Site JJ. H. BUI IGtbrarg North (Carolina State Hntoprattg Special Collections QH138 W36 Alcovh Shelf THIS BOOK MUST NOT BE TAKEN FROM THE LIBRARY BUILDING. 20M/2-81 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. BY THE REV. GILBERT WHITE, A.M., FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD. ^J,' NEW-YORK: HARPER AND BROTHERS, C L I F F- S T RE E T. 1841. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1841, by Harper & Brothers, In the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. ^\ C^nX N^ ACCOUNT OF THE REV. GILBERT WHITE. " 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 18, 1720, and received his school education at Bas- ingstoke, under the Rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place, and father of those two distin- guished 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 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, flnromr raiL»£4 fi» 6 N. C. State College Vlll where he spent the greater part of his life in lit- erary occupations, and especially in the study of Nature. This he followed with patient assiduity, and a mind ever open to the lessons of piety and benevolence, which such a study is so well cal- culated to afford. Though several occasions of- fered of settling upon a college living, he could never persuade himself to quit the beloved spot, which was, indeed, a peculiarly happy situation for an observer. 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 26, 1793." a «a .k i* INDEX. Page Affections of Birds . . 181 AylesHolt 39 Barometers 315 Bat 49, 86, 116 Bat, Large 98 Birds, Language of . . 266 Birds of Passage 68, 145, 197 Black Act 32 Blackcap 129 Botany 257 Botany of Selborne . . 259 Bullfinch 63 Bunting 57 Burning of Heath ... 34 Butcher-bird .... 77 Buzzards, Honey . . . 137 ... 53 ... 240 55, 63, 166 ... 308 ... 273 ... 294 236 176 21 277 280 284 Canary Birds Cat and Leveret Chaffinches . Chinese Dog Cliff, Fall of a . . . Coccus Condensation by Trees Congregation of Birds Cornua Ammonis . . Crickets, Field . . . Crickets, House . . Crickets, Mole . . . Crossbeaks 164 Crossbills 48 Cuckoo .... 155, 157 Curious Fossil Shell . . 21 Curlew, Stone 65, 79, 112, 311 Deer . . . Deer, Moose Deer-stealers Dogs . . . Dove, Ring . Dove, Stock Eagle-owl Echoes . . Elm, Broad-leaved 30,60 101, 106 . 33 . 309 . 142 . 139 . 97 251,314 . 17 96 Employments . Falco .... Falcon, Peregrine Fieldfares . . Fish .... Fishes, Gold and Silver Flight of Birds . Fly-catcher . . Forest of Wolmer Forest-fly . . . Fossil Shell . . Fossil Wood Fowls, Language of Freestone . . Game .... Garden . . . German Silktail Gipsies . . . Goat-sucker . . Gossamer . . Grosbeaks . . Harvest Mouse . Harvest Bug Hawk and Hens Hawk, Sparrow Haws .... Hedgehogs . . Heliotropes . . Herons . . . Himantopus . . Hoopoes . . . House Cat . . Idiot Boy, Propens: Instinct Jackdaws Lakes .... Lamperns . . Land-springs Lark, Willow . Lark, Grasshopper Leprosy . . . Page 27 47 307 100, 167 48 297 263 44,63 27 188 21 311 266 22 29 249 52 229 85 224 48 ity 59 113 269 138 52 99 271 84 285 47 105, 240 of an 234 302 81 37 74 207 76 67 246 X INDEX. Linnets 56 Lizard 79, 87 Lizard, Green .... 83 Loaches ...... 74 Manor of Selborne . . 25 Maps of Scotland . . . 136 Martins 119 Martins, House 119,194,291,300 Martins, Sand .... 208 Martins, Black .... 213 Mice 51 Migrating Birds . . 88, 169 Migrations of Grallae . . 175 Missel-thrush .... 222 Notes of Owls and Cuckoos 174 Nuthatch 69 Oaks 16, 18 Ornithology of Selborne . 121 Otter 105 Owl, Fern . . . 117,163 Owls 49 Owls, White .... 184 Pairing of Birds . . . 104 Peacocks 115 Pettichaps 305 Ponds on Chalk-hills . . 237 Poor 26 Population 26 Pulveratrices .... 163 Rain 26, 313 Raven, Tree .... 19 Redwings 167 Reed-sparrow . . . . 161 Ringousels, 78, 82, 89, 90, 107* 120, 164, 198 Rooks 184,312 Rooks, White Rush Candles Salads . . . Salicaria . . Sandpiper Sandstone 62 231 250 94 77 24 Scopoh's Annus Primus 109,162 Sheep 196 Pago Singing Birds . . 149, 157 Singing Birds, Silence of 159 Smother-fly 296 Snipes 69 Sociality of Brutes . . 227 Soft-billed Birds ... 132 Soils 16 Spiracula of Animals . . 60 Sticklebacks .... 74 Streams 15 Summer Birds of Passage 68 145, 197 Summer Birds, Return of 222 Summer Evening Walk . 91 Sussex Downs .... 195 Swallows 42, 53, 88, 119, 178 187, 200, 305 Swallows, Torpidity of . 244 Swifts . . 98, 213, 256, 292 Teals 184 The Holt 40 The Plestor 17 Titlark 153 Titmouse 134 Toads 70, 83 Tortoise .... 179,288 Tortoise, Land .... 165 Turnip-fly 114 Vernal and Autumnal Cro- cus 262 Village of Selborne . . 13 Vipers 72,239 Water-rats .... 45, 97 Water-newt 72 Water-eft 75 Weather 331 Wheatear 57 Winter Birds of Passage 148 Wolmer Pond .... 37 Woodcocks . . . 167, 171 Wood-pigeons .... 139 Worms 242 Wren, Golden-crowned . 69 Wren, Willow .... 66 Yellow-hammer . . . 153 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. Manor of Selborne Title-page Oak-tree .... Page 18 Raven 20 Heath-cock 29 Red Deer 31 Swallow and Nest . . 43 Fly-catcher 44 Water Rat 45 Hoopoe 47 Bat 49 Ringousel 53 Chaffinch 55 Linnet 56 Wheatear 57 Harvest Mouse .... 59 Bullfinch ...... 63 Willow-wren .... 66 Grasshopper-lark ... 67 Snipe 69 Toad 70 Viper 73 Loach 75 Lizard 79 Jackdaw 81 Heron 84 Goat-sucker 85 Hedgehog Page 99 Fieldfare . . . . Moose . . . 102 Otter . . . 105 Peacock . . 116 House-martin 120 Whiteihroat . 128 Blackcap . . . 129 Redstart . . 130 Blue Titmouse 134 Sparrow-hawk 138 Wood-pigeon 139 Cuckoo . . 155 Woodcock . . 171 Tortoise . . 179 Teal . . . 184 White Owl . 185 Rook . . . 199 Swift . . . 213 Missel-thrush 223 House Cat 240 House-cricket 281 Himantopus . 286 Gold and Silver Fish . 297 Peregrine Falcon . 307 Stone Curlew 312 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, ARRANGED FOR YOUNG PERSONS. PART I. IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PENNANT, Esq. LETTER I. The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme east- ern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey ; is about fifty miles southwest of London, in latitude 51°, and near midway be- tween the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve par- ishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Em- shot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley, Mau- duit, Great Ward-le-ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the southwest consists of a vast hill of chalk, B * N. C. State t> 14 NATURAL HISTORY rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheepdown, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. The cov- ert 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 sheepwaik is a pleasing park-like spot of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-coun- try, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and wa- ter. The prospect is bounded to the southeast 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 Sur- rey, to the northeast ; 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 the vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appear- ance removed from chalk, but seems so far from being calcareous that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches, which descend as low as those rocks extend, and no far- ther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. The cartway of the village divides in a remark- OP SELBORNE. 15 able manner two very incongruous soils. To the southwest a rank clay, which requires the labour of years to render it mellow ; while the gardens to the northeast, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure ; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town, while the woods and coverts might have extended down to the oppo- site bank. At each end of the village, which runs from southeast to northwest, arises a small rivulet ; that at the northwest end frequently fails ; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds adjoining 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 falling into the British Channel ; the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Black-down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Titford Bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge, and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean. Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three * This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is five hundred and forty in an hour, and twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty, or two hundred and sixteen hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry. 16 NATURAL HISTORY feet, and, when sunk to that depth, seldom fail, but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure ele- ment, but which does not lather well with soap. To the northwest, north, and east of the village is a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, mould- ers to pieces, and becomes manure to itself.* Still on to the northeast, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops. As the parish still inclines down towards 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 estima- tion of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber ; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry, lean sand till it mingles with the forest, and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips. LETTER II. In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor farm to the northwest of the village, on the white malms, * This soil produces good wheat arid clover. OF SELBORNE. 17 stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable lead- ing 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 but, where it measured near eight feet in diameter. This elm I mention, to show to what a bulk plant- ed 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 commonly call- ed the Plestor.* In the midst of this spot stood, * Sir Adam Gurdon,* in conjunction with his wife Constan- tia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and convent of Sel- borne all his right and claim to a certain place, placea, called La Pleystow, in the village aforesaid, M in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam." 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. 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 amuse- ments of its young people. * 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. He 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, intrenching 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 him- Belf amid the forests and woodlands with which he was so well acquaint- ed. Prince Edward, desirous of putting an end to the troubles which had so long harassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his fast- nesses, attacked his camp, leaped over the intrenchments, and, singling B2 18 NATURAL HISTORY 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, sur- rounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of old and young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings, where the former sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and * This oak was probably planted by the prior in the year 1271, as an ornament to his newly-acquired market-place. According to this supposition, the oak was aged four hundred and thirty years when blown down. — White's Antiquities of Selborne. 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 roy- al family at his mercy, should be able to withhold his hand from that ven- geance which the vanquished so well deserved. A cowardly disposition would have been blinded by resentment ; but this gallant heir-apparent saw at once a method of converting a most desperate foe into a lasting friend. He raised the fallen veteran from the ground, he pardoned him, he admitted him into his confidence, and introduced him to the queen, then lying at Guildford, that very evening. This unmerited and unexpected lenity melted the heart of the rugged Gurdon at once ; he became, in an instant, a loyal and useful subject, trusted and employed in matters of moment by Edward when king, and confided in till the day of his death. — White's Antiquities of Selborne. OF SELBORNE. 19 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 appears from what is known concerning the antiquities of the village. On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately fur- nished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value ; they were tall and taper like firs, but standing near together, had very small heads — only a little brush, without any large limbs. About twenty years ago, the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little wood, with this ad- vantage, that many of them answered the descrip- tion at sixty feet. These trees were sold for 207. apiece. In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of Ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven-tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty whetted their in- 20 NATURAL HISTORY clinations, 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 ar- rived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the but, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall ; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection de- served a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground. OF SELBORNE. 21 LETTER III. The fossil shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence. And, first, I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to me for the singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for a head and mouth. It is, in re- ality, a bivalve of the Linnsean genus of mytilis, and the species of crista galli : called by Lister rastellum ; by Rumphius, ostreum plicatum minus ; by D'Argenville, auris, porci, 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, permis- sion was given me to examine for this article ; and though I was disappointed as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of several of the shells themselves, in high preservation. This bi- valve is only known to inhabit the Indian Ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoophyte known by the name gorgonia. Cornua ammonis are very common about this vil- lage. 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 22 NATURAL HISTORY a darkish sort of marl, and are usually very small and soft ; but in Clay's Pond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out for manure, I have occasionally observed them of large dimensions, perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But as these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away. These seemed as if they were a very recent production. In the chalk-pit at the northwest 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 stri- ated, and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are highly impregnated with, if not wholly com- posed of, the stone of the quarry. LETTER IV. As, in my last 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 san- dy loam instead of mortar, the sand of which flux- es* and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitri- * There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burn' ed for lime a proportion of sand, for few chalks are so pure as to have none. OF SELBORNE. 23 fied coat like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty years. When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone, and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimney-pie- ces are worked from it, of much closer and finer grain than Portland stone, and rooms are floored with it ; but it proves rather too soft for this pur- pose. It is a freestone, cutting in all directions, yet has something of a grain parallel with the ho- rizon, and therefore should not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the quar- ry.* On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for pavements, because, probably, some de- gree 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, ferment strongly in mineral acids. Though the white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry, at intervals, there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost, and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls against banks ; a valuable species of fencing, much in use in this village, and for mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth face, but is very durable ; yet, as these * To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the pos- ture it had in the quarry, says Dr. Plot, Oxfordish., p. 77. But surbedding does not succeed in our dry walls ; neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for Teynton stone. t "Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: must be close-grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts; saltstone perishes exposed to wet and frost." — Plot's Staff., p. 152. 24 NATURAL HISTORY strata are shallow and lie deep, large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense. Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue ; and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust-balls. In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand or forest stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore ; it is very hard and heavy, of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a small, roundish, crystalline grit, cemented to- gether by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain ; is excel- lent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in build- ings. In many parts of that waste it lies scatter- ed on the surface of the ground ; but it is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable. From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls. This embellishment carries an odd appear- ance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly " whether we fastened our walls • together with tenpenny nails." f&twr umsr OF SELBORNE. 25 LETTER V. Among the singularities of this place, the two rocky hollow lanes, the one to Alton and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second, so that they look more like watercour- ses than roads, and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are redu- ced 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 ici- cles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frostwork. 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 they delight the natu- ralist 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 enclo- sures. After harvest, some few landrails are seen. The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast district. Those who tread the C 26 NATURAL HISTORY bounds are employed part of three days in the bu- siness, 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 con- siderable, as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my experience in measuring the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity.* I only know that From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year, there fell From Jan. 1, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781 From Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 From Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 From Jan. 1, 1783, to Jan. 1, 1784 From Jan. 1, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 From Jan. 1, 1785, to Jan. 1, 1786 From Jan. 1, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 The village of Selborne and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single farms and many scat- tered houses along the verge of the forest, contain upward of six hundred and seventy inhabitants. We abound with poor, many of whom are sober * A very intelligent gentleman assures me (and he speaks from upward of forty years' experience), that the mean rain of any place cannot be ascertained till a person has measured it for a very long period. " If I had only measured the rain," says he, " for the first four years, from 1740 to 1743, I should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 16^ inches for the year: if from 1740 to 1750, 18£ inches. The mean rain before 1763 was 20| ; from 1763 and since, 25* ; from 1770 to 1780, 26. If only 1773, 1774, and 1775 had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32 inches, increasing from 166 to 32." Inch. Hon 28 37 27 32 30 71 50 26 33 71 33 80 31 55 39 57 OF SELBORNE. 27 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. For- merly, in the dead months, they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff much in vogue at that time for summer wear, and chiefly manufactured at Al- ton, a neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers. The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity, and the parish swarms with children. LETTER VI. Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of which three fifths, perhaps, lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vege- table, and has often afforded me much entertain- ment, 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 28 NATURAL HISTORY 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 posi- tively* that " there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties." But he was mistaken ; for I myself have seen cot- tages on the verge of this wild district, whose tim- bers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits or some such instruments ; but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, that none has been found of late.f Besides the oak, I have also been shown pieces of fossil-wood, of a * See his Hist, of Staffordshire. t Old people have assured me that, on a winter's morning, they have discovered these trees in the bogs by the hoar-frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed than on the surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fan- ciful notion, but consistent with true philosopy. 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 fc ir feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the tops of walls." — See Hale's Hmmastatics, p. 360. Quere, Might not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and, in Roman stations and camps, lead to the finding of pavements, baths, and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity ? OF SELEORXE. 29 paler colour and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir ; but, upon nice examination and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them, and therefore rather supposed 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 build their nests there in the summer, such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they love to make excursions ; and in particular, in the dry summer of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to such a degree, that parties of un- reasonable 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, or Black C 2 30 NATURAL HISTORY Game. 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 gray hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsman cried out, "A hen pheasant !" but a gentleman present, who had often seen black game in the north of England, assured me that it was a gray hen. Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna Selborniensis, for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is wanting : I mean the Red Deer, which, towards the beginning of this century, amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There is an old keeper now alive, named Adams, whose great-grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father, and self en- joyed the head-keepership of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a hundred years. This person assures me that his father has often told him that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wol- mer beneath her royal regard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, and, reposing herself on a bank smoothed for that pur- pose, 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 be- fore 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 OF SELBORNE. 31 expression, as soon as they began blacking, they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continued fC^X^' decreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cum- berland. It is now more than thirty years ago that his highness sent down a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by the stag-hounds, ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and to convey them in carts to Windsor. In the course of the summer they caught every stag, some of which showed ex- 32 NATURAL HISTORY traordinary diversion ; but in the following winter, when the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk and wonder for years afterward. I saw myself one of the yeomen prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superior to anything in Mr. 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 call- ed it, for twenty minutes ; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued. LETTER VII. 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, to- wards the beginning of this century, all this country was wild about deer-stealing. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities, that govern- ment was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary act called the Black Act,* which now * Statute 9 Geo. I., c. 22. OF SELBORNE. 33 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,* refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate, replying, "It had done mischief enough already." Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet. It was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of their youth : such as watching the hind to her lair, and, when the calf was found, paring its feet with a penknife to the quick, to prevent its escape till it was large and fat enough to be killed ; the shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer ; and the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner : Some fellows, suspecting that a calf 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 huntsman on account of their burrows, when they came to take away the deer, they permitted the country people to destroy them all. Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing ; with fuel for the burning their lime, and * This chase remains unstocked to this day : the bishop was Dr. Hoadley. 34 NATURAL HISTORY 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 Wm. 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 confinement in the House of Correction," &c, yet in this forest, about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up that they often get to a masterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. The plea for these burnings is, that when the old coat of heath, &c, is consu- med, young will sprout up, and afford much tender browse for cattle ; but where there is large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the very ground, so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother and desolation, the whole cir- cuit round looking like the cinders of a volcano ; and the soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegeta- * For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats. t In the Holt, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, no sheep are admitted to this day. OF SELBORNE. 35 tion are to be found for years. These conflagra- tions, as they take place usually with a northeast or east wind, much annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm the country ; and once in particu- lar I remember, that a gentleman who lives beyond Andover, coming to my house, when he got on the Downs between that town and Winchester, at twen- ty-five miles' distance, 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 vil- lage, and so on to the end of his journey. On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand two arbours or bowers, made of the boughs of oaks, the one called Waldon Lodge, the other Brimstone Lodge : these the keepers re- new 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 brushwood 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 be- cause I look upon it to be of very remote antiquity. LETTER VIII. On the verge of the forest, as it is now circum- scribed, are three considerable lakes : two in Oak- hanger, of which I have nothing particular to say, and one called Bin's or Bean's Pond, which is wor- thy the attention of a naturalist or a sportsman ; for, being crowded at the upper end with willows 36 NATURAL HISTORY and with the carex cespitosa,* it affords a safe and pleasant shelter to wild ducks, teals, snipes, &c. In the winter this covert is also frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants ; and the bogs produce many curious plants. By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt, made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the First (which now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former are much 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 Bins- wood, 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 ; com- prehending also Shortheath, Oakhanger, and Oak- woods ; a large district, now private property, though once belonging to the royal domain. It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambulation, a rough esti- mate of the value of the timbers, which were con- siderable, growing at that time in the district of the Holt ; and enumerates the officers, superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for the time being, and their ostensible fees and perquisites. In those days, as at present, there were hardly any trees in Wolmer Forest. * 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 for- ests of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons sent down by government. OF SELBORNE. 37 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 rumi- nate 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 nes- tle, and so supply food for the fish, which would be poorly subsisted but for this contingency. Thus Nature, who is a great economist, converts the rec- reation of one animal to the support of another ! Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural oc- currences, 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, con- taining, in its whole circumference, two thousand six hundred and forty-six yards, or very near a mile and a half. The length of the northwest and op- D 38 NATURAL HISTORY posite side is about seven hundred and four yards, and the breadth of the southwest end about four hundred and fifty-six 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 northeast corner, which we did not take into the reckoning. On the face of this expanse of waters, and per- fectly secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and wid- geons, of various denominations, where they preen, and solace and rest themselves till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little parties (for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows, returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy. Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can render this mere so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about forty years ago.* * Old people remember to have heard their fathers and grand- fathers say, that in dry summers and windy weather, pieces of money were sometimes found round the verge of Wolmer Pond ; and tradition had inspired the foresters with a notion that the bottom of the 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 la- bourers in the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades and hoes turned up great part of that large area. Instead of pots OF SELBORNE. 39 LETTER IX. By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,* as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of years. The grantees that the author remembers are, Brigadier-general Emanuel Scroope Howe and his lady Ruperta, who was a daughter of Prince Ru- pert ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry Bilson Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawel, their son. 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 virtu stirring at that time in this neighbour- hood ; however, some of the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased them best, and some dozens fell to the share of the author. The owners at first held their commodity at a 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 an 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. — White's Antiquities of Selborne. * " In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar., 36 Ed. III., it is called Aisholt." In the same, " Tit. Wolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet unam capellam in haia sua de Kingesle." " Haia, sepes, sepimentum, parous : a Gall, haie and haye" — Spelman's Glossary. 40 NATURAL HISTORY The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her husband ; and at her death left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of her father's constructing, who was a distinguish- ed mechanic and artist* as well as warrior ; and among the rest a very complicated clock, lately in possession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game paint- er 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, bar- ren 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 with- in it many woodlands and lawns, and the Great Lodge where the grantees reside, and a smaller lodge called Goose Green ; and is abutted on by the parishes of Kingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley, all of which have right of common. One thing is remarkable, that, though the Holt has been of old well stocked with fallow deer, un- restrained by any pales or fences more than a com- mon hedge, yet they are never seen within the limits of Wolmer : nor were the red deer of Wol- mer 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 * This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto. OP SELBORNE. 41 harass them, in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them as often as they have been detected and rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines nor imprisonment can deter them ; so impossible is it to extinguish the spirit of sport- ing, which seems to be inherent in human nature. General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood, and at one time a wild bull or buffalo ; but the country rose upon them and de- stroyed them. A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt Forest ; one fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop and top ; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them ; and, as- sembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home for his share forty stacks of wood. Forty-five of these people his lordship has served with actions. These trees, which were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz., in February and March, before the bark would run. In old times, the Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, computed measure, from water-carriage, viz., from the town of Chertsey, on the Thames, but now it is not half that distance, since the Wey is made navigable up to the town of Godalming, in the county of Surrey. D2 42 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER X. August 4, 1767. It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge ; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attach- ed from my childhood. As to Swallows (hirundines rustica) being found in a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any part of this country, I never heard any such account worth attending to. But a 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) amoncr the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, dead ; but, on being carried towards the fire, revi- ved. He told me that, out of his great care to pre- serve them, he put them in a paper bag and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they were suffoca- ted. Another intelligent person has informed me that, while he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk cliff fell down one stormy winter on the beach, and that many people found swallows among the rubbish ; but, on my questioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself, to my no small disappointment he answered me in the negative, but that others assu- red him they did. Young broods of swallows began to appear this OF SELBORNE. 43 year on July the 11th, and young martins (hirun- dines urbicce) were then fledged in their nests. Both species will hatch again once ; for I see by my Fauna of last year that young broods came forth so late as September the 18th. Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than mi- gration ? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the 29th ; and yet they totally disappeared 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 44 NATURAL HISTORY 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 shiver- ing noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which we have, as yet, no name in these parts) is called in your Zoology the Fly-catcher. There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird which seems to have escaped observation ; and that is, it takes its stand on the top of some stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a fly in the air, and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning still to the same stand for many times together. I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla trochilus : Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray's OP SELBORNE. 45 Philosophical Letters, that he has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of some very common birds that have as yet no English name. Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap (motacilla atricapilla) be a bird of passage or not. I think there is no doubt of it ; for in April, in the first fine weather, they come trooping all at once into these parts, but are never seen in the winter. They are delicate songsters. Numbers of snipes build every summer in some moory ground on the verge of this parish. It is very amusing to see the cock-bird on wing at that time, and to hear his piping and humming notes. I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those mice which I mentioned to you in town. The person that brought me the last says they are plenty in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more, and will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt whether it be a nondescript species or not. I suspect much there may be two species of Water-rats. Ray says, and Linnseus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind. Now I have discovered a rat on the banks of our little 46 NATURAL HISTORY stream that is not web.footed, and yet is an excel- lent swimmer and diver : it answers exactly to the mus amphibius (see Syst. Nat.), which, he says, " natat in fossis et urinatur." I should be glad to procure one " plantis palmatis." Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle about his mus amphibius, and to doubt whether it differs from his mus terrestris ; which if it be, as he allows, the "mus agrestis capite grandi brachyuros" of Ray is widely different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and manner of life. As to the falco which I mentioned in town, I shall take the liberty to send it down to you into Wales, presuming on your candour that you will excuse me if it should appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me. Though mutilated, " qualem dices . . . antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquiae /" It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest ot wild ducks and snipes ; but when it was shot had just knocked down a rook, which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer to any of our English hawks, neither could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring Gardens. I found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the countryman's museum. The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. OF SELBORNE. 47 LETTER XI. Selborne, September 9, 1767. It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts with regard to the falco : as to its weight, breadth, &c. I wish I had set them down at the time ; but, to the best of my remem- brance, it weighed two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of its eyelids a bright yellow. As it had been killed some days and the eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation on the colour ot 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 m a stately manner, feeding in the walks many times 48 NATURAL HISTORY in the day; and seemed disposed to build in my outlet, but were frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who never let them be at rest. Three grosbeaks (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter, one of which I shot. Since that, now and then one is oc- casionally seen in the same dead season.* A crossbill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood. Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village, yield nothing but the bull's- head or miller's-thumb (gobius Jluviatilis capitatus), the trout (trutta Jluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (lampatra parva et Jluviatilis), and the stickleback (pisciculus aculeatus). We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river, and therefore see but little of seabirds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred up in the moors where the snipes dwell ; 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 * From Miscellaneous Observations. " Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had observed to haunt his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to accuse this bird of making sad havoc among the buds of the cherries, gooseberries, and wall- fruit of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon opening its crop or craw, no buds were to be seen, but a mass of kernels of the stones of fruits. Mr. B. observed that this bird frequented the spot where plum-trees grow, and that he had seen it with somewhat hard in its mouth, which it broke with difficulty ; these were the stones of damsons. The Latin name signifies berry-breaker, be- cause with its large horny beak it cracks and breaks the sheila of stone-fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are rarely seen in England, and only in winter. OF SELBORNE. 49 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 indis- criminately all that is brought : snails, rats, kittens, puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal. The house-martins have eggs still, and squab- young. The last swift I observed was about the 21st of August ; it was a straggler. Redstarts, fly-catchers, whitethroats, and reguli non cristati still appear ; but I have seen no black- caps lately. I forgot to mention that I once saw in Christ Church College quadrangle, in Oxford, on a very sunny, warm morning, a house-martin flying about and settling on the parapet so late as the 20th of November. At present I know only two species of Bats, the common vesper tilio murinus and the vesperiilia auribus. I was much entertained last summer with a tame E 50 NATURAL HISTORY 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 re- fuse 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 my- self with this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats, when down on a flat surface, cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware of, but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner. Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface as they play over pools and streams. They love to frequent waters, not only for the sake of drinking, but on account of the insects, which are found over them in the greatest plenty. As I was going some years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm summer's evening, I think I saw myriads of bats between the two places ; the air swarmed with them all along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time. OF SELBORNE. 51 LETTER XII. November 4, 1767. Sir, — It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco* turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen before ; but that, I find, would be a dif- ficult task. I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, which I have preserved in bran- dy. From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller and more slender than the mus domesticus medius of Ray, and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour. Their belly is white ; a straight line along their sides divides the shades of their back and belly. They never enter into houses ; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves ; abound in har- vest ; and build their nests amid the straws of the corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. These little round nests are 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 clo- sed 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 discom- posed, though it contained eight little mice that * This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus— a variety. 52 NATURAL HISTORY were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respect- ively, so as to administer food to each? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjust, ing them again when the business is over ; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which, moreover, would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cra- dle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat-field, suspended in the head of a thistle. A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his servant had shot one last January, in that severe weather, which he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect ; but the moment I took it in hand, I pronounced it the male garrulus Bohemicus, or German silktail, 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 kingdom in the winter of 1685. The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation. For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender and cu- rious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy and common. Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes and feeding on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to the description of the merula torquata, OF SELBORNE. 53 or Ringousel, were lately seen in this neighbour- hood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without success. (See Letter VIII.) Query — Might not Canary birds be naturalized to this climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their conge- ners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c. 1 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 Hamp- ton Court. In the autumn I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that from the time they be- gan to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the osier-beds of the aits or islets of that river. Now this re- sorting towards that element, at that season of the year, seems to give some countenance to the nor- E 2 54 NATURAL HISTORY them 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 Calen- dar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallow's going under water in the beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset. An observing gentleman in London writes me word that he saw a house-martin, on the 23d of last October, flying in and out of its nest in the Borough ; and I myself, on the 29th of last Octo- ber (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 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 * See Adamson's Voyage to Senegal. OF SELBORNE. 55 that supposition ! that such feeble, bad fliers (who the summer long never flit but from hedge to hedge) should be able to traverse vast seas and continents, in order to enjoy milder seasons amid the regions of Africa ! LETTER XIII. Selborne, Jan. 22, 1768. Sir, — As in one of your former letters you ex- pressed the more satisfaction from my correspond- ence on account of my living in the most south- erly 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, to- wards Christmas, vast flocks of Chaffinches have appeared in the fields ; many more, I used to think, than could be hatched in any one neighbourhood. 56 NATURAL HISTORY But, when I came to observe them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed to me to be almost all hens. I communicated my suspicions to some intelligent neighbours, who, after taking pains about the matter, declared that they also thought them all mostly hens, at least fifty to one. This extraordinary occurrence brought to my mind the remark of Linnseus, that "before winter all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland into It- aly." 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 sort they mostly consist ; for from such in- telligence one might be able to judge whether our female flocks migrate from the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us from the Continent. We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the com- mon Linnets, more, I think, than can be hatched in any one district. These, I observe, when the spring advances, assemble on some tree in the sun- OF SELBORNE. 57 shine, and join all in a gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break up their winter-quarters, and betake themselves to their proper summer homes. It is well known, at least, that the swal- lows and the fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering before they make their respective depar- ture. You may depend on it that the bunting, emberiza miliaria, does not leave this country in the winter. In January, 1767, I saw several dozens of them, in the midst of a severe frost, among the bushes on the Downs near Andover : in our woodland enclosed districts 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 (ananthe) doth not quit England, it certainly shifts places ; for about harvest they are not to be found where there was before great plen. 58 NATURAL HISTORY ty of them." This will account for the vast quan- tities that are caught about that time on the South Downs near Lewes, where they are esteemed a del- icacy. 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 cost of Sussex in autumn ; but that they do not all withdraw I am sure, because I see a few stragglers in many coun- ties at all times of the year, especially about war- rens and stone-quarries. I have no acquaintance at present among the gentlemen of the navy, but have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the late war, desiring him to look into his minutes with respect to birds that settled on their rigging during their voyage up or down the Channel. What Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable : there were little short- winged birds frequently coming on board his ship all the way from our Channel quite up to the Le- vant, especially before squally weather. What you suggest with regard to Spain is highly probable. The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the soft-billed birds that leave us at that season may find insects sufficient to support them there. Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, should make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom, and should spend a year there, inves- tigating the natural history of that vast country. OF SELBORNE. 59 Mr. Willoughby 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 merula torquatce. As to the small mice,* I have farther to remark, that, though they hang their nests up amid 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 * The mus messorius, harvest-mouse, was first discovered and described by Mr. White. 60 NATURAL HISTORY were assembled near a hundred, most of which were taken, and some I saw. I measured them, and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inch- es and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one cop- per halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois, so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown mus me- dius dotnesticus weighs, I find, one ounce, lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above, and measures from nose to tail four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month [Jan., 1768], My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freez- ing point, within doors. The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providen* tial that the air was still and the ground well cov- ered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to be- lieve that some days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40. LETTER XIV. Selborne, MaTch 12, 1768. Dear Sir, — If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow deer and have it dis- sected, he would find it furnished with two spiracu- la, or breathing.places, besides the nostrils ; proba- bly analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the hu- man head. When deer are thirsty, they plunge their OP SELBORNE. 61 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 obvi- ate any inconvenience, they can open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communi- cation with the nose. Here seems to be an extra- ordinary provision of nature worthy our attention, and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free respiration ; and no doubt these additional nostrils are thrown open when they are hard run.* Mr. Ray observed, that at Malta the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked ; for they, being naturally strait or small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they travelled or laboured in that hot climate. And we know that grooms and gentle- men 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 : " TeTpaSvfioi fiivss, inavpts moifjai Siav\ot. Quadrifidae nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." Opp., Cyn., lib. ii., 1, 181. * In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the follow- ing 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 hold- ing an orange to one, the creature made as much use of these orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seem- ing to smell it through them." F 62 NATURAL HISTORY Writers, copying from one another, make Aris- totle say that goats breathe at their ears, whereas he asserts just the contrary : " A^Kfiatov yap ovk aXrjdrj Xeyet, (pafievog avanveiv rag aiyag Kara ra (ora. Alcmseon does not advance what is true when he avers that goats breathe through their ears." — History of Animals, book i., chap. xi. LETTER XV. Selborne, March 30, 1768. Dear Sir, — Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have in these parts a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat ; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be little depended on ; but farther inquiry may be made. A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk- white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, find- ing them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white. A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down above my house this winter : were not these the emberiza nivalis, the snowflake of the Brit. Zool. ? No doubt they were. OF SELBORNE. 63 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 succeed- ing year, it became coal-black at the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed. Such influence has food on the colour of animals ! The pied and mottled colours of domesticated animals are sup- posed 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 exact- ness myself, and getting others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it out. The root of the arum is remarkably warm and pun- gent. Our flocks of hen chaffinches have not yet for- * 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. 64 NATURAL HISTORY saken us. The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by that fierce weather in Jan- uary. 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 gold- en-crowned wren, appearing most like the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back downward, 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 cedic nemus, should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird ; it abounds in all the champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex. Already they begin clam- ouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, " circa aquas versantes ;" for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheepwalks, 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.* * On the 27th of February, 1788, stone curlews were heard to pipe ; and on March the 1st, after it was dark, some were pass- ing over the village, as might be perceived by their quick, short note, which they use in their nocturnal excursions by way of watchword, that they may not stray and lose their companions. Thus we see that, retire whithersoever they may in the winter, they return again early in the spring, and are, as it now appears, the first summer birds that come back. Perhaps the mildness of the season may have quickened the emigration of the curlews this year. They spend the day in high, elevated fields and sheepwalks, OP SELBORNE. 65 I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnaeus, perhaps, would call the species mus minimus. LETTER XVI. Selbome, April 18, 1768. Dear Sir, — The history of the stone curlew, charadrius cedicnemus, 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 skulk among the stones, which are their best security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our gray spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be elu- ded. 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. (Edicnemus is a most apt and ex- pressive name for them, since their legs seem swol- len like those of a gouty man. After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields. but seem to descend in the night to streams and meadows, per- haps for water, which their upland haunts do not afford them.— White, Observations on Birds. F2 66 NATURAL HISTORY I make no doubt but there are three species of the Willow- wrens ;* two I know perfectly, but have not been able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note, the other a harsh, loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drachms and a half, while the latter weighs but two ; so that the songster is one fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer bird of passage that is heard, the wry. neckf sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in * The smallest uncrested willow-wren, or chiffchaff, is the next early summer bird which we have remarked : it utters two sharp, piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods as to occasion an echo, and is usually first heard about the 20th of March. t These birds appear on the grassplots 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, Observations on Birds. OP SELBORNE. 67 the middle of March, and continues them through the spring and summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these two are flesh-coloured ; of the less, black. The Grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by, though at a hundred yards' distance ; and, when close at your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is the most artful creature, skulking in the thickest part of a bush, and will sing at a yard's dis- tance provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted, and then it would run creeping like a mouse before us for a hundred yards together, 68 NATURAL HISTORY 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 con- founds it with the reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct. — See Ray's Philos. Letters, p. 108. The fly-catcher (stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it usually builds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing ; its note is short and imperfect, but is con- tinued till about the middle of June. The willow- wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests in a gar- den, destroying the peas, cherries, currants, &c, and are so tame that a gun will not scare them. A List of the Summer Birds of Passage discovered in this neighbour' hood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear. L'mncei 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 1 Charadrius cedicnemus ? Turtle-dove? Turtur Aldrovandi ? Grasshopper-lark .... Alauda trivialis. Landrail Rallus crex. Largest willow-wren . . . Motacilla trochilus. Redstart Motacilla phoznicurus. Goat-sucker, or fern-owl . . Caprimulgus Europaeus. Fly-catcher Muscicapa grisola. My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with its bill against a dead bough or some OF SELBORNE. 69 old pales, calling it a jarbird. I procured one to be shot in the very fact ; it proved to be the sitta Europ Regulus cristatus These frequent houses and haunt outbuildings in the winter ; eat spi- ders. Haunt sinks for crumbs and other sweepings. These frequent shallow rivulets, near the spring heads, where they nev- er freeze : eat the au- reliae of Phryganea. — The smallest birds that walk. Some of these are to be seen with us the winter through. ( This is the smallest Brit- J ish bird : haunts the j tops of tall trees : stays V the winter through. 148 NATURAL HISTORY A List of the Winter Birds of Passage round this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear. Raii Nomina. fThis is a new migration, which I have lately dis- 1. Ringousel . Merula torquata .<( covered ahout Michael- mas week, and again 2. Redwing 3. Fieldfare 4. Royston crow 5. Woodcock . 6. Snipe . . . 7. Jack-snipe . 8. Wood-pigeon Turdus iliacus Turdus pilaris Comix cinerea Scolopax . . Gallinago minor Gallinago minima (Enas . . . 9. Wild swan 10. Wild goose 11. Wild duck . Cygnus ferus . . Anser ferus ( Anas torquata mi ' \ nor . . . 12. Pochard . . Anas f era fusca 13. Wigeon . . Penelope 14. Teal, builds^ with us in ( /-> , , WolmerFor-^^"^ ■ J Cocothraustes . Loxia ( Garrulus Bohemi- ) cus \ about the 14th of March About Old Michaelmas. Though a percher by day, roosts on the ground. Most frequently on downs Appears about Old Mi- chaelmas. Some snipes constantly build with us. Seldom appears till late ; not in such plenty as formerly. On some large waters. est . . . Crossbeak Crossbill . On our lakes. streams and 15 16 17. Silktail ( These are only wander- ers, that appear occa- .' { sionally, and are not ob- servant of any regular V migration. These birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the following Linnsean genera : 1, 2, 3, Turdus. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Anas. 4 . . Corvus. 15, 16 Loxia. 5, 6, 7, Scolopax. 17 Ampelis. 8 . . Columba. Birds that sing in the night are but few : _,. ... , t • • (" In shadiest covert hid." Nightingale . . Luscmia . . .< —Milton. OF SELBORNE. 149 Raii Nomina* Woodlark . . Alauda arbor ea . Suspended in mid air. Less reed-spar- ( Passer arundina- ( Among reeds and wil- low . . . . ( ceus minor . . \ lows. I shall now proceed to such birds as continue to sing after Midsummer; but, as they are rather numerous, they would exceed the bounds of this pa- per ; besides, as this is now the season [end of June] for remarking on that subject, I am willing to repeat my observations on some birds, concern- ing the continuation of whose song I seem at pres- ent to have some doubt. LETTER II. Selborne, Nov. 2, 1769. Dear Sir, — When I did myself the honour to write to you about the end of last June, on the sub- ject of natural history, I sent you a list of the sum- mer birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood, and also a list of the winter birds of passage ; I mentioned, besides, those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night. According to my proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing-birds, strictly so called) as continue in full song till after Midsummer, and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring advances. Raii Nomina. 5 In January, and continues to sing through all the summer and autumn. N2 150 NATURAL HISTORY 2. Songthrush . < Raii Nomina. Turdus simpliciter ) dictus 3. Wren . . , 4. Redbreast . 5. Hedge-spar- row . . . 6. Yellow-ham mer . . 7. Skylark . 8. Swallow _ 9. Blackcap 10. Titlark . Passer troglodytes < Rebecula > Curruca . . " > Emberiza flava Alauda vulgaris Hirundo domestica Atricapilla . . Alauda pratorum 11. Blackbird . Merula vulgaris 12. Whitethroat 13. Goldfinch . 14. Greenfinch . 15. Less reed- sparrow . . 16. Common lin- net . . . Ficedida affinis Carduelis . . Chi oris . . . Passer arundina ceus minor > Linaria vulgaris In February, and on to Aug. ; reassume their ( song in autumn. All the year, hard frost excepted. Ditto. Early in February to July the 10th. Early in February, and on through July to August the 21st. In February and on to October. From April to September. Beginning of April to July the 13th. From middle of April to July 16. ( Sometimes in February and March, and so on to July the 23d : reas- sumesin autumn. In April and on to July 23. ( April and through to Sep- ( tember 16. On to July and August 2. (May on to beginning of \ July. I Whistles on till Aug. : re- assumes its note when Ithey begin to congre- gate in October, and again early before the flocks separate. i I Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usu- ally silent at or before Midsummer : 17. Middle wil- low-wren 18. Redstart . { Regulus non cris- S \ tatus ... . ( Ruticilla . . . 19. Chaffinch . Fringilla . . . < 20. Nightingale Luscinia . . .< Middle of June; begins in April. Do. : beginning in May. * Beginning of June; sings first in February. Middle of June ; sings first in April. OF SELBORNE. 151 Birds that sing for a short time, and very early in the spring : Raii Nomina, 21. Missel-bird . Turdus viscivorus< 22 Great tit mouse eye tit- ) or ox- > Fringillago , fJan. 2d, 1770; in Feb. Is called in Hampshire and Sussex the storm- cock, because its song is supposed to forebode windy, wet weather ; is the largest singing-bird we have. In Feb., March, April ; re- assumes for a short time in September. Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be called singing-birds : 23. Golden- crowned wren . . 24. Marsh tit- mouse 25. Small wil- low-wren f Regulus cristatus > Parus palustris . < ( Regulus non cris- \ tatus .... 26. Largest do. Ditto 27. Grasshopper lark . . 28. Martin . 29. Bullfinch 30. Bunting . Alauda minima voce locustcs Hirundo agrestis Pyrrhula. Emberiza alba Its note as minute as its person; frequents the tops of high oaks and firs ; the smallest Brit- ish bird. Haunts great woods ; two harsh, sharp notes. Sings in March and on to September. Cantat voce stridula locus' tee; from the end of April to August. C Chirps all night, from the < middle of April to the ( end of July. From May to September. From the end of January to July. All singing-birds, and those that have any pre- tensions to song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnaean ordo of passeres. The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numer- ically, belong to the following Linnaean genera : 152 NATURAL HISTORY 1, 7, 10, 27 . . . . Alauda. 2, 11,21 Turdus. 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17, ) 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, J 6, 30 Motacilla. Emberiza. 8, 28 . . Hirundo. 13, 16, 19, Fringilla. 22, 24 . . Parus. 14, 29 . . Loxia. Birds that sing as they fly are but few : Raii Nomina. ,, , , • 5 Rising, suspended, and Alauda vulgaris . 2 174 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER X. Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771. Dear Sir, — From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls hoot in B flat, but that one went almost half a note be- low 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 dif- ferent species, or only from various individuals? The same person finds upon trial that the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in different individuals ; for about Selborne wood he found they were mostly in D ; he heard two sing together, the one in D, and the other in D flat, which made a disagreeable concert : he afterward heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some in C. As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short and their transitions so rapid that he cannot well ascertain their key. Perhaps in a cage and in a room their notes may be more distinguishable. This person has tried to settle the notes of a swift, and of several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any criterion. As I have often remarked that redwings are some OF SELBORNE. 175 of the first birds that suffer with us in severe weath- er, 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, " Grallce tan- quam conjuratce unanimiter in fugam se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem inve- nire possimus ; ut enim cestate in australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque sic- cam ; ita nee in frigidis ob eandem causam," says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise called Migrationes Avium, which by all means you ought to read while your thoughts run on the sub- ject of migration. — See Amcenitates Academicce, vol. iv., p. 565. Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country and not in another ; but the grallce (which procure their food from marshes and boggy ground) must in winter forsake the more northerly parts of Europe, or perish for want of food. I am glad you are making inquiries from Lin- naeus concerning the woodcock ; it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the mo- tions and manner of life of the animals of his own Fauna, Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare descriptions and a few synonymes : the rea- son 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. 176 NATURAL HISTORY Foreign systematists 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 gen- eral terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that conveys some pre- cise idea in every term or word, maintaining his su- periority over his followers and imitators in spite of the advantages of fresh discoveries and modern information. At this distance of years it is not in my power to recollect at what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert when I was a sportsman ; but, upon my mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather : if this should be the case, then the inaptitude for flying arises only from an eagerness for food, as sheep are ob- served to be very intent on grazing against stormy wet evenings. LETTER XI. Selborne, Feb. 8, 1772. Dear Sir, — When I ride about in winter, and see such prodigious flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for those appearances, almost peculiar to the season. The two great motives which regulate the proceed- ings of the brute creation are love of their offspring and hunger. Whether either of these should seem to be the ruling passion in the matter of congre- OF SELBORNE. 177 gating is to be considered. As to love and the care of their young, that is out of the question at this time of the year. Now as to the business of food. As these ani- mals 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 pro- ceeding, 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 dis- pel some degree of cold, and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey and other dangers. If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate, I am the more struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict amity. If we do not much wonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train of daws, yet it is strange that the former should so frequently have a flight of starlings for their satellites. Is it because rooks have a more discerning scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots more productive of food 1 Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps, then, their associates attend them on the motives of interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their 178 NATURAL HISTORY finders, and as lions are said to do on the yelping of jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes as- sociate. LETTER XII. March 9, 1772. Dear Sir, — As a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of last November round the seabanks 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 northwest ; but the tenour of the weather for some time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this inci- dent, and from repeated accounts which I met 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 latebrcB. 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 peri- ods 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 re- marked during some of our late springs, that, though some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time, viz., the 13th or 14th of April, yet, OF SELBORNE. 179 meeting with a harsh reception, and blustering, cold northeast winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several days till the weather gave them better encouragement. LETTER XIII. April 12, 1772. Dear Sir, — While I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st of November I remarked that the old Tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming of its hyber- naculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hourhand of a clock. 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 sea- son proved unusually warm and sunny, it was con- tinually interrupted and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day ; and though I continued there 180 NATURAL HISTORY till the 13th 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 sprink- lings, and running its head up in a corner. If at- tended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and, as it were, on tip- toe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a di- urnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it be- comes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an arbitrary stomach as well as lungs, and can re- frain from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing, nor again in the autumn before it retires : through the height of the summer it feeds vora- ciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in dis- cerning those that do it kind offices ; for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has wait- ed on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles to- wards its benefactress with awkward alacrity, but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his mas- ter's crib,"* but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of gratitude. P.S. — In about three days after I left Sussex, * Isaiah, i., 3. OF SELBORNE. 181 the tortoise retired into the ground under the he- patica. LETTER XIV. Selborne, March 26, 1773. Dear Sir, — The more I reflect on the aropyrj of animals, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonder- ful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in pro- portion to the helplessness of her brood, and will fly in the face of a dog or sow in defence of those chickens which in a few weeks she will drive be- fore her with relentless cruelty. This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus a hen, when she becomes a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be ; but, with feathers standing on end, wings hovering, and clucking note, she runs about like one possess- ed. Dames will throw themselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to avert it from their pro- geny. Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey.* In the time of niditication, the most feeble birds will assault the most rapa- * 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 won- derful a power is instinct. — White's Observations on Birds. Q 182 NATURAL HISTORY cious. All the hirundines of a village are up in arms at the sight of a hawk, whom they will persecute till he leaves that district. A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair of ravens, nesting in the Rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest near their station, but would drive them from the hill with an amazing fury : even the blue thrush, at the season of hatching, would dart out from the clefts of the rock to chase away the kestrel or the sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance, with meat in her mouth, for an hour together. Should I farther corroborate what I have ad- vanced above by some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration. The fly- catcher 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 a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became in- supportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while, with wings expanded and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring. A farther instance I once saw of notable saga- OF SELBORNE. 183 city in a willow-wren, which had built in a bank in my fields. This bird a friend and myself had ob- served 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 re- marking how this brood went on ; but no nest could be found till 1 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 im- pertinent intruder. A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and instinct occurred to me one day, as my people were pulling off the lining of a hotbed in order to add some fresh dung. From out of the side of this bed leaped an animal with great agility, that made a most grotesque figure ; nor was it without great difficulty that it could be taken, when it proved to be a large white-bellied field-mouse, with three or four young clinging to her 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 ! LETTER XV. Selbome, July 8, 1773. Dear Sir, — Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild ducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet 184 NATURAL HISTORY well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examina- tion I found to be Teals. I did not know till then that teals ever built 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 place their nest under the eaves of this church. As I have paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during the summer through, the following remarks may not, perhaps, be unacceptable. About an hour be- fore 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 OF SELBORNE. 185 every amimal 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 load- ed, 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 chan- cel, and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves. White Owls seem not (but in this I am not pos- itive) to hoot at all ; all that clamorous hooting ap- pears to me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tremen- dous manner ; and these menaces will answer the intention of intimidating, for I have known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion. White owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the common Q2 186 NATURAL HISTORY people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet ex- amined 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 un- heard upon a nimble and watchful quarry. While I am talking of owls, it may not be im- proper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts : As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After some examination, he found that it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps of birds and bats), that had been heaping together for ages, being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur, and feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of sub- stance. When brown owls hoot, their throats swell as big as a hen's egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full year without any water. Per- haps 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 con- tain them. Large eyes, I presume, are necessary to collect every ray of light, and large concave OF SELBORNE. 187 ears to command the smallest degree of sound or noise. It will be proper to premise here, that the sixteenth, eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first letters have been 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 mar- vellous agility ; and clear our outlets from the an- noyances of gnats and other troublesome insects. Some districts in the South Seas, near Guyaquil,* are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of venomous moschetoes which fill the air, and render those coasts insupportable. It would be worth in- quiring whether any species of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates the myr- iads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer evening in this country, will soon be con- vinced to what degree our atmosphere would be choked with them was it not for the friendly inter- position of the swallow tribe. Many species of birds have their peculiar lice ; but the hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with dipterous insects, which infest every species, and are so large, in proportion to themselves, that they * See Ulloa's Travels. 188 NATURAL HISTORY must be extremely irksome and injurious to them. These are the hippoboscce hirundines, with narrow subulated wings, abounding in every nest, and are hatched by the warmth of the bird's own body during incubation, and crawl about under its feath- ers. A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of England, under the name of forest-fly, and, to some, of sidefly, 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 re- gards 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 pupa of these insects ; but for other particulars, too long for this place, we refer the reader to l'His- toire d'Insectes of that admirable entomologist, torn, iv., pi. 11. LETTER XVI. Selborne, Nov. 20, 1773. Dear Sir, — In obedience to your injunctions, I sit down to give you some account of the house- martin or martin ; and, if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen to OF SELBORNE. 189 meet with your approbation, I may probably soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the British hirun- dines : the swallow, the swift, and the bank- martin. A few house-martins begin to appear about the 16th 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 busi- ness 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 re- cover 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 mar- tin begins to think in earnest of providing a man- sion 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 amuse- ment, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. 190 NATURAL HISTORY About half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful workmen, when they build mud-walls (informed at first, perhaps, by this little bird), raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist, lest the work should become top-heavy, and so be ruined by its own weight. By this method, in about ten or twelve days, is formed an hemispher- ic 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 no- thing is more common than for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to eject the owner, and to line it after its own manner. After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as nature seldom works in vain, martins will live on for several years together in the same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered and secure from the injuries of weather. l 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 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 burned up, and destroyed, in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic excrement. In the quadruped OF SELBORNE. 191 creation the same neat precaution is made use of, particularly among dogs and cats. 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 with- out 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 rjXutia, or full growth, they soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at the orifice, where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with food from morning to night. For a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents ; but the feat is done by so quick and almost imper- ceptible a slight, that a person must have attended very exactly to their motions before he would be able to perceive it. As soon as the young are able to shift for themselves, the dams immediately turn their thoughts to the business of a second brood ; while the first flight, shaken off and rejected by their nurses, congregate in great flocks, and are the birds that are seen clustering and hovering, on sunny mornings and evenings, round towers and steeples, and on the roofs of churches and houses. These congregations usually begin to take place about the first week in August, and therefore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well over. The young of this species do not quit their abodes all together, but the more forward birds get abroad some days before the rest. These, approaching the eaves of buildings, and playing about before them, make people think that several 192 NATURAL HISTORY old ones attend one nest. They are often capri- cious 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 lay their eggs 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 northeast or northwest aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests ; but instances are also remembered where they built 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 situa- tion ; but in this neighbourhood, every summer is seen a strong proof to the contrary at a house without eaves, in an exposed district, where some martins build year by year in the corners of the windows. But, as the corners of these windows (which face to the southeast and southwest) are too shallow, the nests are washed down every hard rain ; and yet these birds drudge on to no purpose from summer to summer, without changing their aspect or house. It is a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest is washed away, and bringing dirt "generis lapsi sarcire ruinas." Thus is instinct a most wonderfully unequal faculty, in OF SELBORNE. 193 some instances so much above reason, in other respects so far below it ! Martins love to frequent towns, especially if there are great lakes and rivers at hand ; nay, they even affect the close air of London. And I have not only seen them nesting in the Borough, but even in the Strand and Fleet- street ; but then it was obvious, from the dinginess of their aspect, that their feathers partook of the filth of that sooty atmosphere. Martins are by far the least agile of the four species ; their wings and tails are short, and therefore they are not capable of such surprising turns, and quick and glancing evolutions, as the swallow. Accordingly, they make use of a placid, easy motion, in a middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and never sweeping along together over the surface of the ground or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They build the latest of all the swallow kind : in 1772 they had nestlings on to October the 21st, and are never without unfledged young as late as Michaelmas. As the summer declines, the congregating flocks increase in numbers daily by the constant succes- sion of the second broods, till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they fre- quent the aits of that river, where they roost. They retire — the bulk of them, I mean — in vast flocks together, about the beginning of October ; but have appeared, of late years, in a considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, as R 194 NATURAL HISTORY late as November the 3d and 6th, after they were supposed to have gone for more than a fortnight. They therefore withdraw from 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 de- vastations 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 con- geners by having their legs covered with soft downy feathers down to their toes. They are no song- sters, but twitter in a pretty, inward, soft manner in their nests. During the time of hatching they are often greatly molested with fleas. LETTER XVII. Ringmer, near Lewes, Dec. 9, 1773. Dear Sir, — I received your last favour just as I was setting out for this place, and am pleased to find that my monography met with your approba- tion. 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 per- fectly 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 be- fore them ; and they will consider it, I hope, as it was intended, as an humble attempt to promote a OF SELBORNE. 195 more minute inquiry into natural history — into the life and conversation of animals. Perhaps, here- after, 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 upward of thirty years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year, and I think I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This range, which runs from Chichester eastward as far as 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 wold 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 Plympton Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those capes 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 Eu- rope. For my own part, I think there is somewhat pe- culiarly sweet and amusing in the shapely-figured aspect of chalk-hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shape- less. Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea ; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth * Mr. Courthope, of Danny. 196 NATURAL HISTORY in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and regular hol- lows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vege- tative dilatation and expansion : or was there ever a time when these immense masses of calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation by some ad- ventitious 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, on 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 east- ward, 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 spot- ted 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 di- versity 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 imme- OP SELBORNE. 197 morial, and smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these two different breeds might not be reversed. (However, an in- telligent friend of mine near Chichester is deter- mined to try the experiment ; and has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned Western ewes.) The black-faced poll- sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool. As I had hardly ever before travelled these Downs at so late a season of the year [December 9th], I was determined to keep as sharp a look-out as possible so near the southern coast with respect to the summer short-winged birds of passage. We make great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of the swallow kind, without examining enough into the causes why this tribe is never to be seen in winter ; for, entre nous, the disappearing of the lat- ter 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, whitethroats, blackcaps, &c, &c, are very ill provided for long flights ; have never been once found, that I ever heard of, in a torpid state ; and yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from year to year, to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwith- standing all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage ; and, what is more strange, not one wheatear, though they abound so in the au- tumn as to be a considerable perquisite to the shep- R2 198 NATURAL HISTORY herds that take them ; and though many are to bo seen to my knowledge all the winter through in many parts of the south of England. The most intelligent shepherds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the Downs in March, and then withdraw, 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 ta. ken in great numbers ; are sent for sale in vast quantities to Brighthelmstone and Tunbridge ; and appear at the tables of all the gentry that en- tertain with any degree of elegance. About Mi- chaelmas they retire, and are seen no more till March. Though these birds are, when in season, in great plenty on the South Downs round Lewes, yet at East Bourn, which is the eastern extremity of those downs, they abound much more. One thing is very remarkable, that though in the height of the season so many hundreds of dozens are taken, yet they never are seen to flock, and it is a rare thing to see more than three or four at a time, so that there must be a perpetual flitting and constant pro- gressive succession. It does not appear that any wheatears are taken to the westward of Hough- ton Bridge, which stands on the River Arun. I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of ringousels, and to take notice whether they continued on the Downs to this season of the year, as I had formerly remarked them in the month of October, all the way from Chichester to Lewes, wherever there were any shrubs and covert ; but not one bird of this sort came within my obser- vation. I only saw a few larks and whinchats, some rooks, and several kites and buzzards. OP SELBORNE. 199 About Midsummer a flight of crossbills comes to the pine-groves about this house, but never makes any long stay. The old tortoise that I have mentioned in a for- mer letter still continues in this garden ; it retired under ground about the 20th of November, and came out again for one day on the 30th ; 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.* * Rooks are continually righting and pulling each other's nests to pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living in 200 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XVIII. Selborne, Jan. 29, 17?4. Dear Sir, — The house-swallow or chimney- swallow is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines, and appears in general on or about the 13th of April, as I have remarked from many years' observation. Not but that now and then a straggler is seen much earlier ; and, in par- ticular, when I was a boy, I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday, which day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happened early in February. It is worth remarking, that these birds are seen first about lakes and millponds ; and it is also very particular, that if these early visiters happen to find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771, they immedi- ately 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 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 nests till the rest have completed their building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, a party comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as the rooks have finished their nests, and before they lay, the cocks begin to feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a fondling, tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little blandishments that are expressed by the young while in a helpless state. This is continued through the whole season of hatching.— White's Observations on Birds. OF SELBORNE. 201 to its hybernaculum just at hand, tnan return for a week or two only to warmer latitudes. The swallow, though called the chimney-swal- low, by no means builds altogether in chimneys, but often within barns and outhouses against the rafters ; and so she did in Virgil's time : "Ante Garrula quam. tigrris nidos suspendat hirundo." In Sweden she builds in barns, and is called ladu swala, the barn-swallow. Besides, in the warmer parts of Europe there are no chimneys to houses, except they are English built : in these countries she constructs her nest in porches, and gateways, and galleries, and open halls. Here and there a bird may affect some odd, pe- culiar place, as we have known a swallow build down the shaft of an old well, through which chalk had been formerly drawn up for the purpose of manure ; but, in general, with us this hirundo builds 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 imme- diate 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 ob- served 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 hemi- 202 NATURAL HISTORY spheric, 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 vibra- tions of her wings acting on the confined air occa- sion a rumbling like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam submits to this inconvenient situation so low in the shaft in order to secure her broods from rapacious birds, and particularly from owls, which frequently fall down chimneys, perhaps in attempting to get at these nestlings. The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red specks, and brings out her first brood about the last week in June or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the young are introduced into life is very amusing : first, they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the rooms below ; for a day or so they are fed on the chimney top, and then are conducted to the dead, leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are at- tended with great assiduity, and may then be call- ed perchers. In a day or two more they become fliers, 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 OF SELBORNE. 203 and complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of Nature that has not often remarked this feat. The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a second brood as soon as she is disen- gaged from her first, which at once associates with the first broods of house-martins, and with them congregates, clustering on sunny roofs, towers, and trees. This hirundo brings out her second brood towards the middle and end of August. All the summer long is the swallow a most in- structive pattern of unwearied industry and affec- tion ; 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 is too quick for the eye. The swallow, probably the male bird, is the ex- cubitor to house-martins and other little birds, an- nouncing 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 204 NATURAL HISTORY 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 togeth- er : 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 flier, ranging to distant downs and commons even in windy weather, which the other species seem most to dislike ; nay, even frequent- ing exposed seaport towns, and making little excur- sions over the salt water. Horsemen on wide downs are often closely attended by a little party of swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind them, sweeping around, and collecting all the skulking insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses' feet. When the wind blows hard, without this expedient, they are often forced to settle to pick up their lurking prey. This species feeds much on little coleoptera, as well as on gnats and flies, and often settles on dug ground or paths for gravels to grind and digest its food. Before they depart, for some weeks, they to a bird 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 tho house-martin, the close and crowded parts of the city. OF SELBORNE. 205 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 they pursue one ano- ther, 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 Gropyq of the swallow, I shall add for your farther amusement an anecdote or two, not much in favour of her sagacity : A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a pair of garden-shears that was stuck up against the boards in an outhouse, and therefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was wanted. And, what is stranger still, another bird of the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl, that happened by accident to hang dead and dry from the rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings and with eggs in the nest, was brought to a distinguish- ed naturalist 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.* * Sir Ashton Lever's museum. This museum has since been sold, and variously distributed. s 206 NATURAL HISTORY Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, an undistinguishing, .limited faculty, and blind to every circumstance that does not immedi- ately respect self-preservation, or lead at once to the support of their species. LETTER XIX. Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774. Dear Sir, — I received your favour of the 8th [of February], 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 pre- cisely which species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the ancients did not attend to specific differences like modern natural- ists ; yet somewhat may be gathered, enough to in- cline me to suppose that, in the two passages quoted, the poet had his eye on the swallow. In the first place, the epithet garrula suits the swallow well, who is a great songster, and not the martin, which is rather a mute bird, and when it sings is so inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if lignum in that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it seems to me to do, then I think it must be the swallow that is alluded to, and not the martin, since the former does frequently build with- in the roof against the rafters, while the latter al- ways, as far as I have been able to observe, builds without the roof against eaves and cornices. OF SELBORNE. 207 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 repre- sent 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 iEneas. 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 levants, break out much on the Downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and Wiltshire. The country people say, when the levants 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 * " Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes Pervolat, et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo, Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas : Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum Stagna sonat." 208 NATURAL HISTORY newspaper letters that talk of combinations tend to inflame and mislead, since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends us more favourable seasons. The wheat of last year, all round this district, and in the county of Rutland and elsewhere, yields remarkably bad ; and our wheat on the ground, by the continual late sudden vicissitudes from fierce frost to pouring rains, looks poorly, and the turnips rot very fast. LETTER XX. Selborne, Feb. 26, 1774. Dear Sir, — The sand-martin or bank-martin is by much the least of any of the British hirundines, and, as far as we have ever seen, the smallest known hirundo, though Brisson asserts that there is one much smaller, and that is the hirundo escu- lenta. But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the circumstances attend- ing the life and conversation of this little bird, since it is fera naturd, at least in this part of the kingdom, disclaiming all domestic attachments, and haunting wild heaths and commons where there are large lakes ; while the other species, especially the swallow and house-martin, are remarkably gen- tle and domesticated, and never seem to think them- selves safe but under the protection of man. Here are in this parish, in the sandpits and of SELBORNE. 209 banks of the lakes of Wolmer Forest, several col- onies of these birds, and yet they are never seen in the village, nor do they at all frequent the cot- tages 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 in the scaffold-holes of the back wall of William of Wykeham's stables ; but then this wall stands in a very sequestered and re- tired enclosure, and faces upon a large and beau- tiful 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 de- grees of architectonic skill Providence has en- dowed birds of the same genus, and so nearly cor- respondent 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, hori- zontal, and about two feet deep. At the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposite, in a good degree of safety, her rude nest, consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usually goose feathers, very inartificially laid together. Perseverance will accomplish anything, though at first one would be disinclined to believe that this weak bird, with her soft and tender bill and S2 210 NATURAL HISTORY claws, should ever be able to bore the stubborn sandbank 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 re- marks. 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 allow- ing, perhaps, too much foresight and rerum pruden- tia to a simple bird. May not the cause of these latebra being left unfinished arise from their meet- ing in those places with strata too harsh, hard, and solid for their purpose, which they relinquish, and go to a fresh spot that works more freely 1 Or may they not in other places fall in with a soil as much too loose and mouldering, liable to founder, 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 foetid 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- OP SELBORNE. 211 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 hatching were it not for the coming forth of the broods, which appear much about the time, or, rather, somewhat earlier than those of the swallow. The nestlings are supported in common, like those of their congeners, with gnats and other small in- sects, and sometimes they are fed with libellulcz (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 nestle near hedges and enclosures, they are dispossessed of their 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 per- 212 NATURAL HISTORY son approaches their nests. They seem not to be of a sociable turn, never with us congregating with their congeners in the autumn. Undoubtedly they have a second brood, like the house-martin and swallow, and withdraw about Michaelmas. Though in some particular districts they may happen to abound, yet on the whole, in the south of England at least, is this much the rarest spe- cies ; lor 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 sandhills 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 adapt- ed 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 St. 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 de- serted building. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes, like the house-martin and swallow. OF SELBORNE. 213 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 Willoughby, and sold in the markets for the table, and are called by the country people, probably from their desultory, jerking manner of flight, Pa- pillon de Montagna (the mountain butterfly). LETTER XXI. Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774. Dear Sir, — As the Swift or black martin is the largest of the British hirundines, so it is undoubt- edly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April ; and in some of our late, frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs. The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architecture, making no crust or shell for its nest, but forming it of dry grasses and feathers, very rudely and inartificially put together. With 214 NATURAL HISTORY all my attention to these birds, I have never been able once to discover one in the act of collecting or carrying in materials ; so that I have suspected (since their nests are exactly the same) that they sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and ex- pel them, as sparrows do the house and sand mar- tin; well remembering that I have seen them squabbling together at the entrance of their holes, and the sparrows up in arms, and much discon- certed at these intruders ; and yet I am assured by a nice observer in such matters, that they do col- lect 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 cas- tles, and towers, and steeples, and upon the tops of the walls of churches under the roof, and therefore cannot be so narrowly watched as those species that build more openly ; but, from what I could ever observe, they begin nesting about the middle of May ; and I have remarked, from eggs taken, that they have set hard by the 9th of June. In general they haunt tall buildings, churches, and steeples, and build only in such ; yet in this village some pairs frequent the lowest and meanest cot- tages, and educate their young under those thatched roofs. We remember but one instance where they placed their nests out of buildings, and that is in. the sides of a deep chalk-pit near the town of Odi- ham, in this county, where we have seen many pairs entering the crevices, and skimming and squeaking round the precipices. As the swift eats, drinks, and collects materials OF SELBORNE. 215 for its nest 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 incuba- tion. This hirundo differs widely from its congeners in laying invariably but two eggs at a time, which are milk-white, long, and peaked at the small end, whereas the other species lay at each brood from four to six. It is a most alert bird, rising very early, and retiring to roost very late, and is on the wing in the height of summer at least sixteen hours. In the longest days it does not withdraw to rest till a quarter before nine in the evening, being the latest of all day-birds. Just before they retire, whole groups of them assemble high in the air, and squeak and shoot about with wonderful rapidity. But this bird is never so much alive as in sultry, thundery weather, when it expresses great alacrity, and calls forth all its powers. In hot mornings, several getting together into little parties, dash round the steeples and churches, squeaking as they go in a very clamorous manner : these, by nice ob- servers, are supposed to be males serenading their sitting hens ; and not without reason, since they seldom squeak till they come close to the walls or eaves, and since those within utter at the same time a little inward note of complacency. When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth just as it is almost dark, and stretches and relieves her weary limbs, and snatches a scanty meal for a few minutes, and then returns to her duty of incubation. Swifts, when wantonly and cruelly shot while they have young, discover a little lump of insects in their mouths, which they pouch 216 NATURAL HISTORY 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 pro- portion to their levers ; and their wings are longer in proportion than those of almost any other bird. When they mute, or ease themselves in flight, they raise their wings, and make them meet over their backs. At some certain times in the summer I had remarked that swifts were hawking very low for hours together over pools and streams, and could not help inquiring into the object of their pursuit, that induced them to descend so much below their usual range. After some trouble, I found that they were taking phrygance, ephemera, libellula (cadew- flies, Mayflies, and dragon-flies), that were just emerged out of their aurelia state. I then no longer wondered that they should be so willing to stoop for a prey that afforded them such plentiful and succulent nourishment. They bring out their young about the middle or latter end of July ; but as these never become perchers, nor, that ever I could discern, are fed on the wing by their dams, the coming forth of the young is not so notorious as in the other species. On the 30th of last June I untiled the eaves of a house where many pairs build, and found in each nest only two squab, naked pulli ; on the 8th of July I repeated the same inquiry, and found they had made very little progress towards a fledged OF SELBORNE. 217 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 them every two or three minutes ; while swifts, that have but two young to maintain, are much at their leisure, and do not at- tend 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 occa- sion. They are out all day long on wet days, feeding about, and still disregarding 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 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 feath- T 218 NATURAL HISTORY ers, since all other birds are known to moult soon after the season of laying their eggs. Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting from all their congeners not only in the number of their young, but in having but one brood in a summer, whereas all the other British hirun- dines have invariably two. It is past all doubt that swifts can have but one, 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 have but one brood in a summer, and only two at a time, and the other hirundines two, the latter, who lay from four to six eggs, increase at an average five times as fast as the former. But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their early retreat. They retire, as to the main body of them, by the 10th of August, and some- times a few days sooner ; and every straggler in- variably withdraws by the 20th ; while their con- geners, all of them, stay till the beginning of Octo- ber, many of them all through that month, and some occasionally to the beginning of November. This early retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time is often the sweetest season in the year. But, what is more extraordinary, they begin to retire still earlier in the more southerly parts of Andalusia, where they can be nowise influenced by any defect of heat, or, as one might suppose, de- fect of food. Are they regulated in their motions with us by a failure of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what ? This is one of those incidents in natural history that not only baffles our re- searches, but almost eludes our guesses ! OF SELBORNE. 219 These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so never congregate with their congeners. They are fearless while haunting their nesting- places, and are not to be scared with a gun, and are often beaten down with poles and cudgels as they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those pests to the genus, called hippo- bosccB hirundines ', and often wriggle and scratch themselves in their flight to get rid of that clinging annoyance. Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh, screaming note ; yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing, from an agreeable association of ideas, since that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer weather. They never settle on the ground but through ac- cident, and when down can hardly rise, on account of the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings ; neither can they walk, but only crawl ; but they have a strong grasp with their feet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies being flat, they can enter a very narrow crevice ; and where they cannot pass on their bellies, they will turn up edgewise. The particular formation of the foot discrimi. nates 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 pecu- liar, but nicely adapted to the purposes in which 220 NATURAL HISTORY their feet are employed. This, and some peculi- arities attending the nostrils and under mandible, have induced a discerning naturalist* to suppose that this species might constitute a genus per se. In London, a party of swifts frequents the Tow. er, playing and feeding over the river just below the Bridge ; others haunt some of the churches of the Borough next the fields, but do not venture, like the house-martin, into the close, crowded part of the town. The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swallow, calling it ring-swala, from the perpetual rings or circles that it takes round the scene of its nidification. 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 pro- cure 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 ab- ject cottages ; yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs : a good proof this that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing. On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest ; but so strongly was she affected by natural aropyr] for her brood, which she supposed * John Antony Scopoli, of Carniola, M.D. OF SELBORNE. 221 to be in danger, that, regardless of her own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, per- mitting herself to be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed on the grass- plot, where they tumbled about, and were as help- less as a newborn child. While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy, disproportioned abdomina, and their heads too heavy for their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we re- flected 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 trav- erse vast continents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature advance small birds to their rjXiKla, or state of perfection, while the pro- gressive growth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious ! LETTER XXII. Selborne, Sept., 1774. Dear Sir, — By means of a straight cottage chim- ney, I had an opportunity this summer of remark- ing at my leisure how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft ; but my pleasure in contempla- ting the address with which this feat was performed to a considerable depth in the chimney was some- what interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.* Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to * Tobit, ii., 10. T2 222 NATURAL HISTORY hear at wnat times the different species of hirun. dines arrived this spring in three very distant coun- ties of this kingdom. With us the swallow was seen first on April the 4th ; the swift on April the 24th; the black martin on April the 12th; and the house-martin not till April the 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive till April the 25th ; swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st ; and house-martins not till the middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen April the 28th ; swallows, April the 29th ; house- martins, May the 1st. Do these different dates, in such distant districts, prove anything for or against migration ? A farmer near Weyhill fallows his land with two teams of asses, one of which works till noon, and the other in the afternoon. When these ani- mals have done their work, they are penned all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung. Linnaeus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducias cum avibus, quamdiu cuculus cuculat ;" but it ap- pears to me that during that period many little birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers left in lanes and under hedges. The Missel-Thrush is, while sitting, fierce and pugnacious, driving such birds as approach its nest, with great fury, to a distance. The Welsh call it pen y llwyn, the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and is, for the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In general OF SELBORNE. 223 he is very successful in the defence of his family ; but once I observed in my garden that several mag- pies came determined to storm the nest of a missel- thrush ; the dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro aris etfocis ; but numbers at last prevailed ; they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed the young alive.* In the season of nidification the wildest birds * Thrushes, during loner droughts, are of great service in hunt- ing out shell-snails, which they pull in 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 thrushes (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 fiedsred, they leave neighbourhoods, and re- tire to sheepwalks and wild commons. The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods of missel-thrushes, though the dams are fierce birds, and fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to avoid such insults that this species of thrush, though wild at other times, delights to build near houses, and in frequented walks and gar- dens.—White's Observations on Birds. 224 NATURAL HISTORY are comparatively tame. Thus the ring-dove con- structs her nest in my fields, though they are con- tinually frequented ; and the missel-thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long. Wall-fruit abounds with me this year ; but my grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all precedent : and this is not the worst of the story ; for the same ungenial weather, the same black, cold solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and dis- coloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large. Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are upon me, I lose all the pleasing notice and little intimations arising from rural sounds, and May is to me as silent and mute, with respect to the notes of birds, &c, as August. My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good, but with respect to the other sense I am at times disabled, " And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." LETTER XXIII. Selbome, June 8, 1775. Dear Sir, — On September the 21st, 1741, be- ing then on a visit, and intent on field diversions, I rose before daybreak : when I came into the en- closures, 1 found the stubbles and clover grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the OF SELBORNE. 225 meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully, that the whole face of the country seem- ed, as it were, covered with two or three setting- nets drawn one over another. When the dogs at- tempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie down and scrape the encumbrances from their faces with their fore feet ; so that, find- ing my sport interrupted, I returned home, musing in my mind on the oddness of the occurrence. As the morning advanced, the sun became bright and warm, and the day turned out one of those most lovely ones which no season but the autumn produces : cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the south of France itself. About nine, an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention : a shower of cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing, without any interruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not single filmy threads, float- ing 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 atmo- sphere. On every side, as the observer turned his eyes, he might behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling into his sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned their sides towards the sun. How far this wonderful shower extended would be difficult to say ; but we know that it reached Bradley, Selborne, and Alresford, three places which lie in a sort of a triangle, the shortest of whose sides is about eight miles in extent. 226 NATURAL HISTORY At the second of those places there was a gen- tleman (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 com- mon 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 ob- served ; but on this day the flakes hung in 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 OF SELBORNE. 227 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 pow- er 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 sum- mer one alighted on my book as I was reading in the parlour, and, running to the top of the page, and shooting out a web, took its departure from thence. But what I most wondered at was, that it went off* with considerable velocity in a place where no air was stirring ; and I am sure that I did not assist it with my breath. So that these little crawlers seem to have, while mounting, some locomotive power without the use of wings, and to move in the air faster than the air itself. LETTER XXIV. Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775. Dear Sir, — There is a wonderful spirit of soci- ality in the brute creation ; the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable in- stance. Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves : the 228 NATURAL HISTORY strongest fences cannot restrain them. My neigh- bour'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 impa- tience, 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 re- spects 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 con- stantly 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 afield, 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 en- sues ; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to the cows, who, with fierce lowings and menacing horns, drive the assailants quite out of the pasture. Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social advances and mutual fellow- ship. 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 incon- gruous animals spent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees, an apparent regard OF SELBORNE. 229 began to take place between these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would approach the quad- ruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs, while the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours of the other ; so that Milton, when he puts the following sentiment in the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken : " Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl, So well converse, nor with the ox the ape." LETTER XXV. Selbome, Oct. 2, 1775. Dear Sir, — We have two gangs or hordes of gipsies 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 histo- rians all agree that these vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the East two or three cen- turies ago, and so spread by degrees over Europe, may not this family name, a little corrupted, be the U 230 NATURAL HISTORY very name they brought with them from the Le- vant 1 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 possi- ble that, amid their cant and corrupted dialect, many mutilated remains of their native language might still be discovered. With regard to those peculiar people, the gipsies, one thing is very remarkable, especially as they came from warmer climates ; and that is, that while other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and cow- houses, these sturdy savages seem to pride them- selves in braving the severities of winter, and in living sub dio the whole year round. Last Septem- ber was as wet a month as ever was known ; and yet, during those deluges, did a young gipsy girl lie in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing over her but. a piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel rods, bent hoop fashion and stuck into the earth at. each end, in cir- cumstances too trying for a cow in the same con- dition : yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of which she might have retired had she thought shelter an object wor- thy 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.* * See Bell's Travels in China. OF SELBORNE. 231 Gipsies are called in French Bohemiens ; in Ital- ian and modern Greek, Zingani, LETTER XXVI. Selborne, Nov. 1, 1775. Dear Sir, — " Hie— taedae pingues, hie plurimus ignis Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri." I shall make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a very simple piece of domestic econ- omy, being satisfied that you think nothing be- neath your attention that tends to utility : the mat- ter alluded to is the use of rushes instead of can- dles, which I am well aware prevails in many dis- tricts besides this ; but as I know there are coun- tries also where it does not obtain, and as I have considered the subject with some degree of ex- actness, I shall proceed in my humble story, and leave you to judge of the expediency. The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the juncus conglomeratus, or common soft rush, which is to be found in most moist pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges. These rushes are in best condition in the height of sum- mer, but may be gathered, so as to serve the pur- pose well, quite on to autumn. It would be need- less 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 232 NATURAL HISTORY shrink, and the peel will not run. At first a person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib from top to bottom that may support the pith ; but this, like other feats, soon becomes famil- iar 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, they must lie out on the grass to be bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and afterward be dried in the sun. Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the scalding fat or grease ; but this knack also is to be attained by practice. The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing, for she saves the scummings of her bacon-pot for this use ; and if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom by setting the scummings in a warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by the seaside, 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 a pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling ; so that a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings. If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease, it will give it a consistency, and render it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn longer : mutton suet would have the same effect. A good rush, which measured in length two feet four inches and a half, being minuted, burned OF SELBORNE. 233 only three minutes short of an hour ; and a rush of still greater length has been known to burn one hour and a quarter. These rushes give a good clear light. Watch, lights (coated with tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, " darkness visible ;" but then the wicks of those have two ribs of the rind or peel to support the pith, while the wick of the dipped rush has but one. The two ribs are intended to impede the progress of the flame, and make the candle last. In a pound of dry rushes avoirdupois, which I caused to be weighed and numbered, we found up- ward of one thousand six hundred individuals. Now suppose each of these burns, one with ano- ther, only half an hour, then a poor man will pur- chase eight hundred hours of light, a time exceed- ing thirty-three entire days, for three shillings. According to this account, each rush, before dip- ping, costs one thirty-third of a farthing, and one eleventh afterward. 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 candle in the long days, because they rise and go to bed by daylight. Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both morning and evening, in the dairy and kitch- en ; but the very poor, who are 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 have they only two hours' light for their money instead of eleven. U2 234 NATURAL HISTORY 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 silkwood, 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.* LETTER XXVII. Selborne, Dec. 12, 1775. Dear Sir, — We had in this village, more than twenty years ago, an idiot boy, whom I well re- member, who, from a child, showed a strong pro- pensity to bees ; they were his food, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad ex- erted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his fa- ther's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney corner ; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. Hon- * A besom of this sort was to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's museum. OP SELBORNE. 235 ey-bees, humble-bees, and wasps were his prey wherever he found them : he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize them nudis man,' ibus, 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 cap- tives, 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 be- fore the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called bee-wine. As he ran about, he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and sal- low, and of a cadaverous complexion ; and, except in his favourite pursuit, in which he was wonder- fully adroit, discovered no manner of understand- ing. Had his capacity been better, and directed to the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibit- er of bees ; and we may justly say of him now, " Thou, Had thy presiding star propitious shone, Shouldst Wildman be." When a tall youth, he was removed from hence to a distant village, where he died, as I understand, before he arrived at manhood. 236 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXVIII. Selborne, Feb. 7, 1776. Dear Str, — In heavy fogs, on elevated situa- tions especially, trees are perfect alembics ; and no one that has not attended to such matters can ima- gine how much water one tree will distil in a night's time, by condensing the vapour, which trick- les 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 cartway 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 In- dies, if I mistake not, there are no springs or riv- ers ; but the people are supplied with that neces- sary element, water, merely by the dripping of some large tall trees, which, standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their heads constantly envel- oped with fogs and clouds, from which they dis- pense 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 the- ory, 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 diffi- cult to say which drip most ; but this I know, that deciduous trees that are entwined with much ivy seem to distil the greatest quantity. Ivy. leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold, and therefore con- dense very fast; and, besides, evergreens imbibe OF SELBORNE. 237 very little. These facts may furnish the intelligent with hints concerning what sort of trees they should plant round small ponds that they would wish to be perennial, and show them how advantageous some trees are in preference to others. Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evaporation so much that woods are always moist : no wonder, therefore, that they contribute much to pools and streams. That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers appears from a well-known fact in North America ; for, since the woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies of water are much diminished ; so that some streams, that were very considerable a century ago, will not now drive a common mill.* Besides, most woodlands, forests, and chases with us abound with pools and morass- es, no doubt for the reason given above. To a thinking mind, few phenomena are more strange than the state of littJe ponds on the sum- mits of chalk- hills, many of which are never dry in the most trying droughts of summer. On chalk- hills, 1 say, because in many rocky and gravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on the sides of elevated grounds and mountains ; but no persons acquainted with chalky districts will allow that they ever saw springs in such a soil but in valleys and bottoms, since the waters of so pervi- ous 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, * Vide Kalm's Travels in North America. 238 NATURAL HISTORY though never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet in diameter, and con- taining, perhaps, not more than two or three hun- dred 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 besides. This pond, it is true, is over- hung by two moderate beeches, that doubtless, at times, afford it much supply ; but then we have others as small, that, without the aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind, and perpetual consumption by cattle, yet constantly maintain a moderate share of water, without over- flowing in the wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied by springs. By my journal of May, 1775, it appears that " the small and even considerable ponds on 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 nighttime 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 Vege- table Statics, advances, from experiment, that " the moister the earth is, the more dew falls on it in a night ; and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of water than there does on an equal surface of moist earth." Hence we see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to itself a large quantity of moisture nightly by condensation ; and that the air, when loaded with OF SELBORNE. 239 fogs and vapours, and even with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable and never. failing re- source. 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. LETTER XXIX. Selborne, April 29, 1776. Dear Sir, — On August the 4th, 1775, we sur- prised a large viper as it lay in the grass, basking in the sun, with its young, fifteen in number, the shortest of which measured full seven inches, and were about the size of full-grown earthworms. This little fry had the true viper spirit about them, showing great alertness : 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 an- imals with the notion of the situation of their nat- ural 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 lamb will push with their heads before their horns 240 NATURAL HISTORY 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 our scissors. LETTER XXX. Selborne, May 9, 1776. Dear Sir, — " Admorunt ubera tigres." We have remarked in a former letter how much incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be at- tached to each other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not be amiss to recount a different mo- tive, 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 had kittens, which OF SELBORNE. 241 were despatched and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be gone the way of most foundlings, to be killed by some dog or cat. How- ever, in about a fortnight, as the master was sitting in his garden in the dusk of evening, he observed his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling with little, short, inward notes of compla- cency, such as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling after, which proved to be the leveret that the cat had supported with her milk, and continued to support with great affection. Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a carnivorous and predaceous one ! Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the ferocious genus of felis, the murium leo, as Linnseus calls it, should be affected with any ten- derness towards an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine. This strange affection probably was occasioned by that desiderium, those tender maternal feelings, which the loss of her kittens had awakened in her breast, till, from habit, she became as much de- lighted with this foundling as if it had been her real offspring. This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which grave historians, as well as the poets, assert, of exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not one whit more mar- vellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that a poor little suckling leveret should be fostered and cherished by a bloody grimalkin.* * We have also the following note by Mr. White in his Ob- X 242 NATURAL HISTORY " Viridi foetam Mavortis in antro Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem lmpavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." LETTER XXXI. Selborne, May 20, 1777. Dear Sir, — Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are always poor, and probably the rea- son may be because the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects and reptiles are of much more consequence, and have much more influence in the economy of Nature than the incurious are aware of ; and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention, and from their numbers and fecundity. Earthworms, though in appearance a small and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say nothing of half the birds and some quadrupeds servations : " A boy has taken three little young squirrels in their nest, or eyry, as it is called in those 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 heT 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 justi- fication of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild and improbable story. So many peo- ple went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, that the fos- ter-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 foundlings, and that she supposed the squirrels to be her own young." OF SELBORNE. 243 which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and ren- dering 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 wormcasts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass. Worms probably provide new soil for hills and slopes where the rain washes the earth away ; and they affect slopes, probably to avoid being flooded. Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of worms ; the former because they render their walks unsightly, and make them much work, and the latter because, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would find that the earth without worms would soon be- come 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 tipulm (long-legs), in their larva or grub state, and by un- noticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make ama- zing havoc in the field and garden.* These hints we think proper to throw out, in or- der to set the inquisitive and discerning to work. A good monography of worms would afford * Farmer Young, of Norton farm, says this spring (1777) about four acres of his wheat in one field were entirely destroyed by slugs, which swarmed on the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang. 244 NATURAL HISTORY much entertainment and information at the same time, and would open a large and new field in nat- ural 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 per- son may be convinced that will take the pains to examine his grassplats with a candle. LETTER XXXII. Selborne, Nov. 22, 1777. Dear Sir, — You cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th of last March were very hot days, so sultry that everybody complained and were restless under those sensations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches. This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer coincidences ; for on those two days the thermometer rose to 66° 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 ap- peared, and were very alert in many places, and particularly at Cobham, in Surrey. But as that short warm period was succeeded as well as preceded by harsh, severe weather, with frequent frosts, and ice, and cutting winds, the in- sects withdrew, the tortoise retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen no more until the 10th of April, when, the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began to prevail. OF SELBORNE. 245 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. 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 fourth was dark, and mild, and soft, the wind at southwest, and the ther- mometer 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 ther- mometer is above 50°, the bat comes flitting out in every autumnal and winter month. From all these circumstances laid together, it is obvious that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds are awakened from their profoundest slumbers by a little untimely warmth ; and, therefore, that no- thing so much promotes this deathlike stupor as a defect of heat. And, farther, it is reasonable to suppose that two whole species, or, at least, many individuals of these two species, of British hirun- X2 246 NATURAL HISTORY dines, do never leave this island at all, but partake of the same benumbed state ; for we cannot sup- pose 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. LETTER XXXIII. Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778. Dear Sir,— There was in this village, several years ago, a miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a leprosy, as far as we are aware, of a singular kind, since it affected only the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring and fall, and left the skin so thin and tender that neither his hands nor 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. 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. We knew his parents, neither of whom were lepers ; his father, in particular, lived to be far ad- vanced in years. In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among mankind. The Israelites seem to have been OF SELBORNE. 247 greatly afflicted with it from the most remote times as appears from the peculiar and repeated injunc- tions given them in the Levitical law.* Nor was the rancour of this dreadful 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 pre- vailed all over Europe ; and our forefathers were by no means exempt, as appears by the large pro- vision made for objects labouring under this calam- ity. There was a hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in London and Southwark, and perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities. More- over, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed large legacies to such poor people as languished under this hopeless infirmity. It must therefore, in these days, be, to a humane and thinking person, a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction, when he contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated, and observes that a leper is now 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 small- er 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 centu- ries ago, before there were any enclosures, sown- grasses, field-turnips, field-carrots, or hay, all the * See Leviticus, chap xiii. and »▼. 248 NATURAL HISTORY cattle that had grown fat in summer, and were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months, so that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring. Hence the marvellous account of the vast stores of salted flesh found in the larder of the eldest Spencer,* in the days of Edward the Second, even so late in the spring as the 3d of May. It was from magazines like these that the turbulent barons supported in idleness their riotous swarms of retainers, ready for any disorder or mischief. But agriculture has now arrived at such a pitch of perfection, that our best and fattest meats are kill- ed in the winter; and no man needs eat salted flesh, unless he prefer it, that has money to buy fresh. One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish con- sumed by the commonalty at all seasons, as well as in Lent, which our poor now would hardly be per- suaded to touch. The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid or 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 eruptions. The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found among ail ranks of people in the south, in- stead 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. OF SELBORNE. 249 a little to the sweetening their blood and correcting their juices ; for the inhabitants of mountainous dis- tricts to this day are still liable to cutaneous disor- ders, from a wretchedness and poverty of diet. As to the produce of a garden, every middle- aged person of observation may perceive, within his own memory, both in town and country, how vastly the consumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now support multitudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer, also, has his garden, which is half his support as well as his delight ; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, pease, and greens for their hinds to eat with their bacon; and those few that do not are despised for their sordid parsimony, and looked upon as regardless of the welfare of their dependants. Potatoes have prevailed in this little district, by means of pre- miums, 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 cultiva- tion of gardens was little attended to. The religi- ous, being men of leisure, and keeping up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the first people among us who had gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection, within the walls of their abbeys* and * " In monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however dimly. In them the men of business were formed for the state. The art of writing was cultivated by the monks ; they were the only proficients in mechanics, gardening, and ar- chitecture."— See Dalryuplb's Annals of Scotland. 250 NATURAL HISTORY priories. The barons neglected every pursuit that did not lead to war or tend to the pleasure of the chase. It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticulture themselves that the knowledge of gar- dening 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 corrobo- rates what has been advanced above ; for we find him observing, so late as his days, that " the Ital- ians used several herbs for salads which are not yet or have not been but lately used in England, viz., selleri (celery), which is nothing else but the sweet smallage, the young shoots whereof, with a little of the head of the root cut off, they eat raw with oil and pepper." And farther he adds, " curled endive blanched is much used beyond seas, and for a raw salad seemed to excel lettuce itself." Now this journey was undertaken no longer ago than in the year 1663. LETTER XXXIV. Selborne, Feb. 12, 177a Dear Sir, " Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido, Dixerat, ecquis adest? et, adest, responderat echo. Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes ; Voee, veni, clauaat magna. Vocat ilia vocantem." OF SELBORNE. 251 In a district so diversified as this, so full of hol- low 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 tuneable 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 com- pany 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, repeat- ing his trials in several languages, and finding his respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned the deception. This echo, in an evening before rural noises cease, would repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of " Tityre, tu patulae recubans" were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first ; and there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at midnight, when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one or two syllables more might have been obtained ; but the distance rendered so late an experiment very in- convenient. Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when we came to try its powers in slow, heavy, em- barrassed spondees of the same number of syllables, "Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens," we could perceive a return but of four or five. 252 NATURAL HISTORY 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 va- rious experiments, in the stone-built, tiled hopkiln in Gaily Lane, which measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to the eaves twelve feet. The true centrwn 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 partway. In this case there is no choice of distance ; but the path, by mere contin- gency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below the object. We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exactness, and found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's rule for distinct articulation ; for the doctor, in his History of Oxfordshire, allows one hundred and twenty feet for the return of each syl- lable distinctly ; hence this echo, which gives ten distinct syllables, ought to measure four hundred yards, or one hundred and twenty feet to each syl- lable ; 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 op selborne. 253 acknowledged that this candid philosopher was convinced afterward that some latitude must be ad« mitted of in the distance of echoes according to time and place. When experiments of this sort are making, it should always be remembered that weather and the time of day have a vast influence on an echo ; for a dull, heavy, moist air deadens and clogs the sound, and hot sunshine renders the air thin and weak, and deprives it of all its springiness, and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole. In a still, clear, dewy evening, the air is most elastic, and perhaps the later the hour the more so. Echo has always been so amusing to the imagi- nation 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 coricava pulsu Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago." This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by the philosophers of these days, espe- cially 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 254 NATURAL HISTORY hear, yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful I deny, because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, where the echoes are very strong ; for this village is another Anathoth, a place of re- sponses or echoes. Besides, it does not appear from experiment that bees are in any way capable of being affected by sounds ; for I have often tried my own with a large speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such an exertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and still these insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and without showing the least sensibility or resentment. Some time since its discovery this echo is be- come totally silent, though the object or hopklin re- mains : nor is there any mystery in the defect, for the field between is planted as a hopgarden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when the poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is the same, because a tail quickset hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of shel- ter to the hopground, entirely interrupts the im- pulse and repercussion of the voice ; so that, till those obstructions are removed, no more of its gar- rulity 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 a hill, OF SELBORNE. 255 with a like rising opposite to it, at a few hundred yards' distance ; and perhaps success might be the easier ensured could some canal, lake, or stream intervene. From a seat at the centrum phonicum he and his friends might amuse themselves some- times of an evening with the prattle of this loqua- cious 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." The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the fol- lowing lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically accounting for their causes from popular superstition : " Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola Saxa pareis f'ormas verborum ex ordine reddant, Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos Quaerimus, et magna dispersos voce ciemus. Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. Haec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur; Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum ; Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans, Cnco saepe labro calamos pereurrit hianteis, Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam." Lucretius, lib. iv., 1. 576. 256 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER XXXV. Selborne, May 13, 1778. Dear Sir, — Among the many singularities at- tending those amusing birds, the swifts, I am now confirmed in the opinion that we have every year the same number of pairs invariably ; at least the result of my inquiry has been exactly the same for a long time past. The swallows and martins are so numerous, and so widely distributed over the village, that it is hardly possible to recount them ; while the swifts, though they do not all build in the church, yet so frequently haunt it, and play and rendezvous around it, that they are easily enumer- ated. 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 — yearly in- crease to eight pairs more, what becomes annu- ally 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 the sud- den reverse of affection, that strange avTioropyi), 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 dis- trict would be crowded with inhabitants, while others would be destitute and forsaken. But the parent birds seem to maintain a jealous superiority, OF SELBORNE. 257 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 swallow and house-martin 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 re- turning bear no manner of proportion to the num- bers retiring. LETTER XXXVI. Selborne, June 2, 1778. Dear Sir, — The standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without im- proving the mind or advancing any real knowledge ; and, where the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wi- ping off this aspersion should be by no means con- tent with a list of names ; he should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of ve- getation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation, and graft the gardener, the planter, and the hus- bandman 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, Y2 258 NATURAL HISTORY and in itself is of the utmost consequence to man- kind, and productive of many of the greatest com- forts and elegances of life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, &c. : what not only strengthens our hearts and ex- hilarates our spirits, but what secures us from in- clemencies of the weather and adorns our persons. Man, in his true state of nature, seems to be sub- sisted by spontaneous vegetation ; in middle climes, where grasses prevail, he mixes some animal food with the produce of the field and garden ; and it is towards the polar extremes only that, like his kin- dred, 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 upon his own species.* The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on the commerce of nations, and have been the great promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, pepper, &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 ac- quainted with those that are useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet * See the late voyages to the South Seas. OF SELBORNE. 259 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 suc- culent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. The study of grasses would be of great conse- quence to a northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could improve the sward of the dis- trict where he lived would be a useful member of society : to raise a thick turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge ; and he would be the best commonwealth's man that could occasion the growth of " two blades of grass where one alone was seen before." LETTER XXXVII. Selbome, July 3, 1778. Dear Sir, — In a district so diversified with such •a variety of hill and dale, aspects and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheepwalks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields, cannot but furnish an ample flora. The deep rocky lanes abound with Jilices, and the pastures and moist woods with fungi. If in any branch of botany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants, which are not to be expected on a spot far removed from rivers, and lying up amid the hill-country at the springheads. To enumer- ate all the plants that have been discovered within 260 NATURAL HISTORY our limits would be a needless work ; but a short list of the more rare, and the spots where they are to be found, may neither be unacceptable nor un- entertaining. Helleborus foetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's, foot or setterwort : all over the Highwood and Coney-croft Hanger ; this continues a great branch- ing plant the winter through, blossoming about January, and is very ornamental in shady walks and shrubberies. The good women give the leaves powdered to children troubled with worms ; but it is a violent remedy, and ought to be administered with caution. Helleborus viridis, green hellebore : in the deep stony lane, on the left hand, just before the turning to Norton farm, and at the top of Middle Dorton under the hedge ; this plant dies down to the ground early in autumn, and springs again about February, flowering almost as soon as it appears above ground. Vaccinium oxy coccus, creeping bilberries, or cran- berries : in the bogs of Bin's Pond. Vaccinium Myrtillus, whortle, or bilberries : on the dry hillocks of VVolmer Forest. Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sundew: in the bogs of Bin's Pond. Drosera longifolia, long-leaved sundew : in the bogs of Bin's Pond. Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh cinque. foil : in the bogs of Bin's Pond. Hypericum androscemum, Tutsan, St. John's- wort : in the stony, hollow lanes. Vinca minor, less periwinkle : in Selborne Hang- er and Shrub Wood. OF SELBORNE. 261 Monatropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or bird's.nest : in Selborne Hanger, under the shady- beeches, to whose roots it seems to be parasitical, at the northwest end of the Hanger. Chlora perfoliata, Blackstonia perfoliata, Hud' soni, perfoliated yellow-wort : on the banks in the King's Field. Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true-love, or one- berry : in the Church Litten Coppice. Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite-leaved golden saxifrage : in the dark and rocky hollow lanes. Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian, or fell- wort : on the Zigzag and Hanger. Lathrcea squammaria, tooth-wort : in the Church Litten Coppice, under some hazels near the foot- bridge, in Trimming's garden hedge, and on the dry wall opposite Grange Yard. Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel ; in the Short and Long Lith. Lathyrus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathy- rus : 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, bird's-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 laureola, spurge laurel : in Selborne Hanger and the High Wood. Daphne mezereum, the mezereon ; in Selborne P2 262 NATURAL HISTORY Hanger, among the shrubs at the southeast end, above the cottages. Lycoperdon tuber, truffles : in the Hanger and High Wood. Sambucus ebulus, dwarf elder, walwort, or dane- wort : among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory. Of all the propensities of plants, none seem more strange than their different periods of blossoming. Some produce their flowers in the winter, or very first dawnings of spring ; many when the spring is established ; some at Midsummer, and some not till Autumn. When we see the helleborus foztidus and helleborus niger blowing at Christmas, the hel- leborus hyemalis in January, and the helleborus vi- ridis as soon as ever it emerges out of the ground, we do not wonder, because they are kindred plants that we expect should keep pace the one with the other ; but other congenerous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flowering that we cannot but admire. I shall only instance at present in the crocus sativus, the vernal and the autumnal crocus, which have such an affinity that the best botanists only make them varieties of the same genus, of which there is only one species, not being able to discern any difference in the corolla or in the in- ternal structure. Yet the vernal crocus expands its flowers by the beginning of March at farthest, and often in very rigorous weather, and cannot be retarded but by some violence offered ; while the autumnal (the saffron) defies the influence of the spring and summer, and will not blow till most plants begin to fade and run to seed. This circum* stance is one of the wonders of the creation, little OF SELBORNE. 263 noticed because a common occurrence ; yet ought not to be overlooked on account of its being famil- iar, since it would be as difficult to be explained as the most stupendous phenomenon in nature. " Say, what impels, amid surrounding snow Congeal'd, the crocus' flamy bud to glow? Say, what retards, amid the summer's blaze, Th' autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days? The God of Seasons, whose pervading power Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower : He bids each flower his quickening word obey, Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay." LETTER XXXVIII. 11 Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique genere incessus est ; aves sola? vario meatu feruntur, et in terra, et in aere." — Plin., Hist. Nat., lib. x., cap. 38. Selborne, Aug. 7, 1778. Dear Sir, — A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape, on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. For though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judicious observ- er to pronounce upon them with some certainty. Put a bird in motion " Et vera incessu patuit." Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings expanded and motionless ; and it is from their gliding manner that the former are still called in the north of England gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan, to glide. The kestrel, or windhover, 264 NATURAL HISTORY 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 set- ting-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 frolicsome manner ; crows and daws swagger in their walk ; woodpeckers fly volatu undoso, open- ing and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which incline downward, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all other hooked-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and descending with ridiculous caution. All the gal- Una 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 despatch : herons seem encumbered with too much sail for their light bodies ; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burdens, such as large fishes, and the like ; pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings OF SELBORNE. 265 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 move- ments peculiar to the seasons ; thus ring-doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang about on the wing in a playful manner ; thus the cock snipe, 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 kingfisher darts along like an ar- row ; fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a meteor ; starlings, as it were, swim along, while missel-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions ; swifts dash round in circles ; and the bank-martin moves with frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small birds fly by jerks, rising and fall- ing 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 titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent. The whitethroat 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 Tringse, wild ducks, and some others, are very long, and give their wings, when in rltetion, a hook- Z 266 NATURAL HISTORY ed appearance. Dab-chicks, moor-hens, and coots fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and hardly make any despatch ; the reason is plain, their wings are placed too forward out of the true centre of gravity, as the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward. LETTER XXXIX. Selborne, Sept. 9, 1778. Dear Sir, — From the motion of birds, the tran- sition is natural enough to their notes and language, of which 1 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 de- lighting in conquest and devastation ; but I would be thought only to mean that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted to express their various passions, wants, and feelings, such as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally eloquent ; some are copious and fluent, as it were, in their utter- ance, while others are confined to a few important sounds ; no bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent. The language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical; little is said, but much is meant and understood. The notes of the eagle kind are shrill and pier- cing, and, about the season of nidification, much di- *#ee Spectator, vol. vii., No. 512. OF SELBORNE. 267 versified, 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 mates : they use also a quick call and a 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 sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous ; rooks, in the hatching season, attempt sometimes, in the gayety of their hearts, to sing, but with no great success ; the parrot kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds ; doves coo in a mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers ; the woodpecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till daybreak, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their complacency by sweet modulations and a variety of melody. The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill alarm, bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids them be aware that the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, especially the noc- turnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loquacious ; as cranes, wild geese, wild ducks, and the like ; their perpetual clamour pre- vents them from dispersing and losing their com- panions. 268 NATURAL HISTORY In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as much as can be expected, for it would be endless to instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation. We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known, and, therefore, best understood. And, first, the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our attention ; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the ear : the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like and clanking, and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave his- torians assert : the hiss also of the gander is for- midable and full of menace, and " protective of his young." Among ducks the 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 the hen 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 announ- ces the enemy with a little inward moan, and watches him with a steady and attentive look ; but if he approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled. No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of expression and so copious a language as common poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize its prey OF SELBORNE. 269 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 in- timates 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 hens immediately adopt. The tu- mult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead within hearing, till at last the whole vil- lage is in an uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a mother, her new relation demands a new language : she runs clucking 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 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 affectionate 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 fagot-pile and the end of his house to the place where the coops stood. The Z2 270 NATURAL HISTORY owner, inwardly vexed to see his flock thus dimin- ishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and the house, into which the caitiff dashed and was entangled. Resentment suggested the law of retaliation ; he therefore clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood hens. Imagi- nation cannot paint the scene that ensued ; the ex- pressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired were new, or, at least, such as had been unnoticed before. The exasperated matrons upbraided, they execra- ted, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in a hundred pieces.* * 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 would be expected. Thus my neighbour's poultry watch for wagons loaded with wheat, and, running after them, pick up a number of grains which are sha- ken 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 gallina? to roost on high is very observable, and discovers a strong dread impressed on their spirits respecting vermin that may annoy them on the ground during the hours of darkness. Hence poultry, if left to themselves and not housed, will perch, the winter through, on yew-trees and fir-trees; and turkeys and guinea-fowls, heavy as they are, get up into apple-trees ; pheasants also, in woods, sleep on trees to avoid foxes ; while peafowls climb to the tops of the highest trees round their owner's house for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having the faculty of perching ; but then the same fear prevails in their minds ; for, through apprehen- sions from polecats and stoats, they never trust themselves to coverts, but nestle together in the midst of large fields, far re- moved 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 OF SELBORNE. 271 LETTER XL. Selborne. " ******** Monstrent ********** Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles Hyberni ; vel qua* tardis mora noctibus obstet." Gentlemen who have outlets might contrive to make ornament subservient to utility ; a pleasing eyetrap might also contribute to promote science ; an obelisk in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and a heliotrope. Any person that is curious, and enjoys the ad- vantage of a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes, the one for the win- ter, the other for the summer solstice ; and these two erections might be constructed with very little expense, for two pieces of timber framework 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 com- mon sitting parlour, because men, at that dead sea- son 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 them to settle on trees ; they therefore, in the hours of darkness and danger, betake themselves to their own element, the water, where, amid large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float the whole night long in peace and security. — White's Observations on Birds. 272 NATURAL HISTORY makes to the northward at the season of the long- est 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 disk of the sun, at the longest day, might exactly, at set- ting, 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 disk advancing, at its setting, to the westward of the object ; and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring back- ward every evening, at its setting, towards the ob- ject 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 disk 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 fol- lowing. When beginning its recess from the sum, mer 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. OF SELBORNE. 273 LETTER XL I. Selborne. " * * * * Mugire videbis ■ Sub pedibus terrain, et descendere montibus ornos." When I was a boy I used to read, with astonish- ment and implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mount- ains. John Philips, in his Cider, alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the Splendid Shilling. " I nor advise, nor reprehend, the choice Of Marclay Hill ; the apple nowhere 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 Forsaking, 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 jour- neyed 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 hap- pened not long since, justifies our suspicions ; which, though it befell not within the limits of this parish, yet as it was within the hundred of Sel- 274 NATURAL HISTORY borne, and as the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature. The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain, so that by the end of the latter month the land-springs or levants began to prevail, and to be near as high as in the memo- rable winter of 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenour, when, in the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a consider- able part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and fell down, leaving a high freestone cliff naked and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped and under- mined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going down in a perpendicular direction ; for a gate which stood in the field on the top of the hill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position as to open and shut with great exactness, just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still standing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below is plain also from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free and unencumbered, but would have been buried in heaps of rubbish had the fragment parted and fallen forward. About a hundred yards from the foot of this hanging coppice stood a cot- tage 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 OF SELBORNE. 275 inhabited by an old woman, her son, and his wife. These people, in the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchen began to heave and part, and that the walls seemed to open and the roofs to crack ; but they all agree that no tremour of the ground indi- cating an earthquake was ever felt, only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhab- itants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the ut- most solicitude and confusion, expecting every mo- ment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered edifices. When daylight came, they were at lei- sure 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 suf- fered in a similar manner ; that a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa ; that many large oaks were removed out of their perpen- dicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees ; and that a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the cliff the general course of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted in every direction, as well to- wards 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 276 NATURAL HISTORY side, which was strangely torn and disordered. The second pasture-field, being more soft and springy, was protruded forward without many fis- sures in the turf, which was raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the mo- tion. 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, con- cealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more ; so that the total length of this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violent convulsion ; two houses were entirely destroyed ; one end of a new barn was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock ; and some grass-grounds and an arable field so bro- ken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time neither fit for the plough nor safe for pastu- rage, till considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures. OF SELBORNE. 277 LETTER XLII. Selborne. " Resonant arbusta." There is a steep, abrupt pasture-field, inter- spersed with furze, close to the back of this village, well known by the name of the Short Lithe, con- sisting of a rocky, dry soil, and inclining to the af- ternoon sun. This spot abounds with the gryllus campestris, or field -cricket,* which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many other counties. As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the economy of these grylli, and study their mode of life ; but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy matter to get a sight of them ; for, feeling a person's footsteps as he ad- vances, they stop short in the midst of their song, and retire backward nimbly into their burrows, where they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over. At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade, but without any great success ; for either we could not get to the bottom of the hole, which often terminated under a great stone ; or else, in breaking up the ground, we inadvertently squeezed the poor insect to death. 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 * Acheta campestris, Fabricius. Aa 278 NATURAL HISTORY black, with a golden stripe across his shoulders ; the latter is more dusky, and carries a long sword, shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is the instrument with which she deposites her eggs in crannies and safe receptacles. Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will often succeed ; and so it proved in the present case ; for, though a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant, and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it. It is remarkable, that though these insects are furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers, yet when driven from their holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken ; and again, though provided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of rivalry and emulation ; it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the other. They are solitary beings, living singly male or female, each as it may happen. 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 knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks would seize on any that were obtruded upon them with a vast row of serrated fangs. With their strong jaws, toothed OF SELBORNE. 279 like the shears of a lobster's claws, they perforate and round their curious regular cells, having no fore-claws to dig like the mole-cricket. When taken in hand I could not but wonder that they never offered to defend themselves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscriminately, and on a little platform which they make just by they drop their dung, and never in the daytime 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 still hours of darkness, may be heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning of the season their notes are more faint and inward, but become louder as the summer advances, and so die away again by degrees. Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweetness and melody, nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are more apt to be capti- vated or disgusted with the associations which thev promote than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp and strid- ulus, yet marvellously delights some hearers, fill- ing their minds with a train of summer ideas of ev- erything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous. About the 10th of March the crickets appear at the mouths of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape very elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that season were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments of wings lying under b, 280 NATURAL HISTORY skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect can arrive at its perfect state,* from whence I should suppose that the old ones of last year do not always survive the winter. In August their holes begin to be obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till spring. Not many summers ago I endeavoured to trans- plant a colony to the terrace in my garden, by bo- ring deep holes in the sloping turf. The new in- habitants 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. LETTER XLIII. Selborne. Dear Sir, — " Far from all resort of mirth Save the cricket on the hearth." Milton's II Penseroso. While many other insects must be sought after in fields, and wood, and waters, the gryllus domes. * We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seen lying at the mouths of their holes. OP SELBORNE. 281 Ucus, 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 be- tween the joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communications from one room to another. They are particularly fond of kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of their perpetual warmth.* Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold, uncomfortable months in profound slum- bers ; but these, residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert and merry ; a good Christ- mas fire is to them like the heats of the dogdays. 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 * 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 es- cape to their crannies and lurking holes, to avoid danger. A a2 282 NATURAL HISTORY 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 propensity for liquids, being found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. Whatever is moist they affect ; and, therefore, often gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire ; they are the housewife's barometer, foretelling her when it will rain ; and are prognostics sometimes, she thinks, of ill or good luck ; of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary hours, they naturally become the objects of her superstition. These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious ; for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread, and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have observed them to fly, when it became dusk, out of the windows and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts for the sud- den manner in which they often leave their haunts, as it does for the method by which they come to houses where they were not known before. It is remarkable that many sorts of insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters and settle new colonies. When in the air they move volatu undoso, in waves or curves, like woodpeckers, opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so are always ri- sing 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 OF SELBORNE. 283 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, play- ing with them as they do with mice, devour them. Crickets may be destroyed like wasps, by vials half filled with beer or any liquid, and set in their haunts ; for, being always eager to drink, they will crowd in till the bottles are full. LETTER XL IV. 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 va- rious than their propensities. Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny, dry banks, and the house-cricket rejoices amid the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the gryllus gryllotalpa (the mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, perform- ing 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. * Exod., viii., 3. 284 NATURAL HISTORY 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 de- stroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and flowers. When dug out, they seem very slow and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day, but at night they come abroad and make long excursions, as I have been convinced by finding stragglers in a morning in improbable places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption, and not unlike the chat- tering of the fern-owl or goat-sucker, but more in- ward. About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once an eyewitness ; for a gardener at a house where I was on a visit happening to be mow- ing on the 6th of that month by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy : " Ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram : Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : Apparent ***** penetralia." There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff- box. Within the secret nursery were deposited near a hundred eggs, of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin. The eggs lay but shaL OF SELBORNE. 285 low, and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh-moved mould, like that which is raised by ants. When mole-crickets fly they move cursu undoso, rising and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts of this king- dom people call them fern-crickets, churr-worms, and eve-churrs, all very apposite names. Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects, astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the two former species ruminate, or chew the cud like many quadrupeds ! LETTER XLV. Selborne, May 7, 1779. It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject : new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive. In the last week of last month, five of those most rare birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by the terms of Himantopus, or loripes, and charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the verge of Frimsham Pond, a large lake belonging to the Bishop of Win- chester, and lying between Wolmer Forest and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The 286 NATURAL HISTORY 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 be- holder : they were legs in caricatura ; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or a Japan screen, we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and might with propriety be called the stilt-plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the apposite name of Vechasse. My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the legs four inches and a half. Hence we may safely assert that these birds ex- hibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the OF SELBORNE. 287 himantopus ; for a cock flamingo weighs, at an av* erage, about four pounds avoirdupois, and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty inches* But four pounds are fifteen times and a fraction more than four ounces and a 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 in- crease. It must be a matter of great curiosity to see the stilt-plover move ; to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with such feeble mus- cles as the thighs seem to be furnished with. At best one should expect it to be but a bad walker : but what adds to the wonder is, that it has no back toe. Now, without that steady prop to support its steps, it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true centre of gravity. The old name of hi?nanlopus 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 Wilfoughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn ; 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 288 NATURAL HISTORY 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 strag- glers, and impelled to make so distant and northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which we are not able to account. One thing may fairly be deduced, that these birds come over to us from the Continent, since nobody can suppose that a species not noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkable make, can constantly be unobserved in this kingdom. LETTER XLVI. Selbome, April 21, 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 re- sentments 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 al- ready, that towards the time of coming forth, it OF SELBORNE. 289 opens a breathing-place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration as it be- comes 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 at ev- ery 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 Provi- dence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that ap- pears 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 junc- ture, 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 coinci- dence ! a very amusing occurrence ! to see such a similarity of feeling between two (pepeoutoi ! for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and the tor- toise. Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually late : I have seen but one swal- low yet. This conformity with the weather con- vinces me more and more that they sleep in the winter. Bb 290 NATURAL HISTORY MORE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY TORTOISE. Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to undervalue his abilities, and de- preciate his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord, " Much too wise to walk into a well," and has so much discernment as not to fall down an haha, but to stop and withdraw from the brink with the readiest precaution. Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot sun, because his thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poet says of solid armour, "scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amid the waving forests of an asparagus bed. But, as he avoids the heat in 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 embar- rassed reptile : to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour which he cannot lay aside ; to be impris- oned, as it were, within his own shell, must pre- clude, we should suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a season of the year * Several years ago a book was written, entitled, "Fruit- walls Improved by inclining them to the Horizon," in which the author has shown, by calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on such walls than on those which are perpendicular. OF SELBORNE. 291 (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 wan- dered to some distant field. LETTER XLVII. Selborne, Sept. 3, 1781. I have now read your Miscellanies through with much care and satisfaction, and am to return you my best thanks for the honourable mention made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish I may deserve. In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the house-martins do not depart in the winter far from this village. I therefore determin- ed to make some search about the southeast end of the hill, where I imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable months of winter. But, suppo- sing that the examination would be made to the best advantage in the spring, and observing that no martins had appeared by the 11th of April last, on that day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot. The persons took pains, but without any success; however, a 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 292 NATURAL HISTORY 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, nor till the 16th of April, and then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late this year. LETTER XLVIII. Selborne, Sept. 9, 1781. I have just met with a circumstance respecting swifts which furnishes an exception to the whole tenour of my observations ever since 1 have be- stowed any attention on that species of hirundines. Our swifts in general withdrew this year about the 1st 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 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 fledged, and now put out their white chins from a crevice. These remained till the 27th, looking more alert every day, and seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they were missing at once ; nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently do. On the 31st I caused the eaves to be searched, but we found in the nest only two callow, dead swifts, on which a second nest had been formed. This double nest was full OF SELBORNE. 293 of the black shining cases of the hippobosca hirun- dinis. The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. The first is, that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to remain beyond the begin- ning 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 have but one regularly ; since, was the contrary the case, the occurrence above could neither be new nor rare. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, in 1782, so late as the 3d of September. LETTER XL IX. 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 ob- served that one particular part of a vine, growing on the walls of mv house, was covered in the au- tumn with a black dust-like appearance, on which the flies fed eagerly, and that the shoots and leaves thus affected did not thrive, nor did the fruit ripen. To this substance I applied my glasses, but could not discover that it had anything to do with animal life, as I at first expected ; but, on a closer exam- ination behind the larger boughs, we were sur- prised to find that they were coated over with husky shells, from whose sides proceeded a cotton. Bb2 294 NATURAL HISTORY like substance, surrounding a multitude of eggs. This curious and uncommon production put me upon recollecting what I have heard and read con- cerning the coccus vitis viniferce of Linnaeus, which in the south of Europe infests many vines, and is a horrid and loathsome pest. As soon as I had turned to the accounts given of this insect, I saw at once that it swarmed on my vine, and did not appear to have been at all checked by the prece- ding 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 for- merly 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 hence 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 maintain- ing their existence till they fall into a nidus proper for their support and increase, I cannot but suspect still that these cocci came to me originally from Andalusia. Yet all the while candour obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot has written me word that he once, and but once, saw these insects on a vine at Weymouth, in Dorsetshire, which it is here to be observed is a seaport town, to which the coc- cus 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 OP SELBORNE. 295 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 sud- denly overspread, on all the woody branches, with large lumps of a white fibrous substance resem- bling spiders' webs, or, rather, raw cotton. It was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to every, thing that touched it, and capable of being spun into long threads. At first I suspected it to be the product of spiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be seen connected with it but many brown oval husky shells, which by no means looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set when this pest appeared upon it, but the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul encum- brance. It remained all the summer, still increas- ing, and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled off great quanti. ties 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 after- ward of M. de Reaumur, I found this matter per- fectly described and accounted for. Those husky shells which I had observed were no other than the female coccus, from whose sides this cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering and se- curity 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 296 NATURAL HISTORY male is a winged insect. Though the utmost se- verity of our winter did not destroy these insects, yet the attention of the gardener in a summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from this filthy annoyance. As we have remarked above that insects are often conveyed from one country to another in a very unaccountable manner, I shall here mention an emigration of small aphides, which was observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago than Au- gust the 1st, 1785. At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which was very hot, the people of this village were surprised by a shower of aphides, or smother- flies, which fell in these parts. Those that were walking in the street at that juncture found them- selves 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 ob- served, at the same time, in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the lane from Farnham to Alton.* * For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, see Derham's Physico- Theology. OF SELBORNE. 297 LETTEE "L. 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, be- cause 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 predominates by its own 298 NATURAL HISTORY 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. That they are best pleased with such jejune diet may easily be confuted, since if you toss them crumbs they will seize them with great readiness, not to say greediness : however, bread should be given sparingly, lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed on the water-plant called lemna (duck's meat), and also on small fry. When they want to move a little they gently protrude themselves with their pinnce pectorales ; but it is with their strong muscular tails only that they, and all fishes, shoot along with such incon- ceivable rapidity. It has been said that the eyes of fishes are immovable ; but these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets, as their occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support whereon the bowl is hung, especially when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open. Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl OF SELB0RNE. 299 containing such fishes : the double refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours ; while the two mediums, as- sisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly ; not to mention that the introduction of another element and its in- habitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner. Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and Japan, yet are become so well recon- ciled 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 gold- finch 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." 300 NATURAL HISTORY LETTER LI. Oct. 10, 1781. Dear Sir, — I think I have observed before that much the most considerable part of the house-mar- tins 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 be- fore they retired to rest, and was much pleased to find that, for several evenings together, just at a quarter past five in the afternoon, they all scudded away in great haste towards the southeast, and darted down among the low shrubs above the cot- tages at the end of the hill. This spot in many re- spects seems to be well calculated for their winter residence, for in many parts it is as steep as the OP SELBORNE. 301 roof of any house, and therefore secure from the annoyances of water ; and it is, moreover, clothed with beechen shrubs, which, being stunted and bit- ten by sheep, make the thickest covert imaginable, and are so entangled as to be impervious to the smallest spaniel ; besides, it is the nature of under- wood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter, so that, with the leaves on the ground and those on the twigs, no shelter can be more complete. I watched them on the 13th and 14th of October, and found their evening retreat was exact and uniform, but after this they made no regular appearance. Now and then a straggler was seen, and on the 22d 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 3d of No- vember 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, Cc 302 NATURAL HISTORY it would appear that they never depart three hun- dred yards from the village. LETTER LI I. They who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which in some instances raises the brute creation, as it were, above reason, and in others leaves them so far below it. Philosophers have 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 con- form to the circumstances of place and convenience. It has been remarked that every species of bird has a mode of nidification peculiar to itself, so that a schoolboy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him. This is the case among fields, and woods, and wilds ; but in the villages round London^ where mosses, and gossamer, and cotton from vegetables are hardly to be found, the nest of the chaffinch has not that elegant finished appear- ance, nor is it so beautifully studded with lichens, as in a more rural district ; and the wren is obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little architect. OF SELBORNE. 303 Again, the regular nest of the house-martin is hemispheric ; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to the obstruction, and becomes flat, or oval, or compressed. In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and consistent. There are three creatures, the squirrel, the field-mouse, and the bird called the nuthatch (sitta Europcea), which live much on hazel- nuts, and yet they open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end, splits the shell into two with his long fore teeth, as a man does with his knife ; the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, as regular as if drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it ; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill ; but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman, he fixes it, as it were in a vice, in some cleft of a tree or in some crevice, when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in the chink of a gatepost where nuthatches 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 prac- tical part of music, may best inform us why har- mony or melody should so strangely affect some men, as it were by recollection, for days after a concert is over. What I mean the following pas- sage will most readily explain : " Prsehabebat porrb vocibus humanis, instrument. 304 NATURAL HISTORY isque harmonieis, musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica humana relinqueretur in animo continens quaedam, attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitatio : dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illae sonorum et consonantiarum, euntque, redeunt- que per phantasiam : cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quae, quod non sunt perin- de a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere." — Gassendus, in Vitd Pei- reskii.* 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 espe- cially at first waking, which, by their importunity, give me more uneasiness than pleasure: elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur irre- sistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters. "* But to vocal and instrumental music he preferred that of birds; not from being incapable of finding delight in the other also, but because human music leaves in the mind a continual agitation, which disturbs both attention and sleep, owing to those risings, fallings, tenors, and variations of sounds and harmony passing and repassing continually through the imagination; whereas no such effect can be left from the modulations of birds, because these modulations, not being equally imitable by us, cannot affect our internal faculties in the same degree. OF SELBORNE. 305 LETTER LI 1 1. 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 whitethroat, 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, put- ting 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 grassplats and mown walks. One of my neighbours, an intelligent and ob- serving 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 drawn by the twit- tering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and by their weight pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Re- peated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food ; and, though they may not re- Cc2 306 NATURAL HISTORY tire 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 Wolmer Forest sent me a * Swallows, congregating and disappearance of, from Miscel- laneous Observations : " During the severe winds that often prevail late in spring, it is not easy to say how the hirundines subsist, for the withdraw- ing themselves is hardly ever seen; nor do any insects appear for their support. That they can retire, to rest and sleep away those 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 to- gether. " September 13, 1791. The congregating flocks of hirundines on the church and tower are very beautiful and amusing. When they fly off together on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air ; but they soon settle into heaps, and preening their feathers, and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem high- ly 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, above four hun- dred in number ; but there are other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time. " It is remarkable, that though most of them sit on the battle- ments and roof, yet many hang there 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.