John 3wett 
 

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 
 SELBORNE. BY GILBERT WHITE: 
 WITH A PREFACE BY RICHARD 
 JEFFERIES. 
 
 LONDON : WALTER SCOTT, LTD. 
 
 24 WARWICK LANE. 
 
ICUXT 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 
 
 Letters to Thomas Pennant . . , . ,3 
 
 Letters to the Hon. Daines Barrington . . , .no 
 
 A NATURALIST'S CALENDAR 
 
 / 
 
 From the year 1768 to the year 1793 . . . .291 
 
 OBSERVATIONS IN VARIOUS BRANCHES OF NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Observations on Birds . 305 
 
 Observations on Quadrupeds ..... 332 
 Observations on Insects and Vermes , 334 
 
 Observations on Vegetables . . , . . 351 
 
 Meteorological Observations ..... 362 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 to point out that, as a matter of style which Is so much talked of 
 now-a-days, it is very much superior to the stiffest writing of the 
 nineteenth century. He refers to the garden fauvet ; and those 
 who have gardens would find it interesting to plant the crown 
 imperial where it could be easily observed, in order to see the 
 incident repeated. The humming-bird-like fancy for sweet- 
 ness is not confined to this white-throat ; even the sparrows are 
 believed to sometimes peck open the nectaries of flowers for the 
 same purpose. Shrikes eat that part of the humble bee that 
 contains the honey, while the Redstart has a habit of watching 
 about where there are honey-laden flowers, with a view, not to 
 the honey, but to the insects that come for it. Out of this 
 observation of Mr. White's a variety of further observations 
 expand themselves, and you might go on and on till you had 
 written a long letter about it. You might ask, for instance, 
 whether the visits of birds to flowers may not have something 
 to do with modifying their form as well as those of insects. As 
 many animals eat honey, and as man himself in every country, 
 from the Hottentots upwards, seeks for honey, it may be said 
 that man in this way has worked out some part of the adaptations 
 of plant structure. 
 
 Here we branch off into abstruse scientific questions, and see 
 how different minds may trace out the bearing of the same fact. 
 The old naturalist at Selborne simply records it in language 
 which could not be better chosen, highly delighted evidently, 
 and taking a deep interest in it for its own sake. In the same 
 manner any one who has a taste for out-of-door observations 
 may study natural history without any previous scientific 
 learning. There is not the smallest need to know the Latin 
 names of the birds in order to watch them, or of the flowers in 
 order to gather them. Perhaps the Latin names are learned a 
 great deal easier afterwards than before. After you know the 
 things themselves, it is not at all difficult to fit the scientific 
 name to them, and quite easy to recollect the crabbed Latin. If 
 you try to get the nomenclature first, then it is very hard work. 
 If, on the other hand, your mind dwells upon science, and the 
 questions it has opened up of late years, and you feel yourself 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 well armed with argument, then you may find in Mr. White's 
 book a number of facts which will give plenty of occasion for 
 exercising ingenuity. He will do more ; he will suggest to you 
 the way in which to make original notes the spirit in which to 
 look at nature. Part of his success was owing to his coming to 
 the field with a mind unoccupied. He was not full of evolution 
 when he walked out, or variation, or devolution, or degeneration. 
 He did not look for microbes everywhere. His mind was free 
 and his eye open. To many it would do much good to read 
 this work if only with the object of getting rid of some of the 
 spiders' webs that have been so industriously spun over the 
 eyesight of those who would like to think for themselves. 
 " The quiet end of evening smiles 
 
 Miles on miles," 
 
 all across these pages. The shadows are stealing out ; the 
 hares are shaking their ears and thinking of the coming ramble, 
 and the jar of the night hawk is heard in the fern, but he will 
 not rise yet to pursue the moths ; the red cattle have ceased to 
 low ; the red stags in Wolmer Forest are glad that the heat of 
 the day is passed, and the happy cool of night is within thought ; 
 but still the sun stays. The sun stays, leaning on his staff, and 
 looking back over the world as a man might do at the last hill 
 of his journey. There is no haste. You may go down the 
 green lane very slowly, and pull the rushes, and gather the sedge- 
 like grasses, and note how some flowers have closed their petals 
 and some remain open. The swallows are the busiest. Mr. 
 White took much interest in swallows. Not only one evening 
 or two evenings, but a whole year of evenings, and several years, 
 are written in these letters. So quiet, without excitement he 
 is ready to wait till next year, or a series of years, to verify any- 
 thing he supposed might be ; something so entirely opposed to 
 the modern lecturer. He gathered his facts very slowly ; they 
 were like experience, which takes a lifetime to grow. You 
 cannot sit down and make up experience, and write it as a 
 thesis ; it must come, and this is what he did he waited till 
 things came. His book, for this reason, reads as if it had 
 been compiled in the evening. 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 A great master is under a disadvantage. You go to look at 
 an old and celebrated picture with exalted feelings, and when 
 you get there you say, "How disappointing! I have seen all this 
 before ; the style, the attitude, and the method of composition 
 are all familiar in a hundred engravings and modern pictures, 
 and, really, the old masters, instead of being such a guide, look a 
 long way behind the age. We can do things better now." The 
 secret is, the old master's work has been multiplied exceedingly, 
 and used as the ground- work on which to build innumerable 
 variations. Without his work these could never have come 
 into existence. From the stores accumulated by Gilbert White 
 a very great deal of the contents of modern books have been 
 drawn. Not only the facts but the general system has been 
 followed out in a hundred ways, so that his book suffers exactly 
 like the old picture, until you understand it. The more you 
 understand them the more you appreciate old masters, whether 
 artists or authors, until you would be ready, if you had the 
 means, to give the extraordinary prices for them that seem so 
 incomprehensible to outsiders. It is curious that White should 
 have had an artist's eye for landscape. He frequently, as he 
 rides along the South Downs, checks his horse to admire those 
 very scenes which Turner has made classic. He thinks them 
 glorious, as indeed they are ; yet one would scarcely expect, in 
 the world's judgment, a man who was not an authority on art to 
 find out for himself the views which the public now purchase so 
 eagerly. The sympathy he felt with nature enabled him to see 
 much farther than the hedges by which he walked, and brought 
 his mind into parallel lines with the great painter. At Mount 
 Caburn he was attacked by swarms of wild bees a little incident; 
 but fifty years afterwards, or more, another naturalist, who had 
 paid particular attention to these insects, happened to visit the 
 same spot, and there he found colonies of the same bees, and 
 recognised the same species. 
 
 Anyone who desires to see some of the things that this man 
 saw, if he have the least inclination for drawing, cannot do 
 better than fix himself in some pleasant spot, and work there in 
 absolute quietness for as many days as possible. For it is in 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 this quietness that the invisible becomes visible. The vacant 
 field gradually grows full of living things. In the hedges un- 
 suspected birds come to the surface of the green leaf to take 
 breath. Over the pond brilliantly coloured insects float to and 
 fro, and the fish that never seem to move from the dark depths 
 do move and do come up in sight. Be very careful not to go 
 too far; keep round the skirts of home near the garden, or in the 
 nearest field, else you will jump over the very best ; for it is a 
 fact that the greatest variety of information is generally gathered 
 in a very small compass. I have noticed that people are never 
 so astonished as when some fact of natural history is unexpec- 
 tedly pointed out to them, where it must have been for a long 
 time under their very eyes. There are people who have never 
 seen a humble bee drill a hole in the nectary of a snap-dragon, 
 and yet have whole gardens full of flowers. At least, do not go 
 out of your own locality much for some time. 
 
 The mass of this book was collected in the little Surrey 
 parish of Selborne. They say the place is very much the same 
 as when he was there a hundred years ago, for the country 
 changes very slowly ; the people, too, move slow, and their 
 memories linger long memories never seem to die out. I 
 suppose in a modern villa people would hardly understand 
 what was meant by the allusion to bats creeping down 
 chimneys and gnawing the bacon. Of old time, in all country 
 houses, sides of bacon were hung up to smoke in the fumes of 
 the great wood fires, so that a bat might come down and eat 
 the edge. Bacon is not so much cured like this now ; but 
 in any country house they would at once understand what 
 was meant. Those who follow the studies of Mr. White out- 
 of-doors will find very little altered, and can take up the 
 picture as he left it, and begin to fill in the endless touches 
 which make nature. 
 
 If the great observer had put down what he saw of the people 
 of his day just as he has put down his notes of animals and 
 birds, there would have been a book composed of extraordinary 
 interest. Walking about among the cottages, he saw and heard 
 all their curious ways, and must have been familiar with their 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 superstitions ; indeed, there are scattered notices of these as of 
 the shrew ash. He knew the farmers and the squires ; he had 
 access everywhere, and he had the quickest of eyes. It must 
 ever be regretted that he did not leave a natural history of the 
 people of his day. We should then have had a picture of 
 England just before the beginning of our present era, and a 
 wonderful difference it would have shown. The gallows-trees 
 grew far too plentifully at the cross roads in those days, and the 
 laws were inhuman, men were put to death like wild beasts : in 
 fact, they seemed to look on man as a species of wolf that could 
 only be tamed by stretching its neck. Let us not wish for the 
 good old times of Gilbert White, they are gone ; but his 
 fields and hedges remain to us more peaceful now than ever. 
 
 Perhaps the Naturalises Calendar is that part of the book 
 that will be found most valuable to those who take up this 
 study. The dates are not the same every year of course, and 
 that is what makes the interest if you keep a pocket-book 
 founded on this model and look back in a year or two. By its 
 aid you will miss very little. I did not come across Mr. White's 
 book till late in the day, when it was, in fact, too late, else this 
 Calendar would have been of the utmost advantage to me. 
 Such data, though they may refer to apparently trivial details, 
 often prove in after years the basis of important scientific con- 
 clusions. I have said nothing of the different aspect that has 
 been cast on natural history in our days by the works of 
 Darwin and the general drift of modern science. To compare 
 the natural history of White with the natural history of our 
 time would require a large space. Better, perhaps, take them 
 apart and read the Natural History of Selborne as it was 
 written. 
 
 RICHARD JEFFERIES. 
 
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
THE 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTERS TO THOMAS PENNANT. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern 
 corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the 
 county of Sussex, and not far from the county of 
 Surrey ; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude 
 fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns of Alton 
 and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on 
 twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex viz., Trotton 
 and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed 
 westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton 
 Valence, Furingdon, Harteley Mauduit, Great Ward-le- 
 ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, 
 Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost 
 as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The 
 high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, 
 rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided 
 into a sheep-down, the high wood and a long hanging wood, 
 called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence is 
 altogether beech, the most loVely of all forest trees, whether 
 
4 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or 
 graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheepwalk, is a 
 pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, 
 jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins 
 to break down into the plains, and commanding a very 
 engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, 
 heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east 
 and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex 
 Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs 
 round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, 
 which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and 
 Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline. 
 
 At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the 
 uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single 
 straggling street, three-quarters of a mile in length, in a 
 sheltered vale, and running parallel with The Hanger. 
 The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay 
 (good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little 
 in appearance removed from chalk ; but seems so far from 
 being calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that 
 the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to 
 chalk, is plain from the beeches which descend as low as 
 those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well on 
 them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. 
 
 The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable 
 manner, two very incongruous soils. To the south-west is 
 a rank clay, that requires the labour of years to render it 
 mellow ; while the gardens to the north-east, and small 
 enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling 
 mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated 
 with vegetable and animal manure ; and these may perhaps 
 have been the original site of the town ; while the woods 
 and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 5 
 
 At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to 
 north-west, arises a small rivulet : that at the north-west 
 end frequently fails ; but the other is a fine perennial 
 spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called 
 Well-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds joining 
 to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable 
 for sending forth two streams into two different seas. 
 The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, 
 running to Arundel, and so sailing into the British 
 Channel : the other to the north. The Selborne stream 
 makes one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Black- 
 down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham 
 stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, 
 navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to 
 Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge ; and thus 
 at the Nore into the German Ocean. 
 
 Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, 
 and when sunk to that depth seldom fail ; but produce a 
 fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended 
 by those who drink the pure element, but which does not 
 lather well with soap. 
 
 To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range 
 of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, 
 a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to 
 the frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes manure 
 to itself. This soil produces good wheat and clover. 
 
 Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of 
 white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture 
 
 * This spring produced, September 10th, 1871, after a severe hot 
 summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water 
 in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in 
 twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the 
 wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale were dry. 
 
6 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep 
 in the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal 
 growing just at hand. The white soil produces the brightest 
 hops. 
 
 As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, 
 at the juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, 
 sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. 
 The oaks of Temple and 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 shaky, and so brittle as often to fall 
 to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil 
 becomes a hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest ; 
 and will produce little without the assistance of lime and 
 turnips. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 IN the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor-farm to the 
 north-west of the village, on the white malrns, stood within 
 these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, 
 Ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had 
 lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the 
 year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, 
 contained eight loads of timber ; and, being too bulky for a 
 carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it 
 measured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I 
 mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain ; as 
 this tree must certainly have been such from its situation. 
 In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 7 
 
 square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly 
 called "The Plestor." In the midst of this spot stood, 
 in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge 
 horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the 
 area. This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps, 
 and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, 
 and a place of much resort in summer evenings ; where the 
 former sat in grave debate, while the lattei? frolicked and 
 danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not 
 the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the 
 infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who 
 bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again : 
 but all his care could not avail ; the tree sprouted for a 
 time, then withered and died. This oak I mention to show 
 to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive : and planted 
 this tree must certainly have been, as will appear from 
 what will be said farther concerning this area, when 
 we enter on the antiquities of Selborne. 
 
 On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called 
 Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set 
 of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value ; they were 
 tall and taper like firs, but standing near together had very 
 small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. 
 About twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near 
 Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were 
 wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without 
 bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the 
 little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this 
 little wood, with this advantage, that many of them 
 answered the description at sixty feet. These trees were 
 sold for twenty pounds apiece. 
 
 In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, 
 though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a 
 
8 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a 
 pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of 
 years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the 
 Haven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring 
 youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty whetted their 
 inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the 
 arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, 
 it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their 
 grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknow- 
 ledged the undertaking to be too hazardous : so the ravens 
 built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal 
 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 mall or mallet, the tree nodded to its fal] ; 
 but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the 
 bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental 
 affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the 
 twigs, which brought her dead to the ground. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 THE fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as 
 have fallen within my observation, must not be passed over 
 in silence. And first I must mention, as a great curiosity, 
 a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near 
 the side of the down, and given to me for the singularity of 
 its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 9 
 
 petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing 
 for a head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of the 
 Linnsean Genus of Mytilus, and the species of Crista Galli ; 
 called by Lister, Rastellum ; by Rumphius, Ostreum 
 plicatum minus ; by D' Argenville, Auris porci, s. - Crista 
 Galli; and by those who make collections, Cock's Comb. 
 Though I applied to several such in London, I never could 
 meet with an entire specimen ; nor could I ever find in 
 books any engraving from a perfect one. In the superb 
 museum at Leicester House, permission was given me to 
 examine for this article ; and, though I was disappointed 
 as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of 
 several of the shells themselves in high preservation. This 
 bivalve is only known to inhabit the Indian ocean, where it 
 fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name Gorgonia. 
 The curious foldings of the suture the one into the other, 
 the alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of 
 my specimen are much easier expressed by the pencil than 
 by words. 
 
 Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village. 
 As we were cutting an inclining path up the Hanger, the 
 labourers found them frequently on that steep, just under 
 the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable size. In the 
 lane above Well-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound 
 in the bank, in a darkish sort of marl ; and are usually very 
 small and soft : but in Clay's Pond, a little farther on, at 
 the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out for manure, 
 I have occasionally observed them of large dimensions, 
 perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But , as 
 these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a 
 kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they 
 were exposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away. 
 These seemed as if they were a very recent production. In 
 
10 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of the Hanger, large 
 nautili are sometimes observed. 
 
 In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at 
 considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scallops or 
 pectines, having both shells deeply striated, and ridged and 
 furrowed alternately. They are highly impregnated with, 
 if not wholly composed of, the stone of the quarry. 
 
 LETTER IV, 
 
 As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been 
 only mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more par- 
 ticular. 
 
 This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the 
 beds of ovens : and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good 
 account ; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of 
 mortar ; the sand of which fluxes,* and runs by the intense 
 heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a 
 strong vitrified coat like glass, that it is well preserved 
 from injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty years. 
 When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, 
 equal in colour and grain to Bath stone ; and superior in 
 one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent 
 chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer 
 grain than Portland ; and rooms are floored with it ; but it 
 proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone, 
 
 * There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for 
 lime a proportion of sand : for few chalks are so pure as to have none. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELfiORNE. 11 
 
 cutting in all directions; yet has something of a grain 
 parallel with the horizon, and therefore should not be 
 surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the 
 quarry.* On the ground abroad this firestone will not 
 succeed for pavements, because, probably some degree of 
 saltness prevailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to 
 pieces.f Though this stone is too hard to be acted on by 
 vinegar, yet both the white part, and even the blue rag, 
 ferments strongly in mineral acids. Though the white 
 stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry at intervals 
 there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost ; 
 and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths, and courts, 
 and for building of dry walls against banks, a valuable 
 species of fencing much in use in this village, and for 
 mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn, and 
 will not hew to a smooth face, but is very durable ; yet, as 
 these strata are shallow and lie deep, large quantities cannot 
 be procured but at considerable expense. Among the blue 
 rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or 
 rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue ; 
 and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like 
 rust of iron, called rust balls. 
 
 In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by 
 the workmen sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of the 
 colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron 
 
 * To surled stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture 
 it had in the quarry, says Dr. Plot, Oxfordshire^ p. 77. But 
 surledding does not succeed in our dry walls ; neither do we use it so 
 in ovens, though he says it is best for Teynton stone. 
 
 t " 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 "PLOT'S Sta/., p. 152. 
 
12 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 j but is dug on 
 Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that 
 forest, where the pits are shallow and the stratum thin. 
 This stone is imperishable. 
 
 From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, 
 and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small 
 fragments about the size of the head of a large nail, and 
 then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of 
 their freestone walls ; this embellishment carries an odd 
 appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask 
 us pleasantly, "whether we fastened our walls together 
 with tenpenny nails," 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow 
 lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve 
 our attention. These roads, running through the malm 
 lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, 
 worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and 
 partly through the second ; so that they look more like 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 13 
 
 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, arid make 
 timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them ; but 
 delight the naturalist with their various botany, and 
 particularly with the curious filices with which they 
 abound. 
 
 The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with 
 all its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would 
 swarm with game ; even now hares, partridges, and pheas- 
 ants abound ; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. 
 There are few quails, because they more affect open fields 
 than enclosures ; after harvest some few landrails are 
 seen. 
 
 The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the 
 forest, is a vast district. Those who tread the bounds are 
 employed part of three days in the business, and are of 
 opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings, 
 does not comprise less than thirty miles. 
 
 The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the 
 Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, 
 but rather moist from the effluvia of so many trees ; yet 
 perfectly healthy and free from agues. 
 
 The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, 
 as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. 
 As my experience of measuring the water is but of short 
 
U NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE* 
 
 date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity.* I 
 only know that 
 
 Inch. Hund. 
 
 From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year there fell 28 37 ! 
 
 Jan. 1, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781 , 27 32 
 
 Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 ... 30 71 
 
 Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 . . .50 26 ! 
 
 Jan. 1, 1783, to Jan. 1, 1784 , 33 71 
 
 Jan. 1, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 , 33 80 
 
 Jan. 1, 1785, to Jan. 1, 1786 , 31 55 
 
 Jan. 1, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 , 39 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 inhabitants. 
 
 We abound with poor ; many of whom are sober and 
 industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick 
 cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs ; 
 mud buildings we have none. Besides the employment 
 from husbandry, the men work in hop-gardens, of which we 
 have many ; and fell and bark timber. In the spring and 
 summer the women weed the corn; and enjoy a second 
 harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the 
 dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning 
 
 * 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 
 Ljmdon was 16J inches for the year ; if from 1740 to 1750, 18J inches. 
 The mean rain before 1763 was 20J inches, from 1763 and since 25^ 
 inches, from 1770 to 1780, 26 inches. If only 1773, 1774, and 1775 
 had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32 
 inches." 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 15 
 
 wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much 
 in vogue at that time for summer wear ; and chiefly 
 manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some 
 of the people called Quakers ; but from circumstances this 
 trade is at an end.* The inhabitants enjoy a good share 
 of health and longevity ; and the parish swarms with 
 children. 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 SHOULD I omit to describe with some exactness the forest 
 of Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, 
 my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a 
 district abounding with many curious productions, both 
 animal and vegetable ; and has often afforded me much 
 entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist. 
 
 The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about 
 seven miles in length, by two and a-half in breadth, running 
 nearly from north to south, and is abutted on to begin to 
 the south, and so to proceed eastward by the parishes of 
 Greatham, Lysse, Bogate, and Trotton, in the county of 
 Sussex; by Bramshot, Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This 
 royalty consists entirely of sand covered with heath and 
 fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, 
 without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In 
 the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, 
 which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though 
 Dr. Plot says positively,! that "there never were any 
 
 * 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. 
 
 t See hia History of Staffordshire* 
 
16 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties." 
 But he was mistaken : for I myself have seen cottages on 
 the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a 
 black, hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners 
 assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the 
 soil with spits, or some such instruments : but the peat is 
 so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, 
 that none has been found of late.* Besides the oak, I 
 have also been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour 
 and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir : but, 
 upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could discover 
 nothing resinous in them ; and therefore rather suppose 
 that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such 
 aquatic tree. 
 
 * 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 are concealed than in the surround- 
 ing morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent 
 with true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, "That the warmth of the 
 earth, at some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a 
 thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a freezing to a 
 thawing state, is manifest from this observation viz., Nov. 29th, 1731, 
 a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next 
 morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in 
 several places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and 
 covered with earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether 
 those drains were full of water or dry ; as also where elm-pipes lay 
 under ground : a plain proof this, that those drains intercepted the 
 warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths below them ; 
 for the snow lay where the drain had more than four feet depth of 
 earth over it. It continued also to Me on thatch, tiles, and the 
 tops of walls." See Hale's Haemostatics, p. 360. QUERY, Might 
 not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the 
 discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and in 
 Koman stations and camps lead to the finding of pavements, baths 
 and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity ? 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 17 
 
 This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many 
 sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the 
 winter, but breed there in the summer ; such as lapwings, 
 snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have, discovered within these 
 few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in 
 good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they 
 love to make excursions; and in particular, in the dry 
 summers of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they 
 swarmed to such a degree that parties of unreasonable 
 sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a 
 day. 
 
 But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, 
 now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded 
 much before shooting flying became so common, and that 
 was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse. When I was a 
 little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my 
 father's table. The last pack remembered was killed about 
 thirty-five years ago ; and within these ten years one 
 solitary 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 grey hen. 
 
 Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap 
 in the Fauna Selborniensis ; for another beautiful link in 
 the chain of beings is wanting : I mean the red-deer, which 
 toward the beginning of this century amounted to about 
 five hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There 
 is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great- 
 grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635) 
 grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head keepership 
 of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a hundred 
 years. This person assures me, that his father has often 
 told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the 
 
 2 93 
 
18 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer 
 beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great 
 road at Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing herself on 
 a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half-a-mile 
 to the east of Wolmer Pond, and still called Queen's Bank, 
 saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole herd 
 of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before 
 her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight 
 this, worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign ! But 
 he farther adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, 
 to use his own expression, as soon as they began blacking, 
 they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued 
 decreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cumberland. 
 It is now more than thirty years ago that his highness sent 
 down a huntsman, and six yoeman-prickers, in scarlet 
 jackets laced with gold, attended by the stag-hounds ; 
 ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and 
 to convey them in carts to Windsor. In the "course of the 
 summer they caught every stag, some of which showed 
 extraordinary diversion : but in the following winter, when 
 the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were 
 exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk 
 and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the 
 yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must 
 confess that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever 
 beheld, superior to anything in Mr. Astley's riding-school. 
 The exertions made by the horse and deer much exceeded 
 all my expectations ; though the former greatly excelled 
 the latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated 
 from his companions they gave him, by their watches, law, 
 as they called it, for twenty minutes ; when, sounding their 
 horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most 
 gallant scene ensued. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 19 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 'HOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neigh- 
 bourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of 
 more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation 
 is irresistible ; for most men are sportsmen by constitution : 
 and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human 
 nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain. Hence, 
 towards the beginning of this century all this country was 
 wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they 
 affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to 
 be possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham 
 blacks at length committed such enormities, that govern- 
 ment was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguin- 
 
 o 
 
 ary act called the "Black Act,"* which now comprehends 
 more felonies than any law that ever was framed before. 
 And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged 
 to re-stock Waltham Chase, f refused, from a motive 
 worthy of a prelate, replying " that it had done mischief 
 enough already," 
 
 Our old race of deer-stealers is hardly extinct yet : it 
 was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to 
 recount the exploits of their youth ; such as watching the 
 pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped, 
 paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its 
 escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed ; the 
 shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a 
 turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer ; and 
 the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner? 
 
 * Statute 9 Geo. I., cap. 22. 
 
 t This chase remains unstocked to this day; the bishop waa 
 Dr. Hoadly. 
 
20 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was de- 
 posited 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 irre- 
 gularities are removed, are of considerable service to neigh- 
 bourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with 
 peat and turf for their firing ; with fuel for the burning 
 their lime ; and with ashes for their grasses ; and by main- 
 taining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little 
 or no expense. 
 
 The manor-farm of the parish of Greatham has an admit- 
 ted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of 
 London), of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper 
 seasons, " bidentibus exceptis."* The reason, I presume, 
 why sheep f are excluded, is, because, being such close 
 grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and 
 hinder the deer from thriving. 
 
 Though (by statute 4 and 5, W. and Mary, c. 23) "to 
 burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, 
 any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable 
 
 * For this privilege the owners of that estate used to pay to the 
 king annually seven bushels of oats. 
 
 t In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up 
 till lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 21 
 
 with whipping and confinement in the house of correction " 
 yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the 
 dry ness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, 
 that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the 
 hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the under- 
 woods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has 
 ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that, when the 
 old coat of heath, etc., 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 conflagrations, as they take place 
 usually with a north-east or east wind, much annoy this 
 village with their smoke, and often alarm the country; 
 and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, who 
 lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got 
 on the downs between that town and Winchester, at 
 twenty-five miles distance, was surprised much with smoke 
 and a hot smell of fire, and concluded that Alresford was 
 in flames ; but, when he came to that town, he then had 
 apprehensions for the next village, and so on to the end of 
 his journey. 
 
 On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest 
 stand two arbours or bowers, made of the boughs of oak ; 
 the one called Waldon Lodge, the other Brimstone Lodge : 
 these the keepers renew annually on the feast of St. Barna- 
 bas, 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 
 
22 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the 
 spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to 
 be of very remote antiquity. 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are 
 three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have 
 nothing particular to say ; and one called Bin's, or Bean's 
 Pond, which is worthy the attention of a naturalist or a 
 sportsman. For, being crowded at the upper end with 
 willows, and with the carex cespitosa,* it affords such a 
 safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc., 
 that they breed there. In the winter this covert is also 
 frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants ; and the 
 bogs produce many curious plants. (For which consult 
 Letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.) 
 
 By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, 
 made in 1635, and the eleventh year of Charles I. (which 
 now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former 
 are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther 
 side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds 
 on this side, in old times, came into Binswood ; and 
 extended to the ditch of Ward-le-ham Park, in which 
 stands the curious mount called King John's Hill, and 
 
 * 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 of 1787, the royal forests 
 of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent down by 
 government. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 23 
 
 Lodge Hill ; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called 
 Mauduit Hatch; comprehending also Short Heath, Oak- 
 hanger, and Oak woods ; a large district, now private 
 property, though once belonging to the royal domain. 
 
 It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once 
 mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains, 
 besides the perambulation, a rough estimate of the value of 
 the timbers, which were considerable, growing at that time 
 in the district of the Holt; and enumerates the officers, 
 superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time 
 being, and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In those 
 days, as at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer 
 Forest. 
 
 Within the present limits of the forest are three 
 considerable lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer ; all of 
 which are stocked with carp, tench, eels, and perch : but 
 the fish do not thrive well, because the water is hungry, 
 and the bottoms are a naked sand. " 
 
 A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means 
 peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence ; and that is, 
 that instinct by which in summer all the kine, whether 
 oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water 
 during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt from 
 flies, and inhaling the coolness of that element, some belly 
 deep, and some only to mid-leg, they ruminate and solace 
 themselves from about ten in the morning till four in 
 the afternoon, and then return to their feeding. During 
 this great proportion of the day they drop much dung, in 
 which insects nestle ; and so supply food for the fish, which 
 would be poorly subsisted but from this contingency. 
 Thus Nature, who is a great economist, converts the 
 recreation of one animal to the support of another ! 
 Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, 
 
24 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 did not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. He 
 says, in his " Summer," 
 
 ' ' A various group the herds and flocks compose ; 
 
 . on the grassy bank 
 
 Some ruminating lie ; while others stand 
 Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip 
 The circling surface." 
 
 Wolmer Pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence' sake, is 
 a vast lake for this part of the world, containing, in its 
 whole circumference, 2,646 yards, or very near a mile and 
 a-half. The length of the north-west and opposite side is 
 about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end 
 about 456 yards. This measurement, which I caused to be 
 made with good exactness, gives an area of about sixty- 
 six acres, exclusive of a large irregular arm at the north- 
 east corner, which we did not take into the reckoning. 
 
 On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly 
 secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season, 
 vast flocks of ducks, teals, and widgeons, of various 
 denominations ; where they preen and solace, and rest 
 themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in 
 little parties (for in their natural state they are all birds 
 of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows ; returning 
 again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an 
 arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick 
 covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a 
 valuable decoy. 
 
 Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor 
 the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque 
 groups of cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the 
 great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about 
 forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly 
 belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 25 
 
 all particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my 
 series of letters respecting the more remote history of thia 
 village and district, 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on 
 this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister 
 forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,* as it is called in old 
 records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of 
 years. 
 
 The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier- 
 General Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta, 
 who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret 
 Hughes ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who 
 married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry Bilson Legge 
 and lady ; and now Lord Stawell, their son. 
 
 The lady of General Howe lived on 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, f 
 as well as warrior ; and among the rest, a very complicated 
 clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated 
 game painter at Parnham, in the county of Surrey. 
 
 * " In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Edw. III., it is 
 called Aisholt." 
 
 In the same, "Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex 
 habet unam capellam in haia sua de Kingesle." " Haia, sepes, sepimen- 
 tum, parcus ; a Gall, haie and haye." SPELMAN'S Glossary. 
 
 t This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. 
 
26 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow 
 range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different ; 
 for the Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature, 
 carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to 
 be large timber ; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, 
 sandy, barren waste. 
 
 The former being all in the parish of Binsted, is about 
 two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much 
 from east to west ; and contains within it many woodlands 
 and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees reside, 
 and a smaller lodge called Goose Green ; and is abutted on 
 by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and 
 Bentley ; all of which have right of common. 
 
 One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been 
 of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by any 
 pales or fences more than a common hedge, yet they were 
 never seen within the limits of Wolmer; nor were the red- 
 deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets or glades 
 of the Holt. 
 
 At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and 
 reduced by the night hunters, who perpetually harass them 
 in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the 
 severe penalties that have been put in force against them 
 as often as they have been detected, and rendered liable to 
 the lash of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonments can 
 deter them ; so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of 
 sporting which seems to be inherent in human nature. 
 
 General Howe turned out some German wild boars and 
 sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood, 
 and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo ; but the country 
 rose upon them and destroyed them. 
 
 A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one 
 thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 27 
 
 Holt forest : one-fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the 
 grantee, Lord Stawell. He lays claim also to the lop and 
 top ; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and 
 Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley assert that it belongs 
 to them, and assembling in a riotous manner, have actually 
 taken it all away. One man, who keeps a team, has 
 carried home for his share forty stacks of wood. Forty- 
 five of these people his lordship has served with actions. 
 These trees, which were very sound and in high perfection, 
 were winter-cut viz., in February and March, before the 
 bark would run. In old times the Holt was estimated to be 
 eighteen miles computed measure from water-carriage viz., 
 from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now 
 it is not half that distance, since the Wey is made 
 navigable up to the town of Godalming in the county of 
 Surrey. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 August 4th, 1767. 
 
 IT has been my misfortune never to have had any neigh- 
 bours 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 rusticce) being found in a 
 torpid state during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any 
 part of this country, I never heard any such account worth 
 attending to. But a clergyman, of an inquisitive turn, 
 assures me, that when he was a great boy, some workmen, 
 
28 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in 
 the spring, found two or three swifts (Hirundines apodes) 
 among the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, dead, 
 but on being carried towards the fire, revived. He told me, 
 that out of his great care to preserve them, he put them in 
 a paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they 
 were suffocated. 
 
 Another intelligent person has informed me, that while 
 he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great 
 fragment of the chalk cliff fell down one stormy winter on 
 the beach, and that many people found swallows among the 
 rubbish ; but on my questioning him whether he saw any of 
 those birds himself, to my no small disappointment, he 
 answered me in the negative ; but that others assured him 
 they did. 
 
 Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on 
 July 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 18th. Are not 
 these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migra- 
 tion 1 Nay, some young martins remained in their nests 
 last year so late as September 29th ; and yet they totally 
 disappeared with us by the 5th October. 
 
 How strange it is that the swift, which seems to live 
 exactly the same life with the swallow and house-martin, 
 should leave us before the middle of August invariably ! 
 while the latter stay often till the middle of October; and 
 once I saw numbers of house-martins on the 7th November. 
 The martins and red-wing fieldfares were flying in sight 
 together, an uncommon assemblage of summer and winter 
 birds ! 
 
 A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 29 
 
 trivialis, or rather perhaps of the Motacilla trochilus) still 
 continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of 
 tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which we have as 
 yet no name in these parts) is called in your zoology the fly- 
 catcher. There is one circumstance characteristic of this 
 bird which seems to have escaped observation, and that is, 
 it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from 
 whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a fly in the air, 
 and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning still to 
 the same stand for many times together. 
 
 I perceive there are more than one species of the 
 Motacilla trochilus. Mr. Derham supposes, in Hay's Pkilos. 
 Letters, that he has discovered three. In these there is 
 again an instance of some very common birds that have as 
 yet no English name. 
 
 Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap 
 (Motacilla atricapilla) be a bird of passage or not : I think 
 there is no doubt of it : for, in April, in the first fine 
 weather, they come trooping all at once, into these parts, 
 but are never seen in the winter. They are delicate 
 songsters. 
 
 Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory 
 ground on the verge of this parish. It is very amusing to 
 see the cock bird on wing at that time, and to hear his 
 piping and humming notes, 
 
 I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those 
 mice which I mentioned to you in town. The person that 
 brought me the last says they are plenty in harvest, at 
 which time I will take care to get more ; and will endeavour 
 to put the matter out of doubt, whether it be a nondescript 
 species or not. 
 
 I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. 
 Ray says, and Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web- 
 
SO NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 footed behind. Now I have discovered a rat on the banks 
 of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an 
 excellent swimmer and diver : it answers exactly to the Mus 
 amphibius of Linnaeus (see Syst. Nat.) which he says " natat 
 in fossis et urinatur" I should be glad to procure one 
 " plantis palmatis." Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle about 
 his Mus amphibius, and to doubt whether it differs from 
 his Mus terrestris ; which if it be, as he allows, the " Mus 
 agrestis capite grandi brachyurus," of Hay, is widely 
 different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and manner 
 of life. 
 
 As to the falco, which I mentioned in town, I shall take 
 the liberty to send it down to you into Wales ; presuming 
 on your candour, that you will excuse me if it should 
 appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me. Though 
 mutilated " qualem dices . . . 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 countryman's museum. 
 
 The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, 
 full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 31 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 SELBORNE, September 9th, 1767. 
 
 IT will not be without impatience that I shall wait for 
 your thoughts with regard to the falco ; as to its weight, 
 breadth, etc., I wish I had set them down at the time; but, 
 to the best of my remembrance, it weighed two pounds and 
 eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty- 
 eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle 
 of its eyelids a bright yellow. As it had been killed some 
 days, and the eyes were sunk, I could make no good 
 observation on the colour of the pupils and the irides. 
 
 The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts 
 were a pair of hoopoes (upupa), which came several years 
 ago in the summer, and frequented an ornamental piece of 
 ground, which joins to my garden, for some weeks. They 
 used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in the 
 walks, many times in the day ; and seemed disposed to 
 breed in my outlet ; but were frighted and persecuted by 
 idle boys, who would never let them be at rest. 
 
 Three grossbeaks (Loxia coccothraustes) appeared some 
 years ago in my fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot. 
 Since that, now and then, one is occasionally seen in the 
 same dead season. 
 
 A crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of 
 the village, yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's 
 thumb (Gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (Trutta 
 Jluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (Lampcetra parva 
 et fluviatilis\ and the stickle-back (Pisciculus aculeatus). 
 
 We are twenty miles from the sea. and almost as many 
 
32 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea birds. 
 As to wild fowls, we have a few teems of ducks bred in the 
 moors where the snipes breed ; and multitudes of widgeons 
 and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes in the forest. 
 
 Having some acquaintance with 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 21st August : it 
 was a straggler. 
 
 Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non 
 cristati, still appear : but I have seen no blackcaps lately. 
 
 I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church 
 College quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm 
 morning, a house-martin flying about, and settling on the 
 parapet, so late as the 20th November. 
 
 At present I know only two species of bats, the common 
 Vespertilio murinus and the Vespertilio auritus. 
 
 I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, 
 which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave 
 it anything to eat, it brought its wings round before the 
 mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds 
 of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed in shear- 
 ing 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 33 
 
 down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon, seems no improbable 
 story. While I amused myself with this wonderful 
 quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar 
 opinion, that bats when down upon a flat surface cannot 
 get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the 
 floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch than I 
 was aware of ; but in a most ridiculous and grotesque 
 manner. 
 
 Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the 
 surface, as they play over pools and streams. They love 
 to frequent waters, not only for the sake of drinking, 
 but on account of insects, which are found over them in 
 the greatest plenty. As I was going some years ago, 
 pretty late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a 
 warm summer's evening, I think I saw myriads of bats 
 between the two places ; the air swarmed with them all 
 along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a 
 time. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 November 4th, 1767. 
 
 IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco 
 turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should 
 have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you 
 a bird that you had never seen before ; but that, I find, 
 would be a difficult task. 
 
 I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my 
 former letters, a young one and a female with young, both 
 of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour, 
 
 294 
 
34 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that 
 the species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and 
 more slender, than the Mus domesticus medius of Ray ; and 
 have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour their belly 
 is white, a straight line along their sides divides the shades 
 of their back and belly. They never enter into houses; 
 are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves abound 
 in harvest ; and build their nests amidst the straws of the 
 corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They 
 breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest 
 composed of the blades of grass or wheat. 
 
 One of these nests I procured this autumn, most arti- 
 ficially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat, 
 perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with 
 the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no dis- 
 covering 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 ad- 
 minister a teat to each ? Perhaps she opens different 
 places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the 
 business is over ; but she could not possibly be contained 
 herself in the ball with her young, which moreover would 
 be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant 
 cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was 
 found in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle. 
 
 A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his 
 servant had shot one last January, in that severe weather, 
 which he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it this 
 summer, not knowing what to expect, but the moment I 
 took it in hand, I pronounced it the male Garrulus bohemi- 
 CUS) or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 35 
 
 or points which it carries at the ends of five of the short 
 remiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, be 
 called an English bird ; and yet I see, by Ray's Philoso- 
 phical Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, 
 appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685. 
 
 The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a 
 total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support 
 of many of the winged nation. For the same severe 
 weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the produce of 
 the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of 
 the more hardy and common. 
 
 Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feed- 
 ing on the berries of the yew tree, which answered to the 
 description of the Merula torquata, or ring-ouzel, were 
 lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people 
 to procure me a specimen, but without success. (See 
 Letter VIII.) 
 
 Query. Might not Canary-birds be naturalised to this 
 climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into 
 the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, 
 greenfinches, etc. ? Before winter perhaps they might be 
 hardened, and able to shift for themselves. 
 
 About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly 
 at Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on 
 the Thames, near Hampton Court. In the autumn, I could 
 not help being much amused with those myriads of the 
 swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what 
 struck me most . was, that, from the time they began to 
 congregate, forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted 
 every night in the osier-beds of the aits of that river. 
 Now this resorting towards that element, at that season of 
 the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern 
 opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A 
 
36 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that 
 he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swal- 
 low's going under water in the beginning of September, as he 
 would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. 
 
 An observing gentleman in London writes me word that 
 he saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October, 
 flying in and out of its nest in the Borough. And I myself, 
 on the twenty-ninth of last October (as I was travelling 
 through Oxford), saw four or five swallows hovering round 
 and settling on the roof of the county hospital. 
 
 Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which per- 
 haps 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 1 * 
 
 I acquiesce entirely in your opinion that, though most 
 of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay 
 behind and hide with us during the winter. 
 
 As to the short-winged soft-billed birds, which come 
 trooping in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even 
 what to suspect about them. I watched them narrowly 
 this year, and saw them abound till about Michaelmas, 
 when they appeared no longer. Subsist they cannot openly 
 among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive : and, 
 as to their hiding, no man pretends to have found any of 
 them in a torpid state in the winter. But with regard to 
 their migration, what difficulties attend that supposition ! 
 that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never flit 
 but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast 
 seas and continents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst 
 the regions of Africa ! 
 
 * See Adansorfs Voyage to Senegal. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 37 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Jan. 22nd, 1768. 
 
 As in one of your former letters you expressed the more 
 satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my 
 living in the most southerly county; so now I may return 
 the compliment, and expect to have my curiosity gratified 
 by your living much more to the North. 
 
 For many years past I have observed that towards 
 Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the 
 fields ; many more, I used to think, than could be hatched 
 in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to observe 
 them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed 
 to me to be almost all hens. I communicated my suspicions 
 to some intelligent neighbours, who, after taking pains 
 about the matter, declared that they also thought them 
 mostly females at least fifty to one. This extraordinary 
 occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnaeus, 
 that "before winter all their hen chaffinches migrate 
 through Holland into Italy." Now I want to know, from 
 some curious person in the north, whether there are any 
 large flocks of these finches with them in the winter, and of 
 which sex they mostly consist 1 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 chirp- 
 ing, as if they were about to break up their winter quarters 
 and betake themselves to their proper summer homes. It 
 
38 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 is well known, at least, that the swallows and the fieldfares 
 do congregate with a gentle twittering before they make 
 their respective departure. 
 
 You may depend on it that the bunting, Emberiza 
 miliaria, does not leave this county in the winter. In 
 January 1767 I saw several dozen of them, in the midst of 
 a severe frost, among the bushes on the downs near 
 Andover: in our woodland enclosed district it is a rare 
 bird. 
 
 Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the 
 winter. Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often 
 killed in numbers by people that go on purpose. 
 
 Mr. Stillingfieet, 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 such 
 multitudes are taken, I never saw (and I am well acquainted 
 with those parts) above two or three at a time, for they are 
 never gregarious. They may perhaps migrate in general ; 
 and, for that purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex in 
 autumn: but that they do not all withdraw I am sure; 
 because I see a few stragglers in many counties, at all 
 times of the year, especially about warrens and stone 
 quarries. 
 
 I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen 
 of the navy ; but have written to a friend, who was a sea- 
 chaplain in the late war, desiring him to look into his 
 minutes, with respect to birds that settled on their rigging 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 39 
 
 during their voyage up or down the Channel. What 
 Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable ; there were 
 little short-winged birds frequently coming on board his 
 ship all the way from our channel quite up to the Levant, 
 especially before squally weather. 
 
 What you suggest, with regard to Spahi, is' highly 
 probable. The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in 
 all likelihood, the soft-billed birds that leave us at that 
 season may find insects sufficient to support them there. 
 
 Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and 
 leisure, should make an autumnal voyage into that 
 kingdom ; and should spend a year there, investigating the 
 natural history of that vast country. Mr. Willughby* 
 passed through that kingdom on such an errand ; but he 
 seems to have skirted along in a superficial manner and an 
 ill-humour, being much disgusted at the rude, dissolute 
 manners of the people. 
 
 I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about 
 the swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames : nor can 
 I hear any more about those birds which I suspected were 
 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 nearly a hundred, most of 
 which were taken, and some I saw. I measured them; and 
 found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and 
 
 * See Hay's Travels, p. 466. 
 
40 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBO&NE. 
 
 a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of 
 them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, 
 which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois : so that I 
 suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A 
 full-grown Mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce 
 lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as 
 the mouse above ; and measures from nose to rump four 
 inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have 
 had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My 
 thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below 
 the freezing-point, within doors. The tender evergreens 
 were injured pretty much. It was very providential that 
 the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, 
 else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. 
 There is reason to believe that some days were more severe 
 than any since the year 1739-40. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 SELBORNB, March I'2th t 1768. 
 
 IF some curious gentleman would procure the head of a 
 fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished 
 with two spiracula, or breathing places, besides the nostrils; 
 probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the human 
 head. When deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like 
 some horses, very deep under water, while in the act of 
 drinking, and continue them in that situation for a con- 
 siderable time : but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can 
 open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 41 
 
 a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an 
 extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention ; 
 and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any 
 naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be 
 suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were 
 stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of 
 singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free 
 respiration : and no doubt these additional nostrils are 
 thrown open when they are hard run. Mr. Ray observed 
 that at Malta the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses 
 as were hard worked : for they, being naturally straight or 
 small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they 
 travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate. And we know 
 that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils 
 necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses. 
 Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to 
 have had some notion that stags have four spiracula 
 " TerpadvfjLOL pives, iriovpes &von)b<. StauAoi." 
 
 " Quadrifidse nares, quadruplices ad respiration ein canales." 
 
 Orp. CYN. Lib. ii. 1. 181. 
 
 Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say 
 that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the 
 contrary: "AA/c/xcucov yap OVK aXrjOrj Aeyet, <a//,evos avairveiv 
 ras aiyas Kara ra wra." " Alcmseon does not advance 
 what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through 
 their ears." History of Animals. Book I., chap. xi. 
 
42 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 SELBORNE, March SQlh, 1768. 
 
 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, riot much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, 
 which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be 
 little depended on ; but farther inquiry may be made. 
 
 A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white 
 rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them 
 before they were able to fly, threw them down and 
 destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would 
 have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his 
 rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of 
 a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, 
 and claws were milk-white. 
 
 A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a 
 down above my house this winter : were not these the 
 Emberiza nivalis, the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool. ? No 
 doubt they were. 
 
 A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which 
 had been caught in the fields after it was come to its full 
 colours. In about a year it began to look dingy ; and, 
 blackening every succeeding year, it became coal-black at 
 the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed. Such 
 influence has food on the colour of animals ! The pied and 
 mottled colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be 
 owing to high, various, and unusual food. 
 
 I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo- 
 pint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 43 
 
 of hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After 
 observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting others 
 to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that 
 searched it out. The root of the arum is remarkably warm 
 and pungent. 
 
 Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us. 
 The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down 
 by that fierce weather in January. 
 
 In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, 
 a little bird that raised my curiosity : it was of that yellow- 
 green colour that belongs to the salicaria kind, and, I think, 
 was soft billed. It was. no parus ; and was too long and 
 too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like 
 the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back 
 downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same 
 place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed 
 my aim. 
 
 I wonder that the stone-curlew, Charadrius cedicnemus, 
 should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird : it 
 abounds in all the champaign parts of Hampshire and 
 Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer, having young 
 ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they 
 begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, 
 with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, 
 " circa aquas versantes ; " for with us, by day at least, they 
 haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep- 
 walks, far removed from water : what they may do in the 
 night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they 
 also eat toads and frogs. 
 
 I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. 
 Linnaeus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. 
 
44 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 SELBORNE, April 18^, 1768. 
 
 THE history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius oedicnemus, is 
 as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than 
 three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field ; 
 so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often 
 destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg 
 like patridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field 
 by the dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are 
 their best security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the 
 colour of our grey-spotted flints, that the most exact 
 observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may 
 be eluded. The eggs are short and round ; of a dirty 
 white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I might 
 not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet 
 I could show you them almost any day ; and any evening 
 you may hear them round the village, for they make a 
 clamour which may be heard a mile. Oedicnemus is a 
 most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs 
 seem swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I 
 have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields. 
 
 I make no doubt but there are three species of the 
 willow-wrens ; two I know perfectly, but have not been 
 able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ 
 more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two 
 that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy, 
 laughing note, the other a harsh loud chirp. The former 
 is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, 
 and weighs two drachms and a-half, while the latter weighs 
 but two ; so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the 
 chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 45 
 
 that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his 
 two notes in the middle of March, and continues them 
 through the spring and summer till the end of August, as 
 appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these 
 two are flesh-coloured ; of the less black. 
 
 The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields 
 last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the 
 whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by 
 though at a hundred yards distance; and when close at 
 your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. 
 Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known 
 that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should 
 have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whisper- 
 ing in the bushes. The country people laugh when you 
 tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful 
 creature, skulking in the thickest .part of a bush ; and will 
 sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was 
 obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge 
 where it haunted, and then it would run, creeping like a 
 mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, through the 
 bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come into fair sight ; 
 but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on 
 the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings. 
 Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of this bird, but received 
 his account from Mr. Johnson, who apparently confounds 
 it with the Reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. 
 See Ray's Philos. Letters, p. 108. 
 
 The fly-catcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it 
 usually breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing, its 
 note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about the 
 middle of June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort) are 
 horrid pests in a garden, destroying the peas, cherries, cur- 
 rants, etc. } and are so tame that a gun will not scare them. 
 
46 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 A LIST OF THE SUMMER BlRDS OP PASSAGE DISCOVERED IN THIS 
 NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH 
 THEY APPEAR. 
 
 Smallest willow-wren, 
 
 Wryneck, 
 
 House-swallow, 
 
 Martin, 
 
 Sand-martin, 
 
 Cuckoo, 
 
 Nightingale, 
 
 Blackcap, 
 
 Whitethroat, 
 
 Middle willow-wren, 
 
 Swift, 
 
 Stone-curlew ? 
 
 Turtle-dove ? 
 
 Grasshopper-lark, 
 
 Landrail, 
 
 Largest willow-wren, 
 
 Redstart, 
 
 Goat-sucker, or fern-owl, 
 
 Fly-catcher, 
 
 LINN^EI NOMINA. 
 
 Motacilla trochilus. 
 Junx torquilla. 
 Hirundo rustica. 
 Chelidon urbica. 
 Cotile riparia. 
 Cuculus canorus. 
 Lusinia philomela. 
 Motacilla atricapilla. 
 Motacilla sylvia. 
 Motacilla trochilus. 
 Hirundo apus. 
 Charadrius oedicnemus ? 
 Turtur aldrovandi ? 
 Alauda trivialis. 
 Rallus crex. 
 Motacilla trochilus. 
 Motacilla phcenicura. 
 Caprimulgus Europcea. 
 Muscicapa grisola. 
 
 My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter 
 with its bill against a dead bough, or some old pales, calling 
 it a jar-bird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact ; 
 it proved to be the Sitta 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. 
 
 In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and 
 humming; they always hum as they are descending. Is 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 47 
 
 not their hum ventriloquous like that of the turkey 1 Some 
 suspect it is made by their wings. 
 
 This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose 
 crown glitters like burnished gold. It often hangs like a 
 titmouse, with its back downwards. 
 
 LETTEE XVII. 
 
 SELBORNE, June 18th, 1768. 
 
 ON Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June 
 10th. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you 
 pursue these studies still with such vigour, and are in such 
 forwardness with regard to reptiles and fishes. 
 
 The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with 
 so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural 
 history. There is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity 
 attending the propagation of this class of animals, some- 
 thing analogous to that of the cryptogamia in the sexual 
 system of plants : and the case is the same with regard to 
 some of the fishes ; as the eel, etc. 
 
 The method in which toads procreate and bring forth 
 seems to be very much in the dark. Some auth^-s say that 
 they are viviparous: and yet Ray classes them among his 
 oviparous animals ; and is silent with regard to the manner 
 of their bringing forth. Perhaps they may be low pev 
 ctiorofcotj ((o Se fooTOKoi, as is known to be the case with the 
 viper. 
 
 The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it ; 
 for Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans) 
 
48 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 is notorious to everybody : because we see them sticking 
 upon each other's backs for a month together in the spring : 
 and yet I never saw, or read of toads being observed in the 
 same situation. It is strange that the matter with regard 
 to the venom of toads has not been yet settled. That they 
 are not noxious to some animals is plain : for ducks, 
 buzzards, owls, stone-curlews, and snakes eat them, to my 
 knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember the time, 
 but was not eyewitness to the fact (though numbers of 
 persons were), when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to 
 make the country people stare ; afterwards he drank oil. 
 
 I have been informed also, from undoubted authority 
 that some ladies (ladies, you will say, of peculiar taste) took 
 a fancy to a toad, which they nourished summer after 
 summer, for many years, till he grew to a monstrous size, 
 with the maggots which turn to flesh-flies. The reptile 
 used to come forth every evening from a hole under the 
 garden-steps ; and was taken up, after supper, on the table 
 to be fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he 
 put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke with his 
 horny beak as put out one eye. After this accident the 
 creature languished for some time and died. 
 
 I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading 
 of the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's 
 Wisdom of God in the Creation (p. 365), concerning the 
 migration f frogs from their breeding ponds. In this 
 account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their 
 dropping from the clouds in rain ; showing that it is from 
 the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that 
 they are tempted to set out on their travels, which they 
 defer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state ; 
 but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm for 
 a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 49 
 
 my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate 
 account of the method and situation in which the male 
 impregnates the spawn of the female. How wonderful is 
 the economy of Providence with regard to the limbs of so 
 vile a reptile ! While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like tail, 
 and no legs ; as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off 
 as useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land ! 
 
 Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances 
 that the Rana arborea is an English reptile ; it abounds in 
 Germany and Switzerland. 
 
 It is to be remembered that the Salamandra aquatica 
 of Ray (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the 
 angler's bait, and is often caught on his hook. I used to 
 take it for granted that the Salamandra aquatica was 
 hatched, lived, and died in the water. But John Ellis, 
 Esq., 1T.R.S. (the coralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter to the 
 Royal Society, dated June 5th, 1766, in his account of the 
 Mud inguana, an amphibious bipes from South Carolina, 
 that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, 
 as tadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to 
 misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own 
 words. Speaking of the opercula or coverings to the gills 
 of the Mud inguana, he proceeds to say that " the form of 
 these pennated coverings approaches very near to what I 
 have some time ago observed in the larva or aquatic state 
 of our English Lacerta, known by the name of eft, newt ; 
 which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for fins to 
 swim with while in this state ; and which they lose, as well 
 as the fins of their tails, when they change their state and 
 become land animals, as I have observed, by keeping them 
 alive for some time myself." 
 
 Linnaeus, in his Systema Naturae^ hints at what Mr. Ellis 
 advances more than once, 
 
 295 
 
50 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 publica- 
 tions, you will not omit to mention common salad-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 exami- 
 nation, that it is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring 
 yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints) 
 killed and opened a female viper about the 27th May ; he 
 found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs, about the size 
 of those of a blackbird ; but none of them were advanced 
 go far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudi- 
 ments 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, %Mr. Barrington, that no such thing ever happens. 
 The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in a year; or 
 rather, but only just at one season of the year. Country 
 people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure, 
 without any reason ; for the common snake (Coluber 
 natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a 
 view to procure frogs and other food. 
 
 I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 51 
 
 species of reptiles, unless it be by tho various species, or 
 rather varieties, of our Lacerti, of which Ray enumerates 
 five. I have not had opportunity of ascertaining these ; 
 but remember well to have seen, formerly, several beautiful 
 green Lacerti on the sunny sandbanks near Farnham, in 
 Surrey ; and Ray admits there are such in Ireland. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 SELBOKNE, July 27th, 1768. 
 
 I RECEIVED your obliging and communicative letter of June 
 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where 
 I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure to sit down, to 
 return you an answer to many queries, which I wanted to 
 resolve in the best manner that I am able. 
 
 A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but 
 could find no such fish as the Gasterosteus pungitius ; he 
 found the Gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This morning, 
 in a basket, I packed a little earthen pot full of wet moss, 
 and in it some sticklebacks, male and female ; the females 
 big with spawn : some lamperns ; some bull's heads ; but I 
 could procure no minnows. This basket will be in Fleet 
 Street by eight this evening ; so I hope Mazel will have 
 them fresh and fair to-morrow morning. I gave some 
 directions, in a letter, to what particulars the engraver 
 should be attentive. 
 
 Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a 
 reasonable distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over 
 to that town, and procured several living specimens of 
 
52 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 loaches, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a glass 
 decanter. They were taken in the gullies that were cut for 
 watering the meadows. From these fishes (which measured 
 from two to four inches in length) I took the following 
 description : " The loach, in its general aspect, has a 
 pellucid appearance ; its back is mottled with irregular 
 collections of small black dots, not reaching much below the 
 linea lateralis, as are the back and tail fins ; a black line 
 runs from each eye down to the nose ; its belly is of a 
 silvery white; the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, 
 and is surrounded with six feelers, three on each side ; its 
 pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller ; the fin 
 behind its anus small ; its dorsal-fin large, containing eight 
 spines; its tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably 
 broad, without any taperness, so as to be characteristic of 
 this genus ; the tail-fin is broad, and square at the end. 
 From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail it 
 appears to be an active nimble fish." 
 
 In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and 
 did not forget to make some inquiries concerning the 
 wonderful method of curing cancers by means of toads. 
 Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do, I 
 find, give a great deal of credit to what is asserted in the 
 papers, and I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed to 
 be persuaded that what is related is matter of fact ; but, 
 when I came to attend to his account, I though I discerned 
 circumstances which did not a little invalidate the woman's 
 story of the manner in which she came by her skill. She 
 says of herself "that, labouring under a virulent cancer, 
 she went to some church where there was a vast crowd ; on 
 going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergyman, 
 who, after expressing compassion for her situation, told her 
 that if she would make such an application of living toads 
 
NATURAL HISTORY Off SELBORNE. 53 
 
 as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that 
 this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness 
 for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the many 
 thousands that daily languish under this terrible disorder 1 
 Would he not have made use of this invaluable nostrum for 
 his own emolument ; or, at least, by some means of publica- 
 tion or other, have found a method of making it public for 
 the good of mankind ? In short, this woman (as it appears 
 to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient 
 to amuse the country with this dark and mysterious 
 relation. 
 
 The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least 
 appearance of any gills ; for want of which it is continually 
 rising to the surface of the water to take in fresh air. I 
 opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found it full of spawn. 
 Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the assertion 
 that they are larvce ; for the larvae of insects are full of 
 eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last 
 state. The water-eft is continually climbing over the 
 brims of the vessel within which we keep it in water, and 
 wandering away ; and people every summer see numbers 
 crawling out of the pools where they are hatched, up the dry 
 banks. There are varieties of them, differing in colour ; 
 and some have fins up their tail and back, and some have 
 not. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 SELBORNE, August \ltk t 1768. 
 
 I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species 
 of the willow-wrens (Notacillce trochili) which constantly 
 and invariably use distinct notes. But at the same time 
 
54 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 I am obliged to confess that I know nothing of your 
 willow-lark. In my letter of April 18th, I had told you 
 peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not 
 seen it then ; but when I came to procure it, it proved in 
 all respects a very Motacilla trochilus, only that it is a 
 size larger than the other two, and the yellow-green of 
 the whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the 
 belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the three 
 sorts now lying before me, and can discern that there are 
 three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black 
 legs, and the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest 
 bird is considerably the largest, and has its quill-feathers 
 and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others 
 have not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in high 
 beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper-like noise, 
 now and then, at short intervals, shivering a little with 
 its wings when it sings ; and is, I make no doubt now, 
 the Regulus non cristatus of Hay, which he says " cantat 
 voce striduld locustce." Yet this great ornithologist never 
 suspected that there were three species. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 SELBORNE, October 8th, 1768. 
 
 IT is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is 
 so full that that district produces the greatest variety 
 which is the most examined. Several birds, which are 
 said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in 
 the south. I have discovered this summer three species 
 
NATURAL HISTORY Of SELtiORttE. 55 
 
 of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be 
 seen in the northern counties. The first that was brought 
 me (on the 14th May) was the sandpiper, Tringa 
 hypoleucus : it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of 
 some ponds near the village ; and, as it had a companion, 
 doubtless intended to have bred near that water. Besides, 
 the owner has told me since, that, on recollection, he has 
 seen some of the same birds round his ponds in former 
 summers. 
 
 The next bird that I procured (on the 21st May) waa 
 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 ; its craw was filled with the 
 legs and wings of beetles. 
 
 The next rare birds (which were procured for me last 
 week) were some ring-ousels, Tordus torquatus. 
 
 This week twelve months a gentleman from London 
 being with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and found, 
 he told us, on an old yew hedge where there were berries, 
 some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round 
 their necks : a neighbouring farmer also at the same time 
 observed the same ; but, as no specimens were procured, 
 little notice was taken. I mentioned this circumstance to 
 you in my letter of November 4th, 1767 (you, however, 
 paid but small regard to what I said, as I had not seen 
 these birds myself) ; but last week the aforesaid farmer, 
 seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty, of these birds, shot 
 two cocks and two hens, and says, on recollection, that he 
 remembers to have observed these birds again last spring, 
 about Lady-day, as it were, on their return to the north. 
 Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north of 
 
56 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 
 
 England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe ; 
 and may retire before the excessive rigour of the frosts 
 in those parts, and return to breed in the spring, when 
 the cold abates. If this be the case, here is discovered a 
 new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations 
 the writers are silent ; but if these birds should prove the 
 ousels of the north of England, then here is a migration 
 disclosed within our own kingdom never before remarked. 
 It does not yet appear whether they retire beyond the 
 bounds of our island to the south ; but it is most probable 
 that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that 
 they would have continued so long unnoticed in the 
 southern 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. 
 
 I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so 
 lately on the study of reptiles) that my people, every 
 now and then of late, draw up with a bucket of water 
 from my well, which is sixty-three feet deep, a large black 
 warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly. How they 
 first came down at that depth, and how they were ever 
 to have got 'out thence without help, is more than I am 
 able to say. 
 
 My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in 
 the examination of a buck's head. As far as your dis- 
 coveries 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 57 
 
 oedicnemus, or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman 
 in Sussex (near whose house these birds congregate in 
 vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely when they 
 leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return 
 again in the spring : I was with this gentleman lately, 
 and saw several single birds. 
 
 LETTER XXL 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 2Sth, 1768. 
 
 WITH regard to the oedicnemus, or stone-curlew, I intend 
 to write very soon to my friend near Ohichester, in whose 
 neighbourhood these birds seem most to abound ; and shall 
 urge him to take particular notice when they begin to 
 congregate, and afterwards to watch them most narrowly, 
 whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead 
 of the winter. When I have obtained information with 
 respect to this circumstance, I shall have finished my 
 history of the stone-curlew, which I hope will prove to 
 your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the truth. 
 This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and 
 is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the 
 motions of these birds ; and besides, as I have prevailed on 
 him to buy the Naturalist's Journal (with which he is 
 much delighted), I shall expect that he will be very exact 
 in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as you observe, that 
 a bird so common with us should never struggle to you. 
 
 And here will be the properest place to mention, while 
 I think of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned 
 
58 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 gentleman told me when I was last at his house ; which was 
 that, in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws (Corvi 
 monedulce) build every year in the rabbit-burrows under 
 ground. The way he and his brothers used to take their 
 nests, while they were boys, was by listening at the mouths 
 of the holes ; and, if they heard the young ones cry, they 
 twisted the nest out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls 
 (viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner ; but I 
 should never have suspected the daws of building in holes 
 on the flat ground. 
 
 Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a 
 place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds 
 deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright 
 and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity : 
 which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of 
 the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to 
 secure those nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys, 
 who are always idling round that place. 
 
 One of my neighbours last Saturday, November 26th, 
 saw a martin in a sheltered bottom : the sun shone warm, 
 and the bird was hawking briskly after flies. I am now 
 perfectly satisfied that they do not all leave this island in 
 the winter. 
 
 You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve 
 and caution concerning the cures done by toads : for, let 
 people advance what they will on such subjects, yet there is 
 such a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and being 
 deceived, that one cannot safely relate anything from 
 common report, especially in print, without expressing some 
 degree of doubt and suspicion. 
 
 Your approbation, with regard to my new discovery of 
 the migration of the ring-ousel, gives me satisfaction ; and 
 I find you concur with me in suspecting that they are 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 59 
 
 foreign birds which visit us. You will be sure, I hope, not 
 to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave your 
 rocks in the autumn. What puzzles me most, is the very 
 short stay they make with us ; for in about three weeks 
 they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark 
 whether they will call on us at their return in the spring, 
 as they did last year. 
 
 I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology. 
 If fortune had settled me near the seaside, or near some 
 great river, my natural propensity would soon have urged 
 me to have made myself acquainted with their productions ; 
 but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in an 
 upland district, my knowledge of fishes extends little 
 farther than to those common sorts which our brooks and 
 lakes produce. 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Jan. 2nd, 1769. 
 
 As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under 
 the ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon 
 the reason ; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or 
 steeples in all this county. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, 
 Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished with 
 churches as almost any counties in the kingdom. We have 
 many livings of two or three hundred pounds a-year, whose 
 houses of worship make little better appearance than dove- 
 cots. When I first saw Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, 
 and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of Lincolnshire, I was 
 amazed at the number of spires which presented themselves 
 
60 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I 
 have reason to lament this want in my own county ; for 
 such objects are very necessary ingredients in an elegant 
 landscape. 
 
 What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises 
 my curiosity. An ancient author, though no naturalist, 
 lias well remarked that " every kind of beasts, and of birds, 
 and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath 
 been tamed, of mankind." 
 
 It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has 
 actually been procured for you in Devonshire ; because it 
 corroborates my discovery, which I made many years ago, 
 of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank near Farnham in 
 Surrey. I am well acquainted with the South Hams of 
 Devonshire ; and can suppose that district, from its 
 southerly situation, to be a proper habitation for such 
 animals in their best colours. 
 
 Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly 
 not forsake them against winter, our suspicions that those 
 which visit this neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not 
 English birds, but driven from the more northern parts of 
 Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable ; and it will 
 be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence 
 they come, and to inquire why they make so very short a 
 stay. 
 
 In your account of your error with regard to the two 
 species of herons, you incidentally gave me great entertain 
 ment in your description of the heronry at Cressi Hall ; 
 which is a curiosity I never could manage to see. Four- 
 score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which 
 I would ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray 
 be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi Hall is, 
 and near what town it lies. I have often thought that 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 61 
 
 those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently 
 explored. If half-a-dozen gentlemen, furnished with a 
 good strength of water-spaniels, were to beat them over 
 for a week, they would certainly find more species. 
 
 There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied 
 more than that of the caprimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it 
 is a wonderful and curious creature ; but I have always 
 found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I 
 know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting 
 on a bough ; and I have for many a half-hour watched it 
 as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and particularly 
 this summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with its 
 head lower than its tail, in an attitude well expressed by 
 your draughtsman in the folio " British Zoology." This 
 bird is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at the 
 close of day ; so exactly that I have known it strike up 
 more than once or twice just at the report of the 
 Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the 
 weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that its 
 notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the 
 parts of its windpipe formed for sound, just as cats pur. 
 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. 
 
62 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you 
 have procured, should prove a new one, since five species 
 have been found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great 
 sort that I mentioned is certainly a nondescript ; I saw but 
 one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of taking. 
 
 Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining. 
 I am no angler myself ; but inquiring of those that are 
 what they supposed that part of their tackle to be made of, 
 they replied, " Of the intestines of a silkworm." 
 
 Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, 
 yet I cannot say that I am ignorant of that kind of know- 
 ledge ; I may now and then perhaps be able to furnish you 
 with a little information. 
 
 The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time 
 as with you, and since we have had delicate weather. Mr. 
 Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty 
 years, says, in a late letter, that more has fallen this 
 year than in any he ever attended to ; though from July 
 1763 to January 1764 more fell than in any seven months 
 of this year. 
 
 LETTER XXIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. 28^, 1769. 
 
 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 63 
 
 themselves very well, but never bred. Whether this 
 circumstance will prove anything either way I shall not 
 pretend to say. 
 
 I return you thanks for your account of Oressi Hall ; but 
 recollect, not without regret, that in June 1746 I was 
 visiting for a week together at Spalding, without ever 
 being told that such a curiosity was just at hand. Pray 
 send me word in your next what sort of tree it is that 
 contains such a quantity of herons' nests ; and whether the 
 heronry consists of a whole grove of wood, or only of a few 
 trees. 
 
 It gave me satisfaction to find we accorded so well about 
 the caprimulgus ; all I contended for was to prove that it 
 often chatters sitting as well as flying ; and therefore the 
 noise was voluntary, and from organic impulse, and not 
 from the resistance of the air against the hollow of its 
 mouth and throat. 
 
 If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last 
 Michaelmas Day. I was travelling, and out early in the 
 morning : at first there was a vast fog ; but, by the time 
 that I was got seven or eight miles from home towards the 
 coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. We 
 were then on a large heath or common, and I could discern, 
 as the mist began to break away, great numbers of swallows 
 (Hirundines 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 were all on the 
 wing at once ; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded 
 011 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 ; 
 
64 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE* 
 
 only some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do 
 never, there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this 
 island. Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come 
 forth in a warm day, as bats do continually of a 'warm 
 evening, after they have disappeared for weeks. For a 
 very respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was 
 walking with some friends under Merton wall on a remark- 
 ably hot noon, either in the last week in December or the 
 first week in January, he espied three or four swallows 
 huddled together on the moulding of one of the windows 
 of that college. I have frequently remarked that swallows 
 are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere ; is it owing to the 
 vast massy buildings of that place, to the many waters 
 round it, or to what else 1 
 
 When I used to rise in the morning last autumn, and see 
 the swallows and martins clustering on the chimneys and 
 thatch of the neighbouring cottages, I could not help being 
 touched with a secret delight, mixed with some degree of 
 mortification : with delight, to observe with how much 
 ardour and punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the 
 strong impulse towards migration, or hiding, imprinted on 
 their minds by their great Creator ; and with some degree 
 of mortification, when I reflected that, after all our pains 
 and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions 
 they do migrate ; and are still farther embarrassed to find 
 that some do not actually migrate at all. 
 
 These reflections made so strong an impression on my 
 imagination, that they became productive of a composition 
 that may perhaps amuse you for a quarter of an hour when 
 next I have the honour of writing to you. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 65 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 SELBORNE, May 29^, 1769. 
 
 The Scarabceus fullo I know very well, having seen it in 
 collections ; but have never been able to discover one wild 
 in its natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought it 
 might be found on the sea coast. 
 
 On the 13th 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 these birds about the usual 
 spot. We shot a cock and a hen ; they were plump and in 
 high condition. The hen had but very small rudiments of 
 eggs within her, which proves they are late breeders; 
 whereas those species of the thrush kind that remain with us 
 the whole year have fledged young before that time. In 
 their crops was nothing very distinguishable, but somewhat 
 that seemed like blades of vegetables nearly digested. In 
 autumn they feed on haws and yew-berries, and in the 
 spring on ivy-berries. I dressed one of these birds, and 
 found it juicy and well flavoured. It is remarkable that 
 they make but a few days' stay in their spring visit, but 
 rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas. These birds, from 
 the observations of three springs and two autumns, are 
 most punctual in their return ; and exhibit a new migra- 
 tion unnoticed by the writers, who supposed they never 
 were to be seen in any southern counties. 
 
 One of my neighbours lately brought me a new Salicaria, 
 which at first I suspected might have proved your willow- 
 lark, but, on a nicer examination, it answered much better 
 to the description of that species which you shot at Revesby, 
 in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus "It is a size 
 
 296 
 
66 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK 
 
 less than the grasshopper-lark ; the head, back, and coverts 
 of the wings of a dusky brown, without those dark spots 
 of the grasshopper-lark ; over each eye is a milk-white 
 stroke ; the chin and throat are white, and the under parts 
 of a yellowish white ; the rump is tawny, and the feathers 
 of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill is dusky and sharp, and 
 the legs are dusky ; the hinder claw long and crooked." 
 The person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed- 
 sparrow that he took it for one ; and that it sings all night : 
 but this account merits farther inquiry. For my part, I 
 suspect it is a second sort of 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 1 is too puzzling for me to answer ; and 
 yet so obvious as often to have struck me with wonder. If 
 one looks into the writers on that subject little satisfaction 
 is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance plausible 
 arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to 
 maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypothesis 
 is each as good as another's, since they are all founded on 
 conjecture. The late writers of this sort, in whom may be 
 seen all the arguments of those that have gone before, as I 
 remember, stock America from the western coast of Africa 
 and the south of Europe ; and then break down the Isthmus 
 that bridged over the Atlantic. But this is making use of 
 a violent piece of machinery ; it is a difficulty worthy of 
 the interposition of a god ! " Incredulus odi," 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 67 
 
 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 vagrantf cuckoo's tale ; 
 
 To hear the clamorous { curlew call his mate, 
 
 Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ; 
 
 To see the swallow sweep the darkening plain 
 
 Belated, to support her infant train ; 
 
 To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring 
 
 Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing ; 
 
 Amusive birds ! say where your hid retreat 
 
 When the frost rages and the tempests beat \ 
 
 Whence your return, by such nice instinct led, 
 
 When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ? 
 
 Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride, 
 
 The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide ! 
 
 * The angler's May-fly, the ephemera vulgata LINN., comes forth 
 from its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in the 
 evening, and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its 
 fly state in about five or six hours. They usually begin to appear about 
 the 4th June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See 
 Swammerdam, Derham, ScopoH, etc. 
 
 t Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no 
 incubation or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wandera 
 without control. 
 
 J Charadrius cedlcnemus. 
 
68 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 While deepening shades obscure the face of day, 
 To yonder bench leaf-sheltered let us stray, 
 'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight, 
 And all the fading landscape sinks in night ; 
 To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by 
 With buzzing wing, or the shrill* cricket cry ; 
 To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ; 
 To catch the distant falling of the flood ; 
 While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung 
 Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song ; 
 While high in air, and poised upon his wings, 
 Unseen, the soft enamour'df woodlark sings : 
 These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ, 
 Inspire a soothing melancholy joy : 
 As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain 
 Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein ! 
 
 Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine ; 
 The tinkling sheep-bell or the breath of kine ; 
 The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze, 
 Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees. 
 
 The chilling night-dews fall : away, retire ! 
 For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire ! { 
 Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky, 
 Th' impatient damsel hung her lamp on high : 
 True to the signal, by love's meteor led, 
 Leander hasten'd to his Hero's bed. 
 
 * Gryllus campestris. 
 
 t In hot summer nights wood-larks soar to a prodigious height, and 
 hang singing in the air. 
 
 $ 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 scarabosus. 
 
 See the story of Hero and Leander. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 69 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 SELBOKNE, Aug. 30^,- 1769. 
 
 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 Tery 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 par- 
 take 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 congener^ the 
 fieldfares ; and especially as ring-ousels are known to haunt 
 cold mountainous countries : but I have good reason to 
 suspect since that they may come to us from the westward ; 
 because I hear, from very good authority, that they breed 
 on Dartmoor, and that they forsake that wild district 
 about the time that our visitors appear, and do not return 
 till late in the spring. 
 
 I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria 
 and mine, with a white stroke over its eye and a tawny 
 rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and have pro- 
 cured several specimens, and am perfectly persuaded myself 
 (and trust you will soon become convinced of the same) 
 that it is no more nor less than the Passer arundinaceus 
 minor of Bay. This bird, by some means or other, seems 
 to be entirely omitted in the British Zoology ; and one 
 
70 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 reason probably was because it is so strangely classed in Hay, 
 who ranges it among his Pici affines. It ought, no doubt, 
 to have gone among his Amculce caudd unicolore, and 
 among your slender-billed small birds of the same division. 
 Linnaeus might, with great propriety, have put it into his 
 genus of Motacilla ; and Motacilla salicaria of his Fauna 
 Suecica seems to come the nearest to it. It is no uncommon 
 bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is 
 covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors. The country 
 people in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings 
 incessantly night and day during the breeding-time, imi- 
 tating the note of a sparrow, a swallow, a skylark ; and has 
 a strange, hurrying manner in its song. My specimens 
 correspond most minutely to the description of your fen- 
 salicaria shot near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an 
 excellent characteristic of it when he says, "Rostrum et 
 pedes in hdc aviculd multo majores sunt quam pro corporis 
 rationed See letter, May 29th, 1769. (Preceding letter, 
 xxiv.) 
 
 I have got you the egg of an cedicnemus, or stone-curlew, 
 which was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground ; 
 there were two, but the finder inadvertently crushed one 
 with his foot before he saw them. 
 
 When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had 
 not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of 
 stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a 
 tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any 
 animal while in good humour and unalarrned ; but as soon 
 as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, 
 and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered 
 it hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of 
 Ray's Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal; 
 but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 71 
 
 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 maculd in scapulis albd, Raii; 
 \vhich 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. 
 
 SELBOUNE, December 8th, 1769. 
 
 I WAS much gratified by your communicative letter on 
 your return from Scotland, where you spent some consider- 
 able 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 ; 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 JBritish 
 Zoology ; and will have no reason to repent that you have 
 bestowed so much pains on a part of Great Britain that 
 perhaps was never so well examined before. 
 
 It has always been matter of wonder to me that field- 
 fares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, 
 should never choose to breed in England ; but that they 
 should not think even the highlands cold and northerly, 
 
72 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange 
 and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland 
 the whole year round ; so that we have reason to conclude 
 that those migrators that visit us for a short space every 
 autumn do not come from thence. 
 
 And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention 
 that those birds were most punctual again in their migration 
 this autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th Sep- 
 tember ; 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 oi 
 their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, in spring, I 
 should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since it 
 would be similar to that of the other winter birds of 
 passage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas, 
 and again for about a week in the middle of April, I am 
 seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence these 
 travellers come, and whither they go, since they seem to 
 use our hills merely as an inn or baiting place. 
 
 Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is 
 very amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged 
 bird should delight in such perilous voyages over the northern 
 ocean ! Some country people in the winter time have every 
 now and then told me that they have seen two or three 
 white larks on our downs ; but, on considering the matter, I 
 begin to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birdg 
 we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far 
 to the southward. 
 
 It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on 
 the Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me 
 that it is a distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain 
 are so few, that every new species is a great acquisition. 
 
 The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 73 
 
 majestic a bird, that it would grace our fauna much. I 
 never was informed before where wild-geese are known to 
 breed. 
 
 You admit, I find, that I have proved your ieii-salicaria 
 to be the lesser reed-sparrow of Ray ; and I think you may 
 be secure that I am right, for I took very particular pains 
 to clear up that matter, and had some fair specimens ; but, 
 as they were not well preserved, they are decayed already. 
 You will, no doubt, insert it in its proper place in your next 
 edition. Your additional plates will much improve your 
 work. 
 
 De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : 
 but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in 
 Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of 
 the white hare. 
 
 As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, 
 far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that 
 was curiously lain up in a hybernaculum artificially formed 
 of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above 
 a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to 
 have supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty 
 with me is how this amphibius mus came to fix its winter 
 station at such a distance from the water. Was it 
 determined in its choice of that place by the mere accident 
 of finding the potatoes which were planted there ? or is it 
 the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the 
 neighbourhood of the water in the colder months ? 
 
 Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, 
 knowing how fallacious it is with respect to natural history ; 
 yet, in the following instance, I cannot help being inclined 
 to think it may conduce towards the explanation of a 
 difficulty that I have mentioned before, with respect to the 
 invariable early retreat of the Hirundo apus, or swift, so 
 
74 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 many weeks before its congeners ; and that not only with 
 us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire 
 about the beginning of August. 
 
 The great large bat (which by-the-bye is at present a non- 
 descript in England, and what I have never been able yet 
 to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summer ; it 
 also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a different 
 region of the air ; and that is the reason I never could 
 procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the swifts ; 
 for they take their food in a more exalted region than the 
 other species, and are very seldom seen hawking for flies 
 near the ground, or over the surface of the water. From 
 hence I would conclude that these hirundines and the larger 
 bats are supported by some sorts of high-flying gnats, 
 scarabs, or 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 clamoured on to 
 October 31st; since which I have not seen nor heard any. 
 Swallows were observed on to November 3rd. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. 22nd, 1770. 
 
 HEDGEHOGS abound in my gardens and fields. The manner 
 in which they eat the roots of the plantain in my grass- 
 walks is very curious ; with their upper mandible, which is 
 much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, 
 and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 75 
 
 untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as they 
 destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface the 
 walks in some measure by digging little round holes. It 
 appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that 
 beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June 
 last I procured a litter of four or five young hedgehogs, 
 which appeared to be about five or six days old : they, I 
 find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when 
 they came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft 
 and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam 
 would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of 
 parturition, but it is plain they soon harden ; for these 
 little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as 
 would easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled 
 with caution. Their spines are quite white at this age ; 
 and they have little hanging ears, which I do not remember 
 to be discernible in the old ones. They can, in part, at this 
 age draw their skin down over their faces ; but are not able 
 to contract themselves into a ball, as they do, for the sake 
 of defence, when full grown. The reason, I suppose, is, 
 because the curious muscle that enables the creature to roll 
 itself up in a ball was not then arrived at its full tone and 
 firmness. Hedgehogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum 
 with leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for 
 the winter : but I never could find that they stored in any 
 winter provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do. 
 
 I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the field- 
 fare (T urdus pilaris), which I think is particular enough ; 
 this bird, though it sits on trees in the day-time, and 
 procures the greatest part of its food from white-thorn 
 hedges ; yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may 
 be seen by the Fauna Suecica ; yet always appears with us 
 to roost oi? the ground. They are seen to come in flocks 
 
76 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the 
 heath on our forest. And besides, the larkers, in dragging 
 their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat 
 stubbles ; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings 
 in the hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why 
 these birds, in the matter of roosting, should differ from all 
 their congeners, and from themselves also with respect to 
 their proceedings by day, is a fact for which I am by no 
 means able to account. 
 
 I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the moose- 
 deer ; but in general foreign animals fall seldom in my way ; 
 my little intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere of 
 my own observations at home. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, March 1770. 
 
 ON Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the 
 female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Good- 
 wood ; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the 
 spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a lan- 
 guishing way for some time, on the morning before. How- 
 ever, 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, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 77 
 
 consisted in the strange length of its legs ; on which it was 
 tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the grallce 
 order. I measured it as they do a horse, and found that, 
 from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four 
 inches; which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a 
 growth that few horses arrive at: but then, with this 
 length of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no more 
 than twelve inches ; so that, by straddling with one foot 
 forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain 
 ground, with the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the 
 ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck ; the 
 head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like ; and had 
 such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, with 
 huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty 
 dish in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose 
 that this creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of 
 trees, and by wading after water plants; towards which 
 way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must con- 
 tribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in 
 eating the nymphcea, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the 
 belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight 
 inches : the length of the legs before and behind consisted 
 a great deal in the tibia> which was strangely long ; but, in 
 my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to measure that 
 joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an inch long ; 
 the colour was a grizzly black ; the mane about four inches 
 long ; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat 
 and splayed. The spring before, it was only two years old, 
 so that most probably it was not then come to its growth. 
 What a vast tall beast must a full grown stag be ! I have 
 been told some arrive at ten feet and a half ! This poor 
 creature had at first a female companion of the same 
 species, which died the spring before. In the same garden 
 
78 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 
 
 was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and this 
 moose it was hoped that there might have been a 
 breed; but their inequality of height must have always 
 been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should 
 have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, 
 hoofs, etc., minutely \ but the putrefaction precluded 
 all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, 
 seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the 
 former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of 
 a male moose, which had no front antlers, but only a broad 
 palm with some snags on the edge. The noble owner of 
 the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones. 
 
 Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds 
 with that you saw ; and whether you think still that the 
 American moose and European elk are the same creature, 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 SELHOBNE, May 12th, 1770. 
 
 LAST month we had such a series of cold, turbulent 
 weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and 
 hail, and tempest, that the regular migration or appearance 
 of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some did 
 not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks 
 after their usual time ; as the blackcap and 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 79 
 
 as long ago as April llth, in frost and snow; but they 
 withdrew quickly, and were not visible again for many 
 days. House-martins, which are always more backward 
 than swallows, were not observed till May came in. 
 
 Among the monogamous birds several are to be found, 
 after pairing-time, single, and of each sex; but whether 
 this state of celibacy is matter of choice or necessity, is not 
 so easy discoverable. When the house-sparrows deprive 
 my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to be shot, 
 the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and 
 so for several times following. 
 
 I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white 
 owls, which made great havoc among the young pigeons : 
 one of the owls was shot as soon as possible; but the 
 survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went on. 
 After some time the new pair were both destroyed, and 
 the annoyance ceased. 
 
 Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal 
 for the increase of his game being greater than his humanity, 
 after pairing-time he always shot the cock-bird of every 
 couple of partridges upon his grounds ; supposing that the 
 rivalry of many males interrupted the breed : he used to 
 say, that, though he had widowed the same hen several 
 times, yet he found she was still provided with a fresh 
 paramour, that did not take her away from her usual haunt. 
 
 Again ; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who 
 has often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently 
 taken small coveys of partridges, consisting of cock-birds 
 alone ; these he pleasantly used to call old bachelors. 
 
 There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats 
 that is very remarkable ; I mean their violent fondness for 
 fish, which appears to be their most favourite food : and yet 
 nature in this instance seems to have planted in them an 
 
80 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify : 
 for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards 
 water ; and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a 
 foot, much less to plunge into that element. 
 
 Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is 
 the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that 
 it makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the waters. 
 Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in our 
 shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter, 
 brought to me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been 
 shot on the bank of our stream below the Priory, where the 
 rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from Harteley-wood. 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 SELBORNE, Aug. 1st, 1770. 
 
 THE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in 
 their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to 
 insects holds good in every other branch " Verbositas 
 prcesentis sceculi, calamitas artis" 
 
 Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work 1 As I 
 admire his Entomologia, I long to see it. 
 
 I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room 
 to insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting 
 time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of 
 North America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the 
 chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was on that 
 errand in the river St. Lawrence : it was a monstrous 
 beast, he told me ; but he did not take the dimensions. 
 
 When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 81 
 
 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 re- 
 member, at Lord Pembroke's at Wilton, a horn, room 
 furnished with more than thirty different pairs ; but I have 
 not seen that house lately. 
 
 Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections 
 of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. 
 After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked 
 that every species almost that came from distant regions, 
 such as South America, the coast of Guinea, etc., were 
 thick-billed birds of the loooia and fringilla genera ; and no 
 motacillce or muscicapas 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. 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 SELBORNE, Sept. Itih, 1770. 
 
 You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native 
 crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident 
 in those cold regions the whole year. From whence then 
 do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly every September, 
 
 297 
 
82 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 and make their appearance again, as if in their return, 
 every April 1 They are more early this year than common, 
 for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this 
 month. 
 
 An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they 
 frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but 
 leave those haunts about the end of September, or beginning 
 of October, and return again about the end of March. 
 
 Another intelligent person assures me that they breed in 
 great abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are called 
 there tor-ousels ; withdraw in October and November, and 
 return in spring. This information seems to throw some 
 light on my new migration. 
 
 Scopoli's new work (which I have just procured) has its 
 merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tyrol and 
 Carniola. Monographers, come from whence they may, 
 have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard and 
 approbation from the lovers of natural history ; for, 
 as no man can alone investigate 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 (T was going to say) improbable facts as when he 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 83 
 
 says of the woodcock that "pullos rostro portat fugiens db 
 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, 
 
 LETTER XXXII. 
 
 SELBORNB, October 29^, 1770. 
 
 AFTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I 
 begin to suspect that I discern my brother's Hirundo 
 hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered Hirundo rupestris, p. 
 167. His description of "Supra murina, subtus albida ; 
 rectrices maculd ovali albd in latere interno ; pedes nudi, 
 nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quam plumce 
 dorsales ; rectrices remigibus concolores ; cauda emarginatd, 
 necforcipata /" agrees very well with the bird in question 
 but when he comes to advance that it is " statura hirun- 
 dinis urbicce" and that "definitio hirundinis riparice Linncei 
 huic quoque convenit" he in some measure invalidates all 
 he has said ; at least he shows at once that he compares them 
 to these species merely from memory : for I have compared 
 the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in every 
 circumstance of shape, size, and colour. However, as you 
 will have a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your 
 judgment is in the matter. 
 
 Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or 
 not, he will have the credit of first discovering that they 
 
84 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 spend their winters under the warm and sheltery shores 
 of Gibraltar and Barbary. 
 
 Scopoli's characters of his ordines and genera are clear, 
 just, and expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnseus. 
 These few remarks are the result of my first perusal of 
 Scopoli's Anrius Primus. 
 
 The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to 
 the other by memory : for want of caution in this particular 
 Scopoli falls into errors : he is not so full with regard to 
 the manners of his indigenous birds as might be wished, 
 as you justly observe : his Latin is easy, elegant, and 
 expressive, and very superior to Kramer's.* 
 
 I am pleased to see that my description of the moose 
 corresponds so well with yours. 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 26th, 1770. 
 
 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 
 
 * See his Elenchtts Vegetabilium et Animalium per Amtriam 
 Inferiorem, etc. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 85 
 
 and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards the north- 
 ward, for the sake of breeding during the summer months, 
 and retiring in parties and broods towards the south at the 
 decline of the year : so that the rock of Gibraltar is the 
 great rendezvous and place of observation from whence 
 they take their departure . each way towards Europe or 
 Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find 
 that our small short-winged summer birds of passage are to 
 be seen spring and autumn on the very skirts of Europe ; 
 it is presumptive proof of their emigrations. 
 
 Scopoli seems to me to have found the Hirundo melba, 
 the great Gibraltar swift, in Tyrol, without knowing it. 
 For what is his Hirundo alpina but the afore-mentioned 
 bird in other words ? Says he u Omnia prioris " (meaning 
 the swift) ; " sed pectus album ; paulo major prior e." I do 
 not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of the 
 melba, that u nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus." Vide 
 Annum Primum. 
 
 My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, 
 but no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone- 
 curlew, oedicnemus, sends me the following account : 
 " In looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the month of 
 April, I find the stone-curlews are first mentioned on the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth, which date seems to me rather 
 late. They live with us all the spring and summer, and at 
 the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by getting 
 together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that 
 may travel into some dry hilly country south of us, 
 probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep-walks in 
 that country j 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 
 
86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELSORNE. 
 
 feed on earthworms, that are common on sheep-walks and 
 downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding 
 with grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in 
 colour ; among which they skulk and conceal themselves. 
 They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground, 
 producing in common but two- at a time. There is reason 
 to think their young run soon after they are hatched ; and 
 that the old ones do not feed them, but only lead them 
 about at the time of feeding, which, for the most part, is in 
 the night." Thus far my friend. 
 
 In the manners of this bird you see there is something 
 very analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat 
 resembles in aspect and make, and in the structure of its 
 feet. 
 
 For a long time I have desired my relation to look out 
 for these birds in Andalusia ; and now he writes me word 
 that, for the first time, he saw one dead in the market on . 
 the 3rd September. 
 
 When the oedicnemus flies, it stretches out its legs 
 straight behind, like a heron. 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 SELBORNE, March 30^, 1771. 
 
 THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, 
 which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of 
 the summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of 
 women and children, and raising tumours which itch 
 intolerably. This animal (which we call a harvest bug) is 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87 
 
 very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye; of a 
 bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of acarus. They 
 are to be met with in gardens on kidney-beans, or any 
 legumens, but prevail only in the hot months of summer. 
 Warreners, as some have assured me, are much infested by 
 them on chalky downs, where these insects swarm some- 
 times to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and 
 to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as 
 to be thrown into fevers. 
 
 There is a small long shining fly in these parts very 
 troublesome to the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, 
 and laying its eggs in the bacon while it is drying ; these 
 eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in 
 the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to the 
 bone, and make great waste. This fly I suspect to be a 
 variety of the Musca putris of Linnseus ; it is to be seen in 
 the summer in farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and about 
 the mantel-pieces, and on the ceilings. 
 
 The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the 
 garden (destroying often whole fields while in their seedling 
 leaves) is an animal that wants to be better known. The 
 country people here call it the turnip-fly and black-dolphin ; 
 but I know it to be one of the coleoptera ; the " Chrysomela 
 oleracea saltatoria, femoribus poslicis crassissimis." In 
 very hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and, 
 as you walk in a field or in a garden, make a pattering 
 like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or 
 cabbages. 
 
 There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every 
 ploughboy ; which, because it is omitted by Linnseus, is 
 also passed over by late writers ; and that is the curvicauda 
 of old Mofuet, mentioned by Derham in his Physico- 
 Theology^ p. 250 ; an insect worthy of remark for depositing 
 
88 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner on the single 
 hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But then 
 Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is 
 the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he 
 mentions afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have 
 discovered that singular production to be derived from the 
 egg of the Musca chamceleon ; see Geoffroy, t. xvii. f. 4. 
 
 A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field, 
 garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely 
 means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public 
 to be a most useful and important work. What knowledge 
 there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; 
 great improvements would soon follow of course. A 
 knowledge of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in 
 short, of the life and conversation of these animals, is a 
 necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing 
 their depredations. 
 
 As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend 
 entomology more than some neat plates that should well 
 express the generic distinctions of insects according to 
 Linnaeus ; for I am well assured that many people would 
 study insects, could they set out with a more adequate 
 notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first 
 by words alone. 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 SELBORNB, 1771. 
 
 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 89 
 
 feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up 
 their backs. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, about 
 six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and 
 serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and 
 top-heavy when set on end. When the train is up, nothing 
 appears of the bird before but its head and neck ; but this 
 would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only 
 in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a 
 strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibration these 
 birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like 
 the swords of a sword-dancer ; they then trample very 
 quick with their feet, and run backwards towards the 
 females. 
 
 I should tell you that I have got an uncommon Calculus 
 cegogropila, 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 fiat. 
 
 LETTER XXXVL 
 
 Sept. 1771. 
 
 THE summer through I have seen but two of that large 
 species of bat which I call Vespertilio altivolans, from its 
 manner of feeding high in the air : I procured one of them, 
 and found it to be a male ; and made no doubt, as they 
 accompanied together, that the other was a female ; but 
 happening in an evening or two to procure the other like- 
 wise, I was somewhat disappointed when it appeared to be 
 also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great 
 
90 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 examina- 
 tion, and some attention to the sex, of more specimens : all 
 that I know at present is, that my two were amply 
 furnished with the parts of generation, much resembling 
 those of a boar. 
 
 In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen 
 inches and a half ; and four inches and a half from the nose 
 to the tip of the tail : their heads were large, their nostrils 
 bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular ; and their 
 whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could be more 
 sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut 
 colour ; their maws were full of food, but so macerated that 
 the quality could not be distinguished ; their livers, 
 kidneys, and hearts were large, and their bowels covered 
 with fat. They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce 
 and one drachm. Within the ear there was somewhat of a 
 peculiar structure that I did not understand perfectly ; but 
 refer it to the observation of the curious anatomist. These 
 creatures sent forth a very rancid and offensive smell. 
 
 LETTER XXXVIL 
 
 SELBOENE, 1771. 
 
 ON the 12th July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating 
 the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it was 
 playing round a large oak that swarmed with Scarabcei 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SEIBORNE. 91 
 
 solstitiales, or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing were 
 wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions and 
 quick turns of the swallow genus. But the circumstance that 
 pleased me most was, that I saw it distinctly, more than 
 once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and, by a 
 bend of the head, deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it 
 takes any part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the 
 greatest reason to suppose it does these chafers, I no longer 
 wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiously 
 furnished with a serrated claw. 
 
 Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have 
 forsaken us sooner this year than usual ; for on September 
 22nd they rendezvoused in a neighbour's walnut-tree, where 
 it seemed probable they had taken up their lodging for the 
 night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they 
 arose all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a 
 rushing from the strokes of their wings against the hazy 
 air, as might be heard to a considerable distance : since that 
 no flock has appeared, only a few stragglers. 
 
 Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd of August a rare 
 instance ! for they usually withdraw within the first week. 
 
 On the 24th of September three or four ring-ousels 
 appeared in my fields for the first time this season ; how 
 punctual are these visitors in their autumnal and spring 
 migrations ! 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, March 15^, 1773. 
 
 BY my journal for last autumn it appears that the house- 
 martins bred very late and stayed very late in these parts 
 for on the 1st of October I saw young martins in their 
 
92 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 nest nearly fledged; and again, on the 21st of October, 
 we had at the next house a nest full of young martins just 
 ready to fly ; and the old ones were hawking for insects 
 with great alertness. The next morning the brood forsook 
 their nest, and were flying round the village. From this 
 day I never saw one of the swallow kind till the 3rd of 
 November ; 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 nestling twelve days ago, shift their quarters at 
 this late season of the year to the other side of the northern 
 tropic ? Or rather, is it not more probable that the next 
 church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sandbank, 
 lake or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say), may 
 become their hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and 
 obvious retreat 1 
 
 We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring- 
 ousels every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me 
 that ring-ousels were seen at Christmas 1770 in the forest 
 of Bere, on the southern verge of this county. Hence we 
 may conclude that their migrations are only internal, and 
 not extended to the continent southward, if they do at first 
 come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and 
 not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they 
 will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they show 
 for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed 
 to places of much resort. Navigators mention that in the 
 Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds 
 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 93 
 
 in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one after- 
 noon; he added further, that some had appeared since 
 in every autumn ; but he could not find that any had been 
 observed before the season in which he shot so many. 
 I myself have found these birds in little parties in the 
 autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there 
 were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; 
 particularly in the autumn of 1770. 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 9th t 1773. 
 
 As you desire me to send you such observations as may 
 occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks, 
 that you may, according as you think me right or wrong, 
 admit or reject what I here advance, in your intended new 
 edition of the British Zoology. 
 
 The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, 
 a great lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was 
 sitting on the handle of a plough and devouring a fish : it 
 used to precipitate itself into the water, and so take its 
 prey by surprise. 
 
 A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in 
 Tisted Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird [shrike] at 
 Selborne : they are rarce aves in this county. 
 
 Crows go in pairs all the year round. 
 
 Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head, and 
 on all the cliffs on the Sussex coast. 
 
 The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage 
 in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end 
 
94 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 of November ; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage. 
 Before our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had 
 myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as 
 they went out in a morning to feed. They leave us early 
 in spring ; where do they breed ? 
 
 The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird 
 the storm -cock, because it sings early in the spring in blow- 
 ing showery weather ; its song often commences with the 
 year : with us it builds much in orchards. 
 
 A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of 
 ring-ousels on Dartmoor ; they build in banks on the sides 
 of streams. 
 
 Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but 
 also as they play and toy about on the wing ; and par- 
 ticularly while they are descending, and sometimes they 
 stand on the ground. 
 
 Adanson's testimony seems to me to be a very poor 
 evidence that European swallows migrate during our winter 
 to Senegal : he does not talk at all like an ornithologist ; 
 and probably saw only the swallows of that country, which 
 I know build within Governor O'Hara's hall against the 
 roof. Had he known European swallows, would he not 
 have mentioned the species *? 
 
 The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as 
 it flies : this species appears commonly about a week before 
 the house-martin, and about ten or twelve days before the 
 swift. 
 
 In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till 
 October 23rd. 
 
 The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the 
 house-swallow viz., about the 24th or 26th April. 
 
 Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole 
 year. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 95 
 
 Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through. 
 
 Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter. 
 
 Bullfinches, when fed on hempseed, often become wholly 
 black. 
 
 We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the winter, 
 with hardly any males among them. 
 
 When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes make 
 a bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should rather 
 have said a humming), I suspect we mean the same thing. 
 However, while they are playing about on the wing they 
 certainly make a loud piping with their mouths : but 
 whether that bleating or humming is ventriloquous, or 
 proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but 
 this I know, that when this noise happens the bird is 
 always descending, and his wings are violently agitated. 
 
 Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congre- 
 gate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves 
 to downs and sheep-walks. 
 
 Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive 
 and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a 
 few miles from Alresford, where there is a great lake : it 
 was kept awhile, but died. 
 
 I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer 
 Forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or 
 young wild ducks. 
 
 Speaking of the swift, that page says " its drink the 
 dew ; " whereas it should be, " it drinks on the wing ; " for 
 all the swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over the 
 face of pools or rivers : like Virgil's bees, they drink flying ; 
 "jlumina summa libant" In this method of drinking 
 perhaps this genus may be peculiar. 
 
 Of the sedge-bird be pleased to say it sings most part of 
 the night ; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and 
 
96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 imitative of several birds ; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. 
 When it happens to be silent in the night, by throwing a 
 stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately 
 set it a-singing ; or, in other words, though it slumbers 
 sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it reassumes its 
 song. 
 
 LETTER XL. 
 
 SELBOENE, Sept. 2nd, 1774. 
 
 BEFORE your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had 
 been remarking and comparing the tails of the male and 
 female swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared ; 
 so that there was no danger of confounding the dams with 
 their pulli : and besides, as they were then always in pairs, 
 and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be no 
 room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different 
 chimneys the one for the other. From all my observations 
 it constantly appeared that each sex has the long feathers 
 in its tail that give it that forked shape ; with this 
 difference, that they are longer in the tail of the male than 
 in that of the female. 
 
 Nightingales, when their young first come abroad, and 
 are helpless, make a plaintive and a jarring noise ; and also 
 a snapping or cracking, pursuing people along the hedges as 
 they walk : these last sounds seem intended for menace and 
 defiance. 
 
 The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of 
 summer. 
 
 Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 97 
 
 Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being 
 sometimes caught in mole-traps. 
 
 Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and 
 the kestril in churches and ruins. 
 
 There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island 
 of Ely. The threads sometimes discovered in eels are 
 perhaps their young : the generation of eels is very dark 
 and mysterious. 
 
 Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to 
 settle on trees. 
 
 When redstarts shake their tails they move them hori- 
 zontally, as dogs do when they fawn : the tail of a wagtail, 
 when in motion, bobs up and down like that of a jaded 
 horse. 
 
 Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings 
 in breeding-time; as soon as frosty mornings come they 
 make a very piping plaintive noise. 
 
 Many birds which become silent about Midsummer 
 reassume their notes again in September ; as the thrush, 
 blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, etc. ; hence August is by 
 much the most mute month, the spring, summer, and 
 autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because 
 the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring 1 
 
 LinnaBUS 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 
 
 298 
 
98 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK 
 
 his dogs devoured all the little red mice that they could 
 catch, but rejected the common mice ; and that his cats ate 
 the common mice, refusing the red. 
 
 Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and 
 autumn. The reason that they are called autumn songsters 
 is, because in the two first seasons their voices are drowned 
 and lost in the general chorus ; in the latter their song 
 becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn 
 seem to be the young cock redbreasts of that year: not- 
 withstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do much 
 mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.* 
 
 The titmouse, which early in February begins to make 
 two quaint notes, like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh 
 titmouse: the great titmouse sings with three cheerful, 
 joyous notes, and begins about the same time. 
 
 Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted. 
 
 House-martins came remarkably late this year both in 
 Hampshire and Devonshire; is this circumstance for or 
 against either hiding or migration ? 
 
 Most birds drink sipping at intervals ; but pigeons take 
 a long continued draught, like quadrupeds. 
 
 Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no 
 grey crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor ; it was 
 my mistake. 
 
 The appearance and flying of the Scardbceus solstitialis, 
 or fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease 
 about the end of it. These scarabs are the constant food 
 of Caprimulgi, or fern-owls, through that period. They 
 abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy districts, 
 but not in the clays. 
 
 In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the town of 
 
 * They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the 
 Euonymus Europatus, or spindle -tree. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 99 
 
 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 1 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. These birds seem of a 
 pugnacious disposition ; for they sing with an erected crest 
 and attitudes of rivalry and defiance ; are shy and wild in 
 breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely 
 lanes and commons, nay, even the very tops of the Sussex 
 downs, where there are bushes and covert ; but in July 
 and August they bring their broods into gardens and 
 orchards, and make great havoc among the summer-fruits. 
 
 The 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 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 
 
100 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 build in orchards and about houses ; with us he perches on 
 the vane of a tall maypole. 
 
 The fly -catcher is of all our summer birds the most mute 
 and the most familiar ; it also appears the last of any. It 
 builds in a vine, or a sweetbriar, against the wall of a house, 
 or in the hole of a wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, 
 and often close to the post of a door where people are going 
 in and out all day long. This bird does not make the least 
 pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note 
 when it thinks its young in danger from cats or other 
 annoyances ; it breeds but once, and retires early. 
 
 Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times 
 more than half the birds that are ever seen in all Sweden ; 
 the former has produced more than one hundred and twenty 
 species, the latter only two hundred and twenty-one. Let 
 me add also that it has shown near half the species that 
 were ever known in Great Britain. 
 
 On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries 
 with it a quaint and magisterial air, and is very senten- 
 tious ; but when I recollect that you requested stricture 
 and anecdote, I hope you will pardon the didactic manner 
 for the sake of the information it may happen to contain. 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those 
 species of soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter 
 through subsist during the dead months. The imbecility of 
 birds seems not to be the only reason why they shun the 
 rigour of our winters ; for the robust wryneck (so much 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 101 
 
 resembling the hardy race of woodpeckers) migrates, while 
 the feeble little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a 
 bird, braves our severest frosts without availing himself of 
 houses or villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd 
 in distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and 
 woods; but perhaps this may be the reason why they may 
 often perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird 
 we know. 
 
 I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds 
 which winter with us subsist chiefly on insects in their 
 aurelia state. All the species of wagtails in severe weather 
 haunt shallow streams near their spring-heads, where they 
 never freeze ; and, by wading, pick out the aurelias of the 
 genus of Phryganece, etc. 
 
 Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard 
 weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings ; 
 and in mild weather they procure worms, which are stirring 
 every month in the year, as any one may see that will only 
 be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any 
 mild winter's night. Redbreasts and wrens in the winter 
 haunt outhouses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders 
 and flies that have laid themselves up during the cold season. 
 But the grand support of the soft-billed birds in winter is 
 that infinite profusion of aurelia of the Lepidoptera ordo, 
 which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their trunks ; to 
 the pales and walls of gardens and buildings ; and is found 
 in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in 
 the ground itself. 
 
 Every species of titmouse winters with us : they have 
 what I call a kind of intermediate bill between the 
 hard and the soft, between the Linnsean genera of 
 Fringilla and Motacilla. One species alone spends its 
 whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating 
 
102 'NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 for succour in the severest seasons to houses and neigh* 
 bourhoods, 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 (Parus ater\ the great black-headed titmouse (Parus 
 fringillago), and the marsh titmouse (Parus palustris), 
 all resort at times to buildings, and in hard weather 
 particularly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of 
 weather, much frequents houses ; and, in deep snows, I 
 have seen this bird, while it hung with its back downwards 
 (to my no small delight and admiration), draw straws 
 lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses, in order 
 to pull out the flies that were concealed between them, and 
 that in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch, 
 and gave it a ragged appearance. 
 
 The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of 
 houses, and a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very 
 fond of flesh, for it frequently picks bones on dunghills : it 
 is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts butchers' shops. 
 When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught 
 with snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or suet. It will 
 also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well 
 entertained with the seeds on the head of a sunflower. 
 The blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very severe 
 weather, carry away barley and oat-straws from the sides 
 of ricks. 
 
 How the wheat-ear and whin-chat support themselves in 
 winter cannot be so easily ascertained, since they spend 
 their time on wild heaths and warrens ; the former especi- 
 ally, where there are stone quarries : most probably it is 
 that their maintenance arises from the aurelise of the 
 Lepidoptera ordo, which furnish them with a plentiful 
 table in the wilderness. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELLORNE. 103 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 
 SELBORNE, March Mh, 1775. 
 
 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 
 in agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they 
 were heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives, 
 their superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life, 
 will extort from him many useful reflections. He should 
 also take with him an able draughtsman ; for he must by 
 no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the 
 extensive and picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and the 
 lofty, stupendous mountains, so little known, and so 
 engaging to the imagination when described and exhibited 
 in a lively manner : such a work will 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 
 
104: NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 zig-zag up the Coryarich must not be 
 passed over. Moll takes notice of Hamilton and Drum- 
 lanrig, and , such capital houses ; but a new survey, no 
 doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable 
 for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, etc. 
 Lord Breadalbane's seat and beautiful policy are too curious 
 and extraordinary to be omitted. 
 
 The seat of the Earl of Eglingtoun, near Glasgow, is 
 worthy of notice. The pine plantations of that nobleman 
 are very grand and extensive indeed. 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 
 A PAIR of honey-buzzards, Buteo opivorus, sive Vespivorus 
 Raii, built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs 
 and lined with dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender 
 beech near the middle of Selborne Hanger, in the summer 
 of 1780. In the middle of the month of June a bold boy 
 climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and dizzy a 
 situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the 
 nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained 
 the embryo of a young bird. The egg was smaller, and not 
 so round as those of the common buzzard ; was dotted at 
 
NATURAL HISTORY Of 1 SELBORNE. 105 
 
 each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the 
 middle with a broad bloody zone. 
 
 The hen-bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. 
 Ray's description of that species ; had a black cere, short 
 thick legs, and a long tail. When on the wing this species 
 may be easily distinguished from the common buzzard by 
 its hawk-like appearance, small head, wings not so blunt, 
 and longer tail. This specimen contained in its craw some 
 limbs of frogs and many grey snails without shells. The 
 irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright 
 yellow colour. 
 
 About the 10th 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 havoc for 
 some days among the new-flown swallows and martins, 
 which, being but lately out of their nests, had not acquired 
 those powers and command of wing that enable them, 
 when more mature, to set such enemies at defiance. 
 
106 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XLIV. 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 30^, 1780. 
 
 EVERY incident that occasions a renewal of our correspond- 
 ence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. 
 
 As to the wild wood-pigeon, the cenas, or vinago, of 
 Ray, I am much of your mind; and see no reason for 
 making it the origin of the common house-dove : but 
 suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have 
 been misled by another appellation, often given to the cenas, 
 which is that of stock-dove. 
 
 Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in 
 manners from itself in summer, no species seems more 
 unlikely to be domesticated, and to make a house-dove. 
 We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does 
 it ever haunt the woods ; but the former, as long as it stays 
 with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the 
 same wild life with the ring-dove, Palumbus torquatus ; 
 frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by 
 mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it 
 be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt 
 would be settled with me at once, provided they construct 
 their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect 
 they do. 
 
 You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from 
 Sussex ; and are informed that they sometimes breed in 
 that county. But why did not your correspondent deter- 
 mine the place of its mdification, 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 107 
 
 For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing 
 that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock- 
 pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place, the wild 
 stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house- 
 dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which 
 generally enlarges the breed. Again, those two remarkable 
 black spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, 
 which are so characteristic of the species, would .not, one 
 should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed, but 
 would often break out among its descendants. But what 
 is worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in 
 Sir Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Csenarvonshire ; which, 
 though tempted by plenty food and gentle treatment, can 
 never be prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time ; 
 but, as soon a's they begin to breed, betake themselves to 
 the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in 
 safety amidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of 
 that stupendous promontory. 
 
 11 Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret." 
 
 I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth 
 year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the 
 beechen woods were much more extensive than at present, 
 the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing ; that he has 
 often killed near twenty in a day ; and that with a long 
 wild-fowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the 
 wing as they came wheeling over his head : he moreover 
 adds, which I was not aware of, that often there were 
 among them little parties of small blue doves, which he 
 calls rockiers. The food of these numberless emigrants was 
 beech-mast and some acorns ; and particularly barley, which 
 they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the 
 vast increase of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a 
 
108 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 great part of their support in hard weather ; and the holes 
 they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop. From 
 this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which 
 occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who 
 thought them before a delicate dish. They were shot not 
 only as they were feeding in the fields, and especially in 
 snowy weather, but also at the close of the evening, by men 
 who lay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill 
 them as they came in to roost. * These are the principal 
 circumstances relating to this wonderful internal migration, 
 which with us takes place towards the end of November, 
 and ceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in 
 Selborne high wood about a hundred of these doves ; but 
 in former times the flocks were so vast, not only with us 
 but all the district round, that on mornings and evenings 
 they traversed the air, like rooks, in strings, reaching for a 
 mile together. When they thus rendezvoused here by 
 thousands., if they happened to be suddenly roused from 
 their roost-trees on an evening, 
 
 '* Their rising all at once was like the sound 
 Of thunder heard remote." 
 
 It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to 
 add, that I had a relation in this neighbourhood who made 
 it a practice, for a time, whenever he could procure the 
 eggs of a ring-dove, to place them under a pair of doves 
 that were sitting in his own pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, 
 if he could bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, 
 and teach his own doves to beat out into the woods, and to 
 support themselves by mast ; the plan was plausible, but 
 something always interrupted the success ; for though the 
 
 * "Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks used 
 to withdraw as soon as the heavy Christmas frosts were over." 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 109 
 
 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 tnenace. 
 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. 
 
 Yirgil, 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 : 
 
 "Qualis spelunca subito commota Columba, 
 Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, 
 Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis, 
 Dat tecto ingentem mox aere lapsa quieto, 
 Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas." 
 
 " As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes, 
 Rous'd, in a fright her sounding wings she shakes ; 
 The cavern rings with clattering : out she flies, 
 And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies : 
 At first she flutters : but at length she springs 
 To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wingg." 
 
LETTERS TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON> 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 SELBORNE, June 30A, 1769. 
 
 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 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 
 outdoor naturalist, one that takes his observations from the 
 subject itself, and not from the writings of others, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING IS A LlST OF THE SUMMER BlRDS OF PAS- 
 SAGE WHICH I HAVE DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, 
 RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY 
 APPEAR : 
 
 KAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT 
 
 1. Wryneck. Junx t sive torquitta. { Th n e o ddle f March : harsh 
 
 2. Smallest ml- f Eeguli^s non crista- /March 23rd: chirps till 
 
 low-wren, \ tus. \ September. 
 
 3. Swallow, Eirundo domestica. April 13th. 
 
 4. Martin, Hirundo rustica. Ditto. 
 
 5. Sand-martin, ffirimdo riparia. Ditto. 
 
 6. Blackcap, Atricapilla. Ditto : a sweet wild note. 
 
 7. Nightingale, Luscinia. Beginning of April. 
 
 8. Cuckoo, Guculus. Middle of April. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. Ill 
 
 . BAII NOMINA. TJSTJALLY APPEARS ABOUT 
 
 9. Middle willow- fEegulus non crista- /Middle of April : a sweot 
 wren, \ tus. \ plaintive note. 
 
 10. White-throat,- Ficedula affinls. P^LJ***^ n v 6 ; sing3 
 
 \ on till September. 
 
 11. Red-start, Euticilla. Ditto : more agreeable song. 
 
 12. Stone-curlew, Oedicnemus. -f End of March : loud noc- 
 
 turnal whistle. 
 
 13. Turtle-dove, Turtur. 
 
 14. Grasshopper- (Alauda minima [ Mi( * d ! e of April : a small 
 
 lark, locust* wee. \ sibiloiw note, till he 
 
 \ end of July. 
 
 15. Swift, Hirundo apus. About April 27th. 
 
 16. Less reed-spar- f Passer arundinaceus f A sweet polyglot, but 
 
 row, \ minor. 1 "} : lfc ^ a , s the 
 
 ^ 01 many birds. 
 
 17. Land-ra Ortygomctra. | A ^ ud ,l iarsh note * ' crox * 
 
 18. Largest wil- ( Regulus non CT i sta ,(Gantatvocestriduldlocustce; 
 
 low wren, \ tus. end of April on the tops 
 
 ^ of high beeches. 
 
 singular noise. 
 TMay 12th: a very mute 
 
 20, Fly-catcher, Stoparola. \ bird ; this is the latest 
 
 summer bird of passage. 
 
 f 
 
 This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs 
 to ten several genera of the Linnaean system ; and are all 
 of the ordo of passeres save the jynx and cuculus, which 
 are piece, and the charadrius (Oedicnemus) and rallus 
 (ortygometra), which are grallce. 
 
 These] birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the 
 following Linnsean genera : 
 
 1, Jynx. 17. Columba. 
 
 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18, Motacilla. 13. Rallus. 
 
 8, 4, 5, 15, Hirundo. 19. Caprimulgus. 
 
 8. Cuculus. 14. Alauda. 
 
 12. Charadrius. 20. Muscicapa. 
 
112 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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, 
 
 White-wagtail, 
 Yellow-wagtail, 
 Grey-wagtail, 
 
 Wheat-ear, 
 
 Whin-chat, 
 Stone-chatter, 
 
 EAII NOMINA. 
 
 Jtubecula. 
 Passer troglodytes. 
 
 Hedge-sparrow, Curruca. 
 
 Motacilla alba. 
 Motacilla flava. 
 Motacilla cinerea. 
 
 Oenanthe. 
 
 Oenanthe secunda. 
 Oenanthe tertia. 
 
 
 f These frequent houses, and 
 haunt out-buildings in 
 
 [ the winter : eat spiders. 
 
 /Haunts sinks for crumbs 
 
 \ and other sweepings. 
 
 ' These frequent shallow 
 rivulets near the spring 
 heads, where they never 
 freeze ; eat the aurelise of 
 Phryganea. The smallest 
 birds that walk. 
 Some of these are to be 
 seen with us the winter 
 through. 
 
 (This is the smallest British 
 bird : haunts the tops of 
 tall trees : stays the 
 winter through. 
 
 A LIST OF THE WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE ROUND THIS 
 
 NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN 
 WHICH THEY APPEAR : 
 
 RAII NOMINA, 
 
 1. Ring-ousel, Merula torquata. 
 
 2. Redwing, 
 
 3. Fieldfare, 
 
 Turdus iliacus. 
 Turdus pilaris. 
 
 fThis is a new migration, 
 which I have lately d'is- 
 covered about Michaelmas 
 week, and again about 
 the 14th March. 
 About old Michaelmas. 
 /Though a percher by day, 
 \ roosts on the ground. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 113 
 
 BAII NOMINA. 
 
 4. Royston-crow, Gornix cinerea. 
 
 5. Woodcock, Scolopax. 
 
 6. Snipe, Gallinago minor. 
 
 7. Jack-snipe, Gallinago minima. 
 
 8. Wood-pigeon, Oenas. 
 
 9. Wild-swan, Cygnusferus. 
 
 10. Wild-goose, Anser ferns. 
 
 11. Wild-duck, Anas torquata minor. 
 
 12. Pochard, Anas f era fusca. 
 
 13. Widgeon, Penelope. 
 
 14. Teal, breeds \ 
 
 Forest, 
 
 15. Cross-beak, 
 
 16. Cross-bill, 
 
 17. Silk- tail, 
 
 Coccothraustes. 
 
 Loxia. 
 
 Garrulus bohemicus. 
 
 Most frequent on downs. 
 / Appears about old 
 \ Michaelmas. 
 f Some snipes constantly 
 \ breed with us. 
 
 /Seldom appears till late; 
 \ not so plenty as formerly. 
 On some large waters. 
 
 On our lakes and streams. 
 
 These are only wanderers 
 that appear occasionally, 
 and are not observant 
 of any regular migration. 
 
 These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the 
 following Linnaean genera : 
 
 1, 2, 3, Turdus. 
 
 4, Corvus. 
 
 5, 6, 7, Scolopax. 
 8, Columba. 
 
 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Anas. 
 
 15, 16, Loxia. 
 
 17. 
 
 Birds that sing in the night are but few : 
 
 { 
 
 Nightingale, 
 
 Woodlark, Alauda arborea. 
 
 Less reed-sparrow, 
 
 In shadiest covert hid." 
 
 MILTON. 
 Suspended in mid air. 
 
 Among reeds and willows. 
 
 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 
 
 299 
 
114 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 now the season for remarking on that subject, I am willing 
 to repeat my observations on some birds concerning the 
 continuation of whose song I seem at present to have some 
 doubt. 
 
 LETTER IL 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 2n^ 1769. 
 
 WHEN I did myself the honour to write to you about the 
 end of last June on the subject of natural history, I sent 
 you a list of the summer birds of passage which I have 
 observed in this neighbourhood and also a list of the 
 winter birds of passage : I mentioned besides those soft- 
 billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the 
 south of England, and those that are remarkable for 
 singing in the night. 
 
 According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such 
 birds (singing birds strictly so called) as continue in full 
 song till after midsummer ; and shall range them somewhat 
 in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring 
 advances. 
 
 1. Woodlark, 
 
 2. Song-thrush, 
 
 3. Wren, 
 
 4. Redbreast, 
 
 BAII NOMINA. 
 
 Alauda arlorea, 
 
 f In Janu 
 -! to sin 
 [ summ 
 
 didus. 
 
 fat** troglodyte. 
 Rubecula. 
 
 January, and continues 
 sing through all the 
 summer and autumn. 
 (^ In February and on to 
 
 t August ; reassume their 
 song in autumn. 
 / All the year, hard frost ex- 
 Ditto. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 115 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 5. Hedge-sparrow, Curruca, 
 
 6. Yellow-hammer, Emleriza Jlava. 
 
 7. Skylark, 
 
 8. Swallow, 
 
 9. Blackcap, 
 
 10. Titlark, 
 
 11. Blackbird, 
 
 Alauda vulgaris. 
 Hirundo domestica. 
 Atricapilla. 
 
 Alauda pratorum. 
 Merula vulgaris. 
 
 f Early in February to July 
 1 10th. 
 
 f Early in February, and on 
 -! through July to August 
 [ 21st. 
 
 f In February, and on to 
 \ October. 
 
 From April to September: 
 / Beginning of April to July 
 \ 13th. 
 
 /From middle of April to 
 \ July 16th. 
 
 f Sometimes in February and 
 J March, and so on to July 
 | 23rd ; reassumes in 
 V. autumn. 
 
 In April, and on to July 23rd. 
 
 {April, and through to Sep- 
 tember 16th. 
 On to July and August 2nd. 
 
 12. White-throat, Ficedulos affinis. 
 
 13. Goldfinch, Carduelis. 
 
 14. Greenfinch, Chloris. 
 
 15. Less reed-spar- \Passer arundinaceus f May, on to beginning of 
 
 row, f minor. \ July. 
 
 i Breeds and whistles on tLJl 
 August ; reassumes its 
 C3S %*&& 
 and again early before 
 the flocks separate. 
 
 Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent 
 at or before midsummer : 
 
 RAII NOMINA. 
 
 17. Middle willow- \Regulus 
 
 wren, 
 
 18. Redstart, 
 
 19. Chaffinch, 
 
 J talus. 
 Ruticilla. 
 
 Fringilla. 
 
 20. Nightingale, Luscinia, 
 
 non cris- ( Middle of June ; begins in 
 | April. 
 
 Ditto ; begins in May. 
 /Beginning of June; sings 
 \ first in February. 
 / Middle of June ; sings first 
 \ in April. 
 
116 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the 
 
 spring : 
 
 EAII NOMINA. 
 
 21. Missel-bird, Turdus mscivoruj. 
 
 22 - 
 
 f January 2nd, 1770, in 
 February. Is called in 
 Hampshire and Sussex 
 the storm-cock, because 
 its song is supposed to for- 
 bode windy wet weather ; 
 it is the largest singing 
 bird we have. 
 
 ( In February, March, April; 
 
 -I reassumes for a short 
 
 ^ time in September. 
 
 Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are 
 hardly to be called singing birds : 
 
 23. Golden-crown- 
 ed wren, 
 
 j- Eegulus cristatus. 
 
 24. Marsh-titmouse 
 
 nail wi 
 wren, 
 
 26. Largest ditto 
 
 (Its note as minute as its 
 person ; frequents the 
 tops of high oaks and firs ; 
 the smallest British bird. 
 f Haunts great woods ; two 
 \ harsh sharp notes. 
 
 25. Small willow- Rcgulus non cris- ( Sings in March, and on to 
 
 \ September. 
 ( Cantat vocestriduld locustcc ; 
 -j from end of April to 
 ^ August. 
 
 tatus. 
 Ditto, 
 
 27. Grasshopper- 
 
 lark, 
 
 28. Martin, 
 
 29. Bullfinch, 
 
 30. Bunting, 
 
 Hirundo agrestis. 
 
 Pyrrhula. 
 Emberiza alba. 
 
 end of July. 
 / All the breeding time ; from 
 \ May to September. 
 
 ( From the end of January to 
 t July. 
 
 All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to 
 song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, 
 come- under the Linnsean ordo of passer es* 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 117 
 
 The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, 
 belong to the following Linnsean genera : 
 
 1, 7, 10, 27, Alauda. 8, 28, Hirundo. 
 
 2, 11, 21, Turdus. 13, 16, 19, Fringilla. 
 
 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17, \ MotapillfL 22, 24, Parus. 
 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, J ? H> ^ 
 
 6, 30, JEmberiza. 
 
 Birds that sing as they fly are but few : 
 
 KAII NOMINA. 
 
 Skylark, 
 
 Alauda vulgar is. 
 
 j .tusing, suspended, ana 
 
 Titlark, 
 Woodlark, 
 
 Alauda pratorum. 
 
 f In its descent ; also sitting 
 -j on trees, and walking on 
 I the ground. 
 / Suspended ; in hot summer 
 "I nights all night long. 
 
 Blackbird, 
 
 Merula. 
 
 I Sometimes from uusn to 
 1 Dusn. 
 
 White-throat, 
 
 Swallow, 
 Wren, 
 
 Ficedula affirm. 
 
 Hirundo domestica. 
 Passer troglodytes. 
 
 f Uses when singing on the 
 -j wing odd jerks and 
 ^ gesticulations. 
 In soft sunny weather. 
 f Sometimes from bush to 
 
 Birds that 
 
 breed most early in 
 
 these parts : 
 
 Raven, 
 
 Corvus. 
 
 { H Ma h rcL in February aud 
 
 Song-thrush, 
 Blackbird, 
 
 Rook, 
 Woodlark, 
 Ring-dove, 
 
 Turdus. In March. 
 Merula. In March. 
 
 CormxfrugiUga. {^arcK^ begfaming f 
 Alauda arbor ea* Hatches in April. 
 
 T i T j j. I Lavs tne heffinnin&r of 
 Palumbus torguatus. 1 1 nril 
 
 All birds that continue in full song till after midsummer 
 appear to me to breed more than onca 
 
118 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy 
 somewhat in proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this 
 island, where they are much pursued and annoyed ; but in 
 Ascension Island, and many other desolate places, mariners 
 have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, 
 that they would stand still to be taken ; as is the case with 
 boobies, etc. As an example of what is advanced, I remark 
 that the golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird) 
 will stand unconcerned till you come within three or four 
 yards of it, while the bustard (otis), the largest British 
 land fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many 
 furlongs. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 SELBORNE, Jan. 15th, 1770. 
 
 IT was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that 
 you were not displeased with my little methodus of birds. 
 If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be owing to 
 its punctuality. For many months I carried a list in my 
 pocket of the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I 
 rode or walked about my business, I noted each day the 
 continuance or omission of each bird's song ; so that I am 
 as sure of the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any 
 transaction whatsoever. 
 
 I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which 
 you put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner 
 that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where 
 you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, and 
 therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 119 
 
 your eye on ray last letter, you will find that many species 
 continued to warble after the beginning of July. 
 
 The titlark and yellow-hammer breed late, the latter very 
 late ; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract their 
 song : for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology, that as 
 long as there is any incubation going on there is music. 
 As to the redbreast and wren, it is well known to the most 
 incurious observer that they whistle the year round, hard 
 frost excepted ; especially the latter. 
 
 It was not in my power to procure you a blackcap, or a 
 less reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is 
 undoubtedly, and the last, as far as I can yet see, a summer 
 bird of passage, they would require more nice and curious 
 management in a cage than I should be able to give them : 
 they are both distinguished songsters. The note of the 
 former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to 
 my mind those lines in a song in " As You Like It " 
 
 ' ' And tune his merry note 
 Unto the wild bird's throat." SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling 
 the song of several other birds ; but then it has also a 
 hurrying manner, not at all to its advantage : it is 
 notwithstanding a delicate polyglot. 
 
 It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night > 
 perhaps only caged birds do so. I once knew a tame red- 
 breast in a cage that always sang as long as candles were in 
 the room ; but in their wild state no one supposes they sing 
 in the night. 
 
 I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are 
 to be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former 
 month, notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily. 
 Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect to the 
 
120 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer 
 advances : and I saw, at the time mentioned, many 
 hundreds of young wagtails on the banks of the Cherwell, 
 which almost covered the meadows. If the matter appears 
 as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to the 
 dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are 
 concealed by the leaves 1 
 
 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 subsist- 
 ence might be : all that I could ever find was a soft mucus, 
 among which lay many pellucid small gravels. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. 19^, 1770. 
 
 YOUR observation that u the cuckoo does not deposit its 
 egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes 
 in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in some degree 
 . congenerous, with whom to intrust its young," is perfectly 
 new to me ; and struck me so forcibly, that I naturally fell 
 into a train of thought that led me to consider whether the 
 fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I 
 came to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any 
 cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, except in the nest 
 of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white- 
 throat, and the red-breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. 
 The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest of the 
 palumbus (ring-dove), and of the fringilla (chaffinch), birds 
 that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food ; but 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 121 
 
 then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge ; 
 but says afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail 
 feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly possible that a 
 soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food with the 
 hard-billed : for the former have thin membranaceous 
 stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the latter, the 
 granivorous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which, 
 like mills, grind, by the help of small gravels and peebles, 
 what is swallowed. This proceeding of the cuckoo, of 
 dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous 
 outrage on maternal affection, one of the first great dictates 
 of nature, and such a violence on instinct, that, had it only 
 been related of a bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it would never 
 have merited our belief. But yet, should it farther appear 
 that this simple bird, when divested of that natural o-ropyij 
 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- 
 generous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and 
 young, and may deposit them only under their care, this 
 would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a 
 fresh manner, that the methods of Providence are not 
 subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new 
 lights, and in various and changeable appearances. 
 
 What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer 
 concerning the defect of natural affection in the ostrich, 
 may be well applied to the bird we are talking of 
 
 " She is hardened against her young ones, as though they 
 were not hers : 
 
 " Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath 
 he imparted to her understanding."* 
 *Jobxxxix. 16, 17. 
 
122 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Query. Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a 
 season, or does she drop several in different nests according 
 as opportunity offers 1 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 SELBOKNE, April 12th, 1770. 
 
 I HEARD many birds of several species sing last year after 
 Midsummer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is 
 not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. 
 The yellow-hammer no doubt persists with more steadiness 
 than any other ; but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, 
 the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common 
 linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I 
 advanced. 
 
 If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of 
 the summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or 
 three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one 
 of those songsters; but I am no bird catcher; and so little 
 used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would 
 soon die for want of skill in feeding. 
 
 Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the 
 thick-billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320 ; or was it 
 the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. 
 Pennant's last publication, p. 16 1 
 
 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 123 
 
 throws upon insensible perspiration. The case is just the 
 same with blackbirds, etc. ; and farmers and warreners 
 observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such 
 times, and the latter that their rabbits are never in such 
 good case as in a gentle frost. But when frosts are severe, 
 and of long continuance, the case is soon altered ; for then 
 a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned 
 by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that 
 some human constitutions are more inclined to plumpness 
 in winter than in summer. 
 
 When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the 
 first that fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and then 
 the song-thrushes. 
 
 You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, 
 etc., can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo 
 without being scandalised at the vast disproportionate 
 size of the supposititious egg ; but the brute creation, I 
 suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or number. 
 For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation 
 is on her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a 
 nest full of eggs that have been withdrawn : and, moreover, 
 a hen-turkey, in the same circumstances, would sit on in 
 the empty nest till she perished with hunger. 
 
 I think the matter might easily be determined whether a 
 cuckoo lays one or two eggs, or more, in a season, by 
 opening a female during the laying-time. If more than one 
 was come down out of the ovary and advanced to a good 
 size, doubtless then she would that spring lay more than 
 one. 
 
 I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine. 
 
 Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruc- 
 tion in singing birds while they are mute, and that when 
 this is removed the song recommences, is new and bold : I 
 
124 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 wish you could discover some good grounds for this 
 suspicion. 
 
 I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the 
 caprimulgus, or fern-owl ; you were, I find, acquainted 
 with the bird before. 
 
 When we meet I shall be glad to have some conversation 
 with you concerning the proposal you make of my drawing 
 up an account of the animals in this neighbourhood. Your 
 partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear, 
 that I am able to do more than is in my power : for it is no 
 small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to 
 begin a natural history from his own autopsia ! Though 
 there is endless room for observation in the field of nature, 
 which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man 
 endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow 
 progress ; and all that one could collect in many years 
 would go into a very narrow compass. 
 
 Some extracts from your ingenious Investigations of 
 the Difference between the Present Temperature of the 
 Air in Italy, etc., have fallen in my way, and gave me 
 great satisfaction : they have removed the objections that 
 always arose in my mind whenever I came to the passages 
 which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil, when 
 writing a didactic poem for the region of Italy, could never 
 think of describing freezing rivers, unless such severity of 
 weather pretty frequently occurred ! 
 
 F.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 125 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 SELBORNE, May 21st t 1770. 
 
 THE severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted 
 the regular process of summer migration, that some of the 
 birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are 
 apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat, the 
 blackcap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember 
 that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40, 
 summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come 
 probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blows 
 between those points; but in that unfavourable year the 
 winds bio wed the whole spring and summer through from 
 the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvan- 
 tages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared 
 this year as early as the llth April amidst frost and snow; 
 but they withdrew again for a time. 
 
 I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little 
 satisfied with Scopoli's new publication ; there is room to 
 expect great things from the hands of that man, who is a 
 good naturalist : and one would think that a history of the 
 birds of so distant and southern a region as Oarniola 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) is a soft-billed bird ; and most probably 
 migrates hence before winter ; whereas the bird you kept 
 (Passer torquatus Raii) abides all the year, and is a thick- 
 billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a 
 
126 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 songster \ but in this matter I want to be better informed. 
 The former has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings . all 
 night. Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is 
 attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed 
 sort, which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his 
 British Zoology, till I reminded him of his omission. See 
 British Zoology last published, p. 16. 
 
 I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in 
 which different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a subject 
 that I have not enough considered, and is of such a nature 
 as not to be contained in a small space, I shall say nothing 
 further about it at present. 
 
 No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first 
 plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, 
 " because they are not to pair and discharge their parental 
 functions till the ensuing spring." As colours seem to be 
 the chief external sexual distinction in many birds, these 
 colours do not take place till sexual attachments begin to 
 obtain. And the case is the same in quadrupeds ; among 
 whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but little : 
 but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, 
 beards and brawny necks, etc., etc., strongly discriminate 
 the male from the female. We may instance still farther 
 in our own species, where a beard and stronger features 
 are usually characteristic of the male sex : but this sexual 
 diversity does not take place in earlier life ; for a beautiful 
 youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the difference 
 shall not be discernible : 
 
 1 ' Quern si puellarum insereres choro, 
 Mirfc sagaces falleret hospites 
 Discrimen obscurum, solutis 
 Crimbus, ambiguoqne vultu." 
 
 HOE. ODES. II. od. 5-21, p. 131, orig. edit. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 127 
 
 LETTER VII, 
 
 RINGMER, near LEWES, Oct. Sth, 1770. 
 
 I AM glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the 
 birds of Jamaica ; a sight of the hvrundines of that hot and 
 distant island would be a great entertainment to me. 
 
 The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I 
 have read the Annus Primus with satisfaction ; for though 
 some parts of this work are exceptionable, and he may 
 advance some mistaken observations, yet the ornithology of 
 so distant a country as Carniola is very curious. Men that 
 undertake only one district are much more likely to advance 
 natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than 
 they can possibly be acquainted with : every kingdom, every 
 province, should have its own monographer. 
 
 The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Hay'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 the ordines and 
 genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly. 
 He has ventured to alter some of the Linnsean genera with 
 sufficient show of reason. 
 
 It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many 
 swifts and no swallows at Staines ; because, in my long 
 observation of those birds, I never could discover the least 
 degree of rivalry or hostility between the species. 
 
 Ray remarks that birds of the Gallince order, as cocks 
 
128 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 and hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc., are pulveratrices, 
 such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing 
 their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin. As 
 far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never 
 wash ; and I once thought that those birds that wash them- 
 selves would never dust ; but here I find myself mistaken, 
 for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being 
 frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads ; 
 and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark 
 dust? 
 
 Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take one 
 method of purification from these pulveratrices ? because I 
 find from travellers of credit, that if a strict Mussulman is 
 journeying in a sandy desert where no water is to be found, 
 at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and most scrupulously 
 rubs his body over with sand or dust. 
 
 A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in 
 the nest of a small bird on the ground, and that it was fed 
 by the little bird. I went to see this extraordinary phe- 
 nomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in 
 the nest of a titlark ; it was become vastly too big for its 
 nest, appearing 
 
 "... in tenui re 
 Majores pennas nido extendisse ..." 
 
 and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as 
 I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and 
 buffeting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe of a 
 dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in 
 its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude. 
 
 In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large 
 pond, and found, after some observation, that they were 
 feeding on the libellula, or dragon-flies, some of which 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 129 
 
 they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as 
 they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus 
 says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of 
 prey. 
 
 This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard 
 of at Selborne. In the first place considerable flocks of 
 cross-beaks (Loxice curvirostrce) have appeared this summer 
 in the pine-groves belonging to this house ; the water-ousel 
 is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near New- 
 haven ; and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along 
 the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. 
 
 I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ousels 
 (my newly-discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all 
 along the Sussex downs, from Ohichester to Lewes. Let 
 them come from whence they will, it looks very suspicious 
 that they are cantoned along the coast in order to pass the 
 channel when severe weather advances. They visit us 
 again in April, as it should seem, in their return, and are 
 not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable 
 that they are very tame, and seem to have no manner of 
 apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. There 
 are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone. No 
 doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex downs ; the 
 prospects and rides round Lewes are most lovely ! 
 
 As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look- 
 out in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of 
 the year, have discovered some of the summer short-winged- 
 birds of passage crowding towards the coast in order for 
 their departure : but it was very extraordinary that I never 
 saw a red-start, white-throat, blackcap, uncrested wren, 
 fly-catcher, etc. And I remember to have made the same 
 remark in former years, as I usually come to this place 
 annually about this time. The birds most common along 
 
 300 
 
130 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whincliats, 
 buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc. 
 Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong 
 their stay by this soft, still, dry season. 
 
 A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in 
 a little walled court belonging to the house where I now 
 am visiting, retires under ground about the middle of 
 November, and comes forth again about the middle of 
 April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers 
 very little inclination towards food ; but in the height of 
 summer grows voracious ; and then as the summer declines 
 its appetite declines ; so that for the last six weeks in 
 autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as 
 lettuces, dandelions, sowtbistles, are its favourite dish. In 
 a neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was 
 supposed to be a hundred years old. An instance of vast 
 longevity in such a poor reptile ! 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 SELBOENE, Dec. 202A, 1770. 
 
 THE birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows 
 (Passer es torquati). 
 
 There are doubtless many home internal migrations 
 within this kingdom that want to be better understood : 
 witness those vast flocks of hen-chaffinches that appear 
 with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among 
 them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it 
 should seem very improbable that any one district should 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 131 
 
 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 t for some good 
 purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which 
 the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the 
 intercourse of sexes in this species of bird should be inter- 
 rupted in winter ; since in many animals, and particularly 
 in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, except at the 
 season when commerce is necessary for the continuance of 
 the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches see Fauna 
 Suecica, p. 58, and 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 con- 
 gregating 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 
 
132 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was 
 a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be 
 denied but that now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest, 
 or young birds, discovered in some part or other of this 
 island ;' but then they are all always mentioned as rarities, 
 and somewhat out of the common course of things : but as 
 to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has 
 ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the 
 nest or young of those species in any part of these 
 kingdoms. And I the more admire at this instance as 
 extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in 
 summer as well as in winter might support them here which 
 maintains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did 
 they choose to stay the summer through. From hence it 
 appears that it is not food alone which determines some 
 species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. 
 Fieldfares or redwings disappear sooner or later according 
 as the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well 
 remember, after that dreadful winter 173940, that cold 
 north-east winds continued to blow on through April and 
 May, and that these kind of birds (what few remained of 
 them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering 
 about till the beginning of June. 
 
 The best authority that we can have for the nidification 
 of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testi- 
 mony of faunists that have written professedly the natural 
 history of particular countries. Now as to the fieldfare, 
 Linnseus, 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 redwings 
 build in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 133 
 
 the woodcock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium 
 vernale / " meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And 
 afterwards he adds "nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova 
 ponit 3-5." It does not appear from Kramer that wood- 
 cocks breed at all in Austria; but he says, "Avis hcec 
 septentrionalium provinciarum cestivo tempore incola est ; 
 ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme austral' 
 iores provincias petit; hinc circa plenilunium mensis 
 Octobris plerumque Austrian* transmigrate Tune rursus 
 circa plenilunium potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam 
 matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit.'* 
 For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see 
 ElencliuSy etc., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of 
 the migration of woodcocks ; though little is proved 
 concerning the place of breeding. 
 
 P.S. There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks 
 of this present very wet weather, seven inches and a half 
 of rain, which is more than has fallen in any three weeks 
 for these thirty years past in that part of the world. A 
 mean quantity in that county for one year is twenty inches 
 and a half. 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. \Wi, 1772. 
 
 You are, I know, no great friend to migration ; and 
 the well-attested accounts from various parts of the king- 
 dom 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 
 
134 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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, etc., etc., and also of many of 
 our soft-billed summer birds of passage ; and moreover of 
 birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts 
 of hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years ago, 
 gives a curious account of the incredible armies of hawks 
 and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing the 
 Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the 
 above mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled 
 by whole troops of eagles and vultures. 
 
 Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should 
 retreat before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder 
 regions, and especially birds of prey, whose blood being 
 heated with hot animal food, are more impatient of a sultry 
 climate ; but then I cannot help wondering why kites and 
 hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the 
 severity of England, and even of Sweden and all north 
 Europe, should want to migrate from the south of Europe, 
 and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia. 
 
 It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid 
 on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their 
 migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, etc. ; 
 because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 135 
 
 the Equator without launching out and exposing itself to 
 boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover, 
 and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence 
 advance this obvious remark, because my brother has 
 always found that some of his birds, and particularly the 
 swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in crossing the 
 Mediterranean ; for when arrived at Gibraltar they do not 
 
 ". . . Rang'd in figure wedge their way, 
 . . . . . And set forth 
 Their airy caravan high over seas 
 Flying, and over lands with mutual wing 
 Easing their flight ; . . . . " MILTON. 
 
 but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six 
 or seven in a company ; and sweeping low, just over the 
 surface of the land and water, direct their course to the 
 opposite continent at the narrowest passage they can find. 
 They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and so 
 pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the 
 narrowest space. 
 
 In former letters we have considered whether it was 
 probable that woodcocks in moonshiny nights cross the 
 German Ocean from Scandinavia. As a proof that birds 
 of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it is, I 
 shall relate the following incident, which, though mentioned 
 to have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter 
 of fact : As some people were shooting in the parish of 
 Trotton, in the county of Sussex, they killed a duck in that 
 dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a silver collar about its neck,* 
 on which were engraven the arms of the king of Denmark. 
 This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often 
 told to a near relation of mine ; and, to the best of my 
 
 * " I have read a like anecdote of a swan." 
 
136 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the 
 rector. 
 
 At present I do not know anybody 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 presumptive argument that 
 these birds come over to us from the continent at the 
 narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward. 
 
 Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks 
 do not dust. I think they do ; and if they do, whether 
 they wash also. 
 
 The Alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was 
 educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of 
 October last. 
 
 Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-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 woodcock; they, like 
 the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 137 
 
 migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their con- 
 geners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. 
 Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a 
 missel thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? 
 
 The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, JZnas Rail, is the last 
 winter bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen 
 till towards the end of November : about twenty years ago 
 they abounded in the district of Selborne ; and strings of 
 them were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or 
 more ; but since the beechen woods have been greatly 
 thinned they are much decreased in number. The ring- 
 dove, Palumbus fiaii, stays with us the whole year, and 
 breeds several times through the summer. 
 
 Before I received your letter of October last I had just 
 remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually 
 green. This uncommon verdure lasted on late into 
 November ; and may be accounted for from a late spring, a 
 cool and moist summer ; but more particularly from vast 
 armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places, 
 reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees 
 shot again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage 
 till very late in the year. 
 
 My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, 
 has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a 
 pitch-pipe set at concert pitch, and finds they all hoot in 
 B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring. 
 
138 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 SELBOKNE, Aug. 1st, 1771. 
 
 FEOM what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor 
 cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many 
 (most) of his owls hoot in B flat ; but that one went almost 
 half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes by was 
 a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters use for 
 tuning of harpsichords ; it was the common London pitch. 
 
 A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, 
 remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three 
 different keys, in G-- flat, or F sharp, in B flat and A flat. 
 He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, and 
 the other in B flat. Query : Do these different notes 
 proceed from different species, or only from various 
 individuals ? The same person finds upon trial that the 
 note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) 
 varies in different individuals ; for, about Selborne wood, 
 he found they were mostly in D : he heard two sing 
 together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made 
 a disagreeable concert : he afterwards heard one in D 
 sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some in C. As to 
 nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, and 
 their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain 
 their key. Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes 
 may be more distinguishable. This person has tried to 
 settle the notes of a swift, and of several other small birds, 
 but cannot bring them to any criterion. 
 
 As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the 
 first birds that suffer with us in severe weather, it is 
 no wonder at all that they retreat from Scandinavian 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 139 
 
 winters : and much more the ordo of grallce, who, all to 
 a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the 
 approach of winter. " Grallce tanquam conjuratce t unani- 
 miter in fug am se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem 
 inter nos habitantem invenire possimus ; ut enim cestate in 
 australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, 
 terramque siccam ; ita nee in frigidis ob eandem causam," 
 says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise 
 called Migrationes Avium, which by all means you ought 
 to read while your thoughts run on the subject of 
 migration. See Amosnitates Academic^ vol. iv., 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 Linnseus con- 
 cerning the woodcock : it is expected of him that he should 
 be able to account for the motions and manner of life 
 of the animals of his own " Fauna." 
 
 Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare 
 descriptions, and a few synonyms : the reason is plain ; 
 because all that may be done at home in a man's study, but 
 the investigation of the life and conversation of animals 
 is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty, and is not 
 to be attained but by the active and inquisitive, and by those 
 that reside much in the country. 
 
 Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their 
 specific differences, which are almost universally constituted 
 by one or two particular marks, the rest of the description 
 running in general terms. But our countryman, the 
 excellent Mr. Kay, is the only describer that conveys some 
 precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his 
 
140 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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. 
 
 LETTER XL 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. 8th, 1772. 
 
 WHEN I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious 
 flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring 
 at these congregations, and wishing that it was in my 
 power to account for those appearances almost peculiar 
 to the season. The two great motives which regulate the 
 proceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger ; the. 
 former incites animals to perpetuate their kind ; the latter 
 induces them to preserve individuals : whether either of 
 these should seem to be the ruling passion in the matter of 
 congregating is to be considered. As to love, that is out of 
 the question at a time of the year when that soft passion is 
 not indulged: besides, during the amorous season, such 
 a jealousy prevails between the male birds that they can 
 hardly bear to be together in the same hedge or field. 
 Most of the singing and elation of spirits of that time seem 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, HI 
 
 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 1 
 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 1 Anatomists 
 say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run 
 down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a 
 more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed 
 birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. 
 Perhaps, then, their associates attend them on the motive 
 of interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their 
 finders; and as lions are said to do on the yelpings of 
 jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate. 
 
142 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XII 
 
 March 9ft, 1772. 
 
 As a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of last 
 November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the 
 mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, 
 we were surprised to see three house-swallows gliding very 
 swiftly by us. That morning was rather chilly, with the 
 wind at north-west ; but the tenor of the weather for some 
 time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably 
 warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts 
 which I meet with, I am more and more induced to believe 
 that many of the swallow kind do not depart from this 
 island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns ; and do, 
 insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then 
 retire again to their latebrce. 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 13th 
 or 14th April, yet meeting with a harsh reception, and 
 blustering cold north-east winds, they immediately with- 
 drew, absconding for several days, till the weather gave 
 them better encouragement. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 143 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 April 12&, 1772. 
 
 WHILE I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at 
 the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the 
 pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st November I 
 remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began 
 first to dig the ground in order to the forming its hyber- 
 naculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of 
 hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and 
 throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion of 
 its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand 
 of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an animal said 
 to be a whole month in performing one feat of copula- 
 tion. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature 
 night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great 
 body into the cavity ; but, as the noons of that season 
 proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually 
 interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of 
 the day ; and though I continued there till the 13th 
 November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher 
 weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its 
 operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more 
 than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard 
 to rain ; for though it has a shell that would secure it 
 against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover a 
 much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best 
 attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running 
 its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an 
 excellent weather-glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and 
 as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a 
 
144 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a 
 diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes 
 dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary 
 stomach as well as lungs ; and can refrain from eating as 
 well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first 
 awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in the autumn before 
 it retires : through the height of the summer it feeds 
 voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. 
 I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that 
 do it kind offices ; for, as soon as the good old lady comes 
 in sight who has waited on it [f or more than thirty years, it 
 hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity ; 
 but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the 
 ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib,"* but 
 the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes 
 the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of 
 gratitude ! 
 
 P.S In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise 
 retired into the ground under the hepatica. 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 SELBORNE, March 26ih, 1773. 
 
 THE more I reflect on the o-ropyyj of animals, the more I 
 am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this 
 affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. 
 Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in 
 
 * Isa. i. 3. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF S EL BORNE. 145 
 
 proportion to the helplessness of her brood ; and will Hy 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 inven- 
 tion, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus 
 a hen, just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird 
 she used to be, but with feathers standing on end, wings 
 hovering, and clocking note, she runs about like one 
 possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the 
 greatest danger in order to avert it from their progeny, 
 Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in 
 order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey. In 
 the time of nidification the most feeble birds will assault 
 the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village are up 
 in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute 
 till he leaves that district. A very exact observer has 
 often remarked that a pair of ravens nesting in the rock of 
 Gibraltar would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their 
 station, but would drive them from the hill with an 
 amazing fury ; even the blue thrush at the season of 
 breeding would dart out from the clefts of the rocks to 
 chase away the kestril, or the sparrow-hawk, If you stand 
 near the nest of a bird that has young, she will not be 
 induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but 
 will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for 
 an hour together. 
 
 Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced 
 above by some anecdotes which I probably may have 
 mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust, 
 pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration. 
 
 The fly-catcher of the Zoology (the Stoparola of E/ay), 
 builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my 
 
 301 
 
146 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 house. A pair of these little birds had one year inad- 
 vertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a 
 shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that 
 followed. But a hot sunny season coming on before the 
 brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became 
 insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the 
 tender young, had nob 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 then- 
 suffering offspring. 
 
 A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in a 
 willow-wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This 
 bird a friend and myself had observed as she sat in her 
 nest ; but were particularly careful not to disturb her, 
 though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy. 
 Some days after as we passed that way we were desirous of 
 remarking how this brood went on ; but no nest could be 
 found, till I happened to take a large bundle of long green 
 moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the nest in order to 
 dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder. 
 
 A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct 
 occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the 
 lining of a 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 ! 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 147 
 
 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 a-ropy^, which induces some females of the 
 brute creation to devour their young because their owners 
 have handled them too freely, or removed them from place to 
 place ! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs 
 and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. 
 When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that 
 destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed ; since 
 reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable 
 of any enormity ; but why the parental feelings of brutes, 
 that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should some- 
 times be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler 
 philosophers than myself to determine. 
 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 SELBORNE, July 8th, 1773. 
 
 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 examina- 
 tion 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 
 
148 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 nest, 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 show 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 their feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on 
 the wall as they are rising under the eaves. 
 
 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. The white owl does indeed 
 snore and hiss in a tremendous manner ; and these menaces 
 well answer the intention of intimidating ; for I have 
 known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, 
 imagining the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres. 
 While owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; 
 from this screaming probably arose the common people's 
 imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously 
 think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 149 
 
 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 men- 
 tion 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 that 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. 
 
 When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as a 
 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 collect every ray of light, and 
 large concave ears to command the smallest degree of sound 
 or noise. 
 
 [It will be proper to premise here that the sixteenth, 
 eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first letters have been 
 
150 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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, enter- 
 taining, 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,* 
 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 sun- 
 beams of a summer evening in this country, will soon be 
 convinced to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked 
 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, 
 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 hirundines^ 
 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. 
 
 *See Ulloa's Travels, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 151 
 
 " A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south 
 of England under the name of forest-fly ; and to some of 
 side-fly, from its 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 sensation ; while our own breed little 
 regards them. 
 
 " 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 pupae of these insects ; but for other particu- 
 lars, too long for this place, we refer the reader to 
 L'llistoire dlnsectes of that admirable entomologist. Tom. 
 iv., pi. ii." 
 
 LETTER XVL 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 2Qth, 1773. 
 
 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 inquiries to the rest of the British 
 hirundines the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin. 
 
 A few house-martins begin to appear about the 16th 
 April ; usually some few days later than the swallow. For 
 some time after they appear the hirundines in general pay 
 
152 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 its 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 its 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 perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge 
 under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first founda- 
 tion firmly fixed, so that it may safely carry the superstruc- 
 ture. On this occasion the bird not only clings with its 
 claws, but partly supports itself by strongly inclining its 
 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 its own 
 weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbear- 
 ance 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 its 
 own weight. By this method in about ten or twelve days 
 is formed a 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 153 
 
 nothing is more common than for the ho use- sparrow, as 
 soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to 
 eject the owner, and to line it after its 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 protuberances 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 interwoven with wool. 
 In this nest they tread, or engender, frequently during the 
 time of building ; and the hen lays from three to five white 
 
 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 nest- 
 lings is enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is 
 the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet, 
 as nature is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this 
 office for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails 
 out of the aperture of their nest. As the young of small 
 birds presently arrive at their ?;A.ucta, or full growth, they 
 soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with 
 
154 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 their heads out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging 
 to the nest, 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 flight 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 
 mornings 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 altogether ; but the more forward 
 birds get abroad some days before the rest. These approach- 
 ing 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 clays 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK. 155 
 
 and destroy their nests ; but instances are also remembered 
 where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a 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 a house without eaves in an exposed 
 district, where 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 ruinas." 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 : 
 
156 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 in 1772 they had nestlings on to October 21st, 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 ap- 
 peared of late years in a considerable flight in this neigh- 
 bourhood, for one day or two, as late as November 3rd and 
 6th, 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 districts 
 where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations 
 somehow, and somewhere ; 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. 
 
 LETTER XVII. 
 
 RINGMER, near LEWES, Dec. 9th, 1773. 
 
 I RECEIVED your last favour just as I was setting out for 
 this place; and am pleased to find that my monography 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 157 
 
 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 respect- 
 able society, you are at liberty to lay it before them ; and 
 they will consider it, I hope, as it was intended, as a 
 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 
 mountains with fresh admiration year by year ; and I think 
 I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This range, 
 which runs from Chichester eastward as far as Eastbourne, 
 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 just at the foot of these 
 hills, and was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton 
 Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes in his 
 Wisdom of God in the Works of Creation with the utmost 
 satisfaction, and thinks them equal to anything 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 preference to those of stone, which are rugged, 
 broken, abrupt, and shapeless. 
 
158 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 protuberances, their fluted sides, and 
 regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of 
 vegetative dilation and expansion. . . . 
 
 ... Or was there ever a time when these immense 
 masses of calcareous 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 Seeding 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 variegated 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 Brambler and Beeding 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 been so from time immemorial ; and smile at your 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 159 
 
 simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these 
 two different breeds might not be reversed 1 However, an 
 intelligent friend of mine near Ohichester 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 examining 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 hirun- 
 dines, if they please, are certainly capable of migration, and 
 yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state ; but red- 
 starts, nightingales, white-throats, blackcaps, etc., etc., are 
 very ill provided 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, notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing 
 like a summer bird of passage ; 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 : 
 
160 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on tho 
 clowns 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 Brighthelm- 
 stone and Tunbridge ; and appear at 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 Eastbourne, 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 ob- 
 servation. 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, 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 20th November, and came out again for 
 one day on the 30th : it lies now buried in a wet swampy 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 161 
 
 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. 
 
 LETTER XVIII. 
 
 SELBOBNE, Jan. 29th, 1774. 
 
 THE house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the 
 first comer of all the British hirundines, and appears in 
 general on or about 13th 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 
 
 302 
 
162 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 much more in favour of hiding than migration, since it is 
 much more probable that a bird should retire to its hyber- 
 naculum just at hand, than return for a week or two to 
 warmer latitudes. 
 
 The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no 
 means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within 
 barns and outhouses against the rafters j and so she did in 
 Yirgil's time 
 
 . . . "Ante 
 Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo. IJ 
 
 In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called Ladu swala, 
 the barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe 
 there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English- 
 built : in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, 
 and gateways, 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 chimneys, and loves to haunt those 
 stacks where there is a constant fire, no doubt for the sake 
 of warmth. Not that it can 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELRORNE. 103 
 
 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 shows 
 all day long in ascending and descending with security 
 through so narrow a pass. When hovering over the mouth 
 of the funnel, the vibrations 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 chimneys, 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 some 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 
 
164 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 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 executing 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 
 is 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 a 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORKE. 165 
 
 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 seaport towns, and making 
 little excursions over the salt water. Horsemen on wide 
 downs are often closely attended by a littly party of 
 swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind 
 them, sweeping around them, and collecting all the skulking 
 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 its food. Before they 
 depart, for some weeks, to a bird, they forsake houses and 
 chimneys, 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 
 London 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 
 oropyrf of the swallow, I shall add, for your farther 
 amusement, an anecdote or two not much in favour of her 
 sagacity : 
 
 A certain swallow built for two years together on the 
 
166 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 whenever that implement was 
 wanted : and, what is stranger still, another bird of the 
 same species built its 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 its 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 collection of art and nature. 
 
 Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its 
 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. 
 
 LETTER XIX. 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. Uth, 1774. 
 
 I RECEIVED your favour of the 8th, 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELSORNE. 167 
 
 species of hirundo Yirgil 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 tignum 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 nlgra speaks plainly in favour of the 
 swallow, whose back and wings are very black ; while 
 the rump of the martin is milk-white, its back and wings 
 blue, and all its under part white as snow. JSTor 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 ^Eneas. The verb sonat 
 also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat loquacious.* 
 
 * " Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis ssdes 
 Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, 
 Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : 
 Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum 
 Stagna sonat " . . . , . 
 
 " As the black swallow near the palace plies : 
 O'er empty courts, and under arches flies ; 
 Now hawks aloft, now skims along the flood, 
 To furnish her loquacious nests with food. " 
 
 DJBYD. YIRG. Mn, xii, line 691. 
 
168 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBOKNE. 
 
 We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to 
 raise the springs to a pitch beyond anything 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 frost to pouring rains, looks poorly ; 
 and the turnips rot very fast. 
 
 LETTER XX. 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. 2Gth, 1774. 
 
 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY Of 1 SELBORNE. 169 
 
 that there is one much smaller, and that is the Hirundo 
 esculenta. 
 
 But it is much to bo 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 conversa- 
 tion of this little bird, since it is fera naturd, at least in 
 this part of the kingdom, disclaiming all domestic attach- 
 ments, and haunting wild heaths and commons where there 
 are large- lakes; while the other species, especially the 
 swallow and house-martin, are remarkably 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 
 architectonic skill Providence has endowed birds of the 
 same genus, and so nearly correspondent in their general 
 mode of life ! for while the swallow and the house-martin 
 discover the greatest address in raising and securely fixing 
 crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for their young, the 
 
170 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 I have 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 not been able to discover, 
 for reasons given above ; but it would be a matter worthy 
 of observation, where it falls in the way of any naturalist 
 to make his remarks. This I have often taken notice of, 
 that several holes of different depths are left unfinished at 
 the end of summer. To imagine that these beginnings were 
 intentionally made in order to be in the greater forwardness 
 for next spring is allowing perhaps too much foresight and 
 rerwn prudentia to a simple bird. May 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 1 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 1 
 
 One thing is remarkable that, after some years, the old 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 171 
 
 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 irritans), 
 swarming at the mouth of these holes, like bees on the 
 stools of their hives. 
 
 The following circumstance should by no means be 
 omitted that these birds do not make use of their caverns 
 by way of hybernacula, as might be expected ; since banks 
 so perforated have been dug out with care in the winter, 
 when nothing was found but empty nests. 
 
 The sand-martin arrives much about the same time with 
 the swallow, and lays, as she does, from four to six white 
 eggs. But as this species is cryptogame, carrying on the 
 business of nidification, incubation, and the support of its 
 young in the dark, it would not be so easy to ascertain the 
 time of breeding, were it not for the coming forth of the 
 broods, which appear much about the time, or rather some- 
 what earlier than those of the swallow. The nestlings are 
 supported in common like those of their congeners, with 
 gnats and other small insects ; and sometimes they are fed 
 with libellulce (dragon-flies) almost as long as themselves. 
 In the last week in June we have seen a row of these 
 sitting on a rail near a great pool as perchers, and so young 
 and helpless, as easily to be taken by hand ; but whether 
 the dams ever feed them on the wing, as swallows and house- 
 martins do, we have never yet been able to determine ; nor 
 do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of prey. 
 
 When they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures, 
 they are dispossessed of their breeding holes by the house- 
 sparrow, which is on the same account a fell adversary to 
 house-martins. 
 
172 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 These hirundines are no songsters, but rather mute, 
 making only a little harsh noise when a person approaches 
 their nests. They seem not to be of a sociable turn, never 
 with us congregating with their congeners in the autumn. 
 Undoubtedly they breed a second time, like the house- 
 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 hirun- 
 dines is influenced by, and adapted to, the peculiar sort 
 of insects which furnish their food. Hence it would be 
 worth inquiry to examine what particular genus of insects 
 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 Whitechapel. The question is where these build, 
 since there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbour- 
 hood ; 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-martin and swallow. 
 
 Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminu- 
 tiveness of their size, and in their colour, which is what 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 173 
 
 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. 
 
 LETTER XXI. 
 
 SELBORNE, Sept. 28$, 1774. 
 
 As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British 
 MrundineSy so it is undoubtedly the latest comer. For 
 I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last 
 week in April ; and in some of our late frosty, harsh 
 springs it has not been seen till the beginning of May. 
 This species usually arrives in pairs. 
 
 The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in 
 architecture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest ; but 
 forming it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and 
 inartificially put together. With all my attention to these 
 birds, I have never been able once to discover one in the 
 act of collecting or carrying in materials ; so that I have 
 suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they 
 sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, 
 as sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; well 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 materals in their mouths. 
 
174 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 
 
 Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidifica- 
 tion quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and 
 steeples, and upon the tops of the walls of churches under 
 the roof, and therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as 
 those species that build more openly ; but, from what I 
 could ever observe, they begin nesting about the middle of 
 May, and I have remarked, from eggs taken, that they 
 have sat hard by the 9th 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 
 thatched roofs. We remember but one instance where they 
 breed out of buildings, and that is in the sides of a deep 
 chalk-pit near the town of Odiham in this county, where 
 we have seen many pairs entering the crevices, and skim- 
 ming 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 groat 
 height from the ground, he would see, every now and then, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 175 
 
 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 its nest, 
 and, as it seems, propagates on the wing, it appears to live 
 more in the air than any other bird, and to perform 
 all functions there save those of sleeping and incubation. 
 
 This hirundo differs widely from its congeners in laying 
 invariably but two eggs at a time, 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, 
 thundery weather, when it expresses great alacrity, and 
 calls forth all its powers. In hot mornings several, getting 
 together in little parties, dash round the steeples and 
 churches, squeaking as they go in a very clamorous manner. 
 These, by nice observers, are supposed to be males serenad- 
 ing 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 jusb 
 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 
 
176 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 a little lump of insects in their mouths, which they pouch 
 and hold under their tongue. In general they feed in a 
 much higher district than the other species ; a proof that 
 gnats and other insects do also abound to a considerable 
 height in the air ; they also range to vast distances, since 
 locomotion is no labour to them who are endowed with such 
 wonderful powers of wing. Their powers seem to be in 
 proportion to their levers ; and their wings are longer in 
 proportion than those of almost any other bird. When they 
 mute, or case 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 phryganece, ephemerae, and libellulw 
 (caddis-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 30th of last June I untiled the eaves of a house 
 where many pairs build, and found in each nest only two 
 squab, naked pulli ; on the 8th July I repeated the same 
 inquiry, and found that 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 177 
 
 keeps them perpetually on the wing would not be able to 
 quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows and 
 martins, that have numerous families, are continually 
 feeding them every two or three minutes ; while swifts, 
 that have but two young to maintain, are much at their 
 leisure, and do not attend on their nest for hours together. 
 
 Sometimes they pursue and strike at hawks that come in 
 their way ; but not with that vehemence and fury that 
 swallows express on the same occasion. They are out all 
 day long in wet days, feeding about, and disregarding still 
 rain : from whence two things may be gathered ; first, that 
 many insects abide high in the air, even in rain ; and next, 
 that the feathers of these birds must be well preened to 
 resist so much wet. Windy, and particularly windy 
 weather with heavy showers, they dislike ; and on such 
 days withdraw, and are scarce ever seen. 
 
 There is a circumstance respecting the colour of swifts 
 which seems not to be unworthy of 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 1 Do they not rather perhaps retire to rest for a 
 season, and at that juncture moult and change their 
 feathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon 
 after the season, of breeding ? 
 
 Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting- 
 from all their congeners not only in the number of their 
 young, but in breeding but once in a summer ; whereas all 
 the other British hirundines breed invariably twice. It is 
 
 303 
 
178 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 past all doubt that swifts can breed but once, since they 
 withdraw in a short time after the flight of their young, 
 and some time before their congeners bring out their second 
 broods. We may here remark, that, as swifts breed but 
 once in a summer, and only two at a time, and the other 
 hirundines twice, the latter, who lay from four to six eggs, 
 increase at an average five times as fast as the former. 
 
 But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their 
 early retreat. They retire, as to the main body of them, 
 by the 10th August, and sometimes a few days sooner ; and 
 every straggler invariably withdraws by the 20th, while 
 their congeners, all of them, stay till the beginning of 
 October ; many of them all through that month, and some 
 occasionally to the beginning of November. This early 
 retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time is often 
 the sweetest season in the year. But what is more extra- 
 ordinary, they begin to retire still earlier in the most 
 southerly parts of Andalusia, where they can be in no ways 
 influenced by any defect of heat ; or, as one might suppose, 
 failure of food. Are they regulated in their motions with 
 us by a defect of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or 
 by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what 1 
 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 haunting their nesting-places, and are not to be scared 
 with a gun ; and are often beaten down with poles and 
 cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are 
 much infested with those pests to the genus called hippo- 
 boscce 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 179 
 
 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 can 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 melba, or great white-bellied 
 swift of Gibraltar, excepted ; for it is so disposed as to 
 carry " omnes quatuor digitos anticos " all its four toes for- 
 ward ; besides, the least toe, which should be the back toe, 
 consists of one bone alone, and the other three only of two 
 a-piece, a construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely 
 adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed. 
 This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and 
 under mandible, have induced a discerning* naturalist 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 its nidification. 
 
 * John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. 
 
180 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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, overrun with hippoboscce, are some- 
 times 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 j 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 July 5th, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over 
 the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest; but so 
 strongly was she affected by natural o-ropyfj for her brood, 
 which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her 
 own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, 
 permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young 
 we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, where they 
 tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born child. 
 While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldly 
 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 ?/At/aa, or state of perfection ; 
 while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds 
 is slow and tedious ! 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 181 
 
 LETTER XXII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Sept. I3th, 1774. 
 
 BY means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportun- 
 ity 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 per- 
 formed to a considerable depth in the chimney was 
 somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes migh^ 
 undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.* 
 
 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 4th, the 
 swift on April 24th, the bank-martin on April 12th, 
 and the house-martin not till April 30th. At South Zele, 
 Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April 25th, swifts 
 in plenty on May 1st, and house-martins not till the middle 
 of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen 
 April 28th, swallows April 29th, house-martins May 1st. 
 Do these different dates, in such distant districts, prove 
 anything for or against migration 1 
 
 A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams 
 of asses ; one of which works till noon, and the other in the 
 afternoon. When these animals have done their work, 
 they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In 
 
 * " The same night also I returned from the burial and slept by the 
 wall of my courtyard, being polluted, and my face was uncovered. 
 
 "And I knew not that there were sparrows (swallows ?) in the wall, 
 and my eyes being open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine 
 eyes, and a whiteness came in mine eyes ; and I went to the 
 physicians, but they helped me not." TOBIT ii. 10. 
 
182 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and 
 make plenty of dung. 
 
 Linnaeus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducia scum 
 avibus y quamdiu cuculus cuculat ; " but it appears to me, 
 that during that period many little birds are taken and 
 destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers 
 left in lanes and under hedges. 
 
 The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pug- 
 nacious, driving such birds as approach its nest with great 
 fury to a distance. The Welsh call it " pen y llwyn," the 
 head or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, 
 or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts ; and is, 
 for the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In 
 general, he is very successful in the defence of his family ; 
 but once I observed in my garden, that several magpies 
 came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush : the 
 dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and 
 fought resolutely pro aris et focis; but numbers at last 
 prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the 
 young alive. 
 
 In the season of nidification the wildest birds are com- 
 paratively 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 ray garden close to a walk where people are 
 passing all day long. 
 
 Wall-fruit abounds with me this year; but my grapes, 
 that used to be forward and good, are at present backward 
 beyond all precedent : and this is not the worst of the 
 story ; for the same ungeiiial weather, the same black cold 
 solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth r 
 and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of 
 hops promises to be very large. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 183 
 
 Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and 
 half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are 
 upon me, I lose all the pleasing notices and little intima- 
 tions arising from rural sounds ; and May is to me as 
 silent and mute with respect to the notes of birds, etc., 
 as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good ; 
 but with respect to the other sense, I am, at times, 
 disabled 
 
 " And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 
 
 LETTER XXI1L 
 
 SELBORNE, June Sth, 1775. 
 
 ON September 21st, 1741, 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 in- 
 cumbrances 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 
 
184 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 de- 
 mand our attention a shower of cobwebs failing from 
 very elevated regions, and continuing, without any inter- 
 ruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not 
 single filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, 
 but perfect flakes or rags ; some near an inch broad, and 
 five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity that 
 showed they were considerably heavier than the atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 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-down, from the common above ; 
 but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the most 
 elevated part of the down, three hundred 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 185 
 
 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 super- 
 stitious 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 con- 
 siderably more weighty than air, and to descend with 
 precipitation, is a matter beyond my skill. If I might be 
 allowed to hazard a supposition, I should imagine that 
 those filmy threads, when first shot, might be entangled in 
 the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk 
 evaporation, into the regions where clouds are formed : and 
 if the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening 
 their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister says they have [see his 
 Letters to Mr. 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 its departure from 
 thence. But what I most wondered at was, that it went 
 off with considerable velocity in a place where no air was 
 stirring ; and I am sure that I did not assist it with my 
 
186 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 breath. So that these little crawlers seem to have, while 
 mounting, some locomotive power without the use of wings, 
 and to move in the air faster than the air itself. 
 
 LETTER XXIV. 
 
 SELBORNE, Aug. 15th, 1775. 
 
 THERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute 
 creation, independent of sexual attachment : the congre- 
 gating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable 
 instance. 
 
 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 endeavouring to break the rack and 
 manger with his fore feet. He has been known to leap out 
 at a stable-window, through which dung was thrown, after 
 company ; and yet in other respects is remarkably quiet. 
 Oxen and cows will not fatten by themselves ; but will 
 neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended by 
 society. It would be needless to instance 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 187 
 
 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 lo wings 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 ap- 
 proach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing 
 herself gently against his legs ; while the horse would look 
 down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution 
 and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminu- 
 tive companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed 
 to console the vacant hours of the other : so that Milton, 
 when he puts the following sentiment in the mouth of 
 Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken : 
 
 "Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl, 
 So well converse, nor with the ox the ape." 
 
 LETTER XXV. 
 
 SELBORNE, Oct 2nd, 1775. 
 
 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 
 
188 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 intelligent person among them, to 
 inquire whether, in their jargon, they still retain any Greek 
 words ; the Greek radicals will appear in hand, foot, head, 
 water, earth, etc. 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 themselves in braving the severities of winter, 
 and in living sub dio the whole year round. Last Sep- 
 tember was as wet a month as ever was known ; and yet 
 during those deluges did a young gipsy girl lie in the midst 
 of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing 
 over her but a piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel- 
 rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at each 
 end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same con- 
 dition ; 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 rovinga 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 189 
 
 of these vagabonds ; for Mr. Bell, in his return from 
 Pekin, met a gang of those people on the confines of 
 Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate those deserts 
 and try their fortune in China. 
 
 Gypsies are called in French, Bohemians ; in Italian and 
 modern Greek, Zingari. 
 
 LETTER XXVI. 
 
 SELBORNE, Nov. 1st, 1775. 
 
 " Hie . . . taedse pingues, hie plurimus ignis 
 Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri." 
 
 I SHALL make no apology for troubling you with the detail 
 of a very simple piece of domestic economy, being satisfied 
 that you think nothing beneath your attention that tends 
 to utility. The matter alluded to is the use of rushes 
 instead of candles, which I am well aware prevails in many 
 districts besides this ; but as I know there are countries 
 also where it 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 conglomeratus, or common soft rush, which is to 
 be found in most moist pastures, by the sides of streams, and 
 under hedges. These rushes are in best condition in the 
 height of summer, but may be gathered, so as to serve the 
 purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be 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 
 
190 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 must be flung into water, and kept there, for otherwise they 
 will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. At first a 
 person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its 
 peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib 
 from top to bottom that may support the pith ; but this, 
 like other feats, soon becomes familiar even to children ; 
 and we have seen an old woman, stone blind, performing 
 this business with great dispatch, and seldom failing to 
 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 fourpence, 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 ren- 
 der it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn longer \ 
 mutton-suet would have the same effect. 
 
 A good rush, which measured in length two feet four 
 inches and a-half, being minuted, burnt only three minutes 
 short of an hour ; and a rush of still greater length has 
 been known to burn one hour and a-quarter. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 191 
 
 These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights 
 (coated with tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, " dark- 
 ness visible ; " but then the wick of those 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 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 
 3*5- of a farthing, and T X T afterwards. Thus a poor family 
 will enjoy five and a-half hours of comfortable light for a 
 farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that 
 one pound and a-half of rushes completely supplies his 
 family the year round, since working people burn no 
 candles 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 economists, and there- 
 fore must continue very poor, buy a halfpenny candle every 
 evening, which in their blowing, open rooms does not burn 
 much more than two hours. Thus have they only two 
 hours' light for their money instead of eleven. 
 
 While on the subject of rural economy, it may not be 
 improper to mention a pretty implement of housewifery 
 that we have seen nowhere else that is, little neat besoms 
 which our foresters make from the stalks of the Polytricum 
 commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which they call 
 silk-wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is 
 
192 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 well combed and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, it 
 becomes of a beautiful bright-chestnut colour ; and, being- 
 soft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds, 
 curtains, carpets, hangings, etc. If these besoms were 
 known to the brush-makers in town, it is probable they 
 might come much in use for the purpose above mentioned. 
 
 LETTER XXVII. 
 
 SELBOENE, Dec. \Wi, 1775. 
 
 WE had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot 
 boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a 
 strong propensity to bees ; they were his food, his amuse- 
 ment, his sole object. And as people of this caste have 
 seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all 
 his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he 
 dozed away his time, within his father's house, by the 
 fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from 
 the chimney-corner ; but in the summer he was all alert, 
 and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. 
 Honey-bees, bumble-bees, and wasps, were his prey where- 
 ever he found them ; he had no apprehensions from their 
 stings, but would seize them nudis manibus, and at once 
 disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the 
 sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes 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, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 193 
 
 would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the 
 bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn 
 hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately 
 fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger 
 round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he 
 called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a 
 humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of 
 bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous 
 complexion, and, except in his favourite pursuit, in which 
 he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of under- 
 standing. Had his capacity been better, and directed to 
 the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our 
 wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees ; 
 and we may justly say of him now 
 
 "... .Thou, 
 
 Had thy presiding star propitious shone, 
 Shouldst Wildman be ... ." 
 
 When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a 
 distant village, where he died, as I understand, before 
 he arrived at manhood. 
 
 LETTER XXVIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Jan. 8ih> 1776. 
 
 IT is the hardest thing in the world to shake off super- 
 stitious 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 constitu- 
 tions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage 
 
 34 
 
194 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 operation was over, the tree, in 
 the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully 
 swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together, 
 as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any 
 adroitness at all, the party was cured ; but, where the cleft 
 continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would 
 prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden 
 not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of 
 which did not grow together. 
 
 We have several persons now living in the village, who, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 195 
 
 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 fourth corner of the Plestor, or area, near the 
 church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old, 
 grotesque, hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been 
 looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now 
 a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently 
 applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the 
 pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew- 
 mouse over the part affected ; for it is supposed that a 
 shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that 
 wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, 
 the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and 
 threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against 
 this accident, to which they were continually liable, our 
 provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, 
 which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for 
 ever. A shrew-ash was made thus : 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 con- 
 secration 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 bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation, 
 
 urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been 
 
 "Religione patrum multos servata per annos." 
 
196 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XXIX. 
 
 SELBORNE, Feb. 7th, 1776. 
 
 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 teak 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 condensa- 
 tions should greatly exceed those that are stripped of their 
 leaves ; but, as the former imbibe also a great quantity of 
 moisture, it is difficult to say which drip most ; but this I 
 know, that deciduous trees that are entwined with much 
 ivy seem to distil the greatest quantity. Ivy-leaves are 
 smooth, and thick, and cold, and therefore condense very 
 fast; and besides, evergreens imbibe very little. These 
 facts may furnish the intelligent with hints concerning 
 what sorts of trees they should plant round small ponds 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 197 
 
 that they would wish to be perennial ; and show them how 
 advantageous some trees are in preference to others. 
 
 Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check 
 evaporation so much, that woods are always moist ; no 
 wonder, therefore, that they contribute much to pools and 
 streams. 
 
 That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers appears 
 from a well-known fact in North America ; for, since the 
 woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies 
 of water are much diminished ; so that some streams, that 
 were very considerable a century ago, will not now drive a 
 common mill. 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 valleys and 
 bottoms, since the waters of so pervious a stratum as chalk 
 all lie on one dead level, as well-diggers have assured me 
 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 hogsheads 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 
 
198 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 beside. This pond, it is true, is overhung with two 
 moderate beeches, that, doubtless, at times afford it much 
 supply: but then we have others as small, that, without the 
 aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind, 
 and perpetual consumption by cattle, yet constantly main- 
 tain a moderate share of water, without overflowing in the 
 wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied by springs. 
 By my journal of May 1775 it appears that " the small 
 and even considerable ponds in the vales are now dried up, 
 while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but 
 little affected." Can this difference be accounted for from 
 evaporation alone, which certainly is more prevalent in 
 bottoms 1 or rather, have not those elevated pools some un- 
 noticed recruits, which in the night time counterbalance 
 the waste of the day ; without which the cattle alone must 
 soon exhaust them ? And here it will be necessary to enter 
 more minutely into the cause. Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable 
 Statics, advances, from experiment, that "the moister the 
 earth is the more dew falls on it in a night ; and more than 
 a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of water than 
 there does on an equal surface of moist earth." Hence we 
 see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to 
 itself a large quantity of moisture nightly by condensation ; 
 and that the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and 
 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, etc., 
 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 199 
 
 LETTER XXX. 
 
 SELBORNE, April 3rd, 1776. 
 
 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 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 gallince, columbce, etc., 
 but immediately behind it, on and over the bowels, so as to 
 make a large protuberance in the belly. 
 
 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. 
 
 It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the 
 crop placed just upon the bowels must, especially when full, 
 
200 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 
 
 be in a very uneasy situation during the business of incuba- 
 tion; yet the test will be to examine whether birds that 
 are actually known to sit for certain are not formed in a 
 similar manner. This inquiry I proposed to myself to make 
 with a fern-owl, or goat-sucker, as soon as opportunity 
 offered : because, if their formation proves the same, the 
 reason for incapacity in the cuckoo will be allowed to have 
 been taken up somewhat hastily. 
 
 Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from its 
 habit and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo in 
 its internal construction. Nor were our suspicions ill- 
 grounded ; for, upon the dissection, the crop, or craw, also 
 lay behind the sternum, immediately on the viscera, between 
 them and the skin of the belly. It was bulky, and stuffed 
 hard with large phalcence, 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 Cticulus 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SBLBORffS. 201 
 
 LETTER XXXI. 
 
 SELBORNE, April 29th, 1776. 
 
 ON August 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper, which 
 seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the grass bask- 
 ing 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 the size of full-grown earthworms. This little fry 
 issued into the world with the true viper-spirit about them, 
 showing great alertness as soon as disengaged from the 
 belly of the dam : they twisted and wriggled about, and set 
 themselves up, and gaped very wide when touched with a 
 stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and 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 a 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 scissors. 
 
 There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever 
 been in the open air before ; and that they were taken in 
 
202 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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. 
 
 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 ; they 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 puts a stop to the growth of those parts or append- 
 ages that are looked upon as its insignia. But the 
 ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on husbandry, carries it 
 much farther ; for he says that the loss of those insignia 
 alone has sometimes a strange effect 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 203 
 
 powers forsook him, and he neglected those females to 
 whom before he was passionately attached, and from whom 
 no fences would restrain him. 
 
 LETTER XXXIII. 
 
 THE natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the 
 reason is plain because it is neither profitable nor 
 convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent 
 of its time : however, my neighbour, a man of substance, 
 who had no occasion to study every little advantage to a 
 nicety, kept a half-bred bantam-sow, who was as thick as 
 she was long, and whose belly swept on the ground, till she 
 was advanced to her seventeenth year, at which period she 
 showed some tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and 
 the decline of her fertility. 
 
 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 intervening gates, and 
 march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept ; 
 and when her purpose was served would return by the same 
 means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be 
 reduced to four or five; and such a litter she exhibited 
 when in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon, 
 juicy, and tender ; the rind, or sw*rd, was remarkably thin, 
 At a moderate computation she was allowed to have been 
 
204 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 
 
 the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs a prodigious 
 instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was 
 killed in spring 1775, 
 
 LETTER XXXIV. 
 
 
 
 SELBORNE, May th t 1770. 
 M . , . adm6runt ubora 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 foundlings, 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 complacency, sue!) 
 as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling 
 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 ! 
 
 * Letter XXIV. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 205 
 
 Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the 
 ferocious genus of Fells, the murium leo, as Linnaeus calls 
 it, should be affected with any tenderness towards an 
 animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to 
 determine. 
 
 This strange affection probably was occasioned by that 
 desiderium, 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 pro- 
 curing her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended 
 with milk, till, from habit, she became as much delighted 
 with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. 
 
 This incident is no bad solution of that strange circum- 
 stance which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of 
 exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild 
 beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not 
 one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in 
 their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that 
 a poor little sucking leveret should be fostered and cherished 
 by a bloody grimalkin. 
 
 "... viridi fcetarn Mavortis in antro 
 Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circurn 
 Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 
 Impavidos ; illain tereti eervice reflexam 
 Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua"."* 
 
 The cave of Mars was dressed with mossy greens : 
 There by the wolf were laid the martial twins, 
 Intrepid on her swelling dugs they hung ; 
 The foster dam loll'd out her fawning tongue: 
 They su'ck'd secure, while bending back her head, 
 She lick'd their tender limbs ; and formed them as they fed." 
 DRYD. VIBG. Mn. viii line 840. 
 
206 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XXXV. 
 
 SELBORNE, May 20th, 1777. 
 
 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 economy of Nature, than the incurious are 
 aware of ; and are mighty in their effect, from their 
 minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention, 
 and from their numbers and fecundity. Earthworms, 
 though in appearance a small and despicable link in the 
 chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable 
 chasm. For to say nothing of half the birds, and some 
 quadrupeds, which are almost entirely supported by them, 
 worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which 
 would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perfora- 
 ting, 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 wcrk ; and the latter because, as they 
 think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would 
 find that the earth without worms would soon become cold, 
 hard -bound, and void of fermentation, and consequently 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 207 
 
 sterile ; 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 tipulcB (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 havoc in 
 the field and garden.* 
 
 These hints we think proper to throw out in order to set 
 the inquisitive and discerning to work. 
 
 A good monography of worms would afford much enter- 
 tainment and information at the same time, and would open 
 a large and new field in natural history. Worms work 
 most in the spring ; but by no means lie torpid in the dead 
 months : are out every mild night in the winter, as any 
 person may be convinced that will take the pains to examine 
 his grass-plots with a candle ; are hermaphrodites, and much 
 addicted to venery, and consequently very prolific. 
 
 LETTER XXXVI. 
 
 SELBOENE, Nov. 22nd, 1777. 
 
 You cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th of last 
 March were very hot days so sultry that everybody com- 
 plained and were restless under those sensations to which 
 they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches. 
 
 * Farmer Young, of Norton Farm, says, that this spring (1777) 
 about four acres of his wheat in one field were entirely destroyed by 
 slugs, which swarmed an the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as 
 it sprang. 
 
208 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many 
 summer coincidences ; for on those two days the thermometer 
 rose to 66 in the shade ; many species of insects revived 
 and came forth ; some bees swarmed in this neighbour- 
 hood ; the old tortoise, near Lewes, in Sussex, awakened 
 and came forth out of its dormitory ; and, what is most to 
 my present purpose, many house-swallows appeared, and 
 were very alert in many places, and particularly at 
 Chobham, in Surrey. 
 
 Eut as that short, warm period was succeeded as well as 
 preceded by harsh, severe weather, with frequent frosts and 
 ice, and cutting winds, the insects withdrew, the tortoise 
 retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen 
 no more until the 10th 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 themselves again in the 
 first week of November, and often on the fourth day of that 
 month, only for one day ; and that not as if they were in 
 actual migration, but playing about at their leisure and 
 feeding calmly, as if no enterprise of moment at all agitated 
 their spirits. And this was the case in the beginning of 
 this very month ; for on the 4th November more than 
 twenty house-martins, which, in appearance, had all 
 departed about the 7th 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 bluster- 
 ing, but the 4th was dark, and mild, and soft, the wind at 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELKORNE. 209 
 
 south-west, and the thermometer at 58J a pitch not 
 common at that season of the year. Moreover, it may not 
 be amiss to add in this place, that whenever the ther- 
 mometer is above 50, the bat comes flitting out in every 
 autumnal and winter-month. 
 
 From all these circumstances laid together, it is obvious 
 that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds are awakened 
 from their profoundest slumbers by a little untimely 
 warmth ; and therefore that nothing so much promotes its 
 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 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 Asia to enjoy in 
 March the transient summer of a couple of days. 
 
 LETTER XXXVII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Jan. 8th, 1778. 
 
 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 nor feet were able to 
 
 305 
 
210 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELWRNE. 
 
 perform their functions ; so that the poor object was half 
 his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing 
 in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity. His habit 
 was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight ho 
 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 great 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 havoc among 
 mankind. The Israelites seem to have been . greatly 
 afflicted with it from the most remote times, as appears from 
 the peculiar and repeated injunctions given them in the 
 Levitical law.* Nor was the rancour of this foul disorder 
 much abated in the last period of their commonwealth, as 
 may be seen in many passages of the New Testament. 
 
 Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all 
 Europe over: and our forefathers were by no means 
 exempt, as appears by the large provision made for objects 
 labouring under this calamity. There was an hospital 
 for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln ; a noble one 
 near Durham ; three in London and Southwark ; and 
 perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities. 
 Moreover, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and 
 charitable personages, bequeathed large legacies to such 
 poor people as languished under this hopeless infirmity. 
 
 * See Lev. xiii., xiv. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE, 211 
 
 It must, therefore, in these days be to a humane and 
 thinking person a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, 
 when he contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated, 
 and observes that a leper now is a rare sight. He will, 
 moreover, when engaged in such a train of thought, 
 naturally inquire for the reason. This happy change, 
 perhaps, may have originated and been continued from the 
 much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now eaten in 
 these kingdoms ; from the use of linen next the skin ; from 
 the plenty of better bread; and from the profusion of 
 fruits, roots, legumes, and greens, so common in every 
 family. Three or four centuries ago, before there were any 
 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* in the days 
 of Edward II., even so late in the spring as the 3rd of May. 
 It was from magazines like these that the turbulent barons 
 supported in idleness their riotous swarms of retainers, 
 ready for any disorder or mischief. But agriculture is now 
 arrived at such a pitch of perfection that our best and 
 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. 
 
 * Viz., six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six 
 hundred muttons. 
 
212 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room 
 of sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, 
 is a matter of neatness comparatively modern ; but must 
 prove a great means of preventing cutaneous ails. At this 
 very time woollen, instead of linen, prevails among the 
 poorer Welsh, who are subject to foul eruptions. 
 
 The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found 
 among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that 
 miserable sort which used in old days to be made of barley 
 or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening 
 their blood and correcting their juices, for 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 vege- 
 tables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now support multi- 
 tudes 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 pro- 
 vide 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 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 213 
 
 keeping up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the 
 first people among us that had gardens and fruit-trees in 
 any perfection within the wall of their abbeys* 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 horticul- 
 ture themselves that the knowledge of gardening made such 
 hasty advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr. Waller, 
 of Beaconsfield, were some of the first people of rank that 
 promoted the elegant science of ornamenting without 
 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 further adds " Curled endive blanched is 
 much used beyond seas ; and for a raw sallet, seemed to 
 excell lettuce itself." Now this journey was undertaken no 
 longer ago than in the year 1663. 
 
 * " In monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, how- 
 ever dimly. In them men of business were formed for the state : the 
 art of writing was cultivated by the monks ; they were the only pro- 
 ficients in mechanics, gardening, and architecture." DALRYMPLE'S 
 Annals of Scotland. 
 
2H NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK 
 
 LETTER XXXVIII. 
 
 SELBOKNE, Feb. 12^, 1778. 
 
 *' Fortfc puer, coraitum seductus ab agmine fido, 
 Dixerat, Ecquis adest ? et, Adest, responderat Echo. 
 Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in cranes ; 
 Voce, Veni, clamat magna. Yocat ilia vocantem."* 
 
 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 polysyllabical 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 ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, 
 especially if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables 
 of 
 
 u Tityre, tu patulse reeubans . . . " 
 
 were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first ; and 
 there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at 
 
 * " Chance parts the youth from his companions dear, 
 He cries, * Who's here I ' and Echo answers * Here ! ' 
 He stares around, and for a while stands dumb, 
 Then shouts out, ' Come, 1 and Echo answers, ' Come.' " 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 215 
 
 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 its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed spondees 
 of the same number of syllables, 
 
 " Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens . , ," 
 
 we could perceive a return but of four or five. 
 
 All echoes have some one place to which they are 
 returned stronger and more distinct than to any other; 
 and that is always the place that lies at right angles with 
 the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor too far 
 off. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much more articu- 
 lately than hanging woods or vales ; because in the latter 
 the voice is as it were entangled, and embarrassed in the 
 covert, and weakened in the rebound. 
 
 The true object of this echo, as we found by various 
 experiments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gally-lane, 
 which measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to 
 the eaves twelve feet. The true centrum phonicum, or just 
 distance, is one particular spot in the king's field, in the 
 path to Nore-hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above 
 the hollow cart-way. In this case there is no choice of 
 distance ; but the path, by mere contingency, happens to 
 be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises 
 or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires or 
 advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below 
 the object. 
 
 We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exact- 
 ness, and found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's 
 rule for distinct articulation ; for the Doctor, in his history 
 
216 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 of Oxfordshire, allows a hundred and twenty feet for the 
 return of each syllable distinctly ; hence this echo, which 
 gives ten distinct syllables, ought to measure four hundred 
 yards, or one hundred and twenty feet to each syllable ; 
 whereas our distance is only two hundred and fifty-eight 
 yards, or near seventy-five feet, to each syllable. Thus 
 our measure falls short of the Doctor's as five to eight ; 
 but then it must be acknowledged that this candid 
 philosopher was convinced afterwards, 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 its springiness, 
 and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole. In a still, 
 clear, dewy evening the air is most elastic ; and perhaps 
 the later the hour the more so. 
 
 Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, 
 that the poets have personified her ; and in their hands she 
 has been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor 
 need the gravest man be ashamed to appear taken with 
 such a phenomenon, since it may become the subject of 
 philosophical or mathematical inquiries. 
 
 One should have imagined that echoes, if not enter- 
 taining, must at least have been harmless and inoffensive j 
 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-garden, he adds 
 
 - ' ' aut ubi concava pulsu 
 
 Saxa sonant, vocisque otfensa resultat imago." 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 217 
 
 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. But if it should be urged, that though 
 they cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the reper- 
 cussions 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 another 
 Anathoth, a place of responses and 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 employments undisturbed, and 
 without showing the least sensibility or resentment. 
 
 Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally 
 silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains ; nor is there 
 any mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted 
 as a hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally 
 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 removed no more 
 of its garrulity can be expected. 
 
 Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his 
 park or outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at 
 little or no expense. For whenever he had occasion for a 
 new barn, stable, dog-kennel, or like structure, it would be 
 only needful to erect this building on the gentle declivity 
 
218 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 of a hill, with a like rising opposite to it, at a few hundred 
 yards distance ; and perhaps success might be the easier 
 insured 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 ... 
 
 " quae nee retieere loquenti, 
 
 Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo." 
 
 P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the follow- 
 ing lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and 
 so poetically accounting for their causes from popular 
 superstition : 
 
 " Quse bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 
 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 
 Saxa paries formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 
 Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 
 Quserimus, et magna disperses yoce ciemus. 
 Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 
 Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 
 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 
 Hsec 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 silverstrem ne cesset fundere musam."* 
 
 LUCRETIUS, Lib. iy. 1. 570. 
 
 * " Whence may'st thou solve, ingenuous J to the world 
 The rise of echoes, formed in desert scenes, 
 Mid rocks, and mountains, mocking every sound, 
 When late we wander through their solemn glooms, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 219 
 
 LETTER XXXIX. 
 
 SELBORNE, May 13^, 1778. 
 
 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 hardy possible to recount them ; while the swifts, though 
 they do not 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 
 
 And, with loud voice, some lost companion call. 
 And oft re-echoes echo till the peal 
 Kings seven times round ; so rock to rock repels 
 The mimic shout, reiterated close. 
 
 Here haunt the goat-foot satyrs, and the nymphs, 
 As rustics tell, and fauns whose frolic dance, 
 And midnight revels oft, they say, are heard 
 Breaking the noiseless silence ; while soft strains 
 Melodious issue, and the vocal band 
 Strike to their madrigals the plaintive lyre, 
 Such, feign they, sees the shepherd obvious oft, 
 Led on hy Pan, with pine-leaved garland crown'd 
 And seven-mouth'd reed his labouring lip beneath, 
 Waking the woodland muse with ceaseless song." 
 
 J. MASON GOOD. 
 
220 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 affec- 
 tion, that strange avTurropyr], 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 inhabitants, while others would be desti- 
 tute and forsaken. But the parent birds seem to maintain 
 a jealous superiority, and to oblige the young to seek for 
 new abodes ; and the rivalry of the males in many kinds 
 prevent 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. 
 
 SELBORNE, June 2nd, 1778. 
 
 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 know- 
 ledge ; and, where the science is carried no further than 
 a mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. 
 But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion 
 should be by no means content with a list of names ; he 
 should study plants philosophically, should investigate the 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 221 
 
 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 pro- 
 ductive of many of the greatest comforts and elegances of 
 life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, 
 oil, linen, cotton, etc., what not only strengthens our hearts, 
 and exhilarates our spirits, but what secures us from in- 
 clemencies of weather and adorns our persons. Man, in 
 his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by spontan- 
 eous 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. 
 
 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, ginsing, betel, paper, etc. 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, 
 
222 NATURAL HISTORY OF 8ELBORNE. 
 
 Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every 
 various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should 
 endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that are 
 useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb 
 of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at least 
 one sort of wheat or barley from another. 
 
 But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most 
 neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to 
 distinguish 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 
 improve the sward 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." 
 
 LETTER XLI. 
 
 SELBORNE, July 3rd, 1778. 
 
 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 should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks 
 and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields 
 cannot but furnish an ample Flora. The deep rocky lanes 
 abound with filices^ and the pastures and moist woods with 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 223 
 
 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 fcetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's foot, or 
 setterworth, 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 administered with caution. 
 
 Helleborus viridis, green hellebore, in the deep stony 
 lane on the left hand just before the turning to Norton farm, 
 and at the top of Middle Dorton under the hedge : this 
 plant dies down to the ground early in autumn, and springs 
 again about February, flowering almost as soon as it 
 appears above the ground. 
 
 Vaccinium oxycoccos, creeping bilberries, or cranberries, 
 in the bogs of Bin's-pond. 
 
 Vaccinium myrtillus, whortle, or bilberries, on the dry 
 hillocks of Wolmer Forest. 
 
 Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sundew, in the bogs 
 of Bin's-pond. 
 
 Drosera longifolia, long-leaved sundew, in the bogs of 
 Bin's-pond. 
 
 Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh cinquefoil, 
 in the bogs of Bin's-pond. 
 
 Hypericum androscemum, Tutsan, or St. John's wort, 
 in the stony, hollow lanes. 
 
224 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Vinca minor, less periwinkle, in Selborne-hanger and 
 Shrub-wood. 
 
 Monotropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or birds' 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, Hudsonii, per- 
 foliated yellow-wort, on the banks in the King's-field. 
 
 Paris quadrifolia, herb of Paris, true-love, or one-berry, 
 in the Ohurch-litten-coppica 
 
 Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxifrage, 
 in the dark and rocky hollow lanes. 
 
 Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian, or fell wort, on 
 the Zigzag and Hanger. 
 
 Lathrcea squammaria, tooth-wort, in the Church-litten- 
 coppice under some hazels near the foot-bridge, in Trim- 
 ming's garden hedge, and on the dry wall opposite Grange- 
 yard. 
 
 Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel, in the Short and Long 
 Lithe. 
 
 Lathy rus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathy rus, in 
 the bushes at the foot of the Short Lithe, near the path. 
 
 Ophrys spiralis, ladies' traces, in the Long Lithe, and 
 towards the south corner of the common. 
 
 Ophrys nidus avis, birds' nest ophrys, in the Long Lithe 
 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-wood under 
 the shady beeches. 
 
 Daphne laureola, spurge laurel, in Selborne-hanger and 
 the High-wood. 
 
 Daphne Mezcreum, the mezereon, in Selborne-hanger 
 among the shrubs, at the south-east end above the cottages. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 225 
 
 Ly coper don tuber, truffles, in the Hanger and High- 
 wood. 
 
 Sambucus ebulns, dwarf elder, walwort, or danewort 
 among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory. 
 
 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 
 fatidus 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 con- 
 generous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flower- 
 ing, that we cannot but admire. I shall only instance at 
 present in the Crocus saiivus, 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 internal structure. Yet the vernal 
 crocus expands its flowers by the beginning of March at 
 farthest, and often in very rigorous weather ; and cannot 
 be retarded but by some violence offered ; while the 
 autumnal (the saffron) defies the influence of the spring and 
 summer, and will not blow till most plants begin to fade 
 and run to seed. This circumstance is one of the wonders 
 of the creation, little noticed because a common occurrence ; 
 yet ought not to be overlooked on account of its being 
 familiar, since it would be as difficult to be explained as the 
 most stupendous phenomenon in nature. 
 
 " Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow 
 Congeal'd, the crocus, flamy bud to glow ? 
 
 306 
 
226 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 quickening word obey, 
 Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay." 
 
 LETTER XLII. 
 
 " Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique 
 genere incessus est : aves solse vario meatu feruntur, et in teml, 
 et in acre." 
 
 SELBORNE, Aug. 7th, 1778. 
 
 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. But a bird 
 in motion 
 
 " Et ver& incessu patuit " 
 
 Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings 
 expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding manner 
 that the former are still called in the north of England 
 gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan, to glide. The 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 227 
 
 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 centre of gravity. Hooks sometimes dive and tumble 
 in a frolicsome 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 awkwardly, 
 and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and 
 descending with ridiculous caution. All the gallince parade 
 and walk gracefully, and run nimbly ; but fly with difficulty, 
 with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line. Magpies 
 and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no 
 dispatch; herons seem encumbered with too much sail for 
 their light bodies, but these vast hollow wings are necessary 
 in carrying 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 tum- 
 blers, turn themselves over in the air. Some birds have 
 movements peculiar to the season of love ; thus ringdoves, 
 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 
 
228 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 flight, fans the air like the wind-hover \ and the green-finch, 
 in particular, exhibits such languishing and faltering ges- 
 tures 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 along, while missel- 
 thrushes use a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep 
 over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish 
 themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions; swifts 
 dash round in circles ; and the bank-martin moves with 
 frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small 
 birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance. Most 
 small birds hop ; but wagtails and larks walk, moving their 
 legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as 
 they sing ; woodlarks hang poised in the air ; and titlarks 
 rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent. The 
 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 Linnaeus. Geese and cranes, and 
 most wild fowls, move in figured flights, often changing 
 their position. The secondary remiges of Tringae, wild- 
 ducks, and some others, are very long, and give their wings, 
 when in motion, a hooked appearance. Dabchicks, moor- 
 hens, 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 229 
 
 LETTER XLIII. 
 
 SELBORNE, Sept. 9th, 1778. 
 
 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,* before 
 delighting in conquest and devastation ; but I would be 
 thought only to mean that many of the winged tribes have 
 various sounds and voices adapted to express their various 
 passions, wants, and feelings such as anger, fear, love, 
 hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally 
 eloquent ; some are copious and fluent, as it were, in their 
 utterance, while others are confined to a few 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 a horrible scream, and can snore and hiss 
 when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud 
 
 * See Spectator, Vol. vii., No. 512. 
 
230 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 some- 
 times in the gaiety of their hearts to sing, but with no great 
 success ; the parrot-kind have many modulations of voice, 
 as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds ; doves 
 coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems 
 of despairing lovers ; the woodpecker sets up a sort of loud 
 and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the 
 dusk till daybreak, serenades his mate with clattering of 
 castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their compla- 
 cency 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 the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and 
 gregarious birds, especially the nocturnal, that shift their 
 quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loquacious ; as 
 cranes, wild-geese, wild-ducks, and the like ; their perpetual 
 clamour prevents them from dispersing and losing their 
 companions. 
 
 In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as 
 much as can be expected ; for it would be endless to 
 instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation. 
 We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to 
 the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known, 
 and therefore best understood. And first the peacock, with 
 his gorgeous train, demands our attention ; but, like most 
 of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to 
 the ear : the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are 
 not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet- 
 like and clanking, and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as 
 grave historians assert ; the hiss, also, of the gander is 
 formidable and full of menace, and " protective of his 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORN8. 231 
 
 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 
 *Uso a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adver- 
 sary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood she 
 keeps a watchful eye ; and if a bird of prey appear, though 
 ever so high in the air, the careful mother announces the 
 enemy with a little inward moan, and watches him with a 
 steady and attentive look; but, if he approach, her note 
 becomes earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled. 
 No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety 
 of expression and so copious a language as common poultry. 
 Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a 
 window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize 
 its prey, with little twitterings of complacency ; but if you 
 tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh, 
 and expressive of disapprobation and a sense of danger. 
 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 
 
232 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 dis- 
 tinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or larum, 
 as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night. 
 Thus the poet elegantly styles him 
 
 -the crested cock, whose clarion sounds 
 
 The silent hours." 
 
 A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most ot 
 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 diminished, 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 
 unnoticed before : the exasperated matrons upbraided, they 
 execrated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they 
 never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had 
 torn him in a hundred pieces. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 233 
 LETTER XLIY. 
 
 <" Monstreut 
 
 . , . . 
 
 Quid tantura Oceano properent se tiugere solus 
 Hyberni; vel quse tardis mora noctibus obstet." 
 
 SELBORNE. 
 
 GENTLEMEN who have outlets 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 enjoys 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 the 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 men, at the 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 
 
234 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 the sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also 
 clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it. 
 
 By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there 
 is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice ; for, from 
 the shortest day, the owner would, every clear evening, see 
 the disc advancing at its setting, to the westward of the 
 object ; and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring 
 backwards every evening at its setting, towards the object 
 westward, till, in a few nights, it would set quite behind it, 
 and so by degrees, to the west of it : for when the sun 
 comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it would 
 at first set behind the object ; after a time the northern 
 limb would first appear, and so every night gradually more, 
 till at length the whole diameter would set northward of 
 it for about three nights ; but on the middle night of the 
 three, sensibly more remote than the former or following. 
 When beginning its recess from the summer tropic, it 
 would continue more and more to be hidden every night, 
 till at length it would descend quite behind the object 
 again ; and so nightly more and more to the westward. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 -Mugire videbis 
 
 Sub bedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos." 
 
 SELBORNE. 
 
 WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and 
 implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking 
 hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his Cyder, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 235 
 
 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 Marcely 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 February, in the year 1774, 
 were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of 
 rain ; so that by the end of the latter month the land- 
 springs, or lavants, began to prevail, and to be near as high 
 as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of 
 March also went on in the same tenor ; when, in the night 
 between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable part 
 of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its 
 
236 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 place, and fell down, leaving a high free-stone cliff naked 
 and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It 
 appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped and 
 undermined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going 
 down in a perpendicular direction ; for a gate which stood 
 in the field, on the top of the hill, after sinking with its 
 posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and 
 upright a position as to open and shut with great exactness, 
 just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still 
 standing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the 
 same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious 
 mass was absorbed in some gulf below, is plain also from 
 the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free 
 and unincumbered ; but would have been buried in heaps 
 of rubbish had the fragment parted and fallen forward. 
 About a hundred yards from the foot of this hanging 
 coppice stood a cottage by the side of a lane; and two 
 hundred yards lower, on the other side of the lane, was a 
 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 tempestuous, 
 observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began 
 to heave and part ; and that the walls seemed to open, and 
 the roofs to crack ; but they all agree that no tremor of 
 the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt ; only 
 that the wind continued to make a most tremendous 
 roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhab- 
 itants, 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 
 daylight came they were at leisure to contemplate the 
 devastations of the night; they then found that a deep 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 237 
 
 rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn 
 them, as it were, in two ; and that one end oi 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 versd ; that many large oaks were 
 removed out of their perpendicular, some thrown down, and 
 some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees ; and that 
 a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six 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 sid^ 
 which was strangely torn and disordered. The second 
 pasture-field, being more soft and springy, was protruded 
 forward without many fissures in the turf, which was 
 raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right 
 angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the 
 soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some 
 oaks that obstructed their farther course, and terminated 
 this awful commotion. 
 
 The perpendicular height of the precipice in general is 
 twenty-three yards; the length of the lapse or slip as seen 
 from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-one ; and a 
 partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards 
 more; so that the total length of this fragment that fell 
 was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of 
 land suffered from this violent convulsion ; two houses 
 were entirely destroyed ; OIMJ e^d of a new barn was left in 
 
238 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 
 
 ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that 
 composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked 
 rock ; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken 
 and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time 
 neither fit for the plough nor safe for pasturage, till 
 considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in 
 levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures. 
 
 LETTER XLYI. 
 
 resonant arbusta 
 
 SELBORNE. 
 
 THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field and interspersed with 
 furze close to the back of this village, well known by the 
 name of Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and 
 inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the 
 Gryllus campestris, or field-cricket ; which, though frequent 
 in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many 
 other counties. 
 
 As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the 
 attention of a naturalist, I have often gone down to 
 examine the economy of these grylli, and study their mode 
 of life ; but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy 
 matter to get a sight of them ; for feeling a person's foot- 
 steps as he advances, they stop short in the midst of their 
 song, and retire backward nimbly into their burrows, where 
 they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over. 
 
 At first we attempted to dig them "out with a spade, but 
 without any great success ; for either we could not get to 
 the bottom of the hole, which often terminated under a 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 239 
 
 great stone ; or else in breaking up the ground we inad- 
 vertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so 
 bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which were long and 
 narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very tough 
 skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish the male 
 from the female ; the former of which is shining black, 
 with a golden stripe across his shoulders ; the latter is 
 more dusky, more capacious about the abdomen, and carries 
 a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is 
 the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies 
 and safe receptacles. 
 
 Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means 
 will often succeed, and so it proved in the present case ; 
 for, though a spade be too boisterous and rough an 
 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 and 
 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 
 
240 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 the males meet they will fight fiercely, as I found by some 
 which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I 
 should have been glad to have made them settle. For 
 though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their 
 knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks 
 would seize on any other that were intruded 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 them- 
 selves, 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 
 sweetness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always dis- 
 please. We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted 
 with the associations which they promote than with the 
 notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket, 
 though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously delights some 
 hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer ideas' of 
 everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. 
 
 About the 10th March the crickets appear at the mouths 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 241 
 
 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 its 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 turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time, 
 and fed and sung ; but wandered away by degrees, and were 
 heard at a farther distance every morning, so that it appears 
 that on this emergency they made use of their wings in 
 attempting to return to the spot from which they were 
 taken. 
 
 One of these crickets when confined in a paper cage and 
 set in the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with 
 water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry and loud 
 as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sitting j 
 if the plants are not wetted it will die. 
 
 LETTER XLVII. 
 
 1 ' Far from all resort of mirth 
 Save the cricket on the hearth." 
 
 MILTON'S 11 Penseroso. 
 
 SELBOBNE. 
 
 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 
 
 307 
 
242 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 
 Boon 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 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, fore- 
 telling her when it will rain, and are prognostic sometimes, 
 she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near rela- 
 tion, 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, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 243 
 
 and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity ac- 
 counts 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 remark- 
 able 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 woodpeckers, 
 opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so 
 are always rising or sinking 
 
 When they increase to a great degree, as they did once 
 in the house where I am now writing, they become noisome 
 pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into people's 
 faces ; but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder 
 discharged into their crevices and crannies. In families at 
 such ^times they are like Pharaoh's plague of frogs " in 
 their bedchambers, and upon their beds, and in their ovens, 
 and in their kneading troughs."* Their shrilling noise is 
 occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Oats 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. 
 
 * Exod. viii. 3. 
 
244 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 LETTER XLVIII. 
 
 SELBORNE. 
 
 How diversified are the modes of life not only of incon- 
 gruous but even of congenerous animals ; and yet their 
 specific distinctions are not more various than their 
 propensities. Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny 
 dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices amidst the glowing 
 heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the Gryllus gryllo talpa 
 (the mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents 
 the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its 
 functions in a swampy, wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, 
 curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works 
 under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, 
 but seldom throwing up hillocks. 
 
 As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of 
 canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising 
 up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering the 
 walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters they 
 occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by 
 destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and 
 flowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless, 
 and make no use of their wings by day ; but at night they 
 come abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been 
 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 a house where I was 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 245 
 
 on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that 
 month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, 
 pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a 
 curious scene of domestic economy : 
 
 -Ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram : 
 
 Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 
 Apparent penetralia. " 
 
 There were many caverns and winding passages leading 
 to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and 
 about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret 
 nursery were deposited near a 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- 
 mowed mould, like that which is raised by ants. 
 
 When mole-crickets fly they move " cursu undoso" rising 
 and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned 
 before. In different parts of this kingdom people call them 
 fen-crickets, churr- worms, and eve-churrs, all very apposite 
 names. 
 
 Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these 
 insects, astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that, 
 from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs, 
 or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this 
 and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like 
 many quadrupeds ! 
 
246 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 
 
 LETTER XLIX. 
 
 SELBOKNE, May 7th, 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 Frinsham-pond, a large lake belonging to the 
 Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer-forest 
 and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. 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 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 Vechasse. 
 My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed 
 only four ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of 
 the thigh measured three inches and a-half, and the legs 
 four inches and a-half. Hence we may safely assert that 
 these birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELSORNE. 247 
 
 greatest length of legs of any known bird. The flamingo, 
 for instance, is one of the most long-legged birds, and yet 
 it bears no manner of proportion to the himantopus ; for a 
 cock flamingo weighs, at an average, about four pounds 
 avoirdupois ; and his legs and thighs measure usually about 
 twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a 
 fraction more that four .ounces and one quarter ; and if 
 four ounces and a quarter have eight inches of legs, four 
 pounds must have one hundred and twenty inches and a 
 fraction of legs viz., somewhat more than ten feet ; such a 
 monstrous proportion as the world never saw ! If you 
 should try the experiment in still larger birds the disparity 
 would still increase. It must be matter of great curiosity 
 to see the stilt plover move ; to observe how it can wield 
 such a length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs 
 seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to 
 be but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder is, that 
 it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop to 
 support its steps it must be liable, in speculation, to 
 perpetual vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true 
 centre of gravity. 
 
 The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by 
 an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender 
 and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither 
 Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches, either 
 at home nor abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant 
 never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it 
 often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist 
 says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn ; and a most 
 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 iri 
 Great Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears 
 
248 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 Contin- 
 ent, 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. 
 
 SELBORNE, April 21s, 1780. 
 
 THE old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so 
 often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter 
 dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to 
 express its resentments 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 hare an oppor- 
 tunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life, 
 and propensities ; and perceive already that, towards the 
 time of coming forth, it opens a breathing place in the 
 ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration 
 as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes 
 under the earth from the middle of November to the 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 249 
 
 middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer ; for 
 it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, 
 and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides, 
 it retires to rest for every shower ; and does not move at all 
 in wet days. 
 
 When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is 
 a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow 
 such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, 
 on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander 
 more than two- thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, 
 and be lost to all sensation for months together in the 
 profoundest of slumbers. 
 
 While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm after- 
 noon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops 
 of shell-snails; and, at the same juncture-, the tortoise 
 heaved up the mould and put out its head ; and the next 
 morning came forth, as it were, raised from the dead j and 
 walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a curious 
 coincidence ! a very amusing occurrence ! to see such a 
 similarity of feelings between the two </>epeoiKoi ! for so the 
 Greeks called 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. 
 
 MOBE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY TORTOISE, 
 
 BECAUSE we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to 
 undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he 
 is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, 
 
 11 Much too wise to walk into a well : " 
 
 and has so much discernment as not to fall down a haha, but to stop 
 and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. 
 
250 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun ; because his 
 thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poets 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,* he inclines his shell, by 
 tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray. 
 
 Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile ; to be 
 cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside ; to be 
 imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should 
 suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a 
 season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions 
 are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in 
 the morning ; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and 
 interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible ; and 
 often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some 
 distant field. The motives that impel him to undertake these 
 rambles seem to be of the amorous kind ; his fancy then becomes 
 intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual 
 gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn 
 deportment. 
 
 LETTER LI. 
 
 SELBOKNE, Sept. 3rd, 1781. 
 
 I HAVE now read your miscellanies through with much care 
 and satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for 
 
 * Several years ago a book was written entitled Fruit Walls 
 Improved ly Inclining them to the Horizon : in which the author 
 has shown, by calculation, that a much greater number of the rays 
 of the sun will fall on such walls than on those which are perpen- 
 dicular. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 251 
 
 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 April last; on 
 that day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and 
 cavities of the suspected spot. The persons took pains, but 
 without any success ; however, a remarkable incident 
 occurred in the midst of our pursuit ; while the labourers 
 were at work a house-martin, the first that had been seen 
 this year, came down the village in the sight of several 
 people, and went at once into a nest, where it stayed a 
 short time, and then flew over the houses ; for some days 
 after no martins were observed, not till the 16th April, and 
 then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late 
 this year. 
 
 LETTER LII. 
 
 SBLBOKNB, Sept. 9O 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 my attention on 
 that species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, with- 
 drew this year about the first day of August, all save one 
 pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a single 
 
252 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 24th 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 27th, looking 
 more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on the 
 wing. After this day they were missing at once; nor 
 could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round 
 the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods 
 evidently do. On the 31st I caused the eaves to be 
 searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, 
 stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. 
 This double nest was full of the black shining cases of the 
 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. 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 1780, so late as the 3rd September. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 253 
 
 LETTER LIII. 
 
 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 anything to do with animal life, as I at first expected : 
 but, upon a closer examination behind the larger boughs, 
 we were surprised to find that they were coated over with 
 husky shells, from whose sides proceeded a cotton-like 
 substance, surrounding a multitude of eggs. This curious 
 and uncommon production put me upon recollecting what 
 I have heard and read concerning the Coccus vitis viniferce 
 of Linnaeus, which, in the south of Europe, infests many 
 vines, and is a horrid and loathsome pest. As soon as I had 
 turned to the accounts given of this insect, I saw at once 
 that it swarmed on my vine ; and did not appear to have 
 been at all checked by the preceding winter, which had been 
 uncommonly severe. 
 
 Not being then at all aware that it had anything to do 
 tvith 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 imme- 
 diately 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 
 
254 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 conveyed from one country to another in a very unexpected 
 manner, and have a wonderful power of maintaining their 
 existence till they fall into a nidus proper for their support 
 and increase, I cannot but suspect still that these cocci 
 came to me originally from Andalusia. Yet, all the while, 
 candour obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot has 
 written me word that he once, and but once, saw these 
 insects on a vine at Weymouth in Dorsetshire \ which, it 
 is here to be observed, is a sea-port town to which the 
 coccus might be conveyed by shipping. 
 
 As many of my readers may possibly never have heard 
 of this strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a 
 passage from a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the 
 Reverend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lanca- 
 shire, but not yet published : 
 
 " In the year 1770 a vine, which grew on the east side of 
 my house, and which had produced the finest crops of 
 grapes for years past, was suddenly overspread on all the 
 woody branches with large lumps of a white fibrous sub- 
 stance resembling spiders' webs, or rather raw cotton. It 
 was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to everything 
 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 o grapes 
 set when this pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was 
 manifestly injured by this foul encumbrance. 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 j but it was so slimy and tenacious 
 that it could by no means be cleared. The grapes never 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF S&LBORNE. 255 
 
 filled to their natural perfection, but turned watery and 
 vapid. Upon perusing the works afterwards of M. de 
 Reaumur, I found this matter perfectly described and 
 accounted for. Those husky shells, which I had observed, 
 were no other than the female coccus, from whose side this 
 cotton-like substance exudes, 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 con- 
 veyed from one country to another in a very unaccountable 
 manner, I shall here mention an emigration of small aphides, 
 which was observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago 
 than August 1st, 1774. 
 
 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 
 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 
 
256 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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. 
 
 LETTER LIV. 
 
 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 ob- 
 serving 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 vivarium, to which I paid no small 
 attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed 
 within its narrow limits. It was here that I first observed 
 the manner in which fishes die. As soon as the creature 
 sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands as it 
 were on its head, till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, 
 the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of 
 the water with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes, 
 when dead, swim in that manner is very obvious ; because, 
 when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly, 
 the broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity, 
 and turns the belly uppermost, as lighter from its being a 
 cavity, and because it contains the 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 col- 
 lect from pure water frequently changed ; yet they must 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 257 
 
 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 (ducks' 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 inconceivable rapidity. It has been said 
 that the eyes of fishes are immovable ; but these appa- 
 rently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as 
 occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted 
 candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and 
 seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand 
 against the support whereon the bowl is hung ; especially 
 when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. 
 As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when 
 they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always 
 open. 
 
 Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl contain- 
 ing such fishes; the double refractions of the glass and 
 water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and 
 changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours ; 
 while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex 
 shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly ; not 
 to mention that the introduction of another element and its 
 inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very 
 
 agreeable manner. 
 
 308 
 
258 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE. 
 
 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. 
 Linnaeus ranks this species of fish under the genus of 
 cyprinus, or carp, and calls it Cyprinus auratus. 
 
 Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful 
 way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large 
 hollow space within, that does not communicate with it. 
 In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so that you 
 may 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 rem prodigialit&r unam." 
 
 LETTER LV. 
 
 Oct. im, 1781, 
 
 I THINK I have observed before that much of the most 
 considerable part of the house-martins withdraw from 
 hence about the first week in October ; but that some, the 
 latter broods I am now convinced, linger on till towards 
 the middle of that month ; and that at times, once perhaps 
 in two or three years, a flight, for one day only, has 
 shown itself in the first week in November. 
 
 Having taken notice, in October 1780, that the last flight 
 was numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred and fifty, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF S EL BORNE. 259 
 
 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 dis- 
 cover 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 seemed to be well calculated for their 
 winter residence ; for in many parts it is as steep as the 
 roof of any house, and therefore secure from the annoyances 
 of water ; and it is moreover clothed with beechen shrubs, 
 which, being stunted and bitten by sheep, make the 
 thickest covert imaginable ; and are so entangled as to be 
 impervious to the smallest spaniel ; besides, it is the nature 
 of underwood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter ; so 
 that, with the leaves on the ground and those on the twigs, 
 no shelter can be more complete. I watched them on the 
 13th and 14th 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 22nd 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 
 
260 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 indulged me that autumn with a November visit, as I much 
 desired, I presume that, with proper assistants, I should 
 have settled the matter past all doubt ; but though the 3rd 
 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 LYI. 
 
 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. Philoso- 
 phers have defined instinct to be that secret influence by 
 which every species is compelled naturally to pursue, at 
 all times, the same way or track, without any teaching 
 or example ; whereas reason, without instruction, would 
 often vary and do that by many methods which 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 261 
 
 It has been remarked that every species of bird has 
 a mode of nidification peculiar to itself, so that a schoolboy 
 would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him. 
 This is the case among fields and woods and wilds ; but in 
 the villages round London, where mosses and gossamer, and 
 cotton from vegetables, are hardly to be found, the nest of 
 the chaffinch has not that elegant finished appearance, nor 
 is it so beautifully studded with lichens, as in a more rural 
 district ; and the wren is obliged to construct its house with 
 straws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity 
 arid 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 
 compressed. 
 
 In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform 
 and consistent. There are three creatures, the squirrel, the 
 field-mouse, and the bird called the nut-hatch (Sitta 
 Europcea), which live much on hazel-nut ; 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 could wonder how the kernel 
 can be extracted through it; while the last picks an 
 irregular ragged hole with its bill : but as this artist has no 
 paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit 
 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 per- 
 forates 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 
 
262 NATURAL HISTORY OF 
 
 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 assist some men, as it were by recollec- 
 tion, for days after the concert is over. What I mean the 
 following passage will most readily explain : 
 
 " Prsehabebat porr6 vocibus humanis, iustrurnentisque 
 harmonicis musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque 
 non delectaretur : sed quod ex music4 human<i rclinqueretur 
 in animo continens qusedam, attentionemque et somnum 
 conturbans agitatio ; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac 
 mutationes illae sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque, 
 redeuntque per phantasiam : cum nihil tale reliriqui 
 possit ex modulationibus avium, quse, quod non sunt 
 perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam 
 facultatem commovere." Gassendus in Vild Peireskii. 
 
 This curious quotation strikes me much by so well 
 representing 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 uneasiness 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. 
 
XATURAL HISTORY Of SELtiORNE. 263 
 
 LETTER LYII. 
 
 A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, 
 which I have great reason to think is the petti chaps : 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 crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the 
 bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the 
 neclarium 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, 
 informs me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten 
 minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a 
 great cluster 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 
 ther 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- 
 
264 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was 
 devouring a wood-pigeon. The Falco peregrinus, or hag- 
 gard-falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the 
 southern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed in the 
 neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. 
 Pennant into North Wales. * 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 a-half standing 
 weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully 
 formed for rapine : its breast was plump and muscular ; 
 its thighs long, thick, and brawny ; and its legs remarkably 
 short and well set ; the feet were armed with most formid- 
 able, 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 pro- 
 cess near the end of the upper mandible on each side ; its tail, 
 or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body ; 
 yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of 
 the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be 
 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 its craw 
 were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop 
 of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot ; for 
 voracious birds do not eat grain, but, when devouring their 
 quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence swallow bones 
 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. 
 
 * See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman. 
 
KATURAl HISTORY OF SELBORXE. 265 
 
 LETTER LVIIL 
 
 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 awkward gait when they trot. When they are in 
 motion their tails are curved high over their backs like 
 those of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the 
 outside from the tip midway, that does not seem to be 
 matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes are 
 jet-black, small, and piercing ; the insides of their lips and 
 mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The 
 bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg ; the dog has none, 
 When taken out into a field the bitch showed some disposi- 
 tion 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 upon vegetables, and would 
 not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators. 
 
266 NATURAL HISTORY of 1 
 
 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 Obey, are engraved with 
 prick-ears, like those from Canton. The. Kamschatdales 
 also train the same sort of sharp- eared, peak-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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY Of 1 SELBORNE. 26? 
 
 this circumstance of dislike j for vultures,* and kites, and 
 ravens, and crows, etc., were intended to be messmates with 
 dogsf over their carrion, and seem to be appointed by 
 Nature as fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous 
 nuisances from the face of the earth. 
 
 LETTER LIX. 
 
 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 butt-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 pon- 
 derous, 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 
 
 * ' ' 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." 
 
 t "The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like 
 quihloh." 
 
268 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 
 
 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 field, away down 
 towards Dorton, where, among the streams and meadows, 
 they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night 
 are obliged to be noisy ; their notes, often repeated, become 
 signals or watchwords to keep them together, that they may 
 not stray or lose each 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 Hopley. We remember a little girl 
 who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on such an 
 occurrence, in the true spirit of physieo-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." 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 269 
 
 LETTER LX. 
 
 IN reading Dr. Huxain's Observations de Aere, .etc., 
 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*266 in. ; and 
 in 1741, 20-354 in. ; and again, in 1743, only 20-908 in. 
 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 in. a quantity of rain that has twice been 
 exceeded at Selborne in the short period of my observations. 
 Dr. Huxain 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 
 
270 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 the Lythe and Combwood, 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 
 to the left, they pervaded the vale above Combwood ponds, 
 and after a pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to 
 extend round Hartley 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 Yalence. The tube was 
 first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when the 
 mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own ; but, being 
 filled twice again 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SEIRORNE. 271 
 
 Selborno 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 a hundred miles. 
 
 LETTER LXI. 
 
 SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its 
 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 evergreens, some 
 account of its rigour, and reason of its ravages, may be 
 useful, and not unacceptable 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 
 
272 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 
 evergreens 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 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 carefully 
 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 to grow on later 
 in the autumn than they would otherwise 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 273 
 
 Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same 
 inconvenience 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 red-wings 
 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. 
 
 On the 3rd January, Benjamin Martin's themometer 
 within doors, in a close parlour where there was no fire, fell 
 in the night to 20, and on the 4th, to 18, and on the 7th, 
 to 17, 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 
 
 39 
 
274 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 milder weather ; and, moreover, moles began to heave and 
 work, and a manifest thaw took place. From the latter 
 circumstance we may conclude that thaws often originate 
 under ground from warm vapours which arise; else how 
 should subterraneous animals receive such early intimations 
 of their approach 1 Moreover, we have often observed that 
 cold seems to descend from above ; for, when a thermometer 
 hangs abroad in a frosty night, the intervention of a cloud 
 shall immediately raise the mercury 10 ; and a clear sky 
 shall again compel it to descend to its former gauge. 
 
 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 havoc : hence men should learn to orna- 
 ment 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 recovered 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. 
 
 By the 14th 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 275 
 
 well preserved ; for snow is the most kindly mantle that 
 infant vegetation can be wrapped in ; were it not for that 
 friendly meteor 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. 
 
 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 ;* 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 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad; 
 
 * 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 a-half of rain. And 
 the terrible long frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when 
 the springs were very high. 
 
276 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 and thinks he never before or since has encountered such 
 rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were 
 now filled 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 heapa 
 treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to 
 numbers of them. 
 
 From the 14th 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 birthday, 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 18th 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 thereabout; but on the 21st it descended 
 to 20. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable and 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 277 
 
 starving condition. Tamed by the season, skylarks 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 22nd 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 horse's feet, so that the 
 carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an 
 exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not 
 pleasant ; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of 
 desolation : 
 
 " 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 11, 
 7, 6, 6; and at Selborne to 7, 6, 10; and on the 
 31st January, just before sunrise, with rime on the trees 
 and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly 
 to zero, being 32 below the freezing point ; but by eleven 
 in the morning, though in the shade, it sprang up to 16^* 
 a most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England ! 
 
 * 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 
 viz., thirty-four degrees below the freezing point. The thermometer 
 used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin. 
 
278 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 consti- 
 tutions 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 
 encumbered 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 1st 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 2nd February the thaw persisted, and on the 3rd 
 swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a 
 courtyard 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. 
 
 Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; 
 for at the same juncture, as the author was informed by 
 accurate correspondents, at Lyndon, in the county of Rut- 
 land, 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. 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 279 
 
 The consequences of this severity were, that in Hamp- 
 shire, 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 were 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 
 destroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, 
 were so thinned that few remained to breed the following 
 year. 
 
 LETTER LXIII. 
 
 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 baro- 
 meter very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at 28*5 
 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 work of men were quite overwhelmed, 
 the lanes filled so as to be impassable, and the ground 
 
280 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 soon began to show 
 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 Dollond'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 
 below 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 intreated him to hang out his thermometer, 
 
 made by Adams, and to pay some attention to it morning 
 and evening, expecting wonderful phenomena, in so elevated 
 a region, at two hundred feet or more above my house. 
 But, behold ! on the 10th, at eleven at night, it was down 
 only to 17, and the next morning at 22, when mine was 
 at 10 ! We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse 
 of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses 
 
 up, thinking that of Mr. mustj somehow, be 
 
 wrongly constructed. But, when the instruments came to 
 be confronted, they went exactly together ; so that, for one 
 night at least, the cold at Newton was 18 less than at 
 Selborne ; and, through the whole frost, 10 or 12 ; and 
 indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we could 
 readily credit this; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 281 
 
 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 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 3rd, 
 1785, the thaw was confirmed, and some rain fell. 
 
 A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new 
 to us, is, that on Friday, December 10th, being bright sun- 
 shine, the air was full of icy spiculce, floating in all 
 directions, like atoms in a sunbeam 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 1 
 
 We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early 
 information they gave us ; and hurried our apples, pears, 
 onions, potatoes, etc., into the cellar and warm closets ; 
 while those who had not, or neglected such warnings, lost 
 all their store of roots and fruits, and had their very bread 
 and cheese frozen. 
 
 I must not omit to tell you that, during these 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 
 
282 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 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 its effects to have 
 exceeded any since 1730-40. 
 
 LETTER LXIV. 
 
 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 sunshine 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 inconveniences that we 
 suffered from some late rigorous winters. 
 
 The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and 
 dry ; 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE. 283 
 
 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 
 honeysuckles, 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 evapora- 
 tion, and then in the night fall down again with the dews 
 in which they are entangled ; that the air is strongly 
 scented, 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 first seen in warm, still mornings. 
 
284 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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. 
 
 THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and porten- 
 tous one, and full of horrible phenomena ; for, besides the 
 alarming meteors and tremendous thunderstorms that 
 affrighted and distressed the different counties of this 
 kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smoky fog, that prevailed 
 for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, 
 and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary 
 appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of 
 man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange 
 occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th inclusive, during 
 which period the wind varied to every quarter without 
 any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as 
 blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferru- 
 ginous 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 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 285 
 
 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, lowering 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 sprang out of the sea on the coast of Norway, 
 On this occasion Milton's noble simile of the sun, in his 
 tirst 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 phenomena. 
 
 " As when the sun, new risen, 
 
 Looks through the horizontal, misty air, 
 Shorn of his learns ; or from behind the moon, 
 In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds 
 On half the nations, and with fear of change 
 Perplexes monarchs- ." 
 
 LETTER LXVI. 
 
 WE are very seldom annoyed with thunderstorms : 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 in two, go in part to one 
 of those quarters, and in part to the other ; as was truly 
 
286 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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 mountains, hill behind 
 hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser-hill, and Ports- 
 down, which somehow 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 thunderstorm 
 from the south, I do not mean that we never have suffered 
 from thunderstorms at all ; for on June 5th, 1784, the 
 thermometer in the morning being at 64, and at noon at 
 70, the barometer at 29 -6^ 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 its appearance. At about a 
 quarter after two the storm began in the parish of Hartley, 
 moving 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 ex- 
 tensive as it was violent, and of any continuance (for it was 
 very short), it must have ravaged all the neighbourhood, 
 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 287 
 
 In the parish of Hartley it did some damage to one 
 farm ; but Norton, which lay in the centre 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 removed that weighed two 
 hundredweight. 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 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 Warrington, has lately 
 
288 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
 
 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. 
 SELBORNB, June 25^, 1787. 
 
A NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
OBSERVATIONS 
 
 IN 
 
 VARIOUS BRANCHES OF NATURAL HISTORY 
 
 Selected from Whites MSS. 
 WITH NOTES BY WILLIAM MARKWICK 
 
A COMPARATIVE VIEW 
 
 THE NATURALIST'S CALENDAR, 
 
 As KEPT AT SELBORNE, IN HAMPSHIRE, BY THE LATE REV. GILBERT WHITE, 
 M.A. ; AND AT CATSPIELD, NEAR BATTLE, IN SUSSEX, BY WILLIAM MARKWICK. 
 
 ESQ., F.L.S., FROM THE YEAR 1768 TO THE YEAR 1793, 
 
 N.B. The dates in the following Calendars, when more than one, express the earliest 
 and latest times in which the circumstance noted was observed. 
 
 Of the abbreviations used, fl. signifies flowering ; I. leafing ; and ap. the first 
 
 appearance. 
 
 REDBREAST (Sylvia rubecula) sings 
 Larks (Alauda arvenris) congregate 
 Nuthatch (Sitta Europoea) heard 
 Winter aconite (Helleborus hiemalis) fl. 
 Shelless snail or slug (Limax) ap. 
 Gray wagtail (Motacilla boarula) ap. [ 
 White wagtail (Motacilla alba) ap. j 
 Missel thrush (Turdus viscivorus) sings 
 Bearsfoot (Helleborus fcetidus) fl. 
 Polyanthus (Primula Polyantha) fl. 
 Double daisy (Bellis perennis plena) fl. 
 Mezereon (Daphne mezereum) fl. 
 Pansie ( Viola tricolor) fl. 
 Red dead-nettle (Lamiumpurpureum) fl. 
 Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) fl. 
 Hazel (Corylus avelana) fl. 
 Hepatica (Anemone hepatica) fl. 
 Hedge sparrow (Sylvia modularis) sings 
 Common flies (Musca domestica) seen in 
 
 numbers 
 
 Greater titmouse (Parus major) sings 
 Thrush (Turdus musicus) sings 
 Insects swarm under sunny hedges 
 Primrose (Primula vulgaris) fl. 
 Bees (Apis mellifica) ap. 
 Gnats play about 
 Chaffinches, male and female (Fringilla 
 
 ccelebs), seen in equal numbers 
 Furze or gorse (Ulex Europozus) fl. 
 Wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri ; seufru- 
 
 ticuloxus of Smith) fl. 
 Stock (Cheiranthus incanus) fl. 
 fimberiza alba (bunting) in great flocks 
 Linnets (Fringilla linota) congregate 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 
 Jan. 112 
 Jan. 118 
 
 Jan. 3 31, and again Oct. 
 Oct. 16. Feb. 9 [6 
 
 Jan. 114 
 
 Mar. 8. 
 
 Apr. 10 
 
 
 Jan. 1. Feb. 18 
 
 Feb. 28. 
 
 Apr. 17 
 
 
 Jan. 2. 
 
 Jan. 16. 
 
 May 31 
 
 
 Jan. 211 
 
 Jan. 24. 
 Dec. 12 
 
 Mar. 23 
 Feb. 23 
 
 
 Jan. 214 
 
 Feb. 19 
 
 Apr. 14 
 
 
 Jan. 2. Feb. 14 
 
 Mar. 1. 
 
 May 6 
 
 
 Jan. 2. Apr. 12 
 
 Jan. 1. 
 
 Apr. 9 
 
 
 Jan. 2. Feb. 1 
 
 Mar. 17. 
 
 Apr. 29 
 
 
 Jan. 3. Feb. 16 
 
 Jan. 2. 
 
 Apr. 4 
 
 
 Jan. 3. 
 
 Jan. 1. 
 
 May 10 
 
 
 Jan. 321 
 
 Jan. 1. 
 
 Apr. 5 
 
 
 Jan. 315 
 Jan. 3. Feb. 28 
 
 Jan. 1- 
 Jan. 21. 
 
 Apr. 9 
 Mar. 11 
 
 
 Jan. 4. Feb. 18 
 
 Jan. 17. 
 
 Apr. 9 
 
 
 Jan. 612 
 
 Jan. 10. 
 
 Mar. 13 
 
 
 Jan. 5. Feb. 3 
 
 May 15 
 
 
 
 Jan. 6. Feb. 6 
 
 Feb. 17. 
 
 Mar. 17 
 
 
 Jan. 622 
 
 Jan. 15. 
 
 Apr. 4 
 
 
 Jan. 6. 
 
 
 
 
 Jan. 6. Apr. 7 
 
 Jan. 3. 
 
 Mar. 22 
 
 
 Jan. 6. Mar. 19 
 
 Jan. 31. 
 
 Apr. 11 ; last 
 
 
 Jan. 6. Feb. 3 
 
 
 [seen Dec. 
 
 30 
 
 Jan. 611 
 
 Dec. 2. 
 
 Feb. 3 
 
 
 Jan. 8. Feb. 1 
 
 Jan. 1. 
 
 Mar. 27 
 
 
 Jan. 8. Apr. 1 
 
 Feb. 21. 
 
 May 9 
 
 
 Jan. 812 
 
 Feb. 1. 
 
 JuneS 
 
 
 Jan. 9. 
 
 
 
 
 Jan. 9. 
 
 Jan. 11 
 
 
 
292 
 
 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 Lambs begin to fall 
 
 Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) resort to their 
 
 nest trees 
 
 Black hellebore (Helleborus niger) fl. 
 Snowdrop (Oalanthus nivalis) fl. 
 White dead nettle (Lamium album) fl. 
 Trumpet honeysuckle fl. 
 Common creeping crow-foot (Ranuncu- 
 lus repens) fl. 
 House sparrow (Fringilla domestica) 
 
 chirps 
 
 Dandelion (Leontodon taraxacum) fl. 
 Bat (Vespertilio) ap. 
 Spiders shoot their webs 
 Butterfly ap. 
 
 Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) ap 
 Blackbird (Turdus nierula) whistles 
 Wren (Sylvia troglodytes) sings 
 Earthworms lie out 
 Crocus (Crocus vernus) fl. 
 Skylark (Alauda arvensis) sings 
 Ivy casts its leaves 
 Helleborus hiemalis fl. 
 Common dor or clock (Scarabceus stereo- 
 
 rarius) 
 
 Peziza acetabulum ap. 
 Helleborus viridi* fl. 
 Hazel (Corylus avellana) fl. 
 Woodlark (Alauda arbor ea) sings 
 Chaffinch (Fringilla ccelebs) sings 
 Jackdaws begin to come to churches 
 Yellow wagtail (Motacillajlava) ap. 
 Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) 1. 
 Field or procumbent speedwell (Veronica 
 
 agrestis) fl. 
 
 Nettle butterfly (Papilio Urticce) ap. 
 White wagtail (Motacilla alba) chirps 
 Shell snail (Helix nemoralis) ap. 
 Earthworms engender 
 Barren strawberry (Fragaria sterilis) fl. 
 Blue titmouse (Parsus coeruleus) chirps 
 Brown wood owls hoot 
 Hen (Phasianus gallus) sits 
 Marsh titmouse begins his two harsh 
 
 sharp notes 
 Gossamer floats 
 Musca tenax ap. 
 Larustine (Viburnum tinus) fl. 
 Butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus) fl. 
 Fox (Cants vulpes) smells rank 
 Turkey-cocks strut and gobble 
 Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) 
 
 sings 
 
 Brimstone butterfly (Papilio Rhamnifap. 
 Green woodpecker (Pious viridis) makes 
 
 a loud cry 
 
 Raven (Corvus Corax) builds 
 Yew treQ(Taxus baccata) fl. 
 Colesfoot (Tussilago farfara) fl. 
 
 WHITB. 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 Jan. 911 
 
 Jan. 6. Feb. 21 
 
 Jan. 10. Feb. 1 
 
 Jan. 23. 
 
 Jan. 10. 
 
 Apr. 27. 
 
 Jan. 10. Feb. 5 
 
 Jan. 18. Mar. 1 
 
 Jan. 13. 
 
 Mar. 23. May 10 
 
 Jan. 13. 
 
 
 Jan. 13. 
 
 Apr. 10. May 12 
 
 Jan. 14. 
 
 Feb. 17. May 9 
 
 Jan. 16. Mar. 1 
 
 Feb. 1. Apr. 7 
 
 Jan. 16. Mar. 24 
 
 Feb. 6. June 1, last seen 
 
 Jan. 16. 
 
 [Nov. 20 
 
 Jan. 16. 
 
 Feb. 21. May 8, last seen 
 
 Jan. 16. 
 
 Jan. 1031 [Dec. 22 
 
 Jan. 17. 
 
 Feb. 15. May 13 
 
 Jan. 17. 
 
 Feb. 7. June 12 
 
 Jan. 18 Feb. 8 
 
 
 Jan. 13. Mar. 18 
 
 Jan. 20. Mar. 19 
 
 Jan. 21. 
 Jan. 22. 
 
 Jan. 12. Feb. 27, sings till 
 [Nov. 13 
 
 Jan. 2224 
 
 Feb. 28. April 17 
 
 Jan. 23. 
 
 Feb. 12. Apr. 19, last seen 
 
 Jan. 23. 
 
 [Nov. 24 
 
 Jan. 23 Mar. 5 
 
 
 Jan. 23. Feb. 1 
 
 Jan. 27. Mar. 11 
 
 Jan. 24. Feb. 21 
 
 Jan. 28. June 5 
 
 Jan. 24. Feb. 15 
 
 Jan. 21. Feb. 26 
 
 Jan. 25. Mar. 4 
 
 
 Jan. 25. Apr. 14 
 
 Apr. 13. July 3, last seen 
 
 Jan. 25. 
 
 Jan. 1. Apr. 9 [Sept. 8 
 
 Jan. 27. Mar. 15 
 
 Feb. 12. Mar. 29 
 
 Jan. 27. Apr. 2 
 
 Mar. 5. Apr. 24, last seen 
 
 Jan. 28. 
 
 Mar. 16. [June 6 
 
 Jan. 28. Feb. 24 
 
 Apr. 2. June 11 
 
 Jan. 30. 
 
 
 Feb. 1. Mar. 26 
 
 Jan. 13. Mar. 26 
 
 Feb. 1. 
 
 Apr. 27. 
 
 Feb. 2. 
 
 
 Feb. 3. 
 
 Mar. 8 hatches 
 
 Feb. 3. 
 
 
 Feb. 4. Apr. 1 
 
 
 Feb. 4. Apr. 8 
 
 
 Feb. 6. 
 
 Jan. 1. Apr. 5 
 
 Feb. 6. 
 
 Jan. 1. May 10 
 
 Feb. 7. 
 Feb. 10. 
 
 May 19, young brought 
 [forth 
 
 Feb. 12. 
 
 Feb. 18 Apr. 28 
 
 Feb. 13. Apr. 2 
 
 Feb. 13. Mar. 8, last seen 
 
 
 [Dec. 24 
 
 Feb. 13. Mar. 23 
 
 Jan. 1. Apr. 17 [June 1 
 
 Feb. 1417. 
 
 Apr. 1. has young ones 
 
 Feb. 14. Mar. 27 
 
 Feb. 2. Apr. 11 
 
 Feb. 15. Mar. 23 
 
 Feb. 18. Apr. 13 
 
NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 293 
 
 Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) build 
 Partridges (Perdix cinerea) pair 
 Peas (Pisum sativum) sown 
 House pigeon (Columba domestica) has 
 
 young ones 
 
 Field crickets open their holes 
 Common flea (Pulex irritans) ap. 
 Pilewort (Ficaria verna) fl. 
 Goldfinch (Fringilla carduelis) sings 
 Viper (Coluber berus) ap. 
 Wpodlouse (Oniscus asellus) ap. 
 Missel thrushes pair 
 Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonardssus) fl. 
 Willow (Salix alba) fl. 
 Frogs (Rana temporaria) croak 
 Sweet violet (Viola odorata) fl. 
 Phalcena Tinea vestianella ap. 
 Stone curlew (Otis cedicnemus) clamours 
 Filbert (Con/Zws sativus) fl. 
 Ring-dove coos 
 
 Apncot tree (Prunus armeniaca) fl. 
 Toad (Rana bufo) ap. 
 Frogs (Rana temporaria) spawn 
 Ivy-leaved speed well (Veronica hederifo- 
 
 Peach (Amygdalua Persica) fl. 
 Frog (Rana temporaria) ap. 
 Shepherd's purse (Thlaspi bursapastoris) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus) crows 
 Land tortoise comes forth 
 Lungwort (Pulmonoria officinalis) fl. 
 Podura fimetaria ap. 
 Aranea scenica saliens ap. 
 Scolopendra forficata ap. 
 Wryneck (Jynx torquilla) ap. 
 Goose (Anas anser) sits on its eggs 
 Duck (Anas boschas) lays 
 Dog's violet (Viola canina) fl. 
 Peacock butterfly (Papilio lo) ap. 
 Trouts begin to rise 
 Field beans ( Viciafaba) planted 
 Bloodworms appear in the water 
 Crow (Corvus Corone) builds 
 Oats (Avena sativa) sown 
 Golden-crowned wren (Sylvia regulus) 
 
 sings 
 
 Asp (Populus tremula) fl. 
 Common elder (Sambucus nigra) 1. 
 Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) fl. 
 Chrysomela Getting, ap. 
 Black ants (Formica nigra) ap. 
 Ephemerae bisetce ap. 
 Gooseberry (Ribes grossularia) 1. 
 Common stitchwort (Stellaria holostea)fi, 
 Wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) fl. 
 Blackbird (Turdus Merula) lays 
 Raven (Corvus Corax) sits 
 Wheatear (Sylvia (Enanthe) ap. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 Feb. 16. Mar. 6 
 
 Feb. 28. Mar. 5 
 
 Feb. 17. 
 
 Feb. 16. Mar. 20 
 
 Feb. 17. Mar. 8 
 
 Feb. 8. Mar. 31 
 
 Feb. 18. 
 
 Feb. 8. 
 
 Feb. 20. Mar. 30 
 
 
 Feb. 2126. 
 
 
 Feb. 21. Apr. 13 
 
 Jan. 25. Mar. 26 
 
 Feb. 21. Apr. 5 
 
 Feb. 28. May 5 [Oct. 28 
 
 Feb. 22. Mar. 26 
 
 Feb. 23. May 6, last seen 
 
 Feb. 23, Apr. 1 
 
 Apr. 27. June 17 
 
 Feb. 24. 
 
 
 Feb. 24. Apr. 7 
 
 Feb. 26. April 18 
 
 Feb. 24. Apr. 2 
 
 Feb. 27. Apr. 11 
 
 Feb. 25. 
 
 Mar. 9. Apr. 20 
 
 Feb. 26. Mar. 31 
 Feb. 26. 
 
 Feb. 7. Apr. 5 
 
 Feb. 27. Apr. 24 
 
 June. 17. 
 
 Feb. 27. 
 
 Jan. 25. Mar. 26 
 
 Feb. 27. Apr. 5 
 
 Mar. 2. Aug. 10 
 
 Feb. 
 
 Feb. 28. Apr. 6 
 
 Feb. 28. Mar. 24 
 
 Mar. 15. July 1 
 
 Feb. 28 Mar. 22 
 
 Feb. 9. Apr. 10, tadpoles 
 
 
 [Mar. 19 
 
 Mar. 1. Apr. 2 
 
 Feb. 16. Apr. 10 
 
 Mar. 2. Apr. 17 
 
 Mar. 4. Apr. 29 
 
 Mar. 2. Apr. 6 
 
 Mar. 9. 
 
 Mar. 3. 
 
 Jan. 2. Apr. 16 
 
 Mar. 329. 
 
 Mar.l. May 22 
 
 Mar. 4. May 8 
 
 
 Mar. 4. Apr. 16 
 
 Mar. 2. May 19 
 
 Mar. 4. 
 
 
 Mar. 4. 
 
 
 Mar. 516. 
 
 
 Mar. 5. Apr. 25 
 
 Mar. 26. Apr. 23, last seen 
 
 Mar. 5. 
 
 Mar. 21. [Sept. 14 
 
 Mar. 5. 
 
 Mar. 28. 
 
 Mar. 6. Apr. 18 
 
 Feb. 28. Apr. 22 
 
 Mar. 6. 
 
 Feb. 13. Apr. 20, last seen 
 
 Mar. 714. 
 
 [Dec. 25 
 
 Mar. 8. 
 Mar. 8. 
 
 Apr. 29 emerge 
 
 Mar. 10. 
 Mar. 1018. 
 
 July 1 has young ones 
 Mar. 16. Apr. 13 
 
 
 [Dec. 23. Jan. 26 
 
 Mar. 12. Apr. 30 
 
 Apr. 15. May. 22, seen 
 
 Mar. 12. 
 
 Feb. 26. Mar. 28 
 
 Mar. 1320. 
 
 Jan. 24. Apr. 22 
 
 Mar. 15. May 21 
 
 Apr. 2. May 27 
 
 Mar. 15. 
 
 
 Mar. 15. Apr. 22 
 
 Mar. 2. May 18 
 
 Mar. 16. 
 
 
 Mar. 17* Apr. 11 
 Mar. 17. May 19 
 
 Feb. 26. Apr. 9 
 Mar. 8. May 7 
 
 Mar. 17. Apr. 22 
 Mar. 17. 
 
 Feb. 27. Apr. 10 [19 
 Apr. 14, young ones Mav 
 
 Mar. 17. 
 Mar. 1836. 
 
 Apr. 1 builds [Oct 20 
 Mar. 13. May 23, last seen 
 
294 
 
 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 Musk- wood crowfoot (Adoxa moschat 
 
 teliina) fl. 
 
 Willow wren (Sylvia trochilus) ap. 
 Fumaria bulbosa fl. 
 Elm (Iflmutt camjtestris) fl. 
 Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) lays 
 
 House pigeons (Columba domestiea) sit 
 Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) fl. 
 Buzz-fly (Bombylius medius) ap. 
 Sand martin (Hirundo riparia) ap. 
 
 Snake (Coluber natrix) ap. 
 
 Horse ant (Formica herculeana) ap. 
 
 Greenfinch (Loxia chloris) sings 
 Ivy (Hedera helix) berries ripe 
 Periwinkle ( Vinca minor) fl. 
 Spurge laurel (Daphne laureola) fl. 
 Swallow (Hirundo rustica) ap. 
 Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) heard 
 
 Young ducks hatched 
 
 Golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium opposi 
 
 tifolium) fl. 
 
 Martin (Hirundo urbica) ap. 
 Double hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis) 
 
 fl* 
 
 Young geese (Anas anser) 
 Wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) fl. 
 Ring ousel (Turdus torquatus) seen 
 Barley (Hordeum sativum) sown 
 Nightingale (Sylvia luscinia) sings 
 Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) fl. 
 Spiders' webs on the surface of the 
 
 ground 
 Cnecquered daffodil (Fritillaria metea- 
 
 gris) fl. 
 
 Julus terrestris ap. 
 Cowslip (Primula veris) fl. 
 Ground ivy (Glecoma hederacea) fl. 
 Snipe pipes 
 
 Box tree (Buxus sempervirens) fl. 
 Elm (ULmus campestris) 1. 
 Gooseberry (Ribes grossularia) fl. 
 Currant (Ribes hortensis) fl. 
 Pear tree (Pyriis communis) fl. 
 Lacerta vulgaris (newt or eft) ap. 
 
 Dogs' mercury (Mercurialis perennis) fl. 
 Wych elm (Ulmus glabra seu montana of 
 
 Smith) fl 
 
 Ladysmock (Cardamine pratensis) fl. 
 Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) heard 
 
 Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) fl. 
 Death watch (Termes pulsatorius) beat;* 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 Mar. 18. Apr. 13 
 
 Feb. 23. Apr. 28 
 
 Mar. 19. Apr. 13 
 Mar. 19. 
 
 Mar. 30. May 16 sits May 
 [27, last seen Oct. 23 
 
 Mar. 19. Apr. 4 
 
 Feb. 17. Apr. 25 
 
 Mar. 19. Apr. 7 
 
 Mar. 1825, sits Apr. 4, 
 
 Mar. 20. 
 
 [young ones Apr. 30 
 Mar. 20, young hatched 
 
 Mar. 20. Apr. 14 
 
 Mar. '22. May 8 
 
 Mar. 21. Apr. 28 
 
 Mar. 15. Apr. 30 
 
 Mar. 21. Apr. 12 
 
 Apr. 8. May 16, last seen 
 
 
 [Sept. 8 
 
 Mar. 2230. 
 
 Mar. 3. Apr. 29, last seen 
 
 
 [Oct. 2 
 
 Mar. 22. Apr. 18 
 
 Feb. 4. Mar. 26, last seen 
 
 
 [Nov. 1 
 
 Mar. 22. Apr. 22 
 
 Mar. 6. Apr. 26 
 
 Mar. 23. Apr. 14 
 
 Feb. 16. May 19 
 
 Mar. 25. 
 
 Feb. 6. May 7 
 
 Mar 25. Apr. 1 
 
 Apr. 1222 [18 
 
 Mar. 26. Apr. 20 
 Mar. 26. May 4 
 
 Apr. 727, last seen Nov. 
 Apr. 14. May 18, seen Apr. 
 
 
 14. May 20, last seen 
 
 
 Sept. 19 
 
 Mar. 27. 
 
 Apr. 6. May 16 
 
 Mar. 27. Apr. 9 
 
 Feb. 7. Mar. 27 
 
 Mar. 28. May 1 
 
 Apr. 14. May 8, last seen 
 
 
 [Dec. 8 
 
 Mar. 29. Apr. 22 
 
 Mar. 13. Apr. 24 
 
 Mar. 29. 
 
 Mar. 29. Apr. 19 
 
 Mar. 30. Apr. 22 
 
 Feb. 26. Apr. 26 
 
 Mar. 30. Apr. 17 
 
 Oct. 11 
 
 Mar. 31. Apr. 30 
 Apr. 1. May 1 
 
 Apr. 12. May 20 
 Apr. 5. July 4, last seen 
 
 Apr. 1. May 4 
 
 Mar. 16. May 8 [Aug. 29 
 
 Apr. 1. 
 
 
 Apr. 224. 
 
 Apr. 15. May 1 
 
 Apr. 2. 
 
 
 Apr. 324. 
 
 Mar. 3. May 17 
 
 Apr. 315. 
 
 Mar. 2. Apr. 16 
 
 Apr. 3. 
 
 
 Apr. 3. 
 
 Mar. 27. May 8 
 
 Apr. 3. 
 
 Apr. 2. May 19 
 
 Apr. 314. 
 
 Mar. 21. May 1 
 
 Apr. 35. 
 
 Mar. 24. Apr. 28 
 
 Apr. 3. May 21 
 
 Mar. 30. Apr. 30 
 
 Apr. 4. 
 
 Feb. 17. Apr. 15, last seen 
 
 
 [Oct. 9 
 
 Apr. 519. 
 
 Jan. 20. Apr. 16 
 
 Apr. 5. 
 
 Apr. 19. May 10, 1 
 
 Apr. 620. 
 
 Feb. 21. Apr. 26 
 
 Apr. 726. 
 
 Apr. 15. May 3, last 
 
 
 [heard June 28 
 
 Apr. 7. May 10 
 
 Mar. 16. May 8 
 
 Apr 7. 
 
 Mar. 28. May 28 
 
NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 295 
 
 Gudgeon spawns 
 
 Redstart (Sylvia Phcenicurus) ap. 
 
 Crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialist fl. 
 Titlark (Alauda pratensis) sings 
 Beech (Fagus syloatica) 1. 
 Shellsnail (Helix nemoralis) comes out 
 
 in troops 
 
 Middle yellow wren ap. 
 Swift (Hirundo apus) ap. 
 Stinging fly (Conops calcitrans) ap. 
 Whitlow grass (Draba verna) fl. 
 Larch tree (Pinus-larix rubra) 1. 
 White-throat (Sylvia cinerea) ap. 
 
 Red ant (Formica rubra) ap. 
 Mole cricket (Gryllus gryUotalpa) churs 
 Second willow or laughing wren ap. 
 Red rattle (Pedicularis sylvatica) fl. 
 Common flesh-fly (Musca carnaria) ap. 
 Ladycow (Coccinella bipunctata) ap. 
 Grasshopper lark (Alauda locustce roce) 
 
 Willow wren, its shivering note heard 
 Middle willow wren (Regulus non crista- 
 
 tus medius) ap. 
 
 Wild cherry (Prunus cerasus) fl. 
 Garden cherry (Prunus cerasus) fl. 
 Plum (Prunus domestica) fl. 
 Harebell (Hyacinthus non-scriptus seu 
 
 Scilla nutans of Smith) fl. 
 Turtle (Columba turtur) coos 
 Hawthorn (Cratcegus seu Mespilus oxy- 
 
 cantha of Smith) fl. 
 Male fool's orchis (Orchis mascula) fl. 
 Blue flesh fly (Musca vomitorid) ap. 
 Black snail or slug (Limax ater) abounds 
 Apple tree (Pyrus-malus sativus) fl. 
 Large bat ap. 
 Strawberry wild wood (Fragaria vesca 
 
 sylv.) fl. 
 
 Sauce alone (Erysimum alliaria) fl. 
 Wild or bird cherry (Prunus avium) fl. 
 Apis Hypnorum ap. 
 Musca meridiana ap. 
 Wolf fly (Asilus) ap. 
 Cabbage butterfly (Papilio Brassicce) 
 
 ap. 
 
 Dragon fly (Libellula) ap. 
 Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) fl. 
 Bombylius minor ap. 
 Glowworm (Lampyris noctilucd) shines 
 Fern-owl or goatsucker (Caprimulgus 
 
 Europceus) ap. 
 
 Common bugle (Ajuga reptans) fl. 
 Field crickets (Gryllus campestris) crink 
 Chafer or maybug (Scarabceus melolon- 
 
 tha) ap. 
 Honeysuckle (Lonicerapericlymenum) fl. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKW1CK. 
 
 Apr. 7. 
 
 
 Apr. 828. 
 
 Apr. 5, sings Apr. 25, last 
 
 Apr. 824. 
 
 [seen Sept. 30 
 Apr. 1. May 13 
 
 Apr. 919. 
 
 Apr. 1429, silts June 16 
 
 Apr. 10. May 8 
 
 Apr. 24. May 25 [27 
 
 Apr. 11. May 9 
 
 May 17. June 11 ap. 
 
 Apr. 11. 
 
 
 Apr. 13. May 7 
 
 Apr. 28. May 19 
 
 Apr. 14. May 17 
 
 
 Apr. 14. 
 
 Jan. 15. Mar 24 
 
 Apr. 14. 
 
 Apr. 1. May 9 
 
 Apr. 14. May 14 
 
 Apr. 14. May 5, sings May 
 
 
 310, last seen Sept. 23 
 
 Apr. 14. 
 
 Apr. 9. June 26 
 
 Apr. 14. 
 
 
 Apr. 141923, 
 
 Apr. 10. June 4 
 
 Apr. 1519. 
 
 
 Apr. 15. 
 
 
 Apr. 16. 
 
 
 Apr. 1630. 
 
 
 Apr. 17. May 7 
 
 Apr. 28. May 1 
 
 Apr. 1727. 
 
 
 Apr. 18. May 12 
 
 Mar. 30. May 10 
 
 Apr. 18. May 11 
 
 Mar. 25. May 6 
 
 Apr. 18. May 5 
 
 Mar. 24. May 6 
 
 Apr. 1925. 
 
 Mar. 27. May 8 
 
 Apr. 2027. 
 
 May 14. Aug. 10, seen 
 
 Apr. 20. June 11 
 
 Apr. 19. May 26 
 
 Apr. 21. 
 
 Mar. 29. May 13 
 
 Apr. 21. May 23 
 
 
 Apr. 22. 
 
 Feb. 1. Oct. 24, ap. 
 
 Apr. 22. May 25 
 
 Apr. 11. May 26 
 
 Apr. 22. June 11 
 
 
 Apr. 23r-29. 
 
 Apr. 89 
 
 Apr. 23. 
 
 Mar. 31. May 8 
 
 Apr. 24. 
 
 Mar. 30. May 10 
 
 Apr. 24. 
 
 
 Apr. 24. May 28 
 
 
 Apr. 25. 
 
 
 Apr. 28. - May 20 
 
 Apr. 29. June 15 
 
 Apr. 30. May 21 
 Apr. 30. June 6 
 
 Apr. 18. May 13, last seen 
 Apr. 20. June 4 [Nov. 10 
 
 May 1. 
 
 
 May 1. June 11 
 
 June 19, Sept. 28 
 
 May 126. 
 
 May 16. Sept. 14 
 
 Mav l. 
 
 Mar. 27. May 10 
 
 May 224. 
 
 
 May 226. 
 
 May 2. July 7 
 
 May 330. 
 
 Apr. 24. June 21 
 
296 
 
 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 Tooth wort (Lathrcea squamaria) fl. 
 Shell snails copulate 
 Sedge warbler (Sylvia salicaria) sings 
 Mealy tree ( Viburnum lantana) fl. 
 Flycatcher (Stoparola or Muscicapa gris- 
 
 old) ap. 
 
 Apis longicornis ap. 
 Sedge warbler (Sylvia, salicaria) ap. 
 Oak (Quercus robur) fl. 
 Admiral butterfly (Papilio Atalanta) ap. 
 Orange tip (Papilio cardamines) ap. 
 Beech (Fagus sylvatica) fl. 
 Common maple (Acer campestre) fl. 
 Barberr-y tree (Berberis vulgaris) fl. 
 Wood argus butterfly (Papilio ^Bgeria) 
 
 ap. 
 
 Orange lily (Lilium bulbiferum) fl. 
 Burnet moth (Sphinx Filipendulce) ap. 
 Walnut (Juglans regia) 1. 
 Laburnum (Cytisus laburnum) fl. 
 Forest fly (Uippobosca equina) ap. 
 Saintfoin (Hedysarum onobrychis) fl. 
 Peony (Pcvonia officinalis) fl. 
 Horse chestnut (^Esculus hippocasta- 
 
 num) fl. 
 
 Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) fl. 
 Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris') fl. 
 Medlar (Mespilus germanica) fl. 
 Tormentil (Tormentilla erecta seu offi- 
 cinalis of Smith) fl. 
 Lily of the valley (Convallaria maja- 
 
 lis)fi. 
 
 Bees (Apis mellifica) swarm. 
 Woodroof (Asperula odorota) fl. 
 Wasp, female ( Vespa vulgaris)' 'ap. 
 Mountain ash (Sorbus seu Pyrus (*u- 
 
 cuparia of Smith) fl. 
 Bird's-nest orchis (Ophrys nidus avis) fl. 
 White-beam tree (Cratcegus seu Pyrus 
 
 aria of Smith) fl. 
 Milk wort (Poly gala vulgaris) fl. 
 Dwarf cistus (Cixtus helianthemum) fl. 
 G elder rose ( Viburnum opulus) fl. 
 Common elder (Sambucus nigra) fl. 
 Cantharis noctiluca ap. 
 Apis longicornis bores holes in walls. 
 Mulberry tree (Morus nigra) 1. 
 Wild service tree (Cratcegus seu Pyrus 
 
 to-nninalis of Smith) fl. 
 Sanicle (Sanicula Europcea) fl. 
 Avens (Gtfwm urbanum) fl. 
 Female fool's orchis (Orchis mono) fl. 
 Ragged Robin (Lychnis ftos cuculi) fl. 
 Burnet (Poterium sanguisorba) fl. 
 Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) fl. 
 Corn flag (Gladiolus communis) fl. 
 Serapias longifol fl. 
 Raspberry (Rubus idceus) fl. 
 Herb Robert (Geranium jRobertianumyQ. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKWICR. 
 
 May 412. 
 
 
 May 4. June 17 
 
 
 May 4. 
 
 June 230*. 
 
 May 617. 
 
 Apr. 25. May 22 
 
 May 1030. 
 
 Apr. 29. May 21 
 
 May 10. June 9 
 
 
 May 1113. 
 
 Aug. 2 
 
 May 1315. 
 
 Apr. 29. June 4 
 
 May 13. 
 
 
 May 14. 
 
 Mar. 30. May 19 
 
 May 1526. 
 
 Apr. 23. May 28 
 
 May 16. 
 
 Apr. 24. May 27 
 
 May 1726. 
 
 Apr. 28. June 4 
 
 May 17. 
 
 
 May 18. June 11 
 
 June 14, July 22 
 
 May 18. June 13 
 
 May 24. June 26 
 
 May 18. 
 
 Apr. 10. June 1 
 
 May 18. June 5 
 
 May 1. June 23 
 
 May 18. June 9 
 
 
 May 19. June 8 
 
 May 21. July 28 
 
 May 20. June 15 
 
 Apr. 18. May 26 
 
 May 21. June y 
 
 Apr. 19. June 7 
 
 May 21. 
 
 Apr. 15. May 30 
 
 May 2127. 
 
 May 6. June 13 
 
 May 21. June 20 
 
 Apr. 8. June 19 
 
 May 21. 
 
 Apr. 17. June 11 
 
 May 22. 
 
 Apr. 27. June 13 
 
 May 22. July 22 
 
 May 12. June 23 
 
 May 2225. 
 
 Apr. 14. June 4 
 
 May 23. 
 
 Apr. 2. June 4, last seen 
 
 
 [Nov. 2 
 
 May 23. June 8 
 
 Apr. 20. June 8 
 
 May 24. June 11 
 
 May 18. June 12 
 
 May 24. June 4 
 
 May 3. 
 
 May 24. June 7 
 May 25. 
 
 Apr. 13. June 2 
 May 4. Aug. 8 
 
 May 26. 
 
 May 10. June 8 
 
 May 26. June 25 
 
 May 6. June 17 
 
 May 26. 
 
 
 May 27. June 9 
 
 
 May 27. June 13 
 
 May 20. June 11 
 
 May 27. 
 
 May 13. June 19 
 
 May 27. June 13 
 
 Apr. 23. June 4 
 
 May 28. 
 
 May 9. June 11 
 
 May 28. 
 
 Apr. 17. May 20 
 
 May 29. June 1 
 
 May 12. June 8 
 
 May 29. 
 
 Apr. 30. Aug. 7 
 
 May 30. June 22 
 
 May 23. June 15 
 
 May 30. June 20 
 
 June 9. July 8 
 
 May 30. June 13 
 
 
 May 30. June 21 
 
 May 10. June 16 
 
 May 30. 
 
 Mar. 7. May 16 
 
NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 297 
 
 Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) fl. 
 Cromwell (Lithospermum o/icinale) fl. 
 Wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Ramsons (Allium ursinum) fl. 
 Mouse-ear scorpion grass (Myosotis 
 
 scorpioides) fl. 
 
 Grasshopper (Gryllus grossus) ap. 
 Rose (Rosa hortensis) fl. 
 Mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilo- 
 
 sella) fl. 
 
 Buckbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) fl. 
 Rose chafer (Scarabceus auratus) ap. 
 Sheep (Ovis aries) shorn 
 Water flag (Iris pseudo-acorus) fl. 
 Cultivated rye (Secate cereale) fl. 
 Hounds tongue (Cynoglossum officinale) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Helleborine (Serapias latif&lid) fl. 
 Green gold fly (Musca Caesar) ap. 
 Argus butterfly (Papilio moera) ap. 
 Spearwort (Ranunculus flammuld) fl. 
 Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) fl. 
 Fraxinella or white dittany (Dictamnus 
 
 albus) fl. 
 
 Angler's may-fly (Ephemera vulg.) ap. 
 
 Ladies' finger (Anthyllis vulneraria) fl. 
 
 Bee orchis (Ophrys apiferd) fl. 
 
 Pink (Dianthus deltoides) fl. 
 
 Mock ora,nge(Philadelphus coronarius)f\. 
 
 Libellula Virgo ap. 
 
 Vine (Vitis vinifera) fl. 
 
 Portugal laurel (Prunus Lusitanicus) fl. 
 
 Purple spotted martagon(Z^7mw marta- 
 
 gon) fl. 
 Meadow cranes-bill (Geranium pratense) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Black bryony (Tamus communis) fl. 
 Field pea (Pisum savitum arvense) fl. 
 Bladder campion (Cucubalus behen ceu 
 
 Silene inflata of Smith) fl. 
 Bryony (Bryonia alba) fl. 
 Hedge nettle (Stachys sylvatica) fl. 
 Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) fl. 
 Walnut (Juglans regia) fl. 
 Phallus impudicus ap. 
 Rosebay willow-herb (Epilobium an- 
 
 gustifolium) fl. 
 
 Wheat (Triticum hybernum) fl. 
 Coinfrey (Symphytum officinale) fl. 
 Yellow pimpernel (Lysimachia nemorum) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Tremella nostac ap. 
 Buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus) 1. 
 Cuckow-spit insect (Cicada spumaria) ap. 
 Dog-rose (Rosa canina) fl. 
 Puff-ball (Lycoperdon bovista) ap. 
 Mullein (verbascum thapsus) fl. 
 
 WHITE, 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 May 81. 
 
 May 12. June 20 
 
 May 31. 
 
 May 1024. 
 
 June 1. 
 
 Mar. 23. May 13 
 
 June 1. 
 
 Apr. 21. June.4 
 
 June 1. 
 
 Apr. 11. June 1 
 
 June 1 14. 
 
 Mar. 25. July 6, last seen 
 
 June 121. 
 
 June 7 July 1 [Nov. 3 
 
 June 1. July 16 
 
 Apr. 19. June 12 
 
 June 1. 
 
 Apr. 20. JuneS 
 
 June 28. 
 
 Apr. 18. Aug. 4 
 
 June 223. 
 
 May 23. June 17 
 
 June 2. 
 
 May 8. June 9 
 
 June 2. 
 
 May 27. 
 
 June 2. 
 
 May 11. June 7 
 
 June 2. Aug. 6 
 
 July 22. Sept. 6 
 
 June 2. 
 
 
 June 2. 
 
 
 June 3. 
 
 Apr. 25. June 13 
 
 June 3. 
 
 Apr. 10. June 3 
 
 June 311. 
 
 June 9. July 24 
 
 June 3. 
 
 
 June 314. 
 
 
 June 4. 
 
 June 1. Aug. 16 
 
 June 4. July 4 
 
 
 June 619. 
 
 May 26. July 6 
 
 June 5, 
 
 May 16. June 23 
 
 June 620. 
 
 
 June 7. July 30 
 
 June 18. July 29 
 
 June 8. July 1 
 
 June 3. July 16 
 
 June 8 25. 
 
 June 18. July 19 
 
 June 8. Aug 1 
 
 
 June 8. 
 
 May 15. June 21 
 
 June 9. 
 
 May 15. June 21 
 
 June 9. 
 
 May 4. July 13 
 
 June 9. 
 
 Way 13. Aug. 17 
 
 June 10. 
 
 May 28. June 24 
 
 June 11. 
 
 May 15. June 20 
 
 June 12. 
 
 Apr. 18. June 1 
 
 June 12. July 23 
 
 
 June 12. 
 
 June 4. July 28 
 
 June 13. July 22 
 
 June 430. 
 
 June 13. 
 
 May 4. June 23 
 
 June 1330. 
 
 Apr. 10. June 12 
 
 June 16. Aug. 24 
 
 
 June 16. 
 
 May 25. 
 
 June 16. 
 
 June 221. 
 
 June 17, 18. 
 
 May 24. June 21 
 
 June 17. Sept. 3 
 June 18. 
 
 May 6. Aug. 19 
 June 10. July 22 
 
298 
 
 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 Viper's bugloss (Echium anglicum seu 
 vulgare of Smith) fl. 
 
 Meadow hay cut. 
 
 Stag beetle (Lucanus eervus) ap. 
 
 Borage (Borago officinalis) fl. 
 
 Spindle tree (Evonymus Europceus) fl. 
 
 Musk thistle (Carduus nutans) fl. 
 
 Dogwood (Cornuis sanguinea) fl. 
 
 Field scabious (Scabiosa arvensis) fl. 
 
 Marsh thistle (Carduus palustris) fl. 
 
 Dropwort (Spircea filipendula) fl. 
 
 Great wild valerian (Valeriana officina- 
 lis) fl. 
 
 Quail (Perdix Coturnix) calls 
 
 Mountain willow herb (Epilobium mon- 
 tanum) fl. 
 
 Thistle upon thistle (Carduus crispus) fl. 
 
 Cow parsnep (Heracleumsphondylium) fl. 
 
 Earth-nut (Bunium bulbocastanum seu 
 Jlexuosum of Smith) fl. 
 
 Young frogs migrate. 
 
 (Estrus carvicauda ap. 
 
 Vervain ( Verbena ojficionalis) fl. 
 
 Corn poppy (Papaver Rhoeas) fl. 
 
 Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) fl. 
 
 Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) fl. 
 
 Great horse-fly (Tabanus bovinus) ap. 
 
 Greater knapweed (Centaureascabiosa)fi. 
 
 Mushroom (Agaricus carnpestris) ap. 
 
 Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) fl. 
 
 Dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia) fl. 
 
 St. John's wort ([lypericumperforatum)Q. 
 
 Broom rape (Orobanche major) fl. 
 
 Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) fl. 
 
 Goats-beard (Tragopogon pratense) fl. 
 
 Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) fl. 
 
 Truffles begin to be found 
 
 Young partridges fly 
 
 Lime tree (Tilia Europcea) fl. 
 
 Spear thistle (Carduus lanceolatus) fl. 
 
 Meadow sweet (Spircea ulmaria) fl. 
 
 Greenweed (Genista tinctoria) fl. 
 
 Wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum) fl. 
 
 Stachys germanic. fl. 
 
 Day lily (Hemerocallis flava) fl. 
 
 Jasmine (Jasminum ojftcinale) fl. 
 
 Holy oak (Alcea rosea) fl. 
 
 Monotropa hypopithys fl. 
 
 Ladies' bedstraw (Galium verum) fl. 
 
 Galium palustre fl. 
 
 Nipplewort (Lapsana comunis) fl. 
 
 Welted thistle (Carduus acanthoides) fl. 
 
 Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) fl. 
 
 Musk mallow (Malva moschata) fl. 
 
 Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) fl. 
 
 Hoary beetle (Scarabceus solstit.) ap. 
 
 Corn saw-wort (Serratula arvensis seu 
 Carduus arvensis of Smith)tfl. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARK WICK. 
 
 June 19. 
 
 May 27. July 3 
 
 June 19. July 20 
 
 June 13. July 7 
 
 June 19. 
 
 June 1421 
 
 June 20. 
 
 April 22. July 26 
 
 June 20. 
 
 May 11. June 25 
 
 June 20. July 4 
 
 June 4. July 25 
 
 June 21. 
 
 May 28. June 27 
 
 June 21. 
 
 June 16. Aug. 14 
 
 June 21 27. 
 
 May 15. June 19 
 
 June 22. July 9 
 
 May 8. Sept. 3 
 
 June 22. July 7 
 
 May 22. July 21 
 
 June 22. July 4 
 
 July 23, seen Sept. 118 
 
 June 22. 
 
 June 521 
 
 June 2329. 
 
 May 22. July 22 
 
 June 23. 
 
 May 27. July 12 
 
 June 23. 
 
 May 431 
 
 June 23. Aug. 2 
 
 
 June 24. 
 
 
 June 24. 
 
 June 10. July 17 
 
 June 24. 
 
 Apr. 30. July 15 
 
 June 24. 
 
 June 723 
 
 June 2429. 
 
 June 7. July 9 
 
 June 24. Aug. 2 
 
 
 June 25. 
 
 June 7. Aug J4 
 
 June 26. Aug. 30 
 
 Apr. 16. Aua 16 
 
 June 26. 
 
 May 27. July 13 
 
 June 26. 
 
 May 12. July 30 
 
 June 26. 
 
 June 15. July 12 
 
 June 27. July 4 
 
 May 9. July 25 
 
 June 27. 
 
 May 13. June 19 
 
 June 27. 
 
 June 5 14 
 
 June 27. 
 
 May 22. Aug. 14 
 
 June 28. July 29 
 
 
 June 28. July 31 
 June 28. July 31 
 
 July 828 
 June 12. July 30 
 
 June 28. July 12 
 
 June 27. July 18 
 
 June 28. 
 
 June 16. July 24 
 
 June 28. 
 
 June 4. July 24 
 
 June 28. 
 
 June 6. July 19 
 
 June 29. July 20 
 
 
 June 29. July 4 
 
 May 23. June 9 
 
 June 29. July 30 
 
 June 27. July 21 
 
 June 29. Aug. 4 
 
 July 4. Sept. 7 
 
 June 29. July 23 
 
 
 June 29. 
 
 June 22. Aug. 3 
 
 June 29. 
 
 
 June 29. 
 
 May 30. July 24 
 
 June 29. 
 
 
 June 30. 
 
 June 22. Aug. 3 
 
 June 30. 
 
 June 9. July 14 
 
 June 30. 
 
 May 4. June 22 
 
 June 30. July 17 
 
 
 July 1. 
 
 June 15. July 15 
 
NATURALISTS CALENDAR. 
 
 299 
 
 Pheasant's eye (Adonis annua seu 
 
 autumnalis of Smith) fl. 
 Red eyebright (Euphrasia seu Bartsia 
 
 odontites of Smith) fl. 
 Thorough wax (BupleurumrotundifoL)ft. 
 Cockle (Agrostemma Githago) fl. 
 Ivy-leaved wild lettuce (Prenanthes mu- 
 
 ralis) fl. 
 Feverfew (Matricariaseu Pyrethrum par- 
 
 thenium of Smith) fl. 
 Wall pepper (Sedum acre) fl. 
 Privet (Ligustrum vulgare) fl. 
 Common toadflax (Antirrhinum linaria) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Perennial wild flax (Linum perenne) fl. 
 Whortle-berries ripe (Vaccinium ulig.) 
 Yellow base rocket (Reseda lutea) fl. 
 Blue-bottle (Centaurea cyanus) fl. 
 Dwarf carline thistle (Carduus acaulis) 
 
 fl. 
 
 Bull-rush or cats-tail (Typha latifolia)ft. 
 Spiked willow herb (Lythrum salicaria)R. 
 Black mullein ( Verbascum niger) fl. 
 Chrysanthemum coronarium n. 
 Marigolds (Calendula ojjicinalis) fl. 
 Little field madder (Sherardia arvensis)R. 
 Calamint (MeMssa seu Thymus cala- 
 
 mintha of Smith) fl. 
 Black horehound (Ballota nigra) fl. 
 Wood betony (Betonica ojficinalis) fl. 
 Round leaved bell-flower (Campanula ro- 
 
 tundifolia) fl. 
 
 All-good(Chenopodium bonus Henricus)Q. 
 Wild carrot (Daucus carota) fl. 
 Indian cress (Epopceolum majus) fl. 
 Cat-mint (Nepeta cataria) fl. 
 Cow-wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum 
 
 pratense of Smith) fl. . 
 Cross wort (Valantia cruciata seu Qalium 
 
 cruciatum of Smith) fl. 
 Cranberries ripe 
 Tufted vetch (Vicia cracca) fl. 
 Wood vetch (Vicia sylvat.) fl. 
 Little throat-wort (Campanula glomer- 
 
 ata) fl. 
 
 Sheep's scabious (Jasione montana) fl. 
 Pastinaca sylv. fl. 
 White lily (Lilium candidum) fl. 
 Hemlock (Conium maculatum) fl. 
 Caucalis anthriscus fl. 
 Flying ants ap. 
 
 Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia) fl. 
 Scarlet martagon (Lilium Chalcedoni- 
 
 cum) fl. 
 
 Lesser stitch wort (Stellaria graminea)ft. 
 Fool's parsley (^fithusa cynapium) fl. 
 Dwarf elder (Sambucus Ebulus) fl. 
 Swallows and martins congregate 
 Potatoe (Solanum tuberosum) fl. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARK WICK. 
 
 Julyl. 
 
 April 11. July 15 
 
 July 2. 
 July 2. 
 July 2. 
 
 June 20. Aug. 10 
 May 14. July 25 
 
 July 2. 
 
 June 2. July 25 
 
 July 2. 
 July 3. 
 July 3. 
 
 June 19. July 24 
 June 8. July 12 
 June 3. July 13 
 
 July 3. 
 July 4. 
 July 424. 
 July 6. 
 July 6. 
 
 June 21. Aug. 3 
 Apr. 21. July 6 
 
 July 19 
 May 15. Oct. 14 
 
 July 512. 
 July 6. 
 July 6. 
 July 6. 
 July 6. 
 July 69. 
 July 7. 
 
 June 30. Aug. 4 
 June 29. July 21 
 Juno 24. Aug. 17 
 
 May 28. July 28 
 Apr. 20. July 16 
 Jan. 11. June 6 
 
 July 7. 
 July 7. 
 July 819. 
 
 July 21 
 June 16. Sept. 12 
 June 10. July 15 
 
 July 8. 
 July 8. 
 July 8. 
 July 820. 
 July 9. 
 
 June 12. July 29 
 Apr. 21. June 15 
 June 7. July 14 
 June 11. July 25 
 
 July 9. 
 
 May 2. June 22 
 
 July 9. 
 July 927. 
 July 10. 
 July 10. 
 
 April 10. May 28 
 May 31. July 8 
 
 July 11. 
 July 11. 
 July 12. 
 July 12. 
 July 13. 
 July 13. 
 July 13. Aug. 11 
 July 13. 
 
 July 28. Aug. 18 
 June 10. July 25 
 
 June 21. July 22 
 June 4. July 20 
 
 Aug. 20. Sept. 19 
 June 14. Aug. 16 
 
 July 14. Aug. 4 
 July 14. 
 July 14. 
 July 1429. 
 July 14. Aug. 29 
 July 14. 
 
 June 21. Aug. 6 
 May 8. June 23 
 June 9. Aug. 9 
 
 Aug. 12. Sept. 8 
 June 3. July 12 
 
300 
 
 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKWTCK. 
 
 Angelica sylv. fl. 
 
 July 15. 
 
 
 Digitalis ferrugin. fl. 
 
 July 1526. 
 
 
 Ragwort (Senecio jacobcea) fl. 
 
 July 15. 
 
 June 22. July 13 
 
 Golden rod (Solidago virgaurea) fl . 
 Star thistle (Centaurea calcitrapa) fl. 
 
 July 15. 
 July 16. 
 
 July 7. Aug. 29 
 July 16. Aug. 16 
 
 Tree primrose (Oenothera biennis) fl. 
 
 July 16. 
 
 June 12. July 18 
 
 Peas (Pisum sativum) cut 
 
 July 17. Aug. 14 
 
 July 13. Aug. 15 
 
 Galega officin. fl. 
 
 July 17. 
 
 
 Apricots (Prunus armeniaca) ripe 
 Clown's allheal (Stachys palustris) fl. 
 
 July 17. Aug. 21 
 July 17. 
 
 July 5. Aug. 16 
 June 12. July 14 
 
 Branching Willow-herb (Epilobium ra- 
 
 
 
 mos) fl. 
 
 July 17. 
 
 
 Rye harvest begins 
 
 July 17. Aug. 7 
 
 
 Yellow centaury (Chlora perfoliata) fl. 
 
 July 18. Aug. 15 
 
 June 15. Aug. 13 
 
 Yellow vetchling (Lathyrus aphacd) fl. 
 Enchanter's nightshade (Circcea luteti- 
 
 July 18. 
 
 
 ana) fl. 
 
 July 18. 
 
 June 20. July 27 
 
 Water hemp agrimony (Eupatorium 
 
 
 
 cannabinum) fl. 
 
 July 18. 
 
 July 4. Aug. 6. 
 
 Giant throatwort (Campanula trach- 
 
 
 
 elium) fl. 
 
 July 19. 
 
 July 13. Aug. 14 
 
 Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis) fl. 
 Hops (Humulus lupulus) fl. 
 
 July 19. 
 July 19. Aug. 10 
 
 May 28. July 19 
 July 20. Aug. 17 
 
 Poultry moult 
 
 July 19. 
 
 
 Dodder (Cuscuta europcea seu epithymum 
 of Smith) fl. 
 
 July 20. 
 
 July 9. Aug. 7 
 
 Lesser centaury (Gentiana seu Chironia 
 
 
 
 centaurium of Smith) fl. 
 
 July 20. 
 
 Juue 3. July 19 
 
 Creeping water parsnep (Sium nodiflo- 
 
 
 
 rum) fl. 
 
 July 20. 
 
 July 10. Sept. 11 
 
 Common spurrey (Spergula arvensis) fl. 
 Wild clover Trifolium pratense) fl. 
 
 July 21. 
 July 21. 
 
 Apr. 10. July 16 
 May 2. June 7 
 
 Buckwheat (Polygonutnfagopyrum) fl. 
 
 July 21. 
 
 June 27. July 10 
 
 Wheat harvest begins. 
 
 July 21. Aug. 23 
 
 July 11 Aug. 26 
 
 Great bur-reed (Sparganium erectum) fl. 
 
 July 22. 
 
 June 10. July 23 
 
 Marsh St. John's wort (Hypericum 
 
 
 
 Elodes) fl. 
 
 July 2231. 
 
 June 16. Aug. 10 
 
 Sun-dew (Drosera rotundifolia) fl. 
 
 July 22. 
 
 Aug. 1. 
 
 March cinquefoil (Comarum palustre) fl. 
 Wild cherries ripe. 
 
 July 22. 
 July 22. 
 
 May 27. July 12 
 
 Lancashire asphodel (Anthericum os- 
 
 
 
 sifragum) fl. 
 
 July 22. 
 
 June 21. July 29 
 
 Hooded willow-herb (Scutellaria galeri- 
 
 
 
 culata) fl. 
 
 July 23. 
 
 June 2. July 31 
 
 Water dropwort ((Enanthe fistulos) fl. 
 
 July 23. 
 
 
 Horehound (Marrubium vulg.) fl. 
 
 July 23. 
 
 
 Seseli caruifol, fl. 
 
 July 24. 
 
 
 Water plantain (Alisma plantago) fl. 
 Alopecurus myosuroides fl. 
 Virgin's bower (Clematis vitalba) fl. 
 
 July 24. 
 July 25. 
 July 25. Aug. 9 
 
 May 31. July 21 
 July 13. Aug. 14 
 
 Bees kill the drones 
 
 July 25. 
 
 
 Teasel (Dypsacus sylvestris) fl. 
 
 July 26. 
 
 July 16. Aug. 3 
 
 Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare) fl. 
 
 July 26. 
 
 July 17. Aug. 29 
 
 Swifts (Hirundo apus) begin to depart 
 
 July 2729. 
 
 Aug. 5. 
 
 Small wild teasel (Dipsacus pilosus) fl. 
 Wood sage (Teucrium scorodonia) fl. 
 Everlasting pea (Lathyrus latifolius) fl. 
 Trailing St. John's wort (Hypericum 
 
 July 28, 29. 
 July 28. 
 July 28. 
 
 June 17. July 24 
 June 20. July 30 
 
 humifusum) fl. 
 
 July 29. 
 
 May 20. June 22 
 
NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 301 
 
 White hellebore (Veratrum album) fl. 
 Camomile (Anthemis nobilis) fl. 
 Lesser field Scabious (Scabiosa colum- 
 baria) fl. 
 
 Sunflower (Helianthut multiflorus) fl. 
 Yel. loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris) fl. 
 Swift (Hirundo apus) last seen 
 Oats (Avena sativa) cut 
 Barley (Hordturn sativum) cut 
 Lesser hooded willow-herb (Scutellaria 
 
 minor) fl. 
 
 Middle fleabane (Inula dysenterica) fl. 
 Apis manieata ap. 
 Swallow-tailed butterfly (Papalio ma- 
 
 chaon) ap. 
 Whame or burrel fly ((Estrus bows) lays 
 
 eggs on horses 
 
 Sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis) fl. 
 Plantain fritillary (Papilio cinxia) ap. 
 Yellow succory (Picris hieracioides) fl. 
 Musca mystacea ap. 
 
 Cant'bury bells (Campanula medium) fl. 
 Mentha longifol. fl. 
 Carline thistle (Carlina vulgaris) fl. 
 Venetian sumach (Rhus cotinus) fl. 
 Ptinus pectinicornus ap. 
 Burdock (Arctium lappa) fl. 
 Fell-wort (Gentiana amarella) fl. 
 Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) fl. 
 Mugwort (Artemisia vulqaris) fl. 
 S. Barn'by's thistle (Centaurea solstit.) fl. 
 Meadow saffron (Colchicurnautumnale)ft 
 Mich'lmas daisy (Aster Tradescanti) fl. 
 Meadow rue (Thalietrum flavum) fl. 
 Sea holly (Eryngium marit.) fl. 
 China aster (Aster chinensis) fl. 
 Boletus albus ap. 
 Less Venus looking-glass (Campanula 
 
 hybrida) fl. 
 Carthamus tinctor. fl. 
 Goldfinch (Fringilla carduelis) young 
 
 broods ap. 
 
 Lapwings (Tringa vanellus) congregate 
 Black-eyed marble butterfly (Papilio 
 
 semele) ap. 
 
 Birds reassume their spring notes 
 Devil's bit (Scabiosa succisa) fl. 
 Thistle down floats 
 Ploughman's spikenard (Conyza squar- 
 
 rosa)Q. 
 Autumnal dandelion (Leontodon autum- 
 
 nale) fl. 
 
 Flies abound in windows 
 Linnets (Fringilla linota) congregate 
 Bulls make their shrill autumnal noise 
 Aster amellus fl. 
 
 Balsam (Jmpatiens balsamina) fl. 
 Milk thistle (Carduus marianus) fl. 
 Hop-picking begins 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 July 30. 
 July 30. 
 
 July 1822. 
 June 21. Aug. 20 
 
 July 30. 
 July 31. Aug. 6 
 July 31. 
 July 31. Aug. 27 
 
 July 13. Aug. 9 
 July 4. Aug. 22 
 July 2. Aug. 7 
 Aug. 11. 
 
 Aug. 116. 
 Aug. 126. 
 
 July 26. Aug. 19 
 July 27. Sept. 4 
 
 Aug. 1. 
 Aug. 2. 
 
 Aug. 8. Sept. 7 
 July 7. Aug. 3 
 
 Aug. 2. 
 
 
 Aug. 2. 
 
 Apr. 20. June 7, last seen 
 
 
 [Aug. 28 
 
 Aug. 319. 
 
 
 Aug. 3. 
 
 June 17. July 21 
 
 Aug. 3. 
 
 
 Aug. 4. 
 
 June 625 
 
 Aug. 5. 
 
 June 5. Aug. 11 
 
 Aug. 5. 
 
 
 Aug. 7. 
 
 July 21. Aug. 18 
 
 Aug. 7. 
 
 June 5. July 20 
 
 Aug. 7. 
 
 
 Aug. 8. 
 
 June 17. Aug. 4 
 
 Aug. 8. Sept. 3 
 
 
 Aug. 8. 
 
 July 22. Aug. 21 
 
 Aug. 8. 
 
 July 9. Aug. 10 
 
 Aug. 10. 
 
 
 Aug. 10. Sept. 13 
 Aug. 12. Sept. 27 
 
 Aug. 15. Sept. 29 
 Aug. 11. Oct. 8 
 
 Aug. 14. 
 
 
 Aug. 14. 
 
 
 Aug. 14. Sept. 28 
 
 Aug. 6. Oct. 2 
 
 Aug. 14. 
 
 May 10. 
 
 Aug. 15. 
 
 May 14. 
 
 Aug. 15. 
 
 
 Aug. 15. 
 
 June 15. 
 
 Aug. 15. Sept. 12 
 
 Sept. 25. Feb. 4. 
 
 Aug. 15. 
 
 
 Aug. 16. 
 
 
 Aug. 17. 
 
 June 22. Aug. 23 
 
 Aug. 17. Sept. 10 
 
 
 Aug. 18. 
 
 
 Aug. 18. 
 
 July 25. 
 
 Aug. 18. 
 
 
 Aug. 18. Nov. 1 
 
 Aug. 22. Nov. 8 
 
 Aug. 20. 
 
 
 Aug. 22. 
 
 
 Aug. 23. 
 
 May 22. July 26 
 
 Aug. 24. 
 
 Apr. 21. July 13 
 
 Aug. 24. Sept. 17 
 
 Sept. 116 
 
302 
 
 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 
 
 Beech (Fagus sylvaticd) turns yellow 
 Soapwort (Saponaria ojficinalis) fl. 
 Ladies' traces (Ophrys spiralis) fl. 
 Small golden black-spotted butterfly 
 
 (Papuio phlceas) ap. 
 Swallow (Hirundo rustica) sings 
 Althcea frutex (Hibiscus syriacus) fl. 
 Great frittilary (Papilio paphia) ap. 
 Willow red under- wing moth (Phalcena 
 
 pacta) ap. 
 
 Stone-curlew (Otis cedicnemus) clamours 
 Phcelana russula ap. 
 Grapes ripen 
 Wood owls hoot 
 
 Saffron butterfly (Papilio hyale) ap. 
 Ring ouzel appears on its autumnal visit 
 Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola) last seen 
 Beans ( Vicia faba) cut 
 Ivy (Bedera helix) fl. 
 Stares congregate 
 
 Wild honeysuckles fl. a second time 
 Woodlark sings 
 Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) returns 
 
 Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) fl. 
 
 Wheat sown 
 
 Swallows last seen. (N.B. The house 
 
 martin the latest) 
 Eedwing (Turdus iliacus) comes 
 
 Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) returns 
 
 Gossamer fills the air 
 
 Chinese holyoak (Alcea rosca) fl. 
 
 Hen chaffinches congregate 
 
 Wood pigeons come 
 
 Royston crow (Corvus cornix) returns 
 
 Snipe (Scolopax gallinago) returns 
 
 Tortoise begins to bury himself 
 
 Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) return to their 
 
 nest trees 
 Bucks grunt 
 
 Primrose (Primula vulgar is) fl. 
 Green whistling plover ap. 
 Helvetia mitra ap. 
 Greenfinches flock 
 Eepatica fl. 
 
 Furze (Ulex europceus) fl. 
 Polyanthus (Primula polyantha) fl. 
 Young lambs dropped 
 Moles work in throwing up hillocks 
 Helleborus fcetidus fl. 
 Daisy (Bellis perennis) fl. 
 Wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri sen fruti- 
 
 culosus of Smith) fl. 
 Mezereon fl. 
 Snowdrop fl. 
 
 WHITE. 
 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 Aug. 24. Sept. 22 
 
 Sept. 529. 
 
 Aug. 26. 
 
 July 19. Aug. 23 
 
 Aug. 27. Sept. 12 
 
 Aug. 18. Sept. 18 
 
 Aug. 29. 
 
 
 Aug. 29. 
 
 Apr. 11. Aug. 20 
 
 Aug. 30. Sept. 2 
 
 July 20. Sept. 28 
 
 Aug. 30. 
 
 
 Aug. 31. 
 
 
 Sept. 1. Nov. 7 
 
 June 17. 
 
 Sept. 1. 
 
 
 Sept. 4. Oct. 24 
 
 Aug. 31, Nov. 4 
 
 Sept. 4. Nov. 9 
 
 
 Sept. 4. 
 
 Aug. 5. Sept. 26 
 
 Sept. 430. 
 
 
 Sept. 629. 
 
 Sept. 430 
 
 Sept. 11. 
 
 Aug. 9. Oct. 14 
 
 Sept. 12. Oct. 2 
 
 Sept. 18. Oct. 28 
 
 Sept. 12. Nov. 1 
 
 June 4. Mar. 21 
 
 Sept. 25. 
 
 
 Sept. 28. Oct. 24 
 
 
 Sept. 29. Nov. 11 
 
 Oct. 1. Nov. 1, young ones 
 
 Oct. 1. 
 
 Apr. 28, last seen Apr. 11 
 May 21. Dec. 10 
 
 Oct. 3. Nov. 9 
 
 Sept. 23. Oct. 19 
 
 Oct. 4. Nov. 5 
 
 Nov. 16. 
 
 Oct. 10. Nov. 10 
 
 Oct.l. Dec.18.singsFeb.10, 
 
 Oct. 12. Nov. 23 
 
 Mar. 21, last seen Apr. 13 
 Oct. 13. Nov. 18, last seen 
 
 Oct. 1527. 
 
 [May 1 
 
 Oct. 19. 
 
 July 7. Aug. 21 
 
 Oct. 20. Dec. 31 
 
 
 Oct. 23. Dec. 27 
 
 
 Oct. 23. Nov. 29 
 
 Oct. 13. Nov. 17, last seen 
 
 
 [Apr. 15 
 
 Oct. 25. Nov. 20 
 
 Sept. 29. Nov. 11, last 
 
 Oct. 27. Nov. 26 
 
 [seen Apr. 14 
 
 Oct. 31. Dec. 25 
 
 June 29. Oct. 20 
 
 Nov. 1. 
 
 
 Nov. 10. 
 
 Oct. 7. Dec. 30 
 
 Nov. 13, 14. 
 
 
 Nov. 16. 
 
 
 Nov. 27. 
 
 
 Nov. 30 Dec. 29 
 
 Feb. 19. 
 
 Dec. 4 -21. 
 
 Dec. 16- 31. 
 
 Dec. 716. 
 
 Dec. 31. 
 
 Dec. 1127. 
 
 Dec. 12. Feb. 21 
 
 Dec. 1223. 
 
 
 Dec. 1430. 
 
 
 Dec. 15. 
 
 Dec. 2631. 
 
 Dec. 15. 
 
 Nov. 6. 
 
 Dec. 15. 
 
 
 Dec 29. 
 
 
 IN SESE VERTITUR ANNUS. 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 BIRDS IN GENERAL. 
 
 IN severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and 
 titlarks resort to watered meadows for food ; the latter 
 wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupce 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 parts. 
 
 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 blackcaps 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. 
 
 3" 
 
306 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 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 delight. 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 buzzard, 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 none is to be found in the combs of wasps. Birds of 
 prey occasionally feed on insects ; thus have I seen a tame 
 kite picking up the female ants full of eggs, with much 
 satisfaction. WHITE. 
 
 That red-starts, fly-catchers, blackcaps and other slender- 
 billed insectivorous small birds, particularly the swallow 
 tribe, make their first appearance very early in the spring, 
 is a well-known fact ; though the fly-catcher is the latest of 
 them all in its visit (as this accurate naturalist observes in 
 another place), for it is never seen before the month of 
 May. If these delicate creatures come to us from a 
 distant country, they will probably be exposed in their 
 passage, as Mr. White justly remarks, to much greater 
 difficulties from storms and tempests than their feeble 
 powers appear to be able to surmount ; on the other hand, 
 if we suppose them to pass the winter in a dormant state 
 in this country, concealed in caverns or other hiding-places 
 sufficiently guarded from the extreme cold of our winter to 
 preserve their life, and that at the approach of spring they 
 revive from their torpid state and reassume their usual 
 powers of action, it will entirely remove the first difficulty, 
 arising from the storms and tempests they are liable to 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 307 
 
 meet with in their passage ; but how are we to get over the 
 still greater difficulty of their revivification from their torpid 
 state ? What degree of warmth in the temperature of the 
 air is necessary to produce that effect, and how it operates 
 on the functions of animal life, are questions not easily 
 answered. 
 
 How could Mr. White suppose that Ray named this 
 species the honey buzzard, because it fed on honey, when 
 he not only named it. in Latin buteo apivorus et vespivorus, 
 but expressly says that " it feeds on insects, and brings up 
 its young with the maggots or nymphs of wasps ? " 
 
 That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, 
 flesh, sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I 
 think I have observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to 
 settle on the ground and pick up insects of some kind or 
 other. MARKWICK. 
 
 ROOKS. 
 
 Rooks are continually fighting, and pulling each other's 
 nests to pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living 
 in such close community. And yet if a pair offer 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 unhappy pairs are 
 not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have completed 
 their building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, 
 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 blandishments that are expressed by the young, while 
 
308 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 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 the open fields. WHITE. 
 
 After the first brood of rooks is sufficiently fledged, they 
 all leave their nest trees in the daytime, and resort to some 
 distant place in search of food, but return regularly every 
 evening, in vast flights, to their nest trees, where, after 
 flying round several times with much noise and clamour till 
 they are all assembled together, they take up their abode 
 for the night. MARK WICK. 
 
 THRUSHES. 
 
 Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in 
 hunting out shell-snails, which they pull to pieces for their 
 young, and are thereby 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 mistletoe, 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. WHITE. 
 
 Of the truth of this I have been an eye-witness, having 
 seen the common thrush feeding on the shell-snail. 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 309 
 
 In the very early part of this spring (1797), a bird of 
 this species used to sit every morning on the top of some 
 high elms close by my windows, and delight me with its 
 charming song, attracted thither, probably, by some ripe ivy 
 berries that grew near the place. 
 
 I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I 
 remember, many years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly 
 up repeatedly and attack some larger bird, which I suppose 
 disturbed their nest in my orchard, uttering at the same 
 time violent shrieks. Since writing the above, I have seen 
 more than once a pair of these birds attack some magpies 
 that had disturbed their nest, with great violence and loud 
 shrieks. M ARK WICK. 
 
 POULTRY. 
 
 Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment 
 to see what will turn to their own advantage and emolu- 
 ment, and often discover more sagacity than could be 
 expected. Thus my neighbour'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 ; turkeys and 
 guinea fowls, heavy as they are, get up into apple-trees ; 
 
3 1 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 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 apprehension 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 skulk 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. WHITE. 
 
 Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather 
 resort, even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest 
 trees. Last winter, when the ground was covered with 
 snow, I discovered all my guinea fowls, in the middle of 
 the day, sitting on the highest boughs of some very tall 
 elms, chattering and making a great clamour : I ordered 
 them to be driven down lest they should be frozen to death 
 in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected without 
 much difficulty ; they being very unwilling to quit their 
 lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so 
 much frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know not 
 
 * The pheasants run into equal danger when they roost in the 
 trees ; for, although they are secure from ground vermin, yet do they 
 often fall victims to the poacher, who can see them plainly against 
 the sky. 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 31 1 
 
 how to account for this, unless it was occasioned by their 
 aversion to the snow on the ground, they being birds that 
 come originally from a hot climate. 
 
 Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. 
 White calls them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign 
 species have the power of settling on the boughs of trees 
 apparently with great ease ; an instance of which I have 
 seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the 
 summer duck, anas sponsa, flew up, and settled on the 
 branch of an oak-tree in my presence : but whether any of 
 them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by 
 any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose not, but 
 that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, 
 where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly 
 secure, as will appear from the following circumstance 
 which happened in this neighbourhood a few years since, as 
 I was credibly informed. A female fox was found in the 
 morning drowned in the same pond in which were several 
 geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam 
 into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the 
 gander, which being most powerful in its own element, 
 buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was 
 drowned. MABKWICK. 
 
 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. 
 WHITE. 
 
312 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself 
 wounded and run along on the ground fluttering and crying 
 before either dog or man, to draw them away from its help- 
 less unfledged young ones. I have seen it often, and once 
 in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old bird's 
 solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young 
 pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges : 
 the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just 
 before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a consider- 
 able distance, when she took wing, and flew still farther off, 
 but not out of the field : on this the dog returned to me, 
 near which place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, 
 which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back 
 again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by 
 rolling and tumbling about, drew off his attention from her 
 young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have 
 also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of 
 young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, 
 screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve 
 their brood. MAEKWICK. 
 
 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,* the weight 
 of a full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of 
 
 * Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces. 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 3 1 3 
 
 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 
 grouse kind. In the tail were no 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 
 and 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 grouse or 
 blackcock ; it is however to be observed, that Mr. W. 
 remarks, that its legs and feet were naked, whereas those 
 of the grouse are feathered to the toes. WHITE. 
 
 Mr. Latham observes that " pea-hens, after they have 
 done laying, sometimes assume the plumage of the male 
 bird," and has given a figure of the male-feathered pea- 
 hen now to be seen in the Leverian Museum ; and M. 
 Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when she has 
 done laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male." 
 May not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird 
 of this kind ? that is, an old hen pheasant which has just 
 begun to assume the plumage of the cock. MARK WICK. 
 
3 1 4 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 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 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 embar- 
 rassed 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 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, crex." The bird mentioned above weighed 
 seven and a-half ounces, was fat and tender, and in flavour 
 like the flesh of a woodcock. The liver was very large and 
 delicate. W H ITB. 
 
 * The land-rail is common in Shropshire, and I have found three or 
 four nests in a single hayfield. One of these birds was once brought 
 in, in a load of hay, and when discovered feigned to be dead. It was 
 laid aside, and recovered so quickly, that it made good its escape with 
 remarkable speed. 
 
OBSER VA TJONS ON BIRDS. 315 
 
 Land-rails are more plentiful with us than in the 
 neighbourhood of Selborne. I have found four brace in an 
 afternoon, and a friend of mine lately shot nine in two 
 adjoining fields ; but I never saw them in any other reason 
 than the autumn. 
 
 That it is a bird of passage there can be little doubt, 
 though Mr. White thinks it poorly qualified for migration, 
 on account of the wings being short, and not placed in the 
 exact centre of gravity. How that may be I cannot say, but 
 I know that its heavy, sluggish flight is not owing to its 
 inability of flying faster, for I have seen it fly very swiftly, 
 although in general its actions are sluggish. Its unwilling, 
 ness to rise proceeds, I imagine, from its sluggish disposition, 
 and its great timidity, for it will sometimes squat so close 
 to the ground as to suffer itself to be taken up by the hand, 
 rather than rise ; and yet it will at times run very fast. 
 
 What Mr. White remarks respecting the small shell- 
 snails found in its gizzard, confirms my opinion, that it 
 frequents corn-fields, seed clover, and brakes or fern, more 
 for the sake of snails, slugs, and other insects which 
 abound in such places, than for the grain or seeds ; and 
 that it is entirely an insectivorous bird. MARKWICK. 
 
 FOOD OF THE RING-DOYE. 
 
 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 
 cashed 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 
 
31 6 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 grain fails, can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There 
 is reason to suppose that they would not long be healthy 
 without ; for turkeys, though corn fed, delight in a variety 
 of plants, such as cabbage, lettuce, endive, etc., 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. 
 WHITE. 
 
 That many graminivorous birds feed also on the herbage 
 or leaves of plants, there can be no doubt ; partridges and 
 larks frequently feed on the green leaves of turnips, which 
 give a peculiar flavour to their flesh, that is, to me, very 
 palatable : the flavour also of wild ducks and geese greatly 
 depends on the nature of their food j and their flesh 
 frequently contracts a rank unpleasant taste, from their 
 having lately fed on strong marshy aquatic plants, as I 
 suppose. 
 
 That the leaves of vegetables are wholesome and conducive 
 to the health of birds seems probable, for many 'people fat 
 their ducks and turkeys with the leaves of lettuce chopped 
 small. MARK WICK. 
 
 HEN-HARRIER. 
 
 A neighbouring gentleman 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 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 317 
 
 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. Hence we may conclude 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 cower- 
 ing 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 Gallinse by the 
 invention of nets and guns. WHITE, 
 
 Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey when 
 urged on by hunger I have seen several instances ; par 
 ticularly, when shooting in the winter in company with 
 two friends, a woodcock flew across us, closely pursued by 
 a small hawk : we all three fired at the woodcock instead 
 of the hawk, which, notwithstanding the report of three 
 guns close by it, continued its pursuit of the woodcock, 
 struck it down, and carried it off, as we afterwards 
 discovered. 
 
 At another time, when partridge-shooting with a friend, 
 we saw a ring-tail hawk rise out of a pit with some large 
 bird in its claws ; though at a great distance, we both fired 
 and obliged it to drop its prey, which proved to be one of 
 the partridges which we were in pursuit of : and lastly, in 
 an evening, I shot at, and plainly saw that I had wounded, 
 a partridge, but it being late, was obliged to go home 
 without finding it again. The next morning I walked 
 
3 1 8 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 round my land without any gun, but a favourite old spaniel 
 followed my heels. When I came near the field where I 
 wounded the bird the evening before, I heard the 
 partridges call, and seeming to be much disturbed. On my 
 approaching the bar- way, they all rose, some on my right 
 and some on my left hand ; and just before and over my 
 head I preceived (though indistinctly from the extreme 
 velocity of their motion) two birds fly directly against each 
 other, when instantly, to my great astonishment, down 
 dropped a partridge at my feet. The dog immediately 
 seized it, and on examination, I found the blood flow very 
 fast from a flesh wound in the head, but there was some 
 dry-clotted blood on its wings and side ; whence I concluded 
 that a hawk had singled out my wounded bird as the 
 object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that 
 my approach had obliged the birds to rise on the wing ; 
 but the space between the hedges was so small, and the 
 birds so instantaneous and quick, that I could not distinctly 
 observe the operation. MABKWICK. 
 
 GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOOK 
 
 As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer JTorest 
 from Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncom- 
 mon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which 
 he brought home alive. On examination it proved to be 
 colymbus glaciaUs, 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 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 3 1 9 
 
 adjoining, in order that it may pierce the water ; the wings 
 are placed forward, and out of the centre of gravity, for a 
 purpose which shall be noticed hereafter ; the thighs quite 
 at the podex, in order to facilitate diving ; and the legs are 
 quite 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 nore 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 for- 
 ward 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. 
 
320 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS, 
 
 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 
 forty-two inches. A person attempted 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 they 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 centre 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. WHITE. 
 
 These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set 
 forth in a proper light the wonderful works of God in the 
 creation, and to point out His wisdom in adapting the sin- 
 gular form and position of the limbs of this bird to the 
 particular mode in which it is destined to pass the greatest 
 part of its life in an element much denser than the air, do 
 Mr. White credit, not only as a naturalist, but as a man 
 and as a philosopher, in the truest sense of the word, in my 
 opinion ; for were we enabled to trace the works of nature 
 minutely and accurately, we should find, not only that 
 every bird, but every creature, was equally well adapted to 
 the purpose for which it was intended ; though this fitness 
 and propriety of form is more striking in such animals as 
 are destined to any uncommon mode of life. 
 
 I have had in my possession two birds, which, though of 
 a different genus, bear a great resemblance to Mr. White's 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 321 
 
 colymbus in their manner of life, which is spent chiefly in 
 the water, where they swim and dive with astonishing 
 rapidity, for which purpose their fin-toed feet, placed far 
 behind, and very short wings, are particularly well adapted, 
 and show the wisdom of God in the creation as conspicu- 
 ously as the bird before mentioned. These birds were the 
 greater and lesser crested grebe, podiceps cristatus et auritsu. 
 What surprised me most was, that the first of these birds 
 was found alive on dry ground, about seven miles from the 
 sea, to which place there was no communication by water. 
 How did it get so far from the sea? its wings and legs 
 being so ill adapted either to flying or walking. The lesser 
 crested grebe was also found in a fresh-water pond which 
 had no communication with other water, at some miles' 
 distance from the sea. MARKWICK. 
 
 STONE-CURLEW.- 
 
 On the 27th February 1788 stone-curlews were heard to 
 pipe ; and on March 1st, after it was dark, some were pass- 
 ing over the village, as might be perceived by their quick 
 short note, which they use in their nocturnal excursions by 
 way of watchword, that they may not stray and lose their 
 companions. 
 
 Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in the win- 
 ter, 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. WHITE. 
 
 31* 
 
322 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 On the 31st January 1792 I received a bird of this 
 species which had been recently killed by a neighbouring 
 farmer, who said he had frequently seen it in his fields 
 during the former part of the winter : this perhaps was an 
 occasional straggler, which by some accident was prevented 
 from accompanying its companions in their migration. 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 THE SMALLEST UNORESTED WILLOW WREN. 
 
 The smallest uncrested 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 
 March. WHITE. 
 
 This bird, which Mr. White calls the smallest willow 
 wren, or chiff-chaff, makes its appearance very early in the 
 spring, and is very common with us ; but I cannot make 
 out the three different species of willow wrens which he 
 assures us he has discovered. Ever since the publication of 
 his History of Selborne I have used my utmost endeavours . 
 to discover his three birds, but hitherto without success. 
 I have frequently shot the bird which "haunts only the 
 tops of trees, and makes a sibilous noise," even in the very 
 act of uttering that sibilous note, but it always proved to 
 be the common willow wren or his chiff-chaff. In short, I 
 never could discover more than one species, unless my 
 greater pettychaps, sylvia hortensis of Latham, is his 
 greatest willow wren. MARKWICK. 
 
 FERN-OWL, OR GOAT-SUCKER. 
 The country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or 
 churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is 
 very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting as it strikes 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 323 
 
 at them the fatal distemper known to cow-leeches by the 
 name of puckeridge.* 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 cestrus 
 boviSy 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 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 sol> 
 stitialis, 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 affecfj 
 them by fluttering over them. 
 
 * The goat-sucker, liko other birds, finds insects in attendance 
 on cattle ; hence its apparent " striking at them." Magpies and 
 starlings will coolly perch on the backs of animals and leisurely make 
 their meal. 
 
S24 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 A fern-owl, this evening (August 27th), 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 phalsena belonging 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 Scarabceus melolontha on the oak, 
 and the Scarabceus solstitialis at midsummer. These 
 peculiar birds can only be watched and observed for two 
 hours in the twenty-four ; and then in dubious twilight, an 
 hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise. 
 
 On this day (July 14th, 1789) a woman brought me two 
 eggs of a fern-owl, or evening jarr, which she found on the 
 verge of the Hanger, to the left of the hermitage, under a 
 fceechen 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 wese oblong, dusky, and streaked 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 326 
 
 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 4th, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern- 
 owl's eggs last year on July 14th, 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 hermitage, under a beechen 
 shrub, on the naked ground. Last year" those eggs were 
 full of young, 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. WHITE. 
 
 No author that I am acquainted with has given so 
 accurate and pleasing an account of the manners and habits 
 of the goat-sucker as Mr. White, taken entirely from his 
 own observations. Its being a nocturnal bird has prevented 
 my having many opportunities of observing it. I suspect 
 that it passes the day in concealment amidst the dark and 
 shady gloom of deep-wooded dells, or as they are called here 
 gills; having more than once seen it roused from such 
 solitary places by my dogs, when shooting in the daytime. 
 I have also sometimes seen it in an evening, but not long 
 
326 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 enough to take notice of its habits and manners. I have 
 never seen it but in the summer, between the months of 
 May and September. MAEKWICK. 
 
 SAND-MARTINS. 
 
 March 23rd, 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 serpentine, 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. 
 
 March 21st, 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 9th, 1793. A sober hind assures us, that this day, 
 on Wishhanger 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. 
 
 The 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. 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 327 
 
 The late severe weather considered, it is not very prob- 
 able 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 latebrse, where they have spent the 
 uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state, and the 
 profoundest of slumbers. 
 
 There is a large pond at Wishhanger, which induces 
 these sand-martins to frequent that district. For I have 
 ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either 
 rivers or lakes. WHITE. 
 
 Here, and in many other passages of his writings, this 
 very ingenious naturalist savours the opinion that part, at 
 least, of the swallow tribe pass their winter in a torpid 
 state in the same manner as bats and flies, and revive again 
 on the approach of spring. 
 
 I have frequently taken notice of all these circumstances, 
 which induced Mr. White to suppose that some of these 
 hirundines lie torpid during winter. I have seen so late as 
 November, on a finer day than usual at that season of the 
 year, two or three swallows flying backwards and forwards 
 under a warm hedge, or on the sunny side of some old 
 building; nay, I once saw on the 8th December two 
 martins flying about very briskly, the weather being mild. 
 I had not seen any considerable number either of swallows 
 or martins for a considerable time before ; from whence, 
 then, could these few birds come, if not from some hole or 
 cavern where they had laid themselves up for the winter? 
 Surely it will not be asserted that these birds migrate back 
 again from some distant tropical region, merely on the 
 appearance of a fine day or two at this late season of the 
 
328 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 year. Again, very early in the spring, and sometimes 
 immediately after very cold severe weather, on its growing 
 a little warmer, a few of these birds suddenly make their 
 appearance, long before the generality of them are seen. 
 These appearances certainly favour the opinion of their 
 passing the winter in a torpid state, but do not absolutely 
 prove the fact ; for who ever saw them reviving of their 
 own accord from their torpid state without being first 
 brought to the fire, and, as it were, forced into life again ; 
 soon after which revivification they constantly die. 
 MAKKWICK. 
 
 SWALLOWS, CONGREGATING AND 
 DISAPPEARANCE 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 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. 
 
 Sept. 13th, 1791. The congregating flocks of hirundines 
 on the church and tower are very beautiful and amusing ! 
 When they fly off 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 day, preparing 
 
O3SE21 VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 329 
 
 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 
 frequented at the same time. 
 
 It is remarkable that though most of them sit on the 
 battlements 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 3rd, 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 llth. 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 in the 
 interval 1 For we cannot suppose they had emigrated 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 
 phalsenae and moths are stirring. 
 
 These swallows looked like young ones. WHITE. 
 
 Of their migration the proofs are such as will scarcely 
 admit of a doubt. Sir Charles Wager and Captain Wright 
 saw vast flocks of them at sea, when on their passage from 
 
330 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 
 
 one country to another. Our author, Mr. White, saw what 
 he deemed the actual migration of these birds, and which 
 he has described at p. 63 of his History of Selborne ; and 
 of their congregating together on the roofs of churches and 
 other buildings, and on trees, previous to their departure, 
 many instances occur ; particularly I once observed a large 
 stock of house-martins on the roof of the church here at 
 Catsfield, which acted exactly in the manner here described 
 by Mr. White, sometimes preening their feathers and 
 spreading their wings to the sun, and then flying off all 
 together, but soon returning to their former situation. 
 The greatest part of these birds seemed to be young ones. 
 MABKWICK. 
 
 WAGTAILS. 
 
 While the cows are feeding in the 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 prob- 
 ably finding worms and larvce that are roused by the 
 trampling of their feet. Nature is such an economist, that 
 the most incongruous animals can avail themselves of each 
 other ! 
 
 Interest makes strange friendships. WHITE. 
 
 Birds continually avail themselves of particular and un- 
 usual circumstances to procure their food : thus wagtails 
 keep playing about the noses and legs of cattle as they 
 feed, in quest of flies and other insects which abound near 
 those animals ; and great numbers of them will follow close 
 to the plough to devour the worms, etc., that are turned up 
 by that instrument. The redbreast attends the gardener 
 when digging his borders and will, with great familiarity 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON BIXDS. 331 
 
 and tameness, pick out the worms, almost close to his spade, 
 as I have frequently seen. Starlings and magpies very 
 often sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their 
 ticks. MAEKWICK. 
 
 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, 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. WHITE. 
 
 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 havoc among the buds of the 
 cherries, gooseberries, 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 ornithologists 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. WHITE. 
 
 I have never seen this rare bird but during the severest 
 cold of the hardest winter ; at which season of the year I have 
 had in my possession two or three that were killed in this 
 neighbourhood in different years. MARKWICK. 
 
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 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 alteration in their appearance, as from 
 the defect of that notus ordo, discriminating each individual 
 personally ; which also is confounded by the strong scent of 
 pitch and tar wherewith they are newly marked ; for the 
 brute creation recognise each other more from the smell 
 than the sight ; and in matters of indentity and diversity 
 appeal much more to their noses than their eyes. After 
 sheep have been washed there is the same confusion, from 
 the reason given above. WHITE. 
 
 BABBITS. 
 
 Babbits 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. WHITE. 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON Q UADR UPEDS. 333 
 CATS AND SQUIRRELS. 
 
 A boy has taken three 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 j 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 
 shows her affection for these fondlings, 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. WHITE. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 HOUNDS. 
 
 The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by 
 a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for 
 the stag that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a 
 
334 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND 
 VERMES. 
 
 INSECTS IN GENERAL. 
 
 THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately ; 
 the papilios, muscse, and apes are succeeded at the close of 
 day by phalsenae, earwigs, woodlice, etc. 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 clays quite on to 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 335 
 
 November they swarm on trees covered with this plant; 
 and when they disappear, probably retire under the shelter 
 of its leaves, concealing themselves between its fibres and 
 the trees which it entwines."* WHITE. 
 
 This I have often observed, having seen bees and other 
 winged insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy very 
 late in the autumn. MAKKWICK. 
 
 Spiders, woodlice, lepismse in cupboards and among sugar, 
 some empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phalsense 
 in hedges, earth-worms, etc., 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 tipulae and empedes) appear 
 sporting and dancing over the tops of the evergreen trees in 
 the shrubbery, and striking about as if the business of 
 generation was still going on. Hence it appears that theso 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 This I have also seen, and have frequently observed 
 swarms of little winged insects playing up and down in the 
 air in the middle of winter, even when the ground has been 
 covered with snow. MARKWICK. 
 
 * The ivy is haunted at night by swarms of moths and other insects. 
 I have seen an ivy bush, on a warm summer night, literally moving 
 with the number of moths which were feeding on it. The eyes of the 
 larger ones glowed like sparks of fire. 
 
336 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 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. The 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 undeliglitful is the ceaseless hum 
 To him who muses at noon." 
 
 " Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways. 
 Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd, 
 The quivering nations sport." THOMSON'S Seasons. 
 WHITE. 
 
 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 tho 
 house-sparrow. 
 
 The scarabceus solstitialis first appears about June -26th : 
 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 tho 
 fern-chaffer. WHITE. 
 
 A singular circumstance relative to the cock chaffer, or, as 
 i is called here, the May-bug, scarabceus melontha, happened 
 
OB SEX VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 337 
 
 this year (1800). My gardener, in digging some ground, 
 found, about six inches under the surface, two of these 
 insects alive and perfectly formed, so early as the 24th 
 March. When he brought them to me they appeared to be 
 as perfect and as much alive as in the midst of summer, 
 crawling about as briskly as ever ; yet I saw no more of 
 this insect till the 22nd May, when it began to make its 
 appearance. How comes it, that though it was perfectly 
 formed so early as the 24th March, it did not show itself 
 above ground till nearly two months afterwards ? 
 MARKWICK. 
 
 PTINUS PECTINICORNIS. 
 
 Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs, 
 bed-posts, etc., and destroy wooden furniture, especially 
 where there is any sap, are the larvae of the ptinus pectini- 
 cornis. 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 rubbing will 
 preserve wooden furniture. WHITE. 
 
 BLATTA OBIENTALIS. COCKROACH. 
 
 A neighbour complained that her house was overrun 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 daybreak. 
 
 313 
 
338 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 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 pre- 
 vail in the more northern parts of Europe, as Russia, 
 Sweden, etc. 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 alto- 
 gether night insects, lucifugce, never coming forth till the 
 rooms are dark and still, and escaping away nimbly at the 
 approach of a candle. Their antennae are remarkably long, 
 slender, and flexile. 
 
 October 1790. 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 opon in the even- 
 ings, the males come flying in at the casements from the 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 339 
 
 neighbouring houses, which swarm with them. How tho 
 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 overstocked, have powers of migrating 
 to fresh quarters. Since the blattce have been so much kept 
 under, the crickets have greatly increased in number. 
 WHITE. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 OIMEX LINEARIS. 
 
 August 12th, 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 j 
 soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as their 
 
340 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 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 multitude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, 
 these insects seem without doubt to be viviparous. WHITE, 
 
 PHAL^ENA 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 
 aurelia, 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 
 catching their prey near the ground ; and found they were 
 hawking after these phalcencc. The aurelice 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. WHITE. 
 
 I suspect that the insect here meant is not the phalcena 
 quercus, but the pJwlcena viridata, concerning which I find ' 
 the following note in my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 
 1785 : 
 
 About this time, and for a few days last past, I observed 
 the leaves of almost all the oak-trees in Denn copse to be 
 eaten and destroyed, and, on examining more narrowly, saw 
 an infinite number of small, beautiful, pale green moths 
 flying about the trees ; the leaves of which that were not 
 quite destroyed were curled up, and withinside were the 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 841 
 
 exuvice, or remains of the chrysalis, from whence I suppose 
 the moths had issued, and whose caterpillar had eaten the 
 leaves. MARKWICK. 
 
 EPHEMERA OATJDA BISETA. MAY-FLY. 
 
 June 10th, 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 
 suoked them in as they lay struggling on the surface of the 
 stream, unable to rise till their wings were dried. 
 
 This appearance reconciled me in some measure to the 
 wonderful account that Scopoli gives of the quantities 
 emerging from the rivers of Oarniola. Their motions are 
 very peculiar, up and down for so many yards almost in a 
 perpendicular line. WHITE. 
 
 1 once saw a swarm of these insects playing up and down 
 over the surface of a pond in Denn Park, exactly in the 
 manner described by this accurate naturalist. It was late 
 in the evening of a warm summer's day when I observed 
 them. MARKWICK. 
 
 SPHYNX OCELLATA. 
 
 A vast insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a hum- 
 ming noise, and inserting its tongue into the bloom of the 
 honey-suckle ; it scarcely settles upon the plants, but feeds 
 on the wing in the manner of humming birds. WHITE. 
 
 I have frequently seen the large bee moth, sphinx 
 stellatarum, inserting its long tongue or proboscis into the 
 centre of flowers, and feeding on their nectar, without 
 settling on them, but keeping constantly on the wing. 
 MARKWICK. 
 
342 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 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. 
 
 There is a remarkable hill on the downs near Lewes in 
 Sussex, known by the name of Mount Carburn, which 
 overlooks 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, making its nest in the chalky soil. When people 
 approach 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 contemplating the grandeur of the scenery 
 around me, and have thought myself in danger of being 
 stung. WHITE. 
 
 WASPS. 
 
 Wasps abound in woody wild districts far from neighbour- 
 hoods ; 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 particles 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 cat ilies, 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 343 
 
 and suck the honey from flowers, from ivy blossoms and 
 umbellated plants ; they carry off also flesh from butchers' 
 shambles. WHITE. 
 
 In the year 1775 wasps abounded so prodigiously in this 
 neighbourhood, that, in the month of August, no less than 
 seven or eight of their nests were ploughed up in one field : 
 of which there were several instances, as I was informed. 
 
 In the spring, about the beginning of April, a single 
 wasp is sometimes seen, which is of a larger size than 
 usual ; this I imagine is the queen or female wasp, the 
 mother of the future swarm. MARKWICK. 
 
 OESTRUS OURYICAUDA. 
 
 This insect lays its nits or eggs on horses' legs, flanks, 
 etc., 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. WHITE. 
 
 NOSE-FLY. 
 
 About the beginning of July a species of fly (musca) 
 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, continually 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. WHITE. 
 
344 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 Is not this insect the Oestrus nasalis of Linnseus, so well 
 described by Mr. Clark in the third volume of the 
 Linncean Transactions, under the name of Oestrus 
 veterinus ? MARKWICK. 
 
 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, 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 back- 
 ward, drew her prey very nimbly over the walk into the 
 standing grass. This spider would be deposited 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. WHITE. 
 
 In my Naturalist's Calendar for 1795, July 21st, I find 
 the following note : 
 
 It is not uncommon for some of the species of ichneumon 
 flies to deposit their eggs in the chrysalis of a butterfly ; 
 some time ago I put two of the chrysales of a butterfly into 
 a box, and covered it with gauze, to discover what species 
 of butterfly they would produce ; but instead of a butter- 
 fly, one of them produced a number of small ichneumon 
 flies. 
 
 There are many instances of the great service these little 
 insects are to mankind in reducing the number of noxious 
 insects, by depositing their eggs in the soft bodies of their 
 larvce ; but none more remarkable than that of the 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS. 345 
 
 ichneumon tripulce, which pierces the tender bodies and 
 deposits its eggs in the larva of the Tipula tritici, an insect 
 which, when it abounds greatly, is very prejudicial to the 
 grains of wheat. This operation I have frequently seen it 
 perform with wonder and delight. MARKWICK. 
 
 BOMBYLIUS MEDIUS. 
 
 The Bonibylius medius is much about in March and the 
 beginning of April, and soon seems to retire. It is a hairy 
 insect, like a 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. WHITE. 
 
 I have often seen this insect fly with great velocity, stop 
 on a sudden, hang in the air in a stationary position for 
 some time, and then fly off again; but do not recollect 
 having ever seen it strike its tail against the ground, or 
 any other substance. MARKWICK. 
 
 MUSCLE. FLIES. 
 
 In the decline of the year, when the mornings and even- 
 ings become chilly, many species of flies (Muscce) retire into 
 houses, and swarm into 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 
 
346 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 feet, whereby they are enabled to stick on the glass and 
 other smooth bodies, and to walk on ceilings with their 
 backs downward, by means of the pressure of the atmos- 
 phere 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 to the glass, and it is with the utmost difficulty 
 they can draw one foot after another, and disengage their 
 hollow caps from the slippery surface. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 OR EMPEDES. 
 
 May. 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 juncture 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 remember to have seen such swarms, except in 
 the fens of the Isle of Ely. They appear most over grass 
 grounds. WHITE. 
 
 APHIDES. 
 
 On the 1st August, about half an hour after three in the 
 afternoon, the people of Selborne were surprised by a 
 shower of aphides which fell in these parts. They who 
 were walking in 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 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 347 
 
 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, 
 WHITE. 
 
 ANTS. 
 
 August 23rd. Every ant-hill about this time is 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 swallows return no more to their 
 nests, but looking out for fresh settlements, lay a founda- 
 tion for future colonies. All the females at this time are 
 pregnant ; the males that escape being eaten, wander away 
 and die. 
 
 October 2nd. 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. 
 
 Horse-ants travel home to their nests laden with flies 
 which they have caught, and the aureliae of smaller anti, 
 which they seize by violence. WHITE. 
 
 In my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1777, on 
 September 6th, I find the following note to the article 
 Flying Ants : 
 
348 OB SEX VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 I saw a prodigious swarm of these ants flying about the 
 top of some tall elm-trees (close by my house) ; some were 
 continually dropping to the ground, as if from the trees, 
 and others rising up from the ground \ many of them were 
 joined together in copulation ; and I imagine their life is 
 but short, for as soon as produced from the egg by the heat 
 of the sun, they propagate their species, and soon after 
 perish. They were black, somewhat like the small black 
 ant, and had four wings. I saw also, at another place, a 
 large sort, which were yellowish. On the 8th September 
 1785 I again observed the same circumstance of a vast 
 number of these insects flying near the tops of the elms and 
 dropping to the ground. 
 
 On the 2nd March 1777 I saw great numbers of ants 
 come out of the ground. MARKWICK. 
 
 GLOW-WORMS. 
 
 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. 
 
 Little glow-worms, attracted by the light of the candles, 
 come into the parlour. WHITE. 
 
 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 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 leave 
 
OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 349 
 
 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 extended 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. WHITE. 
 
 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 injure the green wheat, the loss of 
 which is imputed to earth-worms ; while the shelled snail, 
 the <epeoiKos, does not come forth at all till about April 
 10th, 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 
 
350 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 
 
 is plain that a defect of warmth is not the only cause that 
 influences their retreat. WHITE. 
 
 SNAKE'S SLOUGH. 
 
 " -There the snake throws her enamell'd skin." 
 
 SHAKESPEAKE'S Midsummer Night's 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 fric- 
 tion of the stalks and blades might promote this curious 
 shifting of the exuviae, 
 
 ' Lubrica serpens 
 
 Exuit in spinis vestem." LUCEET, 
 
 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. Whilst the scales of the eyes are growing 
 loose, and a new skin is forming, the creature in appearance 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES, 351 
 
 must be blind, and feel itself in an awkward, uneasy 
 situation. WHITE. 
 
 I have seen many sloughs or skins of snakes entire, after 
 they have cast them off; and once in particular I remember 
 to have found one of these sloughs so intricately interwoven 
 amongst some brakes that it was with difficulty removed 
 without being broken ; this undoubtedly was done by the 
 creature to assist in getting rid of its encumberance. 
 
 I have great reason to suppose that the eft or common 
 lizard also casts its skin or slough, but not entire like the 
 snake ; for on the 30th March 1777 I saw one with some- 
 thing ragged hanging to it, which appeared to be part of its 
 old skin. MABKWICK. 
 
 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 peaches remain green 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-leaves turn of a deep 
 chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their leaves about tho 
 end of October. 
 
352 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
 
 SIZE AND GROWTH. 
 
 Mr. Marsham of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by 
 letter thus " I became a planter early ; so that an oak 
 which I planted in 1720 is become now, at one foot from 
 the earth, twelve feet six inches in circumference, and at 
 fourteen feet (the half of the timber length) is eight feet 
 two 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 
 flatter 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, etc., 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 1741, and then by seed ; so that my largest 
 is now at five feet from the ground, six feet three inches 
 in girth, and with its head spreads a circle of twenty yards 
 diameter. This tree was also dug round, washed, etc. 
 STRATTON, Uth-July, 1790." 
 
 The circumference of trees planted by myself at one foot 
 from the ground (1790) : 
 
 Oak in 1730 . . . 4 ft. 5 in. 
 
 Ash 1730 4 6J 
 
 Great fir 1751 . .50 
 
 Greatest beech 1751 . . .40 
 
 Elm 1750 . . .53 
 
 Lime 1756 ... 5 5 
 
 The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by Mr. 
 Marsham to be the biggest in this island, at seven feet from 
 the ground, measures in circumference thirty-four feet. It 
 has in old times lost several of its boughs, and is tending to 
 decay. Mr. Marsham computes that at fourteen feet length 
 this oak contains 1000 feet of timber. 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 353 
 
 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. According 
 to this supposition, a tree may advance in height considerably 
 though the summer shoot should be destroyed every year. 
 
 FLOWING 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 cut, any part may be taken off without the 
 least inconvenience. 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. WHITE. 
 
 ASH TREES. 
 
 Many ash trees bear loads of keys every year, others 
 never seem to bear any at all The prolific ones are naked 
 
354 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
 
 of leaves and unsightly ; those that are sterile abound in 
 foliage, and carry their verdure a long while, and are 
 pleasing objects. WHITE. 
 
 BEECH. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 SYCAMORE. 
 
 May 12th. 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. WHITE. 
 
 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 incurious 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 excrescences. WHITE. 
 
 CHESTNUT TIMBER. 
 
 John Carpenter brings home some old chestnut trees 
 which are very long; in several places the woodpeckers 
 had begua to bore them. The timber and bark of these trees 
 are so very like oak, as might easily deceive *in indifferent 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 355 
 
 observer, but the wood is very shaky, and towards the 
 heart cup-shaky (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, etc. Chestnut sells for 
 half the price of oak ; but has sometimes been sent to the 
 king's docks, and passed off instead of oak. WHITE. 
 
 LIME BLOSSOMS. 
 
 Dr. Chandler tells that in the south of France an infu- 
 sion of the blossoms of the lime tree, Tilia, is in much 
 esteem as a remedy for coughs, hoarseness, fevers, etc., and 
 that at Nismes he saw an avenue of limes that was quite 
 ravaged and torn to 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. WHITE. 
 
 BLACKTHORN. 
 
 This tree usually blossoms while cold north-east winds 
 blow ; so that the harsh, rugged weather obtaining at this 
 season is called by the country people blackthorn winter. 
 WHITE. 
 
 IVY BERRIES. 
 
 Ivy berries form 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. WHITE. 
 
356 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
 
 HOPS. 
 
 The culture of Virgil's vines corresponds very exactly 
 with the modern management of hops. I might instance in 
 the perpetual diggings and hoeings, in the tying to the 
 stakes and poles, in pruning the superfluous shoots, etc., 
 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." GEORQ. 
 
 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 hailstorm, June 5th, 
 show now (September 2nd) 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 he pinched off when the binds are very gross 
 and strong 1 WHITE. 
 
 SEED LYING DORMANT. 
 
 The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with 
 thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 357 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 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 pease are growing 
 also in the same situation, and probably under the same 
 circumstances. WHITE. 
 
 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 
 
358 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
 
 round the lights in a morning, till the glasses are opened. 
 Probatum est. WHITE. 
 
 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 
 exude, which being extravasated, occasion spots, discolour 
 the stems and blades, and injure the health of the plants ] 
 WHITE. 
 
 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 hedgerows and the skirts of coppices. Some 
 truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within the earth, and 
 some quite on the surface ; the 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. 
 WHITE. 
 
 TREMELLA NOSTOO. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 359 
 
 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 appearances, 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. WHITE. 
 
 YEW. 
 
 In the churchyard 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 a head of suitable extent to it 
 bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring sheds clouds 
 of dust, and fills the atmosphere around with its 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 
 
 * Fairy rings are caused by certain fungi which throw their seeds 
 outwards, so that a gradually increasing circle is formed of greener 
 and brighter vegetation. 
 
360 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 
 
 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, 
 it 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. 
 A horse tied to a yew-hedge, or to a aggot-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 a heap from browsing a little on a hedge 
 of yew in an old garden, into which they had broken in 
 snowy weather. Even the clippings of a yew hedge have 
 destroyed a whole dairy of cows when thrown inadvertently 
 into a yard. And yet sheep and turkeys, 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 its 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 
 
OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 361 
 
 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 churchyards. 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 churchyard but yews, this statute 
 must have principally related to this species of tree ; and 
 consequently their being planted in churchyards is of much 
 more ancient date than the year 1307. 
 
 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, Rebekah's nurse,* was buried under an oak the 
 most honourable place of interment probably next to the 
 cave of Machpelah,t 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 churchyards of other parts of Europe, 
 where long bows were not so much in use. They might 
 also be placed as a shelter to the congregation assembling 
 before the church doors were opened, and as an emblem of 
 mortality by their funereal appearance. In the south of 
 England every churchyard almost has its tree, and some 
 
 * Gen. xxxv. 8. t Gen. xxiii. 9. 
 
362 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 two ; but in the north, we understand, few are to be 
 found. 
 
 The idea of R. 0. that the yew-tree afforded its branches 
 instead of palms for the processions on Palm Sunday is a 
 good one, and deserves attention. See Gent. Hag., vol. 
 1. p. 128. 
 
 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 BAROMETER. 
 
 NOVEMBER 22nd, 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 distance. WHITE. 
 
 PARTIAL FROST. 
 
 The country people, who are abroad in winter mornings 
 long before sunrise, talk much of hard frosts in some spots, 
 and none in others. The reason of these partial frosts is 
 obvious, for there 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 dearest and freest from vapour. WHITE. 
 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 363 
 THAW. 
 
 Thaws are sometimes surprisingly quick, considering the 
 small quantity of rain. "Does not the warmth at such 
 times come from below 1 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, etc. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 FROZEN SLEET. 
 
 January 20th. Mr. H.'s man says that he caught this 
 day, in a lane near Hack wood 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. WHITE. 
 
 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. WHITE. 
 
364 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 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 phenomenon seems not to have been 
 attended to, but implies the great density of the meteor at 
 that juncture. WHITE. 
 
 HONEY DEW. 
 
 June 4th, 1783. Fast honey dews this week. The 
 reason of these seem to be, that in hot days the effluvia of 
 flowers are drawn up by a brisk evaporation, and then in 
 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. WHITE. 
 
 MORNING CLOUDS. 
 
 After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually 
 becomes cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the afternoon, 
 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 
 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 365 
 
 in a still warm evening, they will be seen to melt away and 
 disappear. WHITE. 
 
 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 till the 30th May the fields were 
 burnt up and naked, and the barley not half out of the 
 ground; but now, June 10th, there is an agreeable prospect 
 of plenty. WHITE. 
 
 AURORA BOREALIS. 
 
 November 1st, 1787. The K aurora made a particular 
 appearance, 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. WHITE. 
 
 BLACK SPRING, 1771. 
 
 Dr. Johnson says, that "in 1771 the season was so 
 severe in the island of Skye, 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 
 
366 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 dreadful period. Whole dairies missed being in calf 
 together. 
 
 At the end of March the face of the earth was naked to a 
 surprising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs 
 of any grass ; turnips all gone, and sheep in a starving way. 
 All provisions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for 
 want of rain. WHITE. 
 
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