- yes ead

ALBERT R. MANN
LIBRARY

Cornett UNIVERSITY

Gift of

Wiliam E. Davis, Jr.

Cornell University

The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924090305420

THE NATURAL HISTORY
&
ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE

MACMILLAN AND CO., LimiTED

LONDON BOMBAY + CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK BOSTON + CHICAGO
ATLANTA + SAN FRANCISCO

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO

Selborne, from the Hanger

THE NATURAL HISTORY

an)

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE

IN THE
COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON

By GILBERT Will FL

WITH ILL: oPRATIONS iN COLOUR BY
GEORGE EDWARD COLLINS, R.B.A.

MACMILLSS AND CO, TIMIT!D
ST. MARLINS STEEET, LONDON
ION

THE NATURAL HISTORY
&

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE

IN THE
COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON

By GILBERT WHITE

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR BY
GEORGE EDWARD COLLINS, R.B.A.

MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON

IQII

Main
Ses Soll,
QHN

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WH k
Att

Fa ey . Ego Apis Matinae

More modoque
Grata carpentis . . . . per laborem
Plurimum. . .’—Hor.

‘“Omnia bené describere, quae in hoc mundo, a Deo facta,
au Naturae creatae viribus elaborata fuerunt, opus est non
unius hominis, nec unius aevi. Hinc Faunae et Florae utilis-
simae ; hinc Monografhi praestantissimi.”

—Scorott ANN. Hist, Nat.

CONTENTS

Tue Natura. History or SELBORNE:
Letters I-XLIV, to Thomas Pennant, Esq.,

Letters I-LXVI, to the Honourable Daines
Barrington, : ‘ * ‘ ‘

Tue ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE:
Letters I-XXVI, .
Appendix, . a : :

Tue Naturatist’s CALENDAR,

OBSERVATIONS ON VaRious Parts or Nature:

On Birds in General, . .

On Quadrupeds, . ‘

On Insects and Vermes,

On Vegetables, . : : ‘ ‘

Meteorological Observations, . ‘
SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER, : ‘
INDEX, . ; 2 : ‘

PAGE

100

451

461

ILLUSTRATIONS

Selborne, from the Hanger - - - - - Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Upper Stream - = e
“The old hollow lane to Alton” ws z = S

Bean’s Pond : -

Wolmer Pond. ‘On the face of this expanse of waters,
and perfectly secure from fowlers, lie all day long,
in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals and
widgeons”’ - - -

Wolmer Forest. “A hungry, sandy, barren waste” -

“The Swallows and Martins clustering on the chimneys
of the neighbouring cottages” -

The Wren. “Wrens sing all the winter through, frost
excepted ”

“ The Skylark sings—‘ rising, suspended, and falling’” = -
The Stock-Dove - =

Swallows, “They ... then are conducted to the dead
leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row,
they are attended with great assiduity ”

Young Sand-martins. “In the last week in June we have
seen a row of these sitting on a rail” -

Il

21

23
24,

58

89
106
123

147

154

viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

The Selborne Stream - - - = 192
The Hanger” - - - - - - 200
The Lithe- - - - - - - 212

The Lesser Whitethroat. “It also runs up the stems
of the crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the
bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands

in the nectarium of each petal” 233
Selborne - 259
Selborne Church - 264
The Plestor - - 288
Newton Valence - - 322
Cornfield - - 348
Old house at Empshott 383
On Selborne Down - - - 408

Hop Garden - - - - - - - 441

ADVERTISEMENT

Tue Author of the following Letters, takes the liberty,
with all proper deference, of laying before the public his
idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist
of natural productions and occurrences as well as an-
tiquities. He is also of opinion that if stationary men
would pay some attention to the districts on which they
reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the
objects that surround them, from such materials might be
drawn the most complete county-histories, which are still
wanting in several parts of this kingdom, and in particular
in the county of Southampton.

And here he seizes the first opportunity, though a late
one, of returning his most grateful acknowledgments to
the reverend the President and the reverend and worthy
the Fellows of Magdalen College in the University of
Oxford, for their liberal behaviour in permitting their
archives to be searched by a member of their own society,
so far as the evidences therein contained might respect the
parish and priory of Selborne. To that gentleman also,
and his assistant, whose labours and attention could only
be equalled by the very kind manner in which they were
bestowed, many and great obligations are also due.

Of the authenticity of the documents above-mentioned
there can be no doubt, since they consist of the identical
deeds and records that were removed to the College from
the Priory at the time of its dissolution ; and, being care-
fully copied on the spot, may be depended on as genuine ;
and, never having been made public before, may gratify

x ADVERTISEMENT

the curiosity of the antiquary, as well as establish the
credit of the history.

If the writer should at all appear to have induced any of
his readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders
of the Creation, too frequently overlooked as common
occurrences ; or if he should by any means, through his
researches, have lent an helping hand towards the enlarge-
ment of the boundaries of historical and topographical
knowledge ; or if he should have thrown some small light
upon ancient customs and manners, and especially on
those that were monastic, his purpose will be fully
answered. But if he should not have been successful in
any of these his intentions, yet there remains this con-
solation behind—that these his pursuits, by keeping the
body and mind employed, have, under Providence, con-
tributed to much health and cheerfulness of spirits, even
to old age :—and, what stiil adds to his happiness, have led
him to the knowledge of a circle of gentlemen whose
intelligent communications, as they have afforded him
much pleasing information, so, could he flatter himself
with a continuation of them, would they ever be deemed
a matter of singular satisfaction and improvement.

GIL. WHITE.

SELBORNE, Fanuary Ist, 1788.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
SELBORNE

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
SELBORNE

LETTER I
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Tue parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner
of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of
Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about
fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude 51, and near
midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield.
Being very large and extensive it abuts on twelve parishes,
two of which are in Sussex, viz. Trotton and Rogate. If
you begin from the south and proceed westward the
adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon,
Harteley Mauduit, Great Ward le ham, Kingsley, Hed-
leigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham.
The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified
as the views and aspects. The high part to the south-west
consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet
above the village ; and is divided into a sheep down, the
high wood, and a long hanging wood called The Hanger.
The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most
lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth
rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous
boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like
spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on
the verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break
down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging
3

4 THE NATURAL HISTORY

view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath,
and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east
and east by the vast range of mountains called The Sussex
Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs
round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east,
which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and
Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.

At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the
uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single
straggling street, three quarters of a mile in length, in a
sheltered vale, and running parallel with The Hanger.
The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay
(good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white stone,
little in appearance removed from chalk ; but seems so far
from being calcarious, that it endures extreme heat. Yet
that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous
to chalk, is plain from the beeches which descend as low as
those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well on
them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.

The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable
manner, two very incongruous soils. To the south-west
is a rank clay, that requires the labour of years to render
it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east, and small
enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling
mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated
with vegetable and animal manure; and these may perhaps
have been the original site of the town; while the wood
and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank.

At each end of the village, which runs from south-east
to north-west, arises a small rivulet: that at the north-
west end frequently fails: but the other is a fine perennial
spring little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called
Well-head.! This breaks out of some high grounds join-
ing to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable

1This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot
summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in
a minute, which is five hundred and forty in an hour, and twelve
thousand nine hundred and sixty, or two hundred and sixteen hogsheads,

in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the
wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry.

The Upper Stream

OF SELBORNE 5

for sending forth two streams into two different seas. The
one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running
to Arundel, and so falling into the British channel: the
other to the north. The Selborne stream makes one
branch of the Wey; and meeting the Black-down stream
at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at
Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable
at Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so
into the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into
the German ocean.

Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet,
and when sunk to that depth seldom fail; but produce a
fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended
by those who drink the pure element, but which does not
lather well with soap.

To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a
range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a
white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when
turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and
becomes manure to itself.4

Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of
white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture
nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep
into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for char-
coal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the
brightest hops.

As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer-
forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand the soil
becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and
infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmore
stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have
furnished much naval timber ; while the trees on the free-
stone grow large, but are what workmen call shakey, and
so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the
sandy loam the soil becomes an hungry lean sand, till it
mingles with the forest; and will produce little without the

assistance of lime and turnips.

1 This soil produces good wheat and clover.

6 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER I]
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

In the court of Norton farm house, a manor farm to the
north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood within
these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel,
ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost
a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the
year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled,
contained eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky
for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt,
where it measured near eight feet in the diameter. This
elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may
attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its
situation.

In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a
square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and vulgarly
called The Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in
old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and huge
horizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the
area. ‘This venerable tree, surrounded with stone steps,
and seats above them, was the delight of old and young,
and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where
the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked
and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had
not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once,
to the infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who
bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again:
but all his care could not avail; the tree sprouted for a
time, then withered and died. This oak I mention to
show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and
planted this tree must certainly have been, as will appear
from what will be said farther concerning this area, when
we enter on the antiquities of Selborne.

On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called
Losel’s, of a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of

OF SELBORNE 7

oaks of a peculiar growth and great value ; they were tall and
taper like firs, but standing near together had very small
heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. About
twenty years ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton
Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for
the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and
would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end.
Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood,
with this advantage, that many of them answered the
description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for
twenty pounds apiece.

In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which,
though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a
large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this
a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series
of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of The
Raven-tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring
youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their
inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the
arduous task. But, when they arrived at the swelling, it
jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their
grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknow-
ledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the
ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till
the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled.
It was in the month of February, when those birds usually
sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were
inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy
blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall ;
but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the
bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental
affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the
twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

8 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER III
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Tue fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such
as have fallen within my observation, must not be passed
over in silence. And first I must mention, as a great
curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky
fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for the
singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye,
seems like a petrified fish of about four inches long, the
cardo passing for an head and mouth. It is in reality a
bivalve of the Linnaean Genus of Mytilus, and the species
of Crista Galli; called by Lister, Rastellum; by Rumphius,
Ostreum plicatum minus; by D’Argenville, Auris Porci, s.
Crista Galli, and by those who make collections cock’s
comb. Though I applied to several such in London, I
never could meet with an entire specimen; nor could I
ever find in books any engraving from a perfect one. In
the superb museum at Leicester-house, permission was
given me to examine for this article; and though I was
disappointed as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with
the sight of several of the shells themselves in high
preservation. This bivalve is only known to inhabit the
Indian ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known
by the name Gorgonia. The curious foldings of the suture
the one into the other, the alternate flutings or grooves,
and the curved form of my specimen being much easier
expressed by the pencil than by words, I have caused it to
be drawn and engraved.

Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village.
As we were cutting an inclining path up The Hanger, the
labourers found them frequently on that steep, just under
the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable size. In the
lane above Well-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound
in the bank, ina darkish sort of marl; and are usually
very small and soft: but in Clay’s Pond, a little farther

OF SELBORNE 9

on, at the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out for
manure, I have occasionally observed them of large
dimensions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter.
But as these did not consist of firm stone, but were
formed of a kind of serra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as
soon as they were exposed to the rains and frost they
mouldered away. These seemed as if they were a very
recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the north-west
end of The Hanger, large nautili are sometimes observed.
In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at
considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scallops
or pectines, having both shells deeply striated, and ridged
and furrowed alternately. They are highly impregnated
with, if not wholly composed of, the stone of the quarry.

LETTER IV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been
only mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more
particular.

This stone is in great request for hearth-stones and the
beds of ovens: and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good
account; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of
mortar ; the sand of which fluxes,! and runs by the intense
heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a
strong vitrified coat like glass, that it is well preserved
from injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty years.
When chiseled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses,
equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone; and superior
in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale.
Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer

1 There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime
a proportion of sand; for few chalks are so pure as to have none.

10 THE NATURAL HISTORY

and finer grain than Portland; and rooms are floored
with it; but it proves rather too soft for this purpose. It
is a freestone, cutting in all directions; yet has something
of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should
not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it
grows in the quarry.!. On the ground abroad this fire-
stone will not succeed for pavements, because, probably,
some degree of saltness prevailing within it, the rain tears
the slabs to pieces.?, Though this stone is too hard to be
acted on by vinegar; yet both the white part, and even the
blue rag, ferments strongly in mineral acids. Though the
white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry at
intervals there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain
and frost; and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths
and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks ; a
valuable species of fencing, much in use in this village, and
for mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn,
and will not hew to a smooth face; but is very durable :
yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, large quantities
cannot be procured but at considerable expense. Among
the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of
yellow or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as
the blue; and every now and then balls of a friable sub-
stance, like rust of iron, called rust balls.

In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by
the workmen sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of
the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as
iron ore; is very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact
texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline
grit, cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous
matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor easily strike
fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it
makes good pavement for paths about houses, never

1 To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had
in the quarry, says Dr. Plot, Oxfordsh. p. 77. But surbedding does not

succeed in our dry walls; neither do we use it so in ovens, though he
says it is best for "Teynton stone.

2« Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: must be close grained,
and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts ; saltstone perishes
exposed to wet and frost.” Plot’s Staff. p. 152.

“The old hollow lane to Alton”

OF SELBORNE II

becoming slippery in frost or rain; is excellent for dry walls,
and is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that
waste it lies scattered on the surface of the ground; but is
dug on Weaver’s Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of
that forest, where the pits are shallow, and the stratum
thin. This stone is imperishable.

From a notion of rendering their work the more
elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into
small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail;
and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the
joints of their freestone walls: this embellishment carries
an odd appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes
to ask us pleasantly, “whether we fastened our walls
together with tenpenny nails.”

LETTER ¥
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Amonce the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow
lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve
our attention. These roads, running through the malm
lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water,
worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and
partly through the second; so that they look more like
water-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag
for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced
sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields; and
after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild
appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among
the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken
sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into
icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work.
These rugged gloomy scenes affright the ladies when they
peep down into them from the paths above, and make
timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them ; but

12 THE NATURAL HISTORY

delight the naturalist with their various botany, and par-
ticularly with their curious filices with which they abound.

The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with
all its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm
with game; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants
abound; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful.
There are few quails, because they more affect open fields
than enclosures; after harvest some few land-rails are seen.

The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the
forest, is a vast district. Those who tread the bounds are
employed part of three days in the business, and are of
opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings,
does not comprise less than thirty miles.

The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by The
Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft,
but rather moist from the effluvia of so many trees; yet
perfectly healthy and free from agues.

The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable,
as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a dis-
trict. As my experience in measuring the water is but of
short date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity.’

I only know that Teck. Piued:
From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year there fell 28 37!
From Jan. 1, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781 5 $5 27 32
From Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 $5 ¥ 30 71
From Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 *% 9 50 26!
From Jan. 1, 1783, to Jan. 1, 1784 55 8 33 71
From Jan. 1, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 ii 4 33 80
From Jan. 1, 1785, to Jan. 1, 1786 4 3 31 55
From Jan, 1, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 9 i 39 57

The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger,
with the single farms, and many scattered houses along the

1 A very intelligent gentleman assures me (and he speaks from upwards
of forty years’ experience) that the mean rain of any place cannot be
ascertained till a person has measured it for a very long period. “If I
had only measured the rain,” says he, “for the four first years, from 1740
to 1743, I should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 16} inch for
the year; if from 1740 to 1750, 184 inches. The mean rain before
1763 was 20}; from 1763 and since, 254; from 1770 to 1780, 26. If
only 1773, 1774 and 1775 had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would
have been called 32 inches.”

OF SELBORNE 13

verge of the forest, contain upwards of six hundred and
seventy inhabitants.’ We abound with poor; many of

14 STATE of the Parish of SELBORNE, taken October 4, 1783.

The number of tenements or families, 136.

676; near five

The number of inhabitants in the street is 313

In the rest of the parish 363 EER to. etee

tenement.

In the time of the Rev. Gilbert White, vicar, who died in 1727-8, the
number of inhabitants was computed at about 500,

Average of baptisms for 60 years.

From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive { sane oe Be \ 12,9
From 1730 to 1739, both years inclusive { nae oe \ 15,3
From 1740 to 1749, inclusive { ae 26 \ 15,8
From 1750 to 1759, inclusive { aie te \ 1557
From 1760 to 1769, inclusive { aed ae \ 18,0
From 1770 to 1779, inclusive { Seem ae } 2053

Total of baptisms of Males 515 \ og,
Females 465 9
Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive .. 60 years .. 980.

Average of burials for 60 years.

From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive { Saar He \ 9,9

From 1730 to 1739, both years inclusive { sere ae \ 10,6
From 1740 to 1749, inclusive { ee ot 8,4
From 1750 to 1759, inclusive { oe Se \ 10,0
From 1760 to 1769, inclusive { ce ea \ 13,4
From 1770 to 1779, inclusive { Sa He i 11,7

Total of burials of Males 315 \¢
Females 325 4°

Total of burials from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive .. 60 years .. 640.
Baptisms exceed burials by more than one third.
Baptisms of Males exceed Females by one tenth, or one in ten.
Burials of Females exceed Males by one in thirty.

14 THE NATURAL HISTORY

whom are sober and industrious, and live comfortably in

ood stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have
chambers above stairs: mud buildings we have none.
Besides the employment from husbandry, the men work
in hop gardens, of which we have many; and fell and bark
timber. In the spring and summer the women weed the
corn; and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-
picking. Formerly, in the dead months they availed

It appears that a child, born and bred in this parish, has an equal chance
to live above forty years.

Twins thirteen times, many of whom dying young have lessened the
chances for life.

Chances for life in men and women appear to be equal.

A TABLE of the Baptisms, Burials, and Marriages, from January 2,
1761, to December 25, 1780, in the Parish of SELBORNE.

BAPTISMS. BURIALS, MAR.
Males. Females. Total. | Males. Females. Total.

1761 8 Io 18 2 4 6 3
1762 7 8 15 10 14 24 6
1763 8 Io 18 3 4 7 5
1764 II 9 20 10 8 18 6
1765 12 6 18 9 7 16 6
1766 9 13 22 ite) 6 16 4
1767 14 5 19 6 5 II 2
1768 7 6 13 2 5 i“ 6
1769 9 14 23 6 5 II 2
1770 10 13 23 4 7 II 3
1771 10 6 16 3 4 7 4
1772 II 10 21 6 10 16 3
1773 8 5 13 7 5 12 3
1774 6 13 19 2 8 Io I
1775 20 7 27 13 8 21 6
1776 Il to 21 4 6 10 6
1777 8 13 21 7 3 10 4
1778 7 13 20 3 4 7 5
1779 14 8 22 5 6 at 5
1780 8 9 17 II 4 15 3

198 188 386 | 123 123 246 83

During this period of twenty years the births of Males exceeded those
of Females .. 10.
The burials of each sex were equal.
And the births exceeded the deaths .. 140,

OF SELBORNE 15

themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making of
barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that
time for summer wear ; and chiefly manufactured at Alton,
a neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers :
but from circumstances this trade is at an end.t The
inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity :
and the parish swarms with children.

LETTER VI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

SHoutp I omit to describe with some exactness the forest
of Wolmer, of which three fifths perhaps lie in this parish,
my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a
district abounding with many curious productions, both
animal and vegetable ; and has often afforded me much
entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist.
The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about
seven miles in length, by two and a half in breadth, run-
ning nearly from North to South, and is abutted on, to
begin to the South, and so to proceed eastward, by the
parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the
county of Sussex ; by Bramshot, Hedleigh, and Kingsley.
This royalty consists entirely of sand covered with heath
and fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales,
without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In
the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs,
which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though
Dr. Plot says positively,? that “there never were any
fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties.”
But he was mistaken: for I myself have seen cottages on

1 Since the passage above was written, I am happy in being able to say
that the spinning employment is a little revived, to the no small comfort
of the industrious housewife.

2 See his Hist. of Staffordshire.

16 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a
black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners
assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the
soil with spits, or some such instruments: but the peat is
so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined,
that none has been found of late.1_ Besides the oak, I have
also been shown pieces of fossil-wood of a paler colour, and
softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but, upon a
nice examination, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing
resinous in them ; and therefore rather suppose that they
were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.

This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many
sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the
winter, but breed there in the summer ; such as lapwings,
snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have discovered within these
few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in
good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they
love to make excursions: and in particular, in the dry
summer of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they
swarmed to such a degree, that parties of unreasonable
sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a
day.

1 Old people have assured me, that on a winter’s morning they have
discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer
over the space where they were concealed, than on the surrounding
morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with
true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, “That the warmth of the earth, at
some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well
as the change of the weather from a freezing to a thawing state, is mani-
fest, from this observation, viz. Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having
fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, mostly melted
away on the surface of the earth, except in several places in Bushy-park,
where there were drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow
continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry ; as also
where elm-pipes lay under ground : a plain proof this, that those drains
intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths
below them : for the snow lay where the drain had more than four feet
depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the
tops of walls.” See Hales’s Haemastatics, p. 360. Quere, Might not
such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery
of old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and in Roman stations
and camps lead to the finding of pavements, baths and graves, and other
hidden relics of curious antiquity ?

OF SELBORNE 17

But there was a nobler species of game in this forest,
now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded
much before shooting flying became so common, and that
was the heath-cock, black game, or grouse. When I was
a little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my
father’s table. The last pack remembered was killed about
thirty-five years ago; and within these ten years one
solitary grey hen was sprung by some beagles in beating
for a hare. The sportsmen cried out, “A hen pheasant” ;
but a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse in the
north of England, assured me that it was a grey hen.

Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap
in the Fauna Selborniensis; for another beautiful link in
the chain of beings is wanting, I mean the red deer, which
toward the beginning of this century amounted to about
five hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There
is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great
grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635),
grandfather, father and self, enjoyed the head keepership
of Wolmer forest in succession for more than an hundred
years. ‘This person assures me, that his father has often
told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the
Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer
beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great
road at Lippock, which is just by, and reposing herself on
a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mile
to the east of Wolmer-pond, and still called Queen’s-bank,
saw with great complacency and satisfaction the whole herd
of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale before
her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight
this worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign! But
he further adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or,
to use his own expression, as soon as they began blacking,
they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued
decreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cumberland.
It is now more than thirty years ago that his highness sent
down an huntsman, and six yeomen-prickers, in scarlet
jackets laced with gold, attended by the stag-hounds ;

ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and
B

18 THE NATURAL HISTORY

convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the
summer they caught every stag, some of which showed
extraordinary diversion; but, in the following winter,
when the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were
exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk
and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the
yeomen-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must
confess that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever
beheld, superior to any thing in Mr. Astley’s riding-school.
The exertions made by the horse and deer much exceeded
all my expectations; though the former greatly excelled
the latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated
from his companions, they gave him, by their watches, law,
as they called it, for twenty minutes; when, sounding
their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a
most gallant scene ensued.

LETTER VII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

TuHoucu large herds of deer do much harm to the
neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people
is of more moment than the loss of their crops. The
temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen
by constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for
hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can
restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century,
all this country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless
he was a hunter, as they affected to call themselves, no
young person was allowed to be possessed of fmanhood or
gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length committed such
enormities, that government was forced to interfere with
that severe and sanguinary act called the black act,’ which
now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever

1Statute g Geo. I. c. 22.

OF SELBORNE 19

was framed before. And, therefore, a late bishop of
Winchester, when urged to re-stock Waltham Chase,"
refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that
“It had done mischief enough already.”

Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet: it
was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to
recount the exploits of their youth ; such as watching the
pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped,
paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its
escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed; the
shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a
turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and
the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner:
—Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was
deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a
lurcher, to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out
of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her feet
close together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and
broke it short in two.

Another temptation to idleness and sporting, was a
number of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry
places : but these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on
account of their burrows, when they came to take away the
deer, they permitted the country-people to destroy them all.

Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to
irregularities are removed, are of considerable service to
neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them
with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel for the
burning their lime; and with ashes for their grasses; and
by maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle
at little or no expense.

The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an
admitted claim, I see, (by an old record taken from the
Tower of London) of turning all live stock on the forest,
at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis.» The reason, I

1This chase remains unstocked to this day. The bishop was Dr.
Hoadly.

2For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king
annually seven bushels of oats,

20 THE NATURAL HISTORY

presume, why sheep’ are excluded, is, because, being such
close grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses,
and hinder the deer from thriving.

Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary c. 23.) “to
burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer,
any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable
with whipping and confinement in the house of correction”;
yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the
dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up,
that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the
hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the under-
woods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has
ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that, when the old
coat of heath, etc. is consumed, young will sprout up, and
afford much tender brouze for cattle; but, where there is
large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the
very ground; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to
be seen but smother and desolation, the whole circuit
round looking like the cinders of a volcano; and, the
soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to
be found for years. These conflagrations, as they take
place usually with a north-east or east wind, much annoy
this village with their smoke, and often alarm the country;
and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, who
lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got
on the downs between that town and Winchester, at
twenty-five miles distance, was surprised much with smoke
and a hot smell of fire; and concluded that Alresford was
in flames; but, when he came to that town, he then had
apprehensions for the next village, and so on to the end of
his journey.

On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this
forest, stand two arbours or bowers, made of the boughs
of oaks; the one called Waldon-lodge, the other Brimstone-
lodge: these the keepers renew annually on the feast of
St. Barnabas, taking the old materials for a perquisite.
The farm called Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to

1JIn the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till
lately, no sheep are admitted to this day.

Bean’s Pond

OF SELBORNE 21

find the posts and brush-wood for the former; while the
farms at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the latter; and
are all enjoined to cut and deliver the. materials at the
spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to
be of very remote antiquity.

LETTER VIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

On the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are
three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have
nothing particular to say; and one called Bin’s or Bean’s
pond, which is worthy the attention of a naturalist or a
sportsman. For, being crowded at the upper end with
willows, and with the carex cespitosa,! it affords such a safe
and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, etc. that
they breed there. In the winter this covert is also
frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants; and the
bogs produce many curious plants. [For which consult
letter XLI. to Mr. Barrington.]

By a perambulation of Wolmer forest and the Holt,
made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the First
(which now lies before me), it appears that the limits of
the former are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing
of the farther side, with which I am not so well acquainted,
the bounds on this side, in old times, came into Binswood ;
and extended to the ditch of Ward le ham-park, in which
stands the curious mount called King John’s Hill, and
Lodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called
Mauduit-hatch; comprehending also Short-heath, Oak-

1] mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the
foresters torrets; a corruption, I suppose, of turrets.

Note, In the beginning of the summer 1787 the royal forests of
Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent down by govern-
ment,

22 THE NATURAL HISTORY

hanger, and Oakwoods; a large district, now private
property, though once belonging to the royal domain.

It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once
mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains,
besides the perambulation, a rough estimate of the value of
the timbers, which were considerable, growing at that time
in the district of The Holt; and enumerates the officers,
superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time being,
and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In those days, as
at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer forest.

Within the present limits of the forest are three con-
siderable lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer ; all of
which are stocked with carp, tench, eels, and perch: but
the fish do not thrive well, because the water is hungry,
and the bottoms are a naked sand.

A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no
means peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence; and
that is, that instinct by which in summer all the kine,
whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to
the water during the hotter hours; where, being more
exempt from flies, and inhaling the coolness of that
element, some belly deep, and some only to mid-leg, they
ruminate and solace themselves from about ten in the
morning till four in the afternoon, and then return to their
feeding. During this great proportion of the day they
drop much dung, in which insects nestle ; and so supply
food for the fish, which would be poorly subsisted but
from this contingency. Thus Nature, who is a great
economist, converts the recreation of one animal to the
support of another! Thomson, who was a nice observer
of natural occurrences, did not let this pleasing circum-
stance escape him. He says, in his Summer,

“A various group the herds and flocks compose :
on the grassy bank

Some ruminating lie; while others stand

Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip

The circling surface,”

Wolmer-pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake,
is a vast lake for this part of the world, containing, in its

Wolmer Pond. “On the face of this expanse of waters, and pertectly secure
trom fowlers, fie all day lang, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals and

widgeons”

OF SELBORNE 23

whole circumference, 2646 yards, or very near a mile and
an half. The length of the north-west and opposite side
is about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end
about 456 yards. This measurement, which I caused to
be made with good exactness, gives an area of about sixty-
six acres, exclusive of a large irregular arm at the north-east
corner, which we did not take into the reckoning.

On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly
secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season,
vast flocks of ducks, teals, and wigeons, of various denom-
inations ; where they preen and solace, and rest themselves,
till towards sun-set, when they issue forth in little parties
(for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to
feed in the brooks and meadows; returning again with the
dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two more,
and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is
perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy.

Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor
the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque
groups of cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the
great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about
forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly
belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all
particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my
series of letters respecting the more remote history of this
village and district.

LETTER IX
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on
this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister
forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,’ as it is called in old

1«Ty Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest. in Scaccar. 36, Ed. 3. itiscalled Aisholt.”

In the same, “ Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet
unam capellam in Agia sud de Kingesle.” ‘“ Haia, sepes, sepimentum,
parcus: a Gall. haie and haye.” Spelman’s Glossary.

24 THE NATURAL HISTORY

records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of
ears.

: The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-
General Emanuel Scroope Howe, and his lady, Ruperta,
who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by Margaret
Hughs; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family,
who married a dowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson
Legge and lady; and now Lord Stawel, their son.

The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age,
long surviving her husband; and, at her death, left behind
her many curious pieces of mechanism of her father’s
constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic and
artist," as well as warrior; and, among the rest, a very
complicated clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the
celebrated game-painter at Farnham, in the county of
Surrey.

Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow
range of enclosures, yet no two soils can be more different:
for The Holt consists of a strong loam, of a miry nature,
carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow
to be large timber ; while Wolmer is nothing but a hungry,
sandy, barren wise.

The former, being all in the parish of Binsted, is about
two miles in extent from north to south, and near as much
from east to west, and contains within it many woodlands
and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees reside ;
and a smaller lodge, called Goose-green ; and is abutted on
by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and
Bentley; all of which have right of common.

One thing is remarkable; that, though The Holt has
been of old well-stocked with fallow-deer, unrestrained by
any pales or fences more than a common hedge, yet they
were never seen within the limits of Wolmer; nor were
the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the thickets
or glades of The Holt.

At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned and
reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually harass them
in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe

1This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto,

(, 918BM Uativg ‘pues “uguny W,4, “Sao awe MA

OF SELBORNE 25

penalties that have been put in force against them as often
as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash
of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonments can deter
them: so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sport-
ing, which seems to be inherent in human nature.

General Howe turned out some German wild boars and
sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbour-
hood; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo: but the
country rose upon them and destroyed them.

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one
thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz. 1784) in The
Holt forest; one fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the
grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop and
top: but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham,
Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them; and,
assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken it all
away. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home, for
his share, forty stacks of wood. Forty-five of these people
his lordship has served with actions. These trees, which
were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut,
viz. in February and March, before the bark would run.
In old times The Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles,
computed measure, from water-carriage, viz. from the
town of Chertsey, on the Thames; but now it is not half
that distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the
town of Godalming in the county of Surrey.

LETTER X
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

August 4, 1767.
{rv has been my misfortune never to have had any neigh-
bours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of
natural knowledge; so that, for want of a companion to
quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have

26 THE NATURAL HISTORY

made but slender progress in a kind of information to
which I have been attached from my childhood.

As to swallows (Airundines rusticae) being found in a
torpid state during the winter in the isle of Wight, or any
part of this country, I never heard any such account worth
attending to. But a clergyman, of an inquisitive turn,
assures me, that, when he was a great boy, some workmen,
in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in
the spring, found two or three swifts (Airundines apodes)
among the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, dead,
but, on being carried toward the fire, revived. He told
me that, out of his great care to preserve them, he put
them in a paper bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire,
where they were suffocated.

Another intelligent person has informed me that, while
he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great
fragment of the chalk-cliff fell down one stormy winter on
the beach ; and that many people found swallows among
the rubbish ; but, on my questioning him whether he saw
any of those birds himself; to my no small disappointment,
he answered me in the negative; but that others assured
him they did.

Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on
July the 11th, and young martins (Airundines urbicae) were
then fledged in their nests. Both species will breed again
once. For I see by my fauna of last year, that young
broods come forth so late as September the eighteenth.
Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than
migration? Nay, some young martins remained in their
nests last year so late as September the twenty-ninth; and
yet they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October.

How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live
exactly the same life with the swallow and house-martin,
should leave us before the middle of August invariably !
while the latter stay often till the middle of October ; and
once I saw numbers of house-martins on the seventh of
November. The martins and red-wing fieldfares were
flying in sight together; an uncommon assemblage of
summer and winter-birds.

OF SELBORNE 27

A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda
trivialis, or rather perhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still
continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of
tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which we have as
yet no name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the
fly-catcher. There is one circumstance characteristic of
this bird, which seems to have escaped observation, and
that is, that it takes its stand on the top of some stake or
post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a
fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the ground, but
returning still to the same stand for many times together.

I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla
trochilus: Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray’s Philos. Letters,
that he has discovered three. In these there is again an
instance of some very common birds that have as yet no
English name.

Mr. Stillingfleet makes a questicn whether the black-cap
(motacilla atricapilla) be a bird of passage or not: I think
there is no doubt of it: for, in April, in the very first fine
weather, they come trooping, all at once, into these parts,
but are never seen in the winter. They are delicate songsters.

Numbers of snipes breed every summer in some moory
ground on the verge of this parish. It is very amusing to
see the cock bird on wing at that time, and to hear his
piping and humming notes,

I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those
mice which I mentioned to you in town. ‘The person that
brought me the last says they are plenty in harvest, at
which time I will take care to get more ; and will endeavour
to put the matter out of doubt, whether it be a non-descript
species or not.

I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats.
Ray says, and Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-
footed behind. Now I have discovered a rat on the banks
of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an
excellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly to the
mus amphibius of Linnaeus (See Syst. Nat.) which he says
“<natat in fossis et urinatur.”’ I should be glad to procure
one “‘plantis palmatis.” Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle

28 THE NATURAL HISTORY

about his mus amphibius, and to doubt whether it differs
from his mus terrestris; which if it be, as he allows, the
““mus agrestis capite grandi brachyuros”’ of Ray, is widely
different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and
manner of life.

As to the falco, which I mentioned in town, I shall take
the liberty to send it down to you into Wales ; presuming
on your candour, that you will excuse me if it should
appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me. Though
mutilated “‘qualem dices . . . antehac fuisse, tales cum sint
reliquiae !””

It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild-
ducks and snipes : but, when it was shot, had just knocked
down a rook, which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot
make it answer to any of our English hawks; neither
could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed
birds in Spring-Gardens. I found it nailed up at the end
of a barn, which is the countryman’s museum.

The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country,
full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds.

LETTER XI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, September 9, 1767.

Ir will not be without impatience that I shall wait for
your thoughts with regard to the falco; as to its weight,
breadth, etc. I wish I had set them down at the time:
but, to the best of my remembrance, it weighed two
pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to
wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow,
and the circle of its eyelids a bright yellow. As it had
been killed some days, and the eyes were sunk, I could
make no good observation on the colour of the pupils and
the irides.

OF SELBORNE 29

The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts
were a pair of hoopoes (upupa) which came several years
ago in the summer, and frequented an ornamented piece
of ground, which joins to my garden, for some weeks.
They used to march about in a stately manner, feeding in
the walks, many times in the day; and seemed disposed to
breed in my outlet; but were frighted and persecuted by
idle boys, who would never let them be at rest.

Three gross-beaks (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some
years ago in my fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot:
since that, now and then one is occasionally seen in the
same dead season.

A cross-bill (doxia curvirostra) was killed last year in
this neighbourhood.

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end
of the village, yield nothing but the bull’s head or
miller’s thumb (gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (¢rutta
fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (lampaetra parva
et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back (pisciculus aculeatus).

We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many
from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds.
As to wild-fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in
the moors where the snipes breed; and multitudes of
widgeons and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes
in the forest.

Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I
find that it casts up the fur of mice, and the feathers of
birds in pellets, after the manner of hawks: when full,
like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.

The young of the barn-owl are not easily raised, as they
want a constant supply of fresh mice: whereas the young
of the brown owl will eat indiscriminately all that is
brought; snails, rats, kittens, puppies, magpies, and any
kind of carrion or offal.

The house-martins have eggs still, and squab-young.
The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of
August; it was a straggler.

Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non
cristati, still appear ; but I have seen no black-caps lately.

30 THE NATURAL HISTORY

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.

At present I know only two species of bats, the common
vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auritus.

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat,
which would take flies out of a person’s hand. If you
gave it any thing to eat, it brought its wings round before
the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of
birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed
in shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always
rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me much.
Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not
refuse raw flesh when offered: so that the notion that
bats go down chimnies and gnaw men’s bacon, seems no
improbable story. While I amused myself with this
wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times confute the
vulgar opinion, that bats when down on a flat surface
cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease
from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch
than I was aware of , but in a most ridiculous and grotesque
manner.

Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the
surface, as they play over pools and streams. They love
to frequent waters, not only for the sake of drinking, but
On account of insects, which are found over them in the
greatest plenty. As I was going, some years ago, pretty
late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm
summer’s evening, I think I saw myriads of bats between
the two places: the air swarmed with them all along the
Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time.

I am, etc.

OF SELBORNE 31

LETTER XII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

November 4, 1767.
Sir,

Ir gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco’
turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should
have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you
a bird that you had never seen before; but that, I find,
would be a difficult task.

I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my
former letters, a young one and a female with young, both
of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour,
shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but
that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller
and more slender than the mus domesticus medius of Ray;
and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour: their
belly is white; a straight line along their sides divides the
shades of their back and belly. They never enter into houses;
are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves ; abound
in harvest, and build their nests amidst the straws of the
corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They
breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest
composed of the blades of grass or wheat.

One of these nests I procured this autumn, most arti-
ficially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat;
perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball; with
the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no dis-
covering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and
well filled, that it would roll across the table without being
discomposed, though it contained eight little mice that were
naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly full, how
could the dam come at her litter respectively so as to
administer a teat to each? perhaps she opens different
places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the

1This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus ; a variety.

32 THE NATURAL HISTORY

business is over: but she could not possibly be contained
herself in the ball with her young, which moreover would
be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant
cradle, and elegant instance of the efforts of instinct,
was found in a wheat-field, suspended in the head of a
thistle.

A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his
servant had shot one last January, in that severe weather,
which he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it this
summer, not knowing what to expect: but, the moment I
took it in hand, I pronounced it the male garrulus bohemicus,
or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or
points which it carries at the ends of five of the short
remiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, be
called an English bird: and yet I see, by Ray’s Philosoph.
Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding upon haws,
appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685.

The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a
total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support
of many of the winged nation. For the same severe
weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the produce of
the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of
the more hardy and common.

Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feed-
ing on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to the
description of the merula torquata, or ring-ouzel, were
lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some
people to procure me a specimen, but without success.
See Letter VIII.

Query—Might not Canary birds be naturalized to this
climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into
the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, green-
finches, etc.? Before winter perhaps they might be
hardened, and able to shift for themselves.

About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly
at Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on
the Thames, near Hampton-court. In the autumn, I could
not help being much amused with those myriads of the
swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what

OF SELBORNE 33

struck me most was, that, from the time they began to
congregate, forsaking the chimnies and houses, they roosted
every night in the osier-beds of the aits of that river.
Now this resorting towards that element, at that season of
the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern
opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A
Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that
he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the
swallow’s going under water in the beginning of September,
as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before
sunset.

An observing gentleman in London writes me word that
he saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last October,
flying in and out of its nest in the Borough. And I myself,
on the twenty-ninth of last October (as I was travelling
through Oxford), saw four or five swallows hovering
round and settling on the roof of the county-hospital.

Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which
perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at
that late season of the year, and from so midland a county,
attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the
equator ??

I acquiesce entirely in your opinion—that, though most
of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay
behind and hide with us during the winter.

As to the short-winged soft-billed birds, which come
trooping in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even
what to suspect about them. I watched them narrowly
this year, and saw them abound till about Michaelmas,
when they appeared no longer. Subsist they cannot openly
among us, and yet elude the eyes of the inquisitive: and,
as to their hiding, no man pretends to have found any of
them in a torpid state in the winter. But with regard to
their migration, what difficulties attend that supposition !
that such feeble bad fliers (who the summer long never flit
but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast
seas and continents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst
the regions of Africa!

1 See Adanson’s Voyage to Senegal.
Cc

34 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Jan. 22, 1768.
Sir,
As in one of your former letters you expressed the more
satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my
living in the most southerly county; so now I may return
the compliment, and expect to have my curiosity gratified
by your living much more to the North.

For many years past I have observed that towards
Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the
fields; many more, I used to think, than could be hatched
in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to observe
them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed
to be almost all hens. I communicated my suspicions to
some intelligent neighbours, who, after taking pains about
the matter, declared that they also thought them all mostly
females; at least fifty to one. This extraordinary occur-
rence brought to my mind the remark of Linnaeus; that
“before winter, all their hen chaffinches migrate through
Holland into Italy.” Now I want to know, from some
curious person in the North, whether there are any large
flocks of these finches with them in the winter, and of
which sex they mostly consist? For, from such intelli-
gence, one might be able to judge whether our female
flocks migrate from the other end of the island, or
whether they come over to us from the continent.

We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common
linnets; more, I think, than can be bred in any one
district. These, I observe, when the spring advances,
assemble on some tree in the sunshine, and join all in a
gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break up
their winter quarters and betake themselves to their
proper summer homes. It is well known, at least,
that the swallows and the fieldfares do congregate with

OF SELBORNE 35

a gentle twittering before they make their respective
departure.

You may depend on it that the bunting, emberiza
miliaria, does not leave this country in the winter. In
January 1767 I saw several dozen of them, in the midst
of a severe frost, among the bushes on the downs near
Andover: in our woodland enclosed district it is a
rare bird.

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 wheat-
ear, (aenanthe) does not quit England, it certainly shifts
places; for about harvest they are not to be found, where
there was before great plenty of them.” This well
accounts for the vast quantities that are caught about that
time on the south downs near Lewes, where they are
esteemed a delicacy. There have been shepherds, I have
been credibly informed, that have made many pounds in a
season by catching them in traps. And though such multi-
tudes are taken, I never saw (and I am well acquainted with
those parts) above two or three at a time: for they are
never gregarious. They may, perhaps, migrate in general ;
and, for that purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex in
autumn; but that they do not all withdraw I am sure ;
because I see a few stragglers in many counties, at all
times of the year, especially about warrens and stone
quarries.

I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen
of the navy: but have written to a friend, who was a sea-
chaplain in the late war, desiring him to look into his
minutes, with respect to birds that settled on their rigging
during their voyage up or down the channel. What
Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable: there were
little short-winged birds frequently coming on board his
ship all the way from our channel quite up to the Levant,
especially before squally weather.

What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly
probable. The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that,

36 THE NATURAL HISTORY

in all likelihood, the soft-billed birds that leave us that
season may find insects sufficient to support them there.

Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and
leisure, should make an autumnal voyage into that king-
dom; and should spend a year there, investigating the
natural history of that vast country. Mr. Willughby?
passed through that kingdom on such an errand; but he
seems to have skirted along in a superficial manner and an
ill humour, being much disgusted at the rude dissolute
manners of the people.

I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about
the swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames: nor can
{ hear any more about those birds which I suspected were
merulae torquatae.

As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though
they hang their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of
the standing corn, above the ground; yet I find that, in
the winter they burrow deep in the earth, and make warm
beds of grass: but their grand rendezvous seems to be in
corn-ricks, into which they are carried at harvest. A
neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of
which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were
taken; andsome Isaw. I measured them; and found that,
from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter,
and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a
scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is
about the third of an ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose
they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-
grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce,
lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as
the mouse above; and measures from nose to rump four
inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail.

We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this
month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees
and an half below the freezing point, within doors. The
tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very
providential that the air was still, and the ground well
covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have

1See Ray’s Travels, p. 466,

OF SELBORNE 37

suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that
some days were more severe than any since the year
1739-40.

I am, etc. etc.

LETTER XIV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, March 12, 1768.
Dear Sir,

Ir some curious gentleman would procure the head of a
fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished
with two spiracula, or breathing-places, beside the nostrils ;
probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the human
head. When deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like
some horses, very deep under water, while in the act of
drinking, and continue them in that situation for a consider-
able time: but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can
open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having
a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an
extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention ;
and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any
naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be
suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were
stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of
singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free
respiration: and no doubt these additional nostrils are
thrown open when they are hard run." Mr. Ray observed
that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses

1In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following
curious and pertinent reply :—“I was much surprised to find in the
antelope something analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in
deer. This animal has a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened
and shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one, the creature made

as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit,
and seeming to smell it through them.”

38 THE NATURAL HISTORY

as were hard worked: for they, being naturally strait or
small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when the
travelled or laboured in that hot climate. And we know
that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils
necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.

Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to
have had some notion that stags have four spiracula :

“ Terpddupoe pives, wiovpes mvougos Siavdor.”
“ Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales.”
Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say
that goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the
contrary :—“ AAKmatcoy yap ov« adyO7 Aéyet, papevos avarveiy
Tas aiyas kata ta ota.” ‘ Alemaeon does not advance
what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through
their ears.” —History of Animals. Book I. chap. xi.

LETTER XV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, March 30, 1768.
Dear Sir,

Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have,
in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the
weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not
much bigger than a field mouse, but much longer, which
they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be little
depended on ; but farther inquiry may be made.

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milkwhite
rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them
before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed
them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been
glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I
saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and

OF SELBORNE 39

was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws
were milkwhite.

A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a
down above my house this winter: were not these the
emberiza nivalis, the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool.? No
doubt they were.

A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which
had been caught in the fields after it had come to its full
colours. In about a year it began to look dingy ; and,
blackening every succeeding year, it became coal-black at
the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed. Such
influence has food on the colour of animals! The pied
and mottled colours of domesticated animals are supposed
to be owing to high, various, and unusual food.

I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-
pint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks
of hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After
observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting others
to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that
searched it out. The root of the arum is remarkably
warm and pungent.

Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken
us. The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned
down by that fierce weather in January.

In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges,
a little bird that raised my curiosity: it was of that yellow-
green colour that belongs to the sa/caria kind, and, I think,
was soft-billed. It was no parus; and was too long and
too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like
the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back
downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same
place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed
my aim.

I wonder that the stone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus,
should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird: it
abounds in all the campaign parts of Hampshire and
Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer, having young
ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they
begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think,

40 THE NATURAL HISTORY

with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray,
“ circa aguas versantes”’; for with us, by day at least, they
haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep
walks, far removed from water. What they may do in the
night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they
also eat toads and frogs.

I can show you some good specimens of my new mice.
Linnaeus, perhaps, would call the species mus minimus.

LETTER XVI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, April 18, 1768.
Dear Sir,

Tue history of the stone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus, is
as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than
three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field ;
so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys
them. The young run immediately from the egg like
partridges, etc. and are withdrawn to some flinty field by
the dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are
their best security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the
colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact
observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may
be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty
white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I might
not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet
I could show you them almost any day ; and any evening
you may hear them round the village, for they make a
clamour which may be heard a mile. Ocdicnemus is a most
apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem
swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I have
shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields.

I make no doubt but there are three species of the
willow-wrens: two I know perfectly; but have not been

OF SELBORNE 41

able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ
more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two
that I am acquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy,
laughing note ; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former
is every way larger, and three quarters of an inch longer,
and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs
but two: so the songster is one fifth heavier than the
chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of
passage that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted)
begins his two notes in the middle of March, and continues
them through the spring and summer till the end of
August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the larger
of these two are flesh-coloured ; of the less, black.

The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields
last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the
whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by
though at an hundred yards distance; and, when close at
your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off.
Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known
that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have
hardly believed but that it had been a /ocusta whispering in
the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell
them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful
creature, sculking in the thickest part of a bush; and will
sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was
obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the
hedge where it haunted; and then it would run, creeping
like a mouse, before us for a hundred yards together,
through the bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come
into fair sight: but in a morning early, and when undis-
turbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering
with its wings. Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of
this bird, but received his account from Mr. Johnson, who
apparently confounds it with the reguli non cristati, from
which it is very distinct. See Ray’s Philosophical Letters,
p. 108.

The fly-catcher (stoparola) has not yet appeared: it
usually breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing :
its note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about

42 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the middle of June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort)
are horrid pests in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries,
currants, etc. ; and are so tame that a gun will not scare
them.

A List of the Summer Birds of Passage discovered in this
neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the Order in which
they appear:

Linnaei Nomina.

Smallest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus :
Wryneck, Fynx torquilla :
House-swallow, Hirundo rustica:
Martin, Hirundo urbica:
Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia:
Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus :
Nightingale, Motacilla luscinia :
Blackcap, Motacilla atricapilla :
Whitethroat, Motacilla sylvia:
Middle willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus :
Swift, Hirundo apus:

Stone curlew,? Charadrius oedicnemus ?
Turtle-dove, ? Turtur aldrovandi ?
Grasshopper-lark, Alauda trivialis :
Landrail, Rallus crex :

Largest willow-wren, Motacilla trochilus :
Redstart, Motacilla phaenicurus ¢
Goatsucker, or fern-owl, Caprimulgus europaeus :
Fly-catcher, Muscicapa grisola :

My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter
with its bill against a dead bough, or some old pales, calling
it a jar-bird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact ;
it proved to be the sitfa europaea (the nuthatch). Mr. Ray
says that the less spotted woodpecker does the same. This
noise may be heard a furlong or more.

Now is the only time to ascertain the short-winged
summer birds; for, when the leaf is out, there is no
making any remarks on such a restless tribe; and, when
once the young begin to appear, it is all confusion: there
is no distinction of genus, species, or sex.

In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and
humming: they always hum as they are descending. Is
not their hum ventriloquous like that of the turkey ?
Some suspect it is made by their wings.

OF SELBORNE 43

This morning I saw the golden-crowned wren, whose
crown glitters like burnished gold. It often hangs like a
titmouse, with its back downwards.

Yours, etc. etc.

LETTER XVII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, June 18, 1768.
Dear Sir,
On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June
the 1oth. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you
pursue these studies still with such vigour, and are in such
forwardness with regard to reptiles and fishes.

The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with,
so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural
history. There is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity
attending the propagation of this class of animals, some-
thing analogous to that of the cryptogamia in the sexual
system of plants: and the case is the same as regards some
of the fishes: as the eel, etc.

The method in which toads procreate and bring forth
seems to be very much in the dark. Some authors say
that they are viviparous: and yet Ray classes them among
his oviparous animals ; and is silent with regard to the
manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps they may be
éow wey wordxot, &w dé Cwordxot, as is known to be the case
with the viper.

The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it;
for Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans)
is notorious to every body: because we see them sticking
upon each other’s backs for a month together in the spring :
and yet I never saw, or read, of toads being observed in
the same situation. It is strange that the matter with
regard to the venom of toads has not yet been settled.

44 THE NATURAL HISTORY

That they are not noxious to some animals is plain: for
ducks, buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat them,
to my knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember
the time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though
numbers of persons were) when a quack, at this village, ate
a toad to make the country-people stare ; afterwards he
drank oil.

_I have been informed also, from undoubted authority,
that some ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took
a fancy to a toad, which they nourished summer after
summer, for many years, till he grew to a monstrous size,
with the maggots which turn to flesh flies. The reptile
used to come forth every evening from an hole under the
garden-steps; and was taken up, after supper, on the table
to be fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he
put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke with his
horny beak as put out one eye. After this accident the
creature languished for some time and died.

I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading
of the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in
Ray’s Wisdom of God in the Creation (p. 365) concerning
the migration of frogs from their breeding ponds. In this
account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their
dropping from the clouds in rain; showing that it is from
the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that
they are tempted to set out on their travels, which they
defer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole
state; but in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will
swarm for a few days with myriads of these emigrants, no
larger than my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a
most accurate account of the method and situation in which
the male impregnates the spawn of the female. How
wonderful is the oeconomy of Providence with regard to the
limbs of so vile a reptile! While it is aquatic it has a fish-
like tail, and no legs: as soon as the legs sprout, the tail
drops off as useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land!

Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances
that the rana arborea is an English reptile; it abounds in
Germany and Switzerland.

OF SELBORNE 45

It is to be remembered that the salamandra aquatica of
Ray (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the
angler’s bait, and is often caught on his hook. I used to
take it for granted that the salamandra aquatica was
hatched, lived, and died in the water. But John Ellis,
Esq., F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis) asserts, in a letter to the
Royal Society, dated June the sth, 1766, in his account of
the mud inguana, an amphibious dipes from South Carolina,
that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the land-
eft, as tadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected
to misunderstand his meaning, I shall give it in his own
words. Speaking of the opercula or covering to the gills
of the mud inguana, he proceeds to say that “The forms
of these pennated coverings approach very near to what I
have some time ago observed in the larva or aquatic state
of our English /acerta, known by the name of eft, or newt;
which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for fins
to swim with while in this state; and which they lose, as
well as the fins of their tails, when they change their state,
and become land animals, as I have observed, by keeping
them alive for some time myself.”

Linnaeus, in his Systema Naturae, hints at what Mr.
Ellis advances more than once.

Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of
but one venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these
kingdoms, and that is the viper. As you propose the
good of mankind to be an object of your publications, you
will not omit to mention common salad-oil as a sovereign
remedy against the bite of the viper. As to the blind
worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in sunder
with a small blow), I have found, on examination, that it is
perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I
am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a
female viper about the twenty-seventh of May: he found
her filled with a chain of eleven eggs, about the size of
those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so
far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments
of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they are
viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies,

46 THE NATURAL HISTORY

and then bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains
of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all
that my people can do to prevent them; which eggs do
not hatch till the spring following, as I have often expe-
rienced. Several intelligent folks assure me that they have
seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless
young down her throat on sudden surprises, just as the
female opossum does her brood into the pouch under her
belly, upon the like emergencies; and yet the London
viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that no such
thing ever happens. The serpent kind eat, I believe, but
once in a year; or, rather, but only just at one season of
the year. Country people talk much of a water-snake,
but, I am pretty sure, without any reason; for the common
snake (coluber natrix) delights much to sport in the water,
perhaps with a view to procure frogs and other food.

I cannot well guess how you are to make out your
twelve species of reptiles, unless it be by the various
species, or rather varieties, of our /acerti, of which Ray
enumerates five. I have not had an opportunity of
ascertaining these; but remember well to have seen,
formerly, several beautiful green Jacerti on the sunny
sandbanks near Farnham, in Surrey; and Ray admits
there are such in Ireland.

LETTER XVIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, July 27, 1768.
Dear Sir,
I recervep your obliging and communicative letter of
June the 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman’s
house, where I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure to
sit down, to return you an answer to many queries, which
I wanted to resolve in the best manner that I am able.

OF SELBORNE 47

A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but
could find no such fish as the gasterosteus pungitius: he
found the gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This morning,
in a basket, I packed a little earthen pot full of wet moss,
and in it some sticklebacks, male and female; the females
big with spawn: some lamperns; some bulls heads; but
I could procure no minnows. This basket will be in
Fleet-street by eight this evening ; so I hope Mazel will
have them fresh and fair to-morrow morning. I gave
some directions, in a letter, to what particulars the en-
graver should be attentive.

Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a
reasonable distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over
to that town, and procured several living specimens of
loaches, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a glass
decanter. They were taken in the gullies that were cut
for watering the meadows. From these fishes (which
measured from two to four inches in length) I took the
following description: ‘“‘ The loach, in its general aspect,
has a pellucid appearance: its back is mottled with irregular
collections of small black dots, not reaching much below
the /inea laterals, as are the back and tail fins: a black line
runs from each eye down to the nose; its belly is of a
silvery white ; the upper jaw projects beyond the lower,
and is surrounded with six feelers, three on each side ; its
pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller; the fin
behind its anus small ; its dorsal fin large, containing eight
spines ; its tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably
broad, without any taperness, so as to be characteristic of
this genus: the tail-fin is broad, and square at the end.
From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail, it
appears to be an active nimble fish.”

In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and
did not forget to make some inquiries concerning the
wonderful method of curing cancers by means of toads.
Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do, I
find, give a great deal of credit to what was asserted in the
papers: and I myself dined with a clergyman who seemed
to be persuaded that what is related is matter of fact; but,

48 THE NATURAL HISTORY

when I came to attend to his account, I thought I discerned
circumstances which did not a little invalidate the woman’s
story of the manner in which she came by her skill. She
says of herself ‘that, labouring under a virulent cancer, she
went to some church where there was a vast crowd: on
going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergyman ;
who, after expressing compassion for her situation, told her
that if she would make such an application of living toads
as is mentioned she would be well.” Now is it likely that
this unknown gentleman should express so much tender-
ness for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the many
thousands that daily languish under this terrible disorder ?
Would he not have made use of this invaluable nostrum
for his own emolument ; or, at least, by some means of
publication or other, have found a method of making it
public for the good of mankind? In short, this woman
(as it appears to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress,
finds it expedient to amuse the country with this dark and
mysterious relation.

The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least
appearance of any gills; for want of which it is continually
rising to the surface of the water to take in fresh air. I
opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found it full of spawn.
Not that this circumstance at all invalidates the assertion
that they are larvae: for the larvae of insects are full of
eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last
state. The water-eft is continually climbing over the brims
of the vessel, within which we keep it in water, and wander-
ing away: and people every summer see numbers crawling
out of the pools where they are hatched, up the dry banks.
There are varieties of them, differing in colour ; and some
have fins up their tail and back, and some have not.

OF SELBORNE 49

LETTER XIX
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Aug. 17, 1768.
Dear Sir,

I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species
of the willow-wrens (motacillae trochili) which constantly
and invariably use distinct notes. But, at the same time,
I am obliged to confess that I know nothing of your
willow-lark.’. In my letter of April the 18th, I told you
peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not
seen it then: but, when I came to procure it, it proved, in
all respects, a very motacilla trochilus ; only that it is a size
larger than the two other, and the yellow-green of the
whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the belly
of a clearer white. I have specimens of the three sorts
now lying before me ; and can discern that there are three
gradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and
the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is
considerably the largest, and has its quill-feathers and
secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others
have not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in high
beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper-like noise,
now and then, at short intervals, shivering a little with its
wings when it sings; and is, I make no doubt now, the
regulus non cristatus of Ray, which he says “‘cantat voce
stridulé locustae.” Yet this great ornithologist never sus-
pected that there were three species.

1Brit, Zool. edit. 1776, octavo, p. 381.

50 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XX
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, October 8, 1768.

Ir is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany: all nature is so
full, that that district produces the greatest variety which
is the most examined. Several birds, which are said to
belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in the south.
I have discovered this summer three species of birds with
us, which writers mention as only to be seen in the northern
counties. The first that was brought me (on the 14th of
May) was the sandpiper, tringa hypoleucus : it was a cock
bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds near the village ;
and, as it had a companion, doubtless intended to have bred
near that water. Besides, the owner has told me since, that,
on recollection, he has seen some of the same birds round
his ponds in former summers.

The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was
a male red-backed butcher bird, J/anius collurio. My
neighbour, who shot it, says that it might easily have
escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chattering of
the white-throats and other small birds drawn his attention
to the bush where it was: its craw was filled with the legs
and wings of beetles.

The next rare birds (which were procured for me last
week) were some ring-ousels, /urdi torquati.

This week twelve months a gentleman from London,
being with us, was amusing himself with a gun, and found,
he told us, on an old yew hedge where there were berries,
some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round their
necks: a neighbouring farmer also at the same time
observed the same; but, as no specimens were procured,
little notice was taken. I mentioned this circumstance
to you in my letter of November the 4th, 1767: (you,
however, paid but small regard to what I said, as I had
not seen these birds myself :) but last week the aforesaid

OF SELBORNE 51

farmer, seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty of these
birds, shot two cocks and two hens: and says, on recollec-
tion, that he remembers to have observed these birds again
last spring, about Lady-day, as it were, on their return to
the north. Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of
the north of England, but belong to the more northern
parts of Europe ; and may retire before the excessive rigor
of the frosts in those parts; and return to breed in the
spring, when the cold abates. If this be the case, here is
discovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose
migrations the writers are silent: but if these birds should
prove the ousels of the north of England, then here is a
migration disclosed within our own kingdom never before
remarked. It does not yet appear whether they retire
beyond the bounds of our island to the south; but it is
most probable that they usually do, or else one cannot
suppose that they would have continued so long unnoticed
in the southern counties. The ousel is larger than a black-
bird, and feeds on haws; but last autumn (when there
were no haws) it fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feeds
on ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March
and April.

I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately
on the study of reptiles) that my people, every now and
then of late, draw up with a bucket of water from my well,
which is 63 feet deep, a large black warty lizard with a
fin-tail and yellow belly. How they first came down at
that depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence
without help, is more than I am able to say.

My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in
the examination of a buck’s head. As far as your dis-
coveries reach at present, they seem much to corroborate
my suspicions ; and I hope Mr. may find reason to
give his decision in my favour ; and then, I think, we may
advance this extraordinary provision of nature as a new
instance of the wisdom of God in the creation.

As yet I have not quite done with my history of the
oedicnemus, or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman
in Sussex (near whose house these birds congregate in vast

52 THE NATURAL HISTORY

flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely when they leave
him, (if they do leave him) and when they return again in
the spring: I was with this gentleman lately, and saw
several single birds.

LETTER XXI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Nov. 28, 1768.

Dear Sir,
Wirth regard to the cedicnemus, or stone-curlew, I intend
to write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose
neighbourhood these birds seem most to abound; and shall
urge him to take particular notice when they begin to con-
gregate, and afterwards to watch them most narrowly
whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead
of the winter. When I have obtained information with
respect to this circumstance, I shall have finished my
history of the stone-curlew ; which I hope will prove to
your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the truth.
This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own,
and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy
upon the motions of these birds: and besides, as I have
prevailed on him to buy the Naturalist’s Journal (with
which he is much delighted), J shall expect that he will be
very exact in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as you
observe, that a bird so common with us should never
straggle to you.

And here will be the properest place to mention, while
I think of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned
gentleman told me when I was last at his house ; which
was that, in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws
(corvi monedulae) build every year in the rabbit-burrows
under ground. The way he and his brothers used to take
their nests, while they were boys, was by listening at the

OF SELBORNE 53

mouths of the holes; and, if they heard the young ones
cry, they twisted the nest out with a forked stick. Some
water-fowls (viz. the puffins) breed, I know, in that
manner ; but I should never have suspected the daws of
building in holes on the flat ground.

Another very unlikely spot is made use of by daws as a
place to breed in, and that is Stonehenge. These birds
deposit their nests in the interstices between the upright
and the impost stones of that amazing work of antiquity :
which circumstance alone speaks the prodigious height of
the upright stones, that they should be tall enough to
secure those nests from the annoyance of shepherd-boys,
who are always idling round that place.

One of my neighbours last Saturday, November the
26th, saw a martin in a sheltered bottom: the sun shone
warm, and the bird was hawking briskly after flies. I am
now perfectly satisfied that they do not all leave this island
in the winter.

You judge very right, I think, in speaking with reserve
and caution concerning the cures done by toads: for, let
people advance what they will on such subjects, yet there
is such a propensity in mankind towards deceiving and
being deceived, that one cannot safely relate any thing
from common report, especially in print, without express-
ing some degree of doubt and suspicion.

Your approbation, with regard to my new discovery of
the migration of the ring-ousel, gives me satisfaction; and
I find you concur with me in suspecting that they are
foreign birds which visit us. You will be sure, I hope, not
to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave
your rocks in the autumn. What puzzles me most, is the
very short stay they make with us; for in ahout three
weeks they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark
whether they will call on us at their return in the spring,
as they did last year.

I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology.
If fortune had settled me near the sea-side, or near some
great river, my natural propensity would soon have urged
me to have made myself acquainted with their productions:

54 THE NATURAL HISTORY

but as I have lived mostly in inland parts, and in an upland
district, my knowledge of fishes extends little farther than
to those common sorts which our brooks and lakes produce.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Jan. 2, 1769.
Dear Sir,

As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under
the ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon
the reason; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or
steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolk ex-
cepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished
with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom. We
have many livings of two or three hundred pounds a year,
whose houses of worship make little better appearance
than dovecots. When I first saw Northamptonshire,
Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of
Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number of spires which
presented themselves in every point of view. As an
admirer of prospects, I have reason to lament this want in
my own country; for such objects are very necessary
ingredients in an elegant landscape.

What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads
raises my curiosity. An ancient author, though no
naturalist, has well remarked that “‘ Every kind of beasts,
and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is
tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind.’”?

It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has
actually been procured for you in Devonshire; because it
corroborates my discovery, which I made many years ago,
of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank near Farnham, in

1 James, chap, iil. 7.

OF SELBORNE 55

Surrey. I am well acquainted with the south hams of
Devonshire; and can suppose that district, from its
southerly situation, to be a proper habitation for such
animals in their best colours.

Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly
not forsake them against winter, our suspicions that those
which visit this neighbourhood about Michaelmas are not
English birds, but driven from the more northern parts of
Europe by the frosts, are still more reasonable: and it will
be worth your pains to endeavour to trace from whence
they come, and to inquire why they make so very short
a stay.

In your account of your error with regard to the two
species of herons, you incidentally gave me great entertain-
ment in your description of the heronry at Cressi-hall ;
which is a curiosity I never could manage to see. Four-
score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which |
would ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray be
sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi-hall is, and
near what town it lies.’ I have often thought that those
vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently explored.
If half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength
of water-spaniels, were to beat them over for a week, they
would certainly find more species.

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied
more than that of the caprimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it
is a wonderful and curious creature: but I have always
found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I
know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note
sitting on a bough; and I have for many an half hour
watched it as it sat with its under mandible quivering, and
particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare
twig, with its head lower than its tail, in an attitude well
expressed by your draughtsman in the folio British
Zoology. This bird is most punctual in beginning its
song exactly at the close of day; so exactly that I have
known it strike up more than once or twice just at the
report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear

1 Cressi-hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire.

56 THE NATURAL HISTORY

when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt
that its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers
of the parts of its windpipe, formed for sound, just as cats
pur. You will credit me, I hope, when I tell you that, as
my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the side
of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these churn-owls
came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice and
began to chatter, and continued his note for many minutes:
and we were all struck with wonder to find that the organs
of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible
vibration to the whole building! This bird also sometimes
makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times; and I
have observed that to happen when the cock has been
pursuing the hen in a toying way through the boughs of
a tree.

It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you
have procured, should prove a new one, since five species
have been found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great
sort that I mentioned is certainly a non-descript: I saw
but one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of
taking.

Your account of the Indian-grass was entertaining. I
am no angler myself; but inquiring of those that are, what
they supposed that part of their tackle to be made of ?
they replied “ of the intestines of a silkworm.”

Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology,
yet I cannot say that I am ignorant of that kind of know-
ledge: I may now and then, perhaps, be able to furnish
you with a little information.

The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time
as with you, and since we have had delicate weather. Mr.
Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty
years, says, in a late letter, that more has fallen this year
than in any he ever attended to; though, from July 1763
to January 1764, more fell than in any seven months of
this year.

OF SELBORNE 57

LETTER XXIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, February 28, 1769.

Dear Sr,
Ir is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our
green lizards may be specifically the same; all that I know
is, that, when some years ago many Guernsey lizards were
turned loose in Pembroke college garden, in the university
of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy
themselves very well, but never bred. Whether this
circumstance will prove any thing either way I shall not
pretend to say.

I return you thanks for your account of Cressi-hall ;
but recollect, not without regret, that in June 1746 I was
visiting for a week together at Spalding, without ever being
told that such a curiosity was just at hand. Pray send me
word in your next what sort of tree it is that contains such
a quantity of herons’ nests; and whether the heronry con-
sists of a whole grove or wood, or only of a few trees.

It gave me satisfaction to find that we accorded so well
about the caprimulgus: all I contended for was to prove
that it often chatters sitting as well as flying; and therefore
the noise was voluntary, and from organic impulse, and not
from the resistance of the air against the hollow of its
mouth and throat.

If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last
Michaelmas-day. I was travelling, and out early in the
morning: at first there was a vast fog; but, by the time
that I was got seven or eight miles from home towards the
coast, the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. We
were then on a large heath or common, and I could dis-
cern, as the mist began to break away, great numbers of
swallows (hirundines rusticae) clustering on the stunted
shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there all night.
As soon as the air became clear and pleasant they all were

58 THE NATURAL HISTORY

on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight, pro-
ceeded on southward towards the sea: after this I did not
see any more flocks, only now and then a straggler.

I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the
swallow kind disappear some and some gradually, as they
come, for the bulk of them seem to withdraw at once:
only some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do
never, there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this
island. Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come
forth in a warm day, as bats do continually of a warm
evening, after they have disappeared for weeks. _ For a
very respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was
walking with some friends under Merton-wall on a
remarkably hot noon, either in the last week in December
or the first week in January, he espied three or four
swallows huddled together on the moulding of one of the
windows of that college. I have frequently remarked that
swallows are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere: is it
owing to the vast massy buildings of that place, to the
many waters round it, or to what else ?

When I used to rise in a morning last autumn, and see
the swallows and martins clustering on the chimneys and
thatch of the neighbouring cottages, I could not help being
touched with a secret delight, mixed with some degree of
mortification: with delight to observe with how much
ardour and punctuality those poor little birds obeyed the
strong impulse towards migration, or hiding, imprinted on
their minds by their great Creator ; and with some degree
of mortification, when I reflected that, after all our pains
and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions
they do migrate ; and are still farther embarrassed to find
that some do not actually migrate at all.

These reflections made so strong an impression on my
imagination, that they became productive of a composition
that may perhaps amuse you for a quarter of an hour when
next I have the honour of writing to you.

“The Swallows and Martins clustering on the chimneys of the neighbouring cottages ””

OF SELBORNE 59

LETTER XXIV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, May 29, 1769.
Dear 5ir, a
Tue scarabaeus fullo 1 know very well, having seen it in
collections; but have never been able to discover one wild
in its natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought it
might be found on the sea-coast.

On the thirteenth of April I went to the sheep-down,
where the ring-ousels have been observed to make their
appearance at spring and fall, in their way perhaps to the
north or south ; and was much pleased to see three birds
about the usual spot. We shot a cock and a hen; they
were plump and in high condition. The hen had but very
small rudiments of eggs within her, which proves they are
late breeders ; whereas those species of the thrush kind that
remain with us the whole year have fledged young before
that time. In their crops was nothing very distinguishable,
but somewhat that seemed like blades of vegetables nearly
digested. In autumn they feed on haws and yew-berries,
and in the spring on ivy-berries. I dressed one of these
birds, and found it juicy and well-flavoured. It is re-
markable that they make but a few days’ stay in their
spring visit, but rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas.
These birds, from the observations of three springs and two
autumns, are most punctual in their return ; and exhibit
a new migration unnoticed by the writers, who supposed
they never were to be seen in any of the southern counties.

One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicaria,
which at first I suspected might have proved your willow-
lark,} but, on a nicer examination, it answered much better
to the description of that species which you shot at Revesby,
in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus: “It is a size
less than the grasshopper-lark; the head, back, and coverts

1 For this sa/icaria see letter August 30, 1769.

60 THE NATURAL HISTORY

of the wings of a dusky brown, without those dark spots
of the grasshopper-lark; over each eye is a milk-white
stroke ; the chin and throat are white, and the under parts
of a yellowish white; the rump is tawny, and the feathers
of the tail sharp-pointed ; the bill is dusky and sharp, and
the legs are dusky; the hinder claw long and crooked.”
The person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed-
sparrow that he took it for one; and that it sings all night:
but this account merits farther inquiry. For my part, I
suspect it is a second sort of J/ocustella, hinted at by Dr.
Derham, in Ray’s Letters: see p. 108. He also procured
me a grasshopper-lark.

The question that you put with regard to those genera
of animals that are peculiar to America, viz. how they came
there, and whence ? is too puzzling for me to answer; and
yet so obvious as often to have struck me with wonder.
If one looks into the writers on that subject little satisfac-
tion is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance
plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall
choose to maintain; but then the misfortune is, every one’s
hypothesis is each as good as another’s, since they are all
founded on conjecture. The late writers of this sort, in
whom may be seen all the arguments of those that have

one before, as I remember, stock America from the western
coast of Africa and the south of Europe; and then break
down the Isthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But
this is making use of a violent piece of machinery: it is a
difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god! “/ucredulus
odi.””

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.
THE NATURALIST’S SUMMER-EVENING WALK.

equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium. Virc. Gora.

Wuen day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the may-fly! haunts the pool or stream ;

1The angler’s may-fly, the ephemera vulgata Linn. comes forth from
its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in the evening,

OF SELBORNE 61

When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,

What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ;

Then be the time to steal adown the vale,

And listen to the vagrant’ cuckoo’s tale ;

To hear the clamorous? curlew call his mate,

Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ;

To see the swallow sweep the dark’ning plain

Belated, to support her infant train ;

To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring

Dash round the steeple, unsubdu’d of wing :

Amusive birds !—say where your hid retreat

When the frost rages and the tempests beat ;

Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,

When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?

Such baffled searches mock man’s prying pride,

The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide!
While deep’ning shades obscure the face of day

To yonder bench, leaf-shelter’d, let us stray,

Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,

And all the fading landscape sinks in night ;

To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by

With buzzing wing, or the shrill® cricket cry ;

To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ;

To catch the distant falling of the flood ;

While o’er the cliff th’ awakened churn-owl hung

Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song ;

While high in air, and pois’d upon his wings,

Unseen, the soft enamour’d woodlark* sings:

These, NATURE’S works, the curious mind employ,

and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly state in
about five or six hours. "They usually begin to appear about the 4th of
June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See Swammer-
dam, Derham, Scopoli, etc.

1 Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no incubation
or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wanders without con-
trol.

2 Charadrius Oedicnemus.

8 Gryllus campestris.

4In hot summer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, and hang
singing in the air.

62 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Inspire a soothing melancholy joy :
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o’er the cheek, and thrills the -reeping vein!
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine ;
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall: away, retire ;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire!?
Thus, ere night’s veil had half obscured the sky,
Th’ impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
True to the signal, by love’s meteor led,
Leander hasten’d to his Hero’s bed.?
I am, etc.

LETTER XXV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769.
Dear Sir,
Ir gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the
ousel migration pleases you. You put a very shrewd
question when you ask me how I know that their autumnal
migration is southward? Was not candour and openness
the very life of natural history, I should pass over this
query just as a sly commentator does over a crabbed
passage in a classic; but common ingenuousness obliges
me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I
only reasoned in that case from analogy. For as all other
autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to par-
take of our milder winters, and return to the northward
again when the rigorous cold abates, so I concluded that

1 The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up the stalk
of a grass to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the male, which
is a slender dusky scarabaeus.

2 See the story of Hero and Leander.

OF SELBORNE 63

the ring-ousels did the same, as well as their congeners the
fieldfares ; and especially as ring-ousels are known to haunt
cold mountainous countries: but I have good reason to
suspect since that they may come to us from the westward ;
because I hear, from very good authority, that they breed
on Dartmore; and that they forsake that wild district
about the time that our visitors appear, and do not return
till late in the spring.

I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria
and mine, with a white stroke over its eye, and a tawny
rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and have pro-
cured several specimens; and am perfectly persuaded
myself (and trust you will soon be convinced of the same)
that it is no more nor less than the passer arundinaceus minor
of Ray. This bird, by some means or other, seems to be
entirely omitted in the British Zoology; and one reason
probably was because it is so strangely classed in Ray, who
ranges it among his picis affines. It ought no doubt to
have gone among his aviculae caudd unicolore, and among
your slender-billed small birds of the same division. Lin-
naeus might with great propriety have put it into his genus
of motacilla; and the motacilla salicaria of his fauna suecica
seems to come the nearest to it. It is no uncommon bird,
haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is covert,
and the reeds and sedges of moors. ‘The country people
in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings incessantly
night and day during the breeding-time, imitating the note
of a sparrow, a swallow, a sky-lark; and has a strange
hurrying manner in its song. My specimens correspond
most minutely to the description of your fen salicaria shot
near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent character-
istic of it when he says, “ Rostrum & pedes in hdc aviculd
multo majores sunt quam pro corporis ratione.” See letter
May 29, 1769.

I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus, or stone-curlew,
which was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground:
there were two; but the finder inadvertently crushed one
with his foot before he saw them.

When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had

64 THE NATURAL HISTORY

not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of
stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a
tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any animal
while in a good humour and unalarmed ; but as soon as a
stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and
filled the room with such nauseus effluvia as rendered it
hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of Ray’s
Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal; but,
when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a
most pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing
can be more horrible.

A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the /anius
minor cinerascens cum maculd in scapulis albd, Rait; whichisa
bird that, at the time of your publishing your two first
volumes of British Zoology, I find you had not seen. You
have described it well from Edwards’s drawing.

LETTER XXVI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, December 8, 1769.
Dear Sir,
I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your
return from Scotland, where you spent, I find, some con-
siderable time, and gave yourself good room to examine
the natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both
those of the islands, as well as those of the highlands.
The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry; because men
seldom allot themselves half the time they should do: but,
fixing on a day for their return, post from place to place,
rather as if they were on a journey that required dispatch,
than as philosophers investigating the works of nature.
You must have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid
up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the
British Zoology ; and will have no reason to repent that

OF SELBORNE 65

you have bestowed so much pains on a part of Great-Britain
that perhaps was never so well examined before.

It has always been matter of wonder to me that field-
fares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds,
should never choose to breed in England: but that they
should not think even the highlands cold and northerly,
and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more
strange and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays
in Scotland the whole year round ; so that we have reason
to conclude that those migrators that visit us for a short
space every autumn do not come from thence.

And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention
that those birds were most punctual again in their migra-
tion this autumn, appearing, as before, about the 3oth of
September: but their flocks were larger than common,
and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time.
If they came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of
their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, in spring,
I should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since
it would be similar to that of the other winter birds of
passage ; but when I see them for a fortnight at Michael-
mas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, I
am seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence
these travellers come, and whither they go, since they seem
to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting place.

Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck,
is very amusing; and strange it is that such a short-winged
bird should delight in such perilous voyages over the
northern ocean! Some country people in the winter time
have every now and then told me that they have seen two
or three white larks on our downs; but, on considering
the matter, I begin to suspect that these are some stragglers
of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps
may rove so far to the southward.

It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on
the Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me
that it is a distinct species; for the quadrupeds of Britain
are so few, that every new species is a great acquisition.

The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so

E

66 THE NATURAL HISTORY

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 that
you may be secure that I am right; for I took very
particular pains to clear up that matter, and had some fair
specimens ; but, as they were not well preserved, they are
decayed already. You will, no doubt, insert it in its
proper place in your next edition. Your additional plates
will much improve your work.

De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-
mouse: but still I am pleased to find you have discovered
it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given in the article
on 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 hybernaculum
artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the
burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on
which it was to have supported itself for the winter. But
the difficulty with me is how this amphibius mus came to
fix its winter station at such a distance from the water.
Was it determined in its choice of that place by the mere
accident of finding the potatoes which were planted there ;
or is it the constant practice of the aquatic-rat to forsake
the neighbourhood of the water in the colder months ?

Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning,
knowing how fallacious it is with respect to natural history;
yet, in the following instance, I cannot help being inclined
to think it may conduce towards the explanation of a
difficulty that I have mentioned before, with respect to the
invariable early retreat of the irundo 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 by is at present a

1The little bat appears almost every month in the year; but I have
never seen the large ones till the end of April, nor after July. They are
most common in June, but never in any plenty: area rare species with us.

OF SELBORNE 67

nondescript in England, and what I have never been able
yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in the
summer : it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in
a different region of the air; and that is the reason I never
could procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the
swifts ; for they take their food in a more exalted region
than the other species, and are very seldom seen hawking
for flies near the ground, or over the surface of the water.
From hence I would conclude that these Airundines, and
the larger bats, are supported by some sorts of high-flying
gnats, scarabs, or phalaenae, that are of short continuance ;
and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by
the defect of their food.

By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to
October the thirty-first ; since which I have not seen or
heard any. Swallows were observed on to November the
third.

LETTER XXVII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Feb, 22, 1770,
Dear Sir,
Hepce-Hocs abound in my gardens and fields. The
manner in which they eat their roots of the plantain in my
grass-walks is very curious: with their upper mandible,
which is much longer than their lower, they bore under the
plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of
leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as
they destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface the
walks in some measure by digging little round holes. It
appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that
beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June last
I procured a litter of four or five young hedge-hogs, which
appeared to be about five or six days old; they, I find,
like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when they

68 THE NATURAL HISTORY

came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft and
flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam
would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of
parturition: but it is plain that they soon harden; for
these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and
sides as would easily have fetched blood, had they not
been handled with caution. Their spines are quite white
at this age ; and they have little hanging ears, which I do
not remember to be discernible in the old ones. They
can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over their
faces; but are not able to contract themselves into a ball,
as they do, for the sake of defence, when full grown. The
reason, I suppose, is, because the curious muscle that
enables the creature to roll itself up into a ball was not
then arrived at its full tone and firmness. Hedge-hogs
make a deep and warm hybernaculum with leaves and moss,
in which they conceal themselves for the winter: but I
never could find that they stored in any winter provision,
as some quadrupeds certainly do.

I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the feld-
fare (turdus pilaris), which I think is particular enough:
this bird, though it sits on trees in the day-time, and pro-
cures the greatest part of its food from white-thorn hedges ;
yea, moreover, builds on very high trees ; as may be seen
by the fauna suecica ; yet always appears with us to roost
on the ground. They are seen to come in flocks just before
it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the heath on our
forest. And besides, the larkers, in dragging their nets by
night, frequently catch them in the wheat-stubbles ; while
the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings in the hedges,
never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in
the matter of roosting, should differ from all their con-
geners, and from themselves also with respect to their
proceedings by day, is a fact for which I am by no means
able to account.

I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the moose-
deer ; but in general foreign animals fall seldom in my
way; my little intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere
of my own observations at home.

OF SELBORNE 69

LETTER XXVIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, March, 1770.
On Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the
female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at
Goodwood ; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived
at the spot, "to find that it died, after having appeared in a
languishing way for some time, on the morning before.
However, understanding that it was not stripped, I pro-
ceeded to examine this rare quadruped: I found it in an
old green-house, slung under the belly and chin by ropes,
and in a standing posture ; but, though it had been dead
for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the
stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction
between this deer, and any other species that I have ever
met with, consisted in the strange length of its legs; on
which it was tilted up much in the manner of birds of the
grallae order. I measured it, as they do an horse, and
found that, from the ground to the wither, it was just five
feet four inches ; which height answers exactly to sixteen
hands, a growth that few horses arrive at: but then, with
this length of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no more
than twelve inches ; so that, by straddling with one foot
forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain
ground, with the greatest difficulty, between its legs: the
ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck ; the
head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like ; and had
such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, with
huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty
dish in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose
that this creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of
trees, and by wading after water-plants ; towards which
way of livelihood the length of leg and great lip must
contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights
in eating the nymphaea, or water-lily. From the fore-feet

7O THE NATURAL HISTORY

to the belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and
eight inches: the length of the legs before and behind
consisted a great deal in the “bia, which was strangely long ;
but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to
measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an
inch long ; the colour was a grizzly black ; the mane about
four inches long ; ; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely,
the hind flat and splayed. The spring before it was only
two years old, so that most probably it was not then come
to its growth. What a vast tall beast must a full-grown
stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet and an
half! This poor creature had at first a female companion
of the same species, which died the spring before. In the
same garden was a young stag, or red deer, between whom
and this moose it was hoped that there might have been a
breed ; but their inequality of height must have always
been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should
have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips,
hoofs, etc. minutely ; but the putrefaction precluded all
further curiosity. ‘This animal, the keeper told me, seemed
to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former
winter. In the house they showed me the horn of a male
moose, which had no front-antlers, but only a broad
palm with some snags on the edge. The noble owner
of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her
bones.

Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds
with that you saw; and whether you think still that the
American moose and European elk are the same creature.
I am,

With the greatest esteem, etc.

OF SELBORNE 71

LETTER XXIX
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, May 12, 1770.
Dear Sir,

Last month we had such a series of cold turbulent weather,
such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and
tempest, that the regular migration or appearance of the
summer birds was much interrupted. Some did not show
themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their
usual time ; as the black-cap and white-throat ; and some
have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and
largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I have not
seen it; it is indeed one of the latest, but should appear
about this time : and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife
and war of the elements, two swallows discovered them-
selves as long ago as the eleventh of April, in frost and
snow ; but they withdrew quickly, and were not visible
again for many days. House-martins, which are always
more backward than swallows, were not observed till May
came in.

Among the monogamous birds several are to be found,
after pairing-time, single, and of each sex: but whether
this state of celibacy is matter of choice or necessity, is not
so easily 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,

72 THE NATURAL HISTORY

after pairing-time he always shot the cock-bird of every
couple of partridges upon his grounds ; supposing that the
rivalry of many males interrupted the breed: he used to
say, that, though he had widowed the same hen several
times, yet he found she was still provided with a fresh
paramour, that did not take her away from her usual
haunt.

Again; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who
has often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently
taken small coveys of partridges, consisting of cock-birds
alone ; these he pleasantly used to call old bachelors.

There is a propensity belonging to common _house-
cats that is very remarkable; I mean their violent fondness
for fish, which appears to be their most favourite food:
and yet nature in this instance seems to have planted in
them an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how
to gratify : for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed
towards water; and will not, when they can avoid it, deign
to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element.

Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is
the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving,
that it makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the
waters. Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in
our shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male
otter brought to me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that
had been shot on the bank of our stream below the Priory,
where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from
Harteley-wood.

LETTER XXX
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Aug. I, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Tue French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in
their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect

OF SELBORNE 73

to insects holds good in every other branch: “ Verdositas
praesentis saecult, calamitas artis.”

Pray how do you approve of Scopoli’s new work? As
I admire his Entomologia, I long to see it.

I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room
to insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting
time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers
of North-America, in pursuit of the females. My friend,
the chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was on that
errand in the river St. Lawrence: it was a monstrous beast,
he told me; but he did not take the dimensions.

When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington
most obligingly carried me to see many curious sights.
As you were then writing to him about horns, he carried
me to see many strange and wonderful specimens. There
is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke’s, at Wilton, an horn
room furnished with more than thirty different pairs; but
I have not seen that house lately.

Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections
of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world.
After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked
that every species almost that came from distant regions,
such as South America, the coast of Guinea, etc. were
thick-billed birds of the /oxia and fringilla genera; and no
motacillae, or muscicapae, were to be met with. When I
came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for the
hard-billed birds subsist on seeds, which are easily carried
on board; while the soft-billed birds, which are supported
by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them,
fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious
voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collec-
tions (curious as they are) are defective, and we are
deprived of some of the most delicate and lively genera.

Tam, etc.

74 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Sept. 14, 1770.
Dear Sir,

You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native
crags; and are farther assured that they continue resident
in those cold regions the whole year. From whence, then,
do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly every September,
and make their appearance again, as if in their return,
every April? They are more early this year than common,
for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this
month.

An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they
frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there; but
leave those haunts about the end of September or begin-
ning of October, and return again about the end of
March.

Another intelligent person assures me that they breed
in great abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and are
called there Tor-ousels ; withdraw in October and Novem-
ber, and return in spring. This information seems to
throw some light on my new migration.

Scopoli’s? new work (which I have just procured) has
its merits in ascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol
and Carniola. Monographers, come from whence they
may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some regard
and approbation from the lovers of natural history; for,
as no man can alone investigate all the works of nature,
these partial writers may, each in their department, be
more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors,
than more general writers; and so by degrees may pave
the way to an universal correct natural history. Not that
Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and
conversation of his birds as I could wish: he advances

1 Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis,

OF SELBORNE 75

some false facts; as when he says of the hirundo urbica
that ‘“pullos extra nidum non nuitrit.’ ‘This assertion I
know to be wrong from repeated observation this summer ;
for house-martins do feed their young flying, though it
must be acknowledged not so commonly as the house-
swallow ; and the feat is done in so quick a manner as
not to be perceptible to indifferent observers. He also
advances some (I was going to say) improbable facts;
as when he says of the woodcock that, ‘ pudlos rostro portat
fugiens ab hoste.” But candour forbids me to say absolutely
that any fact is false, because I have never been witness to
such a fact. I have only to remark that the long unwieldy
bill of the woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any
among the winged creation for such a feat of natural
affection.
I am, etc.

LETTER XXXII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, October, 29, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Arrer an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc.
I begin to suspect that I discern my brother’s hirundo
hyberna in Scopoli’s new discovered hirundo rupes-
tris, p. 167. His description of “ Supra murina, subtus
albida; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere interno; pedes
nudi, nigri; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam
plumae dorsales; rectrices remigibus concolores; caudé emargi-
nath, nec forcipata”’; agrees very well with the bird in
question ; but when he comes to advance that it is “‘ statura
hirundinis urbicae,’ and that “‘ definitio hirundinis ripariae
Linnaei huic quoque convenit,” he in some measure invali-
dates all he has said; at least he shows at once that he
compares them to these species merely from memory: for
I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differ
widely in every circumstance of shape, size, and colour.

76 THE NATURAL HISTORY

However, as you will have a specimen, I shall be glad
to hear what your judgment is in the matter.

Whether my brother is forestalled in his non-descript or
not, he will have the credit of first discovering that they
spend their winters under the warm and sheltery shores of
Gibraltar and Barbary.

Scopoli’s characters of his ordines and genera are clean,
just, and expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnaeus.
These few remarks are the result of my first perusal of
Scopoli’s Annus Primus.

The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to
the other by memory: for want of caution in this par-
ticular, Scopoli falls into errors: he is not so full with regard
to the manners of his indigenous birds as might be wished,
as you justly observe: his Latin is easy, elegant, and ex-
pressive, and very superior to Kramer’s.’

I am pleased to see that my description of the moose
corresponds so well with yours.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXXIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Nov. 26, 1770.
Dear Sir,
I was much pleased to see, among the collection of birds
from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer
birds of passage, concerning whose departure we have made
so much inquiry. Now if these birds are found in Anda-
lusia 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

1See his Elenchus vegetabilium et animalium per Austriam inferiorem, etc.

OF SELBORNE 77

spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards
the northward, for the sake of breeding during the summer
months; and retiring in parties and broods toward the
south at the decline of the year: so that the rock of
Gibraltar is the great rendezvous, and place of observation,
from whence they take their departure each way towards
Europe or Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery, I
think, to find that our small short-winged summer birds of
passage are to be seen spring and autumn on the very skirts
of Europe; it is a presumptive proof of their emigrations.

Scopoli seems to me to have found the hirundo melba,
the great Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it.
For what is his Airundo alpina but the afore-mentioned
bird in other words? Says he, “ Omnia prioris” (meaning
the swift ;) “sed pectus album; paulo mayor priore.” 1 do
not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of
the melba, that “ nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus.” Vid.
Annum Primum.

My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense,
but no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the
stone-curlew, vedicnemus, sends me the following account :
‘In looking over my Naturalist’s Journal for the month
of April, I find the stone-curlews are first mentioned on
the seventeenth and eighteenth, which date seems to me
rather late. They live with us all the spring and summer,
and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by
getting together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of
passage that may travel into some dry hilly country south
of us, probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep-
walks in that country; for they spend their summers with
us in such districts. This conjecture I hazard, as I have
never met with any one that has seen them in England in
the winter. I believe they are not fond of going near the
water, but feed on earth-worms, that are common on
sheep-walks and downs. They breed on fallows and lay-
fields abounding with grey mossy flints, which much
resemble their young in colour ; among which they skulk
and conceal themselves. They make no nest, but lay their
eggs on the bare ground, producing in common but two at

78 THE NATURAL HISTORY

atime. There is reason to think their young run soon
after they are hatched; and that the old ones do not feed
them, but only lead them about at the time of feeding,
which, for the most part, is in the night.” Thus far my
friend.

In the manners of this bird you see there is something very
analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat resembles
in aspect and make, and in the structure of its feet.

For a long time I have desired my relation to look out
for these birds in Andalusia; and now he writes me word
that, for the first time, he saw one dead in the market on
the 3rd of September.

When the vedicnemus flies it stretches out its legs straight
behind, like an heron.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXXIV

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, March 30, 1771,
Dear Sir,

Tuere is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts,
which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of
the summer, getting into people’s skins, especially those of
women and children, and raising tumours which itch
intolerably. This animal (which we call an harvest bug) is
very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye; of a
bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of Acarus. They
are to be met with in gardens on kidneybeans, or any
legumens ; but prevail only in the hot months of summer.
Warreners, as some have assured me, are much infested by
them on chalky downs; where these insects swarm some-
times to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and
to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as
to be thrown into fevers.

OF SELBORNE 79

There is a small long shining fly in these parts very
troublesome to the housewife, by getting into the chimneys,
and laying its eggs in the bacon while it is drying: these
eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring
in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to
the bone, and make great waste. This fly I suspect to be
a variety of the musca putris of Linnaeus: it is to be seen
in the summer in the 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 that wants to be better known. The
country people here call it the turnip-fly and black dolphin;
but I know it to be one of the coleoptera; the “chrysomela
oleracea, saltatoria, femoribus posticis crassissimis.” In very
hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and,
as you walk in a field or in a garden, make a pattering
like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or
cabbages.

There is an Oestrus, known in these parts to every
ploughboy; which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus, is
also passed over by late writers, and that is the curvicauda
of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in his Physico-
theology, p. 250: an insect worthy of remark for depositing
its eggs as it flies in so dextrous a manner on the single
hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But then
Derham is mistaken when he advances that this Oestrus is
the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he
mentions afterwards; for more modern entomologists have
discovered that singular production to be derived from the
egg of the musca chamaeleon: see Geoffroy, t. 17, f. 4.

A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field,
garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely
means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public
to be a most useful and important work. What know-
ledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be
collected ; great improvements would soon follow of
course. A knowledge of the properties, oeconomy, pro-
pagation, and in short of the life and conversation of these

80 THE NATURAL HISTORY

animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of
preventing their depredations.

As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend
entomology more than some neat plates that should well
express the generic distinctions of insects according to
Linnaeus ; for I am well assured that many people would
study insects, could they set out with a more adequate
notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first
by words alone.

LETTER XXXV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, 1771,
Dear Sir,

Happenine to make a visit to my neighbour’s peacocks, I
could not help observing that the trains of those mag-
nificent birds appear by no means to be their tails; those
long feathers growing not from their wropygium, but all up
their backs. A range of short brown stiff feathers, about
six inches long, fixed ir. the uropygium, is the real tail, and
serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and
top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up,
nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck ;
but this would not be the case were those long feathers
fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock
when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular
vibration these birds can make the shafts of their long
feathers clatter like the swords of a sword-dancer; they
then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards
towards the females.

I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus
aegogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox; it is
perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville
orange; such are, I think, usually flat.

OF SELBORNE 81

LETTER XXXVI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Sept, 1771.
Dear Sir,

Tue summer through I have seen but two of that large
species of bat which I call vespertilio altivolans, from its
manner of feeding high in the air: I procured one of
them, and found it to be a male; and made no doubt, as
they accompanied together, that the other was a female :
but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other
likewise, I was somewhat disappointed, when it appeared
to be also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the
great scarcity of this sort, at least in these parts, occasions
some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a species,
or whether it may not be the male part of the more known
species, one of which may supply many females; as is known
to be the case in sheep, and some other quadrupeds. But
this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination,
and some attention to the sex, of more specimens: all
that I know at present is, that my two were amply
furnished with the parts of generation much resembling
those of a boar.

In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen
inches and an half: and four inches and an half from the
nose to the tip of the tail: their heads were large, their
nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular;
and their whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could
be more sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a
bright chestnut colour; their maws were full of food, but
so macerated that the quality could not be distinguished ;
their livers, kidnies, and hearts, were large, and their
bowels covered with fat. They weighed each, when
entire, full one ounce and one drachm. Within the ear
there was somewhat of a peculiar structure that I did not

understand perfectly; but refer it to the observation of
F

82 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the curious anatomist. These creatures sent forth a very
rancid and offensive smell.

LETTER XXXVII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, 1771.
Dear Sir,

On the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of con-
templating the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as
it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with
scarabaei solstitiales, or fern-chafers. The powers of its
wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various
evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But the
circumstance that pleased me most was that I saw it
distinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on
the wing, and, by a bend of the head, deliver somewhat
into its mouth. If it takes any part of its prey with its
foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose it does
these chafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its middle
toe, which is curiously furnished with a serrated claw.

Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have
forsaken us sooner this year than usual; for, on September
the twenty-second, they rendezvoused in a neighbour’s
walnut-tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up
their lodging for the night. At the dawn of the day,
which was foggy, they arose all together in infinite
numbers, occasioning such a rushing from the strokes of
their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to a
considerable distance: since that no flock has appeared,
only a few stragglers.

Some swifts staid late, till the twenty-second of August
—a rare instance! for they usually withdraw within the
first week.!

1 See letter lili. to Mr. Barrington.

OF SELBORNE 83

On September the twenty-fourth three or four ring-
ousels appeared in my fields for the first time this season:
how punctual are these visitors in their autumnal and
spring migrations!

LETTER XXXVIII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, March 15, 1773.
Dear Sir,

By my journal for last autumn it appears that the house-
martins bred very late, and staid very late in these parts;
for, on the first of October, I saw young martins in their
nests nearly fledged; and again, on the twenty-first
of October, we had at the next house a nest full of young
martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were hawking
for insects with great alertness. The next morning the
brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the village.
From this day I never saw one of the swallow kind till
November the third; when twenty, or perhaps thirty,
house-martins were playing all day long by the side of the
hanging wood, and over my fields. Did these small weak
birds, some of which were nestlings twelve days ago, shift
their quarters at this late season of the year to the other
side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is it not more
probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep
covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as a more
northern naturalist would say), may become their hyder
naculum, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat ?

We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-
ousels every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me
that ring-ousels were seen at Christmas 1770 in the forest
of Bere, on the southern verge of this county. Hence we
may conclude that their migrations are only internal, and
not extended to the continent southward, if they do at first

84 THE NATURAL HISTORY

come at all from the northern parts of this island only, and
not from the north of Europe. Come from whence
they will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they
show for men or guns, that they have been little accustomed
to places of much resort. Navigators mention that in the
Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds
are so little acquainted with the human form that they
settle on men’s shoulders; and have no more dread of a
sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. A
young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about
seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town
in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one after-
noon: he added farther, that some had appeared since in
every autumn; but he could not find that any had been
observed before the season in which he shot so many. I
myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn
cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were
shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes; particularly
in the autumn of 1770.
I am, etc.

LETTER XXXIX
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Nov. 9, 1773.
Dear Sir,

As you desire me to send you such observations as may
occur, I take the liberty of making the following remarks,
that you may, according as you think me right or wrong,
admit or reject what J here advance, in your intended new
edition of the British Zoology.

The osprey’ was shot about a year ago at Frinsham-pond,
a great lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was
sitting on the handle of a plough and devouring a fish: it

1 British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128.

OF SELBORNE 85

used to precipitate itself into the water, and so take its prey
by surprise.

A great ash-coloured butcher-bird! was shot last winter
in Tisted-park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne:
they are rarae aves in this country.

Crows” go in pairs the whole year round.

Cornish choughs* abound, and breed on Beachy-head
and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.

The common wild pigeon,* or stock-dove, is a bird of
passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till
towards the end of November ; is usually the latest winter
bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much
destroyed we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for
a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed.
They leave us early in spring ; where do they breed?

The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird*®
the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blow-
ing showery weather ; its song often commences with the
year: with us it builds much in orchards.

A gentleman assures me that he has taken the nests of
ring-ousels® on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides
of streams.

Titlarks’ not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but
also as they play and toy about on the wing; and particu-
larly while they are descending, and sometimes as they
stand on the ground.

Adanson’s* testimony seems to me to be a very poor
evidence that European swallows migrate during our winter
to Senegal: he does not talk at all like an ornithologist ;
and probably saw only the swallows of that country, which
I know build within Governor O’Hara’s hall against the
roof. Had he known European swallows, would he not
have mentioned the species ?

The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as
it flies: this species appears commonly about a week before
the house-martin, and about ten or twelve days before the
swift.

1 British Zoology, vol. i. p. 161. 2p, 167. Bp. 198,

4p. 216, 5p. 224. 6p. 229. ‘Vol, ii. p. 237. Sp. 242.

86 THE NATURAL HISTORY

In 1772 there were young house-martins? in their nest till
October the twenty-third.

The swift? appears about ten or twelve days later than
the house-swallow : viz. about the twenty-fourth or twenty-
sixth of April.

Whin-chats and stone-chatters® stay with us the whole

ear.

: Some wheat-ears* continue with us the winter through.
Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter.
Bulfinches,® when fed on hempseed, often become wholly

black.

We have vast flocks of female chaffinches® all the winter,
with hardly any males among them.

When you say that in breeding time the cock-snipes’
make a bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should
have rather said an humming), I suspect we mean the same
thing. However, while they are playing about on the
wing they certainly make a loud piping with their mouths :
but whether that bleating or humming 1 is ventriloquous, or
proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but
this I know, that when this noise happens the bird is always
descending, and his wings are violently agitated.

Soon after the lapwings* have done breeding they con-
gregate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake them-
selves to downs and sheep-walks.

Two years ago® last spring the little auk was found
alive and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane
a few miles from Alresford, where there is a great lake: it
was kept awhile, but died.

I saw young teals” taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer-
forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or
young wild ducks.

Speaking of the swift,’ that page says “‘its drink the
dew’; whereas it should be “it drinks on the wing” ;
for all the swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over
the face of pools or rivers: like Virgil’s bees, they drink

1 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 244. 2p. 245. 8 pp. 270, 271.
+p. 269. 5p. 300. Sp. 306. = 7p. 358. 8p. 360.
¥ p. 409. p. 475. Mp. 15.

OF SELBORNE 87

flying, ‘‘flumina summa libant.’ In this method of drink-
ing perhaps this genus may be peculiar.

Of the sedge-bird? be pleased to say it sings most part
of the night; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing,
and imitative of several birds; as the sparrow, swallow,
sky-lark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by
throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you
immediately set it a-singing ; or in other words, though
it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it
reassumes its song.

LETTER XL
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Sept. 2, 1774.
Dear 5ir,

Berore your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had
been remarking and comparing the tails of the male and
female swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared ;
so that there was no danger of confounding the dams with
their pu/ii: and besides, as they were then always in pairs,
and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be no
room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of
different chimneys the one for the other. From all my
observations, it constantly appeared that each sex has the
long feathers in its tail that give it that forked shape; with
this difference, that they are longer in the tail of the male
than in that of the female.

Nightingales, when their young first come abroad, and
are helpless, make a plaintive and a jarring noise; and also
a snapping or cracking, pursuing people along the hedges
as they walk: these last sounds seem intended for menace
and defiance.

The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of
summer.

1 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 16.

88 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.

Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being some-
times caught in mole-traps.

Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows’ nests, and
the kestril in churches and ruins.

There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island
of Ely. The threads sometimes discovered in eels are
perhaps their young: the generation of eels is very dark
and mysterious.

Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to
settle on trees.

When redstarts shake their tails they move them hori-
zontally, as dogs do when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail,
when in motion, bobs up and down like that of a jaded
horse.

Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings
in breeding-time ; as soon as frosty mornings come they
make a very piping plaintive noise.

Many birds which become silent about Midsummer
reassume their notes again in September ; as the thrush,
blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, etc. ; hence August is
by much the most mute month, the spring, summer, and
autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because
the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring?

Linnaeus ranges plants geographically ; palms inhabit
the tropics, grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and
lichens the polar circles ; no doubt animals may be classed
in the same manner with propriety.

House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the
weather becomes hotter they get out for coolness, and nest
in plum-trees and apple-trees. These birds have been
known sometimes to build in rooks’ nests, and sometimes
in the forks of boughs under rooks’ nests.

As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that
his dogs devoured all the little red mice that they could
catch, but rejected the common mice; and that his cats
ate the common mice refusing the red.

Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and
autumn. The reason that they are called autumn songsters

The Wren. Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted ”

OF SELBORNE 89

is, because in the two first seasons their voices are drowned
and lost in the general chorus; in the latter their song
becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn
seem to be the young cock red-breasts of that year: not-
withstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do much
mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.!

The titmouse, which early in February begins to make
two quaint notes, like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh
titmouse: the great titmouse sings with three cheerful
joyous notes, and begins about the same time.

Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.

House-martins came remarkably late this year both in
Hampshire and Devonshire: is this circumstance for or
against either hiding or migration ?

Most birds drink sipping at intervals ; but pigeons take
a long continued draught, like quadrupeds.

Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no
grey crows were ever known to breed on Dartmoor ; it was
my mistake.

The appearance and flying of the scarabaeus solstitialis, or
fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease
about the end of it. These scarabs are the constant food
of caprimulgi, or fern-owls, through that period. They
abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy districts,
but not in the clays.

In the garden of the Black-bear inn in the town of
Reading is a stream or canal running under the stables and
out into the fields on the other side of the road : in this
water are many carps, which lie rolling about in sight,
being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing
them bread : but as soon as the weather grows at all severe
these fishes are no longer seen, because they retire under
the stables, where they remain till the return of spring.
Do they lie in a torpid state? if they do not, how are they
supported ?

The note of the white-throat, which is continually
repeated, and often attended with odd gesticulations on the

1They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honey-suckle, and the exony-
mus europaeus, or spindle-tree.

90 THE NATURAL HISTORY

wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem of a
pugnacious disposition ; for they sing with an erected crest
and attitudes of rivalry and defiance ; are shy and wild in
breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting
lonely lanes and commons ; nay even the very tops of the
Sussex-downs, where there are bushes and covert; but in
July and August they bring their broods into gardens and
orchards, and make great havoc among the summer-
fruits.

The black-cap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud,
and wild pipe; yet that strain is of short continuance, and
his motions are desultory ; but when that bird sits calmly
and engages in song in earnest, he pours forth very sweet,
but inward melody, and expresses great variety of soft and
gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our
warblers, the nightingale excepted.

Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while
they warble their throats are wonderfully distended.

The song of the redstart is superior, though somewhat
like that of the white-throat: some birds have a few more
notes than others. Sitting very placidly on the top of a
tall tree in a village, the cock sings from morning to
night: he affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude,
and loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us
he perches on the vane of a tall maypole.

The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most
mute and the most familiar; it also appears the last of
any. It builds in a vine, or a sweetbriar, against the wall
of an house, or in the hole of a wall, or on the end of a
beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where
people are going in and out all day long. This bird
does not make the least pretension to song, but uses a
little inward wailing note when it thinks its young in
danger from cats or other annoyances: it breeds but once,
and retires early.

Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times
more than half the birds that are ever seen in all Sweden;
the former has produced more than one hundred and
twenty species, the latter only two hundred and twenty-

OF SELBORNE 91

one. Let me add also that it has shown near half the
species that were ever known in Great Britain.?

On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries
with it a quaint and magisterial air, and is very sententious :
but, when I recollect that you requested stricture and
anecdote, I hope you will pardon the didactic manner for
the sake of the a it may happen to contain.

LETTER XLI
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Ir is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those
species of soft-billed birds, that continue with us the
winter through, subsist during the dead months. The
imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason why
they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wry-
neck (so much resembling the hardy race of wood-peckers)
migrates, while the feeble little golden-crowned wren,
that shadow of a bird, braves our severest frosts without
availing himself of houses or villages, to which most of our
winter birds crowd in distressful seasons, while this keeps
aloof in fields and woods; but perhaps this may be the
reason why they may often perish, and why they are almost
as rare as any bird we know.

I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds,
which winter with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their
aurelia state. All the species of wagtails in severe weather
haunt shallow streams near their spring-heads, where they
never freeze; and, by wading, pick out the aurelias of the
genus of Phryganeae,” etc.

Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard
weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings:
and in mild weather they procure worms, which are

1Sweden, 221, Great-Britain, 252 species,
2 See Derham’s Physico-theology, p. 235.

92 THE NATURAL HISTORY

stirring every month in the year, as any one may see
that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a
grass-plot on any mild winter’s night. Red-breasts and
wrens in the winter haunt out-houses, stables, and barns,
where they find spiders and flies that have laid themselves
up during the cold season. But the grand support of the
soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of
aureliae of the J/epidoptera ordo, which is fastened to the
twigs of trees and their trunks; to the pales and walls of
gardens and buildings; and is found in every cranny and
cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in the ground itself.

Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have
what I call a kind of intermediate bill between the hard
and the soft, between the Linnaean genera of fringilla and
motacilla. One species alone spends its whole time in
the woods and fields, never retreating for succour in the
severest seasons to houses and neighbourhoods; and that
is the delicate long-tailed titmouse, which is almost as
minute as the golden-crowned wren: but the blue tit-
mouse, or nun (parus caeruleus), the cole-mouse (parus
ater), the great black-headed titmouse (/ringillago), and the
marsh titmouse (parus palustris), all resort, at times, to
buildings; and in hard weather particularly. The great
titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much frequents
houses, and, in deep snows, I have seen this bird, while it
hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight and
admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of
thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies that were
concealed between them, and that in such numbers that
they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged
appearance.

The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of
houses, and a general devourer. Beside insects, it is very
fond of flesh; for it frequently picks bones on dunghills:
it is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts butchers’ shops.
When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught
with snap mousetraps, baited with tallow or suet. It will
also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well
entertained with the seeds on the head of a sun-flower.

OF SELBORNE 93

The blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very severe
weather, carry away barley and oat straws from the sides
of ricks.

How the wheat-ear and whin-chat support themselves in
winter cannot be so easily ascertained, since they spend
their time on wild heaths and warrens; the former
especially, where there are stone quarries: most probably
it is that their maintenance arises from the aureliae of the
lepidoptera ordo, which furnish them with a plentiful table
in the wilderness.

I am, etc.

LETTER XLII
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, March 9, 1775.
Dear Sir,
Some future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend
his visits to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field, and a
country little known to the naturalist. He will not, it is
to be wished, undertake that tour unaccompanied by a
botanist, because the mountains have scarcely been
sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so
mild an island may possibly afford some plants little to be
expected within the British dominions. A person of a
thinking turn of mind will draw many just remarks from
the modern improvements of that country, both in arts
and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before
they were heard of with us. The manners of the wild
natives, their superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid
way of life, will extort from him many useful reflections.
He should also take with him an able draughtsman ;
for he must by no means pass over the noble castles and
seats, the extensive and picturesque lakes and water-falls,
and the lofty stupendous mountains. so little known, and

04 THE NATURAL HISTORY

so engaging to the imagination when described and exhibited
in a lively manner: such a work would be well received.

As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I cannot
pretend to say how accurate or particular any such may be;
but this I know, that the best old maps of that kingdom
are very defective.

The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all
maps of Scotland that have fallen in my way is, a want of
a coloured line, or stroke, that shall exactly define the just
limits of that district called The Highlands. Moreover, all
the great avenues to that mountainous and romantic country
want to be well distinguished. The military roads formed by
general Wade are so great and Roman-like an undertaking
that they well merit attention. My old map, Moll’s Map,
takes notice of Fort William; but could not mention the other
forts that have been erected long since: therefore a good
representation of the chain of forts should not be omitted.

The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be
passed over. Moll takes notice of Hamilton and Drum-
lanrig, and such capital houses; but a new survey, no
doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable
for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, etc.
Lord Breadalbane’s seat and beautiful policy are too curious
and extraordinary to be omitted.

The seat of the Earl of Eglintoun, near Glasgow, is
worthy of notice. The pine plantations of that nobleman
are very grand and extensive indeed.

I am, etc.

LETTER. XUIT
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Dear Sir,

A pair of honey-buzzards, buteo apivorus, sive vespivorus
Raii, built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs

OF SELBORNE 95

and lined with dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender
beech near the middle of Selborne-hanger, in the summer
of 1780. In the middle of the month of June a bold boy
climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and dizzy a
situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the
nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained
the embrio of a young bird. The egg was smaller, and
not so round as those of the common buzzard ; was dotted
at each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the
middle with a broad bloody zone.

The hen-bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr.
Ray’s description of that species; had a black cere, short
thick legs, and a long tail. When on the wing this species
may be easily distinguished from the common buzzard by
its hawk-like appearance, small head, wings not so blunt,
and longer tail. This specimen contained in its craw some
limbs of frogs, and many grey snails without shells. The
irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful bright
yellow colour.

About the tenth of July in the same summer a pair of
sparrow-hawks bred in an old crow’s nest on a low beech
in the same hanger; and as their brood, which was nume-
rous, began to grow up, became so daring and ravenous,
that they were a terror to all the dames in the village that
had chickens or ducklings under their care. A boy climbed
the tree, and found the young so fledged that they all
escaped from him; but discovered that a good house had
been kept: the larder was well-stored with provisions ; for
he brought down a young blackbird, jay, and house-martin,
all clean picked, and some half devoured. The old birds
had been observed to make sad havoc for some days
among the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being
but lately out of their nests, had not acquired those powers
and command of wing that enable them, when more
mature, to set such enemies at defiance.

96 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XLIV
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE

Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780.
Dear Sir,
Every incident that occasions a renewal of our corre-
spondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.

As to the wild wood-pigeon, the venas, or vinago, of Ray,
I am much of your mind; and see no reason for making it
the origin of the common house-dove: but suppose those
that have advanced that opinion may have been misled by
another appellation, often given to the oexas, which is that
of stock-dove.

Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in
manners from itself in summer, no species seems more
unlikely to be domesticated, and to make an house-dove.
We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does
it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it
stays with us, from November perhaps to February, lives
the same wild life with the ring-dove, palumbus torquatus ,
frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by
mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it
be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt
would be settled with me at once, provided they construct
their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect
they do.

You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from
Sussex; and are informed that they sometimes breed in
that county. But why did not your correspondent de-
termine the place of its nidification, whether on rocks,
cliffs, or trees? If he was not an adroit ornithologist I
should doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually
confound the stock-dove with the ring-dove.

For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing
that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-

OF SELBORNE 97

pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place the wild
stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house-
dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which
generally enlarges the breed. Again, those two remarkable
black spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove,
which are so characteristic of the species, would not, one
should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed; but
would often break out among its descendants. But what is
worth an hundred arguments is, the instance you give in
Sir Roger Mostyn’s house-doves, in Caernarvonshire; which,
though tempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment,
can never be prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time;
but, as soon as they begin to breed, betake themselves to
the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in
safety amidst the inaccessible caverns, and precipices of
that stupendous promontory.

“ Naturam expellas furci . . . tamen usque recurret.”

I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth
year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the
beechen woods were much more extensive than at present,
the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing ; that he has
often killed near twenty in a day; and that with a long
wild-fowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the
wing as they came wheeling over his head: he moreover
adds, which I was not aware of, that often there were
among them little parties of small blue doves, which he
calls rockiers. The food of these numberless emigrants
was beech-mast and some acorns; and particularly barley,
which they collected in the stubbles. But of late years,
since the vast increase of turnips, that vegetable has
furnished a great part of their support in hard weather ;
and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage the
crop. From this food their flesh has contracted a rancid-
ness which occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of
eating, who thought them before a delicate dish. They
were shot not only as they were feeding in the fields, and
especially in snowy weather, but also at the close of the

evening, by men who lay in ambush among the woods and
G

98 THE NATURAL HISTORY

groves to kill them as they came in to roost.'. These are
the principal circumstances relating to this wonderful
internal migration, which with us takes place towards the
end of November, and ceases early in the spring. Last
winter we had in Selborne high wood about an hundred of
these doves; but in former times the flocks were so vast
not only with us but all the district round, that on morn-
ings and evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in
strings, reaching for a mile together. When they thus
rendezvous here by thousands, if they happened to be
suddenly roused from their roost-trees on an evening,

“ Their rising all at once was like the sound
Of thunder heard remote.”

It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to
add, that I had a relation in this neighbourhood who made
it a practice for a time, whenever he could procure the eggs
of a ring-dove, to place them under a pair of doves that
were sitting in his own pigeon-house ; hoping thereby, if
he could bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and
teach his own doves to beat out into the woods and to
support themselves by mast: the plan was plausible, but
something always interrupted the success ; for though the
birds were usually hatched, and sometimes grew to half
their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. I myself
have seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a strange
ferocity of nature, so as scarcely to bear to be looked at,
and snapping with their bills by way of menace. In short,
they always died, perhaps for want of proper sustenance :
but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild de-
meanour they frighted their foster-mothers, and so were
starved.

Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes
a dove haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging
numbers, that I cannot refrain from quoting the passage :
and John Dryden has rendered it so happily in our

1Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks used to
withdraw as soon as the heavy Christmas frosts were over.

OF SELBORNE 99

language, that without farther excuse I shall add his
translation also.

“ Qualis speluncd subitd commota Columba,
Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,
Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis
Dat tecto ingentem—mox aere lapsa quieto,
Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas.”

“ As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes,
Rous’d, in a fright her sounding wings she shakes ;
The cavern rings with clattering :—out she flies,
And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies:
At first she flutters :—but at length she springs
To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings.”

I am, ete.

LETTER I

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, June 30, 1769.

Dear Sir,

WueEn I was in town last month I partly engaged that I
would sometime do myself the honour to write to you on
the subject of natural history: and I am the more ready
to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a gentleman of
great candour, and one that will make allowances ; especially
where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one
that takes his observations from the subject itself, | not

from the writings of others.

The following is a List of the Summer Birds of Passage which
I have discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat

in the order which they appear:

RAII NOMINA,

1. Wryneck, Fynx, sive torguilla.

2. Smallest willow- Regulus non cristatus,
wren,

3. Swallow, Hirundo domestica.

4. Martin, Hirundo rustica.

5. Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia.

6. Black-cap, Atricapilla,

7. Nightingale, Luscinia.

8. Cuckoo, Cuculus.

g. Middle willow- Regulus non cristatus.
wren,

to. White-throat, Ficedulae affinis.

100

USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT
The middle of March: harsh

note.

March 23: chirps till Sep-
tember.

April 13.

Ditto.

Ditto.

Ditto: a sweet wild note.

Beginning of April.

Middle of April.

Ditto: a sweet plaintive note.

Ditto: mean note; sings on
till September.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE tor

RAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT

11. Red-start, Ruticilla. Middle of April: more
agreeable song.

12. Stone-curlew, Oedicnemus. End of March: loud noc-

turnal whistle,
13. Turtle-dove, Turtur.
14. Grasshopper-lark, A/auda minima locustae Middle of April: a small

voce. sibilous note, till the end
of July.
15. Swift, Hirundo apus. About April 27.
16. Lessreed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus A sweet polyglot, but hurry-
minor. ing: it has the notes of
many birds.
17. Land-rail, Ortygometra. A loud harsh note, crex,crex.
18. Largest willow- Regulus non cristatus. Cantat voce striduld locustae ;
wren, end of April, on the tops
of high beeches.
19. Goat-sucker, or Caprimulgus. Beginning of May ; chatters
fern-owl, by night with a singular
noise.
20. Fly-catcher, Svoparola. May 12. A very mute bird:

this is the latest summer
bird of passage.

This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs
to ten several genera of the Linnaean system; and are all
of the ordo of passeres, save the jynx and cuculus, which are
picae, and the charadrius (oedicnemus) and rallus (ortygometra),
which are gradlae.

These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the
following Linnaean genera:

I. Fynx. 13. Columba.

2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18. Motacilla. 17. Rallus.

3> 45 5, 15. Hirundo. 19. Caprimulgus.
8. Cuculus. 14. Alauda.
12. Charadrius. 20. Muscicapa.

Most soft-billed birds live on insects, and not on grain
and seeds; and therefore at the end of summer they
retire: but the following soft-billed birds, though insect-
eaters, stay with us the year round:

RAII NOMINA,

These frequent houses; and
lia Reireaias haunt outbuildings in the
ren, Passer troglodytes. Winer; te epiders

102 THE NATURAL HISTORY

RAII NOMINA

Hedge-sparrow, Curruca. Haunt sinks for crumbs and
other sweepings.

These frequent shallow rivu-
lets near the spring heads,

White-wagtail, Motacilla alba, :

Yellow-wagtail, Motacilla flava. pep dige Birsioh poe

Grey-wagtail, Motacilla cinerea. Saves, “Che smallest birds
that walk.

Wheat-ear, Oenanthe. Some of these are to be seen
with us the winter through.

Whin-chat, Ocenanthe secunda,

Stone-chatter, Ocenanthe tertia,

Golden-crowned wren, Regulus Cristatus. This is the smallest British
bird: haunts the tops of
tall trees; stays the winter
through.

A List of the Winter Birds of Passage round this neighbour-
hood, ranged somewhat in the order in whtch they appear:

1. Ring-ousel, Merula torquata, This is a new migration
which I have lately dis-
covered about Michaelmas
week, and again about the
fourteenth of March.

2. Redwing, Turdus iliacus, About old Michaelmas.
3. Fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, Though a percher by day,
roosts on the ground.
4. Royston-crow, Cornix cinerea. Most frequent on downs.
5. Woodcock, Scolopax, Appears about old Michael-
mas.
6. Snipe, Gallinago minor, Some snipes constantly breed
with us.
7. Jack-snipe, Gallinago minima,
8. Wood-pigeon, Oenas. Seldom appears till late: not
in such plenty as formerly.
g. Wild-swan, Cygnus ferus. On some large waters.
10, Wild-goose, Aser ferus,
11, Wild-duck, Anas torquata minor.
12. Pochard, Anas fera fusca.
13. Wigeon, Penelope. On our lakes and streams.

14. Teal, breeds with Querguedula,
usin Wolmer-forest,
These are only wanderers

15. Gross-beak, Coccothraustes, h sara
16. Cross-bill, Loxia. ‘ ei aaa cS sipeaty we
17. Silk-tail, Garrulus bohemicus, pielisaal py ta ese tata

any regular migration,

OF SELBORNE 103

These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the
following Linnaean genera:

I, 2,3, Turdus, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Anas.
4, Corvus. 15, 16, Loxia.
5, 6, 7, Scolpax, 17. Ampelis.
8, Columba.

Birds that sing in the night are but few.

Nightingale, Luscinia, “In shadiest covert hid.”
—Mitron.
Woodlark, Alauda arborea, Suspended in mid air.

Less reed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus minor, Among reeds and willows.

I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing
after Midsummer, but, as they are rather numerous, they
would exceed the bounds of this paper: besides, as this
is now the season for remarking on that subject, I am
willing to repeat my observations on some birds concerning
the continuation of whose song I seem at present to have
some doubt,

I am, etc.

LETTER II
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.

Selborne, Nov. 2, 1769.
Dear Sir,

Wuen I did myself the honour to write to you about
the end of last June on the subject of natural history, I
sent you a list of the summer-birds of passage which I
have observed in this neighbourhood; and also a list of
the winter-birds of passage: I mentioned besides those
soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in
the south of England, and those that are remarkable for
singing in the night.

According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such

104

THE NATURAL HISTORY

birds (singing birds strictly so called) as continue in full
song till after Midsummer; and shall range them some-
what in the order in which they first begin to open as the
spring advances.

I.

17. Middle willow- Regulus non cristatus.

Wood-lark,

. Song-thrush,

. Wren,

. Redbreast,

Hedge-sparrow,

. Yellowhammer,

. Skylark,

. Swallow,
. Black-cap,

. Titlark,

. Blackbird,

. White-throat,
. Goldfinch,

. Greenfinch,
. Lessreed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus

RAII NOMINA.

Alguda arborea.

Turdus simpliciter
dictus.

Passer troglodytes.

Rubecula.
Curruca.

Emberiza flava,

Alauda vulgaris.

Hirundo domestica.
Atricapilla.

Alauda pratorum.

Merula vulgaris.

Ficedulae affinis.
Carduelis.

Chboris.

minor.

. Common linnet, Linaria vulgaris.

In January, and continues to
sing through all the sum-
mer 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 roth.

Early in February, and on
through July to August
the 21st.

In February, and on to
October.

From April to September.

Beginning of April to July
13th.

From middle of April to
July the 16th.

Sometimes in February and
March, and so on to July
the twenty-third; reas-
sumes in autumn.

In April and on to July 23.

April and through to Sep-
tember 16.

On to July and August z.

May, on to beginning of
July.

Breeds and whistles on till
August ; reassumes its note
when they begin to con-
gregate in October, and
again early before the flock
separate.

Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent
at or before Midsummer :

wren.

Middle of June; begins in
April.

OF SELBORNE 105

RAII NOMINA,

18. Redstart, Ruticilla. Middle of June: begins in
May.
19. Chaffinch, Fringilla. Beginning of June: sings first
in February.
zo. Nightingale, Luscinia. Middle of June: sings first
in April.
Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the
spring :
21. Missel-bird, Turdus viscivorus. January the 2nd, 1770, in
February. Is called in
Hampshire and Sussex the
storm-cock, because its
song is supposed to fore-
bode windy wet weather :
is the largest singing bird
we have.
22. Great titmouse, Fringil/ago. In February, March, April :
or ox-eye, reassumes for a short time

in September.

Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are
hardly to be called singing birds:

23. Golden-crowned Regulus cristatus. Its note as minute as its per-
wren. son; frequents the tops of
high oaks and firs: the
smallest British bird.
24. Marsh titmouse, Parus palustris. Haunts great woods: two
harsh sharp notes.
25. Small willow- Regulus non cristatus. Sings in March and on to

wren, September.
26. Largest ditto, Ditto. Cantat voce stridula locustae ;
from end of April to
August.
27. Grasshopper- § Alauda minima voce Chirps all night, from the
lark, locustae. middle of April to the
end of July.
28. Martin, Hirundo agrestis. All the breeding time; from
May to September.
29. Bullfinch, Pyrrhula,
30. Bunting, Emberiza alba. From the end of January to

July.
All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to

song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through,
come under the Linnaean ordo of passeres.

106

The above-mentioned birds, as they stand

THE NATURAL HISTORY

belong to the following Linnaean genera.

I, 7) 10, 27.

2, 11, 21,

39 42 5, 9, 12, 15,

17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26.
6, 30.

Alauda.
Turdus.

Motacilla.

Emberiza.

numerically,
8, 28. Hirundo.
13, 16, 19. Fringilla.
22, 24. Paras,
14, 29. Lexia.

Birds that sing as they fly are but few:

RAII

Skylark,
Titlark,

Woodlark,
Blackbird, Merula.

White-throat, Ficidulae

Swallow,
Wren,

NOMINA,.

Alauda vulgaris.

Alauda pratorum,

Alauda arborea.

afiinis.

Hirundo domestica.
Passer troglodytes.

Rising, suspended, and fall-
ing.

In its descent; also sitting
on trees, and walking on
the ground.

Suspended; in hot summer
nights all night long,

Sometimes from bush to
bush.

Uses when singing on the
wing odd jerks and ges-
ticulations.

In soft sunny weather.

Sometimes from bush to
bush.

Birds that breed most early in these parts:

Raven, Corvus.
Song-thrush, Turdus.

Blackbird, Merula.

Rook, Cornix frugilega.
Woodlark, Alauda arborea.
Ring-dove, Palumbus torquatus.

Hatches in February and
March.

In March.

In March.

Builds the
March.

Hatches in April.

Lays the beginning of April.

beginning of

All birds that continue in full song till after Midsummer
appear to me to breed more than once.

Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy
somewhat in proportion to their bulk; I mean in this
island, where they are much pursued and annoyed: but in
Ascension Island, and many other desolate places, mariners
have found fowls so unacquainted with an human figure,

“The Skylark sings -—‘ rising, suspended, and falling’ ”

OF SELBORNE 107

that they would stand still to be taken; as is the case with
boobies, etc. Asan example of what is advanced, I remark
that the golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird)
will stand unconcerned till you come within three or four
yards of it, while the bustard (o/s), the largest British land
fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many
furlongs.

I am, etc.

LETTER III
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Jan. 15, 1770.
Dear Sir,

Ir was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that
you were not displeased with my little methodus of birds.
If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be owing to
its punctuality. For many months I carried a list in my
pocket of the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I
rode or walked about my business, I noted each day the
continuance or omission of each bird’s song; so that I am
as sure of the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any
transaction whatsoever.

I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which
you put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner
that 1am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where
you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country,
and therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you
will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many
species continued to warble after the beginning of July.

The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter
very late; and therefore it is no wonder that they protract
their song: for I lay it down as a maxim in ornithology,
that as long as there is any incubation going on there is
music. As to the redbreast and wren, it is well known to

108 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the most incurious observer that they whistle the year
round, hard frost excepted; especially the latter.

It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or
a less reed-sparrow, or sedge-bird, alive. As the first is
undoubtedly, and the last, as far as I can yet see, a
summer bird of passage, they would require more nice
and curious management in a cage than I should be able to
give them: they are both distinguished songsters. The note
of the former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings
to my mind those lines in a song in “‘ As You Like It,”

“ And tune his merry note
Unto the wild bird’s throat.”—-SHakESPEARE.

The latter has a surprising variety of notes resembling
the song of several other birds; but then it also has an
hurrying manner, not at all to its advantage: it is not-
withstanding a delicate polyglot.

It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night;
perhaps only caged birds do so. I once knew a tame
red-breast in a cage that always sang as long as candles
were in the room ; but in their wild state no one supposes
they sing in the night.

I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there
are to be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former
month, notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily.
Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect to the
swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer
advances: and I saw, at the time mentioned, many hun-
dreds of young wagtails on the banks of the Cherwell,
which almost covered the meadows. If the matter appears
as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to the
dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are
concealed by the leaves?

Many times have I had the curiosity to open the
stomachs of woodcocks and snipes; but nothing ever
occurred that helped to explain to me what their sub-
sistence might be: all that I could ever find was a soft
mucus, among which lay many pellucid small gravels.

I am, etc.

OF SELBORNE 109

LETTER IV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Feb. 19, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Your observation that “the cuckoo does not deposit its
egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes
in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in some degree
congenerous, with whom to intrust its young,” is per-
fectly new to me; and struck me so forcibly, that I
naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to con-
sider whether the fact was so, and what reason there was
for it. When I came to recollect and inquire, I could not
find that any cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts,
except in the nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the
titlark, the white-throat, and the redbreast, all soft-billed
insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr. Willughby men-
tions the nests of the pa/umbus (ring-dove), and of the
fringilla (chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains,
and such hard food: but then he does not mention them
as of his own knowledge; but says afterwards that he saw
himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly
possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same
food with the hard-billed: for the former have thin
membranaceous stomachs suited to their soft food ; while
the latter, the granivorous tribe, have strong muscular
gizzards, which, like mills, grind, by the help of small
gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed. This proceeding
of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it were by chance,
is such a monstrous outrage on maternal affection, one of
the first great dictates of nature; and such a violence on
instinct; that, had it only been related of a bird in the
Brazils, or Peru, it would never have merited our belief.
But yet, should it farther appear that this simple bird,
when divested of that natural cropy that seems to raise
the kind in general above themselves, and inspire them

110 THE NATURAL HISTORY

with extraordinary degrees of cunning and address, may
be still endued with a more enlarged faculty of discerning
what species are suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers
for its disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them
only under their care, this would be adding wonder to
wonder, and instancing in a fresh manner, that the methods
of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but
astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable
appearances.

What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer
concerning the defect of natural affection in the ostrich,
may be well applied to the bird we are talking of :

“‘She is hardened against her young ones, as though
they were not hers:

‘“‘ Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither
hath he imparted to her understanding.” *

Query. Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a
season, or does she drop several in different nests accord-
ing as opportunity offers?

I am, etc.

LETTER V
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, April 12, 1770.
Dear Sir,

I HEARD many birds of several species sing last year after
Midsummer ; enough to prove that the summer solstice is
not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods.
The yellowhammer no doubt persists with more steadiness
than any other; but the woodlark, the wren, the red-
breast, the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the
common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of
what I advanced.

1Job xxxix. 16, 17.

OF SELBORNE III

If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of
the summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or
three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one
of those songsters; but I am no birdcatcher; and so little
used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would
soon die for want of skill in feeding.

Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the
thick-billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320; or was
it the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr.
Pennant’s last publication, p. 16?

As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter
in moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what
should be the reason. The thriving at those times
appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check
which the cold throws upon insensible perspiration. The
case is just the same with blackbirds, etc.; and farmers and
warreners observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindly
at such times, and the latter that their rabbits are never in
such good case as in a gentle frost. But when frosts are
severe, and of long continuance, the case is soon altered ;
for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion
occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed,
moreover, that some human constitutions are more inclined
to plumpness in winter than in summer.

When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that
the first that fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and
then the song-thrushes.

You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows,
etc. can be induced to sit at all on the egg of the cuckoo
without being scandalized at the vast disproportioned size
of the suppositious egg ; but the brute creation, I suppose,
have very little idea of size, colour, or number. For the
common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on
her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a nest full
of eggs that have been withdrawn: and, moreover, a hen-
turkey, in the same circumstances, would sit on in the
empty nest till she perished with hunger.

I think the matter might easily be determined whether
a cuckoo lays one or two eggs, or more, in a season,

112 THE NATURAL HISTORY

by opening a female during the laying-time. If rnore than
one was come down out of the ovary, and advanced to
a good size, doubtless then she would that spring lay more
than one.

I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine.

Your supposition that there may be some natural
obstruction in singing birds while they are mute, and that
when this is removed the song recommences is new and
bold; I wish you could discover some good grounds for
this suspicion.

I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the
caprimulgus, or fern-fowl ; you were, I find, acquainted with
the bird before.

When we meet, I shall be glad to have some conversa-
tion with you concerning the proposal you make of my
drawing up an account of the animals in this neighbour-
hood. 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 unsup-
ported and alone to begin a natural history from his own
autopsia! Though there is endless room for observation
in the field of nature, which is boundless, yet investigation
(where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make
but slow progress; and all that one could collect in many
years would go into a very narrow compass. ;

Some extracts from your ingenious “ Investigations of
the difference between the present temperature of the
air in Italy,” etc. have fallen in my way; and gave me
great satisfaction: they have removed the objections that
always rose in my mind whenever I came to the passages
which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil, when
writing a didactic poem a the region of Italy, could
never think of describing freezing rivers, unless such
severity of weather pretty frequently ecurred |

P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

OF SELBORNE 113

LETTER VI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, May 21, 1770.
Dear Sir,

Tue severity and turbulence of last month so inter-
rupted the regular progress of summer migration, that
some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves,
and others are apparently thinner than usual; as the white-
throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I
well remember that after the very severe spring in the
year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were very scarce.
They come probably hither with a south-east wind, or
when it blows between those points; but in that unfavour-
able year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer
through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all
these disadvantages two swallows, asI 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 ;! there is room to
expect great things from the hands of that man, who is
a good naturalist: and one would think that an history
of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola
would be new and interesting. I could wish to see that
work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is
physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver
mines of that district.

When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving
it seeds, I could not help wondering; because the reed-
sparrow which I mentioned to you (passer arundinaceus
minor Raii) is a soft-billed bird; and most probably
migrates hence before winter; whereas the bird you kept
(passer torquatus Raii) abides all the year, and is a thick-

1 This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis,
H

114 THE NATURAL HISTORY

billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a
songster; but in this matter I want to be better informed.
The former has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings
all night. Some part of the song of the former, I suspect,
is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-
billed sort; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of
his British Zoology, till I reminded him of his omission
See British Zoology last published, p. 16.1

I have somewhat to advance on the different manners
in which different birds fly and walk; but as this is a
subject that I have not enough considered, and is of such
a nature as not to be contained in a small space, I
shall say nothing farther about it at present.’

No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their
first plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say.
“because they are not to pair and discharge their parental
functions till the ensuing spring.” As colours seem to
be the chief external sexual distinction in many birds, these
colours do not take place till sexual attachments begin
to obtain. And the case is the same in quadrupeds;
among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but
little: but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy
manes, beards and brawny necks, etc. etc. strongly dis-
criminate the male from the female. We may instance
still farther in our own species, where a beard and stronger
features are usually characteristic of the male sex: but this
sexual diversity does not take place in earlier life; for
a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the
difference shall not be discernible ;

“ Ouem s1 puellarum insereres choro,
Miré sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum, solutis
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.”—Hoa,

1See letter xxv, to Mr, Pennant, 2 See letter xlii, to Mr, Barrington.

OF SELBORNE 115

LETTER VII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Ringmer, near Lewes, Oct. 8, 1770.
Dear Sir,
I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the
birds of Jamaica; a sight of the hirundines of that hot and
distant island would be great entertainment to me.

The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I
have read the Annus Primus with satisfaction: for though
some parts of this work are exceptionable, and he may
advance some mistaken observations; yet the ornithology
of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious. Men
that undertake only one district are much more likely to
advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more
than they can possibly be acquainted with: every kingdom,
every province, should have its own monographer.

The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray’s
Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of
his country, into which the works of our great naturalist
may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, I
know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the
work of Scopoli: as to myself, I think I discover strong
tokens of authenticity; the style corresponds with that
of his Entomology; and his characters of his Ordines and
Genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly.
He has ventured to alter some of the Linnaean genera
with sufficient show of reason.

It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so
many swifts and no swallows at Staines; because, in my
long observation of those birds, I never could discover the
least degree of rivalry or hostility between the species.

Ray remarks that birds of the gallinae order, as cocks
and hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc. are pulveratrices
such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing
their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin.

116 THE NATURAL HISTORY

As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves
never wash: and J once thought that those birds that wash
themselves would never dust; but here I find myself
mistaken ; for common house-sparrows are great pulvera-
trices, being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in
dusty roads; and yet they are great washers. Does not
the skylark dust?

Query. Might not Mahomet and his followers take
one method of purification from these pulveratrices?
because I find from travellers of credit, that if a strict
mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where no water
is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and
most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust.

A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl
in the nest of a small bird on the ground; and that it
was fed by the little bird. I went to see this extraordi-
nary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo
hatched in the nest of a titlark: it was become vastly
too big for its nest, appearing

—_——_____—-in tenui re
Majores pennas nido extendisse—

and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger,
as I teazed it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring
and buffeting with its wings like a game-cock. The dupe
of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with
meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude.

In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large
pond; and found, after some observation, that they were
feeding on the /ibellulae, or dragon-flies; some of which
they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as
they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus
says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of
prey.

This district affords some birds that are hardly ever
heard of at Selborne. In the first place considerable flocks ot
cross-beaks (/oxiae curvirostrae) have appeared this summer
in the pine-groves belonging to this house ; the water-ousel
is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near

OF SELBORNE 117

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-ousels
(my newly discovered migraters) scattered, at intervals, all
along the Sussex downs from Chichester to Lewes. Let
them come from whence they will, it looks very suspicious
that they are cantoned along the coast in order to pass the
channel when severe weather advances. They visit us
again in April, as it should seem, in their return; and are
not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable
that they are very tame, and seem to have no manner of
apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. There
are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone.
No doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex downs: the
prospects and rides round Lewes are most lovely!

As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look
out in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time
of the year, have discovered some of the summer short-
winged birds of passage crowding towards the coast in
order for their departure: but it was very extraordinary
that I never saw a redstart, white-throat, black-cap, un-
crested wren, fly-catcher, etc. And I remember to have
made the same remark in former years, as I usually come
to this place annually about this time. The birds most
common along the coast at present are the stone-chatters,
whinchats, buntings, linnets, some few wheat-ears, titlarks,
etc. Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to
prolong their stay by this soft, still, dry season.

A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in
a little walled court belonging to the house where I now
am visiting, retires under ground about the middle of
November, and comes forth again about the middle of
April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers
very little inclination towards food; but in the height of
summer grows voracious: and then as the summer declines
its appetite declines; so that for the last six weeks in
autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces,
dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. In a neigh-
bouring village one was kept till by tradition it was

118 THE NATURAL HISTORY

supposed to be an hundred years old. An instance of
vast longevity in such a poor reptile!

LETTER VIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Dec. 20, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Tue birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows
(passeres torquati.)

There are doubtless many home internal migrations
within this kingdom that want to be better understood :
witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear
with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among
them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it
should seem very improbable that any one district should
produce such numbers of these little birds; and much
more when only one half of the species appears: therefore
we may conclude that the fringillae caelebes, for some good
purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which
the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the
intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should be
interrupted in winter; since in many animals, and par-
ticularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately,
except at the season when commerce is necessary for the
continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaf-
finches see Fauna Suecica, p. 95, and Systema Naturae,
p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches,
but none of cocks.

Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of
the British singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very prob-
able one ; since the matter of food is a great regulator of
the actions and proceedings of the brute creation : there is
but one that can be set in competition with it, and that
is love. But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one

OF SELBORNE 119

circumstance when you advance that, ““when they have thus
feasted, they again separate into small parties of five or six,
and get the best fare they can within a certain district,
having no inducement to go in quest of fresh-turned earth.”
Now if you mean that the business of congregating is quite
at an end from the conclusion of wheat-sowing to the
season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; for
larks and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and
congregate as much in the very dead of winter as when
the husbandman is busy with his ploughs and harrows.

Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and
fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas,
and to retire to some districts more suitable to the purpose
of breeding. ‘That the former pair before they retire, and
that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was a
sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be
denied but that now and then we hear of a woodcock’s
nest, or young birds, discovered in some part or other of
this island: but then they are always mentioned as rarities,
and somewhat out of the common course of things: but
as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist
has ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found
the nest or young of those species in any part of these
kingdoms. And I the more admire at this instance as
extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in
summer as well as in winter might support them here
which maintains their congeners, the blackbirds and
thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through.
From hence it appears that it is not food alone which
determines some species of birds with regard to their stay
or departure. Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or
later according as the warm weather comes on earlier or
later For I well remember, after that dreadful winter of
1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow on
through April and May, and that these kinds of birds
(what few remained of them) did not depart as usual, but
were seen lingering about till the beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidification
of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testi-

120 THE NATURAL HISTORY

mony of faunists that have written professedly the natural
history of particular countries. Now, as to the fieldfare,
Linnaeus, in his Fauna Suecica, says of it that “‘maximis in
arboribus nidtficat”: and of the redwing he says, in the
same place, that “‘ #idificat in mediis arbusculis, sive sepibus :
ova sex caeruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis.’ Hence we
may be assured that fieldfares and redwings breed in
Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of the wood-
cock, that “ nupta ad nos venit circa aequinoctium vernale”’:
meaning in Tirol, of which he is a native. And afterwards
he adds “‘nidificat in paludibus alpinis: ova ponit3-- 5.”
It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at
all in Austria: but he says “Avis haec septentrionalium
provinctarum aestivo tempore incola est; ubi plerumque nidificat.
Appropinquante hyeme australiores provincias petit: hinc ctrea
plenitlunium mensis Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat.
Tunc rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis Marti per
Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septextrionales provincias
redit.” or the whole passage (which I have abridged)
see Elenchus, etc. p. 351. This seems to be a full proof
of the migration of woodcocks ; though little is proved
concerning the place of breeding.

P.S. There fell in the county of Rutland, in three
weeks of this present very wet weather, seven inches and
an half of rain, which is more than has fallen in any three
weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the world.

A mean quantity in that county for one year is twenty
inches and an half.

LETTER IX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.

Fyfield, near Andover, Feb. 12, 1771.
Dear Sir,
You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the
well attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom

OF SELBORNE 121

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, to
slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the
return of the sun and fine weather awakens them.

But then we must not, I think, deny migration in
general ; because migration certainly does subsist in some
places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me.
Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration,
for many weeks together, both spring and fall: during
which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the
Straits from north to south, and from south to north,
according to the season, And these vast migrations consist
not only of hirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, oro
pendolos, or golden thrushes, etc. etc. and also many of
our soft-billed summer-birds of passage; and moreover
of birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts
of hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years ago,
gives a curious account of the incredible armies of hawks
and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing the
Thracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the
above mentioned, he remarks that the procession is swelled
by whole troops of eagles and vultures.

Now it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa should
retreat before the sun as it advances, and retire to milder
regions, and especially birds of prey, whose blood being
heated with hot animal food, are more impatient of a sultry
climate: but then I cannot help wondering why kites and
hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the
severity of England, and even of Sweden and all north
Europe, should want to migrate from the south of Europe,
and be dissatisfied with the winters of Andalusia.

It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid
on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their
migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, etc. ;
because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to
the equator without launching out and exposing itself to
boundless seas, and that by crossing the water at Dover,
and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more confidence

122 THE NATURAL HISTORY

advance this obvious remark, because my brother has
always found that some of his birds, and particularly the
swallow kind, are very sparing of their pains in crossing
fe Mediterranean: for when arrived at Gibraltar, they
o not

— — — “Rang’d in figure wedge their way,
—-———— And set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing

Easing their flight :”” — — — — Mitton.

but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of six
or seven in a company ; and sweeping low, just over the
surface of the land and water, direct their course to the
opposite continent at the narrowest passage they can find.
They usually slope across the bay to the south-west, and
sO pass over opposite to Tangier, which, it seems, is the
narrowest space.

In former letters we have considered whether it was
probable that woodcocks in moon-shiny nights cross the
German ocean from Scandinavia. As a proof that birds
of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it is, I shall
relate the following incident, which, though mentioned to
have happened so many years ago, was strictly matter of
fact:—-As some people were shooting in the parish of
Trotton, in the county of Sussex, they killed a duck in
that dreadful winter 1708-9, with a silver collar about its
neck,’ on which were engraven the arms of the king
of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that
time has often told to a near relation of mine; and, to
the best of my remembrance, the collar was in the posses-
sion of the rector.

At present I do not know any body near the sea-side
that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the
moon woodcocks first come: if I lived near the sea myselt
I would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I
used to observe when J was a sportsman, that there were
times in which woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy
that they would drop again when flushed just before the

1] have v:ad a like anecdote of a swan.

The Stock-Dave

OF SELBORNE 123

spaniels, nay just at the muzzle of a gun that had been
fired at them: whether this strange laziness was the effect
of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not presume to say.

Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and
Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire
and Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot
attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth: the
defect in the west is rather a presumptive argument that
these birds come over to us from the continent at the
narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward.

Let me hear from your own observation whether sky-
larks do not dust. I think they do: and if they do,
whether they wash also.

The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was
educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter
of October last.

Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel
for Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will
endeavour to get him one when they call on us again in
April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my
Andalusian birds; I hope they answered your expectation.
Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much
about the same time with the woodcock : they, like the
fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for migra-
tion ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners,
so might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not
Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? did he not find a missel-
thrush’s nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ?

The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, aenas Raii, 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 of Selborne ; and
strings of them were seen morning and evening that
reached a mile or more: but since the beechen woods
have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in
number. ‘The ring-dove, pa/umbus Raii, stays with us the
whole year, and breeds several times through the summer.

Before I received your letter of October last I had just
remarked in my journal that the trees were unusually green.

124 THE NATURAL HISTORY

This uncommon verdure lasted on late into November ; and
may be accounted for from a late spring, a cool and moist
summer ; but more particularly from vast armies of chafers,
or tree beetles, which, in many places, reduced whole
woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot again
at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very
late in the year.

My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting,
has tried all the owls that are his near neighbours with a
pitch-pipe set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in
B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring.

I am, etc. etc.

LETTER X
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.

Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771.

Dear SiR,
From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor
cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many
(most) of his owls hoot in B flat: but that one went
almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes
by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters
use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common
London pitch.

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear,
remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three
different keys, in G flat, or F sharp, in B flat and A flat.
He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat,
and the other in B flat. Query: Do these different notes
proceed from different species, or only from various indi-
viduals? The same person finds upon trial that the note
of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in
different individuals ; for, about Selborne wood, he found
they were mostly in D: he heard two sing together, the

OF SELBORNE 125

one in D, the other in D sharp, who made a disagreeable
concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about
Wolmer-forest some in C. As to nightingales, he says
that their notes are so short, and their transitions so rapid,
that he cannot well ascertain their key. Perhaps in a cage,
and in a room, their notes may be more distinguishable.
This person has tried to settle the notes of a swift, and of
several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any
criterion.

As I have often remarked that redwings are some of
the first birds that suffer with us in severe weather, it is
no wonder at all that they retreat from Scandinavian
winters : and much more the ordo of grallae, who, all to a
bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach
of winter. “ Grallae tanquam conjuratae unanimiter in fugam
Sé conjiciunt; ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem
invenire possimus; ut enim aestate in australibus degere
nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque siccam; ita nec in
frigidis 0b eandem causam,” says Eckmarck the Swede, in
his ingenious little treatise called Migrationes Avium,
which by all means you ought to read while your thoughts
run on the subject of migration. See Amoenitates
Academicae, vol. 4, p. 565.

Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate
in one country and not in another: but the gradlae, (which
procure their food from marshes and boggy grounds) must
in winter forsake the more northerly parts of Europe, or
perish for want of food.

I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus con-
cerning the woodcock : it is expected of him that he should
be able to account for the motions and manner of life of
the animals of his own Fauna.

Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in
bare descriptions, and a few synonyms: the reason is
plain ; because all that may be done at home in a man’s
study, but the investigation of the life and conversation of
animals, is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty,
and is not to be attained but by the active and inquisitive,
and by those that reside much in the country.

126 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in
their specific differences; which are almost universally
constituted by one or two particular marks, the rest of the
description running in general terms. But our countryman,
the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that conveys
some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his
superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the
advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information.

At this distance of years it is not in my power to
recollect at what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or
alert when I was a sportsman ; but, upon my mentioning
this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has observed
them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather :
if this should be the case, then the inaptitude for flying
arises only from an eagerness for food; as sheep are
observed to be very intent on grazing against stormy wet
evenings.

lam, etc. etc.

LETTER XI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.

Selborne, Feb. 8, 1772.
Dear Sir,

Wuen I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious
flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at
these congregations, and wishing that it was in my power
to account for those appearances almost peculiar to the
season. The two great motives which regulate the pro-
ceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger; the
former incites animals to perpetuate their kind, the latter
induces them to preserve individuals; whether either of
these should seem to be the ruling passion in the matter
of congregating is to be considered. As to love, that is
out of the question at a time of the year when that soft

OF SELBORNE 127

passion is not indulged; besides, during the amorous
season, such a jealousy prevails between the male birds
that they can hardly bear to be together in the same hedge
or field. Most of the singing and elation of spirits of that
time seem to me to be the effect of rivalry and emulation:
and it is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute the
equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the
country.

Now as to the business of food: as these animals are
actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they should
not, one would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of
sustenance at a time when it is most likely to fail; yet
such associations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and
thicken as the severity increases. As some kind of self-
interest and self-defence is no doubt the motive for the
proceeding, may it not arise from the helplessness of their
state in such rigorous seasons; as men crowd together,
when under great calamities, though they know not why ?
Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold ;
and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from
the ravages of birds of prey and other dangers.

If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds
love to congregate, I am the more struck when I see
incongruous ones in such strict amity. If we do not much
wonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train
of daws, yet it is strange that the former should so fre-
quently have a flight of starlings for their satellites. Is it
because rooks have a more discerning scent than their
attendants, and can lead them to spots more productive ot
food? Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two large
nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper
mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than
other round-billed birds, and can grope for their meat
when out of sight. Perhaps then their associates attend
them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the
motions of their finders; and as lions are said to do on
the yelpings of jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes
associate.

128 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

March 9, 1772.
Dear Sir,

As a gentleman and myself were walking on the fourth of
last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near
the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural know-
ledge, we were surprised to see three house-swallows
gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather
chilly, with the wind at north-west ; but the tenor of the
weather for some time before had been delicate, and the
noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from
repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and more
induced to believe that many of the swallow kind do not
depart from this island; but lay themselves up in holes
and caverns ; and do, insect-like and bat-like, come forth
at mild times, and then retire again to their /atebrae. Nor
make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven,
Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the
chalk-cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, I
should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter, when
the noons were soft and inviting, and the sun warm and
invigorating. And I am the more of this opinion from
what I have remarked during some of our late springs,
that though some swallows did make their appearance
about the usual time, viz. the thirteenth or fourteenth of
April, yet meeting with an harsh reception, and blustering
cold north-east winds, they immediately withdrew, abscond-
ing for several days, till the weather gave them better
encouragement.

OF SELBORNE 129

LETTER XIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

April 12, 1772.
Dear Sir, : a
Wuite I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at.
the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the
pleasure of writing to you. On the first of November
I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned,
began first to dig the ground in order to the forming
its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a
great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its
fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind;
but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little
exceeding the hour-hand of a clock; and suitable to the
composure of an animal said to be a whole month in
performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more
assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the
earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but,
as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and
sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth
by the heat in the middle of the day; and though I
continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the
work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty
mornings, would have quickened its operations. No part
of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme
timidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for
though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel
of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude
about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling
away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a
corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-
glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on
tiptoe, feeding with eg earnestness in a morning, so
sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal

animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark.
I

130 THE NATURAL HISTORY

The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach
as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well
as breathing for a great part of the year. When first
awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in the autumn before
it retires: through the height of the summer it feeds
voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way.
I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those
that do it kind offices; for, as soon as the good old
lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more
than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with
awkward alacrity; but remains inattentive to strangers.
Thus not only “the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass
his master’s crib,” but the most abject reptile and torpid
of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is
touched with the feelings of gratitude!
J am, etc. etc.

P.S. In about three days after I left Sussex the tortoise
retired into the ground under the hepatica.

LETTER XIV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, March 26, 1773.
Dear Sir,

Tue more I reflect on the cropyy of animals, the more |
am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this
affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration.
Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard,
in proportion to the helplessness of her brood; and will
fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those
chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before
her with relentless cruelty.

This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the
invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation.

V[saiah i. 3.

OF SELBORNE 131

Thus an hen, just become a mother, is no longer that
placid bird she used to be, but with feathers standing
on end, wings hovering, and clocking note, she runs
about like one possessed. Dams will throw themselves
in the way of the greatest danger in order to avert it
from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along
before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs
from her helpless covey. In the time of nidification
the most feeble birds will assault the most rapacious. All
the hirundines of a village are up in arms at the sight of an
hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that district.
A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair
of ravens nesting in the rock of Gibraltar would suffer no
vulture or eagle to rest near their station, but would drive
them from the hill with an amazing fury: even the blue
thrush at the season of breeding would dart out from the
clefts of the rocks to chase away the kestril, or the
sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that
has young, she will not be induced to betray them by
an inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance
with meat in her mouth for an hour together.

Should I farther corroborate what I have advanced
above by some anecdotes which I probably may have
mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust,
pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration.

The flycatcher of the Zoology (the stoparola of Ray),
builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my
house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadver-
tently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in
a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that
followed. But an hot sunny season coming on before the
brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became
insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the
tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient,
and prompted the parent-birds to hover over the nest
all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and
mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from
their suffering offspring.

A farther instance I once saw of notable sagacity in

132 THE NATURAL HISTORY

a willow-wren, which had built in a bank in my fields.
This bird a friend and myself had observed as she sat
in her nest; but were particularly careful not to disturb
her, though we saw she eyed us with some degree of
jealousy. Some days after as we passed that way we were
desirous of remarking how this brood went on; but no
nest could be found, till I happened to take up a large
bundle of long green moss, as it were, carelessly thrown
over the nest, in order to dodge the eye of any imperti-
nent intruder.

A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct
occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the
lining of an hotbed, in order to add some fresh dung.
From out of the side of this bed leaped an animal with
great agility that made a most grotesque figure; nor was
it without great difficulty that it could be taken; when it
proved to be a large white-bellied field-mouse with three
or four young clinging to her teats by their mouths and
feet. It was amazing that the desultory and rapid motions
of this dam should not oblige her litter to quit their hold,
especially when it appeared that they were so young as to
be both naked and blind!

To these instances of tender attachment, many more
of which might be daily discovered by those that are
studious of nature, may be opposed that rage of affection,
that monstrous perversion of the oropyy, which induces
some females of the brute creation to devour their young
because their owners have handled them too freely, or
removed them from place to place! Swine, and some-
times 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 perverted,
and the bad passions let loose are capable of any enormity:
but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow
in one most uniform tenor, should sometimes be so
extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than
myself to determine.

I am, etc.

OF SELBORNE 133

LETTER XV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, July 8, 1773.
Dear Sir, cd,
SoME young men went down lately to a pond on the verge
of Wolmer-forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks,
many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some
very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon
examination, I found to be teals. I did not know till then
that teals ever bred in the south of England, and was
much pleased with the discovery: this I look upon as a
great stroke in natural history.

We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of
white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this
church. As I have paid good attention to the manner of
life of these birds during their season of breeding, which
lasts the summer through, the following remarks may not
perhaps be unacceptable:—About an hour before sunset
(for then the mice begin to run) they sally forth in quest
of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and
small enclosures for them, which seem to be their only
food. In this irregular country we can stand on an
eminence and see them beat the fields over like a setting-
dog, and often drop down in the grass or corn. I have
minuted these birds with my watch for an hour together,
and have found that they return to their nests, the one or
the other of them, about once in five minutes; reflecting
at the same time on the adroitness that every animal is
possessed of as regards the well being of itself and off-
spring. But a piece of address, which they shew when
they return loaded, should not, I think, be passed over in
silence.—As they take their prey with their claws, so they
carry it in their claws to their nest: but, as the feet are
necessary in their ascent under the tiles, they constantly
perch first on the roof of the chancel, and shift the mouse

134 THE NATURAL HISTORY

from their claws to their bill, that the feet may be at
liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they
are rising under the eaves.

White owls seem not (but in this 1 am not positive) to
hoot at all: all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come
from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore
and hiss in a tremendous manner; and these menaces well
answer the intention of intimidating: for I have known a
whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining
the church-yard to be full of goblins and spectres. White
owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from
this screaming probably arose the common people's imagi-
nary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously
think attends the windows of dying persons. The plum-
age of the remiges of the wings of every species of
owl] that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant.
Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds
should not make much resistance or rushing, that they
may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon
a nimble and watchful quarry.

While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to
mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of
Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash
that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he
discovered at the bottom a mass of matter that at first he
could not account for. After some examination, he found
it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps of
birds and bats) that had been heaping together for ages,
being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many genera-
tions of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur,
and feathers of what they devour, after the manner of
hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were bushels
of this kind of substance.

When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as an
hen’s egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full
year without any water. Perhaps the case may be the
same with all birds of prey. When owls fly they stretch
out their legs behind them as a balance to their large
heavy heads: for as most nocturnal birds have large eyes

OF SELBORNE 135

and ears they must have large heads to contain them.
Large eyes I presume are necessary to collect every ray of
light, and large concave ears to command the smallest
degree of sound or noise.

I am, etc.

It will be proper to premise here that the sixteenth, eighteenth,
twentieth, and twenty-first letters have been published already in the
Philosophical Transactions: but as nicer observation has furnished
several corrections and additions, it is hoped that the republication of
them will not give offence; especially as these sheets would be very
imperfect without them, and as they will be new to many readers who
had no opportunity of seeing them when they made their first appearance.

The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, enter-
taining, social, and useful tribe of birds: they touch no
fruit in our gardens; delight, all except one species, in
attaching themselves to our houses; amuse us with their
migrations, songs, and marvellous agility; and clear our
outlets from the annoyances of gnats and other trouble-
some insects. Some districts in the south seas, near
Guiaquil,’ are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of
venomous mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those
coasts insupportable. It would be worth inquiring whether
any species of hirundines is found in those regions. Who-
ever 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 was it not for the friendly interposition
of the swallow tribe.

Many species of birds have their particular lice; but the
hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with dipterous insects,
which infest every species, and are so large, in proportion
to themselves, that they must be extremely irksome and
injurious to them. These are the Aippoboscae hirundinis,
with narrow subulated wings, abounding in every nest;
and are hatched by the warmth of the bird’s own body
during incubation, and crawl about under its feathers.

A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of
England under the name of forest-fly; and, to some, of

1See Ulloa’s Travels.

136 THE NATURAL HISTORY

side-fly, from its running sideways like a crab. It creeps
under the tails, and about the groins of horses, which, at
their first coming out of the north, are rendered half
frantic by the tickling sensation; while our own breed
little regards them.

The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or
rather pupae, of these flies as big as the flies themselves,
which he hatched in his own bosom. Any person that
will take the trouble to examine the old nests of either
species of swallows may find in them the black shining
cases of the pupae of these insects: but for other par-
ticulars, too long for this place, we refer the reader to
!’ Histoire a’ Insectes of that admirable entomologist. Tom.
iv. pl. 11.

LETTER XVI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Nov. 23, 1773.
Dear Sir,

In obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you
some account of the house-martin, or martlet; and, if my
monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should
happen to meet with your approbation, I may probably
soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the British hirun-
dines—the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin.

A few house-martins begin to appear about the six-
teenth of April; usually some few days later than the
swallow. For some time after they appear the hirundines
in general pay no attention to the business of nidification,
but play and sport about either to recruit from the fatigue
of their journey, if they do migrate at all, or else that
their blood may recover its true tone and texture after it
has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter.
About the middle of May, if the weather be fine, the
martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion

OF SELBORNE 137

for its family. The crust or shell of this nest seems to
be formed of such dirt or loam as comes most readily to
hand, and is tempered and wrought together with little
bits of broken straws to render it tough and tenacious.
As this bird often builds against a perpendicular wall
without any projecting ledge under, it requires its utmost
efforts to get the first foundation firmly fixed, so that it
may safely carry the superstructure. On this occasion
the bird not only clings with its claws, but partly supports
itself by strongly inclining its tail against the wall, making
that a fulcrum; and thus steadied it works and plasters
the materials into the face of the brick or stone. But
then, that this work may not, while it is soft and green,
pull itself down by its own weight, the provident architect
has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her
work too fast; but by building only in the morning, and
by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement,
gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an
inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful
workmen when they build mud-walls (informed at first
perhaps by this little bird) raise but a moderate layer at a
time, and then desist , lest the work should become top-
heavy, and so be ruined by its own weight. By this
method in about ten or twelve days is formed an hemi-
spheric 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 secure from the injuries
of weather. The shell or crust of the nest is a sort of
rustic work full of knobs and protuberances on the
outside: nor is the inside of those that I have examined
smoothed with any exactness at all; but is rendered soft
and warm, and fit for incubation, by a lining of small

138 THE NATURAL HISTORY

straws, grasses, and feathers; and sometimes by a bed of
moss interwoven with wool. In this nest they tread, or
engender, frequently during the time of building ; and the
hen lays from three to five white 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

oung. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the
nestlings would soon be burnt up, and destroyed in so
deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic excrement.
In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution is
made use of; particularly among dogs and cats, where
the dams lick away what proceeds from their young. But
in birds there seems to be a particular provision, that the
dung of nestlings is enveloped into a tough kind of jelly,
and therefore is the easier conveyed off without soiling or
daubing. Yet, as 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 Acca, or
full growth, they soon become impatient of confinement,
and sit all day with their heads out at the orifice, where
the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with food
from morning to night. Fora time the young are fed on
the wing by their parents; but the feat is done by so
quick and almost imperceptible a sleight, that a person
must have attended very exactly to their motions before
he would be able to perceive it. As soon as the young
are able to shift for themselves, the dams immediatel

turn their thoughts to the business of a second brood:
while the first flight, shaken off and rejected by their
nurses, congregate in great flocks, and are the birds that
are seen clustering and hovering on sunny mornings and
evenings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs of
churches and houses. These congregatings usually begin
to take place about the first week in August; and there-
fore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is
pretty well over. The young of this species do not quit
their abodes all together; but the more forward birds get

OF SELBORNE 139

abroad some days before the rest. These approaching the
eaves of buildings, and playing about before them, make
people think that several old ones attend one nest. They
are often capricious in fixing on a nesting place, beginning
many edifices, and leaving them unfinished; but when
once a nest is completed in a sheltered place, it serves for
several seasons. ‘Those which breed in a ready finished
house get the start in hatching of those that build new by
ten days or a fortnight. These industrious artificers are
at their labours in the long days before four in the
morning: when they fix their materials they plaster them
on with their chins, moving their heads with a quick
vibratory motion. They dip and wash as they fly some-
times in very hot weather, but not so frequently as
swallows. It has been observed that martins usually
build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat of
the sun may not crack and destroy their nests: but
instances are also remembered where they bred for many
years in vast abundance in an hot stifled inn-yard, against
a wall facing to the south.

Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation:
but in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong
proof to the contrary at an house without eaves in an
exposed district, where some martins build year by year
in the corners of the windows. But, as the corners of these
windows (which face to the south-east and south-west) are
too shallow, the nests are washed down every hard rain;
and yet these birds drudge on to no purpose from summer
to summer, without changing their aspect or house. It is
a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest
is washed away and bringing dirt --- ‘generis lapsi sarcire
ruinas.’ Thus is instinct a most wonderful unequal
faculty ; in some instances so much above reason, in other
respects so far below it! Martins love to frequent towns,
especially if there are great lakes and rivers at hand; nay
they even affect the close air of London. And I have not
only seen them nesting in the Borough, but even in the
Strand and Fleet-street ; but then it was obvious from the
dinginess of their aspect that their feathers partook of

140 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the filth of that sooty atmosphere. Martins are by far the
least agile of the four species ; their wings and tails are
short, and therefore they are not capable of such surprising
turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow.
Accordingly they make use of a placid easy motion in a
middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great
height, and never sweeping long together over the surface
of the ground or water. They do not wander far for
food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or
under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale,
especially in windy weather. They breed the latest of all
the swallow kind: in 1772 they had nestlings on to
October the twenty-first, and are never without unfledged
young as late as Michaelmas.

As the summer declines the congregating flocks increase
in numbers daily by the constant accession of the second
broods; till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads
round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of
the sky as they frequent the aits of that river, where they
roost. They retire, the bulk of them I mean, in vast
flocks together about the beginning of October : but have
appeared of late years in a considerable flight in this neigh-
bourhood, for one day or two, as late as November the
third and sixth, after they were supposed to have been

one for more thana 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 some where; for the birds
that return yearly bear no manner of proportion to the
birds that retire.

House-martins are distinguished from their congeners
by having their legs covered with soft downy feathers
down to their toes. They are no songsters ; but twitter
in a pretty inward soft manner in their nests. During
the time of breeding they are often greatly molested

with fleas.
I am, etc.

OF SELBORNE 141

LETTER XVII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Ringmer, near Lewes, Dec, 9, 1773.

Dear Sir,

I RECEIVED your last favour just as I was setting out for
this place; and am pleased to find that my monography
met with your approbation. My remarks are the result
of many years’ observation; and are, I trust, true on the
whole: though I do not pretend to say that they are
perfectly void of mistake, or that a more nice observer
might not make many additions, since subjects of this
kind are inexhaustible.

If you think my letter worthy the notice of your
respectable society, you are at liberty to lay it before
them; and they will consider it, I hope, as it was
intended, as an humble attempt to promote a more
minute inquiry into natural history; into the life and
conversation of animals. Perhaps hereafter I may be
induced to take the house-swallow under consideration ;
and from that proceed to the rest of the British
hirundines.

Though I have now travelled the Sussex-downs upwards
of thirty years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic
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 East-Bourn,
is about sixty miles in length, and is called The South
Downs, properly speaking, only round Lewes. As you
pass along you command a noble view of the wild,
or weald, on one hand, and the broad downs and
sea on the other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family’ just
at the foot of these hills, and was so ravished with
the prospect from Plumpton-plain near Lewes, that he
mentions those scapes in his ‘“ Wisdom of God in the

1Mr, Courthope, of Danny.

142 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Works of the Creation ’”’ with the utmost satisfaction, and
thinks them equal to any thing he had seen in the finest
parts of Europe.

For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly
sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk-
hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged,
broken, abrupt, and shapeless.

Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so
happy as to convey to you the same idea; but I never
contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive
somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings
and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides,
and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air
of vegetative dilatation and expansion --------- Or was
there ever a time when these immense masses of calcarious
matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious
moisture; were raised and leavened into such shapes by
some plastic power; and so made to swell and heave their
broad backs into the sky so much above the less animated
clay of the wild below?

By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the
hills that have been taken round my house, I should
suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average
at about the rate of five hundred feet.

One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep: from the
westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks have
horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs; and a
hornless sheep is rarely to be seen: but as soon as you
pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding-hill, all the
flocks at once become hornless, or, as they call them, poll-
sheep; and have moreover black faces with a white tuft
of wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs:
so that you would think that the flocks of Laban were
pasturing on one side of the stream, and the variegated
breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the
other. And this diversity holds good respectively on
each side from the valley of Bramber and Beeding to the
eastward, and westward all the whole length of the downs.
If you talk with the shepherds on this subject, they tell

OF SELBORNE 143

you that the case has been so from time immemorial: and
smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the
situation of these two different breeds might not be
reversed? However, an intelligent friend of mine near
Chichester is determined to try the experiment; and has
this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, introduced
a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned
western ewes. The black-faced poll-sheep have the
shortest legs and the finest wool.

As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so
late a season of the year, I was determined to keep as
sharp a look-out as possible so near the southern coast,
with respect to the summer short-winged birds of passage.
We make great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of
the swallow kind, without examining enough into the
causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter; for,
entre nous, the disappearing of the latter is more marvellous
than that of the former, and much more unaccountable.
The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of
migration; and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid
state: but redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-
caps, etc. etc. are very ill provided for long flights; have
never been once found, as I ever heard of, in a torpid
state, and yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from
year to year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious
and inquisitive, which from day to day discern the other
small birds that are known to abide our winters. But,
notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing like a summer
bird of passage: and, what is more strange, not one
wheat-ear, though they abound so in the autumn as to be
a considerable perquisite to the shepherds that take them ;
and though many are to be seen to my knowledge all the
winter through in many parts of the south of England.
The most intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of
these birds appear on the downs in March, and then
withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone-quarries :
now and then a nest is plowed up in a fallow on the
downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the
time of wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great

144 THE NATURAL HISTORY

numbers; are sent for sale in vast quantities to Bright-
helmstone and Tunbridge; and appear at the tables of
all the gentry that entertain with any degree of elegance.
About Michaelmas they retire and are seen no more till
March. Though these birds are, when in season, in great
plenty on the south downs round Lewes, yet at East-
Bourn, which is the eastern extremity of those downs,
they abound much more. One thing is very remarkable
—that though in the height of the season so many
hundreds of dozens are taken, yet they never are seen
to flock; and it is a rare thing to see more than three
or four at a time: so that there must be a perpetual
flitting and constant progressive succession. It does
not appear that any wheat-ears are taken to the
westward of Houghton-bridge, which stands on the
river Arun.

I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration
of ring-ousels; and to take notice whether they continued
on the downs to this season of the year; as I had formerly
remarked them in the month of October all the way from
Chichester to Lewes wherever there were any shrubs and
covert: but not one bird of this sort came within my
observation. I only saw a few larks and whin-chats, some
rooks, and several kites and buzzards.

About Midsummer a flight of cross-bills comes to the
pine-groves about this house, but never makes any long
stay.

The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former
letter, still continues in this garden; and retired under
ground about the twentieth of November, and came out
again for one day on the thirtieth: it lies now buried in a
wet swampy border under a wall facing to the south, and
is enveloped at present in mud and mire!

Here is a large rookery round this house, the inhabitants
of which seem to get their livelihood very easily; for they
spend the greatest part of the day on their nest-trees when
the weather is mild. These rooks retire every evening all
the winter from this rookery, where they only call by the
way, as they are going to roost in deep woods: at the

OF SELBORNE 145

dawn of day they always revisit their nest-trees, and are
preceded a few minutes by a flight of daws, that act, as it

were, as their harbingers. Peete
, etc.

LETTER XVIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Jan. 29, 1774.
Dear Srr,

Tue house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly
the first comer of all the British hirundines; and appears
in general on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have
remarked from many years’ observation. Not but now
and then a straggler is seen much earlier: and, in par-
ticular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole
day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which
day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and
often happened early in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first
about lakes and mill-ponds; and it is also very particular,
that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow,
as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and
1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A circum-
stance this much more in favour of hiding than migration ;
since it is much more probable that a bird should retire to
its hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or
two only to warmer latitudes.

The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no
means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns
and out-houses against the rafters; and so she did in
Virgil’s time :

—— — — “Anté
Garruia quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo,”

In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called Jadu swada,

the barn-swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe
K

146 THE NATURAL HISTORY

there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English-
built : in these countries she constructs her nest in porches,
and gateways, and galleries, and open halls.

Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar
place; as we have known a swallow build down the shaft
of an old well, through which chalk had been formerly
drawn up for the purpose of manure: but in general with
us this hirundo breeds in chimneys; and loves to haunt
those stacks where there is a constant fire, no doubt for
the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the
immediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one
adjoining to that of the kitchen, and disregards the
perpetual smoke of that funnel, as I have often observed
with some degree of wonder.

Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this
little bird begin to form her nest about the middle of May,
which consists, like that of the house-martin, of a crust or
shell composed of dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces ot
straw to render it tough and permanent; with this differ-
ence, that whereas the shell of the martin is nearly
hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at the top, and
like half a deep dish: this nest is lined with fine grasses,
and feathers which are often collected as they float in
the air.

Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows
all day long in ascending and descending with security
through so narrow a pass. When hovering over the
mouth of the funnel, the vibrations of her wings acting on
the confined air occasion a rumbling like thunder. It is
not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient
situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her broods
from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which
frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to
get at these nestlings.

The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted
with red specks; and brings out her first brood about the
last week in June, or the first week in July. The pro-
gressive method by which the young are introduced into
life is very amusing: first, they emerge from the shaft

Suttiows, “They then are conducted to the ded leatless bough af same
tree, where, sitting ina row, they are attended with great assiduity ”

OF SELBORNE 147

with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the rooms
below: for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top,
and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some
tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great
assiduity, and may then be called perchers. In a day or
two more they become flyers, but are still unable to take
their own food; therefore they play about near the place
where the dams are hawking for flies; and, when a
mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam
and the nestling advance, rising towards each other, and
meeting at an angle; the young one all the while uttering
such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that
a person must have paid very little regard to the wonders
of Nature that has not often remarked this feat.

The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of
a second brood as soon as she is disengaged from her first;
which at once associates with the first broods of house-
martins; and with them congregates, clustering on sunny
roofs, towers, and trees. This hirundo brings out her
second brood towards the middle and end of August.

All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive
pattern of unwearied industry and affection; for, from
morning to night, while there 1s a family to be supported,
she spends the whole day in skimming close to the ground,
and exerting the most sudden turns and quick evolutions.
Avenues, and long walks under hedges, and pasture-fields,
and mown meadows where cattle graze, are her delight,
especially if there are trees interspersed ; because in such
spots insects most abound. When a fly is taken a smart
snap from her bill is heard, resembling the noise at the
shutting of a watch-case; but the motion of the mandibles
are too quick for the eye.

The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excuditor to
house-martins, and other little birds, announcing the
approach of birds of prey. For as soon as an hawk
appears, with a shrill alarming note he calls all the swal-
lows and martins about him; who pursue in a body, and
buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven him
from the village, darting down from above on his back,

148 THE NATURAL HISTORY

and rising in a perpendicular line in perfect security.
This bird also will sound the alarm, and strike at cats
when they climb on the roofs of houses, or otherwise
approach the nests. Each species of hirundo drinks as it
flies along, sipping the surface of the water; but the
swallow alone, in general, washes on the wing, by dropping
into a pool for many times together: in very hot weather
house-martins and bank-martins dip and wash little.

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny
weather sings both perching and flying; on trees in a kind
of concert, and on chimney tops: is also a bold flyer,
ranging to distant downs and commons even in windy
weather, which the other species seem much to dislike;
nay, even frequenting exposed sea-port towns, and making
little excursions over the salt water. Horsemen on wide
downs are often closely attended by a little party of
swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind
them, sweeping around, and collecting all the sculking
insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses’ feet :
when the wind blows hard, without this expedient, they
are often forced to settle to pick up their lurking prey.

This species feeds much on little co/eoptera, as well as on
gnats and flies : and often settles on dug ground, or paths,
for gravels to grind and digest its food. Before they
depart, for some weeks, to a bird, they forsake houses and
chimneys, and roost in trees; and usually withdraw about
the beginning of October; though some few stragglers
may appear on at times till the first week in November.

Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of
London next the fields, but do not enter, like the house-
martin, the close and crowded parts of the city.

Both male and female are distinguished from their con-
geners by the length and forkedness of their tails. They
are undoubtedly the most nimble of all the species: and
when the male pursues the female in amorous chase, they
then go beyond their usual speed, and exert a rapidity
almost too quick for the eye to follow.

After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning
atopy of the swallow, I shall add, for your farther amuse-

OF SELBORNE 149

ment, an anecdote or two not much in favour of her
sagacity :—

A certain swallow built for two years together on the
handles of a pair of garden-shears, that were stuck up
against the boards in an out-house, and therefore must
have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was wanted:
and, what is stranger still, another bird of the same species
built its nest on the wings and body of an owl that
happened by accident to hang dead and dry from the
rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and
with eggs in the nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy
the most elegant private museum in Great-Britain. The
owner, struck with the oddity of the sight, furnished the
bringer with a large shell, or conch, desiring him to fix it
just where the owl hung: the person did as he was ordered,
and the following year a pair, probably the same pair,
built their nest in the conch, and laid their eggs.

The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque
appearance, and are not the least curious specimens in
that wonderful collection of art and nature.?

Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its
way, an undistinguishing, limited faculty; and blind to
every circumstance that does not immediately respect self-
preservation, or lead at once to the propagation or support

of their species. Fain

With all respect, etc. etc.

LETTER. XIX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774.
Dear Sir,

I recsIvep your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to
find that you read my little history of the swallow with

1Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum.

[50 THE NATURAL HISTORY

your usual candour: nor was I less pleased to find that
you made objections where you saw reason.

As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which
species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in ques-
tion, since the ancients did not attend to specific differences
like modern naturalists: yet somewhat may be gathered,
enough to incline me to suppose that in the two passages
quoted the poet had his eye on the swallow.

In the first place the epithet garruda suits the swallow
well, who is a great songster; but not the martin, which is
rather a mute bird; and when it sings is so inward as scarce
to be heard. esides, if tigvum in that place signifies a
rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me to do, then [
think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not the
martin; since the former does frequently build within the
roof against the rafters; while the latter always, as far as I
have been able to observe, builds without the roof against
eaves and cornices.

As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it:
yet the epithet migra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow,
whose back and wings are very black; while the rump of
the martin is milk-white, its back mid wings blue, and all
its under part white as snow. Nor can the clumsy motions
(comparatively clumsy) of the martin well represent the
sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns which Juturna
gave to her brother’s chariot, so as to elude the eager pursuit
of the enraged Aeneas. The verb sonaz also seems to imply
a bird that is somewhat loquacious.’

We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as to
raise the springs to a pitch beyond any thing since 1764 ;
which was a remarkable year for floods and high waters.
The landsprings, which we call /avents, break out much on
the downs of Sussex, Hampshire and Wiltshire. Thecountry
people say when the lavants rise corn will always be dear ;

a“ Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes
Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,
Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas :
Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum
Stagna sonat. — — — —.”—AEN. Xll. 473-477.

OF SELBORNE 151

meaning that when the earth is so glutted with water as to
send forth springs on the downs and uplands, that the corn-
vales must be drowned ; and so it has proved for these ten
or eleven years past. For land-springs have never obtained
more since the memory of man than during that period;
nor has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of
grain, considering the great improvements of modern
husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two
ago would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine.
Therefore pamphlets and newspaper letters, that talk of
combinations, tend to inflame and mislead ; since we must
not expect plenty till Providence sends us more favourable
seasons.

The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the
county of Rutland, and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad:
and our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden
vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains, looks poorly ;
and the turnips rot very fast.

LETTER XX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Feb, 2 , 1774.
Dear SiR,

Tue sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least of
any of the British hirundines; and, as far as we have ever
seen, the smallest known hirundo: though Brisson asserts that
there is one much smaller, and that is the Airundo esculenta.

But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible
for any observer to be so full and exact as he could wish
in reciting the circumstances attending the life and conver-
sation of this little bird, since it is fera natura, at least in
this part of the kingdom, disclaiming all domestic attach-
ments, and haunting wild heaths and commons where there
are large lakes; while the other species, especially the

152 THE NATURAL HISTORY

swallow and house-martin, are remarkably gentle and
domesticated, and never seem to think themselves safe but
under the protection of man.

Here are in this parish, in the sand-pits and banks of
the lakes of Wolmer-forest, several colonies of these birds ;
and yet they are never seen in the village; nor do they at
all frequent the cottages that are scattered about in that
wild district. The only instance I ever remember where
this species haunts any building is at the town of Bishop’s
Waltham, in this county, where many sand-martins nestle
and breed in the scaffold-holes of the back-wall of William
of Wykeham’s stables: but then this wall stands in a very
sequestered and retired enclosure, and faces upon a large
and beautiful lake. And indeed this species seems so to
delight in large waters, that no instance occurs of their
abounding, but near vast pools or rivers: and in particular
it has been remarked that they swarm in the banks of the
Thames in some places below London-bridge.

It ts curious to observe with what different degrees of
architectonic skill Providence has endowed birds of the
same genus, and so nearly correspondent in their general
mode of life! for while the swallow and the house-martin
discover the greatest address in raising and securely fixing
crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for their young, the
bank-martin terebrates a round and regular hole in the
sand or earth, which is serpentine, horizontal, and about
two feet deep. At the inner end of this burrow does this
bird deposit, in a good degree of safety, her rude nest,
consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usually goose-
feathers, very inartificially laid together.

Perseverance will accomplish anything: though at first
one would be disinclined to believe that this weak bird, with
her soft and tender bill and claws, should ever be able to
bore the stubborn sand-bank without entirely disabling
herself; yet with these feeble instruments have I seen a
pair of them make great dispatch: and could remark how
much they had scooped that day by the fresh sand which
ran down the bank, and was of a different colour from that
which lay loose and bleached in the sun.

OF SELBORNE 153

In what space of time these little artists are able to mine
and finish these cavities I have never been able to discover,
for reasons given above; but it would be a matter worthy
of observation, where it falls in the way of any naturalist to
make his remarks. This I have often taken notice of, that
several holes of different depths are left unfinished at the
end of summer. To imagine that these beginnings were
intentionally made in order to be in the greater forward-
ness for next spring, is allowing perhaps too much foresight
and rerum prudentia toa simple bird. May not the cause
of these /atebrae being left unfinished arise from their
meeting in those places with strata too harsh, hard, and
solid, for their purpose, which they relinquish, and go to a
fresh spot that works more freely? Or may they not in
other places fall in with a soil as much too loose and
mouldering, liable to flounder, and threatening to over-
whelm them and their labours ?

One thing is remarkable—that, after some years, the old
holes are forsaken and new ones bored; perhaps because
the old habitations grow foul and fetid from long use, or
because they may so abound with fleas as to become un-
tenable. This species of swallow moreover is strangely
annoyed with fleas: and we have seen fleas, bed-fleas
(pulex irritans), swarming at the mouths of these holes, like
bees upon the stools of their hives.

The following circumstance should by no means be
omitted—that these birds do not make use of their caverns
by way of hybernacula, as might be expected; since banks
so perforated have been dug out with care in the winter,
when nothing was found but empty nests.

The sand-martin arrives much about the same time with
the swallow, and lays, as she does, from four to six white
eggs. But as this species is cryptogame, carrying on the
business of nidification, incubation, and the support of its
young in the dark, it would not be so easy to ascertain the
time of breeding, were it not for the coming forth of the
broods, which appear much about the time, or rather some-
what earlier than those of the swallow. The nestlings are
supported in common like those of their congeners, with

154 THE NATURAL HISTORY

gnats and other small insects; and sometimes they are fed
with /e/lulae (dragon-flies) almost as long as themselves.
In the last week in June we have seen a row of these sitting
on a rail near a great pool as perchers; and so young and
helpless, as easily to be taken by hand: but whether the
dams ever feed them on the wing, as swallows and house-
martins do, we have never yet been able to determine;
nor do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of
prey.

When they happen to breed near hedges and enclosures,
they are dispossessed of their breeding holes by the house-
sparrow, which is on the same account a fell adversary to
house-martins.

These hirundines are no songsters, but rather mute,
making only a little harsh noise when a person approaches
their nests. They seem not to be of a sociable turn, never
with us congregating with their congeners in the autumn.
Undoubtedly they breed a second time, like the house-
martin and swallow; and withdraw about Michaelmas.

Though in some particular districts they may happen to
abound, yet in the whole, in the south of England at least,
is this much the rarest species. For there are = few towns or
large villages but what abound with house-martins; few
churches, towers, or steeples, but what are haunted by
some swifts; scarce a hamlet or single cottage-chimney
that has not its swallow; while the bank-martins, scattered
here and there, live a sequestered life among some abrupt
sand-hills, and in the banks of some few rivers.

These birds have a peculiar manner of flying; flitting
about with odd jerks, and vacillations, not unlike the
motions of a butterfly. Doubtless the flight of all hirun-
dines is influenced by and adapted to, the peculiar sort of
insects which furnish their food. Hence it would be worth
inquiry to examine what particular group of insects affords
the principal food of each respective species of swallow.

Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some
few sand-martins, I see, haunt the skirts of Londen, fre-
quenting the dirty pools in Saint George’s-Fields, and about
White-Chapel. The question is where these build, since

Young Sand-martins. “In the last week in June we have seen a row
of these sitting on a rail”

OF SELBORNE 155

there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood :
perhaps they nestle in the scaffold holes of some old or new
deserted building. They dip and wash as they fly some-
times, like the house-martin and swallow.

Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminu-
tiveness of their size, and in their colour, which is what is
usually called a mouse-colour. Near Valencia in Spain,
they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in the markets
for the table; and are called by the country people, prob-
ably from their desultory jerking manner of flight, Papilion
de Montagna.

LETTER XX]
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774.
Dear Sir,

As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British
hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I
remember but one instance of its appearing before the last
week in April: and in some of our late frosty, harsh
springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May.
This species usually arrives in pairs.

The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in
architecture, making no crust, or shell, for its nest; but
forming it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and
inartificially put together. With all my attention to these
birds, I have never been able once to discover one in the
act of collecting or carrying in materials: so that I have
suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they
sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them,
as sparrows do the house and sand-martin ; well remem-
bering that I have seen them squabbling together at the
entrance of their holes; and the sparrows up in arms, and
much disconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am
assured, by a nice observer in such matters, that they do

156 THE NATURAL HISTORY

collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia; and that he
has shot them with such materials in their mouths.

Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidifi-
cation quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers,
and steeples, and upon the tops of the walls of churches
under the roof; and therefore cannot be so narrowly
watched as those species that build more openly: but,
from what I could ever observe, they begin nesting about
the middle of May; and I have remarked, from eggs taken,
that they have sat hard by the ninth of June. In general
they haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and breed
only in such: yet in this village some pairs frequent the
lowest and meanest cottages, and educate their young under
those thatched roofs. We remember but one instance where
they breed out of buildings; and that is in the sides of a
deep chalkpit near the town of Odiham, in this county,
where we have seen many pairs entering the crevices, and
skimming and squeaking round the precipices.

As I have regarded these amusive birds with no small
attention, if I should advance something new and peculiar
with respect to them, and different from all other birds,
I might perhaps be credited; especially as my assertion is
the result of many years’ exact observation. The fact that
I would advance is, that swifts tread, or copulate, on the
wing: and I would wish any nice observer, that 1s startled
at this supposition, to use his own eyes, and I think he
will soon be convinced. In another class of animals, viz.
the insect, nothing is so common as to see the different
species of many genera in conjunction as they fly. The
swift is almost continually on the wing; and as it never
settles on the ground, on trees, or roofs, would seldom find
opportunity for amorous rites, was it not enabled to indulge
them in the air. If any person would watch these birds of
a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round at a great
height from the ground, he would see, every now and then,
one drop on the back of another, and both of them sink
down together for many fathoms with a loud piercing
shriek. This I take to be the juncture when the business
of generation is carrying on.

OF SELBORNE 157

As the swift eats, drinks, collects materials for its nest,
and, as its seems, propagates on the wing; it appears to
live more in the air than any other bird, and to perform all
functions there save those of sleeping and incubation.

This hirundo differs widely from its congeners in laying
invariably but two eggs at a time, which are milk-white,
long, and peaked at the small end; whereas the other
species lay at each brood from four to six. It is a most
alert bird, rising very early, and retiring to roost very late;
and is on the wing in the height of summer at least sixteen
hours. In the longest days it does not withdraw to rest
till a quarter before nine in the evening, being the latest of
all day birds. Just before they retire whole groups of them
assemble high in the air, and squeak, and shoot about with
wonderful rapidity. But this bird is never so much alive
as in sultry thundry weather, when it expresses great
alacrity, and calls forth all its powers. In hot mornings
several, getting together in little parties, dash round the
steeples and churches, squeaking as they go in a very
clamorous manner: these, by nice observers, are supposed
to be males, serenading their sitting hens; and not without
reason, since they seldom squeak till they come close to
the walls or eaves, and since those within utter at the same
time a little inward note of complacency.

When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth just
as it is almost dark, and stretches and relieves her weary
limbs, and snatches a scanty meal for a few minutes, and
then returns to her duty of incubation. Swifts, when
wantonly and cruelly shot while they have young, discover
a little lump of insects in their mouths, which they pouch
and hold under their tongue. In general they feed in a
much higher district than the other species ; a proof that
gnats and other insects do also abound to a considerable
height in the air: they also range to vast distances ;
since loco-motion is no labour to them, who are endowed
with such wonderful powers of wing. Their powers
seem to be in proportion to their levers; and their
wings are longer in proportion than those of almost any
other bird. When they mute, or ease themselves in

158 THE NATURAL HISTORY

flight, they raise their wings, and make them meet over
their backs.

At some certain times in the summer I had remarked
that swifts were hawking very low for hours together over
pools and streams ; and could not help inquiring into the
object of their pursuit that induced them to descend so
much below their usual range. After some trouble, I found
that they were taking phryganeae, ephemerae, and /ibellulae
(cadew-flies, may-flies, and dragon-flies) that were just
emerged out of their aurelia state. I then no longer won-
dered that they should be so willing to stoop for a prey that
afforded them such plentiful and succulent nourishment.

They bring out their young about the middle or latter
end of July: but as these never become perchers, nor,
that ever I could discern, are fed on the wing by their
dams, the coming forth of the young is not so notorious
as in the other species.

On the thirtieth of last June I untiled the eaves of an
house where many pairs build, and found in each nest only
two squab naked pu/ii: on the eighth of July I repeated the
same inquiry, and found they had made very little progress
towards a fledged state, but were still naked and helpless.
From whence we may conclude that birds whose way of
life keeps them perpetually on the wing would not be able
to quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows and
martins, that have numerous families, are continually feed-
ing them every two or three minutes ; while swifts, that
have but two young to maintain, are much at their leisure,
and do not attend on their nests for hours together.

Sometimes they pursue and strike at hawks that come in
their way; but not with that vehemence and fury that
swallows express on the same occasion. They are out all
day long in wet days, feeding about, and disregarding still
rain: from whence two things may be gathered ; first,
that many insects abide high in the air, even in rain; and
next, that the feathers of these birds must be well preened
to resist so much wet. Windy, and particularly windy
weather with heavy showers, they dislike; and on such
days withdraw, and are scarce ever seen.

OF SELBORNE 159

There is a circumstance respecting the colour of swifts,
which seems not to be unworthy our attention. When
they arrive in the spring they are all over of a glossy, dark
soot-colour, except their chins, which are white; but, by
being all day long in the sun and air, they become quite
weather-beaten and bleached before they depart, and yet
they return glossy again in the spring. Now, if they pur-
sue the sun into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order
to enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not return
bleached? Do they not rather perhaps retire to rest for
a season, and at that juncture moult and change their
feathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon
after the season of breeding.

Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting
from all their congeners not only in the number of their
young, but in breeding but once in a summer; whereas all
the other British hirundines breed invariably twice. It is
past all doubt that swifts can breed but once, since they
withdraw in a short time after the flight of their young,
and some time before their congeners bring out their
second brood. We may here remark, that, as swifts breed
but once in a summer, and only two at a time, and the
other hirundines twice, the latter, who lay from four to six
eggs, increase at an average five times as fast as the former.

But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their
early retreat. They retire, as to the main body of them,
by the tenth of August, and sometimes a few days sooner :
and every straggler invariably withdraws by the twentieth,
while their congeners, all of them, stay till the beginning
of October; many of them all through that month, and
some occasionally to the beginning of November. This
early retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time
is often the sweetest season in the year. But, what is more
extraordinary, they begin to retire still earlier in the most
southerly parts of Andalusia, where they can be no ways
infiuenced by any defect of heat; or, as one might suppose,
defect of food. Are they regulated in their motions with
us by a failure of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or
by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what?

160 THE NATURAL HISTORY

This is one of those incidents in natural history that not
only baffles our searches, but almost eludes our guesses !

These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so
never congregate with their congeners. They are fearless
while haunting their nesting places, and are not to be scared
with a gun; and are often beaten down with poles and
cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are
much infested with those pests to the genus called hippo-
boscae hirundinis ; and often wriggle and scratch themselves,
in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance.

Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh scream-
ing note; yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing,
from an agreeable association of ideas, since that note never
occurs but in the most lovely summer weather.

They never settle on the ground but through accident ;
and when down can hardly rise, on account of the short-
ness of their legs and the length of their wings: neither can
they walk, but only crawl; but they have a strong grasp
with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies
being flat they can enter a very narrow crevice ; and where
they cannot pass on their bellies they will turn up edgewise.

The particular formation of the foot discriminates the
swift from all British hirundines; and indeed from all other
known birds, the Airundo me/ba, or great white-bellied swift
of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed as to carry
“omnes quatuor digitos anticos’’ all its four toes forward ;
besides the least toe, which should be the back-toe, consists
of one bone alone, and the other three only of two apiece.
A construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted
to the purposes in which their feet are employed. This,
and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and under
mandible, have induced a discerning naturalist! to suppose
that this species might constitute a genus per se.

In London a party of swifts frequents the Tower,
playing and feeding over the river just below the bridge :
others haunt some of the churches of the Borough next
the fields; but do not venture, like the house-martin, into
the close crowded part of the town.

1John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D.

OF SELBORNE 161

The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on
this swallow, calling it ring swala, from the perpetual rings
or circles that it takes round the scene of its nidification.

Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases
over their wings, as well as on the softer insects; but it
does not appear how they can procure gravel to grind their
food, as swallows do, since they never settle on the ground.
Young ones, over-run with Aippoboscae, are sometimes
found, under their nests, fallen to the ground: the number
of vermin rendering their abode insupportable any longer.
They frequent in this village several abject cottages: yet a
succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs: a good
proof this that the same birds return to the same spots.
As they must stoop very low to get up under these
humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them
on the wing.

On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof
over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest; but so
strongly was she affected by natural cropyy for her brood,
which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless of her
own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them,
permitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young
we brought down and placed on the grass-plot, where they
tumbled about, and were as helpiess as a new-born child.
While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy
disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for
their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we
reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a
fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost
with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor; and perhaps,
in their emigration must traverse vast continents and oceans
as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature advance
small birds to their 7Au«ia, or state of perfection; while the
progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow
and tedious!

T am, ete.

162 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774.
Dear Srp,

By means of a straight cottage-chimney I had an
opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure,
how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft;
but my pleasure, in contemplating the address with
which this feat was performed to a considerable depth in
the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions
lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those
of Tobit.+

Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at
what times the different species of hirundines arrived this
spring in three very distant counties of this kingdom.
With us the swallow was seen first on April the 4th, the
swift on April the 24th, the bank-martin on April the 12th,
and the house-martin not till April the 30th. At South
Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the
25th; swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st; and house-
martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in
Lancashire, swifts were seen April the 28th, swallows
April the 29th, house-martins May the 1st. Do these
different dates, in such distant districts prove anything for
or against migration ?

A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams
of asses; one of which works till noon, and the other in
the afternoon. When these animals have done their work,
they are penned, all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In
the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and
make plenty of dung.

Linnaeus says that hawks “‘paciscuntur inducias cum
avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat’”’; but it appears to me that,
during that period, many little birds are taken and destroyed

1 Tobit ii, 10.

OF SELBORNE 163

by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in
lanes and under hedges.

The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugna-
cious, driving such birds as approach its nest, with great
fury, to a distance. The Welch call it pen y /hwyn, the head
or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay; or
blackbird, to enter the garden where he haunts; and is, for
the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In
general he is very successful in the defence of his family:
but once I observed in my garden, that several magpies
came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush:
the dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and
fought resolutely pro aris & focis; but numbers at last
prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the
‘young alive.

In the season of nidification the wildest birds are com-
paratively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields,
though they are continually frequented; and the missel-
thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and
winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people
are passing all day long.

Wall-fruit abounds with me this year: but my grapes,
that used to be forward and good, are at present backward
beyond all precedent: and this is not the worst of the
story; for the same ungenial weather, the same black cold
solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth,
and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of
hops promises to be very large.

Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and
half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are
upon me, I lose all the pleasing notices and little intima-
tions arising from rural sounds: and May is to me as
silent and mute with respect to the notes of birds, etc. as
August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good;
but with respect to the other sense, I am, at times,

disabled :

“ And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.”

164 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, June 8, 1775.
Dear Srp,

On September the 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and
intent on field-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I
came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover-
grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in
the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so
plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed, as it
were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one
over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, their
eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not
proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the
incumbrances from their faces with their fore-feet, so that,
finding my sport interrupted, I returned home musing in
my mind on the oddness of the occurrence.

As the morning advanced the sun became bright and
warm, and the day turned out one of those most lovely
ones which no season but the autumn produces; cloudless,
calm, serene, and worthy of the South of France itself.

About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand
our attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very
elevated regions, and continuing, without any interruption,
till the close of the day. These webs were not single
filmy threads, floating in the air in all directions, but
perfect flakes or rags; some near an inch broad, and
five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity
which showed they were considerably heavier than the
atmosphere.

On every side as the observer turned his eyes might he
behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into
his sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned their
sides towards the sun.

How far this wonderful shower extended would be

OF SELBORNE 165

difficult to say; but we know that it reached Bradley,
Selborne, and Alresford, three places which lie in a sort
of a triangle, the shortest of whose sides is about eight
miles in extent.

At the second of those places there was a gentleman
(for whose veracity and intelligent turn we have the
greatest veneration) who observed it the moment he got
abroad ; but concluded that, as soon as he came upon the
hill above his house, where he took his morning rides, he
should be higher than this meteor, which he imagined
might have been blown, like Thistle-down, from the
common above: but, to his great astonishment, when he
rode to the most elevated part of the down, 300 feet
above his fields, he found the webs in appearance still
as much above him as before; still descending into sight
in a constant succession, and twinkling in the sun, so as to
draw the attention of the most incurious.

Neither before nor after was any such fall observed ;
but on this day the flakes hung in the trees and hedges
so thick, that a diligent person sent out might have
gathered baskets full.

The remark that I shall make on these cobweb-like
appearances, called gossamer, is, that, strange and super-
stitious as the notions about them were formerly, nobody
in these days doubts but that they are the real production
of small spiders, which swarm in the fields in fine weather
in autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs from
their tails so as to render themselves buoyant, and lighter
than air. But why these apterous insects should that
day take such a wonderful aérial excursion, and why
their webs should at once become so gross and
material as to be considerably more weighty than air,
and to descend with precipitation, is a matter beyond
my skill. If I might be allowed to hazard a supposition,
I should imagine that those filmy threads, when first shot,
might be entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up,
spiders and all, by a brisk evaporation into the region
where clouds are formed: and if the spiders have a power
of coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as Dr.

166 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Lister says they have, [see his letters to Mr. Ray] then,
when they were become heavier than the air, they must
fall.

Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I
see those spiders shooting out their webs and mounting
aloft: they will go off from your finger if you will take
them into your hand. Last summer one alighted on my
book as I was reading in the parlour; and, running to
the top of the page, and shooting out a web, took its
departure from thence. But what I most wondered at
was, that it went off with considerable velocity in a place
where no air was stirring; and I am sure that I did
not assist it with my breath. So that these little crawlers
seem to have, while mounting, some loco-motive power
without the use of wings, and to move in the air, faster
than the air itself.

LETTER XXIV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775.
Dear Sir,
THERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute
creation, independent of sexual attachment: the con-
gregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable
instance.

Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay
one minute in a field by themselves: the strongest fences
cannot restrain them. My neighbour’s horse will not only
not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be
left alone in a strange stable without discovering the
utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack
and manger with his fore feet. He has been known
to leap out at a stable-window, through which dung was
thrown, after company; and yet in other respects is
remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by

OF SELBORNE 167

themselves ; but will neglect the finest pasture that is not
recommended by society. It would be needless to instance
in sheep, which constantly flock together.

But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals
of the same species; for we know a doe still alive, that
was brought up from a little fawn with a dairy of cows;
with them it goes a-field, and with them it returns to the
yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of this deer,
being used to her; but, if strange dogs come by, a chase
ensues; while the master smiles to see his favourite
securely leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or
stile, till she returns to the cows, who, with fierce lowings
and menacing horns, drive the assailants quite out of the
pasture.

Even great disparity of kind and size does not always
prevent social advances and mutual fellowship. For a
very intelligent and observant person has assured me that,
in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse, he
happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen.
These two incongruous animals spent much of their time
together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature
but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to
take place between these two sequestered individuals. The
fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of com-
placency, rubbing herself gently against his legs; while the
horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with
the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should
trample on his diminutive companion. Thus, by mutual
good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours
of the other: so that Milton, when he puts the following
sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat
mistaken :

“Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl,
So well converse, nor with the ox the ape.”

168 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Oct. 2, 1775.
Dear Sir,

We have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the
south and west of England, and come round in their
circuit two or three times in the year. One of these tribes
calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of which I have
nothing particular to say; but the other is distinguished by
an appellative somewhat remarkable—As far as their harsh
gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the
name of their clan is Curleople; now the termination of
this word is apparently Grecian: and as Mezeray and the
gravest historians all agree that these vagrants did certainly
migrate from Egypt and the East two or three centuries
ago, and so spread by degrees over Europe, may not this
name, a little corrupted, be the very name they brought
with them from the Levant? It would be matter of
some curiosity, could one meet with an intelligent person
among them, to inquire whether, in their jargon, they still
retain any Greek words: the Greek radicals will appear in
hand, foot, head, water, earth, etc. It is possible that
amidst their cant and corrupted dialect many mutilated
remains of their native language might still be discovered.

With regard to those peculiar people, the gypsies, one
thing is very remarkable, and especially as they came from
warmer climates; and that is, that while other beggars
lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses, these sturdy
savages seem to pride themselves in braving the severities
of winter, and in living swb dio the whole year round.
Last September was as wet a month as ever was known;
and yet during those deluges did a young gypsy-girl lie-in
in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold
ground, with nothing over her but a piece of blanket
extended on a few hazel-rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck

OF SELBORNE 169

into the earth at each end, in circumstances too trying for
a cow in the same condition: yet within this garden there
was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of which she
might have retired, had she thought shelter an object
worthy her attention.

Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings
of these vagabonds; for Mr. Bell, in his return from
Peking, met a gang of these people on the confines of
Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate those deserts
and try their fortune in China.?

Gypsies are called in French, Bohemians; in Italian and

modern Greek, Zingani.
Iam, etc.

LETTER XXVI

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Nov. 1, 1775.
Dear 51r,
“ Hic - - - - taedae pingues, hic plurimus ignis
Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri.”

I sHatt make no apology for troubling you with the
detail of a very simple piece of domestic oeconomy, being
satisfied that you think nothing beneath your attention
that tends to utility: the matter alluded to is the use
of rushes instead of candles, which I am well aware pre-
vails in many districts besides this; but as I know there
are countries also where it does not obtain, and as I
have considered the subject with some degree of exactness,
I shall proceed in my humble story, and leave you to
judge of the expediency.

The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to
be the juncus conglomeratus, or common soft rush, which is
to be found in most moist pastures, by the sides of streams,
and under hedges. ‘These rushes are in best condition in

1See Bell’s Travels in China.

170 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the height of summer; but may be gathered, so as to
serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be
needless to add that the largest and longest are best.
Decayed labourers, women, and children, make it their
business to procure and prepare them. As soon as they
are cut they must be flung into water, and kept there; for
otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will
not run. At first a person would find it no easy matter to
divest a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular,
narrow, even rib from top to bottom that may support the
pith: but this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar even
to children ; and we have seen an old woman, stone-blind,
performing this business with great dispatch, and seldom
failing to strip them with the nicest regularity. When
these junci are thus far prepared, they must lie out on
the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for some nights,
and afterwards be dried in the sun.

Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the
scalding fat or grease; but this knack also is to be attained
by practice. The careful wife of an industrious Hamp-
shire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing; for she
saves the scummings of her bacon-pot for this use; and,
if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to
precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in
a warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and
especially by the sea-side, the coarser animal oils will come
very cheap. A pound of common grease may be pro-
cured for four pence; and about six pounds of grease will
dip a pound of rushes; and one pound of rushes may
be bought for one shilling: so that a pound of rushes,
medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. If
men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease,
it will give it a consistency, and render it more cleanly,
and make the rushes burn longer: mutton-suet would
have the same effect.

A good rush, which measured in length two feet four
inches and an half, being minuted, burnt only three minutes
short of an hour: and a rush still of greater length has
been known to burn one hour and a quarter.

OF SELBORNE 171

These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights
(coated with tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, “ dark-
ness visible’; but then the wicks of those have two ribs
of the rind, or peel, to support the pith, while the wick of
the dipped rush has but one. The two ribs are intended
to impede the progress of the flame, and make the candle
last.

In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to
be weighed and numbered, we found upwards of one
thousand six hundred individuals. Now suppose each of
these burns, one with another, only half an hour, then
a poor man will purchase eight hundred hours of light,
a time exceeding thirty-three entire days, for three shillings.
According to this account each rush, before dipping, costs
vz of a farthing, and 4; afterwards. Thus a poor family
will enjoy 54 hours of comfortable light for a farthing.
An experienced old housekeeper assures me that one
pound and a half of rushes completely supplies his
family the year round, since working people burn no
candle in the long days, because they rise and go to bed
by daylight.

Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both
morning and evening in the dairy and kitchen; but the
very poor, who are always the worst oeconomists, and
therefore must continue very poor, buy an_halfpenny
candle every evening, which, in their blowing open rooms,
does not burn much more than two hours. Thus have they
only two hours light for their money instead of eleven.

While on the subject of rural oeconomy, it may not
be improper to mention a pretty implement of house-
wifery that we have seen no where else; that is, little neat
besoms which our foresters make from the stalk of the
polytricum commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which
they call silk-wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When
this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested of
its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut
colour; and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for
the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, etc. If
these besoms were known to the brushmakers in town, it

172 THE NATURAL HISTORY

is probable they might come much in use for the purpose

above-mentioned.!
I am, etc.

LETTER XXVII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Dec. 12, 1775.
Dear Sir,
We had in this village more than twenty years ago an
idiot-boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child,
showed a strong propensity to bees ; they were his food,
his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this
cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad
exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the
winter he dosed away his time, within his father’s house,
by the fire-side, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing
from the chimney-corner ; but in the summer he was all
alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny
banks. Honey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps, were his
prey wherever he found them: he had no apprehensions
from their stings, but would seize them nudis manibus, and
at once disarm them of their weapons, and suck their
bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he
would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a
number of these captives ; and sometimes would confine
them in bottles. He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-
bird ; and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he
would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down
before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives,
and so take the bees as they came out. He has been
known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which
he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making
he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a
draught of what he called bee-wine. As he ran about he

1A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum.

OF SELBORNE 173

used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling
the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and
of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favourite
pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no
manner of understanding. Had his capacity been better,
and directed to the same object, he had perhaps abated
much of our wonder at the feats of a more modern
exhibitor of bees; and we may justly say of him now,

(oe ee Tho,
Had thy presiding star propitious shone,
Should’st Wildman be — — — —.”

When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a
distant village, where he died, as I understand, before he
arrived at manhood.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXVIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Jan. 8, 1776,
Dear Sir,

Ir is the hardest thing in the world to shake off super-
stitious prejudices: they are sucked in as it were with
our mother’s milk; and growing up with us at a time
when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting
impressions, become so interwoven into our very constitu-
tions, that the strongest good sense is required to dis-
engage ourselves from them. No wonder therefore that
the lower people retain them their whole lives through,
since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal educa-
tion, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts
adequate to the occasion.

Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter
on the superstitions of this district, lest we should be sus-
pected of exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross
for this enlightened age.

174 THE NATURAL HISTORY

But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do
well to remember, that no longer ago than the year 1751,
and within twenty miles of the capital, they seized on two
superannuated wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed
with infirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft; and, by
trying experiments, drowned them in a horse-pond.

In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at
this day, a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and
long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that, in
former times, they have been cleft asunder. These trees,
when young and flexible, were severed and held open by
wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were
pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that,
by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their
infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in
the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully
swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together,
as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any
adroitness at all, the party was cured; but, where the cleft
continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would
prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden
not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of
which did not grow together.

We have several persons now living in the village, who,
in their childhood, were supposed to be healed by this
superstitious ceremony, derived down perhaps from our
Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion
to Christianity.

At the south corner of the Plestor, or area, near the
church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old
grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been
looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now
a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when
gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately
relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running
of a shrew-mouse over the part affected: for it is su
posed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious
a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse,
cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel

OF SELBORNE 175

anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the
limb. Against this accident, to which they were con-
tinually liable, our provident fore-fathers, always kept a
shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would
maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made
thus :'—Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored
with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was
thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several
quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the cere-
monies necessary for such a consecration are no longer
understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree
is known to subsist in the manor, or hundred.
As to that on the Plestor,

“The late Vicar stubb’d and burnt it,”

when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances
of the by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preserva-
tion, urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it
had been

“‘ Religione patrum multos servata per annos.”

I am, etc.

LETTER XXIX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Feb, 7, 1776.
Dear Sir,
In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are
perfect alembics: and no one that has not attended to
such matters can imagine how much water one tree will
distil in a night’s time by condensing the vapour, which
trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the
ground below quite in a float. In Newton-lane, in
October 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak in leaf

1 For a similar practice, see Plot’s Staffordshire,

176 THE NATURAL HISTORY

dropped so fast that the cart-way stood in puddles and
the ruts ran with water, though the ground in general
was dusty.

In some of our smaller islands in the West-Indies, if
I mistake not, there are no springs or rivers; but the
people are supplied with that necessary element, water,
merely by the dripping of some large tall trees, which,
standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their heads
constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, from which
they dispense their kindly never-ceasing moisture ; and
so render those districts habitable by condensation alone.

Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of
surface than those that are naked, that, in theory, their
condensations should greatly exceed those that are stripped
of their leaves; but, as the former imbibe also a great
quantity of moisture, it is difficult to say which drip most :
but this I know, that deciduous trees that are entwined
with much ivy seem to distil the greatest quantity. Ivy-
leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold, and therefore
condense very fast; and besides ever-greens imbibe very
little. These facts may furnish the intelligent with hints
concerning what sorts of trees they should plant round
small ponds that they would wish to be perennial; and
show them how advantageous some trees are in preference
to others.

Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check
evaporation so much, that woods are always moist: no
wonder therefore that they contribute much to pools and
streams.

That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers
appears from a well known fact in North-America ; for,
since the woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared,
all bodies of water are much diminished; so that some
streams, that were very considerable a century ago, will
not now drive a common mill. Besides, most woodlands,
forests, and chases, with us abound with pools and mor-
asses ; no doubt for the reason given above.

To a thinking mind few phenomena are more strange

1 Vide Kalm’s Travels to North-America.

OF SELBORNE 17

than the state of little ponds on the summits of chalk-hills,
many of which are never dry in the most trying droughts
of summer. On chalk-hills I say, because in many rocky
and gravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on
the sides of elevated grounds and mountains; but no
person acquainted with chalky districts will allow ‘that they
ever saw springs in such a soil but in valleys and bottoms,
since the waters of so pervious a stratum as chalk all lie
on one dead level, as well-diggers have assured me again
and again.

Now we have many such little round ponds in this
district ; and one in particular on our sheep-down, three
hundred feet above my house ; which, though never above
three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty
feet in diameter, and containing perhaps not more than two
or three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to
fail, though it affords drink for three hundred or four
hundred sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle
beside. This pond, it is true, is over-hung with two
moderate beeches, that, doubtless, at times afford it much
supply : but then we have others as small, that, without
the aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and
wind, and perpetual consumption by cattle, yet constantly
maintain a moderate share of water, without overflowing in
the wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied by springs.
By my journal of May 1775, it appears that “the
small and even considerable ponds in the vales are now
dried up, while the small ponds on the very tops of hills
are but little affected.”’ Can this difference be accounted
for from evaporation alone, which certainly is more preva-
lent in bottoms? or rather have not those elevated pools
some unnoticed recruits, which in the night time counter-
balance the waste of the day; without which the cattle
alone must soon exhaust them? And here it will be
necessary to enter more minutely into the cause. Dr.
Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances, from experiment,
that “the moister the earth is the more dew falls on it in
a night: and more than a double quantity of dew falls

on a surface of water than there does on an equal surface
M

178 THE NATURAL HISTORY

of moist earth.” Hence we see that water, by its coolness,
is enabled to assimilate to itself a large quantity of moisture
nightly by condensation ; and that the air, when loaded
with fogs and vapours, and even with copious dews, can
alone advance a considerable and never-failing resource.
Persons that are much abroad, and travel early and late ;
such as shepherds, fishermen, etc. can tell what prodigious
fogs prevail in the night on elevated downs, even in the
hottest parts of summer ; and how much the surfaces of
things are drenched by those swimming vapours, though,
to the senses, all the while, little moisture seems to fall.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, April 3, 1776.
Dear Sir,

Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems per-
suaded that he has discovered the reason why cuckoos do
not hatch their own eggs ; the impediment, he supposes,
arises from the internal structure of their parts, which
incapacitates them for incubation. According to this
gentleman, the crop or craw of a cuckoo does not lie
before the sternum at the bottom of the neck, as in the
gallinae, columbae, etc. but immediately behind it, on and
over the bowels, so as to make a large protuberance in the
belly.

Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo ; and,
cutting open the breast-bone, and exposing the intestines
to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This
stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard like a pin-
cushion with food, which, upon nice examination, we found
to consist of various insects; such as small scarabs,
spiders, and dragon-flies ; the last of which we have seen

1 Histoire de l’Académie Royale, 1752.

OF SELBORNE 179

cuckoos catching on the wing as they were just emerging
out of the aurelia state. Among this farrago also were to
be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either
to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit ;
so that these birds apparently subsist on insects and fruits:
nor was there che least appearance of bones, feathers, or
fur to support the idle notion of their being birds of
prey.

The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be remarkably
short, between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw,
and immediately behind that the bowels against the back-
bone.

It must be allowed as this anatomist observes, that the
crop placed just upon the bowels must, especially when
full, be in a very uneasy situation during the business of
incubation ; yet the test will be to examine whether birds
that are actually known to sit for certain are not formed
ina similar manner. This inquiry I proposed to myself
to make with a fern-owl, or goatsucker, as soon as oppor-
tunity offered : because, if their formation proves the same,
the reason for incapacity in the cuckoo will be allowed to
have been taken up somewhat hastily.

Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from its
habit and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo
in its internal construction. Nor were our suspicions ill-
grounded; for, upon the dissection, the crop, or craw,
also lay behind the sternum, immediately on the viscera,
between them and the skin of the belly. It was bulky,
and stuffed hard with large phalaenae, moths of several
sorts, and their eggs, which no doubt had been forced out
of those insects by the action of swallowing.

Now as it appears that this bird, which is so well known
to practise incubation, is formed in a similar manner with
cuckoos, Monsieur Herissant’s conjecture, that cuckoos
are incapable of incubation from the disposition of their
intestines, seems to fall to the ground: and we are still at
a loss for the cause of that strange and singular peculiarity
in the instance of the cuculus canorus.

We found the case to be the same with the ring-tail

180 THE NATURAL HISTORY

hawk, in respect to formation; and, as far as J can recol-
lect, with the swift; and probably it is so with many more
sorts of birds that are not granivorous.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXXI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, April 29, 1776.
Dear Sir,

On August the 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper,
which seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the
grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut it up,
we found that the abdomen was crowded with young,
fifteen in number; the shortest of which measured full
seven inches, and were about the size of full-grown earth-
worms. This little fry issued into the world with true
viper-spirit about them, showing great alertness as soon
as disengaged from the belly of the dam: they twisted
and wriggled about, and set themselves up, and gaped
very wide when feuched with a stick, showing manifest
tokens of menace and defiance, though as yet they had no
manner of fangs that we could find, even with the help of
our glasses.

To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than
that early instinct which impresses young animals with the
notion of the situation of their natural weapons, and of
using them properly in their own defence, even before
those weapons subsist or are formed. Thus a young cock
will spar at his adversary before his spurs are grown; and
a calf or a lamb will push with their heads before their
horns are sprouted. In the same manner did these young
adders attempt to bite before their fangs were in being.
The dam however was furnished with very formidable
ones, which we lifted up (for they fold down when not
used) and cut them off with the point of our scissors.

OF SELBORNE 181

There was little room to suppose that this brood had
ever been in the open air before; and that they were taken
in for refuge, at the mouth of the dam, when she perceived
that danger was approaching; because then probably we
should have found them somewhere in the neck, and not
in the abdomen,

LETTER XXXII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

CasTRaTION has a strange effect: it emasculates both man,
beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of
the other sex. Thus eunuchs have smooth unmuscular
arms, thighs and legs; and broad hips, and beardless chins,
and squeaking voices. Gelt-stags and bucks have hornless
heads, like hinds and does. ‘Thus wethers have small
horns, like ewes; and oxen large bent horns, and hoarse
voices when they low, like cows: for bulls have short
straight horns; and though they mutter and grumble in a
deep tremendous tone, yet they low in a shrill high key.
Capons have small combs and gills, and look pallid about
the head, like pullets; they also walk without any parade,
and hover chickens like hens. Barrow-hogs have also small
tusks like sows.

Thus far it is plain that the deprivation of masculine
vigour puts a stop to the growth of those parts or appen-
dages that are looked upon as its insignia. But the
ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on husbandry, carries it
much farther; for he says that the loss of those insignia
alone has sometimes a strange effect on the ability itself:
he had a boar so fierce and venereous, that, to prevent
mischief, orders were given for his tusks to be broken
off. No sooner had the beast suffered this injury than
his powers forsook him, and he neglected those females
to whom before he was passionately attached, and from
whom no fences could restrain him.

182 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Tue natural term of an hog’s life is little known, and the
reason is plain—because it is neither profitable nor con-
venient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of
its time: however, my neighbour, a man of substance, who
had no occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety,
kept an half bred Bantam-sow, who was as thick as she
was long, and whose belly swept on the ground, till she was
advanced to her seventeenth year; at which period she
showed some tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and
the decline of her fertility.

For about ten years this prolific mother produced two
litters in the year of about ten at a time, and once above
twenty at a litter; but, as there were near double the
number of pigs to that of teats many died. From long
experience in the world this female was grown very saga-
cious and artful:—when she found occasion to converse
with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates, and
march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept;
and when her purpose was served would return by the
same means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began
to be reduced to four or five; and such a litter she exhibited
when in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon,
juicy, and tender ; the rind, or sward, was remarkably thin.
At a moderate computation she was allowed to have been
the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs: a prodigious
instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped! She was
killed in spring 1775.

I am, ete.

OF SELBORNE 183

LETTER XXXIV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, May 9, 1776.

“«__ __ __ —. — admorunt ubera tigres.”

We have remarked in a former letter how much incon-
gruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to each
other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not be amiss
to recount a different motive which has been known to
create as strange a fondness.

My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him,
which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the
same time his cat kittened and the young were dispatched
and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be
gone the way of most fondlings, to be killed by some dog
or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was
sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he observed
his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling
with little short inward notes of complacency, such as they
use towards their kittens, and something gamboling after,
which proved to be the leveret that the cat had supported
with her milk, and continued to support with great affection.

Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carni-
vorous and predaceous one!

Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the
ferocious genus of Feles, the murium Jeo, as Linnaeus calls it,
should be affected with any tenderness towards an animal
which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine.

This strange affection probably was occasioned by that
desiderium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss
of her kittens had awakened in her breast ; and by the com-
placency and ease she derived to herself from the procuring
her teats to be drawn, which were too much distended with
milk, till, from habit, she became as much delighted with
this foundling as if it had been her real offspring.

184 THE NATURAL HISTORY

This incident is no bad solution of that strange circum-
stance which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of
exposed children being sometimes nutured by female wild
beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not
one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in
their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than
that a poor little sucking leveret should be fostered and
cherished by a bloody grimalkin.

— — — — “viridi foetam Mavortis in antro
Procubuisse lupam: geminos huic ubera circum
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua.”

LETTER XXXV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, May 20, 1770.
Dear Sir,
Lanps that are subject to frequent inundations are always
poor; and probably the reason may be because the worms
are drowned. The most insignificant insects and reptiles
are of much more consequence, and have much more
influence in the oeconomy of Nature, than the incurious
are aware of ; and are mighty in their effect, from their
minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention ;
and from their numbers and fecundity. Earth-worms,
though in appearance a small and despicable link in the
chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable
chasm. For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some
quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them,
worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which
would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, per-
forating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious
to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and

OF SELBORNE 185

stalks of leaves and twigs into it; and, most of all, by
throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called
worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure
for grain and grass. Worms probably provide new soil
for hills and slopes where the rain washes the earth away ;
and they affect slopes, probably to avoid being flooded.
Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of worms ;
the former because they render their walks unsightly, and
make them much work: and the latter because, as they
think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would
find that the earth without worms would soon become cold,
hard-bound, and void of fermentation ; and consequently
sterile: and besides, in favour of worms, it should be hinted
that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much
injured by them as by many species of co/eoptera (scarabs),
and sipulae, (long-legs) in their larva, or grub-state ; and
by unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs,
which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havoc in
the field and garden.’

These hints we think proper to throw out in order to
set the inquisitive and discerning to work.

A good monography of worms would afford much
entertainment and information at the same time, and
would open a large and new field in natural history.
Worms work most in the spring; but by no means lie
torpid in the dead months; are out every mild night in
the winter, as any person may be convinced that will take
the pains to examine his grass-plots with a candle; are
hermaphrodites, and much addicted to venery, and conse-
quently very prolific.

I am, etc.

1Farmer Young, of Norton-farm, says that this spring (1777) about
four acres of his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, which
swarmed on the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang.

186 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXVI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Nov, 22, 1777.
Dear Sir,
You cannot but remember that the twenty-sixth and
twenty-seventh of last March were very hot days; so
sultry that every body complained and were restless under
those sensations to which they had not been reconciled by
gradual approaches.

This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many
summer coincidences; for on those two days the ther-
mometer rose to sixty-six in the shade; many species of
insects revived and came forth; some bees swarmed in this
neighbourhood; the old tortoise, near Lewes in Sussex,
awakened and came forth out of its dormitory; and, what
is most to my present purpose, many house-swallows
appeared and were very alert in many places, and particu-
larly at Cobham, in Surrey.

But as that short warm period was succeeded as well as
preceded by harsh severe weather, with frequent frosts and
ice, and cutting winds, the insects withdrew, the tortoise
retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen
no more until the tenth of April, when, the rigour of the
spring abating, a softer season began to prevail.

Again; it appears by my journals for many years past,
that house-martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of
October; so that a person not very observant of such
matters would conclude that they had taken their last fare-
well: but then it may be seen in my diaries also that con-
siderable flocks have discovered themselves again in the first
week of November, and often on the fourth day of that month
only for one day; and that not as if they were in actual
migration, but playing about at their leisure and feeding
calmly, as if no enterprise of moment at all agitated their
spirits. And this was the case in the beginning of this

OF SELBORNE 187

very month; for, on the fourth of November, more than
twenty house-martins, which, in appearance, had all departed
about the seventh of October, were seen again, for that one
morning only, sporting between my fields and the Hanger,
and feasting on insects which swarmed in that sheltered
district. The preceding day was wet and blustering, but
the fourth was dark and mild, and soft, the wind at south-
west, and the thermometer at 58’; a pitch not common
at that season of the year. Moreover, it may not be amiss
to add in this place, that whenever the thermometer is
above 50 the bat comes flitting out in every autumnal and
winter month.

From all these circumstances laid together, it is obvious
that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds, are awakened
from their profoundest slumbers by a little untimely
warmth; and therefore that nothing so much promotes
this death-like stupor as a defect of heat. And farther, it
is reasonable to suppose that two whole species, or at least
many individuals of those two species, of British hirundines,
do never leave this island at all, but partake of the same
benumbed state: for we cannot suppose that, after a
month’s absence, house-martins can return from southern
regions to appear for one morning in November, or that
house-swallows should leave the districts of Africa to
enjoy, in March, the transient summer of a couple of
days.

lam, etc.

LETTER XXXVII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778.
Dear Sr,
THERE was in this village several years ago a miserable
pauper, who, from his birth, was afflicted with a leprosy,
as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it affected
only the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet.

188 THE NATURAL HISTORY

This scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year,
at the spring and fall; and, by peeling away, left the skin
so thin and tender that neither his hands or feet were
able to perform their functions; so that the poor object
was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ, and
languishing in a tiresome state of indolence and inactivity.
His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In this sad
plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a burden
to himself and his parish, which was obliged to support
him till he was relieved by death at more than thirty years
of age.

The good women, who love to account for every defect
in children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother
felt a violent propensity for oysters, which she was unable
to gratify; and that the black rough scurf on his hands
and feet were the shells of that fish, We knew his
parents, neither of which were lepers; his father in
particular lived to be far advanced in years.

In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc
among mankind. The Israelites seem to have been
greatly afflicted with it from the most remote times; as
appears from the peculiar and repeated injunctions given
them in the Levitical law.t| Nor was the rancour of this
foul disorder much abated in the last period of their
commonwealth, as may be seen in many passages of the
New Testament.

Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all
Europe over; and our forefathers were by no means
exempt, as appears by the large provision made for objects
labouring under this calamity. There was an hospital for
female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near
Durham, three in London and Southwark, and perhaps
many more in or near our great towns and cities. More-
over, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charit-
able personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor
people as languished under this hopeless infirmity.

It must therefore, in these days, be, to an humane and
thinking person, a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction,

1See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xiv.

OF SELBORNE 189

when he contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated,
and observes that a leper now is a rare sight. He will,
moreover, when engaged in such a train of thought,
naturally enquire for the reason. This happy change
perhaps may have originated and been continued from
the much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now
eaten in these kingdoms; from the use of linen next the
skin; from the plenty of better bread; and from the
profusion of fruits, roots, legumes, and greens, so common
in every family. Three or four centuries ago, before
there were any enclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or
field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in
summer, and were not killed for winter-use, were turned
out soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through
the dead months; so that no fresh meat could be had in
winter or spring. Hence the marvellous account of the
vast stores of salted flesh found in the larder of the eldest
Spencer? in the days of Edward the Second, even so late
in the spring as the third of May. It was from maga-
zines like these that the turbulent barons supported in
idleness their riotous swarms of retainers ready for any
disorder or mischief. But agriculture is now arrived at
such a pitch of perfection, that our best and fattest meats
are killed in the winter ; and no man need eat salted flesh,
unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh.

One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the
quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the
commonalty at all seasons as well as in Lent; which our
poor now would hardly be persuaded to touch.

The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room
of sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is a
matter of neatness comparatively modern ; but must prove
a great means of preventing cutaneous ails. At this very
time woollen instead of linen prevails among the poorer
Welch, who are subject to foul eruptions.

The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found
among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that

1Viz, Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred
muttons,

190 THE NATURAL HISTORY

miserable sort which used in old days to be made of barley
or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening
their blood and correcting their juices ; for the inhabitants
of mountainous districts, to this day, are still liable to the
itch and other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness
and poverty of diet.

As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged
person of observation may perceive, within his own memory,
both in town and country, how vastly the consumption of
vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now support
multitudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners get
fortunes. Every decent labourer also has his garden,
which is half his support, as well as his delight; and
common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and
greens, for their hinds to eat with their bacon; and
those few that do not are despised for their sordid parsi-
mony, and looked upon as regardless of the welfare of
their dependants. Potatoes have prevailed in this little
district, by means of premiums, within these twenty years
only ; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who
would scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign.

Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage,
because they call the month of February sprout-cale ; but,
long after their days, the cultivation of gardens was little
attended to. The religious, being men of leisure, and
keeping up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the
first people among us that had gardens and fruit-trees in
any perfection, within the walls of their abbeys’ and
priories. The barons neglected every pursuit that did not
lead to war or tend to the pleasure of the chase.

It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horti-
culture themselves that the knowledge of gardening made
such hasty advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr.
Waller of Beaconsfield, were some of the first people of

1«Tn monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however
dimly. In them men of business were formed for the state: the art of
writing was cultivated by the monks; they were the only proficients in
mechanics, gardening, and architecture.”—See Dalrymple’s Annals of
Scotland.

OF SELBORNE 19!

rank that promoted the elegant science of ornamenting
without despising the superintendence of the kitchen
quarters and fruit walls.

A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray in his Tour
of Europe at once surprises us, and corroborates what has
been advanced above ; for we find him observing, so late
as his days, that “‘ the Italians use several herbs for sallets,
which are not yet or have not been but lately used in
England, viz. sedleri (celery), which is nothing else but the
sweet smallage; the young shoots whereof, with a little of
the head of the root cut off, they eat raw with oil and
pepper.” And further he adds “ curled endive blanched is
much used beyond seas ; and, for a raw sallet, seemed to
excel lettuce itself.” Now this journey was undertaken
no longer ago than in the year 1663.

1 am, etc.

LETTER XXXVIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

“Forté puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido,
Dixerat, ecquis adest? et, adest, responderat echo,
Hic stupet; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes;
Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat illa vocantem,”

Selborne, Feb. 12, 1778.
Dear Sir,
In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales,
and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should
abound. Many we have discovered that return the cry of
a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting-horn, a tunable ring
of bells, or the melody of birds, very agreeably: but we
were still at a loss for a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till
a young gentleman, who had parted from his company in
a summer evening walk, and was calling after them,
stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot where it might
least be expected. At first he was much surprised, and

192 THE NATURAL HISTORY

could not be persuaded but that he was mocked by some
boy; but, repeating his trials in several languages, and
finding his respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then
discerned the deception.

This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease,
would repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly,
especially if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of

“Tityre, tu patulae recubans - - -”

were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first: and
there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at
midnight, when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness
prevails, one or two syllables more might have been
obtained; but the distance rendered so late an experiment
very inconvenient.

Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best; for when
we came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed
spondees of the same number of syllables,

“Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens - - -”

we could perceive a return but of four or five.

All echoes have some one place to which they are
returned stronger and more distinct than to any other;
and that is always the place that lies at right angles with
the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor too far
off. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much more arti-
culately than hanging wood or vales; because in the latter
the voice is as it were entangled, and embarrassed in the
covert, and weakened in the rebound.

The true object of this echo, as we found by various
experiments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Galley-
Lane, which measures in front 40 feet, and from the
ground to the eaves 12 feet. The true centrum phonicum,
or just distance, is one particular spot in the King’s-field,
in the path to Nore-hill, on the very brink of the steep
balk above the hollow cart way. In this case there is no
choice of distance; but the path, by mere contingency,
happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the
ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either

The Selborne Stream

OF SELBORNE 193

retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above
or below the object.

We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exact-
ness, and found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot’s
rule for distinct articulation: for the Doctor, in his history
of Oxfordshire, allows 120 feet for the return of each
syllable distinctly: hence this echo, which gives ten distinct
syllables, ought to measure 400 yards, or 120 feet to each
syllable; whereas our distance is only 258 yards, or near
75 feet, to each syllable. Thus our measure falls short of
the Doctor’s, as five to eight: but then it must be
acknowledged that this candid philosopher was convinced
afterwards, that some latitude must be admitted of in the
distance of echoes according to time and place.

When experiments of this sort are making, it should
always be remembered that weather and the time of day
have a vast influence on an echo; for a dull, heavy, moist
air deadens and clogs the sound; and hot sunshine renders
the air thin and weak, and deprives it of all its springiness ;
and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole. In a still,
clear, dewy evening the air is most elastic; and perhaps
the later the hour the more so.

Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination,
that the poets have personified her ; and in their hands she
has been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor
need the gravest man be ashamed to appear taken with
such a phaenomenon, since it may become the subject of
philosophical or mathematical inquiries.

One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertain-
ing, must at least have been harmless and inoffensive; yet
Virgil advances a strange notion, that they are injurious to
bees. After enumerating some probable and reasonable
annoyances, such as prudent owners would wish far removed
from their bee-gardens, he adds

“_ __ __ —_ —— — aut ubi concava pulsu
Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago.”

This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted
by the philosophers of these days; especially as they all

N

194 THE NATURAL HISTORY

now seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any
organs of hearing at all. But if it should be urged, that
though they cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the
repercussion of sounds, I grant it is possible they may.
Yet that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I
deny, because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my
outlet, where the echoes are very strong: for this village
is another Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes.
Besides, it does not appear from experiment that bees are
in any way capable of being affected by sounds: for I have
often tried my own with a large speaking-trumpet held
close to their hives, and with such an exertion of voice as
would have hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and
still these insects pursued their various employments un-
disturbed, and without showing the least sensibility or
resentment.

Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally
silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains: nor is
there any mystery in this defect; for the field between is
planted as an hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is
totally absorbed and lost among the poles and entangled
foliage of the hops. And when the poles are removed
in autumn the disappointment is the same; because
a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of
shelter to the hop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse
and repercussion of the voice: so that till those
obstructions are removed no more of its garrulity can be
expected.

Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his
park or outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at
little or no expense. For whenever he had occasion for a
new barn, stable, dog-kennel, or the like structure, it would
be only needful to erect this building on the gentle declivity
of an hill, with a like rising opposite to it, at a few hun-
dred yards distance ; and perhaps success might be the easier
ensured could some canal, lake, or stream, intervene. From
a seat at the centrum phonicum he and his friends might
amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle
of this loquacious nymph; of whose complacency and

OF SELBORNE 195

decent reserve more may be said than can with truth of
every individual of her sex; since she is — — — —

— — — — — — quae nec reticere loquenti,
Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo.”

I am, etc.

P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following
lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poeti-
cally accounting for their causes from popular superstition :

*Quae bené quom videas, rationem reddere possis
Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola
Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant,
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos
Quaerimus, et magna dispersos voce ciemus.

Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces
Unam quom jaceres: ita colles collibus ipsis
Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre.
Haec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere
Finitimi fingunt, et Fauncs esse loquuntur;
Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti
Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi,
Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas,
Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum :
Et genus agricolim laté sentiscere, quom Pan
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans,

Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis,
Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam. ’

Lucretius, Lib, iv. 1. 576,

LETTER XXXIX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, May 13, 1778.
Dear Sir,
Amonc the many singularities attending those amusing
birds the swifts, ] am now confirmed in the opinion that
we have every year the same number of pairs invariably ;
at least the result of my inquiry has been exactly the

196 THE NATURAL HISTORY

same for a long time past. The swallows and martins are
so numerous, and so widely distributed over the village,
that it is hardly possible to recount them ; while the swifts,
though they do not all build in the church, yet so fre-
quently haunt it, and play and rendezvous round it, that
they are easily enumerated. The number that I con-
stantly find are eight pairs; about half of which reside
in the church, and the rest build in some of the lowest
and meanest thatched cottages. Now as these eight pairs,
allowance being made for accidents, breed yearly eight
pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase; and
what determines every spring which pairs shall visit us,
and reoccupy their ancient haunts?

Ever since I have attended to the subject of orni-
thology, I have always supposed that that sudden reverse
of affection, that strange avtistopyy, which immediately
succeeds in the feathered kind to the most passionate
fondness, is the occasion of an equal dispersion of birds
over the face of the earth. Without this provision one
favourite district would be crowded with inhabitants, while
others would be destitute and forsaken. But the parent
birds seem to maintain a jealous superiority, and to oblige
the young to seek for new abodes: and the rivalry of
the males, in many kinds, prevents their crowding the one
on the other. Whether the swallows and house-martins
return in the same exact number annually is not easy
to say, for reasons given above: but it is apparent, as
I have remarked before in my Monographies, that the
numbers returning bear no manner of proportion to the
numbers retiring.

OF SELBORNE 197

LETTER XL
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, June 2, 1778.

Dear Sir,
Tue standing objection to botany has always been, that it
is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the
memory, without improving the mind or advancing any real
knowledge: and where the science is carried no farther
than a mere systematic classification, the charge is but
too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping
off this aspersion should be by no means content with
a list of names; he should study plants philosophically,
should investigate the laws of vegetation, should examine
the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote
their cultivation; and graft the gardener, the planter, and
the husbandman, on the phytologist. Not that system is
by any means to be thrown aside; without system the
field of Nature would be a pathless wilderness: but system
should be subservient to, not the main object of, pursuit.

Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention; and in
itself is of the utmost consequence to mankind, and
productive of many of the greatest comforts and elegancies
of life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey,
wine, oil, linen, cotton, etc. what not only strengthens our
hearts, and exhilarates our spirits, but what secures from
inclemencies of weather and adorns our persons. Man, in
his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by spon-
taneous vegetation : in middle climes, where grasses prevail,
he mixes some animal food with the produce of the field
and garden: and it is towards the polar extremes only that,
like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with
flesh alone, and is driven, to what hunger has never been
known to compel the very beasts, to prey on his own
species.*

1See the late Voyages to the South-scas,

198 THE NATURAL HISTORY

The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence
on the commerce of nations, and have been the great
promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles
of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, paper, etc.
As every climate has its peculiar produce, our natural
wants bring on a mutual intercourse; so that by means of
trade each distant part is supplied with the growth of every
latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants and their
culture, we must have been content with our hips and
haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the
salutiferous drugs of Peru.

Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every
various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should
endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that are
useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb
of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at
least one sort of wheat or barley from another.

But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be
most neglected; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to
distinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from
the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry
and juiceless.

The study of grasses would be of great consequence
to a northerly, and grazing kingdom. The botanist that
could improve the sward of the district where he lived
would be an useful member of society: to raise a thick
turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of systematic
knowledge; and he would be the best commonwealth’s
man that could occasion the growth of “two blades of
grass where one alone was seen before.”

I am, etc.

OF SELBORNE 199

LETTER XLI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, July 3, 1778.
Dear Sir,

In a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and
dale, aspects, and soils, it is no wonder that great choice
of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-
walks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign
fields, cannot but furnish an ample Flora. The deep
rocky lanes abound with filices, and the pastures and moist
woods with fungi. If in any branch of botany we may
seem to be wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants,
which are not to be expected on a spot far removed from
rivers, and lying up amidst the hill country at the spring
heads. To enumerate all the plants that have been
discovered within our limits would be a needless work;
but a short list of the more rare, and the spots where
they are to be found, may be neither unacceptable nor
unentertaining :—

Helleborus foetidus, stinking hellebore, bear’s foot, or
setterwort, all over the High-wood and Coney-croft-
hanger: this continues a great branching plant the winter
through, blossoming about January, and is very orna-
mental in shady walks and shrubberies. The good women
give the leaves powdered to children troubled with worms ;
but it is a violent remedy, and ought to be administered
with caution.

Helleborus viridis, green hellebore,—in the deep stony
lane on the left hand just before the turning to Norton-
farm, and at the top of Middle Dorton under the hedge:
this plant dies down to the ground early in autumn, and
springs again about February, flowering almost as soon as it
appears above ground.

Vaccinium oxycoccos, creeping bilberries, or cranberries,—
in the bogs of Bin’s-pond ;

200 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Vaccinium myrtillus, whortle, or bilberries,—on the dry
hillocks of Wolmer-forest ;

Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sundew. ; Inthe bogs of

longifolia, long-leaved ditto. Bin’s-pond.

Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh cinque
foil,—in the bogs of Bin’s-pond ;

Hypericon androsaemum, Tutsan, St. John’s Wort,—in
the stony, hollow lanes;

Vinca minor, less periwinkle,—in Selborne-hanger and
Shrubwood ;

Monotropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or bird’s nest, —
in Selborne-hanger under the shady beeches, to whose roots it
seems to be parasitical—at the north-west end of the Hanger.

Chlora perfoliata, Blackstonia perfoltata, Hudsoni, per-
foliated yellow-wort,—on the banks in the King’s-field ;

Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true-love, or one-berry,—
in the Church-litten-coppice ;

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxifrage,
—in the dark and rocky hollow lanes ;

Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian or fellwort,—on
the Zig-zag and Hanger ;

Lathraea squammaria, tooth-wort,—in the Church-
litten coppice under some hazels near the foot-bridge, in
Trimming’s garden-hedge, and on the dry wall opposite
Grange-yard ;

Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel,—in the Short and Long Lith;

Lathyrus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathyrus,—in
the bushes at the foot of the Short Lith, near the path ;

Ophrys spiralis, ladies’ traces,—in the Long Lith, and
towards the south-corner of the common;

Ophrys nidus avis, birds’ nest ophyrs,—in the Long Lith
under the shady beeches among the dead leaves; in Great
Dorton among the bushes, and on the Hanger plentifully ;

erapias latifolia, helleborine,—in the High-wood under
the shady beeches ;

Daphne laureola, spurge laurel,—in Selborne-Hanger
and the High-wood ;

Daphne mezereum, the mezereon,—in Selborne-Hanger
among the shrubs at the south-east end above the cottages ;

‘The Hanger

OF SELBORNE 201

Lycoperdon tuber, truffles,—in the Hanger and High-
wood ;
Sambucus ebulus, dwarf elder, wallwort, or danewort,—
among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory.
Of all the propensities of plants none seem more strange
than their different periods of blossoming. Some produce
their flowers in the winter, or very first dawnings of
spring; many when the spring is established; some at
midsummer, and some not till autumn. When we see
the helleborus foetidus and helleborus niger blowing at
Christmas, the Ael/eborus hyemalis in January, and the
helleborus viridis as soon as ever it emerges out of the
ground, we do not wonder, because they are kindred
plants that we expect should keep pace the one with the
other. But other congenerous vegetables differ so widely
in their time of flowering that we cannot but admire.
T shall only instance at present in the crocus sativus, the
vernal, and the autumnal crocus, which have such an
affinity, that the best botanists only make them varieties
of the same genus, of which there is only one species;
not being able to discern any difference in the corolla, or
in the internal structure. Yet the vernal crocus expands
its flowers by the beginning of March at farthest, and
often in very rigorous weather; and cannot be retarded
but by some violence offered :—while the autumnal (the
Saffron) defies the influence of the spring and summer,
and will not blow till most plants begin to fade and
run to seed. This circumstance is one of the wonders of
the creation, little noticed, because a common occurrence:
yet ought not to be overlooked on account of its being
familiar, since it would be as difficult to be explained as
the most stupendous phaenomenon in nature.
Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow,
Congealed, the crocus’ flamy bud to grow?
Say, what retards, amidst the summer’s blaze,
Th’ autumnal bulb till pale, declining days?
The Gop of Szasons; whose pervading power
Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower :

He bids each flower his quick’ning word obey ;
Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay.

202 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XLII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

“Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique
genere incessus est: aves solae vario meatu feruntur, et in terra, et
in 4ere.”—Puin, Hist. Nat. lib, x. cap. 38.

Selborne, Aug 7, 1778.
Dear Sir,

A coop ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds
by their air as well as by their colours and shape; on the
ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in
the hand. For, though it must not be said that every species
of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is some-
what in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates
them, and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon
them with some certainty. Put a bird in motion

«__ __ Et vera incessu patuit — — — —”

Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings
expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding
manner that the former are still called in the north of
England gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan to glide.
The kestrel, or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode of hang-
ing in the air in one place, his wings all the while being
briskly agitated. Hen-harriers fly low over heaths or
fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a
pointer or setting-dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner,
as if lighter than the air; they seem to want ballast.
There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw
the attention even of the most incurious—they spend all
their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the
wing in a kind of playful skirmish; and, when they move
from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs
with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground.
When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching
themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of
gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolic-

OF SELBORNE 203

some manner; crows and daws swagger in their walk;
wood-peckers fly volatu undoso, opening and closing their
wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling
in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which incline
downward, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots,
like all other hooked-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and
make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and ascend-
ing with ridiculous caution. All the gallinae parade and
walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty,
with an impetuous whirring, and ina straight line. Magpies
and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no dispatch ;
herons seem incumbered with too much sail for their light
bodies ; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carry-
ing burdens, such as large fishes, and the like ; pigeons, and
particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing
their wings the one against the other over their backs with
a loud snap; another variety called tumblers turn them-
selves over in the air. Some birds have movements
peculiar to the season of love: thus ring-doves, though
strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang
about on the wing in a toying and playful manner; thus
the cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight,
fans the air like the wind-hover; and the green-finch
in particular exhibits such languishing and faltering
gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird; the
king-fisher darts along like an arrow; fern-owls, or goat-
suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like
a meteor: starlings as it were swim along, while missel-
thrushes use a wild and desultory flight; swallows sweep
over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish
themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions; swifts
dash round in circles; and the bank-martin moves with
frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small
birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance.
Most small birds hop; but wagtails and larks walk,
moving their legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall
perpendicularly as they sing: woodlarks hang poised in
the air; and titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing
in their descent. The white-throat uses odd jerks and

204 THE NATURAL HISTORY

gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes. All the
duck-kind waddle; divers and auks walk as if fettered,
and stand erect on their tails: these are the compedes of
Linnaeus. Geese and cranes, and most wild-fowls, move
in figured flights, often changing their position. The
secondary remiges of Tringae, wild-ducks, and some
others, are very long, and give their wings, when in
motion, an hooked appearance. Dab-chicks, moor-hens,
and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and
hardly make any dispatch; the reason is plain, their wings
are placed too forward out of the true centre of gravity;
as the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward.

LETTER XLIII

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Sept. 9, 1778.
Dear Sr,
From the motion of birds, the transition is natural enough
to their notes and language, of which I shall say something.
Not that I would pretend to understand their language like
the vizier; who, by the recital of a conversation which
passed between two owls, reclaimed a sultan,’ before
delighting in conquest and devastation; but I would be
thought only to mean that many of the winged tribes have
various sounds and voices adapted to express their various
passions, wants, and feelings; such as anger, fear, love,
hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally
eloquent ; some are copious and fluent as it were in their
utterance, while others are confined to a few important
sounds: no bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though
some are rather silent. The language of birds is very
ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, very
elliptical ; little is said, but much is meant and understood.

1See Spectator, Vol. VII., No. 512.

OF SELBORNE 205

The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing ; and
about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have
been often assured by a curious observer of Nature, who
long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes
of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds.
Owls have very expressive notes; they hoot in a fine vocal
sound, much resembling the vox humana, and reducible by
a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This note seems to express
complacency and rivalry among the males: they use also a
quick call and an horrible scream; and can snore and hiss
when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud
croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the
woods to echo; the amorous sound of a crow is strange
and ridiculous; rooks, in the breeding season, attempt
sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts to sing, but with no
great success; the parrot-kind have many modulations of
voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds;
doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are
emblems of despairing lovers; the woodpecker sets up a
sort of loud and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker,
from the dusk till day-break, serenades his mate with the
clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express
their complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of
melody. ‘The swallow, as has been observed in a former
letter, by a shrill alarm bespeaks the attention of the other
hirundines, and bids them be aware that the hawk is at
hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, especially the noc-
turnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are very noisy
and loquacious; as cranes, wild-geese, wild-ducks, and the
like; their perpetual clamour prevents them from dispers-
ing and losing their companions.

In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as
much as can be expected; for it would be endless to
instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation.
We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to
the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known,
and therefore best understood. At first the peacock, with
his gorgeous train demands our attention; but, like most
of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to

206 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the ear: the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are
not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-
like, and clanking ; and once saved the Capitol at Rome,
as grave historians assert: the hiss also of the gander is
formidable and full of menace, and “protective of his

oung.’” Among ducks the sexual distinction of voice is
remarkable; for, while the quack of the female is loud and
sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward and harsh and
feeble, and scarce discernible. The cock turkey struts
and gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner; he
hath also a pert and petulant note when he attacks his
adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young
brood she keeps a watchful eye: and if a bird of prey
appear, though ever so high in the air, the careful mother
announces the enemy with a little inward moan, and
watches him with a steady and attentive look; but, if he
approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and her
outcries are redoubled.

No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a
variety of expression and so copious a language as common
poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old, and
hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will
immediately seize its prey, with little twitterings of com-
placency ; but if you tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its
note becomes harsh, and expressive of disapprobation and a
sense of danger. When a pullet is ready to lay she
intimates the event by a joyous and easy soft note. Of all
the occurrences of their life that of laying seems to be the
most important; for no sooner has a hen disburdened her-
self, than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy,
which the cock and the rest of his mistresses immediately
adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family concerned,
but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every home-
stead within hearing, till at last the whole village is in an
uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a mother her new rela-
tion demands a new language; she then runs clocking and
screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. The
father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary ; if
he finds food, he calls a favourite concubine to partake ;

OF SELBORNE 207

and if a bird of prey passes over, with a warning voice he
bids his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has, at
command, his amorous phrases, and his terms of defiance.
But the sound by which he is best known is his crowing :
by this he has been distinguished in all ages as the country-
man’s clock or larum, as the watchman that proclaims the
divisions of the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles him:
«*___ __ __ the crested cock, whose clarion sounds
The silent hours.”

A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most
of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding
down between a faggot pile and the end of his house to
the place where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly
vexed to see his flock thus diminishing, hung a setting net
adroitly between the pile and the house, into which the
caitiff dashed and was entangled. Resentment suggested
the law of retaliation; he therefore clipped the hawk’s
wings, cut off his talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill,
threw him down among the brood-hens. Imagination
cannot paint the scene that ensued; the expressions that
fear, rage, and revenge, inspired, were new, or at least
such as had been unnoticed before: the exasperated
matrons upbraided, they execrated, they insulted, they
triumphed. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting
their adversary till they had torn him in an hundred pieces.

LETTER XLIV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne.

6 ne oases — —_— monstrent

Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles
Hyberni; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet.”

GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make
ornament subservient to utility; a pleasing eye-trap might

208 THE NATURAL HISTORY

also contribute to promote science: an obelisk in a garden
or park might be both an embellishment and an heliotrope.

Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of
a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two
heliotropes; the one for the winter, the other for the
summer solstice: and these two erections might be con-
structed with very little expense; for two pieces of timber
frame-work, about ten or twelve feet high, and four feet
broad at the base, and close lined with plank, would
answer the purpose.

The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed
within sight of some window in the common sitting
parlour; because men, at that dead season of the year, are
usually within doors at the close of the day ; while that for
the latter might be fixed for any given spot in the garden
or outlet: whence the owner might contemplate, in a fine
summer’s evening, the utmost extent that the sun makes
to the northward at the season of the longest days. Now
nothing would be necessary but to place these two objects
with so much exactness, that the westerly limb of the sun,
at setting, might but just clear the winter heliotrope to the
west of it on the shortest day; and that the whole disc of
the sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also
clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it.

By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there
is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice ; for, from
the shortest day, the owner would, every clear evening, see
the disc advancing, at its setting, to the westward of the
object; and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring
backwards every evening at its setting, towards the object
westward, till, in a few nights, it would set quite behind it,
and so by degrees to the west of it: for when the sun
comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it would
at first set behind the object: after a time the northern
limb would first appear, and so every night gradually
more, till at length the whole diameter would set north-
ward of it for about three nights; but on the middle night
of the three, sensibly more remote than the former or
following. When beginning its recess from the summer

OF SELBORNE 209

tropic, it would continue more and more to be hidden
every night, till at length it would descend quite behind
the object again; and so nightly more and more to the
westward.

LETTER XLV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne.
«_ — -— Musgire videbis
Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos.”

WueEn I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and
implicit assent, accounts in “ Baker’s Chronicle” of walking
hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his “‘Cyder,”
alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a
delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author

of the ‘Splendid Shilling.”

“TI nor advise, nor reprehend the choice
Of Marcley Hill; the apple no where finds
A kinder mould: yet ’tis unsafe to trust
Deceitful ground : who knows but that once more
This mount may journey, and his present site
Forsaken, to thy neighbour’s bounds transfer
Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange
For law debates!”

But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect
that though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet
that the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen
away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt.
This seems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham
Hills; and especially with the ridge between Harteley
Park and Ward le Ham, where the ground has slid into
vast swellings and furrows; and lies still in such romantic
confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other
cause. A strange event, that happened not long since,

justifies our suspicions; which, though it befell not within
0)

210 THE NATURAL HISTORY

the limits of this parish, yet as it was within the hundred
of Selborne, and as the circumstances were singular, may
fairly claim a place in a work of this nature.

The months of January and February, in the year 1774,
were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of
rain, so that by the end of the latter month the land-
springs, or lavants, began to prevail, and to be near as
high as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning
of March also went on in the same tenor; when, in the
night between the 8th and gth of that month, a con-
siderable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was
torn from its place, and fell down, leaving a high freestone
cliff naked and bare, and resembling the steep side of a
chalk-pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being
perhaps sapped and undermined by waters, foundered, and
was ingulfed, going down ina perpendicular direction ; for
a gate which stood in the field, on the top of the hill, after
sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in
so true and upright a position as to open and shut with
great exactness, just as in its first situation. Several oaks
also are still standing, and in a state of vegetation, after
taking the same desperate leap. That great part of this
prodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below, is plain
also from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill,
which is free and unincumbered; but would have been
buried in heaps of rubbish, had the fragment parted and
fallen forward. About an hundred yards from the foot of
this hanging coppice stood a cottage by the side of a lane;
and two hundred yards lower, on the other side of the
lane, was a farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his
family ; and, just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was
inhabited by an old woman and her son and his wife.
These people in the evening, which was very dark and
tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their
kitchens began to heave and part; and that the walls
seemed to open, and the roofs to crack: but they all agree
that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake,
was ever felt; only that the wind continued to make a
most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The

OF SELBORNE 211

miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained in
the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting every
moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered
edifices. When day-light came they were at leisure to
contemplate the devastations of the night: they then found
that a deep rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses,
and torn them, as it were, in two; and that one end of
the barn had suffered in a similar manner; that a pond
near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becom-
ing deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa; that many
large oaks were removed out of their perpendicular, some
thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neigh-
bouring trees; and that a gate was thrust forward, with its
hedge, full six feet, so as to require a new track to be
made to it. From the foot of the cliff the general course
of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate
descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with some
hillocks, which were rifted, in every direction, as well
towards the great woody hanger, as from it. In the first
pasture the deep clefts began: and running across the
lane, and under the buildings, made such vast shelves that
the road was impassable for some time; and so over to an
arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn
and disordered. ‘The second pasture field, being more
soft and springy, was protruded forward without many
fissures in the turf, which was raised in long ridges
resembling graves, lying at right angles to the motion.
At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose
many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed
their farther course and terminated this awful commotion.

The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is
twenty-three yards; the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen
from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-one; and a
partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards
more: so that the total length of this fragment that fell
was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres
of land suffered from this violent convulsion; two houses
were entirely destroyed; one end of a new barn was left
in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones

212 THE NATURAL HISTORY

that composed them; a hanging coppice was changed to
a naked rock; and some grass grounds and an arable field
so broken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered, for
a time, neither fit for the plough or safe for pasturage, till
considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in
levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures.

LETTER XLVI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne.

“_ __ __. resonant arbusta — — — —”

THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with
furze close to the back of this village, well known by the
name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and
inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with
the gryllus campestris, or field-cricket; which, though
frequent in these parts, is by no means a common insect
in many other counties.

As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the atten-
tion of a naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the
oeconomy of these gry/i, and study their mode of life: but
they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy matter to
get a sight of them; for, feeling a person’s footsteps as
he advances, they stop short in the midst of their song,
and retire backward nimbly into their burrows, where they
lurk till all suspicion of danger is over.

At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade, but
without any great success; for either we could not get to
the bottom of the hole, which often terminated under a
great stone; or else, in breaking up the ground, we inad-
vertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one
so bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which were long
and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very

The Lithe

OF SELBORNE 213

tough skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish the
male from the female ; the former of which is shining black,
with a golden stripe across his shoulders; the latter is more
dusky, more capacious about the abdomen, and carries a
long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is
the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies
and safe receptacles.

Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle
means will often succeed; and so it proved in the present
case; for, though a spade be too boisterous and rough an
implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into
the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and
quickly bring out the inhabitant; and thus the humane
inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the
object of it. It is remarkable that, though these insects
are furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for
leaping, like grasshoppers; yet when driven from their
holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless
manner, so as easily to be taken: and again, though pro-
vided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never
exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion.
The males only make that shrilling noise perhaps out of
rivalry and emulation, as is the case with many animals
which exert some sprightly note during their breeding
time: it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against
the other. They are solitary beings, living singly male or
female, each as it may happen; but there must be a time
when the sexes have some intercourse, and then the wings
may be useful perhaps during the hours of night. When
the males meet they will fight fiercely, as 1 found by some
which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I
should have been glad to have made them settle. For
though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their
knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks
would seize on any that were obtruded upon them with a
vast row of serrated fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed
like the shears of a lobster’s claws, they perforate and round
their curious regular cells, having no fore-claws to dig, like
the mole-cricket. When taken in hand I could not but

214 THE NATURAL HISTORY

wonder that they never offered to defend themselves,
though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such
herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat
indiscriminately ; and on a little platform, which they make
just by, they drop their dung; and never, in the day time,
seem to stir more than two or three inches from home.
Sitting in the entrance of their caverns they chirp all night
as well as day from the middle of the month of May to
the middle of July; and in hot weather, when they are
most vigorous, they make the hills echo; and, in the stiller
hours of darkness, may be heard to a considerable distance.
In the beginning of the season their notes are more faint
and inward; but become louder as the summer advances,
and so die away again by degrees.

Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their
sweetness and melody; nor do harsh sounds always dis-
please. We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted
with the associations which they promote, than with the
notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket,
though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously delights some
hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer ideas of
every thing that is rural, verdurous, and joyous.

About the tenth of March the crickets appear at the
mouths of their cells, which they then open and bore, and
shape very elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that
season were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments
of wings, lying under a skin or coat, which must be cast
before the insect can arrive at its perfect state;! from whence
I should suppose that the old ones of last year do not always
survive the winter. In August their holes begin to be ob-
literated, and the insects are seen no more till spring.

Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a
colony to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in
the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time,
and fed and sung; but wandered away by degrees, and
were heard at a farther distance every morning; so that it
appears that on this emergency they made use of their

1 We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then
seen lying at the mouths of their holes,

OF SELBORNE 218

wings in attempting to return to the spot from which they
were taken.

One of these crickets, when confined in a paper cage and
set in the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with
water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry and loud
as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sit-
ting: if the plants are not wetted it will die.

LETTER XLVII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne.
Dear Sir,

“ Far from all resort of mirth
Save the cricket on the hearth.”—-Miron’s I] Penseroso,

WHILE many other insects must be sought after in fields and
woods, and waters, the gry//us domesticus, or house cricket,
resides altogether within our dwellings, intruding itself
upon our notice whether we will or no. This species
delights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased
with the moisture of the walls; and besides, the softness of
the mortar enables them to burrow and mine between the
joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communications
from one room to another. They are particularly fond of
kitchens and bakers’ ovens, on account of their perpetual
warmth.

Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the
short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold
uncomfortable months in profund slumbers; but these,
residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert and
merry: a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of
the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard by day,
yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As
soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come

216 THE NATURAL HISTORY

running forth, and are from the size of a flea to that of
their full stature. As one should suppose, from the burn-
ing atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race,
and show a great propensity for liquids, being found
frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the
like. Whatever is moist they affect ; and therefore often
gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are
hung to the fire: they are the housewife’s barometer, fore-
telling her when it will rain ; and are prognostic sometimes,
she thinks, of ill or good luck; of the death of a near
relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being
the constant companions of her solitary hours they natu-
rally become the objects of her superstition. These crickets
are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they
will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs
of bread; and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the
summer we have observed them to fly, when it became
dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs.
This feat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in
which they often leave their haunts, as it does for the
method by which they come to houses where they were
not known before. It is remarkable, that many sorts of
insects seem never to use their wings but when they have
a mind to shift their quarters and settle new colonies.
When in the air they move “ volatu undoso,” in waves or
curves, like wood-peckers, opening and shutting their wings
at every stroke, and so are always rising or sinking.

When they increase to a great degree, as they did once in
the house where I am now writing, they become noisome
pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into people’s
faces; but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder
discharged into their crevices and crannies. In families, at
such times, they are, like Pharaoh’s plague of frogs,—* in
their bed-chambers, and upon their beds, and in their ovens,
and in their kneading-troughs.’’? Their shrilling noise is
occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch
hearth crickets, and, playing with them as they do with
mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps,

1 Exod, viii. 3.

OF SELBORNE 217

by phials half filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in
their haunts; for, being always eager to drink, they will
crowd in till the bottles are full.

LETTER XLVI

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne.

How diversified are the modes of life not only of incon-
gruous but even of congenerous animals; and yet their
specific distinctions are not more various than their pro-
pensities. Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny
dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices amidst the
glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the gry/lus
gryllo talpa (the mole-cricket), haunts moist meadows, and
frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, per-
forming all its functions in a swampy wet soil. With a
pair of fore-feet, curiously adapted to the purpose, it
burrows and works under ground like the mole, raising a
ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks.

As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of
canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising
up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering
the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters,
they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by
destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and
flowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless,
and make no use of their wings by day; but at night they
come abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been
convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improb-
able places. In fine weather, about the middle of April,
and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves
with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time
without interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the
fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but more inward.

218 THE NATURAL HISTORY

About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as 1
was once an eye-witness: for a gardener at an house, where
I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of
that month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too
deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view
a curious scene of domestic oeconomy :

«_ _. — — ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram:
Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt:
Apparent — — — penetralia.”

There were many caverns and winding passages leading
to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and
about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret
nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty
yellow colour, and enveloped ina tough skin, but too lately
excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of
a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within
the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh-
moved mould, like that which is raised by ants.

When mole-crickets fly they move “ cursu undoso,” rising
and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before.
In different parts of this kingdom people call them fen-
crickets, churr-worms, and eve-churrs, all very apposite
names.

Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these
insects, astonish me with their accounts; for they say that,
from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs,
or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this
and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like
many quadrupeds !

LETTER XLIX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, May 7, 1779.
Ir is now more than forty years that I have paid some
attention to the ornithology of this district, without being

OF SELBORNE 219

able to exhaust the subject: new occurrences still arise as
long as any inquiries are kept alive.

In the last week of last month five of those most rare
birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name,
but known to naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or
loripes, and charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the
verge of Frinsham-pond, a large lake belonging to the
bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer-forest,
and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The
pond keeper says there were three brace in the flock; but
that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the
sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens I|
procured, and found the length of the legs to be so extra-
ordinary, that, at first sight, one might have supposed the
shanks had been fastened on to impose on the credulity of
the beholder: they were legs in caricatura; and had we
seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen we
should have made large allowances for the fancy of the
draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and
might with propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson,
under that idea, gives them the apposite name of /'échasse.
My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper,
weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the
naked part of the thigh measured three inches and an half,
and the legs four inches and an half. Hence we may safely
assert that these birds exhibit, weight for inches, incompar-
ably the greatest length of legs of any known bird. The
flamingo, for instance is one of the most long legged birds,
and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the himan-
topus; for a cock flamingo weighs, at an average, about
four pounds avoirdupois ; and his legs and thighs measure
usually about twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen
times and a fraction more than four ounces and one
quarter ; and if four ounces and a quarter have eight
inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred and
twenty inches and a fraction of legs; viz. somewhat more
than ten feet; such a monstrous proportion as the world
never saw! If you should try the experiment in still
larger birds the disparity would still increase. It must

220 THE NATURAL HISTORY

be matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover move;
to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with
such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished
with. At best one should expect it to be but a bad
walker: but what adds to the wonder is that it has no
back toe. Now without that steady prop to support its
steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacilla-
tions, and seldom able to preserve the true centre of
gravity.

The old name of Aimantopus is taken from Pliny; and,
by an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as
slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather.
Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious re-
searches either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird.
Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great-Britain, but
observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris.
Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn:
and a most accurate observer of Nature has assured me
that he has found it on the banks of the streams in
Andalusia.

Our writers record it to have been found only twice in
Great-Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears
that these long legged plovers are birds of South Europe,
and rarely visit our island; and when they do are
wanderers and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant
and northern an excursion from motives or accidents for
which we are not able to account. One thing may fairly
be deduced, that these birds come over to us from the
continent, since nobody can suppose that a species not
noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make,
can constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom.

OF SELBORNE 22]

LETTER L

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, April 21, 1780,
Dear Sir,

Tue old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so
often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter
dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to
express its resentments by hissing ; and, packing it in a box
with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle
and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when
I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the
bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the
weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould,
and continues still concealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an oppor-
tunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life,
and propensities; and perceive, already that, towards the
time of coming forth, it opens a breathing place in the
ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respira-
tion, as it becomes more alive. This creature not only

oes under the earth from the middle of November to the
middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for
it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon,
and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides,
it retires to rest for every shower ; and does not move at
all in wet days.

When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it
is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should
bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste
of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little
as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a
joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months
together in the profoundest of slumbers.

While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm after-
noon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops

222 THE NATURAL HISTORY

of shell-snails; and, at the same juncture, the tortoise
heaved up the mould and put out its head; and the next
morning came forth, as it were raised from the dead; and
walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a
curious coincidence! a very amusing occurrence! to see
such a similarity of feelings between the two gepéouo: |
for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and the tortoise.

Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring,
unusually late: I have seen but one swallow yet. This
conformity with the weather convinces me more and more
that they sleep in the winter.

LETTER LI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Sept. 3, 1781.
I wave now read your miscellanies through with much
care and satisfaction: and am to return you my best
thanks for the honourable mention made in them of me as
a naturalist, which I wish I may deserve.

In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that
many of the house-martins do not depart in the winter far
from this village. I therefore determined to make some
search about the south-east end of the hill, where I
imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable
months of winter. But supposing that the examination
would be made to the best advantage in the spring, and
observing that no martins had appeared by the 11th of
April last; on that day I employed some men to explore
the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot. The persons
took pains, but without any success: however, a remark-
able incident occurred in the midst of our pursuit—while
the labourers were at work a house-martin, the first that
had been seen this year, came down the village in the sight
of several people, and went at once into a nest, where

OF SELBORNE 223

it stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses; for
some days after no martins were observed, not till the
16th of April, and then only a pair. Martins in general
were remarkably late this year.

LETTER LII

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Selborne, Sept. 9, 1781.

I wave just met with a circumstance respecting swifts,
which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my
observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on
that species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, with-
drew this year about the first day of August, all save
one pair, which in two or three days was reduced to
a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made
me suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an
attachment to her young, could alone occasion so late
a stay. I watched therefore till the twenty-fourth of
August, and then discovered that, under the eaves of
the church, she attended upon two young, which were
fledged, and now put out their white chins from a
crevice. These remained till the twenty-seventh, looking
more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on the
wing. After this day they were missing at once; nor
could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round
the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods
evidently do. On the thirty-first I caused the eaves to be
searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead,
stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed.
This double nest was full of the black shining cases of
the hippoboscae hirundinis.

The following remarks on this unusual incident are
obvious. The first is, that though it may be disagreeable
to swifts to remain beyond the beginning of August, yet

224 THE NATURAL HISTORY

that they can subsist longer is undeniable. The second is,
that this uncommon event, as it was owing to the loss
of the first brood, so it corroborates my former remark,
that swifts breed regularly but once; since, was the con-
trary the case, the occurrence above could neither be new
nor rare.

P.S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county
of Rutland, in 1782, so late as the third of September

LETTER LHI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about
several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account
of one sort which I little expected to have found in
this kingdom. I had often observed that one particular
part of a vine growing on the walls of my house was
covered in the autumn with a black dust-like appearance,
on which the flies fed eagerly; and that the shoots and
leaves thus affected did not thrive ; nor did the fruit ripen.
To this substance I applied my glasses; but could not
discover that it had anything to do with animal life, as
I at first expected: but, upon a closer examination behind
the larger boughs, we were surprised to find that they were
coated over with husky shells, from whose sides proceeded
a cotton-like substance, surrounding a multitude of eggs.
This curious and uncommon production put me upon
recollecting what I have heard and read concerning the
coccus vitis viniferae of Linnaeus, which, in the south of
Europe, infests many vines, and is an horrid and loathsome
pest. As soon as I had turned to the accounts given of
this insect, I saw at once that it swarmed on my vine;
and did not appear to have been at all checked by the
preceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe.
Not being then at all aware that it had anything to

OF SELBORNE 225

do with England, I was much inclined to think that it
came from Gibraltar among the many boxes and packages
of plants and birds which I had formerly received from
thence; and especially as the vine infested grew immedi-
ately under my study-window, where I usually kept my
specimens. ‘True it is that I had received nothing from
thence for some years: but as insects, we know, are
conveyed from one country to another in a very unex-
pected manner, and have a wonderful power of maintaining
their existence till they fall into a nidus proper for their
support and increase, I cannot but suspect still that these
cocci came to me originally from Andalusia. Yet, all the
while, candour obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot
has written me word that he once, and but once, saw these
insects On a vine at Weymouth in Dorsetshire; which,
it is here to be observed, is a seaport town to which
the coccus might be conveyed by shipping.

As many of my readers may possibly never have heard
of this strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a
passage from a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the
Reverend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lanca-
shire, but not yet published :—

«In the year 1770 a vine which grew on the east-side of
my house, and which had produced the finest crops of
grapes for years past, was suddenly overspread on all the
woody branches with large lumps of a white fibrous sub-
stance resembling spiders’ webs, or rather raw cotton. It
was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to every thing
that touched it, and capable of being spun into long
threads. At first I suspected it to be the produce of
spiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be seen
connected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which
by no means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits
of the dry bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful
crop of grapes set, when this pest appeared upon it; but
the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul incumbrance.
It remained all the summer, still increasing, and loaded the
woody and bearing branches toa vast degree. I often pulled
off great quantities by handfuls; but it was so slimy and

P

226 THE NATURAL HISTORY

tenacious that it could by no means be cleared. The grapes
never filled to their natural perfection, but turned watery
and vapid. Upon perusing the works afterwards of M. de
Reaumur, I found this matter perfectly described and
accounted for. Those husky shells, which I had observed,
were no other than the female coccus, from whose sides this
cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering and
security for their eggs.”

To this account I think proper to add, that, though the
female cocci are stationary, and seldom remove from the
place to which they stick, yet the male is a winged insect ;
and that the black dust which I saw was undoubtedly the
excrement of the females, which is eaten by ants as well as
flies. Though the utmost severity of our winter did not
destroy these insects, yet the attention of the gardener in a
summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from this
filthy annoyance.

As we have remarked above that insects are often
conveyed from one country to another in a very unac-
countable manner, I shall here mention an emigration of
small aphides, which was observed in the village of
Selborne no longer ago than August the Ist, 1785.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day,
which was very hot, the people of this village were
surprised by a shower of aphides, or smother-flies, which
fell in these parts. Those that were walking in the street
at that juncture found themselves covered with these
insects, which settled also on the hedges and gardens,
blackening all the vegetables where they alighted. My
annuals were discoloured with them, and the stalks of a
bed of onions were quite coated over for six days after.
These armies were then, no doubt, in a state of emigration,
and shifting their quarters ; and might have come, as far
as we know, from the great hop-plantations of Kent or
Sussex, the wind being all that day in the easterly quarter.
They were observed at the same time in great clouds about
Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to Alton.?

1 For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters,
see Derham’s Physico-Theoiogy.

OF SELBORNE 227

LETTER LIV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Dear Sir,

Wuen I happen to visit a family where gold and silver
fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with
the occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of
observing the actions and propensities of those beings with
whom we can be little acquainted in their natural state.
Not long since I spent a fortnight at the house of a friend
where there was such a vivary, to which I paid no small
attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed
within its narrow limits. It was here that I first observed
the manner in which fishes die. As soon as the creature
sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands as it
were on its head ; till, getting weaker, and losing all poise,
the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of the
water with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes,
when dead, swim in that manner is very obvious ; because,
when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the
belly, the broad muscular back preponderates by its own
gravity, and turns the belly uppermost, as lighter from its
being a cavity, and because it contains the swimming-
bladders, which contribute to render it buoyant. Some that
delight in gold and silver fishes have adopted a notion that
they need no aliment. True it is that they will subsist for
a long time without any apparent food but what they can
collect from pure water frequently changed; yet they
must draw some support from animalcula, and other
nourishment supplied by the water ; because, though they
seem to eat nothing, yet the consequences of eating often
drop from them. That they are best pleased with such
jejune diet may easily be confuted, since if you toss them
crumbs they will seize them with great readiness, not to
say greediness : however, bread should be given sparingly,
lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also

228 THE NATURAL HISTORY

feed on the water-plant called /emna (duck’s meat), and
also on small fry.

When they want to movea little they gently protrude
themselves with their pinnae pectorales ; but it is with their
strong muscular tails only that they and all fishes shoot
along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has been said
that the eyes of fishes are immoveable: but these ap-
parently turn them forward or backward in their sockets
as their occasions require. They take little notice of a
lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but
flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of
the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung ;
especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps
asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern
when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are
always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl con-
taining such fishes: the double refractions of the glass and
water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and
changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours;
while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex
shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly ; not
to mention that the introduction of another element and
its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a
very agreeable manner.

Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of
China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to
our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast in our
ponds and stews. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish
under the genus of cyprinus, or carp, and calls it cyprinus
auratus.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful
way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large
hollow space within, that does not communicate with it.
In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so that you
may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it were in the
midst of the water, and the fishes swimming | in a circle
round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable
and pleasant; but in so complicated a way becomes

OF SELBORNE 229

whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due
to him,
“ Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam.”

I am, ete.

LETTER LV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

October 10, 1781,
Dear Sir,

I rornk I have observed before that much the most con-
siderable part of the house-martins withdraw from hence
about the first week in October ; but that some, the latter
broods I am now convinced, linger on till towards the
middle of that month: and that at times, once perhaps in
two or three years, a flight, for one day only, has shown
itself in the first week of November.

Having taken notice, in October 1780, that the last
flight was numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred
and fifty ; and that the season was soft and still; I was
resolved to pay uncommon attention to these late birds ;
to find, if possible, where they roosted, and to determine
the precise time of their retreat. The mode of life of
these latter hirundines is very favourable to such a design ;
for they spend the whole day in the sheltered district,
between me and the Hanger, sailing about in a placid,
easy manner, and feasting on those insects which love to
haunt a spot so secure from ruffling winds. As my
principal object was to discover the place of their roosting,
I took care to wait on them before they retired to rest,
and was much pleased to find that, for several evenings
together, just at a quarter past five in the afternoon, they
all scudded away in great haste towards the south-east,
and darted down among the low shrubs above the cottages
at the end of the hill. This spot in many respects seems
to be well calculated for their winter residence: for in

230 THE NATURAL HISTORY

many parts it is as steep as the roof of any house, and
therefore secure from the annoyances of water ; and it is
moreover clothed with beechen shrubs, which, being
stunted and bitten by sheep, make the thickest covert
imaginable ; and are so entangled as to be impervious to
the smallest spaniel: besides, it is the nature of under-
wood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter ; so that,
with the leaves on the ground and those on the twigs, no
shelter can be more complete. I watched them on to the
thirteenth and fourteenth of October, and found their
evening retreat was exact and uniform; but after this
they made no regular appearance. Now and then a
straggler was seen ; and on the twenty-second of October,
I observed two in the morning over the village, and with
them my remarks for the season ended.

From all these circumstances put together, it is more
than probable that this lingering flight, at so late a season
of the year, never departed from the island. Had they
indulged me that autumn with a November visit, as I much
desired, | presume that, with proper assistants, I should
have settled the matter past all doubt; but though the
third of November was a sweet day, and in appearance
exactly suited to my wishes, yet not a martin was to be
seen; and so I was forced, reluctantly, to give up the
pursuit.

I have only to add that were the bushes, which cover
some acres, and are not my own property, to be grubbed
and carefully examined, probably those late broods, and
perhaps the whole aggregate body of the house-martins of
this district, might be found there, in different secret
dormitories; and that, so far from withdrawing into
warmer climes, it would appear that they never depart
three hundred yards from the village.

OF SELBORNE 231

LETTER LVI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Tuey who write on natural history cannot too frequently
advert to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which, in
some instances, raises the brute creation as it were above
reason, and in others leaves them so far below it. Philo-
sophers have defined instinct to be that secret influence
by which every species is impelled naturally to pursue, at
all times, the same way or track, without any teaching
or example; whereas reason, without instruction, would
often vary and do that by many methods which instinct
effects by one alone. Now this maxim must be taken
in a qualified sense; for there are instances in which
instinct does vary and conform to the circumstances of
place and convenience.

It has been remarked that every species of bird has a
mode of nidification peculiar to itself; so that a school-
boy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before
him. This is the case among fields and woods, and wilds ;
but, in the villages round London, where mosses and
gossamer, and cotton from vegetables, are hardly to be
found, the nest of the chaffinch has not that elegant
finished appearance, nor is it so beautifully studded with
lichens, as in a more rural district: and the wren is
obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses,
which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so
remarkable in the edifices of that little architect. Again,
the regular nest of the house-martin is hemispheric; but
where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, may happen to
stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform
to the obstruction, and becomes flat or oval, or com-
pressed.

In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform
and consistent. ‘There are three creatures, the squirrel,
the field-mouse, and the bird called the nut-hatch (sista

232 THE NATURAL HISTORY

Europaea), which live much on hazel nuts; and yet they
open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping
off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore-
teeth, as a man does with his knife ; the second nibbles
a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a wimble,
and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel
can be extracted through it; while the last picks an
irregular ragged hole with its bill: but as this artist
has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces
it, like an adroit workman, he fixes it, as it were
in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or in some crevice;
when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell.
We have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post
where nut-hatches have been known to haunt, and have
always found that those birds have readily penetrated them.
While at work they make a rapping noise that may be
heard at a considerable distance.

You that understand both the theory and practical part
of music may best inform us why harmony or melody
should so strangely affect some men, as it were by recollec-
tion, for days after a concert is over. What I mean the
following passage will most readily explain :

‘“‘Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque
harmonicis musicam illam avium: non quod alia quoque
non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica humané relinquere-
tur in animo continens quaedam, attentionemque et
somnum conturbans agitatio; dum ascensus, exscensus,
tenores, ac mutationes illae sonorum, et consonantiarum
euntque, redeuntque per phantasiam:—cum nihil tale
relinqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quae, quod non
sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde
internam facultatem commovere.”—Gassenpus in Vita
Peireskii.

This curious quotation strikes me much by so well
representing my own case, and by describing what I have
so often felt, but never could so well express. When I hear
fine music I am haunted with passages therefrom night
and day; and especially at first waking, which, by their
importunity, give me more uneasiness than pleasure:

The Lesser Whitethroat. “It also runs up the stems of the crown-imperials,
and, putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in

the neetarium of each petal”

OF SELBORNE 233

elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur
irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when
I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters.

I am, etc.

LETTER LVII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

A rarg, and I think a new, little bird frequents my
garden, which I have great reason to think is the petti-
chaps: it is common in some parts of the kingdom; and
I have received formerly several dead specimens from
Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white-throat,
but has a more white or rather silvery breast and belly; is
restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from
bough to bough, examining every part for food; it also
runs up the stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its
head into the bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which
stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds
on the ground, like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about
on the grass-plots and mown walks.

One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing
man, informs me that, in the beginning of May, and
about ten minutes before eight o’clock in the evening,
he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at
least he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the
vergeof James Knight’s upper-pond. His attention was first
drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motionless
in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and,
by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly
touched the water. In this situation he watched them till
he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort,
spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-
swallows have some strong attachment to water, indepen-
dent of the matter of food; and, though they may not
retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves

234 THE NATURAL HISTORY

in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable
months of winter.

One of the keepers of Wolmer-forest sent me a pere-
grine-falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as
it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The fako peregrinus, or
haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen
in the southern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed
in the neighbouring parish of Faringdon, and sent by me
to Mr. Pennant into North-Wales.1 Since that time I
have met with none till now. The specimen measured
above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the
shot: it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing,
and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two
pounds and an half standing weight. This species is very
robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine: its breast was
plump and muscular ; its thighs long, thick, and brawny ;
and its legs remarkably short and well set: the feet were
armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons: the
eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow ; but the irides of
the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a
dark colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the
upper mandible on each side: its tail, or train, was short
in proportion to the bulk of its body: yet the wings,
when closed, did not extend to the end of the train.
From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed
to have been a female; but I was not permitted to cut
open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which
are usually lean, this was in high case: in its craw were
many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop
of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot:
for voracious birds do not eat grain; but, when devouring
their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence swallow
bones and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This
falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North
Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by
rigorous weather and deep snows that had lately fallen.

I am, etc,

1See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman.

OF SELBORNE 235

LETTER LVII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

My near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service ot
the East-India Company, has brought home a dog and a
bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton; such as are
fattened in that country for the purpose of being eaten :
they are about the size of a moderate spaniel; of a pale
yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on their backs;
sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them a
very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually
straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to such a
degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot.
When they are in motion their tails are curved high over
their backs like those of some hounds, and have a bare
place each on the outside from the tip midway, that does
not seem to be matter of accident, but somewhat singular.
Their eyes are jet-black, small, and piercing ; the insides
of their lips and mouths of the same colour, and their
tongues blue. The bitch has a dew claw on each hind
leg; the dog has none. When taken out into a field the
bitch showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on
the scent of a covey of partridges till she sprung them,
giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in South
America are dumb; but these bark much in a short thick
manner, like foxes; and have a surly, savage demeanour
like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred
up in sties, where they are fed for the table with rice-
meal and other farinaceous food. These dogs, having
been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn
much from their dam ; yet they did not relish flesh when
they came to England. In the islands of the pacific ocean
the dogs are bred up on vegetables, and would not eat
flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators.

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have
sharp, upright fox-like ears ; and that hanging ears, which

236 THE NATURAL HISTORY

are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding
and cultivation. Thus, in the Travels of Ysbrandt Ides
from Muscovy to China, the dogs which draw the Tartars
on snow-sledges near the river Oby are engraved with
prick-ears, like those from Canton. The Kamschatdales
also train the same sort of sharp-eared peaked-nosed dogs
to draw their sledges ; as may be seen in an elegant print
engraved for Captain Cook’s last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs it may not be
impertinent to add, that spaniels, as all sportsmen know,
though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were
by instinct, and with much delight and alacrity, yet will
hardly touch their bones when offered as food ; nor will a
mongrel dog of my own, though he is remarkable for
finding that sort of game. But, when we came to offer
the bones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they
devoured them with much greediness, and licked the
platter clean.

No sporting dogs will flush woodcocks till inured to the
scent and trained to the sport, which they then pursue
with vehemence and transport; but then they will not
touch their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence,
even when they are hungry.

Now, that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such
birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no wonder ; but
why they reject and do not care to eat their natural game
is not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting
seems to be, that the chase pursued should be eaten.
Dogs again will not devour the more rancid water-fowls,
nor indeed the bones of any wild-fowls; nor will they
touch the foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and
garbage: and indeed there may be somewhat of pro-
vidential instinct in this circumstance of dislike; for
vultures,! and kites, and ravens, and crows, etc. were
intended to be messmates with dogs® over their carrion ;

1 Hasselquist, in his Travels to the Levant, observes that the dogs and
vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring
up their young together in the same place.

? The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like guitlos.

OF SELBORNE 237

and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow-scavengers
to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the
earth.

I am, etc.

LETTER LIX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Tue fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer-forest is
not yet all exhausted; for the peat-cutters now and then
stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which was
sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this
village ; this was the but-end of a small oak, about five
feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had
apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was
very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the
carpenter for what purpose he had procured it; he told
me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner at
Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet work,
by inlaying it along with whiter woods.

Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark,
in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird
passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short quick
note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could
make out till lately. I am assured now that it is the
Stone-curlew (charadrius oedicnemus). Some of them pass
over or near my house almost every evening after it is
dark, from the uplands of the hill and North field, away
down towards Dorton; where, among the streams and
meadows, they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that
fly by night are obliged to be noisy; their notes often
repeated become signals or watchwards to keep them
together, that they may not stray or lose each the other
in the dark.

The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks
are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk
they return in long strings from the foraging of the day,

238 THE NATURAL HISTORY

and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne-down, where
they wheel round in the air, and sport and dive in a
playful manner, all the while exerting their voices, and
making a loud cawing, which, being blended and softened
by the distance that we at the village are below them,
becomes a confused noise or chiding; or rather a pleasing
murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and not unlike
the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or
the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of
the tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony is
over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night
to the deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We
remember a little girl who, as she was going to bed, used
to remark on such an occurrence, in the true spirit of
physico-theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers;
and yet this child was much too young to be aware that
the scriptures have said of the Deity—that “he feedeth
the ravens who call upon him.”
I am, etc.

LETTER LX
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

In reading Dr. Huxham’s Observationes de Acre, etc.,
written at Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate
remarks, which contain an account of the weather from the
year 1727 to the year 1748, inclusive, that though there
is frequent rain in that district of Devonshire, yet the
quantity falling is not great; and that some years it has
been very small: for in 1731 the rain measured only
r7inch_966%4 and in 1741, 20—354; and again in
1743 only 20—g908. Places near the sea have frequent
scuds, that keep the atmosphere moist, yet do not reach
far up into the country; making thus the maritime
situations appear wet, when the rain is not considerable.
In the wettest years at Plymouth the Doctor measured

OF SELBORNE 239

only once 36; and again once, viz. 1734, 37—114: a
quantity of rain that has twice been exceeded at Selborne
in the short period of my observations. Dr. Huxham
remarks, that frequent small rains keep the air moist;
while heavy ones render it more dry, by beating down the
vapours. He is also of opinion that the dingy, smoky
appearance of the sky, in very dry seasons, arises from the
want of moisture sufficient to let the light through, and
render the atmosphere transparent; because he had
observed several bodies more diaphanous when wet than
dry; and did never recollect that the air had that look in
rainy seasons.

My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down,
brought his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet,
with their muzzles towards the Hanger, supposing that
the report would have had a great effect; but the experi-
ment did not answer his expectation. He then removed
them to the Alcove on the Hanger; when the sound,
rushing along the Lythe and Comb-wood, was very grand:
but it was at the Hermitage that the echoes and reper-
cussions delighted the hearers; not only filling the Lythe
with the roar, as if all the beeches were tearing up by the
roots; but, turning to the left, they pervaded the vale
above Combwood-ponds; and after a pause seemed to
take up the crash again, and to extend round Harteley-
hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices and
coverts of Ward le ham. It has been remarked before
that this district is an anathoth, a place of responses or
echoes, and therefore proper for such experiments: we
may farther add that the pauses in echoes, when they cease
and yet are taken up again, like the pauses in music, sur-
prise the hearers, and have a fine effect on the imagination.

The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a
barometer in his parlour at Newton Valence. The tube
was first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when the
mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own; but,
being filled again twice at Newton, the mercury stood, on
account of the great elevation of that house, three-tenths
of an inch lower than the barometers at this village, and

240 THE NATURAL HISTORY

so continues to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what
it may. The plate of the barometer at Newton is figured
as low as 27; because in stormy weather the mercury there
will sometimes descend below 28. We have supposed
Newton-house to stand two hundred feet higher than this
house: but if the rule holds good, which says that mercury
in a barometer sinks one-tenth of an inch for every
hundred feet elevation, then the Newton barometer, by
standing three-tenths lower than that of Selborne, proves
that Newton-house must be three hundred feet higher
than that in which I am writing, instead of two hundred.

It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers
at Selborne stand three-tenths of an inch lower than the
barometers at South Lambeth; whence we may conclude
that the former place is about three hundred feet higher
than the latter ; and with good reason, because the streams
that rise with us run into the Thames at Weybridge, and
so to London. Of course therefore there must be lower
ground all the way from Selborne to South Lambeth; the
distance between which, all the windings and indentings of
the streams considered, cannot be less than an hundred
miles,

T am, ete.

LETTER LXI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

Since the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its
natural history, I shall make no further apology for the
four following letters, which will contain many particulars
concerning some of the great frosts and a few respecting
some very hot summers, that have distinguished themselves
from the rest during the course of my observations.

As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time
it lasted, the most severe that we had then known for
many years, and was remarkably injurious to ever-greens,
some account of its rigour, and reason of its ravages, may

OF SELBORNE 241

be useful, and not unacceptable to persons that delight in
planting and ornamenting; and may particularly become
a work that professes never to lose sight of utility.

For the last two or three days of the former year there
were considerable falls of snow, which lay deep and
uniform on the ground without any drifting, wrapping up
the more humble vegetation in perfect security. From
the first day to the fifth of the new year more snow
succeeded; but from that day the air became entirely
clear ; and the heat of the sun about noon had a con-
siderable influence in sheltered situations.

It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author’s
ever-greens was melted every day, and frozen intensely
every night; so that the laurustines, bays, laurels, and
arbutuses looked, in three or four days, as if they had been
burnt in the fire; while a neighbour’s plantation of the
same kind, in a high cold situation, where the snow was
never melted at all, remained uninjured.

From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting
and freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation,
rather than the severity of the cold. Therefore it highly
behoves every planter, who wishes to escape the cruel]
mortification of losing in a few days the labour and hopes
of years, to bestir himself on such emergencies ; and, if his
plantations are small, to avail himself of mats, cloths,
pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such covering, for a short
time; or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to see that his
people go about with prongs and forks, and carefully dis-
lodge the snow from the boughs, since the naked foliage
will shift much better for itself, than where the snow is
partly melted and frozen again.

It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox; but doubt-
less the more tender trees and shrubs should never be
planted in hot aspects; not only for the reason assigned
above, but also because, thus circumstanced, they are dis-
posed to shoot earlier in the spring, and grow on later in
the autumn than they would otherwise do, and so are
sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reason also
plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate: because,

Q

242 THE NATURAL HISTORY

on the very first advances of spring, they shoot away, and
so are cut off by the severe nights of March or April.

Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same
inconvenience with respect to the more tender shrubs from
North-America; which they therefore plant under north-
walls. There should also perhaps be a wall to the east to
defend them from the piercing blasts from that quarter.

This observation might without any impropriety be
carried into animal life ; for discerning bee-masters now find
that their hives should not in the winter be exposed to the
hot sun, because such unseasonable warmth awakens the
inhabitants too early from their slumbers; and, by putting
their juices into motion too soon, subjects them afterwards
to inconveniences when rigorous weather returns.

The coincidents attending this short but intense frost
were, that the horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper,
which injured the winds of many, and killed some; that
colds and coughs were general among the human species;
that it froze under people’s beds for several nights ; that
meat was so hard frozen that it could not be spitted, and
could not be secured but in cellars; that several redwings
and thrushes were killed by the frost ; and that the large
titmouse continued to pull straws lengthwise from the
eaves of thatched houses and barns in a most adroit
manner, for a purpose that has been explained already.

On the 3d of January, Benjamin Martin’s thermometer
within doors, in a close parlour where there was no fire, fell
in the night to 20, and on the 4th to 18, and the 7th to
174, a degree of cold which the owner never since saw in
the same situation; and he regrets much that he was not
able at that juncture to attend his instrument abroad. All
this time the wind continued north and north-east; and
yet on the eighth roost-cocks, which had been silent, began
to sound their clarions, and crows to clamour, as prognostic
of milder weather; and, moreover, moles began to heave
and work, and a manifest thaw took place. From the
latter circumstance we may conclude that thaws often
originate under ground from warm vapours which arise ;

1See Letter xli. to Mr. Pennant.

OF SELBORNE 243

else how should subterraneous animals receive such early
intimations of their approach? Moreover, we have often
observed that cold seems to descend from above; for,
when a thermometer hangs abroad in a frosty night, the
intervention of a cloud shall immediately raise the mercury
ten degrees; and a clear sky shall again compel it to
descend to its former gage.

And here it may be proper to observe, on what has been
said above, that though frosts advance to their utmost
severity by somewhat of a regular gradation, yet thaws do
not usually come on by as regular a declension of cold;
but often take place immediately from intense freezing ; as
men in sickness often mend at once from a paroxysm.

To the great credit of Portugal laurels and American
junipers, be it remembered that they remained untouched
amidst the general havoc: hence men should learn to
ornament chiefly with such trees as are able to withstand
accidental severities, and not subject themselves to the
vexation of a loss which may befall them once perhaps in
ten years, yet may hardly be recovered through the whole
course of their lives.

As it appeared afterwards the ilexes were much injured,
the cypresses were half destroyed, the arbutuses lingered on,
but never recovered; and the bays, laurustines, and laurels,
were killed to the ground ; and the very wild hollies, in hot
aspects, were so much affected that they cast all their leaves.

By the 14th of January the snow was entirely gone; the
turnips emerged not damaged at all, save in sunny places ;
the wheat looked delicately, and the garden plants were
well preserved; for snow is the most kindly mantle that
infant vegetation can be wrapped in: were it not for that
friendly meteor no vegetable life could exist at all in
northerly regions. Yet in Sweden the earth in April is not
divested of snow for more than a fortnight before the face
of the country is covered with flowers.

244 THE NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER LXII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable
frost in January 1776 so singular and striking, that a short
detail of them may not be unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the
passages from my journal, which were taken from time to
time as things occurred. But it may be proper previously
to remark that the first week in January was uncommonly
wet, and drowned with vast rains from every quarter:
from whence may be inferred, as there is great reason to
believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom take place till
the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled with water ;! and
hence dry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous
winters.

January 7th—Snow driving all the day, which was
followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 12th,
when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of
men, drifting over the tops of the gates and filling the
hollow lanes.

On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad ;
and thinks he never before or since has encountered such
rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were
now filled above the tops of the hedges; through which
the snow was driven into most romantic and grotesque
shapes, so striking to the imagination as not to be seen
without wonder and pleasure. The poultry dared not to
stir out of their roosting-places ; for cocks and hens are so
dazzled and confounded by the glare of snow that they
would soon perish without assistance. The hares also lay

1The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly
the month of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the
county of Rutland, six inches and an half of rain. And the terrible long
frost of 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were
very high.

OF SELBORNE 245

sullenly in their seats, and would not move till compelled
by hunger; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts
and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove
fatal to numbers of them.

From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and
began to stop the road waggons and coaches, which could
no longer keep on their regular stages; and especially on
the western roads, where the fall appears to have been
deeper than in the south. The company at Bath, that
wanted to attend the Queen’s birth-day, were strangely
incommoded: many carriages of persons, who got in their
way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, after strange
embarrassments, here met with a xe plus ultra. The ladies
fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers, if they
would shovel them a track to London: but the relentless
heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed; and so the
18th passed over, leaving the company in very uncomfort-
able circumstances at the Castle and other inns.

On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since
the frost began; a circumstance that has been remarked
before much in favour of vegetation. All this time the
cold was not very intense, for the thermometer stood at
29, 28, 25, and thereabout; but on the 21st it descended
to 20. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable and
starving condition. Tamed by the season, sky-larks settled
in the streets of towns, because they saw the ground was
bare; rooks frequented dunghills close to houses; and
crows watched horses as they passed, and greedily devoured
what dropped from them; hares now came into men’s
gardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured such plants
as they could find.

On the 22d the author had occasion to go to London
through a sort of Laplandian-scene, very wild and gro-
tesque indeed. But the metropolis itself exhibited a still
more singular appearance than the country; for, being
bedded deep in snow, the pavement of the streets could
not be touched by the wheels or the horses’ feet, so that
the carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an
exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not

246 THE NATURAL HISTORY

pleasant; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of
desolation.

“«_ _ — — — — — — ipsa silentia terrent.”

On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening
the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the
four following nights, the thermometer fell to 11, 7, 6, 6;
and at Selborne to 7, 6, 10; and on the 31st of January,
just before sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube
of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32
degrees below the freezing point: but by eleven in the
morning, though in the shade, it sprung up to 16$1—a
most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England!
During these four nights the cold was so penetrating that
it occasioned ice in warm chambers and under beds; and
in the day the wind was so keen that persons of robust
constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames
was at once so frozen over both above and below bridge
that crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now
strangely incumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod
dusty; and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt; what had
fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that, from first to
last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city; a
longer time than had been remembered by the oldest
housekeepers living. According to all appearances we
might now have expected the continuance of this rigorous
weather for weeks to come, since every might increased in
severity; but behold, without any apparent cause, on the
ist of February a thaw took place, and some rain followed
before night; making good the observation above, that
frosts often go off as it were at once, without any gradual
declension of cold. On the second of February the thaw
persisted; and on the 3d swarms of little insects were
frisking and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as
if they had felt no frost. Why the juices in the small

1 At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the
author could hear of with certainty: though some reported at the time
that at a village in Kent the thermometer fell two degrees below zero, viz.

34 degrees below the freezing point.
The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin.

OF SELBORNE 247

bodies and smaller limbs of such minute beings are not
frozen is a matter of curious inquiry.

Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents;
for, at the same juncture, as the author was informed by
accurate correspondents, at Lyndon in the county of
Rutland, the thermometer stood at 19: at Blackburn, in
Lancashire, at 19: and at Manchester at 21, 20, and 18.
Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely over-
balance latitude, and render the cold sometimes much
greater in the southern than in the northern parts of this
kingdom.

The consequences of this severity were, that in Hamp-
shire, at the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well,
and the turnips came forth little injured. The laurels and
laurustines were somewhat damaged, but only in hot
aspects. No evergreens were quite destroyed; and not
half the damage sustained that befell in January 1768.
Those laurels that were a little scorched on the south-sides
were perfectly untouched on their north-sides. The care
taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches
seemed greatly to avail the author’s evergreens. A neigh-
bour’s laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the
north, was perfectly green and vigorous; and the Portugal
laurels remained unhurt.

As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly
destroyed; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers,
were so thinned that few remained to breed the following
year,

LETTER LXIII
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary,
you, I trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ;
and especially when I promise to say no more about the
severities of winter after I have finished this letter.

248 THE NATURAL HISTORY

The first week in December was very wet, with the
barometer very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at
28—five tenths, came on a vast snow, which continued all
that day and the next, and most part of the following
night; so that by the morning of the gth the works of
men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to be
impassable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches
without any drifting. In the evening of the 9th the air
began to be so very sharp that we thought it would be
curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer: we
therefore hung out two; one made by Martin and one by
Dolland, which soon began to show us what we were to
expect; for, by ten o’clock, they fell to 21, and at eleven
to 4, when we went to bed. On the roth, in the morning,
the quicksilver of Dolland’s glass was down to half a
degree below zero; and that of Martin’s, which was
absurdly graduated only to four degrees above zero, sunk
quite into the brass guard of the ball; so that when the
weather became most interesting this was useless. On the
10th, at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still,
Dolland’s glass went down to one degree below zero!
This strange severity of the weather made me very desirous
to know what degree of cold there might be in such an
exalted and near situation as Newton. We had therefore,
on the morning of the roth, written to Mr. , and
entreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by
Adams; and to pay some attention to it morning and
evening ; expecting wonderful phaenomena, in so elevated a
region, at two hundred feet or more above my house.
But, behold! on the roth, at eleven at night, it was down
only to 17, and the next morning at 22, when mine was
at ten. We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse
of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses
up, thinking that of Mr. must, some how, be wrongly
constructed. But, when the instruments came to be con-
fronted, they went exactly together: so that, for one night
at least, the cold at Newton was 18 degrees less than at
Selborne ; and, through the whole frost, 10 or 12 degrees;
and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we

OF SELBORNE 249

could readily credit this ; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes,
arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels,’ and
(which occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel hedge,
were scorched up; while, at Newton, the same trees have
not lost a leaf!

We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the ther-
mometer in the morning was down to 10 with us, and at
Newton only to 21. Strong frost continued till the 31st,
when some tendency to thaw was observed; and, by
January the 3d, 1785, the thaw was confirmed, and some
rain fell.

A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new
to us, is, that on Friday, December the roth, being bright
sun-shine, the air was full of icy spiculae, floating in all
directions, like atoms in a sun-beam let into a dark room.
We thought them at first particles of the rime falling from
my tall hedges; but were soon convinced to the contrary,
by making our observations in open places where no rime
could reach us. Were they watery particles of the air
frozen as they floated ; or were they evaporations from the
snow frozen as they mounted ?

We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early
information they gave us; and hurried our apples, pears,
onions, potatoes, etc. into the cellar, and warm closets;
while those who had not, or neglected such warnings, lost
all their stores of roots and fruits, and had their very bread
and cheese frozen.

I must not omit to tell you that, during those two
Siberian days, my parlour-cat was so electric, that had a
person stroked her, and been properly insulated, the shock
might have been given to a whole circle of people.

I forgot to mention before, that, during the two severe
days, two men, who were tracing hares in the snow, had
their feet frozen; and two men, who were much better

1Mr. Miller, in his Gardener’s Dictionary, says positively that the
Portugal laurels remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739-40.
So that either that accurate observer was much mistaken, or else the frost
of December 1784 was much more severe and destructive than that in
the year above mentioned.

250 THE NATURAL HISTORY

employed, had their fingers so affected by the frost, while
they were thrashing in a barn, that a mortification followed,
from which they did not recover for many weeks.

This frost killed all the furze and most of the ivy, and
in many places stripped the hollies of all their leaves. It
came at a very early time of the year, before old November
ended ; and yet it may be allowed from its effects to have
exceeded any since 1739-40.

LETTER LXIV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the
northerly climate of England, where the summers are often
so defective in warmth and sun-shine as not to ripen the
fruits of the earth so well as might be wished, I shall be
more concise in my account of the severity of a summer
season, and so make a little amends for the prolix account
of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniences that we
suffered from late rigorous winters.

The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and
dry; to them therefore I shall turn back in my journals,
without recurring to any more distant period. In the
former of these years my peach and nectarine-trees suffered
so much from the heat that the rind on the bodies was
scalded and came off; since which the trees have been in a
decaying state. This may prove a hint to assiduous
gardeners to fence and shelter their wall-trees with mats
or boards, as they may easily do, because such annoyance
is seldom of long continuance. During that summer also,
I observed that my apples were coddled, as it were, on the
trees; so that they had no quickness of flavour, and would
not keep in the winter. This circumstance put me in mind
of what I have heard travellers assert, that they never ate
a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe, where

OF SELBORNE 251

the heats were so great as to render the juices vapid and
insipid.

The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all
the finer fruits just as they are coming into perfection. In
1781 we had none; in 1783 there were myriads; which
would have devoured all the produce of my garden, had not
we set the boys to take the nests, and caught thousands
with hazel twigs tipped with bird-lime: we have since
employed the boys to take and destroy the large breeding
wasps in the spring. Such expedients have a great effect
on these marauders, and will keep them under. Though
wasps do not abound but in hot summers, yet they do not
prevail in every hot summer, as I have instanced in the two
years above mentioned.

In the sultry season of 1783 honey-dews were so frequent
as to deface and destroy the beauties of my garden. My
honey-suckles, which were one week the most sweet and
lovely objects that the eye could behold, became the next
the most loathsome; being enveloped in a viscous sub-
stance, and loaded with black aphides, or smother-flies.
The occasion of this clammy appearance seems to be this,
that in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields and
meadows and gardens are drawn up in the day by a brisk
evaporation, and then in the night fall down again with the
dews, in which they are entangled; that the air is strongly
scented, and therefore impregnated with the particles of
flowers in summer weather, our senses will inform us; and
that this clammy sweet substance is of the vegetable kind
we may learn from bees, to whom it is very grateful: and
we may be assured that it falls in the night, because it is
always seen first in warm still mornings.

On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about
London, the thermometer has been often observed to mount
as high as 83 or 84; but with us, in this hilly and woody
district, I have hardly ever seen it exceed 803; nor does it
often arrive at that pitch. The reason, I conclude, is, that
our dense clayey soil, so much shaded by trees, is not so
easily heated through as those above-mentioned: and,
besides, our mountains cause currents of air and breezes;

252 THE NATURAL HISTORY

and the vast effuvia from our woodlands temper and
moderate our heats.

LETTER LXV
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and
portentous one, and full of horrible phaenomena; for,
besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-
storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties
of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smokey fog, that
prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part
of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extra-
ordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the
memory of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed
this strange occurrence from June 23 to July 20 inclusive,
during which period the wind varied to every quarter
without making any alteration in the air. The sun, at
noon, looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a
rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground, and floors
of rooms; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at
rising and setting. All the time the heat was so intense
that butchers’ meat could hardly be eaten on the day after
it was killed; and the flies swarmed so in the lanes and
hedges that they rendered the horses half frantic, and
riding irksome. The country people began to look with
a superstitious awe, at the red, louring aspect of the sun;
and indeed there was reason for the most enlightened
person to be apprehensive ; for, all the while, Calabria and
part of the isle of Sicily, were torn and convulsed with
earthquakes; and about that juncture a volcano sprung
out of the sea on the coast of Norway. On this occasion
Milton’s noble simile of the sun, in his first book of
Paradise Lost, frequently occurred to my mind; and it is
indeed particularly applicable, because, towards the end, it

OF SELBORNE 253

alludes to a superstitious kind of dread, with which the
minds of men are always impressed by such strange and
unusual phaenomena. —
«__ _ —. As when the sun, new risen,

Looks through the horizontal, misty air,

Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes monarchs, — — — — — — a

LETTER LXVI
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON

We are very seldom annoyed with thunder-storms ; and it
is no less remarkable than true, that those which arise in
the south have hardly been known to reach this village;
for before they get over us, they take a direction to the
east or to the west, or sometimes divide into two, and go
in part to one of those quarters, and in part to the other ;
as was truly the case in summer 1783, when though the
country round was continually harassed with tempests, and
often from the south, yet we escaped them all; as appears
by my journal of that summer. The only way that I can
at all account for this fact—for such it is—is that, on that
quarter, between us and the sea, there are continual moun-
tains, hill behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser-
hill, and Ports-down, which somehow divert the storms, and
give them a different direction. High promontories, and
elevated grounds, have always been observed to attract
clouds and disarm them of their mischievous contents, which
are discharged into the trees and summits as soon as they
come in contact with those turbulent meteors; while the
humble vales escape, because they are so far beneath them.

But, when I say I do not remember a thunder-storm
from the south, I do not mean that we never have suffered
from thunder-storms at all; for on June 5th, 1784, the

254 THE NATURAL HISTORY

thermometer in the morning being at 64, and at noon
at 70, the barometer at 29—six-tenths one-half, and
the wind north, I observed a blue mist, smelling strongly
of sulphur, hanging along our sloping woods, and seem-
ing to indicate that thunder was at hand. I was called
in about two in. the afternoon, and so missed seeing the
gathering of the clouds in the north; which they who
were abroad assured me had something uncommon in its
appearance. At about a quarter after two the storm began
in the parish of Hartley, moving slowly from north to
south ; and from thence it came over Norton-farm, and so
to Grange-farm, both in this parish. It began with vast
drops of rain, which were soon succeeded by round hail,
and then by convex pieces of ice, which measured three
inches in girth. Had it been as extensive as it was violent,
and of any continuance (for it was very short), it raust
have ravaged all the neighbourhood. In the parish of
Hartley it did some damage to one farm; but Norton,
which lay in the centre of the storm, was greatly injured ;
as was Grange, which lay next to it. It did but just reach
to the middle of the village, where the hail broke my
north windows, and all my garden-lights and hand-glasses,
and many of my neighbours’ windows. The extent of the
storm was about two miles in length and one in breadth.
We were just sitting down to dinner; but were soon
diverted from our repast by the clattering of tiles
and the jingling of glass. There fell at the same time
prodigious torrents of rain on the farms above-mentioned,
which occasioned a flood as violent as it was sudden ; doing
great damage to the meadows and fallows, by deluging the
one and washing away the soil of the other. The hollow
lane towards Alton was so torn and disordered as not to be
passable till mended, rocks being removed that weighed
200 weight. Those that saw the effect which the great
hail had on ponds and pools say that the dashing of
the water made an extraordinary appearance, the froth and
spray standing up in the air three feet above the surface.
The rushing and roaring of the hail, as it approached, was
truly tremendous.

OF SELBORNE 255

Though the clouds at South Lambeth, near London,
were at that juncture thin and light, and no storm was
in sight, nor within hearing, yet the air was strongly
electric; for the bells of an electric machine at that place
rang repeatedly, and fierce sparks were discharged.

When I first took the present work in hand I proposed
to have added an Annus Historico-naturalis, or the Natural
History of the Twelve Months of the Year; which would
have comprised many incidents and occurrences that have
not fallen in my way to be mentioned in my series of
letters ;—but, as Mr. Aikin of Warrington has lately
published somewhat of this sort, and as the length of
my correspondence has sufficiently put your patience to the
test, I shall here take a respectful leave of you and natural
history together ;

And am,
With all due deference and regard,
Your most obliged,
And most humble servant,

GIL. WHITE.
Selborne, June 25, 1787.

THE ANTIQUITIES OF
SELBORNE

ausog jas

THE ANTIQUITIES OF
SELBORNE

LETTER I

Ir is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this woody
and mountainous district was inhabited only by bears and
wolves. Whether the Britons ever thought it worthy
their attention, is not in our power to determine; but
we may safely conclude, from circumstances, that it was
not unknown to the Romans. Old people remember
to have heard their fathers and grandfathers say that,
in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces of money
were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer-
pond; and tradition had inspired the foresters with a
notion that the bottom of that lake contained great stores
of treasure. During the spring and summer of 1740
there was little rain; and the following summer also, 1741,
was so uncommonly dry, that many springs and ponds
failed, and this lake in particular whose bed became as
dusty as the surrounding heaths and wastes. This favour-
able juncture induced some of the forest-cottagers to begin
a search, which was attended with such success, that
all the labourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the
spot, and with spades and hoes turned up great part of
that large area. Instead of pots of coins, as they expected,
they found great heaps, the one lying on the other, as
if shot out of a bag; many of which were in good pre-
259

260 THE ANTIQUITIES

servation. Silver and gold these inquirers expected to
find; but their discoveries consisted solely of many
hundreds of Roman copper-coins, and some medallions
all of the lower empire. There was not much virta
stirring at that time in this neighbourhood ; however,
some of the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased
them best; and some dozens fell to the share of the
author.

The owners at first held their commodity at an high
price ; but, finding that they were not likely to meet with
dealers at such a rate, they soon lowered their terms, and
sold the fairest as they could. The coins that were re-
jected became current, and passed for farthings at the
petty shops. Of those that we saw, the greater part were
of Marcus Aurelius, and the Empress Faustina, his wife,
the father and mother of Commodus. Some of Faustina
were in high relief, and exhibited a very agreeable set
of features, which probably resembled that lady, who was
more celebrated for her beauty than for her virtues. The
medallions in general were of a paler colour than the
coins. To pretend to account for the means of their
coming to this place would be spending time in conjecture.
The spot, I think, could not be a Roman camp, because
it is commanded by hills on two sides; nor does it
show the least traces of entrenchments; nor can I
suppose that it was a Roman town, because I have too
good an opinion of the taste and judgment of those
polished conquerors to imagine that they would settle
on so barren and dreary a waste.

LETTER II

TuatT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in
the time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs.
But, as there are few if any accounts of the villages before
Domesday, it will be best to begin with that venerable

OF SELBORNE 201

record. “Ipse rex tenet Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit,
et nunquam geldavit. De isto manerio dono dedit
rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia.
Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos
et sex denarios ; modo octo solidos et quatuor denarios.”’
Here we see that Selborne was a royal manor ; and that
Editha, the queen of Edward the Confessor, had been
lady of that manor; and was succeeded in it by the
Conqueror ; and that it had a church. Besides these,
many circumstances concur to prove it to have been a
Saxon village ; such as the name of the place itself' the
names of many fields, and some families,’ with a variety of
words in husbandry and common life, still subsisting
among the country people.

1 Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as
it has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ;
for Sef signifies great, and 4urx torrens, a brook or rivulet: so that the
name seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks
out at the upper end of the village—Se/ also signifies donus, item,
foecundus, fertilis, “Sel-zepp-zun: foecunda graminis clausura; fertile
pascuum : a meadow in the parish of Godelming is still called Sal-gars-
ton.”—Lye’s Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning.

2 Thus the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp
means a soldier. "Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead
bodies, and not a church-yard: there is also a Culver-croft near the
Grange-farm, being the enclosure where the priory pigeon-house stood,
from culver,a pigeon. Again there are three steep pastures in this parish
called the Lithe, from Hlithe, c4vus, The wicker-work that binds and
fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether an hedge.
When the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic,* not knowing
that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, fora hog. Coppice or brush wood our
countrymen call rise, from Aris, frondes; and talk of a load of rise.
Within the author’s memory the Saxon plurals, ousen and peason,
were in common use. But it would be endless to instance in every
circumstance: he that wishes for more specimens must frequent a
farmer’s kitchen. I have therefore selected some words to show how
familiar the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven
hundred years it is far from being obliterated.

* Zika, porcus, apud Lacones; un Porceau chez les Lacédemoniens :
ce mot a sans doute esté pris des Celtes, qui disoent sic, pour marquer
un porceau. Encore aujour’huy quand les Bretons chassent ces animaux,
ils ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic—Antiquité de la Nation, et de la
Langue des Celtes, par Pezron.

262 THE ANTIQUITIES

What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to
this spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called Well-
head,’ which induced them to build by the banks of that
perennial current ; for ancient settlers loved to reside by
brooks and rivulets, where they could dip for their water
without the trouble and expense of digging wells and of
drawing.

It remains still unsettled among the antiquaries at what
time tracts of land were first appropriated to the chase
alone for the amusement of the sovereign. Whether our
Saxon monarchs had any royal forests does not, I believe,
appear on record; but the Constitutiones de Foresta of
Canute, the Dane, are come down to us. We shall not
therefore pretend to say whether Wolmer-forest existed as
a royal domain before the conquest. If it did not, we
may suppose it was laid out by some of our earliest
Norman kings, who were exceedingly attached to the
pleasures of the chase, and resided much at Winchester,
which lies at a moderate distance from this district. The
Plantagenet princes seem to have been pleased with
Wolmer ; for tradition says that king John resided just
upon the verge, at Ward le ham, ona regular and remark-
able mount, still called King John’s Hill, and Lodge Hill;
and Edward III. had a chapel in his park, or enclosure, at
Kingsley.” Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and Richard,
duke of York, say my evidences, were both, in their turns,
wardens of Wolmer-forest ; which seems to have served
for an appointment for the younger princes of the royal
family, as it may again.

I have intentionally mentioned Edward III. and the
dukes Humphrey and Richard, before king Edward IL.
because I have reserved, for the entertainment of my
readers, a pleasant anecdote respecting that prince, with
which I shall close this letter.

1 Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence
we draw water. For particulars about which see Letter I. to
Mr. Pennant.

2The parish of Kingsley lies between, and divides Wolmer-forest
from Ayles Holt-forest. See Letter IX. to Mr. Pennant.

OF SELBORNE 263

As Edward II. was hunting on Wolmer-forest, Morris
Ken, of the kitchen, fell from his horse several times ; at
which accidents the king laughed immoderately - and when
the chase was over, ordered him twenty shillings ;* an
enormous sum for those days! Proper allowances ought
to be made for the youth of this monarch, whose spirits
also, we may suppose, were much exhilarated by the sport
of the day: but, at the same time, it is reasonable to
remark that, whatever might be the occasion of Ken’s
first fall, the subsequent ones seem to have been designed.
The scullion appears to have been an artful fellow, and
to have seen the king’s foible; which furnishes an
early specimen of that his easy softness and facility of
temper, of which the infamous Gaveston took such
advantages, as brought innumerable calamities on the
nation, and involved the prince at last in such misfortunes
and sufferings too deplorable to be mentioned without
horror and amazement.

LETTER II]

From the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has
been supposed that few villages had any at the time when
that record was taken ; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the
benefit of one: hence we may conclude, that this place
was in no abject state even at that very distant period.
How many fabrics have succeeded each other since the
days of Radfredus the presbyter, we cannot pretend to
say ; our business leads us to a description of the present
edifice, in which we shall be circumstantial.

1<‘Ttem, paid at the lodge at Wolmer, when the king was stag-hunt-
ing there, to Morris Ken, of the kitchen, because he rode before
the king and often fell from his horse, at which the king laughed
exceedingly—a gift, by command, of twenty shillings..—A MS. in
possession of Thomas Astle, esq., containing the private expenses of
Edward II.

264 THE ANTIQUITIES

Our church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
consists of three aisles, and measures fifty-four feet in
length by forty-seven in breadth, being almost as broad as
it is long. The present building has no pretensions to
antiquity; and is, as I suppose, of no earlier date than the
beginning of the reign of Henry VII. It is perfectly
plain and unadorned, without painted glass, carved work,
sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it has no claim to
antiquity, I would mean to be understood of the fabric in
general ; for the pillars which support the roof, are
undoubtedly old, being of that low, squat, thick order,
usually called Saxon. These, I should imagine, upheld the
roof of a former church, which, falling into decay, was
rebuilt on those massy props, because their strength had
preserved them from the injuries of time.1_ Upon these
rest blunt gothic arches, such as prevailed in the reign
above-mentioned, and by which, as a criterion, we would
prove the date of the building.

At the bottom of the south aisle, between the west and
south doors, stands the font, which is deep and capacious,
and consists of three massy round stones, piled one on
another, without the least ornament or sculpture: the
cavity at the top is lined with lead, and has a pipe at
bottom to convey off the water after the sacred ceremony
is performed.

The east end of the south aisle is called the South
Chancel, and, till within these thirty years, was divided off
by old carved gothic frame-work of timber, having been a
private chantry. In this opinion we are more confirmed
by observing two gothic niches within the space, the one in
the east wall and the other in the south, near which there
probably stood images and altars.

In the middle aisle there is nothing remarkable: but I
remember when its beams were hung with garlands in

1 In the same manner, to compare great things with small, did Wyke-
ham, when he new-built the cathedral of Winchester, from the tower
westward, apply to his purpose the old piers or pillars of Bishop Walke-
lin’s church, by blending Saxon and Gothic architecture together.—
See Lowth’s Life of Wykeham.

SATII

Selborne Church

OF SELBORNE 265

honour of young women of the parish, reputed to have
died virgins; and recollect to have seen the clerk’s wife
cutting, in white paper, the resemblances of gloves, and
ribbons to be twisted into knots and roses, to decorate
these memorials of chastity. In the church of Faringdon,
which is the next parish, many garlands of this sort still
remain.

The north aisle is narrow and low, with a sloping
ceiling, reaching within eight or nine feet of the floor. It
had originally a flat roof covered with lead, till, within
a century past, a churchwarden, stripping off the lead, in
order, as he said, to have it mended, sold it to a plumber,
and ran away with the money. This aisle has no door, for
an obvious reason; because the north-side of the church-
yard, being surrounded by the vicarage-garden, affords no
path to that side of the church. Nothing can be more
irregular than the pews of this church, which are of all
dimensions and heights, being patched up according to the
fancy of the owners: but whoever nicely examines them
will find that the middle aisle had, on each side, a regular
row of benches of solid oak, all alike, with a low back-
board to each. These we should not hesitate to say are
coeval with the present church: and especially as it is to be
observed that, at their ends, they are ornamented with
carved blunt gothic niches, exactly correspondent to the
arches of the church, and to a niche in the south wall.
The south aisle also has a row of these benches; but some
are decayed through age, and the rest much disguised by
modern alterations.

At the upper end of this aisle, and running out to the
north, stands a transept, known by the name of the North
Chancel, measuring twenty-one feet from south to north,
and nineteen feet from east to west: this was intended, no
doubt, as a private chantry; and was also, till of late,
divided off by a gothic frame-work of timber. In its
north wall, under a very blunt gothic arch, lies perhaps
the founder of this edifice, which, from the shape of its
arch, may be deemed no older than the latter end
of the reign of Henry VII. The tomb was examined

266 THE ANTIQUITIES

some years ago, but contained nothing except the skull
and thigh-bones of a large tall man, and the bones of a
youth or woman, lying in a very irregular manner,
without any escutcheon or other token to ascertain the
names or rank of the deceased. The grave was very
shallow, and lined with stone at the bottom and on
the sides.

From the east wall project four stone brackets, which I
conclude supported images and crucifixes. In the great
thick pilaster, jutting out between this transept and the
chancel, there is a very sharp gothic niche, of older
date than the present chantry or church. But the chief
pieces of antiquity are two narrow stone coffin-lids, which
compose part of the floor, and lie from west to east, with
the very narrow ends eastward: these belong to remote
times ; and, if originally placed here, which I doubt, must
have been part of the pavement of an older transept. At
present there are no coffins under them, whence I conclude
they have been removed to this place from some part of a
former church. One of these lids is so eaten by time,
that no sculpture can be discovered upon it; or, perhaps,
it may be the wrong side uppermost: but on the other,
which seems to be of stone of a closer and harder texture,
is to be discerned a discus, with a cross onit, at the
end of a staff or rod, the well-known symbol of a Knight-
Templar."

This order was distinguished by a red cross on the left
shoulder of their cloak, and by this attribute in their hand.
Now, if these stones belonged to Knights Templars, they
must have lain here many centuries; for this order
came into England early in the reign of king Stephen in
1113; and was dissolved in the time of Edward II. in
1312, having subsisted only one hundred and ninety-nine
years. Why I should suppose that Knights Templars
were occasionally buried at this church, will appear in some
future letter, when we come to treat more particularly
concerning the property they possessed here, and the

1See Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, Vol. II., where there is a fine
engraving of a Knight-Templar, by Hollar.

OF SELBORNE 267

intercourse that subsisted between them and the priors
of Selborne.

We must now proceed to the chancel, properly so
called, which seems to be coeval with the church, and is
in the same plain unadorned style, though neatly kept.
This room measures thirty-one feet in length, and
sixteen feet and an half in breadth, and is wainscoted
all round, as high as to the bottom of the windows.
The space for the communion table is raised two steps
above the rest of the floor, and railed in with oaken
balusters.

Here IJ shall say somewhat of the windows of the chancel
in particular, and of the whole fabric in general. They
are mostly of that simple and unadorned sort called
Lancet, some single, some double, and some in triplets,
At the east end of the chancel are two of a moderate size,
near each other; and in the north wall two very distant
small ones, unequal in length and height: and in the
south wall are two, one on each side of the chancel door,
that are broad and squat, and of a different order. At the
east end of the south aisle of the church there is a large
lancet-window in a triplet; and two very small, narrow,
single ones in the south wall, and a broad squat window
beside, and a double lancet one in the west end; so that
the appearance is very irregular. In the north aisle are
two windows, made shorter when the roof was sloped;
and in the north transept a large triple window, shortened
at the time of a repair in 1721; when over it was opened
a round one of considerable size, which affords an agree-
able light, and renders that chantry the most cheerful part
of the edifice.

The church and chancels have all coved roofs, ceiled
about the year 16833; before which they were open to the
tiles and shingles, showing the naked rafters, and threaten-
ing the congregation with the fall of a spar, or a blow from
a piece of loose mortar.

On the north wall of the chancel is fixed a large oval
white marble monument, with the following inscription ;
and at the foot of the wall, over the deceased, and

268 THE ANTIQUITIES

inscribed with his name, age, arms, and time of death, lies
a large slab of black marble:

Prope hunc parietem sepelitur
GILBERTUS WHITE, SAMSONIS WHITE, de
Oxon. militis filius tertius, Collegii Magdale-
-nensis ibidem alumnus, & socius. ‘Tandem faven-
-te collegio ad hanc ecclesiam promotus ; ubi primae-
-va morum simplicitate, et diffusa erga omnes bene-

volentia feliciter consenuit.
Pastor fidelis, comis, affabilis,
Maritus, et pater amantissimus,
A conjuge invicem, et liberis, atque
A parochianis impensé dilectus.
Pauperibus ita beneficus
ut decimam partem censts
moribundus
pils usibus consecravit.
Meritis demum juxta et annis plenus
ex hac vita migravit Feb. 13°.
anno salutis 172%
Aetatis suae 77.
Hoc posuit Rebecca
Conjux illius maestissima,
mox secutura.

On the same wall is newly fixed a small square table-
monument of white marble, inscribed in the following

manner:
Sacred to the memo

of the Rev’. ANDREW ETTY, B.D.
23 Years Vicar of this parish:
In whose character
The conjugal, the parental, and the sacerdotal virtues
were so happily combined
as to deserve the imitation of mankind.
And if in any particular he followed more invariably
the steps of his blessed Master,
It was in his humility.
His parishioners,
especially the sick and necessitous,
as long as any traces of his memory shall remain,
must lament his death.

To perpetuate such an example, this stone is erected ;
as while living he was a preacher of righteousness,
so, by it, he being dead yet speaketh.

He died April 8" 1784. Aged 66 years.

OF SELBORNE 269

LETTER IV

We have now taken leave of the inside of the church, and
shall pass by a door at the west end of the middle aisle
into the belfry. This room is part of a handsome square
embattled tower of forty-five feet in height, and of much
more modern date than the church; but old enough to
have needed a thorough repair in 1781, when it was neatly
stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a set of workmen
who were employed on it for the greatest part of the
summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of
tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast into four; to
which Sir Simeon Stuart, the grandfather of the present
baronet, added a fifth at his own expense: and, bestowing
it in the name of his favourite daughter Mrs. Mary Stuart,
caused it to be cast with the following motto round it:

“Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria:
Tllius et laudes nomen ad astra sono.”

The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed
as an high festival by the village, and rendered more
joyous, by an order from the donor, that the treble-bell
should be fixed bottom upward in the ground, and filled
with punch, of which all present were permitted to partake.

The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and
would not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine
sharp gothic door-way. This is undoubtedly much older
than the present fabric; and being found in good pre-
servation, was worked into the wall, and is the grand
entrance into the church: nor are the folding-doors to be
passed over in silence; since, from their thick and clumsy
structure, and the rude flourished-work of their hinges,
they may possibly be as ancient as the door-way itself.

The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south-side of
the roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken shingles
instead of tiles, on account of their lightness, which favours
the ancient and crazy-timber-frame. And indeed, the

270 THE ANTIQUITIES

consideration of accidents by fire excepted, this sort of
roofing is much more eligible than tiles. For shingles
well seasoned, and cleft from quartered timber, never
warp, nor let in drifting snow; nor do they shiver with
frost; nor are they liable to be blown off, like tiles; but
when well nailed down, last for a long period, as experience
has shown us in this place, where those that face to the
north are known to have endured, untouched, by un-
doubted tradition for more than a century.

Considering the size of the church, and the extent of
the parish, the church-yard is very scanty; and especially
as all wish to be buried on the south-side, which is become
such a mass of mortality that no person can be there
interred without disturbing or displacing the bones of his
ancestors. There is reason to suppose that it once was
larger, and extended to what is now the vicarage court
and garden; because many human bones have been dug
up in those parts several yards without the present limits.
At the east end are a few graves; yet none till very lately
on the north-side; but, as two or three families of best
repute have begun to bury in that quarter, prejudice may
wear out by degrees, and their example be followed by
the rest of the neigbourhood.

In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of
the east and west-end, as if the chancel stood exactly true
to those points of the compass; but this is by no means
the case, for the fabric bears so much to the north of the
east that the four corners of the tower, and not the four
sides, stand to the four cardinal points. The best method
of accounting for this deviation seems to be, that the
workmen, who probably were employed in the longest
days, endeavoured to set the chancels to the rising of
the sun.

Close by the church, at the west end, stands the
vicarage-house ; an old, but roomy and convenient edifice.
It faces very agreeably to the morning sun, and is divided
from the village by a neat and cheerful court. According
to the manner of old times, the hall was open to the roof;
and so continued probably, till the vicars became family-

OF SELBORNE 271

men, and began to want more conveniences; when they
flung a floor across, and, by partitions, divided the space
into chambers. In this hall we remember a date, some
time in the reign of Elizabeth; it was over the door that
leads to the stairs.

Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape, but
well laid out; whose terrace commands so romantic and
picturesque a prospect, that the first master in landscape
might contemplate it with pleasure, and deem it an object
well worthy of his pencil.

LETTER V

In the church-yard of this village is a yew-tree, whose
aspect bespeaks it to be of a great age: it seems to have
seen several centuries, and is probably coeval with the
church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity: the
body is squat, short, and thick, and measures twenty-three
feet in the girth, supporting an head of suitable extent to
its bulk. This is a male tree, which in the spring sheds
clouds of dust, and fills the atmosphere around with its
farina.

As far as we have been able to observe, the males of
this species become much larger than the females; and it
has so fallen out that most of the yew-trees in the church-
yards of this neighbourhood are males: but this must
have been matter of mere accident, since men, when they
first planted yews, little dreamed that there were sexes in
trees.

In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately,
grew a middle-sized female tree of the same species, which
commonly bore great crops of berries. By the high winds
usually prevailing about the autumnal equinox, these
berries, then ripe, were blown down into the road, where
the hogs ate them. And it was very remarkable, that,
though barrow-hogs and young sows found no incon-

272 THE ANTIQUITIES

venience from this food, yet milch-sows often died after
such a repast: a circumstance that can be accounted for
only by supposing that the latter, being much exhausted
and hungry, devoured a larger quantity.

While mention is making of the bad effects of yew-
berries, it may be proper to remind the unwary, that the
twigs and leaves of yew, though eaten in a very small
quantity are certain death to horses and cows, and that in
a few minutes. An horse tied to a yew-hedge, or to a
faggot-stack of dead yew, shall be found dead before the
owner can be aware that any danger is at hand: and the
writer has been several times a sorrowful witness to losses
of this kind among his friends, and in the island of Ely had
once the mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks
of his own all lying dead in an heap from browzing a little
on an hedge of yew in an old garden into which they had
broken in snowy weather. Even the clippings of a yew-
hedge have destroyed a whole dairy of cows when thrown
inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep and turkeys,
and, as park-keepers say, deer, will crop these trees with
impunity.

Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of yew,
while green, are not noxious; and that they will kill only
when dead and withered, by lacerating the stomach: but
to this assertion we cannot by any means assent, because,
among the number of cattle that we have known fall
victims to this deadly food, not one has been found, when
it was opened, but had a lump of green yew in its paunch.
True it is, that yew-trees stand for twenty years or more
in a field, and no bad consequences ensue: but at some
time or other cattle, either from wantonness when full, or
from hunger when empty (from both which circumstances
we have seen them perish), will be meddling, to their
certain destruction; the yew seems to be a very improper
tree for a pasture-field.

Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what
period this tree first obtained a place in church-yards. A
statute passed a.p. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of
which is “Ne rector arbores in cemeterio prosternat.”

OF SELBORNE 273

Now if it is recollected that we seldom see any other very
large or ancient tree in a church-yard but yews, this statute
must have principally related to this species of tree ; and
consequently their being planted in church-yards is of
much more ancient date than the year 1307.

As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respect-
able parishioners were buried under their shade before
the improper custom was introduced of burying within
the body of the church, where the living are to assemble.
Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse,! was buried under an oak ; the
most honourable place of interment probably next to the
cave of Machpelah,’ which seems to have been appropriated
to the remains of the patriarchal family alone.

The farther use of yew-trees might be as a screen to
churches, by their thick foliage, from the violence of
winds; perhaps also for the purpose of archery, the
best long bows being made of that material: and we do
not hear that they are planted in the church-yards of
other parts of Europe, where long bows were not so much
in use. They might also be placed as a shelter to the
congregation assembling before the church-doors were
opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their funereal
appearance. In the south of England every church-yard
almost has its tree, and some two; but in the north, we
understand, few are to be found.

The idea of R. C. that the yew-tree afforded its branches
instead of palms for the processions on Palm-Sunday, is a
good one, and deserves attention. See Gent. Mag. Vol. L.
p- 128.

LETTER VI

Tue living of Selborne was a very small vicarage; but,
being in the patronage of Magdalen-college, in the uni-
versity of Oxford, that society endowed it with the great
tithes of Selborne, more than a century ago: and since the

1Gen. xxxv. 8. 2 Gen. xxiii. 9.
s

274 THE ANTIQUITIES

year 1758 again with the great tithes of Oakhanger, called
Bene’s parsonage : so that, together, it is become a respect-
able piece of preferment, to which one of the fellows is
always presented. The vicar holds the great tithes, by
lease, under the college. The great disadvantage of this
living is, that it has not one foot of glebe near home.’

ITS PAYMENTS ARE, eB. Be
King’s books - - - - - & 2 Ook
Yearly tenths - - - - - - 016 23
Yearly procurations for Blackmore and Oak- } a
hanger Chap: with acquit: - - - i
Selborne procurations and acquit : - - 09.0

I am unable to give a complete list of the vicars of
this parish till towards the end of the reign of queen
Elizabeth ; from which period the registers furnish a
regular series.

In Domesday we find thus—“ De isto manerio dono
dedit Rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum
ecclesia.” So that before Domesday, which was compiled
between the years 1081 and 1086, here was an officiating
minister at this place.

After this, among my documents, I find occasional
mention of a vicar here and there: the first is

Roger, instituted in 1254.
In 1410 John Lynne was vicar of Selborne.
In 1411 Hugo Tybbe was vicar.

The presentations to the vicarage of Selborne generally
ran in the name of the prior and the convent ; but Tybbe
was presented by prior John Wynechestre only.

June 29, 1528, William Fisher, vicar of Selborne, re-
signed to Miles Peyrson.

1594, William White appears to have been vicar to this
time. Of this person there is nothing remarkable, but
that he hath made a regular entry twice in the register of
Selborne of the funeral of Thomas Cowper, bishop of
Winchester, as if he had been buried at Selborne ; yet this

1At Bene’s, or Bin’s, parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and
seven acres of glebe. Bene’s parsonage is three miles from the church.

OF SELBORNE 275

learned prelate, who died 1594, was buried at Winchester,
in the cathedral, near the episcopal throne.’

1595, Richard Boughton, vicar.

1596, William Inkforbye, vicar.

May 1606, Thomas Phippes, vicar.

June 1631, Ralph Austine, vicar.

July 1632, John Longworth. This unfortunate gentle-
man, living in the time of Cromwell’s usurpation, was
deprived of his preferment for many years, probably
because he would not take the league and covenant : for
I observe that his father-in-law, the Reverend Jethro Beal,
rector of Faringdon, which is the next parish, enjoyed his
benefice during the whole of that unhappy period. Long-
worth, after he was dispossessed, retired to a little tene-
ment about one hundred and fifty yards from the church,
where he earned a small pittance by the practice of physic.
During those dismal times it was not uncommon for the
deposed clergy to take up a medical character ; as was the
case in particular, I know, with the Reverend Mr. Yalden,
rector of Compton, near Guildford, in the county of
Surrey. Vicar Longworth used frequently to mention to
his sons, who told it to my relations, that, the Sunday after
his deprivation, his puritanical successor stepped into the
pulpit with no small petulance and exultation ; and began
his sermon from Psalm xx. 8: ‘“ They are brought down
and fallen ; but we are risen and stand upright.” This
person lived to be restored in 1660, and continued vicar
for eighteen years ; but was so impoverished by his mis-
fortunes, that he left the vicarage-house and premises in a
very abject and dilapidated state.

July 1678. Richard Byfield, who left eighty pounds by
will, the interest to be applied to apprentice out poor
children : but this money, lent on private security, was in
danger of being lost, and the bequest remained in an
unsettled state for near twenty years, till 1700; so that
little or no advantage was derived from it. About the
year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by the failure
of a borrower ; but, by prudent management, has since

1See Godwin de Praesulibus, Folio. Cant. 1743, p. 239.

276 THE ANTIQUITIES

been raised to one hundred pounds stock in the three per
cents. reduced. The trustees are the vicar and the renters
or owners of Temple, Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and
Oakhanger-house, for the time being. This gentleman
seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises in a
comfortable state; and began, by building a solid stone
wall round the front-court, and another in the lower yard,
between that and the neighbouring garden ; but was inter-
rupted by death from fulfilling his laudable intentions.

April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar.

June 1681. This living was now in such low estimation
in Magdalen-college, that it descended to a junior fellow,
Gilbert White, M.A.,’ who was instituted to it in the thirty-
first year of his age. At his first coming he ceiled the
chancel, and also floored and wainscoted the parlour and
hall, which before were paved with stone, and had naked
walls; he enlarged the kitchen and brewhouse, and dug a
cellar and well: he also built a large new barn in the lower
yard, removed the hovels in the front court, which he laid
out in walks and borders; and entirely planned the back
garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst of
it. By his will he gave and bequeathed “the sum of forty
pounds to be laid out in the most necessary repairs of the
church; that is, in strengthening and securing such parts
as seem decaying and dangerous.”” With this sum two
large buttresses were erected to support the east end of the
south wall of the church; and the gable-end wall of the
west end of the south aisle was new built from the ground.

By his will also he gave ‘One hundred pounds to be
laid out on lands; the yearly rents whereof shall be
employed in teaching the poor children of Selbourn parish
to read and write, and say their prayers and catechism, and
to sew and knit:—and be under the direction of his
executrix as long as she lives; and, after her, under the
direction of such of his children and their issue, as shall
live in or within five miles of the said parish: and on
failure of any such, then under the direction of the vicar
of Selbourn for the time being ; but still to the uses above-

1The author’s grandfather and godfather.

OF SELBORNE 277

named.” With this sum was purchased, of Thomas
Turville, of Hawkeley, in the county of Southampton,
yeoman, and Hannah his wife, two closes of freehold land,
commonly called Collier’s, containing, by estimation, eleven
acres, lying in Hawkeley aforesaid. These closes are let
at this time, 1785, on lease, at the rate of three pounds by
the year.

This vicar also gave by will two hundred pounds towards
the repairs of the highways’ in the parish of Selborne.
That sum was carefully and judiciously laid out in the
summer of the year 1730, by his son John White, who
made a solid and firm causey from Rood-green, all down
Honey-lane, to a farm called Oakwoods, where the sandy
soil begins. This miry and gulfy lane was chosen as
worthy of repair, because it leads to the forest, and thence
through the Holt to the town of Farnham in Surrey, the
only market in those days for men who had wheat to sell
in this neighbourhood. This causey was so deeply bedded
with stone, so properly raised above the level of the soil,
and so well drained, that it has, in some degree, withstood
fifty-four years of neglect and abuse; and might, with
moderate attention, be rendered a solid and comfortable
road. The space from Rood-green to Oak-woods measures
about three quarters of a mile.

In 1727, William Henry Cane, B.D., became vicar ;
and, among several alterations and repairs, new-built the
back front of the vicarage-house.

On February 1, 1740, Duncombe Bristowe, D.D., was
instituted to this living. What benefactions this vicar
bestowed on the parish will be best explained by the follow-
ing passages from his will:—“‘Item, I hereby give and
bequeath to the minister and churchwardens of the parish
of Selbourn, in the county of Southampton, a mahogany
table, which I have ordered to be made for the celebration
of the Holy Communion; and also the sum of thirty
pounds, in trust, to be applied in manner following ; that

1«‘Such legacies were very common in former times, before any
effectual laws were made for the repairs of highways.” Sir John Cullum’s
Hawsted, p. 15.

278 THE ANTIQUITIES

is, ten pounds towards the charge of erecting a gallery at
the west end of the church; and ten pounds to be laid out
for cloathing, and such like necessaries, among the poor
(and especially among the ancient and infirm) of the said
parish: and the remaining ten pounds to be distributed in
bread, at twenty shillings a week, at the discretion of John
White, esq. or any of his family, who shall be resident in
the said parish.”

On November 12, 1758, Andrew Etty, B.D, became
vicar. Among many useful repairs he new-roofed the
body of the vicarage-house; and wainscoted, up to the
bottom of the windows, the whole of the chancel; to the
neatness and decency of which he always paid the most
exact attention.

On September 25, 1784, Christopher Taylor, B.D., was
inducted into the vicarage of Selborne.

LETTER VII

I sHaLt now proceed to the Priory, which is undoubtedly
the most interesting part of our history.

The Priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la
Roche, or de Rupibus,’ one of those accomplished foreigners
that resorted to the court of king John, where they were
usually caressed, and met with a more favourable reception
than ought, in prudence, to have been shown by any
monarch to strangers. This adventurer was a Poictevin
by birth, had been bred to arms in his youth, and distin-
guished by knighthood. Historians all agree not to speak
very favourably of this remarkable man, they allow that
he was possessed of courage and fine abilities, but then
they charge him with arbitrary principles, and violent
conduct. By his insinuating manners he soon rose high in
the favour of John; and in 1206, early in the reign of that
prince, was appointed bishop of Winchester. In 1214 he

1 See Godwin de Praesulibus Anglia, Folio. London, 1743, p. 217-

OF SELBORNE 279

became lord chief justiciary of England, the first magistrate
in the state, and a kind of viceroy, on whom depended all
the civil affairs in the kingdom. After the death of John,
and during the minority of his son Henry, this prelate took
upon him the entire management of the realm, and was
soon appointed protector of the king and kingdom.

The barons saw with indignation a stranger possessed of
all the power and influence, to part of which they thought
they had a claim; they therefore entered into an association
against him, and determined to wrest some of that authority
from him which he had so unreasonably usurped. The
bishop discerned the storm at a distance; and, prudently
resolving to give way to that torrent of envy which he
knew not how to withstand, withdrew quietly to the Holy
Land, where he resided some time.

At this juncture a very small part of Palestine remained
in the hands of the Christians: they had been by Saladine
dispossessed of Jerusalem, and all the internal parts, near
forty years before; and with difficulty maintained some
maritime towns and garrisons: yet the busy and enter-
prising spirit of de Rupibus could not be at rest; he
distinguished himself by the splendour and magnificence of
his expenses, and amused his mind by strengthening
fortresses and castles, and by removing and endowing of
churches. Before his expedition to the east he had
signalized himself as a founder of convents, and as a
benefactor to hospitals and monasteries.

In the year 1231 he returned again to England; and
the very next year, in 1232, began to build and endow the
Priory of Selborne. As this great work followed so close
upon his return, it is not improbable that it was the result
of a vow made during his voyage; and especially as it was
dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Why the bishop made
choice of Selborne for the scene of his munificence can
never be determined now: it can only be said that the
parish was in his diocese, and lay almost midway between
Winchester and Farnham, or South Waltham and Farn-
ham; from either of which places he could without much
trouble overlook his workmen, and observe what progress

280 THE ANTIQUITIES

they made; and that the situation was retired, with a
stream running by it, and sequestered from the world,
amidst woods and meadows, and so far proper for the site
of a religious house.’

The first person with whom the founder treated about
the purchase of land was Jacobus de Achangre, or Ochangre,
a gentleman of property who resided at that hamlet; and,
as appears, at the house now called Oakhanger-house.
With him he agreed for a croft, or little close of land,
known by the name of La liega, or La lyge, which was to
be the immediate site of the Priory.

De Achangre also accommodated the bishop at the same
instant with three more adjoining crofts, which for a time
was all the footing that this institution obtained in the
parish. The seller in the conveyance says ‘‘ Warantizabimus,
defendemus, et aequietabimus contra omnes gentes”’; viz.
‘We will warrant the thing sold against all claims from
any quarter.” In modern conveyancing this would be
termed a covenant for further assurance. Afterwards is
added—*Pro hac autem donacione, &c. dedit mihi pred.
Episcopus sexdecem marcas argenti in Gersumam”: i.e.
“the bishop gave me sixteen silver marks as a consideration
for the thing purchased.”

As the grant from Jac. de Achangre was without
date,” and the next is circumstanced in the same manner

1 The institution at Selborne was a priory of Black-Canons of the order
of St. Augustine, called also Canons-Regular. Regular-Canons were
such as lived in a conventual manner, under one roof, had a common
refectory and dormitory, and were bound by vows to observe the rules
and statutes of their order: in fine, they were a kind of religious, whose
discipline was less rigid than the monks, The chief rule of these canons
was that of St. Augustine, who was constituted bishop of Hippo,
A.D. 395: but they were not brought into England till after the
conquest; and seem not to have obtained the appellation of Augustine
canons till some years after. ‘Their habit was a long black cassock, with
a white rocket over it; and over that a black cloak and hood. The
monks were always shaved; but these canons wore their hair and beards,
and caps on their heads. There were of these canons, and women of the
same order called Canonesses, about 175 houses.

2 The custom of affixing dates to deeds was not become general in the
reign of Henry III,

OF SELBORNE 281

we cannot say exactly what interval there was between the
two purchases; but we find that Jacobus de Nortun, a
neighbouring gentleman, also soon sold to the bishop of
Winchester some adjoining grounds, through which our
stream passes, that the priory might be accommodated
with a mill, which was a common necessary appendage to
every manor: he also allowed access to these lands by a
road for carts and waggons.—“ Jacobus de Nortun concedit
Petro Winton episcopo totum cursum aque que descendit
de Molendino de Durton usq ; ad boscum Will. Mauduit,
et croftam terre vocat: Edriche croft, cum extensione
ejusdem et abuttamentis; ad fundandam domum religiosam
de ordine Sti. Augustini. Concedit etiam viam ad carros,
et caretas,” etc. This vale, down which runs the brook is
now called the Long Lithe, or Lythe. Bating the follow-
ing particular expression, this grant runs much in the style
of the former; ‘“Dedit mihi episcopus predictus triginta
quinque marcas argenti ad me acquietandum versus Ju-
daeos.”—That is, ‘The bishop advanced me thirty-five
marks of silver to pay my debts to the Jews,” who were
then the only lenders of money.

Finding himself still straitened for room, the founder
applied to his royal master, Henry, who was graciously
pleased to bestow certain lands in the manor of Selborne
on the new priory of his favourite minister. These
grounds had been the property of Stephen de Lucy; and
abutting upon the narrow limits of the convent, became a
very commodious and agreeable acquisition. This grant,
I find, was made on March the 9th, in the eighteenth year
of Henry, viz. 1234, being two years after the foundation
of the monastery. The royal donor bestowed his favour
with a good grace, by adding to it almost every immunity
and privilege that could have been specified in the law
language of the times.—‘‘Quare volumus prior, &c.
habeant totam terram, &c. cum omnibus libertatibus in
bosco et plano, in viis et semitis, pratis et pascuis ; aquis
et piscariis; infra burgum, et extra burgum cum soka et
saca, Thol et Them, Infangenethef et Utfangenethef, et
hamsocne et blodwite, et pecunia que dari solet pro murdro

282 THE ANTIQUITIES

et forstal, et flemenestrick, et cum quietancia de omni
scotto et geldo, et de omnibus auxiliis regum, vice comitum,
et omn. ministralium suorum; et hidagio et exercitibus,
et scutagiis, et tallagiis, et shiris et hundredis, et placitis et
querelis, et warda et wardpeny, et opibus castellorum et
pontium, et clausuris parcorum, et omni carcio et sumagio,
et domor: regal: edificatione, et omnimoda reparatione,
et cum omnibus aliis libertatibus.”” This grant was made
out by Richard bishop of Chichester, then chancellor, at
the town of Northampton, before the lord chief justiciary,
who was the founder himself.

The charter of foundation of the Priory, dated 1233,
comes next in order to be considered; but being of some
length, I shall not interrupt my narrative by placing it
here; and therefore refer the reader to the appendix,
No. I. This my copy, taken from the original, I have
compared with Dugdale’s copy, and find that they perfectly
agree; except that in the latter the preamble and the
names of the witnesses are omitted. Yet I think it proper
to quote a passage from this charter—Et ipsa domus
religiosa a cujuslibet alterius domis religiosae subjectione
libera permaneat, et in omnibus absoluta’”’—to show how
much Dugdale was mistaken when he inserted Selborne
among the alien priories; forgetting that this disposition
of the convent contradicted the grant he had published.
In the Monasticon Anglicanum in English, p. 119, is part
of his catalogue of alien priories, suppressed 2 Henry V.,
viz. 1414, where may be seen as follows:

S.
Sele, Sussex.
SELEBURN.
Shirburn.

This appeared to me from the first to have been an
oversight, before I had seen my authentic evidences. For
priories alien, a few conventual ones excepted, were little
better than granges to foreign abbeys; and their priors
little more than bailiffs, removable at will: whereas the
priory of Selborne possessed the valuable estates and manors

OF SELBORNE 283

of Selborne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Bassinges,
Basingstoke, and Natele; and the prior challenged the
right of Pillory, Thurcet, and Furcas, and every manerial
privilege.

I find next a grant from Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, to the
prior of Selborne—de tota mora [a moor or bog] ubi
Beme oritur usque ad campum vivarii, et de prato voc.
Sydenmeade cum abutt: et de cursu aque molendini.”
And also a grant in reversion, “unius virgate terre” [a
yard land], in Achangre at the death of Richard Actedene
his sister’s husband, who had no child. He was to present
a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and
canons, to be given annually by the said Richard; and to
quit all claim to the said lands in reversion, provided the
prior and canons would engage annually to pay to the
king, through the hands of his bailiffs of Aulton, ten
shillings at four quarterly payments, “pro omnibus serviciis,
consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis,”’

This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger,
and lived probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm.
The grant bears date the 17th year of the reign of Henry
INL, [ viz. 1294 |,

It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for
lands or tenements that might be produced from my
vouchers. I shall therefore pass over all such for the
present, and conclude this letter with a remark that must
strike every thinking person with some degree of wonder.
No sooner had a monastic institution got a footing, but
the neighbourhood began to be touched with a secret and
religious awe. Every person round was desirous to pro-
mote so good a work; and either by sale, by grant, or by
gift in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor.
They who had not lands to spare gave roads to accommo-
date the infant foundation. The religious were not
backward in keeping up this pious propensity, which they
observed so readily influenced the breasts of men. Thus
did the more opulent monasteries add house to house, and
field to field; and by degrees manor to manor: till at last
“there was no place left”; but every district around

284 THE ANTIQUITIES

became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, and
every precinct was drawn into the vortex.

LETTER VIII

Our forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy and
bustling, and as important, as ourselves: yet have their
names and transactions been forgotten from century to
century, and have sunk into oblivion; nor has this happened
only to the vulgar, but even to men remarkable and
famous in their generation. I was led into this train of
thinking by finding in my vouchers that Sir Adam Gurdon
was an inhabitant of Selborne, and a man of the first
rank and property in the parish. By Sir Adam Gurdon I
would be understood to mean that leading and accom-
plished malcontent in the Mountfort faction, who dis-
tinguished himself by his daring conduct in the reign
of Henry III. The first that we hear of this person in
my papers is, that with two others he was bailiff of Alton
before the sixteenth of Henry III., viz. about 1231, and
then not knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he
came, does not appear: yet there is reason to suspect that
he was originally a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised
himself by marrying women of property. The name
of Gurdon does not seem to be known in the south;
but there is a name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and
which belongs to two or three noble families, that it is
probable this remarkable person was a North Briton; and
the more so, since the Christian name of Adam is a
distinguished one to this day among the family of the
Gordons.—But, be this as it may, Sir Adam Gurdon has
been noticed by all the writers of English history for
his bold disposition and disaffected spirit, in that he not
only figured during the successful rebellion of Leicester,
but kept up the war after the defeat and death of that
baron, entrenching himself in the woods of Hampshire,

OF SELBORNE 285

towards the town of Farnham. After the battle of
Evesham, in which Mountfort fell, in the year 1265,
Gurdon might not think it safe to return to his house for
fear of a surprise; but cautiously fortified himself amidst
the forests and woodlands with which he was so well
acquainted. Prince Edward, desirous of putting an
end to the troubles which had so long harassed the
kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses ;
attacked his camp ; leaped over the entrenchments ; and,
singling out Gurdon, ran him down, wounded him, and
took him prisoner.’

There is not perhaps in all history a more remarkable
instance of command of temper, and magnanimity, than
this before us: that a young prince, in the moment of
victory, when he had the fell adversary of the crown
and royal family at his mercy, should be able to withhold
his hand from that vengeance which the vanquished so
well deserved. A cowardly disposition would have been
blinded by resentment: but this gallant heir apparent
saw at once a method of converting a most desperate
foe into a lasting friend. He raised the fallen veteran
from the ground, he pardoned him, he admitted him into
his confidence, and introduced him to the queen, then
lying at Guildford, that very evening. This unmerited
and unexpected lenity melted the heart of the rugged
Gurdon at once; he became in an instant a loyal and
useful subject, trusted and employed in matters of moment
by Edward when king, and confided in till the day of
his death.

LETTER IX

Ir has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam
Gurdon had availed himself by marrying women of
property. By my evidences it appears that he had three
wives, and probably in the following order: Constantia,

1M. Paris, p. 675, and Triveti Annales,

286 THE ANTIQUITIES

Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies, who was
the companion of his middle life, seems to have been a
person of considerable fortune, which she inherited from
Thomas Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either
her father or uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the
quondam wife of Sir Adam, “ quae fui uxor,”’ etc. and talks
of her sons under age. Now Gurdon had no son: and
beside Agnes in another document says, “ Ego Agnes
quondam uxor Domini Adae Gurdon in pura et ligea
viduitate mea”: but Gurdon could not leave two widows;
and therefore it seems probable that he had been divorced
from Ameria, who afterwards married, and had sons. By
Agnes Sir Adam had a daughter, Johanna, who was his
heiress, to whom Agnes in her life-time surrendered part of
her jointure :—he had also a bastard son.

Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now called
Temple, lying about two miles east of the church, which
had been the property of Thomas Makerel.

In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Selborne
in his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only,
for leave to build him an oratory in his manor-house,
“in curia sua.’’ Licenses of this sort were frequently
obtained by men of fortune and rank from the bishop
of the diocese, the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have
seen instances, from the pope; not only for convenience-
sake, and on account of distance, and the badness of
the roads, but as a matter of state and distinction. Why
the owner should apply to the prior, in preference to the
bishop of the diocese, and how the former became com-
petent to such a grant, I cannot say; but that the priors of
Selborne did take that privilege is plain, because some
years afterward, in 1280, Prior Richard granted to Henry
Waterford and his wife Nicholaa a license to build an
oratory in their court-house, ‘“curia sua de Waterford,” in
which they might celebrate divine service, saving the rights
of the mother church of Basynges. Yet all the while
the prior of Selborne grants with such reserve and caution,
as if in doubt of his power, and leaves Gurdon and his
lady answerable in future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or

OF SELBORNE 287

to the vicar for the time being, in case they should infringe
the rights of the mother church of Selborne.

The manor-house called Temple is at present a single
building, running in length from south to north, and has
been occupied as a common farm house from time im-
memorial. The south end is modern, and consists of
a brew-house, and then a kitchen. The middle part is
an hall twenty-seven feet in length, and nineteen feet
in breadth; and has been formerly open to the top, but
there is now a floor above it, and also a chimney in
the western wall. The roofing consists of strong massive
rafter-work ornamented with carved roses. I have often
looked for the lamb and flag, the arms of the Knights
Templars, without success; but in one corner found a fox
with a goose on his back, so coarsely executed, that it
required some attention to make out the device.

Beyond the hall to the north is a small parlour with a
vast heavy stone chimney-piece ; and, at the end of all, the
chapel or oratory, whose massive thick walls, and narrow
windows at once bespeak great antiquity. This room is
only sixteen feet by sixteen feet eight inches; and full
seventeen feet nine inches in height. The ceiling is formed
of vast joists, placed only five or six inches apart. Modern
delicacy would not much approve of such a place of wor-
ship: for it has at present much more the appearance of a
dungeon than of a room fit for the reception of people of
condition. For the outside I refer the reader to the plate, in
which Mr. Grimm has represented it with his usual accuracy.
The field on which this oratory abuts is still called Chapel-
field. The situation of this house is very particular, for it
stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill.

Not many years since this place was used for an hop-kiln,
and was divided into two stories by a loft, part of which
remains at present, and makes it convenient for peat and
turf, with which it is stowed.

288 THE ANTIQUITIES

LETTER X

Tue Priory at times was much obliged to Gurdon and his
family. As Sir Adam began to advance in years he found
his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reason-
ableness and efficacy of prayers for the dead ; and, therefore,
in conjunction with his wife Constantia, in the year 1271,
granted to the prior and convent of Selborne all his right
and claim to a certain place, placea, called La Pleystow, in
the village aforesaid, “in liberam, puram, et perpetuam
elemosinam.”’ This Pleystow," /ocus /udorum, or play-place,
is a level area near the church of about forty-four yards by
thirty-six, and is known now by the name of the Plestor.?
It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene
of recreation for the youths and children of the neighbour-
hood ; and impresses an idea on the mind that this village,
even in Saxon times, could not be the most abject of places,
when the inhabitants thought proper to assign so spacious
a spot for the sports and amusements of its young people.’
As soon as the prior became possessed of this piece of
ground, he procured a charter for a market‘ from king
Henry III. and began to erect houses and stalls, ‘“ seldas,”’
around it. From this period Selborne became a market
town: but how long it enjoyed that privilege does not

1In Saxon Plezerzop, or Ple3pzop; viz. Plegestow, or Plegstow.

2 At this juncture probably the vast oak, mentioned p. 6, was planted
by the prior, as an ornament to his new acquired market place. Accord-
ing to this supposition the oak was aged 432 years when blown down.

3 For more circumstances respecting the Plestor, see Letter II. to Mr.
Pennant,

4 Bishop Tanner, in his Notitia Monastica, has made a mistake respect-
ing the market and fair at Selborne; for in his reference to Dodsworth,
cart. §4 Hen, III. m. 3, he says, “ De mercatu, et feria de Seleburn.” But
this reference is wrong ; for, instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place
there meant was Lekeborne, or Legeborne, in the county of Lincoln,
This error was copied from the index of the Cat. MSS. Angl. It does
not appear that there ever was a chartered fair at Selborne. For several
particulars respecting the present fair at Selborne see Letter XXVI of
these Antiquities,

in Ze

ae

The Plestor

OF SELBORNE 289

appear. At the same time Gurdon reserved to himself,
and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor to a tenement
and some crofts at the upper end, abutting on the south
corner of the church-yard. ‘This was, in old days, the
manerial house of the street manor, though now a poor
cottage; and is known at present by the modern name of
Elliot’s. Sir Adam also did, for the health of his own
soul, and that of his wife Constantia, their predecessors and
successors, grant to the prior and canons quiet possession
of all the tenements and gardens, “ curtillagia,” which they
had built and laid out on the lands in Selborne, on which
he and his vassals, ‘“homines,” had undoubted right of
common: and moreover did grant to the convent the
full privilege of that right of common; and empowered
the religious to build tenements and make gardens along
the king’s highway in the village of Selborne.

From circumstances put together it appears that the
above were the first grants obtained by the Priory in the
village of Selborne, after it had subsisted about thirty-nine
years: moreover they explain the nature of the mixed
manor still remaining in and about the village, where one
field or tenement shall belong to Magdalen-college in the
university of Oxford, and the next to Norton Powlet, esq., of
Rotherfield house; and so down the whole street. The
case was, that the whole was once the property of Gurdon,
till he made his grants to the convent; since which some
belongs to the successors of Gurdon in the manor, and
some to the college; and this is the occasion of the strange
jumble of property. It is remarkable that the tenement
and crofts which Sir Adam reserved at the time of granting
the Plestor should still remain a part of the Gurdon-manor,
though so desirable an addition to the vicarage that is not
as yet possessed of one inch of glebe at home: but of late,
viz. in January 1785, Magdalen-college purchased that
little estate, which is life-holding, in reversion, for the
generous purpose of bestowing it, and its lands, being
twelve acres (three of which abut on the church-yard and
vicarage-garden) as an improvement hereafter to the living,

and an eligible advantage to future incumbents.
T

290 THE ANTIQUITIES

The year after Gurdon had bestowed the Plestor on the
Priory, viz. in 1272, Henry III. king of England died, and
was succeeded by his son Edward. This magnanimous
prince continued his regard for Sir Adam, whom he
esteemed as a brave man,and made him warden, “ custos,”’
of the forest of Wolmer.’ Though little emolument

1Since the letters respecting Wolmer-forest and Ayles-holt, from p. 15
to 26, were printed, the author has been favoured with the following
extracts: —

In the ‘‘ Act of Resumption, 1 Hen. VII.” it was provided, that it be
not prejudicial to “ Harry at Lode, ranger of our forest of Wolmere, to
him by oure letters patents before tyme gevyn.”—Rolls of Parl. Vol. VL
Pp. 379.

In the 11 Hen. VII. 14953—-“ Warlham [Wardleham] and the office of
forest [forester] of Wolmere” were held by Edmund duke of Suffolk.—
Rolls, ib. 474.

Act of general pardon, 14 Hen. VIII. 1523, not to extend to “ Rich.
Bp. of Wynton [bishop Fox] for any seizure or forfeiture of liberties, etc,
within the forest of Wolmer, Alysholt, and Newe Forest; nor to any
person for waste, etc. within the manor of Wardlam, or parish of Ward-
lam [Wardleham ;] nor to abusing, &c. of any office or fee, within the
said forests of Wolmer or Alysholt, or the said park of Wardlam, County
Suth’t.—Rolls prefixt to 1st Vol. of Journals of the Lords, p. xciii. b.

To these may be added some other particulars, taken from a book
lately published, entitled “An Account of all the Manors, Messuages,
Lands, &c. in the different Counties of England and Wales, held by
Lease from the Crown; as contained in the Report of the Commissioners
appointed to inquire into the State and Condition of the Royal Forests,”
etc.—London, 1787.

“Southampton.”

P. 64, “A fee-farm rent of £31 2s. 11d. out of the manors of East
and West Wardleham; and also the office of lieutenant or keeper of the
forest or chase of Aliceholt and Wolmer, with all offices, fees, commodities,
and privileges thereto belonging.

“Names of lessees, William earl of Dartmouth and others (in trust).

“Date of the last lease, March 23, 1780; granted for such term as
would fill up the subsisting term to 31 years.

“Expiration March 23, 1811.”

“ Appendix, No. III.”
“‘ Southampton.”
“ Hundreds, Selborne and Finchdeane.”
“Honours and manors,” etc.

“ Aliceholt forest, three parks there.

“ Bensted and Kingsley ; a petition of the parishioners concerning the
three parks in Aliceholt forest.”

William, first earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the

OF SELBORNE 291

might hang to this appointment, yet there are reasons why
it might be highly acceptable; and, in a few reigns after, it
was given to princes of the blood. In old days gentry
resided more at home on their estates, and, having fewer
resources of elegant in-door amusement, spent most of
their leisure hours in the field and the pleasures of the chase.
A large domain, therefore, at little more than a mile
distance, and well stocked with game, must have been a
very eligible acquisition, affording him influence as well as
entertainment; and especially as the manerial house of
Temple, by its exalted situation, could command a view of
near two-thirds of the forest.

That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an
outlaw, and at the head of an army of insurgents, was, for
a considerable time, in high rebellion against his sovereign,
should have been guilty of some outrages, and should have
committed some depredations, is by no means matter of
wonder. Accordingly we find a distringas against him,
ordering him to restore to the bishop of Winchester some
of the temporalities of that see, which he had taken by
violence and detained; viz. some lands in Hocheleye, and
a mill? By a dreve, or writ, from the king he is also
enjoined to readmit the bishop of Winchester, and his
tenants of the parish and town of Farnham, to pasture
their horses, and other larger cattle, ‘“‘averia,” in the forest
of Wolmer, as had been the usage from time immemorial.
This writ is dated in the tenth year of the reign of Edward,
viz. 1282.

All the king’s writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in
the following manner: ‘“ Edwardus, Dei gratia, &c. dilecto
et fideli suo Ade Gurdon salutem”’; and again, ‘“‘ Custodi
foreste sue de Wolvemere.”’

In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an

present lord Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer
before brigadier-general Emanuel Scroope Howe.

1See Letter II. of these Antiquities.

2 Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne, and
has a mill at this day.

292 THE ANTIQUITIES

English and a Norman ship, about some trifle, brought on
by degrees such serious consequences, that in 1295 a war
broke out between the two nations. The French king,
Philip the Hardy, gained some advantages in Gascony ;
and, not content with those, threatened England with an
invasion, and, by a sudden attempt, took and burnt Dover.

Upon this emergency Edward sent a writ to Gurdon,
ordering him and four others to enlist three thousand
soldiers in the counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire,
able-bodied men, “tam sagittare quam balistare potentes”’ :
and to see that they were marched, by the feast of All
Saints, to Winchelsea, there to be embarked aboard the
king’s transports.

The occasion of this armament appears also from a
summons to the bishop of Winchester to parliament, part
of which I shall transcribe on account of the insolent
menace which is said therein to have been denounced
against the English language :—“ qualiter rex Franciae de
terra nostra Gascon nos fraudulenter et cautelose decepit,
eam nobis nequiter detinendo . . . vero predictis fraude
et nequitia non contentus, ad expurgationem regni nostri
classe maxima et bellatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis,
cum quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas
hostiliter jam invasurus, linguam Anglicam, si concepte
iniquitatis proposito detestabili potestas correspondeat,
quod Deus avertat, omnino de terra delere proponit.”
Dated 30th September, in the year of king Edward’s
reign xxiil.?

The above are the last traces that I can discover of
Gurdon’s appearing and acting in public. The first notice
that my evidences give of him is, that, in 1232, being the
16th of Henry IIL, he was the king’s bailiff, with others,
for the town of Alton. Now, from 1232 to 1295 is a
space of sixty-three years; a long period for one man to
be employed in active life! Should any one doubt whether
all these particulars can relate to one and the same person,
I should wish him to attend to the following reasons why

1 Reg. Wynton, Stratford, but query Stratford; for Stratford was not
bishop of Winton till 1323, near thirty years afterwards.

OF SELBORNE 293

they might. In the first place, the documents from the
priory mention but one Sir Adam-Gurdon, who had no son
lawfully begotten: and in the next, we are to recollect that
he must have probably been a man of uncommon vigour
both of mind and body; since no one, unsupported by
such accomplishments, could have engaged in such adven-
tures, or could have borne up against the difficulties which
he sometimes must have encountered: and, moreover, we
have modern instances of persons that have maintained
their abilities for near that period.

Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years of
age in 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three; after which
advanced period it could not be expected that he should
live long. From the silence, therefore, of my evidences it
seems probable that this extraordinary person finished his
life in peace, not long after, at his mansion of Temple.
Gurdon’s seal had for its device—a man, with a helmet on
his head, drawing a cross-bow ; the legend, “ Sigillum Ade
de Gurdon”’; his arms were, ‘“ Goulis, iii floures argent
issant de testes de leopards.” ?

If the stout and unsubmitting spirit of Gurdon could be
so much influenced by the belief and superstition of the
times, much more might the hearts of his ladies and
daughter. And accordingly we find that Ameria, by the
consent and advice of her sons, though said to be all under
age, makes a grant for ever of some lands down by the
stream at Durton; and also of her right of the common of
Durton itself.? Johanna, the daughter and heiress of Sir
Adam, was married, I find, to Richard Achard; she also
grants to the prior and convent lands and tenements in the
village of Selborne, which her father obtained from Thomas
Makerel; and also all her goods and chattels in Selborne
for the consideration of two hundred pounds sterling.
This last business was transacted in the first year of
Edward II. viz. 1307. It has been observed before that

1From the collection of Thomas Martin, Esq., in the Antiquarian
Repertory, p. 109, No. XXXI.

2 Durton, now called Dorton, is still a common for the copyholders of
Selborne manor.

204 THE ANTIQUITIES

Gurdon had a natural son: this person was called by the
name of John Dastard, alias Wastard, but more probably
Bastard; since bastardy in those days was not deemed any
disgrace, though dastardy was esteemed the greatest. He
was married to Gunnorie Duncun; and had a tenement
and some land granted him in Selborne by his sister
Johanna.

LETTER XI

Tue Knights Templars,’ who have been mentioned in a
former letter, had considerable property in Selborne; and
also a preceptory at Sudington, now called Southington, a
hamlet lying one mile to the east of the village. Bishop
Tanner mentions only two such houses of the Templars in

The Mirirary Orpers of the Reticious.

1The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called
Knights of Rhodes, now of Malta, came into England about the year
1100, 1 Hen, I.

The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen’s
reign, which commenced 1135. ‘The order was dissolved in 1312, and
their estates given by act of Parliament to the Hospitalars in 1323 (all
in Edw. II.), though many of their estates were never actually enjoyed
by the said Hospitalars—Vid. Tanner, p. xxiv. x.

The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars,
were each subordinate to the principal house of their respective religion
in London. Although these are the different denominations, which
Tanner at p. xxviii. assigns to the cells of these different orders, yet
throughout the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories
attributed to the Hospitalars; and if in some passages of Notitia Monast.
commandries are attributed to the Templars, it is only where the place
afterwards became the property of the Hospitalars, and so is there
indifferently styled preceptory or commandry; see p. 243, 263, 276,
577, 678. But, to account for the first observed inaccuracy, it is prob-
able the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars,
were still vulgarly, however, called by their old name of preceptories ;
whereas in propriety the societies of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has
been said) commandries. And such deviation from the strictness of
expression in this case might occasion those societies of Hospitalars also
to be indifferently called preceptories, which had originally been vested
in them, having never belonged to the Templars at all.—See in Archer,
p. 609. Tanner, p. 300, col. 1, 720, note ¢.

OF SELBORNE 295

all the county of Southampton, viz. Godesfield, founded by
Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester, and South Badeisley,
a preceptory of the Knights Templars, and afterwards of
St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one hundred and eighteen
pounds sixteen shillings and seven pence per annum. Here
then was a preceptory unnoticed by antiquaries, between
the village and Temple. Whatever the edifice of the
preceptory might have been, it has long since been dilapi-
dated ; and the whole hamlet contains now only one mean
farm-house, though there were two in the memory of man.

It has been usual for the religious of different orders to
fall into great dissensions, and especially when they were
near neighbours. Instances of this sort we have heard of
between the monks of Canterbury ; and again between the
old abbey of St. Swythun, and the comparatively new
minster of Hyde in the city of Winchester.' These feuds

It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the
Hospitalars holds the same language; for there, in the enumeration of
particulars, occur “‘commandries, preceptories.” Codex, p. 1190. Now
this intercommunity of names, and that in an act of parliament too,
made some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptory and com-
mandry as strictly synonymous; accordingly we find Camden, in his
Britannia, explaining praeceptoria in the text by a commandry in the
margin, p. 356, 510.—J. L.

Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, etc. belonging to
the priory of St. John of Jerusalem; and he who had the government of
such house was called the commander, who could not dispose of it but
to the use of the priory, only taking thence his own sustenance, according
to his degree, who was usually a brother of the same priory. Cowell.
He adds (confounding these with preceptories) they are in many places
termed Temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, etc. Preceptories
were possessed by the more eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief
master created and called Praeceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to
Stephens de Jurisd. lib. 4, c. 10, num, 27.

Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic.
Itiner. apud Wynton. etc. anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo.
—“et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasse panis, & suis [cere-
visiae] in Sodington, & nescint q°. war. et—et magist. Milicie Templi
nOn vén id distr.” ——Chapter-house, Westminster.

Notitia Monastica, p. 155.
1« Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a
house and chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought
out of Flanders: but afterwards projected, and by his will ordered, a

206 THE ANTIQUITIES

arose probably from different orders being crowded within
the narrow limits of a city, or garrison-town, where every
inch of ground was precious, and an object of contention.
But with us, as far as my evidences extend, and while
Robert Saunford was master,’ and Richard Carpenter was
preceptor, the Templars and the Priors lived in an inter-
course of mutual good offices.

My papers mention three transactions, the exact time of
which cannot be ascertained, because they fell out before
dates were usually inserted; though probably they hap-
pened about the middle of the thirteenth century; not
long after Saunford became master. The first of these is
that the Templars shall pay to the priory of Selborne,
annually, the sum of ten shillings at two half yearly
payments from their chamber, “camera,” at Sudington,
‘“per manum preceptoris, vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore
fuerit ibidem,”’ till they can provide the prior and canons
with an equivalent in lands or rents within four or five
miles of the said convent. It is also further agreed that,
if the Templars shall be in arrears for one year, that then

noble church or religious house to be built in the cemetery on the
north side of the old minster or cathedral; and designed that Grimbald
should preside over it. This was begun a.p, 901, and finished to the
honour of the Holy Trinity, Virgin Mary, and St. Peter, by his son
king Edward, who placed therein secular canons: but a.p. 963 they were
expelled, and an abbot and monks put in possession by bishop Ethelwold.

“Now the churches and habitations of these two societies being so
very near together, the differences which were occasioned by their
singing, bells, and other matters, arose to so great a height, that the
religious of the new monastery thought fit, about a.p. 1119, to remove
to a better and more quiet situation without the walls, on the north
part of the city called Hype, where king Henry I. at the instance of
Will, Gifford, bishop of Winton, founded a stately abbey for them.
St. Peter was generally accounted patron; though it is sometimes called
the monastery of St. Grimbald, and sometimes of St. Barnabas,” etc.

Note. A few years since a county bridewell, or house of correction,
has been built on the immediate site of Hide Abbey. In digging up
the old foundations the workmen found the head of a crosier in good
preservation.

1 Robert Saunforde was master of the Temple in 1241; Guido de
Foresta was the next in 1292. The former is fifth in a list of the
masters in a MS. Bib. Cotton. Nero. E, VI.

OF SELBORNE 297

the prior shall be empowered to distrain upon their live
stock in Bradeseth. The next matter was a grant from
Robert de Saunford to the priory for ever, of a good and
sufficient road, “cheminum,” capable of admitting car-
riages, and proper for the drift of their larger cattle,
from the way which extends from Sudington towards
Blakemere, on to the lands which the convent possesses in
Bradeseth.

The third transaction (though for want of dates we
cannot say which happened first and which last) was a
grant from Robert Samford to the priory of a tenement
and its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given to
the Templars by Americus de Vasci.1 This property, by
the manner of describing it,—‘ totum tenementum cum
omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, 8c hominibus, in
pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus,’’ etc. seems to have been
no inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two hundred
marks sterling, to be applied for the buying of more land
for the support of the holy war.

Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci’s
land is conveyed. But in Willis’s list there is no prior
John till 1339, several years after the dissolution of the
order of the Templars in 13123 so that unless Willis is
wrong, and has omitted a prior John since 1262 (that
being the date of his first prior) these transactions must
have fallen out before that date.

I find not the least traces of any concerns between
Gurdon and the Knights Templars; but probably after his
death his daughter Johanna might have, and might bestow,
Temple on that order in support of the holy land: and,
moreover, she seems to have been moving from Selborne
when she sold her goods and chattels to the priory, as
mentioned above.

Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may be
asserted, not only from its name, but also from another

1 Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had
been probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon’s gaptains.
Americus Vespucio, the person who gave name to the new world was a
Florentine,

298 THE ANTIQUITIES

corroborating circumstance of its being still a manor tithe-
free; “for, by virtue of their order,” says Dr. Blackstone,
“the lands of the Knights Templars were privileged by
the pope with a discharge from tithes.”

Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms
preceptores and preceptorium, not being able to determine
what officer or edifice was meant. But perhaps all the
while the passage quoted above from one of my papers
“‘per manum preceptoris vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tempore
fuerit ibidem,”’ may help to explain the difficulty. For if
it be allowed here that preceptor and ballivus are synony-
mous words, then the brother who took on him that
office resided in the house of the Templars at Sudington,
a preceptory ; where he was their preceptor, superintended
their affairs, received their money; and, as in the instance
there mentioned, paid from their chamber, “ camera,” as
directed: so that, according to this explanation, a preceptor
was no other than a steward, and a preceptorium was his
residence. I am well aware that, according to strict Latin,
the ve/ should have been sez or sive, and the order of the
words “‘ preceptoris nostri, vel ballivi, qui” —et ‘“ibidem”’
should have been ibi; ibidem necessarily having reference
to two or more persons: but it will hardly be thought fair
to apply the niceties of classic rules to the Latinity of the
thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to have aimed
at nothing farther than to render themselves intelligible.

There is another remark that we have made, which, I
think, corroborates what has been advanced; and that is,
that Richard Carpenter, preceptor of Sudington, at the
time of the transactions between the Templars and Selborne
Priory, did always sign last as a witness in the three deeds:
he calls himself frater, it is true, among many other
brothers, but subscribes with a kind of deference, as if, for
the time being, his office rendered him an inferior in the
community.’

1In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald’s hospital in
the city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, p. 227 and 228, of his
collections for the history of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and
preceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital: “ad preceptorium

OF SELBORNE 299

LETTER XII

Tue ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were not
the only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne ; for, in
the year 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses to be per-
formed for her soul’s health; and the prior entered into
an engagement that one of the convent should every day
say a special mass for ever for the said benefactress, whether
living or dead. She also engaged within five years to pay
to the said convent one hundred marks of silver for the
support of a chantry and chantry-chaplain, who should
perform his masses daily in the parish church of Selborne.’
In the east end of the south aisle there are two sharp-
pointed gothic niches; one of these probably was the
place under which these masses were performed; and
there is the more reason to suppose as much, because,
till within these thirty years, this space was fenced off with
gothic wooden railing, and was known by the name of the
south chancel.?

sive magisterium presentavit—preceptorii sive magisterii patronus. Va-
cavit dicta preceptoria seu magisterium—ad preceptoriam et regimen
dicti hospitalis—Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus.”

Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably
mean the master’s lodgings, or at least the preceptor’s apartment, what-
soever may have been the office or employment of the said preceptor.

A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby’s Ducatus Leodinensis, or
History of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and
chaplain before dates were inserted_—Du Fresne’s Supplement: “ Pre-
ceptoriae, praedia preceptoribus assignata.”—Cowell, in his Law
Dictionary enumerates sixteen preceptoriae, or preceptories, in England ;
but Sudington is not among them.—It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, in
his Historia Templariorum, Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the
words preceptor or preceptorium.

1A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church,

and endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more
priests to sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others.

2 For what is said more respecting this chantry see Letter III. of these
Antiquities—Mention is made of a Nicholas Langrish, capellanus de
Selborne, in the time of Henry VIII. Was he chantry-chaplain to Ela
Longspee, whose masses were probably continued to the time of the
reformation? More will be said of this person hereafter.

300 THE ANTIQUITIES

The solicitude expressed by the donor plainly shows her
piety and firm persuasion of the efficacy of prayers for the
dead; for she seems to have made every provision for the
payment of the sum stipulated within the appointed time ;
and to have felt much anxiety lest her death, or the
neglect of her executors or assigns, might frustrate her
intentions.—“ Et si contingat me in solucione predicte
pecunie annis predictis in parte aut in toto deficere, quod
absit ; concedo et obligo pro me et assignatis meis, quod
Vice-Comes - - - Oxon et ----- qui pro tempore fuerint,
per omnes terras et tenementa, et omnia bona mea mobilia
et immobilia ubicunque in balliva sua fuerint inventa ad
solucionem predictam faciendam possent nos compellere.”’
And again—“Et si contingat dictos religiosos labores
seu. expensas facere circa predictam pecuniam, seu
circa partem dicte pecunie ; volo quod dictorum religios-
orum impense et labores levantur ita quod predicto priori
vel uni canonicorum suorum super: hiis simplici verbo
credatur sine alterius honore probacionis; et quod utrique
predictorum virorum in unam marcam argenti pro cujus-
libet distrincione super me facienda tenear.—Dat. apud
Wareborn die sabati proxima ante festum St. Marci evange-
liste, anno regni regis Edwardi tertio decimo.” }

But the reader perhaps would wish to be better informed
respecting this benefactress, of whom as yet he has heard
no particulars.

The Ela Longspee therefore above-mentioned was a
lady of high birth and rank, and became countess to
Thomas de Newburgh, the sixth earl of Warwick: she
was the second daughter of the famous Ela Longspee,
countess of Salisbury, by William Longspee, natural son
of king Henry II. by Rosamond.

Our lady, following the steps of her illustrious mother,?

' Ancient deeds are often dated on a Sunday, having been executed in

churches and church-yards for the sake of notoriety, and for the con-
veniency of procuring several witnesses to attest.

2Ela Longspee, countess of Salisbury, in 1232 founded a monastery at
Lacock, in the county of Wilts, and also another at Hendon, in the
county of Somerset, in her widowhood, to the honour of the Blessed
Virgin and St. Bernard.—Campen.

OF SELBORNE 301

“was a great benefactress to the university of Oxford, to
the canons of Oseney, the nuns of Godstow, and other
religious houses in Oxfordshire. She died very aged in the
year 1300, and was buried before the high altar in the abbey
church of Oseney, at the head of the tomb of Henry D’Oily,
under a flat marble, on which was inlaid her portraiture,
in the habit of a vowess, engraved on a copper-plate.”—
Edmonson’s History and Genealogical Account of the

Grevilles, p. 23.

LETTER XIII

Tue reader is here presented with five forms respecting
the choosing of a prior ; but as they are of some length
they must be reserved for the Appendix; their titles
are No. 108. ‘‘ Charta petens licentiam elegendi prelatum
a Domino episcopo Wintoniensi” :—‘ Forma licentie
concesse”’ :—‘‘Forma decreti post electionem conficiendi’’:
—108. ‘Modus procedendi ad electionem per formam
scrutinii’ :—et “Forma ricte presentandi electum.” Such
evidences are rare and curious, and throw great light upon
the general monastico-ecclesiastical history of this king-
dom, not yet sufficiently understood.

In the year 1324 there was an election for a prior at
Selborne; when some difficulties occurring, and a devolu-
tion taking place, application was made to Stratford, who
was bishop of Winchester at that time, and of course
the visitor and patron of the convent at the spot above-
mentioned.?

An extract from Rec. Srratrorp. Winton.

P. 4. ‘ Commissio facta sub-priori de Selebourne ” by
the bishop enjoining him to preserve the discipline of

'Thus she survived the foundation of her chantry at Selborne fifteen
years. About this lady and her mother consult Dugdale’s Baronage, I.
972, 175, 177.—Dugdale’s Warwickshire, I, 383,—-Leland’s Itin. II. 45.

* Stratford was bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333, when he was
translated to Canterbury.

302 THE ANTIQUITIES

the order in the convent during the vacancy made by the
late death of the prior (‘‘ super pastoris solatio destituta’’),
dated 4 kal. Maii. ann. 2% sc. of his consecration.

[sc. 1324. ]
. 6. “Custodia Prioratus de Seleburne vacantis,”’
committed by the bishop to Nicholas de la - - -, a layman,

it belonging to the bishop “ ratione vacationis ejusdem,”’
in July 1324, ibid. “ negotium electionis de Selebourne.
Acta coram Johanne Episcopo, &c. 1324 in negotio
electionis de fratre Waltero de Insula concanonico prior-
atus de Selebourne,”’ lately elected by the sub-prior and
convent, by way of scrutiny: that it appeared to the
bishop, by certificate from the dean of Alton, that solemn
citation and proclamation had been made in the church of
the convent where the election was held, that any who
opposed the said election or elected should appear.—Some
difficulties were started, which the bishop over-ruled, and
confirmed the election, and admitted the new prior sud
hac forma:—

“In Dei nomine Amen. Ego Johannes permissione
divina, &c. te Walterum de Insula ecclesie de Selebourne
nostre dioceseos nostrique patronatus vacantis, canonicum
et cantorem, virum utique providum, et discretum, liter-
arum scientia preditum, vita moribus et conversatione
merito commendatum, in ordine sacerdotali et etate
legitima constitutum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum,
in ordine et religione Sancti Augustini de Selebourne
expresse professum, in spiritualibus et temporalibus cir-
cumspectum, jure nobis hac vice devoluto in hac parte,
in dicte ecclesie de Selebourne perfectum priorem ; curam
et administrationem ejusdem tibi in spiritualibus et tem-
poralibus committentes. Dat. apud Selebourne XIII
kalend. Augusti anno supradicto.”

There follows an order to the sub-prior and convent
pro obedientia :

A mandate to Nicholas above-named to release the
Priory to the new prior :

A mandate for the induction of the new prior.

OF SELBORNE 303

LETTER XIV

“In the year 1373 Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, held
a visitation of his whole diocese; not only of the secular
clergy through the several deaneries, but also of the
monasteries, and religious houses of all sorts, which he
visited in person. The next year he sent his commissioners
with power to correct and reform the several irregularities
and abuses which he had discovered in the course of his
visitation.

“‘Some years afterward, the bishop having visited three
several times all the religious houses throughout his diocese,
and being well informed of the state and condition of each,
and of the particular abuses which required correction and
reformation, besides the orders which he had already given,
and the remedies which he had occasionally applied by his
commissioners, now issued his injunctions to each of them.
They were accommodated to their several exigencies, and
intended to correct the abuses introduced, and to recall
them all to a strict observation of the rules of their
respective orders. Many of these injunctions are still
extant, and are evident monuments of the care and
attention with which he discharged this part of his
episcopal duty.’’?

Some of these injunctions I shall here produce; and they
are such as will not fail, I think, to give satisfaction to the
antiquary, both as never having been published before, and
as they are a curious picture of monastic irregularities at
that time.

The documents that I allude to are contained in the
Notabilis Visitatio de Seleburne, held at the Priory of that
place, by Wykeham in person, in the year 1387.

This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins of
parchment; the one large, and the other smaller, and
consists of a preamble, 36 items, and a conclusion, which
altogether evince the patient investigation of the visitor,

1See Lowth’s Life of Wykeham.

304 THE ANTIQUITIES

for which he had always been so remarkable in all matters
of moment, and how much he had at heart the regularity
of those institutions, of whose efficacy in their prayers for
the dead he was so firmly persuaded. As the bishop was
so much in earnest, we may be assured that he had nothing
in view but to correct and reform what he found amiss;
and was under no bias to blacken, or misrepresent, as the
commissioners of Thomas Lord Cromwell seem in part to
have done at the time of the reformation.’ We may
therefore with reason suppose that the bishop gives us an
exact delineation of the morals and manners of the canons
of Selborne at that juncture ; and that what he found they
had omitted he enjoins them; and for what they had done
amiss, and contrary to their rules and statutes, he reproves
them; and threatens them with punishment suitable to
their irregularities.

This visitatio is of considerable length, and cannot be
introduced into the body of this work; we shall therefore
refer the reader to the Appendix, where he will find every
particular, while we shall take some notice, and make some
remarks, on the most singular items as they occur.

In the preamble the visitor says—‘ Considering the
charge lying upon us, that your blood may not be required
at our hands, we came down to visit your Priory, as our
office required: and every time we repeated our visitation
we found something still not only contrary to regular rules
but also repugnant to religion and good reputation.”

In the first article after the preamble—‘ he commands
them on their obedience, and on pain of the greater
excommunication, to see that the canonical hours by night
and by day be sung in their choir, and the masses of the
Blessed Mary, and other accustomed masses, be celebrated
at the proper hours with devotion, and at moderate pauses;
and that it be not allowed to any to absent themselves from
the hours and masses, or to withdraw before they are
finished.”’

Item 2d. He enjoins them to observe that silence to

1 Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell are
still extant.

OF SELBORNE 305

which they are so strictly bound by the rule of Saint
Augustine at stated times, and wholly to abstain from
frivolous conversation.

Item 4th. ‘Not to permit such frequent passing of
secular people of both sexes through their convent, as if a
thoroughfare, from whence many disorders may and have
arisen.”

Item sth. ‘To take care that the doors of their church
and Priory be so attended to that no suspected and dis-
orderly females, ‘ suspectae et aliae inhonestae,’ pass through
their choir and cloister in the dark’ ; and to see that the
doors of their church between the nave and the choir, and
the gates of their cloister opening into the fields, be
constantly kept shut until their first choir-service is over
in the morning, at dinner time, and when they meet at
their evening collation.’

Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are found
to be very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins the prior to
see that they be better instructed by a proper master.

Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to
accept of their statutable clothing year by year, and of
demanding a certain specified sum of money, as if it were
their annual rent and due. This the bishop forbids, and
orders that the canons shall be clothed out of the revenue
of the Priory, and the old garments be laid by in a
chamber, and given to the poor, according to the rule of
Saint Augustine.

In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons are
given to wander out of the precincts of the convent without
leave; and that others ride to their manors and farms,
under pretence of inspecting the concerns of the society,
when they please, and stay as long as they please. But
they are enjoined never to stir either about their own
private concerns or the business of the convent without
leave from the prior: and no canon is to go alone, but to
have a grave brother to accompany him.

The injunction in Item roth, at this distance of time,
appears rather ludicrous; but the visitor seems to be very

1A Collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper.
U

306 THE ANTIQUITIES

serious on the occasion, and says that it has been evidently
proved to him that some of the canons, living dissolutely
after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep naked in their
beds without their breeches and shirts, ‘“absque femoralibus
et camisiis.”* He enjoins that these culprits shall be
punished by severe fasting, especially if they shall be found
to be faulty a third time; and threatens the prior and sub-
prior with suspension if they do not correct this enormity.

In Item 11th the good bishop is very wroth with some
of the canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and
sportsmen, keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting-
matches. These pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipa-
tion, danger to the soul and body, and frequent expense;
he, therefore, wishing to extirpate this vice wholly from
the convent, “ radicibus extirpare,” does absolutely enjoin
the canons never intentionally to be present at any public
noisy tumultuous huntings; or to keep any hounds, by
themselves or by others, openly or by stealth, within the
convent, or without.?

In Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make
their business a plea for not attending the service of
the choir; since by these means either divine worship is
neglected or their brother-canons are over-burdened.

By Item 14th we are informed that the original number
of canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen; but
that at this visitation they were found to be let down
to eleven. The visitor therefore strongly and earnestly
enjoins them that, with all due speed and diligence, they
should proceed to the election of proper persons to fill up
the vacancies, under pain of the greater excommunication.

1 The rule alluded to in Item roth, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined
the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine.
See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum.

2Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the
pleasures of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of
Selborne should languish after hunting, when, from their situation so
near the precincts of Wolmer-forest, the king’s hounds must have been
often in hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows,—lIf the
bishop was so offended at these sporting canons, what would he have said
to our modern fox-hunting divines?

OF SELBORNE 307

In Item 17th the prior and canons are accused of
suffering, through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take
place among their manerial houses and tenements, and
in the walls and enclosures of the convent itself, to the
shame and scandal of the institution; they are therefore
enjoined, under pain of suspension, to repair all defects
within the space of six months.

Item 18th charges them with grievously burthening the
said Priory by means of sales, and grants of liveries?
and corrodies.?

The bishop, in Item 19th, accuses the canons of neglect
and omission with respect to their perpetual chantry-
services.

Item 20th. The visitor here conjures the prior and
canons not to withhold their original alms, “‘eleemosynas” ;
nor those that they were enjoined to distribute for the
good of the souls of founders and benefactors: he also
strictly orders that the fragments and broken victuals,
both from the hall of their prior and their common
refectory, should be carefully collected together by their
eleemosynarius, and given to the poor without any diminu-
tion ; the officer to be suspended for neglect or omission.

Item 23d. He bids them distribute their pittances,
“‘pitancias,”’* regularly on obits, anniversaries, festivals, etc.

Item 25th. All and every one of the canons are here-
by inhibited from standing godfather to any boy for the
future, “ne compatres alicujus pueri de cetero fieri
presumatis,” unless by express license from the bishop

1“ Tiberationes, or Jiberaturae; allowances of corn, etc. to servants
delivered at certain times, and in certain quantities, as clothes were
among the allowances from religious houses to their dependants. See
the corrodies granted by Croyland abbey.”—Hist. of Croyland, Appen-
dix, No, XXXIV.

“Tt is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be con-
fined to the uniform of the retainers or servants of the great, who were
hence called livery servants.” —Sir John Cullum’s Hist. of Hawsted,

2 A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory.

8 Pitgncia, an allowance of bread and beer, or other provision to any
pious use, especially to the religious in a monastery, etc. for augmenta-
tion of their commons.”—Gloss. to Kennet’s Par. Antiq.

308 THE ANTIQUITIES

obtained; because from such relationship favour and
affection, nepotism, and undue influence, arise, to the
injury and detriment of religious institutions.’

Item 26th. The visitor herein severely reprimands the
canons for appearing publicly in what would be called in
the universities an unstatutable manner, and for wearin
of boots, ‘“‘caligae de Burneto, et sotularium———in
ocrearum loco, ad modum sotularium.’’?

It is remarkable that the bishop expresses more warmth
against this than any other irregularity; and strictly
enjoins them, under pain of ecclesiastical censures, and
even imprisonment if necessary (a threat not made use of
before), for the future to wear boots, “ocreis seu botis,”
according to the regular usage of their ancient order.

Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness,
forbids them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of
appearing like beaux with garments edged with costly furs,
with fringed gloves, and silken girdles trimmed with gold
and silver. It is remarkable that no punishment is
annexed to this injunction.

1“°The relationship between sponsors and their god-children, who
were called spiritual sons and daughters, was formerly esteemed much
more sacred than at present. The presents at christenings were some-
times very considerable: the connection lasted through life, and was
closed with a legacy. This last mark of attention seems to have been
thought almost indispensable: for, in a will, from whence no extracts
have been given, the testator left every one of his god-children a bushel
of barley.”—Sir John Cullum’s Hist. of Hawsted.

“D, Margaretae filiae Regis primogenitae, quam filiolam, quia ejus in
baptismo compater fuit, appellat, cyphum aureum et quadraginta libras,
legavit.’—Archbishop Parker de Antiquitate Eccles. Brit. speaking of
Archbishop Morton.

2Du Fresne is copious on caligae of several sorts. ‘Hoc item de
Clericis, presertim beneficiatis: caligis scacatis (chequered) rubeis, et
viridibus publice utentibus dicimus esse censendum.” Statut. Eccles.
Tutel. The chequered boots seem to be the highland plaid stockings.—
“Burnetum, i.e. Brunetum, pannus non ex lana nativi coloris confectus.”
—‘Sotularium, i.e. subtalaris quia sub talo est. Peculium genus, quibus
maxime Monachi nocte utebantur in aestate: in hyeme vero Soccis.”

This writer gives many quotations concerning Sotu/aria, which were

not to be made too shapely; nor were the caligae to be laced on too
nicely.

OF SELBORNE 309

Item 31st. He here singly and severally forbids each
canon not admitted to a cure of souls to administer
extreme unction, or the sacrament, to clergy or laity;
or to perform the service of matrimony, till he has
taken out the license of the parish priest.

Item 32d. The bishop says in this item that he had
observed and found, in his several visitations, that the
sacramental plate and cloths of the altar, surplices, etc.
were sometimes left in such an uncleanly and disgusting
condition as to make the beholders shudder with horror ;
—‘quod aliquibus sunt horrori’’;! he therefore enjoins
them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and
vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent order:
and, what must surprise the reader, adds—that he expects
for the future that the sacrist should provide for the
sacrament good wine, pure and unadulterated; and not,
as had often been the practice, that which was sour,
and tending to decay:—he says farther, that it seems
quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that attention
to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace
a common convivial meeting.’

Item 33d says that, though the relics of saints, the plate,
holy vestments, and books of religious houses, are for-
bidden by canonical institutes to be pledged or lent out
upon pawn; yet, as the visitor finds this to be the case
in his several visitations, he therefore strictly enjoins the
prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and to restore
them to the convent ; and orders that all the papers and

1«Men abhorred the offering of the Lord.” 1 Sam. chap. ii. v. 17.
Strange as this account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when
first in orders, twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacra-
ment at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he
found the inside of the chalice covered with birds’ dung; and in the
other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings
of a gammon of bacon. ‘The good dame at the great farm-house, who
was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it best to save
her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own table
for two or three Sundays before.

266 ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa

Corruget nares; ne non et cantharus, et lanx
Ostendat tibi te i

310 THE ANTIQUITIES

title deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited,
and kept under three locks and keys.

In the course of the Visitatio Notabilis the constitutions
of Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Otto-
bonus was afterwards Pope Adrian V. and died in 1276.
His constitutions are in Lyndewood’s Provinciale, and were
drawn up in the §2d of Henry III.

In the Visitatio Notabilis the usual punishment is fasting
on bread and beer; and in cases of repeated delinquency
on bread and water. On these occasions guarta feria, et
sexta feria, are mentioned often, and are to be understood
of the days of the week numerically on which such
punishment is to be inflicted.

LETTER XV

TxHoucH bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and
rigid in his visitatorial character towards the Priory of
Selborne, yet he was on the whole a liberal friend and
benefactor to that convent, which, like every other society
or individual that fell in his way, partook of the generosity
and benevolence of that munificent prelate.

“In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his
mere good will and liberality, discharged the whole debts
of the prior and convent of Selborne, to the amount of
one hundred and ten marks eleven shillings and sixpence ;*
and, a few years before he died, he made a free gift of one
hundred marks to the same Priory: on which account the
Prior and convent voluntarily engaged for the celebration
of two masses a day by two canons of the convent for ten
years, for the bishop’s welfare, if he should live so long ;
and for his soul if he should die before the expiration of
this term.’’?

1 Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all their

relics, plate, vestments, title-deeds, etc. were in pawn.
? Lowth’s Life of Wykeham.

OF SELBORNE 311

At this distance of time it seems matter of great wonder
to us how these societies, so nobly endowed, and whose
members were exempt by their very institution from every
means of personal and family expense, could possibly run
in debt without squandering their revenues in a manner
incompatible with their function.

Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in their
revenues by fires among their buildings, or large dilapi-
dations from storms, etc.; but no such accident appears
to have befallen the Priory at Selborne. Those situate on
public roads, or in great towns, where there were shrines
of saints, were liable to be intruded on by travellers,
devotees, and pilgrims; and were subject to the impor-
tunity of the poor, who swarmed at their gates to partake
of doles and broken victuals. Of these disadvantages
some convents used to complain, and especially those at
Canterbury; but this Priory, from its sequestered situation,
could seldom be subject to either of these inconveniences,
and therefore we must attribute its frequent debts and
embarrassments, well endowed as it was, to the bad conduct
of its members, and a general inattention to the interests
of the institution,

LETTER XVI

Breaurort was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 14473
and yet, notwithstanding this long episcopate, only tom.
I. of Beaufort’s Register is to be found. This loss is much
to be regretted, as it must unavoidably make a gap in the
history of Selborne Priory, and perhaps in the list of its
priors.

In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in
I41l.

* vol. I. p. 24, of Beaufort’s Register, is the instrument
of the election of John Winchestre to be prior—the sub-
stance as follows:

Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop

312 THE ANTIQUITIES

that brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October
18th, 1410, and was buried November 11th.—That the
bishop’s license to elect having been obtained, he and the
whole convent met in the chapter-house, on the same day,
about the hour of vespers, to consider of the election:
that brother John Wynchestre, then sub-prior, with the
general consent appointed the 12th of November, ad horam
ejusdem diei capitularem, for the business :—when they met
in the chapter-house, post missam de sancto Spiritu, solemnly
celebrated in the church;—to wit, Richard Elstede ;
Thomas Halyborne; John Lemyngton, sacrista; John
Stepe, cantor; Walter Ffarnham; Richard Putworth,
celerarius ; Hugh London; Henry Brampton, alias Bromp-
ton; John Wynchestre, senior; John Wynchestre, junior;
——then “Proposito primitus verbo Dei,” and then ympno
‘Veni Creator Spiritus” being solemnly sung, cum “ver-
siculo et oratione,” as usual, and his letter of license, with
the appointment of the hour and place of election, being
read, alta voce, in valvis of the chapter-house ;—John
Wynchestre, senior, the sub-prior, in his own behalf and
that of all the canons, and by their mandate, “quasdam
monicionem et protestacionem in scriptis redactas fecit,
legit, et interposuit’’—that all persons disqualified, or not
having right to be present, should immediately withdraw ;
and protesting against their voting, etc.—that then having
read the constitution of the general council “Quia propter,”
and explained the modes of proceeding to election, they
agreed unanimously to proceed “per viam seu formam
simplicis compromissi”; when John Wynchestre, sub-
prior, and all the others (the commissaries under-named
excepted) named and chose brothers Richard Elstede,
Thomas Halyborne, John Lemyngton the sacrist, John
Stepe, chantor, and Richard Putworth, canons, to be com-
missaries, who were sworn each to nominate and elect a fit
person to be prior: and empowered by letters patent
under the common seal, to be in force only until the
darkness of the night of the same day ;—that they, or the
greater part of them, should elect for the whole convent,
within the limited time, from their own number, or from

OF SELBORNE 313

the rest of the convent ;—that one of them should publish
their consent in common before the clergy and people :—
they then all promised to receive as prior the person these
five canons should fix on. These commissaries seceded
from the chapter-house to the refectory of the Priory, and
were shut in with master John Penkester, bachelor of laws;
and John Couke and John Lynne, perpetual vicars of the
parish churches of Newton and Selborne; and with Samp-
son Maycock, a public notary; where they treated of the
election; when they unanimously agreed on John Wyn-
chestre, and appointed Thomas Halyborne, to choose him
in common for all, and to publish the election, as customary;
and returned long before it was dark to the chapter-house,
where Thomas Halyborne read publicly the instrument of
election ; when all the brothers, the new prior excepted,
singing solemnly the hymn “Te Deum laudamus,”’ fecerunt
deportari novum electum, by some of the brothers, from
the chapter-house to the high altar of the church ;* and
the hymn being sung, dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis
in hac parte, Thomas Halyborne, mox tunc ibidem, before
the clergy and people of both sexes solemnly published the
election im vulgari. Then Richard Elstede, and the whole
convent by their proctors and nuncios appointed for the
purposes, Thomas Halyborne and John Stepe required
several times the assent of the elected ; “et tandem post
diutinas interpellationes, et deliberationem providam penes
se habitam, in hac parte divine nolens, ut asseruit, resistere
voluntati,” within the limited time he signified his accep-
tance in the usual written form of words. The bishop is
then supplicated to confirm their election, and do the need-
ful, under common seal, in chapter-house. November 14,
1410.

The bishop, January 6, 1410, apud Esher in camera infe-
riori, declared the election duly made, and ordered the new
prior to be inducted—for this the archdeacon of Win-

1 Tt seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior
from the chapter-house to the high altar of their convent-church. In
letter XXI., on the same occasion, it is said—‘‘et sit canentes dictum
electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos moris est.”

314 THE ANTIQUITIES

chester was written to; ‘stallumque in choro, et locum in
capitulo juxta morem preteriti temporis,’’ to be assigned
him ; and every thing beside necessary to be done.

Beaurort’s Recister, Vol. I.

P. 2. Taxatio spiritualis Decanatus de Aulton, Ecclesia
de Selebourn, cum Capella,—xxx marc. decima x lib. iii
sol. Vicaria de Selebourn non taxatur propter exilitatem.

P. 9. Taxatio bonorum temporalium religiosorum in
Archidiac. Wynton.

Prior de Selebourn habet maneria de

Bromdene taxat.ad = - - - - xxxs. lid,
Apud Schete ad - - - - - XViis.

P. Selebourn ad - = - S - vi lib.

In civitate Wynton de reddit. - - vi lib. viti ob.
Tannaria sua taxat. ad. - - - - xlib.s.

Summa tax. xxxviii lib. xiiii d. ob. Inde decima vi lib. s. q. ob.

LETTER XVII

InrorMaTion being sent to Rome respecting the havoc
and spoil that was carrying on among the revenues and
lands of the Priory of Selborne, as we may suppose by the
bishop of Winchester, its visitor, Pope Martin,’ as soon as
the news of these proceedings came before him, issued
forth a bull, in which he enjoins his commissary im-
mediately to revoke all the property that had been alienated.

In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and
canons of having granted away (they themselves and their
predecessors) to certain clerks and laymen their tithes,
lands, rents, tenements, and possessions, to some of them

1 Pope Martin V. chosen about 1417. He attempted to reform the
church but died in 1431, just as he had summoned the council of Basil.

OF SELBORNE 315

for their lives, to others for an undue term of years, and
to some again for a perpetuity, to the great and heavy
detriment of the monastery: and these leases were granted,
he continues to add, under their own hands, with the
sanction of an oath and the renunciation of all right and
claims, and under penalties, if the right was not made
good.—But it will be best to give an abstract from the
bull.

N. 298. Pope Martin’s bull touching the revoking of
certaine things alienated from the Priory of Seleburne.
Pontif. sui. ann. 1.

“Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei. Dilecto filio
Priori de Suthvale’ Wyntonien. dioc. Salutem & apos-
tolicam ben. Ad audientiam nostram pervenit quam tam
dilecti filii prior et conventus monasterii de Seleburn per
Priorem soliti gubernari ordinis SY. Augustini Winton.
dioc. quam de predecessores eorum decimas, terras, red-
ditus, domos, possessiones, vineas,’ et quedam alia bona ad
monasterium ipsum spectantia, datis super hoc litteris,
interpositis juramentis, factis renuntiationibus, et penis
adjectis, in gravem ipsius monasterii lesionem, nonnullis
clericis et laicis, aliquibus eorum ad vitam, quibusdam vero
ad non modicum tempus, & aliis perpetuo ad firmam, vel
sub censu annuo concesserunt ; quarum aliqui dicunt super
hiis a sede Aplica in communi forma confirmationis litteras
impetrasse. Quia vero nostra interest lesis monasteriis
subvenire—[He the Pope here commands}—ea ad jus et
proprietatem monasterii studeas legitime revocare,”’ etc.

The conduct of the religious had now for some time
been generally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being
very opulent, were become voluptuous and licentious, and
had deviated entirely from their original institutions. The

1Should have been no doubt Southwick, a priory under Portsdown.

2Mr. Barrington is of opinion that anciently the English vinea was in
almost every instance an orchard; not perhaps always of apples merely,
but of other fruits; as cherries, plums, and currants. We still say a plum
or cherry-orchard. See Vol. III. of Archaeologia.

In the instance above the pope’s secretary might insert vineas merely
because they were a species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy.

316 THE ANTIQUITIES

laity saw with indignation the wealth and possessions of
their pious ancestors perverted to the service of sensuality
and indulgence; and spent in gratifications highly un-
becoming the purposes for which they were given. A
total disregard to their respective rules and discipline drew
on the monks and canons a heavy load of popular odium.
Some good men there were who endeavoured to oppose
the general delinquency ; but their efforts were too feeble
to stem the torrent of monastic luxury. As far back as
the year 1381 Wickliffe’s principles and doctrines had
made some progress, were well received by men who
wished for a reformation, and were defended and main-
tained by them as long as they dared; till the bishops and
clergy began to be so greatly alarmed, that they procured
an act to be passed by which the secular arm was em-
powered to support the corrupt doctrines of the church;
but the first lollard was not burned till the year 1401.

The wits also of those times did not spare the gross
morals of the clergy, but boldly ridiculed their ignorance
and profligacy. The most remarkable of these were
Chaucer, and his contemporary, Robert Langelande, better
known by the name of Piers Plowman. The laughable
tales of the former are familiar to every reader; while
the visions of the latter are but in few hands. Witha
quotation from the Passus Decimus of this writer I shall
conclude my letter ; not only on account of the remark-
able prediction therein contained, which carries with it
somewhat of the air of a prophecy ; but also as it seems to
have been a striking picture of monastic insolence and dis-
sipation ; and a specimen of one of the keenest pieces of
satire now perhaps subsisting in any language, ancient or
modern.

“ Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate ;
A leader of love-days, and a loud begger ;
A pricker on a palfrey from maner to maner,
A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were.
And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring,
He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie,

OF SELBORNE 317

Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs,

To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars.

In many places ther they persons be, by himself at ease :

Of the poor they have no pity, and that is her charitie ;

And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad.

And there shal come a king,’ and confess you religious ;

And beate you, as the bible telleth, for breaking your
rule,

And amend monials, and monks, and chanons,

And put hem to her penaunce ad pristinum statum tre.”

LETTER XVII

Wittiram of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in
the year 1447, and seems to have pursued the generous
plan of Wykeham in endeavouring to reform the priory
of Selborne.

When Waynflete came to the see he found Prior Stype,
alias Stepe, still living, who had been elected as long ago as
the year 1411.

Among my documents I find a curious paper of the
things put into the custody of Peter Bernes the sacrist,
and especially some relics: the title of this evidence is
“No. 50, Indentura prioris de Selborne quorundam tradit.
Petro Bernes sacristae, ibidem, ann. Hen. VI. --- una cum
confiss. ejusdem Petri script.” The occasion of this cata-

1F, 1, a. ‘This prediction, although a probable conclusion concerning
a king who after a time would suppress the religious houses, is remark-
able. I imagined it might have been foisted into the copies in the reign
of king Henry VIII. but it is to be found in MSS, of this poem, older
than the year 1400.” Fol. 1. a. b.

“Again, where he, Piers Plowman, alludes to the Knights Templars,
lately suppressed, he says,

ss Men of holie kirk

Shall turn as Templars did; the tyme approacheth nere,”

“This, I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffe’s discourses.”
Warton’s Hist. of English Poetry, Vol. I. p. 282.

318 THE ANTIQUITIES

logue, or list of effects, being drawn between the prior
and sacrist does not appear, nor the date when ; only that
it happened in the reign of Hen. VI. This transaction
probably took place when Bernes entered on his office ;
and there is the more reason to suppose that to be the
case, because the list consists of vestments and implements,
and relics, such as belonged to the church of the Priory,
and fell under the care of the sacrist. For the numerous
items I shall refer the curious reader to the Appendix, and
shall just mention the relics, although they are not all
specified ; and the state of the live stock of the monastery
at that juncture.

“Item 2. osculator. argent.

“Item 1. osculatorium cum osse digiti auricular.—St.

Johannis Baptistae.*

“Item 1. parvam crucem cum V. reliquiis.

“Item 1. anulum argent. et deauratum St. Edmundi.?

“Item 2. osculat. de coper.

“Item 1. junctorium St. Ricardi.®

“Ttem 1. pecten St. Ricardi.

1 How the convent came by the bone of the little finger of Saint John
the Baptist does not appear; probably the founder, while in Palestine,
purchased it among the Asiatics, who were at that time great traders in
relics. We know from the best authority that as soon as Herod had
cruelly beheaded that holy man “his disciples came and took up the
body and buried it, and went and told Jesus.” Matt. iv. 12,.—Further
would be difficult to say.

2 November 20, in the calendar, Edmund king and martyr, in the gth
century. See also a Sanctus Edmundus in Godwin, among the arch-
bishops of Canterbury, in the 13th century ; his surname Rich, in 1234.

3 April 3, ibid. Richard bishop of Chichester, in the 13th century ;
his surname De la Wich, in 1245.

Functorium, perhaps a joint or limb of St. Richard; but what particular
joint the religious were not such osteologists as to specify. ‘This bar-
barous word was not to be found in any dictionary consulted by the
author.

4“ Pecten inter ministeria sacra recensetur, quo scil. sacerdotes ac clerici,
antequam in ecclesiam procederent, crines pecterent. E quibus colligitur
monachos, tunc temporis, non omnino tonsos fuisse."—Du Fresne.

The author remembers to have seen in great farm houses a family
comb chained to a post for the use of the hinds when they came into
their meals.

OF SELBORNE 319

The staurum, or live stock, is quite ridiculous, consist-
ing only of “2 vacce, 1 sus, 4 hoggett. et 4 porcell.”
viz. two cows, one sow, four porkers, and four pigs.

LETTER XIX

Stepe died towards the end of the year 1453, as we
may suppose pretty far advanced in life, having been prior
forty-four years.

On the very day that the vacancy happened, viz.
January 26, 1453-4, the sub-prior and convent petitioned
the visitor—‘‘vos unicum levamen nostrum, et spem
unanimiter rogamus, quatinus eligendum ex nobis unum
confratrem ne gremio nostro, in nostra religione probatum
et expertem, licenciam vestram paternalem cum plena
libertate nobis concedere dignemini graciose.” — Reg.
Waynflete, tom. I.

Instead of the license requested we find next a com-
mission ‘“custodie prioratus de Selebourne durante vaca-
tione,” addressed to brother Peter Berne, canon-regular
of the priory of Selebourne, and of the order of St.
Augustine, appointing him keeper of the said priory, and
empowering him to collect and receive the profits and
revenues, and “alia bona,” of the said priory; and to
exercise in every respect the full power and authority of a
prior; but to be responsible to the visitor finally, and
to maintain this superiority during the bishop’s pleasure
only. This instrument is dated from the bishop’s manor-
house in Southwark, March 1, 1453-4, and the seventh of
his consecration.

After this transaction it does not appear that the
chapter of the Priory proceeded to any election: on
the contrary, we find that at six months’ end from the
vacancy the visitor declared that a lapse had taken place;
and that therefore he did confer the priorship on canon
Peter Berne.—“ Prioratum vacantem et ad nostram colla-

320 THE ANTIQUITIES

tionem, seu provisionem jure ad nos in hac parte per
lapsum temporis legitime devolutu spectantem, tibi (sc.
P. Berne) de legitimo matrimonio procreato, 8cc.—conferi-
mus,” etc. This deed bears date July 28, 1454.—Reg.
Waynflete, tom. I. p. 69.

On February 8, 1462, the visitor issued out a power of
sequestration against the Priory of Selborne on account
of notorious dilapidations which threatened manifest ruin
to the roofs, walls, and edifices of the said convent;
and appointing John Hammond, B.D., rector of the
parish church of Hetlegh, John Hylling, vicar of the
parish church of Newton Valence, and Walter Gorfin,
inhabitant of the parish of Selborne, his sequestrators,
to exact, collect, levy, and receive, all the profits and
revenues of the said convent: he adds, “ac ea sub arcto,
et tuto custodiatis, custodirive faciatis’”; as they would
answer it to the bishop at their peril.

In consequence of these proceedings prior Berne, on the
last day of February, and the next year, produced a state
of the revenues of the Priory, No. 381, called “A paper
conteyning the value of the manors and lands pertayning
to the Priory of Selborne. 4 Edward III. with a note
of charges yssuing out of it.”

This is a curious document, and will appear in the
Appendix. From circumstances in this paper it is plain
that the sequestration produced good effects; for in it are
to be found bills of repairs to a considerable amount.

By this evidence also it appears that there were at that
juncture only four canons at the Priory’; and that these,
and their four household servants, during this sequestra-
tion for their clothing, wages, and diet, were allowed per
ann. xxx lib.; and that the annual pension of the lord
prior, reside where he would, was to be x lib.

In the year 1468, prior Berne, probably wearied out by
the dissensions and want of order that prevailed in the

1If bishop Wykeham was so disturbed (see Notab. Visitatio) to
find the number of canons reduced from fourteen to eleven, what would
he have said to have seen it diminished below one third of that
number?

OF SELBORNE 321

convent, resigned his priorship into the hands of the
bishop.—Reg. Waynflete, tom. I. pars. 1™, fol. 157.
March 28, a.p. 1468. ‘In quadam alta camera juxta
magnam portam manerii of the bishop of Wynton de
Waltham coram eodem rev. patre ibidem tunc sedente,
Peter Berne, prior of Selborne, ipsum prioratum in sacras,
et venerabiles manus of the bishop, viva voce libere re-
signavit: and his resignation was admitted before two
witnesses and a notary-public. In consequence, March
2gth, before the bishop, in capella manerii sui ante dicti
pro tribunali sedente, comparuerunt fratres” Peter Berne,
Thomas London, William Wyndesor, and William Pay-
nell, alias Stretford, canons regular of the priory, “ capitu-
lum, et conventum ejusdem ecclesie facientes; ac jus et
voces in electione futura prioris dicti prioratus solum et
in solidum, ut asseruerunt, habentes; and after the bishop
had notified to them the vacancy of a prior, with his
free license to elect, deliberated awhile, and then, by way
of compromise, as they affirmed, unanimously transferred
their right of election to the bishop before witnesses.
In consequence of this the bishop, after full deliberation,
proceeded, April 7th, “in capella manerii sui de Waltham,”
to the election of a prior: “et fratrem Johannem Morton,
priorem ecclesie conventualis de Reygate dicti ordinis S*
Augustini Wynton. dioc. in priorem vice et nomine
omnium et singulorum canonicorum predictorum elegit, in
ordine sacerdotali, et etate licita constitutum, &c.” And
on the same day, in the same place, and before the same
witnesses, John Morton resigned to the bishop the prior-
ship of Reygate viva voce. The bishop then required his
consent to his own election; ‘ qui licet in parte renitens
tanti reverendi patris se confirmans,” obeyed, and signified
his consent oraculo vive vocis. "Then was there a mandate
citing any one who would gainsay the said election to
appear before the bishop or his commissary in his chapel at
Farnham on the second day of May next. The dean of
the deanery of Aulton then appeared before the chancellor,
his commissary, and returned the citation or mandate
dated April 22d, 1468, with signification, in writing, of
x

322 THE ANTIQUITIES

his having published it as required, dated Newton Valence,
May ist, 1468. ‘This certificate being read, the four
canons of Selborne appeared and required the election
to be confirmed ; et ex super abundanti appointed William
Long their proctor to solicit in their name that he might
be canonically confirmed. John Morton also appeared,
and proclamation was made; and no one appearing against
him, the commissary pronounced all absentees contu-
macious, and precluded them from objecting at any other
time ; and, at the instance of John Morton and the proctor,
confirmed the election by his decree, and directed his
mandate to the rector of Hedley and the vicar of Newton
Valence to install him in the usual form.

Thus, for the first time, was a person, a stranger to
the convent of Selborne, and never canon of that monastery,
elected prior ; though the style of the petitions in former
elections used to run thus,—“ Vos - - - - rogamus quatinus
eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio nostro,—
licentiam vestram—nobis concedere dignemini.””

LETTER XX

Prior Morton dying in 1471, two canons, by themselves,
proceeded to election, and chose a prior; but two more
(one of them Berne) complaining of not being summoned,
objected to the proceedings as informal; till at last the
matter was compromised that the bishop should again,
for that turn, nominate as he had before. But the circum-
stances of this election will be best explained by the
following extract :

Rec. Waynrtete, tom. II. pars 1™, fol. 7.
Memorandum. a.p. 1471, August 22.

William Wyndesor, a canon-regular of the Priory of
Selborne, having been elected prior on the death of brother

Newton Valence

OF SELBORNE 323

John, appeared in person before the bishop in his chapel at
South Waltham. He was attended on this occasion by
Thomas London and John Bromesgrove, canons, who had
elected him. Peter Berne and William Stratfeld, canons,
also presented themselves at the same time, complaining
that in this business they had been overlooked, and not
summoned ; and that therefore the validity of the election
might with reason be called in question, and quarrels and
dissensions might probably arise between the newly chosen
prior and the parties thus neglected.

After some altercation and dispute they all came to an
agreement with the new prior that what had been done
should be rejected and annulled; and that they would
again, for this turn, transfer to the bishop their power to
elect, order, and provide them another prior, whom they
promised unanimously to admit.

The bishop accepted of this offer before witnesses; and
on September 27, in an inner chamber near the chapel
abovementioned, after full deliberation, chose brother
Thomas Fairwise, vicar of Somborne, a canon-regular of
Saint Augustine in the Priory of Bruscough, in the diocese
of Coventry and Litchfield, to be prior of Selborne. The
form is nearly as above in the last election. The canons
are again enumerated ; W. Wyndesor, sub-prior, P. Berne,
T. London, W. Stratfeld, J. Bromesgrove, who had formed
the chapter, and had requested and obtained license to
elect, but had unanimously conferred their power on the
bishop. In consequence of this proceeding, the bishop
taking the business upon himself, that the Priory might
not suffer detriment for want of a governor, appoints the
aforesaid T. Fairwise to be prior. A citation was ordered
as above for gainsayers to appear October 4th, before the
bishop or his commissaries at South Waltham; but none
appearing, the commissaries admitted the said Thomas,
ordered him to be installed, and sent the usual letter to the
convent to render him due obedience.

Thus did the bishop of Winchester a second time
appoint a stranger to be prior of Selborne, instead of one
chosen out of the chapter. For this seeming irregularity

324 THE ANTIQUITIES

the visitor had no doubt good and sufficient reasons, as
probably may appear hereafter.

LETTER XXI

Wuatever might have been the abilities and disposition
of prior Fairwise, it could not have been in his power to
have brought about any material reformation in the Priory
of Selborne, because he departed this life in the month of
August 1472, before he had presided one twelvemonth.
As soon as their governor was buried the chapter applied
to their visitor for leave to choose a new prior, which being
granted, after deliberating for a time, they proceeded to an
election by a scrutiny. But as this mode of voting has not
been described but by the mere form in the Appendix, an
extract from the bishop’s register, representing the manner
more fully, may not be disagreeable to several readers.

Waynrtete Rec. tom. II. pars 1m, fol. 15.

“Reverendo &c. ac nostro patrono graciosissimo vestri
humiles, et devote obedientie filti,” etc.

To the right reverend Father in God, and our most
gracious patron, we, your obedient and devoted sons,
William Wyndesor, president of the chapter of the Priory
of Selborne, and the convent of that place, do make known
to your Lordship, that our priorship being lately vacant by
the death of Thomas Fairwise, our late prior, who died
August 11th, 1472, having committed his body to decent
sepulture, and having requested, according to custom, leave
to elect another, and having obtained it under your seal,
we, William Wyndesor, president of the convent, on the
29th of August, in our chapter-house assembled, and
making a chapter, taking to us in this business Richard
ap Jenkyn, and Galfrid Bryan, chaplains, that our said

OF SELBORNE 325

priory might not by means of this vacancy incur harm or
loss, unanimously agreed on August the last for the day
of election; on which day, having first celebrated mass,
“De sancto spiritu,” at the high altar, and having called a
chapter by tolling a bell about ten o’ the clock, we,
William Wyndesor, president, Peter Berne, Thomas
London, and William Stratfeld, canons, who alone had
voices, being the only canons, about ten o’ the clock, first
sung ‘‘ Veni Creator,” the letters and license being read in
the presence of many persons there. Then William
Wyndesor, in his own name, and that of all the canons,
made solemn proclamation, enjoining all who had no right
to vote to depart out of the chapter-house. When all
were withdrawn except Guyllery de Lacuna, in decretis
Baccalarius, and Robert Peverell, notary-public, and also
the two chaplains, the first was requested to stay, that he
might direct and inform us in the mode of election, the
other, that he might record and attest the transactions ;
and the two last that they might be witnesses to them.

Then having read the constitution of the general council
‘“‘Quia propter,” and the forms of elections contained in it
being sufficiently explained to them by De Lacuna, as well
in Latin as the vulgar tongue, and having deliberated in
what mode to proceed in this election, they resolved in that
of scrutiny. ‘Three of the canons, Wyndesor, Berne, and
London, were made scrutators: Berne, London, and
Stratfeld, choosing Wyndesor; Wyndesor, London, and
Stratfeld, choosing Berne; Wyndesor, Berne, and Stratfeld,
choosing London.

They were empowered to take each other’s vote, and
then that of Stratfeld; “et ad inferiorem partem angul-
arem” of the chapter-house, “juxta ostium ejusdem
declinentes,”’ with the other persons (except Stratfeld, who
staid behind), proceeded to voting, two swearing, and
taking the voice of the third, in succession, privately.
Wyndesor voted first: “Ego credo Petrum Berne
meliorem et utiliorem ad regimen istius ecclesie, et in
ipsum consentio, ac eum nomino,” etc. Berne was next
sworn, and in like manner nominated Wyndesor; London

326 THE ANTIQUITIES

nominated Berne: Stratfeld was then called and sworn,
and nominated Berne.

‘Quibus in scriptis redactis,” by the notary-public, they
returned to the upper part of the chapter-house, where by
Wyndesor “sic purecta fecerunt in communi,” and then
solemnly, in form written, declared the election of Berne:
when all, “‘antedicto nostro electo excepto, approbantes et
ratificantes, cepimus decantare solemniter ‘Te Deum
Laudamus,’ et sic canentes dictum electum ad majus
altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud nos est moris. Then
Wyndesor electionem clero et populo infra chorum dicte
ecclesie congregatis publicavit, et personam electi publice
et personaliter ostendit.” We then returned to the
chapter-house, except our prior; and Wyndesor was
appointed by the other two their proctor, to desire the
assent of the elected, and to notify what had been done by
the bishop; and to desire him to confirm the election, and
do whatever else was necessary. Then their proctor,
before the witnesses, required Berne’s assent in the chapter-
house: ‘qui quidem instanciis et precibus multiplicatis
devictus,’’ consented, “licet indignus electus,”’ in writing.
They therefore requested the bishop’s confirmation of
their election “sic canonice et solemniter celebrata,”’ etc.
etc. Sealed with their common seal, and subscribed and
attested by the notary. Dat. in the chapter-house
September sth, 1472.

In consequence, September 11th, 1472, in the bishop’s
chapel at Esher, and before the bishop's commissary,
appeared W. Wyndesor, and exhibited the above instru-
ment, and a mandate from the bishop for the appearance
of gainsayers of the election there on that day :—and no
one appearing, the absentees were declared contumacious,
and the election confirmed; and the vicar of Aulton was
directed to induct and install the prior in the usual manner.

Thus did canon Berne, though advanced in years,
reassume his abdicated priorship for the second time, to
the no small satisfaction, as it may seem, of the bishop of
Winchester, who professed, as will be shown, not long
hence, an high opinion of his abilities and integrity.

OF SELBORNE 327

LETTER XXII

As prior Berne, when chosen in 1454, held his priorship
only to 1468, and then made a voluntary resignation,
wearied and disgusted, as we may conclude, by the disorder
that prevailed in his convent; it is no matter of wonder
that, when re-chosen in 1472, he should not long maintain
his station; as old age was then coming fast upon him,
and the increasing anarchy and misrule of that declining
institution required unusual vigour and resolution to stem
that torrent of profligacy which was hurrying it on to its
dissolution. We find, accordingly, that in 1478 he resigned
his dignity again into the hands of the bishop.

Waynrtete Ree. fol. 55.
Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne.

May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship.
May 16 the bishop admitted his resignation “ in manerio
suo de Waltham,” and declared the priorship void; “et
priorat. solacio destitutum esse”’; and granted his letters
for proceeding to a new election: when all the religious,
assembled in the chapter-house, did transfer their power
under their seal to the bishop, by the following public
instrument.

“In Dei nomine Amen,” etc. a.p. 1478, Maii 1g. In
the chapter-house for the election of a prior for that day,
on the free resignation of Peter Berne, having celebrated
in the first place mass at the high altar ‘De spiritu
sancto,” and having called a chapter by tolling a bell, ut
moris est; in the presence of a notary and witnesses
appeared personally Peter Berne, Thomas Ashford, Stephen
Clydgrove, and John Ashton, presbyters, and Henry
Canwood,) in chapter assembled; and after singing the

1 Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years; and that
there was quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478;

328 THE ANTIQUITIES

hymn ‘Veni Creator Spiritus,’ ‘cum versiculo et oratione
‘Deus qui corda’; declarataque licentia Fundatoris et
Patroni; futurum priorem eligendi concessa, et constitu-
tione consilii generalis que incipit ‘Quia propter’ declaratis;
viisque per quas possent ad hanc electionem procedere,” by
the decretorum doctorem, whom the canons had taken to
direct them—they all and every one “ dixerunt et affirma-
runt se nolle ad aliquam viam procedere”’ :—but, for this
turn only, renounced their right, and unanimously trans-
ferred their power to the bishop the ordinary of the place,
promising to receive whom he should provide; and
appointed a proctor to present the instrument to the
bishop under their seal; and required their notary to
draw it up in due form, etc. subscribed by the notary.
After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter, he
proceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by the
following instrument, John Sharp, alias Glastenbury.

Fol. 56. Provisro Prioris per Epo.

Willmus, etc. to our beloved brother in Christ John
Sharp, a/ias Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton,
of the order of St. Austin, in the diocese of Bath and
Wells, canon-regular—sa/utem, etc. ‘De tue circumspec-
tionis industria plurimum confidentes, et virum providum
et discretum, literarum scientia, et moribus merito com-
mendandum,”’ etc.—do appoint you prior—under our seal.
“Dat. in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 20, 1478,
et nostre Consec. 31.”

Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he
was at liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance,
a stranger to the place, to govern the convent of Selborne,
hoping by this method to have broken the cabal, and
to have interrupted that habit of mismanagement that had

for, instead of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clyd-
grove, Ashton, and Canwood, all new men, who were soon gone in their
turn off the stage, and are heard of no more. For, in six years after,
there seem to have been no canons at all,

OF SELBORNE 329

pervaded the society: but he acknowledges, in an evidence
lying before us, that he never did succeed to his wishes with
respect to those late governors,—‘‘ quos tamen male se
habuisse, et inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque
ad presentia tempora post debitam investigationem, &c.
inyenit.”” The only time that he appointed from among
the canons, he made choice of Peter Berne, for whom he
had conceived the greatest esteem and regard.

When prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he
returned again to his former condition of canon, in which
he continued for some years: but when he was re-chosen,
and had abdicated a second time, we find him in a forlorn
state, and in danger of being reduced to beggary, had not
the bishop of Winchester interposed in his favour, and
with great humanity insisted on a provision for him for
life. The reason for this difference seems to have been,
that, in the first case, though in years, he might have been
hale and capable of taking his share in the duty of the
convent; in the second, he was broken with age, and no
longer equal to the functions of a canon.

Impressed with this idea the bishop very benevolently
interceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions on the
new-elected prior in the following manner.

Fol. 56. ‘In Dei nomine Amen. Nos Willmus, &c.
considerantes Petrum Berne,” late prior, “in administra-
tione spiritualium et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter
vixisse et rexisse; ipsumque senio et corporis debilitate
confractum ; ne in opprobrium religionis mendicari coga-
tur ;—eidem annuam pensionem a Domino Johanne Sharp,
alias Glastonbury, priore moderno,” and _ his successors,
and, from the Priory or church, to be payed every year
during his life, “de voluntate et ex consensu expressis,”’ of
the said John Sharp, ‘‘sub ea que sequitur forma verborum
—assignamus”’

1st. That the said prior and his successors, for the
time being, honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of
the priorship, ‘“‘eidem esculenta et poculenta,’’ while he
remained in the Priory “sub consimili portione eorundem
prout convenienter priori,” for the time being, ministrari

330 THE ANTIQUITIES

contigerit; and in like manner uni famulo, whom he should
choose to wait on him, as to the servientibus of the prior.

Item. ‘‘Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam honestam
cameram”’ in the Priory, “cum focalibus necessariis seu
opportunis ad eundem.”’

Item. ‘We will, ordain, &c. to the said P. Berne, an
annual pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the
Priory, to be paid by the hands of the prior quarterly.”

The bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and his
successors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction,
and that before their installation.

“Lecta et facta sunt haec in quodam alto oratorio,”
belonging to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 1478,
in the presence of John Sharp, who gave his assent, and
then took the oath before witnesses, with the other oaths
before the chancellor, who decreed he should be inducted
and installed; as was done that same day.

How John Sharp, aHas Glastonbury, acquitted himself
in his priorship, and in what manner he made a vacancy,
whether by resignation, or death, or whether he was
removed by the visitor, does not appear; we only find
that some time in the year 1484 there was no prior, and
that the bishop nominated canon Ashford to fill the
vacancy.

LETTER XXIII

Tus Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last
prior of Selborne; and therefore here will be the proper
place to say something concerning a list of the priors, and
to endeavour to improve that already given by others.

At the end of bishop Tanner’s Notitia Monastica, the
folio edition, among Brown Willis’s Principals of Religious
Houses occur the names of eleven of the priors of Selborne,
with dates. But this list is imperfect, and particularly at
the beginning; for though the Priory was founded in
1232, yet it commences with Nich. de Cantia, elected in

OF SELBORNE 331

1262; so that for the first thirty years no prior is
mentioned; yet there must have been one or more. We
were in hopes that the register of Peter de Rupibus
would have rectified this omission; but, when it was
examined, no information of the sort was to be found.
From the year 1410 the list is much corrected and
improved; and the reader may depend on its being
thence forward very exact.

A List of the Priors of Selborne Priory, from Brown
Willis’s Principals of Religious Houses, with additions
within [ | by the author.

[John --~- was prior, sine dat.]}

Nich. de Cantia el. - - - - - 1262.
[Peter was priorin - - - - 1271.]
[Richard was prior in - - - - 1280. ]

Will. Basing was prior in - - - - 1299.

Walter de Insulael. in = - - - - 1324.

[Some difficulties, and a devolution ; but the election
confirmed by mee Stratford, J

John de Winton - - - 1339.
Thomas Weston = - - - 1377.
John Winchester PWrvudhestey, - - - 1410.

[Elected by bishop Beaufort “ per viam vel formam
simplicis compromissi.””]
[John Stype, a/as Stepe, in - - - - IAT.)
Peter Bene [a/as Berne or Bernes, appointed keeper,
and, by lapse to bishop Wayneflete, prior]in 1454.
[He resigns in 1468. ]
John Morton [prior of ReygateJin - = - 1468.
[The canons by compromise transfer the power of
election to the bishop. |
Will. Winsor [Wyndesor, prior for a few days] 1471.
[But removed on account of an irregular election. ]
Thomas Farwill [Fairwise, vicar of Somborne] 1471.
[By compromise again elected by the bishop. |

1 See, in Letter XI. of these Antiquities, the reason why prior John
---, who had transactions with the Knights Templars, is placed in the
list before the year 1262.

332 THE ANTIQUITIES

[Peter Berne, re-elected by scrutiny in - - 1472.]
[Resigns again in 1478.]
Iohn Sharper [Sharp] a/as Glastonbury - - 1478.

[Canon-reg. of Bruton, elected by the bishop by
compromise. |

[ Thomas Ashford, canon of Selborne, last prior elected
by the bishop of Winchester, some time in the year 1484,
and deposed at the dissolution. ]

LETTER XXIV

BisHop WaynerLete’s efforts to continue the Priory still
proved unsuccessful; and the convent, without any canons,
and for some time without a prior, was tending swiftly to
its dissolution.

When Sharp’s a/ias Glastonbury’s, priorship ended does
not appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to
remove some priors for male-administration: but it is not
well explained how that could be the case with any, unless
with Sharp; because all the others, chosen during his
episcopate, died in their office, viz. Morton and Fairwise;
Berne only excepted, who relinquished twice voluntarily,
and was moreover approved of by Wayneflete as a person
of integrity. But the way to show what ineffectual pains
the bishop took, and what difficulties he met with, will be
to quote the words of the libel of his proctor Radulphus
Langley, who appeared for the bishop in the process of
the impropriation of the Priory of Selborne. The extract
is taken from an attested copy.

“ Ttem—that the said bishop—dicto prioratui et personis
ejusdem pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales, labores,
et diligentias gravissimas quam plurimas, tam per se quam
per suos, pro reformatione premissorum impendebat : et
aliquando illius loci prioribus, propter malam et inutilem
administrationem, et dispensationem bonorum predicti
prioratus, suis demeritis exigentibus, amotis ; alios priores

OF SELBORNE 333

in quorum circumspectione et diligentia confidebat, prefecit:
quos tamen male se habuisse ac inutiliter administrare, et
administrasse, usque ad presentia tempora post debitam
investigationem, &c. invenit.’” So that he despaired with
all his care—“ statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare: et
considerata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo et con-
jecturando futura, de aliqua bona et sancta religione
ejusdem ordinis, &c. juxta piam intentionem primevi
fundatoris ibidem habend. desperatur.”

William Wainfleet, bishop of Winchester, founded his
college of Saint Mary Magdalene, in the University of
Oxford, in or about the year 1459; but the revenues
proving insufficient for so large and noble an establishment,
the college supplicated the founder to augment its income
by putting it in possession of the estates belonging to the
Priory of Selborne, now become a deserted convent, with-
out canons or prior. The president and fellows state the
circumstances of their numerous institution and scanty
provision, and the ruinous and perverted condition of the
Priory. The bishop appoints commissaries to inquire into
the state of the said monastery; and, if found expedient,
to confirm the appropriation of it to the college, which
soon after appoints attornies to take possession, September
24, 1484. But the way to give the reader a thorough
insight respecting this transaction, will be to transcribe a
farther proportion of the process of the impropriation from
the beginning, which will lay open the manner of pro-
ceeding, and show the consent of the parties.

IMPROPRIATIO SELBORNE, 1485.

“*Universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis, &c. Ricardus
Dei gratia prior ecclesie conventualis de Novo Loco, &c.*

1Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo Loco was the monastery afterwards
called the New Minster, or Abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester.
Should any intelligent reader wonder to see that the prior of Hyde
Abbey was commissary to the bishop of Winton, and should conclude
that there was a mistake in titles, and that the abbot must have been
here meant; he will be pleased to recollect that this person was the

334 THE ANTIQUITIES

ad universitatem vestre notitie deducimus, &c. quod coram
nobis commissario predicto in ecclesia parochiali S* Georgii
de Essher, dict. Winton. dioc. 3° die Augusti, a.p.
1485. Indictione tertia pontificat. Innocenti 8%. ann.
1™°, judicialiter comparuit venerabilis vir Jacobus Preston,
S. T. P. infrascriptus, et exhibuit literas commissionis—
quas quidem per magistrum Thomam Somercotes notarium
publicum, &c. legi fecimus, tenorem sequentem in se con-
tinentes.”” The same as No. 103, but dated—“ In manerio
nostro de Essher, Augusti 1™, a.D. 1485, et nostre
consec. anno 39.” [No. 103 is repeated in a book con-
taining the like process in the preceding year by the same
commissary, in the parish church of St. Andrew the apostle,
at Farnham, Sept. 6th, anno 1484.] ‘ Post quarum liter-
arum lecturam—dictus magister Jacobus Preston, quasdam
procuratorias literas mag. Richardi Mayewe presidentis, ut
asseruit, collegii beate Marie Magdalene, &c. sigillo rotundo
communi, &c. in cera rubea impresso sigillatas realiter
exhibuit, &c. et pro eisdem dnis suis, &cc. fecit se partem,
ac nobis supplicavit ut juxta formam in eisdem traditam
procedere dignaremur, &c.”” After these proclamations
no contradictor or abjector appearing—‘‘ad instantem
petitionem ipsius mag. Jac. Preston, procuratoris, &c.
procedendum fore decrevimus vocatis jure vocandis ; nec
non mag. Tho. Somercotes, &c. in actorum nostrorum
scribam nominavimus. Consequenter et ibidem tunc
comparuit magister Michael Clyff, &c. et exhibuit in ea
parte procuratorium suum,” for the prior and convent of
the cathedral of Winton, “‘et fecit se partem pro eisdem.—
Deinde comperuit coram nobis, &c. honestus vir Willmus
Cowper,” proctor for the bishop as patron of the Priory
of Selborne, and exhibited his ‘“ procuratorium, &c.”
After these were read in the presence of Clyf and
Cowper, ‘‘ Preston, viva voce,”’ petitioned the commissary
to annex and appropriate the Priory of Selborne to the

second in rank; for, “next under the abbot, in every abbey, was the
prior.” Pref. to Notit. Monast. p. xxix. Besides, abbots were great
personages, and too high in station to submit to any office under the
bishop.

OF SELBORNE 335

college—* propter quod fructus, redditus, et proventus
ejusdem coll. adeo tenues sunt, et exiles, quod ad sus-
tentationem ejus, &c. non sufficiunt.”—The commissary,
“ad libellandum et articulandum in scriptis ’—adjourned
the court to the 5th of August, then to be held again in
the parish church of Essher.

W. Cowper being then absent, Radulphus Langley
appeared for the bishop, and was admitted his proctor.
Preston produced his libel or article in scriptis for the
union, etc. “ et admitti petiit eundem cum effectu ; cujus
libelli tenor sequitur.—In Dei nomine, Amen. Coram
nobis venerabili in Christo patre Richardo, priore, &c. de
Novo Loco, &c. commissario, 8c.” Part of the college
of Magd. dicit. allegat. and in his “ scriptis proponit, &c.”

“ Imprimis—that said college consists of a president and
eighty scholars, besides sixteen choristers, thirteen servien-
tes inibi altissimo famulantibus, et in scientiis plerisque
liberalibus, presertim in sacra theologia studentibus, nedum
ad ipsorum presidentis et scholarium pro presenti et im-
posterum, annuente deo, incorporandum in eodem releva-
men; verum etiam ad omnium et singulorum tam
scholamun quam religiosorum cujuscunque ordinis unde-
quaque illuc confluere pro salubri doctrina volentium
utilitatem multiplicem ad incrementa virtutis fideique
catholice stabilimentum. Ita videlicet quod omnes et sin-
guli absque personarum seu nationum delectu illuc accedere
volentes, lecturas publicas et doctrinas tam in grammatica
loco ad collegium contiguo, ac philosophiis morali et naturali,
quam in sacra theologia in eodem collegio perpetuis tem-
poribus continuandas libere atque gratis audire valeant
et possint ad laudem gloriam et honorem Dei, &c. extitit
fundatum et stabilitum.”

For the first item in this process see the beginning of
this letter. Then follows item the second—‘ that the
revenues of the college non sufficiunt his diebus.” “Item
—that the premisses are true, &c. et super eisdem labora-
runt, et laborant publica vox et fama. Unde facta fide
petit pars eorundem that the Priory be annexed to the
college : ita quod dicto prioratu vacante liceat iis ex tunc

336 THE ANTIQUITIES

to take possession, &c.” This libel, with the express con-
sent of the other proctors, we, the commissary admitted,
and appointed the sixth of August for proctor Preston to
prove the premisses.

Preston produced witnesses, W. Gyfford, 8.T.P., John
Nele, A.M., John Chapman, chaplain, and Robert Baron,
literatus, who were admitted and sworn, when the court
was prorogued to the 6th of August ; and the witnesses,
on the same sth of August, were examined by the com-
missary, ‘‘in capella infra manerium de Essher situata,
secrete et singillatim.’’ Then follows the “literae pro-
curatoriae’’: first that of the college, appointing Preston
and Langport their proctors, dated August 30th, 1484 ;
then that of the prior and convent of the cathedral of
Wintén, appointing David Husband and Michael Cleve,
dated September 4th, 1484: then that of the bishop,
appointing W. Gyfford, Radulphus Langley, and Will.
Cowper, dated September 3rd, 1484. Consec. 38°.—
“Quo die adveniente in dicta ecclesia parochiali,” appeared
“coram nobis’? James Preston to prove the contents of
his libel, and exhibited some letters testimonial with the
seal of the bishop, and these were admitted ; and conse-
quenter Preston produced two witnesses, viz. Dominum
Thoman Ashforde nuper priorem dicti prioratus, et Willm.
Rabbys, /iteratum, who were admitted and sworn, and
examined as the others, by the commissary; “tunc &
ibidem assistente scriba secrete & singillatim”’; and their
depositions were read and made public, as follows :

Mr. W. Gyfford, S.T.P., aged 57, of the state of Magd.
Coll. etc. etc. as before :

Mr. John Nele, aged 57, proves the articles also :

Robert Baron, aged 56:

Johannes Chapman, aged 35, also affirmed all the five
articles :

Dompnus Thomas Ashforde, aged 72 years—* dicit 2°™
3% 4" articulos in eodem libello contentos, concernentes
statum dicti prioratus de Selebourne, fuisse et esse veros.””

W. Rabbys, aetat 40 ann. agrees with Gyfford, etc.

Then follows the letter from the bishop, “in subsidium

OF SELBORNE 337

probationis,” abovementioned.—* Willmus, &c. salutem,
&c. noverint universitas vestra, quod licet nos prioratui de
Selebourne, &zc. pie compacientes sollicitudines pastorales,
labores, diligentias quam plurimas per nos & commissarios
nostros pro reformatione status ejus impenderimus, jus-
ticia id poscente ; nihilominus tamen,”’ etc. as in the article
—to “desperatur,” dated “in manerio nostro de Essher,
Aug. 3d, 1485, & consec. 39.” Then, on the 6th of
August, Preston, in the presence of the other proctors,
required that they should be compelled to answer ; when
they all allowed the articles “‘ fuisse & esse vera”’ ; and the
commissary at the request of Preston, concluded the busi-
ness, and appointed Monday, August 8th, for giving his
decree in the same church of Essher ; and it was that day
read, and contains a recapitulation, with the sentence of
union, etc. witnessed and attested.

As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalen
college had obtained the decision of the commissary in
their favour, they proceeded to supplicate the pope, and to
entreat his holiness that he would give his sanction to the
sentence of union. Some difficulties were started at Rome;
but they were surmounted by the college agent, as appears
by his letters from that city. At length pope Innocent
VIII. by a bull’ bearing date the 8th day of June, in the
year of our Lord 1486, and in the second year of his
pontificate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed
the convent.

Thus fell the considerable and well-endowed Priory of
Selborne after it had subsisted about two hundred and
fifty-four years: about seventy-four years after the sup-
pression of Priories alien by Henry V. and about fifty
years before the general dissolution of monasteries by

Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had fondly

1There is nothing remarkable in this bull of pope Innocent except
the statement of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is
therein estimated at 160 flor, auri; whereas bishop Godwin sets it at
3372 15s. 64¢. Nowa floren, so named, says Camden, because made by
Florentines, was a gold coin of king Edward III, in value 6s. whereof
160 is not one seventh part of 3374. 155. 644.
Y

338 THE ANTIQUITIES

imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the
pious motives on which it was established, might have pre-
served it inviolate to the end of time—yet it fell,

“To teach us that God attributes to place
No sanctity, if none be thither brought
By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell.”
Miton’s Paradise Lost.

LETTER XXV

Warnrzet did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising
from this new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few
months after he had effected the union of the Priory with
his late founded college ; and was succeeded in the see of
Winchester by Peter Courtney, some time towards the end
of the year 1486.

In the beginning of the following year the new bishop
released the president and fellows of Magdalen College
from all actions respecting the Priory of Selborne ; and the
prior and convent of Saint Swithun, as the chapter of
Winchester cathedral, confirmed the release.’

N. 293. “ Relaxatio Petri epi Wintdn Ricardo Mayew,
Presidenti omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi
debite pro unione Prioratus de Selborne dicto collegio.
Jan. 2. 1487. et translat. anno 1°.”

N. 374. “ Relaxatio prioris et conventus S“ Swithini
Wintén confirmans relaxationem Petri ep. Winton.” 1487.
Jan. 13.”

Ashforde, the deposed prior, who had appeared as an
evidence for the impropriation of the Priory at the age of
seventy-two years, that he might not be destitute of a
maintenance, was pensioned by the college to the day of
his death ; and was living on till 1490, as appears by
his acquittances.

Rec. A. ff. 46.
“Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum

1 The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory.

OF SELBORNE 339

pervenerit, Richardus Mayew, presidens, &c. et scolares,
salutem in Domino.”’

“‘ Noveritis nos prefatos presidentem et scolares dedisse,
concessisse, et hoc presenti scripto confirmasse Thome
Ashforde, capellano, quendam annualem redditum sex
librarum tresdecim solidorum et quatuor denariorum bone
et legalis monete Anglie—ad terminum vite prefati
Thome ’’—to be paid from the possessions of the college
in Basingstoke.—* In cujus rei testimonium sigillum nos-
trum commune presentibus apponimus. Dat. Oxon. in
coll. nostro supra dicto primo die mensis Junii anno regis
Ricardi tertii secundo,” viz. 1484. The college in their
grant to Ashforde, style him only capellanus; but the
annuitant very naturally, and with a becoming dignity,
asserts his late title in his acquittances, and identifies him-
self by the addition of nuper priorem, or late prior.

As, according to the persuasion of the times, the
depriving the founder and benefactors of the Priory of
their masses and services would have been deemed the
most impious of frauds, bishop Wainfleet, having by statute
ordained four obits for himself to be celebrated in the
chapel of Magdalen College, enjoined in one of them a
special collect for the anniversary of Peter de Rupibus,
with a particular prayer—“ Deus Indulgentiarum.”

The college also sent Nicholas Langrish, who had been
a chantry priest at Selborne, to celebrate mass for the souls
ot all that had been benefactors to the said Priory and
college, and for all the faithful who had departed this life.

N. 356. Thomas Knowles, presidens, etc.—‘ damus
et concedimus Nicholao Langrish quandum capellaniam,
vel salarium, sive alio quocunque nomine censeatur, in
prioratu quondam de Selborne pro termino 40 annorum,
si tam diu vixerit. Ubi dictus mag". Nicholaus celebrabit
pro animabus omnium benefactorum dicti prioratus et coll.
nostri, et omnium fidelium defunctorum. Insuper nos, &c.
concedimus eidem ibidem celebranti in sustentationem suam
quandam annualem pensionem sive annuitatem octo librarum
&c.—in dicta capella dicti prioratus—concedimus duas
cameras contiguas ex parte boreali dicte capelle, cum una

340 THE ANTIQUITIES

coquina, et cum uno stabulo conveniente pro tribus equis,
cum pomerio eidem adjacente voc. le Orcheyard—Preterea
26s. 8d. per ann. ad inveniendum unum clericum ad servi-
endum sibi ad altare, et aliis negotiis necessariis ejus.”—
His wood to be granted him by the president on the
progress.—He was not to absent himself beyond a certain
time; and was to superintend the coppices, wood, and
hedges. “Dat. 5° die Juli. an. Hen. VIII% 36°.”
[viz. 1546].

Here we see the Priory in a new light, reduced as it
were to the state of a chantry, without prior and without
canons, and attended only by a priest, who was also a sort
of bailiff or woodman, his assistant clerk, and his female
cook. Owen Oglethorpe, president, and Magd. Coll. in
the fourth year of Edward VI., viz. 1551, granted an
annuity of ten pounds a year for life to Nich. Langrish,
who, from the preamble, appears then to have been fellow
of that society: but, being now superannuated for busi-
ness, this pension is granted him for thirty years, if he
should live so long. It is said of him—‘cum jam sit
provectioris etatis quam ut,” etc.

Laurence Stubb, president of Magd. Coll. leased out the
Priory lands to John Sharp, husbandman, for the term
of twenty years, as early as the seventeenth year of
Henry VIII.—viz. 1526: and it appears that Henry
Newlyn had been in possession of a lease before, probably
towards the end of the reign of Henry VII. Sharp’s rent
was vil. per ann.—Regist. B. p. 43.

By an abstract from a lease lying before me, it appears
that Sharp found a house, two barns, a stable, and a
duf-house [dove-house], built, and standing on the south
side of the old Priory, and late in the occupation of
Newlyn. In this abstract also are to be seen the names
of all the fields, many of which continue the same to this
day.’ Of some of them I shall take notice, where any thing
singular occurs.

1 It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings,
farms, fields, woods, etc. which appear on the ancient deeds, and evidences
of several centuries standing, are still preserved in common use with little

OF SELBORNE 341

And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise] mede.
Every convent had its Paradise; which probably was an
enclosed orchard, pleasantly laid out, and planted with
fruit-trees. Tylehouse grove, so distinguished from having
a tiled house near it. Butt-wood close; here the servants
of the Priory and the village-swains exercised themselves
with their long bows, and shot at a mark against a butt,
or bank. Cundyth [conduit] wood: the engrosser of the
lease not understanding this name has made a strange
barbarous word of it. Conduit-wood was and is a steep,
rough cow-pasture, lying above the Priory, at about a
quarter of a mile to the south-west. In the side of this
field there is a spring of water that never fails; at the head
of which a cistern was built which communicated with
leaden pipes that conveyed water to the monastery. When
this reservoir was first constructed does not appear, we
only know that it underwent a repair in the episcopate of
bishop Wainfleet, about the year 1462.8 Whether these
pipes only conveyed the water to the Priory for common
and culinary purposes, or contributed to any matters of
ornament and elegance, we shall not pretend to say; nor
when artists and mechanics first understood any thing of
hydraulics, and that water confined in tubes would rise to
its original level. There is a person now living who had
been employed formerly in digging for these pipes, and
once discovered several yards, which they sold for old lead.
or no variation :—as Norton, Southington, Durton, Achangre, Blackmore,
Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, etc. etc. At the same time it should be acknow-
ledged that other places have entirely lost their original titles, as le Buri

and Trucstede in this village; and la Liega, or la Lyge, which was the
name of the original site of the Priory, etc.

1 Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep off
the inclemencies of the weather: and then by degrees laid straw or haum.
The first refinements on roofing were shingles, which are very ancient.
Tiles are a very late and imperfect covering, and were not much in use
till the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first tiled house at
Nottingham was in 1503.

2 There is also a Butt-close just at the back of the village.

3N. 381. “Clausure terre abbatie ecclesie parochiali de Seleburne,
ixs. iliid. Reparacionibus domorum predicti prioratus iiii. 4d. xis.
Aque conduct. ibidem, xxiiid.”

342 THE ANTIQUITIES

There was also a plot of ground called Tan-house
garden: and “ Tannaria sua,” a tan-yard of their own, has
been mentioned in Letter XVI. This circumstance I just
take notice of, as an instance that monasteries had trades
and occupations carried on within themselves.

Registr. B. pag. 112. Here we find a lease of the
parsonage of Selborne to Thomas Sylvester and Miles
Arnold, husbandmen—of the tythes of all manner of corne
pertaining to the parsonage—with the offerings at the
chapel at Whaddon belonging to the said parsonage. Dat.
June 5. 29. Hens 8" [viz. 1536).

As the chapel of Whaddon has never been mentioned
till now, and as it is not noticed by bishop Tanner in his
Notitia Monastica, some more particular account of it will
be proper in this place. Whaddon was a chapel of ease to
the mother church of Selborne, and was situated in the
tithing of Oakhanger, at about two miles distance from
the village. The farm and field whereon it stood are
still called chapel-farm and field:* but there are no
remains or traces of the building itself, the very founda-
tions having been destroyed before the memory of man.
In a farm yard at Oakhanger we remember a large hollow
stone of a close substance, which had been used as a hog-
trough, but was then broken, This stone, tradition said,
had been the baptismal font of Whaddon chapel. The
chapel had been in a very ruinous state in old days; but
was new built at the instance of bishop Wainfleet, about
the year 1463, during the first priorship of Berne, in
consequence of a sequestration issued forth by that visitor
against the Priory on account of notorious and shameful
dilapidations.®

1 There is still a wood near the Priory called Tanner’s wood.

2 This is a manor-farm, at present the property of Lord Stawell; and
belonged probably in ancient times to Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, one of
the first benefactors to the Priory.

8 See Letter XIX. of these Antiquities. —‘‘ Summa total. solut. de novis
edificationibus, et reparacionibus per idem tempus, ut patet per comput.”

“Videlicet de nova edificat. Capelle Marie de Wadden. xiili. 4d.
vs. vilid—Reparacionibus ecclesie Prioratus, cancellor, et capellar.
ecclesiarum et capellarum de Selborne, et Estworhlam,”—ete. etc.

OF SELBORNE 343

The Selborne rivulet becomes of some breadth at Oak-
hanger, and, in very wet seasons, swells to a large flood.
There is a bridge over the stream at this hamlet of
considerable antiquity and peculiar shape, known by the
name of Tunbridge: it consists of one single blunt gothic
arch, so high and sharp as to render the passage not very
convenient or safe. Here was also, we find, a bridge in
very early times; for Jacobus de Hochangre, the first
benefactor to the Priory of Selborne, held his estate at
Hochangre by the service of providing the king one foot-
soldier for forty days, and by building this bridge.
‘Jacobus de Hochangre tenet Hochangre in com. South-
ampton per Serjantiam,’ inveniendi unum valectum in
exercitu Domini regis [scil. Henrici III“.] per 40 dies;
et ad faciendum pontem de Hochangre: et valet per
ann. C. s.’’—Blount’s Ancient Tenures, p. 84.

A dove-house was a constant appendage to a manerial
dwelling: of this convenience more will be said hereafter.

A corn-mill was also esteemed a necessary appendage of
every manor; and therefore was to be expected of course
at the Priory of Selborne.

The prior had secta molendini, or ad molendinum:? a
power of compelling his vassals to bring their corn to be
ground at his mill, according to old custom. He had
also, according to bishop Tanner, secta molendini de Strete:
but the purport of Szrete, we must confess, we do not
understand. Svret, in old English, signifies a road or
highway, as Watling Strete, etc. therefore the prior might
have some mill on a high road. The Priory had only one
mill originally at Selborne ; but, by grants of lands, it
came possessed of one at Durton, and one at Oakhanger,
and probably some on its other several manors. ‘The

1Sargentia, a sort of tenure of doing something for the king.

2«Servitium, quo feudatorii grana sua ad Domini molendinum, ibi
molenda perferre, ex consuetudine, astringuntur.”

3 Thomas Knowles, president, etc. ann. Hen. 8vi. xxiii.° [viz. 1 532]
demised to J. Whitelie their mills, etc. for twenty years. Rent xxiii.
iiiid,—Accepted Frewen, president, etc. ann. Caroli xv. [viz. 1640]
demised to Jo. Hook and Elizabeth, his wife, the said mills. Rent as
above,

344 THE ANTIQUITIES

mill at the Priory was in use within the memory of man,
and the ruins of the mill-house were standing within these
thirty years: the pond and dam, and miller’s dwelling,
still remain. As the stream was apt to fail in very dry
summers, the tenants found their situation very distressing,
for want of water, and so were forced to abandon the spot.
This inconvenience was probably never felt in old times,
when the whole district was nothing but woodlands: and
yet several centuries ago there seem to have been two or
three mills between Well-head and the Priory. For the
reason of this assertion, see Letter XXIX. to Mr.
Barrington.

Occasional mention has been made of the many
privileges and immunities enjoyed by the convent and its
priors; but a more particular state seems to be necessary.
The author therefore thinks this the proper place, before
he concludes these antiquities, to introduce all that has
been collected by the judicious bishop Tanner, respecting
the Priory and its advantages, in his Notitia Monastica, a
book now seldom seen, on account of the extravagance of
its price; and being but in few hands cannot be easily
consulted! He also adds a few of its many privileges
from other authorities:—the account is as follows.
Tanner, page 166,

SELEBURNE

A priory of black canons, founded by the often-
mentioned Peter de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, a.p.
1233, and dedicated to the blessed Virgin Mary: but was
suppressed—and granted to William Wainfleet, bishop of
Winchester, who made it part of the endowment of St.
Mary Magdalene College in Oxford. The bishops of
Winchester were patrons of it. [Pat. 17. Edw. II.] Vide
in Mon. Angi. tom. Il. p. 343. “ Cartam fundationis ex

1A few days after this was written a new edition of this valuable

work was announced, in the month of April of the year 1787, as
published by Mr. Nasmith,

OF SELBORNE 345

ipso autographo in archivis Coll. Magd. Oxon. ubi etiam
conservata sunt registra, cartae, rentalia et alia munimenta
ad hunc prioratum spectantia.

“Extracta quaedam e registro MSS. in Bibl. Bodl.
Dodsworth, vol. 89. f. 140.”

* Cart. antiq. N. N. a. 93. P. P. n. 48. et 72.0. 0. n.
40. plac. coram justit. itin. [Southampton] 20 Hen. rot.
25. De eccl. de Basing, & Basingstoke. Plac. de juratis
apud Winton. 40 Hen. III. rot.—Prosecta molendini de
strete. Cart. ¢4. Hen. [IL m. 3. [De mereata, & feria
apud Seleborne, a mistake.] Pat. 9. Edw. I. m.—Pat. 30.
Edw. I. m.—Pat. 33. Edw. I. p. 1. m.—Pat. 35. Edw. I.
m.—Pat. 1. Edw. Il. p. 1. m. 9. Pat. 5. Edw. II. p. 1. m.
21. De terris in Achanger. Pat. 6. Edw. II. p. 1. m. 7. de
eisdem. Brev. in Scacc. 6. Edw. II. Pasch. rot. 8. Pat. 17.
Edw. II. p. 1. m—Cart. ro. Edw. III. n. 24. Quod
terrae suae in Seleburne, Achangre, Norton, Basings,
Basingstoke, and Nately, sint de afforestatae, and pro aliis
libertatibus. Pat. 12. Edw. III. p. 3. m. 3.—Pat. 13. Edw.
III. p. 1. m.—Cart. 18. Edw. III. n. 24.”

“N.N. 33. Rex concessit quod prior, et canonici de
Seleburn habeant per terras suas de Seleburne, Achangre,
Norton, Brompden, Basinges, Basingstoke, & Nately,
diversas libertates.

«P, P. 48. Quod prior de Seleburne, habeat terras
suas quietas de vasto, et regardo.” —Extracts from Ayloffe’s
Calendars of Ancient Charters.

« Placita de juratis & assis coram Salom de Roff, & sociis
suis justic. itiner. apud Wynton in comitatu Sutht. —anno
regni R. Edvardi filii reg. Henr. octavo.—Et Pot de Sele-
born ht in Selebr. fure. thurset. pillory, emendagse panis, &
suis.” [cerevisiae. |—Chapter-house, Westminster.

“Placita Foreste apud Wynton in com. Sutham.—Anno
reg. Edwardi octavo coram Rog. de Clifford.—&c. Justic.
ad eadem placita audienda et tminand. assigtis.

“Carta Pror de Seleburn, H. Dei gra. rex. angi. &c.
Concessim. prior. sce. Marie de Seleburn. et canonicis ibidem
Deo servient. — — — q ipi et oes hoies sui in pdcis terris

346 THE ANTIQUITIES

suis et tenementis manentes sint in ppetum quieti de sectis
Swanemotor. et omnium alior. placitor. for. et de espelta-
mentis canum. et de omnibus submonitoibz. placitis querelis
et exaccoibus et occoibz. ad for. et for. et viridar. et eor.
ministros ptinentibz.’’—-Chapter-house, Westminster.

“ Plita Forestarum in com. Sutht. apud Suthamton — —
anno regni regis Edwardi tcii post conquestum quarto coram
Johé Mantvers. &c. justic. itinand. 8c.”

De hiis qui clamant libtates infra Forestas in com. Sutht.

‘Prior de Selebourne clamat esse quietus erga dnm
regem de omnibus finibus et amerciamentis p tnsgr. et
omnibus exaccoibz ad Dom. regem vel hered. suos ptinent.
pret. plita corone reg.

“Item clamat q@ si aliquis hominum suorum de terris et
ten. p. delicto suo vitam aut membrum debeat amittere vel
fugiat, & judico stare noluerit vel aliud delictum fecit pro
quo debeat catella sua amittere, ubicunq; justitia fieri
debeat omnia catella illa sint ptci Prioris et successor. suor.
Et liceat eidem priori et ballis suis ponere se in seisinam in
hujusmodi catall. in casibus pdcis sine disturbacone ballivor.
dni reg. quorumcunque. = _

“Item clam. quod licet aliqua libtatum p dnm regem con-
cessar. pcessu temporis quocunq; casu contingente usi non
fuerint nlominus postea eadm libtate uti possit. Et pdcus
prior quesitus p. justic. quo waranto clamat omn. terr. et
ten. sua in Seleburne, Norton, Basynges, Basyngestoke, &
Nattele, que prior domus pdte huit & tenuit Xr. die April
anno regni dni Hen. reg. pavi dni reg. nue XVIII. imppm
esse quieta de vasto et regardo, et visu forestarior. et viri-
darior. regardator. et omnium ministrorum foreste,”
etc. etc.—Chapter-house, Westminster.

OF SELBORNE 347

LETTER XXVI

THoucu the evidences and documents of the Priory and
parish of Selborne are now at an end, yet, as the author
has still several things to say respecting the present state of
that convent and its Grange, and other matters, he does
not see how he can acquit himself of the subject without
trespassing again on the patience of the reader by adding
one supplementary letter.

No sooner did the Priory (perhaps much out of repair
at the time) become an appendage to the college, but it
must at once have tended to swift decay. Magdalen College
wanted now only two chambers for the chantry priest and
his assistant ; and therefore had no occasion for the hall,
dormitory, and other spacious apartments belonging to so
large a foundation. The roofs neglected, would soon
become the possession of daws and owls; and, being rotted
and decayed by the weather, would fall in upon the floors;
so that all parts must have hastened to speedy dilapidation
and a scene of broken ruins. Three full centuries have
now passed since the dissolution ; a series of years that
would craze the stoutest edifices. But, besides the slow
hand of time, many circumstances have contributed to
level this venerable structure with the ground ; of which
nothing now remains but one piece of a wall of about ten
feet long, and as many feet high, which probably was part
of an out-house. As early as the latter end of the reign
of Hen. VII. we find that a farm-house and two barns
were built to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly
out of its materials. Avarice again has much contributed
to the overthrow of this stately pile, as long as the tenants
could make money of its stones or timbers. Wantonness,
no doubt, has had a share in the demolition ; for boys love
to destroy what men venerate and admire. A remarkable
instance of this propensity the writer can give from his
own knowledge. When a schoolboy, more than fifty
years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps a party concerned,

348 THE ANTIQUITIES

in the undermining a portion of that fine old ruin at
the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the
name of Holy Ghost Chapel. Very providentially the vast
fragment, which these thoughtless little engineers en-
deavoured to sap, did not give way so soon as might have
been expected ; but it fell the night following, and with
such violence that it shook the very ground, and, awaken-
ing the inhabitants of the neighbouring cottages, made
them start up in their beds as if they had felt an earth-
quake. The motive for this dangerous attempt does not
so readily appear: perhaps the more danger the more
honour thought the boys; and the notion of doing some
mischief gave a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says
upon another occasion,

“Tt look’d so likea sin it pleas’d the more.”

Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the
ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might have
ascertained its ichnography, and some judicious hand might
have developed its dimensions. But, besides other ravages,
the very foundations have been torn up for the repair of the
highways: so that the site of this convent is now become
a rough, rugged pasture-field, full of hillocks and pits,
choked with nettles, and dwarf-elder, and trampled by
the feet of the ox and the heifer.

As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among
the foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his
labourers discovered two large stones, with which the
farmer was so pleased that he ordered them to be taken
out whole. One of these proved to be a large Doric
capital, worked in good taste ; and the other a base of a
pillar ; both formed out of the soft freestone of this
district. These ornaments, from their dimensions, seem
to have belonged to massive columns ; and show that the
church of this convent was a large and costly edifice.
They were found in the space which has always been
supposed to have contained the south transept of the
Priory church. Some fragments of large pilasters were
also found at the same time. The diameter of the capital

Cornfield

OF SELBORNE 349

was two feet three inches and an half ; and of the column,
where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and three
quarters.

Two years ago some labourers digging again among the
ruins found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft stone,
containing about two gallons in measure, on the verge of the
brook, in the very spot which tradition has always pointed
out as having been the site of the convent kitchen. This
clumsy utensil,’ whether intended for holy water, or what-
ever purpose, we were going to procure, but found that
the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried it
out on the highways.

The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a
Grange, an usual appendage to manerial estates, where the
fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up for use, at a
time when men took the natural produce of their estates
in kind. The mansion of this spot is still called the
Grange, and is the manor-house of the convent possessions
in this place. The author has conversed with very ancient
people who remembered the old original Grange ; but it
has long given place to a modern farm-house. Magdalen
College holds a court-leet and court-baron? in the great
wheat-barn of the said Grange, annually, where the President
usually superintends, attended by the bursar and steward
of the college.®

The following uncommon presentment at the court is
not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of the
king’s field (a large common-field so called), a considerable
tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns and bushes,
and known by the name of Kite’s Hill, which is presented,

1 A judicious antiquary, who saw this vase, observed, that it possibly
might have been a standard measure between the monastery and its
tenants. The priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and
beer in Selborne manor: and probably the adjustment of dry measures for
grain, etc.

2 The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter
and Whitsuntide.

8 Owen Oglethorp, president, etc. an. Edw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547]
demised to Robert Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent
vi',—Index of Leases.

350 THE ANTIQUITIES

year by year, in court as not ploughed. Why this injunc-
tion is still kept up respecting this spot, which is sur-
rounded on all sides by arable land, may be a question not
easily solved, since the usage has long survived the know-
ledge of the intention thereof. We can only suppose that
as the prior, besides thurset and pillory, had also furcas, a
power of life and death, that he might have reserved this
little eminence as the place of execution for delinquents.
And there is the more reason to suppose so, since a spot
just by is called Gally [Gallows] hill.

The lower part of the village next the Grange, in which
is a pond and a stream, is well known by the name of
Gracious-street, an appellation not at all understood.
There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham, called also
Gracious-pond : and another, if we mistake not, near
Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This strange denomi-
nation we do not at all comprehend, and conclude that it
may be a corruption from some Saxon word, itself perhaps
forgotten.

It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner
was mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dodsworth,
‘De mercatu et FERIA de Seleburne.”” Selborne never had
a chartered fair; the present fair was set up since the
year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who had found in an
old almanack that there had been a fair here in former
days on the first of August ; and were desirous to revive
so joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set
his face, and persisted in crying it down, as the probable
occasion of much intemperance. However the fair pre-
vailed; but was altered to the twenty-ninth of May,
because the former day often interfered with wheat-harvest.
On that day it still continues to be held, and is become an
useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower
house-keepers brew beer against this holiday, which is
dutied by the exciseman ; and their becoming victuallers
for the day without a license is overlooked. ; _

Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within
themselves. Thus at the priory, a low and moist situation,
there were ponds and stews for their fish: at the same

OF SELBORNE 351

place also, and at the Grange in Culver-croft,’ there were
dove-houses ; and on the hill opposite to the Grange the
prior had a warren, as the names of the Coney-crofts and
Coney-croft Hanger plainly testify.’

Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure or
holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are
manor farms and freehold ; as is the manor of Chapel near
Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger-house and
Blackmoor. The Priory and Grange are leasehold under
Magdalen-college, for twenty-one years, renewable every
seven : all the smaller estates in and round the village are
copyhold of inheritance under the college, except the little
remains of Gurdon-manor, which had been of old leased
out upon lives, but have been freed of late by their present
lord, as fast as those lives have dropped.

Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity
from the near neighbourhood of the Priory. For monas-
teries were of considerable advantage to places where they
had their sites and estates, by causing great resort, by
procuring markets and fairs, by freeing them from the
cruel oppression of forest-laws, and by letting their lands
at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was suppressed,
the town which it had occasioned began to decline, and
the market was less frequented ; the rough and sequestered
situation gave a check to resort, and the neglected roads
rendered it less and less accessible.

That it had been a considerable place for size formerly
appears from the largeness of the church, which much
exceeds those of the neighbouring villages; by the ancient
extent of the burying ground, which, from human bones
occasionally dug up, is found to have been much encroached
upon ; by giving a name to the hundred ; by the old founda-
tions and ornamented stones, and tracery of windows that
have been discovered on the north-east side of the village;
and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds still to be
seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in
the times of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some

1 Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon.
2 A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.

352 THE ANTIQUITIES

variety at their tables on fast days; therefore the more

they abounded the better probably was the condition of the
inhabitants.

More Particulars respecting the Old F. amily Tortoise, omitted
in the Natural History.

Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too
apt to undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of
instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord,

— — — “Much too wise to walk into a well”:

and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha;
but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest
precaution.

Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun;
because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the
poet says of solid armour—scald with safety.” He
therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella
of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the waving forests of an
asparagus-bed.

But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline
of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by
getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall: and, though he
never has read that planes inclining to the horizon receive
a greater share of warmth," he inclines his shell, by tilting
it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray.

Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed
reptile: to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which
he cannot lay aside; to be imprisoned, as it were, within his
own shell, must preclude, we should suppose, all activity
and disposition for enterprise. Yet there isa season of the
year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions
are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring

1 Several years ago a book was written entitled “ Fruit-walls improved
by inclining them to the horizon”: in which the author has shown, by
calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall
on such walls than on those which are perpendicular.

OF SELBORNE 353

by five in the morning; and, traversing the garden,
examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through
which he will escape if possible: and often has eluded the
care of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field.
The motives that impel him to undertake these rambles
seem to be of the amorous kind; his fancy then becomes
intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond
his usual gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his
ordinary solemn deportment.

APPENDIX

No. 1

No. 6

@)

Caria Petri et conventus ecclesie Winton. pro fundatione
prioratus de Seleburne, etc. dat. 1233

Omwnisus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum per-
venerit. P. divina miseracione Wintdn ecclesie minister
humilis salutem in Domino: Ex officio pastorali tenemur
viros religiosos, qui pauperes spiritu esse pro Christo
neglectis lucris temporalibus elegerunt; spirituali affectu
diligere, fovere pariter et creare, eorumq; quieti sollicite
providere; ut tanto uberiores fructus de continua in lege
Dei meditatione percipiant, quanto a conturbationibus
malignorum amplius fuerint ex patroni provisione et
ecclesiastica defensione securi. Hinc est quod universitati
vestre notificamus, nos divine caritatis instinctu, de assensu
conventus ecclesie nostre Winton, fundasse domum reli-
giosam, ordinis magni patris Augustini, in honore Dei et
gloriose semper virginis ejusdem Dei genetricis Marie,
apud Seleburne ; ibidemque canonicos regulares instituisse :
ad quorum sustentationem et hospitum et pauperum
susceptionem, dedimus, concessimus, et presenti carta
nostra confirmavimus eisdem canonicis, totam terram
354

APPENDIX 355

quam habuimus de dono Jacobi de Acangre: et totam
terram, cursum aque, boscum et pratum que habuimus
de dono Jacobi de Nortone; et totam terram boscum
et redditum que habuimus de dono domini Henrici
regis Anglie; cum omnibus predictarum possessionum
pertinentiis. Dedimus etiam et concessimus in proprios
usus eisdem canonicis ecclesiam predicte ville de Seleburne,
et ecclesias de Basing, et de Basingestok, cum omnibus
earundem ecclesiarum capellis, libertatibus, et aliis pertinen-
clis; salva honesta et sufficienti sustentatione vicariorum in
predictis ecclesiis ministrantium; quorum presentatio ad
priorem predicte domus religiose de Seleburne et canonicos
ejusdem loci in perpetuum pertinebit. Preterea possessiones
et redditus, ecclesias sive decimas, quas in episcopatu nostro
adempti sunt, vel in posterum, Deo dante, justis modis
poterunt adipisci, sub nostra et Winton ecclesie protectione
suscepimus, et episcopalis auctoritate officii confirmavimus ;
eadem auctoritate firmiter inhibentes, ne quis locum, in
quo divino sunt officio mancipati, seu alias eorum pos-
sessiones, invadere vi vel fraude vel ingenio malo occupare
audeat, vel etiam retinere, aut fratres conversos, servientes,
vel homines eorum aliqua violentia perturbare, sive fugientes
ad eos causa salutis sue conservande a septis domus sue
violenter presumat extraere. Precipimus autem ut in eadem
domo religiosa de Seleburne ordo canonicus, et regularis
conversatio, secundum regulam magni patris Augustini,
quam primi inhabitatores professi sunt, in perpetuum
observetur ; et ipsa domus religiosa a cujuslibet alterius
domus religiose subjectione libera permaneat, et in omni-
bus absoluta; salva in omnibus episcopali auctoritate, et
Winton ecclesie dignitate. Quod ut in posterum ratum
permaneat et inconcussum, presenti scripto et sigilli nostri
patrocinio duximus confirmandum. His testibus domino
Waltero abbate de Hyda. Domino Walters Priore de
sancto Swithuno, domino Stephano priore de Motesfonte,
magistro Alano de Stoke; magistro Willo de sancte Marie
ecclesia, tunc officiali nostro; Luca archidiacon’ de surr’.
magistro Humfrido de Millers, Henrico et Hugone capel-

lanis, Roberto de Clinchamp, et Petro Rossinol clericis,

356 APPENDIX

et multis aliis. Datum apud Wlnes' per manum P. de
cancellis. In die sanctorum martirum Fabiani et Sebastiani.
Anno Domi millesimo ducentesimo tricesimo tercio.

Seal, two saints and a bishop praying :

Legend: SVI. M. SIT6. BONI. P@TR’ PAVL’ 6
PATRONI.

NUMBER II

(Ni 108) @)

Carta petens licentiam eligendi prelatum a Domino Episcopo
Wintoniensi

Defuncto prelato forma petendi licentiam eligendi

Domino et patri in Christo reverendo domino et P. Dei
gratia Wintoniensi episcopo, devoti sui filii supprior mon-
asterii de S. Wintoniensis dioceseos salutem cum subjectione
humili, reverentiam, et honorem. Monasterio nostro de
S. in quo sub protectione vestra vivimus, sub habitu
regulari, Prioris solacio destituto per mortem bone memorie,
etc. quondam Prioris nostri, qui tali hora in aurora diem
clausit extremum, vestre paternitati reverende et domina-
tioni precipue istum nostrum et nostri monasterii casum
flebilem cum merore nunciamus; ad vestre paternitatis
refugium fratres nostros A. et C. canonicos destinantes,
rogando et petendo devote quatenus nobis dignemini licen-
ciam tribuere, ut monasterio predicto, Prioris regimine
destituto, providere possimus, invocata Spiritus sancti gratia,

1 Probably Wolvesey-house near Winchester.

APPENDIX 357

per electionem canonicam de Priore. Actum in monasterio
predicto 5 kalend. etc. anno Domini, etc. Valeat reverenda
paternitas vestra semper in Domino.

Forma licencie concesse

P. Dei gratia Wintoniensis episcopus dilectis in Christo
filiis suppriori et conventui talis loci salutem, gratiam, et
benedictionem. Viduitatem monasterii vestri vacantis per
mortem quondam R. Prioris vestri, cujus anime propicietur
altissimus, paterno compacientes affectu, petitam a nobis
eligendi licenciam vobis concedimus, ut patronus. Datum
apud, etc. 3 kalend. Jul. anno consecrationis nostre tertio.

Forma decreti post electionem conficiendi

In nomine Domini nostri Jhesu Christi, Amen. Monas-
terio beate Marie talis loci Winton. dioc. solacio destituto per
mortem R. quondam Prioris ipsius; ac corpore ejus, prout
moris est, ecclesiastice sepulture commendato; petita cum
devocione licentia per fratres K. et . canonicos a ven: in
Christo patre et domino domino P. Dei gratia Wintoniensi
episcopo ejusdem monasterii patrono, eligendi priorem, et
optenta ; die dato, a toto capitulo ad eligendum vocati fuere
evocandi, qui debuerunt, voluerunt, et potuerunt comode
electioni prioris in monasterio predicto interesse: omnes
canonici in capitulo ejusdem ecclesie convenerunt tali die,
anno Dom. etc. ad tractandum de electione sui prioris faci-
enda; qui, invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, ad procedendum
per formam scrutinii concencientes.

(N. 108)
Modus procedendi ad electionem per formam scrutinit

Omnibus in capitulo congregatis qui debent volunt et possunt
comode interesse election: eligendi sunt tres de capitulo’ non

1Fratres canonicos, See Forma decreti, etc.

358 APPENDIX

nostro obediencias ores,! qui erunt scrutatores, et sedebunt in
angulo capituli; et primo requirent vota sua propria, vide-
licet, duo requirent tertium et duo alterum, etc. dicendo sic,
“Frater P. in quem concentis ad eligendum in prelatum
nostrum ?’’ quibus examinatis, et dictis eorum per vicem ex
ipsis in scriptura redactis, vocabunt ad se omnes fratres sin-
gillatim, primo suppriorem, etc. Et unus de tribus exami-
natoribus scribet dictum cujuslibet. Celebrato scrutinio,
publicare db coram omnibus. Facta ptmoiid concensum col-
lectione apparebit in quem pars major capituli et sanior con-
centit; quo viso, major pars dicet minori, “Cum major
pars et sanior capituli nostri concenciat in fratrem R. ipse
est eligendus, unde, si placet, ipsum communiter eligamus’”’;
si vero omnes acquieverint, tunc ille qui majorem vocem
habet in capitulo surgens dicet, ‘Ego frater R. pro toto
capitulo eligo fratrem R. nobis in pastorem’’; et omnes
dicent; ‘‘ Placet nobis.” Et incipient, “Tz Deum Laup-
AMus.” Si vero in unum concordare nequiverint, tunc
hiis, qui majorem vocem habet inter illos qui majorem et
saniorem partem capituli constituerint, dicet, ‘Ego pro me
et illis qui mecum concenciunt in fratrem R. eligo ipsum

>

in,” etc. Et illi dicent, ‘‘ Placet nobis,” etc.

Forma recte presentandi electum

Reverendo in Christo patri et domino domino P. Dei
gratia Winton. episcopo devoti sui filii frater R. Supprior
conventualis beate Marie de tali loco, et eyusdem loci Con-
ventus, cum subjectione humili, omnem obedienciam, re-
verenciam, et honorem. Cum conventualis ecclesia beate
Marie talis loci, in qua sub protectione vestra vivimus sub
habitu regulari, per mortem felicis recordationis R. quondam
prioris nostri destituta ecclesia priore, qui 6'° kalend. Jul.
in aurora anno Dom. etc. diem clausit extremum; de cor-
pore ejus, prout moris est, ecclesiastice tradito sepulture ;
petita a vobis, tanquam a Domino, et vero ejusdem ecclesie
patrono et pastore, licencia eligendi priorem et optenta;

1Obedientiores sc. more regular, In virtute obedientiae occurs in
Not. Visit.

APPENDIX 350

convenientibus omnibus canonicis predicte ecclesie in capi-
tulo nostro, qui voluerunt debuerunt et potuerunt comode
electioni nostre interesse, tali die anno Dom. supradicto,
invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, fratrem R. de C. ejusdem
ecclesie canonicum unanimi assensu et voluntate in priorem
nostrum, ex puris votis singulorum, unanimiter eligimus.
Quem reverende paternitati vestre et dominacioni precipue
Priorem vero patrono nostro et pastore confirmandum, si
placet, tenore presentium presentamus; dignitatem vestram
humiliter et devote rogantes, quatenus, dicte electioni
felicem prebere volentes assensum, eidem R. electo nostro
nunc confirmabitis, et quod vestrum est pastorali solicitudine
impendere dignemini. In cujus rei testimonium presentes
litteras sigillo capituli nostri signatas paternitati vestre trans-
mittimus. Valeat reverenda paternitas vestra semper in
Domino. Datum tali loco die et anno supradictis. Omnes
et singuli, per fratres A. B. et C. ejusdem ecclesie canonicos
de voluntate tocius conventus ad inquirenda vota singulorum
constitutos, secreto et singillatim requisiti; tandem publi-
cato scrutinio et facta votorum colectione inventum est,
majorem et seniorem partem tocius capituli dicte ecclesie in
fratrem S. de B. dicte ecclesie canonicum unanimiter et
concorditer concencisse; vel sic, quando inventum omnes
canonicos dicte ecclesie preter duos in fratrem, a.p. quibus
statim majori parti eligendum adquiescenter: frater k.
supprior ecclesie memorate, juxta potestatem sibi a toto
conventu traditam, vice consociorum suorum et sua ac
tocius conventus, dictum fratrem S. de B. in priorem ejus-
dem ecclesie elegit, sub hac forma; “ Ego frater supprior
conventualis ecclesie beate Marie talis loci, potestate et
auctoritate mihi a toto conventu dicte ecclesie tradita et
commissa, quando, puplicato scrutinio et omnibus circa hoc
rite peractis, inveni majorem et partem seniorem tocius
capituli nostri in fratrem S. de B. virum providum unani-
miter concencisse, ipsum nobis et ecclesie nostre, vice tocius
conyentus, in priorem eligendum; et eidem electioni sub-
scribo; cui electioni omnes canonici nostri concencerunt,
et subscripserunt.”—“ Ego frater de C. presenti electioni
concencio, et subscribo.” Et sic de singulis electoribus ;

360 APPENDIX

in cujus rei testimonium sigillum capituli nostri apponi feci-
mus ad presentes.

NUMBER III
Visitatio Notabilis de Seleburne
1387

Witimus permissione divina Winton Episcopus dilectis
filiis Priori et Conventui Prioratus de Selborne Ordinis S*.
Augustini, nostrae dioceseos, Salutem, gratiam, et ben.
Suscepti regiminis cura pastoralis officii nos inducit invigi-
lare solicite nostrorum remediis subjectorum, et eorum
obviare periculis ac scandala removere; ut sic de vinea
domini per cultoris providi sarculum vicia extirpentur
inferantur virtutes, excessus debite corrigantur, et sub-
ditorum mores in nimium prolapsorum per apposicionem
moderaminis congrui reformentur : Hanc nempe solicitudi-
nem nostris humeris incumbentem assidua meditacione
pensantes, ne sanguis vester de manibus nostris requiratur,
ad vos et vestrum Prioratum supradictum, prout nostro
incumbebat officio pastorali, nuper ex causa descendimus
visitandi; et dum inter vos nostre visitacionis officium
iteratis vicibus actualiter exercuimus, nonnulla reperimus,
que non solum obviant regularibus institutis, verum eciam
que religioni vestre non congruunt, nec conveniunt
honestati; ad que per nostrum antidotum debite refor-
manda opem et operam prout expedit et oportet apponimus,
quas credimus efficaces, infra scripta siquidem precepta
nostra pariter et decreta, sanctorum patrum constitucion-
ibus editis et debite promulgatis canonicisque ac regularibus
institutis fulcita, vobis nostri sigilli roborata munimine
transmittimus, inter vos futuris temporibus efficaciter
observanda, quatinus ad Dei laudem, divini cultus ac vestrae

APPENDIX 361

religionis augmentum, ipsis mediantibus, per viam salutis
feliciter incedatis; mores et actus vestri abstrahantur a
noxiis, et ad salutaria dirigantur.

No. I. In primis ut Domino Deo nostro, a quo cuncta
bona procedunt, et omnis religio immaculata sumpsit
exordium, in Prioratu vestro predicto serviatur laudabiliter
in divinis; Vobis, in virtute sancte obediencie ac sub
majoris excommunicationis sententie pena, firmiter injun-
gendo mandamus, quatinus hore canonice, tam de nocte
quam de die, in choro a conventu cantentur ; misse quoque
de beata Maria et de die, necnon misse alie consuete horis
et devocione debitis et cum moderatis pausacionibus
celebrentur: nec liceat alicui de conventu ab horis et
missis hujusmodi se absentare, aut, postquam incepte
fuerint, ante complecionem earum ab ipsis recedere
quovismodo; nisi ex causa necessaria vel legitima per
priorem vel suppriorem aut alium presidentem loci, ut
convenit, approbanda; in quo casu ipsorum omnium
consciencias apud altwonnum arctius oneramus ; con-
trarium vero facientes in proximo tunc capitulo gelehranda
absq accepcione qualibet personarum regularem subeant
disciplinam ; acrius insuper puniendi si contumacia vel
pertinacia delinquencium hoc exposcat; si quis vero post
trinam correpcionem debite se non correxerit in premissis,
pro singulis vicibus quibus contrarium fecerit ipsum
singulis sextis feriis in pane et aqua dumtaxat precipimus
jejunare.

No. II. Item quia in visitacione nostra predicta com-
perimus evidenter quod silencium, quasi in exilio positum,
ad quod juxta regulam S" Augustini efficaciter estis
astricti, locis et temporibus debitis inter vos minime
observatur contra observancias regulares; Vobis omnibus
et singulis firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus silen-
cium, prout vos decet, regula supradicta, de cetero locis et
temporibus hujusmodi observetis; a vanis et frivolis
colloquiis, sicut decet, vos penitus ‘abstinendo: illos vero,
qui_silencium hujusmodi in locis predictis non _observa-
verint, animadversione condigna precipimus castigari; et,
si quis tercio super hoc legitime convictus fuerit, preter

362 APPENDIX

regularem disciplinam, die, quo debite silencitum non
tenuerit, pane et servicia dumtaxat et legumine sit
contentus.

No. III. Item quia nonnulli concanonici et confratres
prioratus vestri predicti validi atq; sani et in sacerdocio
constituti celebracionem missarum absq; causa legitima
indebite ac minus voluntarie multociens, ut dicitur, negli-
gunt et omittunt; fundatorum aliorumq; benefactorum
suorum animas, pro quibus sacrificia offerre tenentur,
suffragiis nequiter defraudando; Vobis, ut supra, firmiter
injungendo mandamus, quatinus vos omnes et singuli
Prioratus predicti concanonici et confratres in sacerdocio
constituti frequenter confiteamini confessoribus per Priorem
deputandis; quos quidem confessores discretos et idoneos,
prout numerus personarum dicti conventus exigit, per vos
dominum Priorem predictum precipimus deputari; miss-
asque, impedimento cessante legitimo, tam pro vivis quam
pro defunctis, pro quibus orare tenemini, de cetero,
quanto frequencius poteritis, celebretis devocius, sicut
decet; impedimentum vero predictum cum contigerit
Priori vel Suppriori Prioratus predicti per illud pacientes
infra triduum declarari volumus et exponi, ac per eorum
alterum prout justum fuerit approbari, vel eciam reprobari;
in quo casu ipsorum omnium tam exponencium quam
approbancium apud altissimum consciencias districtius
Oneramus; contrarium vero facientes, primo super hoc
convicti, proxima quarta feria sequenti in pane, servisia,
et legumine ; secundo vero convicti feria quarta et sexta
sequentibus meda consimili; tercio vero convicti dictis
feriis extunc sequentibus in pane et aqua jejunent,
quousque judicio prioris se correxerint in premissis ;
statuentes preterea quod Prior et Supprior Prioratus
predicti contra hujusmodi delinquentes semel singulis
mensibus diligenter inquirant, et quos culpabiles invenerint
in premissis modo predicto studeant castigare.

No. IV. Item quia transitus communis secularium per-
sonarum utriusque sexus per claustrum Prioratus vestri in
congruis temporibus minime exercetur, et potissime horis
illis quibus fratres de conventu in contemplacione sancta

APPENDIX 363

studiis quoque ac lectionibus variis inibi occupantur ; unde
dissoluciones plurime provenerunt, et poterunt in futuro
verisimiliter provenire, ac ipsorum fratrum quieti et
religionis honestati plurimum derogatur: Vobis ut supra
arcius injungendo mandamus, quatinus, cum secundum
regulam sancti Augustini convergacio vestra debeat esse
a secularibus hujusmodi separata, ad animarum ac’ eciam
rerum pericula, que possent et solent ex concursu hujus-
modi provenire, caucius evitanda; transitum communem
predictum per prefatum claustrum de cetero fieri nullatenus
permittatis, per quem vestra devocio et religionis honestas
vulnerari vel eciam impediri valeant quovismodo, sub
pena excommunicacionis majoris quam in contravenientes
intendimus canonice fulminare: illum vero, ad quem
ostiorum claustri custodia pertinet, si propter illius negli-
genciam sive culpam transitus hujusmodi sustineatur
indebite, ut prefertur; pro singulis vicibus, quibus hoc
factum fuerit, singulis quartis feriis in pane, servisia, et
legumine dumtaxat jejunet; et, si nec sic se correxerit
debite in hac parte, ab officio deponatur, ac alius, magis
providus, loco suo celeriter subrogetur.

No. V. Item quia ostia ecclesie atq; claustri prioratus
vestri predicti non servantur nec serantur temporibus
debitis, nec modo debito, ut deceret; sed custodia
eorundem agitur et omittitur multociens necgligenter ;
adeo quod suspecte persone et alie inhoneste per ecclesiam
et claustrum hujusmodi incedunt frequenter in tenebris
atq; umbris, temporibus eciam suspectis et illicitis, indecen-
ter; unde dampna et scandala varia pluries provenerunt,
et in posterum verisimiliter poterunt provenire; Vobis, ut
supra, mandamus, firmiter injungentes, quatinus dicta
ostia de cetero claudi faciatis, et clausa per ministros
idoneos custodiri temporibus debitis, prout decet; vocis
inhibentes expresse, ne ostia ecclesie vestre predicte (illa
videlicet que inter navem ipsius ecclesie et chorum ejusdem
existunt), nec ostia claustri que ducunt ad extra, et per que
introitus secularium in ipsum claustrum patere poterit,
de mane, antequam prima incipiatur in choro ; aut com-
mestionis tempore; nec eciam de sero, postquam conventus

364, APPENDIX

collationem inceperit ; nisi in causa utili vel necessaria per
priorem vel suppriorem, ut convenit, approbanda,
aperiantur de cetero quovis modo: ad que fideliter
exequenda sacristam, qui pro tempore fuerit, ad cujus
oficium permissa pertinent sub pena amocionis ab officio
suo arcius Oneramus, acrius per nos puniendum prout nobis
videbitur expedire.

No. VI. Item quia nonnulli concanonici et confratres
prioratus vestri minus sapiunt in lectura, non intelligentes
quid legant, sed literas quasi prorsus ignorantes, dum
psallunt vel legunt, accentum brevem pro longo ponunt
pluries, et e contra; et per invia gradientes sanum
scripturarum intellectum adulterantur multociens, et
pervertunt; fitque, ut dum scripturas sacras non sapiant,
ad perpetrandum illicita proniores reddantur: Vobis
Domino Priori in virtute obedientie, firmiter injungendo
mandamus, quatinus, cum legere et non intelligere sit
necgligere, noviciis et aliis minus sufficienter literatis
idoneus de cetero deputetur magister, qui ipsos in cantu
et aliis primitivis scienciis instruat diligenter juxta regularia
instituta; quatinus, in eisdem perfectius eruditi, cecitatis
squamis et ignorancie nebulis depositis, que legant intelligant
et agnoscant, et ad contemplandum clarius misteria Scrip-
turarum efficiantur, ut convenit, promciores.

No. VII. Item quia constituciones sive decretales
Romanorum Pontificum vestrum ordinem concernentes
(ille videlicet de quibus in constitucionibus recolende
memorie Domini Ottoboni, quondam sedis Apostolice
in Anglia legati, fit mencio specialis), inter vos nullatenus
recitantur, prout per constituciones ejusdem legati recitari
mandantur; unde, dum decretales ipsas et contenta in eis
penitus ignorantes, committitis multociens que prohibentur
expressius per easdem in vestrarum periculum animarum:
Vobis firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus, ne ignor-
anciam aliquam pretendere poteritis in hac parte, decretales
predictas, prout in prefatis domini constitucionibus Ottoboni
plenius recitantur, in quodam quaterno seu volumine
absque more dispendio faciatis conscribi; ipsas bis singulis
annis in vestro capitulo, juxta formam constitutionum

APPENDIX 365

dictarum, recitari clarius facientes, ad informacionem
rudium et perfectionem eciam provectorum ; adjicientes
preterea, ut magistri noviciorum presencium et eciam
futurorum ipsos in regula s, Augustini diligenter
instruant et informant, ipsam regulam eis vulgariter
exponendo; quodque idem novicii_ per frequentem
recitacionem ejusdem illam sciant quasi cordetenus, sicut
in dictis constitucionibus plenius continetur, per quam
incedere poterint via recta et errorum tenebras caucius
evitare : super execucione vero premissorum debite facienda
dominum priorem prioratus vestri predicti arcius oneramus
quatinus ea que premisimus in hoc casu sub pena
suspensionis ab ipsius officio per mensem diligencius
exequatur.

No. VIII. Item quia canonici et confratres prioratus
vestri predicti, ipsorum propriam voluntatem pocius quam
utilitatem communem sectantes, non vestes necessarias,
cum opus fuerit, sed certam et limitatam ac determinatam
quantitatam peccunie, velut annuum redditum, pro vestibus
hujusmodi percipiunt annuatim, contra regulam S*,
Augustini ac domini Ottoboni et aliorum sanctorum
patrum canonica instituta; fitque, ut, dum effrenis illa
religiosorum cupiditas, aliena specie colorata, vetita
concupiscat, sancta religio, solutis constantie frenis, in
luxum labentem ad latitudinis tramites que ducunt ad
mortem, miserabiliter noscitur declinare: cui quidem
morbo pestifero, ne putrescat et vermes generet cor-
ruptivos, mederi cicius cupientes nichil novi statuendo
sed sanctorum patrum vestigiis inherendo, volumus ac
eciam ordinamus, quod canonicis et confratribus memoratis
presentibus et futuris de bonis et facultatibus communibus
prioratus vestri predicti vestris usibus deputatis vestes
et calciamenta, cum indiguerint, necessaria, juxta facultates
predictas, et nullo modo peccuniam, pro eisdem, per eos
qui super hiis ministrandi gerent offictum de cetero
ministrentur ; vestes vero inveteratas et ineptas hujusmodi
canonicorum camerario communi tradi volumus pauperibus
erogandas juxta regulam S#. Augustini, et alias canonicas
sanctiones contrarium vero facientes, si camerarius fuerit,

366 APPENDIX

penam suspensionis ab officio ipsum incurrere volumus
ipso facto; si si_vero alius canonicus de conventu existat,
preter alias pmas regulares tam peccunia quam eciam
indumentis novis careat illo anno.

No. IX. Item quia nonnulli canonici et confratres
Prioratus vestri predicti opportunitate captata, extra septa
Prioratus absque societate honesta, evagandi causa, nulla
super hoc optenta licencia, se transferunt pluries indecenter ;
alii preterea provectiores certis officiis deputati ad maneria
et loca alia officiis hujusmodi assignata equitant, quando
placet, ibidem manentes pro eorum libito voluntatis, nullo
canonico ipsis in socium assignato, contra ordinis decenciam
et religionis eciam honestatem, constitucionesque Sanctorum
Patrum editas in hac parte: Cum igitur religiosos extra
eorum Prioratum sic vagari aut in eorum maneriis vel
ecclesiis eis appropriatis soli manere expresse prohibeant
canonica instituta ; nos, premissa fieri de cetero prohibentes.
Vobis firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus, cum aliquis
Prioratus vestri canonicus vel confrater super vel pro
negociis propriis vel eciam communibus exire contigerit,
prius ad hoc a Priore vel Suppriore, si presentes in Prioratu
fuerint, alioquin, ipsis absentibus, ab ipso qui protunc
conventui preesse contigerit, licenciam habeat specialem ;
cul assignari volumus unum canonicum in socium, ne
suspicio sinistra vel scandalum oriatur ; qui, associata eisdem
juxta qualitatem negocii cometiva honesta, in eundo et
eciam redeundo gravitate servata modestius semper incedant,
et expletis negociis ad Prioratum cicius revertantur, que
regularibus conveniunt institutis devocius impleturi:
contrarium vero facientes, absque remissione seu accepcione
qualibet personarum, regularem subeant disciplinam ; super
quo presidencium conventus consciencias arcius oneramus,
ipsosque nichilominus pro singulis vicibus, quibus excesserint
in premissis, singulis sextis feriis in pane et aqua jejunent ;
et si officiarius fuerit, ipso facto, si aliquod canonicum non
obsistat, ab ipsius officio sit suspensus.

No. X. Item quia comperimus evidenter, quod nonnulli
canonici domus vestre, secundum carnem pocius quam
secundum spiritum dissolute viventes, nulla causa racionabili

APPENDIX 367

subsistente, nudi jacent in lectis absque femoralibus et
camisiis contra eorum observancias regulares; Vobis igitur
firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus vos omnes et
singuli canonici S#. Augustini regulam et in ea parte
ordinis vestri canonica instituta de cetero efficaciter
observetis: contrarium vero facientes singulis quartis
feriis in pane, servisia, et legumine tantummodo sint
contenti; si quis vero post trinam correptionem reus
inventus fuerit in hac parte pro singulis vicibus singulis
extunc feriis sextis in pane et aqua hunc precipimus
jejunare; Priorem vero ac Suppriorem domus predicte
sub pena suspensionis ab officiis eorundem arcius onerantes,
quatinus super premissis sepius et diligenter inquirant, et
quos culpabiles invenerint eos penis predictis percellere
non postponant.

No. XI. Item quia nonnullos canonicos et confratres
Prioratus vestri predicti publicos reperimus venatores ac
venacionibus hujusmodi spreto jugo regularis observancie,
publice intendentes, ac canes tenentes venaticos, contra
regularia instituta; unde dissolutiones quamplures, ani-
marum pericula corporumque, ac rerum dispendia
multociens oriuntur; nos volentes hoc frequens vicium
a Prioratu predicto radicitus extirpare; Vobis omnibus
et singulis tenore presencium inhibemus, vobis nichilominus
firmiter injungentes, ne quisquam canonicorum Prioratus
vestri predicti publicis venacionibus vel clamosis ex proposito
intendere de cetero, vel eciam interesse ; canesve venaticos
per se vel alios tenere presumat, publice vel occulte, infra
Prioratum vel extra, contra formam capituli, “Nz In aGRo
DOMINICO,”’ et alias canonicas sanctiones; per hoc autem
Prioratus vestri predicti nec juri vel consuetudini, quod
vel quam habere dinoscitur, in ea parte non intendimus in
aliquo derogare : contrarium vero facientes preter disciplinas
et penas alias canonicas pro singulis vicibus singulis quartis
et sextis feriis in pane et servisia jejunando precipimus
castigari.

No. XII. Item quia canonici Prioratus vestri predicti
quibus officia forinseca et intrinseca committuntur, fingunt
se, cum possent et deberent in choro divinis officiis

368 APPENDIX

interesse, in officiis hujusmodi sibi commissis multociens
occupari, que possent ante vel post horas hujusmodi
commode fieri, et eciam exerceri; propter quod cultus
divinus minuitur, et alii claustrales nimium onerantur;
Vobis in virtute sancte obedientie et sub pena excommuni-
cacionis majoris firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus
officiaril quicunque ecclesie vestre predicte i in chee eyusdem
divinis officiis a modo personaliter intersint, nisi ex causa
legitima officiorum suorum et per presidentem conventus,
qui pro tempore fuerit, approbanda, eos contigerit absentare ;
in quo casu de et super absencia sua legalitateque causaram
pretensarum in hac parte ipsorum presidencium officiariorum
consciencias apud altissimum districtius oneramus.

No. XIII. Item, quia juxta sapientis doctrinam ubi
majus iminet periculum, ibi caucius est agendum, volumus
et eciam ordinamus, quod duo canonici discreti et idonei de
conventu Prioratus vestri predicti per ipsum conventum
vel majorem partem ejusdem annis singulis de cetero
eligantur, qui bis in anno ad maneria, tam Priori quam
eciam pro restentacione conventus hujusmodi ceterisque
officiartis assignata, personaliter se transferant et accedant,
statum maneriorum ipsorum tam in edificiis quam eciam
in stauro vivo vel mortuo plenarie supervisuri; quique
super hiis que invenerunt in eisdem conventui supradicto
relacionem fidelem in scriptis, ut convenit facere teneantur;
ut, si mors alicujus officiarii vel casus illius fortuitus
evenerit, de statu officii hujusmodi cujuscumque conventum
non lateat memoratum ; premissa vero vobis precipimus
efficaciter observanda sub pena nostro arbitrio limitanda,
vobis, si in hiis necgligentes fueritis vel remissi, acrius
infligenda.

No. XIV. Item quia solitus et antiquus numerus canoni-
corum in Prioratu vestro predicto, quod dolenter referimus,
adeo jam decrevit, ac eclam minuitur in presenti, quod abi
xlill. canonici vel circiter in habitu et observanciis regulari-
bus in dicto Prioratu solebant Altissimo devocius famulari
(quibus de bonis possessionibus ipsius Prioratus vestri
communibus que possidetis in victu et vestitu juxta
decenciam ordinis regularis honorifice ac debite fuerat

APPENDIX 369

ministratum), modo vero undecim canonici dumtaxat
existunt et serviunt in eodem ; quo fit, ut dum regis regum
cultum attenuet cohabitancium paucitas, contra multi-
formis nequitie hostem minuatur exercitus bellatorum :
Cum igitur juxta prefati domini Ottobini constitutiones
aliorumque sanctorum patrum canonica instituta, canoni-
corum antiquus numerus sit servandus, ac juxta sapientis
doctrinam ‘‘In multitudine populi sit dignitas regis, et in
paucitate plebis ignominia principis accendatur”’ ; Vobis in
virtute sancte obedientie ac sub pena majoris excomm.
firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus, cum omni
diligentia et celeritate debitis, de viris idoneis religioni
dispositis, et honestis vobis absque more dispendio pro-
videre curetis; ipsos in ordinem vestrum regularem in
supplecionem majoris numeri requisiti, seu saltem illius
numeri canonicorum ad quorum sustentacionem congruam,
aliis oneribus vobis incumbentibus debite supportatis,
vestre jam habite suppetunt facultates; super quibus
vestram et cujuslibet vestrum conscienciam arcius oner-
amus; celerius admittentes, ad augmentum cultus divini
et perfectionem majorem ordinis regularis, pro fundatori-
bus et benefactoribus vestris devocius, ut convenit,
intercessuros.

No. XV. Item quia comperimus evidenter quod vos,
domine Prior, cui ex debito vestri officii hoc incumbit, de
proprietariis canonicis Prioratus vestri predicti, juxta con-
stitutiones domini legati editas in hac parte, inquisicionem
debitam hactenus non fecistis, ministertum vobis creditum
in ea parte necgligentius omittendo; quo fit, ut ille
pestifer hostis antiquus pastoris wonsiderans continuatam
desideam oves miseras et errantes, ipsius hostis nequissimi
fraude deceptas in sitim avaricie prolabentes laqueo
proprietatis seduxit, contra sanctorum patrum canonica
instituta, in suarum grave periculum animarum; Vos
igitur requirimus et monemus, vobisque in virtute obedi-
encie firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus dicti legati
constitutiones, ut convenit, imitantes super proprietarus
hujusmodi saltem bis in anno inquisicionem faciatis de
cetero diligentem ; ipsos, si quos inveneritis, animadver-

2A

370 APPENDIX

sione condigna juxta regularia instituta canonice punientes;
si vero id adimplere necglexeritis, administracione vestra,
ipso facto noveritis vos privatum, donec premissa fueritis
diligenter executi, prout in constit. homini Ottoboni
legati predicti plenius continetur.

No. XVI. Item, cum secundum constit. dicti legati et
aliorum sanctorum patrum canonica instituta, abbates et
priores, proprios abbates non habentes, nec non officiarii
quicunque teneantur bis saltem singulis annis presente toto
conventu vel aliquibus ex senioribus ad hoc a capitulo
deputatis de statu Prioratus et de administracione sua
plenariam reddere rationem, quod tum in Prioratu vestro
predicto invenimus hactenus non servatum, unde plura
secuntur incommoda, et vestre utilitati communi plurimum
derogatur ; Vobis in virtute obediencie firmiter injungendo
mandamus, quatinus prefati domini legati, domini videlicet
Ottoboni, necnon bone memorie domini Stephani quondam
Archiepiscopi Cant. constit. editas in hac parte, faciatis
inter vos de cetero firmiter observari, sub pena suspensionis
officiariorum ipsorum ab eorum hujusmodi officiis, dictique
Prioris ab administracione sua, quam, si permissa necglex-
erint observare, ipso facto, donec id perfecerint, se
noverint incurrisse, prout in dictis constit. dicti Ottoboni
plenius continetur.

No. XVII. Item quia in Prioratu vestro predicto et
ecclesia ejusdem ac in nonnullis domibus, edificiis, muris et
clausuris ecclesie vestre prelibate, necnon maneriorum
ipsius Prioratus certis diversis officiis deputatorum, quas et
quae precessorum et predecessorum vestrorum industria
sumptuose construxerat, quamplures enormes et notabiles
sunt defectus, reparatione necessaria indigentes; unde
statum ipsius Prioratus ac maneriorum predictorum de-
formitas occupat, et multa incommoda insecuntur ; Vobis
igitur in virtute obedientie firmiter injungendo mandamus,
quatinus defectus hujusmodi, pro vestra utilitate communi
absque dilacionis incommodo, quamcicius poteritis, juxta
vires reparari debite faciatis ; alioquin Priorem ceterosque
officiarios quoscumque, qui in permissis necgligentes
fuerint vel remissi, nisi infra sex menses post notifica-

APPENDIX 371

cionem presencium sibi factam ad debitam reparationem
defectuum hujusmodi se preparaverint, cum effectu, ipso
facto ab officiis suis hujusmodi sint suspensi.

No XVII. Item, quia per vendiciones et concessiones
liberacionum et corrodiorum hactenus per vos factas,
reperimus dictum Prioratum multipliciter fore gravatum,
adeo quod ea, que ad divini cultus augmentum, sustenta-
cionem pauperum, et infirmorum, pia devocio fidelium
erogavit, mercenariorum ceca cupiditas jam absorbet ;
fitque, ut dum bona ejusdem Prioratus in alios usus quam
debitos, ne dixerimus in prophanos, nepharie convertantur,
altissimo famulancium in eadem numerus_ minuitur,
pauperes et infirmi suis porcionibus, ac ipsa ecclesia divinis
obsequiis nequiter defraudantur, contra intencionem
piissimam fundatorum, in vestrarum periculum animarum,
Indempnitati igitur ipsius ecclesie vestre in hac parte debite
providere, dictum quoque tam frequens incommodum ab
eadem radicitus extirpare volentes, bone memorie domini
Ottoboni legati predicti aliorumque sanctorum patrum
vestigiis inherentes; Vobis tenore presencium districtius
inhibemus, eciam sub pena excomm. majoris, ne corrodia,
liberaciones, aut pensiones personis aliquibus imperpetuum
vel ad tempus vendatis de cetero, vel aliqualiter concedatis,
absque nostro consensu et licencia speciali; presertim cum
vendiciones hujusmodi, que species alienacionis existunt,
Prioratus vestri predicti detrimentum procurent et
enormem eciam generat lesionem; si quis vero contra
hanc nostram inhibicionem aliquid attemptare presumpserit,
nisi id quod sic presumpserit revocaverit, ab officio sit
suspensus prout in constit. domini Ottoboni clarius
continetur.

No. XIX. Item quia quedam certe perpetue cantarie
pro fundatoribus et aliis benefactoribus vestris tam in
genere quam in specie antiquitus constitute per diversos
presbyteros in Prioratu vestro predicto debite celebrande,
pro quibus plura donaria recipistis a multis retro actis
temporibus, ac eciam de presenti, ut asseritur, sunt sub-
stracte, contra piam intencionem ac ordinacionem eciam
fundatorum, in vestrarum grave periculum animarum ;

372 APPENDIX

Vobis igitur, in virtute sancte obedientie ac sub majoris
excom. sentencie pena, firmiter injungendo mandamus,
quatinus cantarias predictas juxta formam institucionum et
ordinacionum earum faciatis de cetero debite celebrari, ac
eisdem congrue deserviri, si redditus et proventus ad
hujusmodi cantarias antiquitus assignati ad hoc sufficiant
hiis diebus, alioquin prout redditus et proventus earum,
aliis omnibus eisdem incumbentibus debite supportatis,
sufficiunt de presenti, dolo et fraude cessantibus quibus-
cunque ; super quo vestram conscienciam arcius oneramus,
a modo ‘deserviel debite faciatis.

No. XX. Item vobis et omnibus et singulis in virtute
sancte obediencie ac sub majoris excom. sentencie pena
firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus elemosinas in
Prioratu vestro predicto antiquitus fieri consuetas, et eas ad
quas tenemini ex ordinacione antiqua pro animabus funda-
torum et aliorum benefactorum vestrorum juxta facultates
vestras super quibus vestras consciencias arctius oneramus,
prout divinam effugere volueritis ulcionem distribui de cetero
faciatis ; precipientes preterea quod fragmenta seu reliquiae
tam de aaa Prioris quam eciam de refectorio proveniencia,
absque diminucione qualibet, per elimosinarium vel ipsius
locum tenentem integre colligantur, pauperibus fideliter
eroganda ; alioquin, si elimosinarius hujusmodi remissus
vel negligens fuerit in premissis, penam suspensionis ab
officio se noverit incursurum.

No. XXI. Item quia debilibus et infirmis humanitatis
preberi subsidium jubet caritas, et pietas intelpellat ; Vobis
domino Priori ceteris obedienciariis Prioratus vestri predicti,
quorum interest in hac parte in virtute sancte obediencie
firmiter injungendo mandamus, quatinus confratribus ves-
tris debilibus et infirmis, ipsorum infirmitate durante, in
esculentis et poculentis eorum infirmitatibus congruentibus,
necnon in medicinis et aliis juxta infirmitatis hujusmodi
qualitatem et Prioratus facultates, de bonis vestris com-
munibus et sicut antiquitus fieri consueverat de cetero
faciatis debite procurari, sub pena suspensionis ab officiis
vestris si circa premissa necgligentes fueritis vel remissi,
ipso facto, quousq; id quod necgligenter omissum fuerit

APPENDIX 373

perfeceritis, incurrenda ; prout in constit. domini Ottoboni
plenius continetur; statuentes preterea quod camere
infirmaria vestra, cum opus fuerit, infirmis canonicis
sint communes, ne, quod absit, aliquis sibi retineat in
eisdem vel vendicet proprietatem, contra sancti Augus-
tini regulam et constit. sanctorum patrum editas in hac
parte.

No. XXII. Item cum necgligencia sive remissio in
personis precedencium sit plurimum detestanda, facilitas
quoq; venie incentivum prebeat delinquendi; Vobis
domino Priori, Suppriori, aliisq; conventus predicti pre-
sidentibus quibuscumq; presentibus et futuris, in virtute
sancte obediencie firmiter injungendo mandamus, Quatinus,
cum correctiones in personis ipsius conventus imineant
faciende, ipsas, prout ad vos pertinet, absq; acceptione
qualibet personarum juxta quantitatem delictorum et per-
sonarum qualitatem vestrasq; observancias regulares cum
maturitate debita, et discretione previa, facere studeatis ;
alioquin vos suppriorem ceterosq; president espredictos, si
necgligentes vel remissi aut culpabiles fueritis in premissis,
canonica nostra monicione premissa penam suspencionis ab
officiis vestris extunc incurrere volumus ipso facto, donec
hujusmodi negligenciam, remissionem, culpam, vel de-
sidiam a vobis excusseritis in hac parte; pena prefato
domino Priori in hoc casu, ut convenit, infligenda nobis
specialiter reservata.

No. XXIII. Item cum consuetudines laudabiles Prioratus
cujuscumq; ordinacionesque ac statuta que usus longevi
temporis approbavit merito sint servandae ; Vobis domino
Priori ac singulis officiariis Prioratus vestri predicti pre-
sentibus et futuris in virtute sancte obediencie, et sub penis
infra scriptis, firmiter injungendo mandamus; Quatinus
pitancias et alias distribuciones quascunque, in quibus-
cunque rebus consistant et quocunque nomine censeantur,
in obitibus, anniversariis festivitatibus, aut aliis diebus,
conventui, aut ab uno officio alii officio ex ordinacione
antiqua debitas et consuetas, in canonicum aliquod non
obsistat a modo faciatis persolvi, sub pena porcionis duple,
cujus partem unam conventui predicto, alteram vero par-

374 APPENDIX

tem certis piis usibus nostro arbitrio limitandis debite
persolvendam specialiter reservamus.

No. XXIV. Item cum vendiciones boscorum, firme
maneriorum vel eciam ecclesiarum, aut alia domies vestre
ardua negocia imineant facienda, illa, sine tractatu ac
deliberacione provida cum conventu predicto ac eorum
consensu expresso vel majoris et sanioris partis ejusdem,
de cetero fiere prohibemus ; aliter autem hujusmodi negocia
ardua facta nullius existunt firmitatis; et nichilominus
Priorem aliosque officiarios quoscumq; qui contra pre-
sentem prohibitionem nostram quicquam attemptaverint in
premissis, penam suspensionis ab officiis eorundem ipso facto
se noverint incursuros, cum ex hujusmodi factis privatis
ecclesiis dispendia multociens provenerunt ; illa quoque que
omnes tangunt ab omnibus merito debeant approbari.

No. XXV. Item volumus ac eciam ordinamus, quod
sigillum vestrum commune sub quinque clavibus ad minus
de cetero custodiatur; quarum unam penes Priorem,
secundam penes suppriorem, terciam penes precentorem,
et reliquas duas claves penes confratres alios per conven-
tum ad hoc nominandos decrevimus remanere, per ipsos
fideliter custodiendas; inhibentes preterea sub pena excom.
majoris ne quicquam cum dicto sigillo communi a modo
sigelletur, nisi litera hujusmodi sigellanda primitus legatur,
inspiciatur, et eciam intelligatur a majore et saniore parte
tocius conventus, et ad ipsam sigillandam communis vester
prebeatur consensus, cum ex facto hujusmodi plura possunt
dispendia verisimiliter provenire ; ad hoc vobis omnibus et
singulis tenore presencium inhibemus, ne compatres alicujus
pueri de cetero fieri presumatis, nostra super hoc licencia
non obtenta, cum ex hujusmodi cognacionibus religiosis
domibus dispendia sepius invenire noscuntur ; contrarium
vero facientes, preter disciplinas alias regulares, singulis
sextis feriis per mensem proxime tunc sequentem in pane
et aqua jejunando precipimus castigari.

No. XXVI. Item quia nonnulli canonici domus vestre
predicte, freno abjecto observancie regularis, caligis de
Burneto et sotularium basp. in ocrearum loco ad modum
sotularium uti publice non verentur, contra consuetudinem

APPENDIX 375

antiquam laudabilem ordinis supradicti, in perniciosum ex-
emplum et scandalum plurimorum ; nos igitur honestatem
dicti ordinis observare volentes, Vobis domino Priori in
virtute sancte obediencie firmiter injungendo mandamus,
Quatinus quoscumq; vestros canonicos et confratres ad
utendun de cetero ocreis seu botis secundum antiquas
vestri ordinis observancias regulares per quascumq; cen-
suras ecclesiasticas, et, si opus fuerit, per incarceracionis
penam canonice compellatis, sub pena suspensionis ab
officio vestro predicto.

No. XXVII. Item quia tres vel due partes conventus
domus vestre non comedunt cotidie in refectorio, prout
constitutiones sanctorum patrum sanxerunt provide in hac
parte ; Vobis dicti Prioratus conventui firmiter injungendo
mandamus, Quatinus tres vel saltem due partes vestrum
cotidie in refectorio hora prandii de cetero comedant et
remaneant debite, sicut decet; vobis arcius injungentes,
quod nullus vestrum in mansiunculis aut locis aliis privatis
eciam cum hospitibus suis regularibus vel secularibus vel
confratibus suis comedat ; hostilaria cum hospitibus, re-
fectorio in communi misericordia, causa recreacionis, et
aula Prioris dumtaxat exceptis ; hanc tamen Prior apponat
providenciam diligentem, ut, sine personarum accepcione,
nunc hos nunc illos ad refectionem convocet, quos magis
noverit indigere; super execucione vero debita "remissorum
Priorem ac alios conventui presidentes sub pena suspensionis
ab eorum officiis arctius oneramus.

XXVIII. Item, cum secundum sanctorum patrum con-
stituciones, juniores canonici a suis prelatis vivendi normam
habeant assumere, ac lidem prelati super sua conversacione
testium copiam debeant obtinere ; Vobis domino Priori in
virtute obedientie districte precipiendo mandamus, Qua-
tinus capellanum vestrum canonicum singulis de cetero
mutetis annis, juxta constitutiones sanctorum patrum
editas in hac parte; ut sic, qui vobiscum fuerint in officio
predicto, per doctrine laudabilis exercicitum plus valeant in
religione proficere, ac eos innocencie testes, si vobis, quod
absit, crimen aliquod seu scandalum per aliquorum invidiam
imponatur, prompte poteritis invocare.

376 APPENDIX

No. XXIX. Item, cum communis exquisitus ornatus
presertim in religiosis personis a jure sit penitus interdictus;
Vobis tenore presencium inhibemus, ne quivis vestram de
cetero in suis vestibus furruris preciosis aut manicis nodu-
latis zonisve sericis auri vel argenti ornatum habentibus
utatur de cetero quovis modo, cum abusus hujusmodi ad
pompam et ostentacionem ac scandalum ordinis manifeste
tendere dinoscatur.

No. XXX. Item, quia singula officia sunt singulis com-
mittenda personis; Vobis in virtute obediencie et sub
excom. sententie pena firmiter injungendo mandamus, ut
officia singula vestri Prioratus, que per canonicos officiarios
gubernari solebant, per officiarios hujusmodi, per vos com-
muniter vel divisim juxta Prioratus predicti morem solitum
eligendos, quibus ipsa officia, ut olim, committi volumus
exercenda, singulariter de cetero gubernentur.

XXXI. Item, cum plus timeri soleat id quod specialiter
injungitur quam quod generaliter imperatur ; Vobis omni-
bus et singulis inhibemus, ne aliquis vestrum, ad curam
animarum non admissus, clericis aut laicis sacramentum
unctionis extreme vel euchauristia ministrare, matrimonia-
ve solempnizare, non habita super hiis parochialis presbyteri
licencia, quomodolibet presumatis, sub pena excom. majoris
sententie in hac parte a canone fulminate.

XXXII. Item quia comperimus in nostris visitacionibus
supradictis vasa et pallas altaris, necnon et vestimenta sacra
ecclesie vestre, atque corporalia, tam immunda relinqui,
quod interdum aliquibus sunt horrori; ut igitur honor
debitus divinis impendatur ; Vobis firmiter injungendo
mandamus, Quatinus vasa, corporalia, pallas, et vestimenta
predicta, ac cetera ecclesie ornamenta munda nitida et
honesta decetero conserventur hoc quoq; insuper injun-
gentes, ut in ecclesia vestra celebrantibus vinum bonum,
purum, et incorruptum ad sacramentum altaris conficien-
dum per eum qui super hoc gerit officium, et non corruptum,
et acetosum, prout fieri consueverit, imposterum minis-
tretur; nimis enim videtur absurdum in sacris sordes
necgligere, que dedecerent in prophanis.

XXXIII. Item licet sanctorum reliquias, vasa, aut vesti-

APPENDIX 377

menta sacra seu libros ecclesie in vadem dari, aut pignori
obligari canonica prohibeant instituta, a vobis tamen in
dictis visitacionibus comperimus contrarium esse factum ;
Vobis igitur domino Priori, tenore presencium, firmiter
injungendo mandamus, quatinus ab hujusmodi impignora-
cionibus extra casus a jure permissos vos decetero penitus
abstinentes, hujusmodi pignori obligata curetis recolligere,
et ea ecclesie vestre restituere, absq; more dispendio, sicut
decet ; statuentes preterea ut omnes carte ac munimenta
quecumq; statum bona et possessiones domus vestre quali-
tercumq; contingentes, sub tribus serruris et clavibus
remaneant, futuris temporibus fideliter conservande.

XXXIV. Item cum religiosi de bono in melius continue
debeant proficisci, ac ex sacre scripture lectione et inspec-
tione qualiter id faciant plenius instrui valeant; Vobis
firmiter injungendo mandamus, ut, completis hiis, que ad
vestri ordinis et regularis discipline observanciam pertinent
atq; spectant, in claustro sedentes scripture sacre lectioni
sancteq; contemplacioni devocius insistatis, sicq secundum
regule vestre exigenciam taliter codices inspiciendos re-
quiratis, ut in eis quid fugiendum quid subsequendum ac
cujusmodi premium inde consequendum fuerit agnoscere
valeatis.

XXXV. Item vobis Domino Priori injungimus, quod
cum parentes vel consanguinei alicujus confratis vestri ad
eum accesserint, causa visitandi eundem, liberaliter secun-
dum statum sui exigentiam per vos vel illum qui super hoc
ministrandi gerit officium infra Prioratum honeste et debite
procurentur ; sed videant fratres ne nimis sint in talibus
Prioratui onerosi.

XXXVI. Item quia parum est jura condere nisi execu-
tioni debita demandentur, ea quoque solent labili memorie
eo tenacius commendari quo veraciter audientium auribus
fuerint sepius inculcata ; et, ne vestrum quis piam igno-
rantiam pretendere valeat premissorum; Vobis firmiter
injungendo mandamus, quatinus has nostras injunctiones
et decreta pariter supradicta in aliquo volumine competenti
absque more dispendio conscribi plenius faciatis, eaque
omnia et singula bis annis singulis de cetero coram toto

378 APPENDIX

conventu plenius recitari; vos nichilominus omnes et
singulos monemus primo secundo et tercio peremptorie,
vobis insuper in virtute obediencie arctius injungentes,
quatinus ipsas injunctiones nostras et decreta predicta
omnia et singula prout ad vos et vestrum quemlibet
pertinent et singulariter vos concernunt, teneatis de cetero
ac eciam observetis, sub penis et censuris ecclesiasticis
supradictis, et aliis penis canonicis in contravenientes quos-
cumque, prout contumacia delinquencium exegerit, per nos
imposterum canonice infligendis. Potestatem autem pre-
missa corrigendi, mutandi in toto vel in parte, interpretandi,
declarandi et eisdem addendi, et eciam detrahendi, ac penas
adjiciendi, suspendendi, necnon super compertis aliis in
visitatione nostra predicta procedendi, criminaque et defec-
tus ac excessus in ipsa comperta et delata corrigendi, ac
canonice puniendi, et super ipsis novas injunctiones insuper
faciendas, sicut et prout opus fuerit et nobis videbitur
expedire, nobis eciam specialiter reservamus. In quorum
omnium testimonium sigillum nostrum fecimus hiis apponi.
Dat. apud Wynton vicesimo septimo die mensis Septem-
bris anno Domini millesimo ccc°® octogesimo septimo et
nostre consecrationis anno vicesimo.

( 18. 9

NUMBER IV
(No. 50)

InpEenTuRA Prioris de SELBORNE quorundam tradit. Petro
Barnes sacristae ibidem ann. Hen. 6.--- una cum conpiss.
ejusdem Petri script.

Hec indentura facta die lune proxime post ffestum nata-
lum Dni anno regis Henrici sexti post conquestum anglie
Vi----- inter ffratrem Johannem Stepe priorem ecclesie
beate Marie de Selborne & Petrum Bernes sacrist. ibidem
videlicet quod predictus prior deliveravit prefato Petro

APPENDIX 379

omnia subscripta In primis xxi amit xxx1 aubes vid. v.
sine parura pro quadragesima xxir manicul. Item xxn
stole Item vii casule vid. 111 albe pro quadragesima.
Item x1 dalmatic. vid. 1 debit. Item xvi cape vid. m1
veteres. Item unam amittam 1 albam cum paruris unum
manipulum 1 stolam 1 casulam et duas dalmaticas de dono
Johannis Combe capellani de Cicestria pro diebus princi-
palibus. Item 1 amittam 1 aubam cum paruris 1 manu-
pulum 1 stolam 1 casulam de dono ffratris Thome Halybone
canonicis. Item 1 amittam 1 aubam cum paruris 1 manu-
pulum 1 stolam 1 casulam pertinentem ad altare sancte
Catherine virginis pro priore. Item 1 amittam 1 aubas
cum paruris 11 manipul 1 stolas et 1 casulas pertinentes ad
altare sancti Petri de dono patris Ricardi holte. Item de
dono ejusdem 11 tuella vid. 1 cum fruictello et 1 canvas pro
eodem altare. Item 1 tuellum pendentem ad terram pro
quadragesima. Item vi tuell. cum ffruictibus xv tuell. sine
ffruictell. Item 1111 tuell. pro lavatore. Item v corporas.
Item 1 ffruictell pro summo altare sine tuellis. Item 1m
coopertor pro le ceste. Item 11 pallias de serico debili.
Item 1 velum pro quadrigesima. Item 1 tapetum viridi
coloris pro summo altare 1 ridell cum mr ridellis parvis
pertinent. ad dict.altare. Item vii offretor vid. v debit. Item
ur vexilla. Item 1111 pelves 111 quessones vid. 1 de serico.
Item 1 super altaria. Item quingq ; calices vid. 1111 de auro
— ‘
Item 11 cruettes de argento de dono dni Johannis Combe
capellani de Cicestre. Item vir cruettes de peuter. Item 1
coupam argent. et deaur. Item 11 osculator argent. Item 1
osculatorium cum osse digiti auricularis S* Johannis Baptiste.
Item 1 crux argent. et deaur. non radicat. Item turribulum
argent. et deaur. Item 1 anulum cum saphiro. Item 1
aliud anulum politum aureum. Item 1 anulum argent. et
deauratum S* Edmundi. Item 1 concha cum pereo infixo.
Item 1 cistam argent. et deaur. Item 1 imaginem beate
Marie argent. et deaurat. Item 1 parvam crucem
cum v reliquiis. Item 1 junctorium S Ricardi. Item 1
tecam pro reliquiis imponend. Item 1 calefactor. S“ Ricardi.
Item 1111 candelabra vid. 11. de stagno et 11 de ferro. Item 1

pecten S# Ricardi. Item m viell de cristall in parte fract.

380 APPENDIX

Item 1 pelvim de coper ad lavator. Item 1 osculat. de
coper. Item 1 parvum turribulum _ de latyn. Item 1 vas
de coper pro frank et sence consecrand. Item 1 pixidem de
juery pro corpore Christi. Item 11 vasa de plumbo pro oleo
conservando. Item 1 patellam eneam ferro ligat. Item 1
: = : 8 —
tripodem ferr. Item 1 costrell contin. 1 lagen et 1 potrell.
Item 11 babyngyres. Item 1 botelles de corio vid. 1 de
quarte et 1 de pynte. Item 1. anul. arg. et 1 pixidem
S'* Marie de Waddon. Item ( ) Instrumenta pro
Sandyng. Item 1 ledbnyff. Item 1 shasshobe. Item 1
securim. Item sscabell. de ferro pro cancell. Item 1 plane.
Item 1 cistam sine cerura. Item xi sonas. Item xrx
taperes ponder. x1rib et dimid. Item 11 torches ponder.
xxtb. Item xiilb cere et dimid. Item de candelis de cera
ponder. vilb. Itemrib de frank et sence. Item 1 lagenam
olei. Item rx pondera de plumbo.
(Vide de stauro in tergo) et in tergo scribuntur
haec, “11 vacce 1 sus 1111 hoggett et 1111 porcell ”

NUMBER V
(N. 381)

A Paper conteyning the value of the Manors and Lands
pertayning to the Priorie of Selborne. iv. Edw. 3. With
a note of charges yssuing out of tt

SELEBORNE PRIORATUS

Summa totalis valoris maneriorum terrarum tenementorum et premisso-
rum ejusdem Prioratus in ffesto S*. Michaelis Archang. anno secundo
Regis Edvardi 4%. ut patet Rotul. de valoribus liberat.

xx
nu vi li. (ie. Lxxxvi li.) xs. vid.

Inde in redditibus resolutis domino pape domino Archiepiscopo et in
diversis ffeodis certis personis concessis ac aliis annualibus reprisis in
eisdem Rotul. de valoribus annotatis per annum xuu li. x1xs. vd.

Et remanet de claro valore Lxx1 li. xs. vid.

Videlicet
Assignantur pro

Redditus omn. flirmis
et Pencionibus

Assignantur
ut supra

APPENDIX 381

f Quatuor canonicis et quatuor flamulis deo et ecclesie ibid. ser-
vientibus pro eorum vadiis vestur. et diet. ut patet per bill inde
fact. per annum xxx li.

Diversis creditoribus pro eorum debitis persolvendis ut patet

4 per parcell inde fact. xv li. xv s. um d.

Reparacionibus Ecclesiarum domorum murorum et clausurarum
ejusdem Prioratus per annum xv li. xv s. m1 d.

Annua pencione Domini Prioris ei assignata per annum quous-
Late remanet x li.

SELBORNE PRIORATUS
Modo sequitur de Reformatione premissorum

Summa total. valorum. ibid. misis et
desperatis inde deductis prout patet per}uxxr li. xs. vind.
. a . oe eng

declaracionem Dai Petri Prioris de Sele-| unde per ipsum Dnum
borne ad man. Dni nostri Wynton apud }nostrum Wynton assig-
Palacium suum de Wolsley presentat. per|nantur in fforma se-
ipsum ultimo die ffebr. Ann. Domini] quente videlicet
MCCCCLXI. et penes ipsum remanet.

Pro quatuor canonicis et quatuor ffa-
mulis deo et ecclesie ibid. servientibus
pro eorum Diet. vadiis et vestur. ut patet
per bill inde fact.

xxx li.

remanet. md

xvlii oxvs. und.
Pro diversis creditoribus pro eorum]| per 1 annos ad xxx!

debitis persolvendis ut patet per billj li. xs. virrd. ultra

inde fact. uv li. xin d. de ven-

(dit. stauri.

Pro annua pencione Prioris Aes

(xv. li xv.s. mud.
per m annos ad xxx
li. xs. vind, Sum-

Pro diversis reparacionibus ecclesiarum|ma total. valoris pro
domorum murorum et clausurarum uty debitis et raparacioni-
patet per bill. bus assignat. cum Lv
li. xm d. de vendit

Stauri ut supra cxvii
\ \li, 1s. vi. dy

382 APPENDIX

Debita que debentur ibid. per diversos tenentes et ffirmarios ad festum
S#, Michaelis anno tertio Regis Edvardi 4". videlicet
Abbas de Derford de ffeod. firme sua ad 1x li. v1 s.
vin d. per annum a retro
Thomas Perkyns armig. ffirmarius Rectorie |
LX 8

xx li. vir s. x1 dy

Estworlam pro uno anno finiente ad ffestum S*,
Mich. anno 11. Regis Edvardi 4".

Johannes Shalmere Ball de Selborne debet LXXV 8

Ricardus Cawry debet de eodem anno VIs.

Summa xxvil li. vimr s. x1 d.

Thomas Perkyns armig. debet de firme sua pre-
dicta ad festum S*, Mich. ann. vir et ultra feod.}vir li. vi s, vit d.
suum ad XX s. per annum

Thomas lusher debet pro firme sua ad XL s. per
annum cum feod, suis ad XxX s. per annum.

Hugo Pakenham debet de reddit. suo ad xx “I
per ann.

Abbas de Derford debet de ffeod firme sua ultra
Xxvu li.

has

c. 8%

xx li. vil. s. xId. ut supra pro annis III. IIII. et v.
Regis Edvardi
Walterus Berlond ffirmarius de Shene debet IX live. ud
Henr. Shafter firmarius ffeod de Basynstoke xu li. ru d.
Henr. lode nuper ffirmarius manerii de Chede debet xx li.
Total. LXXxxiv li. xm d.
Summa LXvI li. xi1s. vid.

Old house at Empshott

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

WITH OBSERVATIONS IN VARIOUS BRANCHES OF
NATURAL HISTORY

Extracted from the Papers of the Late Rev. Gilbert White,
M.A., of Selborne, Hampshire, Senior Fellow of
Oriel College, Oxford.

ADVERTISEMENT

Tue Rev. Mr. Wuirte so agreeably known to the
public by his Natural History of Selborne, left behind him
a series of yearly books, containing his diurnal observations
on the occurrences in the various walks of rural nature,
from the year 1768 to the time of his death in 1793.
From these annals he had already extracted all the matter
comprised in the work above mentioned, down to the
middle of 1787 ; but several curious facts in the preceding
numbers had not been thus employed; and all the subse-
quent ones remained untouched. It was thought a mark
of respect due to his memory, and to the reputation he
had acquired as a faithful and elegant observer, not to
consign these relics to neglect. The manuscripts were
accordingly put into my hands for the purpose of selecting
from them what might seem worthy of laying before the
public. The present small publication is the fruit of my
research. With no small pains I collected the materials of
it, dispersed through the records of so many years, and
gave them such an arrangement as I thought would present
them in the most agreeable and useful manner to the lovers
of natural knowledge.

J. AIKIN.
London, Jan. 1, 1795.

385 2B

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

Tue mode in which the following rural calendar of the
year has been composed, was to copy out from the journals
all the circumstances thought worthy of noting, with the
several dates of their recurrence, and to preserve the earliest
and latest of these dates, so that the calendar exhibits the
extreme range of variation in the first occurrence of all the
phenomena mentioned. To many of them only one date
is annexed, only one observation having been entered.
This is particularly the case with respect to the flowering of
plants, with which the book of 1768 alone was copiously
filled, and it is to be noted that this was rather a back-
ward year.

Of the abbreviations used, //. signifies flowering ; 1. leafing ;
and ap. the first appearance,

386

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR.

Jan. 1-12

1-18

I-14

1. Feb. 18
m

2-11

2-14

2. Feb. 14
2. April 12
@. Heb. a
4. Feb. 16
2

3-21

gt 5

4. Heb, 38
4. Feb. 18
5-12

§. Heb. 4
6. Feb. 6
6-22

6

6. April 7
6. Mar. 19
6s Hen. 3
6-11

8. Feb. 1
8. April 1
8-12

g

Redbreast whistles.

Larks congregate.

Nuthatch chatters.

Winter aconite fl.

Shelless snail or slug ap.

Grey and white wagtail ap.

Missel thrush sings.

Helleborus foetidus (bearsfoot) fl.

Polyanthus fi.

Double daisy fl.

Mezereon fl.

Viola tricolor (pansie) fl.

Lamium rubrum (red dead-nettle) fl.

Senecio vulg. (groundsel) fl.

Hazel calkins open.

Hepatica fl.

Hedge sparrow whistles.

Flies in windows.

Large titmouse makes its spring note.

Song thrush or throstle sings.

Insects swarm under sunny hedges.

Primula vulga. (primrose) fl.

Bees come out of their hives.

Gnats play about.

Hen chaffinches flock.

Ulex europ. (gorse) fl.

Cheiranthus cheiri (wall-flower) fl.

Stocks fi.

Emberiza alba (bunting) in great flocks.
387

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

:)

g-11

to. Feb. 11
10

1, Heb. §
a

13

nS

14

16. Mar. 11
16. Mar. 24
16

16

16

17

ty}

18. Feb. 8
13. Mar. 18
ZI

22

22-24

a3

S|

23. Mar. §
2%, Heb. i
24. Feb. 21
a4. Beb. 15
25. Mar. 4
25. April 14
a5

27. Mar. 15
24. April 2
28

28. Feb. 24

Linnets congregate in vast flocks.

Lambs begin to fall.

Rooks resort to their nest trees.

Helleborus niger fl.

Galanthus nivalis (snow-drop) fl.

Lamium alb. (white dead nettle) fl.

Trumpet honey-suckle fl.

Ranunculus repens (creeping crow-
foot) fl.

House-sparrows chirp.

Leontodon taraxacum (dandelion) fl.

Bat ap.

Spiders shoot their webs.

Butterfly ap.

Brambling ap.

Black-bird whistles.

Wren sings

Earth-worms lie out

Crocuses fl.

Sky-lark sings.

Ivy casts its leaves.

Helleborus hiemalis fl.

Scarabaeus stercorarius (common dor
or clock) ap.

Peziza acetabulum ap.

Helleborus virid. fl.

Hazel show their female blossoms.

Woodlark sings.

Chaffinch sings.

Jack-daws begin to come to churches.

Yellow wagtail ap.

Lonicera periclymenum _(honey-
suckle) 1.

Veronica agrestis fl.

Papilio urticae (small tortoise-shell
butterfly) ap.

White wagtail sings.

Shell-snails ap.

Earth-worms engender.

Feb.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 389

1. Mar. 26
I

2

3

3

4. April 1

4. April 8

5

5

Z

10

13

13. April 2

13. Mar. 23
14-17

14. Mar. 27
rs, Mar. 23
16. Mar. 6

17

17. Mar. 8

18

20. Mar. 30
21-26

at. April 13
ar, spr ¢

22. Mar. 26
2%. April 3

24

24. April 7

24. April 2

25

26. Mar. 31
26

a7. apr mg

Fragaria sterilis (barren strawberry) fl.

Parus caeruleus (tomtit) makes its
spring note.

Brown wood-owls hoot.

Hens sit.

Marsh titmouse begins his two harsh
sharp notes.

Gossamer floats.

Musca tenax ap.

Laurustinus fl.

Ruscus aculeatus (butcher’s broom) fl.

Foxes smell rank.

Turkey-cocks strut and gobble.

Yellow-hammer sings.

Papilio rhamni (brimstone butter-
fly) ap.

Green woodpecker laughs.

Ravens build.

Taxus baccata (male yew tree) sheds
its farina.

Tussilago farfara (coltsfoot) fl.

Rooks build.

Partridges pair.

Pease sown.

House pigeons build.

Field crickets open their holes.

Pulex irritans (common flea) ap.

Ficaria verna (pilewort) fl.

Goldfinch sings.

Coluber berus (viper) ap.

Oniscus asellus (wood-louse) ap.

Missel thrushes pair.

Narcissus pseudonarcissus (daffodil) fl.

Willow fl.

Frogs croak.

Viola odorata (sweet violet) fl.

Phalaena tinea vestianella ap.

Oedicnemus charadrius (stone curlew)
clamours.

Mar.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

27

a7. April ¢

28. Mar. 24
28. Mar. 22
i. April @

2. April 17
2. April 6

3

3-29

4. May 8

4. April 16
4

4

5-16

5. April 25
5

5

6. April 18
6

7-14

8

8

Ke)

10-18

1a. April so
12

13-20

1s. May 21
1%

1g. April 22
16

7s eel, Ta
17. May 19
i7. April 22
17

17

18-30

18. April 13

Filbert fl.

Ring-dove cooes.

Apricot-tree fl.

Toad ap.

Frogs spawn.

Veronica hederifol. fl.

Peach tree fl.

Rana temporar. (frog) ap.
Thlaspi bursa past.(shepherd’s purse) fl.
Pheasant crows.

Land tortoise comes forth.
Pulmonaria officin. (lungwort) fl.
Podula fimetaria ap.

Aranea scenica saliens ap.
Scolopendra forficata ap.
Wryneck returns.

Goose lays.
Duck lays.

Viola canina (dog violet) fl.
Papilio io (peacock butterfly) ap.
Trouts begin to rise.

Beans planted.

Blood-worms appear in the water.
Crows build.

Oats sown.

Golden-crested wren sings.
Aspen fl.

Sambucus nigra (common elder) 1.
Laurel fl.

Chrysomela Gotting. ap.

Black ants ap.

Ephemerae bisetae ap.

Ribes grossularia (gooseberry) 1.
Stellaria holostea (stitchwort) fl.
Anemone nemorosa (wood anemone) fl.
Blackbird sits.

Raven sits.

Wheatear returns.

Adoxa moschatellina fl.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 391

Mar. 19. April 13 Small uncrested wren ap.
19 Fumaria bulbosa fl.
19. April 4 Ulmus campestris (elm) fl.
19. April 7 Turkey lays.
20 House pigeons sit.
20. April 14 Caltha palustris (marsh marigold) fl.
21. April 28 Bombylius medius ap.
21. April 12 Sand-martin ap.
22-30 Coluber natrix (snake) ap.
22. April 18 Formica herculeana (horse ant) ap.
22. April 22 Greenfinch sings.
23. April 14 Ivy berries ripe.
a inca minor (periwinkle) fl.
25. April 1 Daphne laureola (spurge laurel) fl.
26. April 20 Swallows ap.
26. May 4 _ Black-cap whistles.
29 Ducks hatched.
27. Aprilg Chrysosplenium oppositifol. fl.
28. May 1 House martin ap.
28. April 13 Chimney swallow ap.
29. April 22 Double hyacinth blows.
29 Young goslings.
30. April 22 Oxalis acetosella (wood sorrel) fl.
30. April 17 Ring ouzel ap.
31. April 30 Barley sown.
April 1. May 1 Nightingale sings.
1. May 4 Fraxinus excels. (ash) fl.
I Spiders’ webs on the surface of the
round.
2-24 Fritillaria meleagris fl.
2 Julus terrestr. ap.
3-24 Primula veris (cowslip) fl.
3-15 Glecoma hederacea (ground-ivy) fl.
3 Snipe pipes.
4 Buxus (box-tree) fl.
a Ulmus campest. (elm) 1.
3-14 Gooseberry fl.
3-5 Currant fl.
3. May 21 Pear-tree fl.

392 THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

April 4

319

5

6-20

7-26

7. May 10
‘

7

8-28

8-24

g-tg

10. May 8
11. May 9
Il

13. May 7
14. May 17
14

14

14. May 14
14.

14
14-19-23
15-19

16

16-30

17. May 7
17-27

18. May 12
18. May 11
18. May §
19-25
20-17

20. June 11

21

Lacerta vulg. (newt or eft) ap.

Mercurialis perenn. (dog’s mercury) fl.

Ulmus glabra fl.

Cardamine pratensis (ladies-smock) fl.

Cuckoo heard.

Prunus spinosa (black-thorn) fl.

Termes pulsatorius beats.

Gudgeon spawns.

Ruticilla (red-start) ap.

Fritillaria imper. (crown imperial) fl.

Tit-lark sings.

Fagus sylv. (beech-tree) 1.

Shell-snails come out in troops.

Middle yellow wren ap.

Swift ap.

Conops calcitrans (stinging-fly) ap.

Draba verna (whitlow grass) fl.

Larch 1.

Whitethroat ap.

Red-ant ap.

Gryllus gryllotalpa (mole cricket)
churs.

Second willow or laughing wren ap.

Pedicularis sylv. (red rattle) fl.

Musca carnaria (common flesh-fly) ap.

Coccinella bipunctata (lady cow) ap.

Alauda locustae vocae (grasshopper-
lark) ap.

Large shivering willow wren ap.

Middle willow wren (regulus non
cristatus medius) ap.

Prunus cerasus (wild cherry) fl.

Garden cherry fl.

Prunus domest. (plum) fl.

Hyacinthus non-scriptus (harebell) 1.

Turtle cooes.

Crataegus oxyacanthus (hawthorn or
May) fl.

Orchis mascula fl.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 303

April 21. May 23

22

22. May 25
22. June 11
23-29
23
24
24
24. May 28
25
28. May 20
30. May 21
30. June 6
I
I, June 11
1-26
I
2-24
2-26
x3?
4-12
4. June 17
4
Sr Ey
10-30
10. June 9
II-13
13-15
t3
14
15-26
16
17-26
17

18. June 11

Musca vomitoria (blue flesh fly) ap.

Black snails abound.

Apple-trees fl.

Large bat ap.

Fragaria vesca (strawberry) fl.

Erysimum alliaria (sauce alone) fl.

Prunus avium (bird cherry) fl.

Apis hypnorum ap.

Musca meridiana ap.

Asilus (wolf-fly) ap.

Papilio brassicae (great white cabbage
butter-fly) ap. '

Libellulae (dragon-flies) ap.

Acer majus (sycamore) fl.

Bombylius minor ap.

Glow-worm shines.

Caprimulgus (fern-owl or goatsucker)
returns.

Ajuga reptans (bugle) fl.

Gryllus campest. (field crickets) crink.

Scarabaeus melolontha(Maychaffer)ap.

Lonicera periclymen. (honeysuckle) fl.

Lathraea squammaria (toothwort) fl.

Shell-snails copulate.

Small reed sparrow sings.

Viburnum lantana (mealy tree) fl.

Stoparola (flycatcher) ap.

Apis longicornis ap.

Passer arund. minor (sedge bird) ap.

Oak in male bloom.

Papilio atalanta (admiral butter-fly) ap.

Papilo cardamines (orange-tip butter-
fly) ap.

Fagus sylvat. (beech) fl.

Acer campest. (maple) fl.

Berberis vulg. (barberry) fl.

Papilio aegeria (wood Argus butter-
fly) ap.

Orange lily fl.

394 THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

May 18. June 13

18

18. June 5

18. June 9

19. June 8

20. June 15
21. June 9

21

21-27

21. June 20
ai

22

22. July 22
22-25

23

23. June 8

2a, June 11
24. June 4

G4. June 7

25

26

26. June 25
26

a9. Jone 9

a7. June 13
27

27. June 13
28

28

29. June r

2,

30. June 13
30. June 21
30

Sphinx filipendulae (Burnet moth) ap.

Juglans regia (walnut) 1.

Cytisus laburnum fl.

Hippobosca equina (forest-fly) ap.

Hedysarum onobrychis (saintfoin) fl.

Paeonia offic. (piony) fl.

Aesculus hippocastanum (horse ches-
nut) fl.

Lilac fl.

Aquilegia vulg. (columbine) fl.

Mespilus german. (medlar) fl.

Tormentilla reptans fl.

Convallaria min. (lily of the valley) fl.

Bees swarm.

Asperula odorata (woodroofe) fl.

Wasp (female) ap.

Sorbus aucuparia (mountain ash) fl.

Ophrys nidus avis (birds-nest orchis) fl.

Crataegus aria (white-beam tree) fl.

Polygala vulg. (milkwort) fl.

Cistus helianthemum (sock rose) fl.

Viburnum opulus (gelder rose) fl.

Sambucus nigra (elder) fl.

Cantharis noctiluca ap.

Apis longicornis bores holes in walks.

Morus nigra (mulberry) 1.

Crataegus torminalis (wild service-
tree) fl.

Sanicula europaea fl.

Geum urbanum (avens) fl.

Orchis morio fl.

Lychnis flos cuculi (cuckow flower) fl.

Poterium sanguisorba (Burnet) fl.

Digitalis purpur. (foxglove) fl.

Corn-flag fl.

Serapias longifol. fl.

Rubus idaeus (raspberry) fl.

Geranium Robertian. (herb Robert) fl.

Scrophularia nodosa (figwort) fl.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 395

May 31

June

I

i
ie)
w

>

=
8

roy

Lithospermum officin. (Gromwell) fl.

Euphorbia amygdal. (wood spurge) fl.

Allium ursinum (Ramsons) fl.

Myosotis scorpioides (mouse-ear scor-
pion grass) fl.

Grasshopper ap.

Rose fl.

Hieracitum minor fl.

Menyanthes trifoliata (buckbean) fl.

Scarabaeus auratus (brass or green
beetle) ap.

Sheep shorn.

Iris pseud-acorus (water-flag) fl.

Secale cereale (rye) fl.

Cynoglossum offic. (hound’s tongue) fl

Serapias latifolia fl.

Musca caesar (green-gold fly) fl.

Papilio moera (Argus butterfly) ap.

Ranunculus flammula fl.

Lotus cornicul. (birdsfoot trefoil) fl.

Fraxinella fl.

Phryganea nigra ap.

Ephemera vulg. (angler’s May-fly) ap.

Anthyllis vulner. (ladies’ fingers) fl.

Ophrys apifera (bee-orchis) fl.

Pinks fl.

Philadelphus coronar. fl.

Libellula virgo ap.

Vitis vinifera (vine) fl.

Portugal laurel fl.

Purple martagon fl.

Geranium pratense (meadow cranes-
bill) fl.

Tamus communis (lady seal) fl.

Field pea fl.

Cucubalus behen (bladder campion) fl.

Bryonia alba (bryony) fl.

Stachys sylvat. fl.

Solanum dulcamara (bittersweet) fl.

396

June

June

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

12 Juglans reg. (walnut) fl.

12. July 23 Phallus impudicus ap.

12 Epilobium angustifol. (narrow-leaved
willow-herb) fl.

13. July 22 Triticum hybern. (wheat) fl.

r3 Symphytum offic. (comfrey) fl.

13-30 Lysimachia nemorum fl.

15. Aug. 24 Tremella nostoc ap.

16 Rhamnus cathart. (buckthorn) fl.

16 Cicada spumaria (cuckow-spit insect or
frog-hopper) ap.

17, 18 Rosa canina (dog-rose) fl.

17. Sept. 3 Lycoperdon bovista (large puff-ball) ap.

18 Verbascum thapsus (mullein) fl.

19 Echium vulg. (viper’s bugloss) fl.

19. July 20 Meadow hay cut.

19 Scarabaeus cervus ap.

20 Borago officin. fl.

20 Euonymus europaeus (spindle-tree) fl.

20. July 4 Carduus nutans (musk thistle) fl.

21 Cornus sanguin. (dogwood) fl.

21 Scabiosa arv. (field scabious) fl.

21-27 Carduus palustris (marsh thistle) fl.

22. July 9 Spiraea filipendula (dropwort) fl.
22. July 7 Valeriana officin. fl.
22. July 4 Quails call.

22 Epilobium montan. (mountain willow-
herb) fl.

23-29 Carduus crispus (thistle upon thistle) fl.

ie Heracleum sphondyl. (cow-parsnep) fl.

a Bunium bulbocast. (earth-nut) fl.

23. Aug.2 Young frogs migrate.

24 Oestrus curvicauda ap.

24 Verbena officin. (vervain) fl.

24 Papaver rhoeas (corn poppy) fl.

24 Prunella vulg. (self-heal) fl.

24-29 Agrimonia eupatoria (agrimony) fl.

24. Aug. 2 ‘Tabanus bovinus (great horse-fly) ap.
a¢ Centaurea scabiosa (great knapweed) fl.

July

June

July

PWWWNNNN NHB

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 397

. July 4

. July 29
. July 31
~ aly: 34
+ July 22

. July 20
- July 4
. July 30
. Aug. 4

« July 23

. July 17

Aug. 30 Agaricus campest. (mushroom) ap.

Malva sylv. (common mallow) fl.
Malva rotundifol. fl.

Hypericum perforat. (St. John’s wort)f.
Orobanche major (broom-rape) fl.
Hyoscyamus niger (henbane) fl.
Tragopogon pratens (goats-beard) fl.
Atropa belladon. (deadly nightshade) fl.
Truffles begin to be found.

Young partridges fly.

Tilia europ. (lime-tree) fl.

Carduus lanceolat. (spear thistle) fl.
Spiraea ulmaria (meadow sweet) fl.
Genista tinctoria (dyers’ broom) fl.
Thymus serpyllum (wild thyme) fl.
Stachys germanic. fl.

Hemerocallis (day-lily) fl.

Jasmine fl.

Hollyhock fl.

Monotropa hypopithys fl.

Galium verum (ladies’ bedstraw) fl.
Galium palustre fl.

Lapsana com. (nipplewort) fl.
Carduus acanthoides (welted thistle) fl.
Achillea ptarmica (sneezewort) fl.
Malva moschata (musk mallow) fl.
Anagallis arv. (pimpernel) fl.
Scarabaeus solstit (hoary beetle) ap.
Serratula arv. (common thistle) #1.
Adonis ann. (pheasant’s eye) fl.
Euphrasia odontit. (red eyebright) f1.
Bupleurum rotundifol. (thorough wax) fl
Agrostemma githago (cockle) fl.
Prenanthes muralis (ivy-leaf) fl.
Matricaria parthenium (feverfew) fl.
Sedum acre (stone crop) fl.
Ligustrum vulg. (privet) fl.
Antirrhinum linaria (toadflax) f1.
Linum perenne (Siberian flax) fl.

398 THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

July 4-24
5
5
5-12
6
6
6
6
6-9
7
7
7
8-19
8
8
8
8-20
o
9
2
Oe}
fe)
10
II
II
ro
12
13
tt
13. Aug. II
T3
14. Aug. 4
14
14
14-29

Vaccinium ulig. (whortle berries) ripe.

Reseda lutea fl.

Centaurea cyanus (blue bottle) fl.

Carduus acaulis (dwarf carline thistle)f.

Typha latifol. (bulrush) fl.

Lythrum salicaria (spiked willow-
herb) fl.

Verbascum niger (black mullein) fl.

Chrysanthemum fl.

Marigolds fl.

Sherardia arv. (little field madder) fl.

Melissa nepeta (field calamint) fl.

Ballota nigra (henbit) fl.

Betonica officin. (betony) fl.

Campanula rotundifol. fl.

Chenopodium bonus henricus (English
mercury) fl.

Daucus carota (wild carrot) fl.

Paeolum maj. (Indian cress) fl.

Nepeta cataria (cat-mint) fl.

Melampyrum sylvat. (cow-wheat) fl.

Valantia cruciata (crosswort) fl.

Cranberries ripe

Vicia cracca (tufted vetch) fl.

Vicia sylvat. (wood vetch) fl.

Campanula glomerata (little throat-
wort) fl.

Jasione montan. (hairy sheep’s scabi-
ous) fl.

Pastinaca sylv. fl.

Lilium alb. (white lily) fl.

Conium maculat. (hemlock) fl.

Caucalis anthriscus fl.

Flying ants ap.

Lysimachia nummularia (moneywort)fl.

Scarlet martagon fl.

Stellaria graminea fl.

Aethusa cynapium (fool’s parsley) fl.

Sambucus ebulus (dwarf elder) fl.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 399

July 14. Aug. 29

14

Young martins and swallows begin to
congregate.

Potato fl.

Angelica sylv. fl.

Digitalis ferrugin. fl.

Senecio jacobaea (ragwort) fl.

Solidago virgaurea (golden rod) fl.

Centaurea calcitrapa (star thistle) fl.

Oenothera biennis fl.

Pease cut.

Galega officin. fl.

Apricots ripe.

Stachys palustr. fl.

Epilobium ramos (branching willow-
herb) fl.

Rye harvest begins.

Chlora perfol. (yellow centaury) fl.

Lathyrus aphaca (yellow vetchling) fl.

Circaea lutetiana (enchanter’s night-
shade) fl.

Eupatorium cannabin. (water hemp
agrimony) fl.

Campanula latisol (giant throatwort) fl.

Euphrasia officin. (eyebright) fl.

Humulus lupulus (hop) fi.

Poultry moult.

Cuscuta europ. (dodder) fl.

Gentianum centaureum (lesser cen-
taury) fl.

Sium nodiflorum fl.

Spergula arv. (spurrey) fl.

Trifolium arv. fl.

Polygonum fagopyr. (buckwheat) fl.

Wheat harvest begins.

Sparganium erect. (great bur-reed) fl.

Hyper. elodes (marshSt. John’s wort) fl.

Drosera rotundifolium (sundew) fl.

Comarum palustr. (purple marsh cin-

quefoil) fl.

Aug.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

91, Alig. 6

41. Aug, 27
I-16
1-26

Wild cherries ripe.

Anthericum ossifragum (Lancashire
asphodel) fl.

Scutellaria galericulat. (hooded willow-
herb) fl.

Oenanthe fistulos (water dropwort) fl.

Marrubium vulg. (horehound) fl.

Seseli caruifol. fl.

Alisma plantago (water plantain) fl.

Alopecurus myosuroides 1.

Clematis vitalba (virgin’s bower) fl.

Bees kill the drones.

Dipsacus sylv. (teasel) £1.

Origanum vulg. (wild marjoram) fl.

Swifts begin to depart.

Dipsacus pilosus (small wild teasel) fl.

Teucrium scorodonia (wood sage) fl.

Lathyrus latifol. (everlasting pea) fl.

Hypericum humifusum (trailing St.
John’s wort) fl.

Veratrum album (white hellebore) fl.

Anthemis nobil. (camomile) fl.

Scabiosa columbaria fl.

Helianthus multiflor. (sun-flower) fl.

Lysimachia vulg. (yellow loosestrife) fl.

Swifts last seen.

Oats cut.

Barley cut.

Scutellaria minor fl.

Inula dysenterica (marsh fleabane) fl.

Apis manicata ap.

Papilio machaon (swallow-tailed butter-
fly) ap.

Oestrus bovis (whame or burrel fly)
lays eggs on horses.

Sonchus arvens. (sow-thistle) fl,

Papilio cinxia (plantain fritillary) ap.

Picris hieracioides (yellow succory) fl.

Musca mystacea ap.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 401

Sept. 3

Sept. 13

» Sept, 27

. Sept. 28

. Sept. 12

. pept, 10

. Nov. 1

» Sept. 17
. sept. 22

Campanula trachelium (Canterbury
bells) fl.

Mentha longifol. fl.

Carlina vulg. (carline thistle) fl.

Rhus cotinus fl.

Ptinus pectinicornis ap.

Arctium lappa (burdock) fl.

Gentiana amarella (fell-wort) fl.

Artemisia absinthium (wormwood) fl.

Artemisia vulg. (mugwort) fl.

Centaurea sols.(St. Barnaby’s thistle) fl.

Colchicum autumn. (meadow saffron)fl.

Aster (Michaelmas daisy) fl.

Thalictrum flavum (meadow rue) fl.

Eryngium marit. (sea holly) fl.

China asters fl.

Boletus albus ap.

Campanula hybrida (less Venus look-
ing glass) fl.

Carthamus tinctor. fl

Young broods of goldfinches ap.

Lapwings congregate.

Papilio semele (black-eyed marble
butterfly) ap.

Birds reassume their spring notes.

Scabiosa succisa (devil’s bit) fl.

Thistle down floats.

Conyza squarrosa (plowman’s spiken-
ard) fl.

Leontodon autumn. (autumnal dande-
lion) fl.

Flies abound in windows.

Linnets congregate.

Bulls make their shrill autumnal noise.

Aster amellus fl.

Impatiens balsamina (balsam) fl.

Carduus marianus (milk thistle) fl.

Hop picking begins.

Beeches begin to be tinged with yellow.

2C

402

Aug.

Sept.

Oct.

Nov.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR

25

27. Sent, 12
29

29

a0, Sept. 2
30

31

i. Nov. 7
I

4. Oct a4
4. Nov. 9
4

4-30

6-29

11

12. Oct. 2
12. Nov. 1
25

28. Oct. 24

ee

20. Dec. 31
23. Dee, 27
23. Nov. 29
a5, Nov. 20
27. Nov. 26
a1. Dec. 2g
f

fe)

13, 14

Saponaria officin. (soapwort) fl.

Ophrys spiralis (ladies’ traces) fl.

Papilio phlaeas (small golden black-
spotted butterfly) ap.

Swallows sing.

Hibiscus syriacus fl.

Papilio paphia (great fritillary) ap.

Phalaena pacta (willow red under-wing
moth) ap.

Stone curlews clamour.

Phalaena russula ap.

Grapes ripen.

Wood owls hoot.

Papilio hyale (saffron butterfly) ap.

Ring ouzel ap. on its autumnal visit.

Stoparola (flycatcher) withdraws.

Bean harvest begins.

Hedera helix (ivy) fl.

Stares congregate

Wild honeysuckles fl. a second time.

Woodlark sings.

Woodcocks (scolopax rusticola) come.

Arbutus unedo fl.

Wheat sown.

Swallows last seen. (N.B. The house-
martin the latest.)

Redwings come.

Fieldfares come.

Gossamer fills the air.

China hollyhock fl.

Hen chaffinches congregate.

Wood pigeons come.

Grey crows come.

Snipes come up into the meadows.

Tortoise begins to bury himself.

Rooks visit their nest trees.

Bucks grunt

Primrose fl.

Green whistling plover ap.

THE NATURALIST’S CALENDAR 403

Nov. 16
27
yO. Dee, 25
Dec. 4-21
7-16
11-27
12-23
14-30
1)
as
oe)
29

Helvella mitra ap.

Greenfinches flock.

Hepatica fl.

Ulex europ. (gorse or furze) fl.
Polyanthus fl.

Lambs fall,

Moles work in throwing up hillocks.
Helleborus foetid. fl.

Daisy fl.

Wall-flower fl.

Mezereon fi.

Snowdrop fl.

“IN SESE VERTITUR ANNUS.”

OBSERVATIONS ON
VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS

BIRDS IN GENERAL

In severe weather, fieldfares, red-wings, sky-larks, and
tit-larks, resort to watered meadows for food; the latter
wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects,
and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many
gnats are on the snow near the water, these support the
birds in part.

Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by
colour, for though white currants are a much sweeter fruit
than red, yet they seldom touch the former till they have
devoured every bunch of the latter.

Red-starts, fly-catchers, and black-caps, arrive early in
April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage
(as we have reason to suppose they are, because they are
never seen in winter) how could they, feeble as they seem,
bear up against such storms of snow and rain, and make
their way through such meteorous turbulences, as one
should suppose would embarrass and retard the most
hardy and resolute of the winged nation? Yet they keep
their appointed times and seasons; and in spite of frosts
and winds return to their stations periodically, as if they
had met with nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing
and appearance of the short winged summer birds is a very
puzzling circumstance in natural history!

When the boys bring me wasps’ nests, my bantam fowls
fare deliciously, and when the combs are pulled to pieces,

407

408 OBSERVATIONS ON

devour the young wasps in their maggot state with the
highest glee and delight. Any insect-eating bird would do
the same; and therefore I have often wondered that the
accurate Mr. Ray should call one species of buzzard
buteo apivorus sive vespivorus, or the honey buzzard,
because some combs of wasps happened to be found in
one of their nests. The combs were conveyed thither
doubtless for the sake of the maggots or nymphs, and not
for their honey: since none is to be found in the combs of
wasps. Birds of prey occasionally feed on insects; thus
have I seen a tame kite picking up the female ants full of
eggs with much satisfaction.

ROOKS

Rooks are continually fighting and pulling each others’
nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with
living in such close community. And yet if a pair offer
to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and
demolished at once. Some rooks roost on their nest
trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in building supply
the poor with brushwood to light their fires. Some
unhappy pairs are not permitted to finish any nest till the
rest have completed their building. As soon as they get
a few sticks together, a party comes and demolishes the
whole. As soon as rooks have finished their nests, and
before they lay, the cocks begin to feed the hens, who
receive their bounty with a fondling tremulous voice and
fluttering wings, and all the little blandishments that are
expressed by the young, while in a helpless state. This
galiant deportment of the males is continued throughout
the whole season of incubation. These birds do not
copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground
in the open fields.

THRUSHES

Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in
hunting out shell snails, which they pull in pieces for their

On Selborne Down

BIRDS IN GENERAL 409

young, and are therefore very serviceable in gardens.
Missel thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like
the other species of turdi, but feed on the berries of
misseltoe, and in the spring on ivy berries, which then
begin to ripen. In the summer, when their young become
fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep
walks and wild commons.

The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods
of missel thrushes, though the dams are fierce birds, and
fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to
avoid such insults, that this species of thrush, though wild
at other times, delights to build near houses, and in
frequented walks and gardens.

POULTRY.

Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment
to see what will turn to their own advantage and emolu-
ment; and often discover more sagacity than could be
expected. Thus my neighbour’s poultry watch for waggons
loaded with wheat, and running after them pick up a number
of grains which are shaken from the sheaves by the agitation
of the carriages. Thus, when my brother used to take down
his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run out before
him, to be ready to catch up the birds as they fell.

The earnest and early propensity of the gallinae to roost
on high is very observable; and discovers a strong dread
impressed on their spirits respecting vermin that may
annoy them on the ground during the hours of darkness.
Hence poultry, if left to themselves and not housed, will
perch the winter through on yew-trees and fir-trees; and
turkeys and guinea fowls, heavy as they are, get up into
apple trees; pheasants also in woods sleep on trees to
avoid foxes; while pea-fowls climb to the tops of the
highest trees round their owner’s house for security, let
the weather be ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is
true, roost on the ground, not having the faculty of perch-
ing; but then the same fear prevails in their minds; for

410 OBSERVATIONS ON

through apprehensions from pole-cats and stoats, they
never trust themselves to coverts, but nestle together in
the midst of large fields, far removed from hedges and
coppices, which they love to haunt in the day, and where
at that season they can sculk more secure from the ravages
of rapacious birds.

As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay web-feet
forbid them to settle on trees; they therefore, in the
hours of darkness and danger, betake themselves to their
own element the water, where, amidst large lakes and pools,
like ships riding at anchor, they float the whole night long
in peace and security.

HEN PARTRIDGE

A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along
shivering with her wings, and crying out as if wounded
and unable to get from us. While the dam acted this
distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was
small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-
earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct.

A HYBRID PHEASANT

Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt
a curious bird for my inspection. It was found by the
spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the
wing. The shape, air, and habit of the bird, and the scarlet
ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance of a
cock pheasant: but then the head and neck, and breast
and belly were of a glossy black: and though it weighed
three pounds three ounces and a half,’ the weight of a large
full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any
spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants,
who have long ones. The legs and feet were naked of
feathers, and therefore it could be nothing of the grouse
kind. In the tail were no long bending ee such as

1 Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.

BIRDS IN GENERAL 4ll

cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic of the
sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen
pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back,
wing feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curiously
streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge.
I returned it with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious
or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant and some
domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the keeper who
brought it, he told me that some pea-hens had been known
last summer to haunt the coppices and coverts where this
mule was found.

Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was
employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird.

N.B.—It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges
have imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or
blackcock; it is however to be observed, that Mr. W.
remarks, that its legs and feet were naked, whereas those
of the grouse are feathered to the toes.

LAND-RAIL

A man brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so
rare in this district that we seldom see more than one or
two in a season, and those only in autumn. This is deemed
a bird of passage by all the writers: yet from its formation
seems to be poorly qualified for migration; for its wings
are short, and placed so forward, and out of the centre of
gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embarrassed manner,
with its legs hanging down; and can hardly be sprung a
second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend more
on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying.

When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft
and tender, that in appearance they might have been dressed
like the ropes of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small
and lank, containing a mucus; the gizzard thick and strong,
and filled with small shell snails, some whole, and many
ground to pieces through the attrition which is occasioned
by the muscular force and motion of that intestine. We

412 OBSERVATIONS ON

saw no gravels among the food: perhaps the shell snails
might perform the functions of gravels or pebbles, and
might grind one another. lLand-rails used to abound
formerly, I remember, in the low wet bean fields of
Christian Malford in North Wilts, and in the meadows
near Paradise Gardens at Oxford, where I have often heard
them cry crex, crex. The bird mentioned above weighed
74 oz., was fat and tender, and in flavour like the flesh of
a woodcock. The liver was very large and delicate.

FOOD OF THE RING-DOVE

One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening
as it was returning from feed and going to roost. When
his wife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw
stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips.
These she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice
and delicate plate of greens, culled and provided in this
extraordinary manner.

Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, when
grain fails, can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There
is reason to suppose that they would not long be healthy
without ; for turkeys, though corn fed, delight in a variety
of plants, such as cabbage, lettuce, endive, etc. and poultry
pick much grass ; while geese live for months together on
commons by grazing alone.

“ Nought is useless made ; —— —
—— — — On the barren heath
The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf
Sufficient : after them the cackling goose,
Close-grazer, finds wherewith to ease her want.”

Puitips’s Cyder.

HEN HARRIER

Mr. White of Newton sprung a pheasant in a wheat
stubble, and shot at it; when, notwithstanding the report
of the gun, it was immediately pursued by the blue hawk.

BIRDS IN GENERAL 413

known by the name of the hen-harrier, but escaped into
some covert. He then sprung a second, and a third, in
the same field, that got away in the same manner; the
hawk hovering round him all the while that he was beating
the field, conscious no doubt of the game that lurked in
the stubble. Hence we may conclude that this bird of
prey was rendered very daring and bold by hunger, and
that hawks cannot always seize their game when they
please. We may farther observe, that they cannot pounce
their quarry on the ground, where it might be able to
make a stout resistance, since so large a fowl as a pheasant
could not but be visible to the piercing eye of a hawk,
when hovering over the field. Hence that propensity of
cowring and squatting till they are almost trod on, which
no doubt was intended as a mode of security: though long
rendered destructive to the whole race of gallinae by the
invention of nets and guns.

GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON

As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer forest
from Bramshot across the moors, he found a large un-
common bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded,
which he brought home alive. On examination it proved
to be colymbus glacialis Linn. the great speckled diver or
loon, which is most excellently described in Willughby’s
Ornithology.

Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably
adapted to this mode of life, that in no instance do we see
the wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage.
The head is sharp and smaller than the part of the neck
adjoining, in order that it may pierce the water ; the wings
are placed forward and out of the 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
knife, that in striking they may easily cut the water:
while the feet are palmated, and broad for swimming, yet

414 OBSERVATIONS ON

so folded up when advanced forward to take a fresh stroke,
as to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior
toes of the feet are longest; the nails flat and broad,
resembling the human, which give strength and increase
the power of swimming. The foot, when expanded, is
not at right angles to the leg or body of the bird: but the
exterior part inclining towards the head forms an acute
angle with the body; the intention being not to give
motion in the line of the legs themselves, but by the
combined impulse of both in an intermediate line, the line
of the body.

Most people know, that have observed at all, that the
swimming of birds is nothing more than a walking in the
water, where one foot succeeds the other as on the land ;
yet no one, as far as I am aware, has remarked that diving
fowls, while under water, impel and row themselves forward
by a motion of their wings, as well as by the impulse of
their feet: but such is really the case, as any person may
easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted
by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has
given a reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so
forward: doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their
speed in flying, since that position certainly impedes it;
but probably for the increase of their motion under water,
by the use of four oars instead of two; yet were the wings
and feet nearer together, as in land-birds, they would,
when in action, rather hinder than assist one another.

This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only
three drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois. It
measured in length from the bill to the tail (which was
very short) two feet. and to the extremities of the toes,
four inches more ; and the breadth of the wings expanded
was 42 inches. A person attempted to eat the body, but
found it very strong and rancid, as is the flesh of all birds
living on fish. Divers or loons, though bred in the most
northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in ve
severe winters ; and on the Thames are called sprat loons,
because they prey much on that sort of fish.

The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very

BIRDS IN GENERAL 415

backward, and so out of all centre of gravity, that these
birds cannot walk at all. They are called by Linnaeus
compedes, because they move on the ground as if shackled
or fettered.

STONE CURLEW

On thé 27th of February 1788, Stone Curlews were
heard to pipe; and on March Ist, after it was dark, some
were passing over the village, as might be perceived by
their quick short note, which they use in their nocturnal
excursions by way of watch-word, that they may not stray
and lose their companions.

Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in the
winter, they return again early in the spring, and are, as it
now appears, the first summer birds that come back.
Perhaps the mildness of the season may have quickened
the emigration of the curlews this year.

They spend the day in high elevated fields and sheep-
walks ; but seem to descend in the night to streams and
meadows, perhaps for water, which their upland haunts do
not afford them.

THE SMALLEST WILLOW WREN

The smallest uncrested willow wren, or chiff chaf, is
the next early summer bird which we have remarked ; it
utters two sharp piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods,
as to occasion an echo, and is usually first heard about the

20th of March.

FERN OWL, OR GOAT SUCKER

The country people have a notion that the fern owl, or
churn owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge,
is very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting, as it
strikes at them, the fatal distemper known to cow-leeches
by the name of puckeridge. Thus does this harmless ill-

416 OBSERVATIONS ON

fated bird fall under a double imputation which it by no
means deserves—in Italy, of sucking the teats of goats,
whence it is called caprimulgus; and with us, of com-
municating a deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of
the matter is, the malady above mentioned is occasioned
by the oestrus bovis, a dipterous insect, which lays its eggs
along the chines of kine, where the maggots, when hatched,
eat their way through the hide of the beast into the flesh,
and grow to a very large size. I have just talked with a
man, who says, he has more than once stripped calves who
have died of the puckeridge ; that the ail or complaint lay
along the chine, where the flesh was much swelled, and
filled with purulent matter. Once I myself saw a large
rough maggot of this sort squeezed out of the back of a
cow.

These maggots in Essex are called wornils.

The least observation and attention would convince
men, that these birds neither injure the goatherd nor the
grazier, but are perfectly harmless, and subsist alone, being
night birds, on night insects, such as scarabaei, and
phalaenae ; and through the month of July mostly on the
scarabaeus solstitialis, which in many districts abounds at that
season. ‘Those that we have opened, have always had
their craws stuffed with large night moths and their eggs,
and pieces of chaffers: nor does it anywise appear how
they can, weak and unarmed as they seem, inflict any
harm upon kine, unless they possess the powers of
animal magnetism, and can affect them by fluttering
over them.

A fern owl, this evening (August 27) showed off in a
very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking round
and round the circumference of my great spreading oak
for twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the
grass, but occasionally glancing up amidst the boughs of
the tree. This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a
brood of some particular phalaena belonging to the oak,
of which there are several sorts; and exhibited on the
occasion a command of wing superior, I think, to that of
the swallow itself.

BIRDS IN GENERAL 417

When a person approaches the haunt of fern owls in an
evening, they continue flying round the head of the
obtruder ; and by striking their wings together above
their backs, in the manner that the pigeons called smiters
are known to do, make a smart snap: perhaps at that time
they are jealous for their young; and their noise and
gesture are intended by way of menace.

Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on
account of food; for the next evening we saw one again
several times among the boughs of the same tree ; but it
did not skim round its stem over the grass, as on the
evening before. In May these birds find the scarabaeus
melontha on the oak ; and the scarabaeus solstitialis at mid-
summer. These peculiar birds can only be watched and
observed for two hours in the twenty-four: and then
in a dubious twilight an hour after sun-set and an hour
before sun-rise.

On this day (July 14, 1789) a woman brought me two
eggs of a fern-owl or eve-jarr, which she found on the
verge of the Hanger, to the left of the hermitage under
a beechen shrub. This person, who lives just at the foot
of the Hanger, seems well acquainted with these nocturnal
swallows, and says she has often found their eggs near
that place, and that they lay only two at a time on the
bare ground The eggs were oblong, dusky, and streaked
somewhat in the manner of the plumage of the parent
bird, and were equal in size at each end. The dam was
sitting on the eggs when found, which contained the
rudiments of young, and would have been hatched perhaps
in a week. From hence we may see the time of their
breeding, which corresponds pretty well with that of the
swift, as does also the period of their arrival. Each
species is usually seen about the beginning of May. Each
breeds but once in a summer ; each lays only two eggs.

July 4, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern-
owl’s eggs last year on July 14, on this day produced me
two more, one of which had been laid this morning, as
appears plainly, because there was only one in the nest the

evening before. They were found, as last July, on the
2D

418 OBSERVATIONS ON

verge of the down above the hermitage under a beechen
shrub, on the naked ground. Last year those eggs were
full of young, and just ready to be hatched.

These circumstances point out the exact time when
these curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs and
hatch their young. Fern-owls, like snipes, stone curlews,
and some other birds, make no nest. Birds that build on
the ground do not make much of nests.

SAND MARTINS

March 23, 1788. A gentleman who was this week on
a visit at Waverley, took the opportunity of examining
some of the holes in the sand banks with which that
district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by
bank martins, and are the places where they avowedly
breed, he was in hopes they might have slept there also,
and that he might have surprised them just as they were
awaking from their winter slumbers. When he had dug
for some time, he found the holes were horizontal and
serpentine, as I had observed before: and that the nests
were deposited at the inner end, and had been occupied
by broods in former summers, but no torpid birds were to
be found. He opened and examined about a dozen holes.
Another gentleman made the same search many years ago,
with as little success.

These holes were in depth about two feet.

March 21,1790. A single bank or sand martin was
seen hovering and playing round the sand pit at Short
Heath, where in the summer they abound.

April 9, 1793. A sober hind assures us, that this
day, on Wish-hanger common between Hedleigh and
Frinsham, he saw several bank-martins playing in and
out, and hanging before some nest holes in a sand-hill,
whens these birds usually nestle.

This incident confirms my suspicions that this species of
hirundo is to be seen first of any ; and gives great reason
to suppose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all,

BIRDS IN GENERAL 419

but are secreted amidst the clefts and caverns of those
abrupt cliffs where they usually spend their summers.

The late severe weather considered, it is not very
probable that these birds should have migrated so early
from a tropical region, through all these cutting winds and
pinching frosts: but it is easy to suppose that they may,
like bats and flies, have been awakened by the influence of
the sun, amidst their secret latebrae, where they have
spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state,
and the profoundest of slumbers.

There is a large pond at Wish-hanger, which induces
these sand-martins to frequent that district. For I have
ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either
rivers or lakes.

SWALLOWS, CONGREGATING AND
DISAPPEARANCE OF

During the severe winds that often prevail late in the
spring, it is not easy to say how the hirundines subsist :
for they withdraw themselves, and are hardly ever seen,
nor do any insects appear for their support. That they
can retire to rest, and sleep away these uncomfortable
periods, as bats do, is a matter rather to be suspected than
proved: or do they not rather spend their time in deep
and sheltered vales near waters, where insects are more
likely to be found? Certain it is, that hardly any indi-
viduals of this genus have at such times been seen for
several days together.

September 13, 1791. The congregating flocks of
hirundines on the church and tower are very beautiful
and amusing! When they fly off together from the roof,
on any alarm, they quite swarm the air. But they soon
settle in heaps, and preening their feathers, and lifting up
their wings to admit the sun, seem highly to enjoy the
warm situation. Thus they spend the heat of the day,
preparing for their emigration, and, as it were, consulting
when and where they are to go. The flight about the

420 OBSERVATIONS ON

church seems to consist chiefly of house martins, about 400
in number: but there are other places of rendezvous
about the village frequented at the same time.

It is remarkable, that though most of them sit on the
battlements and roof, yet many hang or cling for some
time by their claws against the surface of the walls, in a
manner not practised by them at any other time of their
remaining with us.

The swallows seem to delight more in holding their
assemblies on trees.

November 3, 1789. Two swallows were seen this
morning at Newton vicarage-house, hovering and settling
on the roofs and out-buildings, None have been observed
at Selborne since October 11. It is very remarkable, that
after the hirundines have disappeared for some weeks, a
few are occasionally seen again: sometimes, in the first
week in November, and that only for one day. Do they
not withdraw and slumber in some hiding place during the
interval ? for we cannot suppose they had migrated to
warmer climes and so returned again for one day. Is it
not more probable that they are awakened from sleep, and
like the bats are come forth to collect a little food? Bats
appear at all seasons through the autumn and spring
months, when the thermometer is at 50, because then
phalaenae and moths are stirring.

These swallows looked like young ones.

WAGTAILS

While the cows are feeding in moist low pastures,
broods of wagtails, white and grey, run round them, close
up to their noses, and under their very bellies, availing
themselves of the flies that settle on their legs, and
probably finding worms and larvae that are roused by the
trampling of their feet. Nature is such an oeconomist,
that the most incongruous animals can avail themselves of
each other !

Interest makes strange friendships.

BIRDS IN GENERAL 42i

WRYNECK

These birds appear on the grass-plots and walks; they
walk a little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the
turf, in quest, I conclude, of ants, which are their food.
While they hold their bills in the grass, they draw out
their prey with their tongues, which are so long as to be
coiled round their heads.

GROSBEAK

Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had observed to
haunt his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to
accuse this bird of making sad havoc among the buds of
the cherries, gooseberries, and wall-fruit of the neighbouring
orchards. Upon opening its crop or craw, no buds were
to be seen; but a mass of kernels of the stones of fruits.
Mr. B. observed that this bird frequented the spot where
plum-trees grow ; and that he had seen it with somewhat
hard in its mouth, which it broke with difficulty ; these
were the stones of damsons. The latin ornithologists call
this bird coccothraustes, i.e. berry-breaker, because with its
large horny beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone
fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this
sort are rarely seen in England, and only in winter.

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS

SHEEP

Tue sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very
ragged, and their coats much torn; the shepherds say
they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns,
and they are always in that way in mild wet winters, being
teased and tickled with a kind of lice.

After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion
and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able
to distinguish one another as before. This embarrass-
ment seems not so much to arise from the loss of the
fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance,
as from the defect of that notus 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 matters 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.

RABBITS

Rabbits make incomparably the finest turf, for they not
only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no
bents to rise; hence warrens produce much the most
delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of
grasses,

422

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS 423

CAT AND SQUIRRELS

A boy has taken three little young squirrels in their
nest, or drey as it is called in these parts. These small
creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately
lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them
with the same assiduity and affection, as if they were her
own offspring. This circumstance corroborates my
suspicion, that the mention of exposed and deserted
children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had
lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as
many have supposed ; and therefore may be a justification
of those authors who have gravely mentioned, what some
have deemed to be a wild and improbable story.

So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled
by a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her
charge, and in pain for their safety; and therefore hid
them over the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance
shows her affection for these fondlings, and that she
supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus hens,
when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached
to them as if they were her own chickens.

HORSE

An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being
taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to
implore the help of men, and died the night following in
the street.

HOUNDS

The king’s stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended
by a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to
try for the stag that has haunted Hartley Wood for so
long atime. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot,
attended the dogs to see the deer unharboured; but
though the huntsman drew Hartley Wood, and Long

424 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS

Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers, and in
their way back Hartley and Ward le ham Hangers, yet no
stag could be found.

The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out
before them, never drew the coverts with any address and
spirit, as many people that were present observed ; and
this remark the event has proved to bea true one. For
as a person was lately pursuing a pheasant that was wing-
broken in Hartley Wood, he stumbled upon the stag by
accident, and ran in upon him as he lay concealed amidst
a thick brake of brambles and bushes.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND
VERMES

INSECTS IN GENERAL

Tue day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately :
the papilios, muscae, and apes, are succeeded at the close of
day by phalaenae, earwigs, woodlice, etc. In the dusk of
the evening, when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin
to call; these two circumstances are exactly coincident.

Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous
and dipterous insects. On sunny days quite on to Novem-
ber they swarm on trees covered with this plant; and
when they disappear, probably retire under the shelter of
its leaves, concealing themselves between its fibres and the
trees which it entwines. Spiders, woodlice, lepismae in
cupboards and among sugar, some empedes, gnats, flies of
several species, some phalaenae in hedges, earth-worms, etc.
are stirring at all times when winters are mild; and are of
great service to those soft-billed birds that never leave us.

On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of
insects usually called gnats (I suppose tipulae and empedes)
appear sporting and dancing over the tops of the ever-green
trees in the shrubbery, and frisking about as if the business
of generation was still going on. Hence it appears that
these diptera (which by their sizes appear to be of different
species) are not subject to a torpid state in the winter, as
most winged insects are. At night, and in frosty weather,
and when it rains and blows, they seem to retire into those
trees. They often are out in a fog.

425

426 OBSERVATIONS ON

HUMMING IN THE AIR

There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the
highest part of our down in hot summer days, which
always amuses me much, without giving me any satis-
faction with respect to the cause of it; and that is a loud
audible humming of bees in the air, though not one insect
is to be seen. This sound is to be heard distinctly the
whole common through, from the Money-dells, to Mr.
White’s avenue gate. Any person would suppose that
a large swarm of bees was in motion, and playing about
over his head. This noise was heard last week, on June
28th.

‘*Resounds the living surface of the ground,
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum
To him who muses ————___—— at noon.”
“Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways,
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv’d,
The quivering nations sport.” Tuomson’s Seasons.

CHAFFERS

Cockchaffers seldom abound oftener than once in three
or four years; when they swarm, they deface the trees and
hedges. Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by them.

Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the
house-swarrow.

The scarabaeus solstitialis first appears about June 26:
they are very punctual in their coming out every year.
They are a small species, about half the size of the May-
chaffer, and are known in some parts by the name of the
fern-chaffer.

PTINUS PECTINICORNIS

Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs,
bed-posts, etc. and destroy wooden furniture, especially
where there is any sap, are the larvae of the ptinus pectini-
cornis. ‘This insect, it is probable, deposits its eggs on the
surface, and the worms eat their way in.

INSECTS AND VERMES 427

In their holes they turn into their pupae state, and so
come forth winged in July: eating their way through the
valances or curtains of a bed, or any other furniture that
happens to obstruct their passage.

They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech; hence
beech will not make lasting utensils, or furniture. If their
eggs are deposited on the surface, frequent rubbing will
preserve wooden furniture.

BLATTA ORIENTALIS. COCKROACH

A neighbour complained to me that her house was over-
run with a kind of black beetle, or as she expressed herself,
with a kind of black-bob, which swarmed in her kitchen
when they got up in the morning before daybreak.

Soon after this account, I observed an unusual insect in
one of my dark chimney closets, and find since, that in the
night they swarm also in my kitchen. On examination, |
soon ascertained the species to be the d/sita orientalis of
Linnaeus, and the b/atta molendinaria of Mouffet. The
male is winged; the female is not, but shows somewhat
like the rudiments of wings, as if in the pupa state.

These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts
of America, and were conveyed from thence by shipping
to the East Indies; and by means of commerce begin to
prevail in the more northern parts of Europe, as Russia,
Sweden, etc. How long they have abounded in England
I cannot say; but have never observed them in my house
till lately.

They love warmth, and haunt chimney-closets, and the
backs of ovens. Poda says that these and house-crickets
will not associate together; but he is mistaken in that
assertion, as Linnaeus suspected he was. They are alto-
gether night insects, /ucifugae, never coming forth till the
rooms are dark and still, and escaping away nimbly at the
approach of a candle. Their antennae are remarkably long,
slender, and flexile.

October 1790. After the servants are gone to bed, the

428 OBSERVATIONS ON

kitchen hearth swarms with young crickets, and young d/attae
molendinariae of all sizes, from the most minute growth
to their full proportions. They seem to live in a friendly
manner together, and not to prey the one on the other.
August 1792. After the destruction of many thousands
of blattae molendinariae, we find that at intervals a fresh de-
tachment of old ones arrives, and particularly during this hot
season: for the windows being left open in the evenings,
the males come flying in at the casements from the neigh-
bouring houses, which swarm with them. How the females,
that seem to have no perfect wings that they can use, can
contrive to get from house to house, does not so readily
appear. These, like many insects, when they find their
present abodes over-stocked, have powers of migrating to
fresh quarters. Since the d/attae have been so much kept
under, the crickets have greatly increased in number.

GRYLLUS DOMEST.—HOUSE CRICKET

November. After the servants are gone to bed, the
kitchen hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large
as fleas, which must have been lately hatched. So that
these domestic insects, cherished by the influence of a
constant large fire, regard not the season of the year,
but produce their young at a time when their congeners
are either dead, or laid up for the winter, to pass away the
uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, and a
state of torpidity.

When house-crickets are out, and running about in
a room in the night, if surprised by a candle, they give
two or three shrill notes, as it were for a signal to
their fellows, that they may escape to their crannies and
lurking holes, to avoid danger.

CIMEX LINEARIS

August 12, 1775. Cimices lineares are now in high
copulation on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly

INSECTS AND VERMES 429

exceed the males in bulk, dart and shoot along on the
surface of the water with the males on their backs. When
a female chooses to be disengaged, she rears, and jumps,
and plunges, like an unruly colt; the lover thus dis-
mounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast
as their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of
the lake, perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet; hence
the sexes are found separate, except where generation is
going on. From the multitude of minute young of all
gradations of sizes, these insects seem without doubt to
be viviparous.

PHALAENA QUERCUS

Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the
Holt in general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of
a small phalaena which is of a pale yellow colour. These
insects, though a feeble race, yet, from their infinite
numbers, are of wonderful effect, being able to destroy the
foliage of whole forests and districts. At this season they
leave their aureliae, and issue forth in their fly-state,
swarming and covering the trees and hedges.

In a field at Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied in
catching their prey near the ground; and found they were
hawking after these phalaenae. The aurelia of this moth
is shining and as black as jet; and lies wrapped up in
a leaf of the tree, which is rolled round it, and secured
at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot from falling
out.

EPHEMERA CAUDA BISETA. MAY FLY

June 10, 1771. Myriads of May flies appear for the
first time on the Alresford stream. The air was crowded
with them, and the surface of the water covered. Large
trouts sucked them in as they lay struggling on the
surface of the stream, unable to rise till their wings were

dried.

430 OBSERVATIONS ON

This appearance reconciled me in some measure to
the wonderful account that Scopoli gives of the quantities
emerging from the rivers of Carniola. Their motions are
very peculiar, up and down for many yards almost in
a perpendicular line.

SPHYNX OCELLATA

A vast insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a
humming noise, and inserting its tongue into the bloom of
the honeysuckle; it scarcely settles upon the plants, but
feeds on the wing in the manner of humming birds.

WILD BEE

There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-
campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it
turns to some purpose in the business of nidification. It
is very pleasant to see with what address it strips off
the pubes, running from the top to the bottom of a
branch, and shaving it bare with all the dexterity of a
hoop-shaver. When it has got a vast bundle, almost
as large as itself, it flies away, holding it secure between its
chin and its fore legs.

There is a remarkable hill on the downs near Lewes in
Sussex, known by the name of Mount Carburn, which
overlooks that town, and affords a most engaging prospect
of all the country round, besides several views of the sea.
On the very summit of this exalted promontory, and
amidst the trenches of its Danish camp, there haunts a
species of wild bee, making its nest in the chalky soil.
When people approach the place, these insects begin to be
alarmed, and, with a sharp and hostile sound, dash and
strike round the heads and faces of intruders. I have
often been interrupted myself while contemplating the
grandeur of the scenery around me, and have thought
myself in danger of being stung.

INSECTS AND VERMES 431

WASPS

Wasps abound in woody wild districts far from neigh-
bourhoods ; they feed on flowers, and catch flies and cater-
pillars to carry to their young. Wasps make their nests
with the raspings of sound timber ; hornets, with what they
gnaw from decayed: these particles of wood are kneaded
up with a mixture of saliva from their bodies, and moulded
into combs.

When there is no fruit in the gardens, wasps eat flies,
and suck the honey from flowers, from ivy blossoms, and
umbellated plants: they carry off also flesh from butchers’
shambles.

OESTRUS CURVICAUDA

This insect lays its nits or eggs on horses’ legs, flanks,
etc. each on a single hair. The maggots when hatched do
not enter the horses’ skins, but fall to the ground. It
seems to abound most in moist, moorish places, though
sometimes seen in the uplands.

NOSE FLY
About the beginning of July, a species of fly (musca)

obtains, which proves very tormenting to horses, trying
still to enter their nostrils and ears, and actually laying
their eggs in the latter of those organs, or perhaps in both.
When these abound, horses in woodland districts become
very impatient at their work, continually tossing their
heads, and rubbing their noses on each other, regardless
of the driver, so that accidents often ensue. In the heat
of the day, men are often obliged to desist from ploughing.
Saddle-horses are also very troublesome at such seasons.
Country people call this insect the nose fly.

432 OBSERVATIONS ON

ICHNEUMON FLY

I saw lately a small ichneumon fly attack a spider much
larger than itself on a grass walk. When the spider made
any resistance, the ichneumon applied her tail to him, and
stung him with great vehemence, so that he soon became
dead and motionless. The ichneumon then running back-
ward drew her prey very nimbly over the walk into the
standing grass. This spider would be deposited in some
hole where the ichneumon would lay some eggs; and as
soon as the eggs were hatched, the carcase would afford
ready food for the maggots.

Perhaps some eggs might be injected into the body of
the spider, in the act of stinging. Some ichneumons
deposit their eggs in the aurelia of moths and butterflies.

BOMBYLIUS MEDIUS

The bombylius medius is much about in March and the
beginning of April, and soon seems to retire. It is an hairy
insect, like an humble-bee, but with only two wings, and a
long straight beak, with which it sucks the early flowers.
The female seems to lay its eggs as it poises on its wings,
by striking its tail on the ground, and against the grass
that stands in its way, in a quick manner, for several times
together.

MUSCAE.—FLIES

In the decline of the year, when mornings and evenings
become chilly, many species of flies (muscae) retire into
houses, and swarm in the windows.

At first they are very brisk and alert; but as they grow
more torpid, one cannot help observing that they move
with difficulty, and are scarce able to lift their legs, which
seem as if glued to the glass; and by degrees many do
actually stick on till they die in the place.

It has been observed that divers flies, besides their sharp

INSECTS AND VERMES 433

hooked nails, have also skinny palms, or flaps to their feet,
whereby they are enabled to stick on glass and other
smooth bodies, and to walk on ceilings with their backs
downward, by means of the pressure of the atmosphere on
those flaps; the weight of which they easily overcome in
warm weather when they are brisk and alert. But in the
decline of the year, this resistance becomes too mighty for
their diminished strength; and we see flies labouring along,
and lugging their feet in windows as if they stuck fast to
the glass, and it is with the utmost difficulty they can draw
one foot after another, and disengage their hollow caps
from the slippery surface.

Upon the same principle that flies stick and support
themselves, do boys, by way of play, carry heavy weights
by only a piece of wet leather at the end of a string clapped
close on the surface of a stone.

TIPULAE, OR EMPEDES

Millions of empedes, or tipulae, come forth at the
close of day, and swarm to such a degree as to fill the air.
At this juncture they sport and copulate; as it grows more
dark they retire. All day they hide in the hedges. As
they rise in a cloud they appear like smoke.

I do not ever remember to have seen such swarms,
except in the fens of the Isle of Ely. They appear
most over grass grounds,

ANTS

August 23. Every ant-hill about this time is in a
strange hurry and confusion; and all the winged ants,
agitated by some violent impulse, are leaving their homes,
and, bent on emigration, swarm by myriads in the air, to
the great emolument of the hirundines, which fare
luxuriously. Those that escape the swallows return no
more to their nests, but looking out for fresh settlements,

lay a foundation for future colonies. All the females at
2E

434 OBSERVATIONS ON

this time are pregnant: the males that escape being eaten,
wander away and die.

October 2. Flying ants, male and female, usually
swarm and migrate on hot sunny days in August and
September ; but this day a vast emigration took place in
my garden, and myriads came forth, in appearance from
the drain which goes under the fruit wall; filling the air
and the adjoining trees and shrubs with their numbers.
The females were full of eggs. This late swarming is
probably owing to the backward, wet season. The
day following, not one flying ant was to be seen. ;

Horse-ants travel home to their nests laden with flies,
which they have caught, and the aureliae of smaller ants,
which they seize by violence.

GLOW-WORMS

By observing two glow-worms which were brought
from the field to the bank in the garden, it appeared to us,
that these little creatures put out their lamps between eleven
and twelve, and shine no more for the rest of the night.

Male glow-worms, attracted by the light of the candles,
come into the parlour.

EARTH-WORMS

Earth-worms make their casts most in mild weather
about March and April; they do not lie torpid in winter,
but come forth when there is no frost ; they travel about in
rainy nights, as appears from their sinuous tracks on the
soft muddy soil, perhaps in search of food.

When earth-worms lie out a-nights on the turf, though
they extend their bodies a great way, they do not quite
leave their holes, but keep the ends of their tails fixed
therein, so that on the least alarm they can retire with
precipitation under the earth. Whatever food falls
within their reach when thus extended, they seem to be
content with, such as blades of grass, straws, fallen leaves,

INSECTS AND VERMES 435

the ends of which they often draw into their holes; even
in copulation their hinder parts never quit their holes ;
so that no two, except they lie within reach of each
other’s bodies, can have any commerce of that kind ; but
as every individual is an hermaphrodite, there is no
difficulty in meeting with a mate, as would be the case
were they of different sexes.

SNAILS AND SLUGS

The shell-less snails called slugs are in motion all the
winter in mild weather, and commit great depredations on
garden plants, and much injure the green wheat, the loss
of which is imputed to earth-worms; while the shelled
snail, the epéou«os, does not come forth at all till about
April roth, and not only lays itself up pretty early in
autumn, in places secure from frost, but also throws out
round the mouth of its shell a thick operculum formed
from its own saliva; so that it is perfectly secured, and
corked up as it were, from all inclemencies. The cause
why the slugs are able to endure the cold so much better
than shell-snails is, that their bodies are covered with slime
as whales are with blubber.

Snails copulate about Midsummer; and soon after
deposit their eggs in the mould by running their heads and
bodies under ground. Hence the way to be rid of them
is to kill as many as possible before they begin to breed.

Large, grey, shell-less cellar snails lay themselves up
about the same time with those that live abroad ; hence it
is plain that a defect of warmth is not the only cause that
influences their retreat.

SNAKES SLOUGH

——“ There the snake throws her enamelled skin.”
Suaxspgare, Mids.-Night’s Dream.

About the middle of this month (September) we found
in a field near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which

436 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES

seemed to have been newly cast. From circumstances it
appeared as if turned wrong side outward, and as drawn
off backward, like a stocking or woman’s glove. Not
only the whole skin, but scales from the very eyes, are
peeled off, and appear in the head of the slough like a pair
of spectacles. The reptile, at the time of changing his
coat, had entangled himself intricately in the grass and
weeds, so that the friction of the stalks and blades might
promote this curious shifting of the exuviae.

“ Lubrica serpens
Exuit in spinis vestem.”—Lucrert,

It would be a most entertaining sight could a person be
an eye-witness to such a feat, and see the snake in the act
of changing his garment. As the convexity of the scales
of the eyes in the slough is now inward, that circumstance
alone is a proof that the skin has been turned: not to
mention that now the present inside is much darker than
the outer. If you look through the scales of the snake’s
eyes from the concave side, viz. as the reptile used them,
they lessen objects much. ‘Thus it appears from what has
been said, that snakes crawl out of the mouth of their own
sloughs, and quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned
by a cook maid. While the scales of the eyes are growing
loose, and a new skin is forming, the creature, in appear-
ance, must be blind, and feel itself in an awkward uneasy
situation.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES

TREES, ORDER OF LOSING THEIR LEAVES

Ons of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut ;
the mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and
the horse-chestnut come next. All looped trees, while
their heads are young, carry their leaves a long while.
Apple-trees and peaches remain green very late, often till
the end of November: young beeches never cast their
leaves till spring, till the new leaves sprout and push them
off: in the autumn the beechen-leaves turn of a deep
chestnut colour. ‘Tall beeches cast their leaves about the
end of October.

SIZE AND GROWTH

Mr. Marsham of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me
by letter thus: “I became a planter early; so that an oak
which I planted in 1720 is become now, at 1 foot from
the earth, 12 feet 6 inches in circumference, and at 14 feet
(the half of the timber length) is 8 feet 2 inches. So if
the bark was to be measured as timber, the tree gives 116}
feet, buyer’s measure. Perhaps you never heard of a larger
oak while the planter was living. I flatter myself that I
increased the growth by washing the stem, and digging a
circle as far as I supposed the roots to extend, and by
spreading sawdust, etc. as related in the Phil. Trans. I
wish I had begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well
as yours), I might then have seen very large trees of my

437

438 OBSERVATIONS ON

own raising. But I did not begin with beech till 1741,
and then by seed; so that my largest is now at five feet
from the ground, 6 feet 3 inches in girth, and with its head
spreads a circle of 20 yards diameter. This tree was also
dug round, washed, etc.’’—Stratton, 24 July, 1790.

The circumference of trees planted by myself at 1 foot
from the ground (1790).

Feet. Inches.

Oak in 1730 - - - 4 5
Ash 1730 - - - 4 64
Great fir I9gr + - - § °
Greatest beech 1751 - - - 4 fo)
Elm 1750 - - = § =
Lime 1756 - - - 5 5

The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by Mr.
Marsham to be the biggest in this island, at 7 feet from
the ground, measures in circumference 34 feet. It has in
old times lost several of its boughs, and is tending to
decay. Mr. Marsham computes, that at 14 feet length
this oak contains 1000 feet of timber.

It has been the received opinion that trees grow in
height only by their annual upper shoot. But my neigh-
bour over the way, whose occupation confines him to one
spot, assures me that trees are expanded and raised in the
lower parts also. The reason that he gives is this: the
point of one of my firs began for the first time to peep
over an opposite roof at the beginning of summer; but
before the growing season was over, the whole shoot of the
year, and three or four joints of the body beside, became
visible to him as he sits on his form in his shop. Ac-
cording to this supposition, a tree may advance in height
considerably, though the summer shoot should be destroyed
every year.

FLOWING OF SAP

If the bough of a vine is cut late in the spring, just
before the shoots push out, it will bleed considerably ; but
after the leaf is out, any part may be taken off without the

VEGETABLES 439

least inconvenience. So oaks may be barked while the
leaf is budding; but as soon as they are expanded, the
bark will no longer part from the wood, because the sap
that lubricates the bark and makes it part, is evaporated off
through the leaves.

RENOVATION OF LEAVES

When oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by chaffers,
they are clothed again soon after Midsummer with a beauti-
ful foliage: but beeches, horse-chestnuts and maples, once
defaced by those insects, never recover their beauty again
for the whole season.

ASH TREES

Many ash trees bear loads of keys every year, others
never seem to bear any at all. The prolific ones are naked
of leaves and unsightly; those that are sterile abound in
foliage, and carry their verdure a long while, and are
pleasing objects.

SYCAMORE

May 12. The sycamore or great maple is in bloom,
and at this season makes a beautiful appearance, and affords
much pabulum for bees, smelling strongly like honey. The
foliage of this tree is very fine, and very ornamental to out-
lets, All the maples have saccharine juices.

GALLS OF LOMBARDY POPLAR

The stalks and ribs of the leaves of the Lombardy
poplar are embossed with large tumours of an oblong
shape, which by incurious observers have been taken for
the fruit of the tree. These galls are full of small insects,
some of which are winged, and some not. The parent

440 OBSERVATIONS ON

insect is of the genus of synips. Some poplars in the garden
are quite loaded with these excrescences.

CHESTNUT TIMBER

John Carpenter brings home some old chestnut trees
which are very long; in several places the wood-peckers
had begun to bore them. The timber and bark of these
trees are so very like oak, as might easily deceive an
indifferent observer, but the wood is very shakey, and
towards the heart cup-shakey (that is to say, apt to sepa-
rate in round pieces like cups) so that the inward parts
are of no use. They are bought for the purpose of
cooperage, but must make but ordinary barrels, buckets,
etc. Chestnut sells for half the price of oak; but has
sometimes been sent into the king’s docks, and passed
off instead of oak.

LIME BLOSSOMS

Dr. Chandler tells, that in the south of France, an
infusion of the blossoms of the lime tree, “Ha, is in much
esteem as a remedy for coughs, hoarsenesses, fevers, etc.
and that at Nismes, he saw an avenue of limes that
was quite ravaged and torn in pieces by people greedily
gathering the bloom, which they dried and kept for these
purposes.

Upon the strength of this information we made some
tea of lime blossoms, and found it very soft, well-flavoured,
pleasant, saccharine julep, in taste much resembling the
juice of liquorice.

BLACKTHORN

This tree usually blossoms while cold N.E. winds blow;
so that the harsh rugged weather obtaining at this season,
is called by the country people, blackthorn winter.

Hop Garden

VEGETABLES 441

IVY BERRIES

Ivy berries afford a noble and providential supply for
birds in winter and spring; for the first severe frost
freezes and spoils all the haws, sometimes by the middle of
November ; ivy berries do not seem to freeze.

HOPS

The culture of Virgil’s vines corresponded very exactly
with the modern management of hops. I might instance
in the perpetual diggings and hoeings, in the tying to the
stakes and poles, in pruning the superfluous shoots, etc.
but lately I have observed a new circumstance, which was
a neighbouring farmer’s harrowing between the rows of
hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn by one horse,
and guided by two handles. This occurrence brought to
my mind the following passage—

“ipsa
Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos.”—Georgic II.

Hops are diécious plants: hence perhaps it might be
proper, though not practised, to leave purposely some
male plants in every garden, that their farina might im-
pregnate the blossoms. The female plants without their
male attendants are not in their natural state: hence we
may suppose the frequent failure of crop so incident to
hop-grounds; no other growth, cultivated by man, has
such frequent and general failures as hops.

Two hop gardens much injured by a hail-storm, June 5,
show now (September 2) a prodigious crop, and larger and
fairer hops than any in the parish. The owners seem now
to be convinced that the hail, by beating off the tops
of the binds, has increased the side-shoots, and improved
the crop. Query. Therefore should not the tops of hops
be pinched off when the binds are very gross, and strong?

442 OBSERVATIONS ON

SEED LYING DORMANT

The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with
thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may
have lain probably under the thick shade of the beeches
for many years, but could not vegetate till the sun and air
were admitted. When old beech trees are cleared away,
the naked ground in a year or two becomes covered with
strawberry plants, the seeds of which must have lain in the
ground for an age at least. One of the slidders or trenches
down the middle of the Hanger, close covered over with
lofty beeches near a century old, is still called strawberry
slidder, though no strawberries have grown there in the
memory of man. That sort of fruit did once, no doubt,
abound there, and will again when the obstruction is
removed.

BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS

Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the
autumn, and are now grown to a considerable height. As
the Ewel was in beans last summer, it is most likely that
these seeds came from thence; but then the distance
is too considerable for them to have been conveyed by
mice. It is most probable therefore that they were
brought by birds, and in particular by jays and pies, who
seem to have hid them among the grass and moss, and then
to have forgotten where they had stowed them. Some
peas are growing also in the same situation, and probably
under the same circumstances,

CUCUMBERS SET BY BEES

If bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers, do
not happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to
tempt them by a little honey put on the male and female
bloom. When they are once induced to haunt the frames,
they set all the fruit, and will hover with impatience round

VEGETABLES 443

the lights in a morning, till the glasses are opened. Pro-
batum est.

WHEAT

A notion has always obtained, that in England hot
summers are productive of fine crops of wheat; yet in the
years 1780 and 1781, though the heat was intense, the
wheat was much mildewed, and the crop light. Does not
severe heat, while the straw is milky, occasion its juices
to exsude, which being extravasated, occasion spots, dis-
colour the stems and blades, and injure the health of
the plants ?

TRUFFLES

August. A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his
pocket several large truffles found in this neighbourhood.
He says these roots are not to be found in deep woods,
but in narrow hedge-rows and the skirts of coppices.
Some truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within the
earth, and some quite on the surface; the latter, he added,
have little or no smell, and are not so easily discovered by
the dogs as those that lie deeper. Half a crown a pound
was the price which he asked for this commodity.

Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs.
They are in season in different situations, at least nine
months in the year.

TREMELLA NOSTOC

Though the weather may have been ever so dry and
burning, yet after two or three wet days, this jelly-like
substance abounds on the walks.

FAIRY RINGS

The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy-rings,
subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it: for the turf

444. OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES

of my garden-walks, brought from the down above,
abounds with those appearances, which vary their shape,
and shift situation continually, discovering themselves now
in circles, now in segments, and sometimes in irregular
patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, puff-balls
abound ; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in
the turf.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

BAROMETER

NovEMBER 22, 1768. A remarkable fall of the
barometer all over the kingdom. At Selborne we had no
wind, and not much rain; only vast, swagging, rock-like
clouds, appeared at a distance.

PARTIAL FROST

The country people who are abroad in winter mornings
long before sun-rise, talk much of hard frost in some
spots, and none in others. The reason of these partial
frosts is obvious, for there are at such times partial fogs
about ; where the fog obtains, little or no frost appears :
but where the air is clear, there it freezes hard. So the
frost takes’place either on hill or in dale, wherever the air
happens to be clearest and freest from vapour.

THAW

Thaws are sometimes surprisingly quick, considering
the small quantity of rain. Does not the warmth at such
times come from below? The cold in still, severe seasons
seems to come down from above: for the coming over of
a cloud in severe nights raises the thermometer abroad at
once full ten degrees. The first notices of thaws often
seem to appear in vaults, cellars, etc.

445

446 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

If a frost happens, even when the ground is considerably
dry, as soon as a thaw takes place, the paths and fields are
all in a batter. Country people say that the frost draws
moisture. But the true philosophy is, that the steam and
vapours continually ascending from the earth, are bound
in by the frost, and not suffered to escape till released by
the thaw. No wonder then that the surface is all in a
float ; since the quantity of moisture by evaporation that
arises daily from every acre of ground is astonishing.

FROZEN SLEET

January 20. Mr. H.’s man says that he caught this day,
in a lane near Hackwood park, many rooks, which, attempt-
ing to fly, fell from the trees with their wings frozen
together by the sleet, that froze as it fell. There were, he
affirms, many dozen so disabled.

MIST, CALLED LONDON SMOKE

This is a blue mist which has somewhat the smell of
coal smoke, and as it always comes to us with a N.E.
wind, is supposed to come from London. It has a strong
smell, and is supposed to occasion blights. When such
mists appear they are usually followed by dry weather.

REFLECTION OF FOG

When people walk in a deep white fog by night with a
lanthorn, if they will turn their backs to the light, they
will see their shades impressed on the fog in rude gigantic
proportions. This phenomenon seems not to have been
attended to, but implies the great density of the meteor at
that juncture.

HONEY DEW

June 4, 1783. Vast honey dews this week. The
reason of these seem to be, that in hot days the effluvia

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 447

of flowers are drawn up by a brisk evaporation, and then
in the night fall down with the dews with which they are
entangled.

This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who
gather it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the
trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores
of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls in still close
weather ; because winds disperse it, and copious dews
dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in
hazy warm weather.

MORNING CLOUDS

After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually
becomes cloudy by eleven or twelve o’clock in the fore-
noon, and clear again toward the decline of the day.
The reason seems to be, that the dew, drawn up by
evaporation, occasions the clouds; which, towards even-
ing, being no longer rendered buoyant by the warmth of
the sun, melt away, and fall down again in dews. If
clouds are watched in a still warm evening, they will be
seen to melt away, and disappear.

DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT

No one that has not attended to such matters, and
taken down remarks, can be aware how much ten days
dripping weather will influence the growth of grass or
corn after a severe dry season. This present summer,
1776, yielded a remarkable instance; for till the 30th of
May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the barley
not half out of the ground ; but now, June 10, there is an
agreeable prospect of plenty.

AURORA BOREALIS

November 1, 1787. The N. aurora made a particular
appearance, forming itself into a broad, red, fiery belt,

448 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

which extended from E. to W. across the welkin : but the
moon rising at about ten o’clock, in unclouded majesty, in
the E. put an end to this grand, but awful meteorous
phenomenon.

BLACK SPRING, 1771

Dr. Johnson says, that “in 1771 the season was so
severe in the island of Sky, that it is remembered by the
name of the black spring. The snow, which seldom lies
at all, covered the ground for eight weeks, many cattle
died, and those that survived were so emaciated that they
did not require the male at the usual season.”” The case
was just the same with us here in the south; never were
so many barren cows known as in the spring following
that dreadful period. Whole dairies missed being in calf
together.

At the end of March the face of the earth was naked to
a surprising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and no
signs of any grass; turnips all gone, and sheep in a
starving way. All provisions rising in price. Farmers
cannot sow for want of rain.

ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY WARM WEATHER,
OCCASIONALLY HAPPENING IN THE WINTER MONTHS,

TH’ imprison’d winds slumber within their caves
Fast bound: the fickle vane, emblem of change,
Wavers no more, long-settling to a point.

All nature nodding seems compos’d ; thick steams
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day,

“Like a dark ceiling stand” ; slow thro’ the air
Gossamer floats, or stretch’d from blade to blade
The wavy net-work whitens all the field.

Push’d by the weightier atmosphere, up springs

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS

The ponderous Mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube.

While high in air, and pois’d upon his wings
Unseen, the soft, enamour’d wood-lark runs
Thro’ all his maze of melody ;—the brake
Loud with the black-bird’s bolder note resounds.

Sooth’d by the genial warmth, the cawing rook
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate,

Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest torn.

The plough-man inly smiles to see upturn
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop :
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds :
E’en pining sickness feels a short relief.

The happy school-boy brings transported forth
His long-forgotten scourge, and giddy gig :

O’er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop,
Or triumphs in the dusty field of taw.

Not so the museful sage :—abroad he walks
Contemplative, if haply he may find
What cause controls the tempest’s rage, or whence
Amidst the savage season winter smiles.

For days, for weeks, prevails the placid calm.
At length some drops prelude a change: the sun
With ray refracted bursts the parting gloom ;
When all the chequer’d sky is one bright glare.

Mutters the wind at eve: th’ horizon round
With angry aspect scowls: down rush the showers,
And float the delug’d paths, and miry fields.

1The Barometer.

arf

449

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER

rr | 6rE | EEE | ze-z | LE | £621

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E6-hF || £6 | gt-g | 6hg | ELtr | ELa | OSS | 160 | ESa | Era | 6Se1 toh | €L-q |} 1621
Le-zt || $6°S | S69 | oz | gg:o | ofz | bz | Ero | géb | HoE | Sho | Gho | 661 | 0621
oorzh || zgb | Lor | Pos | zgz | 6670 | GE | beh | Soh | rg | Lez | rich | ghd | 6gZ1
o$zz | Ez7o | ggto | — | 12S | zz | gS€ | Lz | glo | roto | Er | LEE | og'r | ggdi
bz-9f || goS | Gob | Fors | oS1 | Ego | ES-9 | oS: | og:z | tZo | gz | Lg-E | ggro i] ZgZ1
= — | g&b | boS | 6LZ7 | PE | 661 | oz1 | obz | rer | zor | zh1 | 169 |] ggdt
SS1f |] zo | Lez | rzS | F6S | rz€ | ogé | GE1 | ogo | Lio | of-o | ogr | Herz || SgZi
Og ft |} got | oLth | 6:0 | Sz | gg€ | oz | Sg | zS1 | z6E | zg | LLo | gre€ |} FeZi
IZ°EE |] orn | ro€ | Zr | 2S-S | bez | Shr | zgrz | bez | ggro | giz | HSS | EbH | EgZi
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SpoIpun Fy pue SOYouy Ul UTeY jo dINSeoA

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER

1768. Bzcins with a fortnight’s frost and snow;
rainy during February. Cold and wet spring; wet season
from the beginning of June to the end of harvest. Latter
end of September foggy, without rain. All October and
the first part of November rainy; and thence to the end of
the year alternate rains and frosts.

1769. Januaryand February frosty and rainy, with gleams
of fine weather in the intervals. To the middle of March,
wind and rain. To the end of March, dry andwindy. To
the middle of April, stormy, with rain. To the end of June,
fine weather, with rain. To the beginning of August,
warm, dry weather. To the end of September, rainy with
short intervals of fine weather. To the latter end of
October frosty mornings, with fine days. The next
fortnight rainy ; thence to the end of November dry and
frosty. December, windy, with rain and intervals of frost,
and the first fortnight very foggy.

1770. Frost for the first fortnight: during the 14th
and 15th all the snow melted. To the end of February,
mild hazy weather. The whole of March frosty, with
bright weather. April, cloudy, with rain and snow. May
began with summer showers, and ended with dark cold
rains. June, rainy, chequered with gleams of sunshine.
The first fortnight in July, dark and sultry; the latter part
of the month, heavy rain. August, September, and the
first fortnight in October, in general fine weather, though
with frequent interruptions of rain: from the middle
of October to the end of the year almost incessant
rains.

453

454 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER

1771. Severe frosts till the last week in January. To
the first week in February, rain and snow: to the end
of February, spring weather. To the end of the third
week in April, frosty weather. To the end of the first
fortnight in May, spring weather, with copious showers.
To the end of June, dry, warm weather. The first fortnight
in July, warm, rainy weather. To the end of September,
warm weather, but in general cloudy, with showers.
October, rainy. November, frost, with intervals of fog
and rain. December, in general bright, mild weather, with
hoar frosts.

1772. To the end of the first week in February, frost
and snow. To the end of the first fortnight in March,
frost, sleet, rain and snow. To the middle of April, cold
rains. To the middle of May, dry weather, with cold
piercing winds. To the end of the first week in June,
cold showers. To the middle of August, hot dry summer
weather. To the end of September, rain with storms
and thunders. ‘To December 22, rain with mild weather.
December 23, the first ice. To the end of the month,
cold foggy weather.

1773. The first week in January, frost; thence to the
end of the month, dark rainy weather. The first fortnight
in February, hard frost. To the end of the first week in
March, misty, showery weather. Bright spring days to
the close of the month. Frequent showers to the latter
end of April. To the end of June, warm showers, with
intervals of sunshine. To the end of August, dry weather,
with a few days of rain. To the end of the first fortnight
in November, rainy. The next four weeks, frost: and
thence to the end of the year, rainy.

1774. Frost and rain to the end of the first fortnight
in March: thence to the end of the month, dry weather.
To the 15th of April, showers; thence to the end of
April, fine spring days. During May, showers and sun-
shine in about an equal proportion. Dark rainy weather
to the end of the 3d week in July: thence to the 24th of
August, sultry, with thunder and occasional showers.
To the end of the 3d week in November, rain, with

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER 455

frequent intervals of sunny weather. To the end of
December, dark dripping fogs.

1775. To the end of the first fortnight in March, rain
almost every day. To the first week in April, cold
winds, with showers of rain and snow. To the end of
June, warm, bright weather, with frequent showers. The
first fortnight in July, almost incessant rains. To the
26th August, sultry weather, with frequent showers. To
the end of the third week in September, rain, with a few
intervals of fine weather. To the end of the year, rain,
with intervals of hoar-frost and sunshine.

1776. To January 24, dark frosty weather, with much
snow. March 24, to the end of the month, foggy, with
hoar-frost. To the 30th of May, dark, dry harsh
weather, with cold winds. To the end of the first
fortnight in July, warm, with much rain. To the end of
the first week in August, hot and dry, with intervals of
thunder showers. To the end of October, in general fine
seasonable weather, with a considerable proportion of rain.
To the end of the year, dry, frosty weather, with some
days of hard rain.

1777. To the roth of January, hard frost. To the
2oth of January, foggy, with frequent showers. To
the 18th of February, hard dry frost with snow. To
the end of May, heavy showers, with intervals of warm
dry spring days. To the 8th July dark, with heavy
rain. To the 18th July, dry warm weather. To the
end of July, very heavy rains. To the 12th October,
remarkably fine warm weather. To the end of the year,
grey mild weather, with but little rain, and still less
frost.

1778. Tothe 13th of January, frost, with a little snow;
to the 24th January, rain: to the 3oth, hard frost. To
the 23rd February, dark, harsh, foggy weather, with rain.
To the end of the month, hard frost, with snow. To the
end of the first fortnight in March, dark, harsh weather.
From the first, to the end of the first fortnight in April,
spring weather. To the end of the month, snow and ice.
To the 11th of June, cool, with heavy showers. To the

456 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER

tgth July, hot, sultry, parching weather. To the end
of the month, heavy showers. To the end of September,
dry warm weather. To the end of the year, wet, with
considerable intervals of sunshine.

1779. Frost and showers to the end of January. To
21st April, warm dry weather. To 8th May, rainy.
To the 7th June, dry and warm. To the 6th July, hot
weather, with frequent rain. To the 18th July, dry hot
weather. To August 8, hot weather, with frequent rains.
To the end of August, fine dry harvest weather. To the
end of November, fine autumnal weather, with intervals
of rain. To the end of the year, rain with frost and
snow.

1780. To the end of January, frost. To the end of
February, dark, harsh weather, with frequent intervals
of frost. To the end of March, warm showery spring
weather. To the end of April, dark harsh weather, with
rain and frost. To the end of the first fortnight in May,
mild, with rain. To the end of August, rain and fair
weather in pretty equal proportions. To the end of
October, fine autumnal weather, with intervals of rain.
To the 24th of November frost. To December 16,
mild, dry foggy weather. To the end of the year, frost
and snow.

1781. To January 25, frost and snow. To the end of
February, harsh and windy with rain and snow. To
April 5, cold drying winds. To the end of May, mild
spring weather, with a few light showers. June began
with heavy rain, but thence to the end of October, dry
weather, with a few flying showers. To the end of the
year, open weather with frequent rains.

1782. To February 4, open mild weather. To
February 22, hard frost. To the end of March, cold
blowing weather, with frost and snow and rain. To
May 7, cold dark rains. To the end of May, mild with
incessant rains. To the end of June, warm and dry. To
the end of August, warm, with almost perpetual rains.
The first fortnight in September, mild and dry; thence to
the end of the month, rain. To the end of October,

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER 457

mild with frequent showers. November began with hard
frost, and continued throughout with alternate frost
and thaw. The first part of December frosty; the latter
part mild.

1783. To January 16, rainy with heavy winds. To
the 24th, hard frost. To the end of the first fortnight in
February, blowing, with much rain. To the end of
February, stormy dripping weather. To the 9th of May,
cold harsh winds (thick ice on 5th of May). To the end
of August, hot weather, with frequent showers. To the
23d September, mild, with heavy driving rains. To
November 12, dry, mild weather. To the 18th December,
grey soft weather, with a few showers. To the end of the
year, hard frost.

1784. To February 19, hard frost, with two thaws;
one the 14th January, the other 5th February. To February
28, mild wet fogs. To the 3d March, frost with ice. To
March 10, sleet and snow. To April 2, snow and hard
frost. To April 27, mild weather with much rain. To
May 12, cold drying winds. To May 20, hot cloudless
weather. To June 27, warm with frequent showers.
To July 18, hot and dry. To the end of August, warm
with heavy rains. To November 6, clear mild
autumnal weather, except a few days of rain at the
latter end of September. To the end of the year, fog,
rain, and hard frost (on December 10, the therm. 1 deg.
below 0).

1785. A thaw began on the 2d January, and rainy
weather, with wind continued to January 28. To 15th
March, very hard frost. To 21st March, mild with
sprinkling showers. To April 7, hard frost. To May 17,
mild windy weather, without a drop of rain. To the end
of May, cold with a few showers. To June 9, mild
weather, with frequent soft showers. To July 13, hot dry
weather, with a few showery intervals. To July 22, heavy
rain. To the end of September, warm with frequent
showers. To the end of October, frequent rain, To 18th
of November, dry, mild weather. (Hay-making finished
November 9, and the wheat harvest November 14.)

458 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER

To December 23, rain. To the end of the year, hard
frost.

1786. To the 7th January, frost and snow. To January
13, mild with much rain. To 21st January, deep snow.
To February 11, mild with frequent rains. To 21st
February, dry, with high winds. To roth March, hard
frost. To 13th April, wet, with intervals of frost. To
the end of April, dry mild weather. On the 1st and 2d
May, thick ice. To roth May, heavy rain. To June 14,
fine warm dry weather. From the 8th to the 11th July,
heavy showers. To October 13, warm, with frequent
showers. To October 19, ice. To October 24, mild
pleasant weather. To November 3, frost. "To December
16, rain, with a few detached days of frost. To the end of
the year, frost and snow.

1787. To January 24, dark, moist, mild weather. To
January 28, frost and snow. To February 16, mild
showery weather. To February 28, dry, cool weather.
To March 10, stormy, with driving rain. To March 24,
bright frosty weather. To the end of April, mild, with
frequent rain. To May 22, fine bright weather. To the
end of June, mostly warm, with frequent showers (on June
7, ice as thick as a crown piece). To the end of July, hot
and sultry, with copious rain. To the end of September,
hot dry weather, with occasional showers. To November
23, mild, with light frosts and rain. To the end of
November, hard frost. To December 21, still and mild,
with rain. To the end of the year, frost.

1788. To January 13, mild and wet. To January 18,
frost. To the end of the month, dry windy weather. To
the end of February, frosty, with frequent showers. To
March 14, hard frost. To the end of March, dark, harsh
weather, with frequent showers. To April 4, windy, with
showers. To the end of May, bright, dry, warm weather,
with a few occasional showers. From June 28 to July 17,
heavy rains. To August 12, hot dry weather. To the
end of September, alternate showers and sunshine. To
November 22, dry, cool weather. To the end of the year,
hard frost.

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER 459

1789. To January 13, hard frost. To the end of the
month, mild, with showers. To the end of February,
frequent rain, with snow-showers and heavy gales of wind.
To 13th March, hard frost, with snow. To April 18,
heavy rain, with frost and snow and sleet. To the end ot
April, dark cold weather, with frequent rains. To June
g, warm spring weather, with brisk winds and frequent
showers. From June 4 to the end of July, warm, with
much rain. To August 29, hot, dry, sultry weather. To
September 11, mild, with frequent showers. To the end
of September, fine autumnal weather, with occasional
showers. To November 17, heavy rain, with violent
gales of wind. To December 18, mild dry weather,
with a few showers. To the end of the year, rain and
wind,

1790. To January 16, mild foggy weather, with occa-
sional rains. To January 21, frost. To January 28,
dark, with driving rains. To February 14, mild, dry
weather. To February 22, hard frost. To April 5,
bright, cold weather, with a few showers. To April 15,
dark and harsh, with a deep snow. To April 21, cold
cloudy weather, with ice. To June 6, mild spring weather,
with much rain. From July 3, to July 14, cool, with
heavy rain. To the end of July, warm, dry weather. To
August 6, cold, with wind and rain. To August 24, fine
harvest weather. To September 5, strong gales, with
driving showers. To November 26, mild autumnal
weather, with frequent showers. To December 1, hard
frost and snow. To the end of the year, rain and snow,
and a few days of frost.

1791. To the end of January, mild, with heavy rains.
To the end of February, windy, with much rain and snow.
From March to the end of June, mostly dry, especially
June. March and April rather cold and frosty. May and
June, hot. July, rainy. Fine harvest weather, and pretty
dry, to the end of September. Wet October, and cold
towards the end. Very wet and stormy in November.
Much frost in December.

1792. Some hard frost in January, but mostly wet and

460 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER

mild. February, some hard frost and a little snow.
March, wet and cold. April, great storms on the 13th,
then some very warm weather. May and June, cold and
dry. July, wet and cool; indifferent harvest, rather late
and wet. September, windy and wet. October, shower
and mild. November, dry and fine. December, mild.

INDEX

Aberdavines, 118.

Acclimatizing plants and animals,
197.

toils (see Wheatear).

Anas (see Woodpigeon).

Affection among animals, 130, 149,
161.

Africa, migration of birds to, 77.

Air, elastic at midnight, 192.

Alauda pratensis, rearing young
cuckoo, 116, 123.

Alice Holt Forest, 23, 290; fallow
deer in, 20, 243 leased by the
Crown, 23; soil of, 24; timber
in, 25.

Alton, hollow lane leading to, 11;
manufactures of, 15.

American animals, origin of, 60;
junipers, 243.

Amphibious animals, 72.

Anathoth, an, 194, 239.

Ancient burying-ground, 351.

Andalusia, birds of, 66, 123 ; stone
curlew in, 78.

Anguilla (see Eel).

Anguis fragilis (see Blind Worm).

Animals eating their young, 132.

Anne, Queen, in Wolmer Forest,

17.

Antelope, double nostril of, 37.

Antipathy of birds and animals to
their young, 132, 196.

*Avrictopyy of birds, 196.

Ants, 433.

Aphides (smother flies), shower of,
226, 251,

April, remarkably inclement, 113.

Aquaria for fishes, 228.

Aquatic plants, 199.

Arum, the cuckoo pint, 39; thrush
feeding on the roots of, 39.

Arun, River, the, 5.

Ash tree, 4393 superstitions con-
cerning, 174.

Ashford, last Prior of Selborne, 330.

Ash-shrew, 174.

Asses ploughing, 162,

August, the mute month, 88,

Augustine Canons, 280.

Auk, little, 86.

Aurora Borealis, 447.

Bacon-fly, 79.

Bank-martin (see Sand martin).

Bank-swallow (see Sand martin).

Baptist, St. John, the little finger
of, 318.

Barometers, 240, 445.

Barragons, manufacture of, 15.

Batfowlers, catching birds, 68.

Bats, 30, 420; appearance of, in
warm weather, 187, 419; hyber-
nation of, 419; tame, 30; foo
of, 30; drink flying, 30; little, 66;
breeding of, 81; anatomy of, 81.

Bat, great, new species of, 56; food
of, 67.

Bean’s pond, 21.

Bears in Hampshire, 259.

Beasts and birds, taming of, 54.

Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester,
3113 register of, 311.

461

462

Bees, drink flying, 86; Virgil’s,
1933 and idiot boy, 172; swarm-
ing in hot weather, 186; injured
by echoes, 193; insensible to
sound, 194; injured by heat
and cold, 242; eating honey
dew, 251; kill drones, 400 ;
wild, 4.30; cucumbersset by, 442.

Bee bird, 121.

Beech, the, 3

Beetles, 161.

Belfry of Selborne Church, 269.

Bells in Selborne Church, 269.

Berne, Canon, Prior of Selborne,
326; provision for, 330.

Bilberry, creeping or Cranberry,
199.

Bint ost. 213 parsonage, 274,

Binsted parish, 25.

Birds, beans sown by, 442;
without English names, 27,
219; influence by colour in
choice of food, 407; of passage,
407; settling on ships at sea,
35; colour of, influenced by
food, 39, 86; turning black, 39;
of summer passage, 42, 76,
100, 103, 117, 121, 1433 in-
stinct of, 109, 131, 149, 2313
soft-billed (non-migratory), 101;
of winter passage, 102, 103;
wintering in England, 102;
singing after midsummer, 103,
104, 110; motions of, 114, 202,
414: singing, are all Passeres,
105; in full song till midsum-
mer, 104; that sing in the
spring, 105; with slight notes,
105; which sing flying, 106;
with a song, 106; some tame,
others shy, 106; breeding early,
106; in Ascension Island, 106;
of Andalusia, 66, 78, 1233 sing-
ing during incubation, 107;
fatten in frosts, I11; pairing
of, 71 ; migration of, influenced
by the weather, 71, 113; food
of, 412; colour of, changing

INDEX

at breeding time, 114; thick-
billed, 113; transport of, on
board ship, 73 ; collections of,
contain few soft-billed birds,
73; washing, 116; that dust do
not wash, 116; which are pul-
veratrices, 115; migration of, to
Africa, 77; of prey, 121, 413;
migration of, over the sea, 121;
swarms of different varieties, 126;
sing in spring and autumn, 88 ;
drinking, 89; growth of, 161;
congregating, 166; dispersion
of, 196; destroyed while migrat-
ing, 196; notes and language of,
204.

Bird’s-nest ophrys, 200, 394.

Black act, the, 18.

Blackbird, 39; killed by frost,
247.

Blackcap, 27, 29, 90, 108, 143;
arrival of, 407; food of, 90;
note of, go.

Black dolphin, 79.

Black canons, 280.

Black game at Selborne, 17.

Blackmoor farm, 4163 curious
custom at, 20.

Blackthorn, 440.

Blatta Orientalis (cockroach), 427.

Blindworm, 45.

Blossoming of plants, 201.

Blue rag, 10.

Boars, wild, in Wolmer Forest,
25.

Boars, fierce, tamed by losing their
tusks, 181.

Bogs in Wolmer Forest, 15, 237.

Bombylius medius, 391, 432.

Booby, the, 107.

Botany, its utility, 197.

Botfly, horse, 79.

Boy bee-eater, 172.

Brambling, greater, 65, 388.

Breathing of deer, 37; goats, 38.

Brighton, fall of cliffs at, 26; bus-
tards at, 117.

Brimstone Lodge, 20.

INDEX

Bristowe, D., Vicar of Selborne,
bequests of, 277.

Brooks and springs at Selborne, 22.

Buck, head of, 51.

Buffalo, wild, in Wolmer Forest,
26.

Bug, harvest, 78.

Bullfinch, turning black, 39, 86.

Bullhead, 29.

Buntings, 35, 117.

Burning the heath, 20,
Burnt wood-ashes as manure, 19.
Bustards, 107, 117 ; similar to stone
curlew, 78; at Brighton, 117.
Butcher bird, great ash-coloured,
85; red-backed, 50, 85.

Buteo apivorus or vespivorus (see
Honey buzzard).

Buzzard, common, 95.

Buzzard, honey, 94, 144.

Byfields Charity, 275.

Caddis fly, 158, 395.

Calculus from stomach of ox, 80,

Calendar, naturalists’, 386.

Call of birds, 204.

Canaries, naturalized, 32.

Cancer cured by toads, 47.

Cane (see Weasel),

Capons, 181.

Caprimulgus (see Goat-sucker).

Carniola, birds of, 74, 113.

Carp, 22, 228; tame, 89; in severe
weather, 89.

Castration, 181.

Cats, 1833; fond of fish, 72; catch-
ing swifts on the wing, 161;
suckling a leveret, 183; suck-
ling a squirrel, 423; eating
crickets, 216; electric, 249; re-
trieving birds, 409.

Cattle frequenting the water, 22;
injured by eating yew, 272.

Chafers destroying foliage of trees,
124, 426; fern, 82, 89, 426.

Chaffinch, 34, 39; separation of
sexes, 34, 86, 118; food of,
109.

463

Chaffinches, hen, flock of, 34, 118;
migration of, 34.

Chalkhills, beautiful, 142.

Chantry, what is a, 299.

Chapelfield, 287, 342.

Charadrius himantopus (stilt plover ?),
2193 cedicnemus (see Stone-cur-
lew).

Chaucer, 316.

Chiff-chaff, 233, 415.

“ Chinky-chank ” (see Chiff-chaff),

Chimney swallow (see Swallow,
chimney).

Chinese dogs, 235.

Chlora perfoliata (see Yellow-wort).

Choughs, Cornish, 85, 117.

Chrysomela oleracea (see Turnip-fly).

Church at Selborne, 263, 265;
exterior of, 269; built out of
the eastward position, 270.

Churches, scarcity of, in Sussex, 54.

Churchyards, 270; trees in, 271;
origin of, 272.

Churn owls (see Fern owls).

Churr worm (see Mole cricket).

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium (see Op-
posite Golden Saxifrage).

Cimex Linearis, 428.

Clay’s pond, fossils at, 8.

Clock made by General Howe, 24.

Cobwebs, shower of, 164.

Coccus vitis viniferae, 224.

Coins found in Wolmer pond, 23,
259.

Cold injurious to vegetation, 240.

Colour influencing birds’ choice of
food, 407; of birds influenced
by food, 39; of birds in pairing
time, 114.

Columba livia (blue rock pigeon)

6.
Coluber natrix (English snake), 46,

391.

Coiymnbus glacialis (see Diver, or
loon).

Comarum palustrae (Marsh cinque
foil), 200.

Comarum (purple), 200.

464

Comb, kept for the use of hinds,
318.

Conduit wood, 341.

Cornish choughs, 85, 117.

Corn mill at Selborne, 343.

Cornua Ammonis, 8.

Corrodies, meaning of, 307.

Corvus monedula (see Jackdaw).

Country-made candles, 169.

Cows congregating, 166.

Cranberry, 199.

Cranmer lake, 22.

Cressi Hall heronry, 55, 57.

Cricket, eggs of, 2123 field 212,
389; sex of, 2135 wings of, 213,
216; chirping of, 212, 2143
fen (see Cricket, mole); mole,
217; house, 215; tame, 215 ;
food of, 216; habits of, 216;
to destroy, 216; nest and eggs
of, 218 ; chewing the cud, 218;
cry of, 216,

Crocus (Sativus crocus), spring and
autumnal, 201.

Cross bills, 29, 116, 144.

Cyprinus auratus (gold fish), 228.

Crow, 85; grey or hooded, 89.

Cuckoo, 109; choosing a nest, 109;
eggs of, 110, 1113 skimming
flight of, 116; food of 116,
123; in nest of tit-lark, 116;
reared by Alauda pratensis, 123 ;
sings in different keys, 124 ;
when it sings, hawks do not
prey on other birds, 162 ; ana-
tomy, 178; why it does not
hatch eggs, 178.

Cuckoo, pint, the, 39.

Cucumbers, set by bees, 442.

Curlew, stone (see Stone curlew).

Daker-hen (see Landrail).

Danewort 201,

Daphne laureola (springe laurel)
Mexereum (Mezereon), 200.

Daw (see Jackdaw).

Daws, breeding places of, 52.

Deafness of Gilbert White, 163.

INDEX

Decay of Selborne Priory, 320.

Deeds dated on Sunday, 300,

Deer, fallow (see Fallow deer) ;
moose (see Moose deer); red
(see Red deer); hunting, 18;
killing a dog, 19.

Deer, breathing spiracula of, 37;
stealers, 18, 24.

Desecration of Communion Tables,
309.

Detnction of martins, 140.

Destructive frosts, 36, 240, 244,
246,

Dew collected by trees, 175.

Dipsacus pilosus (Small teasel), 200.

Disease in cattle, caused by Oestrus
bovis, 416.

Diver or loon, 4133 gait of, 415.

Doe, brought up with cows, 167 ;
tame, chased by dogs, 167.

Dogs, killed by deer, 19; blinded
by cobwebs, 164; Chinese, 235 ;
of South America dumb, 235 ;
ears of, 235; fed on vegetables,
235 refusing to eat birds that
they hunt, 236.

Dove-ring (see Ring-dove); Stock
(see Stock-dove).

Dover burnt by the French, 292.

Dove, stock, 96; house, 96; de-
rived from blue rock pigeon, 96 ;
ring, reared by pigeons, 98 ; and
pigeons, cross between, 98;
house at Selborne Priory, 343.

Downs, South, 141; sheep on the,
142.

Dragonfly, 116, 154.

Dress of Canons in 1387, protest
of Bishop Wykeham against,
308,

Drinking, mode of, in deer and
horses, 37.

Drosera rotundifolia (round-leaved
sundew), 200 ; /ongifolia, 200.
Ducks, wild, 23, 29; King of

Denmark’s, found in England,
122,
Dung of cattle, food for fish, 22.

INDEX

Eagle, migration of, 121.

Early-breeding birds, 106.

Earthquakes in Sicily, 252.

Earthworms, 184, 434.

Eastwick, 107.

Echoes, 191, 194, 239; described
by Ovid, 191; rules of, 193;
described by Virgil, 193; in-
jurious to bees, 193; destroyed
by intervening objects, 194; a
place of, 194, 239; to make,
194; described by Lucretius,

195.

Edward II. in Wolmer Forest, 263.

Edward III.in Wolmer Forest, 262.

Eels, 22, 29; breeding of, 43, 88;
two species of, 88.

Eft, 45; water, 48; larva of land-
eft, 45.

Eggs, in larvae of insects, 48.

Elder, dwarf, 201.

Electricity, 255.

Elk, European, 70.

Elmer, Mr. 24.

Elms, broad-leaved or wych hazel,
large, 6.

Emberiza alba (bunting), 387, 390,
429.

Emberiza miliaria (bunting), 35.

Emberiza nivalis (snowflake), 39,65.

Empedes (long-legs), 4.33.

Entomology, 56, 80.

Ephemera (mayflies), 158.

Eunuchs, 181.

Euonymus Europaeus (spindle tree),
89, 396.

Eve-churr (see Mole-cricket).

Evejar (see Fern-owl).

Eyes and ears, large, uses of, 135.

Fair at Selborne, 288, 350.

Fairy rings, 443.

Falcons, 28, 31, 234.

Falko peregrinus (haggard falcon),
31, 234.

Fallow-deer, in Holt Forest, 24;
never seen in Wolmer Forest,

243 head of, spiracula in, 37.

465

Fattening of animals during frost,
il.

Faustina, Empress, 260.

February, called “sprout-cale” by
the Saxons, 1go.

Fellwort, 200.

Fens of Lincolnshire, the, 55.

Fern-chafers, 82, 89, 416, 426.

Fern-owl (see Goatsucker).

Field-cricket (see Cricket, field).

Fieldfares, 26, 63, 65, 68; feeding
in winter, 65, 119; not breed-
ing in England, 407; roost on
the ground, 68.

Field-mouse, 27, 31, 40; and
young, 132; eating nuts, 231.
Fish, shell, petrified, 8; at Sel-
borne, 22, 29; dead, why they
float, 227; gold, 227; silver,
227; food of, 227; bowls of,
with birds inside, 228; ponds,

350.

Flamingo, 219.

Fleas, 153, 389.

Flies, plague of, 252.

Flight of birds, 150, 202, 203;
crickets, 216.

Floods in 1764, 150; 1784, 254.

Flora of Selborne, 199.

Fly, turnip, 79; depositing eggs
in hairs of horses, 79 ; horse bot
(see horse-fly) ; forest, 135 ; side,
136.

Flycatcher, 27, 29, 41, 131; arrival
of, 4073; nidification of, go;
note of, go.

Fogs, 175, 178; smoky, 252; re-
flection of, 446.

Food of titlark, 407; of soft-billed
birds, 73, 91, 923 birds guided
by colour in choice of, 407; of
birds, 118; of man, various, 197.

Forest-flies, 135, 394.

Forests, services rendered by, 19;
effects of on the weather, 176;
royal, origin of, 262.

Fossils at Selborne, 8; wood, 16,
2375 oak, 237.

26

460

Fowls, wild, in Wolmer Forest, 16.

Foxes in Wolmer Forest, 21.

Freestone, analogous to chalk, 4;
grows shaky wood, 5 ; its uses, 9.

French naturalists, 72.

Fringilla (hard-billed), 92; caelebs
(see Chaffinch).

Frogs, 43; breeding of, 44; swarm
of, cause of, 44 ; migrating of, 44.

Frosts, lying longer on bog oaks,
16; severe, 36, 240, 244, 246;
birds fattening during, 111;
effects of, on animals, 111; effect
of, on birds, 1113 partial, 445.

Fruit crop, 163.

Gallinae, walk of, 203; roost high,

409.
Gallows Hill, 350.
Gardening among the Saxons, 190.
Garlands, in churches in honour of
virgins, 264.
Garrulus Bohemicus (German silk-

tail), 32.
Gassendus, quotation from, on
music, 232.

Gasterosterus pungitius (see Stickle-
back) ; aculeatus (see Stickleback).

Gentian, 200.

Gentiana amarilla (gentian or fell-
work), 200,

Geology of Selborne, 4, 8, 9.

German-boars, 25; silk-tail, 32.

Gibraltar, migration of birds to,

6.

Gill covers of Mud Iguana, 45.

Gipsies, language of, 168.

Gizzard of landrail, 411 ; of birds,
109.

Glow-worm, 62, 434.

Gnats on the snow, 407.

Goats breathing through their ears,
38.

Goatsucker, §5, 82, 112, 415,
417; food of, 416; does not in-
jure cattle, 416; egg of 417;
feeding by means of its foot, 82 ;
anatomy of, 179.

INDEX

Gobius fluviatilis capitatus(bull-head),

29.

Goldfinch, 110,

Goldfish, 227.

Gold-crested wren (see Wren).

Golden thrushes, 121.

Golden maiden-hair, brush of,
171.

Gossamer, a shower of, 164 ; origin
of, 165.

Gracious street, 350,

Grallae, legs of, 69; food of, 125.

Graminivorous birds eating vege-
tables, 412.

Grange, the, 349.

Grass, uses of, 198.

Grasshopper, 213; lark, 41, 49,
60, 87.

Gravel in birds’ crops, 412.

Graves under trees, 273.

Great Britain, birds of, g1.

Greatham farm, 19, 21.

Green lizard, 46, 54.

Gregarious habits of horses and
cows, 166.

Grosbeak, 29; food of, 421.

Gryllus campestris (field-cricket),
393; domesticus (house-cricket),
215, 428; Gryllus gryll talpa
(mole-cricket), 392.

Guernsey lizard, 57.

Gurdon, Sir Adam, 2843; marriage
of, 285; rebellion of, 291;
menace against the English
language, 292; death of, 293;
seal of, 293.

Haggard falcon, 234.

Hailstorm at Selborne, 254.

Hampton Bridge, 7.

Hanger, the, 4, 12, 442.

Hares, 12, 244; white, 65.

Harvest mouse (see Mouse, harvest);
bug, 78.

Hawkley hanger, 210.

Hawk, sparrow, strange, 28; blue,
412; ringtail, anatomy of, 179;
destroyed by poultry, 207.

INDEX

Hawks, 28; casting up feathers,
29; migration of, 121; do not
prey while cuckoo is heard, 162.

Haws, a food for birds, 32; failure
of, 32.

Haze, or smoky fog, 252.

Hazel wych, 6.

Heat, intense, 250; spoiling fruit,
250; effects of, on hybernating
animals, 186.

Heathcock, formerly plentiful, 17.

Heathfires, 20,

Hedgehog, 67; food of, 67; spines
of, 68 ; young of, 67.

Hedge-sparrow and the cuckoo,
III.

Heliotropes, summer and winter,
208.

Helleborus foetidus (stinking helle-
bore), 199, 3873 viridis (green
hellebore), 199, 388; siger, 201,
388; hellebores, order of bloom-
ing, 201; Ayemalis, 201, 388.

Helleborine, 200, 395.

Hempseed for birds, 39, 86.

Hen harrier, 88, 412.

Hen and horse, friendship of, 167 ;
and ducklings, 423.

Hen, common, 206.

Henry III. grants lands to Selborne
Priory, 281.

Heronry at Cressi Hall, 55, 57.

Hills and mountains, moving, 209 ;
attracting clouds, 253.

Himantopus, 219, 220.

Hippoboscae hirundinis, 135, 223.

Hirundo hyberna, 75; rupestris, 75 3
alpina, 77 5 melba, 77; esculenta,
1$1; riparia, 151 (see also
Swallow, Martin, and Swift).

Hogmer, lake, 22.

Hogs, age of, 182.

Hollow lane leading to Alton, 11.

Holt Forest, 19, 21, 23; ironstone
in, 10; deer in, 18, 24.

Holy Ghost Chapel, Basingstoke,
destruction of, 348.

Home-made candles, 169.

467

Honey-buzzard, 94, 408.

Honey-dew, 251, 446.

Hoopoe, 29.

Hoopoes at Selborne, 29; migra-
tion of, 121.

Hops, 441; suitable soil for, 5;
at Selborne, 14, 163.

Hornets, 431.

Horns at Lord Pembroke’s, 73.

Horse, botfly, 79; and hen, 400,
4313 friendship between, 167;
should not be kept in solitude,
166; anecdote of, 423.

Horticulture, spread of, 190.

House martins (see Martins,
house); swallow (see Swallow,
house).

Howe, General, machinery made
by, 24.

Humming in the air, 426,

Hunger, power of, 118, 126.

Hunting condemned by Bishop
Wykeham, 306.

Hybernation of swallow, 26; swift,
26.

Hypericum androsaemum (Tutsan, or
St. John’s wort), 200.

Ichneumon fly, 432.

Icthyology, 53.

Icy speculae in the air, 249.

Idiot boy and bees, 172.

Incongruous companions, 127.

Incubation of birds, 111.

Indian grass, 56.

Insectivorous birds, 408.

Insect pests, 78, 79; appearing in
hot weather, 186; insensible to
sound, 194; hybernation of,
215; life of, 214; diffusion of,
225, 226; appearing in frosts,
246.

Insects, 425.

Instinct, 61, 131-2, 149, 231; of
young animals, 180.

Inundations rendering land poor,
184.

Ireland and its natural history, 93.

2G2

468

Ironstone in Holt Forest, 10.
Italy, climate of, 112.
Ivy berries, 44.1.

Jackdaws, 52; building on the
ground, 52, 54.

Jamaica, birds of, 115.

Jarbird (see Goatsucker).

Jealousy in birds, 127.

Johnson, Dr, Samuel, 448.

July, alleged decrease of birds in,
108.

Funcus conglomeratus (common rush),
169.

Junipers, American, 243.

Kestrel, 88.

Kings-field, echo in, 192.

Kingsley parish, 24, 25.

Kite, eating ants’ eggs, 408;
migration of, 121, 144.

Knights Templars, Order of, 266 ;
property belonging to, at Sel-
borne, 294.

Lacerta, 45, 3923 green, 46.

Ladies’ traces, 200, 402.

Lakes near Selborne, 21; in Wol-
mer, 22.

Lampern, 29.

Landrail, 12, 411; food of, 411.

Landslips, 210.

Land-springs, 150.

Land tortoise (see Tortoise),

Lanes at Selborne, 11, abound in
Filices, 12.

Lanius minor, 643
Butcher-bird).

Lapwing, 16; movements of, 86.

Larks, 144; sky, feeding in winter,
407; white, 393; grasshopper,
41, 49) 59, 873 wood, 104,
110; dusting and washing, 123.

Late springs, 124.

Lathroea squammaria (tooth-wort),
200, 393.

Lathyrus sylvestris, 200.

Laurel spurge, 200, 391.

Collurio (sce

INDEX

Leaves of trees, 176; renovation
of, 439.

Legge, Henry Bilson, 24.

Legs, length of, in small birds, 219.

Lemna (duck’s meat weed), 228.

Leprosy, 187.

Leveret and cat, friendship of
183.

Libellulae (dragon-fly), 116, 154,

393.

rie of birds, 135 ; martins, 140;
swallows, eggs of, 136.

Lime, blossoms of, 440.

Linen clothing, advantage of, 189.

Linnaean system, the, 63, 88, 101,
413.

Linnet, 34, 110,

Lions following jackals, 127.

Lithe, the short, 212.

Liveries, meaning of, 307.

Lizard, green, 46, 543 black, found
in a well, 51; Guernsey, turned
out at Pembroke College, Ox-
ford, 57.

Loach, 47.

Loaches from Ambresbury, 47.

Locusta, 41.

Locustella, 60.

Long-billed birds fattening during
frosts, II 1.

Longspee, Ela, 299.

Longworth, J., Vicar of Selborne,
275.

Loon, or spotted diver, 413.

Lop and top, 25.

Loripes, 219.

Losel’s wood, 6.

Love in birds, 118.

Loxia coccothraustes (see Grosbeak) ;
curvirostra (see Crossbill).

Lycoperdon tuber (truffle), 201, 397.

Magdalen College, Oxford, land
belonging to, at Selborne, 289,
351; patron of living of Sel-
borne, 273; founded, 333; court
leet of, held at Selborne, 349.

Maggots in cattle, 416.

INDEX

Magpie and missel thrush, fight
between, 163.

Mahommedans dusting themselves,
116,

Maiden hair fern, 171.

Malm, black and white, 4.

Manor house at Selborne, 286.

Marcley Hill said to have moved,
209.

Market at Selborne, 288, 350.

Marsh cinquefoil 200, 399.

Martins, young, appearance of, 26;
late, 26, §3; house, 26, 29, 71,
75, 136, 1523 sand, 151, 418;
frequenting water, 419; late
breeding of, 29, 33, 83, 86, 89,
140; migration of, 82; food of,
1543 parasites of, 153; hyber-
nating of, 83, 187, 222, 230;
nest of, 137, 139; down on legs
of, 140; colour of, 150; sand
and house, feed young on the
wing, 75; nest of, 155, 418;
washing as they fly, 155; do
not sing, 154; flight of, 154;
abundance of, 154; appearance
of, 187.

Martlet (see House martin).

Masses for the dead in Selborne
Church, 299.

May-fly, 158, 395, 429-

Memory, comparing animals by, 75.

Merops apiaster (beebird), 121.

Merula torquata (see Ring ouzel).

Meteors, 252.

Mezereon, 200, 387, 403.

Migration of swallows, 26, 33, 583
of birds, 33, 35,57, 61, 71, 102,
111, 113, 118, 121, 407; of
chaffinches, 34; of birds, affected
by the season, 113.

Migration, a large, 57; “home,”
118; at Gibraltar, 122.

Miller’s thumb, 29.

Missel thrush (see Thrush, missel);
bird, 85.

Mist, called London smoke, 446 ;
sulphurous, 254.

469

Moisture, effect of, on trees,
124.

Moles, eaten by weasels, 88;

cricket, 217.
Monasteries, effect of, 283; de-
generation of, 315.
Monogamous birds, 71.
Monographs, merits of, 74, 115.
Monument to Gilbert White, 268 ;
to Rev. W. Etty, 268.
Moose deer, the, 69, 76; food of,
69; swimming in breeding time,

73.

Mordaunt, Mr., 24.

Mosquitoes, 135.

Motacilla trochilus, 27 ; three kinds
of, 27, 49 ; atricapilla (see black-
cap); salicaria (see Willow-wren).

Mother marking, 188.

Mountains, 141.

Mouse, 36; harvest, 27; new kind,
27, 31, 40; burrowing, 36;
large, 36; house, 36; red, dogs
eating, 88; common, cats eating,
88; shrew, 1743 field (see Field
mouse).

Movements of animals and birds,
various, 202, 419.

Mud inguana, 45.

Mus amphibius, 273 minimus (new
kind of mouse), 40; domesticus
medius (Ray) 31.

Muscae (flies), 401, 432.

Musca putris (see Bacon-fly) ; chamoe-
leon, 79.

Music, influence of, 232.

Mustelinum, 38.

Mytilus, the, 8 ; fossil, at Selborne,
8.

Naturalist’s Calendar, 387.

Naturalist’s summer evening walk,
60.

Nautilus, fossil, 9.

Nests of sand-martins, 418; mouse,
31; rooks, 408; swallow on
owl’s body, 149.

Newt, or water-eft, 45.

470

Nidification of birds, 119, 131,
152, 163, 2313; house-martins,
137, 2315 sand-martins, 152;
chaffinch, 231; wren, 231.

Night, birds coming forth at, 23.

Nightingale, 123; migration of
123; note of, 87, 125.

Nocturnal birds, 237.

Nore hill, 4, 209.

Nose-fly, 431.

Nostrils of antelope, 37.

Notes of birds, 27, 34, 41, 103,
2043; willow wren, 415 grass-
hopper lark, 41; willow lark,
49.

Noxious insects, 79.

Nun, 92.

Nuthatch, 42, 231, 387; eating
nuts, 232.

Nuts opened differently by nut-
hatch, squirrel, and field-mice,
231,

Nymphaea (water-lily), 69.

Oak, large in the Plestor, 6, 288;
in Losels wood, 7; peculiar, 6,
7; bog, 16.

Oakhanger, 12, 21.

Oaks of Temple, 5; in Wolmer
forest, 25.

Ocdicnemus
389.

Oil as a remedy for snake-bites,

(see Stone curlew),

45-
Oestrus bovis (bot-fly), causing in-
jury to cattle, 79, 416, 431.
Oestrus curvicanda, 396.
Ophrys spiralis (see Ladies’ Traces) ;
nidus avis (see Birds’ nest ophrys).
Opposite golden saxifrage, 200,

391.

Oro pendolos, 121.

Osprey, 84.

Ostrich, the, 110.

Otis (bustard), 107.

Otter, killed near Selborne, 72.

Ouzel, ring (see Ring-ouzel); water
(see Water-ouzel).

INDEX

Owl, barn (see Owl, white); brown,
casting up fur and feathers, 29,
134; food of, 29; hooting of,
124; nest of swallow on an,
149; eagle, 65; fern (see Goat-
sucker) ; white, 133; young of,
29; food of, 29, 133; attacking
dovehouse, 71; screech of, 134.

Owls, pellets cast up by, 29, 1343
hoot in different keys, 124; ears
of, 1353 eyes of, 135; flight of,
134.

Oxen congregating together, 166.

Oxford, Guernsey lizards at Pem-
broke College, 57; swallows late
at, 30, 58.

Pairing of birds, 71.

Palm Sunday, yew trees carried on,
273.

Palumbus torquatus (see Ring dove).

Paradise Mede, Selborne, 341.

Parasitic insects, 135; of martins,
135, 140, 223.

Paris quadrifolia (herb Paris true-
love or oneberry), 200.

Partridges, 12, 425; pairing of,
72; killed by frost, 247 ; instinct
of, 410.

Parus caeruleus (blue titmouse or
wren), 92, 389; /ringillagus or
major (blackhead titmouse), 92,
387; ater (cole-mouse), 92;
palustris (marsh titmouse), 92,
389.

Passer, arundinaceus minor (see Reed
sparrow); vorguatus (see Reed
bunting).

Passeres, note of, 205,

Peacock, tails of, 80.

Peat, 16, 19.

Pectines in freestone, 9.

Perch, 22.

Peregrine falcon, 234.

Periwinkle, lesser, 200, 391.

Pettichaps (chiffchaff), 233.

Pews in Selborne Church, 265.

Phalaena (gnats), 67, 416, 429.

INDEX

Phalaena quercus, 429.

Pheasants, 12; pursued by hen
harrier, 412.

Pheasant, hybrid, 410.

Phryganea (see Caddis-fly).

Pigeon, wood (see Woodpigeon) ;
drinking, 89; blue rock, 96.
Pigs, eating their young, 132 ;

length of life in, 182; eating
yewberries without injury, 271.
Pine plantations, near Glasgow, 94.
Pitanciae, 307.
Planting evergreens, 243.
Plants, at Selborne, 199; suffer
from heat and cold, 241, 249.
Plestor, the, 6, 288; great oak in,
288.

Plover, 219.

Plowman, Piers, 316,

Plumpton Plain, 141.

Poaching at night, 19, 24.

Poll sheep, 142.

Pollard-ash, children cured of
rupture by, 1743; in the Plestor,

174.

Ponds, on chalkhills, 177.

Pope Martin confiscates property
of Selborne Priory, 314.

Poplar, Lombardy, 439.

Portugal laurels, 243.

Poultry, 206; their notes and lan-
guage, 409; roosting places of,
409; destroying a hawk, 206,
207.

Prayers for the dead, 288, 299, 339,
380.

Preceptores, meaning of, 298.

Prior, election of a, 301, 319, 321,
322, 327.

Priors of Selborne, list of, 331.

Priories, alien, 282.

Priory of Selborne, in debt,
310; property of, 3143; seques-
trated, 314, 3203; reduced to a
chantry, 340.

Prophecy of Piers Plowman, 316.

Ptinus Pectinicornis, 407, 426.

Puckeridge (see Fern-ow)).

471
Puffins, 53; breed on flat ground,

53.
Pulex irritans (bed-flea), 153.
Punishment of canons for misbe-
haviour, 309.
Puritanism at Selborne, 275.
Purlieus, 22.

Quails, 12, 35.

Queen’s bank, 17.

Quicksilver mines, men working
in, 113.

Rabbits, in Wolmer Forest, 19;
make the best turf, 422.

Rainfall at Selborne, 12, 56, 239 ;
in Rutland, 120, 244; effect of
trees on, 176; compared with
Plymouth, 239.

Rana arborea (tree-frog), 44.

Rats, water, two kinds, 27.

Ravens, building in the Plestor
oak, 7; close sitting of, 7; driv-
ing vultures from their nests,
131.

Redbreast, 108, 110; tame, singing
by candlelight, 108; song of,
88 ; autumn songster, 88; food
of, 89, 92.

Red deer, 17; in Wolmer Forest,
17; never seen in Holt Forest,
2h.

Redstart, 29, 41, 1433 arrival of,

407; motion of tail of, 88; song
of, go.

Redwing, 26; feeding in winter,
407; not breeding in England,
119; migration of, 125; killed
by frost, 242.

Reed-bunting, 113.

Reed-sparrow, 66, 111, 113; food
of, 113; song of, 114.

Reed-wren, 63.

Regulus non cristatus (see Willow-
wren).

Relics of Selborne priory, 317.

Reptiles, stinking se defendendo,
64.

472

Ring-dove, 96, 109, 123; food of,
109, 412 3 nidification of, 163.

Ring-ouzel, 32, 36, 50, 53, 59, 65,
74, 123, 144; migration of, 51,
53, 59, 62, 65, 74, 83,1173 food
of, 51, 59; breeding places in
England, 85.

Roads, at Selborne, new, made by
Gilbert White, 277.

Roche, Peter de la, or de Rupibus,
founds Selborne priory, 278;
Bishop of Winchester, 278.

Rocks removed by rain, 254.

Roman remains found at Selborne,
23, 260.

Romulus and Remus, 184.

Roofs of houses, various, 341.

Rooks, 144, 237; nesting of, 388,
408; white, 38; power of smell
in, 127; frozen, 446.

Royal forests, origin of, 262.

Royston crow, 123.

Rupert, Prince, 24.

Ruptured children placed in pol-
lard ashes, 174.

Rush candles, 169 ; to make, 170.

Rutland, fall of rain in, 120, 244.

Saffron, 201.
Salad oil as a cure for viper’s sting,

Salamandra aquatica (water-newt, or
eft), 45.

Salicaria, 39, 59, 63; fen (reed-
wren), 63, 66.

Sallad or Sallet, rgt.

Salmo-fario (trout), 39.

Salt meat causing leprosy, 189.

Sambucus ebulus (dwarf elder), 201,
398.

setae (see Martins, Sand) ;
sand-pits in Wolmer forest, 152.

Sandpiper, 50.

Saxon words, meaning of, 261.

Scallops, 9.

Scarabaeus solstitialis (see Fernchafers)

397; melolontha, 393, 417; full,
59:

INDEX

Scopoli, Dr., 74, 76, 113, 115.

Scotland, maps of, 94.

Sea-birds, 29.

Seal of Gurdon, 293.

Sedge-bird, 63 ; note of, 63, 108;
singing at night, 87.

Selborne Parish, 3; village, 4; soil
of, 4, 5; streams in, 43 fossils
at, 8; extent of, 123; cottages
in, salubrity of, 12; fall of rain
in, 12, 56, 239; occupation of,
143 population, 13; in Saxon
times, 260; value of the living,
273; vicar of, before Domesday
Book, 274.

Selborne Priory, property of, 289,
314; decay off 333, 337, 340,
3473 rivulet, 343; account of,
344; ruins of, 348; importance
of, 351.

Serpents (see Snakes).

Sex of birds, 114.

Sexes, distinguishing features of the,
1143 separation of, during win-
ter, 118.

Shearing sheep, 422.

Sheep, feeding before rain, 126; of
Sussex, 142; congregating, 167.

Shingles on roof, 270.

Short-winged birds of passage, 33,
42, 407.

Shrew, water, 66; ash, 174 ; mouse,

174.

Shrikes (butcher-bird), 50, 85.

Silk-wood, 171; tail, German, 32 ;
worm, intestines of, used for
fishing tackle, 56.

Silver fish, 227.

Sitta Europoea (see Nuthatch)

Skunk, 64.

Skylark (see lark).

Slugs, 435; injurious to wheat,
185.

Smell, animals recognised by, 422.

Smoky atmosphere, cause of, 239.

Smother flies, 226, 251.

Snails, 222, 435; shells eaten by
birds, 411.

INDEX

Snakes (see also Vipers), 435 ; feed-
ing once a year, 46; English,
45; stink, 64; tame, 64; eggs
of, 45.

Snipes, 27, 42; in Wolmer Forest,
16, 86; make no nest, 418;
stomach of, 108.

Snowflake, 39, 653 storms, 241,
244.

Sociality of animals, 166; of dif-
ferent natures, 183.

Soft-billed birds, migration of, 36,
IO1; non-migratory, list of,
101; food of, 91.

Soil, curious, 5; good for timber,
§; Wolmer and Holt Forests,
243 chalky and sandy, subject
to heat, 251.

Solstice, summer and winter, 208.

Song-birds, 104, 105, 107, 110;
migration of, 100, 118; non-
migratory, 101; night, 103 ; list
of, 104 ; loss of voice in, 112.

Song of thrush, 88; of blackbird,
88; of willow wren, 88; wood
lark, 88.

Sounds, association of, 214.

Sow, 25; fecundity of the, 182;
age of, 182.

Spain, birds migrating to, 35.

Spaniels, 236.

Sparrow hawk, 88, 95 ; hedge, 91;
flight of, 88; food of, 91; house,
71; cleaning themselves, 116;
taking sand-martin’s nest, 154;
nidification of, 88.

Speckled diver, 413.

Sphynx ocellata, 430.

Spiders, making gossamer webs,
165; flying, 165.

Spindle trees, 89.

Spiracula of fallow deer, 37.

Sporting, inherent in mankind, 18,
306; dogs, training of, 236.

Spring, black, 448.

Sprout-cale, February so called by
Saxons, 190.

Spurge laurel, 200, 391.

473

Squirrel, suckled by a cat, 423;
eating nuts, 231.

Stag, nostrils of, 37.

Stag-hunt in Wolmer Forest, 17,

423.

Stealing deer, 18.

Stickleback, 29, 47.

Stilt plover, 219.

Stockdove (see Wood-pigeon).

Stonechat, 86, 117.

Stone, free, 4, 5, 9.

Stone curlew, 40, 77, 237, 415;
food of, 77; note of, 237, 415;
migration of, 77 ; makes no nest,
773 eggs of, 40; flight of, 78.

Stonehenge, daws breeding at, 53.

Stone, sand, 10; rag, 9; yellow,
10; coffin lids in Selborne Church,
266.

Stones swallowed by birds, 80.

Stoparola (fly-catcher), 41, 393,
402, 407.

Lropyy of animals and birds, 130,
148, 161.

Storm-cock, 85.

Strangers elected to Selborne Priory,

322.

Stratford, Bishop of Winchester,
301.

Stubble burning, 20.

Stype alias Stepe, Prior, 317, 319.

Summer birds of passage, 100;
short-winged, 76, 117, 143,407 3
list of, 42, 1003 soft-billed, 121.

Sun, red, 252.

Sunbury-on-Thames, 36.

Sun dew, round leaved, 200, 399.

Sussex downs, 117, 141.

Swallows, 145, 150, 2223 young,
appearance of, 26 ; late hatchings
of, 26; hybernation of, 26, 33,
121, 128, 145, 222, 233, 419;
drink flying, 1485 flocks of, 32,
419; on the Thames, 32, 36;
late, 33, 67, 148; migration of,
33, 57, 82, 162, 419; congrega-
tion of, 57, 420; late, at Oxford,
58; house, 57, 145, 1623 in-

474

crease of, 108; and frosts, 112,
1133; feeding young on the wing,
753; and swifts, supposed rivalry
between, 115; late, 128; food
of, 148; lice of, 135; washing
while flying, 85, 148; early,
145; nidification of, 145; eggs
of, 146; song of, 148; tail of,
87, 148; and hawks, 158;
appearance of, 162; appearing
in hot weather, 186; chimney
(see Swallow, house) fond of
water, 233.

Swans, 88; migration of, 122.

Sweden, birds of, go.

Swifts, hybernation of, 26; early
migration of, 66, 159; great
white-bellied, 77, 160; note of,
125, 160; staying late, 82; ap-
pearance of, 86; or black martin,
1553 nidification of, 155; pro-
pagation of, 159; food of, 157,
158, 161; and hawks, 158;
young of, 158, 161; colour of,
159; fleas of, 160, 223 ; feet of,
160; in London, 160; similar
to cuckoo in formation, 180;
pairing every year in same num-
ber, 195; late breeding, 223;
late departure of, 224.

Sycamore, 439.

Sylvia loquax, lesser willow wren,
49; trochilus, larger willow
wren, 49; curruca, lesser white
throat, 233.

Tadpoles, 44.

Tails, of woodpecker, 203.

Tameness, natural, of birds, 84, 107.

Taming of animals, etc., 54.

Tanners’ Wood, 342.

Tanyard at Selborne Priory, 342.

Teals, 23, 29, 86, 133.

Tench, 22.

“'Tenpenny nails in the walls,” 11.

Thames, frozen over, 246.

Thaws, 246, 445; caused by
underground vapours, 242.

INDEX

Thermometers, use of, 249.

Thrush, the, 39; food of, 39, 408;
nidification of, 409; killed by
frost, 247.

Thrush, missel, 32; fierceness of,
163; fight with a magpie, 163;
food of, 409.

Thunderstorms, rarity of, at Sel-
borne, 253.

Tiles first used for roofs, 341.

Timber, good soil for, 5; in Holt
Forest, 24.; chestnut, 440.

Tipula (Long-legs), 185, 433.

Titlark, or tree-pipit, 107, 117;
feeding in winter, 407; singing,
85; at night, 108.

Titmouse, song of, 89; great, 89;
food of, 92; bill of, 92; blue,
92; great blackheaded, 92;
long-tailed, 92; marsh, 92;
pulling straws from eaves, 92,
242.

Toads, breeding of, 43; venom of,
433 tame, 44, 54; man swallow-
ing a, 44; as a cure for cancer,

48, 53.

Tombs in Selborne Church, 265,
267.

Toothwort, 200, 393.

Tortoise, land, 117, 130, 221;
hybernation of, 117, 130, 144,
186, 221; food of, 117; age of,
118; feeding before rain, 129;
instinct of, 352.

Travelling mountains, 209.

Tree beetles, 124.

Trees, order of losing their leaves,
4373; size and growth, 437;
flowing of sap, 438.

Trees and forests, effect of, on
rainfall, 1763; perfect alembics,
175; killed by frost, 243, 249;
in churchyards, 273.

Tringa hypoleucus (see Sandpiper), 50.

Trotton Church, 390.

Trout (trutte fluviatilis), 29.

Truffles, 201, 443.

Tunbridge, 343.

INDEX

Turdus torquatus (see Ring ouzel) ;
pilaris (see Fieldfare).

Turnip fly, 79.
Tutsan, or St. John’s wort, 200,

397-
Upupa (Hoopoe), 29.

Vaccinium oxycoccos (cranberry), 199;
myrtillus (bilberry), 398, 200.
Vase found at Selborne Priory,

349.

Vegetables as a diet, 190.

Vegetation, laws of, 197.

Verdure of trees, late, 123.

Vespertilio murinus (bat), 30; auritus
aceba, bat), 30; adtivolans
large-bat), 81.

Vine, diseases of, 224; parasite of
the, 224.

Vicarage at Selborne, 270.

Vicars of Selborne, list of, 274.

Vinago (cow pigeon), 96.

Vinca minor (lesser periwinkle), 200,

Ts

een breeding, 43, 45, 180, 389;
oil as remedy for poison of, 45 ;
eggs of, 46; food of, 46; in the
water, 46; swallowing their
young, 46, 181; young of, 180.

Virgil’s description of bees, 86,
193; swallows, 145; echo, 193.

Visitation of Bishop of Winchester,
303.

Visitatio Notabilis, the, 303, et see.

Vitrified stone, 9.

Volcano in Norway, 252.

Vultures, 121, 236; and dogs
associating, 236.

Wagtails, white, 35, 86, 91, 420 ;
motion of tail of, 88; food of,
91; grey, 420; yellow 45.

Waldon lodge, 20.

Waltham blacks, 17, 18.

Walwort, 201, 398.

War between England and France,
292.

475

Warbler, grasshopper; sedge (see
Willow wren).

Wasps, 2513; nests, 407, 431.

Water, hard and soft, 5.

Water-fowl, 23; rat, 27, 66; ouzel,
116.

Water at Selborne, 5.

Water-ouzel, 116.

Water, cattle frequenting, 22; efts,
45, 48; snake, 46; efts spawn
in, 48; fowl, wings and feet of,
4143 rat, 66; shrew mouse, 66;
distilled from trees, 175; con-
densed by fogs, etc., 178.

Waxwing (see Silk-tail).

Weasel, 38, 88.

Weather, the, 71, 150, 163, 164,
186, 210, 240, 251, 4473 in-
fluencing migration of birds,
119, 125; at Plymouth, 238.

Weaver’s Down, 11.

Well-head, 4.

Well, lizard found in, 51.

Wells, depth of, in Selborne, 5.

Wey river, the, 5, 25.

Wheatear, 35, 86, 117, 143, 1443
food of, 93; does not always
migrate, 35.

Wheat crops, 4433; bread, use of,
151, 189.

Whinchat, 86, 117, 144; food of,

3

White malm, §; rooks, 38, 39;
larks, 65; hares, 65.

White’s Calendar, 387.

Whitethroat, 29, 71, 89, 109, I10,
117, 143 3 note of, 89.

Widgeon, 23, 29.

Whortle, or bilberry, 200, 398.

Wild boars in Wolmer Forest, 25;
fowls, 29, 1333 geese, breeding
of, 66 ; ducks, 133.

Willow lark, 49, 59; note of, 63,
87.

Willow-wren, 42, 49, 71, 132, 233.

Willoughby, Mr., 36.

Winchester Cathedral, rebuilt, 264.

Windhover (see Kestrel).

476

Wings of birds hollow, 203 ; placed
too forward, 204; backward,
204.

Winter birds of passage, list of
102,

Witches, 174.

Wolmer Forest, 5, 15, 2903; stone
found in, 10 ; fossil wood found
in, 16; wild-fowl in, 16; game
in, 173; Queen Anne in, 17;
limits of, 21 ; scarcity of trees
in, 223 leased by the crown,
24; soil of, 24; boars and buffa-
loes in, 25 ; when formed, 262;
Sir A. Gurdon, custos of, 290.

Wolmer Lake, 22; coins found
in, 23.
olvemere (see Wolmer Lake).

Woodcocks, 12; stomach of, 108;

Wearrying their young, 75 ; breed-
ing in England, 119; in Austria,
120; migration at night, 122;
occasional sluggishness of, 122,
126.

Woodpecker, spotted, 42; flight
of, 203.

Woodpigeon, 96, 97, 1233 migra-
tion of, 85, 97, 123; wild, 96;
food of, 97.

INDEX

Wood, fossil, 16; lark, 1103 song
of, 88,

Worms, earth, 184 use of, 184,

4343 hermaphrodites, 185;

blind (see Blind worm).

Wornils (maggots), 416.

Wren, 107, 110; golden-crested,
43; tameness of, 107; song of,
89; food of, 91; willow, 49.

Wryneck, 91, 100, 390, 421.

Wych elms, 6; hazel, 6.

Wykeham, William of, 152; re-
building Winchester Cathedral,
264; Bishop of Winchester,
visitation of, 303 ; character of,
310.

Wynchester, John, elected as Prior,
312.

Yellowhammer, 107 ; song of, 110.

Yellow wort, 200, 399.

Yew tree, birds feeding on, 32;
ancient in Selborne Churchyard,
271; berries fatal to animals,
2723 leaves of, very injurious
to cattle, 272; difference be-
tween males and females, 271 ;
not injurious to sheep and tur-
keys, 272.

GLASGOW | PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEILOSE AND CO, LTD,

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