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All othar original capias era filmad baginning on tha first paga with a printad or Illustratad Impraa- sion. and anding on tha laat paga with a printad or illuatratad imprassion. Tha last racordad frama on aach microficha shall contain tha symbol — ^ (moaning "CON- TINUED"), or tha symbol ▼ (moaning "END'I. whichavar applias. L'axamplaira film4 fut raproduit grica A la gAniroait* da: Bibliothiquj gftnAraia, Univariit* Laval. Qu. Johnson said confidcm v hi, ," "'"""'"■ pass the uintc-r in Z ^ '"""'"" '"'' ""■» Drefprs n ,.; * '"trary cast of mind that interest .„ ,!<. liH "V" '""-r -.n.bi.ion. His if fn ♦»!« k • . ^«^ SI, ana then ffive li' a u'eir,n:/'°^'""^ '•'''"-'-- ;^^ all thi„,s shall be added ' "' °' """" «"' ""'^ 4i^ :ro:,7s::rrr''r "■'"'"■•" -ea^sorponds/rr^L'T^irV reasoned from analogy thono-h !,„ l, T "^ dl-rust of .he n>ode°'of r:f„t "" rr^^" "' 'oads, ,ur.les. and other crea ^s " n ,^' """''' 'he winter, why not swallow Tj'2 ""' occasions of a ™ild day late in the f^N ' '"' '""■esprin,, he saw hoL.™a:inX::' ::!:":': xii he weather sucldc-nly cha,«i„K t„ elder, they , ,ick. ly disappeared. Hals and turtles came f„rll „,d then vanished in ,l,e same way. White finall, „„. UM^ a, j:My,„. ,„ s,lk„„ Curayanl. eluded that the mjstery was the same i„ b„,h cases-that the ereatnres were bronght from ,h r w.n.er retreats by the warmth, „„,, ,„ „„•„ ,^^ them agatn when it changed to cold. If he had xiii li I!) adhered t«) his usual caution he would have waited for actual proof of this fact-the Hnditig of i. torpid swallow. Hu n«ade frapicnt search for such, but never found any. This notion so lonjr current about the swallows probably had its ori^rj,, i,, two tl.injrs : first, their partiality for mud as nesting' material ; and secondly, the habit of these birds, after they have Ix-^run to collect into flocks in midsummer, preparatory to their mijrrations. of pa.ising the night in vast numbers ahng the margins of streams and ponds. White knew of their habits in this respect, and wanted to see in the fact presumptive evidence of the truth of the noti.m that, though they mav not retire into the water itself, yet that they " mav conceal them- selv-s in the banks of pools and rivers during the un- comfortoble months of the year." One midsummer twilight in northern Vermont I came upor. hundreds of swallows-barn and clifT-settlcd for the night upon some low alders that grew upon the margin of a deep still pool in the river. The bushes bent down with them as with an over-load of fruit. Thi« attraction for the water on the part of the swallow family is certainly a curious one, and is not easily ex- plained. Our sharp-eyed parson had observed that the nesting habits of birds alTord a clue to their roosting habits: that they usually pass the night in such places as they build their nests. Thus, the tree-build- XIV ers roost in trees; the ground-builders upon the ground. I have seen our chickadee and woodpeck er enter, late in the day, the cavities in decaying lin.bs of trees. I have seen the oriole dispose of'her- self for the night on the end of a maple branch where her "pendent bed and procreant cradle" was begun a few days later. In walking through the summer fields .n the twilight, the vesper sparrow or the son^ sparrow will oft- en start up from • almost beneath one's feet. It is said that the snow - bunting will plunge be- neath the snow and pass the night there. The ruffed grouse often does this, but the swallows seem to be an exception to this rule. I have seen a vast cloud of swifts take up their lodging for the night in a tall, unused chimney; but tne barn swallows and the cliff and white-bellied Fatingdon Church. XV swallows, at least after the young have Hown, ap- pear to pass the night in the vicinity of streams. White noticed also— and here the true observer again crops out—that the fieldfare, a kind of thrush, though a tree-br.ilder, yet always appears to pass the night on the ground. " The larkers, in drag- ging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat stubbles." He learned, as every observer sooner or later learns, to be careful of sweeping statements— that the truth of nature is not always caught by the biggest generalisations. After speak- ing of the birds that dust themselves, earth their plumage— /«/irrr//r/aj, as he calls them— he says: "As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash, and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust ; but here I find myself mistaken," and instances the house sparrow as doing both. White seems to have been about the first writer upon natural history who observed things minutely ; he saw through all those sort of sleight-o'-hand movements and ways of the birds and beasts. He held his eye firmly to the point. He saw the swallows feed their young on the wing; he saw the fern-owl while hawking about a large oak " put out its short leg while on the wing, and by a bend of the head deliver something into its mouth." This explained to him the use of its middle toe, " which is curiously furnished with a ser- rated claw." He times the white owls feeding their xvi Selborne Church from the short lythe. young under the eaves of his church, with watch in hand. He saw them transfer the mouse they brought from the foot to the beak, that they might have the free use of the former in ascending to the nest. In his walks and drives about the country he was all attention to the life about him, simply from his delight m any fresh bit of natural knowledge. His curiosity never flagged. He had naturally an alert mind. His style reflects this alertness and sensitive- ness. In his earlier days he was an enthusiastic sportsman, and he carried the sportsman's trained sense and love of the chase into his natural-history studies. He complained that faunists were too apt to content themselves with general terms and bare descriptions : the reason, he says, is plain-" be- cause all that may be done at home in a man's study : but the investigation of the life and conversa- tion 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." He himself had the true inquisi- tiveness and activity, and the loving, discriminating eye. He saw the specific marks and differences at a glance. Then, his love of these things was so well known in the neighbourhood, that this kind of knowl edge flowed to him from all sides. He was a magnet that attracted all the fresh, natural lore about him People brought him birds and eggs and nests, and xvn A Faringdon hyioax anima's or any natural curiosity, and reported to Inm any unusual occurrenrp tu i H^'^caiouim of tK.- "^^"'^rence. They loaned him the use oi their eves and earc n.,« j J and ears. One day a countryman told xviii him he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground, and that it was fed by the little bird. " I went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark ; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing to have its large wings extended beyond the nest," ' ... in tenui re Majores penn.ies iiido, extcndisse,' and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffetting with its wings like a gamecock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a dis- tance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude." observed that the train of the peacock was reall> .,ot its tail, but an entirely separate appendage. He remarked how extremely fond cats are of lish, and yet of all quadrupeds "are the least disposed towards the water." This is a curious fact to him. A neighbour of his, in ploughing late in the fall, turned a water-rat out of his hybernaculum in a field far re- moved from any water. The rat had laid up above a gallon of potatoes for its winter food. This was another curious fact that set the writer speculating His correspondent tells him of a heronry near some manor-house that excites his curiosity much. " Four- score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles to get a sight of." Such a lively curiosity had the parson. His thirst for exact knowledge was so great, that on one occasion he took measurements of the carcass of a moose when he was probably compelled to hold his nose to finish the task. At one place he heard of a woman who professed to cure cancers by the use of toads ; some of his brother clergymen believed the story, but when he came to sift the evi- dence he made up his mind that the woman was a fraud. He said truly, <• There is such a propensity in man- kmd 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." The observations of hardly one man in five hun- dred are of any value for scientific purposes. White had the true scientific caution, and was, as a rule, very careful to verify his statements. Of course the science of White's time was far be- hmd our own. The phenomenon of the weather, for mstance, was not understood then as it is now. The great atmospheric waves that sweep across the con- tinents and the regular alternations of heat and cold were unsuspected. White observes that cold de- scended from above, but he thought that thaws often ongmated underground, " from warm vapours which arise.' He was greatly puzzled, too, when, during XX the severe cold of December, 1784, the thermometer fell many degrees lower in the valley bottoms than on the hills. He had not observed that the very cold air on such occasions settles down into the val- leys and fills them like water, marking the height to which it rises by a level line upon the trees or foliage. It is a wonder that his sharp eye did not detect the true source of heavy dew, but it did not. He thought it proceeded from the effluvia of flowers, which, being drawn up into the sky by the warmth of the sun by day, descended again as dew by night. When a French anatomist announced that he had discovered why the cuckoo did not hatch its own eggs— namely, becai"e the crop or craw of the bird was placed back of i ; sternum, so as to make a pro- tuberance on the belly— White dissected a cuckoo for himself, and, finding the fact as stated, proceeded to dissect other birds that he knew did incubate, as the fern-owl and a hawk ; and finding the craw situ- ated the same as in the cuckoo, justly charged the Frenchman with having reached an unscientific con- clusion. In his seventy-seventh letter White clearly antici- pates Darwin as to the beneficial functions of earth- worms in the soil, and tells farmers and gardeners that the little creatures which they look upon as their enemy is really their best friend. Changes are slow in England. All the essential features of Selborne remain about as they were in White's time. It is still a humble rural village. His church, his house, the Hanger, W'olmer Forest, the old yew, all remaiu. 1 spent two days there in June, 1882. The pictures of xMr. Johnson that illustrate this edition, token as they were from the actual scenes, bring back the memory of my visit very viv- idly. The stone that marks White's grave has only his initials upon it. I could not see any signs of its being visited any of- tener than the un- known graves. At the inn a copy of his book was not to be had. In a meadow near the church the haymakers, mostly women, were at work. A mother set her baby down amid the hay, v/here it cried long and lustily while she continued uncon- cerned with her rake. H7iiU's i;mve. I walked amid the noble but dripping beeches of the hanger and along green lanes and across fields in other directions. I saw and heard the black-cap xxii warbler, but took little note of other birds. I was more especially in quest of the nightingale, but failed to find her. Rural England has charms of which we get but faint glimpses in this country, and I found Selbornc deeply interesting in itself, as well as for its associa- tions with the famous nature-loving parson. April, iSgj. John Burroughs. A stile in the long lythe. xxiii Sflborn, from the I/anger, TIIK NATURAL HISTORY OF SELIJORXK. ,■ I'ETTKR I. To Thomas Pknnani, Esg. Thk parish of SKi.noRNK lies in the extreme east- ern corner of the county of Hampshire, borde . 1 on the county of Sussex, and not far from the co.m C of Surrey; u is about fifty miles south-west of Lon don.u. latuude 5.°. and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. I3e.^, vervlarl and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, 'two of wh,ch are n. Sussex, viz., Trotton and Ro^^ate. U you begm from the south and proceed westward the adjacent parishes are Emshot. Newton Valence Far ingdon. Harteley-Mauduit. Great VVardleham. Kings- ley. Hedleigh. Bramshot. Trotton. Rogate Lysse andGreatham. The soils of this districr ar^ ^^ost' as vanous and diversified as the views and aspects. 1 he h,gh part to the south-west consists of a vast h; 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 Han4r. 'h.i Ir/J bl: h The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or grace- ful pendulous boughs. Tb . down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasant park-like sp^ .. of about -re mile by half that space, jutting out -n ';!ie verge of the hill-coun- try, where it begins to Hu-. k liowr. into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. ^ Ht of Selborne village. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex downs, by Guilddown 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 exten- sive 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 remark- able 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 inclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure ; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town ; while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet : that H n 'I i at the north-west end frequently fails; but the other IS a fine perennial spring, called Well-head, little in- fluenced by drought or wet seasons, inasmuch as it produced on the 14th September, 1781, after a se- vere hot summer and a preceding dry spring and wmter, nine gallons of water in a minute, at a time when many of the wells failed, and all the ponds the vales were dry. This spring breaks out of some high grounds jommg to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory re markable for sending forth two streams into Uvo different seas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so fall- ing into the British Channel': the other to the north The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Blackdown stream at Hed- leigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming; from wb^ ■ it passes to Guildf -rd and so into the Tham. 7ey bridge ; and thus at the Nore into the Germ^.u 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 ele- ment, but which does not lather well with soap. To the north-west, north, and east of the village IS a range of fair inclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone 4. which, when turned up to the frost and rain. n.oul- ders to pieces and becomes manure to itself Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kand of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops which root deep into the freestone, and have thei; poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. Ihis white soil produces the brightest hops As the parish still inclines down towards Wol mer Forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand, the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for ;ts timber and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval tim- ber; while the trees on the freestone grow large but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as' of^en to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry lean sand, till it min- gles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips. ml r- »:»1 LETTER n. To Thomas Pkn-na.-h, Esq. In the court of Norton fannhouse, a manor.fnrm o the north-west of the viliage, „„ the white ,„al„? stood „uh,„ tnese twenty year, a broad-leaved eln,' or vvych hazel, Uhmn folio latissimo scabro, of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough, equal to a moderate tree, in the great storm in the year 1703, yet. when felled, contained eight loads of timber ; and being too bulky for carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it mcKo- ured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain ; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation. In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground surrounded by houses', The Plestor. 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 ree. 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 for- d danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in ,703 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' I his oak I mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive : and planted this tree must cer- tainly have been, as appears from what is known concernmg the antiquities of the village. On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losers, of a few acres, that was lately fur- nished wuh 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 httle brush without any large limbs. About twentv years ago. the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, bemg much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter ^ the little end. Twenty such trees did a pur- veyor hnd in this little wood, with this advan- tage, that many of them answered the description Hi K at sixty feet. These trees were sold at twenty pounds apiece. in the centre of this grove there stood an oak which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their resi- dence for such a series of y^ars, that the oak was dis- tmgu.shed by the title of the Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty whetted their inclinations and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling it jutted out so in their way. and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazard' ous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in per- fect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall ; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest ; and, though ner parental affection deserved a better fate was whipped down by the twigs, which brough't her dead to the ground. LETTER III. To Thomas Pknnant. Esq. THK fcssil-shclls of this district, and sorts of stone such as have fallen within my observati(,n. must not be passed over in silence. And first I must mention as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up m the chalky fields, near the side of the down and given to me for the singularity of its appear- ance ; which, to an incurious eye. seems like a petri- fied fish of about four inches long, the car^o (hinge) passmg for a head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of the Linnrean genus of Mj/tVus, and the species of CHs^a Gaili ; called by Lister, Rastcllum ■ by Rumphius, Ostraim plkahnn minus; by D'Argen- yxW^, 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 mu- seum at Leicester House, permission was given me to examine for this article; and though I was disap- pointed as to the fossil. I was highly ..ratified 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 9 |I:H I I ■|4 I I I ii I! i 1 ^' ■ flu'ings or grooves, and the curved form of myspeci CW.„a ../„,«,„> are very common abou, Ms vil. aler h7,r" ""'"*'"" inclining path up the Hanger, the labourers found them frequently on that steep, JUS. under the soil, in the chalk, and of a on ^n old chalk pit. siderable size. In the Lv-e above Well-head, in the Tso:. of"'°;' "?■ """""'' ■•" '-^ "-^^ - " ^^■ but ,n Cl.y s Pond, a little farther on. at the end of 'he p,t. where the soil is dug out for manure I h,ve occastona ly observed them of large dimension .^r haps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But as 'hese d,d not consist of firm stone, but were formed lO of a k.nd of terra lapUosa, or hardened clav. as soon as they were exposed to the rains and f'rost they mouldered away. These seemed as if they were of very recent production. In the chalk-pit. at the north-west end of the Hanger, large «../;// are some- times obs'-ved. In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths, well-diggers often hnd large scallops or pcctincs, having both shells deeply stri- ated r.nd ridged and furrowed alternately. Thev are highly impregnated with, if not wholly com- posed of. the stone of the quarry i. LETTER IV. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only mentioned incidentallv, I shall here become more particlar. This stoneis in great re quest for hearthstones and the beds of ovens and in l.n.ngof l,me.kil„s it tnrns to good account: for, of wh.ch fluxes, and runs by the intense heat, and so V. nhed coat hke glass, that it is well preserved from njunes of weather, and endures thirty or forty yea " When chtselled smooth, it makes elegant fro'.ts fot TT II i J 3 f li I i » ! hous.,. equal i„ clour and srai,, ,o the Bath stone- -d super,or in „„e rcpcot. th,., „.|,e„ seasoned J.' 1..CS not scale. Decent cl,in,ne,-pieces are worked rom ,. of ™uch closer and fin., grain than l-ortla d ,o,r'"H •' """"' """ ''■■ ''•" ■•' P-ves rather' too soft lor this purpose It is t fr..,.o. II ,. . ' 'i'"^^- " »s a ircestonc, cutt nir in II ,ree.,o„s;,ethasson,ethinso,asrainpar.« ««h the honzon, and therefore should not be «,. " ': "■ r' "''"""■■■ ""'"^>- "> "^ P'-'ion m the q„arr,-but laid in the same position that i, "ccuptes there. On the ground abroad this fire-stone V not succeed for pavements, because, probably, on e degree of saltness prevailing within it, the rain hard t^K '".""•■""* ■'"""S'- '^- ^'-<-' is too hard o be acted on by vinegar, yet both the white era e^""" '"= "'"•; "^ '"™-' ^'™"-'b- in min. m ; M„ """ "" "■•'''^ ■^"'- "•■•" - bear e ., n for p„chu,g of stables, paths, and courts, an , ...r bu.ld.ng of dry walls against banks: a valu abU. speces of fencing, much in use in this village, and „r mending of roads. This rag is rugged i:;d deen t^f ^ ^"!'." "^^^^ ■''""• "- shallow and lie deep^large quantmes cannot be procured but at con- 12 " t J W. siderable 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 VVolmcr Forest. I see but one sort of stone called by the workmen sand or forest-stone. This is' generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore ; is yrry hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented to- gether 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 pa ement for paths about houses, never be- coming slippery in frost or rain ; is excellent for dry vails, and is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface of the ground, but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable. From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls : this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has 13 m •'ft, occa,b„.d «ra„g„s son,e,i„,cs .„ ask us pleasantly f f I ' |i 1 I ! LETTER V. Ti) Thomas Pennant, tCsg. roclfvTT/ '",' ''"«"'=•""" "' 'h« place the two to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water L„ dol through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly hrough the second; so that they look more like »ater-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many pi ^uZ^tl^"'" "' "•^^'-" '-"--^ exhibit "'■ ""'' ••""^'- ''°°<'^' »"" i" 'rosts, .he 7 ^'""'^'"' """^ "'" appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among the .rata sides, and especially when those cascades are frozen nto .ccles, hanging i„ all the fanciful shapes J ost w r,. These rugged, gloomy scenes aflrL he ladtes when they peep down into them f 1 the pa hs above, and make timid horsemen shud der whtle they ride along them ; but delight the naturahst with their various botany, and parti u! 14 larly with the curious filices with which they abound. The manor of Selbome, were it strictly looked after, with all its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game ; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants abound ; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few (juails. because they more affect open Helds than inclosures .' after harvest some few landrails are seen. The parish of Selbome. 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 busi ness, 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 cfHuvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues. The quantity of rain that falls on it is very con- siderable. as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my experience in meas- uring the water is but of short date. I am not quali- fied to give the mean quantity, but 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 meas- ured it for a very long period. I only know that 15 \ il i f i From May I. 1779. to the end of the year there fell /"^t ^y^' iTom Jan. 1,1780, to Jan. I, 1 781 . 2 From J.-in. I, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 / ^' Fromjan. I. 1782. to Jan. 1,1783 ...''■■■"!], From Jan. I, ,783, to Jan. I, 1784 ...''' t. I, from Jan. 1, 1784, to Fan. 1,1785 . ' ,s r Fromjan. I. 1785, to Jan. I, 1786 . • ■ ■ ■ V> ao Fromjan. 1, 1786, to Jan. I, 1787 , " •' ' ' ' 39 57 The village of Selborne, and the large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single farms, and many scat- tered 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 mdustrious, and live comfortably in good stone or bnck cottages, which are glazed, and have cham. bers above stairs : mud buildings we have none. Besides the employment from husbandrv, the men work m 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 har- vest m September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that time for summer wear; and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neigh- bouring town, by some of the people called Quakers. Tb. . labitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity, and the parish swarms with children. 16 LETTER VI. To Thomas Pb:nnant, Esg. Should I omit to describe with some exactness the Forest of Wolmer, of which three-tifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district aboundir.fr with many curious productions, both animal and vege- table, and has often afforded mc 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 pro- ceed eastward-by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trottcn, in the county of Sussex ; by Bramshot, Hedleigh. and Kingslev. 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 sub- terraneous trees; though Dr. Plot says positively* that " there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties." But he was mis- taken: for I myself have seen cottages on the verge ff' * See his History of Staffordshire, 17 mm 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. Old people, however, have assured me that on a winter's morning they have discovered these trees in the bogs by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed than on the surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. Besides the oak. I have alpo been shown pieces of fossil wood, ol a paler colour and softer nature, whi h the inhabitants called fir : but. upon a nice exami- nation, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing res- inous in them ; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree. This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the summer ; such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have dis- covered 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 excur- sions: and in particular in the dry summer of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to such a degree that parties of unreasonable sports- is men killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day. But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became so common, and that was the heath-cock, or black game. When I was a little boy I recollect one com- ing now and then to my fathers 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 sportsman cried out, "A hen pheasant!" but a gen- tleman present, who had often seen biack game in the north of England, assured me that it was a erev hen. ^ ^ Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna Selbornicnsis ; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is wanting: I mean the red-deer, which towards 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-grand- father (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father and self, enjoyed the head keeper- ship of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regan 19 •■i f 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 atten- tion 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 Cumber- land. About the year 1737, his highness sent down a huntsman, and six yeomen-prickers, in scarlet jack- ets 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 hind" were also car- ried off, such fine chases were exhibitea as served the country people for matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the yeomen- prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld. The exertions made by the horse and deer much exceeded all my expectations; though the former greatly excelled the latter in speed. When 20 the devoted deer was separated from his companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for twenty minutes ; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued. LETTER VII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, ye*- 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 afifected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enor- mities, that Government was forced to iniorfere with that severe and sanguinary Act called the Black Act (9 Geo. I. c. 22), which comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed before. And therefore, Dr. Hoadley, the Bishop of Winchester, when urged to re-stock Waltham-chase, refused, from ai Ul ^. a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that " it had done mischief enough already." Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet : it was but a little while ago that they used to recount, over their ale, 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 man- ner:— Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to surprise it ; when the parent hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two. Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of rabbits, which possessed all the hii and dry places ; but these being inconvenient to 'he huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when thtv came to take away the deer they permitted the coun- try people to destroy them all. Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel for the burning their lime : and with ashes 22 I I z I for their grasses ; and by maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no expense. The manor-farm of the parish of Great ham has an admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of London), of turning all live stock on the forest, at nroper seasons, hidcntibus exccptis. For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats. In the Holt Forest, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, no sheep are admitted. The reason, I presume, being that sheep are such close grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. Though (by statute 4 and 5 Wm. and Mary, c. 23) "to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath, and furze gorse or fern, is punishable with whipping and confine- ment in the House of Correction ; " yet, in this for- ^st, about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that thiy often get to a masterless head, and, catch- ing the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. The plea for these burn- ings is, that when the old coat of heath, &c., is con- sumed, young will sp'-out up and afford much tender browse for cattl-. bur where there is large old furze, the iire, loU-^w.-.g the roots, consumes the very ground ; .0 thut for hundreds of acres nothing 33 \ ... m w 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 vege' tatmn are to be found for years. These conflagra- tions. as they take place usually with a north-east or east wind, much annoy this village with their smoke and often alarm the country ; and. once in particular,' I remember that a gentleman, who lives beyond Andover. coming to my house, when he got on the downs between that town and Winchester, at twen. ty-five miles distance w^s 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 viU lage, and so on to the end of his journey.* On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand two arbours or bowers made of the boughs of oaks ; the one called Waldon Lodge the other Brimstone Lodge : these the keepers renew in Virlu'; "If p "P''."" :Tf' ""^ ''''°^" "f 'he s.ubble-buming described tleXLr^f '•'■'• ^'''''°"'- '^''"^ '^ "" better fertilizer for " Sape etiam steriles incendere profuit agros Atque levem stipulam crepitantibus urere fl'ararais • hive inde occultas vires et pabula terra Pinguia concipiunt." " Long practice has a sura improvement found With kindled fir.s to burn the barren ground • When the light stuhl.Ic. to the flames resigned' Is dnven along, and crackles to the wind."_DRYDEN M annually on the feast of St. Barnabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite. The farm called Black- moor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brusLwood for the former; while the farms at Great- ham, m rotation, furnish for the latter; and are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the spot This custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very remote antiquity. » LETTER VIII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. On the verge of the forest, as it is now circum- scribed, are three considerable lakes, two in Oak- hanger, 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 sports- man. For, being crowded at the upper end with willows, and with the Carex cspitosa ; the sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the for- eiters, torrets; a corruption, I suppose, of turrets; It affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, and snipes, 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. By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest knd the 25 Holt, made in 1635, and in the ilcvcnth vcar of Charles the First 'which nov*' lies before nie), it appears that the limits ol the former arc much cir- cumscribed. For, to say nothinj^ of the farther side, with which I am nut so well acquainted, the bounds on this side, in old times, came into Binswood ; and extended to the ditch of Wardleham I'ark, in which stands the curious mount called Kinj,' John's Hill, and Lodfjc Hill; and to the verjjc of Hartley Mau- duit, called Mauduit Hatch; comprehending also Shortheath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods; a large dis- trict, 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 consider- able, 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 arc 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 26 by no means peculiar to them, I cjunot pass ovt in silence ; and that is, that instinct by which in sunt- IVolmfr pond. mer all the kine, whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to the water during,' the hotter hours; where, being more exempt fron^ flics. 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 ti 1 four in the afternoon, and then return to their Feed- ing. 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 sub- sisted but from this contingency. Thus nature, who is a great economist, converts the recreation u[ one 27 i animal to the support of another! Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. He says in his " Summer," ' " A various group the herds and flocks compose: on the grassy bank Some ruminating lay ; 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, con- taining, 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 reck- oning. On the face of this expanse of waters, and per- fectly secure from fowlers, lie all day long-, ^n the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and wid- geons, of various denominations ; where they preen and solace and rest themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little parties dor 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 38 more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valu- able 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.* I LETTER IX. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to inform you that VVolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice ' lolt.f The circumstances under which these coins were discovered are thus related in the author's "Antiquities of Selborne : "— " In the very dry summers of 1740 and 41. the bed of this lake became as dry and dusty as the surrounding heath ; and some of the forest cottagers, remem- benng stories of coins found by their fathers and grandfathers, began to search also and with great success ; they found great heaps of coin, one lying on the other, as shot there out of a bag. many of them in good preservation. They consisteu solely of Roman copper coin in hundreds and some medals of the Lower Empire. The neighbouring gentry and clej^y chose what they liked, and some dozens fell to the author, chiefly of Marcus Aurelius and the Empress Faustina. Those of Faustina were in high relief, exhibiting agreeable features,, and the medals of a paler colour than the coins." ^ A- t '1?" ^°'" ^!l'?"''''' '^'^ '*"'" ^°''"*- '" ^'^'*""- 36 Ed. 3. it is called Aishol^" In "Tit. Wolmer and Aisholt Hantisc." we are told "the Lord King had one chapel in his park at Kingesle." ^^ Dominm Rex I as it i. called in old records, k held by gn,„, fr„,„ the Crown for a term of years. The gn.„lees that the author remembers are Bngad,er.Ge„eral Emanuel Scroope Ho.ve. and his ad>. Ri^erta. who was a natural daughter of Prince Kuper. by Margaret Hughs; a Mr. Mordaunt, o, th Peterborough family, who married a dowager Lady Lord htawel, their son. The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced rrhT-^r/"""^ ''" ''"'''"'"'• ""«'. =" her death e : r "''"' '""""' P'^^'^ °' "-"anism o her fathers constructing, who was a distinguished -cha„,c and artist, as well as warrior; and," Farnh, ! ' "" "''"""<' g=">e.pai„,er at Farnham, m the county of Surrey Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow ^nge of inclosures, yet no two soils can'^be more d.fferent; for the Holt consists of a strong loam, of a rairy nature, carrying a good turf, and aboundmg with oalcs .hat grow to be large timber wh,le Wolmer is nothing but a hungry, san'dy, har™; The former, being all in the parish of Binsted is a^bout two miles in extent from north to sontr^nd 30 nearly 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 Bent- ley ; all of which have right of common. One thing is remarkable, that though th- Holt has been of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unre- strained 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 keep- ers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them as often as they have been de- tected 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 terro: of the neighbourhood ; and, at one time, a wild bull o; buffalo: but the country rose upon them and de- stroyed them.* * German boars and sows were also turned out in the New Fjresi by Charles the First, which bred and increased : and their stock is supposed to exist still. — Mitforu. 3« A verj. large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (w" .7 4) .n the Holt fores. , o.e-fifth of .hich it I lid a so to the lop and „,p; but the poor of the parishes of Btnsted and Frinsham, Bentiey and kLs ev assert that it belongs to them . a,.d assen,bli,Tn'a' rotous manner, have actually taken it all a„av One man,>vho keeps a team, has carried home L; txzzz rt °' ^°°'- '^°">-«- <" >"« had any "e,ghbour whose studies have led him towards thi pursutt of natural knowledge ; so that, for want o la companton to ,„icken my industry and sharpen ly 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 rnsticce) being found m a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of One of the old Selhonte /loiises. ^\.ght, or any part of this country, 1 never heard ny such account worth attending to. But a clergy- man, of an inquisitive turn, assures me that, when he was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in the spring, found two or three swifts {Hirundines apodcs) among the rubbish, which seemed, at their first ap pearance, dead ; but, on being carried towards the 5 33 !t' Ml J i 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 peo- ple found swallows among the rubbish ; but, on my questioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself, to my no small disappointment he answered me in the negative, but that others assured him they did. ' Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July the eleventh, and young martins {Hi- rundtHcs tirbica) were then fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again once ; for I see by my fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so late as September the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migra- tion ? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the twenty- ninth ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October. How strange 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 ; once I even saw numbers of house-martins on the seventh of No- 34 vember. The martins, redwings, and fieldfares were flying in sight together ; an uncommon assemblage of summer and winter birds ! [It is not easy to discover whether White really believes in the hybernation of swallows or not; he clings to the idea, and returns to it, although his own arguments seem to refute the notion almost as completely as those of any recent author. Writing twenty years later than the date of this letter, he tells us, in his Observations on Nature, March 23, 1788, that a gentleman who was this week on a visit at Waverly, took the opportunity of examining some of the holes in the sand-bank with which that district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank martins, and there they avowedly breed, he was in hopes that they might have slept there also, and that he might have surprised them just as they were waking from their winter slumbers. " When we had dug for some t me," he says, "we 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 for- mer summers, but no torpid birds were to be found. The same search was ma : • r.: ny years ago with as little success." March 2 1793. Mr. White adds, "A single sand-martin was seta hovering and playing round the sandpit at Short-heath, where they abound in summer. April 9, 1793, a sober herd assures me that this day he saw several on West Hangcv coni- 35 I , mon, between Hadleigh and Frensham, several sand- martins playing in and out and hanging before some nest-holes where the birds nestle. " This incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of hirundo is to be seen the first of any, and gives reason to suppose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are secreted amidst the clefts and caverns of these abrupt cliffs. The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region, through all these cutting winds and pinching frosts out it is e^sy to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been awakened by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrce where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state, and in the profoundest slumbers. " There is a large pond at West Hanger which induces these sand-martins to frequent the district ; for I have ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either rivers or lakes." A year later, he says, " During the severe winds that often prevail late in the spring, it is not easy to say how the hirttndines subsist : for they withdraw themselves, and are hardly ever seen, ncr do any in- sects appear for their support. That they can retire to rest and sleep away these uncomfortable periods as bats do, is a matter rather suspected than proved ; or do they not rather spend their time in deep and 36 lii sheltered vales near waters where insects are to be found? Certain it is that hardly any individuals have, at such times, been seen for days together. "September 13, 1791, the congregating flocks of hirundines on the church and tower are both beauti- ful and amusing. When they fly off together from the roof on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air. But they soon settle again in heaps, and pulling their feathers and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, they seem to enjoy the warm situation. Thus they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their mi- gration, 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 num- ber ; but there are other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time. It is re- markable that, though most of them sit on the battle- ments and roof, yet many of them hang or cling for some time by their claws against the surface of the walls in a manner not practised by them at other times of their remaining with us. The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies on trees. " November 3, 1789. the swallows were seen this morning, at Newton Vicarage house, hovering and settling on the roofs and outbuildings. None have been observed at Selborne since October 11. It is very remarkable that after the hirundines have disap- peared for some weeks, a few are occasionally seen 37 again ; sometimes in the first week of November, and that only for one day. Do they not withdraw and slumber in some hiding-place during the inter- val ? for we cannot suppose they had migrated to warmer climes, and returned again for one day. Is it not more probable that they are awakened from sleep, and like the bats arc come forth to collect a little food? These swallows looked like voun? ones."l A little yellow bird (the Motacilla trochilus) still continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray is called, in your Zoology, the fly-c:|tcher. There is one ciri cumstance 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 returnin^r still to the same stand for many times together. I perceive there are more than one species of the Motacilla which visits us. Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray's "Philos. Letters," that he has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of some very common birds that have as yet no English name. Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap {Motacilla atricapilla) be a bird of passage or not : I think there is no doubt of it: for, in April, in the first fine weather, they come trooping, all at 38 once, into these parts, out arc never seen in the win- ter. 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 pip- ing and hum- ming 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 plentiful in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more; and will endeavour to put it out of doubt whether it be a nondescript species or not. I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray says, and Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind. Now I ha\ c dis- covered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and (liver : it answers exactly to the Mus awpJiibius of LinnoL'us, which, he says, swims and dives in ditches, " natat in fossis et urinatur." I should be glad to procure " one with the feet feathering out 39 like a palnj." '*/>la,itis palmalisr Unna-us seems to be in a puzzle about his Miis amphilnus, and to doubt whctiicr it differs from his Mus tcrnstris, which if it be, as he allows, the "mus agrestis capite grandi brachyurus," a field-mouse, with " a large head and a short tail," is widely different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and manner of life. As to the falco, which I mentioned in town,.! shall take the liberty to send it down to you into Wales; presuming on your candour, that you '.ill excuse me if it should appear as fanii'iai to you as it is strange to me. " Though mutiiiitcd, .such as you would s;;y it had formerly been, seiin^ tiiat i^c re- mains are what they are," " qualan dices . . . unUliu- fttissc, tales cum sint rcliqiiiie ! " It haunted a marshy piece of ground in cjuest 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 Eng- lish hawks ; neither could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring Gar- dens. 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 coun- try, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. ■ lui^itst ^, 1767. [In severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and titlarks resort to watered meadows for food ; the 40 latter wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupa; of insects, and runs along upon the Hoatiu^- j;rass and weeds. Many gnats arc on the snow near the water ; these support the birds in part. Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour, for though white currants art much sweeter fruit than red, yet they seldtmi k uch the former till they ha« c devoured every buncf, of the latter. Redstarts, fly-catchers, and blackcaps arrive early in April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage, how could they, feeble as they seem, bear ujj 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 ? Yft .'icy keep their appointed times and seasons; -' ite of frosts and winds return to their periodically, as if they had met with • obstruct them. The withdrawing and '< i,,, u ^;,: of the short - winged summer birds ■y :. .'1 ir^.Tzling circumstance in natural his- tO' V When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my ban- tarn 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. Birds of prey occasionally feed on insects: thus havf^ I seen 41 H 5 'i a tame kite picking up the female ants full of eggs with much satisfaction.]— Obsekvations on Nature. LETTER XI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts with regard to i\ie falco ; as to its weight, breadth, &c. I wish I had set them down at the time; but, to the best of my remem- brance, 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 i rides.* The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a paii of Hoopoes {ufiupa), which came several years ago in the summer, and frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my gar- den, 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. • The irides are brown in all the British falcons. 4a Three grosbeaks {Loxia coccothranstcs) appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot ; since that, now and then, one is occa- sionally seen in the same dead season. [Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had ob- served 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 walUfruit of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon opening its crop or craw, however, no buds were to be seen, but a mass of kernels of the stones of fruits. Mr. B. ob- served 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 damsops. The Latin orni- thologists call this bird coccothraustcs, 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.]— Ohskrvations on Nature. A cross-bill {Loxia curvirostrd) 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 {Gohius flitviatilis capitatus), the trout {Trutta fliiviatilis), the eel {rtuguilld), the 1am- • Salmo fario. Linn. 43 pern {Lampctra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickle- back {Pisciculus acuUatus). We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed ; and multitudes of widgeons and teals fre- quent our lakes in the forest in hard weather. Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it jasts 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 can- not eat. The young of the barn owl are not easily raised, as they wa-it a constant supply of fresh mice : where- as the young of the brown owl will eat indiscrim- inately all that is brought ; snails, rats, kittens, pup- pies, .iagpies, and any kind of carrion or offal. The house-martins have eggs still, and squab- young. The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August ; it was a straggler. Redstarts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and gold- crested wrens, 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 twentieth of November. K At present I know only two species of bats, the common Vespertilio murinus and the Vespcrtilio au- rttus. I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it anything to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of ob- servation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered : so that the notion that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon seems no im- probable story. While i amused myself with this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down on a flat sur- face cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware of, 1 . ( in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner. Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as they play over pools ar..? streams. They love to frequent waters, not only for the sake of drinking, but on account of the 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 4S places : the air swarmed with them all along the I hames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time. Sklborne, Sept. g, 1767. LKTTER XII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco turned out an uncommon one. I must confess should have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen be- fore ; but that I find would bp a difficult task I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young one and a female with joung, both of which I have preserved in brandy iTom the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript.' They are much smaller, and more slender, than the Mus domcsticus nudius 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 ;" thistles. They breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest, composed of the blades of grass or wheat. 46 ft-. One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat; perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no discovering to what part it be- longed. It was so compact and well filled, that it would roll across the table without being discom- posed, though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively, so as to administer a teat to each? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which, moreover, would be daily in- creasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cra- dle, and elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheatficld, 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 ex- pect : but the moment I took it in hand, I pronounced it the male Garrulus Bohcmiciis, or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or points which it carries at the ends of five of the short rctnigcs. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety be called an English bird : and yet I see, by Ray's " Philosophi- 47 I 'V, [at ;> i cal Letters." that great flocks of them appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685, feeding on haws. The mention of haws puts me in mind that there IS a total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation. For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy and common. Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on the ber- ries of the yew-tree, which answered to the description of the Mcrula torquata, or ring-ouzel, were ... , 'ately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without success. (?'"-'-J— Might not Canary-birds be naturalized to this climate, provided their eggs were put. in the spring, into the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, kc. ? Before winter per- 48 TAe grrat yew in the churchyard. haps 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 as- semble 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 sea- son of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A Swedish naturalist is so much per- suaded of that fact, that he talks, in his "Calendar of Flora." as familiarly of the swallow's going under water in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. 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 set- tling on the roof of the county hospital. Now, is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and 6 4, tmiatlM f from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the equator? I acquiesce entirely in your opinion-that, though most of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind, and hide with us during the winter. As to the short-winged soft-billed birds which come trooping in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to think 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 tor' pid state in winter. But with regard to their migra- tion, 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 ! November ^, 1 767. LETTER XI ri. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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 50 J^- 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 all females; at least fifty to one. This extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnccus. that " before winter all their hen chaffinchc 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 sev they mostly consist .> For, from such intelligence one might be able to judge whether our female flocks migrate from the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us from the Continent VVe have, in the winter, vast flocks of the com mon linnets: more, I think, than can be bred in anv one district. TUe.e, I observe, when the spring ad- vances assembl on so:.,, tree in the sunshine and join all in u ^entl. .o-. of chirping, as if they were about to brok up thci • winte. .quarters and betake themselves to their proper suu.aier homes. It is $1 ST: well known, at least, that this is the signal of depar. ture with the swallows and the fieldfares, which con- gregatc with a g-jntle twittering before they take their respective departure. You may depend on it that the bunting {Ilmherisa miliaria) docs not leave this country in the winter. In January, 1767, I s.iw several dozen of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the bushes on the downs near Andovcr: in our W(jodland inclosed dis- trict it is a rare bird. Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter. Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in numbers by people that go on purpose. Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that " if the wheatear {lenantlu) does not quit England, it certainly shifts places ; for about harvest they are not to be found, where there \as before great plenty of them." This well account 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 52 withdraw I am sure : because I see a few stragglers in many counties, at all times of the year, especially about warrens and stone-quarries. I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of the navy : but have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the late war, desiring him to look into his minutes, with respect to birds that settled on their rigging during their voyage up or down the Channel. What Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable : there were little short-winged birds frequently coming on board his >hip all the way from our Channel quite up to the Levant, espe- cially before squally weather. What you suggest with regard to Spain is highly probable. The winters of Andalusia are so w.d, that, in all likelihood, the soft-billed birds that leave us at that season, may find insects sufficient to support them there. Some young men, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, should make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom; and should spend a year there, in- vestigating the natural histor\ of that vast country. Mr. Willughby passed through that kingdom on such an errand ; but he seems to have skirled 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 53 HBfia MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TKT CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1 2.8 ■ 12 |4.0 P3S 2.2 2£ 1.8 ^ >1PPLIED IM^GE I ^Si '653 East Moin Street g^S Rochester, New York 14609 USA ^S ("6) ♦82 - 0300 - Phone ^S (^'^) 288 - 5989 - Fax Thames : nor can I hear any more about those birds which I suspected were Merulte torquata. As to the small mice, I have further to remark, that though they hang their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the standing corn, above the A corn-rick in /Norton farmyard. ground ; yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow deep in the earth, and make warm beds of grass : but their grand rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into which they are carried at harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were taken ; and some I saw. I measured them, and found 54 that from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down jus» one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of ar unce avoir- dupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quad- rupeds in this island. A full grown Mus mcdius dc mcsttcus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more than si.x 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 thermon.eter 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. SeLBORNE, /dfuvo;tlc. i 13' Turtle-dove, 14- (IrasMlioppcr- lark, 15. Swift, 16. Less rectl- sparrow, 17. I-aiul-rail, 18. Largest wil- low-wreii, 19. Guat-sucker.or Fern-owl, UAH NOMINA. Turtur. rMiiuJa miiiiiih li>CHstiC TiH't, llirunJo a/ius, Pitssir arundina ecus minor, Orlygomilra. Ki'^ulus not! iris- talus. Ciiprimulgus. 20. Fly-catchci, Stofarola. API-F.ARS ABDlT. / i Mi.l. 6. 7> 9< >o> III i6. i8- Molaeilh. 3. 4. 5. 15- Hirumdo. 8. Ctuulus. "• CkaradrtMs. 13. w'^^/wmAi. 17- ^a//«w. 19. Caprimulgm. 14. Alauda. 30, AtMscicapa. 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. KAII NOMINA. Rubtcula. Passer troghdytes. fledge-sparrow, Curruat, White- wagtail, Yellow-wagtail, Grey-wagtail, Wheat-ear, Whin-chat, Stone-chatter, Golden-crowned wren, Molacilla alha. Motacilla Jlava. MotatilUt cinerta. Oenar:ht. Otnantke secunda. OtfMHtkt Itrtia. \ Regulus cristatMs. ■These frequent houses, and haunt outbuildings in the winter : eat spiders. Haunts sinks for crumbs and other sweepings. These frequent shallow rivu- lets near the spring heads, where they never freeze ; eat the aurelier of Phryganea. The smallest birds that walk. Some of these are to be seen with us the winter through. r This is the smallest British bird: I haunts the tops of tall trees : I stays the winter through. A List of the Winter Birds of Passage round this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear : — lOO t. Ring-outel, Mtruia tpryuatn. 3. Redwing, Turdus iliacMt, 3. Fieldfare, Tmrdmt pilaris. 4. Royiton-cTow, Comix cintrta. 5. Woodcoclc, Stotop Corvus, 5, 6, 7, Stolopax. 8, Columba. 9, lo, II, la, 13, 14. 15. 16, «7, Anas. Loxia. Ampelis. Birds that sing in the night are but few : — Nightingale. LusHnia. I " Vl '*'"''*^' *="»'"' ^'^- lOI msm if i t Woodlaik, Less reed sparrow, •; Alauda arborea. Suspended in mid air. I Passer arundina. ] I. ceus minor. ' ', Among reeds and willows. I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing after Midsummer, but, as they are rather numer- ous, they would exceed the bounds of this paper ; be- sides, as this is now the season for remarking on that subject, I am willing to repeat my observations on some birds concerning the continuation of whose song I seem at present to have some doubt. Selborne, June 30, 1769. [As one of my neighbours was traversing VVolmer Forest Irom Bramshot, across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought home alive. On e.xam. ination it proved to be Colymbus glacialis, Linn., the great speckled diver or loon, which is most excel- lently described in " Willughby's Ornithology." Every part and proportion of this bird is so in- comparably adapted to its mode of life, that in no in- stance do we see the wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage. The head is sharp, and smaller than the part of the neck adjoining, in order that it may pierce the water ; the wings are placed forward and out of the 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 flat, and as sharp backwards almost as the edge of a 103 knife, that in striking they may easily cut the water : while the feet are palmated, and broad for swim- ming, 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 long, est ; the nails flat and broad, resembling the human, which give strength and increase the power of swim- ming. The foot, when expanded, is not at right angles to the leg or body of the bird ; but the exte- rior part inclining towards the head forms an acute angle with the body ; the intention being not to give motion in the line of the legs themselves, but by the combined impulse of both in an intermediate line— the line of the body. Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming of birds is nothing more than a walk- ing 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, im- pel and row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as well as by the impulse of their feet : but such is really the case, as any person may easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has giv reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed Sv. 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 103 nstead of two ; yet. were the wings and feet nearer ogether as in land-birds, they would, when in ac tion, rather hinder than assist one another. This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only three drachms short of three pounds avoirdu pois. It measured in length from the bill to the tail which was very short) two feet, and to the extremi- ties 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 f^sh Divers or loons, though bred in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in very severe winters ; and on the Tha,mes are called sprat loons, because they prey much on that sort of fish. The legs of the colymbi and mcrgi are placed so very backward and so out of all centre of gravity, that these birds cannot walk at all. They are called by Linnasus contpcdes, because they move on the ground as if shackled or fettered. A man brought me a landrail 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 win-s are short, and placed so forward and out of the centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embarrassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly be sprung a sec- 104 ond time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft and tender, that in appearance they might have been dressed like the ropes of a woodcock The craw or crop was small and lank, containing a mucus ; the gizzard thick and strong, and filled with small shell-snails, some whole, and many ground to pieces through the attrition which is occasioned bv 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 peb- bles, and might grind one another. Landrails used to abound formerly, I remember, in the low wet bean-fields of Christian Malford in North Wilts and m the meadows near Paradise Gardens at Oxford where I have often heard them cry " crex crex '• The bird mentioned above weighed 7J oz., was fat and tender, and in flavour like the flesh of a wood- cock. The liver was very large and delicate.]- Ob- SERVATIONS Ox\ NATURE. LETTER XXVI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the ousel migration pleases you. You put a very 105 ■' :i , shrewd question when you ask me how I know that their autumnal migration is southward? Was not candour and openness the very life of natural his- tory, I should pass over this query just as a sly com- mentator does over a crabbed passage in a classic ; but common ingenuousness obliges me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I only rea- soned in that case from analogy. For as all other autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our milder winters, and return to the northward again when the rigorous cold abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same, as well as their congeners the fieldfares ; and especially as ring-ousels are known to haunt cold mountainous countries : but I have good reason to suspect since that they may come to us from the westward ; be- cause I hear, from very good authority, that they breed on Dartmoor, and that they forsake that wild district about the time that our visitors appear, and do not return till late in the spring. I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria and mine, with a white stroke over its eye and a tawny rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and have procured several specimens ; and am perfectly persuaded myself (and trust you will soon be convinced of the same) that it is neither more nor less than the Passer arundinaceus minor of Ray. This bird, by some means or other, seems to be en- tirely omitted in the " British Zoology ; " and one zo6 reason probably was bpr-i..«« :. • cla«M,-„» u """"se It ,s so stranjreV classed ,„ Rav, who ranges i, among his J-ia aL/s It ought no doubt to have gone among his f^^ | b^^s w„H .he .an o, one colour (.,,,W„.^ ,„ J: -/-O and an,o„g jour slender-billed birds o( .he same d.v.s.on Linn.us nngh., with grea. proprie^ ha,ve pu. ,. ,„.„ his genus of „,„,„,!, J^ J^'- :/" '"""■'"■"' ^- " "■-- Suecica ■' seems ,o co^e the sdes of ponds and rivers where .here is covcrf and he reeds and sedges of moors. The cou„"v people in some places call i. ,he sedge.bird. Us gs .ncessan.l, nigh. .„d day during .he breeding iT m..amg .he no.e of a sparrow, a swallow." s.,: lark, and has a s.range hurrying manner in i.s son' My specimens correspond most minu.ely .„ .he de Mr C" :' '"■" ""■""""'' '""' -- «"-'>■ when h *'"■" '" """•='" '^'-"ac.eris.ic of . when he says._..^„,„„„ ,, ^„,,, ., ,,^ 'mjor.s s,n„ ,„„,„ fro corporis raHo,,,.- ■■ The beak and^fee. of. his li,.le bird are much .00 large, or i.s curlew " TJ"" "" '^^ "' •••" "''■'■"■■"""■ - -'-- curlew, wh.d, was picked up in a fallow on .he naked ground: .here were .wo; bu. the hnder in TZ'""' ""'''' ""' "■'"■ --^ '-' "^'-e ..e saw had no. forgot to mention the faculty that snakes *" 107 have of stinking to defend themselves, se dcfaidcndo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which Among the hedgerows. was in its person as sweet as any animal while in good humour and unalarmed ; but as soon as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissi.ig, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable. Thus the skunck, or stonck, of Ray's Synop. Quadr., is an innocuous and loS sweet animal ; but. when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, than which nothing can be more horrible. A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the LaniHs minor cincrasccns cum maculd in scapulis alba Rati; which is a bird that, at the time of your pub- lishing your first two volumes of British Zoology, I find you had not seen. You have described it^well from Edwards's drawing. Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769. LETTER XXVII. To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 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 pas sage which I have observed in this neighbourhood- and also a list of the winter birds of p .sage- I mentioned besides those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of Eng- land, and those that are remarkable for singine in the night. ^ According to my proposal. I shall now proceed to such birds (singing birds strictly so called) as 109 V ' 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. I. Woodlark, 3. Song-thrush, 3. Wren, 7- 8. 9- 10. Redbreast, Hedge-spar- row, Yellow-ham- mer, Skylark, Swallow, Blackcap, Titlark, II. Blackbird, RAM NOMINA. Alauda arborfa. Turdus simpliciUr dictus. Passer troglodytes. Kubetula, Curruea, ■ Embtriza Jia^'C. Alauda t'ulgaris, Hirundo donieslua. Atiicapilla. Alauda pralorum. Merula vulgaris. 12. White-throat, Fkedula affinis. 13- 14. 15- 16. Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Less reed-spar- row, Common lin. net, Carduelis. Chloris. Passer atunditta ceus minor. I Linaria vulgaris. no In January, and continues to sing through all the summer and autumn. In February and on to August, reassume their song in autumn. All the year, hard frost ex- cepted. Ditto. Early in February to July the loth. Early in February, and on through July to August the 2lst. In February, and on to October. From April to September. Beginning of April to July the 13th. From middle of April to July the i6th. Sometimes in February and March, and so on to July the 23rd ; reassumes in autumn. In April, and on to July the 23rd. April, and through to Septem- ber the i6th. On to July and August the 2nd. May, on to beginning of July. Breeds and whistles on till August ; re.issumes its note when they begin to congre- gate in October, and again early before the flocks sepa- rate. Birds that "case to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before midsummer: — KAII NOMINA. 17. Mi.ldle willow. TA-^vw/i" iion rm- J Middle of June: begins in wren. \ talus. { April. 18. Redstart, Ktiticilla. Ditto ; begins in M.-iy. 10 Chaffinch, Frinsitla. \ Beginninjj of June : sings first ao. Nightingale, Luscinia. in February. I Middle of June: sings first in I. April. Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring : — ai. Missel-bird, Turdus viMivorus. 32. Great Tit- ] mouse, or \ Fringillago. Ox-eye, J January the and, 1770, in Feb- luary. Is called in Hampshire and Sussex the storm-cock, because its song is supposed to forbode windy, wet weath- er : is the largest singing bird we have. In February. March, April : re- assumes 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. (iolden-crown- ed wren, 24. Marsh-tit- mouse, 25. Small willow- wren. 26. Largest ditto, Ditto. 27. Grasshopper- lark, Kegutus cristalus. r Parus palustris. Its note as minute as its per- son ; frequents the tops of high oaks and firs : the small- est British bird. Haunts great woods : two harsh, sharp notes. Rcgulus non cris. J Sings in March, and on to Sep- fattis. \ tember. I " Cantat voce stridula locusts ;" I from end of April to August. Alauda minima j Chirps all night, from the middle iwi- locustie. { of April to the end oi July. Ill I. 28. Martin, Ifirundo agrtstis. / '^" 29. Hulhinch. Pyrrhula. 30. Bunting, Emberita alba. All the breeding; time ; from lay to September. From the end of January to July. All singing birds, and those that have any pre- tensions to song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnajan ordo of passives. The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numer- ically, belong to the foUowin/; Linnaean genera :— 1, 7. 10. 27. 2, II, 21. 3, 4. 5.9. 12, 15, 1 Alaudii. Turdus. Motacilla. 8, 28. Ilirundo. 13- i&, 19. Fringilla. 17, 18. 20. 23, 25, 26. j ' 6. 30- Embtriza. 22, 24. 14. 29. Panis. Iu>xia. Birds that sing as they fly are but few : — Skylark, Titlark, Woodlark, Blackbird, White-throat, Swallow, Wren, RAII NOMINA. Alautia vu/garis. Alauda pratorum. Alauda arborea, Aftrtila, Ficedula affinis. Hirtuido domestica. Passer troglodytes. Rising, suspended, and falling. In its descent ; also sitting on trees, and wiilking on the ground. r Suspended ; in hot summer [ nights all night long. Sometimes from bush to bush. f Uses when singing on the wing I odd jerks ^nd gesticulations. In soft sunny weather. Sometimes from bush to bush. Birds that breed most early in these parts :— Raven, Song-thrush, Blackbird, Conms. Turdus. Merula. Hatches in 1 ebruary and March. In March. Ditto. 112 Rook, Wtxxllark, Ring-dove, Ciirnix fruj^i U'ga. AluuJit arhorta. Builils the brginningor March. Ilatchen in April. J I'tilumhus toraita- \ , ... { /„,, j '-ay the U-gnininB of .\pril. All birds that continue in full song till after Mid- summer appear to me to breed more than once. Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and an- noyed : 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, &c. As an example of what is advanced, 1 remark that the golden- crested wren (the smallest British bird) will stand un- concerned until you come within three or four yards of it, while the bustard {otis\ the largest British land fowl, does not care to admit i person within so many furlongs. StiLBORNE, Xm: 2, 1769. Golden-crested wrens. "3 LETI'ER XXVIir. To Thomas Tkn-n/ i, Ksq. I WAS much gratified by yc -.r imunicative let- ter on your return from Srou lm ! n , ere you spent, I hnd, some considerable f n c a.,.' oave yourself good room to examine the na'u, '; i, iosities of that extensive kingdvim, both thosf .[ ih.> i,land'., as well as those of the highlands. Itu -s.i.i'u- , ,uch expeditions is hurry; becaust ■ •' . , .ot them- selves half the time they shoui J(,: \ , ■• ^ on a day for their leturn, post from lace i ,,. ,j, rather as if they were on a journey that required despatch, than as philosophers investigating the works of na- ture. You must have made, no doubt, many dis- coveries, and laid up a good fund of materials for a future editio)^ of the British Zoology; and will have no reason to repent that you lu.ve bestowed so much pains on a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined before. It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in England : but that th -y should not think even the highlands cold and northerly, and sequestered enough, is a cir- cumstance 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 114 migrators that visit us for a short space every au- tumn do not come from thence. And here. I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds were most punctual again • n their migration this autumn, appearing, as before about the thirtieth of September: but their flocks were larger than common, and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the whole winter with us. as some of their con- geners do. and then left us. as they do. in spring. I should not be so ,nuch struck with the occurrence since it would be similar to that of the other winter birds of passage ; but when [ see them for a fort- night at Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the beginning of April, I am seize.l 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- flock, is very amusing; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such perilous yoyages 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 be- gin to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds xvn are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward. It pleases me to find that white hares are so fre- "5 quent on the Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species, for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a great acquisition. The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a bird that it would grace our fauna much. I never was informed before where wild geese are known to breed. You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen- salicaria to be the lesser reed-sparrow of Ray : and I think you may be secure that I am right ; for I took very partirnlar 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 in a dry chalky field, far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously laid up in an hy- bernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay about a gallon of po- tatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to have sup- ported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me is how this amphibius mus came to fix its win- ii6 ter 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 practice of the aquatic rat to for- sake the neighbourhood of the water in the colder months? Though 1 delight very little in analogous reason- ing, knowing how fallacious it is with respect to nat- ural history ; yet, in the following instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may conduce towards the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with respect to the invariable early retreat of the Hirundo apus, or swift, so many weeks before its congeners; and that not only with us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire about the beginning of August. The great large bat* (which by the way is at present a nondescript in England, and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summer: it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a different region of the air ; and that is the reason I never could procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the swifts, fo 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 * The little Bat appears almost every month in the year ; but I have never seen the large one till the end of April, nor after July. They are most common in June, but never very plentiful. "7 water. From hence I would conclude that these hirundines, and the larger bats, are supported by some sorts of high-flyjng gnats, scarabs, or phal«y fhrushes. fcr first, that their hogs fatten 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 al- tered ; for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human constitu- tions 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, field- fares, and then the song-thrushes. You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge- sparrows, &c. can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalized at the vastly disproportioned size of the supposititious egg; but the brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of bize, colour, or number. For the common hen, as I know, when the fury of incubation is on her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a rest full of eggs that have been withdrawn : and, more- over, 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 130 I will endeav- would that spring lay more than one. our to get a hen, and examine her. Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing birds while they are mute and that when this is removed the song recom-' mences, is new and bold : I wish you could discover some good grounds for this suspicion, I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl ; you were, I find, ac- quainted with the bird before. When we meet, 1 shall be glad to have some con- versation 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 col- lect in many years would go into a very narrow compass. Some extracts from your ingenious " Investiga- tions of the difference between the present tempera- ture of the air in Italy," &c. have fallen in mv way ; and gave me great satisfaction ; they have removed the objections that always arose in my mind when- 131 f 11 1 ever 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 ! Two swallows have appeared amidst snows and fn)st. Selborne, April 12, 177a LETTER XXXIV. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Last month we had such a series of cold turbu- lent weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that the regular migra- tion or appearance of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some, as the blackcap and white- throat, did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time ; and some, as the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren, have not been heard yet. As to the fly-catcher, I have not seen it ; it is indeed one of the latest, but should ap- pear about this time : and yet, amidst all this mete- orous strife and war of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves as long ago as the iith of April, in frost and snow ; but they withdrew quickly and were not visible again for many days. Ho jse- 132 Tht baekdoor itv/k to a cotta^f garden. I ' i il martins, which are always more backward than swallows, were not observed till May came in. Among the monogamous birds several are to be found single after pairing-time, and of each sex : but whether this state of celibacy is matter of choice or necessity, is not so easily discoverable. When the house-sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and so for several times following, 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 paring-time he alwavs 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 that she was still provided with a fresh para- mour, that did not take her away from her usual haunt. Again : I knew a lover of setting, an old sports- man, who has often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of partridges, 133 ■id 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 f^sh, which appears to be their most favourite food : and yet nature in this instance seems to have planted in them an appetite that, un- assisted, they know not how to gratify : for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards water ; and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element. Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that it makes great havoc among the in- habitants 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. [One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening as it was returning from feed and going to roost. When hi-- ^^ ife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, culled and provided in this extraordinary manner. Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, 134 when grain fails, can subsist on the leaves of vege- tables. 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 cab- bage, lettuce, endive, &c., and poultry pick much grass ; while geese live for months together on com- mons by grazing alone. " Nought is useless maJc ; On the l>arren 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." ruiLii'i's's CyJer.] --Observations ox Nature. Selborne, J/fly 12, 1770. LETTER XXXV. To THK Honourable Daines Barrington. The severity and turbulence of last month so in- terrupted the regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others, as the whitethroat, the black- cap, the redstart, the fly-catchcr, are apparently thin- ner than usual. I well remember that after the very severe spring in the year f;39-4o, summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come hither proba- 135 b!y with a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these dis- advantages, two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the eleventh of April, amidst frost and snow ; but they withdrew again for a time. I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with Scopoli's new publication, " Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis " There is room to ex- pect great things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and ore would think that an his- tory of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I could wish to see the 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 reedsparrow, and giving it seeds, I could not help wondering ; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you {Passer arundinaccus minor Rail)* is a soft-billed bird, and most probably migrates hence before winter; whereas the bird you kept {Passer torquatus Raii)t abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The * Sedge-warbler, Salicaria phragmitis, Selby. t Reed-bunling, Emberiza schtmiclus, Linn. 136 former has a variety ol hurryinsf notes, and sings all night. Some part of the song of the former. I sus- pect, 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.* I have sonjcNvhat to advance on the difTcrcnt manners in which different birds fly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough consid- ered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small space, I shall say nothing further about it at present.f 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 distinc- tion in many birds, these colours do not take place till sexual attachments commence. The case is the same with quadrupeds, among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but little ; but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards and brawny necks, &c., strongly discriminate the male from the female. VVe may instance still further 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 * See Letter XXVI.. to Mr. Pennant. August 30, 1769. t See Letter LXXXIV., to Mr. Harrington, August 7. 1778. 13 137 ' i I life, for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible :— "Quern si putllarum inscrercs choro, Miri sagaccs fallcrci lui^pitcs DiMrrimcii ohscuriim, solutis Crinibus, ambiiiuiHiiic vultu." lli'K. (II. V. Ji-34.) "A fellow who. if you put him amonK a parcel of girls, tlu ijifficulty of ilistin^uishinu him from them would puzzle a very iiuick-sighlcd host, thanks to his long hairs and smooth ambiguous face." Seluorne, A/aj/ a i, 1770. LETTER XXXVr. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds gotjd in every other branch: •' Verbositas prxsentis sascuii, calamitas artis." " The verbosity of the present generation is the calamity of art.' Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work? as I admire his " Entomologia," I long to see it. I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert it 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. 138 Lawrence: it was a munstious btast, lie told iiic ; but he did ni)t take the dimensions. When I was last in town our friend Mr. Bai linj;- nianv curious ton njost ol)li;,'in<;ly carried nn- to see sights. As you were then writing to him about horns, he carried lue to see many strange and won- derful specimens. T'lerc is. I remember, at Lord I'cmbroke's, at Wilton, an In • ii-room furnished with iiiore than thirty dilTttcnt pairs; but 1 have not seen that house lately. Mr. Harrington showed me many astonishing ml- lections of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world, .\fter 1 had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that came from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, \c., were thick-bilUd birds of the /oxi,i and friiii^illa genera ; and no vtotiuillf their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash : and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust; but here I find myself mistaken; for common house-sparrows are great pulvcratrices, being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads ; and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark dust ? Query.— ls\\g\\t not Mahomet and his followers take one m.ethod of purification from these pulvc- ratrices? 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 fen-owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground ; and that it was fed by the little bird. I went to see 144 i ! this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark : it was become vastly too big for its nest, appear- ing " to " have its large wings extended beyond the nest," — " in tenui re Majorcs pL-nnas indo extcndissc " and was very tierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased it, for man ; 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 express- ing 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 lihclliilie, or dragon-flies ; some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Not- withstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be in- duced 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 con- siderable flocks of cross-beaks (Loxice ciirvirostne) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves be- longing to this house: r!;e water-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven: and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring- 145 :t ! h y ii i '?■ if : ousels (my newly discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex downs from Chichester to Lewes. Let them come from whence they will, it looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast, in order to pass the Channel when severe weather advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem, in their return ; and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to have no manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone. No doutt 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 crowd- ing towards the coast in order for their departure ; but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a redstart, whitethroat, blackcap, uncrested wren, fly- catcher, &c. And I remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to this place annually about this time. The birds most common along the coast at present are the stone- chatters, whinchats, buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, &c. Swallows and house-inirtins abound yet, induced to prolong thtir stay by this soft, still, dry season. 146 1 I [I t i 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 NJvembe^ 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 also ; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hard- ly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dande- lions, sowthistlcs, are its favourite dish. In a neigh- bouring 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. KiNMJMER, >i,ar Lkwks, Oi/. 8, 1770. LETTER XXXIX. To Thomas Pknnant, Es(^. After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus and Bris. son, I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's Hinuido hybcrna in Scopoli's new discovered Uirnndo ritpcstris. His der^ription of " Supra murina, suhtus albida ; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere interno ; pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remigcs obscu- riores quam plumne dorsales ; rectrices remigibus 147 concolores, caudS emarginata. nee forcipata ; " » agrees very well with the bird in question; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura hirundinJs urbic.x,' and that " the definition given of the bank- martin t.uits this bird also,"— " definitio hirundinis ripariic Linna:i 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 mere- ly from memory: for I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differ wiaely in everv cir- cumstance of shape, size, and colour. However, as you will have a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your judgment i^ in the matter. Whether my brother is forestalled in his nonde- script or not. he will h. ve the credit of first discov- e-ing that they 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 Linnaeus. These few remarks a. *he result of my first perusal of Scopoli's "Annus Primus." The bane of our science is the comparing one ani- mal 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 Aoove It IS mouse-colour, below whitish, the guiding featheis with an oval wh.te spot on the inner si.le, the feet hn.e and black, the beak black, the wing feathers darker than the dorsal ones, the guiders of the same colour as the wings, the tail well defined, not forked." 148 birds as might be wished, r j you justly observe: his Latin is easy, elej,ant, and expressive, and very supe- rior to Kramer's " Klenchus V'egetabilium et Anima- Hum per Austrian! Infcriorein." I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds so well with yours. seluukne, 0(t. 29, 1870. LKITKR XL. To Thcjmas Pknnam, Esc^. 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 incpiiry. Now, if these birrls are found in Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the Continent, and spend their winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe. This is certain, that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar appear there only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance 'n pairs to- wards the northward, for the sake of breeding during the summer months, and retiring in parties and broods towards the south, at the decline of the year: so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendez\ous and lace of observation from whence they take their 149 1 I departure each way towards Europe or Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery. I thi-k, to Hnd that our small short-winged summer birds of passajje are to be seen spring; and autumn on the very skirts of Eu- rope; it is a presumptive proof of their emigrations. Scopoli seems to me to f.ave found the llimndo 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. '• It has all the qualities of the preceding, save that the breast is white ; it is a little larger than the former; " "Omnia prioris " (meaning the swift); "scd pectus album ; paulo major ^riore." I do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of the uulba, tha* "It builds on the lofty Alpine cliffs;" " 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 ac count of the stone-curlew {ocdicncmus), sends me the following account :-Mn looking over my • Natural- ist s Journal ' fo the month of April. I find the stone- curlews are first mentivmed on the 17th and i8th which dates seem 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 ^ travel into some dry hilly country south of us probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep- walks in that country ; for they spend their summers ISO with us in such districts. This conjecture I liazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in England in the winter. 1 believe they are not lond of going near the u.itcr, but feed on earth- vorms, that are common on shecp-wallis and downs. They breed on fallows and lay fields al)ounding with grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in colour ; among which they skulk and r .ccal them- selves. They make no nest, but lay tH r . ^gs on the bare ground, producing in common ui 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 tne most part is in the night.'* Thus far my friend. In the manners of this bird you see there is some- thing 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 ve 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 oi September. When the stone-curlew {ocdicm-mus) flies, it stretch- es out its legs straight behind, like a heron. Selborne, iVm. 26, 177a I$I If LETTER XLI. To THE HoNOURAIiLK DaINES BaRRINOTON. The birds that I took for abcrdavincs were reed- sparrows {Passcrcs torquati). There are doubtless many home internal migra- tions within this kingdom that want to be better un- derstood ; witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter with hardly any cocks among them. Now, was there a due propor- tion of each sex. it would seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of these little birds; and much more when only one half of the species appears; therefore we may conclude that the Fringilla: ca'lcbcs, foi some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which thJ sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should be interrupted in winter; since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd sepa- rately, except at the season when commerce is neces- sary for the continuance of the breed. For this mat- ter of the chaffinches, see "Fauna Suecica." p. 85, and " Systema Nature," p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of cocks. 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 152 Tj:\ food is a great regulator of the actions and proceed- ings 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 circum- stance which you advance— that " when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh-turned earth." Now if you mean that the business of congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat-sowing to the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us ; for larks and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busv with his ploughs and harrows. Surely there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and retire to some districts more suit- able to the purpose of breed- ing. That the former pair, and that the hens are forward with egg before they retire, I myself, when I was a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied that now and then we hear of a woodcock's nest, or even young birds, discovered in some part or other of this 13 153 Uf-JF" -4 fieldfare. fr island: but then they are always mentioned as rari- ties, and somewhat out of the common course of thmgs; but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sports- man 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 m winter might support them here which main- tarns their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through. Hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or de- parture. Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or later, according as the warm weather comes on earlier or later, for I well remember, after that dreadful winter, 1739-40, that cold north-east winds contmued to blow on through April and May, and that these kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart a. usual, but were seen linger- ing about till the beginning of June. The best authority that we can have for the nidi- fication of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have written pro- fessedly the natural history of particular countries Now, as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his " Fauna Suecica," says of it, that "it builds in the largest trees,*'— " maximis in arboribus nidificat;" and of the redwing he says, in the same place, that "it builds in 154 the middle of shrubs or hedges, and lays six bluish- green eggs with black spots,"—" nidificat in nit Jiis arbusculis, sive sepibus: ova sex ca>ruleoviridia ma- culis nigris variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his "Annus Primus," of the woodcock, that " it comes to us about the vernal equinox, and, after pairing, it builds its nest in marshy places, and lavs its eggs,"—" nupta ad nos venit circa a-quinoctium vernale; " meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds,— " nidificat in paludibus alpinis: ova ponit 3—5." It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria ; but he says:—" This bird dwells in the northern regions in summer, where, too, it generally builds its nest. As winter comes on it goes farther south, leaving this about the October full-moon. After pairing, it usually comes back to the north about the full March moon,"— "Avis hxc septentrionalium provinciarum Kstivo tempore incola est; ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme australiores provincias petit : hinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat. Tunc rursus circa pleniluni- um potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam matri- monio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit." For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see "Elenchus," &c., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; though little is proved concerning the place of breeding. 155 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 thirtv years past in that part of the world. A mean quantitv in that county for one year is twenty inches and a-half. Selbornk, Dec. 20, 1770. LETTER XLII. To THE Honourable Dainks BARRixfnox. You are, I know, no great friend to migration ; and the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats, in a torpid state, and slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather awakens them. Buf then we must not, I think, deny migration in general ; because migration certainlv 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 spnng and fall: during which periods mvriads of the swallow kind traverse the Straits from north to south, and from south to north, according to the sea- 156 son: and these vast migrations consist not only of hirundines, but of bee-birds, hoopoes, Oro pcmiolos, or golden thrushes, &c. &c., and also of many of our soft-billed summer birds of passage; and moreover of birds whicii 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 Bosporus 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, and especially birds of prey whoso blood being heated with hot animal food are more impatient of a sultry climate, should retreat before the sun as it ad- vances, and retire to milder regions ; but then I can- not 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 docs not appear to me that much stress can be laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of v ; oceans, cross winds, iS:c. ; because, if we reflect, a !, by crossing the water at Dover, and again at Gibraltar, may travel from England to the equator without launch- ing out and exposing itself to boundless seas. And 157 ^1 B i I advance this obvious remark with the more confi- dence, 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 Medi- terranean ; when arrived at Gibraltar, they do not " Ranged in figure \vc ■ i L if ■ ^B } ii ^^^^^^^■f ^ ■■--rr™ ^-,, ,- 1 ^i on which were engraven the arms of the King of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near relation of mine ; and, to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the rector. At present I do not know anybody near the 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 wood- cocks 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 pre- sume to say. Nightingales not only never reach Northumber- land 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 a he narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far west\.ard. 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 pratcnsis of Ray was the poor dupe 159 ill i : I ; ';i '[ ii that was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in Letter XXXVIII. in October last. Your letter came too late for me to {)roci,rc a nng-ousel for Mr. Tunstal d.ring their autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when they c:ill on us again in April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation. Royston. or grey crows, are winter birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock : they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migration • for as they fare m. the winter like their congeners, so might they in all appearat -e 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, yE»as Roii, is the last winter bird of passage which appears with us; and is not seen till towards the end of November' about twenty years ago they abounded in the district ol Selborne; and strings of theui were seen, mornin<. 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 Pa lumhusRaii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the summer. Before I received your letter of October last I had ii:=t remarked in my journal that the trees were un usually gree.i. This uncommon verdure lasted on 1 60 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 verv late in the year. My musical friend, at whose house I am msx vis- iting. has tried all the owls that are his near neigh- bours with a pitch-pipe set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightin- gales next spring. FVFIKLl), «■(;; AmioVER, /efi. 12, 1771. LETTER XLIII. T() Thomas Pf.nnant, Esq. There is an insect with us, especially om chalky districts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of women and children, and raising tumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which we call a harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye; of a bright scarlet col- our, and of rhe genus of acarus* They are to be met * Leptus autiiiiiHitlis of I.atreille. 161 with in gardens on kidncybeans. or any legumcns, but prevail only in the hot months of summer. War. Enhatt- ■ to an old S^-Zhorne lane. reners. as some have assured me. are much infested by them on chalky-downs, where these insects some- times swarm 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 sm:;ll long shining fly in these parts 162 very troublesome to the houscwiff. by jfcttinfj into the chimneys, and laying its ejr^s in the bacon while it is drying: these eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, cat down to the bone, and make great waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the isca piitris of Linnaus : it is to be seen in the sum- mer in farm-kitchens, on the bacon-racks and about the mantelpieces, 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 th vants 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 colciptcra ; the ■ Clirysomcla ohraaa saltato- ria. femoribus posticis crassissimis"- "the vaulting chrysomila, with the back part of the thighs very thick." In very hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and, as you walk in a field or in a garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or cabbages. There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy, which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus,* is also passed over ly late writers, and that is the curvicamia of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in his " Physico-Theoh)gy," p. 250: an insect worthy of * This is a. mistake on W bite's part : the Morse Hot-dy, Cnslcrof'hitus equi, I.eath, is ilcstribeil by I,inlla■u^ uiidcr the name of U-.ilrus bozii. 163 I t ( remark for depositing its e^jgs as it flics in so dc-xtcr. ous a manner o„ the sin^ic hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. I3ut then Dcrham is n.istaken u hen he advances that this o.sU,s is the parent of that wo... derful star-tailed maggot which he ,nentio..s after- wards : for more modern ento.nologists have discov- ered that singular production to be derived fron. the egg of the Miisat chamiclioii* A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field garden, and house, suggesting all the k: own and l.kely means of destroying the n. would be al- -ved by the public to be a most useful a..d impor- tant w<,rk. What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattced. a.,d wants to be collected ; great improve- ments would soon follow of course. A knowledge o the properties, ccon.my. propagation, and. in short, of the l.fe and confers, .on of these animals :s a necessary step to leaa us to some method of pre- venting 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 ac- cordmg to Linnaeus; for I am well assured that many people would study insects, could thev set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone. SEI.HORNK, March 30, 1771. Stratiomys ygium, but all up their backs. A ranjje of short, brown, stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the nro/>rgiii»i, is the real tail, and serves as the fuU crutn to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy when set on end. When the train is up, nothing ap- pears of the l)ird before but its head and neck ; but this would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only in 'he rump, as may be seen by the turkey- cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong mus- cular 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 backward*- towards the females. I should tell \vju that I have got an uncommon Calculus iCgogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville on^nge; such are, I think, usually fiat. Sei.iiornk, 1771. 165 a LETTKR XI.V. To THE H(,NOLRA„..K Da.NKs J{aRR,Nc;T0N. From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. My n,usic.l fnend remarks that .an v (.ost) of his o.L ^Z^ B flat ; but that one went almost half a note below A The pzpe he tried their notes by was a common half." crown puch.pipe. such as masters use for the 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 and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one ,n A flat, and the other in B flat. Do these dif- ferent notes proceed from different species, or only from various individuals.' The same person f^nds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in different individuals- or^about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D: he heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, which made a disagreeable concert- he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about VVol-' mer Forest some in C* As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short and their transitions so I i *Theeditorof the etlition of 1822 remarks thnt ,h„ 1 , • early in the ^eason with . , 1 '^•-niarks that the cucko,. l,efjins 166 1 i rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key. Per- haps 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 won- der at all that they retreat from Scandinavian winters : and much more the ordo of gralhc which, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach of winter. " Grallae tan- quam conjuratae unanimiter in fugam se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem inve- nire possimus ; ut enim asstate in australibus dcgere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque sic- cam; ita nee in frigidis ob eandem causam," says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise A rfd-ii'ing. vation, however, seeiiiR it is the subject of an epigram in the scarce black letter, "Epigrams of John Hey wood," dated 1 587: — " Use maketh maistry, this hath been said alway ; Rut all is not alway as all men do say. In April, the koocoo can sing her song by rote, In June of tunc she cannot sing a note : At first koocoo, koocoo, sing still can she do ; At last kooke, kooke, kooke, six kookes to one coo." 167 i' called " M,gra,io„es Avium," which by all means vou ought to read while your .houglus run on .he subC tl^TX'"--" ^'^ '""'"■ "^ """"S" 'hey had con pre, take themselves to flight in an unmannerly ash .nor can we find even one dwelling amongst us l"r as they cannot live in the south during sum. ™er because o, the dryness ,., the ground, so ndther can they l,ve m the cold countries „( the north ir winter for the contrary reason." Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged o migrate ,„ one country and not in another: but the ^.»«. (wh.ch procure their food fr„„, marshes and boggy grounds) must in winter forsake the more northerly parfs of Europe, or ■ nsh for want of food am glad you are making .quiries from Linnieus he should be able to account for the motions and manner of life o, the animals of his own •■ FaZa " Faumsts, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesee Pla.n, because all that may be done at home in a nans study, but the investigation „, ,he l" a„d conversatton of animals is a concern of much more rouble a„d difficulty, and is not to be attained b miicn 111 the country. va.!ie i^t .'-"'™""'-^ •■•-■ ' observe, much too universally constituted by one or two particular I68 i^ > marks, the rest of the description running in general terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the ad- vantage 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 slug- gish or ale*"* 'vhen I was a sportsman : but upon my mention;. circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has .ivcd 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. Selborne, .///j-. I, 1771. LETTER XT.VI. Tn Thomas Pf-nnant, Esq. The summer through I have seen but two of that lai.,e species of bat which I call I'lSpirti/io a/thohvis, from its manner of feeding high in the air: I pro- cured one of them, and found it to be a male ; and made no doubt, as thev accompanied together, that the other was a female ; but hai)pening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was somewhat 14 169 a f I M disappointed when it appeared to be also of the same sex. This ci. cumstance and the great scarcity of this sort, at least in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a species, or whether It may not be the male part of the more kr.own spc cies, one of which may supply many females ; as is known to be the case in sheep, and some other cmad- rupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination, and some attention to the sex of more specimens : all that I know at present is. that my two were amply furnished with the parts of gen- eration much resembling those of a boar. In the extent of their wings they measured four- teen inches and a half: and four inches and a half from the nose" to the tip of ti.c 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 cov- ered 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. Sept. lyyi. 170 LETTER XLVII. To Thomas Pknnant, Esq. On the 12th of July I had a fair opportunity of contemplatin«>; the motions of the caprimitli^us, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with Scarabici solstitiaUs, or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus. J>ut 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 ^nnoose it does these chafers, I no longer wonder at ..^ .iee that Mr. White appears to incline more and more in favour of their torpidity, and against their migration. Mr. D. Harrington is still more positive on the same side of the question ; yet the ancitits generally mention this hird as wintering in Africa. See .\nacreon Ay. ed. Hrunck. i>. 3S. The Khodians had a festival called xfAiS^vta, when the hoys brought ahout young swallow's ; 175 I I I 1^ i' i o thar ^AW. Nor make I the least doubt but that. ,f I hved at Newhaven. Seaford. Brighthelm- stone, or any of those (owns near the chalk-cliffs of the Sussex coast. I should by proper observations, see swallows stirring at periods of the winter when the noons were soft and inviting and the sun warm ^e^ons which .hey san« .ay ,. seen in .he work^ of Meu.ius. v. 3. p. 'HK01, 'HK$t, x*^iii>y woAckf, yipas iyovva, oa) KoAoi, 'ty.auroh "Hecomo! Me cmcs ! who loves ,0 l.car Soft sunny liours an.l seasoi, . fair;— The swallow hither comes to re • His sphle wing an.l snowy breast." thus says, v. 705,- ' ""• """ ''^"^•t'^-^s of Dionysius) " Nam cum vere novo, telhis se dura relaxa. Culminil,us,,ue cavis. l,lan,l„p, stre|.il ales'hirun.lo Gens (levota chorus aj;itat !" "When in early spring the iron soil relaxes, comes the swallow chirp, .ng^pleasantly Horn the hollow eaves, a-ul .he pious people hejin |; the rlV ir""'' '" "" " ?'"'' " "' ^-'"■''^•- . "e learn that amonR he ( ree s the en:,,- po„He.l ou, the time of sou^i,,^ , ,he arr.val of the ^/A. the ,n,e of s/,.y/,.s/u;,n>,,r ,- .,nd ,he .,..„.'/,.., the time to pu, on .«......<-/,..,.. Accor.ling .0 the Greek calendar of Flora, k ^ Z rheophrastus at Athens, the Ornithian winds Idow. and ,he sw, low comes between the 28,h of February and the 12th of March ■ the ki.I and n:.ht,n,.ale appear between the nth and 26th of Atarch ; the cuckl appears at the same time the youn, ,i,s come out. thence his name - Stillincflfet's Tracfs o„ Xatural History. 176 ion ir^m what I have remarked during sonic of our late springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time, namely, the 13th or 14th of April, yet meeting with a harsh re- ception, and blustering cold northeast winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several days, till the weather gave them better encouragement. Alank 9, 1 77a. LETTKR L. To Thomas Pk-nnani, Esq. Bv my journal for last autumn it appears that the house-martins bred very late, and staid very late in these parts; for on the ist of October I saw young martins in their nest nearly fledged ; and, again, on the 2 1 St 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 1 never saw one of the swallow kind till the 3rd of Novem- ber; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, hf)use-tnartins were playing all day long by the side (jf the hanging wood, and over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the other side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is 177 I i it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk.cliff. steep covert, or perhaps sand-bank, lake.' or pool, may become their hybernaculum. and afT(ird them a ready and obvious retreat ? We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every week. Persons worthy „f credit assure me that ring-ousels were seen at Christmas I7/0 in the forest of Here, on the southern verge of this county. Hence we may conclude that their mi- grations are only internal, and not extentlcd 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 shoul- ders ; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon: he added further, that some had appeared since in every autumn ; but he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all alone 178 ^ L i mm- ■ — the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lowes; particularly in the autumn of 1770. Si'XBORNK. Afitrth 15. 1773. LETIKR M. To THK HoNOt'RABI.K DaINKS BARRINr.TON, Whii.K I was in Sussex last autumn my resi'lence was at the village near Lewes, from whence 1 had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the ist of November I remarked that the old tortoise, lor- merly mentioned, began first to dig the grourd, in order to the forming its hybernaculum. which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour- hand of a clock; and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooj)ing 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 of November, 179 ye, ,he work remained unfinished. Harsher weather ;1 v' "'"''"'"'• """'" '"'' "'■-'«-■<' "^ ope a „ .hf T "' ".' '^■""""^ "" ^"-^ ™' "■"- r^i,ar,l ,o ram ; for though it has a shell that would -cure ,t against the wheel „, a loaded eart vet d«s ■t cltscover as nu,ch solicitude about rain as a iaX r^rpri,':, ' '" r' "*'• ^-•™"^ --->■ "- first prnUmgs, and running i.s head up in a corner f attended to ,t becomes an excellent weather.glas, ■ f- as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on ttp " ' .- i ng w.,h great earnestness in a morning, so sure' iviM It rain before ni.rht It i. ,„„n ,. mil ind n„ , "•'■ " '''"™al ani. mal, and never.pretends to stir after it becomes dark The tortotse. like other reptiles, has an arbitrlr,' omach as well as lungs, and can refrain from Ta^ When first awakened it eats nothing: nor a ' '>"' :::^.»-eth its owner. andTishil'—^r,- * Isaiah i. 3. 180 but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings dis- tinguishes 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. April 12, 1772. LETTER I,II. To THE HoNOURAHLK DaINES BaRRINC.TON. The more I reflect on the trropyrj of animals, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the vio- lence of this affection more wonderful than the short- ness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helpless- ness of her brood ; and will flv in the face of a dog: or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty. This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus a hen, just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feath- ers standing on end. wings hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to avert it from their progenv. Thus a par- tridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order 181 to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey In the time of nidification the most feeble birds nill assault the most rapacious. All the himndines oi 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 tl.. rock of Gibraltar would suf- fer 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 cliffs of the rocks to chase away the kestrel 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 fond- ness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together. Should I further corroborate what I have ad vanced above by some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration. The flycatcher of the Zoology (the Sfo/>aro/a of Kay) builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadver- tentl3- placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But a not sunny season coming on before the brood was half.fledged, the reflection of 182 ./'•''•. 'Afy ';. 'JSfy. ^ s •« <^ •^ the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffer- ing offspring. A farti:er 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 Mke up a large bundle of long green moss, as it were carelessly nrown 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 mout^^^ and feet. It was amazing that the desultory and rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their 15 183 hold, especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both naked and blind ! To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the (TTopyil, which induces some females of the brute cre- ation 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 off- spring, I am not so much amazed ; since reason per- verted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable of any enormity: but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine. Selborne, March 26, 1773. LETTER LIII. To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of VVolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of which they caught, and, 184 among the rest, some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery : this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history. We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through, the following remarks may not perhaps be unaccepta- ble : — About an hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) they sally forth in qu^st of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small in- closures for them, which seem to be their only food. In this irregular country we can stand on an emi- nence and see them beat the fields over like a setting- dog, often dropping 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 othec of them, about once in five minutes; reflecting at the same time on the adroit- ness that every animal is possessed of as far as re- gards 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 »85 _g I are necessary in their ascent under the tiles, they constantly perch first on the roof of the chancel, and shift the mouse from their cla\"s to their bill, that the feet may be at liberty to tai.c hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves. White owls seem not (but in this I am not posi- tive) to hoot at all : all that clamorous hooting ap- pears to me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tremen- dous manner; and these menaces will answer the intention of intimidating: for I have known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining the church-ya»d to be full of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the com- mon people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think attends the win- dows of dying persons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Per- haps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rush- ing, 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 im- proper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom, a 186 mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After some examination, he found that it was the congeries of the bones of mice, and perhaps of birds and bats, that had been heaping together lor 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 blown 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 ( ,vls fly they stretch out their legs behind them as a bal- ance to their large heavy heads: for, as most noc- turnal birds have large eyes and ears they must have large heads to contain them. Large eyes 1 presume are necessary to collect every ray of light, and large concave ears to command the smallest degree of sound or noise.* The hiriindines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, social, and useful tribe of birds; they touch no fruit in our gardens; delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to our houses; amuse us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous • It will be proper to premise here that the Letters LIII., I.V., I.VII.. and LX., have been published already in the " Philosophical Trans, actions." but nicer observation has furnished several corrections and additions. 187 mm warn 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 mosqui- toes, which fill the air, and render those coasts in- supportable. Ii would be worth inquiring whether any species of hiruudines is found in those regi.jns Whoever contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked with them were it not for the friendly interposition of the swallows. 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 tc 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 . ng incuba- tion, and crawl about under its feathers. A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of England under the name of forest-fly ; 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 tick- •See Ulloa's" Travels." I88 linp sensation ; while our own breed little regards them. The curious Reaumur discovered the larjje ejjgs, or rather /«/«//.//w»— the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin. A few house-martins begin to appear about the i6th of April ; usually some few days later than the swallow. For some time after they appear, the /«>««- t/i>us m general pay no attention to the business of nidification. but play and sport about, either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate at all. or else that their blood may recover its true tone and texture after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the middle of * Hirundo urhica, Liiinxus. 194 May, if the weather be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for its fam- l^ Ilouse-viartins. ily. 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 n'rought together with little bits of broken straws to render it tough and tenacious. As this bird often builds against a per- pendicular wall without any projecting ledge under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first founda- tion firmly fixed, so that it may safely carry the su- perstructure. On this occasion the bird not only 195 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 plas- ters the materials into the face ot 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 provi- dent architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast; but by building only m 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 .eems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful work- men when they build mud-walls (informed at first per haps 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 an hemispheric nest with a small aperture towards the top, strong, compact, and warm ; and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing is more common than for the house- sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as 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 se- cured from the injuries of weather. The shell or 196 Vi 1 I i i 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, jjrasses, and feathers : and sometimes by a bed of moss inter- woven with wool. In this nest they tread, or engen- der, frequently during the time of building ; and the hen lays from three to five white eggs. At first when the young are hatched, and are in a naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their young. Were it not for this affectionate clean- liness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and de- stroyed 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 ^ be a particular provision, that the dung of nest- ling,-, is enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and there- fore 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 at the aperture of their nest. As the young of small birds presently arrive at their riKucia, or full growth, they soon be- come impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out of the orifice, where the dams, by 197 i i ■ < M f cl.ng.ng ,0 ,he nest, supply ,hem with food from m..rn,„g .,1, nigh, p„, „ ..^^ ,^^ "Jom .he w,„g b, .heir parcn.s : but ,he feat is done by so qu.ck and almost imperceptible a slight tha" a ner - must have attended very exactly to th eir l^ionl' before he would be able to perceive it. As soJras •he young are able to shift for themselves, he dan .mmedtately turn their thoughts to the bu sh^ess o, a rejected by the.r nurses, congregate in great floclcs and are the birds that are seen dusteri„|a„d hove ' ng on sunny mornings and evenings round to ver^ se "xr: """ ™ '"^ """' ■" ^-"-hes and place abolt,: T'""^'''"^' """"^ ^^«'" '" "'ke place about the first week in August ; and therefore we may conclude tha. by that time the first flgtu pre.y well over. The young of this specie dT ,^ qui. their abodes all tosether- h„, ,1, , birds »« ,1, J «"""■ hut the more forward t"rds get abroad some days before the rest. These approaching the eaves of buildin..s nnd , about before them, make people :hi:.Thlt^;! oid ones attend one nest. They are often capll; n fi .„g on a „es,i„g.place, beginning many ed fices and lea v,ng them unfinished: but when once a nes,' - completed in a sheltered place, it serves for sevl -sons. Those which breed in a ready.finished ho s get the start m hatching of those that build new by r a th°- Vr"*"- ''''"' '•"''-'™us artihcerl are at the.r labours in the long days before four in 198 the morning : when they fix their materials they plas- ter them „n 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 fre- quently as swallows, it has been observed that mar- tins usually build to a north-east or north west aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests; but instances are also remembered where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard, against a wall facing to the south. Birds in general are wise in their choice of situ- ation; but in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the contrary at a house with- out 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, i is a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest is washed away, and bringing dirt "to patch the ruins of a fallen race " — " generis lapsi sarcire ruinas." Thus is instinct a most wonderful but unequal faculty ; in some instances so much above reason, in other respects so far below it I 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 16 199 '■I t\ I H I 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 feath- ers partook of the filth of that sooty atmcjsphere. Martins are by far the least agile of the four species ; their wings and tails are s..jrt, and therefore they are not capable of such surprising turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow. Accord- ingly, they make use of a placid easy motion in a middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They breed the latest of all the swallow kind : in 1772 they had nestlings on to October the 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 fre- quent the aits of that river, where they roost. They retire, the bulk of them I mean, in vast flocks to- gether about the beginning of October; but have appeared of late years in a considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, as late as No- 200 intmmtmMmi^i^m vember the 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 district where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations some- how, 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 man- ner in their nests. During the time of breeding they are often greatly molested with fleas. Selborne, Xov. 20, 1773. To LETTER LVI. ..^OURABLK DaINES BaRRINGTON. I RECEiVLn your last favour just as I was setting out for this pU ce ; and am pleased to find that my monograph mot with your approbation. My re- marks are the result of many years' observations ; 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 201 : "i ft » J: make many additions, since subjects of this kind are inexhaustible. If you think my letter worthy the notice of your respectable society, you are at liberty to lay it before them ; and they will consider it, 1 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 ma^ be induced to take the house-swallow under consideration ; and from that proceed to the rest of the British /liruiuiims. Though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs upwards of thirty years, I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year; and think I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This range, which runs from Chichester eastward as far as Eastbourne, is about sixty miles in length, and is called the South Downs, properly speaking, only rour ' Lewes. As you pass along, it commands a nobU .ew of the wild, or weald, on one hand, and the b oad downs and sea on the other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family at Danny, just at the foot of tl.ese hills; he was so ravisned with the prospect from Plumpton-plain neur Lewes, that he mentions those landscapes in his " Wisdom of God in the Works of the 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 something 202 lyhite's sunUiiil, at the liotlom of his ^ardrn. ! ':( i- If: I . peculiarly sweet and plcasiiijj in the shapely fijjurcd aspect of chalk-hills in preference to those ut stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their flutco sides, and regular hollow^ and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatatit)n 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 sha s 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 ? By what I can guess of the admeasurements of the hills that have been taken round my house. I should suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average of about the rate of five hundred feet. One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from the westward until 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 Deeding 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 203 -ggg. m wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs: so that ^ou 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 val- ley of Brambler and Deeding 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 ' een so from time im- memorial ; and smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these two different breeds might not be reversed? However, an in- telligent friend of mine near Chichester is de- termined to try the experiment, and has this au- tumn, 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. [The sheep on the downs in the winter of 1769 were very ragged, and their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that way in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice. AftPr 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 204 arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect of that twtus odor, discriminating each individual personally ; which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they are newly marked ; for the brute creation recognize each other more from the smell than the sight; and in mat- ters of identity 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.] — Observations ox Nature. As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late a season of the year, I was deter- mined 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 concerniii^ the withdrawing of the swallow kind, without examining enough into the causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter ; for, cntre nous, the disappearing of the latter is more marvellous than that of the former, and much more unaccount- able. The hirundincs, if they please, are certainly capable of migration ; and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state : but redstarts, nighting.-'les, whitethroats, blackcaps, which are very ill provided for long flights, have never been once found, as I ever heard of, in a torpid state, and yet can nev^r be supposed in such troops from year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, 205 which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwith- standing all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage : and, what is more stranre, not one wheatear, 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 shep- herds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone quarries : now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on the downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time of wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers; are sent for sale in vast quantities to Brighton and Tunbridge ; and appear at the tables of all the gentry that entertain with any de- gree 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 206 appear that any wheatears are taken to the west- ward of Houghton bridge, which stands on the river Arun. I did not fail to look particularly after mv new nriigration of ring-ousels ; and to take notice whether they continued on the downs to this season of the year; as 1 had formerly remarked them in the month of October all the way from Chichester to Lewes wherever there were any shrubs and coverts ; but not one bird of this sort came within mv ob- servation. I only saw a few larks and whinchats, some rooks, and several kites and buzzards. About summer a flight of crossbills comes to the pine-groves about this house, but never makes any long stay. The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a for- mer letter, still continues in this garden ; and retired under ground about the 20th of November, and came out again for one day on the 50th : it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud and mire ! Here is a large rookery rou .d 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 wav, as they are going to roost in deep woods : at the dawn 207 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. RiN'JMER, fuar Lewes, Dec, g, 1773. ao8 D. APPLETON & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. pAMILIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND ■*■ GAKDEX. By F. Sciicyi.er Mathews. Illustrated with aoo Drawings by the Autlior, and containing an elaborate Index showing at a glance the botanical and popular names, family, color, locality, environment, and time of bloom of several hun- dred flowers. i2mo. Library Edition, cloth, $1.75 ; I'ockct Edition, flexible covers, (3.25. In this convenient and useful vulumc the flowers which one fimls in the field* are itlcntificd, illustrated, and described in familiar language. 1 heir connection with gar- den floweti ii made clear. Particular attention is drawn to the beautiful ones which have come under cultivation, and, as the title indicates, the book furnishes a ready guide to a knowledge of wild and cultivated flowers alike. *' I have eximined Mr. Mathews's little book upon • Familiar Kloweis of Field and Uarden, and I have pleasure in commending the accuracy and beauty of the drawings and the freshness of the text We have long nt-eded some l>ouny fro.ii the hand of an artist, who sees form and color without the formality of the scientist. The book deserve* a repuution."— A. //. Sailty, Pro/eaor 0/ lloriUultwt, L'orntU University. " I am much pleased with your ' Familiar Flowers of Field and (iarden.' It is a useful and handsomely prepaied handbook, and the elaborate index is an especially valuable part of it. I'aken in connection with the many caiclul drawings, it would seem as though yourlitde volume thoroughly covers its suhy-it."— Louis t'rang. •' The author describes in « most interesting and charming manner many familiar wild and cultivated plants, enlivening his rem..rks by crisu .r-ixrams. and rendering Identification of the subjects described simple by means of^some two hundred draw- •ng* from Nature made by his own pen . . I'he book will do much 10 more fully acquaint the reader with iho«! plants of field and ganlen treated upon with which he may be but parUy familiar, and go a l.mg way toward correcting many popular erroni esisting in the matter of color* of their flowers, a subject to which Mr. Mathews has devoted much attention, and tin which he is now a recognised authority in the trade. —Sew i ork hlortsts Exchange. ' 1«Jr^ffl^l^-^' """'** 1*^".' ^''^"u"?"' "dmirably arranged for the student and ih, lover of flowers. . . . 1 he text is fijil of compact information, well selected and interest !v?w ??^"? . ■ ■ It seems to us to be a most attractive handbook of its kind."- ilh.ii^.f^i'*''.™' J^l' ■"'' ^l'^ "»*f"'-, It» .language is pUin and familiar, and the ftmiliar with the well-known flowers, those that grow in the cultivated gardens as well as those that blossom m the fields."- Newark Daily Advertiser. -> r^*'^!f°5"i''° 'm valuable. The young botanist and the lover of flowers, who have only studied from Nature, will be greatly aided by this mmV." -IHttsbHrg host -,11"™''^'''"'"?''' *"»?e'>..»"itlered ai authoritative, but ha* brought him in direct contact with beginnen in the >tudy of birdi whoM want! he thua thomughly understandi. I'he technicalities so confusing to the amateur are avoided, and by the use nf illiistraiinns, concise descriptions, analytical keys, dates of migration, and re- marks »n distribution, haunts, notos, and characteristic habits, the problem of ictcnti- fication, either in the field or study, is reduced to its simplest teims. OPINIONS OF ORNITHOLOGISTS AND THE PRESS. " Written in simple, non-technical language, with special reference to the needs of amateurs and bird-lovers, yet with an accuracy of detail that makes it a standard au:hority on the birds of eastern Norji Amenca. — 7. A. AUth, Editor 9/ Tk4 Auk. " I am delighteil with the ' Handbook.' So entirely trustworthy and up to date that I can heartily recommend it. 1 1 seems to me the best allamund thing we have had yet.'— O/itY Thornt .Miller. " The ' Handbook ' is destined to fill a place in ornithology similar to that held by Gray's ' Miinual ' in botany. One seldom finds so many good things in a single vol- ume, and 1 can not recommend it too highly. Its conciseness aiid freedom from errcja, together with its many original ideas, make it the standard work of its class."— TiiJin H. Sage, .Secretary o/the A merican OrnithotegieW Union. " Your charming and most usefid little book. ... I had good reason to expect an excellent book of the kind fi-r>m your pen, and certainly have not been disappointed. We receive here very many inquiries concerning a popular book on binds, or rather, I should say, a book so combining popuhr and scientific features as to tendei it both entertaining and instructive. To all such inquiries I have been obliged to reply that no such book existed. Now, however, the ' long-felt want " has bren satisfactoiily sup- plied ; and it will give me great pleasure to answer such inquiries in fiitt'.re in a dif- ferent way."— ^di^r/ff/V^fTi'/y, Umttd Statet National Mnteutn, Wathinittn, D. C " A book so free from idchnicaKties as to be intelligible to a fourteen-year-old boy, and so convenient and full of original information as to hi indispensable to the work- ing ornithologist. ... As a handbook of the birds of eastern North America it is bound to supersede all other iintia." -Sa'eni-e. " The author has succeeded in presenting to the reader cleaHy and vividly a >ast amount of useful information."— /'.4//<>A> Tribune. New York : D, APPLE" N & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. ai.'-Ki.sa.iis