THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

SIR JOHN LUBBOCKS HUNDRED BOOKS
9

WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY
OF SELBORNE

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK'S HUNDRED BOOKS. |

ORDER OF PUBLICATION.

HERODOTUS. Literally Translated from the

Text of BAEHR, by HENRY GARY, M.A.

3*. 6d.
DARWIN'S VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST

IN H.M.S. "BEAGLE." 2s.
THE MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AU-

RELIUS. Translated from the Greek by

JEREMY COLLIER, is. 6d.
THE TEACHING OF EPICTETUS. Trans-

lated from the Greek, with Introduction and

Notes, by T. W. ROLLESTON. is. 6d.
BACON'S ESSAYS. With an Introduction by

HENRY MORLEY, LL.D. is. 6d.
MILL'S POLITICAL ECONOMY. 3s. 6d.
CARLYLE'S FRENCH REVOLUTION.

3S. 6d.

SELF-HELP. By SAMUEL SMILES. 6s.
WHITE'S NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL-

BORNE. 3*. 6<£

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED

SIR JOHN LUBBOCfCS HUNDRED BOOKS.
9

THE NATURAL HISTORY

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE

OBSERVATIONS ON VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE
AND THE NATURALISTS CALENDAR

THE LATE REV. GILBERT WHITE, A.M

EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY

SIR WILLIAM JARDINE, BART., F.R.S.E., F.L.S., &c.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK
1891

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BUNG AY.

SMWS

INTRODUCTION

BY

THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P.,

F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.,

CHAIRMAN OF THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.

IN the year 1886 I gave an address on "Books and Reading"
at the Working Men's College, which in the following year was
printed as one of the chapters in my " Pleasures of Life."

In it I mentioned about one hundred names, and the list has
been frequently referred to since as my list of " the hundred best
books." That, however, is not quite a correct statement. If I
were really to make a list of what are in my judgment the hundred
greatest books, it would contain several — Newton's " Principia,"
for instance — which I did not include, and it would exclude several
— the " Koran," for instance — which I inserted in deference to the
judgment of others. Again, I excluded living authors, from some
of whom — Ruskin and Tennyson, Huxley and Tyndall, for in-
stance, to mention no others — I have myself derived the keenest
enjoyment ; and especially I expressly stated that I did not select
the books on my own authority, but as being those most frequently
mentioned with approval by those writers who have referred
directly or indirectly to the pleasure of reading, rather than as
suggestions of my own.

I have no doubt that on reading the list, many names of
books which might well be added would occur to almost any one.
Indeed, various criticisms on the list have appeared, and many
books have been mentioned which it is said ought to have been
included. On the other hand no corresponding omissions have
been suggested. I have referred to several of the criticisms, and
find that, while 300 or 400 names have been proposed for addition,
only half a dozen are suggested for omission. Moreover, it is
remarkable that not one of the additional books suggested appears
in all the lists, or even in half of them, and only about half a
dozen in more than one.

But while, perhaps, no two persons would entirely concur as to
all the books to be included in such a list, I believe no one would
deny that those suggested are not only good, but among the best.

I am, however, ready, and indeed glad, to consider any sugges-
tions, and very willing to make any changes which can be shown
to be improvements. I have indeed made two changes in the list
as it originally appeared, having inserted Kalidasa's " Sakoontala.

vi INTRODUCTION.

or The Ring," and Schiller's " William Tell"; omitting Lucretius,
which is perhaps rather too difficult, and Miss Austen, as English
novelists were somewhat over-represented.

Another objection made has been that the books mentioned are
known to every one, at any rate by name ; that they are as household
words. Every one, it has been said, knows about Herodotus and
Homer, Shakespeare and Milton. There is, no doubt, some truth
in this. But even Lord Iddesleigh, as Mr. Lang has pointed out
in his " Life," had never read Marcus Aurelius, and I may add
that he afterwards thanked me warmly for having suggested the
"Meditations" to him. If, then, even Lord Iddesleigh, "prob-
ably one of the last of English statesmen who knew the literature
of Greece and Rome widely and well," had not read Marcus
Aurelius, we may well suppose that others also may be in the same
position. It is also a curious commentary on what was no doubt
an unusually wide knowledge of classical literature that Mr. Lang
should ascribe — and probably quite correctly — Lord Iddesleigh's
never having had his attention called to one of the most beautiful
and improving books in classical, or indeed in any other literature,
to the fact that the emperor wrote in "crabbed and corrupt Greek."

Again, a popular writer in a recent work has observed that " why
any one should select the best hundred, more than the best eleven,
or the best thirty books, it is hard to conjecture." But this remark
entirely misses the point. Eleven books, or even thirty, would be
very few ; but no doubt I might just as well have given 90, or 110.
Indeed, if our arithmetical notition had been duodecimal instead
of decimal, I should no doubt have made up the number to 120.
I only chose 100 as being a round number.

Another objection has been that every one should be left to
choose for himself. And so he must. No list can be more than
a suggestion. But a great literary authority can hardly perhaps
realize the difficulty of selection. An ordinary person turned into
a library and sarcastically told to choose for himself, has to do so
almost at haphazard. He may perhaps light upon a book with an
attractive title, and after wasting on it much valuable time and
patience, find that, instead of either pleasure or profit, he has
weakened, or perhaps lost, his love of reading.

Messrs. George Routledge and Sons have conceived the idea of
publishing the books contained in my list in a handy ana cheap
form, selecting themselves the editions which they prefer ; and I
believe that in doing so they will confer a benefit on many who
have not funds or space to collect a large library.

JOHN LUBBOCK.
HIGH ELMS,

DOWN, KENT,

30 March, 1891.

* I have since had many other letters Jo the same effect.

ADVERTISEMENT TO ORIGINAL EDITION.

THE 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 antiquities. 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

viii ADVERTISEMENT TO ORIGINAL EDITION.

and records that were removed to the.College from the Priory at
the time of its dissolution ; and, being carefully copied on the
spot, may be depended on as genuine; and never having
made public before, may gratify the curiosity of the keen
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 enlargement of the boundaries of
historical and topographical knowledge ; or if he should have
thrown some small light upon ancient customs and manners,
and especially on those that were monastic, his purpose will be
fully answered. But if he should not have been successful in
any of these his intentions, yet there remains this consolation
behind — that these his pursuits, by keeping the body and mind
employed, have, under Providence, contributed to much health
and cheerfulness of spirits, even to old age : and, what still
adds to his happiness, have led him to the knowledge of a
circle of gentlemen whose intelligent communications, as they
have afforded him much pleasing information, so, could he
flatter himself with a .continuation of them, would they ever be
deemed a matter of singular satisfaction and improvement.

SELBORNE,
January ist, 1788.

VILLAGE STREET — WHITE S HOUSE.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

IN agreeing to the request of the proprietors of the National
Illustrated Libary, to give my assistance to their present
edition of the " Natural History of Selborne," I have felt that
there was a danger of making repetitions, and a difficulty of
adding much that was new to a work which had been printed
in so many forms, and had been of late years so much written
about. But the wish to extend among a new generation of
readers the knowledge of a book which, in the opinion of every
one, is well fitted for the perusal of young persons, and is a
valuable record and example how the leisure hours of a country
clergyman may be profitably and innocently employed, induced

me to comply. There was also the desire to make some

A 2

INTR OD UCTORY OBSER VA TIONS.

corrections incident to our more .recent information on. what I
had already written in a previous edition, and to explain that
several editions which bore my name were accompanied with
some notes, and by illustrations with which I had nothing
whatever to do. In 1829, when Mr. Constable had proceeded
so far with his " Miscellany," I was requested to read over and
add some notes explanatory of various passages in " Selborne "
which he then proposed to publish in his collection. To this
I agreed, and that edition, with a few supplementary notes
added to the volume in Mr. Bonn's "Standard Library," are
all with which I have had any connection whatever.

There is perhaps no work of the same class that has gone
through more editions than White's "Selborne." It originally
appeared in 1789, four years before the author's death, in the
then fashionable quarto size ; an octavo edition in two volumes
was published under the charge of Dr. Aitkin in 1802, to
which various observations were added from Whitens journals;
and a second quarto edition was again published in 1813, with
notes by the Rev. John Mitford, several of which are copied
into the present volume ; after these, the edition projected and
published by Constable in his " Miscellany " was the first to
render the work better known and more popularly desired.
When the disarrangement of Mr. Constable's affairs took place,
and the " Miscellany'' had passed into other hands, this edition
assumed several forms, and was illustrated by woodcuts, some
of them engraved for it, while some were inserted that had
previously been used in other works on natural history. The
demand for the work, however, still continued so great as to
induce Mr. Van Voost and others to speculate upon fresh re-
prints, some of them very beautifully illustrated, and the Rev.
L. Jenyns, Mr. Bennet, and Mr. Jesse, have all contributed

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

their share to the explanation of White's letters, and have been
assisted by some of the first men of the day in regard to such
subjects as did not so immediately form a portion of their own
studies, and we owe to Messrs. Bell and Owen, Yarrel and
Herbert, many useful and instructive notes. The call now for
another edition of the " Natural History of Selborne," after so
much has been illustrated and written about it, shows the
continued estimation in which the work is hel'd, and the
confidence of the publishers in its value. What is the cause of
this run after the correspondence of a country clergyman?
Just that it is the simple recording of valuable facts as they
were really seen or learned, without embellishment except as
received from truth, and without allowing the imagination to
ramble and assume conclusions the exactness of which it had
not proved. He at the same time kept steadily in view the
moral obligation upon himself, as a man and minister, to
benefit his fellow-creatures by impressing upon them the
beneficence of the Creator, as exemplified in His works, and
the contentment and cheerfulness of spirit which their study
under proper restrictions imparts to the mind. And of this
man we have handed down scarcely any biographical recollec-
tions, except what can be gathered from a short sketch by his
brother, or that may be interspersed among his letters ; and
these are very few, as he was not given to write of himself or
his private affairs. Gilbert White, at one time the recluse, and
almost obscure vicar of Selborne, had no biographer to record
all the little outs and ins of his quiet career ; he was not thought
of until his letters pointed him out as a man of observation ;
and it is only since they have been edited and re-edited that
every source has been ransacked, with the hope of finding
some memoranda of the worthy vicar and naturalist.

xi i INT ROD UCTOR Y OBSER VA TIO\'S.

The sketch which his brother John appended to the octavo
edition of his works in 1802 is, as we have stated, the only
memorial of his life, and, as it is authentic and very short, it
is best to print it as it was originally published. The same
modest and retired habits never tempted him, so far as is
known, to sit for any likeness, and no portrait or profile
remains to recall the features of one whose writings have been
so much and so widely read.*

" Gilbert White was the eldest son of John White of
Selborne, Esq., and of Anne, the daughter of Thomas Holt,
rector of Streatham in Surrey. He was born at Selborne on
July 1 8th, 1720; and received his school education at Basing-
stoke, under the Rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and
father of those two distinguished literary characters, Dr. Joseph
Warton, master of Winchester school, and Mr. Thomas
Warton, poetry-professor at Oxford. He was admitted at
Oriel College, Oxford, in December, 1739, and took his degree
of Bachelor of Arts in June, 1743. In March, 1744, he was
elected fellow of his college. He became Master of Arts in
October, 1746, and was admitted as one of the senior proctors
of the University in April, 1752. Being of an unambitious
temper, and strongly attached to the charms of rural scenery,
he early fixed his residence in his native village, where he spent
the greater part of his life in literary occupations, and especi-
ally in the study of nature. This he followed with a patient
assiduity, and a mind ever open to the lessons of piety and
benevolence, which such a study is so well calculated to afford.
Though several occasions offered of settling upon a college

f " Oriel College, of which Gilbert White was for more than fifty years a fellow, some
years since'offered to have a portrait painted of him for their hall. An inquiry was then
made of all the members of his family, but no portrait of any description could .be found.
I have heard my father say that Gilbert "White was much pressed by his brother Thomas
(my grandfather) to have his portrait painted, and that he talked of it ; but it was never
done." — A. HOLT WHITE. — Notes and Queries, September, No. 204, page 304.

IXTR OD UC 7 OR Y OBSEK VA TIONS.

living, he could never persuade himself to quit the beloved
spot, which was indeed a peculiarly happy situation for an
observer. He was much esteemed by a select society of
intelligent and worthy friends, to whom he paid occasional
visits. Thus his days passed tranquil and serene, with scarcely
any other vicissitudes than those of the seasons, till they
closed at a mature age on June 26th, 1793." And thus he was
born, lived and died, in his native parish and village, respected
by those around him, contented in his own mind, and endea-
vouring to fulfil his various duties as a clergyman and member
of society. A gravestone, as unobtrusive as his life, marks
upon the turf of the churchyard the place of his interment ;
while his relatives have endeavoured to erect a monument less
exposed to decay, by placing in the interior of the chancel
a simple marble tablet, bearing the arms of the family, and
inscribed as follows : —

In the Fifth Grave from this wall are interred the Remains of
THE REV. GILBERT WHITE, M.A.,

Fifty Years Fellow of Oriel College in Oxford,

And Historian of this his native Parish.
He was the eldest son of JOHN WHITE, Esq.. Barrister-at-Law,

and ANNE his Wife, only child of

THOMAS HOLT. Rector of Streatham in Surrey ;

Which said JOHN WHITE was the only child of GILBERT WHITE,

Formerly Vicar of this Parish.
He was kind and beneficent to his Relations,

Benevolent to the Poor.

And deservedly esteemed by all his Friends and Neighbours.
He was born July 18. 1720, O.S.,

And died June 20 1793.

Nee bono quicquam mali evenire potest

nee vivo, nee mortuo.

xiv INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

White was never married, but he had several brothers and
sisters ; and the family generally seems to have been possessed
of very considerable ability. I am not aware that any opinion
has been handed down of his powers as a preacher ; but if we
may judge from the letters, his sermons would probably possess
that simplicity of language and straightforwardness of truth
which would impress and render them acceptable to the minds
of his hearers. The letters, though simply written, show both
the poet and the scholar ; and the mass of facts which they
contain in relation to our native animals, formed the main
foundation to some of the principal zoological works of that
time. Pennant often seeks information from him, and quotes
his authority in the description of the swallow. He writes :
" To the curious monographies on the swallow of that worthy
correspondent (Mr. White) I must acknowledge myself in-
debted for numbers of the remarks above mentioned ; " and
he is elsewhere frequently referred to.

Of his four brothers all of them seem to have had tastes
somewhat akin to Gilbert's ; they devoted a considerable por-
tion of their leisure to pursuits connected with literature or
some of the branches of natural history. It is greatly to be
regretted that the manuscripts of John White have not been
recovered. He also was an English clergyman ; but for some
portion of his life resided at Gibraltar, where he made
collections and notes evidently with the view of working out
and publishing a volume upon the natural history of that pro-
montory— a " Fauna Calpensis," as he termed it. It must
have been, in fact, written ; for in Letter LIII. to Mr. Barrington,
Mr. White writes, " I shall now transcribe a passage from a
' Natural History of Gibraltar,' written by the Rev. John
White, late vicar of Blackburn, in Lancashire, but not yet

1NTR ODUCTOR Y OBSER VA TIOXS. x v

published." But although every inquiry has been made, both
by ourselves and others, no trace of that MS. can be discovered.
His residence at Gibraltar is referred to in his brother's letters
upon migration ; and he corresponded during his residence
abroad with Mr. Pennant, who, when writing of the contents
of his projected work, the " Outlines of the Globe," states that
Volume V. would be particularly rich in drawings of the
"birds and fishes of Gibraltar communicated to me by the
Reverend the late Mr. John White, long resident in that
fortress."*

John White corresponded also with naturalists abroad, and
among others with Linnaeus. Four letters from Linnaeus
were discovered a few years since, and were published in
"Contributions to Ornithology" for 1849. They were ad-
dressed to him while resident at Gibraltar, and showed that
his assistance was highly valued. In thanking him for some
collections and memoranda, Linnaeus writes, " Accepi et dona
vere aurea pro quibus omnibus ac singulis grates immortales
reddo, reddamq. dum vixero." He was the means also of pro-
curing for Linnaeus, who had not before seen them, two birds,
which his brother mentions in his letters, Hirundo (cypselus)
melba and rupestris, " quam antea non vidi ; " " mihi antea
ignota." Another brother, Thomas, after retiring from
business, devoted much of his time to literary pursuits and
natural history, and for ten years contributed articles to the
" Gentleman's Magazine," under the signature of T. H. W. A
third, Benjamin White, was a publisher, and his name stands
on the title-page of the first edition of "Selborne." There
appears also to have been a fourth brother, Harry White. %

* Lit. Life, page 42.

+ "Contributions to Ornithology, "by Sir William Jardine, Bart., 1849, pp. 27, 31, 40.

J Preface to Benn.tt's Editi n, pp xii., xiii.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

Upon the death of our author, Gilbert, the estate of Selborne
was succeeded to by his brother Benjamin, the publisher. We
are not aware of the circumstances under which this was after-
wards sold, but some years since it became, and now is, the
property of as worthy a successor as could have been chosen,
whether we regard his abilities as a naturalist, or the respect in
which he holds all that belonged to White. Professor Thomas
Bell is now the possessor of White's property and mansion ;
and we know that he has been careful to preserve, as far as
possibly could be done, in its original state, everything that
belonged to the place, or that could throw light upon his cor-
respondence. We consider that it is Professor Bell alone who
can properly edit a new " Selborne." From his own knowledge
of natural history, and particularly of British Zoology, he is
eminently qualified to illustrate the writings and verify the
observations, while his residence upon tiiat spot, now his home,
gives him opportunities possessed by no other. We believe
that this is even now in progress : we would not wish to hurry
it, but long much to see it.

In writing thus we have no desire to express oui selves dis-
paragingly of previous editions ; on the contrary, we think they
have been all required, and that the call is still onward.
Professor Bell's edition will, in all probability, be an expensive
one, for we are sure no pains or expense will be spared in any
of the departments ; it will therefore not be in circulation
among certain classes. Now in a work so much read, and
likely still to be so, when it can be obtained at so moderate a
charge as that of the volumes of the " Illustrated Library," it is
essential that explanations should accompany it, and this is one
reason for notes to such a book. Since the time of the letters
from Selborne vast advances have been made in all branches

1NTR OD UC TOR Y OBSER VA TIO NS.

of science. White was one of those who mainly assisted or
tempted persons to observe. Studying, searching out, and in-
quiring himself, he incited others j and in the letters he writes
to Pennant and Barrington he often asks questions, starts sub-
jects for discussion, and brings forward objects new to the
existing knowledge of the physical character of the district ;
and it is very important that' all those should be explained to
the young reader, or to the person perhaps only entering upon
the study of nature, and this it will be our object to do in any
notes and commentary we may now add, and which can be
done we think sufficiently for every purpose, even by one who
has not seen the place or resided in the district. But there are
other phenomena which can only be illustrated by one who is
resident, and has resided for some time, and continuously upon
the spot. Sixty years, however short that time may appear,
will produce important differences in particular localities. Even
during White's incumbency he complains of the changes that
are occurring ; and the disturbance to the " Ferae naturae," the
increase or destruction of wood, acts remarkably on the Fauna
and Flora and on the climate ; so does drainage, particularly
that of any larger piece of water, and cultivation influences
very materially the habits of the wild animals. Do the stone
curlews now abound as they did in White's time, and is their
shrill whistle yet heard at the parsonage ? Do the ring-ousels
still find their resting-places as formerly. Are all the summer
visitants yet found, and have no new ones been added and
become common ? How does the meteorology now agree with
White's tables ? What are the changes in the Hanger and in
Wolmer Forest? These are all subjects for Professor Bell's
edition, besides many others which the place itself will suggest,
and which he will not omit to introduce. Meanwhile, let

xviii I NT ROD UCTOR Y OBSER VA TIONS.

those who wish to hand down the annals of their own districts
study to follow White's example, describe everything simply
and truthfully, — record only as facts such as are known and
can be proved to be such, — and never forget that one hand
only fashioned all the objects which it gives them pleasure
and interest to observe, and that the same power regulates
their continuance or change.

No pains have been spared by the publishers of the present
edition to illustrate it fully. An artist, Mr. Pearson, was sent
to Selborne to procure authentic sketches of the village and
surrounding country, so that these may be depended upon as
faithful representations, and not mere copies from previous
engravings. These have also been accompanied by some
notes describing the present condition of Selborne, which
cannot fail to be interesting.

" Selborne has probably suffered as little from change as any
village that has obtained a similar celebrity. It has been so
often described in former editions of White's fascinating and
instructive volume, that any farther account of its present
aspect might appear unnecessary, yet in some few particulars it
may be interesting to note the result of a recent visit. The
first view of Selborne obtained by the visitor as he approaches
the village from the new Elton read is peculiarly striking. The
church and vicarage with a few of the houses lie embosomed
among trees in the valley; beyond these a small wooded park
belonging to the residence of White extends to the " Hanger/'
or hanging wood, which is a striking feature in this locality.
This wood, composed of luxuriant beech-trees, rises on the
side of a steep hill to a great height, appearing to overhang
the village, and giving to the landscape a particular and
striking beauty. Nore Hill, seen upon the left, is also a

1NTROD UCTOR Y OBSER VA TIO$S.

richly-wooded eminence, divided from the Hanger by an
undulating slope."

The above is descriptive of the view placed at the com-
mencement of our Introductory remarks. The view which has
been selected as a frontispiece to this volume, and apparently
taken from some point at no great distance from that chosen
by the modern artist, is copied from the large engraving pub-
lished with the first and original quarto edition; and upon

BACK VIEW OF WHITE'S HOUSE.

comparing the one with the other it will be at once seen that
there can be comparatively very little change, except such as
would necessarily occur by the growth of the timber and
other unavoidable natural circumstances.

" In looking along the village street of Selborne the ' Queen's
Arms ' is seen upon the left, the chief inn of the place, where
the visitor will be hospitably entertained ; but upon the right is

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

the habitation which no pilgrim to this favourite locality will
contemplate without extreme interest. It is the residence of
the naturalist himself, remaining almost in the same condition
externally as when tenanted by him. One wing has been added
since his death, and this has been built in exact keeping with
the other portions, and the present distinguished occupier has
admirably improved the grounds and park behind the house
without diminishing the interest attached to the locality by

WHITE S ,-UNDIAL.

altering its leading features. The house as seen from behind
presents the appearance of a manorial residence, and with
its walls covered with ivy and creeping-plants, and its many
roofs discoloured by the lapse of time, gives just that im-
pression which one would wish to receive of the residence of
our author. At the end of the lawn, opposite the house,
stands White's sundial, set up and used by himself; and here
also are pointed out the great oak-tree and juniper-tree referred

INTR OD UCTOR Y OBSER VA TSONS.

to in his letters. The space from the lawn to the foot of the
' Hanger ' is occupied by a park now much improved."

It has not been mentioned by any of his later editors whether
the original manuscript of White's letters yet exist, and if so
by whom they are possessed ; neither are we aware of the
preservation of any of John's collections, or of the correspond-
ence of his other brothers : and if we except the remains of
the old tortoise and the picture of the hybrid pheasant by
Elmer, which we learn from Mr. Bennet are still preserved in
his former habitation, few personal relics remain. His worth
was not known until he had himself passed away ; but his
friends and relations may rejoice that in the simple annals of
Selborne he has left a far more imperishable memorial than any
that could have been erected by his most attached friends or
well-wishers.

WHITE S TOMBSTONE IN CHURCHYARD.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE I

THE ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE 285

OBSERVATIONS ON VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE 377

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER * . 43!

A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF THE NATURALIST'S CALENDAR AS KEPT

BY THE LATE GILBERT WHITE AND WILLIAM MARKVVICK, ESQ. 439

POEMS SELECTED FROM THE MSS. OF THE REV. GILBERT WHITE 461

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
OLD VIEW OF SELBORNE ........... Frontispiece.

GENERAL VIEW OF SELBORNE ......... To fctce page vit

VILLAGE STREET — WHITE'S HOUSE ........... vii

BACK VIEW OF WHITE'S HOUSE ........... XVli

WHITE'S SUNDIAL ................ xviii

WHITE'S TOMBSTONE IN CHURCHYARD ......... xix

WELL-HEAD. . . ; ........... '. . . . 3

WYCH-ELM .................. . 5

OSTREA CARINATA ................ g

HOLLOW LANE .......... ' ..... 12

ROCKY HOLLOW LANE ................ 13

WOLMER FOREST .............. l6

TEAL AND WIDGEON ... ............. 2tj

WIID BOAR
WATER-BAT
HOOPOE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PIPISTRELLE AND LONG-LARED DAT ... 0 ....... 34

HARVEST MICE . , . ..... 36

BOHEMIAN WAX-WING ... t ,'..... 37

ORIFICE IN FALLOW-DEER . . 42

WEASEI . . . , ' . . . . . 44

ARUM 45

FALLOW DEER — RED DEER — STONE-CURLEW . ' . . . . . . 46

THE NUTHATCH 49

WATER-NEWTS 52

BLIND WORM , 53

SANDPIPER .«.,,, .,...„ 58

RING OUSEL ..,.., 59

COCKCHAFFER .... t c .......... . . 69

STONE CURLEW'S EGG .,«„,'..."..,..».. 73

WOODCHAT ...... t .... s . : ./'..'.'. 74

SNOW-FLECK .... ............. ^6

HEDGEHOG ...*.....« Y ',-/. . . 7&

HEAD OF M' OSE DEER . . , ...... . % , . . 8 1

TROUT „..„>.,.... i , 84

OTTER . . * , „ . o . . o . 85

ROCK SWALLOW , 89

I. ATHALIA CENTIFOLIA. 2. BLACK DOLPHIN. 3. IIALTICA NEMORUM 93

GREAT BAT * 97

HEADS OF EELS .". . 104

LIST OF ILL USTRA TIONS, xx vi i

PAGE

HONEY BUZZARD , Ill

STOCK DOVE o .......... 113

CUCKOO ...,.,„ 126

REED-BUNTING , , . . 132

SPOTTED FLYCATCHER , ,151

I. H1PPOBOSCA HIRUNDINIS. 2. NIRMI . 155

ESCULENT SWALLOW , , . , 171

WHITE-BELLIED SWIFT ' . 1/9

RUSH-HOLDER 193

SHREW-MOUSE ..,.....,.., . . , . , . 197

VIPER'S HEAD — TORTOISE ...,..,.,,»..., 205

RAVEN . . , . „ . , . . , 229

RIVULET IN SHORT LITHE , 240

MOLE-CRICKET . . , . . . , . . . , . .,,..,. 245

LONG LEGGED PLOVER ....-.»,.«.-...,.,. 248

MARTIN ,..„..,..,...,. 260

SELBORNE CHURCH AND VICARAGE. .„..,„.,.. 292

VILLAGE PLEYSTOW ....*.,..,...»"..,. 315

IRON KEY OF ANCIENT CONSTRUCTION 340

STEEL HINGE WITH GRIFFIN ON IT 340

OLD COINS ,..*...,.,.. 342

ENCAUSTIC TILES, NOW FORMING THE FLOOR OF THE SUMMER-
HOUSE IN THE FARM-HOUSE GARDEN „ > « 347

STONE COFFIN, KEPT IN THE FARM-HOUSE GARDEN . „ ,, . . 350

LEADEN TAP »....'.*...« 353

xxviii LIST OF ILLUSTRA TIONS.

PAGE

PRIORY FARM-HOUSE. . 37°

PRIORY SEAL 375

PEREGRINE FALCON — HYBRID PHEASANT 387

COCKCHAFFER 406

PHAL^ENA QUERCUS 409

SPHYNX OCELLATA ' , . 4IO

GLOW-WORMS 4l6

THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER I.*

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the
county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not
far from the county of Surrey ; is about fifty miles south-west of
London, in latitude fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns
of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive it abuts

* The first series of Mr. White's Letters are addressed to Pennant, and run over a
period of several years, during which that gentleman was engaged in writing his British
Zoology ; whether they were originally commenced as real letters between friends and
naturalists, and were afterwards brought together for publication, we are unable to say.
Some bear the stamp of replies to actual letters, but when the idea of publication was
fixed upon, it is probable that others may have been introduced, and such as this first one
written as introductory to his parochial history. Mr. White tells us that they are pub-
lished with the view of " laying before the public his idea of a Parochial History, which
lie thinks ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as antiquities."
(See Advertisement.) It is from such materials and records as these that the most
complete County Histories might be drawn, and he remarks that such are still wanting in
several parts of the kingdom. In 1853 the same remark would continue to apply. The
parish registers do not always go so far back, and have not always at an early period been
kept with that exactness which White would have recommended, and it is often difficult
to trace the origin of some old custom or pastime, or the etymology of some of the
apparently now meaningless names of places, farms, or villages. Accordingly, in this his
first letter, he at once goes into the necessary, though to some the dry and more tedious,
information, of the boundaries and situation of the parish ; some of its statistics, produce,
springs, with a light sketch of its geology and physical character.

This is one of the few letters where the geology of the district is touched upon, and
in only one of the numerous editions has this been explained ; Mr. Bennet is the only
editor who seems to have examined it for himself, and to him, as others have done, we
must apply for information. This is necessary, as upon the explanation depends the
proper understanding of several of White's remarks and expressions in the other parts of
his work. Mr. Bennet writes in his note to page 5 of his edition ; " The parish of Selborne
is situated in the lower part of the chalk formation, and embraces within it the upper mem-
bers of the Weald. These are well displayed as they occur in succession, forming strips
which run along the parish from north to south : in crossing it from east to west each of
the strata is visited in the order of their superposition. They are four in number ; com-
prising the chalk, the upper green-sand, the gault, and the lower green-sand. The chalk

B

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, Hadleigh,
Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lyffe, and Greatham. The soils of this
district are almost as various and diversified as the views and
aspects. The high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of
chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided
into a sheep-down, the high wood and a long hanging wood, called
The Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech,
the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth
rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The
down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile
by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-country,
where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a
very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands,
heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and
east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex Downs, by
Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs round Dorking, and
Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, which altogether, with the
country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and extensive
outline.

At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies
the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three
quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running
parallel with The Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by
a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white
stone, little in appearance removed from chalk ; but seems so far
from being calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the
freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is
plain from the beeches which descend as low as those rocks extend,

constitutes the mass of the Selborne hill, which is covered towards the village by the
Hanger. Next in succession to the chalk is the formation technically known as the upper
green-sand, designated in the text, 'freestone, or firestone.' Below the rock of the upper
green-sand formation is the gault, generally presenting a uniform level, of the most fertile
character ; within Selborne it exists only as a perfect flat, but to the north in the forest
of the Holt, it rises into hills. Last of the Selborne strata is the lower green-sand, which
rises immediately east of the gault into ridges of various elevations, having usually a
direction not very dissimilar to that of the Hanger."

White also in this letter shows his appreciation of the beautiful, in celebrating the
appearance of the beech tree, which grows with such peculiar grace or elegance on the
chalk or oolite formations, and in spring forms groves of the freshest green. We have
elsewhere stated that we -thought other trees possessed more elegance of form, but this
is a matter of mere taste and opinion, and need not be entered upon here ; certainly in
spring it is pre-eminent for its enlivening green, and in autumn it exhibits a foliage of the
warmest tints.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 3

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 per-
haps have been the original site of the town ; while the woods and
coverts might extend down to the opposite bank.

\VKI L-HHAU.

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

* This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after asevere hot summer, and a preceding
dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and
12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many
of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale were dry.

The " Well-head," as represented in the vignette, " breaks out of the land at the foot
of the Hanger, and spreading into a picturesque pond contracts again into a narrow
stream, which flows past the village, and swells into a river at Godalming."

B 2

4 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

some high grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory,
remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different seas.
The one to the south becomes a branch of the A run, running to
Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel : the other to the
north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey ; and,
meeting the Black-down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and
Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river,
navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to Guilford, 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 viljage, is a range of
fair enclosures, consisting of what is called white malm, a sort of
rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain,
moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself.*

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 in the freestone, and
have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. The
white soil produces the brightest hops.

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

* This soil produces good wheat and cloVer.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.

IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the north-
west of the village, on the white malm, stood within these twenty
years a bijoad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmns folio latissimo
scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading

WYCH ELM.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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."t 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 Loser's, of
a few acres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar
growth and great value ; they were tall and taper like firs, but

* Mr. White seems to have adopted no plan or rule in arranging the subjects of these
letters. They are taken up as they occur or have been observed. This may have its
advantages, as recording the observations when freshly made, or before the memory had
failed, but a correspondence or journal kept in this way would almost require for the sake
of convenience to have the subjects brought more together. Thus there are frequent
observations afterwards upon the forestry of Selborne, while here we have now only some
of the more remarkable trees noted.

The wych elm, the first tree alluded to, has been a subject always annotated upon, this
species being far less commonly grown in England than in Scotland. In the former
country it is supplanted almost entirely by the small-leaved or English elm, as it is
commonly named, a tree which reaches a large size, and of which there are magnificent
specimens in our public parks or promenades ; but it produces a wood of inferior quality,
and as it is now planted in the hedgerows of the small enclosures of the south, it must
very materially injure the crops by its spreading roots, which shoot up and would soon
cover the ground. The tree mentioned in this letter is the ulmus canipestris, Linn. ; it
yields a timber valuable for various agricultural purposes, and is esteemed for making
naves for cart-wheels ; it is of a more spreading character than the others, and often
attains to a large size. The Selborne elm, though of less size than some others, the
measurements of which have been recorded, must have been a large and very fine tree.

The oak trees mentioned in the latter part of this letter gained their peculiar character
by being very thickly planted, and as it might be called " neglected." According to pur
notion of timber management thinning is indispensable, but to obtain trees of the kind
alluded to, the thicker they can be grown, the better. Beech trees with a clean stem of
from fifty to seventy feet are very valuable for keel pieces, but the practice of growing
wood of any kind in this way has scarcely been practised. Larch planted for hop-poles,
or sweet chesnut grown for the same purpose, are treated in this manner ; and what in
commerce is called Norway poles, are I believe the first thinnings of the Baltic forests,
which have been spindled up by the more vigorous trees to great length and uniformity
of thickness, and which in all probability would have been ultimately killed.

t Vide the plate in the antiquities.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 distin-
guished by the title of the Raven Tree* Many were the attempts
of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty whetted
their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the
arduous task. But, when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out
so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most
daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too
hazardous : so the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect
security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be
levelled. It was in the month of February, when these birds
usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, — the wedges were
inserted into the opening, — the woods echoed to the heavy blow of
the beetle or malle 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.*

* We have always found the raven, whether nesting upon a rock or upon a tree, most
unapproachable after she had been disturbed or alarmed.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.

THE fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have
fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence.
And first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was
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 ;

OSTREA CAKINATA.

called by Lister, Rastellum; by Rumphius, Ostreum plicatum
minus j 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 to
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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 in a darkish sort of marl ; and
are usually very small and soft : but in Clay' s Pond, a little farther
on, at the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out for manure, I
have occasionally observed them of large dimensions, perhaps
fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But as these did not consist
of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of .terra lapidosa, or hard-
ened clay, as soon as they were exposed to the rains and frost they
mouldered away. These seemed as if they were a very recent pro-
duction. 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.

* Our author was mistaken in referring this fossil to the Mytilus crista galliot Linnaeus.
Mr. Bennet, who has explained the subject in a note to his edition of Selborne, refers it
to the Ostrca carinata of Lamarck, a species peculiar to the green-sand formation, upon
which the village of Selborne is built, and which from its white colour would be easily
confounded with the chalk, especially at a time when geology was much less ; ttended to
than at present.

io NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER IV.

TO THE SAME.

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 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, f On the ground abroad this firestone will not
succeed for pavements, because, probably some degree of saltness
prevailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces. $ 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 resists 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,

* 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.

t To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had in the quarry,
says Dr. Plot, " Oxfordshire," p. 77. But STirbedding does not succeed in our dry walls ;
neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for Teynton stone.

t "Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur : must be close-grained, and have no
interstices. Nothing supports me like salts ; saltstone perishes exposed to wet and frost."
—PLOT'S " Staff.," p. 152.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 11

large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense.
Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of
yellow or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the
blue ; and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like
rust of iron, called rust balls.

In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the
workmen sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of the colour of
rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore ; is very hard
and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a
small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown,
terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor
easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces,
it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never becoming
slippery in frost or rain ; is excellent for dry walls, and is sometimes
used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies scattered on
the surface of the ground ; but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast
hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow
and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable.

From a notion of rendering their wore 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."

HOLLOW LANE.

LETTER V.

TO THE SAME.

AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes,
the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention.
These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of
ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum
of our freestone, and partly through the second ; so that they look
more like 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 13

shapes of frost-work. These rugged gloomy scenes affright the
ladies when they peep down into them from the paths above, and
make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but
delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particularly
with their curious 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
landrails are seen.

ROCKY HOLLOW LANE.

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

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

The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may
be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

experience in measuring the water is but of short date, I am not
qualified to give the mean quantity.* I only know that

Inch. Hum!.

From May
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.
Jan.

i779> to ^e end of the year there fell 28 37 !

1780, to Jan. i, 1781 27 32

1781, to Jan. i, 1782 30 71

1782, to Jan. i, 1783 50 26!

1783, to Jan. i, 1784 33 71

1784, to Jan. i, 1785 33 80

1785, to Jan. i, 1786 31 55

1786, to Jan. i, 1787 39 57!

The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the
single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest,
contain upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabitants. See below.

We abound with poor ; many of whom are sober and industrious,
and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, which are
glazed, and have chambers above stairs : mud buildings we have
none. Besides the employment from husbandry, the men work in
hop-gardens, of which we have many-; and fell and bark timber.
In the spring and summer the women weed the corn ; and enjoy a
second harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the
dead months they availed themselves greErtly 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.J The inhabitants enjoy a good
share of health and longevity ; and the parish swarms with children.

* A very intelligent gentleman x 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
jieasured 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
i6A inches for the year ; if from 1740 to 1750, 18^ inches. The mean rain before 1763 was
2o.f inches, from 1763 and since 255 inches, from 1770 to 1780, 26 inches. If only 1773,
1774, and 1775, had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32 inches."

t Mr. Bennet has given a continuation of the register of the rain-gauge up to 1793.
Some of the years show a greater quantity than any of the previous ones, except 1782.
Three of them considerably above 40, the last 48'56.

\ 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 house-
wife.

1 The intelligent gentleman, referred to in the author's note to this letter, was Thomas
Barker, of an ancient and respectable family in the county of Rutland, brother-in-law to
Mr. White.

The vignettes at commencement and conclusion of the letter represent those hollow
lanes so quaintly alluded to m its first paragraph.

A STATE OF THE PARISH OF SELBORNE, TAKEN OCTOBER 4, 1783.

The number of tenements or families, 136.
The number of inhabitants in the street is 313 I Total 676 ; near five inhabitants to each

In the rest of the parish 363) tenement.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

15

Average of baptisms for 60 years.

From 1730 to ~|

1739, both >

years inclus. )

F™. 740 H, I
,749 M. )F-6'6j

.s,3

Total of baptisms of Males

„ Females

5IS
465

From 1 760

From«770JM.io,

1779 incl. j ' 9>
980

Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, 60 years
Average of burials for 60 years.

980

9, 9

From 1740) M 4

to. t
1749 incl. ;

From 17501
to >

F.

,- 10, o

From 1760) M 6 |
i769t0inc,.}F-6'M13'4

10, 6

" 1759 incl.

Total of burials of Males 315

„ ',, Females 325

Total of burials from 172010 1779, both inclusive, 60 years

From 1770

to

1779 in

640

770lM<>sl«.

clJF-6'2j ""

640

Baptisms exceed burials by more than one third.
Baptisms of Males exceed Females by one tenth, or one in ten.
Burials of Females exceed Males by one in thirty.

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

Twins thirteen times, many of whom dying young have lessened the chance for life.
Chances fqr 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.

1761
1762

i763
1764

1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
*774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780

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 IAO

BAPTISMS.

BURIALS

MAR.

M.

F.

Tot.

M.

F.

Tot.

S

IO

18

2

4

6

•5

7

8

15

10

14

24

6

3

IO

18

3

4

7

5

ii

9

20

10

8

18

6

12

6

iS

9

7

16

6

9

13

22

10

6

16

4

5

19

6

5

ii

2

7

6

13

2

5

7

6

9

14

23

6

5

ii

2

10

13

23

4

7

ii

3

10

6

16

3

4

7

4

II

IO

21

6

IO

16

3

8

5

13

7

5

12

3

6

13

2

8

IO

i

VO

7

27

J3

8

21

6

it

10

21

4

6

IO

6

8

13

21

7

3

10

4

7

13

20

3

4

7

5

M

8

22

5

6

1 1

5

8

9

«7

"

4

ID

3

98

1 88

386

123

123

246

83

WOLMER FOREST.

LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.

SHOULD I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of
Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my
account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district
abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vege-
table ; and has often afforded me much entertainment both as a
sportsman and as a naturalist.

The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven
miles in length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from
north to south, and is abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to
proceed eastward, by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and
Trotton, in the county of Sussex ; by Bramshot, 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

* See his " History of Staffordshire."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 17

"there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the
southern counties. " But he was mistaken : for I myself have seen
cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted
of a black hard wood, looking like oaV, which the owners assured
me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or
some such instruments : but the peat is so much cut out, and the
moors have been so well examined, that none has been found of
late.* Besides the oak, I have also been shown pieces of fossil
wood of a paler colour, and softer nature, which the inhabitants
called fir : but, upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could
discover nothing resinous in them ; and therefore rather suppose
that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic
tree.

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 j such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I
have discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast
plenty are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, into
which they love to make excursions : and in particular, in the dry
summer of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to
such a degree that parties of unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty
and sometimes thirty brace in a day.

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

* Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they have discovered these
trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where they are com
cealed than in the surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but
consistent with true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, "That the warmth of the earth, at
some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of
the weather from a freezing to a thawing state, is manifest, from this observation, viz.,
Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having 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 " Hsemastatics," p. 360. QUERY, Might not such observations be reduced
to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about
houses ; and in Roman stations and camps lead to the finding of pavements, baths, and
graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity ?

i8 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

who had often seen grouse in the north of England, assured me
that it was a greyhen.*

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 Ports-
mouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal

* The vignette at the head of Letter VI. represents a view of Wolmer Forest as it now
appears, taken from the yard of Temple Farm-house. Wolmer Pond is seen upon the
right.

This letter with the next alludes to subjects of far more interest to the naturalist than
would be at first supposed. At the time when White wrote, it may have been considered
that a wild " tract," seven miles by two-and-a-half in extent, consisting of moss and muir,
heath and fern, would not be worthy of much remark. Fortunately our author viewed it
differently, and it was, we have no doubt, one of his "charming places ; " he writes, " it
has often afforded me much entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist. " With
how much interest will the present proprietor of Selborne, or any one who can follow the
feeling of these letters, now visit Wolmer Forest, and compare its present state with the
above description. Such facts as those recorded by White, are invaluable to either
20ologist or botanist, and the reclamation there, with the great changes which have taken
place incident to the increase of population and other causes, — the change almost from
desolation to cultivation, must have materially affected the existence and distribution of
the wild animals and plants. In a series of years where attention has been given to the
results of these unavoidable changes, we have seen some species extirpated and others
assume their places. The influence of population on the existence and geographical
distribution of animal and vegetable life, with all its attendant circumstances of commerce,
and the necessity for increasing human food by cultivation, though comparatively unper-
ceived, is not so very slow in its results ; fifty years may almost entirely change the
zoology and botany of a district, and within such limited bounds as Wolmer Forest, the
extirpation of the black game would easily occur, though cultivation, particularly on the
borders of a sub-alpine county, is rather favourable than the reverse for this game.
Drainage makes a most important change on the wild vegetation : a large extent of new
plantation in the growth of half a century will materially affect the character of a county,
by rendering it a suitable abode for animals, birds, and insects before unknown to it, and
so would the cutting down of extensive old woods destroy or drive away other species
that delighted only in them. But population and cultivation bring other evils attendant
upon themselves. They extirpate or reduce the numbers of the rapacious animals, and
allow the increase of others, which naturally follow and accommodate themselves to the
circumstances, finding a more abundant supply of food. Rabbits have followed cultiva-
tion, and are often exceedingly injurious, their rapid increase rendering their extirpation
no easy matter. Rooks accompany cultivation, are familiar birds, and accommodate
themselves easily ; they are of immense utility in keeping under various entomological
pests that annoy the farmer, but they have in some parts increased most rapidly, and
finding in the produce of the land a sure and ample supply of food, they have resorted to
that and do occasionally much damage, so much so that in some districts anti-crow
associations have been formed for their destruction, and many thousands are annually
killed. The indiscriminate destruction of rapacious animals and birds by game-keepers
has led to the increase of other species, and of one in particular, the common wood-
pigeon ; this bird in some localities has become exceedingly numerous, assembling in
flocks of many hundreds, and in winter doing very great injury to the turnip crops ; anti-
pigeon associations have also been formed, and in Berwickshire no less than 8000 were
destroyed in one year.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 19

regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is
just by, and, 'reposing herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose,
lying about half a mile to the east of Wolmer Pond, and still
called Queen's Bank, saw with great complacency and satisfaction
the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepers along the vale
before her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sight
this, worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign ! But he farther
adds that, by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own
expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to
about fifty head, and so continued decreasing till the time of the
late Duke of Cumberland. It is now more than thirty years ago
that his Highness sent down an huntsman, and six yeoman-prickers,
in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by the stag-hounds ;
ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and to convey
them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the summer they caught
every stag, some of which showed extraordinary diversion : but in
the following winter, when the hinds were also carried off, such fin 3
chases were exhibited as served the country people for matter of
talk and wonder for years afterwards. I saw myself one of the
yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess
that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior
to anything in Mr. Astley's riding-school. The exertions made by
the horse and deer much exceeded all my expectations ; though the
former greatly excelled the latter in speed. When the devoted deer
was separated from his companions, they gave him, by their
watches, law, as they called it, for twenty minutes ; Avhen, sound-
ing their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most
gallant scene ensued.

20 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.

THOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood,
yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than
the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible ; for most
men are sportsmen by constitution : and there is such an inherent
spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can
restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century all thi:
country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as
they affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be
possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length
committed such enormities, that government was forced to interfere
with that severe and sanguinary act called the " Black Act,"* which
now comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed
before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged
to re-stock Waltham Chase,f refused, from a motive worthy of a
prelate, replying "that it had done mischief enough already." J

* Statute 9 Geo. i. cap. 22.

t This chase remains unstocked to this day ; the bishop was Dr. Hoadly.

t Poaching and its effects are deplored in Letter VII., and the reduction of the stock
of deer kept in the forest, the maintenance of which could not be of any very great public
or private utility, was then in consequence resolved upon. The propriety of keeping up
of the large stock of deer in the royal forests being for these and other reasons at the
present time questionable, a reduction was contemplated a few years since ; and a Bill
was lately proposed to be introduced into Parliament " to extinguish the right of the crown
to stock the New Forest in Hampshire with deer and other wild beasts of the forest, and
to empower her Majesty to enclose the several portions of the said Forest." This would
have been regretted by White, for the wild and natural character of the county will be
changed, and with that a corresponding variation will occur in its inhabitants. On the
continent this is carried to a greater and more serious extent. In a book lately published,
"Chamois Hunting in Bavaria," it is stated that by the increase of poaching, and the
assumed right of the peasantry to consider the game as their own, brought on probably by
the excessive preservation, and therefore temptation, it has been deemed necessary to
extirpate it. In one chase of a circumference of about 60 English miles, a sporting count
calculated that he would be able every year to kill 300 roebucks, 80 stags, and 100
chamois, but this was done at some cost. The count kept twenty-four game-keepers,
picked men. At the commencement of their preservation they shot seven poachers, and
one of the keepers who had killed four was himself shot. Where the game was thus abund-
ant, and kept up at such a price ! one of those political changes took place which gave the
right of shooting to every individual of the community, and the count, somewhat to diminish
his pecuniary losses, ordered the game to be destroyed. This was done by proprietors
and people, and in a very short period the extermination was almost completed. In
another chapter the same author writes : "The noble proprietors of the forests bordering
the Danube, in the neighbourhood of Donan Stauf, paid every year a considerable sum
to the peasants, as indemnity for the damage done to their crops by the game ; and
according as the price of corn rose these sums were increased. As the money received

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 21

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, mi staking him for a deer; and the losing
a dog in the following extraordinary manner : — Some fellows, sus-
pecting 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 the 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 presume, why sheepf 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 confine-
ment in the house of correction ; " yet, in this forest, about March
or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-
was generally more than adequate to the loss sustained, the peasantry were satisfied, and
found in the arrangement no cause of complaint ; when suddenly, in 1848, although the
preceding years the indemnity received by them had been nearly doubled, they discovered
that such a state of things could exist no longer ; and thus, supreme authority ceding to
popular will, a general extermination of the game took place throughout the land."

* For this privilege the owners of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven
bushels of oats.

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

22 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

fires are lighted up, that they often get to a masterless head, and,
catching the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the
underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued.
The plea for these burnings is, that, when the old coat of heath,
&c., is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford much tender
brouze for cattle ; but, where there is large old furze, the fire,
following the roots, consumes the very ground ; so that for hun-
dreds 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 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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 23

LETTER VIII.

TO THE SAME.

ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three
considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing
particular to say ; and one called Bin's, or Bean's Pond, which is
worthy the attention of a naturalist or a sportsman. For being
crowded at the upper end with willows, and with the carex cespi-
tosa,* it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals,
snipes, &c., that they breed there. In the winter this covert is also
frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants ; and the bogs
produce many curious plants. (For which consult Letter XLI. to
Mr. Barrington.)-j-

By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, made in
1635, and the eleventh year of Charles the First (which now lies
before me), it appears that the limits of the former are much cir-
cumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther side, with which I
am not so well acquainted, the bounds on. this side, in old times,
came into Binswood ; and extended to the ditch of Ward le Ham
Park, in which stands the curious mount called King John's Hill,
and Lodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called
Mauduit Hatch ; comprehending also Short Heath, Oakhanger,
and Oakwoods ; a large district, now private property,, though once
belonging to the royal domain.

It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in
this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambulation,

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

NOTE. In the beginning of the summer 1787, the royal forests of Wolmer and Holt
were measured by persons sent down by government.

t Here is one of those records so useful in a local history. We learn from Mr. Bennet's
edition, that Bin's Pond has been drained, and that cattle now graze upon its bed. The
character of the place, so correctly yet simply described in this letter, has thus been com-
pletely altered, and we see improvement working out the changes alluded to in the note
to p. 15. It would be in vain now to look for the plants, or for the water-fowl that
found there a '* pleasing shelter." The hassocks of carex alluded to formed a very
marked feature in such a place ; they are most uncomfortable to walk among, and form
a complete cover and shelter to various animals and birds. From age and successive
growths, they form high "torrets" with a solid base. The foliage hangs down, and a
covered way is formed underneath, where young water-fowl, water-rails, &c., can run and
escape detection for a long time, even from a dog.

24 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

a rough estimate of the value of the timbers, which were consider-
able, growing .at that time in the district of the Holt ; and enumer-
ates the officers, superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the
time being, and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In those
days, as at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer
Forest.

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

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

"A various group the herds and flocks compose;

on the grassy bank

' Some ruminating lie ; while others stand
Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip
The circling surface."

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

teals, and widgeons, of various denominations ; where they preen
and solace, and rest themselves, till towards sunset, when they
issue forth in little parties (for in their natural state they are all
birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows ; returning
again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two
more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is
perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy.

TEAL AND WIDGEON.

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.

26 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER IX.

TO THE SAME.

By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this
subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles
Holt, alias Alice Holt,* as it is called in old records, is held by
grant from the crown for a term of years.

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

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

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

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

One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been of old

* "In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Edw. III., it is called Aisholt."
In the same, " Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam capellam

in haia suft de Kingesle." " Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parcus ; a Gall, haie and haye." —

SPELMAN'S Glossary.

t This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 27

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 Woltner ; nor were the red deer of Wolmer ever known
to haunt the thickets or glades of the Holt.

At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by
the night hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the
efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been
put in force against them as often as they have been detected, and
rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines jior imprison-
ments can deter them ; so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit
of sporting which seems to be inherent in human nature.

•• >;>.'*

WILD BOAR.

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

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand
oaks, has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest : one
fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawell. He
lays claim also to the lop and top ; but the poor of the parishes of
Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs
to them, and assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken
it all away. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home for his

* " German boars and sows were also turned out by Charles I. in the New Forest,
which bred and increased. Their stock is supposed to exist now, remarkable for the
smallness of their hind-quarters." — MITFORD'S Edit.

28 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 THE SAME.

August \th, 1767.

IT has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours
whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural know-
ledge ; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry
and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a
kind of information to which I have been attached from my child-
hood.

As to swallows (hirundines rusticce) being found in a torpid state

* This letter is extremely interesting in many points, it is the earliest in date, and as
such tends to confirm what we suggested in the note to p. i, that the first letter of this
scries was written at a later date as introductory. Its early date also accounts for the
apologetical expression in the first paragraph, and in it we find mentioned the two subjects
for which White always entertained the greatest interest : these were migration and
hybernation.

White at the commencement of his meditations on this subject was inclined to the
belief of a partial hybernation taking place among birds, which Mr. Harrington, with
whom he was also corresponding, tended to confirm. Neither could he get rid of the
various accounts in circulation, in regard to swallows being found torpid, and of their
retiring under water at stated periods. His candid mind would not allow him to credit
these, but at the same time he could not divest them of all foundation. Birds migrate,
and the instinct thus implanted may be looked upon generally as the provision to supply
the wants of a peculiar season. All those summer visitants that have been found after
the usual period of their departure, have been detained by other causes than a will to
remain, and as the season advanced and the supplies of food and warmth failed, they
sought retreats which by-and-by they were probably unable to leave. Some found in
such places have been dead at the time or have died almost immediately after being
discovered, and a few have revived just according to the time they were concealed, or
were able to withstand the cold or want of sustenance. Our winter visitants are in the
same way occasionally detained ; a short time since we took a woodcock which had the
tip of the wing slightly injured, it could perhaps fly about thirty yards. This bird could
not have migrated, but it had not the scarcity of food to contend with that a summer
visitant would incur, and there is no doubt it would have lived through the season, as it
was perfectly healthy and in good condition.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. -29

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 clergy-
man, of an inquisitive turn, assures me, that when he was a great
boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battlements of a church
tower early in the spring, found two or three swifts (hirundines
apodes) among the rubbish, which were at first appearance dead,
but on being carried towards the fire revived. He told me, that
out of his great care to preserve them, he put them in a paper bag,
and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they were suffocated.

Another intelligent person has informed me, that while he was a
schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment of the
chalk cliff fell down one stormy winter on the beach, and that many
people found swallows among the rubbish ; but on my questioning
him whether he saw any of those birds himself, to my no small dis-
appointment, 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
nth, and young martins (hirundines urbic<z} were then fledged in
their nests. Both species will breed again once. For I see by my
fauna of last year, that young broods came forth so late as Septem-
ber the 1 8th. 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 2Qth ; and yet they totally dis-
appeared with us by the 5th of October.

How strange it is that the swift, which seems to live exactly the
same life with the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before
the middle of August invariably ! while the latter stay often till the
middle of October ; and once I saw numbers of house-martins on
the 7th of November. The martins and red-wing fieldfares were
flying in sight together, an uncommon assemblage of summer and
winter birds !

A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda 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, f There is one circumstance cha-
racteristic of this bird which seems to have escaped observation,
and that is, it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from

* The wood-wren or warbler, yellow-willow wren, of British authors, Sylvia sibilatrix,

' the peculiar note al
icapa grisola, Linn.

j. nt wuuu-vvicn ui wtiiuici, ycuuw-wiiiuvv wren, ui

Latham, frequents old woods, and is easily known by the peculiar note alluded to.
t The spotted fly-catcher of British authors, Muscu

70, NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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. Durham supposes, in "Ray's Philos. Letters," that
he has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of
some very common birds that have as yet no English name.

Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the black-cap {motacilla
atricapilla) be a bird of passage or not : I think there is no doubt
of it : for, in April, in the first fine weather, they come trooping,
ail 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 to\vn. The person that brought me the
last says they are plenty in harvest, at which time I will take care
to get more ; and will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt
whether it be a nondescript species or not.

I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray
says, and Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-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 inns amphibius of Linnaeus (see
Syst. Nat.} which he says " natat in fossis et urinatur" I should
be glad to procure one ltplantispalma£is.n\ Linnaeus seems to be
in a puzzle about his mus amphibius, and to doubt whether it differs
from his mus terrestris j which if it be, as he allows, the " mus

* The black-cap warbler, Sylvia atricafiilla,\^t\\a.m, is a rather late summer visitant,
and his arrival is immediately betrayed either by his song, or by the few peculiar notes
warbled as he flits from bush to bush. The voice is much clearer in tone than any of the
other warblers, the nightingale excepted ; he is a delightful addition to our summer song-
sters. The black-cap has a very extensive geographical distribution, reaching northward
to Norway and Lapland, and we have good authorities for its occurrence in Africa, Japan,
Java, Madeira, and the Azores. Mr. Bennet has copied a note from Mr. Rennie's edition,
in which the latter states : " Dr. Heineken informs us, that it (the black-cap! is stationary
in Madeira, consequently Sir W. Jardine is wrong in thinking our birds retire thither."
We have no doubt whatever in Dr. Heineken being right, but it does not follow from that,
that some do not migrate there also. The song-thrush generally is stationary in Great
Britain, but hundreds migrate to and from every year, so do gold-crests, and many othef
species. "Where it is probable they partly retire," are the words of the original note.

t There is only one species of water-rat in Great Britain, Anncola anifhibiits,
Desmarest. The feet are not webbed or palmated. The black coloured water-rat of the
r.orth is now considered as a variety only.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 31

agrestis capite grandi brachyuros? * of Ray, is widely different from
the water-rat, both in size, make, and manner of life.

WATER-RAT.

As to the/rt/^7, 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 " qtialem dices . . .
antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquice ! "

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 exhi-
bition 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.

Th TR the;short-l^d field-mouse, or field-vole, Aruicola agrestis of Fleming and Ball.
of NamTal H^ory,"evorvii;aS *™ dlstinctions of the Briti>h ****** & "Annals

32 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XL

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, September gth, 1767.

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

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

* Mr. Bennet states that the falco proved to be the F. pcregrinns, or peregrine
falcon, and the authority given is W. Y. The yellow " circle of its eyelids " does not
refer to the irides as we had imagined, when remarking upon this passage in another
edition. White states he could not " make* a good observation." The irides of the
British species of falcons (and we know of no foreign exception) are all dark-brown. Mr.
Pennant states that it was a variety differing, in having the whole under-side of the body
a dirty, deep yellow.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 33

seemed disposed to breed in my outlet ; but were frighted and per-
secuted by idle boys, who would never let them be at rest.

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

A crossbill {loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neigh-
bourhood.

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the
village, yield nothing but the bull' s head or miller1 s thumb (gobius
fluviatilis capitatus) , the trout (truttafluviatilis}^ the eel (anguilla\
the lampern (lampatra parva et fluviatilis}, and the stickle- back
(pisciculiis acnleatus).

MILLERS THUMB AND STICKLE-BACK.

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 teems of ducks bred in the moors where the
snipes breed ; and multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard weather
frequent our lakes in the forest.

Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it
casts up the fur of mice and the feathers of birds in pellets, after
the manner of hawks ; when full, like a dog, it hides what it can-
not 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 2ist of August : it was a straggler.

c

34 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Red-stars, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non cristafi, still
appear : but I have seen no blackcaps lately.

I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church College
quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-
martin flying about, and settling on the parapet, so late as the 2Oth
of November.

At present I know only two species, of bats, the comon vespertilio
murinus and the vesper tilio auribus*

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would
take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it anything to eat,
it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding
its head in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. The
adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of the flies, which
were always rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me
much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not

PJPISTRELLE. LONG-EARED BAT.

refuse raw flesh when offered ; so that the notion, that bats go
down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon, seems no improbable story.
While I amused myself with this wonderful quadruped, I saw it
several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down upon
a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great
ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch than I
was aware of; but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner.

Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as
they play over pools and streams. They love to frequent waters,

* It is to be desired that the fishes mentioned in a previous paragraph, as well as the
bats, were identified. There are at least three British species of eels, and it is more than
probable that two of these are found at Selborne. There are also several species of stickle-
back found in our fresh waters, one of the most common, and to which Ray's name as
applied belongs, is the smooth-tailed stickleback, gasterosteus leinrus, Cuvier. Of the
bats Professor Bell describes seventeen British species. The first noted by White was
most probably the pipistrelle. The true vespertilio murinus being one of the most rare.
The other would be the common long-eared bat, flecotus anritns.

NA TURAL HISrOR Y OF SELBORNE. 35

not only for the sake of drinking, but on account of insects, which
are found over them in the greatest plenty. As I was going some
years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a
warm summer's evening, I think I saw myriads of bats between
the two places ; the air swarmed with them all along the Thames,
so that hundreds were in sight at a time. I am, &c.

LETTER XII.

' TO THE SAME.

November tfh, 1767.

SIR, — It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the /a/co*
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 pre-
served 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 vms domesticiis
medins of Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour ;
their belly is white, a straight line along their sides divides the shades
of their back and belly. They never enter into houses ; are carried
into ricks and barns with the sheaves ; abound in harvest ; and
build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above the ground,
and sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as eight at a litter,
in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat.

One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially
platted, and composed of the blades of wheat, perfectly round, and
about the size of a cricket-ball ; with the aperture so ingeniously
closed, that there was no discovering to what part it belonged. It
was so compact and well filled, that it would roll across the table
without being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice
that were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly full, how
could the dam come at her litter respectively so as to administer a

* This hawk proved to be \h& falco peregrinus 't a variety.

36 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

teat to each ? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose,
adjusting them again when the business is over ; but she could not
possibly be contained herself in the bill with her young, which
moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful pro-
creant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was
found in a wheat-field suspended in the head of a thistle.*

HARVEST MICE.

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 " Philosophical Letters,"
that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this king-
dom in the winter of 1*685. f

* This is the harvest-mouse, inns messorins, of Shaw ; and it is to Mr. White that we
are indebted for the first notice and description of it as a British species, which he
communicated to Mr. Pennant, who introduced it in the British zoology upon that
authority. It is not unfrequent in some of the southern English counties, but becomes
more rare northward. In Scotland it occasionally occurs, and on the authority of the
late Professor Macgillivray, has been obtained in Aberdeenshire. It is the smallest of
our British mammalia, and its habits are very interesting.

The nests are very curious structures, and instead of being formed upon the ground, as
those of most of the species, the ball or nest is suspended from the stems of grain or other
"high vegetation. One is described in the Memoir of Dr. Gloger. " It was in skilfulness
of construction fully equal to that of most birds, was suspended from the summit of three
straws of the common reed (Arnndo phragmites},ar\& was entirely composed of the
pannicles and leaves of the plants slit longitudinally, and intricately platted and matted
together. Its internal cavity was small and round, and accessible only by a narrow
lateral opening."

t The letter alluded to was from Mr. Johnson to Mr. Ray, in 1686. " On the back-side

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 37

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.

BOHEMIAN WAX-WING.

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

Query. — Might not canary birds be naturalised to this climate,
provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some
of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c. ? 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

you have the description of a new English bird. They came near us in great flocks like
fieldfares, and fed upon haws as they do." And in another letter from Mr. Thoresby to
Mr. Ray, 1703, it is said, " I am tempted to think the German silk-tail is become natural
to us, there being no less than three killed nigh this town the last winter." Thus has the
wax-wing occurred occasionally in this county, but there is no record of any great
numbers appearing together since Ray's time, until in 1849-50, when an unusual number
visited us. The direction of the flight was from east to west, and the principal localities
where they occurred were the eastern or coast districts of Durham and Yorkshire in the
north, and of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent in the south. Their appearance reached
over a period from November 1849, to March 1850, January being the principal month
of their appearance ; no fewer than 429 are recorded to have been killed in that month,
and during the whole time they were observed, 586 specimens were known to have been
obtained — a very wanton destruction.

38 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind which
assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from
the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and
houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the aits of
that river. Now this resorting towards that element, at that season
of the year, seems to give some countenance to the northern opinion
(strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A 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
an 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 con-
tinents in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the regions of
Africa !

* See "Adanson's Voyage to Senegal."

frA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORXE. 39

LETTER XIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Jan. -zznd, 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 me to be almost all hens. I communi-
cated 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 intelligence,
one might be able to judge whether our female flocks migrate from
the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us from
the continent.*

* This is another letter, just such as might have been written from one country friend
and naturalist to another, not stating facts, as if for press or publication, but simply as
they occurred, and with the impress of truth and reality about them. No doubt the
correspondence of a friend of congenial mind in some different locality, and a comparison
of his annual calendar, is not only a great incitement to prosecute our observations, but
aids our insight into the variations produced by locality and climate ; and persons fond of
the study of natural history, but who do not possess the entire scientific acquirements, nor
all the facilities for research or reference, may be of the greatest use in recording facts as
they occur, and in comparing them with those of other correspondents. Some species are
numerously, others locally, distributed, and because one observer finds either of these to
be the case in his vicinity, the conclusion is not to be all at once jumped at, that the species
is generally abundant or the reverse. Some localities may have a species resident, others
may have the same only migratory, or partially so. In others, a species may have been,
from change of circumstances, extirpated, and old authors who have recorded that such
was abundant, are not to be doubted, because at the time of modern examination
circumstances have changed.

Some birds are always gregarious, and are constantly seen in large flocks, and breed in
colonies, but the greater proportion disperse during the breeding season, pair and seek

40 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 pro-
per summer homes. It is well known, at least, that the swallows
and the fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering before they
make their respective departure.

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

Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the winter.*
Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are often killed in numbers
by people that go on purpose.

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

their separate retreats to nest and rear their young. When this great object is accom-
plished and winter approaches, they join and congregate together in large parties, but the
migratory birds, at the time of their moving, appear to assemble in sexes, for we know
that the males of many of our summer birds of passage arrive before the females. The
remark of Linnaeus that is quoted may be correct ; it is probable that we receive an
nddition to the numbers of the chaffinch in the end of autumn, and Mr. Thompson is
disposed to believe that some of those that flock together in Ireland have migrated from
more northern latitudes. The evidence from British ornithologists of the separation of the
sexes of the chaffinch is at variance, and we think that the division has been overrated.
The young males not having attained their full plumage may have been one cause of
deception, and may have, without a minute examination, been assumed to be females.

* White must have had in view the grey wagtail, Motacilla boarula, many pairs of
which remain during winter, and these wanting the dark throat of the breeding plumage
are nearly all yellow on the under parts. The yellow wagtail, Bitdytcsjlava, is a rt-gula.
summer visitant, arriving rather late, and leaving us about the end of August or middle of
September.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 41

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

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

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

As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though they
hang their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the standing
corn, above the ground ; yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow
deep in the earth, and make warm beds of grass : but their grand
rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into which they are carried at
harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch
of which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were
taken, and some I saw. I measured them ; 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 half-penny, which is about the third of an ounce avoir-
dupois : so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this
island. A full-grown Mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one
ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the
mouse above ; and measures from nose to rump four inches and a
quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had a very severe frost
and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen
degrees and a half below the freezing-point, within doors. The

* See " Ray's Travels," p. 466.

C 2

42 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very pro-
vidential that the air was still, and the ground well covered with
snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously.
There is reason to believe that some days were more severe than
any since the year 1739-40.*

I am, £c., &c.

LETTER XIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBOKNE, March i-zt/i, 1768.

DEAR SIR, — If some curious gentleman would procure the head
of a fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished
with two spiracula, or breathing-places, besides the nostrils ; pro-

ORIFICE IN FALLOW-DEER.

bably analogous to the puncta lachryinalia in the human head.
When deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses,
very deep under water, while in the act of drinking, and continue
them in that situation for a considerable time : but, to obviate any
inconveniency, they can open two vents, one at the inner corner of

* See Letters LXI., LXII. to Mr. Barring ton.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 43

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.f Mr. Ray observed that at
Malta the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard
worked : for they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit
air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that
hot climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf,
think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and
running horses.

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

TriavptQ Trvotrjffi diavXoi."

" Quadrifidce nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales."

OPP. CYN. Lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one anotaer, make Aristotle say that goats
breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the contrary : — " AXr-
fjtauttv yap OVK a\r}9r) Xfyei, <pa.(jitvo£ avairvtiv rag a/yag fcara ra wrote."
" Alctnaeon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats
breathe through their ears." — " History of Animals." Book I.
chap. xi.

* This short letter is devoted entirely to one subject, to which White's attention was
most probably directed by his visits to the deer in Wolmer Forest ; it is one of those which
requires explanation, especially in a popular work so much read as "Selborne," and the
very error into which White has fallen with his remarks will lead to the future explana-
tion of a structure which even at this time is not completely understood. The statement
in the letter, " When deer are thirsty," &c., is quite correct so far as " they plunge their
noses," but the nostril is then not used, and the whole will is exerted in quenching a thirs'
at the time excessive. These other orifices are glandular cavities, and 3» far as we know
or can judge, have reference to the season of rutting, and have no connexion whatever
with respiration. They exist in greater or less development in all the deer and antelopes,
and also in the common sheep, and a peculiar secretion may be seen to exude from it,
having also a peculiar odour. Some animals have glandular secretions in other parts of
the body — musk, civet, zibet, &c. — known as perfumes, and the peculiar utilities of these
glands, except in secreting a strong scent, is unknown.

t In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious and pertinent
reply. " I was much surprised to find in the antelope something analogous to what you
mention as so remarkable in deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath each eye,
which can be opened and shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one. the creature
made as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming
to smell it through them."

44 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March y>th, 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 bs little depended on ; but
farther inquiry may be made.*

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in
one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able

to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the
owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity

* Such is the case at the present time. Most gamekeepers insist that there is another
beast different from the weasel or stoat ; young and female weasels appear very small
when running, and in reality look scarcely bigger than a large mouse, the form being a
little more lengthened. These do not agree with the weasels and stoats taken in traps,
&c., and hence the delusion is kept up.

Mitford has the following note in his edition. " This I believe to be a pretty general
error among the county-people, also in other counties. This imaginary animal in Suffolk
is called the ' mouse-hunt,' from its being supposed to live on mice. To discover the truth
of this report, I managed to have several of these animals brought to me ; all of which I
find to be the common weasel. The error I conceive partly to have arisen from this
animal, like most others, appearing less than its real size, when running or attempting to
escape, a circumstance well known to the hunters of India, with respect to larger animals,
as the tiger," &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 45

in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a
barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws
were milk-white.*

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

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

root of the arum is remarkably warm and pungent.f

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

In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, a little
bird that raised my curiosity : it was of that yellow- green colour
that belongs to the salicaria kind, and, I think, was soft-billed. It
was no parus ; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned
wren, appearing most like the largest willow wren. It hung some-
times 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 ccdicnemus, should be
mentioned by the writers as a rare bird : it abounds in all the

* We possess a large rookery, and although we have never had an entire white or cream-
coloured variety, scarcely a year passes without some young being observed with more
or less white in the plumage, and in these the bill and feet, as well as the claws, are also
white.

t We have not observed the roots of the arum scratched for as mentioned, but it is not
generally a very common plant in Scotland. The circumstance mentioned above is wortli
attending to, and observers who may read this edition should now notice and corroborate,
if they can, White's remarks.

46 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNR.

champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all
the summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn.
Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I
thinlc, with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, " circa
aquas versantes ; " for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the
most dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed from
water : what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are
their usual food, but they also eat toads and frogs.*

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

LETTER XVI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNR, April i8/A, 1768.

DEAR SIR,— The history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius ccdicnc-
mus, 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, &c., and are
withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they sculk 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. CEdicnemns
is a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem

* The winter habits of the stone-curlew have not been described, and White knew it
only during the breeding time. Most of the plovers and their allies congregate after
breeding, and delight in the vicinity of water. Any one describing the winter habits of
the common curlew frequenting the seashore, and going inland to feed at high tide, would
find the picture very different from that which he would draw when he saw them in their
subalpine breeding-grounds, having at the same time a different call and flight. It was
nevertheless a very natural commentary upon Ray's words, and we now require a good
description of their habits during winter, after they have returned from their breeding-
grounds.

FALLOW DEEK.

RED UEEU.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 47

swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I have shot them
before the pointers in turnip-fields.

I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow-wrens ;-*
two I know perfectly, but have not been able yet to procure the third.
No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constantly,
than those two that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous,
easy, laughing note, the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is
every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, and weighs
two 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 locusta whisper-
ing in the bushes . The country people laugh when you tell them
that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, sculking in

* There are just three of the British warblers which are liable to be confounded with
one another ; at the same time they are very distinct, and a little attention to their habits
alone would easily distinguish them. They are —

The WOOD- WREN, or warbler, Sylvia sibilatrix, referred to before at page 29. In its
habits it is distinguished by frequenting old woods, being very partial to those of oak, and
being seldom seen among low or young plantations like the next. Mr. Selby writes, " In
a living state, it is easily recognised by its peculiar song, which resembles the word tivec,
repeated twice or thrice rather slowly, concluding with the same notes hurriedly delivered,
and accompanied by a singular shake of the wings." In form this is the largest species,
it has a bright yellow eye-streak , and the upper parts have a tint of sulphur-yellow,
wanting in the others. The belly and under tail-covers are pure white.

The WILLOW-WREN, or warbler, Sylvia trochilus, Selby, is one of our most common
and generally distributed warblers ; it is also one of pur earliest sylvan visitants, appearing
almost with the first leaves of spring, and frequenting young woods and plantations. It
has a lively but limited song of a few notes, which is constantly repeated. In size it nearly
equals that of the wood-warbler. The streak over the eye is indistinct, the upper plumage
is of an oil-green or brownish tint, and the upper parts are tinted whh yellow, particularly
the under tail-covers.

The CHIFF-CHAFF warbler or Lesser Pettychaps, Sylvia hippolais, is very common in
the greater part of England, but becomes less common towards the north, and does not
extend far in that direction. It arrives very early, and is immediately betrayed by its
peculiar often-repeated note of chiff-chaff, which has given to it its provincial name. It
frequents old woods, as well as others of lower growth. In size it is the least of the three,
the eye-streak is very indistinct, the upper parts oil-green tinged with grey, and the belly,
vent, and under tail-covers are primrose-yellow. The legs are blackish brown, whereas
in the other two they are yellowish- brown. This is the " chirper."

48 NATURAL HISTORV OF SELBORNE.

the thickest part of a bush ; and will sing at a yard distance, pro-
vided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the
other side of the hedge where it haunted, and then it would run,
creeping like a mouse, before us for an hundred yards together,
through the bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come into fair
sight ; but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on
the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with 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 11011
cristati, from which it is very distinct. See Ray's " Philos.
Letters," p. 108.*

A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE DISCOVERED IN THIS
NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE. ORDER IN
WHICH THEY APPEAR.

LINN^I NOMINA.

Smallest willow-wren Motacilla trochilus.

Wryneck, Jynx 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 cedicnemns ?

Turtle-dove ? Turtur aldrovandi ?

Grasshopper-lark, Alauda trivialis.

Landrail, Rallus crex.

Largest willow-wren, Alotacilla trochilns.

Redstart, Motacilla phcenicnrns,

Goat-sucker, or fern-owl, Caprimulgu<> europtuts.

Fly-catcher, Mnsdcapa grisola.

The fly-catcher (stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it usually breeds
in my vine. The redstart begins to sing, its note is short and im-

* This passage in Ray's correspondence (Ray Society, p. 96), to which the above alludes,
appears to occur in one of Mr. Johnson's letters to Ray, March 1672, and refers to the
grasshopper-warbler, Snlicaria locnstella, and which is White's " grasshopper-lark ;'' it is
as follows : " I have sent you the little yellow-bird you called regulus non cnstatns, what
bird it is I know not ; but we have great store of them (Brignall, Greta Bridgel, each
morning about sunrise, and many times a-day ; besides she mounts to the highest branch
in the bush, and there, with bill erect, and wing hovering, she sends forth a sibilous noise,
like that of the grasshopper, but much shriller." — (See also Letter XXIV.)

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORXR. 49

perfect, but is continued till about the middle of June. The willow-
wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a garden, destroying the
peas, cherries, currants, £c. ; and are so tame that a gun will not
scare them.

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 jarbird. I
procured one to be shot in the very fact ; it proved to be the Sitta
europtea (the nuthatch). Mr. Ray says that the less spotted wood-
pecker does the same. This noise may be heard a furlong or
more.

THE NUTHATCH

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.

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, &c., &c.

50 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELI3ORNR.

LETTER XVII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, June iStft, 1768,

DEAR SIR, — On Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of
June the loth. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you pursue
these studies still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness
with regard to reptiles and fishes.

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

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 terw \>.iv WOT-OKOI, t£w de ZWOTOKOI, 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 everybody : because we see them sticking upon each
others backs for a month together in the spring : and yet I never
saw or read of toads being observed in the same situation. It is
strange that the matter with regard to the venom of toads has not
been yet settled. That they are not noxious to some animals is
plain : for ducks, buzzards, owls, stone-curlews, and snakes, eat
them, to my knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember the
time, but was not eye-witness to the fact (though numbers of per-
sons were), when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to make the
country-people stare ; afterwards he drank oil.*

* This is a letter upon reptiles, the natural history of which, as well as that of fishes,
White had little opportunity of studying. Toads procreate exactly in the same manner
as frogs, and both are oviparous, the bead-like chains which are often seen in pools in
spring, as if they were looped over each other, is the newly-deposited spawn of the former.
The venom of toads is discarded as a fable, but there is an excretion from the skin which
can be exuded upon irritation, and serves for protection. It causes the evcessive.

NATURAL III STORY OF SELBORNE. 51

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

I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the
excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's " Wisdom of
God in the Creation" (p. 365), concerning the migration 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 those emigrants, no larger than my little finger nail.
Swammerdam gives a most accurate account of the method and
situation in which the male impregnates the spawn -of the female.
How wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to the
limbs of so vile a reptile ! While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like
tail, and no legs : as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as
useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land !

•secretion of saliva in the mouth of a dog, and evidently gives pain. Mr. Herbert says a
pike will seize a toad, but immediately disgorges it, while a frog is swallowed.

There has always been an aversion or disgust at toads. The older poets clothed him in
a garb " ugly and venomous," and one of our master-bards has likened the Evil Spirit to
him, as a semblance of all that is devilish or disgusting.

Him they found

Squat like n toad, close at the ear of Eve,
Assaying with all his devilish art to reach
The organs of her fancy.

Thus we are taught, and the feeling is handed down from family to family, to loathe a
harmless animal. The bite is innocent of any after consequences, and we never saw a toad
attempt to bite. The exudation of the skin is only used in self-defence. They are
extremely useful in the destruction of insects, and they will be found to be valuable as well
as amusing assistants in a greenhouse or conservatory. Sir Joseph Banks wrote — " I have
from my childhood, in conformity with the precepts of a mother void of all imaginary
fear, been in the constant habit of taking toads in my hand, holding them there some
time, and applying them to my face and nose as it may happen. My motive for doing this
very frequently is to inculcate the opinion I have held, since I was told by my mother,
that the toad is actually a harmless animal ; and to whose manner of life man is certainly
iinder some obligation, as its food is chiefly those insects which devour his crops and annoy
him in various ways."

52 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

It is to be remembered that the Salamandra aquatica of Ray
(the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the angler's bait, and
is often caught on his hook. I used to take it for granted that the
Salamandra aquatica was hatched, lived, and died, in the water.
But John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. (the coralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter
to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th, 1766, in his account of
the mud inguana, an amphibious bipes from South Carolina, that
the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles
are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand his

WATER-NEWTS.

meaning, I shall give it in his own words. Speaking of the oper-
cula or coverings to the gills of the mud inguanat he proceeds to
say that, " The form of these pennated coverings approach very
near to .what I have some time ago observed in the larva or aquatic
state of our English lacerta, known by the name of eft, or newt ;
which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim
with while in this state ; and which they lose, as well as the fins of
their tails, when they change their state and become land animals,
as I have observed, by keeping them alive for some time myself."

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 seroent kind in these kingdoms, and that is

NATURAL IIJS TORY OF SELBOkNE.

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 27th
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,

BLIND WORM.

hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them
forth. Whereas snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my
melon beds, in spite of all that my people can do to prevent them ;
which eggs do not hatch till the spring following, as I have often
experienced. Several intelligent folks assure me that they have
seen the viper open her mouth, and admit her helpless young down
her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her
brood into the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies ;
and yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington,
that no such thing ever happens.* The serpent kind eat, I believe,

* This question remains, we believe.'nearly as it did in White's time. There have been
statements upon both sides, and some time since it gave rise to a very long discussion in
the "Gardener's Chronicle," but which, with the others, ended in nothing that could be
taken as undoubted proof of the fact. We have always looked upon this as a popular
delusion, and the supposed habit is so much at variance with what we know of the general
manners and instincts of animals that, without undoubted proof of its occurrence, we
incline still to consider it as such. Something always occurs to prevent the adder that
has swallowed her young being captured, and the evidence rests on such an one having
seen the young enter the mouth of the parent. Now, we do not mean to call in question
the veracity of the observers reporting what they at the time believed to be the case, but
we know how easy it is to be deceived, and how difficult it is to observe correctly. Mr.

54 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 Matrix)
delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view to procure
frogs arid other food.

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

Bennet leaves the question open ; but in the latest edition of "Selborne," in Bohn's Illus-
trated Library, the following note by the editor occurs : — " Having taken much pains to
ascertain the fact of young vipers entering the mouth of their mother, I can now have
little doubt but that such is the case, after the evidence of persons who assured me that
they had seen it. I also found young vipers in the stomach of the mother of a much
larger size than they would be when first ready to be excluded." We presume that the
young vipers in the stomach of the mother were found alive ; it is not so stated. Could the
Zoological Society not do something to solve this problem ? A comparatively trifling
expense would procure a good collection of adders were it known they were wanted, and
among them a female might be found and watched. See also Mr. White's remarks,
Letter XXXI., to Mr. Barrington, where he cut up an adder, and found young in the
"aMoweu," by which term he evidently means the uterus or ovarium, for he adds,
" there was little room to suppose they were taken in for refuge." Letter XXXI. should
be turned to and read with this one to Pennant.

* In Mr. Bell's work on British Reptiles, fourteen species may be said to be given.
Two of these, however, are Chelonians, or tortoises, and of accidental occurrence only,
so that Mr. White's difficulty is not unnatural, considering the general state of information
when he wrote.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 55

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Jitly 27^/6, 1768.

DEAR SIR,— I received your obliging and communicative letter of
June the 28th, while I was on a visit at a gentleman's house, where
I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure to sit down, to return you
an answer to many queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best
manner that I am able.

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

Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable
distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over to that town, and
procured several living specimens of loaches, which he brought,
safe and brisk, in a glass decanter. They were taken in the gullies
that were cut for watering the meadows. From these fishes (which
measured from two to four inches in length) I took the following
description: "The loach, in its general aspect, has a pellucid
appearance ; its back is mottled with irregular collections of small
black dots, not reaching much below the linea lateralis, as are the
back and tail fins ; a black line runs from each eye down to the
nose ; its belly is of a silvery white ; the upper jaw projects beyond
the lower, and is surrounded with six feelers, three on each side ;
its pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller ; the fin behind
its anus small ; its dorsal-fin large, containing eight spines ; its tail,

* The obliging arid anxious disposition of Mr. White to forward the views and studies
of his correspondent are here shown, as also his own homely manner, and without
attributing any merit to himself of giving his opinion of such remedies as curing cancers
by toads. Mazel, the person to whom the specimens were addressed, was Pennant's
engraver, and his name also btands as the artist upon some of the plates of antiquities in
the original 4to edition.

56 1VATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any taper-
ness, 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 for-
get to make some inquiries concerning the wonderful method of
curing cancers by means of toads. Several intelligent persons,
both gentry and clergy, do, I find, give a great deal of credit to what
is asserted in the papers, and I myself dined with a clergyman who
seemed to be persuaded that what is related is matter of fact ; but,
when I came to attend to his account, I thought I discerned cir-
cumstances 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 applica-
tion 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 in-
validates the assertion that they are larvcej for the larva of insects
are full of eggs, which they exclude the instant they enter their last
state. The water-eft is continually climbing over the brims of the
vessel, within which we keep it in water, and wandering away ; and
people every summer see numbers crawling out of the pools where
they are hatched up the dry banks. There are varieties of them
differing in colour ; and some have fins up their tail -and back, and
some have not.*

* The fins or membrane upon the tail and back are an appendage to the males only,
and are developed at the season of their breeding.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 57

LETTER XIX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, August ijt/'i, 1768. -

DEAR SIR, — I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct
species of the willow-wrens (inotacillce tro chili) 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 i8th, I had told you peremptorily that I knew
your willow-lark, but had not seen it then ; but when I came to
procure it, it proved in all respects a very motacilla trochilus, only
that it is a size larger than the two other, and the yellow-green of the
whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the belly of a
clearer white. I have specimens of the three sorts now lying before
me, and can discern that there are three gradations of sizes, and
that the least has black legs, and the other two flesh-coloured ones.
The yellowest bird is considerably the largest, and has its quill-
feathers and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others
have not. This last haunts only ths tops of trees in high beechen
woods, and rna'tes 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 striduld locust <z" Yet this great
ornithologist never suspected that there were three species.

* "Brit. Zool.," edit. 1776, 8vo, p. 381.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORXE.

LETTER XX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, October Wi, 1768.

IT is I find in zoology as it is in botany ; all nature is so full that
that district produces the greatest variety which is the most
examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the north
only, are it seems often in the south. I have discovered this summer
three species of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be
seen in the northern counties. The first that was brought me (on
the I4th 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 recol-
lection, he has seen some of the same birds round his ponds in
former summers. *

* Of the sandpiper we may remark that it would be 'the unfavourable localities in the
vicinity of Selborne that caused its scarcity. The common sandpiper, Totanus (triuga of
Linnaeus) hyfoleucus, is not particularly a northern bird. It has a very extensive foreign
range, as well as British, and in this country frequents, during the breeding season, lakes
with gravelly margins, or clear rocky streams, where it arrives in spring and remains until
its broods are ready to remove. It is a regular summer visitant, and to the angler is a
pleasant companion, enlivening the streams with its shrill whistle, and by its active motions.
During winter there seems to be a partial as well as general migration, some leaving the
country altogether, others retiring only to the sea-shores.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 59

The next bird that I procured (on the 2ist of May) was a male
red-backed butcher-bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who shot
it, says that it might easily have escaped his notice, had not the
outcries and chattering of the whitethroats 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, turdi
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 ta^en. I mentioned this circumstance

RING- OUSEL.

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 my-
self) ; but last week the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large flock,
twenty or thirty of these birds, shot two cocks and two hens, and
says, on recollection, that he remembers to have observed these
birds again last spring, about Lady-day, as it were on their return to
the north. Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of the north
of England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe ; and
may retire before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those parts,
and return to breed in the spring, when the cold abates. If this be
the case, here is discovered a new bird of winter passage, concern-

60 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

ing 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 countries. The ousel is larger than
a blackbird, and feeds on haws ; but last autumn (when there were
no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds on ivy-
berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.*

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

My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the
examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach at
present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions ; and I hope

Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my favour ; and

then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary provision of nature
as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation.

As yet I have not quite done with my history of the cedicnemtts,
or stone-curlew; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex (near
whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the autumn) to
observe nicely when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when
they return again in the spring : I was with this gentleman lately,
and saw several single birds.

* White's observations upon the ring-ousel, at the time he wrote, were very important,
and made with great accuracy. As in other matters, it will be very interesting for
Professor Bell to give his attention to their present habits in the vicinity of Selborne, to
ascertain if their numbers continue as many, and their appearance as regular. In Scotland
the ring-ousel is a regular summer visitant, extending from the English border to Suther-
landshire ; in the rocky districts of the latter county it is tolerably frequent. In autumn
and before their departure they visit the lower country, and remain a day or a week
according to circumstances, feeding at this time upon various berries, and occasionally
visiting gardens. The broods are now joined and mixed together, and the young appear
in their imperfect mottled dresb.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 61

LETTER XXI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Nov. 2%th, 1768.

DEAR SIR, — With regard to the oedicnemus, 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 congregate, and after-
wards 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 gentle-
man, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and is abroad early
and late, will be a very proper spy upon the motions of these birds ;
and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy the Naturalist's
Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall expect that he
will be very exact in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as you
observe, that a bird so common with us should never 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 monedula) build every year in the
rabbit-burrows under-ground. The way he and his brothers used
to take their nests, while they were boys, was by listening at the
mouths of the holes ; and, if they heard the young ones cry, they
twisted the nest out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls (viz. the
puffins) breed, I know, in that manner ; but I should never have
suspected the daws of building in holes on the flat ground.

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

62 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORKE.

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
anything 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 about three
weeks they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark whether
they will call on us at their return in the spring, as they did last
year.

I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyology. If
fortune had settled me near the sea -side, or near some great river,
my natural propensity would soon have urged me to have made
myself acquainted with their productions : but as I have lived
mostly in inland parts, and in an upland district, my knowledge of
fishes extends little farther than to those common sorts which our
brooks and lakes produce.

I am, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 63

LETTER XXII.

TO THE SAME.*

SELBORNE, Jan. zna, 1709.

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

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

It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard has actually
been procured for you in Devonshire ; because it corroborates my
discovery, which I made many years ago, of the same sort, on a
sunny sandbank near Farnham, in Surrey. I am well acquainted
with the South Hams of Devonshire ; and can suppose that district,
from its southerly situation, to be a proper habitation for such
animals in their best colours.

* This letter with the preceding one are as usual full of observation, and might have
been written to any correspondent without the vievy of publication.

The jackdaw is one of those familiar birds which accommodates its habits to circum-
stances. In Great Britain it may be said to be altogether in an artificial condition incidental
to population and commerce, and the works of man form very convenient retreats to sleep
or nestle in, which it would otherwise have had to discover in some natural locality. In
an entirely natural state the rugged precipices and caves on the sea-coast, mountainous
rocks abounding with holes and fissures and clothed with ivy, are the places resorted to,
or in a woodland district an aged and hollow tree may be chosen. The selection of rabbit-
burrows is accidental, and they are used instead of natural or scraped holes, sometimes by
a very miscellaneous assemblage ; rabbits and jackdaws, sheldrakes and puffins, are some-
times to be found in the same warren, and not very far from each other.

t James, chap. iii. 7.

64 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not for-
sake 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 entertainment in your
description of the heronry at Cressi Hall ; which is a curiosity I
never could manage to see. Fourscore nests of such a bird on one
tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles to have a sight
of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi Hall is,
and near what town it lies.* 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 a week, they would certainly find more
species.

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more
than that of the caprimulgns (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful
and curious creature ; but I have always found that though some-
times 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
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 purr. You will credit me,
I hope, when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled
in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one
of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross of that little straw
edifice and began to chatter, and continued his note for many
minutes ; and we were all struck with wonder to find that the organs
of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration
to the whole building ! This bird also sometimes makes a small

* Cressi Hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 65

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 pro-
cured, should prove a new one, -since five species have been found
in a neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I mentioned is
certainly a nondescript ; I saw but one this summer, and that I had
no opportunity of taking.*

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

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

tThe 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.

* See Letters XXVI., XXXVI. , and note.

66 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. z%th, 1769.

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

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

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

If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michael-
mas Day. I was travelling, and out early in the morning ; at first
there was a vast fog; but, by the time that I was got seven or
eight miles from home towards the coast, the sun broke out into a
delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath or common,
and I could discern, as the mist began to break away, great num-
bers of swallows (Jiirundines rustical) clustering on the stunted
shrubs and bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon
as the air became clear and pleasant they all were on the wing at
once ; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded on southward
towards the sea ; after this I did not see any more flocks, only new
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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 67

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, im-
printed on their minds by their great Creator ; and with some

* This letter is a reply to some of Mr. Pennant's inquiries, and is remarkable for the
very distinct observations made upon the swallows. In a small pamphlet printed at
Rotherham in 1815, the author of which we never ascertained, there are some observations
made that agree with many of those recorded by Mr. White. These were also made by
a clergyman, as it is told in his short preface, " to rescue a beautiful and instructive
phenomenon from oblivion, and to render it subservient to the moral improvement of his
numerous and highly-respected charge."

" Early in the month of September, 1815, the swallows began to assemble in the neigh-
bourhood of Rotherham , at the willow ground near the glass-house on the banks of the
canal, preparatory to their migration to a warmer climate, and their numbers were daily
augmented until they became a vast flock which no man could easily number. It was
their manner while there to rise from the willows in the morning a little before six
o'clock, when their thick columns literally darkened the sky. In the evening, about five
o'clock, they began to return to their station, and continued coming in from all quarters
until nearly dark." The year advanced, and "accordingly their mighty army broke up
their encampment, debouched from their retreat, and rising covered the heavens with their
legions ; then directed by an unerring guide took their trackless way. On the day of their
flight they left behind them about a hundred of their companions, after these a few
stragglers only remained. These might be the sick or too young to attempt so great an
expedition ; whether this was the fact or not, they did not remain after the next day." The
common house swallow is seen every autumn to congregate in large bodies as above
described. The willow aits in the Thames are very favourite resorts, and we have no
doubt that similar localities will, in like manner, be taken advantage of. They also
assemble on some bare tree, upon rails and house-tops, making excursions therefrom as if
to exercise their young broods in flying, and at this autumnal period we have often seen
them assemble and roost upon the alders fringing the side of a river. While at Malvern,
some years since, in the month of September^ the little white-rumped martin (ff.iirbica)
congregated in hundreds upon the roof, cornices, and window-tops of Mr. Wilson's large
house there. This was continued daily until the great departure took place, and in twenty-
four hours only a few stragglers remained of the large concourse. The balcony and
windows beneath that part of the building where they generally assembled were covered
with specimens of the swallow fly (see woodcut, p. 155). We have never seen, nor do we
recollect it recorded, that swifts congregate in this manner before migration.

68 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

degree of mortification, when I reflected that, after all our pains
and inquiries, we are yet not quite certain to what regions they do
migrate ; and are still farther embarrassed to find that some do
not actually migrate at all.

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

LETTER XXIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May zqth, 1769.

DEAR SIR, — The scarab&usfullo I know very well, having seen
it in collections ; but have never been able to discover one wild in
its natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought it might be found
on the sea-coast.*

* Melalontha fullo, FABRICIUS. Chafer or cockchafer, but not the species that is so
well known to schoolboys. This species is a rare British insect, very local in its distribu-
tion, being hitherto chiefly found in Kent ; it is remarkable for the large size and deve-
lopment of the antennae. These insects are almost all extremely destructive, feeding
voraciously on the leaves of shrubs and trees. The common cockchafer, sometimes
called May-bug (woodcut), often appears in immense numbers, and commits great havoc.
On the continent they are even more destructive than in this country, and governments
have directed their attention to the best mode of compassing their destruction. In the
larva state they are vegetable eaters, feeding upon the roots of plants, while in the
perfect or beetle state they attack the foliage. It is in this condition they are most easily
destroyed ; being a large insect they can be collected by labourers or children, and in
some parts they are so numerous that oil is extracted from them by boiling. There are
several allusions to this insect in the ancient writers, and we are indebted to W. B.
Macdonald of Rammerscales for selecting the following quotations —

The jutjAoAoj'flTj is mentioned by Aristophanes, " Clouds," n. 761. Socrates loq. : —

fjiri wv ;repl cravrov etAAe GTTJV yrw/uirji/ del,
dAA' aTroxaSa Trjf fypovTiV eis TOV dspa,
uicTTrep ^rj^.o\6vOr\v TOV 7ro56s.

"Do not now always revolve your thoughts around yourself, but set your meditation
(give rein to your meditation) free into the air, fastened with a strong thread to its foot
like a cockchafer."

Greek boys, without the fear of Martin's act before their eyes, were wont thus to
amuse themselves with cockchafers chained by a thread. Madame Dacier however
here supposes an allusion to an opinion of Socrates that the human soul had wings. ^The
scholiast to Aristophanes remarks that it is £u>ii(f>i.6v Xfn><n&¥ Ka.v6dpia 6/u.oioi' — aAAws
TOV \pv<roK(iv6apov , £ivav Br., o TOIS avOfaiv eTiKaOe^erai — Ae-yet 6s TOV \p\]Q~OK.av6apov. — i.e.
A little animal of goldish hue like a cantharus, otherwise a chrysocantharus ; in barbaric
Greek "Zina,"— which rests upon flowers — and some call it a "golden cantharus."

Aristophanes in hi-s "Wasps," 1342, calls a young glee-maiden xpva-o^y]\o\6i'Qi.ov, "a
little srolden cockchafer."

NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 69

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 these birds about the usual spot. We shot a cock
and a hen ; they were plump and in high condition! The hen had
but very small rudiments of eggs within her, which proves they are
late breeders ; whereas those species of the thrush kind that remain
with us the whole year have fledged young before that time. In
their crops was nothing very distinguishable, but somewhat that
seemed like blades of vegetables nearly digested. In autumn they
feed on haws and yew-berries, and in the spring on ivy-berries. I

COCKCHAFER.

dressed one of these birds, and found it juicy and well flavoured.
It is remarkable that they make but a few days' stay in their spring
visit, but rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas. These birds, from
the observations of three springs and two autumns, are most punctual
in their return ; and exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the
writers, who supposed they never were to be seen in any southern
countries.

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,t in Lincolnshire. My bird

Julius Pollux, B. 9, ch. 7, says, 17 Se \i.r\\Q\ovQ-(\, £u>oi/ TTT^VOV e&riv, yv Kol
KaAoucru', r/TOt CK TTJS ai'^rjTews TWV joirjAwv TJ crvv TTJ av6ri<rei yivo^evov. " The melolonthe
is a winged animal, which they also call melolanthe, either from the bloom of apples, 'or
its occurring with this bloom."

Stobcens quotes from Herodes (Sermo 76), the boys' game with the melolonthse, thus
— TJ Ta.i.cn fj.r)\o\ovOr)s ajujaaT1 e^aTrruv TOV (ceer/ceov, /uot TOV •ye'poi'ra Ato|3rjTai. — "Or tieing
strings of tow to the cockchafers, jeer at the old man for me."

* For this Salicaria see next letter. f The seat of Sir Joseph Banks.

70 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

I describe thus : " It is a size less than the grasshopper-lark; the
head, back, and coverts of the wings, of a dusky brown, without
those dark spots of the grasshopper-lark ; over each eye is a 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 locustela, hinted at by
Dr. Derham in Ray's Letters : see p. 108.* He also procured me
a grasshopper-lark.

The question that you put with regard to those genera of animals
that are peculiar to America, viz., how they came there, and whence ?
is too puzzling for me to answer ; and yet so obvious as often to
have struck me with wonder. If one looks into the writers on that
subject little satisfaction is to be found. Ingenious men will readily
advance plausible arguments to support whatever theory they shall
choose to maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every one's hypo-
thesis is each as good as another's, since they are all founded on
conjecture. The late writers of this sort, in whom may be seen
all the arguments of those that have gone before, as I remember,
stock America from the western coast of Africa and the south of
Europe ; and then break down the Isthmus that bridged over the
Atlantic. But this is making use of a violent piece of machinery ;
it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god ! " Incredulns
odir f

* Dr. Derham writes — "Doubtless this bird was the locustcla in Willoughby's ornitho-
logy, and not the regnhis noii-cristatus, which I call the yellow wren, and of which I
have discovered three distinct species, but not one of them that sings as here described,
and as I have seen two sorts (if I mistake not) of locustelce birds do."— W. D.— Carres.
<T/"RAY, Ray Society, p. 96.

The bird here meant is " the titlark that sings like a grasshopper."— WILLOUGHBY, p.
207 ; and the Salicaria locustella (Selby) alluded to Letter XVI.

t The zoology of the New World is essentially distinct from that of the Old, so is that
of Africa fronrTlndia, and both the latter from those of Australia and the Pacific. There
may be a few forms common to some of these divisions, but the great type of the zoology
of each is distinct. That of the western coast of Africa is quite distinct from that of
America ; among the birds, for instance, which possess the greatest amount of locomotive
power, none of the migratory species travel from continent to continent, and the generic
forms even are almost entirely different. In later times, where there is a much more
frequent communication between Europe and the west coast of Africa, and by means of
the slave trade between that country and South America and the West Indian islands,
there have been various introductions from the one country to the other, and particularly
of the Vegetable Kingdom, but even with these the great mass of both Fauna and Flora
continue distinct. There is no more interesting study than that of the geographical
distribution of animals and plants, and of the very remarkable incidents which sometimes
occur to effect the transportation of some which are almost entirely without the power of
crossing seas or oceans.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNR 71

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

^ equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis

Ingenium. VIRG. Georg.

WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the may-fly* haunts the pool or stream ;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ;
Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant f cuckoo's tale ;
To hear the clamorous J 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, unsubdued of wing:
Amusive birds ! — say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat ;
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide!

While deep'ning shades obscure the face of "Uay
To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,
'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night ;
To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill § cricket cry ;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ;
To catch the distant falling of the flood ;
While o'er the cliff th' awaken'd churn-owl hung
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;
While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft enamour'd || woodlark sings :

* The angler's may-fly, the ephemera vnlgata, LINN., comes forth from its aurelia state,
and emerges out of the water about six in the evening, and dies about eleven at night,
determining the date of its fly state in about five or six hours. They usually begin to
appear about the 4th of June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See

Siuammerdam, Derham, Scopoli, &c.
t Vagrant cuckoo ; so called bee

. so called because, being tied down by no incubation or attendance
about the nutrition of its young, it wanders without control.

t Charadrius cedicnemns. § Gryllus campestris.

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

72 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:

As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain

Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein !

Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine j
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 nigh-dews fall : — away, retire !
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous firei *
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. f

I am, &c>

LETTER XXV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Aug. y>th, 1769.

DEAR SIR, — It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of
the ousel migration pleases you. You put a very shrewd question
when you ask me how I know that their autumnal migration is
southward ? Was not candour and openness the very life of natural
history, I should pass over this query just as a fly commentator
does over a crabbed passage in a classic ; but common ingenuous-
ness obliges me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that
I only reasoned in that case from analogy. For as all other
autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our
milder winters, and return to the northward again when the rigor-
ous cold abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same,
as well as their congeners the fieldfares ; and especially as ring-
ousels are known to haunt cold mountainous countries : but I have
good reason to suspect since that they may come to us from the

* 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
rrarabceus.

\ See the story of Hero and Leander.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 73

westward ; because I hear, from very good authority, that they
breed on Dartmoor ; and that they forsake that wild district about
the time that our visitors appear, and do not return till late in the
spring.

I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria and mine,
with a white stroke over its eye and a tawny rump. I have sur-
veyed it alive and dead, and have procured several specimens, and
am perfectly persuaded myself (and trust you will soon become
convinced of the same) that it is no more nor less than the passer
arundinaceus minor of 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 aviculcs cauda unicolore, and among your slender-billed small
birds of the same division. Linnaeus might with great propriety
have put it into his genus of motadlla ; and motacilla salicaria of
his fauna suecica seems to come the nearest to it. It is no uncom-
mon 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

STONE-CURLEW'S EGG.

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

* This is the Salicaria phragmitis, the sedge-warbler, sedge-bird, or Reedfauvette of
British authors. It is by far the most common and generally distributed of our native
species of Salicaria, and is distinct from that referred to in preceding letters.

D 2

74 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

characteristic of it when he says, "Rostrum et pedes in hdc ainculA
multb majores sunt qiiam pro corporis rationed See letter, May
29, 1769. (Preceding letter, XXIV.)

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

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

WOODCHAT.

A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the lanius minor
cinerascens cum macula in scapidis alba, Raii; * which is a bird
that, at the time of your publishing your two first volumes of
" British Zoology," I find you had not seen. You have described it
well from Edwards' s drawing.

* This is the Lanius rufus, or woodchat of British authors, and is extremely rare as a
British bird, resting upon the authority of a few straggling specimens being procured.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 75

LETTER XXVI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, December %th, 1769.

DEAR SIR, — I was much gratified by your communicative letter
on your return from Scotland, where you spent some considerable
time, and gave yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities
of that extensive kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as
those of the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is
hurry, because men seldom allot themselves half the time they
should do ; but, fixing on a day for their return, post from place to
place, rather as if they were on a journey that required dispatch,
than as philosophers investigating the works of nature. You must
have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a good fund
of materials for a future edition of the "British Zoology;" and
will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains
on a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined
before.

It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which
are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose
to breed in England ; but that they should not think even the high-
lands 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 reasons to con-
clude that those migrators that visit us for a short space every
autumn do not come from thence.*

* How true is the opening to this letter. Even now the north of Scotland is not known
zoologically ; it would still require to be explored leisurely, and we have no doubt that
there is yet much in what are called the " lower departments " to reward the care of a
diligent investigation.

We are not aware that the ring-ousel "stays in Scotland the whole year round."
Mr. Yarnell states, or rather mentions without stating authority, that Scotch instances
of the fieldfare breeding have occurred, and that nests have been found in the southern
counties. We have never known an authentic instance in Scotland, and we have received
many letters upon the subject which invariably turned out that the supposed fieldfare was
the missel-thrush. They often remain very late, until the middle of May, according to
the season, and may sometimes be seen after some of the summer visitants have arrived.
We should not consider it at all remarkable that the breeding of some solitary pairs should
be authentically recorded. In the northern countries where it breeds, it is naturally a
late incubator. The " snow-fleck " (plectrophanes nivalis] is not a short-winged bird, and
the first quill is the longest, which is the formation generally seen in birds of powerful or
lengthened flight. This bird may occasionally remain and breed in Scotland. Professor

76 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those
birds were most punctual again in their migration this autumn,
appearing, as before, about the 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 Michaelmas, and again for
about a week in the middle of April, I am seized with wonder, and
long to be informed whence these travellers come, and whither they
go, since they seem to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting
place.

SNOW-FLECK.

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

Macgillivray and Dr. Greville observed a male on Ben-na Mac-Dui on the 4th of August,
and some days after a brood was observed on Lochnagar, but these are only exceptions,
and no rule for the general breeding of the species in the north of Scotland. The white
hare is the It-pus variabilis, a northern species, but very common in the higher parts ©f
the highlands of Scotland ; in summer the fur is of a bluish grey, and in some districts
they are called "blue hares." It differs in habits from the common hare by making its
retreat among rocks or large loose stones. The eagle owl is now admitted into most works
on British ornithology, but its right to stand as a British species depends only on a few
instances of its capture, and on one or two records of its appearance.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 77

stragglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps
may rove so far to the southward.

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

The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic
• a bird, that it would grace our fauna much. I never was informed
before where wild-geese are known to breed.

You admit, I find, that I have proved yourf&i salicaria to be the
lesser reed-sparrow of Ray ; and I think you may be secure that I
am right, for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter,
and had some fair specimens ; but, as they were not well preserved,
they are decayed already. You will, no doubt, insert it in its
proper place in your next edition. Your additional plates will much
improve your work.

De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : but
still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for
the reason I have given in the article of the white hare.

As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, far
removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was
curiously lain 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 hirundo
apits, 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 nondescript

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

78 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 hiruudines and the larger bats are sup-
ported by some sorts of high-flying gnats, scarabs, or phal(zn<z, 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. Swal-
lows were observed on to November the third.

* See also Letters XXII., XXXVI., and note.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 79

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. 22nd, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — Hedgehogs abound in my gardens and fields. The
manner in which they eat the roots of the plantain in my grass-
walks is very curious ; with their upper mandible, which is much
longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the
root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In this

HEDGEHOG.

respect they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome
weed ; but they deface the walks in some measure by digging little
round holes. It appears, by the dung that they drop upon the
turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June
last I procured a litter of four or five young hedgehogs, which
appeared to be about five or six days old : they, I find, like puppies,
are born blind, and could not see when they came to my hands. No
doubt their spines are soft and flexible at the time of their birth,
or else the poor dam would have but a bad time of it in the critical

8o NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

moment of parturition, but it is plain they soon harden ; for these
little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides ^as would
easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled with caution-
Their spines are quite white at this age ; and they have little hang-
ing ears, which I do not remember to be discernible in the old
ones. They can, in part, at this age draw their skin down over
their faces ; but are not able to contract themselves into a ball, as
they do, for the sake of defence, when full grown. The reason, I
suppose, is, because the curious muscle that enables the creature
to roll itself up in a ball was not then arrived at its full tone and
firmness. Hedgehogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum with
leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for the winter :
but I never could find that they stored in any winter provision, as
some quadrupeds certainly do.

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

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

* See also Letter XXVI. They generally sleep on the ground, but sometimes also in
low pine trees, or evergreen bushes.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 81

LETTER XXVIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March, 1770.

ON Michaelmas Day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the female
moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood ; but
was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that
it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some time,
on the morning before. However, understanding that it was not
stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped ; I found it in
an old greenhouse, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in
a standing posture ; but though it had been dead for so short a

HEAD OF MOOSE DEER.

time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly support-
able. The grand distinction between this deer, and any other
species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange length of
its legs ; on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the birds
of the gralla order. I measured it, as they do an horse, and found
that from the ground to the withers it was just five feet four inches ;
which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few

82 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

horses arrive at ; but then, with this length of legs, its neck was
remarkably short, no more than twelve inches ; so that, by strad-
dling with one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on
the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the
ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck ; the head was
about twenty inches long, and ass-like ; and had such a redundancy
of upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip,
travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is
very reasonable to suppose that this creature supports itself chiefly
by browsing of trees, and by wading after water plants ; towards
which way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must con-
tribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in eating
the nymphcea, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the belly behind
the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches : the length of
the legs before and behind consisted a great deal in the tibia, which
was strangely long ; but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I
forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about
an inch long ; the colour was a grizzly black ; the mane about four
inches long ; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat
and splayed. The spring before it was only two years old, so that
most probably it was not then come to its growth. What a vast
tall beast must a full-grown stag be ! I have been told some arrive
at ten feet and 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 com-
merce of the amorous kind. I should have been glad to have
examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c. minutely ; but the
putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper
told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the" extreme frost-.'of the
former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of a male
moose, which had no front antlers, but only a broad palm with some
snags on the edge. 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, &c.

* The American moose, cervus alces, Linnaeus ; and, I believe, the alces Ainencanus
of modern zoologists, "is," writes Major Hamilton Smith, "an inhabitant of northern

NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 83

LETTER XXIX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May izih, 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 sum-
mer birds was much interrupted. Some did not show themselves
(at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time ; as the
blackcap and whitethroat ; and some have not been heard yet, as
the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher,
I have not seen it ; it is indeed one of the latest, but should appear
about this time : and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife and war
of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves as long ago as
the eleventh of April, in frost and snow ; but they withdrew quickly,
and were not visible again for many days. House-martins, which
are always more backward than swallows, were not observed till
May came in.*

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

latitudes, in Europe between the 53° and 65°, in Asia from 35° to 15°, and in America
between the 44° and 53°, round the great lakes, and over the whole of Canada and New
Brunswick. But this is quite a different animal from that found in a fossil state and
known as the elk. It is the ccrvus gigantcus of Cuvier, and fine specimens of the remains
have been found in the bogs of Ireland and the Isle of Man. The American elk, for it is
possible the animal of Europe and Asia may prove distinct, has a very marked character
in the form of the upper lip ; it is undoubtedly an organ of prehension necessary for its
mode of life.:'

* Weather such as described has an effect upon the arrival of our summer birds of
passage, and we may suppose therefore that where there is no great extent of ocean to
cross that the migration takes place gradually ; the birds being delayed as they approached
the north for the appearance of genial weather. The present season, 1853, has been such
an one as Mr. White describes 1770 to have been ; this year all the migrating species are
unusually late and few in numbers.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

shot as soon as possible ; but the survivor readily found a mate, and
the mischief went on. After some time the new pair were both
destroyed, and the annoyance ceased.*

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

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

There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats that is
very remarkable ; I mean their violent fondness for fish, which
appears to be their most favourite food : and yet nature in this
instance seems to have planted in them an appetite that, unassisted,
they know not how to gratify : for of all quadrupeds cats are the

* This takes place generally, and in the case of carrion crows we have known it occur
more than once in the same spring. Birds of prey immediately find another mate when
any accident happens to one of the pair. The grey-backed or hooded crow, corvns
corni.f, Linn., is a migratory species in many parts, and when any accidental circumstances
cause one or two birds to remain, they mate in spring with the carrion crow. This in-
stinctive desire for procreation is not however confined to birds ; when the male salmon
has been killed from his mate on the spawning-bed, his place is immediately supplied by
another.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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.

86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Aug. \st, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix
in their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects
holds good in every other branch : " Verbositas pnzsentis scECiili,
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, &c., were thick-billed birds of the loocia and fringilla
genera ; and no motacillce, or muscicapat were to be met with.
When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough ; for the
hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board ;
while the soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and
insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can
meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this
defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective,
and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and lively
genera. I am, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. nth, 1770.

DEAR SIR,— You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their
native crags ; and are farther assured that they continue resident in
thbse 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 beginning of October, and return
again about the end of March.

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

Scopoli's* new work (which I have just procured) has its merit
in .ascertaining many of the birds of the 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 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 circum-
stantial and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds as 1
could wish : he advances some false facts ; as when he says of the
hirundo urbica that " pullos extra nidum non nutrit" This

* " Annus I. Historico Naturalis, — descriptiones aviutn musei proprii earumque rari-
orum, quos vidit in vivaria augustiss. imperatoris, et in museo excell. comitis Francisci
Annib. Turriani." Lipsiae, MDCCLXVIII. In the preface to the above work Scopoli
states, " Observationes meas ad scientiam naturalem et agriculturam pertinentes singulis
annis erudito orbi in posterum communicabo," and the Anni were continued for five years,
and contain some very valuable papers and observations ; the first is devoted entirely to
ornithology. The last (Annus V.) bears the date of MDCCLXXII.

88 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observation this sum-
mer ; for house-martins do feed their young flying, though it must
be acknowledged not so commonly as the house-swallow ; and the
feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be perceptible to
indifferent observers. He also advances some ( I was going to say)
improbable facts ; as when he says of the woodcock that " pullos
rostro 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, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, October zgtA, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c.,
I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna "in

ROCK-SWALLOW.

Scopoli's new-discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description
of "Supra murina, subtus albida ; rectrices maculd ovali albd in

90 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

latere inferno; pedes nudi, nigrij rostrum nigrumj remiges
obscuriores quam plum<z dor s ales ; rectrices remigibiis conco lores j
caudd emarginatd, necforcipatd j " agrees very well with the bird in
question: but when he comes to advance that it is " statura
hirundinis urbicce" and that " definitio hirundinis riparice Linncri
huic quoque conveniit] ' he in some measure invalidates all he has
said ; at least he shows at once that he compares them to these
species merely from memory: for I have compared the birds
themselves, and find they differ widely in every circumstance of
shape, size, and colour. However, as you will have a specimen, I
shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in the matter.*

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

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

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

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

There is little doubt that the bird in question was the H ' . rnpestrfs of Linnaeus. In
the correspondence of Linnaeus published in "Contributions " for 1849, he frequently
refers to this bird by name in reply to questions put by Mr. White's brother, who had
evidently written to Linnaeus about it under that appellation. John White was, in fact,
Linnaeus's authority for this swallow, and first communicated specimens to him from
Gibraltar; Linnaeus says, " H. rnpestris, mihi antea ignota ; vere distincta."
t See his " Elenchus Vegetabilium et Animalium per Austrian! Inferiorem, &c."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE SAME.

SET.BORNE, Nov. 26t/t, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — I was much pleased to see, among the collection of
birds from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer-
birds of passage, concerning whose departure we have made so
much inquiry. Now if these birds are found in Andalusia to
migrate to and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed that those
that come to us may migrate back to the continent, and spend their
winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe. This is certain,
that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar appear there only
in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards the
northward, for the sake of breeding during the summer months ; and
retiring in parties and broods towards the south at the decline of the
year : so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous, and
place of observation, from whence they take their departure each
way towards Europe or Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery,
I think, to find that our small short-winged summer birds of passage
are to be seen spring and autumn on the very skirts of Europe ; it
is a presumptive proof of their emigrations.

Scopoli seems to me to have found the himndo melba, the great
Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it. For what is his
himndo alpina but the afore-mentioned bird in other words ? Says
he " Omnia prioris " (meaning the swift); " sed pectus album;
paulo major prior e" I do not suppose this to be anew species. It
is true also of the melba, that " nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus?
Vid. Annnm Primtim.*

My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no

* "Annas I." p. 166. Quite right, it is the cypselns mclba, Gmelin. The alpine or
white-bellied swift of British authors, and communicated to Linnaeus by John White
during his residence at Gibraltar. There are a few instances recorded of its having been
killed in Great Britain and Ireland.

The letters from his brother while at Gibraltar would be exceedingly interesting to
White while his attention was turned to migration, and there is little doubt that the great
bulk of our migratory species follow the line as suggested in the text ; at the same time,
however, some of the species, the common swallow for instance, has a very extensive
range, and I believe is permanently resident nowhere. The more distant cannot be ex-
pected to reach northern Europe or Great Britain, which in all probability are supplied from
North or North- Eastern Africa.

92 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone-curlew, ccdi.
cnemus, 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 a time. There is reason to think their young run soon
after they are hatched ; and that the old ones do not feed them, but
only lead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the most
part, is in the night." Thus far, my friend.

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

* The bustard is only mentioned twice in White's Letters, above where referred to, and
in Letter II. to Barrington, p. 123. Mitford has the following note. "The bustard is
extinct in England : and as it is now so scarce in Scotland owing to population and
enclosures, it becomes interesting to remark that two birds of this kind (male and female)
have been kept in the garden-ground belonging to the Norwich Infirmary, and have been
but lately sold by the owner of them. The male bird was very beautiful and courageous,
apparently afraid of nothing, seizing any one that came near him by the coat, yet on the
appearance of any small hawk high in the air, he would squat close to the ground, ex-
pressing strong marks of fear. The female was very shy." In England they may be
said to be almost extirpated, or if a few do remain they will not long be preserved. Upon
the continent, however, as we learn by a very interesting paper read before the Linnaean
Society, by Mr. Yarrell, in January last, they are still abundant, particularly in some
parts of Spain, upon the extensive grass marches which stretch along the banks of the
Guadalquiver, and in the corn plains of Seville ; but the important part of this paper is a
correction of an anatomical error which has been handed down and copied, and the parts
figured even in the most recent ornithological works. Edwards in his "Gleanings'*
figures a gular pouch, supposed to be a bag for the purpose of holding water, when in
desert lands or removed from it. This was given upon the authority of Dr. Douglas, of
the College of Physicians in London. Mr. Yarrell, anxious to satisfy himself of the
presence of this pouch or bag, took the opportunity of a mature male bustard dying in
the Zoological Gardens, to examine this structure. He carefully did so, but could find
no enlargement of the membrane or any sac. Not satisfied with his own accuracy, he
examined the descriptions of animals dissected by the Royal Academy of Sciences at
Paris, where he was equally unsuccessful ; and he concludes his interesting paper in the
following words : " Unwilling, however, to offer my statement to the notice of the Linnscan
Society without consulting the best living authority in this country, namely, Professor
Owen, I mentioned the subject to him, and had the satisfaction to find that Mr. Owen

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 93

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 third of September.

When the cedicnemus flies it stretches out its legs straight behind,
like an heron. I am, &c.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March 30^, 1771.

DEAR SIR, — There is an insect with us, especially on chalky
districts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of
the summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of women

I. ATHALIA CENTIFOLIA. 2. BLACK DOLPHIN. 3. HALTICA NEMORUM.

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

agreed with me entirely ; that there is in the great bustard neither an orifice under the
tongue, nor a gular pouch. He writes, ' The following was the result of my dissection
of a full-grown bustard, with the view of obtaining a preparation of the alleged gular
pouch for the Physiological Series, No. 772, Q. (Museum of Col. of Surgeons^ The head
of a bustard, otis tardei, with the mouth and fauces exposed, showing the glandular
orifices between the ^rami of the lower jaw, the tongue, glottis, internal nostrils, and
Eustachian orifice. There is no trace of a gular pouch.' "

94 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

genus of Acarus. They are to be met with in gardens on kidney-
beans, or any legumens, but prevail only in the hot months of
summer. Warreners, as some have assured me, are. much infested
by them on chalky downs ; where these insects swarm sometimes
to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and to give them a
reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as to be thrown into
fevers.

There is a small long shining fly in these parts very 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 nmsca putris of Linnseus ; it is to be
seen in the summer in farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and about
the mantelpieces, and on the ceilings.

The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden
(destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an
animal 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 oltmcea, 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 Mouset, 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
chamceleon j see Geoffroy, t. xvii. f. 4.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 95

and in short of the life and conversation of these animals, is a
necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing their
depredations.*

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

* Many good papers have been published upon the insects injurious to the husbandman
and gardener, and the Messrs. Loudon and Westwood have translated Keller's German
treatise upon " Noxious Insects." The harvest bug, as it is popularly termed, leptus
autittnnalis, Latreille, is generally very abundant where it does occur, and is extremely
troublesome ; it is, however, local, most abundant in the south, and in Scotland by no
means frequent ; it attacks both mankind and animals ; we have seen the nose of a|dog liter-
ally red with their numbers. The fly attacking bacon-hams Mr. Bennet refers as similar
to that which infests cheese, tyrophaga caseee, but of this I am not quite sure, and recom-
mend some of our readers who may keep hams up their chimneys to send specimens to
the "Gardener's Chronicle," who will submit them to their able entomologist Mr.
Westwood. The insect most usually known as the "turnip-fly" is, as Mr. White ob-
serves, a small beetle, haltica uemoruiii, by some called flea-beetle, from being an active
jumper. This minute insect commits most serious depredations to the crops when in the
seed-leaf, and some seasons a vast extent is destroyed. This present year, 1853, in the
south of Scotland, it has been extremely destructive, and a very great breadth of crop
has been sown a second time. The insect is very generally distributed, and I have never
missed finding it among a young crc$), but its depredations are most successful when dry
weather or any other cause prevents the young plant from growing freely and vigorously.
The best remedy, therefore, is to have the land well managed and in good condition from
manure ; in most seasons this will have the effect of producing the young plants strong
and healthy, and causing them to grow so rapidly as to be very soon beyond the ravages
of the fly. A clergyman at Dorste, in Hanover, mentions that he has employed, success-
fully, an infusion of wormwood to water the drills, or the application of very dry dust ;
but these could scarcely be employed upon a large extent of farm, although useful in a
garden. Numerous other applications are recommended, but one of the easiest, and said
to be efficacious, is that of smoke by means of weeds, or any other material kindled, so
as to be carried across the field by wind. There may be occasional seasons remarkable
for drought or cold, and inimical to rapid vegetation, but these are exceptional, and the
ordinary remedies will in all probability be unavailing.

But there is another insect scourge to the turnip-field, which fortunately is not nearly
of such frequent occurrence ; it is one of those insects that return at times without
warning, the periodicity of which has not been accounted for. It belongs to the same
family as the caterpillar which attacks gooseberry-bushes, and which must be so generally
known, and both are the larva? of what are called " saw-flies." The caterpillars do the
injury, and when they do appear they are in thousands, and soon strip the tender or leaf-
part of the turnip plant, which is sometimes in a considerably advanced state when the
ravages commence, generally after hoeing has been performed. The surest remedy is
hand-picking by children. This is the Athalia centifolia of entomologists ; the popular
name of the caterpillar " black dolphin."

t There are several works now of this kind. Curtis's " British' Entomology" has
dissections of the parts from which the generic characters are taken, but this is expensive.
Westwood's '; Introduction .to the Modern Classification of Insects" gives capital wood-
cut illustrations of the parts, besides other information. This work is in 2 vols. 8vo.

96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, 1771.

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

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

LETTER XXXVI.

TO THE SAME.

Sept. 1771.

DEAR SIR, — The summer through I have seen but two of that
large species of bat which I call vespertitto 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

97

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

= : '- V

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

* See Letters XXII., XXVI. The British fauna is indebted to White for the first notice
of this species ; it is locally distributed, and although not common generally is found in
numbers together, so many as 185 having been taken in one night from the eaves of
Queen's College, Cambridge. It was first described by Daubenton, under the name oi
La noctule, which name Latinised was afterwards continued, and is prior to White's
name of altivolans, which we regret has not been retained, as it is so characteristic oi
the habits of the species.

E

98 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 chesnut colour ; their maws were full of food, but so
macerated that the quality could not be distinguished ; their livers,
kidneys, and hearts, were large, and their bowels covered with fat.
They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm.
Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar structure that I did
not understand perfectly; but refer it to the observation of the
curious anatomist. These creatures sent forth a very rancid and
offensive smell.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, 1771.

DEAR SIR,— On the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of
contemplating the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it
was playing round a large oak that swarmed with scarabtzi solsti-
tiales, 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
ori 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, ha\^ 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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. gg

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

On September the twenty-forth 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 THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March i^th, 1773.

DEAR SIR, — By my journal for last autumn it appears that the
house-martins bred very late, and stayed very late in these parts ;
for, on the first of October, I saw young martins in their nest 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 field. Did these small weak birds, some of which
were nestling twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late season
of the year to the other side of the northern tropic ? Or rather, is
it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep
covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as a more northern
naturalist would say), may become their hybernaculum, and afford
them a ready and obvious retreat ?

We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every
week. Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were
seen at Christmas 1770 in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge
of this county. Hence we may conclude that their migrations are
only internal, and not extended to the continent southward, if they
do at first come at all from the northern parts of this island only,
and not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will,
it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they show for men or

* See Letter LIII. to Mr. Barrington.

too NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

guns, that they have been little accustomed to places of irmch resort.
Navigators mention that in the Isle of Ascension, and other such
desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human form
that they settle on men' s shoulders ; and have no more dread of a
sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. * A young
man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven years ago
ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he
killed sixteen himself in one afternoon ; he added further, that
some had appeared since in every autumn ; but he could not find
that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so
many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the
autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there were
shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the
autumn of 1770. I am, £c.

LETTER XXXIX.f

TO THE SAME,

SELBORNE, Nov. gth, 1773.

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

The osprey \ was shot about a year ago at Frinsham Pond, a great
lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle
of a plough and devouring a fish : it used to precipitate itself into
the water, and so take its prey by surprise.

A great ash-coloured § butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted
Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they are rarcc
aves in this county.

* Darwin, writing of the Galapagos islands, remarks of the birds/'There is not one which
will not approach sufficiently near to be killed with a switch, and sometimes with a cap or
hat ; a gun is here almost superfluous, for with the muzzle of one I pushed a hawk off the
branch of a tree. One day a mocking-bird alighted on the edge of a pitcher which I held
in my hand lying down, it began very quietly to sip the water, and allowed me to lift it
with the vessel from the ground. I often tried, and very nearly succeeded in catching
these birds _by their legs."— Voyage of Adventure and Beagle, iii. p. 475.

t This with the following letter were written apparently at the request of Mr. Pennant
for the use of his " British Zoology," in which they were used as the references show.

{ British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128. § p. 161.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 101

Crows * go in pairs all the year round.

Cornish choughs f abound, and breed on Beechy Head, and on
all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.

The common wild-pigeon, J 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 blowing showery
weather ; its song often commences with the year : with us it builds
much in orchards.

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

Titlarks ** not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as
they play and toy about on the wing ; and particularly while they
are descending, and sometimes they stand on the ground. ft

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

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

In 1772 there were young house-martins |||| in their _nest till
October 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 year.

* British Zoology, vol. i., p. 167. t p. 198. J p. 216.

§ Colnmba. anas is a more locally distributed species than the other British pigeons.
In open countries this species makes its nest in holes of the ground, selecting a rabbit's
burrow for the purpose : it also selects old hollow and pollard trees.

II P 224- If p. 229. ** vol. ii. p 237.

ft The antlins arborens, or tree-pipit, is meant here. The common titlark, A. pratensis,
does not perch or sing from trees. Pennant confounds these two also, as well as their
habits. f f p. 242.

§§ We have received H. rustica from Western Africa, Sierra Leone, &c., but it is not
likely they form any of the parties which migrate to Europe.

INI P- 244- fliT pp. 270, 271.

f* We almost suspect that it is the similarity of the females of these two birds that has

102 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.*

Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter.f

Bullfinches,t 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 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 congregate,
and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs
and sheep-walks.

Two years ago ^1 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 a while, 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, ft that page says "its drink the dew;"
whereas it should be "it drinks on the wing ;" for all the swallow
kind sip their water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers :
like Virgil's bees, they drink flying ; "flumina siimma libant" In
this method of drinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar.

Of the sedge-bird JJ 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, skylark. When it happens
to be silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes
where it sits you immediately set it a-singing ; or in other words,
though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it
reassumes its song.

caused this assertion ; a straggling whin-chat may remain , but will form the exception. Mr.
Yarrell is aware of only two authentic instances. Of the wheat-ear we are still more in
doubt. See letter to Harrington, No. XVII. These remarks are again repeated, Letter
XLI., but there we again suspect the stone-chat mistaken for whin-chat.

* See Letter XIII., and note.

t British Zoology, VD!. i., p. 300. J p. 306. § p. 358.

|| p. 360. If p. 409. ** p. 475. tt p. 15. U p. 16.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 103

LETTER XL.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. znd, 1774.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

* Salicaria locuslella, see Letter XVI.

t We have known a kestril breed in the deserted nest of a magpie.

I Three species of British eels have now been clearly made out. Two very distinct by
the form of the head, in the one narrow, in the. other broad, and consequently have been
named sharp and broad-nosed eels. The third is of intermediate form, and called the
snig. Ely was famous for its eels, and is said to have derived its name from the circum-
stance of its rents being formerly paid in eels. The "threads" would be intestinal
worms, perhaps Filarice,-~^,^\& are oviparous and generate like most other fishes, having
bony skeletons.

io4 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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, &c. ; hence August is by much the most mute month,
the spring, summer, and autumn through. Are birds induced to
sing again because the temperament of autumn resembles that of
spring ?

HEADS OF EELS.

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

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

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 105

the two first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the
general chorus ; in the latter their song becomes distinguishable.
Many songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cock red-
breasts of that year : notwithstanding the prejudices in their
favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.*

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.f

Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.

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

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

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

The appearance and flying of the Scarabceiis 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 gar.den 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 carp's, which
lie rolling about in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse them-
selves by tossing them bread ; but as soon as the weather grows at
all severe these fishes are no longer seen, because they retire under
the stables, where they remain till the return of spring. Do they
lie in a torpid state ? if they do not, how are they supported ?

The note of the white-throat, which is continually repeated, and
often attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and
displeasing. 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 neighbour-
hoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons ; nay even the very
tops of the Sussex Downs, where there are bushes and covert ;

* They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the Euonymus europ^us,
or spindle-tree.

t It is the notes of the greater and cole titmice, Parus major and ater, that resemble
the whetting of a saw.

io6 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 a house, or in the hole of a
wall, or on the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post
of a door where people are going in and out all day long. This
bird does not make the least pretension to song, but uses a little
inward wailing note when it thinks its young in danger from cats
or other annoyances ; it breeds but once, and retires early.

Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than
half the birds that are ever seen in all Sweden ; the former has
produced more than one hundred and twenty species, the latter
only two hundred and twenty-one. Let me add also that it has
shown near half the species that were ever known in Great
Britain.*

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

* Sweden 221, Great Britain 252 species.1

1 In the British islands generally, between 320 and 350 are now known, and occasional
additions are continuing to be made. Thus Mr. Yarrel has within the last month noticed
the dusky petrel as occurring within the limits of the British seas. Mr. William
Thompson in 1^49 gave 262 species t •) Ireland.

NA TURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 107

LETTER XLI.

TO THE SAME.

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

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 Phryganecs* &c.

Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather,
where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings : and in mild
weather they procure worms, which are stirring every month in the
year, as any one may see that will only be at the trouble of taking
a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter's night. 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 aurelia of the Lepi-
doptera 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

* See Derham's " Physico-theology, " p. 233, and note, Letter XIII., p. 39.

io8 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

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 retreat-
ing for succour in the severest seasons to houses and neighbour-
hoods ; and that is the delicate long-tailed titmouse, which is
almost as minute as the golden-crowned wren ; but the blue
titmouse or nun (Parus cceruleus), the cole-mouse (Parus afer],
the great black-headed titmouse (Fringillago\ and the marsh
. titmouse (Parus palustris), all resort at times to buildings, and in
hard weather particularly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of
weather, much frequents houses ; and, in deep snows, I have seen
this bird, while it hung with its back downwards (to my no small
delight and admiration), draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves
of thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies that were con-
cealed between them, and that in such numbers that they quite
defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance.

The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a
general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh ; for it
frequently picks bones on dunghills : it is a vast admirer of suet,
and haunts butchers' shops. When a boy, I have known twenty
in a morning caught with snap mouse-traps, baited with tallow or
suet. It will also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be
well entertained with the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The
blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very severe weather, carry
away barley and oat-straws from the sides of ricks.

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

I am, £c.

* See Letter XXXIX. , and note.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 109

LETTER XLII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March gth, 1774.

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 waterfalls, and the lofty stupendous moun-
tains, so little known, and so engaging to the imagination when
described and exhibited in a lively manner ; such a work would be
well received.

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

* Since the date of these letters we have had several excellent inquirers into the natural
history of Ireland, and the present century has seen her possessed of a Zoologist in one of
her own sons, who, in private character and scientific acquirements, would have done
honour to any country. William Thompson, Esq., of Belfast, devoted himself to the
pursuits of literature and science, with the view of publishing the "Zoology" of his
native island. He prepared himself for the task by every opportunity of study, and by
expeditions through various parts of Europe. His researches were communicated from
time to time to the British Association and other learned societies, and generally appeared
in their Proceedings, or in the Zoological periodicals of the day; and before his death he
had completed and published the "Ornithology of Ireland" in three volumes, a work
replete with information. Materials for the other departments of zoology had been
collected, and were in a state of preparation to continue the work, and we understand
that these have been entrusted to the care of friends and trustees, who have undertaken
the charge of their publication.

1 10 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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 men-
tion the other forts that have been erected long since ; therefore a
good representation of the chain of forts should not be omitted.

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

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

I am, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

HONEY- BUZZAKi)

LETTER XLIII.

TO THE SAME.

A PAIR of honey-buzzards, Buteo opivorus, sive Vespivorus Rail,
built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with
dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the middle of
Selborne Hanger, in the summer of 1780.* In the middle of the

*The honey-buzzard is a rare bird in Great Britain, and extends chiefly along the east
coast to the south of Scotland, where we have known a few specimens to have been
killed ; its manner of breeding and habits during that time have not again been observed.
With the exception of what is stated above by Mr. White all the observations that have
been made upon their food have tended to show that it was almost entirely insectivorous.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORtfE.

month of June a bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on so
steep and dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the only one
in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained the
embryo of a young bird. The egg was smaller, and not so round
as those of the common buzzard ; was dotted at each end with
small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with a broad bloody
zone.

The hen-bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. Ray's
description of that species ; had a black cere, short thick legs, and
a long tail. When on the wing this species may be easily distin-
guished 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 numerous, began to grow
up, became so daring and ravenous, that they were a terror to all
the dames in the village that had chickens or ducklings under their
care. A boy climbed the tree, and found the young so fledged that
they all escaped from him ; but discovered that a good house had
been kept : the larder was well stored with provisions ; for he
brought down a young blackbird, jay, and house -martin, all clean
picked, and some half devoured. The old birds had been observed
to make sad havoc for some days among the new-flown swallows
and martins, which, being but lately out of their nests, had not
acquired those powers and command of wing that enable them,
when more mature, to set such enemies at defiance.

One which was captured at Twizel, by Mr. Selby, was discovered by having scratched
out the nest of a wasp (Vespa vulgaris), and cleaned the comb of the immature young
and grubs. This bird was procured by setting traps around the plundered nest, and upon
dissection afterwards no remains of animals or birds were discovered, the contents of the
stomach being entirely insects, and chiefly the remains of the contents of the wasp-comb.
The vignette at the head of this chapter represents the honey-buzzard in a state of
plumage which is sometimes met with ; the head and neck being yellowish white or cream
colour. This we think is incidental to the young males. The specimen figured was taken
in Northumberland some years since.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 1 1 3

LETTER XLIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Nov. 30^, 1780.

DEAR SIR, — Every incident that occasions a renewal of our
correspondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.

As to the wild wood-pigeon, the (Enas^ 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 CEnasy which is that of stock-dove.

STOCK-DOVH

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 j frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by
mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it be

114 tfATtfRAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt would be
settled with me at once, provided they construct their nests on
trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do.*

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

For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that
house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many
reasons. In the first place the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger
than the common house-dove, against the usual rule of domestica-
tion, 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 inacessible caverns and precipices of that
stupendous promontory, f

" Naturam expellas furca . . . tamen usque recurret."

I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year,
who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods
were much more extensive than at present, the number of wood-
pigeons was astonishing j 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

* See Letter XXXIX., and note.

t It is the white-rumped pigeon, or rock dove, Coluitiba livia, which is the original
stock of our dove-cots, and the natural abodes of this species is caves and rocky precipices
on the sea-coast. Although White remarks that the domestic pigeon never settles on trees,
such is sometimes the case ; Mr. Eyton has observed this, and we have frequently seen
it ; at the same time it is by no means the general habit.

NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORtfE.

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 rancidness which
occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who thought
them before a delicate dish. They were shot not only as they were
feeding in the fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also at
the close of the evening, by men who lay in ambush among the
woods and groves to kill them as they came in to roost* These are
the principal circumstances relating to this wonderful internal
migration, which with us takes place towards the end of November,
and ceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in Selborne
high wood about an hundred of these doves ; but in former
times the flocks were so vast, not only with us but all the district
round, that on mornings and evenings they traversed the air, like
rooks, in strings, reaching for a mile together. When they thus
rendezvoused here by thousands, if they happened to be suddenly
roused from their roost-trees on an evening,

" Their rising all at once was like the sound
Of thunder heard remote." -

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 pige on-
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 some-
thing always interrupted the success ; for though the birds were
usually hatched, and sometimes grew to half their size, yet none
ever arrived at maturity. I myself have seen these foundlings in
their nest displaying a strange ferocity of nature, so as scarcely to
bear to be looked at, and snapping with their bills by way of menace.
In short, they always died, perhaps for want of proper sustenance :
but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild demeanour they
frighted their foster-mothers, and so were starved.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, byway of simile, describes a dove
haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, that I
cannot refrain from quoting the passage : and John Dryden has
rendered it so happily in our language, that without further excuse
I shall add his translation also : —

1 Qualis spelunca subitb commota Columba,
Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,
Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis
Dat tecto ingentem— mox acre lapsa quieto,
Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas."

' As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes,
Rous'd, in affright 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, &c.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELB ORNE. 1 1 7

LETTER I.

TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES HARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, June jotA, 1769.

DEAR SIR, — When I was in town last month I partly engaged
that I would sometime do myself the honour to write to you on the
subject of 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 pro-
fesses to be an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations
from the subject itself, and not from the writings of others.*

THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF THE SUMMER BIRDS OF PASSAGE
WHICH I HAVE DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED
SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY APPEAR :—

RAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT

i. Wryneck, Jynx, sive Torquilla. The middle of March : harsh note.

2- Swraen,St WiU°W" \Regnlus nan cristate. { March 23: chirps till September.

3. Swallow, Hirundo dorntstica. April 13.

4. Martin, Hirundo rustica. Ditto.

5. Sand-martin, Hirundo ripana. Ditto.

6. Black-cap, A tricapilla. Ditto : a sweet wild note.

7. Nightingale, Luscinia. . Beginning of April.

8. Cuckoo, Cuculns. Middle of April.

9. Middle willow-wren, Regains non cristatws. Ditto : a sweet plaintive note.

10. White-throat, \Ficedute affinis. { ^p^™^ n°te ' si"gS °n tiU

* These letters to the Hon. Daines Barrington, though arranged in the original and
subsequent editions together, and as forming a second part, were mostly written con-
temporaneously, or at least were dated to appear so, with those of the first series addressed
to Pennant. They are written in the same unpretending style, answering questions,
asking others, and suggesting subjects as before. The matter of the letters is also some-
what similar, and repetitions sometimes occur, but other subjects are at the same time
introduced, arising from the different bearing of Mr. Barrington's pursuits.

In the first letter lists of the summer and winter migratory birds are given. These
lists in all probability might stand nearly the same at the present day, if we add to the
first the third willow-wren and greater petty-chaps. We have scarcely ever known a
locality frequented by the black-cap where the latter was not also found. White gives the
wheat-ear among his " permanent residents ; " in this he is probably right in regard to a
few birds, but surely the large mass that arrive upon the downs will come and go as in
other parts. We would make the SPme observation of his " yellow -wagtail, " which we
believe is everywhere in this country a true migrant. In the winter list the ring-ouzel is
introduced, but this bird is a summer migrant to the north, and appeared, as White has
often observed, in spring and autumn, remaining only a few days at each period during
its passage northward or southward. We are not sure which of the wild geese is meant
by the ""Anser ferus ; " in all probability it is not so frequent or numerous now if it
continues to visit the district at all, and this letter is just one of those which Professor
Bell or some one resident can best correct and explain.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

RAH NOMINA.

USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT

ii. Red- start,

Rutidlla,

( Middle of April : more agreeable
( song.

12. Stone-curlew,

\CEdicnemus.

( End of March : loud nocturnal
( whistle.

13. Turtle-dove,

Turtur.

14. Grasshopper-lark,

(Alanda minima lociista
\ voce.

(Middle April : a small sibilous
\ note, till the end of July.

15. Swift,

Hirundo ajnis.

April 27.

16. Less reed-sparrow,
17, Land-rail,

Passer arundinaceits
minor.
Ortygometra.

( A sweet polyglot, but hurrying : it
\ has the notes of many birds.
A loud harsh note, crex, crex.

18. Largest willow-
wren,

\Regnlus non cristatns.

{Cantat voce stridula locitstce', end
of April, on the tops of high
beeches.

19. Goatsucker, or
fern-owl,

> Caprimulg its.

/ Beginning of May : chatters by
I night with a singular noise.

i

jMay 12 : a very mute bird; this

20. Fly catcher,

Stojarola.

\ 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 C^^c^tlus, which are piece, and the
Charadrius (CEdicnemus) and Ralhis (Ortygometra), which are
grallce.

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

6, 7, 9, 10, ii, 16, 18,

4. 5

Jynx.

Motadlla.

Hirundo.

Cuculus.

Charadrius.

13. Columba.
17. Rallus.

19. Caprimulgus.

14. Alanda.

20. Musdcaj>a.

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 :

Red-breast,
Wren,

Hedge-sparrow,

White-wagtail,
Yellow- wagtail,
Grey-wagtail,

Wheat-ear,

Whin-chat,
Stone-chatter,

Golden-crowned wren,

RAII NOMINA.

Riibecula.
Passer troglodytes.

Currnca.

Motadlla alba.
Motadlla jlava.
Motadlla cinerea.

CEnanthe.

CEnanthe secitnda.
CEnanthe tertia.

Regulus cristatns.

/These frequent houses ; and haunt
•j out-buildings in the winter: eat
I spiders_.

{Haunt sinks for crumbs and other
sweepings.

These frequent shallow rivulets
near the spring heads, where
they never freeze : eat the
aurelise of Phryganea. The
smallest birds that walk.
/ Some of these are to be seen with
t us the winter through.

( This is the smallest British bird :
\ haunts the tops of tall trees ;
' stays the winter through.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

119

A LIST OF THE WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE ROUND THIS

NEIGHBOURHOOD RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN
WHICH THEY APPEAR.

Ring-ousel,

Redwing,
Fieldfare,

Royston-crow,
Woodcock,
Snipe,
Jack snipe,
Wood-pigeon,

Wild-swan,
Wild-goose,
Wild-duck,
Pochard,
Wigeon,

Teal, breeds with us)
in Wolmer Forest, j

Cross-beak,

Gross-bill,

Silk-tail,

RAH NOMINA.

Mernla torquata.

Titrdus iliacus.
T nrdus Pilaris.

Comix cineren.
Scoloptix.

Gallinago minor.
Gallinago minima,

Cygn us ferns.

A user ferns.

Anas tor (junta minor.

A nasfetafusca.

Penelope.

Querqnedulti.

Coccothraustes.

Loxia.

Gat mlus bohemicus.

/"This is a new migration, which
I I have lately discovered about
j Michaelmas week, and again
V about the i4th of March.

About old Michaelmas.
(Though a percher by day, roosts
\ on the ground.

Most frequent on downs.

Appears about old Michaelmas.
/Some snipes constantly breed with
\ us.

f Seldom appears till late; not in
\ such plenty as formerly.
On some large waters.

\

in our lakes and streams.

VThese are only wanderers that
( appear occasionally and are not
| observant of any regular mi-

gration.

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

i, a, 3, Turdus.

4, Cormis.

5, 6, 7, Scolopax.
8, Coluniba.

g, 10, n, 12, 13, 14,

15, 16, .

17,

Anas.
Loxia.
A mpelis.

Birds that sing in the night are but few.

Nightingale,
Woodlark,
Less reed-sparrow

L ncinia.

Alauda arborea.
f Passer arnndinacens
« minor.

{ "In shadiest covert hid."
I MILTON.

Suspended in mid air.

1 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, &c.

1 20 NA TURAL H1STOR Y OF SELBORNE.

L E T T E R 1 1.

TO THE SAME.
, SELBORNE, Nov. znd, 1769.

DEAR SIR,— When I did myself the honour to write to you
about the end of last June on the subject of natural history, I sent
you a list of the summer birds of passage which I have observed in
this 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 remark-
able for singing in the night.*

According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds
(singing birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after
Midsummer ; and shall range them somewhat in the order in
which they first begin to open as the spring advances.

* This letter is also devoted to the song of birds, and records various peculiarities —
The song or call of birds, like the seasonable changes in the plumage, is undoubtedly •
one of the accessories to the season of incubation. Some utter notes and call each other
at all seasons of the year, using them for the purpose of keeping together, or for an alarm
upon the approach of danger ; but many species have cries peculiar to the love season
which are used to summon the mate, or uttered as a cry of distress when the breeding
grounds are invaded, or the young ones in danger. These latter calls are lost after this
season is finished. The cuckoo loses his well-known note, which gradually becomes more
inarticulate as the season advances ; the jarring saw-like note of the greater and cole tit-
mice ceases after a few months, and the curlews in like manner give up their very peculiar
breeding whistle ; the crakes and rails cease their call, or it becomes hoarse and indistinct.
The song of birds will commence earlier or later, according as the locality varies. As
White remarks the missel-thrush is a very early songster, and in Scotland in a mild winter
we have heard it in January. Those birds which breed more than once in the season
continue the song longer, but as July approaches there is a very marked difference in the
" language of the groves,'" and as compared with a fine morning in April or May they are
silent. We think, nowever, that some of the birds included in the first list can scarcely be
called ''singing birds, strictly." The yellow-hammer, and indeed all the buntings have
a very monotonous note, remarkable only for its sameness and frequency of repetition, and
one or two others have only a short varied call, but which is always repeated the same ; so
that although White uses the expression of "singing birds, strictly so called," he meant the
general love-note or call. To the birds that sing as they fly might have been added the
common bunting and green linnet, b< th of which have a peculiar breeding flight and
song ; the first however is a very locally distributed species. The bird called tit-lark in
this list seems from the note of its habits to be the tree-lark or pipit, Anthns arboreus.
The true tit-lark or meadow pipit, AntJnts pratensis, has also a descending flight, singing
at the same time, and would be a visitant at least to the downs. The common winchat
will rise from its perch on the top of some tall plant, and make a short musical excursi n
upwards. The blackbird's call, from bush to bush, is rather an alarm note, than any part
of its usual song.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

121

i. Woodlark,

RAII NOMINA.

Alauda arborea.

2. Song-thrush,

3. Wren,
4. Redbreast,
5. Hedge-sparrow,

Turdus simpliciter
dictus.
Passer troglodytes.
Rubecula.
Cumica.

6. Yellowhammer,

EmberizajJava.

7. Skylark,
8. Swallow,
9. Black-cap,
10. Titlark,

Alauda vulgaris.
Hirundo dottiest ica.
A tricapilla.
A lauda pratorutti.

ii. Blackbird,

Memtla vulgaris.

12. Whitethroat,

Ficedulct affinis.

13. Goldfinch,

Carduelis.

14. Greenfinch,
15. Less reed 'Sparrow,

Chloris.
J Passer aruudlnaceiis
\ minor.

16. Common linnet,

Linaria vulgaris.

In January, and continues to sing
through all the summer and
autumn.

fin February and on to August:
\ reassume their song in autumn.

All the year, hard frost excepted.

Ditto.

Early in February to July loth,
f Early in February,*and on through
I July to August 21.

In February, and on to October.

From April to September.

Beginning of April to July 13.

From middle of April to July 16 ;
{Sometimes in February and
< March, and so on to July 23 ;
I re-assumes in autumn.

In April, and on to July 23.
(April, and through to September
\ 16.

On to July and August a.

/May on to beginning of July.

(Breeds and whistles on till August;
re-assumes its note when they
begin to congregate in October,
and again early before the flocks
separate.

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

17. Middle willow-wren,

1 8. Redstart,

19. Chaffinch,

20. Nightingale,

non cristatus.
Ruticilla.

Fringilla.
Litscinia.

Middle of June : begins in April.

Ditto : begins in May.
( Beginning of June : sings first in
t February,

( Middle of June: sings first in
\ April.

Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring

2i. Missel-bird,

Turdus visclvortis.

{Fringillago.

January 2, 1770, in February. Is
called in Hampshire and Sussex
the storm-cock, because its song
is supposed to forbode windy
wet weather : it is the largest
singing bird we have.

In February, March. April : re-
assumes for a short time in
September.

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

122 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

RAJI NOMINA.

23. Golden-crowned
wren,

> Rcgnlus cristatus.

I Its note as minute as its person ;
J frequents the tops of high oaks
\ and firs : the smallest British
I bird.

24. Marsh-titmouse,

Parus palustris.

(Haunts great woods : two harsh
I sharp notes.

2$. Small willow-wren.

Regnlns 11011 cristatus.

jSings in March and on to Sep-
l tember.

26. Largest ditto
27. Grasshopper-lark,

Ditto.

(Alaiida minima voce
\ locustce.

\Cantat voce stridula locusta ;
I from end of April to August.
fhirps all night, from the middle
of April to the end of July.

28. Martin,

Hirnndo agrestis.

(All the breeding time; from May
\ to September.

29. Bullrinch,

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
Linnasan ordo of Passeres.

The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to
the following Linnaean genera :

1, 7, 10, 27,

2, n, 21,

Alaiida.
Tnrdns.

6, 30,

Emberiza.

8, 28, Hirnndo.

13, 16, 19, Fringilla
22, 24, Pants.

14, 29, Loxia.

Birds that sing as they fly are but few :

Skylark.
Titlark,

Woodlark, '

Blackbird,

White-throat,

Swalbw,
Wren,

Alaiida vnlgaris.
A la itda pratorum.

Alaiida arborea,
Merida.
Ficeditla ajfiiiis.

Hirnndo domestica.
Passer troglodytes.

Rising, suspended, and falling.
fin its descent ; also sitting < n
•j trees, and walking on the
I ground.

i Suspended : in hot summer nights
\ all night long.

Sometimes from bush to bush.
(Uses when singing on the wing
I odd jerks and gesticulations.

In soft sunny weather.

Sometimes from bush to bush.

Birds that breed most early in these parts :

Raven,

Song-thrush,

Blackbird,

Rook,

Woodlark,

Ring-dove,

Connts.

Tiirilns.

Mernla.

Corn ix frngilega.

Alaiida arborea.

Paliunbiis tcrqnatus.

Hatches in February and March.

In March.

In March

Builds the beginning ot March.

Hatches in April.

Lays the beginning of April.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 123

Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in
proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this island, where they are
much pursued and annoyed ; but in Ascension Island, and many
other desolate places, mariners have found fowls so unacquainted
with an human figure, that they would stand still to be taken ; as is
the case with boobies, &c. As an example of what is advanced, I
remark that the golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird) will
stand unconcerned till you come within three or four yards of it,
while the bustard (Otis\ the largest British land fowl, does not care
to admit a person within so many furlongs.*

I am, £c.

* Size has little to do with the familiarity of birds ; some are of a more wild and timorous
disposition than others, but quiet and familiarity with objects is one, ignorance of objects
which may ann jy them, another cause. Birds know by memory the persons and objects
that disturb them, and if frequently molested will spcn become exceedingly shy. The
wood-pigeon, naturally of a very shy disposition, if not disturbed about a garden or
shrubbery, allows a very near approach. We have known the common thrush fed upon
its nest. Game birds of all kinds are easily familiarised, and show no fear when they do
not experience molestation. Sea fowl on islands seldom visited are more abundant during
the breeding time, and are more careless of themselves and bold in protection of their
young. There, unaccustomed to intrusion, they do not move out of the way of what they
do not know to be danger. On the Bass recks in the Frith of Forth Solan geese are, as it
were, quite familiar ; they will attack a dog or strike at a foot held out to them, and
specimens we procured some years since were taken off their nests by the bill. See also
note to Letter XXXVIII.

1 24 NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, y<in. 15^, 1770.

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

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

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

It was not in my power to procure you a 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..

NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SEL B ORNE. 1 2 5

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

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

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

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

I am, &c,

i26 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER IV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNK, Pel. igt/i, 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 perfectly new to me ; and
struck me so forcibly, that I naturally fell into a train of thought
that led me to consider whether the fact was so, and what reason
there was for it. When I came to recollect and inquire, I could
not find that any cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, except

in the nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the
white-throat, and the redbreast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds.
The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest of the Pahunbus
(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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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 according as opportunity
offers ? I am, &c.

* We do not know exactly the instinctive motive which influences the cuckoo in the
deposition of its eggs. Locality in this may have its influence and the cuckoo frequenting
a woodland and cultivated district, may seek other fostermothers from those which visit a
more open country. Upon the edges of cultivated grounds, bordering on a subalpine
district where there is natural copse-wood ; and there is no locality more in favour with the
cuck >o ; the nest of the titlark, A nthus pratensis, is that most frequently selected : that of
the ring-dove as quoted above, is a most unlikely resort to be chosen ; an unerring instinct
guides the parent ; the dissimilarity of the egg would have been at once discovered, and
the important fact of the intruder requiring to be the strongest, and to keep the nest ror
himself would in this case most probably be reversed. We have known the egg of the
cuckoo to be deposited in the nest of the chaffinch, to which Mr. White's objection will
not stand, for h? had overlooked the fact that all the finches, and some others,_ which are
commonly called " hard-billed birds," feed their young upon insects, caterpillars, &c. ;
and during summer are themselves most useful to the gardener to keep in check many of
his npst troublesome enemies. — See also White's remarks on the cuckoo, Lettei VII. to
Barrington. p. 135.

+ Job xxxix. 1 6, tj.

t2H NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER V.

TO THE SAME.

SKLBDRNE, April, i2//j, 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 redbreast, the swallow, the
white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted
instances of the truth of what I advanced.

If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the
summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or three days.
I wish it was in my power to procure you one of those songsters ;
but I am no 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, £c. ; and farmers and
warreners observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such
times, and the latter that their rabbits are never in such good case
as in a gentle frost. But when frosts are severe, and of long
continuance, the case is soon altered ; for then a want of food soon
overbalances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration.
I have observed, moreover, that some human constitutions are
more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.

* See Letter XXV.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 129

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

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

I think the matter might easily be determined whether a cuckoo
lays one or two eggs, Or more, in a season, by opening a female
during the laying-time. If more than one was come down out of
the ovary, and advanced to a good size, doubtless then she would
that spring lay more than one.f

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

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

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

When we meet I shall be glad to have some conversation with
you concerning the proposal you make of my drawing up an
account of the animals in this neighbourhood. Your partiality
towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear, that I am able to
do more than is in my power : for it is no small undertaking for a
man unsupported and alone to begin a natural history from his own

* By a wise provision, and to prevent the very circumstance which Mr. White here

1781, "On the prevailing notions in regard to the Cuckoo," in which he quotes a letter
from Mr. White (Letter XXIV.). Barrington had imbibed some very erroneous notions
himself, and combats the idea that the small birds, such as hedge-sparrows, &c., could
hatch a cuckoo ; and also tries to produce evidence that the cuckoo is not a parasitic
breeder. Professor Owen has remarked, " I am not aware that more than one ovum is
ever contained in the oviduct at one time, in any bird." There is no reason for believing
that the cuckoo does not, as other birds, deposit a certain number of eggs each season : so
far as we know, there is nothing peculiar in its structure referrible to this, and its residence
in the breeding localities is protracted much beyond the time required to deposit a single
egg-

1 30 NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELB ORNE.

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 Dif-
ference between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy," £c.,
have fallen in my way j and gave me great satisfaction : they have
removed the objections that always arose in my mind whenever I
came to the passages which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil,
when writing a didactic poem for the region of Italy, could never
think of describing freezing rivers, unless such severity of weather
pretty frequently occurred.

P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May -z\st, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — The severity and turbulence of last month so inter-
rupted the regular process of summer migration, that some of the
birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are
apparently thinner than usual ; as the white-throat, the 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 unfavourable
year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from
the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two
swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as
the eleven-lh 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
S3uthern 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 whi^h I men-
tioned to you (Passer arundinaceiis minor Raii) is a soft-billed
bird ; and most probably migrates hence before winter ; whereas
the bird you kept (Passer torqttatus Rail) abides all the year, and
is a thick-billed bird, f I question whether the latter be much of a
songster ; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The former

* See note, Letter XXXI.

t Emberiza schcr.niclus, reed-bunting of Britsih ornithologists.

132 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SEL BORNE

has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings all night. Some part of
the song of the former, I suspect, is attributed to the latter. We
have plenty of the soft-billed sort ; which Mr. Pennant had entirely
left out of his " British Zoology," till I reminded him of his omission.
See "British Zoology" last published, p. 16.*

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

No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage
is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, " because they are

REED BUNTING.

rot to pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing
spring." As colours seem to be the chief external sexual dis-
tinction in many birds, these colours do not take place till sexual
attachments begin to obtain. And the case is the same in quadtir
peds ; among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but
little ; but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes,
beards and brawny necks, &c., &c., strongly discriminate the male
from the female. We may instance still farther in our own species,
where a beard and stronger features are usually characteristic of the

* See Letter XXV. to Mr. Pennant. t See Letter XLII. to Mr. Harrington.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SEL B OR WE. 1 33

male sex : but this sexual diversity does not take place in earlier
life ; for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the
difference shall not be discernible ;

" Quern si puellarum insereres choro,
Mire sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum, solut.s
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu."

HOR. ODES. II. Od. 5 — 21, p. 131, orig. edit.*

* " Nor the Cnidian fair and ycung,
Who the virgin qiure among,
Might deceive, in female guise,
Stranger-guests, th ,ugh wondrous wise ;
With the difference between
Sexes hardly to be seen,
With his hair of flowing grace
And his boyish, girlish face." — REV. PHIL. FRANCIS.

There are somewhat similar passages in various Latin authors, viz.,

" Beneath whose virgin locks, while flowing tears
Bedew his cheek, a doubtful face appears."— JUVEN.

" Of either sex,~each various grace
You might beh jld with joy,
As well might seem the lovely face
Boyish in girl, or girlish in a boy." — OVID.

"While nature doubtful stands
A male or female to compose,
Beneath her forming hands
Almost a girl, the beauteous boy arose." — AUSON.

13 1 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.

, near LEWF.S, Oct. %tk, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — I am glad to hear that Kcickalm is to furnish you
with the birds of Jamaica ; a sight of the hirundines of that hot
and distant island would be a great entertainment to me.*

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

The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's Ornitho-
logy 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 seme of the Linnsean genera with sufficient show
of reason.

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

Ray remarks that birds of the gallince order, as cocks and hens,

* T. Kuckalm is the author of a very good paper on " The preservation of Dead
Birds," published in 1770, in Transactions cf the Philosophical Society, LX., p. 303.
Abridgment, XIII., p. 50.

The "hirundines" of Jama:ca are only six or seven in number, their habits are very
interest ng, but scarcely bear upon those of any of our British species. Some are migra-
tory there, retiring southward or tropically during the winter; but a true swallow, allied
to Hirundo fulva of North America, but thought by Mr. Gosse to be distinct, is not
migratory, at least in whole, and may be seen during the entire year. It builds in caverns
and ever -hanging recks, gregarit u^ly, and with pellets of mud.

NA 7 URAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 135

partridges, and pheasants, &c., are pidveratrices, such as dust them-
selves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and ridding
themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds
that dust themselves never wash ; and I once thought that those
birds that wash themselves would never dust ; but here I find myself
mistaken ; for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices,
being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads ; and
yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark dust ? *

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

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

in tenui re
Majores pennas nido extendisse .

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

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

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

* The skylark does dust.

136 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, uncrested wren, flycatcher, &c. And I remember to
have made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to
this place annually about this time. The birds most common
along the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, winchats,
buntings, linnets, some few wheat-ears, titlarks, £c. Swallows
and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by
this soft, still, dry season.

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

NA TURA L HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. \ 3)

LETTER V 1 1 L

TO THE SAME.

SKI RORNE, Dec. 2oM, 1770.

DEAR SIR, — The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-
sparrows (Passeres torqitatt).

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 Fringillce ccelebes, for some good purposes,
have a peculiar migration of their own in which the sexes part.
Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of sexes in
this species of bird should be interrupted in winter ; since in many
animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd
separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for
the continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches
see "Fauna Suecica," p. 58, and " Systema Naturae," p. 31-8.
1 see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of
cocks.*

Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the
liritish singing-birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one ;
since the matter of food is a great regulator of the actions and
proceedings of the brute creation ; there is but one that can be
set in competition with it, and that is love. But I cannot quite
acquiesce with you in one circumstance when you advance that
" when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small
parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can within a certain
district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh-turned

* The word* of Linnaeus in " Fauna Suecica " (edit. 1746. p. 76), are "Femina mtgrat
j>er hyemes, mas pennanet." In the " Systema Natura;." Femina sola inigrat J>er
Belgium in Italiam." — See also, nrte, Letter XIII. to Pennant, p. 39.

F 2

1 38 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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 sprmg, 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 wood-
cock's nest, or young birds, discovered in some part or other of this
island ; but then they are all always mentioned as rarities, and
somewhat out of the common course of things ; but as to redwings
and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I could
hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of those species
in any part of these kingdoms. And I the more admire at this
instance as extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food
in summer as well as in winter might support them here which
maintains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they
choose to stay the summer through. From hence it appears that
it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with
regard to their stay or departure. Fieldfares and redwings dis-
appear sooner or later according as the warm weather comes on
earlier or later. For I well remember, after that dreadful winter
1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow on through
April and May, and that these kind of birds (what few remained
of them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till
the beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the
birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists
that have written professedly the natural history of particular
countries. Now as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his '* Fauna
Suecica," says of it, that " maximis in arboribus nidificat; " and
of the redwing he says, in the same place, that " nidificat in uiediis

* Mr. Barrington wrote a long essay " On the periodical appearing and disappearing of
certain birds at different times of the year." It is addressed as a letter to William Walton,
M.D., and is published in his "Miscellanies," p. 174. This letter argues against tin-
periodical migration of birds, White's instances are frequently quoted, and attempted t.>
be disputed, and the above letter is evidently written in reply tu many of the arguments
which were advanced by Harrington.

NA TURA L HIST OR Y OF SEL B ORNE. 1 39

arbusculis, sive sepibus : ova sex cceruleo-viridia maculis nigris
variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings
breed in Sweden.* Scopoli says, in his " Annus Primus," of the
woodcock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium vernale ; "
meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he
adds " nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 — 5." It does
not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria ;
but he says "Avis hcec septentrionalium provinciarum csstivo
tempore incola est / ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante
hyeme australiores provincial petit j hinc circcl plenilunium mensis
Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat. J^unc rursiis circcL
plenilunium potissimum mensis Marti i per Austriam matrimonio
iuncta ad septentrionales provincias redit." For the whole passage
(which I have abridged) see " Elenchus," &c. p. 351. This seems
to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; though little is
proved concerning the place of breeding.

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

* Mr. Hewitson made an excursion to Norway, for the express purpose of procuring the
eggs of some of our winter visitants, which were known to breed in Northern countries,
for his beautiful " British Oobgy," and thus describes the breeding place of the fieldfare.
" We were soon delighted by the discovery of several of their nests, and were surprised to
find them breeding in society. Their nests were at various heights from the ground, from
four to thirty or f >rty feet, or upwards, mixed with old ones of the preceding year; they
were for the most part placed against the trunk of the spruce fir, and resembled most
nearly those of the ring-ouzel."

I4o NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER IX.

TO THE SAME.

FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Pel. ^'ith, 1772.

DEAR SIR, — You are, I know, no great friend to migration ; and
the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem
to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow
kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like
insects and bats, in a torpid state, and slumber away the more un-
comfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather
awakens them.

But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general ; be-
cause 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, &c. &c., and also of many of our soft-billed
summer 'birds of passage ; and moreover of birds which never
leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old
Belon, 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

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 141

difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by
reason of vast oceans, cross winds, &c. ; because, if we reflect, a
bird may travel from England to the Equator without launching out
and exposing itself to boundless seas, and that by crossing the
water at Dover, and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more con-
fidence advance this obvious remark, because my brother has
always found that some of his birds, and particularly the swallow
kind, are very sparing of their pains in crossing the Mediterranean ;
for when Arrived at Gibraltar they do not

" Rang'd in figure wedge their way,

And set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight :" . . . . — MILTON.

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

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

At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that will
take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks
first come ; if I lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more
of the matter. One thing I used ij observe when I was a sports-
man, that there were times in which woodcocks were so sluggish
and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just before the
spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at

'* J have read a like anecdote of a swan."

142 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 last two counties we cannot attribute the failure of them to
the want of warmth ; the defect in the west is rather a presumptive
argument that these birds come over to us from the continent at the
narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward.

Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks do not
dust. I think they do ; and if they do, whether they wash also.

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

Your letter carne 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 ub again in April. I am glad that
you and that gentleman saw my Andalusian birds ; I hope they
answered your expectation. Royston, or grey crows, are winter
birds that come much about the same time with the woodcock ;
they, like the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for
migration ; for as they fare 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, CEnas Rait, is the last winter
bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen till towards the
end of November : about twenty years ago they abounded in the
district of Selborne ; and strings of them were seen morning and
evening that reached a mile or more ; but since the beechen woods
have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number.
The ring-dove, Palumbus Rait, stays with us the whole year, and
breeds several times through the summer.

Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked
in my journal that the trees were unusually green. This uncommon
verdure lasted on late into November ; and may be accounted for
from a late spring, a cool and moist summer ; but more particularly
from vast armies of chafers, or tree-beetles, which, in many places
reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shot
again at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in
the year.

My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 143

all the owls that are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at
concert pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine
the nightingales next spring.

I am, &c. &c. -

LETTER X.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Aug. ist, 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 in-
dividuals? The same person finds upon trial that the note of the
cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in different
individuals ; for, about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly
in D : he heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in
D sharp, who made a disagreeable concert : he afterwards heard
one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some in C. As to
nightingales, he says that their notes are so short, and their transi-
tions 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 grallce, who, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of
Europe at the approach of winter. " Grallcs tanquam conjurata
iinanimiter in fiigam se conjiciunt ; ne earum iinicam quidem inter

144 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

nos habitantem invenire possimus ; ut enim (Estate in australibus
degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque siccam; ita
nee infrigidis ob eandem causam" says Ekmarck the Swede, in his
ingenious little treatise called ** Migrationes Avium," which by all
means you ought to read while your thoughts run on the subject of
migration. See " Amoenitates Academicae," vol. iv., p. 565.

Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one
country, and not in another: but the gralla (which procure their
food from marshy 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 concerning the
woodcock : it is expected of him that he should be able to account
for the motions and manner of life of the animals of his own
« Fauna."

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

Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their
specific differences ; which are almost universally constituted by
one or two particular marks, the rest of the description running in
general terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr. 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 period 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 listjess against
snowy foul weather ; if this should be the case, then the inaptitude
for flying arises only from an eagerness for food ; as sheep are
observed'to be very intent on grazing against stormy wet evenings.

I am, &c. &c,

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 145

LETTER XI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. Bth, 1772.

DEAR SIR,— When I ride about in the winter, and see such pro-
digious flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at
these congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account
for those appearances almost peculiar to the season. The two
great motives which regulate the proceedings of the brute creation
are love and hunger ; the former incites animals to perpetuate their
kind ; the latter induces them to preserve individuals : whether
either of these should seem to be the ruling passion in the matter of
congregating is to be considered. As to love, that is out of the
question at a time of the year when that soft passion is not
indulged : besides, during the amorous season, such a jealousy
prevails between the male birds that they can hardly bear to be
together in the same hedge or field. Most of the singing and
elation of spirits of that time seem 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 iove to con-
gregate, 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

146 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

usually attended by a train of daws, yet it is strange that the former
should so frequently have a flight of starlings for their satellites. Is
it because rooks have a more discerning scent than their attendants,
and can lead them to spots more productive of food ? Anatomists
say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run down
between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate
feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and can grope
for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, then, their associates
attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the
motions of their finders ; and as lions are said to do on the yelpings
of jackalls. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.*

* In Holland lapwings and starlings associate In vast flocks, particularly after the
season of incubation has passed, and the broods have joined together. In the open
meadows that border the canals they may be seen together in thousands,

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 147

LETTER XII

TO THE SAME.

March gth, 1772.

DEAR SIR, — As a gentleman and myself were walking on the
fourth of last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near
the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we
were surprised to see three house- swallows gliding very swiftly by
us. That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west ;
but the tenor of the weather for some time before had been delicate,
and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from
repeated accounts which I meet with, I am more and more induced
to believe that many of the swallow kind do not depart from this
island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns ; and do, insect-
like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then retire again to
their latebra. 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,
absconding for several days, till the weather gave them better
encouragement.

148 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XIII.

TO THE SAME.

April i2t&, 1772.

DEAR SIR, — While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence
was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the
pleasure of writing to you. On the first of November I remarked
that the 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 copu-
lation. 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 its walks
elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a
morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal
animal, and never pretends to stir after it becomes dark. The
tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as
lungs ; and can refrain from eating as well as breathing for a
great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing ; nor
again in the autumn before it retires : through the height of the

NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

149

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
conies 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 6x 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 !

I am, &c. &c.

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

Isaiah i. 3.

t See Letter L. to Barrington.

I5o NA TURA L HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March -2.6th, 1773.

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

This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention,
and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus an hen,
just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used
to be, but with feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and
clocking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will
throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order
to avert it from their progeny. Thus a partridge will tumble
along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from
her helpless covey. In the time of nidification the most feeble
birds will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a
village are up in arms at the sight of an hawk, whom they
will persecute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer
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.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 151

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 inadvertently
placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time,
not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But an
hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half-fledged, the
reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably
have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested
an expedient, and prompted the parent-birds to hover over the
nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths
gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering
offspring.

SPOTTED FLYCATCHER.

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

A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct
occurred to me one day as my people were pulling off the lining of

* Muscicapa grisola.

152 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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 trropyr), 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 offspring, I am not so
much amazed ; since reason perverted, and the bad passions let
loose, are capable of any enormity ; but why the parental feelings
of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should
sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philoso-
phers than myself to determine.

I am, &c.

NA TURAL HTSTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 153

LETTER XV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, July Zth, 1773.

DEAR SIR, — Some young men went down lately to a pond on
the verge of Wolmer Poorest 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 nest, the
one or the other of them, about once in five minutes ; reflecting
at the same time on the adroitness that every animal is possessed
of as far as regards the well-being of itself and offspring. But a
piece of address, which they show when they return loaded, should
not, I think, be passed over in silence. — As they take their prey
with their claws, so they carry it in their claws to their nest ; but,
as the feet are necessary in their ascent under the tiles, they
constantly perch first on the roof of the chancel, and shift the
mouse from their claws to their bill, that their feet may be at
liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising
under the eaves.

White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot at
all ; all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from the

154 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a
tremendous manner ; and these menaces well answer the intention
of intimidating ; for I have known a whole village up in arms on
such an occasion, imagining the churchyard to be full of goblins
and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly as they
fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the common
people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they super-
stitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. The
plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that
I have yet examined is remarkably, soft and pliant. Perhaps it
may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make
much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to steal
through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry.*

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

When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as an hen's
egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full year without
any water. Perhaps the case may be the same with all birds of
prey. When owls fly they stretch out their legs behind them as a
balance to their large heavy heads, for as most nocturnal birds
have large eyes and ears they must have large heads to contain
them. Large eyes I presume are necessary to collect every ray of
light, and large concave ears to command the smallest degree
of sound or noise.

I am, &c.

* There is perhaps not a more beautiful instance cf the evidence of design, than that
exhibited in the whole structure of an owl ; and as a part of it the wing, which is con-
structed for a light, buoyant, and noiseless flight. The feathers are altogether soft and
downy. They have the webs with the plumules disunited at the tips, and either remark-
ably pliable, or separated like the teeth of a saw, allowing a free passage to the air ; or
. they possess a pliability to yield to its pressure, and thus give a light or sailing motion and
a noiseless flight.

NA TURA L HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 1 5 5

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

" The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining,
social, and useful tribe of birds ; they touch no fruit in our gardens ;
delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to our
houses ; amuse us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous
agility ; and clear our outlets from the annoyances of gnats and
other troublesome insects. Some districts in the south seas, near
Guiaquil,* are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of

1. HI1TOBOSCA HIRUND1MS. 2. NIRMI.

venomous mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those coasts
insupportable. It would be worth inquiring whether any species
of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates
the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer
evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degree
our atmosphere would be choked with them was it not for the
friendly interposition of the swallow tribe.

" Many species of birds have their peculiar lice ; f but the

* " See Uiloa's Travels."

t Or Nirmi, n^w fully de?cribed in the " Mr nographia Anoplurorum Britanniae," by
Henry Denny ; who has also in readiness for publicatic n materials sufficient for a volume
upon the parasites of exotic species, as well as on those which infest many of the foreign
mammalia. This volume would be of great interest, and only requires sufficient encourage-
ment to be brought out.

156 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with dipterous insects, which
infest every species, and are so large, in proportion to themselves,
that they must be extremely irksome and injurious to them.
These are the hippoboscce 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 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
pupa, of these flies as big as the flies themselves, which he hatched
in his own bosom. Any person that will take the trouble to
examine the old nests of either species of swallows may find in
them the black shining cases or skins of the pupce of these insects ;
but for other particulars, too long for this place, we refer the
reader to 'L'Histoire d'Insectes' of that admirable entomologist.
Tom. iv., pi. ii."

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 157

LETTER XVI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Nov. x>tA, 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 hirundines — the
swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin.

A few house-martins begin to appear about the i6th of April ;
usually some few days later than the swallow. For some time after
they appear the 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 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

158 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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 hemispheric nest with a small aperture
towards the top, strong, compact, and warm ; and perfectly fitted
for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing
is more commoji 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 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 young. Was it not for this
affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and
destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic
excrement. In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution
is made use of ; particularly among .dogs and cats, where the dams
lick away what proceeds from their young. But in birds there
seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of nestlings is
enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is the easier
conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet, as nature is cleanly
in all her ways, the young perform this office for themselves in a
little time by thrusting their tails out at the aperture of their nest.
As the young of small birds presently arrive at their 77X1*10, or full
growth, they soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all

* Martins return to the same spot, or some c irner of a window ; this has been ascer-
tained by direct experiment ; but the nest, the structure of clay, is generally, if n >t
always, rebuilt ; and the clay, or sometimes almost sand, is rendered adhesive by the
saliva, or a secretion f.>r the purpose. In their natural habitats the nests are placed
together frequently in contact, generally on the surface of some over-hanging cliff. We
have seen from fifty to one hundred nests thus placed.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 159

day with their heads out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging
to the nest, supply them with food from morning to night. For a
time the young are fed on the wing by their parents ; but the feat
is done by so quick and almost imperceptible a flight that a person
must have attended very exactly to their motions before he would
be able to perceive it. As soon as the young are able to shift for
themselves, the dams immediately turn their thoughts to the
business of a second brood ; while the first flight, shaken off and
rejected by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and are the
birds that are seen clustering and hovering on sunny mornings and
evenings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs of churches
and houses. These congregatings usually begin to take place
about the first week in August ; and therefore we may conclude
that by that time the first flight is pretty well over. The young
of this species do not quit their abodes altogether ; but the more
forward birds get abroad some days before the rest. These
approaching the eaves of buildings, and playing about before them,
make people think that several old ones attend one nest. They
are often capricious in fixing on a nesting-place, beginning many
edifices, and leaving them unfinished ; but when once a nest is
completed in a sheltered place, it serves for several seasons.
Those which breed in a ready-finished house get the start in
hatching of those that build new by ten days or a fortnight.
These industrious artificers are at their labours in the long days
before four in the morning. When they fix their materials they
plaster them on with their chins, moving their heads with a quick
vibratory motion, They dip and wash as they fly sometimes in
very hot weather, but not so frequently as swallows. It has been
observed that martins usually build to a north-east or north-west
aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their
nests ; but instances are also remembered where they bred for
many years in vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard against a
wall facing to the south.

Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation ; but in this
neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the contrary
at 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

160 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

sight to see them labouring when half their nest is washed away and
bringing dirt .... "generis lapsi sarcire ruinas." Thus is instinct
a most wonderful unequal faculty ; in some instances so much above
reason, in other respects so far below it ! Martins love to frequent
towns, especially if there are great lakes and rivers at hand ; nay
they even affect the close air of London. And I have not only seen
them nesting in the Borough, but even in the Strand and Fleet
Street ; but then it was obvious from the dinginess of their aspect
that their feathers partook of the filth of that sooty atmosphere.
Martins are by far the least agile of the four species ; their wings and
tails are shorthand therefore they are not capable of such surprising
turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow. Accord-
ingly they make use of a placid easy motion in a middle region of
the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and never sweeping
long together over the surface of the ground or water. They do
not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some
lake, or under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, espe-
cially in windy weather. They breed the latest of all the swallow
kind : in 1772 they had been nestlings on to October 2ist, 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 appsared of late years in a considerable flight in this neigh-
bourhood, for one day or two, as late as November the 3rd and 6th.
after they were supposed to have been gone for more than a fort-
night. 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 somehow, and somewhere ; for the birds that return
yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds that retire.

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

* And a separate genus has been made for it in consequence, which is adopted by some
Tnithologists.

NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELB ORNE. 1 6 1

LETTER XVII.

TO THE SAME.

RTNGMER, near LEWES, Dec. gtn, 1773.

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

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

Though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs upwards of thirty
years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with
fresh admiration year by year ; and I think I see new beauties every
time I traverse it: This range, which runs from Chichester east-
ward 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 Works of
the Creation " -with the utmost satisfaction, and thinks them equal
to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe.

For my own part, I think there is 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

* Mr. Courthope of Danny,

0

162 NA TURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to
growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuber-
ances, their fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes, that carry
at once the air of vegetative dilation and expansion ....

Or was there ever a time when these immense masses of

calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some adven-
titious 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
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 t 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 concern-
ing the withdrawing of the swallow-kind, without examining enough
into the causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter ; for,

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 163

entre nous, the disappearing of the latter is more marvellous than
that of the former, and much more unaccountable. The hirundines,
if they please, are certainly capable of migration, and yet no doubt
are often found in a torpid state ; but redstarts, nightingales, white-
throats, black- caps, &c. &c., are very ill 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 con-
siderable perquisite to the shepherds that take them ; and though
many are to be seen to my knowledge all the winter through in
many parts of the south of England. The most intelligent shep-
herds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the downs in
March, and then withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone-
quarries ; now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on the
downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time of
wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers ; are sent
for sale in vast quantities to Brighthelmstone 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 con"
stant 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

* See Letter XXXIX to Pennant, p. 100; and note. Eighty-four dozen are said to have
been taken in a single day ; and Pennant states, that about Eastbourne one thousand
eight hundred and forty dozen were taken annually.

i64 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

came within my observation. I only saw a few larks and whinchats,
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 dawn of day they always revisit their nest-
trees, and are preceded a few minutes by a flight of daws, that act,
as it were, as their harbingers.

I am, &c.

;

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 165

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Jan. zgth, 1774.

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

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

. . . . "An-e

Garrula qua;n tignis nidos suspendat hirundo."

In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu sivala, the
barn swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are
no chimneys to houses, except they are English-built: in these
countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and
galleries, and open halls.

Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place ; as
we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well,
through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose

* Hirundo fiparia. or bank-swallow, we have for many years observed to precede the
chimney-swallow by from seven to ten days. The breeding-places of the chimney-swallow
mentioned afterwards are all artificial, and of these the rafters of outhouses are the most
frequent. We are not acquainted with any natural breeding-place of this species, it is
most probably in caverns or cleft rocks.

1 66 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

of manure : but in general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys ;
and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a constant fire, no
doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in the
immediate shaft where there is a fire ; but prefers one adjoining to
that of the kitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that
funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of wonder.

Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little bird
begin to form her nest about the middle of May, which consists,
like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt
or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw to render it tough and
permanent ; with this difference, that whereas the shell of the
martin is nearly hemispheric, that 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 in-
convenient situation so low in the shaft, in order to secure her
broods from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which
frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to get at
these nestlings.

The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red
specks ; and brings out her first brood about the last week in June,
or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the
young are introduced into life is very amusing : first, they emerge
from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the
rooms below : for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top,
and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree,
where, sitting in a row, they are attended with 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.

NA TURA L HIS TOR Y OF SELB ORNE. 1 67

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

The swallow, probably the male bird, is the excubitor to house-
martins and other little birds, announcing the approach of birds of
prey. For as soon as a hawk appears, with a shrill alarming note
he calls all the swallows and martins about him, who pursue in a
body, and buffet and strike their enemy till they have driven him
from the village, darting down from above on his back, and rising
in a perpendicular line in perfect security. This bird also will
sound the alarm, and strike at cats when they climb on the roofs of
houses, or otherwise approach the nests. Each species of hirundo
drinks as it flies along, sipping the surface of the water ; but the
swallow alone, in general, washes on the wing, by dropping into a
pool for many times together : in very hot weather house-martins
and bank-martins dip and wash a little.

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny 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 them, 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.

1 68 NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning oropyr}
of the swallow, I shall add, for your further amusement, 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 tke
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.

I am, with all respect, &c. &c.

* Sir Ashton Lever's " Musaeum."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 169

LETTER XIX,

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. -a,th, 1774,

DEAR SIR, — I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased
to find that you read my little history of the swallow with your
usual candour; nor was I the less pleased to find that you made
objections where you saw reason.

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

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

As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it ; yet
the epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the swallow,
whose back and wings are very black ; while the rump of the
martin is milk-white, its back and wings blue, and all its under
part white as snow. 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 /Eneas.

G 2

17© NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

The verb sonat 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 anything since 1764, which was a
remarkable, year for floods and high waters. The land-springs
which we call lavants, break out much on the downs of Sussex,
Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say when the
lavants rise corn will always be dear ; meaning that when the
earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs on the
downs and uplands, that the corn-vales must be drowned ; and so
it has proved for these ten or eleven years past. For land-springs
have never obtained more since the memory of man than during
that period ; nor has there been known a greater scarcity of all
sorts of grain, considering the great improvements of modern
husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or two ago
would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a famine. Therefore
pamphlets and newspaper-letters, that talk of combinations, tend
to inflame and mislead ; since we must not expect plenty till
Providence sends us more favourable seasons.

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

I am, &c.

* " Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis sedes
Pervclat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,
Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas :
Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum
Stagna. s0nat." .....

Let. XIX., p. 173 orig edit.

"As the black swallow near the palace plies:
O'er empty courts, and under arches flies ;
Now hawks aloft, now skims along the flood,
•• To furnish her loquacious nests with food. "

DRYD. VIRG. s£n. xii. line 691.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

171

LETTER XX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. z6th, 1774.

DEAR SIR, — The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the
least of any of the British hirundines, and, as far as we have ever
seen, the smallest known hirundo, though Brisson asserts that
there is one much smaller, and that is the hirundo esculenta*

But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any
observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the cir-
cumstances attending the life and conversation of this little bird,

,

ESCULENT SWALLOW.

since it '^fera naturd, at least in this part of the kingdom, dis-
claiming all domestic attachments, and haunting wild heaths and
commons where there are large lakes; while the other species,
especially the swallow and house-martin, are remarkably gentle and
domesticated, and never seem to think themselves safe but under
the protection of man.

* The H. escidenta is very small in body, but has a largo extent of wing ; it belongs
more properly to the group of swifts. There are one or two species smaller even than
that mentioned by Brisson.

The flea of the sand-martin, mentioned next page, is not the same as the bed-flea, but is
the Ce? atophyllus bifi^i/itus of Curtis.

172 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

It is curious to observe with what different degrees of architec-
tonic 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 inartifi daily 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 despatch, and
could remark how much they had scooped that day by the fresh
sand which ran down the bank, and was of a different colour from
that which lay loose and bleached in the sun. .

In what space of time these little artists are able to mine and
finish these cavities I have never been able to discover, for reasons
given above ; but it would be a matter worthy of 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 be-
ginnings were intentionally made in order to be in the greater
forwardness for next spring is allowing perhaps too much foresight
and rerum prudentia to a simple bird. May not the cause of these

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 1 73

i

latebra being left unfinished arise from their meeting in those places
with strata too harsh, hard, and solid for their purpose, which they
relinquish, and go to a fresh spot that works more freely ? Or may
they not in other places fall in with a soil as much too loose and
mouldering, liable to flounder, and threatening to overwhelm them
and their labours ?

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

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

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

174 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few sand-
martins, I see, haunt the skirts of London, frequenting the dirty
pools in Saint George's Fields, and about Whitechapel. The
question is where these build, since there are no banks or bold
shores in that neighbourhood ; perhaps they nestle in the scaffold-
holes of some old or new deserted building. They dip and wash
as they fly sometimes, like the house-martin and swallow.

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

NA TURA L HIS TORY OF SELBORNE. 175

LETTER XXI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. 2%th, 1774.

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

The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architecture,
making no crust, or shell, for its nest ; but forming it of dry grasses
and feathers, very rudely and in artificially 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 some-
times usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, as sparrows
do the house and sand-martin ; well remembering that I have seen
them squabbling together at the entrance of their holes, and the
sparrows up in arms, and much disconcerted at these intruders.
And yet I am assured, by a nice observer in such matters, that they
do collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia, and that he has shot
them with such materials in their mouths.*

Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidification
quite in the dark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and steeples,
and upon the tops of the walls of churches under the roof ; and
therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as those species that build
more openly ; but, from what I could ever observe, they begin nest-
ing 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

* The swift collects materials for its nest same as the swallows ; it is, however, a very
simple structure, and the opening to it is often so narrow that it is an exertion for the
parent bird to get in. White, towards the conclusion of this letter, seems to be aware of
only another swift— the white-bellied ; but there are many now known, and as proposed in the
same paragraph we allude to, the first upon p. 180, the genus Cypselus has been formed,
and is universally recognised for them. The description of the swift in this letter is
altogether excellent, and alone would have shown Mr, White to have been a most close
and accurate observer. The white-bellied swift has been taken in Great Britain.

176 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

tall buildings, churches, and steeple;-, and breed only in such ; yet
in this village some pairs frequent the lowest and meanest cottages,
and educate their young under those thatched roofs. We remember
but one instance where they breed out of buildings, and that is in the
sides of a deep chalk-pit near the town of Odiham, in this county,
where we have seen many pairs entering the crevices, and 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 ob-
servation. The fact that I would advance is, that swifts tread, or
copulate, on the wing ; and I would wish any nice observer, that is
startled at this supposition, to use his own eyes, and I think he will
soon be convinced. In another class of animals, viz. the insect,
nothing is so common as to see the different species of many genera
in conjunction as they fly. The swift is almost continually on the
wing ; and as it never settles on the ground, on trees, or roofs,
would seldom find opportunity for amorous rites, was it not enabled
to indulge them in the air. If any person would watch these birds
of a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round at a great height
from the ground, he would see, every now and then, one drop on the
back of another, and both of them sink down together for many
fathoms with a loud piercing shriek. This I take to be the juncture
when the business of generation is carrying on.

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

This hirundo differs widely from its congeners in laying invariably
but two eggs at a time, which are milk-white, long, and peaked at
the small end ; whereas the other species lay at each brood from
four to six. It is a most alert bird, rising very early, and retiring to
roost very late ; and is on the wing in the height of summer at least
sixteen hours. In the longest days it does not withdraw to rest till
a quarter before nine in the evening, being the latest of all day-birds.
Just before they retire whole groups of them assemble high in the
air, and squeak, and shoot about with wonderful rapidity. But this
bird is never so much alive as in sultry 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 177

steeples and churches, squeaking as they go in a very clamorous
manner ; these, by nice observers, are supposed to be males serenad-
ing their sitting hens ; and not without reason, since they seldom
squeak till they come close to the walls or eaves, and since
those within utter at the same time a little inward note of com-
placency.

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 locomotion is no
labour to them who are endowed with such wonderful powers of
wing. Their powers seem to be in proportion to their levers ;
and their wings are longer in proportion than those of almost
any other bird. When they mute, or case themselves in flight,
they raise their wings, and make them meet over their backs.

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

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

On the 3oth of last June I untiled the eaves of a house where
many pairs build, and found in each nest only two squab, naked
pulli; on the 8th of July I repeated the same inquiry, and found that
they had made very little progress towards a fledged state, but were
still naked and helpless. From whence we may conclude that
birds whose way of life keeps them perpetually on the wing would
not be able to quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows
and martins, that have numerous families, are continually 'feeding

1 78 NA TURAL HIST OR Y OF SELBORNE.

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, feed-
ing about, and disregarding still rain : from whence two things may
be gathered ; first, that many insects abide high in the air, even in
rain ; and next, that the feathers of these birds must be well preened
to resist so much wet. Windy, and particularly windy weather,
with heavy showers, they dislike ; and on such days withdraw, and
are scarce ever seen.

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

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

But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their early retreat.
They retire, as to the main body of them, by the tenth of August,
and sometimes a few days sooner ; and every straggler invariably
withdraws by the 2oth, 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

NA TURA L HIST OR Y OF SELB ORNE. 1 79

begin to retire still earlier in the most southerly parts of Andalusia,
where they can be in no ways influenced by any defect of heat, or,
as one might suppose, failure of food. Are they regulated in their
motions with us by a defect of food, or by a propensity to moulting-,
or by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what ? 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 con-
gregate 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

WHITS-BELLIED SWIFF.

the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those pests to the genus
called hippoboscce hirundinis, and often wriggle and scratch them
selves in their flight to get rid of that clinging annoyance.

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

They never can settle on the ground but through accident ; and
when down, can hardly rise, on account of the shortness of their
legs and the length of their wings ; neither can they walk, but only
crawl ; but they have a strong grasp with their feet, by which they
cling to walls. Their bodies being flat they can enter a very

I So 'NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

narrow crevice ; and where they cannot pass on their bellies they
will turn up edgewise.

The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift from
all the British hirundines, and indeed from all other known birds,
the hirundo melba, or great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar, ex-
cepted ; 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 ami under man-
dible, have induced a discerning* naturalist to suppose that this
species might constitute a genus per se.

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

The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swal-
low, 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, overrun with
hippoboscce, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen to the
ground, the number of vermin rendering their abode insupportable
any longer. They frequent in this village several abject cottages ;
yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs— a good proof
this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must
stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait,
and sometimes catch them on the wing.

On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the
nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly was she
affected by a natural o-ropyr) for her brood, which she supposed to
be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir,
but lay sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand.
The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass-plot,
where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born child.
While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy dispropor-

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

181

tioned 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 con-
tinents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature
advance small birds to their f)\ikia or state of perfection ; while the
progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and
tedious.

I am, &c.

1 82 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

LETTER XXII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. i^th, 1774.

DEAR SIR, — By means of a straight cottage chimney, I had an
opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows
ascend and descend through the shaft ; but my pleasure in contem-
plating 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 I2th, and the house-martin not till April the 3oth. At
South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th,
swifts in plenty on May the ist, 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 ist.
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 indncias cum avibus^
quamdiu cuculus cuculat ;" but it appears to me, that during that

* " The same night also I returned from the burial and slept by the wall of my courtyard,
being polluted, and my face was uncovered.—

" And I knew not that there were sparrows (swallows ?) in the wall, and mine eyes beirg
open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine eyes, and a whiteness came into mine
eyes ; and I went to the physicians, but they helped me nor." — TOBIT ii. 10.

The Greek word is arpo-u6ia.t pi. of arpoveiov, dimin. of orpovfloV, commonly translated a
sparrow, but taken also to mean any small bird. Bochart and the Latia Vulgate take
them to be hirundines, which the Arabs held as a genus of sparrows, and called the
" Sparrow of Paradise." — " Ghusfocr Aljinnut."

NA TURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 183

period, many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey,
as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges.

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

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

Wall-fruit abounds with me this year ; but my grapes, that used
to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all prece-
dent : and this is not the worst of the story ; for the sameungenial
weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the more neces-
sary 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 dis-
qualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are upon me, I lose
all the pleasing notices and little intimations arising from rural
sounds ; and May is to me as silent and mute with respect to the
notes of birds, £c., as August My eyesight is, thank God, quick
and good ; but with respect to the other sense, I am, at times,
disabled :

" And Wisdom at cne entrance quite shut out."

1 84 NA TUKAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, June %th, 1775.

DEAR SIR, — On September the 2ist, 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 hood-winked that they could not
proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the incumbrances
from their faces with their forefeet, so that, finding my sport inter-
rupted, I returned home musing in my mind on the oddness of the
occurrence.

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

About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our
attention, a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions,
and continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day.
These webs were not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all
directions, but perfect flakes or rags ; some near an inch broad,
and five or six long, which fell with a degree of velocity that showed
they were 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 twink-
ling like stars as they turned their sides towards the sun.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 185

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

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

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

Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see those
spiders shooting out their webs and mounting aloft : they will. go
off from your finger, if you will take them into your hand. Last
summer one alighted on my book as I was reading in the pariour ;
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.

1 86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

So that these little crawlers seem to have, while mounting, some
locomotive power without the use of wings, and to move in the air
faster than the air itself.*

* Every sportsman must have noticed the appearance indicated in the preceding letter.
Lister, as above referred to, has some very good observations in his Latin letter to Rayth ;
and at later periods it has been noticed and commented upon by various observers and
entomologists. Blackwall, in a paper in the Transactions of the Linnxan Society,
observed, that it was principally young and immature spiders that undertook the
excursions, and thinks that they are borne upwards by an ascending current of rarified
air acting on their slender lines. He does not agree with those who think that the flight
is influenced by electricity. Mr. John Murray,in his " Researches in Natural History."
records several experiments ; and on one occasion the thread was discharged to the
ceiling of a room above eight feet high. On another occasion a spider darted its thread
perfectly horizontal, and in length fully ten feet, and the angle of vision being particularly
favourable, we observed an extraordinary aura, or atmosphere, round the thread, which
we cannot doubt was "electric." Mr. Murray afterwards explains various phenomena,
and arrives at the conclusion that electricity is much connected with them ; he found that
when a conductor was brought near one of the floccular balls they are considerably
deflected from the perpendicular, and that when a stick of incited sealing-wax was
brought near the thread of suspension it seemed to be repelled. Mr. Murray quotes
Selborne, last paragraph of Letter XXI II., in regard to the spider shooting out a thread
in a calm atmosphere, and observes, " This phenomenon it has been our fortune frequently
to observe," and he arrives at the conclusion that the electric or non-electric state of
the atmosphere is intimately connected with the shooting of the thread, and the ascent
of the spider. We have often seen hundreds of acres covered with this gossamer web
sparkling with the morning dew, and the little creatures must have been exceedingly
numerous, many being seen, and we regret never having attempted any computation, but
no doubt this autumn will give opportunity to any resident in the country, and getting out
of doors early. Starck says that twenty or thirty are often found upon a single stubble,
and that he collected in half-an-hour two thousand, and could easily have got twice as
many had he wished it.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORXE. 187

LETTER XXIV*

TO THE SAME,

SELBORNE, Aug \*,th, 1775.

DEAR SIR, — There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute
creation, independent of sexual attachment : the congregating of
gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance.

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

But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the
same species ; for we know a doe, still alive, that was brought up
from a little fawn with a dairy of cows ; with them it goes a-field,
and with them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take
no notice of this deer, being 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 arid 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

* This letter is quoted from the original by Barringtcn. in his "Miscellanies," Essay
"On the prevailing Notions with regard to the Cuckoo," p. 251, and we presume as
received from its author.

i88

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature
but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take
place between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would
approach the quadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing
herself gently against his legs : while the horse would look down
with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circum-
spection, 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 into 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."

I am, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 189

LETTER XXV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Oct. -2nd, 1775.

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

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

190 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, Bohemiens ; in Italian and modern
Greek, Zingani.'j'

I am, &c.

* See Bell's "Travels in China."

t Borrow in his "Z^ncale " observes, " Bearing the same analogy to the Sanscrit tongue
as the Indian dialects, we find the Rommany or the speech of Roma or Zincali as they
style themselves, known in England and Spain as Gypsies or Gitanos. This speech,
wherever it is spoken, is in all principal points one and the same, though more or less
corrupted by foreign words, picked up in the various countries to which those who use it
have penetrated. One remarkable feature must not be passed over without notice, namely,
the very considerable number of Sclavonic words, which are to be found imbedded within
it, whether it be spoken in Spain or Germany, in England or Italy ; from which circum-
stance we are led to the conclusion, that these people in their way from the east travelled
in one large compact body, and that their route lay through some region where the
_Sclavonian language. or a dialect thereof was spoken. This region, I have no hesitation
in asserting to have been Bulgaria, where they probably tarried for a considerable period,
as Nomade herdsmen, and where numbers of them are still found at the present day.
Besides the many Sclavcnian words in the Gypsy tongue, another curious feature attracts
the attention of the philologist ; an equal or still greater quantity of terms from the modern
Greek; indeed we have full warranty for assuming that at one period the Spanish section,
if not the rest of the Gypsy nation, understood the Greek language well, and that besides
their own Indian dialect they occasionally used it for considerably upwards of a century
subsequent to their arrival, as amongst the Gitanos there were individuals to whom it was
intelligible so late as the year 1540."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 191

LETTER XXVI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Nov. \st, 1775-

"Hie .... tsedae pingues, hie plurimus ignis
Semper, et assidua pastes fuligine nigri." *

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

The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the
juncus effusus, or common soft rush, which is to be found in most
moist pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges. These
rushes are in best condition in the height of summer ; but may be
gathered, so as to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It
would be needless to add that the largest and longest are best.
Decayed labourers, women, and children, make it their business to
procure and prepare them. As soon as they are cut, they 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 become familiar even to
children ; and we have seen an old woman, stone blind, performing
this business with great despatch, and seldom failing to strip them
with the nicest regularity. When these junci are thus far prepared

* " With heapy fires our cheerful hearth is crowned ;
And firs for torches in the woods abound '
We fear not more the winds, and wintry cold,
Than streams the bank, nor wolves the bleating fold."

DRYD. VIRG. Eel. vii, line 70-

192 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 scalding fat
or grease ; but this knack also is to be attained by practice. The
careful wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her
fat for nothing ; for she saves the scummings of her bacon-pot for
this use : and, if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to
precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a warm oven.
Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by the sea-side, the
coarser animal-oils will come very cheap. A pound of common
grease may be procured for fourpence, and about six pounds of
grease will dip a pound of rushes, and one pound of rushes maybe
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
a half, being minuted, burnt only three minutes short of an hour ;
and a rush still of greater length has been known to burn one hour
and a quarter.

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

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

Little farmers use rushes much in the short days both morning
and evening, in the dairy and kitchen ; but the very poor, who are

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

193

Always the worst economists, and therefore must continue very
poor, buy a halfpenny candle every evening, which in their
blowing open rooms, does not burn much more than two hours.
Thus they have only two hours light for their money instead of
eleven.

While on the subject of rural economy, it may not be improper
to mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen
nowhere else ; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters make
from the stalks of the polytricum commune, or great golden maiden
hair, which they call silk-wood, and find plenty in the bogs.* When
this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested of its outer
skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut colour ; and, being
soft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds, curtains,
carpets, hangings, &c. If these besoms were known to the brush-
makers in town, it is probable they might come much in use for
the purpose above-mentioned, f

I am, &c.

* Or in Scotland, ling, where it is commonly used for besoms, making an excellent
implement ; also plaited into door-mats for the feet.

•f A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum.

RUSH-HOLDER.

1 94 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE SAME.

SKLBORNE, Dec. i2t/i, 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 caste have seldom more than
one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this
one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time within his
father's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom depart-
ing 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 passion-
ately fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger round
the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine.
As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his
lipsj resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and
sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion ; and, except in his favour-
ite pursuitj 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

195

wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees ; and we
may justly say of him now, —

Had thy presiding star propitious shone.
Should'st Wildman * be

Thou,

When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a distant
village, where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at
manhood.

I am, &c.

* Thomas Wildman published a "Treatise on the Management of Bees; ' with the
various methods of cultivating them, both ancient and modern, 410., 1768.

1 96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXVII I.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Jan. %tk, 1776.

DEAR SIR, — It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off
superstitious prejudices : they are sucked in, as it were, with our
mother's milk ; and, growing up with us at a time when they take
the fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become so
interwoven into our very constitutions, that the strongest good sense
is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, there-
fore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives through,
since their minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and
therefore not enabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion.

Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter on the
superstitions of this district, lest we should be suspected of
exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened
age.

But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well to re-
member, 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,

NA TURA L HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 1 97

wx/ald 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 cere-
mony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who
practised it before their conversion to Christianity.

At the fourth corner of the Plestor, or area, near the church, there
stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-
ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as
a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches,
when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve

SHREW-MOUSE.

the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse
over the part affected ; for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of
so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a
beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted
with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the
limb.* Against this accident, to which they were continually liable,
our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which,
when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-

* "When ahorse in the fields happened to be suddenly seized with anything like a
numbness in his legs, he was immediately judged by the old persons to be either planet-
struck, or shrew-struck. The mode of cure which they prescribed, and which they con-
sidered in all cases infallible, was to drag the animal through a piece of bramble that grew
at both ends." — BINGLEY.

198 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

\ ash was made thus* : — Into the body of the tree a deep hole was
bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in
alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations
long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a con-
secration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and
no such tree is known to subsist in the manor, or hundred.

t As to that on the Plestor

" The late vicar stubb'd and burnt it,"

when he was way -warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the
bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its
power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been

" Religione patrum. multos servata per annos. "

I am, &c.

* For a similar practice, see Plot's Staffordshire.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 199

LETTER XXIX,

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. jtk, 1776.

DEAR SIR,— In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially,
trees are perfect alembics ; and no one that has not attended to such
matters can imagine how much water one tree will distil in a night's
time, by condensing the vapour, which trickles down the twigs and
boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in a float. In
Newton Lane, in October 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak in
leaf dropped so fast that the cart-way stood in puddles and the ruts
ran with water, though the ground in general was dusty.

In some of our smaller islands in the West Indies, if I mistake
not, there are no springs or rivers ; but the people are supplied with
that necessary element, water, merely by the dripping of some large,
tall trees, which, standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their
heads constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, from which they
dispense their kindly never-ceasing moisture ; and so render those
districts habitable by condensation alone.

Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface than
those that are naked, that, in theory, their condensations should
greatly exceed those that are stripped of their leaves ; but, as the
former imbibe also a great quantity of moisture, it is difficult to say
which drip most ; but this I know, that deciduous trees that are en-
twined with much ivy seem to distil the greatest quantity. Ivy-
leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold, and therefore condense very
fast ; and besides, evergreens imbibe very little. These facts may
furnish the intelligent with hints concerning what sorts of trees they
should plant round small ponds that they would wish to be perennial ;
and show them how advantageous some trees are in preference to
Bothers.

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

200 NA TURA L HIST OR Y OF SEL BORNE.

forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies of water are much
diminished; so that some streams, that were very considerable a
century ago, will not now drive a common mill.* Besides, most
woodlands, forests, and chases, with us abound with pools and
morasses ; no doubt for the reason given above.

To a thinking mind few phenomena are more strange than the
state of little ponds on the summits of chalk-hills, many of which
are never dry in the most trying droughts of summer. On chalk-
hills I say, because in many rocky and gravelly soils springs usually
break out pretty high on the sides of elevated grounds and
mountains : but no person acquainted with chalky districts will
allow that they ever saw springs in such a soil but in valley 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 overhung with two moderate beeches, that,
doubtless, at times afford it much supply : but then we have others
as small tfiat, without the aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation
from sun and wind, and perpetual consumption by cattle, yet con-
stantly 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 con-
siderable ponds in the vales are now dried up, while the small ponds
on the very tops of hills are but little affected.'' Can this difference
be accounted for from evaporation alone, which certainly is more
prevalent in bottoms ? or rather have not those elevated pools some
unnoticed recruits, which in the night time counterbalance the
waste of the day ; without which the cattle alone must soon exhaust
them ? And here it will be necessary to enter more minutely into
the cause. Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances, from ex-
periment, that "the moister the earth is the more dew falls on it in
a night ; and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a surface
of water than there does on an equal surface of moist earth." Hence

* Vide Kalm's Travels to North America.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, &c., can tell what prodigious fogs prevail in
the night on elevated downs, even in the hottest parts of summer ;
and how much the surfaces of things are drenched by those
swimming vapours, though, to the senses, all the while, little
moisture seems to fall.

I am, &c.

II 2

202 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, April yd, 1776.

DEAR SIR, — Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems
persuaded that he has discovered the reason why cuckoos do not
hatch their own eggs ; the impediment, he supposes, arises from
the internal 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 galince, colomba* &c., 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 pincushion, with food, which, upon
nice examination, we found to consist of various insects ; such as
small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies ; the last of which we have
seen cuckoos catching on the wing as they were just emerging out
of the aurelia state. Among this farrago also were to be seen
maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to gooseberries,
currants, cranberries, or some such fruit ; so that these birds appa-
rently subsist on insects and fruits ; nor was there the least
appearance of bones, feathers, or fur, to support the idle notion of
their being birds of prey.

The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be remarkably short,
between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw, and immediately
behind that the bowels against the back-bone.

It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the crop
placed just upon the bowels must, especially when full, be in a very
uneasy situation during the business of incubation ; yet the test
will be to examine whether birds that are actually known to sit for
certain are not formed in a similar manner. This inquiry I pro-
posed to myself to make with a fern-owl, or goatsucker, as soon as
opportunity offered : because, if their formation proves the same,

* Histoire de I'Acadciine Rcyale, 1752.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 203

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, imme-
diately on the viscera, between them and the skin of the belly. It
was bulky, and stuffed hard with large phalanx, 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 prac-
tise 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 cucuhts canonist

We found the case to be the same with the ring-tail hawk, in
respect to formation ; and, as far as I can recollect, with the swift ;
and probably it is so with many more sorts of birds that are not
granivorous.

I am, &c.

* There is nothing in the anatomical structure of the cuckoo to prevent its performing
all the duties of incubation ; parasitism is extended over a considerable number cf species,
and probably exists among most of the Cuculidce ; a large black species, Eudyttantys
orientalis, has had its habits detailed by Mr. Blyth, in "Contributions to Ornithology for
1850." It selects a species of crow generally for the foster-mother, and it is a remarkable
instance of design that the eggs of both birds are nearly similar in cobur, that of the
cuckoo being rather smaller in size. It is suspected that this species breaks the eggs of
the crow before depositing its own, and there seems little cause to doubt that it lays
several eggs at the usual periods, the same as other birds. The genus Dolyconyx^ among
the Icterine birds, also breeds parasitically, while several species of birds depute the
office of incubation to artificial heat, of which the most remarkable is the hotbed-making
Megapodius of Australia. There is another form which this habit assumes, common-
ality of hatching, as in Crotopkaga, where various individuals make use of a common nest
and hatch by turns. The whole subject is very curious, but there is a difficulty in pro-
curing exact details of the habits of foreign species.

204. NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, April z^th, 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, \ve 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 the true
viper-spirit about them, showing great alertness as soon as dis-
engaged from the belly of the dam : they twisted and wriggled
about, and set themselves up, and gaped very wide when touched
with a stick, showing manifest tokens of menace and defiance,
though as yet they had no manner of fangs that we could find, even
with the help of our glasses.

To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than that early
instinct which impresses young animals with a notion of the situa-
tion of their natural weapons, and of using them properly in their
own defence, even before those weapons subsist or are formed.
Thus a young cock will spar at his adversary before his spurs
are grown ; and a calf or a lamb will push with their heads
before their horns are sprouted. In the same manner did these
young adders attempt to bite before their fangs were in being.
The dam however was furnished with very formidable ones, which
we lifted up (for they fold down when not used) and cut them off
with the point of our scissors.

There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever been
in the open air before ; and that they were taken in 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.*

* See Letter XVII., First Series, to Mr. Pennant, p. 50. which should be turned to and
read along with this.

VIPER S HSAD.

2o6 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXII.

TO THE SAME.

CASTRATION has a strange effect : it emasculates both man,
beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of the
other sex. Thus eunuchs have smooth unmuscular arms, thighs,
and legs ; and broad hips, and beardless chins, and squeaking
voices. Gelt stags and bucks have hornless heads, like hinds and
does. Thus wethers have small horns, like ewes ; and oxen large
bent horns, and hoarse voices when they low, like cows : for bulls
have short straight horns ; and though they mutter and grumble in
a deep tremendous tone, yet they low in a shrill high key. Capons
have small combs and gills, and look pallid about the head like
pullets ; 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 appendages that are looked
upon as its insignia. But the ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on
husbandry, carries it much farther ; for he says that the loss of
those insignia alone has sometimes a strange effect 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 would restrain
him.

NA TURAL H1STOR Y OF SELBORNE. 207

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE SAME.

THE natural term of an hog's life is little known, and the reason
is plain— because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep
that turbulent animal to the full extent of 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 sagacious and artful. When she found occasion to
converse with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates,
and march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept ;
and when her purpose was served would return by the same means.
At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be reduced to four
or five ; and such a litter she exhibited when in her fatting-pen.
She proved, when fat, good bacon, juicy, and tender ; the rind, or
sward, was remarkably thin. At a moderate computation she was
allowed to have been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs : a
prodigious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She
was killed in spring 1775.

I am, &c.

208 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May gth, 1776.

. . . admorunt ubera tigres. "

DEAR SIR, — We have remarked in a former letter* how much
incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to each
other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not be amiss to
recount a different motive which has been known to create as strange
a fondness.

My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, which the
servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the same time his cat
kittened and the young were dispatched and buried. The hare was
soon lost, and supposed to be gone the way of most fondlings, to
be killed by some dog or cat. However, in about a fortnight, as
the master was sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he
observed his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling
with little short inward notes of 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 carnivorous and
predaceous one !

Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the ferocious
genus of Felts, the murium leo, as Linnaeus calls it, should be
affected with any tenderness towards an animal which is its natural
prey, is not so easy to determine.

This strange affection probably was occasioned by that desi-
derium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss of her
kittens had awakened in her breast ; and by the complacency and
ease she derived to herself from the procuring her teats to be
drawn, which were too much distended with milk, till, from habit,
she became as much delighted with this foundling as if it had been
her real offspring.

* Letter XXIV.

NA TURAL HIS TOR Y OF SELBORNE. 209

This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance
which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of exposed
children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that
probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more
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 fcetam Mavortis in an'ro
Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circum
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere linguaV' t

* See " Observations on Various Parts of Na'ure," — Cat suckling young squirrels.
Similar cases have frequently occurred, and the causes may be partly as stated by Mr.
White, as mentioned in a note to Constable's edition of " Selborne." We once saw a
litter of pigs suckled by a pointer-bitch. " On the 2jth 'of April, 1820," writes Mr.
Broderip in "Zoological Journal," " I saw a cat giving suck to five young rats and a
kitten. The cat paid the same maternal attend n to the young rats in licking them and
dressing their fur as she did to her kitten, notwithstanding the great disparity in size."
These occurrences, however, take place naturally, for they cannot be forced, as every
shepherd well knows while attempting to persuade a ewe that has lost her own lamb to
become a foster-mother. Instinct by smell at once discovers the proposed change, and
deception is sometime? successful by employing the skin of the dead -born as a temporary
covering for the other, until it has been once permitted to suck.

t "The cave of Mars was dressed with mossy greens:
There by the wolf were laid the martial twins,
Intrepid on her swellings dugs they hung ;
The foster dam loll'd out her fawning tongue :
They suck'd secure, while bending back their head,
She lick'd their tender limbs ; and farmed them as they fed. "

DRYD. VIRG. JEn. viii lins 840.

2io NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May 2oi7i, 1777.

DEAR SIR, — Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are
always poor ; and probably the reason may be because the worms
are drowned. The most insignificant insects and reptiles are of
much more consequence, and have much more influence in the
economy of Nature, than the incurious are aware of; and are
mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which renders them
less an object of attention : and from their numbers and fecundity.
Earth-worms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in
the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm.
For to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which
are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the
great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely
without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and
rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing
straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by
throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-
casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and
grass. Worms probably provide new soil for hills and slopes where
the rain washes the earth away ; and they affect slopes, probably to
avoid being flooded.* Gardeners and farmers express their
detestation of worms ; the former because they render their walks
unsightly, and make them much work ; and the latter because, as
they think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would find

* We rcarcely agree with White's proposition here ; grass lands are very much benefited
by frequent inundations. That worms are great fertilisers there can he no doubt, but at
the same time in all cases they are not beneficial, as for instance in fl jwer-pots or boxes
where plants are kept. In pasture lands, however, they do act mechanically, and their
castings or excrement (earth-worm guano), is often very abundant, so much so as to mark
the surface. Mr. Darwin applies the offices of worms geol igically by their gradually
covering the surface of land, and concealing loose stones, &c., which, however, may be
also assisted by the decomposition of vegetable matter; he goes so far as to say, " that
every particle of earth in old pasture land has passed through the intestines of wor ns,
and hence that in some instances, the term ' animal world ' would be more appropriate
than 'vegetable world.'" — (Proceed. Geol. Soc.} It is remarkable after a flood has
covered the low pastures to observe the numbers of birds, crows, thrushes, herons, gulls,
that assemble when the water recedes ; the drowned earih-wjrm is their chief prey.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

that the earth without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound,
and void of fermentation, and consequently steril ; and, besides, in
favour of worms, it should be hinted that green corn, plants, and
flowers, are not so much injured by them as by many species of
coleoptera (scarabs), and tipul<z (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 consequently very prolific.

I am, &c.

* Fanner 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.

212 NA TURA L HIST OR Y OF 'SEL B ORNE.

LETTER XXXVI.*

%

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Nov. zznd, 1777.

DEAR SIR,— You cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th
of last March were very hot days, — so sultry that everybody com-
plained and were restless under those sensations to which they had
not been reconciled by gradual approaches.

This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer
coincidences ; for on those two days the thermometer rose to
sixty-six in the shade ; many species of insects revived and came
forth ; some bees swarmed in this neighbourhood ; the old
tortoise, near Lewes, in Sussex, awakened and came forth out of
its dormitory ; and, what is most to my present purpose, many
house-swallows appeared and were very alert in many places, and
particularly at Chobham, in Surrey.

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 loth of
April, when, the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began
to prevail.

Again ; it appears by my journals for many years past that
house-martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of October ;
so that a person not very observant of such matters would conclude
that they had taken their last farewell ; but then it may be seen in
my diaries also that considerable flocks have discovered themselves
again in the first week of November, and often on the 4th 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.

* This letter was first published by Bnrring'on in his " Miscellanies," in an essay "On
the Torpidity of the Swallow Tribe, when they Disappear," p. 225, and is prefaced as
f ll^ws : "I shall here subj in a letter which I received from that ingenious and observant
naturalist, the Rev. Mr. White, of Stlborne, in Hampshire." It appears to have been
printed as received. The opinions given in this letter have been generated apparently by
his_c^rresp<-ndence with Barrington, and those contained in the last paragraph especially
or in Letter LV., cann t be ma.nta'ned.

NA TUKAL HISTOR Y OF SEL BORNE. 2 1 3

And this was the case in the beginning of this very month ; for on
the 4th of November, more than twenty house-martins, which, in
appearance, had all departed about the 7th of 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 4th was dark, and mild, and soft, the wind at south-west, and
the thermometer at 58'^ ; a pitch not common at that season of the
year. Moreover, it may not be amiss to add in this place, that
whenever the thermometer is above 50, the bat comes 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.

I am, &c.

214 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, yan. $>th, 1778.

DEAR SIR, — There was in this village several years ago a
miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a leprosy,
as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it affected only the
palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This scaly eruption
usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring and fall ; and, by
peeling away, left the skin so thin and tender that neither his
hands or feet were able to perform their functions ; so that the
poor object was half his time on crutches, incapable of employ,
and 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.* 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 ;

* See Leviticus, xiii. xiv.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 215

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 charitable
personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor people as
languished under this hopeless infirmity.

It must, therefore, in these days be to an humane and thinking
person a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he contem-
plates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and observes that a leper
now is a rare sight. He will, moreover, when engaged in such a
train of thought naturally inquire for the reason. This happy
change, perhaps, may have originated and been continued from the
much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now eaten in these
kingdoms ; from the use of linen next the skin ; from the plenty of
better bread ; and from the profusion of fruits, roots, legumes, and
greens, so common in every family. Three or four centuries ago
before there were any enclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or
field-carrots, or hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer,
and were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after
Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months ; so
that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the
marvellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the
larder of the eldest Spencer* in the days of Edward II., even so
late in the spring as the 3rd of May. It was from magazines like
these that the turbulent barons supported in idleness their riotous
swarms of retainers ready for any disorder or mischief. But agri-
culture 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 prevent-
ing cutaneous ails. At this very time woollen, instead of linen
prevails among the poorer Welsh, who are subject to foul eruptions.

The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among all
ranks of people in the south, instead of that miserable sort which
used in old days to be made of barley or beans, may contribute not

* Viz., Six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef,, and six hundred muttons.

216 NA TURAL HTSTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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 Jais support, as well as his delight ; and
common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, for
their hinds to eat with their bacon ; and those few that do not are
despised for their sordid parsimony, and looked upon as regardless
of the welfare of their dependents. Potatoes have prevailed in
this little district by means of premiums within these twenty years
only ; and are much esteemed here now by the poor, who would
scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign.

Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, because
they call the month of February "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 corre-
spondence with Italy, were the first people among us that had
gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection within the wall of their
abbeys t and priories. The barons neglected every pursuit that
did not lead to war or tend to the pleasure of the chase.

It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticulture them-
selves that the knowledge of gardening made such hasty advances.
Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr. Waller, of Beaconsfield, were
some of the first people of rank that promoted the elegant science
of ornamenting without despising the superintendence of the
kitchen quarters and fruit walls.

A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray, in his "Tour of
Europe," at once surprises us, and corroborates what has been ad-
vanced above ; for we find him observing so late as his days, that
" The Italians use several herbs for sallets, which are not yet, or

* As our Saxon ancestors called the month of February " sprout -cale," so the names of
many other months were equally significant : viz., March, St rmy Month ; May, Trirailki,
the c ws being milked three times a-day ; June, Dig-and-Weed Month ; September,
Barley Month," &c.— MITFORD.

t " In monasteries th; 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 pro fhients in mechanics, gardening, and architecture."— DALRYMPLE s
Annals of Scotland .

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 217

have-not been but lately, used in England, viz. selleri (celery),
which is nothing else but the sweet smallage ; the young shoots
whereof, with a little of the head of the root cut off, they eat raw
with oil and pepper ; " and further adds : " curled endive blanched
is much used beyond seas ; and, for a raw sallet, seemed to excel
lettuce itself." Now this journey was undertaken no longer ago
than in the year 1663, \

I am, £c.

LETTER XXXVIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Feb. \*th, 1778.
" Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido,
Dixerat, ecquis adest ? et, adest, resp^nderat echo,
Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes ;
Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat ilia vocamemi"

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 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

*" Chance parts the youth from his companions dear,
He cries ' Who's here ? ' and Echo answers ' Here ; '
He stares around, and fur a while stands dumb.
Then shouts cut, 'Come, and Echo answers ' Come,'

218 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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 articulately than hanging woods or vales ; because
in the latter the voice is as it were entangled and embarrassed in
the covert, and weakened in the rebound.

The true object of this echo, as we found by various experiments,
is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gally-lane, which measures in
front forty feet, and from the ground to the eaves twelve feet. The
true centrum phonicum, or just distance, is one particular spot in
the king's field, in the path to Nore-hill, on the very brink of the
steep balk above the hollow cart- way. In this case there is no
choice of distance ; but the path, by mere contingency, happens to
be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises or falls so
immediately, if the speaker either retires or advances, that his
mouth would at once be above or below the object.

We measured this poly syllabi cal echo with great exactness, and
found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's rule for distinct
articulation ; for the Doctor, in his history of Oxfordshire, allows
a hundred and twenty feet for the return of each syllable distinctly ;
hence this echo, which gives ten distinct syllables, ought to measure
four hundred yards, or one hundred and twenty feet to each
syllable ; whereas our distance is only two hundred and fifty-eight
yards, or near seventy-five feet to each syllable. Thus our measure
falls short of the Doctor's, as five to eight ; but then it must be
acknowledged that this candid philosopher was convinced after-
wards, that some latitude must be admitted of in the distance of
echoes according to time and place.

When experiments of this sort are making, it should always be
remembered that weather and the time of day have a vast influence
on an echo ; for a dull, heavy, moist air deadens and clogs the

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 219

sound, and hot sunshine renders the air thin and weak, and deprives
it of all its springiness, and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole.
In a still, clear, dewy evening the air is most elastic ; and perhaps
the later the hour the more so.

Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, that^the
poets have personified her ; and in their hands she has been the
occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor need the gravest man
be ashamed to appear taken with such a phenomenon, since it may
become the subject of philosophical or mathematical inquiries.

One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertaining, must
at least have been harmless and inoffensive ; yet, Virgil advances
a strange notion, that they are injurious to bees. After enumerating
some probable and reasonable annoyances, such as prudent owners
would wish far removed from their bee-gardens, he adds —

— "aut ubi concava pulsu

Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago. "

This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by the
philosophers of these days, especially as they all now seem agreed
that insects are not furnished with any organs of hearing at all.
But if it should be urged, that though they cannot hear yet perhaps
they may feel the repercussions of sounds, I grant it is possible they
may. Yet that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I deny,
because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, where the
echoes are very strong ; for this village is another Anathoth, a
place of responses and echoes. Besides, it does not appear from
experiment that bees are in any way capable of being affected
by sounds ; for I have often tried my own with a large speaking-
trumpet held close to their hives, and with such an exertion of
voice as would have haled a ship at the distance of a mile, and
still these insects pursued their various employments undisturbed,
and without showing the least sensibility or resentment.*

* Insects are now proved to be sensible of the impression of sounds. Mr. Bennet has
quoted experiments of Brunelli in proof; he learned to imitate the chirping of grass-
hoppers, and when he did this at the door of a closet in which they were kept they soon
began to answer him. " He afterwards enclosed a male grasshopper in a box, and placed
it in one part of his garden, leaving a female at liberty in a distant part of it ; as soon as
the male began to sing the female immediately hopped away towards him." Insects being in
possession of the power of emitting sounds, these must be subservient for some purpose,
and from the above experiments we find them to be responded to. It is remarkable that
in the Cicadse the females are destitute of the sound-making organs, '• Yet," writes Owen,
in one of the latest general summaries of structure (1843), " the precise organ has not yet
been definitely recognised." And Messrs. Gould and Agassiz state the grasshopper for
instance, to have a sort of ear, no longer situated in the head as with other animals, but
in the legs, and from this fact we may be allowed to suppose that if no organ of hearing
has yet been found in most insects, it is because it has been sought for in the head only."

220 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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
amojng 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 re-
percussion of the voice ; so that till these 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 ib
at a few hundred yards distance ; and perhaps success might be
the easier insured could some canal, lake, or stream intervene.
From a seat at the centrii m phonicum he and his friends might
amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle of this
loquacious nymph ; of whose complacency and decent reserve more
may be said than can with truth of every individual of her sex ;
since she is

" — quae nee reticere loquenti,

Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo."

I am, &c.

P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following lovely
quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically accounting
for their causes from popular superstition : —

' Ouae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis
Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per bca sola
Saxa paries formas verborum ex prdine reddant,
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos
Quaerimus, et magna disperses vcce ciemus.
Sexetiam, aut septem 1 ca vidi reddere voces
Unam quom jaceres : ita colles c^llibus ipsis
Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre.
Hsec Icca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere
Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur;_
Qu rum noctivago strepitu. ludoque jocanti
Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi,
Chnrdarumnue sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas,
Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum:
Et genus agncolum late sentiscere, quom Pan

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Pinea fiemiferi capitis velamina quassans,
Unco saepe labro calamos percurri^hianteis,
Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam." * .

LUCRETIUS, Lib. iv. 1. 576.

' Whence may'st thou solve» ingenuous ! to the world
The rise of echoes, formed in desert scenes,
'Mid rocks, and mountains, mocking every sound,
When late we wander through their solemn glooms,
And, with loud voice, some lost companion call.
And oft re-echoes echo till the peal
Rings seven times round ; so rock to rock repels
The mimic shout, reiterated close.

' Here haunt the goat-foot satyrs, and the nymphs
As rustics tell, and fauns whose frolic dance,
And midnight revels oft, they say, are heard
Breaking the noiseless silence ; while soft strains
Melodious issue, and the vocal band
Strike to their madrigals the plaintive lyre.
Such, feign they, sees the shepherd obvious oft,
Led on by Pan, with pine-leaved garland crown'd
And seven mouth'd reed his labouring lip beneath,
Waking the woodland muse with ceaseless song."

J. MASON GOOD.

222 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXIX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May i^th, 1778.

DEAR SIR, — Among the many singularities attending those
amusing birds the swifts, I am now confirmed in the opinion that
we have every year the same number of pairs invariably ; at least
the result of my inquiry has been exactly the same for a long time
past. The swallows and martins are so numerous, and so widely
distributed over the village, that it is hardly possible to recount
them ; while the swifts, though they do not build in the church, yet
so frequently haunt it, and play and rendezvous round it, that they
are easily enumerated. The number that I constantly find are
eight pairs ; about half of which reside in the church, and the rest
build in some of the lowest and meanest thatched cottages. Now
as these eight pairs, allowance being made for accidents, breed
yearly eight pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase ;
and what determines every spring which pairs shall visit us, and
reoccupy their ancient haunts ?

Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology, I have
always supposed that that sudden reverse of affection, that strange
ai/rioropy?;, 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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 223

LETTER XL.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, June 2nd, 1778.

DEAR SIR, — The standing objection to botany has always been,
that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory
without improving the mind or advancing any real knowledge ; and
where the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classi-
fication, 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 in-
vestigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and
virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation, and .
graft the gardener, the planter, and the husbandman, on the
phytologist. Not that system is by any means to be thrown aside,
without system the field of Nature would be a pathless wilderness ;
but system should be subservient to, not the main object of,
pursuit.

Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention ; and in itself is of *
the utmost consequence to mankind, and productive of many of
the greatest comforts and elegancies of life. To plants we owe
timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, &c., what not
only strengthens our hearts, and exhilarates our spirits, but what
secures us 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 kiridred
bears and wolves, he gorges himself with flesh alone, and is driven,
to what hunger has never been known to compel the very beasts,
to prey on his own species.*

The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on the
commerce of nations, and have been the great promoters of naviga-
tion, as may be seen in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium,

* See the late Voyage to the South Seas.

224 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

ginseng, betel, paper, &c. As every climate has its peculiar produce,
our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse ; so that by means
of trade each distant part is supplied with the growth of every
latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants and their culture,
we must have been content with our hips and haws, without
enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the salutiferous drugs of
Peru.

Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every various
species of each obscure genus, the botanist should endeavour to
make himself acquainted with those that are useful. You shall see
a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know
wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley from
another.

But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most
neglected ; 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, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 225

LETTER XLI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, July yd, 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 withy?//V^,
and the pastures and moist woods vn\h 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 trie more rare,
and the spots where they are to be found, may be neither unaccept-
able nor unentertaining : —

Helleborus fcetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's foot, or setterworth,
— all over the High- wood and Coney-croft-hanger : this continues
a great branching plant the winter through, blossoming about
January, and is very ornamental in shady walks and shrubberies.
The good women give the leaves powdered to children troubled
with worms ; but it is a violent remedy, and ought to be adminis-
tered with caution.

Helleborus viridis, green hellebore,— in the deep stfcny 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.*

Vacciimim myrtillus, whortle, or bleaberries, — on the dry hillocks
of Woolmer-forest.

Drosera rolundifolia, round-leaved sundew, — in the bogs of Bin's-
pond.

* See note Letter VIII. to Pennant, p. 20. — Bin's Pond is now drained. The marsh
plants therefore, are most probably now wanting. Drosera longifolia would in all
probability be D. anglica.

I

226 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Drosera /0ugifotia,\ong-\ea.ved sundew, — in the bogs of Bin's-pond.

Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh cinquefoil, — in
the bog's of Bin's-pond.

Hypericum androscemum, Tutsan, St. John's Wort, — in the stony,
hollow lanes.

Vinca minor, less periwinkle, — in Selborne-Hanger and Shrub-
wood.

Monotropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or birds' nest, — in
Selborne-hanger under the shady beeches, to whose roots it
seems to be parasitical, at the north-west end of the hanger.

Chlora perfoliata, Blackstonia perfoliata, Hudsoni, perfoliated
yellow-wort, — on the banks in the King's-field.

Paris quadrifolia, herb of Paris, true-love, or one-berry,— in the
Church-litten-coppice.

Chrysosplenium oppositifoliuiny opposite golden saxifrage,— in the
dark and rocky hollow lanes.

Gentiana ainarellat autumnal gentian, or fell wort, — on the Zigzag
and Hanger.

Lathrcea squamaria, 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.

Dipsacu s pilo su s, small teasel, — in the Short and Long Lith.

Lathy r us sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathyrus, — in the
bushes at the foot of the Short Lith, near the path.

Ophrys spiralis, ladies' traces, — in the Long Lith, and towards
the south corner of the common.

Ophrys nidus avis, birds' nest ophrys, — in the Long Lith under
the shady beeches among the dead leaves ; in Great Dorton among
the bushes, and on the Hanger plentifully.

Serapias latifolia, helleborine, — in the High-wood under the
shady beeches.

Daphne lattreola, spurge laurel, — in Selborne-Hanger and the
High wood.

Daphne mczercum, the mezereon, — in Selborne-Hanger among
the shrubs, at the south-east end above the cottages.

Lycoperdon tuber, truffles, — in the Hanger and High- wood.

Sambitciis ebiilus, dwarf elder, walwort, or danewort, — among
the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory.*

* This letter in the original edition of 1780 concluded here, but in the 410 edition by
Mitford what follows was added to it. This has appeared in all the editions subsequently
a:- part of the original letter, but we are not aware at what time or under what circum-
stances this was written.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 227

Of all the propensities of plants, none seem more strange than
their different periods of blossoming. Some produce their flowers
in the winter, or very first dawnings of spring ; many when the
spring is established; some at midsummer, and some not till
autumn. When we see the helleborus fcetidus and helleborus niger
blowing at Christmas, the helleborus hy emails 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 conge-
nerous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flowering, that
we cannot but admire. I shall only instance at present in the
crocus sativus, the vernal and the autumnal crocus, which have
such an affinity, that the best botanists only make them varieties
of the same genus, of which there is only one species, not being
able to discern any difference in the corolli, or in the internal struc-
ture. 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 autum-
nal (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 ex-
plained as the most stupendous phenomenon in nature.

" Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow
Congeal'd; the crocus' flamy bud to glow?
Say, what retards, amidst the summer's blaze,
Th' autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days ?
The GOD of SEASONS ; whose pervading power
Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower :
He bids each fl )wer his quickening word obey,
Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay. "

228 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XLII.

TO THE SAME.

" Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique genere incessus est :
aves solae vario meatu feruntur, et in terra, et in acre."

SELBORNE, Aug. "jth, 1778.

DEAR SIR, — A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish
birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape ; on the
ground as well as on the wing ; and in the bush as well as in the
hand. For, though it must not be said that every species of birds
has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most
genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a
judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some certainty.
Put a bird in motion

" Et vera incessu patuit ."

Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings ex-
panded and motionless ; and it is from their gliding manner that
the former are still called in the north of England gleads, from the
Saxon verb glidan, to glide. The kestrel, or windover, has a
peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the
while being briskly agitated. Hen-harriers fly low over heaths or
fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a pointer or
setting-dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the
air ; they seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging
to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious
— they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other
on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish ; and, when they move
from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a
loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When this
odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one
foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive
and tumble in a frolicksome manner ; crows and daws swagger in
their walk ; woodpeckers 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,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 229

as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all other
hooked-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill
as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution.
All the gallince parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly; but
fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight
line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no
dispatch ; herons seem incumbered with too much sail for their
light bodies, but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying
burdens, such as large fishes and the like ; pigeons, and particu-
larly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings
the one against the other over their backs with a loud snap ;

•

another variety, called tumblers, turn themselves over in the air.
Some birds have movements peculiar to the season of love : thus
ringdoves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring
hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner ; thus the
cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air
like the windhover ; 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

230 NA TURA L HIS TOR Y OF SELB ORNE.

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 alter-
nately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as they sing ;
woodlarks hang poised in the air ; and tit-larks rise and fall in
large curves, singing in their descent. The white-throat uses odd
jerks and gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes. All
the duck-kind waddle ; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and
stand erect on their tails : these are the compedes of Linnaeus.
Geese and cranes, and most wild fowls, move in figured flights,
often changing their position. The secondary remiges of Tringac,
wild ducks, and some others, are very long, and give their wings,
when in motion, an hooked appearance. Dabchicks, moor-hens,
and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and hardly make
any dispatch ; the reason is plain, their wings are placed too
forward out of the true centre of gravity ; as the legs of auks and
divers are situated too backward.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 231

LETTER XLIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. gth, 1778.

DEAR SIR, — From the motion of birds, the transition is natural
enough to their notes and language, of which I shall say something.
Not that I would pretend to understand their language like the
vizier ; who, by the recital of a conversation which passed between
two owls reclaimed a sultan,* 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 ex-
press their various passions, wants, and feelings ; such as anger,
fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally
eloqnent ; 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, f The
language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes of
speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and
understood.

The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing ; and about
the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often
assured by a curious observer of Nature, who long resided at
Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much
resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive
notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox
humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This
note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males ;
they use also a quick call and an horrible scream ; and can snore
and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud
croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woods to
echo ; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous ;

* See Spectator, Vol. vii.. No. 512.

t Fish are not all mute. The grey gurnard, Trigla gurnardus, called crooner from its
noise, may be seen in a calm day in large shoals rising and ploughing the surface of the
sea with the>r noses, at which time they utter a grunting sound which may be heard at a
distance of half a mile ; we have heard them called grunters. Schomburck writes of the
Phractoce phalii s of the Guiana rivers "that when hauled on shore they make a loud
grunting noise."

232 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

rooks, in the breeding season, attempt sometimes in the gaiety of
their hearts to sing, but with no great success1 ; 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 com-
placency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. The
swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill alarm
bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids them be
aware the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds,
•especially the nocturnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are
very noisy and loquacious ; as cranes, wild-geese, wild-ducks, and
the like ; their perpetual clamour prevents them from dispersing
and losing their companions.

In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as much as
can be expected ; for it would be endless to instance in all the in-
finite variety of the feathered nation. We shall therefore confine
the remainder ot this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards,
which are most known, and therefore best understood. And first the
peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our attention ; but, like
most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the
ear : the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are not more
disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like, and clanking ;
and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave historians assert :
the hiss, also, of the gander, is formidable and full of menace, and
"protective of his young." Among ducks the sexual distinction of
voice is remarkable ; for, while the quack of the female is loud and
sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward and harsh, and feeble,
and scarce 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 233

there are flies, and it will immediately seize its prey, with little
twitterings of complacency ; but if you tender it a wasp or a bee, at
once its note becomes harsh, and expressive of disapprobation and
a sense of danger. When a pullet is ready to lay she intimates the
event by a joyous and easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of
their life that of laying seems to be the most important ; for no
sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth with a
clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the rest of his mistresses
immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family con-
cerned, 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 relation demands a
new language : she then runs clocking and screaming about, and
seems agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock has also a
considerable vocabulary ; if he finds food, he calls a favourite con-
cubine to partake ; and if a bird of prey passes over, with a warning
voice he bids his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has, at
command, his amorous phrases and his terms of defiance. But the
sound by which he is best known is his crowing : by this he has
been distinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or larum?
as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night. Thus
the poet 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 diminished^
hung a setting-net adroitly between the pile and the house, into
which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Resentment sugges-
ted 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.

i 2

234 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE.

LETTER XLIV.

TO THE SAME.

" Momtrent

uid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles
yberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet. "

SEABORNE.

GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make ornament
subservient to utility : a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to
promote science : an obelisk in a garden or park might be both an
embellishment and an heliotrope.

Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of a good
horizon, might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes ; the one for
the winter, the other for the summer solstice : and the two erections
might be constructed with very little expense ; for two pieces of
timber frame- work, about ten or twelve feet high, and four feet broad
at the base, and close lined with plank, would answer the purpose.

The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed within
sight of some window in the common sitting-parlour; because men,
at 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,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

235

towards the object westward, till, in a few nights, it would set quite
behind it and so by degrees, to the west of it : for when the sun
comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it would at first
set behind the object ; after a time the northern limb would first
appear, and so every night gradually more, till at length the whole
diameter would set northward of it for about three nights ; but on
the middle night of the three, sensibly more remote than the former
or following. When beginning its recess from the summer tropic,
it would continue more and more to be hidden every night, till at
length it would descend quite behind the object again ; and so
nightly more and more to the westward.

236 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XLV.

TO THE SAME.

" Mugire videbis

Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos."

SELBORNE.

WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and
implicit assent, accounts in " Baker's Chronicle" of walking hills
and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his " Cyder," alludes
to the credit that was given to such stones with a delicate but
quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the " Splendid
Shilling."

" I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice
Of Marcley Hill ; the apple no where finds
A kinder mould ; yet 'tis unsafe to trust
Deceitful ground : who knows but that once more
This mount may journey, and his present site
Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer
Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange
For law debates. ' '

But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that
though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet that the ends of
many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods,
leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the
case with Nore and Whetham Hills ; and especially with the ridge
between Harteley Park and Ward-le-Ham, where the ground has
slid into vast swellings and furrows ; and lies still in such romantic
confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A
strange event, that happened not long since, justifies our suspicions ;
which, though it befel not within the limits of this parish, yet as it
was within the hundred of Selborne, and as the circumstances were
singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature.

The months of January and February, in the year 1 774, 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;

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 237

when, in the night between the eighth and ninth of that month, a
considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn
from its place, and fell down, leaving a high free-stone cliff naked
and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It appears
that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped and undermined by
waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going down in a perpendicular
direction ; for a gate which stood in the field, on the top of the hill,
after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so
true and upright a position as to open and shut with great exact-
ness, just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still
standing, and in a state of ' vegetation after taking the same des-
perate 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 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 daylight 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, be-
coming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa; that many large
oaks were removed out of their perpendicular, some thrown down,
and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees ; and that a
gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six 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

238 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 convul-
sion ; two houses were entirely destroyed ; one end of a new barn
was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones
that composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked
rock ; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and
rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time neither fit for the
plough or safe for pasturage, till considerable labour and expense
had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping
fissures.

NA TURAL P1ISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 239

LETTER XLVI.

TO THE SAME.

" resonant arbusta - — ."

SELBORNE.

THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field and interspersed with furze
close to the back of this village, well known by the name of Short
Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon
sun. This spot abounds with the gryllus campestris, or field-
cricket ; which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means a
common insect in many other counties.

As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a
naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the economy of
these grylli, and study their mode of life ; but they are so shy and
cautious that it is no easy matter to get a sight of them ; for feel-
ing a person1 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 break-
ing up the ground we inadvertently squeezed the poor insect to
death. Out of one so bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which
were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very
tough skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish the male
from the female ; the former of which is shining black, with a
golden stripe across his shoulders ; the latter is more dusky, more
capacious about the abdomen, and carries a long, sword-shaped
weapon at her tail, which probably is the instrument with which
she deposits her eggs in crannies and safe receptacles.

Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will
often succeed, and so it proved in the present case ; for, though a
spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk of
grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings
to the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant ; and thus the
humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the

240

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

object of it. It is remarkable, that though these insects are fur-
nished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like
grasshoppers ; yet when driven from their holes they show no
activity, but crawl along in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be
taken ; and again, though provided with a curious apparatus of
wings, yet they never exert them when there seems to be the

KIVULET IN SHORT LITHE.

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.*

*Xenarchus, the Athenian comic poet of the Middle Comedy, flourished about B.C. 330;
in his pjay, yclept i»Ve«, or " Sleep," he thus felicitates the male cicadas.—

eZr' flrrlv ol reTrtyec ov/c ev&ii/xoi'cc
&v Tdif ywaifii/ ovS' drtovv ^aivJjc tvi:

" Happy the cicadas' lives
Since they all have tongueless wives."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 241

They are solitary beings, living singly male and female, each as it
may happen ; but there must be a time when the sexes have some
intercourse, and then the wings may be useful perhaps during the
hours of night. When the males meet they will fight fiercely, as I
found by some which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall,
where I should have been glad to have made them settle. For
though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their know-
ledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks would seize on
any other that were intruded upon them with avast row of serrated
fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed like the shears of a lob-
ster's claws, they perforate and round their curious regular cells,
having no fore-claws to dig, like the mole-cricket. When taken in
hand I could not but wonder that they never offered to defend
themselves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such
herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat indis-
criminately, and on a little pjatform which they make just by, they
drop their dung ; and never, in the day time, seem to stir more
than two or three inches from home. Sitting in the entrance of
their caverns they chirp all night as well as day from the middle of
the month of May to the middle of July ; and in hot weather,
when they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo, and in the
stiller hours of darkness may be heard to a considerable distance.
In the beginning of the season their notes are more faint and
inward ; but become louder as the summer advances, and so die
away again by degrees.

Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweet-
ness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are
more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associations which
they promote than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling
of the field-cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously
delights some hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer
ideas of everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous.

About the loth of March the crickets appear at the mouths of
their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very ele-
gantly. 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

* We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen lying at the
mouths of their holes.

242 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

year do not always survive the winter. In August their holes begin
to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till spring.

Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a colony to
the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in the sloping turf-
The new inhabitants stayed some time, and fed and sung ; but
wandered away by degrees, and were heard at a farther distance
every morning, so that it appears that on this emergency they
made use of their wings in attempting to return to the spot from
which they were taken.

One of these crickets when confined in a paper cage and set in
the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with water, will feed
and thrive, and become so merry and loud as to be irksome in the
same room where a person is sitting ; if the plants are not wetted
it will die.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 243

LETTER XLVII.

TO THE SAME.

" Far from all resort of mirth
Save the cricket on the hearth."

MILTJN'S II Penseroso.

SELBORNE.

DEAR SIR, — While many other insects must be sought after in
fields and woods, and waters, the gryllus domesticus, or house-
cricket, resides altogether within our dwellings, intruding itself
upon our notice whether we will or no. This species delights in
new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased with the moisture
of the walls ; and besides, the softness of the mortar enables them
to burrow and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones, and
to open communications from one room to another. They are par-
ticularly fond of kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of their
perpetual warmth.

Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period
of one. summer, or else doze away the cold uncomfortable months
in profound slumbers ; but these, residing as it were in a torrid
zone, are always alert and merry, — a good Christmas fire is to them
like the heats of the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard
by day, yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As
soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come
running forth, and are from the size of a flea to that of their full
stature. As one should suppose, from the burning atmosphere
which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and show a great pro-
pensity 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 stocking and aprons that
are hung to the fire ; they are the housewife's barometer, foretelling
her when it will rain, and are prognostic sometimes, she thinks, of
ill or good luck, of the death of a near relation, or the approach of
an absent lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary
hours they naturally become the objects of her superstition. These
crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious ; for they will

244 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 tmdoso" 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 bedchambers, and upon their beds, and
in their ovens, and in their kneading troughs."* Their shrilling
noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Cats catch
hearth crickets, and, playing with them as they do with mice,
devour them. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials
filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in their haunts ; for being
always eager to drink, they will crowd in till the bottles are full.

* Exod. viii. 7

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 245

LETTER XLVIII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE.

How diversified are the modes of life not only of incongruous
but even of congenerous animals ; and yet their specific distinctions
are not more various than their propensities. Thus while the field-
cricket delights in sunny dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices
amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the Gryllus
gryllo talpa (the mole-cricket), haunts moist meadows, and frequents
the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its functions
in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, curiously adapted
to the purpose, it burrows and works under ground like the mole,
raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks.

MOLE-CRICKET.

As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals, they
are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising up ridges in their
subterraneous progress, and rendering the walks unsightly. If
they take to the kitchen quarters they occasion great damage
among the plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of cabbages^
young legumes, and flowers. When dug out they seem very slow
and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day ; but at night
they come abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been
convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable
places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at

246 NATURAL IJISTORY OF SELBORNE.

the close of day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull,
jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption, and
not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but more
inward.

About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once
an eye-witness ; for a gardener at an house where I was on a visit,
happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of
a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of
turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy: —

Ingentem lato declit 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 in a
tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of
young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow,
and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of
fresh-mowed mould, like that which is raised by ants.

When mole-crickets fly they move " cursu undoso" rising and
falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before. In
different parts of this kingdom people call them fen-crickets, churr-
worms, and eve churrs, all very apposite names.

Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects
astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that, from the
structure, position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, there
seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the- two former
species ruminate or chew the cud like many quadrupeds J

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 247

LETTER XLIX.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, May "jth, 1779.

IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention
to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the
subject : new occurences 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
Woolmer-forest and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey.
The pond keeper says there were three brace in the flock : but, that
after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain
unmolested. One of these specimens I procured, and found the
length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first sight, one
might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on to impose
on the credulity of the beholder : they were legs in caricaturaj
and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen
we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughts-
man. These birds are of the plover family, and might with propriety
be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the
apposite name of V echasse. My specimen, when drawn and stuffed
with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the
naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the
legs four inches and a half. Hence we may safely assert that these
birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length
of legs of any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of
the most long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of pro-
portion to the himantopus j for a cock flamingo weighs, at an

* " Himantopedes loripedes quidam quibus serpendo ingredi natura est." i/iavrowot/?,
name of a tribe of Ethiopians, used by Pliny.

Himantopus melanopterns of modern ornithologists. It has been known as an
occasional visitant to Britain since the time of Sibbald, but may yet be considered as ?a?
of our rarest species. We have no good detailed account of its habits.

248 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

average, about foifl: 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 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

LONG-LFGGED PLOVER.

thighs seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to
be but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder is, that it has no
back toe. Now without that steady prop to support its steps, it
must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and seldom
able to preserve the true centre of gravity.

The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by an
awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender and pliant
as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in
all their curious researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw
this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great Britain, but

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

249

observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hassel-
quist 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 Conti-
nent, since nobody can suppose that a species not noticed once in an
age, and of such a remarkable make, can constantly breed un-
observed in this kingdom

250 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER L.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, April zist, 1780.

DEAR SIR, — The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to
you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter
dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express
its resentments by hissing ; and, packing it in a box with earth,
carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of
the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a
border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden ; however,
in the evening, the weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose
mould, and continues still concealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of
enlarging my observations on its mode of life, and propensities ;
and perceive already that, towards the time of coming forth, it
opens a breathing place in the ground near its head, requiring, I
conclude, a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This
creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of
November to the middle of April, but sleeps great. part of
the summer : for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the
afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides,
it retires to rest for every shower, and does not move at all in wet
days.

When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter
of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion
of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that
appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of
its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for
months together in the profoundest of slumbers.

While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with
the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell snails ; and,
at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out
its head ; and the next morning came forth, as it were raised from
the dead, and walked about till four in the afternoon. This was a
curious coincidence ! a very amusing occurrence ! to see such a

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

251

similarity of feelings between the two <£epeotKot ! for so the Greeks
called both the shell-snail and the tortoise.*

Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually
late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This conformity with
the weather convinces me more and more that they sleep in the
winter.

* We take the following information from the note to this chapter in Mr. Bennet's edition.
The tortoise died in the spring of 1794, and the shell of it was preserved, and at the time
Mr. Bennet wrote his notes (1836), it was in the possession of Mrs. White, and a woodcut
is given of it. Professor Bell, whose authority regarding the testndinnta, is the best in this
country, if not elsewhere, refers it to the testndo itiarginata, a species not uncommon in
Greece and the Mediterranean; but Mr. Bennet, upon a careful examination and com-
p^rison of the shell of the Grecian species, thinks that he recognised distinctions that would
entitle it to a separate name, and he has applied to it that of its owner. We shall rejoice if
this can be established, which we have not at present materials to prove or disprove, and
would therefore leave it to Professor Bell. The vignette is from the figure of the T
marginata in PKOK. BELL'S Testndinata.

252 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER LI.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. yd, 1781.

I HAVE now read your miscellanies through with much care and
satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for the honour-
able mention made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish I
may deserve.

In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of
the house-martins do not depart in the winter far from this village.
I therefore determined to make some search about the south-east
end of the hill, where I imagined they might slumber out the un-
comfortable 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 nth of April last ; on that
day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the
suspected spot. The persons took pains, but without any success ;
however, a remarkable incident occurred in the midst of our
pursuit : while the labourers were at work, a house-martin, the
first that had been seen this year, came down the village in the
sight of several people, and went at once into a nest, where it
stayed a short time, and then flew over the houses ; for some days
after no martins were observed, not till the i6th of April, and then
only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late this year.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 253

LETTER LII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. gth, 1781.

I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which
furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever
since I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines.
Our swifts, in general, withdrew this year about the first day of
August, all save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced
to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made me
suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an attachment to her
young, could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched therefore
till the 24th of August, and then discovered that, under the eaves
of the church, she attended upon two young, which were fledgedj
and now put out their white chins from a crevice. These re-
mained till the twenty-seventh, looking more alert every day, and
seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they were
missing at once ; nor could I ever observe them with their dam
coursing round the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first
broods evidently do. On the thirty-first I caused the eaves to be
searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking
swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. This double
nest was full of the black shining cases of the hippoboscce
hirundinis.

The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. The
first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to remain
beyond the beginning of August, yet that they can subsist longer
is undeniable. 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.

254 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER L 1 1 1.

TO THE SAME.

. As I have sometimes known- you make inquiries about several
kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort which
I little expected to have found in this kingdom. I had often
observed that one particular part of a vine growing on the walls of
my house was covered in the autumn with a black dust-like appear-
ance, on which the flies fed eagerly ; and that the shoots and leaves
thus affected did not thrive ; nor did the fruit ripen. To this
substance I applied my glasses ; but could not discover that it had
anything to do with animal life, as I at first expected : but, upon a
closer examination behind the larger boughs, we were surprised to
find that they were coated over with husky shells, from whose side
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 mniftrce 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 pre-
ceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe.

Not being then' at all aware that it had anything to do with
England, I was much inclined to think that it came from Gibraltar
among the many boxes and packages of plants and birds which I
had formerly received from thence ; and especially as the vine
infested grew immediately under my study-window, where I usually
kept my specimens. True it is that I had received nothing from
thence for some years : but as insects, we know, are conveyed from
one country to another in a very unexpected manner, and have a
wonderful power of maintaining their 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 255

written me word that he once, and but once, saw these insects on a
vine at Weymouth in Dorsetshire ; which, it is here to be observed,
is a sea-port town to which the coccus might be conveyed by
shipping.

As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this
strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a passage from
a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the Reverend John
White, late Vicar of Blackburn in Lancashire, 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 substance resembling spiders' webs,
or rather raw cotton. It was of a very clammy quality, sticking
fast to everything that touched it, and capable of being spun into
long threads. At first I suspected it to be the product of spiders,
but could find none. Nothing was to be seen connected with it
but many brown oval husky shells, which by no means looked like
insects but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of the vine. The
tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set, when this pest appeared
upon it; but the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul incum-
brance. It remained all the summer, still increasing, and loaded
the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled
off great quantities by handfuls ; but it was so slimy and tenacious
that it could by no means be cleared. The grapes never filled to
their natural perfection, but turned watery and vapid. Upon
perusing the works afterwards of M. de Reaumur, I found this
matter perfectly described and accounted for. Those husky shells
which I had observed, were no other than the female coccus, from
whose side this cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as • a
covering and security for their eggs."

To this account I think proper to add, that, though the female
cocci are stationary, and seldom remove from the place to which
they stick, yet the male is a winged insect ; and that the black dust
which I saw was undoubtedly the excrement of the females, which
is eaten by ants as well as flies. Though the utmost severity of
our winter did not destroy these insects, yet the attention of the
gardener in a summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from
this filthy annoyance.

As we have remarked above that insects are often conveyed from
one country to another in a very unaccountable manner, I shall

256 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

here mention an emigration of small aphides, which was observed in
the village of Selborne no longer ago than August the first, 1785.
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.*

* For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see Derham's
" Physico-Theology. "

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 257

LETTER LIV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, — When I happen to visit a family where gold and
silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with the
occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of observing the
actions and propensities of those beings with whom we can be
little acquainted in their natural state. Not long since I spent a
fortnight at the house of a friend where there was such a vivary, to
which I paid no small attention, taking every occasion to remark
what passed within 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 pre-
ponderates 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 also feed on the water-plant
called Lemna (ducks' meat), and also on small fry.

When they want to move a little, they gently protude themselves
with their Pinna perforates ; but it is with their strong muscular

K

258 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with such incon-
ceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are
immovable ; but these apparently turn them forward or backward
in their sockets as occasions require. They take little notice of a
lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and
seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the
support whereon the bowl is hung ; especially when they have
been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no
eye-lids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not,
because their eyes are always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such
fishes ; the double refractions of the glass and water represent
them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimen-
sions, 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 native of China and
Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate as to
thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews. Linnaeus
ranks this species of fish, under the genus of Cyprinus, or carp, and
calls it Cyprinus auratus.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way ; for
they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space
within, that does not communicate with it. In this cavity they put
a bird occasionally ; so that you may see a goldfinch or a linnet
hopping as it were in the midst of the water, and the fishes
swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the
fishes is agreeable and pleasant ; but in so complicated a way
becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due
to him,

"Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam. "

I am, &c.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 259

LETTER LV.

TO THE SAME.

October iQth, 1781.

DEAR SIR, — I think I have observed before that much of the
most considerable part of the house-martins withdraw from hence
about the first week in October ; but that some, the latter broods I
am now convinced, linger on till towards the middle of that month ;
and that at times, once perhaps in two or three years, a flight, for
one day only, has shown itself in the first week in November.

Having taken notice in October, 1780, that the last flight was
numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred and fifty ; 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 after-
noon, they all scudded away in great haste towards the south-east,
and darted down among the low shrubs above the cottages at the
end of the hill. This spot in many respects seemed to be well
calculated for their winter residence ; for in many parts it is as
steep as the roof of any house, and therefore secure from the
annoyances of water ; and it is moreover clothed with beechen
shrubs, which, being stunted and bitten by sheep, make the thickest
covert imaginable ; and are so entangled as to be impervious to
the smallest spaniel ; besides it is the nature of underwood beech
never to cast its leaf all the winter ; so that, with the leaves on the
ground and those on the twigs, no shelter can be more complete.
I watched them on the thirteenth and fourteenth of October, and
found their evening retreat was exact and uniform ; but after this

260 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

they made no regular appearance. Now and then a straggler was
seen ; and on the twenty-second of October, I observed two in the
morning over the village, and with them my remarks for the
season ended.

From all these circumstances put together, it is more than
probable that this lingering flight, at so late a season of the
year, never departed from the island. Had they indulged me
that autumn with a November visit, as I much desired, I presume
that, with proper assistants, I should have settled the matter past
all doubt ; but though the 3rd of November was a sweet day, and

in appearance exactly suited to my wishes, yet not a martin was to
be seen ; and so I was forced, reluctantly, to give up the pursuit.

I have only to add that were the bushes, which cover some acres,
and are not my own property, to be grubbed and carefully examined,
probably those late broods, and perhaps the whole aggregate 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.*

* The examination would have been fruitless. See note to Letter XXXVI-

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 261

LETTER LVI.

TO THE SAME.

THEY who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert
to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which, in some instances,
rises the brute creation as it were, above reason, and in others
leaves them so far below it. Philosophers have defined instinct to
be that secret influence by which every species is impelled naturally
to pursue, at all times, the same way or track, without any teaching
or example ; whereas reason, without instruction, would often vary
and do that by many methods which 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 circum-
stances 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 archi-
tect. Again, the regular nest of the house-martin is hemispheric ;
but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, may happen to stand in
the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to the Obstruction,
and becomes flat, or compressed.

In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and con-
sistent. There are three creatures, the squirrel, the field-mouse,
and the bird called the nut-hatch (sit fa Europced), which live much
on hazel-nut ; and yet they open them each in a different way.
The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two
with his long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife ; the second
nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a wimble,

262 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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
assist some men, as it were by recollection, for days after the
concert is over. What I mean the following passage will most
readily explain : —

"Prashabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque harmonicis
musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque non delectaretur : sed
quod ex musica humana relinqueretur in animo continens quasdam,
attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitato ; 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 com-
movere." — Gassendus 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;
elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur irresistibly to
my recollection at seasons, and even, when I am desirous of
thinking of more serious matters.

I am, &c.

NA TURAL fflSTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 263

LETTER LVII.

TO THE SAME.

A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden,
which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps : 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 verge of James Knight's upper-pond. His attention
was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motion-
less 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 attach-
ment to water, independent of the matter of food ; and, though
they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal them-
selves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable
months of winter.

One of the keepers of Woolmer Forest sent me a peregrine-
falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was
devouring a wood-pigeon. Thefafco 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

264 NA TURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales.*
Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen
mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the
shot : it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-
one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and 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, &c.

* See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 265

LETTER LVIII.

v>. TO THE SAME.

MY near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the
East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch of the
Cninese 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 circum-
navigators.

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp,
upright, fox-like ears ; and that hanging ears, which are esteemed
so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding and cultivation.
Thus, in the " Travels of Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China,"

K 2

266 NA TURA L HIS TOR Y OF SEL B ORNE.

the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow-sledges, near the
river Oby, are engraved with prick-ears, like those from Canton.
The Kamschat dales also train the same sort of sharp-eared, peak-
nosed dogs to draw their sledges ; as may be seen in an elegant
print engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be impertinent
to add, that spaniels, as all sportsmen know, though they hunt
partridges and pheasants as it were by instinct, and with much
delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touch their bones when offered
as food ; nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though he is remark-
able 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 fcetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage ;
and indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in this
circumstance of dislike ; for vultures,* and kites, and ravens, and
crows, &c., were intended to be messmates with dogs f over their
carrion ; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow-scavengers
to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth.

I am, £c.

* " Hasselqu'st, in his Travels to the Levant, observes that the dogs and vultures at
Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring up their young together in
the same place."

t " The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like quihloh."*-

1 Canton, khin or khuon. Pekin, kincu, Greek, Kve»v.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELB ORNE. 267

LETTER LIX.

THE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Woolmer 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 Oak-
hanger to a carpenter of this village ; this was the butt-end of a
small oaV, 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 cedicnemus). Some of
them pass over or near my house almost every evening after it is
dark, from the uplands of the hill and North Fields, away down
towards Dorton, where, among the streams and meadows, they
find a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged to
be noisy ; their notes often repeated become signals or watch- words
to keep them together, that they may not stray or lose each the other
in the dark.

The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are curious
and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they return in long
strings from the foraging of the day, and rendezvous by thousands
over Selborne Down, where they wheel round in the air and sport
and dive in a playful manner, all the while exerting their voices, and
making a loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by the
distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a confused
noise or chiding ; or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to
the imagination, and not unlike the cry "of a pack of hounds in
hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or
the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony
is over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night to the

268 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

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, &c.

LETTER LX.

TO THE SAME.

IN reading Dr. Huxam's " Observations de Acre," £c., written at
Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate remarks, which
contain an account of the weather from the year 1727 to the year
1748 inclusive, that though there is frequent rain in that district of
Devonshire, yet the quantity falling is not great ; and that some
years it has been very small : for in 1731 the rain measured only
I7'266 in. ; and in 1741, 20354 in. ; and again, in 1743, only 20-908
in. Places near the sea have frequent scuds, that keep the
atmosphere moist, yet do not reach far up into the country ; making
thus the maritime situations appear wet, when the rain is not con-
siderable. In the wettest years at Plymouth the doctor measured
only once 36 ; and again once, viz. 1734, 37-114 in.— a quantity of
rain that has twice been exceeded at Selborne in the short period
of my observations. Dr. Huxam remarks that frequent small
rains keep the air moist ; while heavy ones render it more dry, by
beating down the vapours. He is also of opinion that the dingy
smoky appearance in the sky, in very dry seasons, arises from the
want of moisture sufficient to let the light through, and render the
atmosphere transparent ; because he had observed several bodies
more diaphanous when wet than dry, and did never recollect that
the air had that look in rainy seasons.

My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down, brought
his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet, with their muzzles
towards the Hanger, supposing that the report would have had a
great effect ; but the experiment did not answer his expectation.
He then removed them to the alcove on the Hanger ; when the
sound, rushing along the Lythe and Comb Wood was very grand :

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 269

but it was at the hermitage that the echoes and repercussions
delighted the hearers ; not only filling the Lythe with the roar, as
if all the beeches were tearing up by the roots ; but, turning to the
left, they pervaded the vale above Combwood ponds, and after a
pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to extend round
Hartley Hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices and
coverts of Ward-le-Ham. It has been remarked before that this
district is an Anathoth, a place of responses or echoes, and there-
fore proper for such experiments : we may farther add that the
pauses in echoes, when they cease and yet are taken up again, like
the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and have a fine effect on
the imagination.

The gentleman above-mentioned has just fixed a barometer in his
parlour at Newton Valence. The tube was first filled here (at
Selborne) twice with care, when the mercury agreed and stood
exactly with my own ; but, being filled twice again at Newton, the
mercury stood, on account of the great elevation of that house,
three- tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at this village,
and so continues to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what it
may. The plate of the barometer at Newton is figured as low as
27 ; because in stormy weather the mercury there will sometimes
descend below 28. We have supposed Newton House to stand two
hundred feet higher than this house : but if the rule holds good,
which says that mercury in a barometer sinks one-tenth of an inch
for every hundred feet elevation, then the Newton barometer, by
standing three-tenths lower than that of Selborne, proves that
Newton House must be three hundred feet higher than that in
which I am writing, instead of two hundred.

It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers at 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 Wey-
bridge, 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.

I an:, .Nic.

270 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER LXI.

TO THE SAME.

SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural
history, I shall make no further apology for the four following
letters, which will contain many particulars concerning some of
the great frosts, and a few respecting some very hot summers, that
have distinguished themselves from the rest during the course of
my observations.

As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time it lasted,
the most severe that we had then known for many years, and was
remarkably injurious to evergreens, some account of its rigour, and
reason of its ravages, may be useful, and not unacceptable to
persons that delight in planting and ornamenting ; and may par-
ticularly become a work that professes never to lose sight of
utility.

For the last two or three days of the former year there were con-
siderable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform on the ground
without any drifting, wrapping up the more humble vegetation in
perfect security. From the first day to the fifth of the new year
more snow succeeded ; but from that day the air became entirely
clear, and the heat of the sun about noon had a considerable in-
fluence in sheltered situations.

It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's evergreens
was melted every day, and frozen intensely every night ; so that the
laurustines, bays, laurels, and arbutuses looked, in three or four
days, as if they had been burnt in the fire ; while a neighbour's
plantation of the same kind, in a high cold situation, where the
snow was never melted at all, remained uninjured.

From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting and
freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation, rather than the
severity of the cold. Therefore it highly behoves every planter,
who wishes to escape the cruel mortification of losing in a few days
the labour and hopes of years, to bestir himself on such emergencies;
and if his plantations are small, to avail himself of mats, cloths,

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 27 1

pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such covering, for a short time ;
or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to see that his people go about
with prongs and forks, and carefully dislodge the snow from the
boughs : since the naked foliage will shift much better for itself,
than where the snow is partly melted and frozen again.

It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox ; but doubtless the
more tender trees and shrubs should never be planted in hot aspects ;
not only for the reason assigned above, but also because, thus
circumstanced, they are disposed to shoot earlier in the spring, and
to grow on later in the autumn than they would otherwise do, and
so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reason also
plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate ; because, on the
very first advances of spring, they shoot away, and so are cut off
by the severe nights of March or April.

Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same incon-
venience with respect to the more tender shrubs from North
America, which they therefore plant under north walls. There
should also perhaps be a wall to the east to defend them from the
piercing blasts from that quarter.

This observation might without any impropriety be carried into
animal life ; for discerning bee-masters now find that their hives
should not in the winter be exposed to the hot sun, because such
unseasonable warmth awakens the inhabitants too early from their
slumbers ; and by putting their juices into motion too soon, subjects
them afterwards to inconveniences when rigorous weather returns.

The coincidents attending this short but intense frost were, that
the horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper, which injured the
winds of many, and killed some ; that colds and coughs were
general among the human species ; that it froze under people's
beds for several nights ; that meat was so hard frozen that it could
not be spitted, and could not be secured but in cellars ; that several
redwings and thrushes were killed by the frost ; and that the large
titmouse continued to pull straws lengthwise from the eaves of
thatched houses and barns in a most adroit manner for a purpose
that has been explained already.*

On the 3rd 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 1 8°, and on the 7th, to 1 7^°, 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

* See Letter XLI. to Mr. Pennant.

272 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

instrument abroad. All this time the wind continued north and
north-east ; and yet on the 8th roost-cocks, which had been silent,
began to sound their clarions, and crows to clamour, as prognostic
of milder weather ; and, moreover, moles began to heave and work,
and a manifest thaw took place. From the latter circumstance we
may conclude that thaws often originate under ground from warm
vapours which arise ; else how should subterraneous animals receive
such early intimations of their approach. Moreover, we have often
observed that cold seems to descend from above ; for when a
thermometer hangs abroad in a frosty night, the intervention of a
cloud shall immediately raise the mercury 10°; and a clear sky
shall again compel it to descend to its former 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 befal 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 I4th 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.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 273

LETTER LXII.

TO THE SAME.

THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost
in January, 1776, so singular and striking, that a short detail of
them may not be unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages
from my journal, which were taken from time to time, as things
occurred. But it may be proper previously to remark that the
first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with vast
rains from every quarter : from whence may be inferred, as there
is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom
take place till the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled with water ;*
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 I2th, when a prodigious mass
overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting over the tops of the
gates and filling the hollow lanes.

On the I4th 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 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.

* The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the month of
September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, six inches and a
half of rain. And the terrible long frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when
the springs were very high.

274 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

From the I4th the snow continued to increase, and began to
stop the road wagons, and coaches, which could no longer keep on
their regular stages ; and especially on the western roads, where
the fall appears to have been deeper than in the south. The
company at Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birth-day,
were strangely incommoded : many carriages of persons, who got
in their way to town from Bath as far as Marlborough, after
strange embarrassments, here met with a ne plus ultra. The ladies
fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they would shovel
them a track to London ; but the relentless heaps of snow were
too bulky to be removed ; and so the i8th passed over, leaving the
company in very uncomfortable circumstances at the Castle and
other inns.

On the 2Oth 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 2 ist 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 22nd the author had occasion to go to London through
a sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. But
the metropolis itself exhibited a still more singular appearance than
the country ; for being bedded deep in snow, the pavement of the
streets could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' feet, so
that the carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an
exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant ; it
seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation : —

" Ipsa silentia terrent."

On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost
became very intense. At South Lambeth, for the four following
nights, the thermometer fell to 1 1°, 7°, 6°, 6°, and at Selborne to 7°,
6°, 10°, and on the 3ist 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° below the freezing point ; but by eleven

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 275

in the morning, though in the shade, it sprang up to i6j°,* — 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 encumbered with snow,
which crumbled and trod dusty ; and, turning grey, resembled
bay-salt ; what had fallen on the roofs was so perfectly dry that,
from first to last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city :
a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest house-
keepers living. According to all appearances we might now have
expected the continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks to
come, since every night increased in severity ; but, behold, without
any apparent cause, on the 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 2nd of February the thaw
persisted ; and on the . 3rd swarms of little insects were frisking
and sporting in a court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt
no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller limbs
of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of curious
inquiry.

Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ; for at the
same juncture, as the author was informed by accurate correspon-
dents, 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 1 8°. Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely
overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes much greater
in the southern than the northern parts of this kingdom.

The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, at the
melting of the snow, the wheat looked well, and the turnips came
forth little injured. The laurels and laurustines were somewhat
damaged, but only in hot aspects. No evergreens 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

* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any ether place that the author could hear
of with certainty : though some reported at the time that at a village in Kent the ther-
mometer fell two degrees below zero, viz. thirty-four degrees below the freezing point.

The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin.

276 NA TURAL I1ISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

care taken to shake the snow day by day from the branches
seemed greatly to avail the author's evergreens. A neighbour's
laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facing to the north, was
perfectly green and vigorous ; and the Portugal laurels remained
unhurt.

As to .the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly de-
stroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers, were so
thinned that few remained to breed the following year.

LETTER LXIII.

TO THE SAME.

As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I
trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and especially
when I promise to say no more about the severities of winter after
I have finished this letter.

The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer
very low. On the yth,with the barometer at 28*5°— came on a vast
snow, which continued all that day and the next, and most part
of the following night ; so that by the morning of the 9th the works
of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled so as to be im-
passable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches without
any drifting. In the evening of the 9th the air began to be so very
sharp that we thought it would be curious to attend to the motions
of a thermometer ; we therefore hung out two, one made by Martin
and one by Dollond, which 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 loth, in the morning, the quicksilver of
Dollond's glass was down to half a degree below zero ; and that of
Martin's, which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees above
zero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball ; so that when the
weather became most interesting this was useless. On the loth, at
eleven at night, though the air was perfectly still, Dollond's glass
went down to one degree below zero ! This strange severity of the
weather made me very desirous to know what degree of cold there
might be in such an exalted and near situation as Newton. We
had therefore, on the morning of the loth, written to Mr. ,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 277

and intreated him to hang out his thermometer, made by Adams,
and to pay some attention to it morning and evening, expecting
wonderful phenomena, in so elevated a region, at two hundred feet
or more above my house. But, behold ! on the loth, at eleven at
night, it was down only to 17°, and the next morning at 22°, when
mine was at icr! We were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse
of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses up, think-
ing that of Mr. • must, somehow, be wrongly constructed. But,

when the instruments came to be confronted, they went exactly
together ; so that for one night at least, the cold at Newton was
18° less than at Selborne ; and, through the whole frost- 10° or 12°,
and indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we could
readily credit this ; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes, arbutuses
cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels,* and (which occasions
more regret) my fine sloping laurel-hedge, were scorched up ; while
at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf !

We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the thermometer in the
morning was down to 10° with us, and at Newton only to 21°.
Strong frost continued till the 3ist, when some tendency to thaw
was observed; and, by January the 3rd, 1785, the thaw was con-
firmed, and some rain fell.

A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to us,
is, that on Friday, December the loth, being bright sunshine, the
air was full of icy spiculce, floating in all direction, like at oms in a
sunbeam let into a dark room. We thought them at first particles
of the rime falling from my tall hedges ; but were soon convinced
to the contrary, by making our observations in open places where
no rime could reach us. Were they watery particles of the air
frozen as they floated, or were they evaporations from the snow
frozen as they mounted ?

We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early infor-
mation they gave us ; and hurried our apples, pears, onions, potatoes,
&c., into the cellar, and warm closets ; while those who had not,
or neglected such warnings, lost all their store of roots and fruits,
and had their very bread and cheese frozen.

I must not omit to tell you that, during these two Siberian days,
my parlour cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and

* Mr. Miller, in his "Gardener's Dictionary," says positively that the Portugal laurels
remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739-40. So that either that accurate
observer was much mistaken, or else the frost of December 1784 was much more severe
and destructive than that in the year above-mentioned.

278 NA TURA L HIST OR Y OF SEL B ORNE,

been properly insulated, the shock might have been given to a
whole circle of people.

I forgot to mention before, that, during the two severe days, two
men, who were tracing hares in the snow, had their feet frozen ; and
two men, who were much better employed, had their fingers so
affected by the frost while they were thrashing in a barn, that a
mortification followed, from which they did not recover for many
weeks.

This frost killed all the furze and most of the ivy, and in many
places stripped the hollies of all their leaves. It came at a very
early time of the year, before old November ended ; and yet may
be allowed from its effects to have exceeded any since 1730-40.

NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 279

LETTER LXIV.

TO THE SAME.

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the northerly
climate of England, where the summers are often so defective in
warmth and sunshine as not to ripen the fruits of the earth so well
as might be wished, I shall be more concise in my account of the
severity of a summer season,, and so make a little amends for the
prolix account of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniences that
we suffered from some late rigorous winters.

The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and dry ; to
them therefore I shall turn back in my journals, without recurring
to any more distant period. In the former of these years my peach
and nectarine trees suffered so much from the heat that the rind on
the bodies was scalded and came off; since which the trees have
been in a decaying state. This may prove a hint to assiduous
gardeners to fence and shelter their wall-trees with mats or boards,
as they may easily do, because such annoyance is seldom of long
continuance. During that summer also, I observed that my apples
were coddled, as it were, on the trees ; so that they had no quickness
of flavour, and would not keep in the winter. This circumstance
put me in mind of what I have heard travellers assert, that they
never ate a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe, where
the heats were so great as to render the juices vapid and insipid.

The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all the finer
fruits just as they are coming into perfection. In 1781 we had
none ; in 1783 there were myriads ; which would have devoured all
the produce of my garden, had not we set the boys to take the
nests, and caught thousands with hazel-twigs tipped with bird-lime :
we have since employed the boys to take and destroy the large
breeding wasps in the spring. Such expedients have a great effect
on these marauders, and will keep them under. Though wasps do
not abound but in hot summers, yet they do not prevail in every
hot summer, as I have instanced in the two years above-
mentioned.

280 NA TURAL HIST OR Y O-F SELBORNE .

In the sultry season of 1783, honey-dews were so frequent as to
deface and destroy the beauties of my garden. My honeysuckles,
which were one week the most sweet and lovely objects that the
eye could behold, became the next the most loathsome ; being
enveloped in a viscous substance, and loaded with black aphides,
or smother-flies. The occasion of this clammy appearance seems
to be this, that in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields and
meadows and gardens are drawn up in the day by a brisk evapora-
tion, and then in the night fall down again with the dews, in which
they are entangled ; that the air is strongly scented, and therefore
impregnated with the particles of rtowers in summer weather, our
senses will inform us ; and that this clammy sweet substance is of
the vegetable kind we may learn from bees, to whom it is very
grateful : and we may be assured that.it falls in the night, because
it is always first seen in warm still mornings.

On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about London,
the thermometer has been often observed to mount as high as 83°
or 84° ; but with us, in this hilly and woody district, I have hardly
ever seen it exceed 80° ; nor does it often arrive at that pitch. The
reason, I conclude, is that our dense clayey soil, so much shaded
by trees, is not so easily heated through as those above-mentioned :
and, besides, our mountains cause currents of air and breezes ;
and the vast effluvia from our woodlands temper and moderate
our heats.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 281

LETTER LXV.

TO THE SAME.

THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous
one, and full of horrible phaenomena ; for, besides the alarming
meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and dis-
tressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or
smoky fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in
every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most
extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the
memory of man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this
strange occurrence from June 23rd to July 2Oth 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 earth-
quakes ; and about that juncture a volcano sprang out of the sea
on the coast of Norway. On this occasion Milton's noble simile of
the sun, in his first book of " Paradise Lost," frequently occurred
to my mind ; and it is indeed particularly applicable, because,
towards the end, it alludes to a superstitious kind of dread, with
which the minds of men are always impressed by such strange and
unusual phenomena.

" • 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 ."

282 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE.

LETTER LXVI.

TO THE SAME.

WE are very seldom annoyed with thunder-storms : and it is no
less remarkable than true, that those which arise in the south have
hardly been known to reach this village ; for, before they get over us,
they take a direction to the east or to the west, or sometimes divide
in two, 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 con-
tinual mountains, hill behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet,
Butser-hill, and Portsdown, 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 thermometer in the
morning being at 64°, and at noon at 70°, the barometer at 29*6^°,
and the wind north, I observed a blue mist, smelling strongly of
sulphur, hanging along our sloping woods, and seeming to indicate
that thunder was at hand. I was called in about two in the after-
noon, 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 283

convex pieces of ice, which measured three inches in girth. Had
it been as extensive as it was violent, and of any continuance (for
it was very short), it must have ravaged all the neighbourhood.
In the parish of Hartley it did some damage to one farm ; but
Norton, which lay in the 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 jing-
ling of glass. There fell at the same time prodigious torrents of rain
on the farms above-mentioned, which occasioned a flood as violent
as it was sudden ; doing great damage to the meadows and fallows,
by deluging the one and washing away the soil of the other. The
hollow lane towards Alton was so torn and disordered as not to be
passable till mended, rocks being removed that weighed two hundred
weight. Those that saw the effect which the great hail had on
ponds and pools say that the dashing of the water made an extra-
ordinary appearance, the froth and spray standing up in the air
three feet above the surface. The rushing and roaring of the hail,
as it approached, was truly tremendous.

Though the clouds at South Lambeth, near London, were at that
juncture thin and light, and no storm was in sight, nor within
hearing, yet the air was strongly electric ; for the bells of an electric
machine at that place rang repeatedly, and fierce sparks were
discharged.

When I first took the present work in hand I proposed to have
added an " Anmts Historico-naturalis, or The Natural History of
the Twelve Months of the Year ; " which would hare 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 Warring-
ton 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 z^th, 1787.

THE

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

THE

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE,

LETTER I.

IT is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this woody and
mountainous district was inhabited only by bears and wolves.
Whether the Britons ever thought it worthy their attention, is not
in our power to determine : but we may safely conclude, from
circumstances, that it was not unknown to the Romans. Old
people remember to have heard their fathers and grandfathers say
that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces of money were
sometimes found round the verge of Woolmer 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 favourable juncture
induced some of the forest-cottagers to begin a search, which was
attended with such success, that all the labourers in the neighbour-
hood flocked to the spot, and with spades and hoes turned up
great part of that large area. Instead of pots of coins, as they
expected, they found great heaps, the one lying on the other, as if
shot out of a bag ; many of which were in good preservation.
Silver and gold these 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 virtil stirring at that time in this neighbourhood ;
however, some of the gentry and clergy around bought what

288 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE,

pleased them best, and some dozens fell to the share of the
author.

The owners at first held their commodity at an high price ; but,
finding that they were not likely to meet with dealers at such a
rate, they soon lowered their terms, and sold the fairest as they
could. The coins that were rejected became current, and passed
for farthings at the petty shops. Of those that we saw, the greater
part were of Marcus Aurelius, and the Empress Faustina, his wife,
the father and mother of Commodus. Some of Faustina were in
high relief, and exhibited a very agreeable set of features, which
probably resembled that lady, who was more celebrated for her
beauty than for her virtues. The medallions in general were of a
paler colour than the coins. To pretend to account for the means
of their coming to this place would be spending time in conjecture.
The spot, I think, could not be a Roman camp, because it is
commanded by hills on two sides ; nor does it 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.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 289

LETTER II.

THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and note in the
time of the Saxons we can give most undoubted proofs. But, as
there are few if any accounts of the villages before Domesday, it
will be best to begin with that venerable record. " Ipse rex tenet
Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit. De isto
manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum
ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi et post, valuit duodecim solidos
et sex denarios ; modo octo solidos et quatuor 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, f with a variety of words in
husbandry and common life, still subsisting among the country
people.

What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons to this spot

* Selesburne, Seleburne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as it has been
variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ; for Sel signifies great, and
burn torrens, a brook or rivulet : so that the name seems to be derived from the great
perennial stream that breaks out at the upper end of the village. — Sel also signifies bonus,
itemfoecundus,fertilis. "Sel jaertf-tun : 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.

t Thus, the name of A Idred signifies all-reverend, and that of Kemp* means a soldier.
Thus we have a church- lit ton, 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, clivus. The wicker-work that binds and fastens down a
hedge on the top is called ether, from ether, an hedge. When the good women call their
hogs they cry sic, sic,1 not knowing that sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice
or brushwood our countrymen call rise, from /iris, frondes ; and talk of a load of rise.
Within the author's memory the Saxon plurals, hmisen 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
h MW familiar the Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven hundred years
it is far from being obliterated.

1 2«a, porcus, apud Lacones ; un Porceau chez les Lacedemoniens : ce mot a sans doute
este pris des Celtes, qui disoent sic, pour marquer un porceau. Encore aujour'huy quand
les Bretons chassent ces animaux, ils ne disent autrement, que sic, sic. — Antiquitf de l<i
Nation et de la Langue des Celtes, par Pezron.

L

290 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 Woolmer
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 Woolmer, for tradition says that
King John resided just upon the verge, at Ward-le-ham, on a
regular and remarkable mount, still called King John's Hill, and
Lodge hill; and Edward III. had a chapel in his park, or enclosure,
at Kingsley.f Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Richard, Duke
of York, says my evidences, were both, in their turns, wardens of
Woolmer Forest, which seems to have served for an appointment
for the younger princes of the royal family, as it may again.

I have intentionally mentioned Edward III. and the dukes
Humphrey and Richard, before King Edward II., because I have
reserved, for the entertainment of my readers, a pleasant anecdote
respecting that prince, with which I shall close this letter.

As Edward II. was hunting on Woolmer 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,

* 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.

t The parish of Kingsley lies between, and divides Woolmer Forest from Ayles Holt
Forest. See Letter IX. to Mr. Pennant.

\ "Item, paid at the lodge at Woolmer, when the king was stag -hunting there, to
Morris Ken, of the kitchen, because he rode before the king and often fell from his
horse, at which the king laughed exceedingly— a gift by command, of twenty shillings."

A. MS. in possession of Thomas Astle, Esq., containing the private expenses of

Edward II.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

291

that, whatever might be the occasions of Ken's first fall, the sub-
sequent ones seem to have been designed. The scullion appears
to have been an artful fellow, and to have seen the king's foible,
which furnishes an early specimen of that his easy softness and
facility of temper, of which the infamous Gaveston took such
advantages, as brought innumerable calamities on the nation, and
involved the prince at last in misfortunes and sufferings too deplor-
able to be mentioned, without horror and amazement.

292

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

SELBORNE CHUKCH AND VICAKAGE

LETTER III.

FROM the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it has been
supposed that few villages had any at the time when that record
was taken ; but Selborne, we see, enjoyed the benefit of one : hence,
we may conclude, that this place was in no abject state even at
that very distant period. How many fabrics have succeeded each
other since the days of Radfredrus the presbyter, we cannot pretend
to say; our business leads us to a description of the present edifice,
in which we shall be circumstantial.

Our church, which was dedicated to the 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 the fabric in general ; for the- pillars, which

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 293

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.* Upon these rest blunt Gothic arches, such as
prevailed in the reign above-mentioned, and by which, as a cri-
terion, 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 orna-
ment or sculpture : the cavity at the top is lined with lead, and
has a pipe at the 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
framework 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 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 in 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
oft" 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 churchyard,
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

* In the same manner, to compare great things with small, did Wykeham, when he new-
built the cathedral at Winchester, from the tower westward, apply to his purpose the old
piers or pillars of Bishop Walkelin's church, by blending Saxon and Gothic architecture
together. — See LOWTH'S Life of Wykeham.

294 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 fourth aisle also has
a row of these benches ; but some are decayed through age, and
the rest«nuch 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 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 pilasterjutting
out between this transept and the chancel, there is a very sharp
Gothic niche, of older date than the present chantry or church.
But the chief pieces of antiquity are two narrow stone coffin-lids,
which compose part of the floor, and lie from west to east, with the
very narrow ends eastward : these belong to remote times ; and, if
originally placed here, which I doubt, must have been part of the
pavement of an older transept. At present there are no coffins
under them, whence I conclude they have been removed to this
place from some part of a former church. One of these lids is so
eaten by time, that no sculpture can be discovered upon it ; or,
perhaps, it may be the wrong side uppermost ; but on the other,
which seems to be of stone of a closer and harder texture, is to be
discerned a discus, with a cross on it, at the end of a staff or rod,
the well-known symbol of a Knight Templar.*

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

* See DUGDALE, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. ii., where there is a fine engraving of a
Knight-Templar, by Hollar,

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 295

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 thirty-
nine years. Why I should suppose that Knights Templars were
occasionally buried at this church, will appear in some future letter,
when we come t6 treat more particularly concerning the property
they possessed here, and the intercourse that subsisted between
them and the priors of Selborne.

We must now proceed to the chancel, properly so called, which
seems to be coeval with the church, and is in the same plain
unadorned style, though neatly kept. This room measures thirty-
one feet in length, and sixteen feet and a 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 I shall
say somewhat of the windows of the chancel in particular, and of
the whole fabric in general. They are mostly of that simple and
unadorned sort called Lancet, some single, some double, and some
in triplets. At the east end of the chancel are two of a moderate
size, near each other ; and in 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 consider-
able size, which affords an agreeable light, and renders that chantry
the most cheerful part of the edifice.

The church and chancels have all covered roofs, ceiled about
the year 1633 ; before which they were open to the tiles and
shingles, showing the naked rafters, and threatening the congrega-
tion with the fall of a spar, or a blow from a piece of loose mortar.

On the north wall of the chancel is fixed a large oval white marble
monument, with the following inscription ; and at the foot of the
wall, over the deceased, and inscribed with his name, age, arms,
and time of death, lies a large slab of black marble :

296 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

Prope hunc parietem sepelit
GILBERTUS WHITE, SAMSONIS

slitur

FIB WHITE, de

Oxon. militis filius tertius, Collegii Magdale-

-nensis ibidem alumnus, & socious. Tandem faven-

-te collegio ad hanc ecclesiam promotus ; ubi primse-

-va morum simplicitate. et diffusa erga omnes bene-

volentia feliciter consenuit.
Pastor fidelis, comis, affabilis,
Maritus, et paier amantissimus,
A conjuge invicem, et liberis, atque
A parochianis impense dilectus.
Pauperibus ita beneficus
ut decimam partem census

moribundus
piis usibus consecravit.
Meritis demum juxta et annis plenus
ex hac vita migravit Feb. 13°.
anno salutis 172$
yEtatis suae 77.
Hoc posuit Rebecca
Conjux illius msestissima,
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 memory

of the Rev*. ANDREW ETTY, B.D.

23 Years Vicar of this parish :

In whose character
The conjugal, the parental, and the sacerdotal virtues

were so happily combined

as to deserve the imitation of mankind.

And if in any particular he followed more invariably

the steps of his blessed Master,

It was in his humility.

His parishioners,

especially the sick and necessitous,
as long as any traces of his memory shall remain,

must lament his death.

To perpetuate such an example, this stone is erected ;
as while living he was a preacher of righteousness,

so, by it, he being dead yet speaketh.
He died April 8th, 1784, aged 66 years.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 297

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, an^ cast mto f°ur '•> to which Sir Simon
Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, added a fifth at his
own expense : and, bestowing it in the name of his favourite
daughter, Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with the following
motto round it :

" Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria :
Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sonj."

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
doorway. This is undoubtedly much older than the present fabric ;
and, being found in good preservation, was worked into the wall,
and is the grand entrance into the church : nor are the folding-
doors to be passed over in silence ; since, from their thick and
clumsy structure, and the rude flourished-work of their hinges, they
may possibly be as ancient as the doorway 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 consideration of
accidents by fire excepted, this sort of roofing is much more

L 2

298 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

eligible than tiles. For shingles well seasoned, and cleft from
quartered timber, never warp, nor let in drifting snow ; nor do they
shiver with frost ; nor are they liable to be blown off, like tiles ;
but, when well nailed down, last for a long period, as experience has
shown us in this place, where those that face to the north are
known to have endured, untouched, by undoubted tradition, for
more than a century.

Considering the size of the church, and the extent of the parish,
the churchyard 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 neighbourhood.

In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of the east
and west end, as if the chancel stood exactly true to those points
of the compass ; but this is by no means the case, for the fabric
bears so much to the north of the east that the four corners of the
tower, and not the four sides, stand to the four cardinal points.
The best method of accounting for this deviation seems to be, that
the workmen, who probably were employed in the longest days,
endeavoured to set the chancels to the rising of the sun.

Close by the church, at the west end, stands the vicarage-house ;
an old, but roomy and convenient edifice. It faces very agreeably
to the morning sun, and is divided from the village by a neat and
cheerful court. According to the manner of old times, the hall
was open to the roof ; and so continued, probably, till the vicars
became family-men, and began to want more conveniences ; when
they flung a floor across, and, by partitions, divided the space into
chambers. In this hall we remember a date, some time in the
reign of Elizabeth ; it was over the door that leads to the stairs.

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.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 299

LETTER V.

IN the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose aspect
bespeaks it to be of a great age : it seems to have seen several
centuries, and is probably coeval with the church, and therefore
may be deemed an antiquity : the body is squat, short, and thick,
and measures twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting 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 neighbour-
hood are males : but this must have been matter of mere accident,
since men, when they first planted yews, little dreamed that there
were sexes in trees.

In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately grew a middle-
sized female tree of the same species, which commonly bore great
crops of berries. By the high winds usually prevailing about the
autumnal equinox, these berries, then ripe, were blown down into
the road, where the hogs ate them. And it was very remarkable?
that, though barrow-hogs and young sows found no inconvenience
from this food, yet milch-sows often died after such a repast : a
circumstance that can be accounted for only by supposing that the
latter, being much exhausted and hungry, devoured a larger
quantity.

While mention is making of the bad effects of yew-berries, 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

* This is represented in the front of the vignette which heads Letter III., it is still a
striking object, and now measures twenty-three feet in girth.

300 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks of his own all
lying dead in an heap from browsing 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.D. 1307 and 35 Edward I. the title of which is "Ne rector
arbores in cemeterio prosternat." Now if it is recollected that we
seldom see any other very large or ancient tree in a church-yard
but yews, this statute must have principally related to this species
of tree ; and consequently their being planted in church- yards is
of much more ancient date than the year 1 307.

As to the use of these trees, possibly the more respectable
parishioners were buried under their shade before the improper
custom was introduced of burying within the body of the church,
where the living are to assemble. Deborah, Rebekah's nurse, * was
buried under an oak; the most honourable place of interment
probably next to the cave of Machpelah,f which seems to have
been appropriated to the remains of the patriarchal family alone.

The farther use of the 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

* Gen. xxxv 8. t Gen. xxiii. 9.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 301

in use. They might also be placed as a shelter to the congregation
assembling before the church doors were opened, and as an emblem
of mortality by their funereal appearance. In the south of England
every churchyard almost has its tree, and some 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. 1. p. 128.

LETTER VI.

THE living of Selborne was a very small vicarage; but being in
the patronage of Magdalen College, in the university of Oxford,
that society endowed it with the great tithes of Selborne, more than
a century ago ; and since the year 1758 again with the great tithes
of Oakhanger, called Bene's parsonage ; so that, together, it is
become a respectable piece of preferment, to which one of the
fellows is always presented. The vicar holds the great tithes, by
lease, under the college. The great disadvantage of this living is,
that it has not one foot of glebe near home.*

ITS PAYMENTS ARE-

£ s. d.

King's books 821

Yearly tenths .0162*

Yearly procurations for Blackm ..re and Oakhanger Chap. X 0 z 7

with acquit .... J

Selborne procurations and acquit 090

I am unable to give a complete list of the vicars of this parish
till towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; from which
period the registers furnish a regular series.

In Domesday we find thus — " De isto manerio dono dedit Rex
Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia." So that before
Domesday, which was compiled between the years 1081 and 1086,
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 —

* At Bene's, or Bin's, parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and seven acres of
glebe ; Bene's parsonage is three miles from the church.

302 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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, resigned to
Miles Peyrson.

1594, William White appears to have been vicar to this time. Of
this person there is nothing remarkable, but that he hath made a
regular entry twice in the register of Selborne of the funeral of
Thomas Cowper, bishop of Winchester, as if he had been buried
at Selborne ; yet this learned prelate, who died 1594, was buried at
Winchester, in the cathedra], 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 gentleman, living
in the time of Cromwell's usurpation, was deprived of his prefer-
ment for many years, probably because he would not take the
league and covenant ; for I observe that his father-in-law, the
Reverend Jethro Beal, rector of Faringdon, which is the next
parish, enjoyed his benefice during the whole of that unhappy
period. Longworth, after he was dispossessed, retired to a little
tenement about one hundred and fifty yards from the church, where
he earned a small pittance by the practice of physic. During those
dismal times it was not uncommon for the deposed clergy to
take up a medical character ; as was the case in particular, I know,
with the Reverend Mr. Yalden, rector of 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 misfortunes, that he left the vicarage-house
and premises in a very abject and dilapidated state.

* See "Godwin de Prsesulibus," Folio Cant. 1743, p. 239.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 303

July 1678. Richard By field, 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 ^ was again in the utmost danger by the failure of a
borrower ; but, by prudent management, has since been raised to
one hundred pounds stock in the three per cents reduced. The
trustees are the vicar and the renters or owners of Temple, Priory,
Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger-house, for the time being.
This gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises
in a comfortable state ; and began by building a solid stone wal1
round the front court, and another in the lower yard, between tha*
and the neighbouring garden ; but was interrupted by death from
fulfilling his laudable intentions.

April, 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar.

June, 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in Mag-
dalen 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 wain-
scoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved with stone
and had nakedj 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-named." With this sum was purchased,

304 A NTIQ UI TIES OF SELB ORNE.

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 Oak
Woods, where the sandy soil begins. This miry and gulfy lane
was chosen as worthy of repair, because it leads to the forest, and
thence through the Holt to the town of Farnham in Surrey, the only
market in those days for men who had wheat to sell in this neigh-
bourhood. 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 ist, 1740, Duncombe Bristowe, D.D., was in-
stituted to this living. What benefactions this vicar bestowed
on the parish will be best explained by the following passages
from his will : — " Item, I hereby give and bequeath to the minister
and churchwardens of the parish of 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 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 clothing, 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 I2th, 1758, Andrew Etty, B.D., became vicar.

* "Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effectual laws were
nmde for the repairs of highways." — Sir John Cullum's Hawsted, p. 15.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 305

Among many useful repairs he new-roofed the body of the
vicarage-house ; and wainscoted up to the bottom of the win-
dows, the whole of the chancel ; to the neatness and decency of
which he always paid the most exact attention.

On September 25th, 1784, Christopher Taylor, B.D., was inducted
into the vicarage of Selborne.

LETTER VII.

I SHALL now proceed to the priory, which is undoubtedly the
most interesting part of our history.

The priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la Roche, or de
Rupibus,* 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 dis-
tinguished 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 1205,
early in the reign of that prince, was appointed Bishop of Win-
chester. In 1214, he became lord chief justiciary of England, the
first magistrate of 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.

* See "Godwin de Prsesulibus Angliae." Folio. London, 1743, p. 217.

306 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

At this juncture a very small part of Palestine remained in the
hands of the Christians ; they had been by Saladine dispossessed
of Jerusalem, and all the internal parts, near forty years before ;
and with difficulty maintained some maritime towns and garrisons ;
yet the busy and enterprising spirit of de Rupibus could not be at
rest ; he distinguished himself by the splendour and magnificence
of his expenses, and amused his mind by strengthening fortresses
and castles, and by removing and endowing of churches. Before
his expedition to the east he had signalised himself as the 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 im-
probable 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 Farnham ; from either of which
places he could without much trouble overlook his workmen, and
observe what progress they made ; and that the situation was
retired, with a stream running by it, and sequestered from the
world, amidst woods and meadows, and so far proper for the site of
a religious house.*

The first person with whom the founder treated about the
purchase of land was Jacobus de Achangre, or Ochangre, a gentle-
man of property who resided in 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 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.U. 395 ; but they were not brought
into England till after, the Conquest : and seem not to have obtained the appellation of
Augustine canons till some years after. Their habit was a long black cassock, with a
white rochet over it ; and over that a black cloak and hood. The monks were always
shaved ; but these canons wore their hair and beards, and caps on their heads. There
were of these canons, and women of the same order called Canonesses, about 175 houses.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 307

the conveyance says, " Warantizabimus, defendemus, et aequieta-
bimus, contra omnes gentes : " viz., " We will warrant the thing
sold against all claims from any quarter." In modern convey-
ancing this would be termed a covenant for further assurance.
Afterwards is added — " Pro hac autem donacione, &c., dedit
mini prcd. Episcopus sexdecem marcas argenti in Gersumam;"
i, e., u 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, 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 epis-
copo totum cursum aque que descendit de Molendino de Burton
usq ; ad boscum Will. Mauduit, et croftam terre vocat : Edriche
croft, cum extensione ejusdem et abnttamentis ; ad fundadam
domum religiosam de ordine Sti. Augustini ; Concedit etiam
viam ad carros, et caretas," &c. This vale, down which runs
the brook, is now called the Long Lithe, or Lythe. Bating the
following particular expression, this grant runs much in the style
of the former : " Dedit mihi episcopus predictus triginta quinque
marcas argenti ad me acquietandum versus Judceos ;" that is, "the
bishop advanced me thirty-five marks of silver to pay my debts to
the Jews," who were then the only lenders of money.

Finding himself still 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 5
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 gth, 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

* The custom of affixing dates to deeds was not become general in the reign of
Henry III.

308 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

totam terram, &c., cum omnibus libertatibus in bosco et piano, in
viis et semitis, pratis et pascuis ; aquis et piscariis ; infra burgum,
et extra burgum, cum soka et saca,-Thol et Them, Infangenethef et
Utfangenethef, et hamsocne et blodwite, et pecunia que dari solet
pro murdro et forstal, et flemenestrick, et cum quietancia de omni
scotto et geldo, et de omnibus auxiliis regum, vicecomitum, et omn:
ministralium suorum ; et hidagio et exercitibus, et scutagiis, et tal-
lagiis, et shiris et hundredis, et placitis et querelis, et warda, et ward-
peny, 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. 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 cnjuslibet alterius domns religiosce s^tbject^one libera per-
maneat, et in omnibus absohtta" to show how much Dugdale was
mistaken when he inserted Selborne among the alien priories ; for-
getting that this disposition of the convent contradicted the grant
that 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 removeable
at will ; whereas the priory of Selborne possessed the valuable estates
and manors of Selborne, Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Bassinges,
Basingstoke, and Natele, and the prior challenged the right of
pillory, thurcet, and furcas, and every manorial privilege.

I find next a grant from Jo de Venur, or Venuz, to the prior of

ANTIQUITIES OF SEL BORNE. 309

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
Aotedene his sister's husband, who had no child. He was to pre-
sent a pair of gloves of one penny value to the prior and canons,
to be given annually by the said Richard ; and to quit all claim to
the said lands in reversion, provided the prior and canons would
engage annually to pay to the king, through the hands of his
bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly payments, "pro
omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exactionibus, et demandis."

This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oakhanger, and
lived probably at the spot now called Chapel-farm. The grant
bears date the I7th year of the reign of Henry III. (viz. 1233).

It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant for lands or
tenements that might be produced from my vouchers. I shall
therefore pass over all such for the present, and conclude this
letter with a remark that must strike every thinking person with
some degree of wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution
got a footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched with a
secret and religious awe. Every person round was desirous to
promote so good a work ; and either by sale, by grant, or by gift
in reversion, was ambitious of appearing a benefactor. They who
had not lands to spare gave roads to accommodate the infant
foundation. The religious were not backward in keeping up this
pious propensity, which they observed so readily influenced the
breasts of men. Thus did the more opulent monasteries add
house to house, and field to field, and by degrees manor to manor,
till at last "there was" no place left;" but every district around
became appropriated to the purposes of their founders, and every
precinct was drawn into the vortex.

3io ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 accomplished malcontent
in the Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his daring
conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first that we hear of this
person in my papers is, that with two others he was bailiff of Alton
before the sixteenth of Henry III., viz., about 1231, and then not
knighted. Who Gurdon was, and whence he came, does not appear :
yet there is reason to suspect that he was originally a mere soldier
of fortune, who had raised himself by marrying women of property.
The name of Gurdon does not seem to be known in the south ;
but there is a name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and which
belongs to two or three noble families, that it is probable this re-
markable 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, 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 ha-
rassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fastnesses,

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 van-
quished 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 un-
merited 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.

* M. Paris, p 675, and Triveti Annale

312 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER IX.

IT has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam Gurdon had
availed himself by marrying women of property. By my evidences
it appears that he had three wives, and probably in the following
order : Constantia, Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies,
who was the companion of his middle life, seems to have been a
person of considerable fortune, which she inherited from Thomas
Makerel, a gentleman of Selborne, who was either her father or
uncle. The second, Ameria, calls herself the quondam wife of Sir
Adam, " quae fui uxor," £c., and talks of her sons under age.
Now Gurdon had no son : and beside, Agnes, in another document,
says, " Ego Agnes quondam uxor Domini Adcs 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 competent to such a grant, I cannot say ; but that
the priors of Selborne did take that privilege is plain, because some
years afterward, in 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

ANTIQ UITIES OF SELBORNE. 3 1 3

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 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 farmhouse from time immemorial. The
south end is modern, and consists of a brewhouse, 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
worship ; for it has at present much more the appearance of a
dungeon than of a room fit for the reception of people of condition.
The field on which his oratory abuts is 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 a 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.

314 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNK.

LETTER X.

THE priory at times was much obliged to Gurdon and his
family. As Sir Adam began to advance in years he found his mind
influenced by the prevailing opinion of the reasonableness and
efficacy of prayers for the dead ; and therefore, in conjunction with
his wife Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and
convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain place,
placed, called " La Playstow," in the village aforesaid, "in liberam,
puram, et perpetuam clemosinam." This Pleystow,* locus ludorum,
or play-place, is a level area near the church of about forty-four
yards by thirty-six, and is known now by the name of the Plestor. f

It continues still, as it was in old times, to be the scene of
recreation for the youths and children of the neighbourhood ; and
impresses an idea on the mind that this village, even in Saxon
times, could not be the most abject of places, when the inhabitants
thought proper to assign so spacious a spot for the sports and
amusements of 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, u seldas? around it. From this
period Selborne became a market town ; but how long it enjoyed
that privilege does not appear. At the same time, Gurdon reserved
to himself, and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor to a
tenement and some crofts at the upper end, abutting on the south
corner of the church-yard. This was in old days the manorial
house of the street manor, though now a poor cottage, and is
known at present by the modern name of Elliot's. Sir Adam

* In Saxon Ple^eftop, or Ple^ftop ; viz., Plegestow, or Plegstow.

t At this juncture probably the vast oak, mentioned page 6, was planted by the prior, as
an ornament to his new acquired market-place. According to this supposition the oak
was aged 432 years when blown down.

J For more circumstances respecting the Plestor, see Letter II. to Mr. Pennant.

§ Bishop Tanner, in his "Notitia Monastica" has made a mistake respecting the
market and fair at Selborne ; for in his references to Dodsworth, cart. 54 Hen. III., m. 3.,
he says, "De mercatu, et feria de SeZebum." 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.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

315

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

VILLAGE FLEYSTOW.

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

3i 6 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

about the village, where one field or tenement shall belong to
Magdalen College in the University of Oxford, and the next to
Norton Powlett, 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.

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 con-
tinued his regard for Sir Adam, whom he esteemed as a brave man,
and made him warden, " custos" of the forest of Woolmer.*

* Since the letters respecting Woolmer-forest and Ayles-holt, pp. 16 — 31, were printed,
the author has been favoured with the following extracts : —

" In the 'Act of Resumption, i Hen. VII.' it was provided, that it be not prejudicial to
' Harry at Lode, ranger of our forest of Wolmere, to him by oure letters patents before
tyme gevyn.' " — Rolls of Parl. , vol. vi. p. 370.

" In the ii Hen. VII., 1495, ' Warlham (VVardleham) and the office of forest (forester)
of Wolmere,' were held by Jhdmund, duke of Suffolk." — Rolls, ib. 474.

"Act of general pardon, 14 Hen. VIII., 1523, net to extend to 'Rich. Bp. of Wynton
(bishop Fox) for any seizure or forfeiture of liberties, &c., within the forest of Wolmer,
Alysholt, and Newe Forest; nor to any person for waste, &c., within the manor of
\Vardlam, or parish of Wardlam (Wardleham); nor to abusing, &c.. of any office or fee,
within the said forests of Wolmer or Alysholt, or the said park of Wardlam.'"— County
Suth't. — Rolls prefi xt to ist Vol. of Journals of the Lords, p. xciii. b.

To these may be added some other particulars, taken from a bock lately published,
entitled "An Acccunt of all the Manors, Messuages, Lands, &c.. in the different Counties
of England and Wales, held by Lease from the Crown ; as contained in the Report of the
Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State and Condition of the Royal Forests,
£c." London, 1787.

"Southampton.

P. 64. " A fee-farm rent of 3i/. 2S. lid. out of the manors of East and West Wardle-
ham ; and also the office of lieutenant or keeper of the forest or chase of Aliceholt and
Wolmer, with all offices, fees, commodities, and privileges thereto belonging.

" Names of lessees, WilLam, 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.

" Southampton.

"Hundreds — Selborne and Finchdeane.
" Honours and manors, &c.

•'Aliceholt forest, three parks there.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELRORNE. 317

Though little emolument might hang to this appointment, yet are
there 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 indoor 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 manorial
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 depre-
dations, 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.t By a breve, or writ, from the king he is also enjoined
to readmit the Bishop of Winchester, and his tenants of the parish
and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and other large
cattle, " ' averia? in the forest of Woolmer, as had been the usage
from time immemorial. This writ is dated in the tenth year of the
reign of Edward, viz., 1282.

All the king's writs directed to Gurdon are addressed in the
following manner—" Edwardus Dei gratia, &c., dilecto et fideli suo
Ade Gurdon salutem;" and again, "Custodi foreste sue de
Wolvemere."

In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an English and
a Norman ship about some trifle, brought on by degrees such
serious consequences, that in 1293 a war broke out between the two
nations. The French king, Philip the Hardy, gained some advan-
tages in Gascony ; and, not content with those, threatened England
with an invasion, and by a sudden attempt took and burnt Dover.

" Bensted and Kingsley; a petition of the parishioners concerning the three parks in
Aliceholt Forest."

" William, first earl of Dartm uth, and paternal grandfather to the present Lord Stawel.
was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer before brigadier-general Emmanuel
Scroope Howe."

* See Letter II. of these Antiquities.

t Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Selborne. and has a mill at this
day.

3i8 ANTIQUITIES OF SEL BORNE.

Upon this emergency, Edward sent a writ to Gurdon, ordering
him and four others to enlist three thousand soldiers in the counties
of Surrey, Dorset, and Wiltshire, able-bodied men, " tarn sagittare
quam balistare potentes ; " and to see that they were marched by
the feast of All Saints, to Winchelsea, there to be embarked aboard
the king's transports.

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, earn nobis nequiter detinendo vero predictis

fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad expugnationem regni nostri
classe maxima et beilatorum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum
quibus regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam-
in vasurus, lingitam Anglicam si concepte iniquitatis proposito
detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus avertat, omnino de
terra delere proponit" Dated 3oth September, in the year of King
Edward's reign xxiii.*

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 i6th of Henry III., he was
the King's bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. Now, from
1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years, a long period for one
man to be employed in active life ! Should any one doubt whether
all these particulars can relate to one and the same person, I should
wish him to attend to the following reasons why they might. In
the first place, the documents from the priory mention but one Sir
Adam Gurdon, who had no son 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 unsup-
ported by such accomplishments could have engaged in such
adventures, 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

* Reg. Winton, Stratford, but query Stratford ; for Stratford was not bishop of Winton
till 1323, near thirty years afterwards.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 319

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 an 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, f Johanna, the daughter and heiress
of Sir Adam, was married, I find, to Richard Achard ; she also
grants to the prior and convent lands and tenements in the village
of Selborne, which her father obtained from Thomas Makerel ; and
also all her goods and chattels in Selborne for the consideration of
two hundred pounds sterling. This last business was transacted in
the first year of Edward II., viz., 1307. It has been observed
before that Gurdon had a natural son ; this person was called by
the name of John Dastard, alias Wastard, but more probably
Bastard ; since bastardy, in those days, was not 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.

* From the collection of Thomas Martin, Esq., in the "Antiquarian Repertory." p. too,
No. XXXI.
t Durton, now called Dorton, is still a common for the copyholders of Selborne manor.

320 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE,

LETTER XL

THE 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 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 after-
wards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued at one hundred and
eighteen pounds sixteen shillings and sevenpence per annum.

* THE MILITARY ORDERS OF THE RELIGIOUS.

The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called Knights of Rhodes,
now of Malta, came into England about the year noo. i Hen. i.

The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's reign, which
commenced 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and their estates given by Act of
Parliament to the Hospitalars in 1323 (all in Edw. II.) though many of their estates were
never actually enjoyed by the said Hospitalars. — Vid. TANNER, p. 24, 10.

The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars, were each sub-
ordinate to the principal house of their respective religion in London. Although these
are the different denominations, which " Tanner "at p. 37 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." com-
mandries are attributed to the Templars, it is rnly 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 in accuracy, it is
probable the preceptories of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, were still
vulgarly, however, called by their old name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety
societies of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has been said) commandries. And such
deviation from the strictness of expression in this case might occasion those societies of
Hospitalars also to be indifferently called preceptories, which had originally been vested
in them, having never belonged to the Templars at all. — See in ARCHER, p. 609 ; TANNER,
p. 300, col. i, 720, n. e.

It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospitalars holds the same
language ; for there, in the enumeration of particulars occur " 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 c< mmandry 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, &c., belonging to the priory of St.
John of Jerusalem ; and he who had the government of such house was called the com-
mander, who cquld 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, &c. Preceptories were possessed by the more
eminent sort of Templars, whom the chief master created and called Prseceptores Templi.
— COWELL, who refers to STEPHENS De Jurisd. lib. iv. c. 10, no. 27.

Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic. Itiner. apud Wynton,
&c., anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. — "et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht
emendasse panis. et suis [cerevisiae] in Sodington, et nescint q°. war. et — et magist. Milicie
Templi n<5n ven i5 distr." — Chapter House, Westminster.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 321

Here then was a preceptory unnoticed by angquaries, between the
village and Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory might
have been, it has long since been dilapidated ; and the whole
hamlet contains now only one mean farmhouse, 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 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,t and Richard Carpenter was preceptor, the Templars
and the Priors lived in an intercourse of mutual good offices.

My papers mention three transactions, the exact time of which
cannot be ascertained, because they fell out before dates were
usually inserted ; though probably they happened about the middle
of the thirteenth century, not long after Saunford 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 equiva-
lent in lands or rents within four or five miles of the said convent.

NOTITIA MOXASTICA, p. 155.

" Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a house and chapel for
the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brjught out of Flanders ; but afterwards
projected, and by his will ordered, a noble Church or rel.gious house to be built in the
cemetery on the north side of the old minster or cathedral, and designed that Grimbald
should preside over it. This was begun A.D. 901, and finished to the honour of the Holy
Trinity, Virgin Mary, and St. Peter, by his son King Edward, who placed therein secular
canons, but A.D. 963 they were expelled, and an abbot and monks put in possession by
bishop Ethelwold.

" Now the churches and habitations of these two societies being so very near together,
the differences which were occasioned by their singing, bells, and other matter?, arose to
so great a height, that the religious of the new monastery thought fit, about A.D. 1119, to
remove to a better and more quiet situation without the walls, on the north part of the
city called Hyde, where King Edward I., tt the instance of Will. Giffjrd, bishop of
Wmton, founded a stately abbey for them. St. Peter was generally accounted patron ;
though it is sometimes called the monastery of St. Grimbald, and sometimes of St.
Barnabas," &c.

NOTE. — A few years since a county bridewell, or house of correction, has been built on
the immediate site of Hyde Abbey. In digging up the old foundations the workmen
found the head of a crosier in good preservation.

t Robert Saunforde was Master of the Temple in 1241 ; Guldo de Foresta was the next
in 1232. The former is fifth in a list of the masters, in a MS. "Bib. Cotton. Nero.
E. VI."

322 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

It is also further agreed that, if the Templars shall be in arrears
for one year, that then the prior shall be empowered to distrain upon
their live stock in Bradeseth. The next matter was a grant from
Robert de Sunford to the priory for ever, of u good and sufficient
road, " cheminum," capable of admitting carriages, and proper for
the drift of their larger cattle, from the way which extends from
Sudington towards Blakemere, on to the lands which the convent
possesses in Bradeseth.

The third transaction (though for want of dates we cannot say
•which happened first and which last) was a grant from Robert
Samford to the priory of a tenement and its appurtenances in the
village of Selborne, given to the Templars by Americus de Vasci.*
This property, by the manner of describing it, — "totum tenementum
cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris, & hominibus, in
pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus," &c., seems to have been no
inconsiderable purchase, and was sold for two hundred marks
sterling, to be applied for the buying of more land for the support
of the holy war.

Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom Vasci's land is
conveyed. But in Willis's list there is no Prior John till 1339,
several years after the dissolution of the order of the Templars in
1312, so that, unless Willis is wrong, and has omitted a prior John
since 1262 (that being the date of his first prior), these transactions
must have fallen out before that date.

I find not the least traces of any concerns between Gurdon and
the Knights Templars ; but probably after his death his daughter
Johanna might have, and might bestow, Temple on that order in
support of the holy land ; and moreover, she seems to have been
removing 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 corroborating circum-
stance of its being still a manor, tithe-free ; " for, by virtue of their
order," says 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
x.n.&preceptorium, not being able to determine what officer or edifice
was meant. But perhaps all the while the passage quoted above

* Americus Va^ci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had been probably a
soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. Americus Vespucio, the person who
gave name to the new world, was a Florentine.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 323

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 fo//*V*J are synonymous
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 explana-
tion, & preceptor was no other than a steward, and a preceptorium
was his residence. I am well aware that, according to strict Latin,
the vel should have been seu or stve, 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 them-
selves 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.*

* In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's Hospital in the city of Wor-
cester, printed by Dr. Nash, pp. 227, 228, of his collections for the history of Worcester-
shire, the words preceptorium and preceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital :
"ad preceptorium sive magisterium presentavit — preceptorii sive magisterii patronas.
Vacavit dicta preceptoria seu magisterium — ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospitalis —
Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus."

Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably mean the master's
lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, whatsoever may have been the office or
employment of the said preceptor.

A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's " Ducatus Leodiensis," or History of Leeds,

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.

324 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XII.

THE ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were not the only
benefactresses to the priory of Selborne ; for, in the year 1281, Ela
Longspee obtained masses to be performed for her soul's health ;
and the prior entered into an engagement that one of the convent
should every day say a special mass for ever for the said benefac-
tress, 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 per-
formed ; 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.f

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 perdicte
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— uEt si contingat dictos
religiosos labores seu expensas facere circa predictam pecuniam,
seu circa partem dicte pecunie ; volo qoud dictorum religiosorum

* A 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.

t For what is said m>re 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.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORXE. 325

impense et labores levantur ita quod predicto priori vel uni canoni-
corum suorum superbiis simplici verbo credatur sine alterius honere
probacionis ; et quod utrique predictorum virorum in unam marcam
argenti pro cujuslibet 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 New-
burgh, 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 Edward II., by Rosamond.

Our lady, following the steps of her illustrious mother,f " 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 1300,1 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." — " Edmondson's History and Genealogical Account
of the Grevilles," p. 23.

* Ancient deeds are often dated on a Sunday, having been executed in churches and
church-yards for the sake of notoriety, and for the conveniency of procuring several
witnesses to attest.

t Ela 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. — CAMDEN.

+ Thus she survived the foundation of her chantry at Selborne fifteen years. About
this lady and her mother ccnsult Dugdale's " Barcnage," i. 72, 175, 177; Dugdale's
" Warwickshire," i. 383 ; Leland's "Itin." ii. 45.

326 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XIII.

THE reader is here presented with the titles of five forms
respecting the choosing of a prior. " 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 kingdom, not yet sufficiently understood.

In the year 1324 there was an election for a prior at Selborne ;
when some difficulties occurring, and a devolution taking place,
application was made to Stratford, who was bishop of Winchester
at that time, and of course the visitor and patron of the convent at
the spot above-mentioned.*

An Extract from " Reg. Stratford." Winton.

P. 4. " Commissio facta sub-priori de Selebourne," by the bishop
enjoining him to preserve the discipline of the order in the convent
during the vacancy made by the late death of the prior, (u nuper
pastoris solatio destituta,") dated 4th kal. Maii. ann. 2do sc. of his
consecration. [Sc. 1324.]

P. 6. " Custodia Prioratus de Seleburne vacantis," committed by

the bishop to Nicholas de la , a layman, it belonging to the

bishop, "ratione vacationis ejusdem," in July, 1324, ibid, "nego-
tium electionis de Selebourne. Acta coram Johanne Episcopo, £c.
1324 in negotio electionis de fratre Waltero de Insula concanonico
prioratus de Selebourne," lately elected by the sub-prior and convent,
by way of scrutiny ; that it appeared to the bishop, by certificate from
the dean of Alton, that solemn citation and proclamation had been
made in the church of the convent where the election was held that
any who opposed the said election or elected should appear. Some
difficulties were started, which the bishop overruled, and confirmed
the election, and admitted the new prior sub hac forma : —

* Stratford was Bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333, when he was translated to
Canterbury,

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

327

" 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, literarum scientia preditum, vita moribus
et conversatione merito commendatum, in ordine sacerdotali et
etate legitima constitutum, de legitimo matrimonio procreatum, in
ordine et religione Sancti Augustini de Selebourne expresse pro-
fessum, in spiritualibus et temporalibus circumspectum,^;-? nobis
hac devohtto in hac parte, in dicte ecclesie de Selebourne perfectum
priorem ; curam et administrationem ejusdem tibi in spiritualibus
et temporalibus 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.

328 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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, be-
sides 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 tl 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 parch-
ment ; the one large, and the other smaller, and consists of a
preamble, thirty-six items, and a conclusion, which altogether
evince the patient investigation of the visitor, for which he had
always been so remarkable in all matters of moment, and how
much he had at heart the regularity of those institutions, of whose
efficacy in their prayers for the dead he was so firmly persuaded.

* See Lowth's Life of Wykeham.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 329

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 have done amiss, and contrary to their rules and statutes,
he reproves them ; and threatens them with punishment suitable to
their irregularities.

The 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 sOjjrne 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 them-
selves from the hours and masses, or to withdraw before they are
finished."

Item 2nd. He enjoins them to observe that silence to which
they are so strictly bound by the rule of Saint Augustine at stated
times, and wholly to abstain from frivolous conversation.

Item 4th. " Not to permit such frequent passing of secular
people of both sexes through their convent, as if a thoroughfare,
from whence many disorders may and have arisen."

Item 5th. " To take care that the doors of their church and
priory be so attended to that no suspected and disorderly females,
1 suspects et aliae inhonestas,' pass through their choir and cloister
in the dark ; " and to see that the doors of their church between

* Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell are still extant.

M 2

330 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 Qth 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 loth, at this distance of time appears
rather ludicrous ; but the visitor seems to be very serious on the
occasion, and says that it has been evidently proved to him that
some of the canons, living dissolutely after the flesh, and not after
the spirit, sleep naked in their beds without their breeches and
shirts, " absque femoralibus et camisiis." f 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 nth the good bishop is very wroth with some of the
canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters and sportsmen,
keeping hounds, and publicly attending hunting-matches. These
pursuits, he says, occasion much dissipation, danger to the soul and
body, and frequent expense ; he, therefore, wishing to extirpate this
vice wholly from the convent, " radicibus extirpare" does absolutely
enjoin the canons never intentionally to be present at any public

* A collation was a meal or repast on a fast- day in lieu of a supper.

t The rule alluded to in item icth, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined the Knight's
Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augustine. — See GURTLERI Hist.
Tenlplariorum.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 331

noisy tumultuous huntings ; or to keep any hounds, by them-
selves 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 I4th 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.

In Item I7th the prior and canons are accused of suffering,
through neglect, notorious dilapidations to take place among their
manorial houses and tenements, and in the walls and inclosures 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 1 8th charges them with grievously burthening the said
priory by means of sales, and grants of liveriesf and corrodies.J

The bishop, in Item igth, 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 j" 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 eleemosy-
narius, and given to the poor without any diminution ; the officer
to be suspended for neglect or omission.

* Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the pleasures of the chase,
it is not to be wondered that the canons of Canterbury should languish after hunting, when
from their situation so near the precincts of Woolmer Forest, the k.ng's hounds must have
been often in hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows. If the bishop was so
offended at these spDrting-canjns, what would he have said to our modern fox-hunting
divines?

t Liberationes, or liberaturse, allowances of corn, &c., to servants, delivered at certain
times and in certain quantities, as clothes were among the allowances from religi* us houses
to their dependants. See the corrodies granted by Croyland Abbey. — Hist, of Cray land,
Appendix No. XXXIV.

" It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be conlned to the uniform
of the retainers or servants of the great, who were hence called livery servants." — SIR
JOHN CULLUM-"S Hist, of Hawsted.

\ A corrody is an alljwance to a servant living in an abbey or priory.

332 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

Item 23rd. He bids them distribute their pittances, " pitancias? *
regularly on obits, anniversaries, festivals, &c.

Item 25th. All and every one of the canons are hereby inhibited
from standing godfather to any boy for the future, " ne "compatres
alicujus pueri de cetero fieri presumatiSj" unless by express license
from the bishop obtained ; because from such relationship favour
and affection, nepotism, and undue influence, arise, to the injury
and detriment of religious institutions, t

Item 26th. The visitor herein severely reprimands the canons for
appearing publicly in what would be called in the universities an
unstatutable manner, and for wearing of boots, " caligae de Burneto,
et sotularium in ocrearum ioco, ad modum sotularium." J

It is remarkable that the bishop expresses more warmth against
this than any other irregularity ; and strictly enjoins them, under
pain of ecclesiastical censures, and even imprisonment if necessary
(a threat not made use of before), for the future to wear boots,
"ocreis seu botis," according to the regular usage of their ancient
order.

Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness, forbids them
foppish ornaments, and the affectation of appearing like beaux with
garments edged with costly furs, with fringed gloves, and silken
girdles trimmed with gold and silver. It is remarkable that no
punishment is annexed to this injunction.

Item 3 1 st. 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.

*Pitancia> an allowance of bread and beer, of Other provision to any pious use,
"especially to the religious in. a monastery, &c. , for augmentation of their commons.." —
Gloss, to Rennet's Par. Ant.

t The relationship between sponsors and their god-children, who were called spiritual
sons and daughter";, was formerly esteemed much mere sacred than at present. The
presents at christenings were sometimes very considerable: the connexion lasted through
life, and was closed with a legacy. This last mark cf 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.

" De Margaretse filiae regis primogenitse, quam filiolam, quia ejus in baptismo compater
fuit, appellat, cyphum aureum et quadraginta libras, legavit. " — ARCHBISHOP PARKER de
Antiqiiitate Secies. Brit, speaking of Archbishop Morton.

I Du Fre?ne is copious on caligse of several sorts. " Hoc item de Clericis, presertim
beneficiatis : caligis scacatis (chequered) rubeis, et viridibus publice utentibus dicimus esse
censendum." — Statui. Eccles. Tntel. The chequered boots seem to be the highland plaid
stockings — " Burnetum, i. e. Brunetum, pannus ncn ex lana nativi ccloris confectus." —
"Sotularium, i. e., subtalaris, quia sub talo est. Peculium genus, quibus maxime
Mr nachi nocte utebantur in sestate ; in hyeme vero S<-ccis."

This wjiter gives many quotations concerning Sotularia, which were not to be made too
shapely ; nor were the caliga; to be laced en too nicely.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 333

Item 32nd. The bishop says in this item that he had observed
and found, in his several visitations, that the sacramental plate and
cloths of the altar, surplices, &c., were sometimes left in such an
uncleanly and disgusting condition as to make the beholders
shudder with horror — " Quod aliquibus sunt horrori : " * he there-
fore enjoins them for the future to see that the plate, cloths, and
vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent order : and, what
must surprise the reader, adds— that he expects for the future that
the sacrist should provide for the sacrament good wine, pure and
unadulterated ; and not, as had often been the practice, that which
was sour, and tending to decay : — he says farther, that it seems
quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that attention to
decent cleanliness, the neglect of which would disgrace a common
convivial meeting. ~f

Item 33rd says that though the relics of saints, the plate, holy
vestments, and books of religious houses, are forbidden by canon-
ical institutes to be pledged or lent out upon pawn ; yet, as the
visitor finds this to be the case in his several visitations, he there-
fore strictly enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and
to restore them to the convent ; and orders that all the papers and
title-deeds thereto belonging should be safely deposited, and kept
under three locks and keys.

In the course of the "Visitatio Notabilis," the constitutions of
Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to. Ottobonus was after-
wards Pope Adrian V., and died in 1276. His constitutions are in
" Lyndewood' s Provinciate/' and were drawn up in the 52nd of
Henry III.

In the "Visitatio Notabilis" the usual punishment is fasting on
bread and beer ; and in cases of repeated delinquency on bread
and water. On these occasions quarta feria^ et sexta feria, are
mentioned often, and are to be understood of the days of the week
numerically on which such punishment is to be inflicted.

* " Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." — i"Sam. ii. 17. Strange as this account
may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when first in orders, twice met with similar
circumstances attending the sacrament at two churches belonging to two obscure villages.
In the first he found the inside of the chalice c yvered 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 f jr two or three Sundays before.

f " • ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa

Corruget nares : ne n~ji\ et cantharus, et lanx
Ostendat tibi te."

334 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XV.

THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern and rigid in
his visitatorial character towards the Priory of Selborne, yet he
was on the whole a liberal friend and benefactor to that convent,
which, like every 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." f

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 dilapidations from storms,
&c. ; but no such accident appears to have befallen the priory at
Selborne. Those situate on public roads, or in great towns where
there were shrines of saints, were liable to be 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.

* Yet in ten years time we find, by the " Notabilis Visitatio," that all their relics, plate,
vestments, title-deeds, &c., were in pawn,
t Lowth's Life of Wykeham.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 33$

LETTER XVI.

BEAUFORT was bishop of Winchester from 1405 to 1447 and
yet, notwithstanding this long episcopate, only torn. i. of " Beaufort's
Register'* is to be found. This loss is much to be regretted, as it
must unavoidably make a gap in the history of Selborne priory,
and perhaps in the list of its priors.

In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again in 1411.

In vol. i. p. 24, of " Beaufort's Register," is the instrument of
the election of John Wynchestre to be prior — the substance as
follows : —

Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop that
brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died October 18, 1410, and
was buried November nth. 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 I2th 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 Brompton ; John Wynchestre,
senior, John Wynchestre, junior ; then " Proposito primitis
verbo Dei," and then ympno "Veni Creator Spiritus" being
solemnly sung, cum " versiculo et oratione," as usual, and his letter
of license, with the appointment of the hour and place of election
being read, 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, interposuit "
— that all persons disqualified, or not having right to be
present, should immediately withdraw, and protesting against their
voting, &c. ; that then having read the constitution of the general
council " Quia propter," and explained the modes of proceeding
to election, they agreed unanimously to proceed a per viam seu

336 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 commissaries, 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 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 Sampson Maycock, a public notary, where
they treated of the 'election ; when they unanimously agreed on
John Wynchestre, 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 tune ibidem, before
the clergy and people of both sexes solemnly published the election
in vulgari. Then Richard Elstede, and the whole convent by their
proctors and nuncios appointed for the purposes, Thomas Halyborne
and John Stepe, required several times the assent of the elected ;
"et tandem post diutinas interpellationes, et delberationes, et
deliberationem providam penes se habitam, in hac parte divine
nolens, ut asseruit, resistere voluntati," within the limited time he
signified his acceptance in the usual written form of words. The
bishop is then supplicated to confirm their election, and do the
needful, under common seal, in the chapter-house. November 14,
1410.

* It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior from the chapter-
house to the high altar of their Convent Church. In Letter XXI., on the same occasion it
is said — "et sic canentes dictum electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus. ut apud nos
mons es,t."

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

337

The bishop, January 6, 1410, apud Esher in camera infe
declared the election duly made, and ordered the new prior to be
inducted ; for this the archdeacon of Winchester was written to ;
" stallumque in choro, et locum in capitulo juxta morem preteriti
temporis," to be assigned to him, and everything beside necessary
to be done.

"BEAUFORT'S REGISTER," VOL. I.

P. 2. Taxatio spiritualis Decanatus de Ault£n, Ecclesia de
Selebourn, cum Capella, xxx marc, decima xlib. iii. fol. Vicaria
de Selebourn non taxatur propter exilitatem.

P. 9. Taxatio bonorum temporalium religiosorum in Archidiac.
Wynton.

Prior de Selebourn habet meneria de

Bromdene taxat. ad

Apud Schete ad

P. Selebourne ad

In civitate Wynton de reddit ....
Tannaria sua taxat ad .....
Summa tax. xxxviii lib. xiiii d. ob. Inde decima

xxx s. ii d.
xvii s.

vi lib.

vi l.b. viii ob.

x lib. s.

vi lib. s. q. ob.

338 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XVII.

INFORMATION 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 Win-
chester, 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 immediately to revoke all the property
that had been alienated.

In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and canons of
having granted away (they themselves and their predecessors) to
certain clerks and laymen their tithes, lands, rents, tenements, and
possessions, to some of them for their lives, to others for an undue
term of years, and to some again for a perpetuity, to the great and
heavy detriment of the monastery ; and these leases were granted,
he continues to add, under their own hands, with the sanction of
an oath and the renunciation of all right and claims, and under
penalties, if the right was not made good. — But it will be best to
give an abstract from the bull.

N. 298. Pope Martin's bull touching the revoking of certaine
things alienated from the priory of Seleburne. Pontif. sui ann. i.

" Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei Dilecto filio Priori de
Suthvalef Wyntonien. dioc. Salutem & apostolicam ben. Ad
audientiam nostram pervenit quam tarn dilecti filii prior et con-
ventus monasterii de Seleburn per Priorem soliti gubernari ordinis
StL Augustini Winton, dioc. quam de predecessores eorum decimas,
terras, redditus, domos, possessiones, vineas,| et quedam alia bona

* 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.

t Should have been no doubt Southwick, a pri )ry under Portsdiwn.

J Mr. Harrington 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 Anhceologia,
vol. iii.

In the instance above, the Pore's secretary might insert vineas merely because they
were a species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 339

ad monasterium ipsum spectantia, datis super hoc litteris, inter-
positis juramentis, factis renuntiationibus, et penis adjectis, in
gravem ipsius monasterii lesionem nonnullis clericis et laicis,
aliquibus eorum ad vitam, quibusdam vero ad non modicum tempus,
& aliis perpetuo ad firmam, vel sub censu_annuo concesserunt ;
quorum aliqui dicunt super hiis a sede aplica in communi forma
confirmationis litteras impetrasse. Quia vero nostra interest lesis
monasteriis subvenire [He the Pope here commands] ea ad jus et
proprietatum monasterii studeas legitime revocare," &c.

The conduct of the religious had now for some time been gene-
rally bad. Many of the monastic societies, being very opulent,
were become voluptuous and licentious, and had deviated entirely
from their original institutions. The laity saw with indignation the
wealth and possessions of their pious ancestors perverted to the
service of sensuality and indulgence, and spent in gratifications
highly unbecoming the purposes for which they were given. A total
disregard to their respective rules and 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 maintained by them as
long as they dared, till ths bishops and clergy began to be so
greatly alarmed, that they procured an act to be passed by which
the secular arm was empowered to support the corrupt doctrines of
the church; but the first Lollard was not burnt until the year
1401.

The wits also of those times did not spare the gross morals of the
clergy, but boldly ridiculed their ignorance and profligacy. The
most remarkable of these were Chaucer, and his contemporary
Robert Langelande, better known by the name of Piers Plowman.
The laughable tales of the former are familiar to almost every
reader ; while the visions of the latter are but in few hands. With
a quotation from the Passus Dedmus of this writer I shall conclude
my letter ; not only on account of the remarkable 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 dissipation ; and a specimen of one of the keenest
•pieces of satire now perhaps subsisting in any language, ancient or
modern.

340

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

" Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate ;
A leader of love-days, and a loud begger ;
A pricker on a palfrey from maner to maner,
A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were.
And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring,
He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie,
Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs,
To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars.
In many places ther they persons be, by himself at ease :
Of the poor have they no pity, and that is her charitie ;
And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad.
And there shal come a king,* and confess you religious ;
And beate you, as the bible telleth, for breaking your rule,
And amend monials, and monks, and chanons,
And put hem to her penaunce ad pristinum statum ire"

IRON KEY OF ANCIENT CONSTRUCTION. STEEL HINGE WITH GRIFFIN ON IT.

* F. 1. a. " This prediction, although a probable conclusion concerning a king who after
a time would suppress the religious houses is remarkable. I imagined it might have been
foisted into the copies in the reign of King Henry VIII., but it is to be found in MSS. of
this poem, older than the year 1400." — f •->!. 1. a. b.

"Again, where he. Piers Plowman, alludes to the Knights Templars, lately suppressed,
he says

Men of holie kirk

Shall turn as Templars did ; the tyme approacheth nere."
"This I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffc's discourses." —

of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 282.

WARTON'S Hist.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 341

LETTER XVIII.

WILLIAM of Waynflete became bishop of Winchester in the year
1447, and seems to have pursued the generous plan of Wykeham in
endeavouring to reform the priory of 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, sacrista ibidem, ann.

Hen. VI una cum confiss. ejusdem Petri Script." The

occasion of this catalogue or list of effects, being drawn between
the prior and sacrist does not appear, nor the date when ; only
that it happened in the reign of Hen. VI. This transaction prob-
ably 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 3. osculator, argent.

''Item i. osculatorium cum osse digiti auricular. — Sti. Johannis
Baptist**

" Item i. parvam crucem cum V. reliquiis.

" Item i. anulum argent, et deauratum St. Edmundi.^

" Item 2. osculat. de coper.

* How the Onvent came by the bme rf the little finger of St. John the Baptist does
n^t -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 tcld Jesus."— Matt. iv. 12. Farther would be difficult
to say.

t November 20, in the calendar, Edmund king and martyr, in the Qth century. See also
a Sanctus Edmundus in Godwin, among the archbishops of Canterbury, in the i3th
century ; his surname Rich, in 1234.

342

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

" Item \. junctorium St. Ricardi.*

" Item i.pecten St. Ricardi.^

The staitrum, or live stock, is quite ridiculous, consisting only of
" 2 vacce. i sus, 4 hoggett. et 4 porcell." — viz., two cows, one sow,
four porkers, and four pigs.

OLD COINS,

* April 3, ibid. Richard bishop of Chichester, in the
Wich in 1245.

th century, his surname De la

Junctorium, perhaps a joint or limb of St. Richard ; but what particular joint the

ligious were not such osteologists as to specify. This barbarous word was not to be
found in any dictionary consulted by the author.

t " Pecten inter ministeria sacra recensetur, quo scil. sacerdotes ac clerici, antequam in
ecclesiam procederent, crines pecterent. E quibus colligitur mcnachos, tune temporis, non
omnino tonsos fuisse." — Du FRESNE.

The author remembers to have seen in great farm-houses a family comb chained to a
post for the use of the hinds when they came into their meals.

J These with the key and hinge, p. 340, are kept in the old manor house, and are shown
to visitors by the hospitable inmates. This was the site of Selborne priory, and .the relics
have been dug up at various times in the vicinity.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 343

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 26th,
1453-4, the sub-prior and convent petitioned the visitor — "vos
unicum levamen nostrum, et spem unanimiter rogamus, quatinus
eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio nostro, in nostra
religione probatum et expertem, licenciam vestram paternalem cum
plena libertate nobis concedere dignemini graciose." — Reg. Wayn-
flete, torn. I.

Instead of the license requested \ve find next a commission
" custodie prioratus de Selebourne durante vacatione," addressed
to brother Peter Berne, canon-regular of the priory of Selebourne,
and of the order of St. Augustine, appointing him keeper of the
said priory, and empowering him to collect and receive the profits
and revenues and "alia bona" of the said priory ; and to exercise
in every respect the full power and authority of a prior ; but to be
responsible to the visitor finally, and to maintain this superiority
during the bishop's pleasure only. This instrument is dated from
the bishop's manor-house in Southwark, March ist, 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-
tionem, seu provisionem jure ad nos in hac parte per lapsum
temporis legitime devoluto spectantem, tibi (sc. P. Berne) de
legitimo matrimonio procreato, &c. — conferimus," &c. This deed
bears date July 28th, 1454.— Reg. Waynflete, torn. I. p. 69.

On February 8th, 1462, the visitor issued out a power of seques-
tration against the priory of Selborne on account of notorious
dilapidations, which threatened manifest ruin to the roofs, walls,
and edifices, of the said convent ; and appointing John Hammond,

344 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 sequestration for their clothing,
wages, and diet, were allowed per annum 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 dissen-
sions and want of order that prevailed in the convent, resigned his
priorship into the hands of the bishop. — Reg. Waynflete, torn I.,
pars ima, fol. 157.

March 28, A.D. 1468. " In quadam alta camera juxta magnam
portam manerii of the Bishop of Wynton de Waltham coram
eodem rev. patre ibidem tune sedente, Peter Berne, prior of
Selborne, ipsum prioratum in sacras, et venerabiles majnus of
the bishop, viva voce libere resignavit : and his resignation was
admitted before two witnesses and a notary-public. In conse-
quence, March 29th, before the bishop, in capella manerii sui ante
dicti pro tribunal! sedente, comparuerunt fratres " Peter Berne,
Thomas London, William Wyndesor, and William Paynell, alias
Stretford, canons regular of the priory, " capitulum, et conventum
ejusdem ecclesie facientes ; ac jus et voces in electione futura prioris
dicti prioratus solum et in solidum, ut asseruerunt, habentes ; " and
after the bishop had notified to them the vacancy of a prior, with

* If Bishop Wykeham was so disturbed (see " Nctab. 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?

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 345

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 eonventualis de Reygate dicti
ordinis St;. Augustini Wynton. dioc. in priorem vice et nomine
omnium et singulorum canonicorum predictorum elegit, in ordine
sacerdotali, et etate licita constitutum, &c." And on the same day,
in the same place, and before the same witnesses, John Morton
resigned to the bishop the priorship of Reygate viva voce. The
bishop then required his consent to his own election : " qui licet
in parte renitens tanti reverendi patris se confirmans," obeyed, and
signified his consent oraculo vive vocis. Then was there a mandate
citing any one who would gainsay the said election to appear before
the bishop or his commissary in his chapel at 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 22nd, 1468, with signification, in
writing, of 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 con-
firmed. John Morton also appeared, and proclamation was made ;
and no one appearing against him, the commissary pronounced all
absentees contumacious, 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 fonn.

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 concodere
dignemini."

346 .ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XX.

PRIOR MORTON dying in 1401, 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 .com-
promised that the bishop should again, for that turn, nominate
as he had before. But the circumstances of this election will be
best explained by the following extract : —

REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. II.,, pars ima., fol. 7.

Memorandum. A.D. 1471, August 22.

William Wyndesor, a canon-regular of the priory of Selborne,
having been elected prior on the death of brother John, appeared
in person before the bishop in his chapel at South Waltham He
was attended on this occasion by Thomas London and John
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 dissen-
sions might probably arise between the newly chosen prior and the
parties thus neglected.

After some altercation and dispute they all came to an 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 27th, in an inner chamber near the chapel above-
mentioned, after full deliberation, chose brother Thomas Fairwise,
vicar of Somborne, a canon-regular of St. Augustine in the priory
of Bruscough, in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield, 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.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

347

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 conse-
quence 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 bs prior of Selborne, instead of one chosen out of the
chapter. For this seeming irregularity the visitor had no doubt
good and sufficient reasons, as probably may appear hereafter.

ENCAUSTIC TILES, NOW FORMING THE FLOOR OF THE SUMMER HOUSE
IN THE FARM HOUSE GARDEN,

348 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXI.

WHATEVER might have been the abilities and disposition of
Prior Fairwise, it could not have been in his power to have brought
about any material reformation in the priory of 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, repre-
senting the manner more fully, may not be disagreeable to several
readers.

WAYNEFLETE REG. torn. II. pars ima., fol. 15.

" Reverendo, &c., ac nostro patrono graciosissimo vestri humiles,
et devote obedientie filii," &c.

To the right reverend Father in God, and our most gracious
patron, we, your obedient and devoted sons, William Wyndesor,
president of the chapter of the priory of Selborne, and the convent
of that place, do make known to your lordship, that our priorship
being lately vacant by the death of Thomas Fairwise, our late
prior, who died August nth, 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-hduse assembled, and making a chapter, taking to
us in this business Richard ap Jenkyn, and Galfrid Bryan, chaplains,
that our said priory might not by means of this vacancy incur harm
or loss, unanimously agreed on August the last for the day of elec-
tion ; 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 xWyndesor, president, Peter
Berne, Thomas London, and William Stratfeld, canons, who alone
had voices, being the only canons, about ten o' the clock, first

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 349

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 proclama-
tion, enjoining all who had no right to vote to depart out of the
chapter-house. When all were withdrawn except Guyllery de
Lacuna, in decretis Baccalarius, and Robert Peverell, notary-
public, and also the two chaplains, the first was requested to stay,
that he might direct and inform us in the mode of election ; the
other, that he might record and attest the transactions ; and the
two last that they might be witnesses to them.

Then, having read the constitution of the general council (( Quia
propter," and the forms of elections contained in it being sufficiently
explained to them by De Lacuna, as well in Latin as the vulgar
tongue, and having deliberated in what mode, to proceed in this
election, they resolved on that of scrutiny. Three of the canons,
Wyndesor, Berne, and London, were made scrutators ; Berne,
London, and Stratfeld, 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 angularem " of the chapter-
house, " juxta ostium ejusdem declinentes," with the other persons
(except Stratfeld, who stayed 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," &c. Berne was next sworn, and in like manner nominated
Wyndesor ; London nominated Berne ; Stratfeld was then called
and sworn, and nominated Berne.

" Quibus in scriptis redactis," by the notary public, they 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 to the bishop ;

350 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 request the bishop's confirmation of
their election "sic canonice et solemniter celebrata," &c., &c. Sealed
with their common seal, and subscribed and attested by the notary.
Dat. in the chapter-house September 5th, 1472.

In consequence, September nth, 1472, in the bishop's chapel at
Esher, and before the bishop's commissary, appeared W. Wyndesor,
and exhibited the above instrument, and a mandate from the bishop
for the appearance of gainsayers of the election there on that day ;
— and no one appearing, the absentees were declared contumacious,
and the election confirmed ; and the vicar of Aulton was directed
to induct and install the prior in the usual manner.

Thus did Canon Berne, though advanced in years, reassume his
abdicated priorship for the second time, to the no small 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.

STOiNE COFFIN, KEl'T IN THE FARM HOUSE GARDEN.

ANTIQ UITIES OF SELB ORNE. 35 r

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.

WAYNFLETE REG. fol. 55.

Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne.

May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship. May 16, the
bishop admitted his resignation " in manerio suo de Waltham," and
declared the priorship void ; " et priorat. solacio 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," &c. A.D. 1478, Maii 19. In the chapter-
house for the election of a prior for that day, on the free resignation
of Peter Berne, having celebrated in the first place mass at the high
altar " De spiritu sancto," and having called a chapter by tolling a
bell, ut men's est; in the presence of a notary and witnesses ap-
peared personally Peter Berne,Thomas Ashford, Stephen Clydgrove,
and John Ashton, presbyters, and Henry Canwood,* in chapter
assembled ; and after singing the hymn " ' Vent Creator Spiritusj
cum versiculo et oratione ' Deus qui corda;' declaratque licentia

* Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years ; and that there was quite a
new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478 ; for, instead of Wyndesor, London,
and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clydgrove, 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.

352 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

Fundatoris et patroni ; futurum priorem eligendi concessa, et con-
stitutione consilii generalis que incipit ' Quia propterj declaratis :
viisque per quas possent ad hanc electionem procedere," by the
decretotum doctorem, whom the canons had taken to direct them—
they all and every one "dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle ad aliquam
viam procedere ; "• — but for this turn only, renounced their right,
and unanimously transferred their power to the bishop, the ordinary
of the place, promising to receive whom he should provide ; and
appointed a proctor to present the instrument to the bishop under
their seal ; and required their notary to draw it up in due form, &c.
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. PROVISIO PRIORIS per EPM.

Willmus, &c., to our' beloved brother in Christ, John Sharp, alias
Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis de Bruton, of the order of St.
Austin, in the diocese of Bath and Wells, canon-regular — salutem,
&c., " De tue circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, te
virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et moribus merito
commendandum," &c. — do appoint you prior- — under our seal,
"Dat. in manerio nostro de Suthwaltham, May 20," 1478, " et
nostre Consec. 31."

Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that he was at
liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a distance, a stranger to
the place, to govern the convent of Selborne, hoping by this method
to have broken the cabal,.and to have interrupted that habit of mis-
management that had pervaded the society ; but he acknowledges,
in an evidence lying before us, that he never did succeed to his
wishes with respect to those late governors, — " quos tamen male se
habuisse, et inutiliter administrare, et administrasse usque ad pre-
sentia tempora post debitam investigationem, &c., invenit." The
only time that he appointed from among the canons, he made
choice of Peter Berne, for whom he had conceived the greatest
esteem and regard.

When Prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he returned
again to his former condition of canon, in which he continued for
some years ; but when he was re-chosen, and had abdicated a
second time, we find him in a forlorn state, and in danger of being

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 353

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., consider-
antes Petrum Berne," late prior, " in adininistratione spiritualium
et temporalium prioratus laudabiliter vixisse et rexisse ; ipsumque
senio et corporis debilitate confractum ; ne in opprobrium religionis
mendicari cogatitr ; — eidem annuam pensionem a Domino Johanne

LEADEN TAP.

Sharpe, alias Glastonbury, priore moderno," and his successors,
and, from the priory or church, to be pa^ed every year during his
life, " de voluntate et ex consensu expressis " of the said John
Sharpe " sub ea que sequitur forma verborum — assignamus : "

ist. 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 convenientur priori," for the
time being, ministrari 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 imam honestam
cameram," in the priory, "cum socalibus necessariis seu oppor-
tunis ad eundem."

N

354 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 hasc 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, alias Glastonbury, acquitted himself in his
priorship, and in what manner he made a vacancy, whether by
resignation, or death, or whether he was removed by the visitor,
does not appear ; we only find that some time in the year 1484
there was no prior, and that the bishop nominated canon Ashford
to h'll the vacancy.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 355

LETTER XXIII.

THIS Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last prior of
Selborne ; and, therefore, here will be the proper place to say
something concerning a list of the priors, and to endeavour to
improve that already given by others.

At the end of Bishop 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 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 in-
formation 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 thenceforward very exact.

A LIST OF THE PRIORS OF SELBORNE PRIORY, FROM BROWN
WILLIS'S " PRINCIPALS OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES," WITH
ADDITIONS WITHIN [ ] BY THE AUTHOR

[John . . . was prior, sine datJ\*

Nich. de Cantia el. 1262

[Peter- was prior in 1271]

[Richard— — was prior in 1280]

Will. Basing was prior in . , . . . . 1299

Walter de Insula el. in 1324

Some difficulties, and a devolution ; but the election

confirmed by Bishop Stratford.]

John de Winton 1339

[Thomas Weston . . . . . . 1377

* See, in Letter XL <Jf these Antiquities, the reason why Prior John
•ansactions with the Knights Templars, is placed in the list before the yea

, who had
ar 1262.

356 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

John Winchester [Wynchestre] .... 1410
[Elected by Bishop Beaufort " per viam vel f ormam
simplicis compromissi."]

[John Stype, alias Stepe, in 1411]

Peter Bene [alias Berne or Berncs, appointed keeper,

and, by lapse to Bishop Waynflete, prior] in . 1454
[He resigns in 1468.]

John Morton [Prior of Reygate] in. . . . 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 Samborne] . 1471

[By compromise again elected by the bishop.]
[Peter Berne, re-elected by scrutiny in . . . 1472]

[Resigns again in 1478.]

John Sharper [Sharp], alias Glastonbury »••'• '. 1478
[Canon-reg. of Bruton, elected by the bishop by

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.]

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 357

LETTER XXIV.

BISHOP WAYNEFLETE'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 alias Glastonbury's priorship ended does not
appear. The bishop says that he had been obliged to remove some
priors for mal-administration ; but it is not well explained how that
could be the case with any unless with Sharp, because all the others
chosen during his episcopate died in their office, viz., Morton and
Fairwise ; Berne only excepted, who relinquished twice voluntarily,
and was, moreover, approved of by Wayneflete as a person of in-
tegrity. 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 pro:tor, Rudolphus Langley, who appeared for the
bishop in the process of the impropriation of the Priory of Selborne.
The extract is taken from an attested copy.

" Item — that the said bishop, dicto prioratui et personis ejusdem
pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales, labores, et diligentias
gravissimas quam plurimas, tarn per se quam per suos, pro reforma-
tione premissorum impendebat ; et aliquando illius loci prioribus,
propter malam et inutilem administrationem, et dispensationem
bonorum predict! prioratus, suis demeritis exigentibus, amotis ;
alios priores in quorum circumspectione et diligentia confidebat,
prefecit ; quos tamen male se habuisse ac inutiliter administrare,
et administrasse, usque ad presentia tempora post debitam inves-
tigationem, &c., invenit." So that he despaired with all his
care : " statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare: ; et con-
siderata temporis malicia, et preteritis timendo et conjecturando
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 aug-

358 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

ment its income by putting it in possession of the estates belonging
to the priory of Selborne, now become a deserted convent, without
canons or prior. The president and fellows state the circum-
stances of their numerous institution and scanty provision and the
ruinous and perverted condition of the priory. The bishop ap-
points 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 attorneys 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 proceeding, 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.,* ad universitatem
vestre notitie deducimus, &c., quod eoram nobis commissario pre-
dicto in ecclesia parochiali Sd. Georgii de Esher, Diet. Winton.
dioc. 3°. die Augusti, A.D. 1485. Indictione tertia pontificat. In-
nocenti 8vl. ann. imo. judicialiter comparuit venerabilis vir Jacobus
Preston, S. T. P. infrascriptus, et exhibuit literas comissionis —
quas quidem per magistrum Thomam Somercrotes notarium publi-
cum, &c., legi fecimus, tenorem sequentem in se continentes."
The same as in No. 103, but dated—" In manerio nostro de Esher,
Augusti imi. A.D. 1485, et nostre confec. anno 39." [No 103 is
repeated in a book containing the like process in the preceding
year by the same commissary, in the parish church of St. Andrew
the Apostle, at Farnham, Sept 6th, anno 1434.] " Post quarum
literarum lecturam — dictus magister Jacobus Preston, quasdam
procuratorias literas mag. Richardi Mayhewe 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, £c., fecit se partem, ac nobis supplicavit ut juxta

* Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo l>co 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 Wint in,
and should conclude that there was a mistake in titles, and that the abbot must have been
here meant : he will be pleased to recollect that this person was the second in rank ; for, .
"next under the abbot, in every abbey, was the prior." — Pref. to Notit. Monast., p. 29.
Besides, abbots were great personages, and too high in station to submit to any office
under the bishop.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 359

formam in eisdem traditam procedere dignaremur," &c. After
these proclamations no contradictor or objector appearing — " ad
instantem petitionem ipsius mag. Jac. Preston, procuratoris, &c.,
procedendum fore decrevimus vocatis jure vocandis; nee non mag.
Tho. Somercotes, &c., in actorum nostrorum scribam nominavimus.
Consequenter et ibidem tune 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 Clyff and Cowper, " Preston, viva voce," petitioned
the commissary to annex and appropriate the Priory of Selborne to
the college — " propter quod fructus, redditus. et proventus ejusdem
coll. adeo tenues sunt, et exiles, quod ad sustentationem ejus, &c.,
non sufficiunt." The commissary, " ad libellandum et articulandum
in scriptis," — adjourned the court to the 5th of August, then to be
held again in the parish church of Esher.

W. Cowper being then absent, Radulphus Langley appeared for
the bishop, and was admitted his proctor. Preston produced his
libel or article in scriptis for the union, &c. ; "et admitti petiit
eundem cum effectu ; cujus libelli tenor sequitur. — In Dei nomine,
Amen. Coram nobis venerabili in Christo patre Richardo, priore,
&c., de Novo Loco, &c., commissario, &c." Part of the College
of Magd. dicit. allegat, and in his " scriptis proponit," £c.

" Imprimis — that said college consists of a president and eighty
scholars, besides sixteen choristers, thirteen servientes inibi altissimo
famulantibus, et in scientiis plerisque liberalibus, presertim in sacra
theologia studentibus, nedum ad ipsorum presidents et scholarium
pro presenti et imposterum, annuente deo, incorporandortim in
eodem relevamen ; verum etiam ad omnium et singulorum tarn
scholarium quam religiosorum cujuscunque ordinis undequaque
illuc confluere pro salubri doctrina volentium utilitatem multipli-
cem ad incrementa virtutis fideique catholice stabilimentum. Ita
videlicet quod omnes et singuli absque personarum seu nationum
delectu illuc accedere volentes, lecturas publicas et doctrinas tarn
in grammatica in loco ad collegium contiguo, ac philosophiis morali
et naturali, quam in sacra theologia in eodem collegio perpetuis
temporibus continuandas libere atque gratis audire valeant et
possint, ad laudem gloriam et honorem Dei, &c., extitit fundatum
et stabilitum."

360 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 sumciunt his diebus." " Item— that the premisses are true, &c.,
et super eisdem laborarunt, et laborante publica vox et fama. Unde
facta fide petit pars eorundem that the priory be annexed to the
college : ita quod dicto prioratu vacante liceat iis ex tune to take
possession, £c." This libel, with the express, consent of the other
proctors, we, the commissary, admitted, and appointed the sixth
of August for proctor Preston to prove the premisses.

Preston produced witnesses, W. Gyfford, S. T. P., John Nele,
A. M., John Chapman, chaplain, and Robert Baron, literatus, who
were admitted and sworn, when the court was prorogued to the 6th
of August ; and the witnesses, on the same 5th of August, were
examined by the commissary, " in capella infra manerium de Essher
situata secrete et singillatim." Then follow the "literse procura-
torias : " first that of the college, appointing Preston and Langport
their proctors, dated August soth, 1484; then that of the prior and
convent of the cathedral of Winton, appointing David Husband
and Michael Cleve, dated September 4th, 1484 ; then that of the
bishop, appointing W. Gyfford, Radulphus Langley and Will.
Cowper, dated September 3rd, 1484. Consec. 38°. — " Quo die
adveniente in dicta ecclesia parochiali," appeared, "coram nobis,"
James Preston to prove the contents of his libel, and exhibited
some letters testimonial with the seal of the bishop, and these were
admitted ; and consequenter Preston produced two witnesses, viz.,
Dominum Thomam Ashforde, nuper priorem dicti prioratus, et
Willm. Rabbys, literatum, who were admitted and sworn, and
examined as the others, by the commissary ; " tune & ibidem
assistente scriba secrete & singillatim ; ;; and their depositions
were read and made public, as follows : —

Mr. W. Gyfford, S. T. P., aged 57, of the state of Magd, Coll.,
&c., &c., as before.

Mr. John Nele, aged 57, proves the articles also.

Robert Baron, aged 56.

Johannes Chapman, aged 35, also affirmed all the five articles.

Dompnus Thomas Ashforde, aged 72 years—" dicit 2dum. 3um. 4um.
articulos in eodem libello contentos, concernentes statum dicti
prioratus de Selbourne, fuisse et esse veros."

W. Rabbys, setat 40 ann., agrees with Gyfford, &c.

Then follows the letter from_the bishop, " in subsidium proba-
tionis," above-mentioned — " Willmus, &o., salutem, &c., noverint

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 361

universitas vestra, quod licet nos prioratui de Selbourne, &c., pie
compacientes sollicitudines pastorales, labores, diligentias quam
plurimas per nos & commissarios nostros pro reformatione status
ejus impenderimus, justicia id poscente ; nihilominus tamen," &c.,
as in the article — to " d2speratur," dated " in manerio nostro de
Esher, 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 business, and appointed Monday, August 8th, for
giving his decree in the same church of Esher; and it was that
day read, and contains a recapitulation, with the sentence of union,
&c., witnessed and attested.

As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalene 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 of June, in
the year of our Lord 1486, and in the second year of his pontifi-
cate, confirmed what had been done, and suppressed the convent.

Thus fell the considerable and welt-endowed priory of Selborne
after it had subsisted about two hundred and fifty-four years ; about
seventy-four years after the suppression of priories alien by Henry
V., and about fifty years before the general dissolution of monas-
teries by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had fondly
imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the pious
motives on which it was established, might have preserved it
inviolate to the end of time— yet it fell —

"To teach us that God attributes to place
No sanctity, if none be thither brought
By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell."

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

* There is nothing remarkable in this bull of Pope Innocent, except t'ie statement of the
annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is therein estimated at 160 flor. auri ;
whereas Bishop Godwin sets it at 337/. 155. 6±d. Now a fiSren, so named, says Camden .
because made by Florentius, was a gold coin of King Edward III., in value 6s., whereof
i6u is not one seventh part of 337/. i$s. 6\d.

N "2

362 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXV.

WAINFLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising from this
new acquisition ; but departed this life in a few months after he
had effected the union of the priory with his late founded college ;
and was succeeded in the see of Winchester, by Peter Courtney,
some time towards the end of the year 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 Winton, Ricardo Mayew, Presi-
dent! omnium actionum occasione indempnitatis sibi debite pro
unione Prioratus de Selborne dicto collegio. Jan. 2. 1487., et
translat anno i°."

N. 374. " Relaxatio prioris et conventus Sti. Swithini Winton
confirmans relaxationem Petri ep. Winton." 1487., Jan. 13.

Ashforde, the deposed prior, who had appeared as an evidence
for the impropriation of the priory at the age .of seventy-two years,
that he might not be destitute of a maintenance, was pensioned by
the college to the day of his death ; and was living on till 1490, as
appears by his acquittances.

REG. A. ff. 46.

" Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum pervenerit,
Richardus Mayew, presidens, &c., et scolares, salutem in Domino.

" Noveritis nos prefatos presidentem et scolares, dedisse, con-
cessisse, et hoc presenti scripto confirmasse Thome Ashforde,
capellano, quendam annualem redditum sex librarum tresdecim
solidorum et quatuor denariorum bone et legalis monete Anglic— ad
terminum vite prefati Thome "—to be paid from the possessions of
the college in Basingstoke. — " In cujus rei testimonium sigillum
nostrum commune presentibus apponimus. Dat. Oxon. in coll.
nostro supra dicto primo die mensi^ Junii anno regis Ricardi tertii

* The Bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE, 363

secundo," viz. 1484. The college, in their grant to Ashforde, style
him only capellanus ; but the annuitant very naturally, and with a
becoming dignity, asserts his late title in his acquittances, and
identifies himself by the addition of the impcr 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 of all that had
been benefactors to the said priory and college, and for all the
faithful who had departed this life.

N. 356. Thomas Knowles, presidens, £c.— " damns et conce-
dimus Nicholao Langrish quandum capellajiiam, 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 nna coquina, et cum
uno stabulo conveniente pro tribus equis, cum pomerio eidem
adjacente voc. le Orcheyard — Preterea 26s. 8</. per ann. ad in-
veniendum unum clericum ad serviendum sibi ad altare, et aliis
negotiis necessariis ejus." — His wood to be granted him by the
president on the progress. — He was not to absent himself beyond a
certain time ; and was to superintend the coppices, wood, and
hedges.— Dat. 5'°. die Julii. an0. Hen. VIIIvi. 36°." [viz. 1546.]

Here we see the priory in a new light, reduced, as it were, to the
btate of a chantry, without prior and without canons, and attended
only by a priest, who was also a sort of bailiff or woodman, his assis-
tant clerk and his female cook. Owen Cglethorpe, president of
Magd. Coll. in the fourth year of Edward VI., viz., 1551, granted
an annuity of ten pounds a year for life to Mich. Langrish, who
from the preamble, appears then to have been fellow of that society;
but, being now superannuated for business, this pension is granted

364 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

him for thirty years, if he should live so long. It is said of him —
"cum jam sit provectioris etatis quam ut," &c.

Laurence Stubb, president of Magd. Coll., leased out the priory
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 viu. 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 anything
singular occurs.

And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise] mede. Every
convent had its paradise; which probably was an enclosed orchard,
pleasantly laid out, and planted with fruit-trees. Tylehouse grove,
so distinguished from having a tiled house near it. 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 i462-§ Whether these pipes

* It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings, farms, fields, woods,
&c.. which appear in the ancient deeds, and evidences of several centuries standing, are
still preserved in common use with little or no variation: — as Norton, Southington,
Durton, Achangre, Blackmore, Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, &c., &c. At the same time it
should be acknowledged that other places have entirely lost their original titles, as le Buri
and Trucstede in this village ; and la Liege, or la Lyg2, which was the name of the original
sita of the Priory, &c.

t Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep off the inclemencies
of weather ; and then by degrees laid straw or haum. The first refinements on roofing
were shingles which are very ancient. Tiles are a 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.

t There is als-> a Butt-close just at the back of the village.

§ _M. 381. " Clausure terre abbatie ecclesie parochial! de Seleburne, ixs. iiutt. Repara-
cionibus Uomorum predicti prioratus iiii. lib. xis. Aque c .nduct. ibidem, xxiii.'z', "

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 365

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 anything 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.

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., p. 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 of Whaddon belonging to the said
parsonage. Dat. June i. 27th. Hen. 8th. [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 : f but there
are no remains or traces of the building itself, the very foundations
having been destroyed before the memory of man. In a farm-yard
at Oakhanger we remember a large hollow stone, of a close sub-
stance, 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. %

* There is still a wood near the Priory, called Tanner's Wood.

t 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.

| See Letter XIX. of these Anti4uiiies. — " Summa total, solut. de novis edificationibus,
ei raparacionibus per idem tempus, ut patet per cimput/'

'• Videlicet de nova edificat. Capelle Marie de Wadden. xiiii. lib. vs. viiu/. — Repara-
cionibus ecclesie Prioratus, cancellor. et capellar. ecclesiarurn et capellarqm de Selborne,
et Estworhlam. "— &c., &c.

366 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

The Selborne rivulet becomes of some breadth at Oakhanger,
and, in very wet seasons, swells to a large flood. There is a bridge
over the stream at this hamlet of considerable antiquity and peculiar
shape, known by the name of Tunbridge : it consists of one single
blunt Gothic arch, so high and sharp as to render the passage not
very convenient or safe. Here was also, we find, a bridge in very
early times ; for Jacobus de Hochangre, the first benefactor to the
priory of Selborne, held his estate at Hochangre by the service
of providing the king one foot-soldier for forty days, and by
building this bridge. "Jacobus de Hochangre tenet Hochangre
in com. Southampton, per Serjantiam,* inveniendi unum valectum
in exercitu Domini regis [scil. Henrici III1".] 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 appendant to a manorial 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 molendinumj^ a power of
compelling his vassals to bring their corn to be ground at his mill,
according to an old custom. He had also, according to Bishop
Tanner, secta molendini de strete ; but the purport of strete, we
must confess, we do not understand. Strete, in old English,
signifies a road or highway, as Waiting Strete, &c., therefore
the prior might have some mill on a high road. The priory had
only one mill originally at Selborne ; but, by grants of lands, it
came possessed of one at Durton, and one at Oakhanger, and
probably some on its other several manors. J The mill at the
priory was in use within the memory of man, and the ruins of the
mill-house were standing within these thirty years : the pond and
dam, and miller's dwelling, still remain. As the stream was apt
to fail in very dry summers, the tenants found their situation very
distressing, for want of water, and so were forced to abandon the
spot. This inconvenience was probably never felt in old times,
when the whole district was nothing but woodlands ; and yet

* Sargentia. a sort of tenure of doing something for the king.

t " Servitium, quo_feudat .rii grana sua ad Domini molendinum, ibi molenda perferre,
ex consuetidine, astringuntur. "

I Thomas Knowles, president, &c., ann. Hen. 8vi. xxiii0. [1532] demised to J. Whitelie
their mills. &c., for twenty years. Rent xxiii-y. iiiid. — Accepted Frewen, president, &c.,
ann Caroli xv. [viz. 1640.] demised to Jo. Hook and Elizaheth his v/ife, the said mills.
Rent as ab :>ve.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 367

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 extrava-
gance 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.

SELBURNE.

A priory of black canons, founded by the often-mentioned Peter
de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, A.D. 1233, and dedicated to
the Blessed Virgin 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, Edward II.]
Vide Mon. Ang. torn. ii. p. 343. " Cartam fundationis ex ipso
autographo in archivis Coll. Madg. Oxon. ubi etiam conservata sunt
registra, cartae, rentali et alia munimenta ad hunc prioratum
spectantia.

"Extracta quredam e registro MSS. in bibl. Bodl.— Dodworth,
vol. 89, f. 140.-

" Cart, antiq. N. N. n. 33. P. P. n. 48. et 71. Q. O. n. 40. plac.
corarn justit. itin. [Southampton] 20 Hen. rot. 25. De eccl. de
Basing & Basingstoke. Plac. de juratis apud Winton. 40 Hen.
III. rot. — Protecta molendini de Strete. Cart. 54. Hen. III. m. 3.
[De mercatu, & feria apud Seleborne, a mistake.] Pat. 9. Edw. I.
m.— Pat. 30. Edw. I. m — Pat. 33. Edw. I. p. i. m.— Pat. 35. Edw.
I. m.— Pat. i. Edw. IL p. i.-m. 9. Pat. 5. Edw. II. p. i. m. 21.
De terris in Achanger. Pat. 6. Edw. II. p. i. m. 7. de eisdem.
Brev. in Scacc. 6. Edw. II. Pasch. rot. 8. Pat. 17. Edw. II. p. i. m.
— Cart. 10. Edw. III. n. 24. Quod terras suce in Seleburn,
Achangre, Norton, Basings, Basingstoke, and Nately, sint de

* A few days after this was written a. new edition of this valuable work was announced
in the month of April of the year 1787, as published by Mr. Nasmith.

365 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

afforestatse, and pro aliis libertatibus. Pat. 12. Edw. III. p. 3.
m. 3.— Pat. 10. Edw. III. p. i. 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 Ay lore's Calendars of Ancient
Charters.

11 Placita de juratis & assis coram Salom de Roff, & sociis suis
justic. itiner. apud Wynton in comitatu Sutht.--anno regni R.
Edwardi filii reg. Henr. octavo. — Et Por de Seleborn ht in Selebr.
fure, thurset. pillory, emendasse panis, & suis." [cerevisae.] —
Chapter House, Westminster.

" Placita Foreste apud Wyntdn in com. Sutham. — Anno reg.
Edwardi octavo coram Rog. de_ Clifford, £c. Justic. ad eadein
placita audienda et tminand. assigtis.

" Carta Pror de Seleburn, H. Dei gra. rex. angl. &c. Concessim,
prior, see. Marie de Seleburn. et _canonicis ibidem Deo servient.

q ipi et oes hoies sui in pdcis terris suis et tenementis

manentes sint in ppetum quieti de sectis Swanemotor. et omnium
alior. placitor. for. et de espeltamentis canum. et de omnibus
submonitoibz. placitis querelis et exaccoibus et occoibz. ad for. et
for. et viridar. et eor. ministros ptinentibz." — Chapter-house, West-
minster^

" Plita Forestarum in com. Sutht. apud Suthamton anno

regni regis Edwardi tcii post consequentum quarto coram Johe
Mantvers, &c., justic. itinand. &c.

" De hiis qui clamant libtates infra Forestas in com. Sutht.

"Prior de Selebourne clamat esse_quietus erga dnm regem de
omnibus finibus et amerciamentis p tnsgr. et_omnibus, exaccoibz ad
Dom. regem vel hered. suos ptinent. pret. plita corone reg.

" Item clamat qd 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, ubicuncq ; justitia fieri debeat omnia catella ilia jmt ptci
Prioris et successor, suor. Et liceat eidem priori et ballis suis
ponere se in seisinam in htijusmodi catall. in casibus pdcis sine
disturbacone ballivor. dni reg. quorumcunque.

" Item clam, quod licet aliqua libtatum p dnm regem concessar,
pcessu temporis quocunq ; casu contingente_ usi non fuerint,
nlominus postea eacfm libtate uti possit. lilt pdcus prior cuiesitus

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

369

p justic. quo waranto clamat omn. terr. et ten. sua in Seleburne,
Norton, Basynges, Basyngestoke, & Nattele, que prior domus pdte
huit & tenuit Xmo. die April anno regni dni. Hen. reg. nue XVIII.
imppm effe quieta de vasto et regardo, et visu forestarior. et
viridarior. regardator. et omnium ministrorum foreste," — &c.,
&c. — Chapter House, Westminster.

37o

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

PRIORY FARM HOUSE,

LETTER XXVI.

THOUGH the evidences and documents of the priory and parish
of Selborne are now at an end, yet as the author has still several
things to say respecting the present state of that convent and 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 apart-
ments 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

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 371

dissolution— a series of years that would craze the stoutest edifices.
But, besides the slow hand of time, many circumstances have con-
tributed to level this venerable structure with the ground ; of which
nothing now remains but one piece of wall of about ten feet long,
and as many feet high, which probably was a part of an outhouse.
As early as the" latter end of the reign of Hen. VII., we find that a
farmhouse and two barns were built to the south of the Priory, and
undoubtedly out of its materials. Avarice again has much contri-
buted 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 pro-
pensity the writer can give from his own knowledge. When a
schoolboy, more than fifty years ago, he was eye-witness, perhaps
a party concerned, in the undermining a portion of that fine old
ruin at the north end of Basingstoke town, well known by the name
of Holy Ghost Chapel. Very providentially the vast fragment,
which these thoughtless little engineers endeavoured to sap, did
not give way so soon as might have been expected ; but it fell the
night following, and with such violence that it shook the very
ground, and, awakening the inhabitants of the neighbouring cot-
tages, made them start up in their beds as if they had felt an
earthquake. The motive for this dangerous attempt does not
so readily appear ; perhaps the more danger the more honour,
thought the boys, and the notion of doing some mischief gave a
zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says upon another occasion —

"It look'd so like a sin it pleas'd the more."

Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of the ground,
the discerning eye of an antiquary might have ascertained 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, choaked with nettles, and dwarf-elder, and trampled by
the feet of the ox and the heifer.

As the tenant at the priory was lately digging among the
foundations, for materials to mend the highways, his labourers dis-
covered 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

372 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

base of a pillar ; both formed out of the soft freestone of this dis-
trict. 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. Th« diameter of the
capital was two feet three inches and an half ; and of the column,
where it had stood on the base, eighteen inches and three quarters.

Two years ago, some labourers, digging again among the ruins
sounded 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 whatever purpose, we were going to procure, but
found that the labourers had just broken it in pieces, and carried
it out on the highways.

The priory of Selborne had possessed in this village a grange, an
usual appendage to manorial 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-baronf 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 un-
worthy of notice. There is on the south side of the king's field (a
large common- field, so called), a considerable tumulus, or hillock,
now covered with thorns and bushes, and known by the name of
Kite's Hill, which is presented, year by year, in court as not
ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respecting this
spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable land, may be a
question not easily solved, since the usage has long survived the

* 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, &c.

t The time when this court is held i-; the mid-week between Easter and Whitsuntide.

i Owen Oglethorpe, president, £c., an. Kdw. Sexti, primo [viz. 1547.] demised to Robert
Arden Selborne Grange for twenty years. Rent \\Y>.—Incfe.r of Leases.

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE. 373

knowledge 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 Gaily (Gallows)
Hill.

The lower part of the village, next the Grange, in which is a ppnd
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 de-
nomination 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 mercante feria
de Seleburne " Selborne never had a chartered fair ; the present
fair was set up since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who
had found in an old almanack that there had been a fair here in
former days on the first of August ; and were desirous to revive so
joyous a festival. Against this innovation the vicar set his face,
and persisted in crying it down, as the probable occasion of much
intemperance. However, the fair prevailed but was altered to the
2Qth of May, because the former day often interfered with wheat-
harvest. On that day it still continues to be held, and is become an
useful mart for cows and calves. Most of the lower house-keepers
brew beer against this holiday, which is dutied by the exciseman,
and their becoming victuallers for the day without a license is
overlooked.

Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within themselves-
Thus, at the priory, a low and moist situation, there were ponds
and stews for their fish ; at the same place also, and at the Grange
in Culver* Croft, 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 testified/}-

Nothing has been said, as yet, respecting the tenure or holding
of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton are manor farms,
and freeholds ; as is the manor of Chapel, near Oakhanger, and
also the estate at Oakhanger House and Blackmoor. The priory

*' Culver, as has been observed before, "is Saxon for a pigeon,
t A warren was a usual appendage to a manor.

374 ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

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 the 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 monasteries were of con-
siderable 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 foundations and ornamented stones, and tracery of
windows that have been discovered on the north-east side of the
village ; and by the many vestiges of disused fish-ponds still to be
seen around it. For ponds and stews were multiplied in the times
of popery, that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their tables
on fast days ; therefore, the more they abounded the better probably
was the condition of the inhabitants.

MORE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY 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

ANTIQUITIES OF SELBORNE.

37S

armour, "scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry
hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the
waving forests of an asparagus bed.

But, as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the
year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by getting within the
reflection of a fruit-wall ; and, though he never has read that planes
inclining to the horizon receive a greater share of warmth,* he
inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit
every feeble ray.

Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile ; to
be cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside ;
to be imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude,
we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet
there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when
his exertions are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is
stirring by five in the morning ; and, traversing the garden,
examines every wicket and interstice in the fences, through
which he will escape if possible ; and often has eluded the care
of the gardener, and wandered to some distant field. The motives
that impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the
amorous kind ; his fancy then becomes intent on sexual attach-
ments, which transport him beyond his usual gravity, and induce
him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn deportment.

* 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.

I'KIORY SEAL.

OBSERVATIONS

VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE.

FROM MR. WHITE'S MSS
WITH REMARKS BY MR. MARKWICK.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE advertisement to the Svo Edition of Selborne, published in
1802, edited by John White, the brother of the author, will best
explain the manner in which the Calendar and Observations came
to be printed.

" The favourable reception with which the works on natural
history of my late respected relation, the Rev. Gilbert White of
Selborne, have been honoured by the persons best qualified to judge
of their merit, has induced me to present them to the public in a
collected and commodious form, free from the encumbrance of any
extraneous matter. His largest work, entitled ' The Natural
History of Selborne,' has probably been supposed by many to be
formed upon a more local and confined plan than it really is. In
fact, the greater part of the observations are applicable to all that
portion of the island in which he resided, and were indeed made in
various places. Almost the only matter absolutely local is the
account of the antiquities of the village of Selborne ; and this
seemed to stand so much apart, that, however well calculated to
gratify the lovers of topographical studies, it was thought that its
entire omission would be considered no loss to the work, considered
as a publication on natural history. Its place is occupied by the
' Naturalists' Calendar, and Miscellaneous Observations/ which
appeared in a. separate, volume since the author's decease, extracted
from his papers by Dr. Aitkin. That gentleman has also made
some farther selections from the papers, which are now all in my
possession ; and has undertaken the revision and arrangement of the
whole. A very valuable addition to the calendar and observations
has been obtained from the kindness of William Markwick, Esq.
F.L.S., well known as an accurate observer of nature, whose,
parallel calendar, kept in the county of Sussex, is given upon the
opposite columns.

"The editor flatters himself that the publication in its present
form will prove an acceptable addition to the library of the natural-
ist ; and will in particular, be useful in inspiring young persons, and
those who pass their time in retirement, with a taste for the very
pleasing branch of knowledge on which it treats.

«J W.

"FLEET STREET, 1802."

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

BIRDS IN GENERAL.

IN severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, 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 turbu-
lences, 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 periodcially as if they had met with nothing
to obstruct them. The withdrawing and appearance of the short-
winged summer birds is a very puzzling circumstance in natural
history.

When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam fowls fare
deliciously, and when the combs are pulled to pieces, devour the
young wasps in their maggot state with the highest glee and
delight.* Any insect-eating bird would do the same ; and there-

* See Letter XLIII. Mr. White is quite correct, it is for the larvae the combs are sought
after; we do not know any instance where honey is preyed upon. Several hawks are
partially insectivorous, particularly some of the small foreign species. The kestrel of
Europe sometimes feeds on coleoptera.

380 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

fore I have often wondered that the accurate Mr. Ray should call
one species of buzzard buteo apivorus sive vespivorus, or the honey
buzzard, because some combs of wasps happened to be found in
one of their nests. The combs were conveyed thither doubtless
for the sake of the maggots or nymphs, and not for their honey,
since none is to be found in the combs of wasps. Birds of prey
occasionally feed on insects ; thus have I seen a tame kite picking
up the female ants full of eggs, with much satisfaction. — WHITE.

That red-starts, fly-catchers, black-caps, and other slender-billed
insectivorous small birds, particularly the swallow tribe, make their
first appearance very early in the spring, is a well-known fact ;
though the fly-catcher is the latest of them all in its visit (as this
accurate naturalist observes in another place), for it is never seen
before the month of May. If these delicate creatures come to
us from a distant country, they will probably be exposed in their
passage, as Mr. White justly remarks, to much greater difficulties
from storms and tempests than their feeble powers appear to be
able to surmount : on the other hand, if we suppose them to pass
the winter in a dormant state in this country, concealed in caverns
or other hiding-places sufficiently guarded from the extreme cold
of our winter to preserve their life, and that at the approach of
spring they revive from their torpid state and reassume their usual
powers of action, it will entirely remove the first difficulty, arising
from the storms and tempests they are liable to meet with in their
passage ; but how are we to get over the still greater difficulty of
their revivification from their torpid state? What degree of
warmth in the temperature of the air is necessary to produce that
effect, and how it operates on the functions of animal life, are
questions not easily answered.

How could Mr. White suppose that Ray named this species the
honey buzzard, because it fed on honey, when he not only named
it in Latin buteo apivorus et vespivorus, but expressly says that " it
feeds on insects, and brings up its young with the maggots or
nymphs of wasps ? "

That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh,
sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I think I have
observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to settle on the ground
and pick up insects of some kind or other.— MARKWICK.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 381

ROOKS.

Rooks are continually fighting, and pulling each other's nests to
pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close
community. And yet if a pair offer to build on a single tree, the
nest is plundered and demolished at once. Some rooks roost on
their nest trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in building
supply the poor with brushwood to light their fires. Some unhappy
pairs are not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have com-
pleted 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 ex-
pressed by the young, while in a helpless state. This gallant
deportment of the males is continued through the whole season of
incubation. These birds do not copulate on trees, nor in their
nests, but on the ground in the open fields. — WHITE.

After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all
leave their nest trees in the day-time, and resort to some distant
place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast
flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round several times
with much noise and clamour till they are all assembled together,
they take up their abode for the night. — MARKWICK.

THRUSHES. N

Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in hunting
out shell snails, which they pull to pieces for their young, and are
thereby very serviceable in gardens.* Missel thrushes do not
destroy the fruit in gardens like the other species of turdi, but feed
on the berries of mistletoe, and in the spring on ivy berries, which
then begin to ripen. In the summer, when their young become
fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and
wild commons.

* Snails, particularly the animal of Helix metnoralis is a favourite food of the song
thrush. They break the shell by repeated strokes upon a stone, and it is a curious habit
that particular stones are selected, probably from something being convenient in their
position ; these are resorted to regularly, and small heaps of the broken shells may be
seen around them.

382 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

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 nouses, and in frequented walks and gardens. — WHITE.

Of the truth of this I have been an eye-witness, having seen the
common thrush feeding on the shell snail.

In the very early part of this spring (1797) a bird of this species
used to sit every morning on the top of some high elms close by
my windows, and delight me with its charming song, attracted
thither probably, by some ripe ivy berries that grew near the
place.

I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I remember,
many years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly up repeatedly and
attack some larger bird, which I suppose disturbed their nest in my
orchard, uttering at the same time violent shrieks. Since writing
the above, I have seen more than once a pair of these birds attack
some magpies that had disturbed their nest, with great violence and
loud shrieks.— MARKWICK.

POULTRY.

Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment to see
what will turn to their own advantage and emolument : and often
discover more sagacity than could be expected. Thus my neigh-
bour's poultry watch for waggons loaded with wheat, and running
after them, pick up a number of grains which are shaken from the
sheaves by the agitation of the carriages. Thus, when my brother
used to take down his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run
out before him, to be ready to catch up the birds as they fell.*

The earnest and early propensity of the 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 ttirkeys 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

* Since railways have been introduced, crows (common rooks) assemble along the line to
pick up the pieces of grease that fall from the carriage wheels.

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 383

owner's house for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blow-
ing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having the
faculty of perching ; but then the same fear prevails in their minds ;
for through apprehension from pole-cats and stoats, they never
trust themselves to coverts, but nestle together in the midst of large
fields, far removed from hedges and coppices, which they love to
haunt in the day, and where at that season they can skulk more
secure from the ravages of rapacious birds.

As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay web-feet forbid them
to settle on trees : they therefore, in the hours of darkness and
clanger, betake themselves to their own element the water, where
amidst large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float
the whole night long in peace and security. — WHITE.

Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort,
even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest trees. Last
winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all
my guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest
boughs of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great
clamour : I ordered them to be driven down lest they should be
frozen to death in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected
without much difficulty ; they bein£ veiy unwilling to quit their
lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so much
frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how to account
for this, unless it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow on
the ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot
climate.

Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls
them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the
power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease ;
an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's
menagerie, where the summer duck, anas sponsa, flew up, and
settled on the branch of an oak-tree in my presence : but whether
any of them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by
any author that I am acquainted with.* I suppose not, but that,
like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds
of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from
the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood
a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was

* Several ducks are of arboreal habits, perch and roost upon trees and make their nest
in hollows or in appropriate situations among the large branches. The common wild-duck
has been known to breed in a pollard willow.

384 OBSERVATIONS 0 1ST BIRDS.

found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were
several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam
into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander,
which, Being most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with
its wings about the head till it was drowned. — MARKWICK.

HEN PARTRIDGE.

A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and .ran along shivering
with her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to get
from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended
me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter
into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is
instinct. — WHITE.

It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded
and run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog
or man, to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones.
I have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable
instance of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was
hunting a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small
partridges : the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along
just before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a considerable
distance, when she took wing, and flew still farther off, but not out of
the field : on this the dog returned to me, near which place the
young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the old bird no sooner
perceived than she flew back again to us, settled just before the
dog's nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about, drew off his
attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second
time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a
covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey,
screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood.
—MARKWICK.

A HYBRID PHEASANT.

Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Hold 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

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 38$

neck, and breast, and belly were of a glossy black ; and though it
weighed three pounds three ounces and a half,* the weight of a full
grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the
legs, as is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long
ones. The legs and feet were naked of feathers and therefore it
could be nothing of the grouse kind. In the tail were no bending
feathers such as cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic
of the sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail 'of a hen
pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back, wing
feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet, curiously streaked,
somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge. I returned it
with my verdict, that it was probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird,
bred between a cock pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I
came to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me that some
pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt the coppices and
coverts where this mule was found.

Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was employed
to take an exact copy of this curious bird.

N.D. It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges have
imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or blackcock jf it is

* Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.

t There have been several opinions stated as to whether this bird was a hybrid, or only
a young blackcock before it had attained its full plumage. The point at issue is of very
little importance, as we know now certainly that a mule occasionally takes place between
the black grouse and pheasant, and if the red patch represented in the figure to surround
the eye has been correctly drawn, the probability is that it was a hybrid.

The specimen was stuffed and formed part of the museum of the Earl of Egremont at
Petworth. This collection was afterwards entirely destroyed by moths or carelessness, and
with it the bird in question, so that there is now no means of solving the question by a
fresh examination. But Mr. Herbert writes, "I saw this curious bird stuffed in the year
1804, and I have not the slightest hesitation in pronouncing that it was a mule between the
blackcock and the common pheasant. I was inf jrmed at the time by Lord Egremont that
it was Mr. White's bird, and I examined it with the most minute attention, compared it
with the description in the ' Naturalists' Calendar,' and wrote at the moment marginal
memoranda on my copy of that book. In Mr White's description of that bird, where he

says, ' that the back, wing feathers, and tail were somewhat like the upper parts of a hen
partridge,' I scratched out at the time, the words 'somewhat like,' and wrote in the margin
'much browner than,' and with that alteration I believe Mr. White's description to be

quite correct : but I noted down that the plate was exceedingly ill-coloured, which indeed
may be perceived by comparing it with the description. I did not then, nor do I now,
entertain the slightest doubt of its being a mule between the black game and the
pheasant."

" As I understood that it has been surmised that the hybrid described by White might
have been a young blackcock in moult, I wish to state in the most positive manner, that I
am certain it was not. I had at the period when I examined it, been in the annual habit
of shooting young black game, and was perfectly well acquainted with all their variations
of plumage ; and had also been accustomed to see them reared in confinement. It is a
point on which I could not be deceived. The bird had neither the legs and feet, nor the
plumage of a blackcock in any state of its growth."

The above, copied from Mr. Bennet's notes, is the most direct proof we can now have on
the subject, and we see nothing in the figure (of which a reduced woodcut is given),
to warrant any doubt being held, after the distinct and very decided evidence given by
Mr. Herbert.

O

386 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

however to be observed, that Mr. W. remarks, that its legs and feet
were naked, whereas those of the -grouse are feathered to the toes.

WHITE.

Mr. Latham observes that " pea-hens, after they have done laying,
sometimes assume the plumage of the male bird," and has given a
figure of the male-feathered pea-hen now to be seen in the Leverian
Museum ; and M. Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when
she has done laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male."
May not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird of
this kind f that is, an old hen pheasant which has just begun to
assume the plumage of the cock. — MARKWICK.

LAND-RAIL.*

A man brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so rare in
this district, that we seldom see more than one or two in a season,
and those only in autumn. This is deemed a bird of passage by
all the writers ; yet from its formation, seems to be poorly qualified
for migration ; for its wings are short, and placed so forward, and
out of the centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embar-
rassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly be
sprung a second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend
more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying.

When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft and
tender in appearance, they might have been dressed like the ropes
of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small and lank, containing
a mucus ; the gizzard thick and strong, and filled with small shell
snails, some whole, and many ground to pieces through the attrition
which is occasioned by the muscular force and motion of that
intestine. We saw no gravels among the food : perhaps the shell
snails might perform the functions of gravels or pebbles, and might
grind one another. Land-rails used to abound formerly, I remem-
ber, in the low wet bean-fields of Christian Malford in North Wilts,
and in the meadows near Paradise Gardens at Oxford, where I
have often heard them cry crex, crex. The bird mentioned above
weighed seven and a half ounces, was fat and tender, and in flavour
like the flesh of a woodcock. The liver was very large and
delicate.— WHITE.

* The land-rail or corn-crake is a regular migrant, notwithstanding the shortness of
its wing. The food is somewhat varied ; We once took a mouse from the stomach of a
land-rail.

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

3*7

PEREGRINE FALCON.

HYBRID PHEASANT.

388 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

Land-rails are more plentiful with us than in the neighbourhood
of Selborne. I have found four brace in an afternoon, and a friend
of mine lately shot nine in two adjoining fields ; but I never saw
them in any other season than the autumn.

That it is a bird of passage there can be little doubt, though Mr.
White thinks it poorly qualified for migration, on account of the
wings being short, and not placed in the exact centre of gravity ;
how that may be I cannot say, but I know that its heavy sluggish
flight is not owing to its inability of flying faster, for I have seen it
fly very swiftly, although in general its actions are sluggish. Its
unwillingness to rise proceeds, I imagine, from its sluggish dis-
position, and its great timidity, for it will sometimes squat so close
to the ground as to suffer itself to be taken up by the hand, rather
than rise ; and yet it will at times run very fast.

What Mr. White remarks respecting the small shell snails found
in its gizzard, confirms my opinion, that it frequents corn-fields, seed
clover, and brakes or fern, more for the sake of snails, slugs, and
other insects which abound in such places, than for the grain or
seeds ; and that it is entirely an insectivorous bird. — MARKWICK.

FOOD OF THE RING-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 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, £c., and poultry pick much grass ; while geese live for
months together on commons by grazing alone.

" Nought is useless made ;

On the barren heath

The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf
Sufficient: after them the cackling goose,
Close-grazier, finds wherewith to ease her want."

Pmurs's Cyder.

WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 389

That many graminivorous birds feed also on the herbage or
leaves of plants, there can be no doubt : partridges and larks fre-
quently feed on the green leaves of turnips, which give a peculiar
flavour to their flesh that is to me very palatable : the flavour also
of wild ducks and geese greatly depends on the nature of their
food ; and their flesh frequently contracts a rank unpleasant taste
from their having lately fed on strong marshy aquatic plants, as I
suppose.

That the leaves of vegetables are wholesome and conducive to
the health of birds seems probable, for many people fat their
ducks and turkeys with the leaves of lettuce chopped small.

MARKWICK,

HEN-HARRIER.

A neighbouring gentleman sprung a pheasant in a wheat stubble,
and shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report of the gun, it was
immediately pursued by the blue hawk, known by the name of the
hen-harrier, but escaped into some covert. He then sprung a
second, and a third, in the 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 tliat 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 cowering 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 gallinre by the invention of nets and guns. — WHITE.

Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey when urged
on by hunger, I have seen several instances ; particularly, when
shooting in the winter in company with two friends, a woodcock
flew across us, closely pursued by a small hawk : we all three fired
at the woodcock instead of the hawk, which, notwithstanding the
report of three guns close by it, continued its pursuit of the wood-
cock, struck it down, and carried it off, as we afterwards discovered.

At another time, when partridge-shooting with a friend, we saw

390 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

a ring-tail hawk rise out of a pit with some large bird in its claws ;
though at a great distance ; we both fired and obliged it to drop its
prey, which proved to be one of the partridges which we were in
pursuit of ; and lastly, in an evening, I shot at and plainly saw that
I had wounded a partridge, but it being late, was obliged to go
home without finding it again. The next morning I walked round
my land without any gun, but a favourite old spaniel followed my
heels. When I came near the field where I wounded the bird the
evening before, I heard the partridges call, and seeming to be much
disturbed. On my approaching the bar-way, they all rose, some on
my. right, and some on my left hand ; and just before and over my
head, I perceived (though indistinctly from the extreme velocity of
their motion) two birds fly directly against each other, when
instantly, to my great astonishment, down dropped a partridge
at my feet ; the dog immediately seized it, and on examination, I
found the blood flow very fast from a fresh wound in the head, but
there was some dry clotted blood on its wings and side ; whence
I concluded that a hawk had singled out my wounded bird as the
object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that my
approach had obliged the birds to rise on the wing ; but the space
between the hedges was so small, and the motion of the birds so
instantaneous and quick, that I cowld not distinctly observe the
operation,— MARKWICK.

GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON.

As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer forest from
Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird
fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought home
alive. On examination it proved to be Colymbus glacialis, Linn.,
the great speckled diver or loon, which is most excellently described
in Willughby's Ornithology.

Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably adapted
to its mode of life, that in no instance do we see the wisdom of God
in the creation to more advantage. The head is sharp and smaller
than the part of the neck adjoining, in order that it may pierce the
water ; the wings are placed forward, and out of the 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
§harp backwards almost as the edge of a knife, that in striking they

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 39 1

may easily cut the water ; while the feet are palmated, and broad for
swimming, yet so folded up when advanced forward to take a fresh
stroke, as to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes
of the feet are longest ; the nails flat and broad, resembling the
human, which give strength, and increase the power of swimming.
The foot, when expanded, is not at right angles to the leg or body
of the bird : but the exterior part inclining towards the head, forms
an acute angle with the body, the intention being not to give
motion in the line of the legs themselves, but by the combined
impulse of both in an intermediate line, the line of the body.

Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming
of birds is nothing more than a walking in the water, where one
foot succeeds the other as on the land ; yet no one, as far as I am
aware, has remarked that diving fowls, while under water, impel
and row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as well as
by the impulse of their feet : but such is really the case, as any person
may easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted by
dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has given a
reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so forward :
doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their speed in
flying, since that position certainly impedes it ; but probably for
the increase of their motion under water, by the use of four oars
instead of two ; yet were the wings and feet nearer together, as
in land-birds, they would, when in action, rather hinder than assist
one another.

This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only three
drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois. It measured in
length from the bill to the tail (which was very short) two feet,
and to the extremities of the toes four inches more ; and the
breadth of the wings expanded was forty-two inches. A person
attempted to eat the body, but found it very strong and rancid, as
is the flesh of all birds living on fish. Divers or loons, though bred
in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in very
severe winters ; and on the Thames they are called sprat loons,
because they prey much on that sort of fish.

The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very backward,
and so out of all centre of gravity, that these birds cannot walk at
all. They are called by Linnaeus compedes, because they move on
the ground as if shackled or fettered. — WHITE.

These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set forth

392 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

in a proper light the wonderful works of God in the creation, and
to point out his wisdom in adapting the singular form and position
of the limbs of this bird to the particular mode in which it is
destined to pass the greatest part of its life in an element much
denser than the air, do Mr. White credit, not only as a naturalist,
but as a man and as a philosopher, in the truest sense of the word,
in my opinion ; for were we enabled to trace the works of nature
minutely and accurately, we should find, not only that every bird,
but every creature, was equally well adapted to the purpose for
which it was intended ; though this fitness and propriety of form is
more striking in such animals as are destined to any uncommon
mode of life.

I have had in my possession two birds, which, though of a differ-
ent genus, bear a great resemblance to Mr. White' s colymbus, in
their manner of life, which is spent chiefly in the water, wh ere they
swim and dive with astonishing rapidity, for which purpose their
fin-toed feet, placed far behind, and very short wings, are particu-
larly well adapted, and show the wisdom of God in the creation as
conspicuously as the bird before mentioned. These birds were the
greater and lesser crested grebe, podiceps cristatus et auritus. What
surprised me most was, that the first of these birds was found alive
on dry ground, about seven miles from the sea, to which place there
was no communication by water. How did it get so far from the
sea ? its wings and legs being so ill adapted either to flying or
walking. The lesser crested grebe was also found in a fresh water
pond which had no communication with other water at some miles'
distance from the sea.— MARKWICK.

STONE-CURLEW.

On the 27th 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 watchword, 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.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 393

They spend the day in high elevated fields and sheep-walks ; but
seem to descend in the night to streams and meadows, perhaps for
water, which their upland haunts do not afford them. — WHITE.

On the 3 ist of January, 1792, I received a bird of this species
which had been recently killed by a neighbouring farmer, who said
he had frequently seen it in his fields during the former part of the
winter : this perhaps was an occasional straggler, which by some
accident was prevented from accompanying its companions in their
migration.— MARKWICK.

THE SMALLEST UNCRESTED WILLOW WREN.

The smallest uncrested willow wren, or chiff-chaff, is the next
early summer bird which we have remarked ; it utters two sharp
piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods, as to occasion an echo,
and is usually first heard about the 2oth of March. — WHITE.

This bird, which Mr. White calls the smallest willow wren or
chiff-chaff, makes its appearance very early in spring, and is very
common with us, but I cannot make out the three different species
of willow wrens which he assures us he has discovered. Ever
since the publication of his History of Selborne I have used my
utmost endeavours to discover his three birds, but hitherto without
success. I have frequently shot the bird which "haunts only the
tops of trees, and makes a sibilous noise," even in the very act of
uttering that sibilous note, but it always proved to be the common
\villow wren or his chiff-chaff. In short, I never could discover
more than one species, unless my greater petty-chaps, Sylvia
hortensis of Latham, is his greatest willow wren. — MARKWICK.

FERN-OWL, OR GOAT-SUCKER.

The country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or churn-
owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is very injurious
to weanling calves, by inflicting as it strikes at them, the fatal dis-
temper known to cow-leeches by the name of puckeridge. Thus
does this harmless ill-fated bird fall under a double imputation
which it by no means deserves— in Italy, of sucking the teats of
goats, whence it is called caprimulgits j and with us, of communi-

O 2

394 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

eating a deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of the matter is,
the malady above mentioned is occasioned by the dZstrus 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 per-
fectly harmless, and subsist alone, being night birds, on night
insects, such as Scarabcei and Phalcence; and through the month of
July mostly on the Scarabccus 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 circum-
ference 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 pur-
suit of a brood of some particular phalasna belonging to the oak,
of which there are several sorts ; and exhibited on the occasion a
command of wing superior, I think, to that of the swallow itself.

When a person approaches the haunt of fern-owls in an evening,
they continue flying round the head of the obtruder ; and by
striking their wings together above their backs, in the manner that
the pigeons called smiters are known to do, make a smart snap ;
perhaps at that time they are jealous for their young, and their noise
and gesture are intended by way of menace.

Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account of food ;
for the next evening we saw one again several times among the
boughs of the same tree ; but it did not skim round its stem over
the grass, as on the evening before. In May these birds rind the
ScarabcEiis melolontha on the oak, and the Scarabaus solstitialis at

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 395

mid-summer. These peculiar birds can only be watched and
observed for two hours in the twenty-four ; and then in dubious
twilight an hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise.

On this day (July 14, 1789) a woman brought me two eggs of
a fern-owl or evening-jarr, which she found on the verge of the
Hanger, to the left of the hermitage, under a 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 cor-
responds 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 verge of the down above the hermitage under a
beechen shrub, on the naked ground. Last year those eggs were
full of young, just ready to be hatched.

These circumstances point out the exact time when these curious
nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs and hatch their young.
Fern-owls, like snipes, stone-curlews, and some other birds, make no
nest. Birds that build on the ground do not make much of nests.
—WHITE.

No author that I am acquainted with has given so accurate and
pleasing an account of the manners and habits of the goat-sucker
as Mr. White, taken entirely from his own observations. Its being
a nocturnal bird has prevented my having many opportunities of
observing it. I suspect that it passes the day in concealment amidst
the dark and shady gloom of deep-wooded dells, or as they are
called here gills ; having more than once seen it roused from such
solitary places by my dogs, when shooting in the daytime. I have
also sometimes seen it in an evening, but not long enough to take

396 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

notice of its habits and manners. I have never seen it but in the
summer, between the months of May and September. — MARKWICK.

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 un-
doubtedly 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 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
blank-martins playing in and out, and hanging before some nest-
holes in a sand-hill, where these birds usually nestle.

The incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of hir-
undo is to be seen first of any ; and gives great reason to suppose
that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are secreted
amidst the clefts and caverns of those abrupt cliffs, where they
usually spend their summers.

The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that
these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region,
through all these cutting winds and pinching frosts ; but it is easy
to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been awakened
by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrae, where they
have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state and
the profoundest of slumbers.

There is a large pond at Wishhanger, which induces these sand-
martins to frequent that district. For I have ever remarked that
they haunt near great waters, either rivers or lakes. —WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 397

Here, and in many other passages of his writings, this very
ingenious naturalist savours the opinion that part at least of the
swallow tribe pass their winter in a torpid state in the same manner
as bats and flies, and revive again on the approach of spring.

I have frequently taken notice of all these circumstances, which
induced Mr. White to suppose that some of these hirundines lie
torpid during winter. I have seen so late as November, on a finer
day than usual at that season of the year, two or three swallows
flying backwards and forwards under a warm hedge, or on the
sunny side of some old building ; nay, I once saw on the 8th of
December two martins flying about very briskly, the weather being
mild. I had not seen any considerable number either of swallows
or martins fora considerable time before ; from whence then, could
these few birds come, if not from some hole or cavern where they had
laid themselves up for the winter? Surely it will not be asserted
that these birds migrate back again from some distant tropical
region merely on the appearance of a fine day or two at this late
season of the year. Again, very early in the spring, and sometimes
immediately after very cold severe weather, on its growing a little
warmer, a few of these birds suddenly make their appearance, long
before the generality of them are seen. These appearances cer-
tainly favour the opinion of their passing the winter in a torpid
state, but do not absolutely prove the fact ; for who ever saw them
reviving of their own accord from their torpid state, without being
first brought to the fire, and as it were forced into life again ? soon
after which revivification they constantly die. — MARKWICK.

SWALLOWS, CONGREGATING AND DISAPPEAR-
ANCE OF.

During the severe winds that often prevail late in the spring it
is not easy to say how the hirundines subsist; for they withdraw
themselves, and are hardly ever seen, nor do any insects appear
for their support. That they can retire to rest and sleep away
these uncomfortable periods, as bats do, is a matter rather to be
suspected than proved ; or do they not rather spend their time in
deep and sheltered vales near waters, where insects are more likely
to be found ? Certain it is, that hardly any individuals of this
genus have at such times been seen for several days together.

September 13, 1791. The congregating flocks of hirundines on

398 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

the church and tower are very beautiful and amusing. When they
fly off together from the roof, on any alarm, they quite swarm in
the air. But they soon settle in heaps, and preening their feathers,
and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem highly to enjoy
the warm situation. Thus they spend the heat of the day preparing
for their emigration, and, as it were, consulting when and where
they are to go. The flight about the church seems to consist
chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in number; but there are
other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the
same time.

It is remarkable that though most of them sit an 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 n. It is very remarkable, that after the hirundines have
disappeared for some weeks, a few are occasionally seen again ;
sometimes in the first week in November, and that only for one
day. Do they not withdraw and slumber in some hiding-place in
the interval ? For we cannot suppose they had emigrated to
warmer climes and so returned again for one day. Is it not more
probable that they are awakened from sleep, and, like the bats, are
come forth to collect a little food? Bats appear at all seasons
through the autumn and spring months, when the thermometer is
at 50, because then phalasnas and moths are stirring.

These swallows looked like young ones. — WHITE.

Of their migration the proofs are such as will scarcely admit of a
doubt. Sir Charles Wager and Captain Wright saw vast flocks of
them at sea, when on their passage from one country to another.
Our author, Mr. White, saw what he deemed the actual migration
of these birds, and which he has described at p. 259 of his
" History of Selborne ; " and of their congregating together on the
roofs of churches and other buildings, and on trees, previous to
their departure, many instances occur ; particularly I once observed
a large stock of house-martins on the roof of the church here at
Catsfield, which acted exactly in the manner here described by Mr.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 399

White, sometimes preening their feathers and spreading their wings
to the sun, and then flying off all together, but soon returning to
their former situation. The greatest part of these birds seem to be
young ones.— MARKWICK.

WAGTAILS.

While the cows are feeding in the moist low pastures, broods of
wagtails, white and grey, run round them, close up to their noses,
and under their very bellies, availing themselves of the flies that
settle on their legs, and probably finding worms and larvce that are
roused by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such an economist,
that the most incongruous animals can avail themselves of each
other.

Interest makes strange friendships.— WHITE.

Birds continually avail themselves of particular and unusual
circumstances to procure their food ; thus wagtails keep playing
about the noses and legs of cattle as they feed, in quest of flies and
other insects which abound near those animals ; and great numbers
of them will follow close to the plough to devour the worms, &c.,
that are turned up by that instrument. The redbreast attends the
gardener when digging his borders ; and will, with great familiarity
and tameness, pick out the worms, almost close to his spade,
as I have frequently seen. Starlings and magpies very often
sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their ticks. —
MARKWICK.

WRYNECK.

These birds appear on the grass-plots and walks ; they walk a
little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the turf, in quest, I
conclude, of ants, which are their food. While they hold their bills
in the grass they draw out their prey with their tongues, which are
so long as to be coiled round their heads. — WHITE.

GROSBEAK.

Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had observed to haunt his
garden for more than a fortnight. I began to accuse this bird of

400 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

making sad havoc among the buds of the cherries, gooseberries,
and wall-fruit of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon opening its
crop or craw no buds were to be seen, but a mass of kernels of
the stones of fruits. Mr. B. observed that this bird frequented the
spot where plum-trees grow, and that he had seen it with somewhat
hard in its mouth, which it broke with difficulty; these were
the stones of damsons. The Latin ornithologists call this bird
Coccothraustes, i.e., berry-breaker, because with its large horny
beak it cracks and breaks the shells, of stone-fruits for the sake
of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are rarely seen in England,
and only in winter. — WHITE.

I have never seen this rare bird but during the severest cold of
the hardest winters ; at which season of the year I have had in my
possession two or three that were killed in this neighbourhood in
different years.— MARKWICK.

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS.

SHEEP.

THE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged, and
their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces
with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that way in
mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice.

After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and
bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish
one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much to
arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration
in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, dis-
criminating each individual personally ; which also is confounded
by the strong scent of pitch and tar wherewith they are newly
marked ; for the brute creation recognise each other more from
the smell than the sight ; and in matters qf 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.— WHITE.

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.— WHITE.

402 OBSER V4 TIONS ON Q UA DRUPE DS.

CAT AND SQUIRRELS.

A boy has taken three young squirrels in their nest or drey* as
it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put under the
care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds that she
nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and affection as
if they were her own offspring. This circumstance corroborates my
suspicion that the mention of exposed and deserted children being
nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young may
not be so improbable an incident as many have supposed ; and
therefore may be a justification of those authors who hare gravely
mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild and improbable
story.

So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat
that the foster-mother became jealous of her charge, and in pain
for their safety ; and therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one
died. This circumstance shows her affection for these fondlings,
and that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus
hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to
them as if they were their own chickens. — WHITE.

HORSE.

An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken
very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to implore the help of
men, and died the night following in the street. — WHITE.

HOUNDS.

The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a
huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for the stag
that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a time. Many hundreds
of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the deer un-
harboured; but though the huntsmen drew Hartley Wood and

* Mitford observes, " Drey is not peculiar to Hampshire only, and in Suffolk they call it
a bay." Mr. Herbert observes that " in the north of Hampshire, a great portion of the
squirrels have white tails." It is said that 20,000 squirrels are annually sold in London.

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS.

403

Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers, and in their
way back Hartley and Wardleham Hangers, yet no stag could be
found.

The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out before
them, never drew the coverts with any address and spirit, as many
people that were present observed ; and this remark the event has
proved to be a true one. For as a person was lately pursuing a
pheasant that was wing- broken in Hartley Wood, he stumbled upon
the stag by accident, and ran in upon him as he lay concealed
amidst a thick brake of brambles and bushes. — WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

INSECTS IN GENERAL.

THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately : the
papilios, muscas, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day by
phalsense, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, when
beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call ; these two circum-
stances are exactly coincident.

Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymen opterous and dip-
terous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they swarm
on trees covered with this plant ; and when they disappear,
probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing themselves
between its fibres and the trees which it entwines. — WHITE.

This I have often observed, having seen bees and other winged
insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy very late in the
autumn.— MARKWICK.

Spiders, woodlice, lepismas in cupboards and among sugar, some
empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phatoenos in hedges,
earth worms, &c., are stirring at all times when winters are mild,
and are of great service to those soft-billed birds that never
leave us.

On every sunny day the winter through clouds of insects usually
called gnats (I suppose tipulae and empedes) appear sporting and
dancing over the tops of the evergreen-trees in the shrubbery, and
striking about as if the business of generation was still going on.
Hence it appears that these diptera (which by their sizes appear to be
of different species), are not subject to a torpid state in the winter,

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 405

as most winged insects are. At night, and in frosty weather, and
when it rains and blows, they seem to retire into those trees. They
often are out in a fog. — WHITE.

This I have also seen, and have frequently observed swarms of
little winged insects playing up and down in the air in the middle
of winter, even when the ground has been covered with snow. —
MARKWICK.

HUMMING IN THE AIR.

There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the highest
part of our down in hot summer days, which always amuses me
much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the cause
of it ; and that is, a loud audible humming of bees in the air,
though not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be heard
distinctly the whole common through, from the Mpney-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." — THOMSON'S Seasons.

WHITE.
CHAFFERS.

Cockchaffers seldom abound oftener than once in three or four
years ; when they swarm, they deface the trees and hedges.
Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by them.

Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the house-
sparrow.

The Scarabczus solstitialis first appears about June 26th : they
are very punctual in their coming out every year. They are a small
species, about half the size of the Maychaffer, and are known in
some parts by the name of the fern chaffer. — WHITE.

A singular circumstance relative to the cockchaffer, or, as it is
called here, the May-bug, {Scarab&us melolontha\ happened this
year (1800) : My gardener, in digging some ground, found, about

406 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

six inches under the surface, two of these insects alive and per-
fectly formed, so early as the 24th of March. When he brought
them to me, they appeared to be as perfect and as much alive as in
the midst of summer, crawling about as briskly as ever : yet I saw

no more of this insect till the 22nd of May, when it began to make
its appearance. How comes it, that though it was perfectly formed
so early as the 24th March, it did not show itself above ground till
nearly two months afterwards ? — MARKWICK.

PTINUS PECTINICORNIS.

Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs, bed-
posts, &c., and destroy wooden furniture, especially where there is
any sap, are the larvae of the Ptinus pectinicornis* This insect, it
is probable, deposits its eggs on the surface, and the worms eat
their way in.

In their holes they turn into their pupse state, and so come forth
winged in July ; eating their way through the valances or curtains
of a bed, or any other furniture that happens to obstruct their
passage.

They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech : hence beech
will not make lasting utensils or furniture. If their eggs are
deposited on the surface, frequent rubbing will preserve wooden
furniture. —WHITE.

* These insects will attack various woods, but beech and the American black birch are
those soonest attacked by A nobhun striatnm. They are also extremely prevalent in the
roofing or timbers of cot-houses constructed of British-grown Scotch pine, which in a few
years they will almost reduce to powder.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 407

BLATTA ORIENTALIS.-COCKROACH.

A neighbour complained that her house was overrun with a kind
of blackbeetle, or, as she expressed herself, with a kind of black-
bob, which swarmed in her kitchen when they got up in a morning
before daybreak.

Soon after this account I observed an unusual insect in one of
my dark chimney closets, and find since, that in the night they swarm
also in my kitchen. On examination I soon ascertained the species
to be the Blatta orientalis of Linnaeus, and the Blatta molendinaria
of Mouffet. The male is winged ; the female is not, but shows
somewhat like the rudiments of wings, as if in the pupa state.

These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts of America,
and were conveyed from thence by shipping to the East Indies ; and
by means of commerce begin to prevail in the more northern parts
of Europe, as Russia, Sweden, &c. How long they have abounded
in England I cannot say ; but have never observed them in my
house till lately.

They love warmth, and haunt chimney closets and the backs of
ovens. Poda says that these and house-crickets will not associate
together ; but he is mistaken in that assertion, as Linnaeus suspected
he was. They are altogether night insects, (Lu<*/uga\ never coming
forth till the rooms are dark and still, and escaping away nimbly at
the approach of a candle. Their antennae are remarkably long,
slender, and flexile.

October, 1790. After the servants are gone to bed the kitchen
hearth swarms with young crickets and young BlattcE molendinaria
of all sizes, from the most minute growth to their full proportions-
They seem to live in a friendly manner together, and not to prey
the one on the other.

August, 1792. After the destruction of many thousands of Blattce
molendinaricB) we find that at intervals a fresh detachment of old
ones arrives, and particularly during this hot season ; for the
windows being left open in the evenings, the males come flying in at
the casements from the neighbouring houses, which swarm with
them. How the females, that seem to have no perfect wings that
they can use, can contrive to get from house to house does not so
readily appear. These, like many insects, when they find their
present abodes overstocked, have powers of migrating to fresh

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES,

quarters. Since the Blattce have been so much kept under, the
crickets have greatly increased in number. — WHITE.

GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS.— HOUSE CRICKET.

November. After the servants are gone to bed the kitchen
hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as fleas, which
must have been lately hatched. So that these domestic insects,
cherished by the influence of a constant large fire, regard not the
season of the year, but produce their young at a time when their
congeners are either dead or laid up for the winter, to pass away
the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers, and a state
of torpidity.

When house-crickets are out and running about in a room in the
night, if surprised by a candle, they give two or three shrill notes,
as it were for a signal to their fellows, that they may escape to their
crannies and lurking-holes, to avoid danger. — WHITE.

CIMEX LINEARIS.

August 12/1775. Cimices lineares are now in high copulation on
ponds and pools. The females, who vastly exceed the males in
bulk, dart and shoot along on the surface of the water with the
males on their backs. When a female chooses to be disengaged,
she rears, and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt ; the lover
thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as
their curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of the lake,
perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are found
separate, except where generation is going on. From the multitude
of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these insects seem with-
out doubt to be viviparous. — WHITE.

PHAL^NA QUERCUS.

Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt in
general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a small Phalcena,
which is of a pale yellow colour. These insects, though a feeble
race, yet, from their infinite numbers, are of wonderful effect, being
able to destroy the foliage of whole forests and districts. At this

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 409

season they leave their aurelia, and issue forth in their fly- state,
swarming and covering the trees and hedges.

In a field at Greatham I saw a flight of swifts busied in catching
their prey near the ground, and found they were hawking after
these PhalcBncB. The aurelice of this moth is shining and as black
as jet, and lies wrapped up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled
round it, and secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot
from falling out. — WHITE.

I suspect that the insect here meant is not the Phalana quercus,
but the Phalczna viridataf concerning which I find the following
note in my " Naturalist's Calendar " for the year 1785.

About this time, and for a few days last past, I observed 'the
leaves of almost all the oak-trees in Denn copse to be eaten and
destroyed, and, on examining more narrowly, saw an infinite
number of small beautiful pale-green moths flying about the trees ;
the leaves of which that were not quite destroyed were curled up,
and withinside were the exuviae or remains of the chrysalis, from
whence I suppose the moths had issued, and whose caterpillar had
eaten the leaves.— MARKWICK.

EPHEMERA CAUDA B I SETA.— 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.

This appearance reconciled me in some measure to the wonderful
account that Scopoli gives of the quantities emerging from the rivers

* If this was the Ph. (tortrix) viridana, as suggested by Mr. Markwick, they are
extremely destructive, and not confined to the south. In some parts of Argyleshire we
recollect seeing many hundred acres of oak woods stripped of their leaves, and as bare as
in early spring. The colour of the true T. viridana, however, is green, not yellow, as Mr.
White states, and his moth may have been another species.

4io OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

of Carniola. Their motions are very peculiar, up and down for
many yards almost in a perpendicular line. — WHITE.

I once saw a swarm of these insects playing up and down over
the surface of a pond in Demi Park, exactly in the manner described
by this accurate naturalist. It was late in the evening of a warm
summer's day when I observed them. — MARKWICK.

SPHYNX OCELLATA.

A vast insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a 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. — WHITE.

I have frequently seen the large bee moth, Sphinx steUatannn ,
inserting its long tongue or proboscis into the centre of flowe/s,
and feeding on their nectar, without settling on them, but keeping
constantly on the wing. — MARKWICK;

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.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 411

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
exatled 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 inter-
rupted myself while contemplating the grandeur of the scenery
around me, and have thought myself in danger of being stung.

WHITE.

WASPS.

Wasps abound in woody wild districts far from neighbourhoods ;
they feed on flowers, and catch flies and caterpillars to carry to
their young. Wasps make their nests with the raspings of sound
timber ; hornets with what they gnaw from decayed : these 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. — WHITE.

In the year 1775, wasps abounded so prodigiously in this neigh-
bourhood, that in the month of August no less than seven or eight
of their nests were ploughed up in one field : of which there were
several instances, as I was informed.

In the spring, about the beginning of April, a single wasp is some-
times seen, which is of a larger size than usual ; this I imagine is
the queen or female wasp, the mother of the future swarm.

MARKWICK,

OESTRUS CURVICAUDA.

This insect lays its nits or eggs on horses' legs, flanks, £c., each
on a single hair. The maggots, when hatched, do not enter the
horses' skins, but fall to the ground. It seems to abound most
in moist, moorish places, though sometimes seen in the uplands. —
WHITE.

412 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

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 ear's, 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, regard-
less of the driver, so that accidents often ensue. In the heat of
the day, men are often obliged to desist from ploughing. Saddle-
horses are also very troublesome at such seasons. Country people
call this insect the nose-fly.— WHITE.

Is not this insect the Oestms nasalis of Linnaeus, so well de-
scribed by Mr. Clark in the third volume of the " Linnaean
Transactions," under the name of Oestms veterinus ? — MARKWICK.

ICHNEUMON-FLY.

I saw lately a small ichneumon-fly attack a spider much larger
than itself on a grass walk. When the spider made any resistance,
the ichneumon applied her tail to him, and stung him with great
vehemence, so that he soon became dead and motionless. The
ichneumon then running backward 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 ichneumon deposit their eggs in the
aurelia of moths and butterflies. — WHITE.

In my "Naturalist's Calendar" for 1795, July 2ist, I find the
following note :

It is not uncommon for some -of the species of ichneumon-flies
to deposit their eggs in the chrysalis of a butterfly ; some time ago
I put two of the chrysales of a butterfly into a box, and covered it
with gauze, to discover what species of butterfly they would
produce ; but instead of a butterfly, one of them produced a
number of small ichneumon-flies.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 413

There are many instances of the great service these little insects
are to mankind in reducing the number of noxious insects, by
depositing their eggs in the soft bodies of their larvcej but none
more remarkable than that of the ichneumon tipulce, which pierces
the tender bodies and deposits its eggs in the larva of the Tipula
tritici, an insect, which, when it abounds greatly, is very prejudicial
to the grains of wheat. This operation I have frequently seen it
perform with wonder and delight.— MARKWICK.

BOMBYLIUS MEDIUS.

The Bombylitts medius is much about in March and the beginning
of April, and soon seems to retire. It is an hairy insect, like a
humble-bee, but with only two wings, and a long straight beak,
with which it sucks the early flowers. The female seems to lay its
eggs as it poises on its wings, by striking its tail on the ground,
and against the grass that stands in its way, in a quick manner, for
several times together. — WHITE.

I have often seen this insect fly with great velocity, stop on a
sudden, hang in the air in a stationary position for some time, and
then fly off again ; but do not recollect having ever seen it strike
its tail against the ground, or any other substance. — MARKWICK.

MUSCLE.— FLIES.

In the decline of the year, when the mornings and evenings
become chilly, many species of flies (Miisccz) 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, beside their sharp hooked
nails, have also skinny palms, or flaps to their feet, whereby they
are enabled to stick on the glass and other smooth bodies, and to
walk on ceilings with their backs downward, by means of the
pressure of the atmosphere on those flaps ; the weight of which

4'i4 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

they easily overcome in warm weather, when they are brisk and
alert. But in the decline of the year, this resistance becomes too
mighty for their diminished strength ; and we see flies labouring
along, and lugging their feet in windows as if they stuck to the
glass, and it is with the utmost difficulty they can draw one foot
after another, and disengage their hollow caps from the slippery
surface.

Upon the same principle that flies stick and support themselves,
do boys, by way of play, carry heavy weights by only a piece of
wet leather at the end of a string clapped close on the surface of a
stone.— WHITE.

TIPUL.E, OR EMPEDES.

May. Millions of empales, or tipulce, come forth at the close of
day, and swarm to such a degree as to fill the air. At this juncture
they sport and copulate ; as it grows more dark they retire. All
day they hide in the hedges. As they rise in a cloud they appear
like smoke.

I do not remember to have seen such swarms, except in the
fens of the Isle of Ely. They appear most over grass grounds.

WHITE.

APHIDES.

On the ist of August, about half an hour after three in the after-
noon, the people of Selborne were surprised by a shower of aphides
which fell in these parts. They who were walking in the streets at
that time found themselves covered with these insects, which settled
also on the trees and gardens, and blackened all the vegetables
where they alighted. These armies, no doubt, were then in a state
of emigration, and shifting their quarters ; and might perhaps come
from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex, the wind being
that day at north. They were observed at the same time at
Farnham, and all along the vale to Alton.— WHITE.

ANTS.

August 23. Every ant-hill about this time is in a strange hurry and
confusion ; and all the winged ants, agitated by some violent

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 41 £

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 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 flic;-, which they
have caught, and the aureliac of smaller ants, which they seize by
violence. — WHITE.

In my " Naturalist's Calendar" for the year 1777, on September
6th, I find the following note to the article Flying Ants :

I saw a prodigious swarm of these ants flying about the top of
some tall elm-trees (close by my house) ; some were continually
dropping to the ground as if from the trees, and others rising up
from the ground ; many of them were joined together in copulation ;
and I imagine their life is but short, for as soon as produced from
the egg by the heat of the sun, they propagate their species, and
soon after perish. They were black, somewhat like the small black
ant, and had four wings. I saw also, at another place, a large sort
which were yellowish. On the eighth of September, 1785, I again
observed the same circumstance of a vast number of these insects
flying near the tops of the elms and dropping to the ground.

On the 2nd of March, 1777, 1 saw great numbers of ants come out
of the ground. — MARKWICK.

GLOW-WORMS.

By observing two glow-worms which were brought into the field
to the bank in the garden, it appeared to us that these little

416 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

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. — WHITE.

EARTH-WORMS.

Earth-worms make their casts most in mild weather about March
and April ; they do not lie torpid in winter, but come forth when
there is no frost ; they travel about in rainy nights, as appears from
their sinuous tracks on the soft muddy soil, perhaps in search of
food.

When earth-worms lie out a-nights on the turf, though they
extend their bodies a great way, they do not leave their holes, but
keep the ends of their tails fixed therein, so that on the least alarm
they can retire with precipitation under the earth. Whatever food
falls within their reach when thus extended, they seem to be content
with, such as blades of grass, straws, fallen leaves, the ends of which
they often draw into their holes ; even in copulation their hinder
parts never quit their holes ; so that no two, except they lie within
reach of each other's bodies, can have any commerce of that kind ;
but as every individual is an hermaphrodite, there is no difficulty
in meeting with a mate, as would be the case were they of different
sexes.— WHITE.

SNAILS AND SLUGS.

The shell-less snails called slugs are in motion all the winter in
mild weather, and commit great depredations on garden plants, and
much injure the green wheat, the loss of which is imputed to earth-

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 417

worms ; while the shelled snail, the 3>epeoiKos, does not come forth at all
till about April loth, 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.

WHITE.

SNAKE'S SLOUGH.

There the snake throws her enamell'd skin.

SHAKESPEARE'S Mids. NigJit's Dream.

About the middle of this month (September) we found in a field
near a hedge the slough of a large snake, which seemed to have
been newly cast. From circumstances it appeared as if turned
wrong side outward, and as drawn off backward, like a stocking or
woman's glove. Not only the whole skin, but scales from the very
eyes, are peeled off, and appear in the head of the slough like a
pair of spectacles. The reptile, at the time of changing his coat,
had entangled himself intricately in the grass and weeds, so that
the friction of the stalks and blades might promote this curious
shifting of his exuviae.

" Lubrica-serpens
Exuit in spinis vestem. " — LUCKET.

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,

P

4i 8 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

they lessen objects much. Tnus it appears from what has been
said, that snakes crawl out of the mouth of their own sloughs, and
quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned by a cook maid.
While the scales of the eyes are growing loose, and a new skin is
forming, the creature, in appearance, must be blind, and feel itself
in an awkward, uneasy situation. — WHITE.

I have seen many sloughs or skins of snakes entire, after they
have cast them off ; and once in particular I remember to have
found one of these sloughs so intricately interwoven amongst some
brakes, that it was with difficulty removed without being broken :
this undoubtedly was done by the creature to assist in getting rid of
its incumbrance.

I have great reason to suppose that the eft or common lizard
also casts its skin or slough, but not entire like the snake ; for on
the 3oth of March, 1777, I saw one with something ragged hanging
to it, which appeared to be part of its old skin.— MARKWICK.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

TREES, ORDER OF LOSING THEIR LEAVES.

ONE of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut ; the
mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and the horse-
chestnut come next. All lopped trees, while their heads are young,
carry their leaves a long while. Apple-trees and peaches remain
green very late, often till the end of November : young beeches
never cast their leaves till spring, till the new leaves sprout and
push them off ; in the autumn the beechen-leaves turn of a deep
chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their leaves about the end of
October.— WHITE.

SIZE AND GROWTH.

Mr. Marsham * of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by letter
thus : " I became a planter early ; so that an oak which I planted
in 1720 is become now, at one foot from the earth, twelve feet six
inches in circumference, and at fourteen feet (the half of the timber
length) is eight feet two inches. So if the bark was to be measured
as timber, the tree gives 116^ feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you
never heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I flatter
myself that I increased the growth by washing the stem, and
digging a circle as far as I supposed the roots to extend, and by
spreading sawdust, &c., as related in the Phil. Trans. I wish I had
begun with beeches (my favourite trees as well as yours), I might
then have seen very large trees of my own raising. But I did not

* Robert Marsham, of Straiten Lawless, a country gentleman, contributed several papers
to the " Philjsophical Transactions," chiefly observations upon trees and vegetation- He
was also the acquaintance of Stillingfleet.

420 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

begin with beech till 1741, and then by seed ; so that my largest is
now at five feet from the ground, six feet three inches in girth, and
with its head spreads a circle of twenty yards diameter. This tree
was also dug round, washed, £c." Srattou, 2/^th July, 1790.

The circumference of trees planted by myself at one foot from
the ground (1790).

Oak in 1730 . . . . 4 ft. 5 in.

Ash 1730 . . . ..46!

Great fir 1751 . . . .50

Greatest beech 1751 4 o

Elm 1750 . . . -S3

Lime 1756 . : . .-55

The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by Mr. Marsham to
be the biggest in this island, at seven feet from the ground,
measures in circumference thirty-four feet. It has in old times
lost several of its boughs, and is tending to decay. Mr. Marsham
computes, that at fourteen feet length this oak contains 1,000
feet of timber.

It has been the received opinion that trees grow in height only
by their annual upper shoot. But my neighbour over the way,
whose occupation confines him to one spot, assures me, that trees
are expanded and raised in the lower parts also. The reason that
he gives is this : the point of one of my firs began for the first
time to peep over an opposite roof at the beginning of summer;
but before the growing season was over, the whole shoot of the
year, and three or four joints of the body beside, became visible to
him as he sits on his form in his shop. According to this suppo-
sition, a tree may advance in height considerably, though the
summer shoot should be destroyed every year. — WHITE.

FLOWING OF SAP.

If the bough of a vine is cut late in the spring, just before the
shoots push out, it will bleed considerably ; but after the leaf is out,
any part may be taken off without the least inconvenience. 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.— WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 421

RENOVATION OF LEAVES.

When oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by chaffers, they
are clothed again soon after Midsummer with a beautiful foliage :
but beeches, horse-chestnuts and maples, once defaced by those
insects, never recover their beauty again for the whole season. —
WHITE.

ASH TREES.

Many ash trees bear loads of keys every year, others never seem
to bear any at all. The prolific ones are naked of leaves and
unsightly ; those that are sterile abound in foliage, and carry their
verdure a long while, and are pleasing objects. — WHITE.

BEECH.

Beeches love to grow in crowded situations, and will insinuate
themselves through the thickest covert, so as to surmount it all :
they are therefore proper to mend thin places in tall hedges. — •
WHITE.

SYCAMORE.

May 12. The sycamore or great maple is in bloom, and at this
season makes a beautiful appearance, and affords much pabulum
for bees, smelling strongly like honey. The foliage of this tree is
very fine, and very ornamental to outlets. All the maples have
saccharine juices. — WTHITE.

GALLS OF LOMBARDY POPLAR.

The stalks and ribs of the leaves of the Lombardy poplar are
embossed with large tumours of an oblong shape, which by
incurious observers have been taken for the fruit of the tree. These
galls are full of small insects, some of which are winged, and some
not. The parent insect is of the genus of cynips. Some poplars
in the garden are quite loaded with these excrescences. — WHITE.

422 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

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
shaky, and towards the heart cup-shaky (that is to say, apt to
separate in round pieces like cups), so that the inward parts are of
no use. They are bought for the purpose of cooperage, but must
make but ordinary barrels, buckets, £c. Chestnut sells for half
the price of oak ; but has sometimes been sent into the king's
docks, and passed off instead of oak.— WHITE.

LIME BLOSSOMS.

Dr. Chandler tells that in the south of France an infusion of the
blossoms of the lime tree, Tilia, is in much esteem as a remedy
for coughs, hoarsenesses, fevers, &c., and that at Nismes, he saw
an avenue of limes that was quite ravaged and torn in pieces by
people greedily gathering the bloom, which they dried and kept for
these purposes.

Upon the strength of this information we made some tea of
lime blossoms, and found it a very soft, well-flavoured, pleasant,
saccharine julep, in taste much resembling the juice of liquorice. —
WHITE.

BLACKTHORN.

This tree usually blossoms while cold north-east winds blow ; sc>
that the harsh rugged weather obtaining at this season is called by
the country people blackthorn winter. — WHITE.

IVY BERRIES.

Ivy berries form a noble and providential supply for birds in
winter and spring; for the first severe frost freezes and spoils all
the haws, sometimes by the middle of November ; ivy berries do
not seem to freeze. — WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 423

HOPS.

The culture of Virgil's vines correspond 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, &c., but lately I have observed a
new circumstance, which was a neighbouring fanner'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 :

Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos."— GEORO.

Hops are dioecious plants : hence perhaps it might be proper,
though not practised, to leave purposely some male plants in every
garden, that their farina might impregnate the blossoms. The
female plants without their male attendants are not in their natural
state : hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop so
incident to hop-grounds ; no other growth, cultivated by man, has
such frequent and general failures as hops.

Two hop gardens much injured by a hailstorm, June 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 impioved the crop. Query. Therefore should
not the tops of hops be pinched off when the binds are very gross,
and strong ?— WHITE.

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 comld 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.

424 OBSERVATIONS 0/V VEGETABLES.

That sort of fruit did once, no doubt, abound there, and will
again when the obstruction is removed. — WHITE.

BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS.

Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the autumn,
and are now grown to a considerable height. As the Ewel was in
beans last summer, it is most likely that these seeds came from
thence ; but then the distance is too considerable for them to have
been conveyed by mice. It is most probable therefore that they
were brought by birds, and in particular by jays and pies, who
seem to have hid them among the grass and moss, and then to have
forgotten where they had stowed them. Some pease are growing
also in the same situation, and probably under the same circum-
stances.— WHITE.

CUCUMBERS JET BY BEES.

If bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers, do not
happen to take kindly to the frames, the best way is to tempt them
by a little honey put on the male and female bloom. When they
are once induced to haunt the frames, they set all the fruit, and will
hover with impatience round the lights in a morning, till the glasses
are opened. Probatum est. — WHITE.

WHEAT.

A notion has always obtained that in England hot summers arc
productive of fine crops of wheat ; yet in the years 1780 and 1781,
though the heat was intense, the wheat was much mildewed, and
the crop light. Does not severe heat, while the straw is milky,
occasion its juices to exude, which being extravasated, occasion
spots, discolour the stems and blades, and injure the health of the
plants ?— WHITE.

TRUFFLES.

August. A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his pocket
several large truffles found in this neighbourhood. He says these
roots are not to be found in deep woods, but in narrow hedge-rows

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 425

and the skirts of coppices. Some truffles, he informed us, lie two
feet within the earth, and some quite on the surface ; the latter, he
added, have little or no smell, and are not so easily discovered by
the dogs as those that lie deeper. Half-a-crown a pound was the
price which he asked for this commodity. Truffles never abound
in wet winters and springs. They are in season, in different
situations, at least nine months in the year. — WHITE.

TREMELLA 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. — WHITE.

FAIRY RINGS*

The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy rings, subsists
m the turf, and is conveyable with it : for the turf of my garden-
walks, brought from the down above, abounds with those appear-
ances, which vary their shape, and shift situation continually,
discovering themselves now in circles, now in segments, and
sometimes in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they obtain,
puff-balls abound ; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in
the turf.— WHITE.

* Sevend causes have been assigned for the presence of fairy rings, as they are termed,
an appearance occurring in pasture lands cf a dark ring, as if the grass was of more
luxuriant and of a darker green. We have sometimes observed the ring incomplete.
Wherever we have noticed these, fungi have been present, which afterwards would spring
up in the line of the circle, and to their presence we believe the appearance is now
generally attributed. The regularity of the dark mark calls attention, but the tracks of
the fungi, or the lines in which they will spring, may frequently be observed to run quite
irregularly, showing also a dark green mark.

2 P

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.
—WHITE.

PARTIAL FROST.

The country people, who are abroad in winter mornings long
before sunrise, 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.— WHITE,

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, &c.

If a frost happens, even when the ground is considerably dry, as
soon as a thaw takes place, the paths and fields are all in a batter.
Country people say that the frost draws moisture But the true
philosophy is, that the steam and vapours continually ascending

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 427

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 evapo-
ration that arises daily from every acre of ground is astonishing.
—WHITE.

FROZEN SLEET.

January 20. Mr. H.'s man says that he caught this day in a lane
near Hackwood park, many rooks, which, attempting to fly, fell
from the trees with their wings frozen together by the sleet, that
froze as it fell. There were, he affirms, many dozen so disabled.
— WHITE.

MIST, CALLED LONDON SMOKE.

This is a blue mist which has somewhat the smell of coal smoke,
and as it always comes to us with a N.E. wind, is supposed to come
from London. It has a strong smell, and is supposed to occasion
blights. When such mists appear they are usually followed by dry
weather.— WHITE.

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 phenome-
non seems not to have been attended to, but implies the great
density of the meteor at that juncture. — WHITE.

HONEY-DEW.*

June 4, 1783. Fast honey-dews this week. The reason of these
seem to be, that in hot days the effluvia of flowers are drawn up by
a brisk evaporation, and then in the night fall down with the dews
with which they are entangled.

* Honey:dew is now ascertained to be the excrement of various species of aphides, and
would be extremely injurious to the tree or plant, were it always so prevalent as in some
very warm seasons. This may be observed whenever these insects have been allowed to
become too abundant in the green-house, or other plant-structures. The substance acts as
a varnish, shutting up the pores of the leaves or stem. It is extremely sweet to the taste,
and therefore attracts flies, and, where it is exceedingly abundant, also bees, which we rather
think employ it as they would sugar.

428 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who gather it
with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the trees on which it
happens to fall, by stopping the pores of the leaves. The greatest
quantity falls in still close weather ; because winds disperse it, and
copious dews dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in
hazy warm weather. — WHITE.

MORNING CLOUDS.

After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually becomes cloudy
by eleven or twelve o'clock in the forenoon, and clear again towards
the decline of the day. The reason seems to be, that the dew,
drawn up by evaporation, occasions the clouds ; which, towards
evening, being no longer rendered buoyant by the warmth of the
sun, melt away, and fall down again in dews. If clouds are
watched in a still warm evening, they will be seen to melt away
and disappear. — WHITE.

DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT.

No one that has not attended to such matters, and taken down
remarks, can be aware how much ten days dripping weather will
influence the growth of grass or corn after a severe dry season.
This present summer, 1776, yielded a remarkable instance ; for, till
the 30th of May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the barley
not half out of the ground ; but now, June loth, there is an agree-
able prospect of plenty. — WHITE.

AURORA BOREALIS.

November i, 1787. The N. aurora made a particular appear-
ance, forming itself into a broad, red, fiery belt, which extended from
E. to W. across the welkin : but the moon rising at about ten
o'clock in unclouded majesty in the E. put an end to this grand
but awful meteorous phenomenon. — WHITE,

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 429

BLACK SPRING; 1771.

Dr. Johnson says, that "in 1771 the season was so severe in the
island of Skye, that it is remembered by the name of the 'black
spring.' The snow, which seldom lies at all, covered the ground for
eight weeks, many cattle died, and those that survived were so
emaciated that they did not require the male at the usual season."
The case was just the same with us here in the south ; never were
so many barren cows known as in the spring following that dreadful
period. Whole dairies missed being in calf together.

At the end of March the face of the earth was naked to a sur-
prising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and no signs of any
grass ; turnips all gone, and sheep in a starving way. All pro-
visions rising in price. Farmers cannot sow for want of rain. —
WHITE.

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 chai.ge,
Wavers no more, bng settling to a point.

All nature nodding seems composed : thick stream
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the da}
' ' Like a dark ceiling ttand : " slow thro' liie r.ir
Gossamer fl >ats, or stretch' d from blade to L'ads
The wavy net-work whitens all the field.

Push'd by the weightier atmosphere, up springs
The ponderous Mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube.'6

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 ploughman inly smiles to see upturn
H is mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop :
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds:
fen pining sickness feels a short relief.

* The Barometer.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

The happy schoolboy 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 fields of taw.

N ot 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 cnequer'd sky is one bright glare.

Mutters the wind at eve : th* horizon round
With angry aspect scowls : down rush the showers,
And fl at the tieiv.g'd paths, and miry fields.

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SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER.

1768 begins 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. January and 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 and windy. 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 ; thencQ 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 I4th and I5th 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
•vithdark, cold rains. June, rainy, chequered with gleams of sun-
shine. The first fortnight in July, dark and sultry ; the latter part
of the month, heavy rain. August, September, and the first fort-
night 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.

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.

SUMMAKY OF THE WEATHER. 433

To the end of the first fortnight in May, spring weather, with copious
showers. To the end of June, dry, warm weather. The first fort-
night 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, cool showers. To the middle of August, hot, dry, summer
weather. To the end of September, rain, with storms and thunder.
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 isth of April,
showers ; thence to the end of April, fine spring days. During
May, showers and sunshine in about an equal proportion. Dark
rainy weather to the end of the third week in July ; thence to the
24th of August, sultry, with thunder and occasional showers. To
the end of the third week in November, rain, with 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 th e 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.

434 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER.

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 season-
able 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 loth of January, hard frost. To the 2oth of
January, foggy, with frequent showers. To the i8th 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 i8th July, dry, warm weather. To the
end of July, very heavy rains. To the I2th October, remarkably
fine warm weather. To the end of the year, grey mild weather
with but little rain, and still less frost.

1778. To the 1 3th 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 fort-
night in April, spring weather. To the end of the month snow and
ice. To the nth of June, cool, with heavy showers. To the iQth
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 2ist April,
\\ arm dry weather. To 8th May, rainy. To the 7th June, dry and
warm. To the 6th July, hot weather, with frequent rain. To the
1 8th 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 November,
frost. To December 16, mild dry foggy weather. To the end of
the year frost and snow.

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER. 435

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.

1 782. 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, 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 Qth of May, cold harsh winds, (thick ice on 5th of May). To
the end of August, hot weather, with frequent showers. To the
23rd September, mild, with heavy driving rains. To November 12,
dry mild weather. To the i8th 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 I4th
January, the other 5th February. To February 28, mild wet fogs.
To the 3rd March, frost with ice. To March 10, sleet and snow.
To April i, 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 1 8, 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 thermometer i
degree below o).

1785. A thaw began on the 2nd January, and rainy weather with
wind continued to January 28. To I5th March, very hard frost.
To 2 ist 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,

436 SUMMARY OF THE 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 i8th of November, dry, mild weather.
(Haymaking finished November 9, and the wheat harvest
November 14.) 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 2ist January, deep snow. To February
11, mild with frequent rains. To 2ist February, dry, with high
winds. To xoth March, hard frost. To i3th April, wet, with
intervals of frost. To the end of April, dry, mild weather. On
the ist and 2nd May, thick ice. To loth May, heavy rain. To
June 14, fine warm dry weather. From the 8th to the nth 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 2 1, still and mild, with rain. To the end of the year,
frost.

1788 To January 13, mild and wet. To January, 1 8, 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
June 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.

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 I3th March, hard

SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER. 437

frost, with snow. To April 18, heavy rain, with frost and snow and
sleet. To the end of April, dark, cold weather, with frequent rains.
To June 9, 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 n, 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 occasional 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 i, 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 mild.
February, some hard frost and a little snow. March, wet and cold.
April, great storms on the I3th, 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,
showery and mild. November, dry and fine. December, mild.

A
COMPARATIVE VIEW

OF THE

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR,

AS KEPT AT

SELBORNE, IN HAMPSHIRE,

BY THE LA.TK

REV. GILBERT WHITE, M.A. ;

AND AT

CATSFIELD, NEAR TATTLE,

IV SUSSEX,

BY WILLIAM MARKWICK, ESQ., F.L.S.,

From the year 1768 to the year 1793.

N.B. — The dates in the following Calendars, when more than
one, express the earliest and latest times in which the
circumstance noted was observed.

INTRODUCTION TO NATURALIST'S
CALENDAR.

WILLIAM MARKWICK, who afterwards took the name of Evers-
field, was an observant Naturalist, and communicated several
papers relating to British zoology to the Linnaean Society, several
of which appeared in its Transactions. He died in 1813.

In preparing an ornithological calendar in 1849 we prefaced it
with the following remarks, which may, with propriety, be reprinted
here, as although written for ornithology they will generally apply
to any department of zoology ; they also allude to the author's
favourite subject, migration.

The importance of the registration of "periodic phenomena?
appertaining to animals and plants, has been long acknowledged
and advocated in different periodicals and works,' writing of and
devoted to natural history ; and sundry calendars have been
published, which, although they contain many points worthy of
observation, and were sometimes very amply made out, were not
within the reach of all observers, and did not serve as a guide for
the uniform registration of the phenomena. In our numerous
works relating to the Ornithology of the British Islands, we have
many observations and partial lists of the appearance and dis-
appearance of our winter, summer, and occasional visitants. The
migrations ; flocking and congregating of species after incubation ;
disappearance of certain species, and their occurrence again after
a period of years have been all noted down. Many of our friends
have kept private notes of these occurrences, and we have ourselves
made observations over a period of nearly thirty years ; but all
these are neither kept to any plan, nor accompanied with notes of
the temperature, weather, and other circumstances which would
have added greatly to their value. They are made in various

442 INTRODUCTION TO NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

localities, and in various years and circumstances ; and however
interesting the task, it would entail much time and labour to reduce
them to any available order. If, then, the more important points
in the economy of our native species could be registered on some
simultaneous and regular plan, interesting information and details
might be elicited, and an insight into the laws which regulate their
motions and changes, be in a short time obtained.

For the above purpose, a set of Tables have been prepared for
the present, the concluding number of the " Contributions for 1848,"
in such time as will enable the month of January with the whole
year to be observed and registered ; and accompanying the
number there is a duplicate copy printed on thin paper and with
printed address, which it is requested may be filled up and posted
in the first week of January, 1850, when, if health and circumstances
permit, a summary of the registers and observations returned will
be drawn up and printed with an early succeeding number.

For the better filling up of these tables, the following observations
may not be inappropriate : —

The tables and lists of species have been drawn up, as far as
possible, to suit any locality ; at the same time many omissions
may have been made which experience in a future year may
remedy, and there may be many things inserted which are not
applicable, and may appear useless in certain districts. Thus,
the return filled up in Orkney will produce a very different
appearance from one made in the middle or southern districts
of England.

In these returns it will be very desirable to know the elevation
above the sea as nearly as possible ; to have a general register of
the temperature and weather, with a short description of the
character of the country and its vegetation around the localities
where the observations are made. In the curious and interesting
subject of migration, particular attention is desired. The average
temperature at the times of appearance and departure ; the direction
of the wind ; the general character of the weather; the condition
and progress of vegetation, should all be observed. It might be
supposed that the arrival of the migratory species in other countries
would be influenced more by the climate of that from which they
departed than of that to which they came ; that an earlier frost or
mild weather, would have the effect of driving them away or
inducing them to prolong their departure ; in this country, however,
though a cold autumn has an evident effect on the time of the

INTRODUCTION TO NATURALISTS CALENDAR. 443

departure of the swallows, and many of our summer birds, a mild
spring does not always hasten the departure of the winter visitants.
The arrival of some summer birds, as the wheatear, does not
seem at all influenced by the mildness or continued severity of the
spring here ; but we have observed that mildness and advance of
vegetation in this country does make a difference in the time of
appearance of several species, particularly the Sylviadce j and it
may be asked whether the progression of these and others from
Southern Europe and Africa is gradual, advancing with the seasons ?
The laws which regulate the migratory zone of some species are
not, probably, applicable to such as appear to start at once and fly
to their destination. The great mass of swallows depart from this
country at once, but the appearance of their numbers is somewhat
more gradual. The Sylviadce appear gradually. The migratory
thrushes, again, come and depart at once. So also do the snipes,
woodcocks, and others of the Scolopacidce. If resident on or near
the sea-coast, attention should be paid to the ornithology after
remarkable storms, particularly during March and April, October
and November, and both on the coast and inland during these
months, when migration takes place, and the young are leaving
their breeding places and congregating, many rare species have
been met with, driven out of their ordinary tract ; and vast flocks
of species generally few in number, sometimes in the same way
appear, showing the influence climate or the seasons may have in
the distribution of animal life. On the coast, it is also curious to
mark the habits of the different sea-fowl previous to, or after the
occurrence of a storm, or any marked change in the weather.

Independent of regular migration, by which we mean the arrival
of some birds (not at other seasons found in our islands) in spring,
for the purpose of incubation, and then remaining with us during
the summer months ; or the arrival of some birds in late autumn
from another county, and remaining during the winter months,
apparently to enjoy a larger supply of food and a milder climate,
not afforded by their more northern summer quarters ; there are
large accessions made to the numbers of some permanently
resident birds, either altogether from another country, or by a
partial migration from one locality to another temporarily more
suitable. In many districts a large addition is received in autumn
to the stock of our common thrush and blackbird. So is there
also of the common snipe, in many places where it breeds and
is permanently resident. They arrive before or about the usual

444 INTRODUCTION TO NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

migratory period, and are, probably, supplied both from abroad
and from the more exposed districts of this country. Many of the
hawks disappear altogether during spring and summer, seeking the
wilder and more unfrequented grounds to breed and rear their
young. They reappear again 'in their usual haunts about the
middle or end of September. Along our shores and sea marshes
vast numbers of the plovers, sandpipers, curlews, &c., spend the
winter, many of which have merely returned with their young from
a more inland breeding resort. The numerous congregations of
the young, in autumn, assembling in large flocks together, show
another kind of migration, being very marked in the black and
white wagtail, chaffinch, titmice, lapwing, and other plovers. &c.
A few species, again, which spend the whole season of incubation
in other parts, are seen once or twice yearly for a short period only.
The short-eared owl, which in some parts of England is met with
regularly about the commencement of the winter migratory period,
is in great part only on return from the more northern parts of this
country, where it is known to breed. The ring-ousel breeds in the
alpine districts of England and Scotland, but it is only seen upon
the English downs, and so often recorded by White, and among
the mountain ash and cottage gardens in Scotland only for a few
days, in going and returning to and from their breeding quarters. So
it is with the common dotterel upon our lower moors, and large
numbers of our sandpipers, &c , are also only seen for a day or
two, in similar circumstances.

The periodical change of colour in the plumage of birds is often
very marked ; it is incidental in great measure to the season of
incubation, previous to which it gradually approaches completion ;
and, as that important time arrives, it, along with the voice, obtains
its fullest vigour, clearness and brilliancy, and the latter sometimes
puts on changes of great contrast with the full and usually chaste
winter garb. These changes are most characteristic and distinct
in the waders, water fowl, and gallinaceous birds, and among these
are almost general ; in other families, although a greater brilliancy
always occurs, it is only in some that the changes are very marked.
In some species these changes take place by a loss of some parts
of a feather, thereby bringing into view some other portion, and
so producing a different tint ; in others, the colour of the feather
entirely changes. These variations take place more or less rapidly
with the seasons ; but in some instances, the change is effected in
a day or two, as in many of the plovers and sandpipers, some

INTRODUCTION TO NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 445

ducks, and the head of the black-headed gull, &c., so that exactness
in the registration of these changes should be observed. Some of
our summer visitants assume their breeding dress after arrival
here, while others are partially changed, as if the operation had
commenced, and was going on at the same time with the instinctive
desire to migrate. And again, on the cessation of the duties of
the male, does the brilliancy begin to fade, and the dark or rich
contrasted tints to blend into a plumage broken and worn, and now
commencing to be renovated by a new moult — all these mutations
are worthy to be noted, and can be easily done at the same time
that other facts are registered.

It is during this same important period that a great change
periodically takes place in the song and voice of birds. Many
species sit and utter their call from some selected spot, which is
frequented day after day ; but others practise peculiar modes of
flight, calling as they fly. The pleasing song of our warblers and
thrushes, the call of the pigeons and cuckoo, are familiar examples
of the first. The towering flight of the greenfinch, and the rise
and fall of the pipits singing as they fly ; the drone and flight of
the snipe, and the shrill whistle of the curlew, are examples of the
combined exercise ; but in every species there is a change more or
less marked, which will be easily seen and noted by a practised or
willing observer.

There is yet another point worthy of attention, that is, the
change in the general zoology of a district or locality which has
taken place within a limited period, by an alteration of its physical
character; by improvement, cultivation, braining; by planting, and
the increase of wood ; by the rooting out and destruction of copse
or natural wood ; by the introduction of some particular trees or
brushwood. All these matters have a much greater influence on
animal life than is at first imagined ; and in the space of twenty
or thirty years, we have seen the character of a locality almost
changed, by the forsaking of some species, and the coming in of
others. These changes go gradually on, but are at last complete,
being naturally incidental to the artificial causes above-mentioned.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

OK

WHITE'S AND MARKWICK'S
CALENDARS.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

OF

WHITE'S AND MARKWICK'S CALENDARS.

Of the abbreviations used, fl. signifies flowering ; 1. leafing; and ap. the first
appearance.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Redbreast (sylvia rubecula) sings .

Jan. i — 12

Jan. 3—31, and again
Oct. 6.

Larks (alauda arvensis) congregate .

Jan. i— 18 .

Oct. 16, Feb. 9.

Nuthatch (sitta europaea) heard

Jan. i — 14

Mar. 3, Apr. 10.

Winter aconite (helleborus hiemalis) fl. .
Shell-less snail or slug (Umax) ap. .

Jan. i, Feb. 18
Jan. 2. .

Feb. 28, Apr. 17.
Jan. 16, May 31.

Grey and 1 ., ( (motacilla boarula))
writ* fwagtaiN ap. . . }
((motacilla alba) ap.)
Missel thrush (turdus viscivorus) sings .

Jan. 2 — ii . 4
. an. 2 — 14

Jan. 24, Mar. 26.
Dec. 12, Feb. 23.

Feb. 19, Apr. 14.

Bearsf lot (helleborus fcetidus) fl. .

. an. 2, Feb. 14

Mar. i, May 5.

Polyanthus (primula polyantha) fl. .

. an. 2, Apr. 12

Jan. i, Apr. 9.

Double daisy (bellis perennis plena) fl. .

. an. 2, Feb. i

Mar. 17, Apr. 29.

Mezereon (daphne mezereum) fl.

. an. 3, Feb. 16

. an. 2, Apr. 4.

Pansy (viola tricolor) fl. .

. an. 3 .

. an. i, May 10.

Red dead-nettle (lamium purpureum) fl.
Groundsel (senecio vulgaris) fl. . .

. an. 3—21 .
. an. 3—15 .

. an. i, Apr. 5.
an. i, Apr. 9.

Hazel (corylus avellana) fl.

. an. 3, Feb. 28

. an. 21, Mar. n.

Hepatica (anemone hepatica) fl.
Hedge-sparrow (sylvia modularis) sings .

. an. 4, Feb. 18
, an. 5 — 12

an. 17, Apr. 9.
. an. 16, Mar. 13.

Common flies (musca domestica) seen )
in numbers J

Jan. 5, Feb. 3

May 15.

Greater titmouse (parus major) sings
Thrush (turdus musicus) sings

ian. 6, Feb. 6
an. 6 — 22

Feb. 17, Mar. 17.
Jan. 15, Apr. 4.

Insects swarm under sunny hedges
Primrose (primula vulgaris) fl.

an. 6.
an. 6, Apr. 7

. an. 3, Mar. 22.

Bees (apis mellifica) ap

an. 6, Mar. 19

. an. 31, Apr. ii ; last

Gnats play about . .

an. 6, Feb. 3.

[seen Dec. 30.

Chaffinches, male and female (fringilla \
coelebs) seen in equal numbers . J

Jan. 6— ii

Dec. 2, Feb. 3.

Fur^e or gorse (ulex europaeus) fl. . .

Jan. 8, Feb. i

Jan. i, Mar. 27.

Wall-flower (cheiranthus cheiri ; seu )
fruticulosus of Smith) fl. . . /

Jan. 8, Apr. i.

Feb. 21, May 9.

Stock (cheiranthus incanus) fl.
Emberiza alba (bunting) in great flocks .

Jan. 8—i2 .
Jan. 9.

Feb. i, June 3.

Linnets (fringilla linota) congregate

Jan. 9 . . •

Jan. ii.

Lambs begin to fall ....

Jan. 9— ii .

Jan. 6, Feb. 21.

45°

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MAKKWICK.

Rooks (corvus frugilegus) resort to their j
nest trees j

Jan. 10, Feb. n .

Jan. 23.

Black hellebore (helleborus^ niger) fl.
Snowdrop (galanthus nivalis) fl.
White dead-nettle (lamium album) fl.
Trumpet honeysuckle, fl.
Common creeping crowfoot (ranuncu-)
lus repens) fl (

Jan. 10 .
Jan. 10, Feb. 5
Jan. 13 .
Jan. 13.

Jan. 13 .

Apr. 27.
Jan. 1 8, Mar. i.
Mar. 23, May 10.

Apr. 10, May 12.

House-sparrow (fringilla domestica) )
chirps J

Jan. 14 .

Feb. 17, May 9. .

Dandelion (leontodon taraxacum) fl.

Jan. 16, Mar. n .

Feb. i, Apr. 17.

Bat (vespertilio) ap. ....
Spiders shoot their webs ....

Jan. 16, Mar. 24 .
Jan. 16 .

Feb. 6, June i ; last
[seen Nov. 20.

Butterfly, ap.

Jan. 16 . . {

Feb. 21, May 8 ; last
seen Dec. 22.

Brambling (fringilla montifringilla) ap. .
Blackbird (turdus merula) whistles

Jan. 16 .
Jan. 17 .

Jan 10—31.
Feb. 15, May 13.

Wren (sylvia troglodytes) sings

Jan. 17 .

Feb. 7, June 12.

Earthworms he out

Jan. 18, Feb. 8.

Crocus (crocus vernus) fl.

Jan. 13, Mar. 18 .

Jan. 20, Mar. 19.

Skylark (alauda arvensis) sings

Jan. 21 .

Jan. 12. Feb. 27; sings

Ivy casts its leaves .....

Jan. 22 .

[till Nov. 13.

Helleborus hiemalis, fl

Jan. 22—24 •

Feb. 28, Apr. 17.

Common dor or clock (scarabaeus ster- (

Feb. 12, Apr. 12 ; last

corarius) ..... >

J **"• ~^3 * - • * • * 1

seen Nov. 24.

Peziza acetabulum, ap

Jan 23.

Helleborus vind, fl. ....

Jan. 23, Mar. 5.

Hazel (corylus avellana) fl.

J-an. 23. Feb. i

Jan. 27, Mar. n.

Woodlark (alauda arborea) sings ,.
Chaffinch (fringilla ccelebs) sings .

Jan. 24, Feb. 21 .
Jan. 24, Feb. 15

Jan. 28, June 5.
Jan. 21, Feb. 26.

Jackdaws begin to come to churches
Yellow wagtail (motacilla flava) ap.
Honeysuckle (lonicera periclymenum) 1.
Field or procumbent speedwell (vero-1
nica agrestis) fl j

Jan. 25, Mar. 4.
Jan. 25, Apr. 14 .
Jan. 25 .

Jan. 27, Mar. 15 .

[seen Sept. 8
Apr. 13, July 3 ; last
Jan. i, Apr. 9.

Feb. 12, Mar. 29.

Nettle butterfly (papilio urticai) ap.

Jan. 27, Apr. 2

Mar. 5, Apr. 24 ; last
seen June 6.

White wagtail (motacilla alba) chirps

Jan. 28 .

Mar. 16.

Shell-snail (helix nemoralis) ap. . . .

Jan. 28, Feb. 24 .

Apr. 2, June u.

Earthworms engender ....
Barren strawberry (fragaria sterilis) fl. .
Blue titmouse (parus caeruleus) chirps .

Jan. 30.
Feb. i, Mar. 26 .
Feb. i ...

Jan. 13, Mar 26.
Apr. 27.

Brown wood-owls hoot .

Feb. 2.

Hen (phasianus gallus) sits

Feb. 3 ...

March 8, hatches.

Marsh titmouse begins his two harsh \

Feb. 3.

Gossamer floats . . .

Feb. 4, Apr. i.

Musca tenax, ap. .

Feb. 4, Apr. 8.

Laurustine (viburnum tinus) fl.
Butcher's broom (ruscus aculeatus) fl. .
Fox (canis vulpes) smells rank
Turkey-cocks strut and gobble
Yellow-hammer (emberiza citrinella) 1

'• Feb. 5 .
Feb. 5 .
Feb. 7 ...
| Feb. 10.

Feb. 12 .

Jan. i, Apr. 5.
Jan. i, May 10.
May 19, young
[brought forth.

Feb 18, Apr. 28.

sings J

i

Feb. 13, Mar. 8 ; last

Brimstone butterfly (papilio rhamm) ap.

Feb. 13, Apr. 2

seen Dec. 24.

Green-woodpecker (picus viridis) makes \

Feb. 13, Mar. 23 .

Jan. i, Apr. 17.

a loud cry J

Raven (corvus corax) builds .

Feb. 14-17 • {

Apr. i, has young
ones June i.

Yew-tree (taxus baccata) fl.

Feb. 14, Mar. 27 .

Feb. 2, Apr. n.

Coltsfoot (tussilago farfara) fl.

Feb. 15, Mar. 23 .

Feb. 18, Apr. 13.

Rooks (corvus frugilegus) build

Feb. 10, Mar. 6 .

! Feb. 28, Mar. 5.

1

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

45?

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Partridges (perdix cinerea) pair
Peas (pisum sativum) sown

Feb. 17 .
Feb. 17, Mar. 8 .

Feb. 16, Mar. 20.
Feb. 8, Mar. 31.

House-pigeon (columba domestica) has)

Feb. 18 .

Feb. 8.

young ones .... j

Field-crickets open their holes

Feb. 20, Mar. 30 .

Common flea (pulex irritans) ap.
Pilewort (ficaria verna) fl.
Goldfinch (fringilla carduelis) sings

Feb. 21—26.
Feb. 21, Apr. 13 .
Feb. 21, Apr. 5

Jan. 25, Mar. 26.
Feb. 28, May. 5.

Viper (coluber berus) ap.

Feb. 22, Mar. 26 |

Feb. 23, May 6, last
seen Oct. 28.

Wood-louse (oniscus asellus) ap.
Missel thrushes pair ....

Feb. 23, Apr. i
Feb. 24.

Apr. 27, June 17.

Daffodil (narcissus pseudonarcissus) fl. .

Feb. 24, Apr. 7

Feb. 26, Apr. 18.

Willow (salix alba) fl

Feb. 24, Apr. 2

Feb. 27, Apr. n.

Frogs (rana temporaria) croak

Feb. 25 .

Mar. 9, Apr. 20.

Sweet violet (viola odorata) fl.

Feb. 26, Mar. 31 .

Feb. 7, Apr. 5.

Phalsena tinea vestianella, ap.

Feb. 26.

Stone-curlew (otis cedicnemus) clamours
Filbert (corylus sativus) fl.
Ring-dove cooes
Apricot-tree (prunus armeniaca) fl.

Feb. 27, Apr. 24
Feb. 27 .
Feb. 27, Apr. 5 .
Feb.

June 17.
Jan. 25, Mar. 26.
Mar. 2, Aug. io.
Feb. 28, Apr. 5.

Toad (rana bufo) ap

Feb. 28, Mar. 24 .

March 15, July i.

Frogs (rana temporaria) spawn

Feb. 28, Mar. 22 {

Feb. 9, Apr. 10, tad-
poles Mar. 19.

Ivy-leaved speedwell (veronica hede-\
rifolia)fl }

Mar. i, Apr. 2 . .

Feb. 1 6, Apr. io.

Peach (amygdalus persica) fl.

Mar. 2, Apr. 17

Mar. 4, Apr. 29.

Frog (rana temporaria) ap.

Mar. 2, Apr. 6

March 9.

Shepherd's purse (thlaspi bursa pas-i
toris) fl \

Mar. 3 .

Jan. 2, Apr. 16.

Pheasant (phasianus colchicus) crows
Land-tortoise comes forth

Mar. 3—29 .
Mar. 4, May 8.

Mar. i, May 22*

Lungwort (pulmonaria officinalis) fl.
Podura, fimetaria ap. ....

Mar. 4, Apr. 16
Mar. 4.

Mar. 2, May 19.

Aranea scenica saliens, ap.

Mar. 4.

Scolopendra forficata, ap.

Mar. 5 — 16.

Wryneck (jynx torquilla) ap. .

Goose (anas anser) sits on its eggs .
Duck (anas boschas) lays
Dog's violet (viola camna) fl.
Peacock butterfly (papilio io) ap. .
Trouts begin to rise
Field beans (vicia faba) planted
Blood-worms appear in the water .

Mar. 5, Apr. 25 •;

Mar. 5 .
Mar. 5 ...
Mar. 6. Apr. 18 .
Mar. 6 ...
Mar. 7—14.
Mar. 8 .
Mar. 8.

March 26, April 23,
last seen Sept. 14.
March 21.
March 28.
Feb. 28, Apr. 22.
Feb. 13, Apr. 20, last
[seen Dec. 25.
Apr. 29, emerge,
[ones.

Crow (corvus corone) builds .
Oats (a vena saliva) sown ....

Mar. io .
Mar. io — 18 .

July i, has young
Mar. 16, Apr. 13.

Golden-crowned wren (sylvia regulus)(

sings ...... f

Mar. 12, Apr. 30 <

Apr. 15, May 22, seen
Dec. 23, Jan. 26.

Asp (populus tremula) fl. ....
Common elder (sambucus nigra) 1. .
Laurel (prunus laurocerasus) fl.
Chrysomela Gotting, ap. ...

Mar. 12 .
Mar. 13 — 20 .
Mar. 15, May 21 .
Mar. 15.

Feb. 26, Mar. 28.
Jan. 24, Apr. 22.
Apr. 2, May 27

Black ants (formica nigra) ap. .
Ephemerae biseta?, ap

Mar. 15, Apr. 22 .
Mar. 16.

Mar. 2, May 18.

Gooseberry (ribes grossularia) 1.
Common stitchwort (stellaria holostea)fl.
Wood anemone (anemone nemerosa) fl. .

Mar. 17, Apr. n
Mar. 17, May 19 .
Mar. 17, Apr. 22 ,

Feb. 26, Apr. 9.
Mar. 8, May 7.
Feb. 27, Apr. io.

Blackbird (turdus merula) lays

Mar. 17. . {

Apr. 14, young ones
May io.

Raven (corvus corax) sits

Mar. 17 .

Apr. i, builds.

Wheatear (sylvia cenanthe) ap.

Mar. 18—30 .

Mar. 13, May 23, last
seen Oct. 26.

452

NATURALTSTS CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Musk-wood crowfoot (adoxa moscha-1
tellina) fl /

Mar. 1 8, Apr. 13 .

Feb. 23, Apr. 28.

Willow-wren (sylvia trochilus) ap. .

Mar. 19, Apr. 13 .

Mar. 30, May 16, sits

May 27, last seen

Fumaria bulboso, fl. ....

Mar. 19.

[Oct. 23.

Elm (ulmus campestris) fl.

Mar. 19, Apr. 4

Feb. 17, Apr. 25.

f

Mar. 18 — 25, sits Apr.

Turkey (meleagris gallopavo) lays .

Mar. 19, Apr. 7 •<

4, young ones Apr.

House pigeons (columba domestica) sit

Mar. 20 . |

Mar. 20, young
[hatched.

Marsh marigold (caltha palustris) fl.
I3uzz-fly (bombylius medius) apJ

Mar. 20, Apr. 14 .
Mar. 21, Apr. 28 .

Mar. 22, May 8.
Mar. 15, Apr. 30.

Sand-martin (hirundo riparia) ap. .

Mar. 21, Apr. 12 |

Apr. 8, May 16, last
seen Sept. 8.

Snake (coluber natrix) ap.

Mar. 22 — 30 .

Mar. 3, Apr. 29, last
seen Oct. 2.

Horse ant (formica herculeana) ap.

Mar. 22, Apr. 18 {

Feb. 4, Mar. 26, last
seen Nov. 12.

Greenfinch (loxia chloris) sings

Mar. 22, Apr. 22 .

Mar. 6, Apr. 26.

Ivy (hedera helix) berries ripe
Periwinkle (vinca minor) fl.

Mar. 23, Apr. 14 .
Mar. 25 .

Feb. 16, May 19.
Feb. 6, May 7.

Spurge laurel (daphne laureola) fl. .

Mar. 25, Apr. i

Apr. 12—22.

Swallow (hirundo rustica) ap. .

Mar. 26, Apr. 20 |

Apr. 7—27, last seen
Nov. 16.

f

Apr. 14, May 18, seen

Black-cap (sylvia atricapilla) heard

Mar. 26, May 4 \

Apr. 14, May 20,

I

last seen Sept. 19.

Young ducks hatched ....

Mar. 27 .

Apr. 6, May 16.

Golden saxifrage (chrysosplenium }
oppositifolium) fl /

Mar. 27, Apr. 9

Feb. 7, Mar. 27.

Martin (hirundo urbica) ap.

Mar. 28. May i |

Apr. 14, May 8, last
seen Dec. 8.

Double hyacinth (hyacinthus orien-l
talis) fl . J

Mar. 29, Apr. 22 .

Mar. 13, Apr. 24.

Young geese (anas anser)
Wood sorrel (oxalis acetosella) fl. .
Ring-ousel (turdus torquatus) seen .
Barley (hordeum sativum) sown ..

Mar. 29 .
Mar. 30, Apr. 22 .
Mar. 30, Apr. ij .
Mar. 31, Apr. 30 .

Mar. 29, Apr. 19.
Fe ). 26, Apr. 26.
Oct. ii.
Apr. 12, May 20.

Nightingale (sylvia luscinia) sings .

Apr. i, May i <

Apr. 5, July 4, last
seen Aug 29.

Ash (fraxinus excelsior) fl.

Apr. i, May 4

Mar. 16, May 8.

Spiders' webs on the surface of the ground

Apr. i.

Chequered daffodil (fritillaria mele-)
agris)fl J

Apr. 2 — 24

Apr. 15, May i.

Apr. 2.

Cowslip (primula veris) fl.
Ground-ivy (glecoma hederacea) fl.

Apr. 3—24 - .
Apr. 3—15

Mar. 3. May 17.
Mar. 2, Apr. 16.

Apr. 3.

Box -tree (buxus sempervirens) fl. .
Elm (ulmus campestris) 1.
Gooseberry (ribes grossularia) fl.
Currant (ribes hortense) fl.

Apr. 3 .
Apr. 3 .
Apr. 3—14
Apr. 3—5

Mar. 27, May 8.
Apr. 2, May 19.
Mar. 21, May i.
Mar. 24, Apr. 28.

Pear-tree (pyrus communis) fl.

Apr. 3, May 29

Mar. 30, Apr. 30.

Lacerta vulgaris (newt or eft) ,

Apr. 4 . • {

Feb. 17, Apr. 15, last
seen Oct. 9.

Dogs' mercury (mercurialis perennis) fl.

Apr. 5-19 .

Jan. 20, Apr. 16.

Wych elm (ulmus glabra seu montana )
of Smith) fl. . . . . <

Apr. 5 ...

Apr. 19, May 10.

Ladysmock (cardamine pratensis) fl.

Apr. 6 — 20

Feb. 21, Apr. 26.

Cuckoo (cuculus canorus) heard

Apr. 7-26 . {

Apr. 15, May 3, last
heard June 28.

Black'horn (prunus spinosa) fl.

Apr. May 10 .

Mar. 16, May 8.

1

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

453

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Death-watch (termes pulsatorius) beats .
Gudgeon spawns

Apr. 7 .
A nr 7

Mar. 28, May 28.

Red-start (sylvia phaenicurus) ap. .

XT.p1 • /.

Apr. 8—28 . |

Apr. 5, sings Apr. 25,
last seen Sept. 30.

Crown imperial (fritillaria imperialis) fl.

Apr. 8—24 .

Apr. i, May 13.

Tit-lark (alauda pratensis) sings

Apr. 9—19 . {

Apr. 14—29, sits June
16—17.

Beech (fagus sylvatica) 1. ...
Shell-snail (helix nemoralis) comes out \
in troops ;

Apr. 10, May 8
Apr. ii, May 9

Apr. 24, May 25.
May 17, June ii ap.

Middle yellow wren, ap.

Apr. ii.

Swift (hirundo apus)ap. ....
Stinging-fly (conops calcitrans) ap.

Apr. 13, May 7 .
Apr. 14, May 17.

Apr. 28, May 19.

Whitlow grass (draba verna) fl.

Apr. 14 .

Jan. 15, Mar. 24.

Larch-tree (pinus-larix rubra) L

Apr. 14 .

Apr. i, May 9.

I

April 14, May 5, sings

Whitethroat (sylvia cinerea) ap.

Apr. 14, May 14 \

May 3 — 10, last seen

(

Sept. 23.

Red ant (formica rubra) ap. .
Mole cricket (gryllus gryllotalpa) churs
Second willow or laughing wren, ap.
Red rattle (pedicularis sylvatica) fl.
Common flesh-fly (musca carnaria) ap. .
Lady-cow (coccinella bipunctata) ap.

Apr. 14 .
Apr. 14.
Apr. 14—19—23.
Apr. 15-19 •
Apr. 15.
Apr. 16.

Apr. 9, June 26.
Apr. 10. June 4.

Grasshopper lark (alauda locustae \
voce) ap. . . . . /

Apr. 16 — 30.

Willow-wren, its shivering note heard .

Apr. 17, May 7 .

Apr. 28, May 14.

Middle willow-wren (regulus non cris- \

tatus medius) ap. j

Apr. 17—27.

Wild cherry (prunus cerasus) fl.

Apr. 18, May 12 .

Mar. 30, May 10.

Garden cherry (primus cerasus) fl.

Apr. 18, May n .

Mar. 25, May 6.

Plum (prunus domestica) fl. .
Harebell (hyacinthus non scriptus seu \
scilla nutans of Smith) fl. . J

Apr. 18, May 5 .
Apr. 19—25 .

Mar. 24, May 6.
Mar. 27, May 8.

Turtle (columba turta) cooes .

Apr. 20—27 •

May 14, Aug. 10, seen.

Hawthorn (crataegus seu mespilus oxy- )
cantha of Smith) fl. . . . J

Apr. 20, June ii .

Apr. 19, May 26.

Male fool's orchis (orchis mascula) fl.

Apr. 21 .

March 29, May 13.

Blue flesh-fly (musca vomitoria) ap.

Apr. 21, May 23.

Black snail or slug (limax ater) abounds
Apple-tree (pyrus malus sativus) fl.

Apr. 22 .
Apr. 22, May 25 .

Feb. i, Oct. 24 ap.
Apr. ii, May 26

Strawberry, wild wood (fragaria vesca I
sylv ) fl J

Apr. 23—29 .

Apr. 8—9.

Sauce alone (erysimum alliaria) fl.
Wild or bird cherry (prunus avium) fl. .

Apr. 23 .
Apr. 24 .

Mar. 31, May 8.
Mar. 30, May 10.

Apis hyphorum, ap. ....

Apr. 24.
Apr. 24, May 28.

Musca meridiana, ap

Wolf-fly (asilus) ap

Apr. 25.

Cabbage-butterfly (papilio brassicae) ap.

Apr. 28, May 20 .

Apr. 29, June 10.

Dragon-fly (libellula) ap. . . .

Apr. 30, May 21 |

Apr. 18, May 13, last
seen Nov. 10.

Sycamore (acer pseudoplatanus) fl.

April 30, June 6 .

Apr. 20, June 4.

Bombylus minor, ap

May i.

Glowworm (lampyris noctiluca) shines .
Fern-owl or goatsucker (caprimulgus )
europaeus) ap. J

May i, June ii
May i — 26

June 19, Sept. 28.
May 16, Sept. 14.

Common bugle (ajuga reptans) fl. .

May i ...

Mar 27, May 10.

Field-crickets (gryllus campestris) crink

May 2—24.

Chaffer or May-bug (scarabaeus melo- \
lontha) ap f

May 2—26 .

May 2 July 7.

Honeysuckle (lonicera periclymenum) fl
Toothwort (lathraea squamaria) fl.

May 3 — 30 .
May 4 — 12

Apr. 24, June 21.

454

NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Shell-snails copulate ....
Sedge warbler (sylvia salicaria) sings
Mealy tree (viburnum lantana) fl. .
Fly-catcher (stoparolas muscicapa \
grisola)ap |

May 4, June 17.
May 4 . . .
May 5- 17 .

May 10 — 30 .

June 2 — 30.
Apr. 25, May 22.

Apr. 29, May 21.

Apis longicornis, ap

May 10, June 9.

Sedge warbler (sylvia salicaria) ap.

May ii — 13 .

Aug. 2.

Oak (quercus robur) fl
Admiral-butterfly (papilio atalanta) ap. .
Orange-tip (papilio cardamines) ap.
Beech (fagus sylvatica) fl.
Common maple (acer campestre) fl.

May 13—15 .
May 13.
May 14 .
May 15—26 .
May 16 .

Apr. 29, June 4.

Mar. 30, May 19.
Apr. 23, May 28.
Apr 24, May 27.

Barberry tree (berberis vulgaris) fl.
Wood argus-butterfly (papilio aegeria) ap.
Orange lily (hlium bulbiferum) fl. .
Burnet-moth (sphinx filipendulae) ap.
Walnut (juglans regia) 1.

May 17 — 26 .
May 17.
May 18, June ii .
May 18, June 13 .
May 18 .

Apr. 28, June 4.

June 14, July 22.
May 24, June 26.
Apr. 10, June i.

Laburnum (cytisus laburnum) fl. .

May 18, June 5

May i, June 23.

Forest-fly (hippobosca equina) ap. .
Saintfoin (hedysarum onobrychis) fl.
Peony (paeonia officinalis) fl. .
Horse chestnut (aesculus hippocasta- \
num) fl. ..... J

May 18, June 9.
May 19, June 8
May 20, June 15 .

May 21, June 9 .

May 21, July 28
Apr. 18, May 26.

Apr. 19, June 7.

Lilac (syringa vulgaris) fl.
Columbine (aquilegia vulgaris) fl. .
Medlar (mespilus germanica) fl.
Tormentil (tormentilla erecta seu offici- \
nalis of Smith) fl. . . . f

May 21
May 21 — 27 .
May 21, June 20 .

May 21

Apr. 15, May 30.
May 6, June 13.
Apr. 8, June 19.

Apr. 17, June ii.

Lily of the valley (convallaria majalis) fl.

May 22

Apr. 27, June 13.

Bees (apis mellifica) swarm
Woodroof (asperula odorata) fl.

May 22, July 22 .
May 22 — 25 •

May 12, June 23.
Apr. 14. June 4.

Wasp, female (vespa vulgaris) ap. .

May 23 . . {

Apr. 2, June 4, last
seen Nov. 2.

Mountain ash (sorbus seu pyrus aucu- \
paria of Smith) fl. . . . j

May 23, June 8

Apr. 20, June 8.

Birds'-nest orchis (ophrys nidus avis) fl. .

May 24, June ii .

May 18, June 12.

White-beam tree (crataegus seu pyrus 1
aria of Smith) 1. j

May 24, June 4.

May 3.

Milkwort (polygala vulgaris) fl.
Dwarf cistus (cistus helianthemum) fl. .
Gelder rose (viburnum opulus) fl. .

May 24, June 7 .
May 25 .
May 26 .

Apr. 13, June 2.
May 4, Aug. 8.
May 10, June 8.

Common elder (sambucus nigra) fl.
Cantharis ncctiluca, ap

May 26, June 25 .
May 26.

May 6, June 17.

Apis longicornis bores holes in walks

May 27, June 9

Mulberry tree (morus nigra) 1.

May 27, June 13 .

May 20, June n.

Wild-service tree (crataegus seu pyrus )
torminalis of Smith) fl. . . J

May 27 .

May 13, June 19.

Sanicle (sanicula europaea) fl.
Avens (geum urbanum) fl.

May 27, June 13.
May 28 .

April 23. June 4.
May 9, June ii.

Female fool's orchis (orchis morio) fl. .
Ragged Robin (lychnis flos cuculi) fl.

May 28 .
May 29, June i

Apr. 17, May 2 ).
May 12, June 8.

Burnet (poterium sanguisorba) fl. .

May 29 .

Apr. 30, Aug. 7.

Foxglove (digitalis purpurea) fl.
Corn-flag (gladiolus communis) fl. .

May 30, June 22.
May 30, June 20 .

May 23, June 15.
June 9, July 8.

Serapias longifol. fl
Raspberry (rubus idaeus) fl.

May 30, June 13 .
May 30, June 31 .

May 10, June 16.

Herb Robert (geranium Robertlanum) fl.

May 50 .

March 7, May 16.

Figwort (scrophularia nodosa) fl.

May 31 .

May 12, June 20.

Cromwell (lithospermum officinale) fl. .

May 31 .

May 10 — 24.

Wood spurge(euphorbia amygdaloides) fl.

June i .

Mar. 23, May 13.

Mouse-ear scorpion grars (myosotis >
scorpioides) fl f

June i .

Apr. ii, June i.

NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

455

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Grasshopper (gryllus grossus) ap. .

June 1—14 .

Mar. 25, July 6, last
seen Nov. 3.

Rose (rosa hortensis) fl. :

June i— 21 .

June 7, July i.

Mouse-ear hawkweed (hieracium pilo-l
sella)fl j

June i, July 16

Apr. 19, June 12.

Buckbean (menyanthes trifoliata) fl.

June i .

Apr. 20, June 8.

Rose-chaffer (scarabseus auratus) ap.
Sheep (ovis aries) shorn ....

June 2 — 8
June 2 — 23

Apr. 1 8, Aug. 4.
May 23, June 17.

Water-flag (iris pseudo-acorus) fl. .
Cultivated rye (secale cereale) fl. .

June 2 .
June 2 .

May 8, June 9.
May 27.

Hounds' tongue (cynoglossum offi-)
cinale) fl. . . . . . /

June 2 .

May ii, June 7.

Helleborine (serapias latifolia) fl.

June 2, Aug. 6

July 22, Sept. 6.

Green-gold fly (musca csesar) ap. . . .
Argus butterfly (papilio moera) ap.

June 2.
June 2.

Spearwort (ranunculus flammula) fl.
Birdsfoot trefoil (lotus corniculatus) fl. .

June 3 .
Junes .

Apr. 25, June 13.
Apr. 10, June 3.

Fraxinella, or white dittany (dictam-1
nus albus) fl j

June 3 — ii

June 9, July 24.

Phryganea nigra, ap

June 3.

Angler's May-fly (ephemera vulg.) ap. .
Ladies' finger (anthyllis vulneraria) fl. .

" une 3—14.
une 4 .

June i, Aug. 16.

Bee-orchis (ophrys apifera) fl.

. une 4, July 4.

Pink (dianthus deltoides) fl.
Mock orange (philadelphus coronarius) fl.

. une 5 — 19 .
une 5 .

May 26, July 6.
May 16, June 23.

Libellula virgo, ap. ....

. une 5 — 20.

Vine (vitis vmifera) fl
Portugal laurel (prunus lusitanicus) fl. .

. une 7, July 30
June 8, July i

June 18, July 29.
June 3, July 16.

Purple-spotted martagon (lilium mar-1
tagon) fl )

June 8 — 25 . - .

June 18, July 19.

Meadow cranes - bill (geranium pra-1
tense) fl j

June 8, Aug. i.

Black bryony (tamus communis) fl.
Field pea (pisum sativum arvense) fl.

June 8 .
June 9 .

May 15, June 21.
May 15, June 21.

Bladder campion (cucubalus behen seu)
silene inflata of Smith) fl. . )

June 9 .

May 4, July 13.

Bryony (brionia alba) fl
Hedge-nettle (stachys sylvatica) fl.
Bittersweet (solanum dulcamara) fl.
Walnut (juglans regia) fl.
Phallus impudicus, ap, ....

June 9 .
June 10 . . •
June ii .
June 12 .
June 12, July 23.

May 13, Aug. 17.
May 28, June 24.
May 15, June 20.
Apr. 1 8, June i.

Rosebay willow-herb (epilobium an-)
gustifoliiim) fl j

June 12 .

June 4, July 28.

Wheat (triticum hybernum) fl.
Comfrey (symphytum officinale) fl.

June 13, July 22 .
June 13 .

June 4-30.
May 4, June 23.

Yellow pimpernel (lysimachia nemo-l
rum)fl j

June 13—30 .

Apr. 10, June 12.

Tremella nostoc, ap

. une 15, Aug. 24.

Buckthorn (rhamnus catharticus) 1.

. une 16 .

May 25.

Cuckow-spit insect (cicadia spumaria) ap.
Dog-rcse (rosa canina) fl.

une 16 .
. une 17, 18 .

June 2 — 21.
May 24, June 21.

Puff-ball (lycoperdon bovista) ap. .

. une 17, Sept. 3 .

May 6, Aug. 19.

Mullein (verbascum thapsus) fl.

. une 18 .

June 10, July 22.

Viper's bugloss (echium anglicum seul
vulgare of Smith) fl. . . . )

June 19 .

May 27, July 3.

Meadow hay cut
Stag-beetle (lucanus cervus) ap.

June 19, July 20 .
June 19 .

June 13, July 7.
June 14 — 21.

Borage (borago officinalis) fl. .

June 20 .

Apr. 22, July 26.

Spindle-tree (euonymus europaeus) fl.
Musk thistle (carduus nutans) fl.

June 20 .
June 20, July 4 .

May ii, June 25.
June 4, July 25.

Dogwood (cornus sanguinea) fl.
Field scabious (scabiosa arvensis) fl.

June 21 .
June 21 .

May 28, June 27.
June 16, Aug. 14.

Marsh thistle (carduus palustris) fl.

June 21 — 27 •.

May 15, June 19.

456

NA TURA US T 'S CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Dropwort (spiraea filipendula) fl

June 22, July 9 .

May 8, Sept. 3.

Great wild valerian (valeriana offici-\
nalis)fl )

June 22, July 7

May 22, July 21.

Quail (perdix coturnix) calls .
Mountain willow-herb (epilobium mon-1
tanum) fl. . _ . j

June 22, July 4
June 22 .

July23,seenSept. 1-18.
June 5 — 21.

Thistle upon thistle (carduus crispus) fl.
Cow-parsnip (heracleum sphondylium) fl.
Earth-nut (bumum bulbocastanum seu \
flexuosum of Smith) fl . J

June 23—29 .
June 23 .

June 23 .

May 22, July 22.
May 27, July 12.

May 4 — 31.

Young frogs migrate

une 23, Aug. 2.

CEstrus curvicauda, ap. .

une 24.

Vervain (verbena officinalis) fl.

une 24 .

June 10, July 17.

Corn poppy (papaver rhoeas) fl.
Self-heal (prunella vulgaris) fl.

une 24 .
une 24 .

Apr. 30, July 15.
June 7 — 23.

Agrimony (agrimonia eupatoria) fl.
Great horse-fly (tabanus bovinus) ap.

une 24 — 29 .
une 24, Aug. 2.

June 7, July 9.

Greater knapweed (centaurea scabiosa) fl.
Mushroom (agaricus campestris) ap.

une 25 .
une 26, Aug. 30 .

June 7, Aug. 14.
Apr. 16, Aug. 16.

Common mallow (malva sylvestris) fl
Dwarf mallow (malva rotundifolia) fl .
St. John's wort (hypericum perfo- \
ratum) fl. ..... J

June 26 .
June 26 .

June 26 .

May 27, July 13.
May 12. July 2^.

June 15, July 12.

Broom-rape (orobanche major) fl. .
Henbane (hyoscyamus niger) fl
Goats'-beard (tragopogon pratense) fl

June 27, July 4
June 27 .
June 27 .

May 9. July 25.
May 13, June 19.
June 5—14.

Deadly nightshade (atropa belladonna) fl.
Truffles begin to be found

una 27 .
une 28, July 29.

May 22, Aug. 14.

Young partridges fly ...
Lime-tree (tilia europaea) fl. .

. une 28, July 31 .
une 28, July 31 .

July 8—28.
June 12, July 30.

Spearthistle (carduus lanceolatus) fl.
Meadow-sweet (spiraea ulmaria fl. .
Greenweed (genista tinctoria) fl.

une 28, July 12 .
] une 28 .
_ une 28 .

June 27, July 18.
June 16, July 24.
une 4, July 24.

Wild thyme (thymus serpyllum) fl. .

une 28 .

une 6, July 19.

Stachys germanic. fl
Day-lily (hemerocallis flava) fl.
Jasmine (jasminum officinale) fl.
Holly-oak (alcea rosea) fl.

. une 29, July 20.
. une 29, July 4
. une 29, July 30 .
. 'une 29, Aug. 4

May 29, June 9.
June 27, July 21.
July 4, Sept. 7.

Monotropa hypopithys, fl.
Ladies' bedstraw (galium verum) fl.

une 29, July 23.
. une 29 .

June 22, Aug. 3.

Galium palustre, fl. ....

June 29.

Nipplewort (lapsana communis) fl.

June 29 .

May 30, July 24.

Welted thistle (carduus acanthoides) fl. .

June 29

Sneezewort (achillea ptarmica) fl. .
Musk mallow (malva moschata) fl. .

June 30 .
June 30 .

June 22. Aug. 3.
June 9, July 14.

Pimpernel (anagallis arvensis) fl.
Hoary-beetle (scarabseus solstit.) ap.

June 30 .
June 30, July 17.

May 4, June 22.

Corn saw-wort (serratula arvensis seu I
carduus arvensis of Smith) fl. , }

July i . .

June 15, July 15.

Pheasant's eye (adonis annua seu)
autumnalis of Smith) fl. . . }

July i . . .

April ii, July 15.

Red eyebright (euphrasia seu bartsia)
odontites of Smith) fl. . . 1

July 2 ...

June 20, Aug. 10.

Thorough wax (bupleurum rotundifol.) fl.
Cockle (agrostemma githago) fl.

July 2.
July 2 .

May 14, July 25.

Ivy -leaved wild lettuce (prenanthesl
muralis) fl J

July 2 .

June 2, July 25.

Feverfew (matricaria seu pyrethrumj
parthenium of Smith) fl. . . J

July 2 .

June 19, July 24.

Wall pepper (sedum acre) fl. .
Privet (ligustrum vulgare) fl. .
Common toad flax (antirrhinum linaria)fl.
Perennial wild flax (linum perenne) fl. .

July 3 •
Julys •
July 3 . .
July 4 .

June 8, July 12.
June 3, July 13.
June 21, Aug. 3.
Apr. 21, July 6.

NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

457

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Whortleberries, ripe (vaccinium ulig)

uly 4 — 24.

Yellow base rocket (reseda lutea) fl.
Blue-bottle (centaurea cyanus) fl. .

. j t n
. uly 5 .
uly 5

July 19.
May 15, Oct. 14.

Dwarf carline thistle (carduus acaulis) fl.
Bull-rush, orcat's-tail(typha latifolia) fl.
Spiked willow-herb (lythrum salicaria) fl.
Black mullein (verbascum niger) fl.
Chrysanthemum coronarium, fl.
Marig >lds (calendula officinalis) fl.
Little field madder (s herardia arvensis) fl.

~ i
uly 5 — 12

. uly 6 .
. uly 6 . .
< uly 6.
JulyS . . .
July 6-9
July 7 . . .

June 30, Aug. 4.
June 29, July 21.
June 24, Aug. 17.

May 28, July 28.
Apr. 20, July 16.
Jan. n, June 6.

Calamint (melissa seu thymus cala-^
mintha of Smith) fl. . J

July 7 .

July 21.

Black horehound (ballota nigra) fl. .
Wood betony (betonica officinalis) fl.

July 7 - - -
July 8—19

June 16, Sept. 12.
June io, July 15.

Round-leaved bell-flower (campanula)
rotundifolia) fl J

JulyS . . .

June 12, July 29.

All-good (chenopodium bonus hen-\
ncus)fl /

JulyS . . .

Apr. 21, June 15.

Wild-carrot (daucus carota) fl.
Indian cress (epopasolum majus) fl.
Cat-mint (nepata cataria) fl.

JulyS .
July 8—20
July 9.

June 7, July 14.
June ii. July 25.

Cow-wheat (melampyrum sylvaticum ^
seu pratense of Smith) fl. . . /

July 9 .

May 2, June 22.

Crosswort (valantia cruciata seu galium \
cruciatum of Smith) fl. /

July 9 .

Apr. io, May 28.

Cranberries, ripe

July 9—27

Tufted vetch (vicia cracca) fl.
Wood vetch (vicia sylvat.) fl. .

T 1

July io .
July io.

May 31, July 8.

Little throatwort (campanula glome-)
rata) fl. J

July ii .

July 28, Aug. 1 8.

Sheep's scabious (jasione montana) fl. .

uly ii .

June io, July 25.

Pastinaca sylv. fl

. uly 12.

White lily (lilium candidum) fl.
Hemlock (cjnium maculatum) fl. .

. uly 12 .
. uly 13 .

June 21, July 22. •
June 4, July 20.

Caucalis anthriscus, fl

. uly 13 .

Flying ants, ap
Moneywort (lysimachia nummularia) fl.

_ uly 13— Aug. ii .
[ uly 13 .

Aug. 29, Sept. 19.
June 14, Aug. 16.

Scarlet martagon (lilium chalcedoni- \
cum)fl /

July 14— Aug. 4 .

June 21, Aug. 6.

Lesser stitch wort (stellaria graminea) fl. "
Foil's parsley (aethusa cynapium) fl.
Dwarf elder (sambucus ebulus)fl. .
Swallows and martins congregate .
Potato (solanum tuberosum) fl.

. uly 14 .
. uly 14 .
. uly 14 — 29 .
. uly 14, Aug. 29 .
. uly 14 .

May 8, June 23.
June 9, Aug. 9.

Aug. 12, Sept. 8.
June 3, July 12.

Angelica sylv. fl. .

uly 15.

Digitalis ferrugin, fl
Ragwort (senecio jacobaea) fl.
Golden rod (solidago virgaurea) fl. .

\ uly 15—25.
. uly 15 .
. uly 15 .

June 22, July 13.
July 7, Aug. 29.

Star thistle (centaurea calctrapa) fl.

uly 16 .

July 16, Aug. 16.

Tree primrose (oenothera biennis) fl.

. uly 16 .

June 12, July 18.

Peas (pisum sativum) cut

. uly 17, Aug. 14 .

July 13, Aug. 15.

Galega officin. fl

_ uly 17.

Apricots (prunus armeniaca) ripe .

t uly 17, Aug. 21 .

July 5, Aug. 16.

Crown's allheal (stachys palustris) fl.

July 17 .

June 12, July 14.

Branching willow-herb (epilobium\

July 17.

ramos.) fl. J

Rye-harvest begins

July 17, Aug. 7.

Yellow centaury (chlora perfoliata) fl.
Yellow vetchling (lathyrus aphaca) fl.

July 18, Aug. 15 .
July 1 8.

June 15, Aug. 13.

Enchanter's nightshade (circaea lute-\
tiana)fl. .... j

July 18

June 20, July 27.

Water hemp agrimony (eupatorium )
cannabinum) fl J

JulyiS .

July 4, Aug. 6.

Q 2

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Giant throatwort (campanula trache-
lium)fl

July 19 .

July 13, Aug. 14.

Eyebright (euphrasia officinalis) fl.
Hops (humulus lupulus) fl.

July 19 . .
July 19, Aug. 10 .

May 28, July 19.
July 20, Aug. 17.

Poultry moult . • • • •

July IQ.

,

Dodder (cuscuta europaea seu epithy-)
mum of Smith) fl. . . . j

July 20 .

July 9, Aug. 7.

Lesser centaury (gentiana seu chironia j
centaurium of Smith) fl. . . J

July 20 .

June 3, July 19.

Creeping water parsnep (sium nodi-)
florum) fl . )

July 20 .

July 10, Sept. ii.

Common spurrey (spergula arvensis) fl. .
Wild clover (trifolium pratense) fl. .

July 21 .
July 21 .

Apr. 10, July 16.
May 2, June 7.

Buckwheat ((polygonum fagopyrum) fl, .
Wheat harvest begins ....
Great burr-reed (sparganium erectum) fl.
Marsh St. John's-wort (hypericum I
elodes) fl J

July 21 .
July 21, Aug. 23 .
July 22 .

July 22 — 31

June 27, July 10.
July n, Aug 26.
June 10, July 23.

June 16, Aug. 10.

Sun-dew (drosera rotundifolia) fl.
March cinquefoil (comarum palustre) fl. .
Wild cherries ripe . . . . .

July 22 .
July 22 .
July 22.

Aug. i.
May 27, July 12.

Lancashire asphodel (anthericum cssi-)

July 22 .

June 31, July 29.

Hooded willow-herb (scutellaria galeri- I

July 23 .

June 2, July 31.

Water dropwort (oenanthe fistulos.) fl. .
Horehound (marrubium vulg.) fl. .

[ uly 23.

Seseli caruifol. fl

. uly 24.

Water plantain (alisma plantago) fl.
Alopecurus myosuroides, fl.

uly 24 .
. uly 25.

May i, July 31.

Virgin's bower (clematis vualba) fl.

. uly 25, Aug. 9

July 13, Aug. 14.

Bees kill the drones ....

. uly 25.

Teasel (dipsacus sylvestris) fl.
Wild marjoram (origanum vulgare) fl. .

_ uly 26 .
uly 26 .

July 16, Aug. 3.
July 17, Aug. 29.

Swifts (hirundo apus) begin to deparc
Small wild teasel (dipsacus pilosus) fl. .
Wood sage (teucrium scorodonia) fl.
Everlasting pea (lathyrus latifolius) fl. .
Trailing St. John's-wort (hypericum)
humifusum) fl. /

July 27—29 .
July 28, 29.
July 28 .
July 28 .

July 29 .

Aug. 5.

June 17, July 24.
June 20, July 30.

May 20, June 22.

White hellebore (veratrum album) fl.
Camomile (anthemis nobilis) fl.
Lesser field scabious (scabiosa colum-)
baria)fl j

July 30 .
July 30 .

July 30 .

July 18 — 22.
June 21, Aug. 20.

July 13, Aug. 9.

Sunflower (helianthus multiflorus) fl.
Yellow loosestrife (lysimachiavulgaris) fl.

5 uly 31, Aug. 6. .
uly 31 .

July 4, Aug. 22.
July 2, Aug. 7.

Swift (hirundo apus) last seen .

uly 31, Aug. 27 .

Aug. n.

Oats (avena sativa) cut ....
Barley (hordeum sativum) cut .
Lesser hooded willow-herb (sc'utellaria\
minor) fl. ..... J

Aug. i — 16 .
Aug. i — 26 .

Aug. i . . .

July 26, Aug. 19.
July 27, Sept. 4.

Aug. 8, Sept. 7.

Middle fleabane (inula disinterica) fl. .

Aug. 2 .

July 7, Aug. 3.

Apis manicata ap. . . *

Aug. 2.

Swallow-tailed butterfly (papili.o"l

Apr. 20, June 7, last

machaon)ap. J

Aug. 2 . • ~\

seen Aug. 28.

Whame or burrel-fly (oestrus bovis) lays^

.

eggs on horses ... J

Aug. 3 — 19.

Sow thistle (sonchus arvensis) fl.
Plantain fritillary (papilio cinxia) ap.
Yellow succory (picris hieracioides) fl. .

Aug. 3 ...
Aug. 3.
Aug. 4 ...

June 17, July 21.
June 6—25.

Musca mystacea, ap.

Canterbury bells (campanula medium) fl.

Aug. 5 ...

June 5, Aug. 11.

Mentha longifol. fl

Aug. 5.

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

459

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Carline thistle (carlina vulgaris) fl. .
Venetian sumach (rhus cotinus) fl .
Ptinus pectinicornis, ap. . . .

Aug. 7 .
Aug. 7 ...
Aug. 7.

July 21, Aug. 1 8.
June 5, July 20.

Burdock (arctium lappa) fl.

Aug 8 .

June 17, Aug. 4,

Fell-wort (gentiana amarella) fl.

Aug. 8, Sept. 3.

Wormwood (artemisia absinthium) fl.
Mugwort (artemisia vulgaris) fl.
St. Barnaby's thistle (centauria solstit.) fl.

Aug. 8 .
Aug. 8 .
Aug. 10.

July 22, Aug. 21.
July 9, Aug. 10.

Meadow saffron (colchicum autum-\
nale)fl 1

Aug. 10, Sept. 13 .

Aug. 15, Sept 29.

Michaelmas daisy (aster tradescantia) fl.

Aug. 12, Sept. 27 .

Aug. ii, Oct. 8.

Meadow rue (thalictrum flavum) fl.
Sea holly (eryngium marit.) fl.
China aster (aster chinensis) fl.

Aug. 14.
Aug. 14.
Aug. 14, Sept. 28 .

Aug. 6. Oct. 2.

Boletus albus, ap

Aug. 14 .

May 10.

less Venus looking-glass (campanula1!
hybrida)fl )

Aug. 15 .

May 14.

Carthamus tinctor. fl

Aug. 15.

Goldfinch (fringilla carduelis) young)
broods, ap j

Aug. 15 .

June 15.

Lapwings (tringa vanellus) congregate .
Black-eyed marble butterfly (papilio 1
semele) ap \

Aug. 15, Sept. 12 .
Aug. 15.

Sept. 25, Feb. 4.

Birds reassume their spring notes .
Devil's bit (scabiosa succisa) fl.

Aug. 16.
Aug. 17 .

June 22, Aug. 23.

Thistle-down floats

Aug. 17, Sept. 10.

Ploughman's spikenard (conyza squar-)
rosa) fl /

Aug. 18.

Autumnal dandelion (leontodon autum-1
nale)fl. . _ . . . . j

Aug. 18 .

July 25.

Flie« about in windows ....

Aug. 1 8.

Linnets (fringilla linota) congregate
Bulls make their shrill autumnal noise .

Aug. 1 8, Nov. i .
Aug. 20.

Aug. 22, Nov. 8.

Aster amellus, fl

Aug. 22.

Balsam (impatiens balsamina) fl. . •
Milk thistle (carduus marinus) fl. .

Aug. 23 .
Aug. 24 .

May 22, July 26.
Apr. 21, July 18.

Hop-picking begins ....

Aug. 24, Sept. 17 .

Sept. 1—15.

Beech (fagus sylvatica) turns yellow
Soapwort (saponaria offkinalis) fl. .
Ladies' traces (ophrys spiralis) fl. .
Small golden black-spotted butterfly)
(papilio phlaeas) ap. . . J

Aug. 24, Sept. 22 .
Aug. 25 .
Aug. 27, Sept. 12 .

Aug. 29.

Sept. 5-29.
July iq, Aug. 23.
Aug. 1 8, Sept. 18.

Swallow (hirundo rustica) sings
Althaea frutex (hibiscus syriacus) fl.

Aug. 29 .
Aug. 30, Sept. 2 .

Apr. ii, Aug. 20.
July 20, Sept. 28.

Great fritillary (papilio paphia) ap . '

Aug. 30.

Willow red under-wing moth (phaleena)
pact a) ap . j

Aug. 31.

Stone curlew (otis cedicnemus) clamours . \

Sept. i, Nov. 7

June 17.

Phalaena russula, ap

Sept. i.

Grapes ripen i

Sept. 4 Oct. 24

Aug. 31 Nov. 4.

Wood-owls hoot

Sept. 4, Nov. o.

Saffron butterfly (papilio hyale) ap.

Sept. 4 .

Aug. 5, Sept. 26.

Ring-ousel appears on its autumnal I
visit . . f

Sept. 4—30.

Flycatcher (muscicapa grisola) last seen
Beans (vicia faba) cut . ...

Sept. 6— 29 .
Sept ii

Sept. 4-30.
Aug 9, Oct. 14.

Ivy (hedera helix) fl

Sept. 12 Oct. 2

Sept. 18, Oct 28.

Stares congregate . . .

Sept. 12, Nov. i .

June 4, Mar. 21.

Wild honeysuckles fl. a second time

Sept. 25.

Sept. 28, Oct. 24.

(

Oct. i, Nov. i, young

Woodcock (scolopax rusticola) returns .

Sept. 29, Nov. ii \

ones April 28, last

(

seen April.

460

NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Strawberry-tree (arbutus uned_>) fl. .

Oct. i ...

May 21, Dec. 10.

Wheat sown

Oct. 3, Nov. 9

Sept. 23, Oct. 19.

Swallows last seen. (N.B. The house-)
martin the latest) . . . J

Oct. 4, Nov. 5

Nov. 16.

{

Oct. i, Dec. 18, sings

Redwing (turdus iliacus) comes

Oct. 10, Nov. 10 <

Feb. 10, March 21,

(

last seen April 13.

Fieldfare (turdus pilaris) returns .

Oct. 12, Nov. 23 |

Oct. 13, Nov. 18, last
seen May i.

Gossamer fills the air ...

Oct. 15—27.

Chinese holly-oak (alcea rosea) fl. .

Oct. 19 .

July 7, Aug. 21.

Hen chaffinches congregate
Wood-pigeons come ....

Oct. 20, Dec. 31.
Oct. 23, Dec. 27.

Royston crow (corvus cornix) returns

Oct. 23, Nov. 29 |

Oct. 13, Nov. 17, last
seen April 15.

Snipe (scolopax gallinago) returns .

Oct. 25, Nov. 20 |

Sept. 29, Nov. ii, last
seen April 14.

Tortoise begins to bury himself
Rooks (corvus frugilegus) return to \
their nest-trees . . . • j

Oct. 27, Nov. 26.
Oct. 31, Dec. 25 .

June 29, Oct. 20.

Bucks grunt

Nov. i.

Primrose (primula vulgaris) fl.
Green whistling plover, ap.

Nov. 10 .
Nov. 13, 14.

Oct. 7, Dec. 30.

Helvella mitra, ap. ....

Nov. 16.

Greenfinches fl )ck . . ...

Nov. 27.

Hepatica, fl

Nov. 30, Dec. 29 .

Feb. 19.

Furze (ulex europseus) fl.

Dec. 4 — 21

Dec. 16-31.

Polyanthus (primula polyanthus) fl.
Young lambs dropped ....

Dec. 7—16 .
Dec. ii — 27 .

Dec 31.
Dec. 12, Feb. 21.

Moles work in throwing up hillocks

Dec. 12 — 23.

Helleborus foetidus, fl. . ...

Dec. 14—30.

Daisy (bellis perennis) fl. ...
Wall-fljwer (cheiranthus cheiri seul
fruticulosu ; of Smith) fl. . . j

Dec. 15 .
Dec. 15 .

Dec. 26—31.
Nov. 5.

Mezereon, fl. ......

Dec. 15.

Snowdrop, fl

Dec. 29.

In scse vertitur finuus .

POEMS

SELECTED FROM THE MSS. OF THE

REV. GILBERT WHITE.

POEMS.

THE INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

SEE SELBORNE spreads her boldest beauties round,
The varied valley, and the mountain ground,
Wildly majestic ! what is all the pride
Of flats, with loads of ornament supplied ?
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compared with Nature's rude magnificence.

Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste ;
The unfinish'd farm awaits your forming taste :
Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true ;
Through the high arch call in the lengthening view ;
Expand the forest sloping up the hill ;
Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill ;
Extend the vista, raise the castle mound
In antique taste with turrets ivy-crown' d ;
O'er the gay lawn the flowery shrub dispread,
Or with the blending garden mix the mead ;
Bid China's pale, fantastic fence delight ;
Or with the mimic statue trap the sight.

Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still,
The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill,
To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour,
Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower ;*
Or where the Hermit hangs the straw-clad cell,f
Emerging gently from the leafy dell ;

* A kind of an arbour on the side of a hill.

t A grotesque building, contrived by a young gentleman, who used on occasion to
appear in the character of a hermit.

464 POEMS.

By Fancy plann'd ; as once th' inventive maid
Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade ;
Romantic spot ! from whence in prospect lies
Whate'er of landscape charms our feasting eyes ;
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture-plain,
The russet fallow, or the golden grain,
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,
Till all the fading picture fail the sight.

Each to his task ; all different ways retire ;
Cull the dry stick ; call forth the seeds of fire ;
Deep fix the kettle's props, a forky row,
Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow.

Whence is this taste, the furnish'd hall forgot,
To feast in gardens, or the unhandy grot ?
Or novelty with some new charms surprises,
Or from our very shifts some joy arises.
Hark, while below the village-bells ring round,
Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften'd sound ;
But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar,
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.

Adown the vale, in lone, sequester'd nook,
Where skirting woods embrown the dimpling brook,
The ruin'd Convent lies ; here wont to dwell
The lazy canon midst his cloister'd cell ;*
While papal darkness brooded o'er the land,
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand :
Still oft at eve belated shepherd-swains
See the cowl'd spectre skim the folded plains.

To the high Temple would my stranger go,t
The mountain-brow commands the woods below ;
In Jewry first this order found a name,
When madding Croisades set the world in flame ;
When western climes, urged on by Pope and priest,
Pour'd forth their millions o'er the deluged East :
Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy
To mortal fight Turce'stan chivalry.

Nor be the Parsonage by the muse forgot ;
The partial bard admires his native spot ;

* The ruins of a priory, founded by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester.

t The remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars ; at least it was a farm dependent
upon some preceptory of that order. . I find it was a preceptory, called the Preceptory of
Sudington; nyw called Southington.

POEMS. 465

Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child,

(Unconscious why) its 'scapes grotesque, and wild.

High on a mound th' exalted gardens stand,

Beneath, deep valleys scoop' d by Nature's hand.

A Cobham here, exulting in his art,

Might blend the General's with the Gardener's part ;

Might fortify with all the martial trade

Of rampart, bastion, fosse, and palisade ;

Might plant the mortar with wide threatening bore,

Or bid the mimic cannon seem to roar.

Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below,
Where round the blooming village orchards grow ;
There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat,
A rural, shelter' d, unobserved retreat.

Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes,
The pendent forest, and the mountain greens
Strike with delight ; there spreads the distant view,
That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue :
Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight,
Rills purl between, and dart a quivering light.

SELBORNE HANGER.

A WINTER PIECE.
TO THE MISS BATTIES.

THE Bard, who sang so late in blithest strain
Selbornian prospects, and the rural reign,
Now suits his plaintive pipe to sadden'd tone,
While the blank swains the changeful year bemoan.

How fallen the glories of these fading scenes !
The dusky beech resigns his vernal greens,
The yellow maple mourns in sickly hue,
And russet woodlands crowd the dark'ning view.

Dim, clustering fogs involve the country round,
The valley and the blended mountain ground
Sink in confusion ; but with tempest-wing
Should Boreas from his northern barrier spring,
The rushing woods with deafening clamour roar,

466 POEMS.

Like the sea tumbling on the pebbly shore.
When spouting rains descend in torrent tides,
See the torn Zigzag weep its channel'd sides :
Winter exerts its rage : heavy and slow,
From the keen east rolls on the treasured snow ;
Sunk with its weight the bending boughs are seen,
And one bright deluge whelms the works of men.
Amidst this savage landscape, bleak and bare,
Hangs the chill hermitage in middle air ;
Its haunts forsaken, and its feasts forgot,
A leaf-strown, lonely, desolated cot !

Is this the scene that late with rapture rang,
Where Delphy danced, and gentle Anna sang ;
With fairy- step where Harriet tripped so late,
And on her stump reclined the musing Kitty sate ?

Return, dear Nymphs ; prevent the purple spring,
Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing ;
Ere the first swallow sweeps the freshening plain,
Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain
Let festive glee th' enliven'd village raise,
Pan's blameless reign, and patriarchal days ;
With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise,
And bring all Arcady before our eyes.
Return, blithe maidens ; with you bring along
Free, native humour, all the charms of song,
The feeling heart, and unaffected ease,
Each nameless grace, and every power to please.

Nov. i. 1763.

ON THE RAINBOW.

' Look upon the rainbow, and praise him that made it ; very beautiful is the
brightness thereof."— Eccles. xliii. n.

ON morning or on evening cloud impress'd,
Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines
Delightfully, to the levell'd sun opposed :
Lovely refraction ! while the vivid brede

POEMS. 467

In listed colours glows, th' unconscious swain
With vacant eye gazes on the divine
Phenomenon, gleaming o'er the illumined fields,
Or runs to catch the treasures which it sheds.

Not so the sage, inspired with pious awe ;
He hails the federal arch ;* and looking up,
Adores that God, whose fingers formed this bow
Magnificent, compassing heaven about,
With a resplendent verge, " Thou madest the cloud,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the bow ;
And by that covenant graciously hast sworn
Never to drown the world again :f henceforth,
Till time shall be no more, in ceaseless round,
Season shall follow season : day to night,
Summer to winter, harvest to seed time,
Heat shall to cold in regular array
Succeed." — Heaven-taught, so sang the Hebrew bard.^

A HARVEST SCENE.

WAKED by the gentle gleamings of the morn,
Soon glad, the reaper, provident of want,
Hies cheerful-hearted to the ripen' d field ;
Nor hastes alone ; attendant by his side
His faithful wife, sole partner of his cares,
Bears on her breast the sleeping babe ; behind,
With steps unequal, trips her infant train :
Thrice happy pair, in love and labour join'd !

All day they ply their task ; with mutual chat,
Beguiling each the sultry, tedious hours.
Around them falls in rows the sever'd corn,
Or the shocks rise in regular array.

But when high noon invites to short repast,
Beneath the shade of sheltering thorn they sit,

* Gen. ix. 12 — 17. t Gen. viii. 22.

t Moses.

468

POEMS.

Divide the simple meal, and drain the cask :
The swinging cradle lulls the whimpering babe,
Meantime ; while growling round, if at the tread
Of hasty passenger alarm'd, as of their store
Protective, stalks the cur with bristling back,
To guard the scanty scrip and russet frock.

INDEX,

ANCIENT coins, discovery of, at
Selborne, 287

Anecdote of a young cuckoo, 135

Anecdotes of owls, 153

Animals, love of company exhibited
by, 1-87

Antique vase or urn found at Sel-
borne Priory, 372

Antiquities of Selborne, 287

A.nts, emigration of, 414

Aphides, shower of, at Selborne, 414
emigration of, 254, 255

Ashforde, the last Prior of Selborne,
362

Aurora-borealis, 428

P>

BANK-MARTIN, burrowed nests of
the, 172

Banks, Sir Joseph, on toads, 51

Barometrical observations at Sel-
borne, 268

Bat, new kind of, discovered, 96
singular species of, first noticed
by White, 97

Bavaria, general extermination of
game in, 20

Beans and Peas sown by birds 424

Bee, habits of the wild, 410

Belfry of Selborne church, 297
Bin's pond, disappearance of, 23
Birds, beans and peas sown by, 424
general observations on, 379 —

38i

how supported during the win-
ter months, 107
infested by insects, 155, 156
of passage, summer, at Selborne,

history of, 48, 117 et sey.
of prey, rapacity of, when hun-
gry, 389, 390.
singular social habits of, 83
that sing whilst flying, 122
varied motions of, 228
various peculiarities in the song

of, 1 20 et seq.
Bishop Tanner's account of Selborne

Priory, 367
Blind .worm, controversy regarding

the habits of the, 53
Bohemian wax - wing, occasional

visits of the, 37
Breeding properties of the cuckoo,

129

Bridge, ancient, at Selborne, 366
"British Zoology," White's contri-
bution to Pennant's, 192
Brood-hens, revenge of, upon a

sparrow-hawk, 233
Bull of Pope Martin V. regarding

Selborne Priory, 338
Bustard, particulars regarding the, 92

INDEX.

CALENDARS, comparative view of

White's and Markwick's, 449 et

seq.
Cancers, alleged cures of by toad?,

56
Candles, rushes best adapted for,

191

Carp, supposed torpidity of the, 105
Castration, singular effects of, 206
Cat and leveret, anecdote of a, 208
Cat, young rats suckled by a, 209

squirrels nurtured by a, 402
Chapel of Whaddon, account of the,

365
Chiff-chaff, or willow-wren, opinion

regarding the, 47
Chimney-swallow, peculiar habits of

the, 165
Cobwebs, extraordinary display of,

184
Coccus, an insect rarely seen in

England, 254
Cockchafer, the, noticed by many

Greek authors, 68
general remarks on, 405
Cockroach, habits of the, 407
Coins, old, found near Selborne,

342
Colour, influence of, on the food of

birds, 379
Congregation of birds, reasons for

the, 145

Copper coins found at Selborne, 287
Copulation of rooks, 381
Courage of birds in defence of their

young, 150
Cricket, the house, habits of, 243,

408

Cuckoo, nests selected by the, 126
why eggs are said not to be

hatched by the, 202
Cure for the bite of a viper, 53

DAWS, the nest-building of, 61
Description of Selborne Church,

292 — 296
Dogs, aversion of, to dead game, 266

Dogs, remarks about, 265

Ducks capable of perching in trees,

383
Dusting and washing birds, 135

ECHO, how to produce an, 220
Echoes, Virgil's notion regarding,

219

Edward II., anecdote of, 290
Eels, the island of Ely famous for,

103

Election of a Prior of Selborne, 335
Encaustic tiles at Selborne, 347
Esculent swallow, description of the,

171
Experiments upon echoes, results of,

217 et seq.

Extraordinary land -slip near Sel-
borne, 236 — 238

FAIR, origin of the, at Selborne,

373 .

Fairy-rings, how produced, 425
Fall of Selborne Priory, 361
Fallow-deer, breathing apparatus of,

42

error respecting, 43
Familiarity of birds, 123
Family tortoise, more particulars

regarding the, 374, 375
Fattening of animals during mode-
rate frosts, 128

Fern-owl, flying powers of the, 98
Fern-owl, or goat-sucker, habits of

the, 393

Field-cricket, habits of the, 239
Fieldfares, roosting places of, 80
Fish in Selborne streams, 33
Flies, peculiar habits of some species,

413

Fly- catcher, singular characteristic

of the, 29
Food of the ring-dove, 388

required by gold and silver fish,

257
Forest or sand-stone, 9, 10

INDEX.

471

Fossil shells in the neighbourhood

of Selborne, 8

trees in Woolmer Bottoms, 16
wood in Woolmer Forest, 267
Fowls, partiality for devouring

wasps, 397

propensity of to perch a dis-
tance from the ground, 383
Fox, singular death of a, 383
Freestone, use and application of,

10, II

GAME, extermination of, in Bavaria,

20
Garden cultivation, benefits resulting

from, 216

Geological formations at Selborne, 2
Gilbert White's poems, 463 et seq.
Glow-worms not always luminous,

415
Goat-sucker, habits of the, described,

393
singular powers of the, 64

Gold and silver fish, habits of, 257

Grange at Selborne, court-leets held
in the, 372

Grasshopper-lark, habits of the, 47

Great speckled diver, or loon, de-
scription of the, 390

Grosbeak, food of the. 399

Guinea-fowls, singular roosting- place
of, 383 ,

Gurdon, Sir Adam, historical sketch
of, 310 et seq.

Gypsies, anecdotes of, 189

H

HARVEST-BUG and other insects,

habits of, 93
Harvest-mouse, singular nest of the,

35. 36

Heath-cock, extirpation of the, 17
Hedgehog, habits of the, 79
Heliotropes, simple mode of con-
structing, 234

Hen-harrier, habits of the, 389
Hen-partridges, extraordinary in-
stinct of, 384

Historical records of Selborne, 314

—319

Hollow lanes, description of two

rocky, 12
Honey-buzzard, habits of the, in,

112

Honey dew injurious to trees, 427
Hoopoe, portrait of the, 32
Hounds at fault in Hartley Wood,

402
House-cricket, peculiarities of the,

243, 408
House-martin, . domestic habits of

the, 157 — 160
mysterious disappearances of

the, 259

migratory or hybernatory, 98
winter search for, 252
Humming in the air, 405
Hunting in Woolmer Forest by

Edward II., 290

Hybrid pheasant, description of a,
384 O

ICHNECJMON-FLY, services rendered
by the, 412

Idiot boy, anecdote of an, 194

Insects andvermes, observations on,
404 et seq.

Insects greedily eaten by various

fowls, 379
habits of various, 404

Instinct, singular illustrations of,
261

Ireland, ornithology of, by Thomp-
son, 109

J

JACKDAWS, reason for building their
nests in rabbit-burrows, 61, 63

John Moreton's election to Selborne
Priory, 344

K

KITE'S HILL, singular custom re-
garding, 372

Knights Templars, the, at Shelborne,
320

472

INDEX.

Kuckalm the ornithologist, 134

•LAND-RAIL, habits of the, 386
Landsprings of Sussex, &c., 170
Land- tortoise at Kingmer, 136, 148,

164

Language of birds, the, 231
Leprosy, causes of the disappearance

of, 215

singular case of, 214
Linnaeus on the rock-swallow, 89
Loach, description of the, 55
Long-legqed plover, singular con-
struction of the, 247
Loon, or great speckled diver, de-
scription of the, 390
Lucretius on echoes, 220

M

MAGPIES, thrushes frequently at-
tacked by, 382

Manor-house of Selborne, 372
Markwick's comments upon Gilbert

White's observations, 379 — 429
Mayflies, remarks on, 409
Meteorological observations, 426
Migration of birds, remarks upon

the, 137—H2

Migratory habits of frogs, 5 *
habits of the swallow, 67
Mill of Selborne Priory, 366
Missel-thrush, pugnacious habits of

the, 183
Mole-cricket, domestic habits of the,

245
Monuments in Selborne church, 295,

296

Moose-deer, description of a, 81
Moreton's, John, election to Selborne

Priory, 344

N

NATURAL affections of the feathered

tribes, 150, 152, 180
Naturalist's calendar, preface to the,
441 et seq.

Naturalist's summer evening walk,

the, 71

Nest of the harvest-mouse, 35
chosen by the cuckoo, 126
the house - martin's mode of

building its, 157

Nidification of woodcocks and field-
fares, 138
Nightingale and cuckoo, musical

tones of the, 143
Nose-flies troublesome to horses,

412
Nuthatch or jar -bird, the, 49

O

OAKS, singular group of, 6, 7
Observations from Mr. Gilbert

White's MSS., 379 et seq.
on insects and vermes, 404 et

seq.

on quadrupeds, 401 et seq.
on vegetables, 419 et seq.
Old coins found near Selborne, 342
Otter found at Selborne, 85
Ousels, doubts regarding the habits

of» 59> 60, 62, 64, 99, ico
Owls, musical pitch of, 143

PARTRIDGES, hen, extraordinary in-
stinct of, 384

Peacocks, difference between the
train and tail of, 96

Pennant, White's first letters ad-
dressed to, I

Peregrine falcon, account of the, 32,
263

Peter Berne elected Prior of Sel-
borne, 343 ; resigns his office, 344 ;
re-elected, 349 ; his second re-
signation, 351 ; his poverty, 352

Peter de la Roche, account of, 305

Pheasant, description of a hybrid,

384

Piers Plowman, prophecy of, 339
Plants, flowering propensities of,

227
Poems by Gilbert White, 463 et seq.

INDEX,

473

Population of Selborne in 1783, 14,

15

Ponds, natural economy of, 24
Poultry, habits of, 382
Prediction of Piers Plowman, 340
Presentiment, existence of a singular,

at Selborne, 372
Priors of Selborne, how chosen, 326

list of the, 355
Priory church at Selborne, remains

of the, 371
Priory of Selborne, antiquity of the,

3°5

benefactresses to the, 324

relics in the, 341

fall of the, 361

Procreation of toads and frogs, 50
Propensity of fowls to perch a dis-
tance from the ground, 383

QUADRUPEDS, observations on, 401

et seq.
Queen Anne at Woolmer Forest, 18

RABBITS, turf improved by, 401
Rain, large falls of, at Selborne, 13,

14

Rapacity of birds of prey, 389
Rats, young, suckled by a cat, 209
Raven-tree, the, and its inhabitants,

7
Red deer, Woolmer Forest formerly

inhabited by, 1 8
Relics in Selborne priory, 341
Ring-dove, food of the, 388
Rivulet at Selborne, antiquity of the,

366

Roche, Peter de la, account of, 305
Rock- swallow, discovery of the, by

John White, 89
Rooks, curious proceedings of, 267

social habits of, 381
Ruptures, superstitious cure for, 196
Rushes best suited for burning in

candles, 191

SAGACITY of birds, remarkable in-
stances of the, 151,

Sand-martins, inferential* torpidity
of, 396

Sand-piper, migratory habits of the,
58

Scopoli's works, White's opinion of,
86, 87, 90, 131, 134

Scotland, defective maps of, 109,
M.o

Seal used by the Priors of Selborne,

375

Selborne a Saxon village, 289
church, description of, 292
fair, origin of, 373
list of rare plants found near,

225

locality of the parish of, l
manor-house of, 372
priors, list of, 355
Priory, history of, 305 — 309
streams, fish in, 33
summer birds of passage at, 48,

117 et seq.
suppressed by Pope Innocent

VIIL, 361

vicars of, history of the, 301
winter birds of passage at, 1 19
Severe winters of 1776 and 1784,

273 et seq.
Sexual distinction of birds by their

colour, 132
Sheep, difficulty of recognition

among, after shearing, 401
Shell-snails devoured by thrushes,

38i

Shower of aphides at Selborne, 414
Shrew-mouse, former cruel treat-
ment of the, 198
Singing-birds at Selborne, list of,

120

general remarks upon, 124
Sir Adam Gurdon, historical sketch

of, 310 et seq.
Sloughing of snakes, 417
Slugs and snails, habits of, 416
Snails and slugs, habits of, 416
Snakes, singular mode of protection

adopted by, 74
sloughing of, 417

474

INDEX.

Snow-fleck, habits of the, 75
Soils of Holt and Woolmer Forests,

different nature of the, 26
Song of birds, various peculiarities

in the, i2oet seq.
Sparrow-hawks, daring conduct of

112

Spiders, remarks concerning, 185
Spotted fly-catcher, ingenuity of a,

151

Squirrels suckled by a cat, 402
Stepe, formerly Prior of Selborne,

343
Stock-doves, discussion concerning,

H3, "4

Stone coffin found at Selborne,

35°

Stone - curlews, migration of, at

night, 392
winter habits of, 46
Summer birds of passage at Sel-
borne, history of, 48, 117 et seq.
Sussex Downs, geological formation

of, 161

Swallows, alleged torpidity of, 28
anecdotes of, 168
concealment of, during the win-
ter, 147
congregating and disappearance

of, 397
Swift, details regarding the habits of

the, 175—181

singular anecdote regarding the,
235

TAME BAT, description of a, 34
Thrushes, service of, in long droughts,

38i
Toads, alleged cure of cancers by

means of, 56
popular errors regarding, 50,

51

Sir Joseph Banks on, 51
Torpidity, alleged, of sand-martin^-,

396
Tortoise, death of the old Sussex,

250

Trees, condensing powers of, 199
honey-dew injurious to, 427

VASE, antique, found at Selborne

Priory, 372
Vegetables, observations on, 419 et

seq.

Vegetation, neglected study of, 223
Vicars of Selborne, history of, 301
Vipers, a batch of young, 204
remedy for the bite of, 53

W

WAGTAILS, singular practices of,

399

Waldon and Brimstone lodges,, an-
cient custom regarding, 22
Waltham blacks, hunting propensi-
ties of the, 19, 20
Wasps, food of, 411
Water-newt, habits of the, 52, 56
Water produced by trees, 199
Water-rat, anecdote of a, 76
Water-rats, not all web-footed, 30
Weather, observations regarding the,

270 — 283
summary of the, from 1768 to

1792, 432 etseq.
"Well-head," description of the

spring called, 3
Whaddon, account of the chapel of,

365
White, John, a correspondent of

Linnaeus, 90
White's contribution to Pennant's

"British Zoology," 102
letters first addressed to Pen-
nant, i
opinion of Scopoli's works, 86,

87, go, 131, 134
White owls, peculiarities of, 153,

154

rooks, rarity of, 44
Wild bees near Lewes, 410

boars in the New Forest, 27
William Thompson's "Ornithology

of Ireland," 109
Willow-wren, or chiff-chaff, opinions

regarding, 47

Winter birds of passage at Selborne,
119

INDEX.

475

Woodchat, rarity of the, 74
Wood -pigeons, their numbers in
the woods of Selborne, 114,

"5

Wood-wren, characteristics of the,

47
Woolmer Forest, description of, 16,

Queen Anne at, 18

pond, extent of, 24
Worms, services rendered by, 210
Wrens, various kinds of, 47
Wryneck, long tongue of the,

399
Wych elm, or hazel, at Selborne, 5

Wykeham of Winchester at Sel-
borne, 328, 334

YELLOW-WAGTAIL, mistake regard-
ing the, 40

Yew-berries, poisonous effects of,
299

Yew-tree leaves, animals poisoned
by eating, 299, 300

Yew-trees in Selborne churchyard,
299

Young rats suckled by a cat, 209

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