 
 " cameram " in the Priory, " cum focalibus necessariis seu op- 
 " portunis ad eundem." 
 
 Item. "We will, ordain, &c. to the said P. Berne, an annual 
 "pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the Priory, to be 
 " paid by the hands of the prior quarterly." 
 
 The bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and his successors, 
 shall take an oath to observe this injunction, and that before their 
 installation. 
 
 " Lecta et facta sunt haec in quodam alto oratorio," belonging 
 to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 14-78, in the presence of 
 John Sharp, who gave his assent, and then took the oath before 
 witnesses, with the other oaths before the chancellor, who decreed 
 he should be inducted and installed ; as was done that same day. 
 
 How John Sharp, alias Glastonbury, acquitted himself in his 
 priorship, and in what manner he made a vacancy, whether by 
 resignation, or death, or whether he was removed by the visitor, 
 does not appear ; we only find that some time in the year 1484 
 there was no prior, and that the bishop nominated canon Ashford 
 to fill the vacancy. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 THIS Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last prior of 
 Selborne ; and therefore here will be the proper place to say 
 something concerning a list of the priors, and to endeavour to 
 improve that already given by others. 
 
 At the end of bishop Tanners Notitia Monastica, the folio 
 edition, among Brown Willis's Principals of Religious Houses 
 occur the names of eleven of the priors of Selborne, with dates. 
 But this list is imperfect, and particularly at the beginning ; for 
 though the Priory was founded in 1232, yet it commences with 
 Nick, de Cantia, elected in 1 262 ; so that for the first thirty years 
 no prior is mentioned ; yet there must have been one or more. 
 We were in hopes that the register of Peter de Rupibus would 
 
300 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 have rectified this omission ; but, when it was examined, no 
 information of the sort was to be found. From the year 1410 
 the list is much corrected and improved ; and the reader may 
 depend on it's being thence forward very exact. 
 
 A LIST of the PRIORS of SELBORNE PRIORY, from Brown Willis's 
 Principals of Religious Houses, with additions within [ ] by 
 the author. 
 
 [John was prior, sine datj] l 
 
 Nick, de Cantia el. - 
 
 [Peter was prior in - 
 
 [Richard was prior in 
 
 Will. Basing was prior in - 
 Walter de Insula el. in 
 [Some difficulties, and a devolution ; but the election 
 
 confirmed by bishop Stratford.] 
 
 John de Winton 1339. 
 
 Thomas Weston 1377. 
 
 John Winchester [Wynchestre] - 1410. 
 
 [Elected by bishop Beaufort " per viam vel formam 
 
 " simplicis compromissi ".] 
 
 [John Stype, alias Stepe, in 1411.] 
 
 Peter Bene [alias Berne or Bernes, appointed keeper, and, 
 by lapse to bishop Wayneflete, prior] in - 1454. 
 
 [He resigns in 1468.] 
 
 John Morton [prior of Reygate] in - 1 468. 
 
 [The canons by compromise transfer the power of elec- 
 tion to the bishop.] 
 Will. Winsor [ Wyndesor, prior for a few days] - 1 47 1 . 
 
 [but removed on account of an irregular election.] 
 Thomas Farwill [Fairwise, vicar of Somborne] - 1471. 
 
 [by compromise again elected by the bishop.] 
 [Peter Berne, re-elected by scrutiny in - 1472,] 
 
 [resigns again in 1478.] 
 
 John Sharper [Sharp] alias Glastonbury - 1478. 
 
 [Canon-reg. of Bruton, elected by the bishop by compro- 
 mise.] 
 [Thomas Ashford, canon of Selborne, last prior elected by 
 
 the bishop of Winchester, some time in the year - 1484, 
 and deposed at the dissolution.] 
 
 1 See, in Letter XI. of these Antiquities, the reason why prior John , who had 
 
 transactions with the Knights Templars, is placed in the list before the year 1262. 
 
OF SELBORNE 301 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 BISHOP Wayjieflete's efforts to continue the Priory still proved 
 unsuccessful ; and the convent, without any canons, and for some 
 time without a prior, was tending swiftly to it's dissolution. 
 
 When Sharp's, alias Glastonbury's, priorship ended does not 
 appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to remove 
 some priors for mal-administration : but it is not well explained 
 how that could be the case with any, unless with Sharp ; because 
 all the others, chosen during his episcopate, died in their office, 
 viz. Morton and Fairwise ; Berne only excepted, who relinquished 
 twice voluntarily, and was moreover approved of by Wayneflete 
 as a person of integrity. But the way to shew what ineffectual 
 pains the bishop took, and what difficulties he met with, will be 
 to quote the words of the libel of his proctor Radulphus Langley, 
 who appeared for the bishop in the process of the impropriation 
 of the Priory of Selborne. The extract is taken from an attested 
 copy. 
 
 "Item that the said bishop dicto prioratui et personis ejus- 
 "dem pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales, labores et dili- 
 " gentias gravissimas quam plurimas, tarn per se quam per suos, 
 " pro reformatione premissorum impendebat : et aliquando illius 
 "loci prioribus, propter malam et inutilem administrationem, 
 "et dispensationem bonorum predicti prioratus, suis demeritis 
 " exigentibus, amotis ; alios priores in quorum circumspectione 
 " et diligentia confidebat, prefecit : quos tamen male se habuisse 
 " ac inutiliter administrare, et administrasse, usque ad presentia 
 " tempora post debitam investigationem, &c. invenit." So that 
 he despaired with all his care "statum ejusdem reparare vel 
 " restaurare : et considerata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo 
 "et conjecturando futura, de aliqua bona et sancta religione 
 " ejusdem ordinis, &c. juxta piam intentionem prime vi fundatoris 
 " ibidem habend. desperatur." 
 
 William Wainfleet, bishop of Winchester, founded his college 
 of Saint Mary Magdalene, in the university of Oxford, in or about 
 the year 1459 ; but the revenues proving insufficient for so large 
 and noble an establishment, the college supplicated the founder 
 to augment it's income by putting it in possession of the estates 
 belonging to the Priory of Selborne, now become a deserted 
 convent, without canons or prior. The president and fellows 
 state the circumstances of their numerous institution and scanty 
 
302 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 provision, and the ruinous and perverted condition of the Priory. 
 The bishop appoints commissaries to inquire into the state of the 
 said monastery ; and, if found expedient, to confirm the appropria- 
 tion of it to the college, which soon after appoints attornies to 
 take possession, September 24, 1484. But the way to give the 
 reader a thorough insight respecting this transaction, will be to 
 transcribe a farther proportion of the process of the impropriation 
 from the beginning, which will lay open the manner of proceed- 
 ing, and shew the consent of the parties. 
 
 IMPROPRIATIO SELBORNE, 1485. 
 
 " Universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis, &c. Ricardus Dei 
 "gratia prior ecclesie conventualis de Novo Loco, &C. 1 ad uni- 
 "versitatem vestre notitie deducimus, &c. quod coram nobis 
 " commissario predicto in ecclesia parochiali S". Georgii de Essher 
 "diet. Winton. dioc. 3. die Augusti, A. D. 1485. Indictione 
 "tertia poiitificat. Innocentii 8 Ti . aim. l mo . judicialiter comparuit 
 " venerabilis vir Jacobus Preston, S. T. P. infrascriptus, et exhibuit 
 " literas commissionis quas quidem per magistrum Thomam 
 " Somercotes notarium publicum, &c. legi fecimus, teiiorem 
 "sequentem in se continentes." The same as N. 103, but dated 
 " In manerio nostro de Essher, Augusti l mo . A.D. 1485, et nostre 
 "consec. anno 39." [N. 103 is repeated in a book containing 
 the like process in the preceding year by the same commissary, 
 in the parish church of St. Andrew the apostle, at Farnham, Sept. 
 6th, anno 1484.] "Post quarum literarum lecturam dictus 
 "magister Jacobus Preston, quasdam procuratorias literas mag. 
 " Richardi Mayewe presidents, ut asseruit, collegii beate Marie 
 "Magdalene, &c. sigillo rotundo communi, &c. in cera rubea 
 "impresso sigillatas realiter exhibuit, c. et pro eisdem dnis 
 "suis, &c. fecit se partem, ac nobis supplicavit ut juxta formam 
 "in eisdem traditam procedere dignaremur, &c." After these 
 proclamations no contradictor or objector appearing "ad in- 
 "stantem petitionem ipsius mag. Jac. Preston, procuratoris, &c. 
 
 1 Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo Loco was the monastery afterwards called the 
 New Minster, or Abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester. Should any intelligent 
 reader wonder to see that the prior of Hyde Abbey was commissary to the bishop 
 of Wintdn, and should conclude that there was a mistake in titles, and that the 
 abbot must have been here meant ; he will be pleased to recollect that this person 
 was the second in rank; for, "next under the abbot, in every abbey, was the 
 prior". Pref. to Notit. Monast. p. xxix. Besides, abbots were great personages, 
 and too high in station to submit to any office under the bishop. 
 
OF SELBOKNE 303 
 
 "procedendum fore decrevimus vocatis jure vocandis ; nee non 
 " mag. Tho. Somercotes, &c. in actorum nostrorum scribam nomina- 
 " vimus. Consequenter et ibidem tune comparuit magister Michael 
 " dyff> & c> et exhibuit in ea parte procuratorium suum," for the 
 prior and convent of the cathedral of Winton, " et fecit se parte m 
 "pro eisdem. Deinde comparuit coram nobis, &c. honestus vir 
 " Willmus Cowper," proctor for the bishop as patron of the Priory 
 of Selborne, and exhibited his " procuratorium, &c." After these 
 were read in the presence of Clyff and Cowper, " Preston, viva 
 voce," petitioned the commissary to annex and appropriate the 
 Priory of Selborne to the college " propter quod fructus, redditus, 
 "et proventus ejusdem coll. adeo tenues sunt, et exiles, quod ad 
 " sustentationem ejus, &c. non sufficiunt." The commissary, "ad 
 "libellandum et articulandum in scriptis" adjourned the court 
 to the 5th of August, then to be held again in the parish church 
 of Essher. 
 
 W. Cowper being then absent, Radulphus Langley appeared for 
 the bishop, and was admitted his proctor. Preston produced his 
 libel or article in scriptis for the union, &c. "et admitti petiit 
 " eundem cum effectu ; cujus libelli tenor sequitur. In Dei 
 "nomine, Amen. Coram nobis venerabili in Christo patre 
 " Rickardo, priore, &c. de Novo Loco, &c. commissario, &c." 
 Part of the college of Magd. dicit, allegat, and in his "scriptis 
 proponit, &c." 
 
 " Imprimis " that said college consists of a president and eighty 
 scholars, besides sixteen choristers, thirteen "servientes inibi 
 "altissimo famulantibus, et in scientiis plerisque liberalibus, pre- 
 " sertim in sacra theologia studentibus, nedum ad ipsorum presi- 
 " dentis et scholarium pro presenti et imposterum, annuente deo, 
 " incorporandum in eodem relevamen ; verum etiam ad omnium 
 "et singulorum tarn scholarium quam religiosorum cujuscunque 
 " ordinis undequaque illuc confluere pro salubri doctrina volentium 
 " utilitatem multiplicem ad incrementa virtutis fideique catholice 
 " stabilimentum. Ita videlicet quod omnes et singuli absque 
 "personarum seu nationum delectu illuc accedere volentes, 
 "lecturas publicas et doctrinas tarn in grammatica in loco ad 
 "collegium contiguo. ac philosophiis morali et naturali, quam 
 "in sacra theologia in eodem collegio perpetuis cemporibus 
 " continuandas libere atque gratis audire valeant et possint ad 
 "laudem gloriam et honorem Dei, &c. extitit fundatum et 
 " stabilitum." 
 
 For the first item in this process see the beginning of this 
 
304 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 letter. Then follows item the second that the revenues of 
 the college "non sufficiunt his diebus ". Item that the 
 premisses are true, &c. " et super eisdem laborarunt, et laborunt 
 " publica vox et fama. Unde facta fide petit pars eorundem that 
 " the Priory be annexed to the college : ita quod dicto prioratu 
 "vacante liceat iis ex tune to take possession, &c." This libel, 
 with the express consent of the other proctors, we, the commissary, 
 admitted, and appointed the sixth of August for proctor Preston to 
 prove the premisses. 
 
 Preston produced witnesses, W. Gyfford, S. T. P. John Nele, A. 
 M. John Chapman, chaplain, and Robert Baron, literatus, who 
 were admitted and sworn, when the court was prorogued to the 
 6th of August; and the witnesses, on the same 5th of August, 
 were examined by the commissary, "in capella infra manerium 
 " de Essher situata, secrete et singillatim ". Then follows the 
 "literae procuratoriae " : first that of the college, appointing 
 Preston and Langport their proctors, dated August 30th, 1484; 
 then that of the prior and convent of the cathedral of Winton, 
 appointing David Husband and Michael Cleve, dated September 4th, 
 1484: then that of the bishop, appointing W. Gyfford, Radulphus 
 Langley, and Will. Cowper, dated September 3rd, 1484. Consec. 
 38. "Quo die adveniente in dicta ecclesia parochiali," appeared 
 " coram nobis " James Preston to prove the contents of his libel, 
 and exhibited some letters testimonial with the seal of the bishop, 
 and these were admitted ; and consequenter Preston produced 
 two witnesses, viz. Dominum Thomam Ashforde nuper priorem dicti 
 prioratus, et Willm. Habbys, literatum, who were admitted and 
 sworn, and examined as the others, by the commissary ; " tune 
 & ibidem assistente scriba secrete & singillatim"; and their 
 depositions were read and made public, as follows : 
 
 Mr. W. Gyfford, S. T. P. aged 57, of the state of Magd. Coll. 
 &c. as before : 
 
 Mr. John Nele, aged 57, proves the articles also : 
 
 Robert Baron, aged 56 : 
 
 Johannes Chapman, aged 35, also affirmed all the five articles. 
 
 Dompnus Thomas Ashforde, aged 72 years "dicit 2 dum 3 um 4 nm 
 "articulos in eodem libello contentos, concernentes statum dicti 
 " prioratus de Selebourne, fuisse et esse veros ". 
 
 W. Rabbys, aetat. 40 ann. agrees with Gyfford, &c. 
 
 Then follows the letter from the bishop, "in subsidium pro- 
 "bationis," above-mentioned. " Willmus, &c. salutem, &c. noverint 
 
OF SELBOENE 305 
 
 "universitas vestra, quod licet nos prioratui de Selebourne, &c. pie 
 " compacientes sollicitudines pastorales, labores, diligentias quam 
 "plurimas per nos & commissarios nostros pro reformatione 
 "status ejus impenderimus, justicia id poscente ; nihilominus 
 "tamen," &c. as in the article to " desperatur," dated "in 
 "manerio nostro de Essher, Aug. 3d, 14-85, & consec. 3.9". Then, 
 on the 6th of August, Preston, in the presence of the other 
 proctors, required that they should be compelled to answer; 
 when they all allowed the articles " fuisse & esse vera " ; and the 
 commissary at the request of Preston, concluded the business, and 
 appointed Monday, August 8th, for giving his decree in the same 
 church of Essher ; and it was that day read, and contains a re- 
 capitulation, with the sentence of union, &c. witnessed and 
 attested. 
 
 As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalen college had 
 obtained the decision of the commissary in their favour, they 
 proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to entreat his holiness that 
 he would give his sanction to the sentence of union. Some diffi- 
 culties were started at Rome ; but they were surmounted by the 
 college agent, as appears by his letters from that city. At length 
 pope Innocent VIII. by a bull 1 bearing date the 8th day of June, 
 in the year of our Lord I486, and in the second year of his ponti- 
 ficate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the convent. 
 
 Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of Selborne 
 after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four years : 
 about seventy- four years after the suppression of Priories alien by 
 Henry V. and about fifty years before the general dissolution of 
 monasteries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had 
 fondly imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the 
 pious motives on which it was established, might have preserved 
 it inviolate to the end of time yet it fell, 
 
 " To teach us that God attributes to place 
 
 " No sanctity, if none be thither brought 
 
 " By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell." 
 
 Milton's Paradise Lost. 12 
 
 1 There is nothing remarkable in this bull oipope Innocent except the statement 
 of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated at 160 
 flor. auri ; whereas bishop Godwin sets it at 3377. 155. 6d. Now &floren, so named, 
 says Camden, because made by Florentines, was a gold coin of king Edward III. 
 in value 6s. whereof 160 is not one seventh part of 337^ 151. 6d. 
 
 a [XL, 836-39.] 
 
 20 
 
306 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 WAINFLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from this 
 new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few months after he 
 had effected the union of the Priory with his late founded college ; 
 and was succeeded in the see of Winchester by Peter Courtney, some 
 time towards the end of the year I486. 
 
 In the beginning of the following year the new bishop released 
 the president and fellows of Magdalen College from all actions 
 respecting the Priory of Selborne ; and the prior and convent of 
 Saint Swithun, as the chapter of Winchester cathedral, confirmed 
 the release. 1 
 
 N. 293. " Relaxatio Petri epi Winton Ricardo Mayew, President! 
 " omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi debite pro unione 
 "Prioratus de Selborne dicto collegio. Jan. 2. 1487. et translat. 
 "anno 1." 
 
 N. 374. "Relaxatio prioris et conventus S u . Swithini Winton 
 "confirmans relaxationem Petri ep. Winton." 1487. Jan. 13. 
 
 Ashforde, the deposed prior, who had appeared as an evidence 
 for the impropriation of the Priory at the age of seventy-two 
 years, that he might not be destitute of a maintenance, was pen- 
 sioned by the college to the day of his death ; and was living on 
 till 1490, as appears by his acquittances. 
 
 REG. A. ff. 46. 
 
 " Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit, 
 " Richardus May en), presidens, &c. et scolares, salutem in Domino." 
 
 "Noveritis nos prefatos presidentem et scolares dedisse, con- 
 "cessisse, et hoc presenti scripto confirmasse Thome Ashforde, 
 " capellano, quendam annualem redditum sex librarum tresdecim 
 " solidorum et quatuor denariorum bone et legalis monete Anglic 
 " ad terminum vite prefati Thome " to be paid from the posses- 
 sions of the college in Basingstoke. " In cujus rei testimonium 
 " sigillum nostrum commune presentibus apponimus. Dat. Oxon. 
 "in coll. nostro supra dicto primo die mensis Junii anno regis > 
 " Ricardi tertii secundo," viz. 1484. The college in their grant 
 to Ashforde, style him only capellanus ; but the annuitant very 
 naturally, and with a becoming dignity, asserts his late title in 
 his acquittances, and identifies himself by the addition of nuper 
 priorem, or late prior. 
 
 1 The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory. 
 
OF SELBOKNE 307 
 
 As, according to the persuasion of the times, the depriving the 
 founder and benefactors of the Priory of their masses and services 
 would have been deemed the most impious of frauds, bishop Wain- 
 fieet, having by statute ordained four obits for himself to be cele- 
 brated in the chapel of Magdalen College, enjoined in one of them 
 a special collect for the anniversary of Peter de Rupibus, with a 
 particular prayer " Deus Indulgentiarum ". 
 
 The college also sent Nicholas Langrish, who had been a chantry 
 priest at Selborne, to celebrate mass for the souls of all that had 
 been benefactors to the said Priory and college, and for all the 
 faithful who had departed this life. 
 
 N. 356. Thomas Knowles, presidens, &c. "damus et concedi- 
 " mus Nicholao Langrish quandum capellaniam, vel salarium, sive 
 " alio quocunque nomine censeatur, in prioratu quondam de Selbome 
 " pro termino 40 annorum, si tarn diu vixerit. Ubi dictus mag 1 . 
 " Nicholaus celebrabit pro animabus omnium benefactorum dicti 
 "prioratus et coll. nostri, et omnium fidelium defunctorum. 
 "Insuper nos, &c. concedimus eidem ibidem celebranti in sus- 
 " tentationem suam quandam annualem pensionem sive annuitatem 
 " octo librarum &c. in dicta capella dicti prioratus concedimus 
 " duas cameras contiguas ex parte boreali dicte capelle, cum una 
 " coquina, et cum uno stabulo conveniente pro tribus equis, cum 
 "pomerio eidem adjacente voc. le Orcheyard Preterea 26s. 8d. 
 " per aim. ad inveniendum unum clericum ad serviendum sibi ad 
 "altare, et aliis negotiis necessariis ejus." His wood to be granted 
 him by the president on the progress. He was not to absent 
 himself beyond a certain time ; and was to superintend the coppices, 
 
 wood, and hedges. " Dat. 5*. die Julii. an . Hen. VIII*. 36." 
 
 [viz. 1546.] 
 
 Here we see the Priory in a new light, reduced as it were to 
 the state of a chantry, without prior and without canons, and at- 
 tended only by a priest, who was also a sort of bailiff or woodman, 
 his assistant c! erk, and his female cook. 1 Owen Oglethorpe, president, 
 and Magd. Coll. in the fourth year of Edward VI. viz. 1551 , granted 
 an annuity of ten pounds a year for life to Nich. Langrish, who, 
 from the preamble, appears then to have been fellow of that 
 society : but, being now superannuated for business, this pension 
 is granted him for thirty years, if he should live so long. It is 
 said of him " cum jam sit provectioris etatis quam ut," &c. 
 
 Laurence Stubb, president of Magd. Coll. leased out the Priory 
 
 l \Coquina means a kitchen, not a female cook.] 
 
308 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 lands to John Sharp, husbandman, for the term of twenty years, 
 as early as the seventeenth year of Henry VIII. viz. 1526 : and 
 it appears that Henry Newlyn had been in possession of a lease 
 before, probably towards the end of the reign of Henry VII. 
 Sharp's rent was vi !i . per ann. Regist. B. p. 43. 
 
 By an abstract from a lease lying before me, it appears that 
 Sharp found a house, two barns, a stable, and a dtif-house [dove- 
 house] built, and standing on the south side of the old Priory, and 
 late in the occupation of Newlyn. In this abstract also are to be 
 seen the names of all the fields, many of which continue the same 
 to this day. 1 Of some of them I shall take notice, where any 
 thing singular occurs. 
 
 And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise] mede. Every 
 convent had its Paradise ; which probably was an enclosed orchard, 
 pleasantly laid out, and planted with fruit-trees. Tylehouse grove, 
 so distinguished from having a tiled house near it. 2 Butt-wood close ; 
 here the servants of the Priory and the village-swains exercised 
 themselves with their long bows, and shot at a mark against a 
 butt, or bank. 3 Cundyth [conduit] wood : the engrosser of the 
 lease not understanding this name has made a strange barbarous 
 word of it. Conduit-wood was and is a steep, rough cow-pasture, 
 lying above the Priory, at about a quarter of a mile to the south- 
 west. In the side of this field there is a spring of water that 
 never fails ; at the head of which a cistern was built which com- 
 municated with leaden pipes that conveyed water to the monastery. 
 When this reservoir was first constructed does not appear, we only 
 know that it underwent a repair in the episcopate of bishop Wain- 
 fleet, about the year 1462. 4 Whether these pipes only conveyed 
 the water to the Priory for common and culinary purposes, or 
 
 1 It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings, farms, 
 fields, woods, &c. which appear in the ancient deeds, and evidences of several 
 centuries standing, are still preserved in common use with little or no variation : 
 as Norton, Southington, Durton, Achangre, Blackmore, Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, 
 &c. &c. At the same time it should be acknowledged that other places have entirely 
 lost their original titles, as le Buri and Trucstede in this village ; and la Liega, or la. 
 Lyge, which was the name of the original site of the Priory, &c. 
 
 2 Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep off the 
 inclemencies of the weather : and then by degrees laid straw or haum. The first 
 refinements on roofing were shingles, which are very ancient. Tiles are a very late 
 and imperfect covering, and were not much in use till the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. The first tiled house at Nottingham was in 1503. 
 
 3 There is also a Butt-close just at the back of the village. 
 
 4 N. 381. " Clausure terre abbatie ecclesie parochial! de Seleburne, iw. iiiuf. 
 " Reparacionibus domorum predicti prioratus iiii. lib, xu, Ague conduct, ibidem, 
 "" 
 
OF SELBOKNE 309 
 
 contributed to any matters of ornament and elegance, we shall 
 not pretend to say ; nor when artists and mechanics first understood 
 any thing of hydraulics, and that water confined in tubes would 
 rise to it's original level. There is a person now living who had 
 been employed formerly in digging for these pipes, and once 
 discovered several yards, which they sold for old lead. 
 
 There was also a plot of ground called Tan-house garden : and 
 " Tannaria sua," a tan-yard of their own, has been mentioned in 
 Letter XVI. This circumstance I just take notice of, as an 
 instance that monasteries had trades and occupations earned on 
 within themselves. 1 
 
 Registr. B. pag. 112. Here we find a lease of the parsonage 
 of Selbome to Thomas Sylvester and Miles Arnold, husbandmen 
 of the tythes of all manner of come pertaining to the parsonage 
 with the offerings at the chapel of Whaddon belonging to the 
 said parsonage. Dat. June 1. 27 th . Hen 8 th . [viz. 1536.] 
 
 As the chapel of Whaddon has never been mentioned till now, 
 and as it is not noticed by bishop Tanner in his Notitia Monastica, 
 some more particular account of it will be proper in this place. 
 Wfiaddon was a chapel of ease to the mother church of Selbome, 
 and was situated in the tithing of Oakhanger, at about two miles 
 distance from the village. The farm and field whereon it stood 
 are still called chapel-farm and Jield : 2 but there are no remains 
 or traces of the building itself, the very foundations having been 
 destroyed before the memory of man. In a farm yard at Oak- 
 hanger we remember a large hollow stone of a close substance, 
 which had been used as a hog-trough, but was then broken. This 
 stone, tradition said, had been the baptismal font of Whaddon 
 chapel. The chapel had been in a very ruinous state in old 
 days ; but was new built at the instance of bishop Wainfleet, 
 about the year 1 463, during the Jirst priorship of Berne, in con- 
 sequence of a sequestration issued forth by that visitor against the 
 Priory on account of notorious and shameful dilapidations. 3 
 
 The Selbome rivulet becomes of some breadth at Oakhanger, 
 
 1 There is still a wood near the Priory called Tanner 's wood. 
 
 a This is a manor-farm, at present the property of Lord Stawell ; and belonged 
 probably in ancient times to Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, one of the first benefactors 
 to the Priory. 
 
 3 See Letter XIX. of these Antiquities." Summa total, solut. de novis edifica- 
 "tionibus, et reparacionibus per idem tempus, ut patet per comput." 
 
 "Videlicet de nova edificat. Capelle Marie de Wadden. xiiii. lib. vx v'md. 
 " Reparacionibus ecclesie Prioratus, cancellor. et capellar. ecclesiarum et capel- 
 " larum de Selborne, et Estworhlam."&c. &c. 
 
310 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 and, in very wet seasons, swells to a large flood. There is a 
 bridge over the stream at this hamlet of considerable antiquity 
 and peculiar shape, known by the name of Tunbridge : it consists 
 of one single blunt gothic arch, so high and sharp as to render the 
 passage not very convenient or safe. Here was also, we find, a 
 bridge in very early times ; for Jacobus de Hochangre, the first 
 benefactor to the Priory of Selborne, held his estate at Hochangre 
 by the service of providing the king one foot-soldier for forty 
 days, and by building this bridge. " Jacobus de Hochangre tenet 
 Hochangre in com. Southampton, per Serjantiam, 1 inveniendi unum 
 valectum in exercitu Domini regis [scil. Henrici IIP 11 .] per 40 
 dies ; et ad faciendum pontem de Hochangre : et valet per ann. 
 C. s." Blount's Ancient Tenures, p. 84-. 
 
 A dove-house was a constant appendage to a manerial dwelling : 
 of this convenience more will be said hereafter. 
 
 A corn-mill was also esteemed a necessary appendage of every 
 manor ; and therefore was to be expected of course at the 
 Priory of Selborne. 
 
 The prior had secta molendini, or ad molendinum : 2 a power of 
 compelling his vassels to bring their corn to be ground at his 
 mill, according to old custom. He had also, according to bishop 
 Tanner, secta molendini de Strete : but the purport of Strete, we 
 must confess, we do not understand. Strete, in old English, 
 signifies a road or highway, as IVatling Strete, &c. therefore the 
 prior might have some mill on a high road. The Priory had 
 only one mill originally at Selborne ; but, by grants of lands, it 
 came possessed of one at Durton, and one at Oakhanger, and pro- 
 bably some on it's other several manors. 3 The mill at the 
 Priory was in use within the memory of man, and the ruins of 
 the mill-house were standing within these thirty years : the pond 
 and dam, and miller's dwelling, still remain. As the stream was 
 apt to fail in very dry summers, the tenants found their situation 
 very distressing, for want of water, and so were forced to abandon 
 the spot. This inconvenience was probably never felt in old 
 times, when the whole district was nothing but woodlands : and 
 yet several centuries ago there seem to have been two or three 
 
 1 Sargenlia, a sort of tenure of doing something for the king. 
 
 2 " Servitium, quo feudatorii grana sua ad Domini molendinum, ibi molenda 
 " perferre, ex consuetudine, astringuntur." 
 
 3 Thomas Knowles, president, &c. ann. Hen. 8vi. xxiii. [viz. 1532.] demised 
 to /. Whitelie their mills, &c. for twenty years. Rent xxiiu. \\\\d. Accepted 
 Frewen, president, &c. ann. Caroli xv. [viz. 1640.] demised to Jo. Hook and 
 Elizabeth,, his wife, the said mills. Rent as above. 
 
OF SELBOENE 311 
 
 mills between Well-head and the Priory. For the reason of this 
 assertion, see Letter XXIX. to Mr. Barrington. 
 
 Occasional mention has been made of the many privileges and 
 immunities enjoyed by the convent and it's priors ; but a more 
 particular state seems to be necessary. The author therefore 
 thinks this the proper place, before he concludes these antiquities, 
 to introduce all that has been collected by the judicious bishop 
 Tanner, respecting the Priory and it's advantages, in his Notitia 
 Monastica, a book now seldom seen, on account of the extravagance 
 of it's price ; and being but in few hands cannot be easily con- 
 sulted. 1 He also adds a few of it's many privileges from other 
 authorities : the account is as follows. Tanner, page 166. 
 
 SELEBURNE. 
 
 A priory of black canons, founded by the often-mentioned Peter 
 de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, A.D. 1233, and dedicated to the 
 blessed Virgin Maty : but was suppressed and granted to William 
 Wainfteet, bishop of Winchester, who made it part of the endow- 
 ment of St. Mary Magdalene College in Oxford. The bishops of 
 Winchester were patrons of it. [Pat. 17. Edw. II.] Vide in Mon. 
 Angl. torn. II. p. 343. " Cartam fundationis ex ipso autographo 
 " in archivis Coll. Magd. Oxon. ubi etiam conservata sunt registra, 
 " cartae, rentalia et alia munimenta ad hunc prioratum spectantia. 
 
 "Extracta quaedam e registro MSS. in Bibl. Bodl. Dodsworth, 
 "vol. 89. f. 140." 
 
 "Cart, antiq. N. N. n. 33. P. P. n. 48. et 71. Q. Q. n. 40. plac. 
 "coram justit. itin. [Southampton] 20 Hen. rot. 25. De eccl. de 
 " Basijig, fy Basingstoke. Plac. de juratis apud Winton. 40 Hen. 
 "III. rot. Prosecta molendini de Strete. Cart. 54. Hen. III. m. 
 " 3. [De mercatu, fy feria apud Selebome, a mistake.] Pat. 9. Edw. I. 
 "m. Pat. 30. Edw. I m. Pat. 33. Edw. I p. 1. m. Pat. 35. Edw. 
 "I. m. Pat. 1. Edw. II. p. 1. m. 9. Pat. 5. Edw. II. p. 1. m. 21. 
 "De terris in Actianger. Pat. 6. Edw. II. p. 1. m. 7. de eisdem. 
 "Brev. in Scacc. 6. Edw. II. Pasch. rot. 8. Pat. 17. Edw. II. p. 
 " 1. m. Cart. 10. Edw. III. n. 24. Quod terrae suae in Seleburn, 
 " Achangre, Norton, Basings, Basingstoke, and Nately, sint de affores- 
 "tatae, and pro aliis libertatibus. Pat. 12. Edw. III. p. 3. m. 3. 
 "Pat. 13. Edw. III. p. 1. m. Cart. 18. Edw. III. n. 24." 
 
 *A few days after this was written a new edition of this valuable work was 
 announced, in the month of April of the year 1787, as published by Mr. Nasmith. 
 
312 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 " N. N. 33. Rex concessit quod prior, et canonic! de Seleburn 
 <{ habeant per terras suas de Seleburne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, 
 *'\Basinges, Basingstoke, & Nately, diversas libertates. 
 
 " P. P. 48. Quod prior de Seleburne, habeat terras suas quietas 
 "de vasto, et regardo." Extracts from Ayloffe's Calendars of 
 "Ancient Charters. 
 
 " Placita de juratis & assis coram Salom de Roff, & sociis suis 
 "justic. itiner. apud Wynion in comitatu Sutht. anno regni R. 
 " Edvardi filii reg. Henr. octavo. Et Por de Seleborn ht in Selebr. 
 " fure. thurset. pillory, emendasse pants, fy suis" [cerevisiae.] 
 Chapter-house, Westminster. 
 
 " Placita Foreste apud Wynton in com. Sutham. Anno reg. 
 " Edwardi octavo coram Rog. de Clifford. &c. Justic. ad eadem 
 "placita audienda et minand. assigtis. 
 
 " Carta Pror de Seleburn, H. Dei gra. rex. angl. &c. Conces- 
 "sim. prior, see. Marie de Seleburn. et canonicis ibidem Deo 
 
 " servient. q ipi et oes hoies sui in pdcis terris suis et 
 
 " tenementis manentes sint in ppetum quieti de sectis Swanemotor. 
 " et omnium alior. placitor. for. et de espeltamentis canum. et de 
 " omnibus submonitoibz. placitis querelis et exaccoibus et occoibz. 
 "ad for. et for. et viridar. et eor. ministros ptinentibz." 
 
 Chapter-house, Westminster. 
 
 " Plita Forestarum in com. Sutht. apud Suthamton anno 
 
 " regni regis Edwardi tcii post conquestum quarto coram Johe 
 " Mantvers. &c. justic. itinand. &c." 
 
 De hiis qui clamant libtates infra Forestas in com. Sutht. 
 
 " Prior de Selebourne clamat esse quietus erga dnm regem de 
 "omnibus finibus et amerciamentis p tnsgr. et omnibus exac- 
 " coibz ad Dom. regem vel hered. suos ptinent. pret. plita corone 
 "reg. 
 
 " Item clamat q d si aliquis hominum suorum de terris et ten. p. 
 " delicto suo vitam aut membrum debeat amittere vel fugiat, & 
 "judico stare noluerit vel aliud delictum fecit pro quo debeat 
 "catella sua amittere, ubicunq ; justitia fieri debeat omnia catella 
 " ilia sint ptci Prioris et successor, suor. Et liceat eidem priori et 
 " ballis suis ponere se in seisinam in hujus modi catall. in casibus 
 " pdcis sine disturbacone ballivor. dni reg. quorumcunque. 
 
 " Item clam, quod licet aliqua libtatum p dnm regem conces- 
 
OF SELBORNE 313 
 
 " sar. pcessu temporis quocunq ; casu contingente usi non fuerint 
 " nlominus postea eadm libtate uti possit. Et pdcus prior quesitus 
 "p. justic. quo waranto clamat omn. terr. et ten. sua in Selebume, 
 " Norton, Basynges, Basyngestoke, & Nattele, que prior domus pdte 
 " huit & tenuit X mo . die April anno regni dni Hen. reg. pavi dni 
 "reg. nue XVIII. imppm esse quieta de vasto et regardo, et visu 
 " forestarior. et viridarior. regardator. et omnium ministrorum 
 "foreste," &c. &c. Chapter-house, Westminster. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 THOUGH the evidences and documents of the Priory and parish of 
 Selborne are now at an end, yet, as the author has still several 
 things to say respecting the present state of that convent and it's 
 Grange, and other matters, he does not see how he can acquit 
 himself of the subject without trespassing again on the patience 
 of the reader by adding one supplementary letter. 
 
 No sooner did the Priory (perhaps much out of repair at the 
 time) become an appendage to the college, but it must at once 
 have tended to swift decay. Magdalen College wanted now only 
 two chambers for the chantry priest and his assistant ; and there- 
 fore had no occasion for the hall, dormitory, and other spacious 
 apartments belonging to so large a foundation. The roofs neg- 
 lected, would soon become the possession of daws and owls ; and, 
 being rotted and decayed by the weather, would fall in upon the 
 floors ; so that all parts must have hastened to speedy dilapidation 
 and a scene of broken ruins. Three full centuries have now 
 passed since the dissolution ; a series of years that would craze 
 the stoutest edifices. But, besides the slow hand of time, many 
 circumstances have contributed to level this venerable structure 
 with the ground ; of which nothing now remains but one piece 
 of a wall of about ten feet long, and as many feet high, which 
 probably was part of an out-house. As early as the latter end of 
 the reign of Hen. VII. we find that a farm-house and two barns 
 were built to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly out of it's 
 materials. Avarice again has much contributed to the overthrow 
 of this stately pile, as long as the tenants could make money of 
 it's stones or timbers. Wantonness, no doubt, has had a share in 
 the demolition ; for boys love to destroy what men venerate and 
 admire. A remarkable instance of this propensity the writer can 
 
314 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 give from his own knowledge. When a schoolboy, more than 
 fifty years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps a party concerned, in 
 the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at the north end of 
 Basingstoke town, well known by the name of Holy Ghost Chapel. 
 Very providentially the vast fragment, which these thoughtless 
 little engineers endeavoured to sap, did not give way so soon as 
 might have been expected ; but it fell the night following, and 
 with such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awakening 
 the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made them start up 
 in their beds as if they had felt an earthquake. The motive for 
 this dangerous attempt does not so readily appear : perhaps the 
 more danger the more honour thought the boys ; and the notion 
 of doing some mischief gave a zest to the enterprize. As Dryden 
 says upon an other occasion, 
 
 " It look'd so like a sin it pleas' d the more." 
 
 Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the ground, 
 the discerning eye of an antiquary might have ascertained it's 
 ichnography, and some judicious hand might have developed it's 
 dimensions. But, besides other ravages, the very foundations 
 have been torn up for the repair of the highways : so that the 
 site of this convent is now become a rough, rugged pasture-field, 
 full of hillocks and pits, choaked with nettles, and dwarf-elder, 
 and trampled by the feet of the ox and the heifer. 
 
 As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among the 
 foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers 
 discovered two large stones, with which the farmer was so pleased 
 that he ordered them to be taken out whole. One of these 
 proved to be a large Doric capital, worked in good taste ; and 
 the other a base of a pillar ; both formed out of the soft freestone 
 of this district. These ornaments, from their dimensions, seem 
 to have belonged to massive columns ; and shew that the church 
 of this convent was a large and costly edifice. They were found 
 in the space which has always been supposed to have contained 
 the south transept of the Priory church. Some fragments of 
 large pilasters were also found at the same time. The diameter 
 of the capital was two feet three inches and an half ; and of the 
 column, where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and 
 three quarters. 
 
 Two years ago some labourers digging again among the ruins 
 found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone, containing 
 about two gallons in measure, on the verge of the brook, in the 
 
OF SELBORNE 315 
 
 very spot which tradition has always pointed out as having been 
 the site of the convent kitchen. This clumsy utensil, 1 whether 
 intended for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to 
 procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, 
 and carried it out on the highways. 
 
 The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a Grange, 
 an usual appendage to manerial estates, where the fruits of their 
 lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a time when men took 
 the natural produce of their estates in kind. The mansion of 
 this spot is still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of 
 the convent possessions in this place. The author has conversed 
 with very ancient people who remembered the old original 
 Grange; but it has long given place to a modern farm-house. 
 Magdalen College holds a court-leet and court-baron 2 in the great 
 wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, where the President 
 usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of the 
 college. 8 
 
 The following uncommon presentment at the court is not 
 unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king's 
 field (a large common-field so called) a considerable tumulus, or 
 hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the 
 name of Kite's Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as 
 not ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting 
 this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be 
 a question not easily solved, since the usage has long survived 
 the knowledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose 
 that as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also f ureas, a 
 power of life and death, that he might have reserved this little 
 eminence as the place of execution for delinquents. And there 
 is the more reason to suppose so, since a spot just by is called 
 Gaily [Gallows] hill. 
 
 The lower part of the village next the Grange, in which is 
 a pond and a stream, is well known by the name of Gracious- 
 street, an appellation not at all understood. There is a lake in 
 Surrey, near Chobham, called also Gracious-pond : and another, if 
 
 1 A judicious antiquary, who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly might have 
 been a standard measure between the monastery and it's tenants. The priory we 
 have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and beer in Selborne manor : and pro- 
 bably the adjustment of dry measures for grain, &c. 
 
 2 The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter and Whit- 
 suntide. 
 
 s Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] demised to 
 Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent vi u . Index of Leases. 
 
316 THE ANTIQUITIES 
 
 we mistake not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This 
 strange denomination we do not at all comprehend, and conclude 
 that it may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps 
 forgotten. 
 
 It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner was mistaken 
 when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth, " JDe mercatu et FERIA 
 de Seleburne ". . Selborne never had a chartered fair ; the present 
 fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who 
 had found in an old almanack that there had been a fair here in 
 former days on the first of August ; and were desirous to revive 
 so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his 
 face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable occasion of 
 much intemperance. However the fair prevailed ; but was 
 altered to the twenty-ninth of May, because the former day often 
 interfered with wheat -harvest. On that day it still continues to 
 be held, and is become an useful mart for cows and calves. 
 Most of the lower house-keepers brew beer against this holiday, 
 which is dutied by the exciseman ; and their becoming victuallers 
 for the day without a license is overlooked. 
 
 Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within themselves. 
 Thus at the Priory, a low and moist situation, there were ponds 
 and stews for their fish : at the same place also, and at the 
 Grange in Culver-croft } 1 there were dove-houses ; and on the hill 
 opposite to the Grange the prior had a warren, as the names of 
 The Coney-crofts and Coney-croft Hanger plainly testify. 2 
 
 Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or holding 
 of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms and 
 freehold ; as is the manor of Chapel near Oakhanger, and also the 
 estate at Oakhanger -house and Black-moor. The Priory and Grange 
 are leasehold under Magdalen-college, for twenty-one years, re- 
 newable every seven : all the smaller estates in and round the 
 village are copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the 
 little remains of Gurdon-manor, which had been of old leased out 
 upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present lord, as 
 fast as those lives have dropped. 
 
 Selborne seems to have derived much of it's prosperity from 
 the near neighbourhood of the Priory. For monasteries were of 
 considerable advantage to places where they had their sites and 
 estates, by causing great resort, by procuring markets and fairs, 
 
 1 Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon. 
 
 2 A warren was an usual appendage to a manor. 
 
OF SELBORNE 317 
 
 by freeing them from the cruel oppression of forest-laws, and by 
 letting their lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was 
 suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to decline, 
 and the market was less frequented ; the rough and sequestered 
 situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads rendered 
 it less and less accessible. 
 
 That it had been a considerable place for size formerly appears 
 from the largeness of the church, which much exceeds those of 
 the neighbouring villages ; by the ancient extent of the burying 
 ground, which, from human bones occasionally dug up, is found 
 to have been much encroached upon ; by giving a name to the 
 hundred ; by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and 
 tracery of windows that have been discovered on the north-east 
 side of the village ; and by the many vestiges of disused fish- 
 ponds still to be seen around it. For ponds and stews were 
 multiplied in the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy 
 some variety at their tables on fast days ; therefore the more 
 they abounded the better probably was the condition of the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 [The Appendix (pp. 431-468 in orig.), giving in Latin a number of papers relating 
 to the Priory of Selborne, is not reprinted here. Bell's and Buckland's editions 
 contain an Appendix by the late Lord Selborne on the Romano-British Antiquities 
 of Selborne.] 
 
OBSERVATIONS 
 ON 
 
 VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE. 
 FROM MR. WHITER MSS. 1 
 
 1 [The following passages were selected from Gilbert White's diaries by Dr. 
 Aikin, and printed in the same volume with the Naturalist's Calendar (1795). ^ n 
 the edition of White's Selborne, published in 1802 and arranged by Dr. Aikin, 
 Markwick's Calendar and Observations were added, and these have been commonly 
 retained by later editors. They are of small value, and are not reprinted here ; nor 
 have we thought it necessary to include the Naturalist's Calendar, which White 
 never saw and which he deliberately refrained from compiling for the History. See 
 Letter LXVI. to Harrington.] 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 BIRDS IN GENERAL. 
 
 IN severe weather fieldfares, red-wings, sky-larks, and tit-larks, 
 resort to watered meadows for food ; the latter wades up to its 
 belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects, and runs along upon the 
 floating grass and weeds. Many gnats are on the snow near the 
 water ; these support the birds in part. 
 
 Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour, for 
 though white currants are a much sweeter fruit than red, yet they 
 seldom touch the former till they have devoured every bunch of 
 the latter. 
 
 Red-starts, fly-catchers, and black-caps, arrive early in April. 
 If these little delicate beings are birds of passage (as we have 
 reason to suppose they are, because they are never seen in winter) 
 how could they, feeble as they seem, bear up against such storms 
 of snow and rain, and make their way through such meteorous 
 turbulences, as one should suppose would embarrass and retard 
 the most hardy and resolute of the winged nation ? Yet they 
 keep their appointed times and seasons ; and in spite of frosts and 
 winds return to their stations periodically, as if they had met with 
 nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing and appearance of 
 the short-winged summer birds is a very puzzling circumstance in 
 natural history ! 
 
 When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam fowls fare 
 deliciously, and when the combs are pulled to pieces, devour the 
 young wasps in their maggot state with the highest glee and de- 
 light. Any insect-eating bird would do the same ; and therefore 
 I have often wondered that the accurate Mr. Ray should call one 
 species of buzzard buteo apivorus sive vespivorus, or the honey-buz- 
 zard, because some combs of wasps happened to be found in one 
 of their nests. The combs were conveyed thither doubtless for 
 the sake of the maggots or nymphs, and not for their honey : since 
 21 (321) 
 
322 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 none is to be found in the combs of wasps. Birds of prey occa- 
 sionally feed on insects ; thus have I seen a tame kite picking up 
 the female ants full of eggs with much satisfaction. 
 
 ROOKS. 
 
 Rooks are continually fighting and pulling each others' nests to 
 pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close 
 community. And yet if a pair offers to build on a single tree, the 
 nest is plundered and demolished at once. Some rooks roost on 
 their nest-trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in building 
 supply the poor with brushwood to light their fires. Some un- 
 happy pairs are not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have 
 completed their building. As soon as they get a few sticks to- 
 gether, a party comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as 
 rooks have finished their nests, and before they lay, the cocks 
 begin to feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a fondling 
 tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little blandish- 
 ments that are expressed by the young, while in a helpless state. 
 This gallant deportment of the males is continued through the 
 whole season of incubation. These birds do not copulate on trees, 
 nor in their nests, but on the ground in open fields. 
 
 THRUSHES. 
 
 Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunting 
 out shell-snails, which they pull in pieces for their young, and are 
 therefore very serviceable in gardens. Missel thrushes do not 
 destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but 
 feed on the berries of misseltoe, and in the spring on ivy berries, 
 which then begin to ripen. In the summer, when their young 
 become fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep 
 walks and wild commons. 
 
 The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods of 
 missel thrushes, though the dams are fierce birds, and fight boldly 
 in defence of their nests. It is probably to avoid such insults, 
 that this species of thrush, though wild at other times, delights 
 to build near houses, and in frequented walks and gardens. 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 323 
 
 POULTRY. 
 
 Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment to see 
 what will turn to their own advantage and emolument ; and often 
 discover more sagacity than could be expected. Thus my neigh- 
 bour's poultry watch for waggons loaded with wheat, and running 
 after them pick up a number of grains which are shaken from the 
 sheaves by the agitation of the carriages. Thus, when my brother 
 used to take down his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run 
 out before him, to be ready to catch up the birds as they fell. 
 
 The earnest and early propensity of the gallince to roost on 
 high is very observable ; and discovers a strong dread impressed 
 on their spirits respecting vermin that may annoy them on the 
 ground during the hours of darkness. Hence poultry, if left to 
 themselves and not housed, will perch the winter through on yew- 
 trees and fir-trees ; and turkies and guinea-fowls, heavy as they 
 are, get up into apple trees ; pheasants also in woods sleep on trees 
 to avoid foxes ; while pea-fowls climb to the tops of the highest 
 trees round their owner's house for security, let the weather be 
 ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the 
 ground, not having the faculty of perching ; but then the same 
 fear prevails in their minds ; for through apprehensions from pole- 
 cats and stoats, they never trust themselves to coverts, but nestle 
 together in the midst of large fields, far removed from hedges and 
 coppices, which they love to haunt in the day, and where at that 
 season they can sculk more secure from the ravages of rapacious 
 birds. 
 
 As to ducks and geese, their awkward, splay web-feet forbid 
 them to settle on trees ; they therefore, in the hours of darkness 
 and danger, betake themselves to their own element, the water, 
 where, amidst large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, 
 they float the whole night long in peace and security. 
 
 HEN PARTRIDGE. 
 
 A hen-partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 
 with her wings, and crying out as if wounded, and unable to get 
 from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended 
 me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter 
 into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is 
 instinct ! 
 
324 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 A HYBRID PHEASANT. 
 
 Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a curious 
 bird for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his 
 keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, air, and 
 habit of the bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well 
 with the appearance of a cock-pheasant : but then the head and 
 neck, and breast and belly were of a glossy black : and though it 
 weighed three pounds three ounces and a half, 1 the weight of a 
 large full-grown cock-pheasant, yet there were no signs of any 
 spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock-pheasants, who 
 have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of feathers, and 
 therefore it could be nothing of the grous kind. In the tail were 
 no long bending feathers, such as cock-pheasants usually have, 
 and are characteristic of the sex. The tail was much shorter than 
 the tail of a hen-pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The 
 back, wing feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously 
 streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of a hen-partridge. I 
 returned it with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or 
 hybrid hen-bird, bred between a cock-pheasant arid some domestic 
 fowl. When I came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he 
 told me that some pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt 
 the coppices and coverts where this mule was found. 
 
 Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was employed 
 to take an exact copy of this curious bird. 
 
 N. B. It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges have 
 imagined this bird to have been a stray grous or black-cock ; it 
 is however to be observed, that Mr. W. remarks, that its legs 
 and feet were naked, whereas those of the grous are feathered 
 to the toes. 2 
 
 LAND-RAIL. 
 
 A man brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so rare in 
 this district that we seldom see more than one or two in a season, 
 and those only in autumn. This is deemed a bird of passage by 
 
 1 Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces. 
 
 2 [There can now be no doubt that this bird was a hybrid between the black-cock 
 and the pheasant. The coloured engraving in some of the early editions gives 
 a very erroneous idea of the bird, and is a wretched copy from Elmer's clever 
 painting, mentioned by Gilbert White, which was given to him by Lord Stawell, 
 and has been for many years in my possession. 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 325 
 
 all the writers : yet from its formation seems to be poorly qualified 
 for migration ; for its wings are short, and placed so forward, and 
 out of the centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and 
 embarrassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly 
 be sprung a second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend 
 more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying. 
 
 When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft and 
 tender, that in appearance they might have been dressed like 
 the ropes of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small and lank, 
 containing a mucus ; the gizzard thick and strong, and filled 
 with small shell-snails, some whole, and many ground to pieces 
 through the attrition which is occasioned by the muscular force 
 and motion of that intestine. We saw no gravels among the 
 food : perhaps the shell-snails might perform the functions of 
 gravels or pebbles, and might grind one another. Land-rails 
 used to abound formerly, I remember, in the low, wet bean-fields 
 of Christian Malford in North Wilts, and in the meadows near 
 Paradise Gardens at Oxford, where I have often heard them cry 
 crex y crex. The bird mentioned above weighed 7J oz., was fat 
 and tender, and in flavour like the flesh of a woodcock. The 
 liver was very large and delicate. 
 
 FOOD OF THE RING-DOVE. 
 
 One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening as it 
 was returning from feed and going to roost. When his wife had 
 picked and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most 
 nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, 
 and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, culled 
 and provided in this extraordinary manner. 
 
 Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, when grain fails, 
 can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There is reason to 
 suppose that they would not long be healthy without ; for turkies, 
 though corn-fed, delight in a variety of plants, such as cabbage, 
 lettuce, endive, &c. and poultry pick much grass ; while geese 
 live for months together on commons by grazing alone. 
 
 ' Nought is useless made ; 
 
 ' On the barren heath 
 
 ' The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop 
 
 ' Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf 
 
 ' Sufficient : after them the cackling goose, 
 
 ' Close-grazer, finds wherewith to ease her want." 
 
 PHILIPS'S CYDER. 
 
 
326 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 HEN HARRIER. 
 
 Mr. White of Newton sprung a pheasant in a wheat stubble, 
 and shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report of the gun, 
 it was immediately pursued by the blue hawk, known by the 
 name of the hen-harrier, but escaped into some covert. He 
 then sprung a second, and a third, in the same field, that got 
 away in the same manner ; the hawk hovering round him all 
 the while that he was beating the field, conscious no doubt of 
 the game that lurked in the stubble. 1 Hence we may con- 
 clude that this bird of prey was rendered very daring and bold 
 by hunger, and that hawks cannot always seize their game when 
 they please. We may farther observe, that they cannot pounce 
 their quarry on the ground, where it might be able to make a 
 stout resistance, since so large a fowl as a pheasant could not but 
 be visible to the piercing eye of a hawk, when hovering over the 
 field. Hence that propensity of co wring and squatting till they 
 are almost trod on, which no doubt was intended as a mode of 
 security : though long rendered destructive to the whole race of 
 gallince by the invention of nets and guns. 
 
 GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON. 
 
 As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer forest from 
 Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird 
 fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought 
 home alive. On examination it proved to be colymbus glacialis 
 Linn, the great speckled diver or loon, which is most excellently 
 described in Willughby's Ornithology. 
 
 Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably 
 adapted to its mode of life, that in no instance do we see the 
 wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage. The head 
 is sharp, and smaller than the part of the neck adjoining, in order 
 that it may pierce the water ; the wings are placed forward and 
 out of the center of gravity for a purpose which shall be noticed 
 hereafter ; the thighs quite at the podex, in order to facilitate 
 
 1 [" I think White must have been misinformed as to the species of Hawk which 
 performed this feat. Its actions as described are exactly those of a Falcon, and do 
 not agree with any thing that has been observed in a Harrier ; so that I have little 
 doubt that the 'blue hawk' was an adult Peregrine Falcon." Newton, in Bell's 
 edition.] 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 327 
 
 diving ; and the legs are flat, and as sharp backwards almost as 
 the edge of a knife, that in striking they may easily cut the 
 water : while the feet are palmated, and broad for swimming, 
 yet so folded up when advanced forward to take a fresh stroke, 
 as to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes of 
 the feet are longest ; the nails flat and broad, resembling the 
 human, which give strength and increase the power of swimming. 
 The foot, when expanded, is not at right angles to the leg or 
 body of the bird : but the exterior part, inclining towards the 
 head, forms an acute angle with the body ; the intention being 
 not to give motion in the line of the legs themselves, but by the 
 combined impulse of both in an intermediate line, the line of the 
 body. 
 
 Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming 
 of birds is nothing more than a walking in the water, where one 
 foot succeeds the other as on the land ; yet no one, as far as I 
 am aware, has remarked that diving fowls, while under water, 
 impel and row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as 
 well as by the impulse of their feet : but such is really the case, 
 as any person may easily be convinced, who will observe ducks 
 when hunted by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any 
 one has given a reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed 
 so forward : doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their 
 speed in flying, since that position certainly impedes it ; but 
 probably for the increase of their motion under water, by the use 
 of four oars instead of two ; yet were the wings and feet nearer 
 together, as in land-birds, they would, when in action, rather 
 hinder than assist one another. 
 
 This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only three 
 drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois. It measured in 
 length from the bill to the tail (which was very short) two feet, 
 and to the extremities of the toes, four inches more ; and the 
 breadth of the wings expanded was 42 inches. A person at- 
 tempted to eat the body, but found it very strong and rancid, as 
 is the flesh of all birds living on fish. Divers or loons, though 
 bred in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us 
 in very severe winters ; and on the Thames are called sprat loons, 
 because they prey much on that sort of fish. 
 
 The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very backward, 
 and so out of all center of gravity, that these birds cannot walk 
 at all. They are called by Linnaeus compedes, because they move 
 on the ground as if shackled or fettered. 
 
328 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 STONE CURLEW. 
 
 On the 27th of February 1788, stone curlews were heard to 
 pipe ; and on March 1st, after it was dark, some were passing 
 over the village, as might be perceived by their quick, short note, 
 which they use in their nocturnal excursions by way of watch- 
 word, that they may not stray and lose their companions. 
 
 Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in the winter, 
 they return again early in the spring, and are, as it now appears, 
 the first summer birds that come back. Perhaps the mildness of 
 the season may have quickened the emigration of the curlews 
 this year. 
 
 They spend the day in high, elevated fields and sheep-walks ; 
 but seem to descend in the night to streams and meadows, 
 perhaps for water, which their upland haunts do not afford 
 them. 
 
 THE SMALLEST WILLOW-WREN. 
 
 The smallest uncrested or willow-wren, or chiff-chaff, is the next 
 early summer bird which we have remarked ; it utters two sharp 
 piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods, as to occasion an echo, 
 and is usually first heard about the 20th of March. 
 
 FERN-OWL, OR GOATSUCKER. 
 
 The country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or churn- 
 owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is very in- 
 jurious to weanling calves, by inflicting, as it strikes at them, 
 the fatal distemper known to cow-leeches by the name of pucke- 
 ridge. Thus does this harmless ill-fated bird fall under a double 
 imputation which it by no means deserves in Italy, of sucking 
 the teats of goats, whence it is called caprimulgus ; and with us, 
 of communicating a deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of 
 the matter is, the malady above mentioned is occasioned by the 
 oestrus bows, a dipterous insect, which lays its eggs along the 
 chines of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their way 
 through the hide of the beast into the flesh, and grow to a very 
 large size. I have just talked with a man, who says, he has more 
 than once stripped calves who have died of the puckeridge ; that 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 329 
 
 the ail or complaint lay along the chine, where the flesh was 
 much swelled, and filled with purulent matter. Once I myself 
 saw a large rough maggot of this sort squeezed out of the back 
 of a cow. 
 
 These maggots in Essex are called wornils. 
 
 The least observation and attention would convince men, that 
 these birds neither injure the goatherd nor the grazier, but are 
 perfectly harmless, and subsist alone, being night-birds, on night- 
 insects, such as scarabcei and phalcence ; and through the month 
 of July mostly on the scarabceus solstitialis, which in many 
 districts abounds at that season. Those that we have opened, 
 have always had their craws stuffed with large night-moths and 
 their eggs, and pieces of chaffers : nor does it anywise appear how 
 they can, weak and unarmed as they seem, inflict any harm upon 
 kine, unless they possess the powers of animal magnetism, and 
 can affect them by fluttering over them. 
 
 A fern-owl, this evening (August 27) showed off in a very 
 unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking round and round 
 the circumference of my great spreading oak for twenty times 
 following, keeping mostly close to the grass, but occasionally 
 glancing up amidst the boughs of the tree. This amusing bird 
 was then in pursuit of a brood of some particular phalcena belong- 
 ing to the oak, of which there are several sorts ; and exhibited on 
 the occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to that of 
 the swallow itself. 
 
 When a person approaches the haunt of fern-owls in an evening, 
 they continue flying round the head of the obtruder; and by 
 striking their wings together above their backs, in the manner 
 that the pigeons called smiters are known to do, make a smart 
 snap : perhaps at that time they are jealous for their young ; and 
 their noise and gesture are intended by way of menace. 
 
 Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account of 
 food ; for the next evening we saw one again several times among 
 the boughs of the same tree ; but it did not skim round its stem 
 ( over the grass, as on the evening before. In May these birds 
 find the scaraboeus melolontlia on the oak ; and the scarabceus sol- 
 stitialis at midsummer. These peculiar birds can only be watched 
 and observed for two hours in the twenty-four : and then in a 
 dubious twilight an hour after sun- set and an hour before sun 
 rise. 
 
 On this day (July 14, 1789) a woman brought me two eggs of 
 a fern-owl or eve-jarr, which she found on the verge of the 
 
330 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 Hanger, to the left of the hermitage, under a beechen shrub. 
 This person, who lives just at the foot of the Hanger, seems well 
 acquainted with these nocturnal swallows, and says she has often 
 found their eggs near that place, and that they lay only two at a 
 time on the bare ground. The eggs were oblong, dusky, and 
 streaked somewhat in the manner of the plumage of the parent- 
 bird, and were equal in size at each end. The dam was sitting 
 on the eggs when found, which contained the rudiments of young, 
 and would have been hatched perhaps in a week. From hence 
 we may see the time of their breeding, which corresponds pretty 
 well with that of the swift, as does also the period of their arrival. 
 Each species is usually seen about the beginning of May. Each 
 breeds but once in a summer ; each lays only two eggs. 
 
 July 4, 1 790. The woman who brought me two fern-owl's eggs 
 last year on July 14, on this day produced me two more, one of 
 which had been laid this morning, as appears plainly, because 
 there was only one in the nest the evening before. They were 
 found, as last July, on the verge of the down above the hermi- 
 tage, under a beechen shrub, on the naked ground. Last year 
 those eggs were full of young, and just ready to be hatched. 
 
 These circumstances point out the exact time when these 
 curious, nocturnal, migratory birds lay their eggs and hatch their 
 young. Fern-owls, like snipes, stone-curlews, and some other 
 birds, make no nest. Birds that build on the ground do not 
 make much of nests. 
 
 SAND-MARTINS. 
 
 March 23, 1788. A gentleman, who was this week on a visit 
 at Waverley, took the opportunity of examining some of the 
 holes in the sand-banks with which that district abounds. As 
 these are undoubtedly bored by bank-martins, and are the places 
 where they avowedly breed, he was in hopes they might have 
 slept there also, and that he might have surprised them just as 
 they were awaking from their winter slumbers. When he had 
 dug for some time, he found the holes were horizontal and ser- 
 pentine, as I had observed before : and that the nests were 
 deposited at the inner end, and had been occupied by broods in 
 former summers, but no torpid birds were to be found. He 
 opened and examined about a dozen holes. Another gentleman 
 made the same search many years ago, with as little success. 
 
 These holes were in depth about two feet. 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 331 
 
 March 21, 1790. A single bank or sand martin was seen 
 hovering and playing round the sand-pit at Short Heath, where 
 in the summer they abound. 
 
 April 9, 1793. A sober hind assures us, that this day, on Wish- 
 hanger common, between Hedleigh and Frinsham, he saw several 
 bank-martins playing in and out, and hanging before some nest 
 holes in a sand-hill, where these birds usually nestle. 
 
 This incident confirms my suspicions that this species of hirundo 
 is to be seen first of any ; and gives great reason to suppose that 
 they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are secreted amidst 
 the clefts and caverns of those abrupt cliffs, where they usually 
 spend their summers. 
 
 The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that 
 these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region, 
 through all these cutting winds and pinching frosts : but it is 
 easy to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been 
 awakened by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrce, 
 where they have spent the uncomfortable, foodless months in a 
 torpid state, and the profoundest of slumbers. 
 
 There is a large pond at Wish-hanger, which induces these 
 sand-martins to frequent that district. For I have ever remarked 
 that they haunt near great waters, either rivers or lakes. 
 
 SWALLOWS, CONGREGATING AND DISAPPEAR- 
 ANCE OF. 
 
 During the severe winds that often prevail late in the spring, it 
 is not easy to say how the hirundines subsist : for they withdraw 
 themselves, and are hardly ever seen, nor do any insects appear 
 for their support. That they can retire to rest, and sleep away 
 these uncomfortable periods, as the bats do, is a matter rather to be 
 suspected than proved : or do they not rather spend their time in 
 deep and sheltered vales near waters, where insects are more 
 likely to be found ? Certain it is, that hardly any individuals of 
 this genus have at such times been seen for several days together. 
 
 September 13, 1791. The congregating flocks of hirundines 
 on the church and tower are very beautiful and amusing ! When 
 they fly off all together from the roof, on any alarm, they quite 
 swarm in the air. But they soon settle in heaps, and preening their 
 feathers, and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem highly 
 to enjoy the warm situation. Thus they spend the heat of the 
 
 
332 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 day, preparing for their emigration, and, as it were, consulting 
 when and where they are to go. The flight about the church 
 seems to consist chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in number : 
 but there are other places of rendezvous about the village fre- 
 quented at the same time. 
 
 It is remarkable, that though most of them sit on the battle- 
 ments and roof, yet many hang or cling for some time by their 
 claws against the surface of the walls, in a manner not practised 
 by them at any other time of their remaining with us. 
 
 The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies 
 on trees. 
 
 November 3, 1789. Two swallows were seen this morning 
 at Newton vicarage-house, hovering and settling on the roofs 
 and out-buildings. None have been observed at Selborne since 
 October 11. It is very remarkable, that after the hirundines 
 have disappeared for some weeks, a few are occasionally seen 
 again : sometimes, in the first week in November, and that only 
 for one day. Do they not withdraw and slumber in some hiding- 
 place during the interval ? for we cannot suppose they had 
 migrated to warmer climes, and so returned again for one day. 
 Is it not more probable that they are awakened from sleep, and 
 like the bats are come forth to collect a little food ? Bats appear 
 at all seasons through the autumn and spring months, when the 
 thermometer is at 50, because then phalcence and moths are 
 stirring. 
 
 These swallows looked like young ones. 
 
 WAGTAILS. 
 
 While the cows are feeding in moist low pastures, broods 
 of wagtails, white and grey, run round them, close up to their 
 noses, and under their very bellies, availing themselves of the 
 flies that settle on their legs, and probably finding worms and larvce 
 that are roused by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such 
 an oeconomist, that the most incongruous animals can avail them- 
 selves of each other ! Interest makes strange friendships. 
 
 WRYNECK. 
 
 These birds appear on the grass-plots and walks ; they walk a 
 little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the turf, in quest, 
 
VAEIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 333 
 
 I conclude, of ants, which are their food. While they hold their 
 bills in the grass, they draw out their prey with their tongues, 
 which are so long as to be coiled round their heads. 
 
 GROSBEAK. 
 
 Mr. B. shot a cock -grosbeak which he had observed to haunt 
 his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to accuse this bird 
 of making sad havock among the buds of the cherries, goose- 
 berries, and wall-fruit of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon 
 opening its crop or craw, no buds were to be seen ; but a mass of 
 kernels of the stones of fruits. Mr. B. observed that this bird 
 frequented the spot where plum-trees grow; and that he had 
 seen it with somewhat hard in its mouth, which it broke with 
 difficulty ; these were the stones of damsons. The latin orni- 
 thologists call this bird coccothraustes, i. e. berry-breaker, because 
 with its large horny beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone- 
 fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are 
 rarely seen in England, and only in winter. 1 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 
 SHEEP. 
 
 THE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged, and 
 their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces 
 with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that 
 way in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind 
 of lice. 
 
 After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and 
 bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish 
 one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much 
 to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an altera- 
 tion in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, 
 discriminating each individual personally ; which also is con- 
 founded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they 
 
 1 ["Of late years this species has become much commoner in England, nesting 
 now in many counties where formerly it was chiefly observed as a winter visitant." 
 Harting.} 
 
334 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 are newly marked ; for the brute creation recognize each other 
 more from the smell than the sight ; and in matters of identity 
 and diversity appeal much more to their noses than to their eyes. 
 After sheep have been washed there is the same confusion, from 
 the reason given above. 
 
 RABBITS. 
 
 Rabbits make incomparably the finest turf, for they not only 
 bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no bents to 
 rise ; hence warrens produce much the most delicate turf for 
 gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of grasses. 
 
 CAT AND SQUIRRELS. 
 
 A boy has taken three little young squirrels in their nest, or 
 drey as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put 
 under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds 
 that she nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and 
 affection, as if they were her own offspring. This circumstance 
 corroborates my suspicion, that the mention of exposed and 
 deserted children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who 
 had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as 
 many have supposed ; and therefore may be a justification of 
 those authors who have gravely mentioned, what some have 
 deemed to be a wild and improbable story. 
 
 So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, 
 that the foster-mother became jealous of her charge, and in pain 
 for their safety ; and therefore hid them over the ceiling, where 
 one died. This circumstance shews her affection for these found- 
 lings, and that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young. 
 Thus hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally 
 attached to them as if they were their own chickens. 
 
 HORSE. 
 
 An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken 
 very ill, ran down into the village, as it were to implore the help 
 of men, and died the night following in the street. 
 
VAEIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 335 
 
 HOUNDS. 
 
 The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a 
 huntsman and six yeoman prickers, with horns, to try for the 
 stag that has haunted Hartley Wood and its environs for so long 
 a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the 
 dogs to see the deer unharboured ; but though the huntsmen drew 
 Hartley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple 
 Hangers, and in their way back Hartley and Ward le ham Hangers, 
 yet no stag could be found. 
 
 The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out before 
 them, never drew the coverts with any address and spirit, as 
 many people that were present observed ; and this remark the 
 event has proved to be a true one. For as a person was lately 
 pursuing a pheasant that was wing-broken in Hartley Wood, he 
 stumbled upon the stag by accident, and ran in upon him as he 
 lay concealed amidst a thick brake of brambles and bushes. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 
 INSECTS IN GENERAL. 
 
 THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately : the 
 papilios, musccE, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day by 
 phal<Ena>, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, 
 when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call ; these two 
 circumstances are exactly coincident. 
 
 Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous and 
 dipterous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they 
 swarm on trees covered with this plant ; and when they disappear, 
 probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing them- 
 selves between its fibres and the trees which it entwines. 
 
 Spiders, woodlice, lepismce in cupboards and among sugar, some 
 empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phal&nce in hedges, 
 earth-worms, &c. are stirring at all times when winters are mild ; 
 and are of great service to those soft-billed birds that never leave 
 us. 
 
 On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of insects 
 usually called gnats (I suppose tipulce and empedes} appear 
 sporting and dancing over the tops of the ever-green trees in 
 
336 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 the shrubbery, and frisking about as if the business of generation 
 was still going on. Hence it appears that these diptera (which 
 by their sizes appear to be of different species) are not subject to 
 a torpid state in the winter, as most winged insects are. At 
 night, and in frosty weather, and when it rains and blows, they 
 seem to retire into those trees. They often are out in a fog. 
 
 HUMMING IN THE AIR. 
 
 There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest 
 part of our down in hot summer days, which always amuses me 
 much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the 
 cause of it ; and that is a loud audible humming of bees in the 
 air, though not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be 
 heard distinctly the whole common through, from the Money- 
 dells, to Mr. White's avenue-gate. Any person would suppose 
 that a large swarm of bees was in motion, and playing about over 
 his head. This noise was heard last week, on June 28th. 
 
 ' Resounds the living surface of the ground, 
 ' Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum 
 
 ' To him who muses at noon." 
 
 1 Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways, 
 
 '{Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd, 
 
 ' The quivering nations sport." THOMSON'S SEASONS. 
 
 CHAFFERS. 
 
 Cockchaffers seldom abound oftener than once in three or four 
 years ; when they swarm, they deface the trees and hedges. 
 Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by them. 
 
 Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the house- 
 sparrow. 
 
 The scarabceus [Rhizotrogus] solsiitialis first appears about June 
 26 : they are very punctual in their coming out every year. They 
 are a small species, about half the size of the May-chaffer, and are 
 known in some parts by the name of the fern-chaffer. 
 
 PTINUS PECTINICORNIS. 
 
 Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs, bed- 
 posts, &c. and destroy wooden furniture, especially where there is 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 337 
 
 any sap, are the larvae of the ptinus pectinicornis. This insect, it is 
 probable, deposits its eggs on the surface, and the worms eat 
 their way in. 
 
 In their holes they turn into their pupae state, and so come 
 forth winged in July : eating their way through the valances or 
 curtains of a bed, or any other furniture that happens to obstruct 
 their passage. 
 
 They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech ; hence 
 beech will not make lasting utensils, or furniture. If their eggs 
 are deposited on the surface, frequent rubbings will preserve 
 wooden furniture. 1 
 
 BLATTA ORIENTALIS. COCKROACH. 
 
 A neighbour complained to me that her house was over-run 
 with a kind of black beetle, or as she expressed herself, with a 
 kind of black-bob, which swarmed in her kitchen when they got 
 up in a morning before day-break. 
 
 Soon after this account, I observed an unusual insect in one 
 of my dark chimney-closets, and find since, that in the night they 
 swarm also in my kitchen. On examination, I soon ascertained 
 the species to be the blatta orientalis of Linnaeus, and the blatta 
 molendinaria of Mouffet. The male is winged ; the female is not, 
 but shows somewhat like the rudiments of wings, as if in the 
 pupa state. 
 
 These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts of 
 America, and were conveyed from thence by shipping to the 
 East Indies ; and by means of commerce begin to prevail in the 
 more northern parts of Europe, as Russia, Sweden, &c. How 
 long they have abounded in England I cannot say ; but have 
 never observed them in my house till lately. 
 
 They love warmth, and haunt chimney-closets, and the backs 
 of ovens. Poda says that these and house-crickets will not 
 associate together; but he is mistaken in that assertion, as 
 Linnaeus suspected he was. They are altogether night insects, 
 lucifugce, never coming forth till the rooms are dark and still, and 
 
 1 [Our commonest wood-boring larvae are Xestobium tesselatum, F., suidAnodium 
 domesticum, Fourc. , the death-watches of superstition. Ptinus (Ptilinus) pectini- 
 cornis is found chiefly in old trees and posts, but also in old furniture as White 
 says. The mischief is done by the larvae ; the perfect insect only lives for a short 
 time. A closely allied beetle (Anobium paniceum) is the " weevil " which devours 
 biscuits on shipboard.] 
 
 22 
 
338 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 escaping away nimbly at the approach of a candle. Their antennae 
 are remarkably long, slender, and flexile. 
 
 October, 1 790. After the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen- 
 hearth swarms with young crickets, and young blattce molendinarice 
 of all sizes, from the most minute growth to their full proportions. 
 They seem to live in a friendly manner together, and not to prey 
 the one on the other. 
 
 August, 1792. After the destruction of many thousands of 
 blattce molendinarice, we find that at intervals a fresh detachment 
 of old ones arrives, and particularly during this hot season : for 
 the windows being left open in the evenings, the males come 
 flying in at the casements from the neighbouring houses, which 
 swarm with them. How the females, that seem to have no 
 perfect wings that they can use, can contrive to get from house 
 to house, does not so readily appear. These, like many insects, 
 when they find their present abodes over-stocked, have powers of 
 migrating to fresh quarters. Since the blattce have been so much 
 kept under, the crickets have greatly increased in number. 1 
 
 GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS. HOUSE CRICKET. 
 
 November. After the servants are gone to bed, the kitchen- 
 hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, which 
 must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic insects, 
 cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, regard not the 
 season of the year, but produce their young at a time when their 
 congeners are either dead, or laid up for the winter, to pass away 
 the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, and a state 
 of torpidity. 
 
 When house-crickets are out, and running about in a room in 
 the night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three shrill 
 notes, as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they may escape 
 to their crannies and lurking holes, to avoid danger. 
 
 1 [It is to be noticed that the cockroach was an unfamiliar insect in English 
 villages a little more than a hundred years ago. White's mistaken belief that 
 Blatta (Periplaneta) orientalis is native to America was derived from Linnaeus 
 (" Habitat in America : hospitatur in Oriente." Syst. Nat.).'] 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 339 
 
 CIMEX [RANATRA] LINEARIS. 
 
 August 12, 1775. Cimices lineares are now in high copulation 
 on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the males 
 in bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the water with the 
 males on their backs. When a female chooses to be disengaged, 
 she rears, and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt ; the lover 
 thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as 
 their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of the lake, 
 perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are found 
 separate, except where generation is going on. From the multi- 
 tude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem 
 without doubt to be viviparous. 
 
 PHALJENA QUERCUS. 
 
 Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in 
 general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small phalcena, 
 which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though a feeble 
 race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are of wonderful effect, being 
 able to destroy the foliage of whole forests and districts. At this 
 season they leave their aurelice, and issue forth in their fly-state, 
 swarming and covering the trees and hedges. 
 
 In a field at Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in catch- 
 ing their prey near the ground ; and found they were hawking after 
 these phaloence. The aurelia of this moth is shining and as black 
 as jet ; and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled 
 round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot 
 from falling out. 1 
 
 EPHEMERA CAUDA BISETA. MAY FLY. 
 
 June 10, 1771. Myriads of May flies appear for the first time 
 on the Alresford stream. The air was crowded with them, and 
 the surface of the water covered. Large trouts sucked them in 
 as they lay struggling on the surface of the stream, unable to rise 
 till their wings were dried. 
 
 1 [This is the Tortrix of the oak ( Toririx viridana). Reaumur has described in 
 interesting detail the method by which the larva forms its shelter (Hist, des Insectes, 
 torn, ii, Me"m. v).] 
 
 
340 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 This appearance reconciled me in some measure to the wonder- 
 ful account that Scopoli gives of the quantities emerging from the 
 rivers of Carniola. Their motions are very peculiar, up and down 
 for many yards almost in a perpendicular line. 
 
 SPHYNX OCELLATA. 1 
 
 A vast insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a humming 
 noise, and inserting its tongue into the bloom of the honeysuckle ; 
 it scarcely settles upon the plants, but feeds on the wing in the 
 manner of humming birds. 
 
 WILD BEE. 
 
 There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-campion for 
 the sake of its tomentum, which probably it turns to some purpose 
 in the business of nidification. It is very pleasant to see with 
 what address it strips off the pubes, running from the top to the 
 bottom of a branch, and shaving it bare with all the dexterity of 
 a hoop-shaver. When it has got a vast bundle, almost as large as 
 itself, it flies away, holding it secure between its chin and its fore 
 legs. 2 
 
 There is a remarkable hill on the downs near Lewes in Sussex, 
 known by the name of Mount Carburn [Caburn], which over- 
 looks that town, and affords a most engaging prospect of all the 
 country round, besides several views of the sea. On the very 
 summit of this exalted promontory, and amidst the trenches of its 
 Danish camp, there haunts a species of wild bee, [Anthophora 
 acervorum,] making its nest in the chalky soil. When people ap- 
 proach the place, these insects begin to be alarmed, and, with a 
 sharp and hostile sound, dash and strike round the heads and faces 
 of intruders. I have often been interrupted myself while con- 
 templating the grandeur of the scenery around me, and have 
 thought myself in danger of being stung. 
 
 1 [The eyed hawk-moth (Smerinthus ocellat-us, L.). The habits of the moth 
 described by White are those of the humming-bird hawk-moth (Macroglossa 
 stellatarum, L.).] 
 
 2 {Anthidium manicatum, the Carder bee. This bee lines its nest with the down. 
 Fabre gives an account of the habits of several French species of Anthidium in his 
 Souvenirs Entomologiques, torn, iv., p. 119.] 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 341 
 
 WASPS. 
 
 Wasps abound in woody wild districts far from neighbourhoods ; 
 they feed on flowers, and catch flies and caterpillars to carry to 
 their young. Wasps make their nests with the raspings of sound 
 timber ; hornets, with what they gnaw from decayed : these par- 
 ticles of wood are kneaded up with a mixture of saliva from their 
 bodies, and moulded into combs. 
 
 When there is no fruit in the gardens, wasps eat flies, and suck 
 the honey from flowers, from ivy blossoms, and umbellated plants : 
 they carry off also flesh from butchers' shambles. 
 
 (ESTRUS CURVICAUDA. 1 
 
 This insect lays its nits or eggs on horses' legs, flanks, &c. each 
 on a single hair. The maggots when hatched do not enter the 
 horses' skins, but fall to the ground. It seems to abound most in 
 moist, moorish places, though sometimes seen in the uplands. 
 
 NOSE FLY. 2 
 
 About the beginning of July, a species of fly (mused) obtains, 
 which proves very tormenting to horses, trying still to enter their 
 nostrils and ears, and actually laying their eggs in the latter of 
 those organs, or perhaps in both. When these abound, horses in 
 woodland districts become very impatient at their work, con- 
 tinually tossing their heads, and rubbing their noses on each other, 
 regardless of the driver, so that accidents often ensue. In the 
 heat of the day, men are often obliged to desist from ploughing. 
 Saddle-horses are also very troublesome at such seasons. Country 
 people call this insect the nose fly. 
 
 ICHNEUMON FLY. 
 
 I saw lately a small ichneumon fly attack a spider much larger 
 than itself on a grass walk. When the spider made any resistance, 
 
 1 [The Gastrophilus egui of modern authors. The maggots do not, when hatched, 
 I fall to the ground, but enter the stomach of the horse, where they bury themselves 
 | in the^mucous lining.] -- 
 
 2 \Gastropkilus nasalis, L.] 
 
342 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 the ichneumon applied her tail to him, and stung him with great 
 vehemence, so that he soon became dead and motionless. The 
 ichneumon then running backward drew her prey very nimbly 
 over the walk into the standing grass. This spider would be de- 
 posited in some hole where the ichneumon would lay some eggs ; 
 and as soon as the eggs were hatched, the carcase would afford 
 ready food for the maggots. 
 
 Perhaps some eggs might be injected into the body of the 
 spider, in the act of stinging. Some ichneumons deposit their 
 eggs in the aurelia of moths and butterflies. 
 
 BOMBYLIUS MEDIUS. 
 
 The bombylius medius is much about in March and the beginning 
 of April, and soon seems to retire. It is an hairy insect, like an 
 humble-bee, but with only two wings, and a long straight beak, 
 with which it sucks the early flowers. The female seems to lay 
 its eggs as it poises on its wings, by striking its tail on the ground, 
 and against the grass that stands in its way, in a quick manner, 
 for several times together. 
 
 MUSCLE. FLIES. 
 
 In the decline of the year, when the mornings and evenings be- 
 come chilly, many species of flies (muscce) retire into houses, and 
 swarm in the windows. 
 
 At first they are very brisk and alert ; but as they grow more 
 torpid, one cannot help observing that they move with difficulty, 
 and are scarce able to lift their legs, which seem as if glued to 
 the glass ; and by degrees many do actually stick on till they die 
 in the place. 
 
 It has been observed that divers flies, besides their sharp hooked 
 nails, have also skinny palms, or flaps to their feet, whereby they 
 are enabled to stick on glass and other smooth bodies, and to 
 walk on ceilings with their backs downward, by means of the 
 pressure of the atmosphere on those flaps ; the weight of which 
 they easily overcome in warm weather when they are brisk and 
 alert. But in the decline of the year, this resistance becomes too 
 mighty for their diminished strength ; and we see flies labouring 
 along, and lugging their feet in windows as if they stuck fast to 
 the glass, and it is with the utmost difficulty they can draw one 
 
VARIOUS PAETS OF NATUEE 343 
 
 foot after another, and disengage their hollow caps from the 
 slippery surface. 1 
 
 Upon the same principle that flies stick and support themselves, 
 do boys, by way of play, carry heavy weights by only a piece of 
 wet leather at the end of a string clapped close on the surface of 
 a stone. 
 
 TIPUL.E, OR EMPEDES. 
 
 May. 2 Millions of empedes, or tipulce, come forth at the close of 
 day, and swarm to such a degree as to fill the air. At this junc- 
 ture they sport and copulate ; as it grows more dark they retire. 
 All day they hide in the hedges. As they rise in a cloud they 
 appear like smoke. 
 
 I do not ever remember to have seen such swarms, except 
 in the fens of the Isle of Ely. They appear most over grass 
 grounds. 
 
 APHIDES. 3 
 
 On the 1st of August, about half an hour after three in the 
 afternoon, the people of Selborne were surprized by a shower of 
 Aphides which fell in these parts. They who were walking the 
 streets at that time found themselves covered with these insects, 
 which settled also on the trees and gardens, and blackened all 
 the vegetables where they alighted. These armies, no doubt, 
 were then in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters ; 
 and might perhaps come from the great hop-plantations of Kent 
 or Sussex, the wind being that day at North. They were 
 observed at the same time at Farnham, and all along the vale to 
 Alton. 
 
 1 [The walking of flies on smooth surfaces, either vertical or looking downwards, 
 has now been shown to depend upon a sticky fluid exuded from the glandular hairs 
 of the feet. The hairs have been seen to be tipped with drops ; the drops have 
 been drawn out into transparent threads, or left upon slips of glass over which the 
 fly had walked. See Blackwall, Trans. Linn. Soc., xvi. , pp. 487-492, 767-770 (1831) ; 
 and Dewitz, Pfliiger 's Arch., xxxiii., pp. 440-481 (1884).] 
 
 2 [This word is not found in the original (ed. 1795).] 
 
 3 [This extract is not found in the original (ed. 1795).] 
 
344 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 ANTS. 
 
 August 23. Every ant-hill about this time is in a strange 
 hurry and confusion ; and all the winged ants, agitated by some 
 violent impulse, are leaving their homes, and, bent on emigration, 
 swarm by myriads in the air, to the great emolument of the 
 hirundines, which fare luxuriously. Those that escape the swal- 
 lows return no more to their nests, but looking out for fresh 
 settlements, lay a foundation for future colonies. All the females 
 at this time are pregnant : the males that escape being eaten, 
 wander away and die. 
 
 October 2. Flying ants, male and female, usually swarm and 
 migrate on hot sunny days in August and September ; but this 
 day a vast emigration took place in my garden, and myriads came 
 forth, in appearance from the drain which goes under the fruit- 
 wall ; filling the air and the adjoining trees and shrubs with their 
 numbers. The females were full of eggs. This late swarming is 
 probably owing to the backward, wet season. The day following, 
 not one flying ant was to be seen. 1 
 
 Horse-ants travel home to their nests laden with flies, which 
 they have caught, and the aurelise of smaller ants, which they 
 seize by violence. 
 
 GLOW-WORMS. 2 
 
 By observing two glow-worms which were brought from the 
 field to the bank in the garden, it appeared to us, that these little 
 creatures put out their lamps between eleven and twelve, and 
 shine no more for the rest of the night. 
 
 Male glow-worms, attracted by the light of the candles, come 
 into the parlour. 
 
 EARTH-WORMS. 
 
 Earth-worms make their casts most in mild weather about 
 March and April ; they do not lie torpid in winter, but come 
 forth when there is no frost ; they travel about in rainy nights, as 
 
 1 [White does not mention that the winged ants pluck off their wings with their 
 own jaws, and then proceed to form new colonies.] 
 
 2 [See note to p.^57-] 
 
VARIOUS PAKTS OF NATURE 345 
 
 appears from their sinuous tracks on the soft muddy soil, perhaps 
 in search of food. 
 
 When earth-worms lie out a-nights on the turf, though they 
 extend their bodies a great way, they do not quite leave their 
 holes, but keep the ends of their tails fixed therein, so that on 
 the least alarm they can retire with precipitation under the 
 earth. Whatever food falls within their reach when thus ex- 
 tended, they seem to be content with, such as blades of grass, 
 straws, fallen leaves, the ends of which they often draw into 
 their holes ; even in copulation their hinder parts never quit 
 their holes ; so that no two, except they lie within reach of 
 each other's bodies, can have any commerce of that kind ; but 
 as every individual is an hermaphrodite, there is no difficulty in 
 meeting with a mate, as would be the case were they of different 
 sexes. 1 
 
 SNAILS AND SLUGS. 
 
 The shell-less snails called slugs are in motion all the winter 
 in mild weather, and commit great depredations on garden 
 plants, and much inj ure the green wheat, the loss of which is 
 imputed to earth-worms ; while the shelled snail, the <epeoi/cos, 
 does not come forth at all till about April 1 Oth, and not only lays 
 itself up pretty early in autumn, in places secure from frost, but 
 also throws out round the mouth of its shell a thick operculum 
 formed from its own saliva ; so that it is perfectly secured, and 
 corked up as it were, from all inclemencies. The cause why the 
 slugs are able to endure the cold so much better than shell-snails 
 is, that their bodies are covered with slime as whales are with 
 blubber. 
 
 Snails copulate about Midsummer ; and soon after deposit their 
 eggs in the mould by running their heads and bodies under 
 ground. Hence the way to be rid of them is to kill as many as 
 possible before they begin to breed. 
 
 Large, grey, shell-less cellar snails lay themselves up about the 
 same time with those that live abroad ; hence it is plain that 
 a defect of warmth is not the only cause that influences their 
 retreat. 
 
 1 [Sessile or slow-moving animals are often hermaphrodite, e.g., cirripeds, tuni- 
 cates, polyzoa, oyster, land-snails ; so are internal parasites, like tape-worms and 
 flukes. White's explanation of the hermaphrodite condition of earth-worms accords 
 with modern knowledge.;] 
 
346 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 
 
 There the snake throws her enamelled skin. 
 
 Shakspeare, Mids. Nighfs Dream. 
 
 About the middle of this month (September) we found in a 
 field near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which seemed to 
 have been newly cast. From circumstances it appeared as if 
 turned wrong side outward, and as drawn off backward, like a 
 stocking or woman's glove. Not only the whole skin, but scales 
 from the very eyes, are peeled off, and appear in the head of the 
 slough like a pair of spectacles. The reptile, at the time of 
 changing his coat, had entangled himself intricately in the grass 
 and weeds, so that the friction of the stalks and blades might 
 promote this curious shifting of his exuviae. 
 
 < Lubrica serpens 
 
 " Exuit in spinis vestem." Lucret. 
 
 It would be a most entertaining sight could a person be an 
 eye-witness to such a feat, and see the snake in the act of 
 changing his garment. As the convexity of the scales of the eyes 
 in the slough is now inward, that circumstance alone is a proof that 
 the skin has been turned : not to mention that now the present 
 inside is much darker than the outer. If you look through the 
 scales of the snake's eyes from the concave side, viz. as the reptile 
 used them, they lessen objects much. Thus it appears from 
 what has been said, that snakes crawl out of the mouth of their 
 own sloughs, and quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned 
 by a cook-maid. While the scales of the eyes are growing loose, 
 and a new skin is forming, the creature, in appearance, must be 
 blind, and feel itself in an awkward uneasy situation. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
 TREES, ORDER OF LOSING THEIR LEAVES. 
 
 ONE of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut ; the 
 mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and the 
 horse-chestnut come next. All lopped trees, while their heads 
 are young, carry their leaves a long while. Apple-trees and 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 347 
 
 peaches remain green till very late, often till the end of November : 
 young beeches never cast their leaves till spring, till the new 
 leaves sprout and push them off: in the autumn the beechen- 
 1 eaves turn of a deep chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their 
 leaves about the end of October. 
 
 SIZE AND GROWTH. 
 
 Mr. Marsham of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by letter 
 thus : l " I became a planter early ; so that an oak which I planted 
 in 1720 is become now, at 1 foot from the earth, 12 feet 6 inches 
 in circumference, and at 14 feet (the half of the timber-length) 
 is 8 feet 2 inches. So if the bark was to be measured as timber, 
 the tree gives 116| feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never 
 heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I natter 
 myself that I increased the growth by washing the stem, and 
 digging a circle as far as I supposed the roots to extend, and by 
 spreading sawdust, &c. as related in the Phil. Trans. I wish I 
 had begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), I 
 might then have seen very large trees of my own raising. But 
 I did not begin with beech till 174-1, and then by seed ; so that 
 my largest is now at five feet from the ground, 6 feet 3 inches in 
 girth, and with its head spreads a circle of 20 yards diameter. 
 This tree was also dug round, washed, c." Stratton, 24 July, 
 1790. 
 
 The circumference of trees planted by myself at 1 foot from 
 the ground (1790). 
 
 feet, inches. 
 
 Oak in 1730 ----- 4 5 
 
 Ash 1730 ----- 4 6J 
 
 Great fir 1751 - - - - - 5 
 
 Greatest beech 175] ----- 4 
 
 Elm 1750 ----- 5 3 
 
 Lime 1756 ----- 5 5 
 
 The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by Mr. Marsham 
 to be the biggest in this island, at 7 feet from the ground, 
 measures in circumference 34 feet. It has in old times lost 
 
 1 [It will be seen, on comparing this passage with the original in the first letter 
 in the " Marsham and White correspondence," that it is very incorrectly quoted. 
 Bell.} 
 
348 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 several of its boughs, and is tending to decay. Mr. Marsham 
 computes, that at 14 feet length this oak contains 1000 feet 
 of timber. 
 
 It has been the received opinion that trees grow in height 
 only by their annual upper shoot. But my neighbour over the 
 way, whose occupation confines him to one spot, assures me that 
 trees are expanded and raised in the lower parts also. The 
 reason that he gives is this : the point of one of my firs began 
 for the first time to peep over an opposite roof at the beginning 
 of summer ; but before the growing season was over, the whole 
 shoot of the year, and three or four joints of the body beside, 
 became visible to him as he sits on his form in his shop. Ac- 
 cording to this supposition, a tree may advance in height con- 
 siderably, though the summer shoot should be destroyed every 
 year. 
 
 FLOWING OF SAP. 
 
 If the bough of a vine is cut late in the spring, just before the 
 shoots push out, it will bleed considerably ; but after the leaf is 
 out, any part may be taken off without the least inconvenience. 1 
 So oaks may be barked while the leaf is budding ; but as soon 
 as they are expanded, the bark will no longer part from the 
 wood, because the sap that lubricates the bark and makes it 
 part, is evaporated off through the leaves. 
 
 RENOVATION OF LEAVES. 
 
 When oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by chaffers, they 
 are clothed again soon after Midsummer with a beautiful foliage : 
 but beeches, horse-chestnuts and maples, once defaced by those 
 insects, never recover their beauty again for the whole season. 
 
 l [ln the Pharmaceutical Journal for April 7, 1883 (vol. xiii., pp. 819-20, 834-35, 
 877-78), is an account by Professor Attfield of a bleeding birch at Ashlands, Watford. 
 The tree was 39 ft. high and 7 in. in diameter. A branch, i in. diameter at 10 ft. 
 from the ground, was cut across in March, before the leaves or catkins appeared. 
 Nearly a gallon a day flowed from the wound ; the flow was greater in sunshine 
 than in shade, and greater by day than by night. The fluid contained nearly i 
 per cent, of sugar.] 
 
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 349 
 
 ASH TREES. 
 
 Many ash trees bear loads of keys every year, others never 
 seem to bear any at all. The prolific ones are naked of leaves 
 and unsightly ; those that are steril abound in foliage, and carry 
 their verdure a long while, and are pleasing objects. 1 
 
 BEECH. 2 
 
 Beeches love to grow in crowded situations, and will insinuate 
 themselves through the thickest covert, so as to surmount it all : 
 are therefore proper to mend thin places in tall hedges. 
 
 SYCAMORE. 
 
 May 12. The sycamore or great maple is in bloom, and at 
 this season makes a beautiful appearance, and affords much 
 pabulum for bees, smelling strongly like honey. The foliage of 
 this tree is very fine, and very ornamental to outlets. All the 
 maples have saccharine juices. 
 
 GALLS OF LOMBARDY POPLAR. 
 
 The stalks and ribs of the leaves of the Lombardy poplar are 
 embossed with large tumours of an oblong shape, which by in- 
 curious observers have been taken for the fruit of the tree. 
 These galls are full of small insects, some of which are winged, 
 and some not. The parent insect is of the genus of cynips. 
 Some poplars in the garden are quite loaded with these excres- 
 cences. 
 
 CHESTNUT TIMBER. 
 
 John Carpenter brings home some old chestnut trees which 
 are very long ; in several places the wood-peckers had begun 
 
 1 [There are three kinds of ash-trees, such as bear staminate flowers only, such 
 as bear pistillate flowers only, and such as bear both staminate and pistillate 
 flowers.] 
 
 2 [This extract is not found in the ed. of 1795.] 
 
350 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 to bore them. The timber and bark of these trees are so very 
 like oak, as might easily deceive an indifferent observer, but the 
 wood is very shakey, and towards the heart cup-shakey (that is 
 to say, apt to separate in round pieces like cups), so that the 
 inward parts are of no use. They are bought for the purpose of 
 cooperage, but must make but ordinary barrels, buckets, &c. 
 Chestnut sells for half the price of oak ; but has sometimes been 
 sent into the king's docks, and passed off instead of oak. 
 
 LIME BLOSSOMS. 
 
 Dr. Chandler tells, that in the south of France, an infusion of 
 the blossoms of the lime-tree, tilia, is in much esteem as a remedy 
 for coughs, hoarsenesses, fevers, &c. and that at Nismes, he saw 
 an avenue of limes that was quite ravaged and torn in pieces by 
 people greedily gathering the bloom, which they dried and kept 
 for these purposes. 
 
 Upon the strength of this information we made some tea of 
 lime -blossoms, and found it a very soft, well-flavoured, pleasant, 
 saccharine julep, in taste much resembling the juice of liquorice. 
 
 BLACKTHORN WINTER. 
 
 This tree usually blossoms while cold N.E. winds blow ; so 
 that the harsh rugged weather obtaining at this season, is called 
 by the country people, blackthorn winter. 
 
 IVY-BERRIES. 
 
 Ivy-berries afford a noble and providential supply for birds in 
 winter and spring ; for the first severe frost freezes and spoils all 
 the haws, sometimes by the middle of November ; ivy-berries do 
 not seem to freeze. 
 
 HOPS. 
 
 The culture of Virgil's vines corresponded very exactly with 
 the modern management of hops. I might instance in the 
 perpetual diggings and hoeings, in the tying to the stakes 
 
VAEIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 351 
 
 and poles, in pruning the superfluous shoots, &c., but lately I 
 have observed a new circumstance, which was a neighbouring 
 farmer's harrowing between the rows of hops with a small 
 triangular harrow, drawn by one horse, and guided by two 
 handles. This occurrence brought to my mind the following 
 passage : 
 
 ipsa 
 
 " Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos." Georgic II. 
 
 Hops are dioecious plants : hence perhaps it might be proper, 
 though not practised, to leave purposely some male plants in 
 every garden, that their farina might impregnate the blossoms. 
 The female plants without their male attendants are not in their 
 natural state : hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop 
 so incident to hop-grounds ; no other growth, cultivated by man, 
 has such frequent and general failures as hops. 
 
 Two hop-gardens much injured by a hail-storm, June 5, shew 
 now (September 2) a prodigious crop, and larger and fairer hops 
 than any in the parish. The owners seem now to be convinced 
 that the hail, by beating off the tops of the binds, has increased 
 the side-shoots, and improved the crop. Query. Therefore 
 should not the tops of hops be pinched off when the binds are 
 very gross, and strong ? 
 
 SEED LYING DORMANT. 
 
 The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with thistles of 
 various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may have lain probably 
 under the thick shade of the beeches for many years, but could 
 not vegetate till the sun and air were admitted. When old beech 
 trees are cleared away, the naked ground in a year or two becomes 
 covered with strawberry plants, the seeds of which must have 
 lain in the ground for an age at least. One of the slidders or 
 trenches down the middle of the Hanger, close-covered over with 
 lofty beeches near a century old, is still called strawberry slidder, 
 though no strawberries have grown there in the memory of man. 
 That sort of fruit did once, no doubt, abound there, and will again 
 when the obstruction is removed. 
 
352 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS. 
 
 Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the autumn, 
 and are now grown to a considerable height. As the Ewel was 
 in beans last summer, it is most likely that these seeds came from 
 thence ; but then the distance is too considerable for them to have 
 been conveyed by mice. It is most probable therefore that they 
 were brought by birds, and in particular by jays and pies, who 
 seem to have hid them among the grass and moss, and then to 
 have forgotten where they had stowed them. Some peas are 
 growing also in the same situation, and probably under the same 
 circumstances. 
 
 CUCUMBERS SET BY BEES. 
 
 If bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers, do not 
 happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to tempt 
 them by a little honey put on the male and female bloom. When 
 they are once induced to haunt the frames, they set all the fruit, 
 and will hover with impatience round the lights in a morning, 
 till the glasses are opened. Probatum est. 
 
 WHEAT. 
 
 A notion has always obtained, that in England hot summers 
 are productive of fine crops of wheat; yet in the years 1780 and 
 1781, though the heat was intense, the wheat was much mildewed, 
 and the crop light. Does not severe heat, while the straw is 
 milky, occasion its juices to exsude, which being extra vasated, 
 occasion spots, discolour the stems and blades, and injure the 
 health of the plants ? 
 
 TRUFFLES. 
 
 August. A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his pocket 
 several large truffles found in this neighbourhood. He says these 
 roots are not to be found in deep woods, but in narrow hedge 
 rows and the skirts of coppices. Some truffles, he informed us, 
 lie two feet within the earth, and some quite on the surface ; the 
 
VARIOUS PAETS OF NATUEE 353 
 
 latter, he added, have little or no smell, and are not so easily 
 discovered by the dogs as those that lie deeper. Half a crown a 
 pound was the price which he asked for this commodity. 
 
 Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs. They are 
 in season in different situations, at least nine months in the year. 
 
 TREMELLA NOSTOC. 
 
 Though the weather may have been ever so dry and burning, 
 yet after two or three wet days, this jelly-like substance abounds 
 on the walks. 
 
 FAIRY RINGS. 
 
 The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy -rings, subsists 
 in the turf, and is conveyable with it : for the turf of my garden- 
 walks, brought from the down above, abounds with those appear- 
 ances, which vary their shape, and shift situation continually, 
 discovering themselves now in circles, now in segments, and 
 sometimes in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, 
 puff-balls abound ; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in 
 the turf. 
 
 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 BAROMETER. 
 
 NOVEMBER 22, 1768. A remarkable fall of the barometer all 
 over the kingdom. At Selborne we had no wind, and not much 
 rain ; only vast, swagging, rock-like clouds appeared at a dis- 
 tance. 
 
 PARTIAL FROST. 
 
 The country people, who are abroad in winter mornings long 
 before sun-rise, talk much of hard frost in some spots, and none 
 in others. The reason of these partial frosts is obvious, for there 
 23 
 
354 OBSERVATIONS ON 
 
 are at such times partial fogs about ; where the fog obtains, little 
 or no frost appears : but where the air is clear, there it freezes 
 hard. So the frost takes place either on hill or in dale, wherever 
 the air happens to be clearest and freest from vapour. 
 
 THAW.i 
 
 Thaws are sometimes surprisingly quick, considering the small 
 quantity of rain. Does not the warmth at such times come from 
 below ? The cold in still, severe seasons seems to come down 
 from above : for the coming over of a cloud in severe nights raises 
 the thermometer abroad at once full ten degrees. The first notices 
 of thaws often seem to appear in vaults, cellars, &c. 
 
 If a frost happens, even when the ground is considerably dry, 
 as soon as a thaw takes place, the paths and fields are all in a 
 batter. Country people say that the frost draws moisture. But 
 the true philosophy is, that the steam and vapours continually 
 ascending from the earth, are bound in by the frost, and not 
 suffered to escape till released by the thaw. No wonder then 
 that the surface is all in a float ; since the quantity of moisture 
 by evaporation that arises daily from every acre of ground is 
 astonishing. 
 
 FROZEN SLEET. 
 
 January 20. Mr. H's man says that he caught this day, in 
 a lane near Hackwood park, many rooks, which, attempting to fly, 
 fell from the trees, with their wings frozen together by the sleet, 
 that froze as it fell. There were, he affirms, many dozen so 
 disabled. 
 
 MIST, CALLED LONDON SMOKE. 
 
 This is a blue mist which has somewhat the smell of coal- 
 smoke, and as it always comes to us with a N. E. wind, is 
 supposed to come from London. It has a strong smell, and is 
 supposed to occasion blights. When such mists appear they are 
 usually followed by dry weather. 
 
 ^See Letter LXI. to Harrington.] 
 
VAKIOUS PARTS OF NATUEE 355 
 
 REFLECTION OF FOG. 
 
 When people walk in a deep white fog by night with a lanthorn, 
 if they will turn their backs to the light, they will see their shades 
 impressed on the fog in rude gigantic proportions. This phe- 
 nomenon seems not to have been attended to, but implies the 
 great density of the meteor at that juncture. 
 
 HONEY-DEW.i 
 
 June 4, 1783. Vast honey-dews this week. The reason of 
 these seems to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are 
 drawn up by a brisk evaporation, and then hi the night fall down 
 with the dews with which they are entangled. 
 
 This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it 
 with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which 
 it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The 
 greatest quantity falls in still, close weather; because winds 
 disperse it, and copious dews dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. 
 It falls mostly in hazy warm weather. 
 
 MORNING CLOUDS. 
 
 After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually becomes 
 cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear 
 again towards the decline of the day. The reason seems to be, 
 that the dew, drawn up by evaporation, occasions the clouds ; 
 which, towards evening, being no longer rendered buoyant by the 
 warmth of the sun, melt away, and fall down again in dews. If 
 clouds are watched in a still, warm evening, they will be seen to 
 melt away, and disappear. 
 
 DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT. 
 
 No one that has not attended to such matters, and taken down 
 remarks, can be aware how much ten days dripping weather will 
 influence the growth of grass or corn, after a severe dry season. 
 This present summer, 1776, yielded a remarkable instance; for 
 
 . 
 
 ^[Seenote to p. 231.] 
 
356 OBSERVATIONS ON NATURE 
 
 till the 30th of May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the 
 barley not half out of the ground ; but now, June 10, there is an 
 agreeable prospect of plenty. 
 
 AURORA BOREALIS. 
 
 November 1, 1788. The N. aurora made a particular appear- 
 ance, forming itself into a broad, red, fiery belt, which extended 
 from E. to W. across the welkin : but the moon rising at about 
 ten o'clock, in unclouded majesty, in the E. put an end to this 
 grand, but awful meteorous phenomenon. 
 
 BLACK SPRING, 1771. 
 
 Dr. Johnson says, that "in 1771 the season was so severe in 
 the island of Sky, that it is remembered by the name of the black 
 spring. The snow, which seldom lies at all, covered the ground 
 for eight weeks, many cattle died, and those that survived were 
 so emaciated that they did not require the male at the usual 
 season." The case was just the same with us here in the south ; 
 never were so many barren cows known as in the spring following 
 that dreadful period. Whole dairies missed being in calf together. 
 
 At the end of March the face of the earth was naked to a sur- 
 prising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs of any 
 grass ; turneps all gone, and sheep in a starving way. All 
 provisions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for want of rain. 
 
INDEX. 1 
 
 Aberdavine (siskin), in note. 
 
 Achangre, 260 ; Jacobus de, 258. 
 
 Actedene, Richard, 260. 
 
 Adanson on migration of swallows, 80. 
 
 Aikin, Dr., his Naturalist's Calendar, xiii, xxix, 319 note. 
 
 Air, humming in the, 336. 
 
 Alice Holt, xxvii ; held by grant from the Crown, 19, 20 ; extracts relating 
 
 to, 266 note ; lop and top of, 20. 
 Alpine swift, 72 and note, 149. 
 
 Alton, xxviii, 260; manufactures of, n ; Gurdon, bailiff of, 261. 
 AMERIA, one of the wives of Sir Adam Gurdon, makes a grant of lands to 
 
 the Priory, 269. 
 
 America, animals peculiar to, 55. 
 American junipers resist frost, 224. 
 Ammonites of Selborne, 6. 
 Anathoth, a place of echoes, 181, 221. 
 Andalusia, mild winters of, 31 ; natural history of. to be investigated, 31 ; 
 
 stone-curlew in, 73; movements of birds in, 114; swift in, 145; migra- 
 tion of swift in, 149. 
 Anecdote, White's use of, 64 note. 
 Animals, taming of, 50; trropyrj of, 123; devouring their young, 124; 
 
 sociality of, 155 ; different, attached to each other, 171. 
 ANNE, QUEEN, came to Wolmer-forest to see the red deer, 14. 
 Antiquities of Selborne, 237. 
 Ants, swarming of, 344. 
 Aphides, migration of, 209 ; enemies of, 232 note ; tongue of, 232 note ; at 
 
 Selborne, 210, 231, 343. 
 
 Appendix to Natural History of Selborne, 317 note. 
 APRIL, 1770, the remarkable inclemency of its weather, 106. 
 Aquarium for fishes, 210. 
 Arbours on St. Barnabas' feast, 16. 
 Arden, Robert, 315 note. 
 Aristotle, on migration of birds, xxxii ; on goats breathing by their ears, 
 
 33 ; on hawks and cuckoos, 151 note. 
 Arnold, Miles, Selborne parsonage leased to, 309. 
 ARUM, the cuckoo-pint, eaten in hard weather, by what, 34. 
 Ascension, birds in isle of, 79, 100. 
 
 1 The entries which have the first word in small capital letters are from the 
 original edition of 1789. They are of interest on several accounts ; among others, 
 because they contain old words, which occur nowhere else in the book. 
 
358 INDEX 
 
 ASHFORD, THOMAS, last prior of Selborne, 297, 299, 300, 304 ; is pensioned 
 
 by Magdalen College, 306. 
 Ashton, John, 297. 
 
 ASH-TREE, a rupture one, what, 161 ; a shrew one, what, 162. 
 Ash-trees, 349. 
 
 Asses ploughing and penned, 151. 
 Attfield on bleeding birch, 348 note. 
 
 AUGUST, the most mute month respecting the singing of birds, 84. 
 Augustine Canons, 257 note. 
 Auk, little, found near Alresford, 81. 
 Auks, walk of, 189. 
 Aurora borealis, 356. 
 Austine, Ralph, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 Autumn song of birds, 83. 
 AYLES HOLT, alias ALICE HOLT, the forest of, 19 ; its grantees, 19. 
 
 Bacon-fly, 74. 
 
 Badeisley, preceptory at, 270. 
 
 Barker, Samuel, x. 
 
 Thomas, 9 note. 
 
 Barometer, used to measure height, 221 ; remarkable fall of, 353. 
 
 BAROMETERS, Selborne and Newton compared, 221 ; South Lambeth, 221. 
 
 Baron, Robert, 304. 
 
 BARRAGON, a genteel corded stuff, where manufactured, u. 
 
 Barrington, Hon. Daines, his Naturalist's Journal, xiii, xx ; life of, xvii ; 
 
 on migration, xviii ; on cuckoo, xviii ; on the Linnaean system, xviii ; 
 
 on singing of birds, xix ; favours the Natural History of Selborne, xxi, 
 
 105 ; on climate of Italy, 105 ; on torpidity of swallow-tribe, 114 note ; 
 
 his Miscellanies, xvii, 206. 
 
 Bartlett, on prehensile tail of harvest-mouse, 32 note. 
 Basingstoke, 260 ; Holy Ghost Chapel at, destruction of, 314. 
 Bassinges, or Basynges, 260, 263. 
 BAT, a tame one, some particulars about, 26 ; drink on the wing like swallows, 
 
 26 ; the large sort, some particulars about, 62 ; nondescript in 1769, 62 ; 
 
 more account of, 76. 
 Bats, species of, 51 ; of Selborne, 25 ; food of, 26, 62 ; on the Thames, 26 ; 
 
 sexes of, 76 ; anatomy of, 76. 
 Beachy Head, Cornish choughs found on, 80. 
 Beans sown by birds, 352. 
 Bear's foot (Hellebore), 185. 
 
 BEAUFORT, bishop of Winchester, his register imperfect, 283. 
 Bee-bird, migration of, 114. 
 
 Beech, 349 ; the most lovely of all forest trees, i. 
 Bees, idiot boy addicted to, 160 ; supposed to be injured by echoes, 180 ; not 
 
 affected by sounds, 181 ; should not be exposed to sun in winter, 223 ; 
 
 feed on honey-dew, 232 ; carder-bee, 340 ; cucumbers set by, 352. 
 Bell, Prof. Thomas, his Life of Gilbert White, ix note, xxx ; on White and 
 
 Pennant, xvi ; his edition of White's Selborne, xxx ; on black grouse, 
 
 13 note ; on names of Sussex meres, 18 note ; on White's first letter to 
 
 Pennant, 21 note ; on water-shrew, 62 note ; on comparison of birds' legs, 
 
 203 note ; on White's barometer, 221 note; on Selborne Church, 247 
 
 note. 
 
INDEX 359 
 
 Bell on gypsies in Tartary, 157. 
 
 Bells of Selborne Church, 248. 
 
 Belon's account of migration of hawks and kites, 114. 
 
 Berne, 260. 
 
 Bene's parsonage, 252. 
 
 Bennett on glands of head of antelopes, 32 note. 
 
 Bennett's edition of White's Selborne, xxx. 
 
 Bensted, 266 note. 
 
 Bere, forest of, 78. 
 
 Berger, Calendar of flora by, 28. 
 
 BERNE, alias BERNES, PETER, sacrist of Selborne Priory, 288 ; appointed 
 prior by lapse to the visitor, 290 ; resigned his priorship, 291 ; is re-elected, 
 295 ; relinquishes again, 296 ; is pensioned, 298 ; the indenture delivered 
 to him, as sacrist, from the prior of Selborne [Appendix]. 
 
 Besoms made of moss, 159. 
 
 Bidwell on nests in which cuckoo lays, 102 note. 
 
 Bilberry, 185 ; creeping or cranberry, 185. 
 
 BIN'S, OR BEAN'S POND, for what remarkable, 17. 
 
 Birch, bleeding of, 348 note. 
 
 BIRDS, summer, of passage, a list of, 37, 94 ; living ones shewn here, when 
 from distant regions, why usually of the thick-billed genera, 69 ; of 
 summer passage, seen spring and autumn at Gibraltar, 72 ; soft-billed, 
 that winter with us, how supported, 86, 87 ; of winter passage, a list of, 
 95 ; that continue in full song till after midsummer, 96, 97 ; why fatten 
 in moderate frosts, 104 ; what sorts are pulveratrices, 108 ; what occasions 
 their congregating, 119; in the season of nidification, tame, 152; various 
 manner of motion of, 187 ; notes and language of, 189. 
 
 Birds, migration of, see Migration of birds ; of Wolmer pond, 19 ; on rigging 
 of ships, 31 ; best observed before the leaves are out, 38 ; monogamous, 
 67 ; pairing of, 67, hard-billed and soft-billed, 69 ; that are silent about 
 midsummer, 83 ; in Ascension, 79, 100 ; autumn-song of, 83 ; modes of 
 drinking of, 84 ; soft-billed that stay the year, 95 ; that sing in the night, 
 96 ; that are silent at midsummer, 98 ; that only sing very early, 98 ; 
 that are hardly to be called singing-birds, 98 ; that sing as they fly, 99 ; 
 that breed early, 99; double-brooded, 100; "methodus" of, 100; that 
 sing late, 100 ; song and incubation of, 100 ; in cages, 101 ; soft-billed, 
 food of, 102 ; hard-billed, food of, 102 ; singing after midsummer, 103 ; 
 colours of, 107 ; young, sex of, hard to be distinguished, 107 ; flight and 
 gait of, 107, 187; that dust or wash, 108 ; of Ringmer, no, internal 
 migration of, in; song of, due to rivalry, 120; parental care of, 123; 
 and lice, 127 ; that are ill adapted for migration, 134 ; moulting-season 
 of, 148; nidification of, 152; congregating of, 119, 155; dispersion of, 
 182 ; that walk, 189 ; in snowy weather, 226 ; destroyed by long frost, 
 228 ; OBSERVATIONS on, 321 ; insect-eating, 321 ; their choice of food, 
 
 -. 321 ; in severe weather, 321 ; of prey and insects, 321 ; grain-eating, can 
 subsist on leaves, 325 ; swimming of, 327 ; diving, 327 ; that build on 
 the ground, 330 ; sowing of beans by, 352. 
 
 Bird's nest (Monotropa), 185. 
 
 ophrys, 186. 
 
 Bishop's Waltham, sand-martins at, 142. 
 
 Black Act, 15. 
 
 beetle, 337. 
 
360 INDEX 
 
 Black canons, 257 note. 
 
 dolphin (turnip flea), 74. 
 
 grouse, 13. 
 
 malm (chloritic marl), 2. 
 
 " Black Spring" of 1771, 356. 
 
 Blackbird, sings in autumn, 83 ; sings as it flies, 99 ; destroyed by frost, 228. 
 
 BLACK-CAP, an elegant songster, 85, 101. 
 
 a summer migrant, 23, 38, 67, 94; its arrival, 67, 321 ; sings after mid- 
 summer, 97 ; ill-provided for long flights, 134. 
 
 Blackmoor or Blackmore, 254, 316 ; farm of, 17 ; oaks of, 3 ; Roman coins 
 found at, 240 note. 
 
 Blackthorn, winter, 350. 
 
 Blackwall on gossamer, 154 note. 
 
 Black-winged stilt, 202. 
 
 Blakemere, 271. 
 
 Blindworm, 41. 
 
 Blue rag, 7. 
 
 Boars in Wolmer-forest, 20; effect of loss of tusks on, 170. 
 
 Bog-wood of Wolmer-forest, 12, 219. 
 
 Bohemian chatterer, 27, 96. 
 
 Bombylius, 342. 
 
 Booby, 100. 
 
 Boots, wearing of, 281. 
 
 Bot-fly, 341. 
 
 Botany, its uses, 183. 
 
 Boughton, Richard, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 
 Boussingault on honey-dew, 232 note. 
 
 Bowers on St. Barnaba's feast, 16. 
 
 BOY, an idiot, his strange propensity, 160 ; eats bees, &c., 160. 
 
 Bradeseth, 271. 
 
 Brady, G. S., on fauna of dew-ponds, 167 note. 
 
 Brambling, see Snow-fleck. 
 
 Brampton, Henry, alias Brompton, 284. 
 
 Bramshot, i, 12. 
 
 Breadalbane, seat of Lord, 89. 
 
 Brighthelmstone, bustards on downs near, no. 
 
 BRIMSTONE-LODGE, some account of, 17. 
 
 Bristowe, Buncombe, vicar of Selborne, his bequests, 256. 
 
 British Museum, xiii. 
 
 British Zoology, Pennant's, 60. 
 
 Bromesgrove, John, 293. 
 
 Brompden, 260. 
 
 BROOKS AT SELBORNE, what fishes they produce, 25. 
 
 Brown owl, castings of, 25. 
 
 Bryan Galfrid, 294. 
 
 Bucks and does, herd separately in winter, 112. 
 
 Buffon, xiii, xiv, 55 note. 
 
 BUG, HARVEST, some account of, 73. 
 
 Bull of Innocent VIII. , 305 ; of Pope Martin, 286. 
 
 BULLFINCH, turns black, 34, 81. 
 
 song of, 99. 
 
 Bull's head (fish), 25. 
 
INDEX 361 
 
 BUNTING, a very rare bird at Selborne, 30, 99, in. 
 
 cirl, 30 note ; common, 30; song of, 99; common along coast, in. 
 
 Burials at Selborne Church, 249. 
 
 Burning of heaths, 16. 
 
 Burrel, see Fly. 
 
 Burton on migration of birds, xxxii. 
 
 Biisgen on honey-dew, 232 note. 
 
 Bustard, its timidity, 100; on downs near Brighthelmstone, no. 
 
 BUTCHER-BIRD, red-backed, 46, 80. 
 
 great grey, 79. 
 
 Butt-close, 308 note. 
 
 Butt-wood-close, 308. 
 
 BUZZARDS, honey, some account of, 89. 
 
 flight of, 1 88. 
 
 Byfield, Richard, vicar of Selborne, his bequest, 254. 
 
 Cabbages known to our Saxon ancestors, 177. 
 
 Calabria and Sicily, earthquakes in, 233. 
 
 Calculus aegogropila, 76. 
 
 Cambridgeshire, spires of, 50. 
 
 Canaries, how to naturalise, 28. 
 
 Cancer, said to be cured by toads, 44, 49. 
 
 Cane, a weasel, 34. 
 
 Cane, William Henry, vicar of Selborne, 255. 
 
 Canons regular, 257 note. 
 
 Canwood, Henry, 297. 
 
 Capons have small combs, 169. 
 
 CAPRIMULGUS, or fern-owl, some new observations about, 77. 
 
 Carder-bee, 340. 
 
 Carew on migration of birds, xxxiii. 
 
 Carniola, birds of, 70, 106, 108 ; quicksilver mines of, 106. 
 
 Carp, in ponds on Wolmer-forest, 18 ; habits of, 85. 
 
 Carpenter, Richard, preceptor of Sudington, 271, 273. 
 
 CASTRATION, its strange effects, 169. 
 
 Cat suckles a leveret, 171 ; electric during frost, 230; and squirrels, 334. 
 
 CATS, house, strange that they should be so fond of fish, 68. 
 
 catch swifts on the wing, 150 ; and hearth-crickets, 200 ; running out 
 
 for shot sparrows, 323. 
 Cattle resorting to water, 18 ; sociality of, 155 ; poisoned by yew, 250 ; and 
 
 wagtails, 332. 
 
 Celery little known in England in 1663, 178. 
 Chafers or tree-beetles, 117, 336. 
 Chaffinch silent before midsummer, 98 ; subsists on hard food, 102 ; cuckoo's 
 
 egg in nest of, 102 ; nest of, 214. 
 
 CHAFFINCHES, vast flocks of hens, 29, 35, 81 ; hens, more account of, 112. 
 Chalk of Selborne, 2 note. 
 CHALK-HILLS, why peculiarly beautiful, 133. 
 Chalk-marl of Selborne, 2 note. 
 
 Chandler, Dr. Richard, life of, xx ; on lime-blossoms, 350. 
 Chantries, 273 note. 
 Chantry-services, 280. 
 Chapel-farm, 260, 309. 
 
362 INDEX 
 
 Chapel- farm field, 264, 309. 
 
 manor, near Oakhanger, 316. 
 
 Chapman, John, 304. 
 
 Charter of Selborne Priory, 259 ; for choosing of a prior, 275. 
 
 Chaucer on morals of the clergy, 287. 
 
 Cherwell, wagtails on, 101. 
 
 Chestnut-timber, 349. 
 
 Chicken, notes of, 191. 
 
 Chiffchaff, a summer migrant, 38, 94 ; hardly to be called a singing bird, 99 ; 
 sings on to September, 99 ; its note, 328 ; its arrival, 328 ; (?) 35 note. 
 
 Chinese dogs fattened for eating, 217. 
 
 Chips in mortar, 8. 
 
 Chough, 80, no. 
 
 Christian Malford, land-rails at, 325. 
 
 CHURCH, SELBORNE, particulars about, 243, 248. 
 
 Churches, Norfolk, Hampshire and Sussex meanly furnished with, 49 ; orien- 
 tation of, 249; uncleanly condition of, 281. 
 
 Churn-owl, see Nightjar. 
 
 Churr-worm (mole-cricket), 202. 
 
 Cinque-foil, marsh, 185. 
 
 Cistern of monastery and leaden pipes, 308. 
 
 Claw of nightjar, 77. 
 
 Clay's pond, fossils at, 6. 
 
 Cleve, Michael, 304. 
 
 Climate of Selborne, 222 f. 
 
 Clouds, morning, 355. 
 
 Clutterbuck on dew-ponds, 165 note. 
 
 Clydegrove, Stephen, 297. 
 
 Clyff, Michael, 303. 
 
 Cobham, Lord, a promoter of horticulture, 177. 
 
 Coccus VITIS VINIFER^E, strange and rare insect in England, 208. 
 
 Cock, crowing of, 191. 
 
 Cockchafer, 329 ; small, 84. 
 
 Cockroach, 337. 
 
 Cockscomb oyster, 6. 
 
 COINS, Roman, found at Selborne in great abundance, 239-40. 
 
 found in Wolmer pond, 19, 239. 
 
 Cold descends from above, 224 ; greatest in hollows, 229 ; maximum of, 227. 
 
 Colour, of plumage affected by food, 34; affects birds' choice of food, 321. 
 
 Colours of birds in pairing time, 107. 
 
 Comarum, 185. 
 
 Comb, family, for the use of hinds, 289 note. 
 
 Commandries, 270 note. 
 
 Commerce in vegetable products, 184. 
 
 Compedes of Linnaeus, 189. 
 
 Conduit-wood, a spring in, 308. 
 
 Coney-croft, 316. 
 
 hanger, 316. 
 
 Congregating of birds, 112, 119. 
 Cook's voyages, xiv. 
 
 Cooper, bishop of Winchester, 253. 
 Coot, flight of, 189. 
 
INDEX 363 
 
 Corn and weather, 355. 
 
 Corn-mill of a manor, 310. 
 
 Cornish chough at Beachy Head, 80; on cliffs of Sussex, no. 
 
 CORNUA AMMONIS, where found, 6. 
 
 Corrodies, 280. 
 
 Coryarich, zigzag up, 89. 
 
 Couke, John, vicar of Newton, 285. 
 
 Court-leet and Court-baron at the Grange, 315. 
 
 Cowper, William, 303. 
 
 Cows and wagtails, 332. 
 
 Cranberry, at Bin's pond, 185. 
 
 Cranes, flight of, 189 ; noisy and loquacious, 190. 
 
 Cranmer, 18. 
 
 Cressi Hall, heronry at, 50, 52. 
 
 CRICKET, field, a monography of, 196 ; hearth, a monography of, 199 ; mole, 
 a monography of, 201. 
 
 hearth, 337, 338. 
 
 CROCUS, the spring, and saffron, their different seasons of blossoming won- 
 derful, why, 186. 
 
 Crops and frost, 225, 228; and dripping weather after drought, 355. 
 
 Crossbill at Selborne, 25 ; a chance migrant, 96 ; flights of, at Ringmer, 135. 
 
 Crown, Wolmer-forest, grants of by, 19 ; lessees of, 266 note. 
 
 Crows go in pairs the whole year round, 80 ; grey, 84 ; swaggering of, 188 ; 
 amorous sound of, 190. 
 
 CUCKOO, particulars about, 38, 56, 94, 102, 104, 109 ; sing in different keys, 
 117-8 ; a young one in the nest of a titlark, 109 ; several skimming over 
 a pond, why, 109. 
 
 small size of its egg, 104 note ; its egg in nest of hedge-sparrow, 104 
 
 note ; egg-laying of, 102 ; food of, 109, 167 ; in nest of meadow-pipit, 
 116 ; Linnaeus on, 109 ; note of, 118 ; number of eggs laid by, 105 ; sup- 
 posed reason for its not incubating, 166. 
 
 Cuckoo-pint, eaten by thrushes, 34. 
 
 Cucumbers set by bees, 352. 
 
 Culver-croft, 316. 
 
 CUMBERLAND, WILLIAM, DUKE OF, takes away the red deer from Wolmer- 
 forest, 14. 
 
 Cundyth (conduit) wood, 308. 
 
 " Cup-shakey " timber, 350. 
 
 CURLEW, STONE, some account of, 35 ; more particulars of, 72. 
 
 protective resemblance of, xxiii, 36, 73, 107 note ; migration of, 328. 
 
 Dabchick ; flight of, 189. 
 
 Daker-hen (landrail), 324. 
 
 Dalrymple quoted, 177 note. 
 
 Danewort, 186. 
 
 Dartmoor, ring ousels on, 59, 80. 
 
 Dartmouth, first Earl of, 266 note. 
 
 Darwin on formation of mould by earthworms, xxiii, 173 note ; on origin of 
 
 domestic pigeon, 91 note; on gossamer, 154 note; on honey-dew, 232 
 
 note. 
 
 DASTARD, alias WASTARD, natural son to Sir Adam Gurdon, 269. 
 Dates to deeds, 258 note. 
 
364 INDEX 
 
 DAWS breed in unlikely places, 48. 
 
 see Jackdaws. 
 
 De Geer, xiii, xiv. 
 
 De Rupibus (Peter), founder of Selborne Priory, 256. 
 
 DEER, RED, in Wolmer-forest, some account of, 13 ; fallow, in Holt-forest, 20 ; 
 
 fallow, their spiracula, or breathing places, 32. 
 
 association of with cows, 155. 
 
 Deer-stealers, 15. 
 
 Derham, xv, xxv ; on migration of frogs, 40. 
 
 Dew-ponds, 163. 
 
 Dickens on rush-burners, 159 note. 
 
 Dipper, no. 
 
 Diptera not torpid in winter, 336. 
 
 Diseases caused by bad diet, 176. 
 
 DISPERSION OF BIRDS, pretty equal, why, 182. 
 
 Distant on assimilative coloration, 34. 
 
 Diver, great speckled, in Wolmer-forest, 326. 
 
 Divers (birds), walk of, 189 ; swimming of, 326. 
 
 DOGS, CHINESE, from Canton, 217. 
 
 blinded by gossamer, 153 ; fattened in China for eating, 217 ; of South 
 
 America, fed for the table, 217 ; of Pacific Islands, bred upon vegetables, 
 
 217; ears of, 218; used to draw sledges, 218; refuse bones of game, 
 
 218; and of carrion-birds, 218. 
 DOMESDAY- BOOK, account of Selborne from, 240. 
 
 silent respecting churches, 243. 
 
 Dorton, or Durton, mill at, 258, 310 ; common at, 269 note. 
 
 Dove, ring, see Ring-dove. 
 
 DOVE, STOCK, or wild winter-pigeon, 80 ; stock, many particulars of, from 90 
 
 to 93. 
 
 Doves, cooing of, 190. 
 Dove-house of a manor, 310. 
 Dove-houses at Culver-croft, 316. 
 DOWNS, SUSSEX, a lovely range, 132. 
 
 sheep on, 133. 
 
 Drey, squirrel's nest, 334. 
 
 Drinking of bats, 26 ; of swallows, 138 ; of swallows and swifts, 82. 
 
 Dripping weather after drought and crops, 355. 
 
 Drumlanrig, 89. 
 
 Duck, wild, a winter bird of passage, 96; migration of, 115; with arms of 
 
 King of Denmark on its collar, 115 ; gait of, 189; wings of, 189; noisy 
 
 and loquacious, 190; sexual distinction of voice, 191. 
 Ducks and geese rest on the water, 323. 
 Dugdale on Selborne Priory, 259. 
 Duncun, Gunnorie, 269. 
 
 Eagle-owl, 61. 
 Eagles, notes of, 190. 
 Earthquakes of 1783, 233. 
 
 Earthworms, life of, 173, 344; promoters of vegetation, 172. 
 Eastbourne, wheatears at, 135. 
 
 ECHO, a polysyllabical one, 178 ; why since mute, 181 ; several remarks on 
 echoes, 178, 181 ; a charming description of echoes from Lucretius, 181. 
 
INDEX 365 
 
 ECHOES occasioned by the discharge of swivel guns, 220. 
 
 Eckmark, on migration of Grallae, 118. 
 
 Editha, queen of Edward the Confessor, 240, 241. 
 
 Edriche croft, 258. 
 
 Edward I. and Gurdon, 262. 
 
 II. in Wolmer Forest, 242. 
 
 III. at Kingsley, 242. 
 
 Eel, 25. 
 
 Eels, generation of, 83. 
 
 Eft, see Newt. 
 
 Eggs in insect-larvae, 44. 
 
 Eglintoun, seat of Earl of, 89. 
 
 Ela Longspee (1281), 273. 
 
 Elder, dwarf, 186. 
 
 Election of Prior at Selborne, 275, 284, 292, 293, 295, 297. 
 
 Elk or moose of N. America, 64, 65, 68. 
 
 Elliot's (house at Selborne), 265. 
 
 Ellis, on mud-iguana, 41. 
 
 Elm, broad-leaved, 4. 
 
 Elmer the game-painter, 20 ; his picture of hybrid pheasant, 324. 
 
 Elstede, Richard, 284. 
 
 Empedes or tipulas, 343. 
 
 Emshot, i. 
 
 Endive little known in England in 1663, 178. 
 
 Entomology, 52, 75. 
 
 Ephemera, 56, 339. 
 
 Estates, tenure of the Selborne, 316. 
 
 Etty, Andrew, vicar of Selborne, 256 ; his epitaph, 247. 
 
 Eunuchs, 169. 
 
 Evans on cuckoo's eggs, 103 note. 
 
 Eve-churr, see Mole-cricket. 
 
 Eve-jarr, see Nightjar. 
 
 Evergreen leaves imbibe little, 163. 
 
 Evergreens and frost, 222, 224, 228, 229. 
 
 Evesham, Gurdon after battle of, 261. 
 
 FAIR AT SELBORNE, 265 note, 316. 
 
 Fairwise, Thomas, Prior of Selborne, 293, 294. 
 
 Fairy-rings in turf, 353. 
 
 FALCON, peregrine, particulars about, 24, 26, 216. 
 
 Fallow deer, in the Holt, 20 ; never seen in Wolmer-forest, 20 ; cavities in 
 
 head of, 32. 
 Faringdon, i. 
 Fattening in frost, 104. 
 Faunists, 119. 
 Fawn and cows, 155. 
 February called sprout-cale, 177. 
 Fellwort (gentian), 186. 
 Females which devour their young, 124, 
 Fens, insufficiently explored, 51. 
 Fern-chafer (Rhizotrogus), 77, 84, 329, 
 Fern-owl, see Nightjar. 
 
366 INDEX 
 
 Ferrol, John, 253 note. 
 
 Ffarnham, Walter, 284. 
 
 Field-cricket, history of, 196. 
 
 Field-mouse, with young, 124 ; its mode of opening a nut, 214. 
 
 FIELDFARES, strange that they do not breed in England, 60 ; nor in Scotland, 
 60 ; roost on the ground, 64. 
 
 migration of, 30, 96, 116 ; perching and roosting of, 96 ; retire in spring, 
 
 112 ; breed in Sweden, 113; nest of, 113, 117; food of, 321. 
 
 Fire-flies, 58 note. 
 
 Firestone, 7. 
 
 Fisher, William, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 
 FISHES, gold and silver, why very amusing in a glass bowl, 210. 
 
 of Wolmer Forest, 18 ; of Selborne, 25. 
 
 Flamingo, compared with black-winged stilt, 203. 
 
 Fleas in sand-martins' holes, 143. 
 
 Flies, plague of, in 1783, 233 ; walking of, 342. 
 
 Flight of birds, 187; of insects, 200. 
 
 Flocking of birds, 112, 119 ; of hen chaffinches, 112 ; of linnets, 112 ; of rooks 
 and daws, 120; of rooks and starlings, 120. 
 
 FLY, bacon, injurious to the housewife, 74 ; Whame or burrel, Oestrus 
 curvicauda, 74. 
 
 FLY-CATCHER, some particulars of, 22, 25, 37, 67, 86, 94, 123, 321. 
 
 Fog (dry), of 1783, 232 ; reflection by, 355. 
 
 Foliage of trees lasting late, 117. 
 
 Folkestone beds, 3 note, 8. 
 
 Food of man, 183. 
 
 Forest-fly, 127 ; stone, 8. 
 
 Forests, and water-supply, 163 ; royal, xxvii, 12, 241, 266 note. 
 
 FORMS, five, respecting the chusing a prior, 275. 
 
 Forrest, on flocks of starlings, 119 note. 
 
 Fort William, 89. 
 
 Fossils of Selborne, 5. 
 
 Fothergill on cultivation in England of shrubs from N. America, 223. 
 
 Fowler, W. Warde, on Gilbert White, vicar of Selborne, ix ; on Sampson 
 White, ix ; on Gilbert White's relations to his college and the church, 
 xi ; on White and protective resemblance, xxiii ; on White's view of 
 the migration of birds, xxxi. 
 
 Fowls, 108 ; and wasps, 321. 
 
 Freestone (upper greensand), 2, 7. 
 
 Freezing of fluids in capillary tubes, 227 note. 
 
 French, prolix in natural history, 68. 
 
 Frinsham pond, 79. 
 
 Frogs, 39 ; migrate from pools, 40 ; Swammerdam on, 40. 
 
 FROST, that in January, 1768, described, 222 ; that in January, 1776, 225, 
 that in December, 1784, 228. 
 
 birds that first suffer by, 104 ; effect of in fattening, 104 ; protection of 
 
 shrubs from, 222 ; and evergreens, 222, 224, 228, 229 ; advances gradu- 
 ally, but may end suddenly, 224 ; and rainfall, 225 ; partial, 227, 353. 
 
 Frostbites, 230. 
 
 Frozen sleet and rooks, 354. 
 
 Fruit-trees injured by heat, 231. 
 
 Furze killed by frost, 230 ; range of, 230 note. 
 
INDEX 367 
 
 Gahn on common grasses, 184 note. 
 
 Gallinae, gait and flight of, 188 ; roosting high, 323. 
 
 Galls of Lombardy poplar, 349. 
 
 Gaily Hill, 315. ' 
 
 Gardens, history and effects of, 177. 
 
 Gassendus, on effect of music, 214. 
 
 Gault, 3 note. 
 
 Gaveston, 242. 
 
 Geese and ducks rest on the water, 323. 
 
 Gentian, autumnal, 186. 
 
 Geoffroy, xv. 
 
 Geology of Selborne, xxvii. 
 
 GERMAN SILK-TAIL, garnilus bohemicus, shot, 27. 
 
 Gibraltar, natural history of, x ; birds of, 71, 72 ; migration of swifts at, 149. 
 
 Gipsies, see Gypsies. 
 
 Glead or gled (kite), 188. 
 
 Glebe of Selborne, 265. 
 
 Glow-worm, 57 note, 344. 
 
 Gnats on snow, 321. 
 
 Goats breathing through their ears, Aristotle on, 33. 
 
 Goatsucker, see Nightjar. 
 
 Godesfield, 270. 
 
 Gold and silver fishes, 210. 
 
 Golden thrushes, 114. 
 
 Golden-crowned wren, does not migrate, 87, 95 ; its note, 98 ; not timid, 100. 
 
 Goldfinch, time of its song, 98, 103. 
 
 Goose Green, a lodge in the Holt, 20. 
 
 Goose, wild, a winter bird of passage, 96 ; flight of, 189 ; voice of, 190. 
 
 Gorfin, Walter, 290. 
 
 GOSSAMER, a wonderful shower of, 153. 
 
 various naturalists on, 154. 
 
 Gracious Street, 315. 
 
 Grallae, migration of, 118. 
 
 GRANGE, the, belonging to Selborne Priory, 315. 
 
 Grange, 254, 313, 315. 
 
 Grasses neglected, importance of their study, 184. 
 
 Grasshopper-lark, its note, 37 ; a summer bird of passage, 38, 94 ; its arrival, 
 
 67 ; chirps all night, 83, 99. 
 Gray, the poet, xiv. 
 Great Ward le ham, i. 
 GREATHAM, the manor farm of, its privilege in Wolmer-Forest, 16. 
 
 i, 12 ; farms of, 17. 
 
 Grebe, little, flight of, 189. 
 
 Green lizard, 42, 52. 
 
 Greenfinch, time of singing of, 98 ; its gestures, 188. 
 
 Greensand, lower, 3 ; upper, 2, 3, 7. 
 
 Grimm, the artist, 264. 
 
 Grosbeak, 25; does not regularly migrate, 96; considerable flocks of, no; 
 
 food of, 333. 
 
 Grouse, black, in Wolmer-forest, 13. 
 Guernsey lizard, 52. 
 Guinea-fowl, roosting of, 323, 
 
368 INDEX 
 
 GURDON, SIR ADAM, who and what, 261 ; where, a man of rank and property, 
 261 ; his wives, 262 ; builds an oratory in his manor-house, 263 ; grants 
 the Plestor to the Priory of Selborne, 264 ; becomes warden of Wolmer- 
 forest, 266 ; a distringas against him, 267 ; enlists troops for the king, 
 267 ; his advanced age, 268 ; his seal and arms, 268 ; seems to have had 
 no concern with the Knights Templars, 272. 
 
 bailiff of Alton, 261 f. 
 
 Gurdon-manor, 265, 316. 
 
 Gyfford, W., 304. 
 
 GYPSIES, some particulars about, 156. 
 
 Haggard falcon, see Peregrine falcon. 
 
 HAILSTORM at Selborne in summer 1784, 234. 
 
 Hales, Dr. Stephen, xii, xv ; quoted, 12 note, 154 note, 164, 224 note, 231 
 note. 
 
 Halyborne, Thomas, 284. 
 
 Hamilton, 89. 
 
 Hammond, John, rector of Hetlegh, 290. 
 
 Hampshire meanly furnished with churches, 49 ; manufacture of rushlights 
 in, 158. 
 
 HANGER, the, i. 
 
 Hard-billed and soft-billed birds, 69. 
 
 Hares, white or Scotch, 61 ; species of, 61 note ; in snowy weather, 226. 
 
 Harteley Mauduit, i. 
 
 Harting, his edition of White's Selborne, xxx ; on whinchat, 81 note; on 
 food of woodcock, 101 note; on cuckoo, 103 note ; on great bustard, 
 no note ; on migration of hawks, 114 note ; on duck found at Trotton, 
 116 note; on grosbeak, 333 note. 
 
 Harvest-bug, 73. 
 
 mouse, 23 and note; description of, 27 ; further particulars of, 31 ; pre- 
 hensile tail of, 32 note; name for, 35; devoured by dogs, refused by 
 cats, 84. 
 
 HASEL WYCH, 4. 
 
 Hasselquist on short-winged birds in the channel, 31 ; on migration of black- 
 winged stilt, 203. 
 
 Hawfinch, see Grosbeak. 
 
 HAWK, SPARROW, the dread of housewives, 90. 
 
 breeding in old crows' nests, 83 ; killed by brood-hens, 192. 
 
 Hawkley, closes in, 255 ; (Hocheleye), 267. 
 
 HAWKLEY-HANGER, the amazing fall thereof, 194. 
 
 Hawks, castings of, 25; migration of, 114 note; and swallows, 138; and 
 swifts, 148; and cuckoos, 151 and note ; spring migration of, 151 note; 
 notes of, 190 ; seizing of prey by, 326. 
 
 Haws, failure of, 28 ; food for birds, 28. 
 
 HAZE, or smokey fog, the peculiar one which prevailed in summer 1783, 232. 
 
 Heat in March, effects of, 173. 
 
 HEATH-FIRES, why lighted up, 16. 
 
 Hedge-sparrow, 83 ; its food in winter, 87 ; does not migrate, 95 ; its time of 
 singing, 97 ; and cuckoo, 104. 
 
 HEDGEHOG, some account of, 63. 
 
 Hedlegh, i, 12. 
 
 HELIOTROPES, summer and winter, how to make them, 192. 
 
INDEX 369 
 
 Hellebores, 185 ; flowering of, 186. 
 
 Helleborine, 186. 
 
 Hemp seed, its effect on plumage of bullfinch, 34, 81. 
 
 Hen, sitting on a shapeless stone, 104 ; parental care of, 123 ; notes of, 191 ; 
 
 and ducklings, 334. 
 
 Hen-harrier breeds on the ground, 83 ; flight of, 188 ; and pheasant, 326. 
 Henry III. grants lands to Selborne Priory, 259. 
 
 de Blois, 270. 
 
 Herbert on drumming of snipe, 81 note. 
 
 HERISSANT, MONSIEUR, mistaken in his reason why cuckoos do not use 
 
 incubation, 166. 
 Hermaphrodite animals, 345. 
 Heron, flight of, 188. 
 Heronry at Cressi Hall, 50, 52. 
 Hibernation in holes, not practised by sand-martin, 143 ; (supposed) of 
 
 swallows and other birds, xviii, xxxi to xxxiv, 21, 28, 29, 53, 78, 114, 
 
 121, 136, 174, 213, 216, 330, 331, 332 ; of insects, reptiles and quadrupeds, 
 
 174. 
 
 Hills, walking, and travelling mountains, 194. 
 Hippobosca of swallow, 127 ; of swift, 149, 150, 207. 
 HIRUNDINES, BRITISH, when they arrived in three very distant counties, 151. 
 
 history of the British, 127 f. ; number of broods of, 148. 
 
 Hirundo rupestris, 71. 
 
 Hoadly, Bishop, refuses to restock Waltham chase, 15. 
 
 Hochangre, see Oakhanger. 
 
 Hogmer, 18. 
 
 HOGS, would live, if suffered, to a considerable age, 170. 
 
 Hollow lanes, 8. 
 
 HOLT, AYLES, a royal forest ; some account of, xxvii, 19, 20, 266 note. 
 
 perambulation of, 17 ; measured, 17 note ; lop and top of, 20. 
 
 Holt, Anne, mother of Gilbert White, ix. 
 
 Thomas, rector of Streatham, ix. 
 
 Holy Ghost Chapel at Basingstoke, destruction of, 314. 
 Honey-buzzard, nest, description and food of, 89 ; name of, 321. 
 
 dew, 231 and note, 355 ; Hooker on, 232 note. 
 
 Hoopoes, 24. 
 
 Hops, soil good for, 3, 350; aphides on, 210. 
 
 Horn-room at Wilton, 69. 
 
 Horse and hen keeping company, 155. 
 
 a dying, 334. 
 
 Horse-bot, 74. 
 
 Horses attacked by epidemic during frost of 1768, 223 ; poisoned by yew, 250. 
 
 Horticulture, progress and effects of, 177. 
 
 Hot summers of 1781 and 1783, 230 ; and wheat-crops, 352. 
 
 Hounds, the king's, 335. 
 
 HOUSE, vicarage, at Selborne, 249. 
 
 House-cricket, see Cricket. 
 
 dove derived from rock-dove, 91. 
 
 flies, 342. 
 
 martin, see Martin. 
 
 sparrow, see Sparrow. 
 
 Howe, General, 19. 
 
 24 
 
370 INDEX 
 
 HOWE, GENERAL, turns out wild boars in Holt-forest, 20. 
 
 Ruperta, daughter of Prince Rupert, 19. 
 
 Hudson, xiv, xv. 
 
 Humming of snipes, 38 ; in the air, 336. 
 
 bird hawk-moth, 340. 
 
 Hunter, John, xiii ; on glands of head of deer, 32 note. 
 
 Hunting forbidden to canons of Selborne, 279. 
 
 Huntingdonshire, spires of, 50. 
 
 Husband, David, 304. 
 
 HUXHAM, DR., his account of rain at Plymouth, 220. 
 
 " Hybernaculum " of martins, 78. 
 
 Hybrid pheasant, 324. 
 
 Hyde, minister in Winchester, 270. 
 
 Hylling, John, Vicar of Newton Valence, 290. 
 
 Ice, spicules of, in air, 229. 
 
 Ichneumon and spider, 341. 
 
 Idiot addicted to bees, 160. 
 
 Ila, Lord, a promoter of horticulture, 177. 
 
 Indian grass, 52. 
 
 Inkforbye, William, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 
 Insect-larvae full of eggs, 44. 
 
 Insects, noxious, 75 ; torpid, 174 ; hearing of, 180 ; frisking immediately 
 after severe frost, 227 ; and birds of prey, 321, 322 ; in winter, 335 ; at 
 night, 335 ; wood-boring, 336. 
 
 INSTINCT, sometimes varies and conforms to circumstances, 214 ; often per- 
 fectly uniform, 214. 
 
 in animals, a limited faculty, 139 ; early, 169 ; discussion on, 213 ; of 
 
 partridge, 323. 
 
 Internal migration of birds, in. 
 
 Irby on migration of swifts at Gibraltar, 149 note. 
 
 IRELAND, why worthy the attention of a naturalist, 88. 
 
 Israelites, leprosy among, 175. 
 
 Italy, climate of, in ancient and modern times, 105. 
 
 Ivy, its leaves condense very fast, 163 ; its berries, 322, 350. 
 
 Jackals and lions, 120. 
 
 Jackdaws nesting in Stonehenge, 48 ; building underground, 48, 49 ; walking 
 
 of, 1 88. 
 Jacobus de Achangre, 258. 
 
 de Nortun, 258. 
 
 Jamaica, birds of, 108. 
 JAR-BIRD, what, 38. 
 
 see Nuthatch. 
 
 Jay, flight of, 188. 
 Jenkyn, Richard ap, 294. 
 Jenner on cuckoo, 103 note. 
 Jews, lenders of money, 259. 
 
 JOHANNA, daughter and heiress of Sir A. Gurdon, grants lands and tenements 
 
 to the Priory, 269. 
 John de Venur, or Venuz, 260. 
 
 King, at Ward-le-Ham, 242. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., on the " black spring " of 1771, 356. 
 
INDEX 371 
 
 Ken, Morris, amuses Edward II., 242. 
 
 Kestrel, its breeding-places, 83 ; its flight, 188. 
 
 Kew Gardens, xiv. 
 
 King John's Hill, 17. 
 
 Kingfisher, flight of, 188. 
 
 King's staghounds, 335. 
 
 Kingsley, 242, 266 note. 
 
 Kite, migration of, 114 ; flight of, 188; picking up ants, 322. 
 
 Kite's Hill, 315. 
 
 Knights Hospitalers, 269 note. 
 
 KNIGHTS TEMPLARS, had considerable property at Selborne, 269 ; lived in a 
 
 mutual intercourse of good offices with the Priory, 271. 
 symbol of, 245 ; supposed graves of, 245 ; arms of, 263 ; account 
 
 of, 269 note ; rules of, 279 note. 
 Knowles, Thomas, 307. 
 Krakatoa, eruption of, 233 note. 
 Kramer, his Elenchus, 71 ; on woodcock, 113. 
 Kuckalm on birds of Jamaica, 108. 
 
 La liega or La lyge, the site of Selborne Priory, 258. 
 
 Lacuna, Guylleryde, 295. 
 
 Ladies' traces, 186. 
 
 Lakes of Wolmer-forest, 17 ; wild fowl of, 25. 
 
 Lampern, 25. 
 
 Landrail, a summer bird of passage, 38 ; its note, 94 ; account of, 324. 
 
 Landslips, 194. 
 
 Landsprings, see Lavants. 
 
 LANES, hollow, rocky, their peculiarities, 8 ; abound with filices, 9. 
 
 LANGELANDE, ROBERT, severe on the religious,287. 
 
 Langley, Radolphus, 301. 
 
 LANGRISH, NICHOLAS, who had been a chantry priest, sent by Magdalen 
 
 College to celebrate mass at the dissolved Priory of Selborne, 307, 274, 
 
 note. 
 
 Lapwing, haunts and congregating of, 81 ; and starlings, 120. 
 LARKS, white, probably snow-flakes [Snow Bunting], 34 ; grasshopper, some 
 
 curious circumstances about, 37, 83 ; (see Grasshopper Lark). 
 
 flocking of, 112 ; their walk, 189. 
 
 Larvae of insects, full of eggs, 44 ; injury caused by, 173. 
 
 Lathyrus, wild, 186. 
 
 Laurel, spurge, 186. 
 
 Lavants, of Sussex, Hampshire and Wiltshire, 141. 
 
 Le Buri, 308 note. 
 
 Leaves, casting of, 346; renovation of, 117, 348. 
 
 Legge, H. B., 19. 
 
 Legs of black-winged stilt and flamingo, 203 ; of colymbi and mergi, 327. 
 
 Leicester House museum, 6. 
 
 Lemyngton, John, 284. 
 
 LEPER, a miserable one in this village, 175. 
 
 LEPROSY, why probably less common than of old, 176. 
 
 Lessees of the Crown, 266 note, 
 
 Lever, Sir Ashton, his museum, 6 note. 
 
 LEVERET, suckled by a cat, 171. 
 
372 INDEX 
 
 Lewes, ring ousels near, 79. 
 
 Lice and birds, 127. 
 
 Licenses for oratories, 263. 
 
 Liega, la, 308 note. 
 
 Lime-blossoms, 350. 
 
 Lincecum on gossamer, 154 note. 
 
 Lincolnshire, spires of, 50. 
 
 Linnaeus, x, xiii, xv; on water-vole, 23 ; on chaffinch, 29; on water-eft, 41 ; 
 on verbosity, 68 ; on range of plants, 84 ; on cuckoo, 109 ; on nesting 
 of fieldfare and redwing, 113 ; on hawks and cuckoo, 151 ; compedes of, 
 189, 327; on goldfish, 211; on crickets and cockroaches, 337; on cock- 
 roach, 338 note. 
 
 LINNETS, congregate and chirp, 30. 
 
 Linnet, song of, 98, 103 ; flocking of, 112. 
 
 Lions and jackals, 120. 
 
 Lisle on loss of boar's tusks, 170. 
 
 Liss, see Lysse. 
 
 Lister on gossamer, 154. 
 
 Lithe, or Lythe, 258. 
 
 Liveries of religious houses, 280. 
 
 Living of Selborne, 252. 
 
 Lizards, green, at Farnham, 42 ; in Devonshire and Surrey, 50 ; green and 
 Guernsey, 52 ; which lived in a college garden, 52. 
 
 LOACHES from Ambresbury, 43. 
 
 Lodge Hill, 17. 
 
 Lombardy poplar, galls of, 349. 
 
 London, martins in, 131 ; swallows in, 139 ; sand-martins in, 144 ; swifts in, 
 150 ; in snowy weather, 226 ; " London smoke," 354. 
 
 London, Hugh, 284. 
 
 Thomas, 291, 293, 295. 
 
 Long Lithe, 258. 
 
 Long, Barnabas, vicar of Selborne, 254. 
 
 William, 292. 
 
 Long-billed birds fattening in frosts, 104. 
 
 LONGSPEE, ELA, founds a chantry at Selborne, 273 ; who and what, 274, 275 
 note. 
 
 Longworth, John, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 
 Loon, 326. 
 
 Lop and top of the Holt forest, 20. 
 
 Losel's wood, 4. 
 
 Love, in birds, 112. 
 
 Lower greensand, 3 note. 
 
 Lyge, la, 308 note. 
 
 Lyndewood's Provinciate, 282. 
 
 Lynne, John, vicar of Selborne, 252, 285. 
 
 Lysse, i, 12. 
 
 Lythe or Lithe, 258. 
 
 Magdalen College, Oxford, holds patronage of Selborne, 252, 265 ; foundation 
 of, 301 f. ; Selborne Priory appropriated to, 302, 306, 311, 313 ; courts held 
 at Selborne by, 315. 
 
 Magpie, flight of, 188 ; and missel-thrush, 322. 
 
INDEX 373 
 
 Mahomet on purification, 109. 
 
 Makerel, Thomas, 263. 
 
 MALM, black, what sort of soil, 2 ; ditto, white, 3. 
 
 Man, his food varies with climate, 183. 
 
 MARCH, the month of, two wonderfully hot days in March, 1777 ; the effects 
 of that heat, 173. 
 
 Marcley Hill a deceitful ground, 194. 
 
 Market at Selborne, 265. 
 
 Markwick's Calendar and Observations, 319 note. 
 
 Marsh, cinquefoil, 185. 
 
 Marsham of Stratton, 347. 
 
 MARTIN, HOUSE, seen very late, 49 ; house, a monography of, 128; sand or 
 bank, a monography of, 141 ; house, farther circumstances about, 206 ; 
 house, more particulars concerning, 212. 
 
 nest of, 129, 214 ; late departures of, 25, 28, 49, 78, 212 ; late broods of, 81, 
 
 212 ; late arrival of, 67, 84 ; a summer bird of passage, 38, 94 ; migration of, 
 xxxv, 22, 53, 77, 78, in ; young of, 22 ; feeding of young of, 70; perse- 
 cuted by sparrows, 67, 129 ; mating of, 67 ; its note, 99 ; flies with other 
 birds, 22 ; search for torpid, 206 ; secret dormitories of, 213. 
 
 sand, a summer migrant, 38, 94 ; history of, 141 ; flight of, 189 ; holes 
 
 of, searched in March, 330. 
 
 POPE, his bull touching the revoking of certain things alienated from 
 
 the Priory of Selborne, 286. 
 
 Mating of birds, 67. 
 
 Mauduit-hatch, 17. 
 
 Mauduit's wood, 258. 
 
 May-fly, 56, 339. 
 
 Maycock, Sampson, 285. 
 
 Mayewe, Richard, 302, 306. 
 
 Mazel, the engraver, 43. 
 
 Meadow-pipit, or titlark, song of, 80 and note, 97 ; cuckoo in nest of, 116. 
 
 Melolontha fullo, 54. 
 
 Memory, comparing animals by, 71. 
 
 MERCATU, de, et feria de Seleburne, a mistake in Bishop Tanner, 316. 
 
 Merton College, a haunt of swallows, 53. 
 
 Meteor, White's use of the word, 225 note. 
 
 Mezereon, 186. 
 
 MICE, small red, nondescript, 27 ; one of their nests described, 27 ; some 
 farther account of, 31. 
 
 (harvest mice), devoured by dogs, refused by cats, 84. 
 
 Midges, swarms of, 343. 
 
 MIGRATION, actual, somewhat.like it, 53 ; at Gibraltar, ocular demonstration 
 of, 115. 
 
 of redwing, 113, 116, 118; of fieldfare, 60, 112, 113, 116; of ring ousel, 
 
 47, 49, 50, 58, 60, 69, 78, no, 116, 135 ; of redstart, 106 ; of wheatear, 30, 
 134 ; of nightingale, 116, 134 ; of whitethroat, 106, 134 ; of blackcap, 104, 
 106,134; of sedge-warbler, 1 06 ; of oriole, 114; of flycatcher, 86, 106 ; of 
 swallow, 29, 53, 106, in, 131, 136, 151, 331 ; of swallow, Adanson on, 
 80; of swallow, doubted, 174 ; swallows in hiding, 22 ; swallows haunting 
 water, 216 ; of swallows and martins, 53, 77 ; of martin, 77, 78, 84, in, 
 114, 128, 130, 131, 144, 174, 206, 212, 331 ; of sand-martin, 144,331 ; of 
 hirundines, 114, 134, 151, 175 ; of chaffingh, 30 ; of snow-bunting, 61 ; of 
 
374 INDEX 
 
 Royston crow, 116; of swift, 77, 81, 145, 148, 182; of bee-bird, 114; of 
 hoopoe, 114 ; of stockdove, 80 ; of stone curlew, 47, 48, 49, 72, 73, 328 ; 
 of black-winged stilt, 203; of woodcock, 112, 113, 115, 116; of grallse, 
 118; White's views on, xxxi, 114; Aristotle on, xxxii ; Harrington's 
 views on, xviii, 114; Belon on migration of hawks and kites, 114; 
 Eckmarck on, 118 ; Hasselquist on migration of short-winged birds, 31 ; 
 of short-winged, soft-billed birds, 29; at Gibraltar, 115; to and from 
 Andalusia, 72, 114, 115, 149, 204 ; delayed by severe spring, 106; numbers 
 of birds leaving and returning, 183; internal migration, in ; lists of 
 summer migrants, 38, 94; list of winter migrants, 95. 
 
 Military orders of the religious, 269 note. 
 
 Mill at Durton, 310; at Oakhanger, 310; at Selborne, 310. 
 
 MILLS, water, the Priory of Selborne in possession of several, 310. 
 
 Missel-thrush, its nest, 80 ; its autumn song, 83 note ; its song, 98 ; its pug- 
 nacity, 151 ; its flight, 189 ; its broods destroyed by magpies, 322 ; feeds 
 on berries of mistletoe and ivy, 322. 
 
 Mist called " London smoke," 354. 
 
 Mitford's edition of White's Selborne, xxx. 
 
 Mole, preyed upon by weasel, 83. 
 
 Mole-cricket, history of, 201. 
 
 Moll's map of Scotland, 89. 
 
 Monasteries encouragers of knowledge, 177 note ; corruptions of, 287 ; trades 
 and occupations of, 309 ; and towns, 316. 
 
 Monastic institutions, growth of, 260. 
 
 Monogamous birds, 67. 
 
 Monographers, 70, 108. 
 
 Montford, Simon de, at battle of Evesham, 261. 
 
 Moorhen, flight of, 189. 
 
 MOOSE-DEER, a female, some account of, 65 ; a male, where killed, 68. 
 
 in North America, 68. 
 
 Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, 19. 
 
 Morning clouds, 355. 
 
 MORTON, JOHN, prior of Reygate, appointed prior of Selborne, 292. 
 
 Mosquitoes, devoured by swallows, 127. 
 
 Mostyn, Sir Roger, house-doves of, 91. 
 
 Moulting of birds, season of, 148. 
 
 Mount Caburn, 340. 
 
 Mulso, Hester, xii. 
 
 MUSEUM, countryman's, where, 24. 
 
 Music, its powerful effects on some men's minds, 214. 
 
 Mussulmans, purification of, 109. 
 
 MYTILUS CRISTA GALLI, a curious fossil-shell, 5. 
 
 Natele, 260. 
 
 Natural History of the Year, 235. 
 
 Naturalist's Calendar, xiii, xxix, 319 note. 
 
 summer-evening walk, 56. 
 
 Journal, xiii, 48 note. 
 
 Nele, John, 304. 
 
 Nests of harvest-mouse, 27, 31 ; of water rat, 62 ; of ring-ousel, 80 ; of house 
 sparrow, 84 ; of flycatcher, 86, 123 ; of honey-buzzard, 89 ; of sparrow- 
 hawk, 90; of ring-dove, 91 ; of fieldfare, 113, 117 ; of redwing, 113; of 
 
INDEX 375 
 
 woodcock, 113; of willow-wren, 124 ; of white owl, 125 ; of house-martin, 
 128, 131, 140; of wheatear, 134; of swallow, 136, 139, 140; of sand- 
 martin, 142, 330; of swift, 145; of missel-thrush, 152; of chaffinch, 
 wren and martin, 214; of rook, 322; of thrush, 322 ; of wasps, 341. 
 
 Newhaven, water-ousel at, no. 
 
 Newlyn, Henry, 308. 
 
 NEWT, or eft, water, some account of, 41, 44. 
 
 great crested, 47. 
 
 Newton Valence, i ; and Selborne, relative heights of, 221. 
 
 Newton, Prof. Alfred, his Life of Gilbert White, ix note ; on White and 
 Hester Mulso, xii ; his notes to Bell's edition of White's Selborne, xxx ; 
 his Dictionary of Birds, art. Migration, xxxi note ; on woodcock carrying 
 its young, 70 note ; on cuckoo, 103 note ; on peregrine falcon, 216 note ; 
 on hen-harrier, 326 note. 
 
 Nich. de Cantia, 299, 300. 
 
 Nightingale, a summer migrant, 38, 94 ; cry of, 82 ; sings in the night, 96 ; 
 silent by middle of June, 98; range in Britain, 116; song of, 118; ill 
 provided for long flights, 134. 
 
 Nightjar, a summer migrant, 38, 94 ; its manners, 51, 52, 329; food of, 77, 
 85, 168, 329; structure- of, 168 ; flight of, 188 ; serenade of, 190; its 
 name of goatsucker, 328 ; and puckeridge, 328. 
 
 Noctule described by Daubenton and Buffon, xiv, 26 note ; supposed by White 
 to be nondescript, 51 ; its mode of life, 62, 63 ; its structure, 76. 
 
 NOREHILL, 2. 
 
 Norfolk meanly furnished with churches, 49. 
 
 Norman kings resided much at Winchester, 242. 
 
 North America, forests and lakes of, 163. 
 
 Northamptonshire, spires of, 50. 
 
 Norton, 260; farm, 4, 316. 
 
 Nose-fly, 341. 
 
 Nostoc, 353. 
 
 Notitia Monastica of Tanner quoted, 311. 
 
 Nun, see Titmouse. 
 
 Nuthatch, or jarbird, its noise, 38 ; its mode of opening a nut, 214. 
 
 OAK, a vast one planted on the Plestor, 4. 
 
 great, in the Holt, 347. 
 
 Oakhanger, 10, 17, 260, 309 ; House, 254, 258, 316 ; Jacobus de, 258, 310 ; mill 
 
 at, 310. 
 
 Oaks of Losel's wood, 4. 
 Oakwoods, 17. 
 
 Observations on various parts of nature, 319. 
 OEstrus, 74. 
 
 Oglethorpe, Owen, 307, 315 note. 
 Oil a remedy for bite of viper, 41. 
 Olaus Magnus on migration of birds, xxxii. 
 One-berry, 185. 
 Oppian quoted, 33. 
 Orme's Head, pigeons on, 92. 
 Oseney, 275. 
 
 OSPREY, or sea-eagle, where shot, 79^ 
 Ostrea carinata, 6 note. 
 
376 INDEX 
 
 Ostrea crista-galli, 6 note. 
 
 OTTER, one, where killed, 68. 
 
 Ottobonus, constitutions of Legate, 282. 
 
 Ousel, see Ring-ousel. 
 
 Outlet explained, 24 note, 192 note. 
 
 Owen on glands of head of deer, 32 note. 
 
 OWL, brown, a tame one, 25 ; white or barn owl, the young not easily bred 
 
 up, 25. 
 OWLS hoot in different keys, 117 ; white, several particulars of, 125. 
 
 young, food of, 25 ; eagle-owl, 61 ; mating of, 67 ; infesting dove- 
 houses, 67 ; hooting and screaming of, 117, 126, 190 ; prey of, 125 ; 
 plumage, casts, flight, eyes of, 126 ; can live without water, 126. 
 
 Ox-eye (titmouse), 98. 
 
 Oxen will not fatten alone, 155 ; and horses poisoned by yew, 250. 
 Oxford, great benefactress to the university of, 275 ; Guernsey lizard at, 52 ; 
 swallows stay late at, 25, 53. 
 
 Pairing of birds, 67. 
 
 Palm Sunday, 252. 
 
 PARADISE OF SELBORNE PRIORY, 308. 
 
 Gardens, Oxford, 325. 
 
 Parental care of animals, 123 ; of field-mouse, 124. 
 
 Paris, herb, 185. 
 
 Parrots use their bill as a third foot, 188. 
 
 Particular, White's use of, 64 note. 
 
 Partridges, mating of, 67 ; dust themselves, 108 ; roosting of, 323 ; artifice 
 
 of, 123 ; thinned by frost, 228. 
 Passeres, melody of, 190. 
 Paynell, William, alias Stretford, 291. 
 PEACOCKS, their train not a tail, 75, 107 note. 
 
 notes of, 190. 
 
 Penkester, John, 285. 
 
 Pennant, Thomas, life of, xv ; on slits beneath eyes of antelopes, 33 note ; his 
 
 British Zoology, 60, 107. 
 Peregrine falcon, 24, 26, 216, 326 note. 
 Periwinkle, less, 185. 
 
 Peter de la Roche, founder of Selborne Priory, 256. 
 PETTICHAPS, a very rare bird at Selborne, 215. 
 Peverell, Robert, 295. 
 Peyrson, Miles, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 
 Pheasant, roosting of, 323 ; hybrid, 324 ; and hen-harrier, 326. 
 Pheasants dust themselves, 108. 
 Phillips, John, on Marcley Hill, 194. 
 Phippes, Thomas, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 Piers Plowman, visions of, 287. 
 Pigeon, drinking of, 84 ; derived from rock-dove, 91 ; internal migration of, 
 
 92 ; clashing of wings of, 188. 
 Pigs eating their young, 124. 
 
 Pipistrelle flies in every month in the year, 174 note. 
 Pitch of note of owl, cuckoo, nightingale, swift, etc., 117-8, 
 Pittancies of a monastery, 280. 
 PLANTS, the more rare in Selborne, 185, 
 
INDEX 377 
 
 Plants, time of blooming of, 186. 
 
 PLESTOR, the, in the midst of the village, what, 4, 264, 265, 266. 
 
 shrew-ash on, 162. 
 
 Plot, Dr., on surbedding stone ; on firestone, 7 note ; his rule for echoes, 179. 
 
 PLOVER, the stilt, a rare and curious bird, 202. 
 
 Plumage, colour of, affected by food, 34. 
 
 Plumpton-plain, near Lewes, Ray on, 132. 
 
 Pochard, a resident and winter visitant, 96 note. 
 
 POND, WOLMER, its measurement, fowls, etc., 18. 
 
 PONDS on elevations, why seldom dry, 164. 
 
 named after extinct animals, 18 note. 
 
 frequented by cattle, 18. 
 
 Pope Innocent VIII., bull of, 305 ; Martin, bull of, 286. 
 PORCH, CHURCH, its gothic arch and folding-doors, 248. 
 Portugal laurels untouched by frost, 224, 228, 229 note ; scorched by frost of 
 
 1784, 229. 
 
 Poultry, sagacity of, 323 ; roosting of, 323. 
 Powlet, of Rotherfield House, 265. 
 PRECEPTORY, an unnoticed one at Selborne, 270 ; an attempt to explain what 
 
 a preceptory was, 272. 
 Preston, James, 302 to 305. 
 Prince Rupert, a mechanic and artist, 19. 
 Prior, forms for election of, 275. 
 Priories, alien, 259, 260. 
 PRIORS OF SELBORNE, a list of, 299, 300. 
 PRIORY OF SELBORNE, when and by whom founded, 256 ; how endowed at 
 
 first, 259 ; its present state, 313. 
 
 reduced to a chantry, 307. 
 
 farm, 254, 313. 
 
 Protective resemblance of stone-curlew, xxiii, 36, 73, 107 note. 
 
 Ptinus, 336. 
 
 Puckeridge, 328. 
 
 Puffins, building underground, 48. 
 
 Purlieu, 17. 
 
 Putworth, Richard, 284. 
 
 Quadrupeds, Observations on, 333. 
 >uails, 9 ; on south coast, 30. 
 >ueen Anne in Wolmer-forest, 14. 
 IUEEN'S BANK, why so called, 14. 
 Quicksilver mines of Carniola, 106. 
 
 Rabbits and turf, 334. 
 
 Rabbys, William, 304. 
 
 Radfredus the presbyter, 243. 
 
 Radiation of heat under a clear sky, 224 note. 
 
 Ragstone, 7. 
 
 RAIN, the mean of, not to be ascertained at any place till after many years, 
 
 9 note ; what has fallen at Selborne of late years, 9 ; that of Selborne 
 
 compared with that of Plymouth, 220. 
 Rainfall of 1769, 52 ; of 1774 and 1764, 141 ; of spring of 1774, 194 ; of 
 
 Rutland, 113. 
 
378 INDEX 
 
 Ranatra, 339. 
 
 Range of animals, 84 ; of plants, 84. 
 
 RAT, WATER, a curious anecdote concerning one, 62. 
 
 Raven breeds early, 99; playful skirmish of, 188 ; note of, 190; raven- 
 tree, 5. 
 
 Ravens on rock of Gibraltar, 123. 
 
 Ray, John, xiii, xiv, xv, xxv ; on slitting the nostrils of asses, 33 ; on lizards, 
 42 ; on lizards of Ireland, 43 ; on sedge-warbler, 59 ; on pulveratrices, 
 108 ; his descriptions, 119; on the South Downs, 132; on celery and 
 endive in Italy, 178; on honey-buzzard, 321; and Derham's use of the 
 word meteor, 225. 
 
 Reading, carp at, 85. 
 
 Reaumur, xiii, xiv; on Hippobosca, 128; on honey-dew, 231 note; on 
 Tortrix, 339 note. 
 
 Red-backed Butcher-bird, 46. 
 
 RED-BREASTS, why supposed to sing in autumn only, 84. 
 
 food of, 84 ; do not migrate, their food and haunts, 95 ; sing all the 
 
 year, 97, 100 ; in a cage, 101 ; hatches cuckoo's egg, 102 ; nests early, 
 99 note. 
 
 Red-deer, see Deer. 
 
 RED-START, its singularities, 85. 
 
 in September, 25 ; song of, 37, 85 ; a summer migrant, 38, 94, 321 ; 
 
 flicker of tail of, 83 ; song ceases in June, 98 ; ill-provided for long 
 flights, 134. 
 
 RED-WINGS, the first birds that suffer by frost, 104, 118. 
 
 taken in hedges by bat-fowlers, 64; winter migrants, 96, 116, 118; 
 
 place of nesting, 112; nest and eggs, 113 ; in severe weather, 113, 321. 
 
 Reed-bunting, 106 note. 
 
 " Reed-sparrow," 104, 106. 
 
 Reflection by fog, 355. 
 
 Register, Beaufort's, 283, 285 ; Waynflete's, 290 f. 
 
 Reid, Clement, on dew-ponds, 166 note. 
 
 RELICS belonging to the Priory of Selborne, 289. 
 
 Religious houses, distresses of, 283 ; corruptions of, 287 ; prediction con- 
 cerning, 288. 
 
 Rennie's edition of White's Selborne, xxx. 
 
 Reptiles of Selborne, 39, 42 note. 
 
 Richard, bishop of Chichester, 259. 
 
 Ring-dove, mode of life of, 91 ; young of, 93 ; breeding of, 99, 117; cuckoo 
 in nest of, 102 ; in spring, 188 ; food of, 325. 
 
 RING-OUSEL, where found, 28 ; more particulars of, 46 ; farther account of, 
 54 ; more of ditto, 58 ; breed in Dartmoor and the Peak of Derby, 70, 80 ; 
 farther remarks concerning, 78, 79. 
 
 food of, 28, 47, 54 ; a flock of, in Hampshire, 46 ; internal migration of, 
 
 46, 47, 49, 50, 54, 58, 60, 69, 78, 95, no, 116, 135 ; on Sussex Downs, 
 no. 
 
 Ringmer, near Lewes, 108 note ; birds of, no. 
 
 Roads to Selborne, xxvi and note, 255. 
 
 Rock-dove, 91. 
 
 " Rockiers," 92. 
 
 Rocky lane, 8. 
 
 Rogate, i, 12,, 
 
INDEX 379 
 
 Roger, vicar of Selborne, 252. 
 
 Roman coins found in Wolmer-pond, 239 ; at Blackmoor, 240 note. 
 
 ROOKS, perfectly white, 34 ; an amusing anecdote about, 219. 
 
 breed early, 99 ; attended by daws and starlings, 120, 135 ; sensitive 
 
 beak of, 120; excursions of, 135 ; tumbling of, 188 ; attempts to sing of, 
 190 ; evening proceedings of, 219 ; in snowy weather, 226 ; mode of life 
 of, 322 ; and frozen sleet, 354. 
 
 Rookery at Ringmer, 135. 
 
 Roosting of poultry, turkeys, etc., 323. 
 
 Royston crow, internal migration of, 96, 116. 
 
 Rupert, Prince, 19 and note. 
 
 RUPERTA, whose daughter and wife, 19. 
 
 RUPIBUS, or Roche, de la, Peter, who and what, 256. 
 
 Rupture, superstitious cure for, 161. 
 
 RUSHES instead of candles, matter of much utility in humble life, 157. 
 
 Rush-burners and rush-holders, 159 note. 
 
 Rust balls, 8. 
 
 RUTLAND, county of, what rain fell there, 113. 
 
 Saffron, 187. 
 
 Sallet, 178. 
 
 Salt flesh in mediaeval England, 176. 
 
 Sand-martin, see Martin. 
 
 Sandpiper, in southern counties, 46 ; wings of, 189. 
 
 Sap, flow of, 348. 
 
 Saunford, Robert, grants from, to Selborne priory, 271. 
 
 Saxifrage, opposite golden, 186. 
 
 Saxon words surviving at Selborne, 241 note. 
 
 Scale-insects (Coccus), 208. 
 
 SCALLOPS, or pectines, where found, 6. 
 
 Scopoli, J. A., xv, 68, 70, 71, 106, 108 ; on martin, 70; on woodcock, 70, 
 
 113 ; on swift, 150 ; on may-fly, 340. 
 SCOTLAND, in what its maps are defective, 89. 
 Sea-birds, few at Selborne, 25. 
 
 SECTA MOLENDINI, claimed by the prior of Selborne, 310. 
 SEDGE-BIRD [Sedge-warbler], some particulars about, 55, 59; more account 
 
 of, 82 ; a delicate polyglot, 101, 106. 
 the lesser reed-sparrow of Ray, 59, 61 ; a summer migrant, 94 ; sings 
 
 in the night, 82, 96 ; sings till July, 98 ; a soft-billed bird, 106. 
 Sedgwick on food of woodcock, 101 note. 
 Seeds, dormant, 351. 
 Serrated claw of nightjar, 77. 
 SELBORNE PARISH, its situation and abuttals, i ; village, how circumstanced, 
 
 2 ; the manor of, abounds with game, 9 ; parish of, of vast extent, why, 
 
 9 ; rain, quantity of, considerable, why, 9 ; population, births and 
 
 burials of, 10 ; produces near half the birds of Great Britain, 86 ; why a 
 
 Saxon village, 241 ; becomes a market town, 265. 
 its variety of soil and elevation, xxvi ; its seclusion, xxvi ; its geology. 
 
 xxvii ; White's History of, xxix. 
 
 Priory, see Priory. 
 
 Lord, on Romano-British antiquities of Selborne, 240 note, 317 note* 
 
 Seleburn, 260. 
 
380 INDEX 
 
 Senegal, swallows in, 80. 
 
 Sexes of birds hard to distinguish in first plumage, 107. 
 
 " Shakey " timber, 3. 
 
 SHARP, JOHN, appointed prior, 297. 
 
 alias Glastenbury, prior of Selborne, 298, 299, 301, 308. 
 
 SHEEP, SUSSEX, horned and hornless, 133. 
 
 close grazers, 16 ; when intent on grazing, 119 ; flocking together, 155 ; 
 
 tear their coats in mild winters, 333 ; confusion among, after shearing, 
 
 333- 
 SHINGLES, Selborne church mostly covered with, 249. 
 
 on roofs, 308 note. 
 
 Shore, T. W., on dew-ponds, 166 note, 167 note. 
 
 Short Heath, 17. 
 
 Shrew-ash, 161. 
 
 Shrike, great grey, in Tisted park, 79 ; red-backed, its food, 46 ; a rare bird 
 
 at Selborne, 80 ; woodchat, 60 note. 
 Shrubs, protection of, from frost, 222. 
 Siberian plants cultivated in England, 223. 
 Side-fly, 127. 
 Silk-tail, 27, 96. 
 Siskin, name of, in note. 
 Skunk, 59. 
 Skylark, sings early and late, 97 ; sings as it flies, 99 ; dusting and washing 
 
 of, 109, 116; its movements while singing, 189; in severe weather, 321. 
 SLUGS, 1 very injurious to wheat just come out of the ground, by eating off 
 
 the blade ; and by their infinite numbers occasioning incredible havock, 
 
 173- 
 
 Smell, animals recognised by, 333. 
 Smiters, a kind of pigeon, 188. 
 Smother-flies (aphides), 210, 231. 
 Snails and slugs, 345. 
 SNAKE, stinks se defendendo, 59. 
 
 eat once in the year, 42 ; common in water, 42 ; its slough, 346. 
 
 SNIPES, their piping and humming, 23, 38, 81 and note. 
 
 breeding of, 23, 96, 188 ; food of, 101 ; make no nest, 330. 
 
 Snooke, Mrs., of Ringmer, 108 note. 
 
 Snow, heavy falls of, 222, 225, 228 ; a kindly meteor to vegetation, 222, 225. 
 
 SNOW-FLECK [Snow-bunting], sometimes seen at Selborne, 61. 
 
 SOCIALITY in the brute creation, instances of, 155. 
 
 Soft-billed birds, food of, 95 ; list of such as stay with us the year round, 95. 
 
 Solstices, winter and summer, 193. 
 
 Somercotes, Thomas, 303. 
 
 Song and incubation of birds, 100; of birds, due to rivalry, 120. 
 
 birds, come under Passeres, 99 : why they cease to sing, 105. 
 
 thrush breeds early, 99 ; suffers by frost, 104. 
 
 South Badeisley, 270. 
 South Downs, 132. 
 
 1 For the amazing ravages committed on turnips, wheat, clover, field cabbage- 
 seeds, etc. , by slugs, and a rational and easy method of destroying them, see a 
 sensible letter by Mr. Henry Vagg, of Chilcompton, in the county of Somerset, 
 lately made public at the request of the gentlemen of that neighbourhood. G. W. 
 
INDEX 381 
 
 Southington, or Sudington, 270, 271. 
 
 Sow, prodigious fecundity of one, 170. 
 
 Sparrow, hedge, flirt with their wings in breeding-time, 83 ; their piping 
 noise, 83 ; their food, 87. 
 
 house, building of, 84 ; dusts and washes, 109 ; expelled by swift, expels 
 
 martins, 145. 
 
 hawk breeds in old crows' nests, 83 ; nest and larder of, go ; and brood- 
 hens, 192. 
 
 Sphinx ocellata, 340. 
 
 Spider, threads emitted by, 154; and ichneumon, 341. 
 
 Spires, necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape, 50. 
 
 Sprat loons, 327. 
 
 Spring Gardens, exhibition of birds in, 24. 
 
 Spring of 1739-40, 106 ; of 1770-71, 136. 
 
 Springs at Selborne, 2. 
 
 Sprout-cale, 177. 
 
 Spurge laurel, 186. 
 
 Squirrel, its mode of opening a nut, 214 ; suckled by a cat, 334. 
 
 Stag-hunt in Wolmer-forest, 14. 
 
 Starlings and rooks, 120; and lapwings, 120; flight of, 188. 
 
 Stawel, Lord, 19. 
 
 Stepe, or Stype, John, 284 ; prior of Selborne, 288 ; death of, 290. 
 
 Stephen de Lucy, 259. 
 
 Stickleback at Selborne, 25 ; species of, 43. 
 
 Stillingfleet, xv ; on wheatear, 30. 
 
 Stilt, black-winged, or stilt plover, 202. 
 
 Stock-dove, mode of life of, 80, 91 ; appears late, 96, 117 ; formerly abounded 
 at Selborne, 117. 
 
 STONE, free, its uses and advantages, 7 ; rag, its qualities and uses, 7 ; sand, 
 or forest, 8 ; yellow or rust colour, 8. 
 
 Stone-chatter, though a soft-billed bird, stays with us round the year, 81, 95 ; 
 common along the coast in autumn, in. 
 
 STONE CURLEW, some account of, 35 ; farther account of, 72. 
 
 protective resemblance of, xxiii, 36 ; a summer migrant, 38, 72, 94 ; 
 
 congregates in vast flocks in autumn, 47 ; egg of, 59 ; clamouring of, 
 63 ; in Andalusia, 73 ; note of, 219, 328 ; habits of, 328. 
 
 Stonehenge, jackdaws nesting in, 48. 
 
 Sropyrj OF ANIMALS, several instances of, 123. 
 
 Storm-cock (missel-thrush), 80. 
 
 Stratfield, William, 293, 295. 
 
 Stratford, bishop of Winchester, 275. 
 
 Stretford, alias Paynell, William, 291. 
 
 Stuart, Sir Simeon, gives a bell to Selborne church, 248. 
 
 Stubb, Laurence, 307. 
 
 SUDINGTON, a preceptory, 269. 
 
 Summer birds of passage, lists of, 37, 94. 
 
 SUMMERS, 1781 and 1783, unusually sultry, 230. 
 
 Sun-dews, 185. 
 
 Sunday, ancient deeds dated on, 274 note. 
 
 Superstitions, 161. 
 
 Surbedding of stone, 7. 
 
 Sussex, Downs of, 2, no, 132 ; meanly furnished with churches, 49 ; sheep of, 
 133- 
 
382 INDEX 
 
 SWALLOW, the house or chimney, a monography of, 136, 151 ; more particu- 
 lars about, 216. 
 
 supposed torpidity of, 21, 22, 114, 121, 174; young broods of, 22; 
 
 migration of, 22, 30, 38, 53, 77, 94, in, 136, 331 ; retiring under water, 
 28; on the Thames, 28, 31; early arrival of, 67, 105, 106, 174; Adan- 
 son on migration of, 80 ; sexes of, 82 ; late song of, 97, 103 ; sings as 
 it flies, 99 ; number of broods of, 148 ; flight of, 189 ; shrill alarm of, 
 190; supposed attachment to water, 215. 
 
 Swallows increase as summer advances, 101 ; friendly interposition of, 127 ; 
 and swifts, no rivalry between, 108 ; and hawk, 123; and dipterous 
 insects, 127. 
 
 S warn mer dam on frogs, 40. 
 
 Swan turns white the second year, and breeds the third, 83 ; migration of, 
 96, 115 note. 
 
 Sweden, number of birds in, 86. 
 
 Swedish name of swallow, 136 ; of swift, 150. 
 
 SWIFT, or black martin, a monography of, 145 ; the same number usually 
 seems to return to the same place, 182 ; more circumstances about, 207. 
 
 torpidity of, 21 ; migration of, 22, 38, 62, 81, 94; seen late in August, 
 
 25, 77, 207 ; flight and retreat of, 56 ; drinks on the wing, 82 ; notes of, 
 118 ; Alpine, 72 and note, 149 ; constant in number at Selborne, 182 ; flight 
 ^ of, 189 ; late broods of, 207 ; and swallows, no rivalry between, 108. 
 
 Swimming birds, form of, 326. 
 
 Sycamore, 349. 
 
 Sydenmeade, 260. 
 
 Sylvester, Thomas, 309. 
 
 Tadpoles, 41. 
 
 Tameness of birds, 100. 
 
 Taming of animals, 50. 
 
 Tan-house garden, 309. 
 
 Tanner, Bishop, on market and fair of Selborne, 265 note ; on Templars' houses 
 
 in Hampshire, 270 ; his Notitia Monastica, 311. 
 Tanner's Wood, 309 note. 
 Tannery at Selborne Priory, 309. 
 Taylor, Christopher, vicar of Selborne, 256. 
 TEALS, where bred, 13, 17, 82, 96, 125. 
 Teasel, small, 186. 
 
 Temperatures, low, at Selborne, 224, 229. 
 TEMPLE, a manor-house so called, described, 263, 267. 
 
 oaks of, 3 ; places so named, 270 note ; manor of, 272 ; farm of, 316. 
 
 Tench, 18. 
 
 " Tenpenny nails " in walls, 8. 
 
 Thames, sand-martins on, 142 ; frozen over in 1776, 227. 
 
 Thaws originate underground, 224, 354 ; rapid, 227, 354. 
 
 Thermometer, insufficiently graduated, 229 ; valuable information given by, 
 
 230. 
 
 Thompson on food of woodcock, 101 note. 
 Thomson's Seasons quoted, 18. 
 THRUSH, MISSEL, very fierce and pugnacious, 151. 
 its fight with magpies, 152 ; shy and wild, yet builds in frequented 
 
 spots, 152 and note ; its food, 322. 
 
INDEX 383 
 
 Thrush, song, feeds on cuckoo-pint, 34 ; and snails, 322 ; sings in autumn, 
 83, 97 ; soon fails in severe frost, 104 ; and kestrel, 123. 
 
 Thunderstorms, 234. 
 
 Tiled house, the first at Nottingham, 308 note. 
 
 Tiles, when first used for roofing, 308 note. 
 
 TIMBER, a large fall of, in the Holt-forest, 20. 
 
 good soil for, 3 ; tipulae, 343. 
 
 Titlark, song of, 80 ; sings after midsummer, 97 ; sings as it flies, 99 ; breeds 
 late, 100 ; sings in the night, when caged, 101 ; common along the coast 
 in autumn, in ; its flight and song, 189 ; in severe weather, 321. 
 
 TIT-MICE, their mode of life and support, 87. 
 
 mouse, marsh and great, song of, 84, 87, 98 ; resorts of different species 
 
 of, 87 ; great, food of, 88 ; pulling straws by great, 87, 223. 
 
 Toad, procreation of, 39 ; nourished with maggots, 40 ; venom of, 40 note ; 
 cancer cured by, 44, 49 ; reclaimed, 50. 
 
 Tomb in Selborne church, 244. 
 
 Tooth wort, 1 86. 
 
 Torpidity, see Hibernation. 
 
 Torrets, 17 note. 
 
 TORTOISE, a family one, in ; more particulars ot, 122; farther circum- 
 stances about, 135, 173, 204; more remarks respecting, 205. 
 
 Tortrix, of oak, 339. 
 
 TOWER, the church, 248 ; its bells tuneable, 248 ; motto on the treble bell, 
 just as it is printed, 248. 
 
 TREES, why perfect alembics, how, 163. 
 
 subterranean, 12 ; cleft for cure of ruptured babes, 161 ; condensers of 
 
 vapour, 163 ; promoters of lakes and rivers, 163 ; order of losing their 
 leaves, 346 ; size of, 347 ; growth of, 347. 
 
 Treviranus on honey-dew, 232 note. 
 
 Tring, witches drowned at, 161. 
 
 Trotton, i, 12. 
 
 Trout, 25. 
 
 Trucstede, 308 note. 
 
 True-love, 185. 
 
 Truffle-hunter, 352. 
 
 Truffles, 186. 
 
 Tumblers, a kind of pigeons, 188. 
 
 TUN-BRIDGE, by whom built, 310. 
 
 Turf, fairy-rings in, 353. 
 
 Turkey, gobbling of, 191 ; roosting of, 323. 
 
 Turnip-fly, 74. 
 
 Turtle-dove, 38. 
 
 Turville, Thomas, of Hawkley, 255. 
 
 Tutsan, 185. 
 
 Tybbe, Hugo, vicar of Selborne, 252. 
 
 Tylehouse grove, 308. 
 
 Tyndall on weather and sound, 180 note. 
 
 Valencia, sand-martins in, 144. 
 Vasci, Americus de, 272. 
 Vegetables, effect of upon health, 176. 
 VICARAGE OF SELBORNE, some account of, 252. 
 
384 INDEX 
 
 VICARS OF SELBORNE, a list of, 252. 
 
 VIPER, blind-worm, and snake, some account of, 41. 
 
 VIPER, pregnant one, some circumstances about, 168. 
 
 venom of, 41 ; eggs of, 42 ; said to admit her young into her throat, 42 ; 
 
 fangs of, 169. 
 Virgil on bees drinking, 82 ; on dove, 93 ; on climate of Italy, 105 ; on swallow, 
 
 136, 140 ; on sounds injurious to bees, 180. 
 Virgins commemorated by garlands, 244. 
 
 VISITATIO NOTABILIS OB SELEBURNE, a curious document abridged, 277. 
 Volcanic eruptions and haze, 233 note. 
 Volcano formed in 1783, 233. 
 
 Wade, General, roads of, 89. 
 
 Wagtails, with us in winter, 30, 81, 87 ; haunts and food of, in winter, 87, 95 ; 
 
 their walk, 189 ; and cows, 332. 
 Wakes, the, at Selborne, ix. 
 
 WALDON-LODGE, what, and by whom kept up, 17. 
 Waller of Beaconsfield, a promoter of horticulture, 177. 
 Walpole, Horace, xxiv. 
 Walter de Insula, 276. 
 WALTHAM BLACKS much .infested Wolmer-forest, 14; by their enormities 
 
 occasioned the black act, 15. 
 
 chase, 15. 
 
 Walwort, 186. 
 
 Warble, 328. 
 
 Warbler, see Grasshopper lark and Sedge-bird. 
 
 Ward-le-ham, i, 266 note; King John at, 242; park, 17. 
 
 Warton, Rev. Thomas, XP; Joseph and Thomas, xi. 
 
 Washing of birds, 109, 138, 144. 
 
 Wasps, a pest in gardens, 231 ; and fowls, 321 ; habits of, 341. 
 
 Wastes, of service to neighbourhood, 16. 
 
 Watch-lights, 158. 
 
 Water, cattle frequenting, 18 ; condensed by trees, 163 ; eft, 44; ouzel, no; 
 
 rat, 62 ; shrew, 62 ; vole, 23. 
 Waterford, Henry, 263. 
 Waverley, sand-martin at, 330. 
 Waxwing, 27, 96. 
 WAYNFLETE, WILLIAM OF, endeavours to reform the Priory of Selborne, 288 ; 
 
 dissolves it, 301. 
 founds Magdalen College, Oxford, 301 ; death of, 306 ; obits ordained 
 
 by, 307- 
 
 Weasel (cane), 34 ; preys on moles, 83. 
 
 Weather, its effect upon sounds, 180 ; and corn, 355 ; at Selborne, 222. 
 Weaver's down, 8. 
 Weevils, 337 note. 
 
 WELL-HEAD, a fine perennial spring, 2, 241. 
 WELLS, their usual depth in Selborne village, 3. 
 Welsh name of missel-thrush, 152. 
 Weston, Thomas, prior of Selborne, 284. 
 WHADDON CHAPEL, where, 309. 
 [WHAME, see Fly.] 
 Wheat-crops and hot summers, 352. 
 
INDEX 385 
 
 WHEATEAR, the bird so called, some account of, 30 ; Sussex bird, so called, 
 
 more particulars of, 134. 
 migration of, 31 ; said to stay with us the whole year, 81 and note, 95 ; 
 
 in winter, 88 ; common along the coast in autumn, in. 
 Wheaten bread, 177. 
 Whinchat stays with us all the year, 81, 88, 95 ; common along the coast in 
 
 autumn, in. 
 
 White, malm, 3 ; hares, 61 ; rooks, 34. 
 White, Ann, x. 
 
 Benjamin, v. 
 
 Rev. Charles, x. 
 
 Gilbert, vicar of Selborne, ix, x, 254 ; his epitaph, 246. 
 
 Gilbert, the naturalist, his birth, ix; at school, xi, 314 ; at Oxford, xi; 
 
 as a clergyman, xi ; origin of his taste for natural history, xii ; his notes 
 
 and diaries, xiii ; books used by, xv ; quotation by, xv ; his history of 
 
 Selborne, xxi ; his death, xxi ; his person and habits, xxi ; his merit as 
 
 a naturalist, xxii ; little interested in current events, xxiv ; charm of his 
 
 history, xxv ; his view of the migration of birds, xxxi ; his preface to the 
 
 History of Selborne, xxxix ; his deafness, 152. 
 
 Rev. Henry, x. 
 
 John, father of Gilbert White, the naturalist, ix, 256 ; repairs roads at 
 
 Selborne, 255. 
 
 Rev. John, x, 123, 145, 190, 204; on coccus of the vine, 209. 
 
 Rebecca, x. 
 
 Sampson, ix. 
 
 Thomas Holt, x. 
 
 William, vicar of Selborne, 253. 
 
 of Newton, 326. 
 
 WHITE-THROAT, some particulars about, 85. 
 
 a summer migrant, 38, 94 ; late return of, 67 ; notes of, 85 ; sings after 
 
 midsummer, 98, 103 ; sings as it flies, 99 ; ill-provided for long flights, 
 
 134 ; its gestures, 189 ; supposed, 215 note. 
 Whortleberry, 185. 
 WiclifTe's doctrines, 287. 
 Widgeon, a winter-migrant, 96. 
 Wildman, a noted bee-master, 160 note. 
 Willow- wrens, 23, 35 ; three species of, 36 ; how distinguished, 45 ; summer 
 
 migrants, 38, 94 ; silent at midsummer, 98 ; nest of, 124. 
 Willughby, Francis, xiii, xiv, xv ; on migration of birds, xxxiv ; visits Anda- 
 lusia, 31 ; on sand-martins in Spain, 144. 
 WINCHESTER, HOADLY, BISHOP OF, his humane objection to restocking 
 
 Waltham chase with deer, 15. 
 Norman kings resided much at, 242 ; cathedral of, 243 note ; feuds 
 
 between religious houses at, 270. 
 Winchilsea, king's transports at, 267. 
 Wings of birds, various forms of, 188. 
 Winter, insects in, 335 ; birds of passage, 95 ; of 1739-40, 32, 106, 113 ; ot 
 
 1767-8, 32. 
 
 Wishanger common, sand-martin on, 331. 
 WOLMER, FOREST OF, some account of, 12, 19 ; how abutted upon, 12 ; has 
 
 abounded with fossil trees, 12 ; haunted by many sorts of wild fowl, 13 ; 
 
 once abounded with heath cocks, or black game, 13 ; with red deer, 13. 
 
 25 
 
386 INDEX 
 
 Wolmer forest, xxvii, 3 ; Queen Anne in, 14 ; teal in ponds of, 82 ; pond, 18 ; 
 
 its birds, 19 ; coins found in, 19, 239. 
 WOOD, fossil, where found, 219. 
 
 LOSEL'S, its taper oaks, 4; its raven-tree, 5. 
 
 boring insects, 336. 
 
 Woodchat shrike, 60. 
 
 WOODCOCKS, some sluggish and sleepy, 116, 119. 
 
 carrying of young by, 70 ; winter migrants, 96 ; food of, 101 note ; retire 
 
 in spring, 112; nesting and breeding of, 113 ; migration of, 115, 116. 
 Woodlark hangs poised in the air, 57, 189 ; sings in autumn and January, 
 
 83, 97, 103 ; sings in the night, 96 ; sings as it flies, 99. 
 Woodpecker, noise of, 38, 190 ; flight of, 188 ; uses its tail for support, 188. 
 Wood-pigeon, see Stock-dove. 
 Wood-wren, its haunts and song, 22 ; a summer migrant, 38, 94 ; late arrival 
 
 of, 67 ; its song, 99. 
 
 Woods, Henry, of Shopwyke, x ; John, of Chilgrove, xxiii. 
 Worldham, see Ward-le-ham. 
 WORMS, earth, no inconsiderable link in the chain of nature, some account 
 
 of, 172. 
 
 Wornils (maggots of Warble-fly), 329. 
 Wren, though a soft-billed bird, stays with us all the year, 95 ; sings all the 
 
 year, 84 note, 97, 100, 103 ; sings as it flies, 99 ; nest of, 214. 
 golden-crowned, hangs back downwards, 39 ; stays with us the year 
 
 round, 95 ; hardly to be called a singing bird, 98 ; the smallest British 
 
 bird, 100. 
 
 WRENS, willow, three species, 36, 45. 
 
 Wryneck, a summer migrant, 38, 86, 94 ; its note, 94 ; gait and food of, 332. 
 Wych elm or hazel, 4. 
 WYKEHAM, WILLIAM OF, his liberal behaviour toward the Priory of Sel- 
 
 borne, 282. 
 and Winchester cathedral, 243 note; his visitation of Selborne Priory, 
 
 276. 
 WYNCHESTRE, JOHN, chosen Prior of Selborne, " per viam, vel formam 
 
 simplicis compromissi," 284. 
 WYNDESOR, WILLIAM, elected Prior of Selborne irregularly, and set aside by 
 
 the visitor, 293. 
 291, 294. 
 
 YARD, church, of Selborne, a scanty one, 249. 
 
 Year, Natural History of the, 235. 
 
 Yellow- wort, 185. 
 
 Yellowhammer, sings from February to August, 97 ; breeds very late, 100. 
 
 YEOMAN-PRICKERS, their agility as horsemen, 14. 
 
 Yew-branches carried on Palm Sunday, 252. 
 
 YEW-TREE, a vast one, in Selborne churchyard, 250. 
 
 male and female, 250 ; poisonous to certain animals, 250. 
 
 Yew-trees in churchyards, 251. 
 
 
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