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ALVMNVS BOOK FVND

THE

NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES

SELBORNE,

THE COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON.

foitl) C^ngrabtngg,

1837.

cimwitK PRKSS:

C. \\ II 1 1 I IM.IM M, COLI.ECE HOUSK.

THE

« NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES

S E L B O R N E.'

BY THE

REV. GILBERT WHITE, M.

THE NATURALIST'S CALENDAR;

AND MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS,

EXTRACTED FROM HIS PAPERS.

WITH NOTES, BY EDWARD TURNER BENNETT, ESQ.

F.L.S. ETC. SECRETARY OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY;
AND OTHERS.

LONDON:

PniNTED FOK J. AND A. ARCH J LONGMAN AND CO.; BALDWIN AND CRADOCKJ

HATCHARD AND SON; R. SCHOI.F.Y ; J. G. AND F. RIVINGTON ;
WIIITTAKF.R AND CO.; J. DUNCAN; J. CAPESJ W. MASON ; E.HODGSON; J. BAIN

w.j. AND J. MAYNARD; J. BOHN; J. VANVOORST;

AND HOUT.STON AND SON.

ADVERTISEMENT.

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

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

Of the authenticity of the documents above-mentioned
there can be no doubt, since they consist of the identical
deeds and records that were removed to the College from
the Priory at the time of its dissolution ; and, being care-

G£

VI ADVERTISEMENT.

fully copied on the spot, may be depended on as genuine ;
and, never having been made public before, may gratify
the curiosity of the antiquary, as well as establish the
credit of the history.

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

SKLBORNE,
Jan. 1st, 1788.

BIOGRAPHICAL RECORDS

THE AUTHOR.

BACK VIEW OF THE RESIDENCE, AT SELBOIINE, OF THE REV. GILBERT WH1TI

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 re-
ceived his school-education at Basingstoke, under
the Rev. Thomas Warton, vicar of that place,
and father of those two distinguished literary
characters, Dr. Joseph War ion, master of Win-

VIII BIOGRAPHICAL RECORDS.

Chester 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 proc-
tors of the University in April, 1752. Being
of an unambitious temper, and strongly attached
to the charms of rural scenery, he early fixed
his residence in his native village, where he
spent the greater part of his life in literary occu-
pations, 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 calcu-
lated to afford. Though several occasions offered
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. He was much esteemed by a select
society of intelligent and worthy friends, to whom
he paid occasional visits. Thus his days passed,
tranquil and serene, with scarcely any other vicis-
situdes than those of the seasons, till they closed
at a mature age on June 26, 1793.

I. W.

PREFACE

TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

To the "few Biographical Records "'of GILBERT
WHITE prefixed by his nephew John to the edition
of 1802, and here reprinted, it is quite unnecessary
to add. They contain the simple annals of a good
man, contented with his station, and unambitious
of worldly honour or advantage. His refusal of
church preferment, which was so often within his
reach, arose from no distaste for the discharge of
his clerical functions, for during the last few years
of his life he officiated as curate of Selborne, and
he had previously done duty in the same capacity
in the adjoining parish of Faringdon. The*last
entry in the register of burials which precedes his
own, and precedes it only by the brief space of
three weeks, is attested by his signature; and a
baptism registered by him bears date within a fort-
night of his dissolution — proofs that the illness
under which he sank was of short duration, and
that he continued to the last zealous in the per-
formance of his sacred duties. The inscription on
his monument, which has been removed by the
pious care of his surviving relatives from the exte-
rior to the interior of the chancel, is given at p. 527
of the present edition; and "a slight heave of the
turf, ' the fifth from the wall/ with the initials and
date, <G. W. ob. 1793/ on the low footstone,

PREFACE.

marks the humble grave of the naturalist and phi-
losopher." No portrait remains to preserve the
record of his personal appearance.

Although Gilbert White lived and died a ba-
chelor, he left a numerous family of near relations ;
the number of his nephews and nieces, carefully
noted down as they came into the world, amount-
ing, as we are told, to about sixty-three, at the
time when his diary closed. Most of his imme-
diate relatives appear to have been imbued witli
a taste for the same pursuits as those to which
he was himself devoted, and which we accordingly
find them actively engaged in promoting, either
independently or in connexion with him. A brief
notice of some of them may therefore not be unac-
ceptable here.

Frequent reference is made in the succeeding
pages to the observations of his brother John, like
himself in the church, and at one period Vicar
of Blackburn in Lancashire ; but who afterwards
became resident at Gibraltar, where he made large
collections for a Natural History of the place,
from the unpublished manuscript of which an ex-
tract is given by his brother at p. 364. This gen-
tleman is mentioned by Pennant in his "Literary
Life," while speaking of his projected " Outlines
of the Globe," the fifth volume of which he states
to be " particularly rich in drawings, made by
Moses Griffith, of the birds and fishes of Gibraltar,
communicated to me by the Rev. the late Mr. John
White, long resident in that fortress."

Another brother, Thomas, (to whose observa-
tions made at his house at South Lambeth our

PREFACE. XI

author occasionally refers, but without naming
him) was a wholesale ironmonger in London ; but
quitting business with an ample fortune devoted
much of his time to literary pursuits, especially on
subjects connected with meteorology and natural
history. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society,
and author of numerous essays which appeared
in the " Gentleman's Magazine" between the years
1780 and 1790, under the signature of T. H. W.
Among these a series of articles on the trees of
Great Britain are particularly deserving of notice,
for the extensive information, good taste, and
variety of reading which they display. His mantle
has descended upon his son, Thomas Holt White,
Esq. of Enfield in Middlesex : in the " Notes on
Shakspeare" in which the father sometimes in-
dulged, we find the same spirit which induced the
son to inscribe his name on the list of commen-
tators in the variorum Shakspeare of Isaac Reid ;
and in his " Vindication of Milton from the censure
of Dr. Johnson" is contained the germ of the vigo-
rous and masterly " Review of Johnson's criticisms
on the style of Milton's English Prose," and of an
edition, truly classical, of the most perfect speci-
men of that prose, the u Areopagitica," in all the
purity of its original text, and clothed with all the
panoply of critical illustration, copious, erudite,
and profound.

A third brother, Benjamin, the publisher of the
first edition of the present work, was during much
of the latter half of the past century the principal
publisher of English books on Natural History.
On the death of Gilbert he succeeded to the estate

Xii PREFACE.

at Selborne, and transferred his business to his
second son, John, who continued it until within a
few years of the present time. From this estab-
lishment emanated, among many other important
publications, most of the works of Ellis, Pennant,
Montagu, Latham, Donovan, Andrews, the elder
Sowerby, Curtis, Lightfoot, Lambert, and Smith.
The house in which the business was carried on
was originally distinguished, according to the
fashion of the times, by the sign of the Horace's
Head, a misreading of which gave rise to a whim-
sical mistake on the part of Scopoli, who, in dedi-
cating the several plates of his "Deliciae Florae et
Faunae Insubricae" to various patrons of natural
history, inscribed one of them as published u Aus-
piciis DD. DD. Beniamini Withe, et Horatii Heal,
Bibliopol. Londinensium." It may be added, that
in his " Vitae suae Vices," published at the end of
the third and last part of the work just quoted, the
same writer enumerates among the "eruditi viri
cum quibus commercium litterarium colui," the
name of "D. Withe, ex Gibraltaria." Many pas-
sages in the present work prove how highly Scopoli
was esteemed by our author, with whose family
these circumstances, trivial as they are, serve in
some degree to connect his name.

In Gilbert White's diaries mention is also made
of a " brother Harry." He too was in the church,
and rector of Fy field, near Andover, in the county
of Hants, whence one of the letters to Daines Bar-
rington is dated, and where, as appears by various
references in the course of the volume, a series of
meteorological observations were made for com-

PREFACE. Xlll

parison with those registered at Selborne, South
Lambeth,, and Lyndon, in the county of Rutland.

The author of the observations last mentioned,,
those made at Lyndon, (which were continued for
more than half a century, and regularly published
in the " Philosophical Transactions," being com-
municated while he lived by Thomas White, who
occasionally added to them the comparative obser-
vations made by himself and his brothers,) was
Thomas Barker, brother-in-law of our author,
through marriage with his sister Ann. A brief
account of this gentleman, who was distinguished
also as a theological critic and astronomer, will be
found in the note at p, 17.

In the commencement of his tenth letter to Pen-
nant, the earliest in date of the entire series,
Gilbert White laments the want of neighbours
whose studies led them towards the pursuit of
natural knowledge. But from his continued cor-
respondence with the relatives just enumerated,
from his occasional visits to most of them, and
from the return of those visits to himself, (for his
house, although that of a bachelor, was always open
to his family and friends,) he must, in his latter
years, have felt this want much less sensibly, than at
the period when it was noted as an apology for the
slender progress which he then conceived himself
to have made in the science. Few men have the
good fortune to possess so many near connexions
engaged in pursuits so congenial with their own.

The first edition of "The Natural History and
Antiquities of Selborne" — a work destined, from
the quiet simplicity of its style, the calm benevo-

PREFACE.

lence of its spirit, and the close and accurate
observation evinced in almost every page, to be-
come more extensively popular than any other
publication on a similar subject that has yet ap-
peared— was given to the world in quarto, in 1789,
four years before the death of its amiable author.
In 1795 Dr. Aikin selected from Gilbert White's
Natural History Journals, which had been regu-
larly kept for a period of five-and-twenty years,
closing only with his death, numerous additional
observations, and compiled from the same source
a calendar of the appearances of nature, which
together formed a thin octavo volume under the
title of " A Naturalist's Calendar, with Observa-
tions in various Branches of Natural History."
The " Calendar" and " Observations" were added,
in 1802, to a reprint of the "Natural History,"
with some further extracts from the Journals, also
selected and incorporated with the previous Ob-
servations by Dr. Aikin. In this edition, in two
volumes octavo, the "Antiquities" were omitted;
many notes were added by Mr. Markwick, who
supplied a comparative Calendar founded on his
own observations ; and the " Biographical Re-
cords" of the author, which have been copied in
all subsequent reprints, were prefixed by his
nephew John, the publisher of the new edition.

A second edition in quarto of the " Natural
History" and "Antiquities" combined, together
with the " Calendar" and the enlarged " Observa-
tions," was published in 1813; and in this appeared
for the first time a few of the author's poems, of
no great critical pretensions, but strongly illus-

PREFACE. XV

trative of his benevolent disposition and observant
habits. There were also added a series of agre-
ble notes, chiefly of a classical and literary cha-
racter, by the Rev. John Mitford, of Benhall in
the county of Suffolk, the author of a Life of Gray,
and of an Essay on his Poems, prefixed to an
edition of the works of that poet, published in
1816.

In 1825, the "Antiquities" were again discarded,
and the " Natural History" with its appendages
resumed the octavo form, and again appeared in
two volumes. From this and the preceding edi-
tions have originated several reprints of a larger
or smaller portion of our author's works, (but
always omitting the " Antiquities,") which have
been edited from time to time by Sir William Jar-
dine and Captain Brown, whose notes and illus-
trations have contributed to diffuse more widely
the popularity of the original.

A new edition of the entire work, in which the
" Antiquities" again assumed their station, ap-
peared in 1833 in the same form as the present,
under the superintendence of Mr. Rennie, who
added many notes of his own to those which were
then for the first time contributed by the Hon. and
Rev. W. Herbert, and to a series of observations
by the late Mr. Sweet on the food of soft-billed
birds and their treatment in captivity, a subject to
which the attention of that able horticulturist had
long been extensively and practically directed. In
this edition several additional sketches of local
scenery were introduced, from the pencil of a gen-
tleman who had taken great interest in the publi-

XVI PREFACE.

cation ; other illustrations were also given from
drawings made by Mr. William Harvey; and a
few were contributed by Mr. W. H. Herbert, the
son of the gentleman whose notes formed so valu-
able an addition to the text.

In the course of the following year the pro-
prietors contemplating a speedy demand for a new
edition, Mr. Harvey applied on their part to my
brother to undertake its revision ; but his occupa-
tions then appeared to him to be too engrossing to
admit of his engaging in it even as a relaxation,
and he hesitated to accept the proposal. In the
summer of the next year, however, it was urgently
renewed ; and although the demands upon his time
had by no means diminished during the interval, the
harassing nature of his avocations became itself a
motive for accepting the offer, which afforded him
a justification in his own mind for obtaining a short
respite from the cares, vexations, and annoyances
of the busy and contentious world with which he
was unwillingly mixed up. His first intention
with respect to the work had been merely to give
the text a careful revision, to expunge such notes
as appeared to him to have been unnecessarily in-
troduced, and to add a few, a very few, of his own
in explanation of those passages which seemed im-
peratively to require illustration. But the altered
views with which he now undertook the publica-
tion suggested to him a visit to the scenes which
it described, both as a means of acquiring healthful
relaxation to himself, and in the hope of adding
some interesting features to the work.

It was late in October ere his engagements

PREFACE.

allowed of his visit to Selborne being accomplished.
Here the wearied spirit sought repose and found
it, not in listlessness and inactivity, but in change
of scene and of occupation ; for never were his
mind or his body more actively employed than
during his sojourn in that secluded village. The
autumn was unusually prolonged ; the-oak-covered
hills and beechen hangers of the district still re-
tained their foliage in all the varied hues of that
changeful season ; and the sudden transition from
the strife and bustle of the town to the peaceful
serenity of such scenes as those by which he was
here surrounded, rendered him peculiarly alive to
their beauties, and deeply impressed him with the
infinite superiority of the glorious works of the
Creator over the petty objects of the eager and
incessant struggles of mankind.

His letters home were filled with glowing de-
scriptions of the picturesque scenes and objects
which every where met his eye ; and his first
impulse was to request, almost to require, of
Mr. Harvey to join him at Selborne, there to de-
lineate some of the more striking features of the
district, with a view to their introduction into the
new edition of the present work. Mr. Harvey
promptly responded to the friendly call ; and toge-
ther they traversed the neighbourhood in all direc-
tions in search of curious or interesting objects,
and reaped an ample harvest in return for their
grateful toil. But it soon became evident that
the materials which they had collected were far
too extensive to be used as additions to the work
in hand, and they determined on selecting from

XV111 PREFACE.

among them such only as might fairly be appended
to it, reserving the mass for a separate publication
on " Selborne and its Vicinity/5 in the preparation
of which they eagerly and enthusiastically joined.
Landscapes of infinite variety and of surpassing
loveliness, curious and extraordinary productions
of nature, buildings of picturesque effect, and
single objects of note or interest, were sketched
by the one, and commented on by the other, until
the portfolio was literally crammed, and the utmost
limits of their time were reached.

Lured by the glowing descriptions which I
received, in company with a friend whose initials
will be found appended to many of the notes in
the present volume, 1 visited them in their retreat;
and for the brief space of three days joined them
in their excursions, participated in their enthu-
siasm, and witnessed the delighted feelings with
which they pursued their pleasing occupation. The
manifest improvement in my brother's health and
spirits made me happy in the feeling that I had
contributed to persuade him, reluctant as he was
at first to engage in it, to undertake a task which
had led to so gratifying a result. But time wore on :
his return to London could no longer be delayed,
and Selborne was quitted — not without a painful
struggle. So strong a hold had it gained on his
affections, that I felt persuaded, whenever he could
tear himself away from the busy scenes of life,
Selborne or its immediate neighbourhood would
be chosen as the spot whereon to pass the remain-
der of his days.

His first care on his return was to prepare the

PREFACE. XIX

present volume for the press : that completed, it
was his intention to have revised, corrected, and
arranged his materials for the supplementary work
above alluded to. But again drawn within the vor-
tex of conflicting passions, and compelled by his
official station to take an active part in proceedings
repugnant to his peaceful disposition, his spirits
flagged, and the completion of his purpose was
delayed until the period to which he anxiously
looked forward, when he could honourably and
without self-reproach set himself free from the
trammels in which he felt himself bound. Before
that period arrived he sank under an illness, of
short duration in itself, but of which the founda-
tions had doubtless been long previously laid. His
collections relating to u Selborne and its Vicinity"
are now in my hands, and I trust, when other
claims (claims of duty) have been fulfilled, that
those of feeling may follow as they ought in next
succession, and that I may be enabled to give
those collections to the world in a form in some
degree resembling that which he intended them to
assume.

In the present edition of the works of Gilbert
White my brother's first object was to insure the
purity of the text by a careful comparison through-
out with the original editions. From these no
deviation has been admitted, with the exception
of some half dozen sentences which the scrupulous
delicacy of a gentleman who has added much to
the interest of the work had, in the last edition,
converted into Greek, in which language, in defe-
rence to his particular request, they have been

XX PREFACE.

retained in the present. The documents connected
with the Priory of Selborne which formed the
appendix to the "Antiquities/5 and which were
omitted in the last edition, have now been replaced
in the form of notes on the passages to which they
severally refer, with the single exception of the
"Visitatio Notabilis," a document of very great
length, the partial abstract of which given by our
author is now completed, the additions being
included within brackets. A few other additions
to the "Antiquities" have also been introduced
in the text, and are distinguished in the same
manner.

No portion of the original text has been omitted,
and all the additions to the " Observations" which
have been made in the several editions have been
retained. The present volume consequently con-
tains the entire published works of Gilbert White,
with the exception of some farther selections from
his Journals, which have been lately given in the
second series of Mr. Jesse's " Gleanings in Natural
History." It is closed by a much more copious
index than had previously been subjoined, founded
on the basis of that appended to the original edi-
tion, but with very numerous additions.

Extensive additions have also been made to the
illustrations. The views of local scenery intro-
duced into the last edition have been carefully
compared by Mr. Harvey with their originals in
nature ; and others have been added by him from
sketches made during his visit. He has given
numerous figures of quadrupeds, birds, insects,
and other objects of interest, mentioned in the

PREFACE. XXI

text; and it should also be observed that Mr. Her-
bert has kindly communicated some additional
sketches illustrative of the characters of the diffe-
rent species of willow-wren, to the distinctions of
which he has paid so much attention.

Of the notes contained in the previous editions
a few have been omitted as irrelevant jor unneces-
sary. Those of Markwick and others on the
" Observations/' which had been formerly printed
as part of the text, have been reduced to their
proper station at the foot of the pages to which
they refer. Many others have been added illus-
trative of the wide range of subjects treated of by
the author ; in most cases confirming, in some few
correcting, the statements of the text, and accom-
modating it to the constantly progressive state of
natural science, of which they occasionally take a
more extended view. Of these a large proportion
are from the pen of my brother, but not a few have
been contributed by the kindness of his friends : to
all of them the initials of the writers are attached.
The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert has again drawn
largely on his stores of information connected with
ornithology and other branches of natural history;
arid Messrs. Bell, Owen, YarrelL, and G. Daniell,
(the friend to whom I have before alluded as ac-
companying me in my short visit to Selborne,)
have by their numerous notes contributed to en-
hance the zoological interest of this edition. To
each and all of these kind and estimable friends I
can but offer in my brother's name the now melan-
choly tribute of his thanks.

Those thanks are also in an especial manner

XX11 PREFACE.

due to Mrs. White, a niece of our author, and the
present representative of the family in Selborne,
and to her niece Miss Georgiana ; to both of whom
my brother was indebted during his residence in
the village for much kind assistance. By the latter
the remains of the old tortoise, so often mentioned
in the succeeding pages, were rescued from ob-
scurity, and an opportunity afforded of paying a
well-merited compliment to the memory of her
relative, by the dedication of it to his name, which
it is hoped will stand the test of future investiga-
tion. These remains, and the painting by Elmer
of the supposed hybrid pheasant, which has been
the subject of so much discussion, are almost the
only personal relics of Gilbert White that are now
preserved in his former habitation.

From two other members of the family, resident
in the immediate neighbourhood, my brother also
met with much polite attention: the Rev. Edmund
White, Vicar of Newton- Valence, who is referred
to by his uncle in the following pages as "Mr.
White of Newton," which living he held for some
years previous to his uncle's death ; and the Rev.
Thomas Bissland, Rector of Hartley Maudytt, and
author of a Volume of Sermons lately published,
who is married to a grand-niece of our author,
and takes a great interest in every thing connected
with his name.

Among the residents of Selborne to whom my
brother was particularly indebted, the Rev. W. R.
Cobbold, the present Vicar, is entitled to an espe-
cial acknowledgment for his kind and unwearied
attentions, as well as for the warm interest which

PREFACE. XX111

he took in my brother's views, and the ready zeal
with which he assisted in promoting them. From
many other inhabitants of the village and its neigh-
bourhood my brother also received numerous testi-
monies of their good feeling towards himself and
the objects which he had in view.

A month has not elapsed since I .had fondly
anticipated that this Preface would have been
written by the hand of him who prepared the
volume for the press. To the last his interest in
the work continued unabated : the corrections to
the earlier printed sheets of the " Antiquities" were
made by me at his bed-side and under his direc-
tions; and only three or four sheets remained
unrevised at the time of his death. His last in-
structions to me on any subject of worldly interest
had reference to the distribution of certain copies
of the book. I may therefore perhaps be excused for
having dwelt so long on topics of no great interest
to the world at large, and for giving way in some
degree to feelings which, although I may strive to
moderate, I cannot altogether repress. The time
may come when I may be able to write more
calmly on the subject, and when I may attempt to
pay a fitting tribute to the memory of one who
from infancy upwards was my best and truest
guide, counsellor, and friend.

I. J. B.

BULSTRODE STREET,
Sept. 15, 1836.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

THE Hermitage, in the title page.

Autograph of the Author vi

Residence of the Author, at Selborne vii

Selborne, from Dorton 1

Ostrea Carinata 12

Hollow Lane arid Bridge, near Norton 16

Approach to the Village 24

Adventure of the Dog and Hind 30

Hoopoe 47

Harvest Mice 56

Heads of the Indian Antelope 75

Wood Wren 8S

— , its quill-feathers 84

Willow Wren 85

, its quill-feathers 85

Quill-feathers of the Ching-Ching 86

of the Chiff-Chaff 87

of Temminck's Wren 88

Nest of an unknown Warbler 89

MelolonthaFullo.... 119

Eagle Owl : 128

Otter 138

Stone Curlew ... 145

Goatsucker 159

Nest and Eggs of the Lesser Whitethroat 174

East Woodhay Warbler 178

Bustard 197

Sand Martin's Colony at Oakhanger 268

Nest 269

Hawkley Slip 310

Field Cricket 347

House Cricket 350

Mole Cricket and Nest 353

Stilt Plover 356

Gilbert White's Tortoise 3CI

Peregrine Falcon 377

Hen Partridge and her Brood 433

Kanatra linearis 407

Macroglossa Stellatarum 470

Grindstone Oak in the Holt Forest 481

Seal of the Priory 513

South View of Selborne Church 521

The Vicarage House 530

Temple, in the Parish of Selborne 550

The Plestor 552

Way leading to Gracious Street 627

THE

NATURAL HISTORY

SELBORNE.

SELBORNE, FROM UORTON.

See, Sel borne spreads her boldest beauties round,
The varied valley, and the mountain ground,
Wildly majestic! What is all the pride
Of flats, with loads of ornament supplied? —
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compared with Nature's rude magnificence.

WHITE.

LETTER I.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

THE parish of SELBORNE lies in the extreme eastern
corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the
county of Sussex, and not far from the county of
Surrey ; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in
latitude 51, and near midway between the towns of
» B

2 NATURAL HISTORY

Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive,
it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in
Sussex, viz. Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from
the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes
are Erashot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley
Mauduit1, Great Ward le ham2, 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 south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising
three hundred feet above the village; and is divided
into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging
wood called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence
is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees,
whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy
foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or
sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one
mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of
the hill-country, where it begins to break down into
the plains, and commanding a very engaging view,
being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath,
and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east
and east by the vast range of mountains called the
Sussex Downs, by Guild Down near Guild ford, and by
the Downs round Dorking and Ryegate in Surrey, to
the north-east; which, altogether, with the country

1 In the parochial registers the orthography is Harteley Maudytt.
Mauduit, used by Gilbert White, is, however, a more usual reading of
M a Id ii it li, the name of the earliest Norman lord ; which was used subse-
quently to the Conquest as an adjunct to the Saxon appellation, for the
purpose of distinguishing this Harteley from the other Hartleys in the
same county to the north of it. — E. T. 15. 4

2 The orthography in the text, though formal in appearance, was
deliberately adopted by the author, who, in his first edition, inserted all
deviations from it as errata: it is, consequently, preserved throughout.
Wordlam is a pronunciation of it not unfrequently used in the neigh-
bourhood : but Worldham is the more ordinary name. And in this case
I suspect that the vulgar are right ; Werildeham, the oldest name which
I find for it, belonging to an era prior to the erection in England of Nor-
man castles.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. X

beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble and exten-
sive outline.

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

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

At each end of the village, which runs from south-
east to north-west, arises a small rivulet: that at the
north-west end frequently fails ; but the other is a fine
perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet
seasons, called Wellhead3. This breaks out of some
high grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk pro-
montory, remarkable for sending forth two streams
into two different seas. The one to the south becomes

3 This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot sum-
mer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a
minute, which is five hundred and forty in an hour, and twelve thousand
nine hundred and sixty, or two hundred and sixteen hogsheads, in twenty-
four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed,
and all the ponds in the vales were dry.

4 NATURAL HISTORY

a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so
falling into the British Channel : the other to the north,
the Selborne stream, makes one branch of the Wey ;
and, meeting the Black Down stream at Hedleigh,
and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge,
swells into a considerable river, navigable at God ai-
ming; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into
the Thames at Weybridge ; and thus at the Nore into
the German Ocean.

Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three
feet, and when sunk to that depth seldom fail; but
produce a fine limpid water soft to the taste, and much
commended by those who drink the pure element, but
which does not lather well with soap4.

To the north-west, north, and east of the village, is
a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called
white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which,
when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to
pieces, and becomes manure to itself5.

Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind
of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for
pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which
root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and
wood for 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

* Though Mr. White says this water is soft to the taste, it is undoubt-
edly what would be usually called hard, the test of which is its not
producing a lather with soap, or with soap dissolved in spirit of wine,
because it contains sulphate of lime, the sulphuric acid in which, uniting
with the soda in the soap, sets free the tallow, composed of the margaric
and oleic acids ; and these acids, uniting with the lime thus set free, form
a soap that will not dissolve in water. From having attended rather
minutely to the qualities usually termed hard and soft in water, as con-
nected with the chemistry of bleaching, I can readily distinguish by the
taste alone whether water contains lime, iron, or argillaceous substances.
— RENME.

5 This soil produces good wheat and clover.

OF SELBORNE. 5

infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Black-
moor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and
have furnished much naval timber ; while the trees on
the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call
shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in
sawing.

Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry
lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will pro-
duce little without the assistance of lime £nd turnips6.

* A science that has sprung into active existence since the days in
which White wrote, would have explained to him many of the facts
described in this Letter; and would have shown that Selborne is not
devoid of interest in a geological point of view. He would have learned
from it that the several soils which he observed and which he enume-
rates, forms part of a general system, to the elucidation of which they
are adapted materially to contribute.

The parish of Selborne is situated in the lower part of the chalk forma-
tion, and embraces within it the upper members of the weald. These
are well displayed as they occur in succession, forming strips which run
along the parish from north to south: in crossing it from west to east,
each of the strata is visited in the order of superposition. They are four
in number; comprising the chalk, the upper green sand, the gault, and
the lower green sand. In no situation are these several strata more
strongly marked or more clearly defined than in this district; where the
regularity of their succession is such as to leave no doubt of the distinc-
tion between the upper and the lower green sands, and between the
gault and the weald clay. The latter formation occurs immediately after
quitting the parish at Harting Comb.

The chalk constitutes the mass of the Selborne hill, which is covered,
towards the village, by the Hanger. A fine and lengthened swell, sloping
gradually at either extremity into a lower and hollowed sweep, is here
suddenly terminated on its eastern face by a steep descent. So rapid is
the slope that it is only to be ascended along an oblique cutting up the
side of the Hanger, {the Bostol,) or by the £igzag: the Slidders, however
practicable for descent, cannot be climbed without considerable difficulty.
The Down or Common on the top of the hill, declining gradually towards
Newton, as well as towards the descents to the north and south of it,
is, in its easy sweep, characteristic of the usual condition of the chalk.
The steep declivity towards Selborne offers a deviation from the ordinary
character of the formation, connected with the convulsion by which the
Weald has been denuded : a convulsion, the effects of which are yet
more strongly marked on the abrupt declivity of Nore Hill, the next
adjoining promontory to the south.

The covert of the Selborne hill, as indicated in the text, is altogether
beech. Its upper part is a fine chalky sheep down.

The prospects visible from its elevated top are admirable for their

6 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.

IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to
the north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood
within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych

extent and beauty; especially those which embrace the whole of the
subjacent formations, and stretch away as far as the ridges of Hind
Head and of Black Down. These are among the most engaging of the
Selborne scenes. A lovely view is the one which is obtained from the
top of the Slidder, embracing a vast extent of varied country, and show-
ing, immediately beneath the observer, the principal buildings of the
village.

Next in succession to the chalk is the formation technically known as
the upper green sand ; and there are spots at Selborne in which a green
sand is plentifully distributed through a chalky malm. But the mass of
the formation which passes under this denomination consists here of the
freestone or firestone of the text, which lies immediately below the
chalk, and spreads away with a slow rise towards the east, constituting
a slightly sloping but a uniform flat except where its face has been broken
into by the force of water or the more petty power of man. In its upper
surface deep fissures have been formed for the discharge of the springs
from Nore Hill, and from the hill to the north of the village; and the
Lithes, and Dorton, and the Combe, and the Priory valley owe their
existence to this power. The rocky lanes, spoken of in Letter V., also
belong to this stratum : they have been cut in its upper portion princi-
pally by the action of long continued traffic on a friable substance ; they
have gradually become, from their depression, converted into water-
courses; and the attrition has been rendered by this means more effec-
tual, the fragments torn off by the wheels of the carts being perpetually
removed from the naked rock by the force of the water. But the most
strongly marked feature of this formation is the extreme regularity with
which it usually rises slowly in a lengthened and widely spread Hat,
until it terminates suddenly by an abrupt and cliff-like fall, constituting
a terrace or escarpment. This character belongs to the whole range of
the rock within the parish of Selborne and for several miles both to the
north and south of it.

The Selborne rock is the subsoil of the whole of the village, and of the
malm lands. Its upper part is of a rubbly character, constituting, in cul-
tivation, the white malm, celebrated for its excellent wheat: and little
except wheat and a few patches of hops is to be seen in the enclosed
fields that occupy its whole extent. In the valleys of its water-courses
there is good pasturage; their sides are well wooded, in some instances
entirely with beech, and in others with oak ; and along the edges of their

OF SELBORNE. 7

hazel, Ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray1, which, though
it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great

little streams oaks grow kindly. The steep fronts of all the terraces
constitute Hangers, and these, on the malm rock, are chiefly covered
by oak. One of them is the Oak Hanger, still as well qualified as it was
a thousand years since to give name to the hamlet below it.

In the little valleys of this formation, deeply cleft, and narrow, and
lengthened out, and well wooded, there is much to please the wanderer.
The hollow lanes, cut into the rock to the depth of eighteen or twenty
feet, and sometimes (though not generallyj) offering formS of picturesque
beauty, will also interest him. But the highest interest will be excited
by the views from the edges of the terraces, ranging from Harteley Park
to the south as far as Temple. Along these, wherever the view is not
intercepted by the growth of trees rising up above the level of the cliff
on the face of which they are rooted, the prospect is every where beau-
tiful. It is especially so at the points in which the terraces are occa-
sionally interrupted, as at the corner of Harteley Park towards Oak
Hanger ; and at the angle of the Temple terrace looking over the Priory.
The views from the terrace immediately adjoining to Temple are magni-
ficent.

Below the rock of the upper green sand formation is the gault; gene-
rally presenting a uniform level, of the most fertile character. Within
Selborne it exists only as a perfect flat; but to the north, in the forest
of The Holt, it rises into hills. It is especially distinguished by the
extreme richness of the water-meadows, to which its crops are entirely
limited ; and by the noble groves and woods of fine oaks that are every
where scattered over it. The luxuriant wood of this formation and the
greenness of its enclosures, create a fore ground of the richest character
to all the prospects from the terraces above it.

Last of the Selborne strata is the lower green sand; which rises, im-
mediately east of the gault, into ridges of various elevation, and having
usually a direction not very dissimilar from that of the Hanger. On the
verge of this are scattered various farms which have brought into culti-
vation, in ancient times, portions of the unpromising soil : and in these
situations there are meadows, and arable fields, and a few hop-grounds,
separated by hedge-rows in which timber trees are growing. But beyond
the settlements on the very edge of the sands cultivation quickly ceases ;
and the lean, hungry waste of Wolmer Forest succeeds, covered almost
entirely by heath. Excepting a few trees on its skirts towards Forest
Side, the Forest within Selborne is quite destitute of timber. Some
plantations of fir have been attempted in various parts of it, which relieve
in some degree, by their lengthened lines of green, the dreariness that
prevails. More effectual relief is afforded by the ponds which are spread
out in various parts of the waste, of which some are so large as to merit
the name of little lakes. Such is Wolmer Pond, described by Gilbert
White in a subsequent Letter ; and such too are the ponds known by the

' [Ulmus montana, BAUH.]

NATURAL HISTORY

storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet,
when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being
too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet
above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in
the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a
bulk planted elms may attain ; as this tree must cer-
tainly have been such from its situation.

In the centre of the village, and near the church, is
a square piece of ground surrounded by houses, and
vulgarly called The Plestor. In the midst of this spot
stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat
body, and huge horizontal arms extending almost to
the extremity of the area. This venerable tree, sur-
rounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was

names of Hogmer and Cranmer, and the large and almost united ponds
at Oakhanger.

To the cultivator this division of the parish is at present almost use-
less. It is probable that scarcely any of it has been brought into occu-
pation for many ages ; and it will be long before much of it can be so far
reclaimed as to be at all available for farming purposes.

In the dreariness of the Forest there is a variation from the character
of the scenery of the adjacent strata that may interest for a while. There
is also a boldness, occasionally, in the form of the ridges, and an abruptness
in their terminations, that imparts somewhat of a mountain air to the view.
But it is chiefly as an adjunct to the other features of the Selborne pros-
pects that it avails ; and in its masses, and its heights, and its waters, it
forms a fine termination to most of the more extensive of them.

A general idea of the surface of the country may be formed from thus
passing in review the several portions of which it consists, and \\lii< li
succeed each other with perfect regularity. Some idea will also be
obtained of the delightful scenery of the neighbourhood in which the
author dwelt throughout his life; a scenery infinitely varied according
to the extent of the country included in each view, the number of the
strata embraced by it, and the relative proportion of each. The combi-
nation, in the more extensive of them, of the broad arable Hat of the
upper lands and their angularly edged terraces and hangers, with the rich
meadows and oak woods of the bottom, and the wide and bold wastes
and shining waters of the Forest, is above all delightful.

Some such views Mr. Harvey has represented in an account of
Selborne and its Vicinity which is now in preparation for the press,
and which will be principally devoted to the description and delineation
of the more interesting scenes and objects of the district ; and to the
imparting of other local information relating to the neighbourhood in
which Gilbert White lived and died.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 9

the delight of old and young, and a place of much
resort in summer evenings ; where the former sat in
grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced
before them. Long might it have stood, had not the
amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the
infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who
bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again:
but all his care could not avail ; the tree sprouted for a
time, then withered and died. This oak'l mention to
show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive : and
planted this tree must certainly have been, as will
appear from what will be said further concerning this
area when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne 2.

On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood
called Losel's, of a few acres, that was lately furnished
with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great
value ; they were tall and taper like firs, but, standing
near together, had very small heads, only a little brush
without any large limbs3. About twenty years ago

2 The reference in the text to another portion of the volume for other
particulars respecting this oak would almost render any explanation in
this place unnecessary. It may, however, be shortly stated that The
Plestor measures about forty-four yards by thirty-six, and that the oak,
whose branches nearly overshadowed this large space, is conjectured by
Gilbert White to have been, at the time when it was blown down, four
hundred and thirty-two years old. — E. T. B.

3 Mr. White only hints in this place at the interesting effects of shelter
and exposure on the growth of trees. In the interior of forests and
crowded plantations, the wind can exert a far less mechanical effect on
individual trees than in exposed situations ; and, therefore, while they
are positively determined to push upwards to the light, they are nega-
tively permitted to do so by the removal of any necessity to thicken their
trunks for the sake of greater strength, and to contract the height of
them in order to afford the blast a shorter lever against the roots. On
the other hand, trees in an open situation are freely exposed to the
wind, and the large expansion of their branches gives every advantage
to the violence of the storm. Nature accordingly bestows greater pro-
portional elevation [thickness of trunk] on trees which are insulated, or
nearly so ; while their system of root, which, by necessity, is correlatively
proportional to their system of top, affords likewise heavier ballast and a
stronger anchorage, in order to counteract the greater spread of sail
displayed in the wider expansion of their branches. Trees in the interior
of woods, accordingly, are in general found to have their stems upright

10 NATURAL HISTORY

the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being
much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs
that were fifty feet long without bough, and would
measure twelve inches diameter at the little end.
Twenty such trees did a purveyor find in this little
wood, with this advantage, that many of them answered
the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for
twenty pounds a piece.

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

and stately ; their bark glossy and beautiful ; their tops small and thinly
provided with branches; and their roots, in the same way, spare and
scanty, but in due proportion to the tops- Trees, on the other hand, in
open exposures, have their stems stout and short; their bark thick and
coarse ; their tops extensive and spreading ; their branches often reaching
to the ground ; and their roots extensive like their tops, and throwing
themselves out on every side. — RENNIE.

OF SELBORNE. 11

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.

THE fossil shells of this district, and sorts of stone,
such as have fallen within my observation, must not be
passed over in silence. And first I must -mention, as a
great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the
chalky fields, near the side of the Down, and given to
me for the singularity of its appearance, which, to an
incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of about four
inches long, the cardo passing for a head and mouth. It
is in reality a bivalve of the Linnaean genus of Mytilus
and the species of Crista Galli; called by Lister,
Rastellum ; by Rumphius, Ostreum plicatum minus ; by
D'Argenville, Auris Porci, s. Crista Galli ; and by those
who make collections, cock's comb. Though I applied
to several such in London, I never could meet with an
entire specimen ; nor could I ever find in books any
engraving from a perfect one. In the superb museum
at Leicester House *, permission was given me to exa-

1 The superb museum at Leicester House, originally the property of
Sir Ashton Lever, and long known as the Leverian Museum, is charac-
terized by Pennant as magnificent and instructive, and as " the most
astonishing collection of the subjects of natural history ever collected, in
so short a space, by any individual. To the disgrace of our kingdom,
after the first burst of wonder was over, it became neglected ; and when
it was offered to the public, by the chance of a guinea lottery, only eight
thousand out of thirty-six thousand tickets were sold. Finally, the
capricious goddess frowned on the spirited proprietor of such a number
of tickets, and transferred the treasure to the possessor of only two,
Mr. Parkinson." The successful candidate for fortune's favours proved
that they were not ill bestowed upon him, by continually adding, in the
most liberal manner, to the collection which had thus come into his
possession, and by building, expressly for its reception, near the south
end of Blackfriars Bridge, a house (subsequently appropriated to the
Surrey Institution) in which the specimens of natural history and of art,
of which the museum consisted, were exhibited for many years. They
were finally disposed of by auction, in 1806. Some idea may be formed
of the extent of the collection at that time by the duration of the sale for
sixty-five days, and by the number of the lots, which amounted to 7879. —
E. T. B.

12 NATURAL HISTORY

mine for this article; and though I was disappointed
as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of
several of the shells themselves in high preservation.
This bivalve is only known to inhabit the Indian ocean,
where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name
Gorgonia. The curious foldings of the suture the one
into the other, the alternate flutings or grooves, and
the curved form of my specimen being much easier
expressed by the pencil than by words, I have caused
it to be drawn and engraved2.

OSTRKA CAR1NATA.

a Notwithstanding the great care which was evidently bestowed by
the author on the identification of his fossil shell, he was by no means so
successful in the results of his research as he deserved to be : it is cer-
tainly not the analogue of the cock's comb oyster, the Mytilus Crist a.
Galli of Linnaeus and Ostrea Crista Galli of Lamarck ; but belongs to an
altogether different species which has not, so far at least as conchologists
yet know, any living analogue. The figures given above, which are
copied from those of the original edition, represent a shell of the species
to which, on account of the strong ridge or keel along the middle of
each of its valves, Lamarck gave the name of Ostrea carinata. It has
repeatedly been figured, since the first publication of the Natural History
of Selborne, as well in foreign as in English works: and, by a curious
coincidence, in the Genera of Recent and Fossil Shells, by Mr. G. B.
Sowerby, one plate contains representations both of this fossil (from a
gigantic specimen) and of the cock's comb oyster, to which Gilbert White
referred it. Though both are plaited oysters, the plaits or folds are
disposed in a manner altogether dissimilar in the two shells : in the
cock's comb oyster they are in the longitudinal direction of the shell,
which, moreover, is rounded in its general outline ; in the keeled oyster
they pass transversely on each side from a ridge which is continued
along the middle of a considerably produced shell.

The statement in the text, that it was obtained in the chalky fields,
renders it necessary to caution the reader against regarding it as a chalk

OF SELBORNE. 13

Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village3.
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 Ernshot,
they abound in the bank in a darkish sort of marl ;
and are usually very small and soft: but in Clay's
Pond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where
the soil is dug out for manure, I have "-occasionally
observed them of large dimensions, perhaps fourteen
or sixteen inches in diameter. But as these did not
consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of
terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were
exposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away.
These seemed as if they were a very recent produc-
tion 4.

In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of The Hanger,
large Nautili are sometimes observed.

In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at
considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scal-
lops, or Pectines, having both shells deeply striated,
and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are highly
impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone
of the quarry.

fossil. The fields below the chalk downs at Selborne, though white in
the appearance of their soil — a soil which thence derives its local appel-
lation of white malm — belong in truth to the formation known to geologists
by the confessedly and singularly inappropriate name of green sand. To
the green sand formation the keeled oyster is peculiar: it appears even
to be limited, as a fossil, to the upper green sand, the stratum 011 which
the village of Selborne is built, and of which the immediately adjacent
enclosures consist. — E. T. B.

3 There is a village in the west of England remarkable for the quan-
tity it possesses of the " cornu ammonis." The name of it is Keynsham,
between Bath and Bristol. " This has given rise to a fabulous legend,
which says that St. Keyna, from whom the place takes its name, resided
here in a solitary wood, full of venomous serpents, and her prayers
converted them into stones, which still retain their shape." — See Espri-
clla's Letters from England, vol. iii. p. 362. — MITFORD.

4 They were probably casts of the ammonites rather than the shells
themselves. — E. T. B.

14 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER IV.

TO THE SAME.

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

This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and
the beds of ovens ; and in lining of lime-kilns it turns
to good account : for the workmen use sandy loam
instead of mortar; the sand of which fluxes !, and runs
by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face
of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat like glass, that it
is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures
thirty or forty years. When 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-
pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer
grain than Portland; and rooms are floored with it;
but it proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a
freestone, cutting in all directions ; yet has something
of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore
should not be surbedded, but laid in the same position
that it grows in the quarry2. On the ground abroad
this firestone will not succeed for pavements, because,
probably, some degree of saltness prevailing within it,
the rain tears the slabs to pieces 3. 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

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

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

3 Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: must be close-grained,
and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts; salt-stone
perishes exposed to wet and frost. — I'lot's Xt'ijf. p. 152.

OF SELBORNK. 15

wet, yet in every quarry, at intervals, there are thin
strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost, and are
excellent for pitching of stables, paths, and courts ; and
for building of dry walls against banks, a valuable
species of fencing, much in use in this village ; and for
mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn,
and will not hew to a smooth face ; but is very durable :
yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, large
quantities cannot be procured but at considerable ex-
pense. 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 gene-
rally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be
worked as iron ore ; is very hard and heavy, and of a
firm compact texture, and composed of a small roundish
crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown, terrene,
ferruginous matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor
easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in
broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths
about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain ;
is excellent for dry walls; and is sometimes used in
buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies scat-
tered on the surface of the ground ; but is dug on
Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of
that forest, where the pits are shallow, and the stratum
thin. This stone is imperishable.

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

JO'

NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER V.

TO THE SAME.

HIII.I.I-U I. INK AND HUDGE, NEAR NUB FUN.

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 traffick of ages,
and the fretting of water, worn down through the first
stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second ;
so that they look more like water-courses than roads ;
and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together.
In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen
feet beneath the level of the fields; and after floods,
and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild appear-
ances, 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

OF SELBORNE. 17

frozen into icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of
frost-work. These rugged- gloomy scenes affright the
ladies when they peep down into them from the paths
above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they
ride along them ; but delight the naturalist with their
various botany, and particularly with the curious
Filices with which they abound.

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

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

The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by
The Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air
is soft, but rather moist from the effluvia of so many
trees1 ; yet perfectly healthy, and free from agues.

The quantity of rain that falls on it is very consi-
derable, as may be supposed in so woody and moun-
tainous a district. As my experience in measuring
the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to
give the mean quantity2. I only know that

Inch. Hand.

From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year, there fell 28 37 !

From Jan. 1, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781 27 32

From Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 30 71

From Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 50 26!

1 This effect of trees is fully treated of in the Letter to Daines Barring-
ton, numbered XXIX.— E. T. B.

2 A very intelligent gentleman* assures me (and he speaks from up-
wards of forty years experience) that the mean rain of any place cannot

* Thomas Barker, the gentleman referred to in the note, was the
descendant of an ancient and respectable family in the county of Rutland.

18 NATURAL HISTORY

From Jan.
From Jan.
From Jan.
From Jan.
[From Jan.

Inch. HIUI.I.

,1783, to Jan. 1,1784 ...... 33 71

,1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 33 80

,1785, to Jan. 1,1786 .... . . 31 55

, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 ....-.,. 39 57

, 1787, to Jan. 1, 1788 36 24

be ascertained till a person has measured it for a very long period. " If
I had only measured the rain," says he, " for the four first years, from
1740 to 1743, 1 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."

[It is probable that the extension of his observations over thirteen
years might have induced Gilbert White to have drawn some deductions

His father, Samuel Barker, a profound Hebrew scholar and Greek
critic, known by his Poesis Vetus Hebraica Restituta, was married to a
daughter of the able and pious, but visionary and unorthodox, William
Whiston : and it was in the house of his child at Lyndon, at the advanced
age of eighty-five, that that energetic but wild spirit ceased to be active.
In such parentage we probably see the germs of many of Thomas Barker's
speculations : they were partly mathematical, partly critical, and partly
theological. His observations chiefly relate to natural history and meteor-
ology. Incited, perhaps, to the prosecution of the former by his connexion
with the family of Gilbert White, — a connexion originally commercial
through the intervention of his maternal uncle, who was long in partner-
ship with Benjamin White, and subsequently cemented by his marriage
with a sister of our author,— to the latter he must have been actuated
by a strong impulse, operating on him throughout the greater part of
a prolonged life. The tables of his Meteorological Observations made
at Lyndon, for a continuous series of fifty-eight years, (a duration
probably not exceeded by any single observer,) were published in succes-
sive volumes of the Philosophical Transactions. His earliest contribution
to that store of valuable information which the world owes to the Royal
Society, related to an extraordinary meteor, seen in his native county,
which resembled a water-spout: this was communicated in 1749, during
the life of his grandfather. Fifty years later he was still a correspondent
of that Society, but not a Fellow of it. In not seeking to become a
member of it, he may have been influenced by the recollection that his
grandfather was refused admission into it ; but Whiston does not appear
to have felt any resentment towards the Society in consequence. He
imputed the withdrawal of his name after proposal solely to Sir Isaac
Newton, whom he reports to have said, that if Whiston were elected a
member, he would no longer be president. The extreme notoriety of
Whiston's theological aberrations is fully sufficient to account for the
opposition to him: he himself, somewhat captiously attributes it to his
refusing to yield to Sir Isaac, then far advanced in years, that implicit
deference which was usually paid to him by others.
Mr. Barker died in 1803, in the eighty-eighth year of his age.— E. T. B.

OF SRLBORNK. 19

Inch. Hund.

From Jan. 1, 1788, to Jan. 1, 1789 22 50

From Jan. 1,1789, to Jan. 1, 1790 42 00

From Jan. 1, 1790, to Jan. 1, 1791 32 27

From Jan. 1, 1791, to Jan. 1, 1792 44 93

From Jan. 1, 1792, to Jan. 1, 1793 .'. .... 48 56!]

The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oak-
hanger, with the single farms, and many scattered

from his experience as to the mean rain at Selborne, and.as to its quantity
in comparison with other places. The table, as supplied in the text, fur-
nishes materials for such a purpose. Within the period embraced in it,
the average quantity of rain that fell at Selborne in each year was 36-41
inches : the largest quantity was in 1782, a year in which much rain fell
everywhere in England, and when, at Selborne, it amounted to 50-26
inches: the smallest was in 1788, in which the registers kept elsewhere
show equally a deficiency ; in this year the Selborne rain was only 22f
inches.

From the simultaneous observations which were made at Lyndon, in
Rutlandshire, it appears that the average quantity of rain that fell there
in each year from 1780 to 1793 was 24'171 inches ; the quantity that fell
in 1782 was 32-089 ; in 1788, 17-182. Mr. Barker's observations, however,
having been carried on for nearly sixty years, we learn from comparing
them, that the thirteen years through which the Selborne register was
kept, were years in which the quantity of rain exceeded the usual
average. In fifty-eight years the mean rain at Lyndon was 22*647 inches.

During eight of the years included in the Selborne register, observations
of the same kind were also made, at the suggestion of Gilbert White, at
Fyfield, in Hampshire, and at South Lambeth, adjoining to London.
Looking to these eight years alone, a period too short to allow of any but
comparative deductions being made from it, there will result the following
average quantity of rain fallen, from 1784 to 1791, at

Inches.

Selborne 35-35

Fyfield 25-63

Lyndon 23-628

South Lambeth 22-15

Averaging fifty per cent, more than Lyndon, and upwards of fifty
per cent, more than the neighbourhood of London, it may well be said
that the quantity of rain that falls at Selborne is very considerable. The
excess, as is stated in the text, is altogether attributable to local circum-
stances. In elevated countries the rain is always more frequent and
more abundant than in plains ; the clouds, which would pass over level
surfaces, being checked in their course by hills, and pouring down upon
them their contents. Trees also, as they rise into the air, affect the clouds
in a similar manner, though not to the same extent, as hills and moun-
tains : the greater their mass and elevation, the nearer do they approach
to the form and influence which belong to a hill. — E. T. B.]

20 NATURAL HISTORY

houses along the verge of the forest, contain upwards
of six hundred and seventy inhabitants3.

We abound with poor ; many of whom are sober and
industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick
cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above
stairs: mud buildings we have none. Besides the
employment from husbandry, the men work in hop

3 A State of the Parish of SELBORNE, taken Oct. 4, 1783.

The number of tenements or families, 136.
The number of inhabitants in the street is .... 313
in the rest of the parish . 363
Total 676 ; near five inhabitants to each tenement.
In the time of the Rev. Gilbert White, vicar, who died in 1727-8, the
number of inhabitants was computed at about 500.

Average of Baptisms for Sixty Years.

Males. Females.
From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive . 6-9 6- 12-9

1730 to 1739 8-2 7-1 15-3

1740 to 1749 9-2 6'6 15'8

1750 to 1759 7-6 8-1 15-7

1760 to 1769 9-1 8-9 18-

1770 to 1779 10-5 9-8 20-3

Total of baptisms of males . . . 515
females . . . 465
Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, sixty years, 980.

Average of Burials for Sixty Years.

Males. Females.
From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive . 4-8 5-1 9-9

1730 to 1739 4-8 5-8 10 6

1740 to 1749 . 4-6 3-8 8'4

1750 to 1759 4-9 5'1 10-

1760 to 1769 6-9 6-5 13-4

1770 to 1779 5-5 6'2 11-7

Total of burials of males . ... 315
females . . . 325

Total of burials from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, sixty years, 640.
Baptisms exceed burials by more than one-third.
Baptisms of males exceed females by one-tenth, or one in ten.
Burials of females exceed males by one in thirty.
It appears that a child, born and bred in this parish, has an equal
chance to live above forty years.

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

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

OF SELBORNE.

gardens, of which we have many ; and fell and bark
timber. In the spring and summer the women weed

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

Males.

BAPTISMS.
Females.

Total.

Males.

BURIALS.
Females.

Total.

MARRI-
AGES.

1761 . .

1762 . .

1763 . .

4 %

1764 . .

1 765 . .

1766 . .

1767 . .

1768 . .

1769 . .

1770 . .

1771 x *

1772 . .

1773 . .

1774 . .

1775 . .

1776 . .

1777 . .

1778 . .

1779 . .

1780 . .

During this period of twenty years, the births of males exceeded those
of females 10.

The burials of each sex were equal.
And the births exceeded the deaths 140.

[Continuation of the Table of Baptisms, Burials, and Marriages, from
January 1, 1781, to December 31, 1834, in the Parish of Selborne.

1781
1782
1783
1784

1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796

Males.

BAPTISMS.
Females. Total.

Males.

BURIALS.
Females.

Total.

MARRI-
AGES.

NATURAL HISTORY

the corn; and enjoy a second harvest in September
by hop-picking. Formerly, in the dead months they

Male*.

BAPTISMS.
Females.

Total.

Males.

BURIALS.

Females.

Total.

MARRI-

AG£S.

1797 «

1798

1799

1800

1801

1802

1803

1804

1805

1806

1807

1808

1809

1810

1811

1812

1813

1814

1815

1816

1817

1818

1819

1820

1821

1822

1823

1824

1825

1826

1827

1828

1829

1830

1831

1832

1833

1834

During the first fifty years of this period the baptisms of males exceeded
those of females 52.

The burials of males exceeded those of females 32 ; and the baptisms
exceeded the burials 590.

Average of Baptisms for Fifty Years.

Males. Females.

From 1780 to 1789, both years inclusive . 9-1 11-3 20-4
1790 to 1799 ....... .14-3 12- 26-3

1800 to 1809 . 9-8 9-3 19-1

OP SELBORNE. 23

availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for mak-
ing of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue

Males. Females.

1810 to 1819 12-9 11-8 24'7

1820 to 1829 15- 13'8 28-8

Total of baptisms of males . . . 611
females . . . 582
Total of baptisms from 1780 to 1829, both inclusive, fifty years, 1193.

Average of Burials for Fifty Years.^

Males. Females.
From 1780 to 1789, both years inclusive . 5'3 6- 11-3

1790 to 1799 7-5 5'1 12-6

1800 to 1809 5-4 5'3 10'7

1810 to 1819 6-1 6- 12-1

1820 to 1829 8-4 6-7 15'1

Total of burials of males .... 327
females ... 291
Total of burials from 1780 to 1829, both inclusive, fifty years, 618.

Without touching upon the many deductions that might be attempted to
be drawn from these data on the state of the population in an agricul-
tural and almost isolated parish, extending over upwards of a hundred
years, there is one observation which obtrudes itself on the attention.
In 110 years, at Selborne, the baptisms have exceeded the burials in the
proportion of 7 to 4, and the absolute excess has been 959. If, therefore,
the population were rightly assumed in the time of the elder Gilbert
White, the parish ought now to contain upwards of 1400 inhabitants.
This, however, is not the case. In 1831 the number of its inhabitants was
924. There must consequently have been considerable emigration from
it.

The population is thus stated in the returns printed by order of the
House of Commons :

Annual Value of

Real Property as Population,

assessed April, 1815.

Selborne, Parish . £.4324 I 1801. I 18114 I 1821. I 1831.

I 762 I 770 | 893 | 924

The abstract of the answers and returns made at the census in the
latter year states the area of the parish at 4410 acres: the number of
houses, inhabited, 128; uninhabited, 4 : the number of families, 163; of
which were chiefly employed in Agriculture, 91 ; in Trade, 36 ; others,
36 : the number of Males, 468 ; Females, 456 ; of Males, 20 years of
age, 193 : Occupiers of land, employing labourers, 22 ; not employing
labourers, 8 : Labourers employed in Agriculture, 82 ; in Manufacture,
0; in Trade or Handicraft, 44; others, 19; Capitalists or Professional,
2; other Males, 20 years of age, 16: Male Servants, 0; Female, 14.—
E. T. B.]

NATURAL HISTORY

at that time for summer wear ; and chiefly manufac-
tured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some of the
people called Quakers : but from circumstances this
trade is at an end.

The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and
longevity ; and the parish swarms with children.

AITKOACil TO THE VILI.AGK.

OF SELBORNE. 25

LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.

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

The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of
about seven miles in length, by two and a half in
breadth, running nearly from north to south, and is
abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed
eastward, by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate,
and Trotton, in the county of Sussex ; by Bramshot,
Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists entirely
of sand covered with heath and fern ; but is somewhat
diversified with hills and dales, without having one
standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms,
where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which
formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though
Dr. Plot says positively1, that there never were any
fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern
counties. But he was mistaken ; for I myself have
seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose
timbers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like
oak, which the owners assured me they procured from
the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such
instruments ; but the peat is so much cut out, and the
moors have been so well examined, that none has

1 See his History of Staffordshire.

26 NATURAL HISTORY

been found of late2. Besides the oak, I have also
been shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour,
and softer nature, which the inhabitants called iir :
but upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could
discover nothing resinous in them ; and therefore rather
suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or
some such aquatic tree3.

a Old people have assured me that, on a winter's morning, they have
discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer
over the space where they were concealed than on the surrounding
morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with
true philosophy. Dr. Hales saith, •• That the warmth of the earth, at
some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well
as the change of the weather from a freezing to a thawing state, is
manifest from this observation, viz. Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having
fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, mostly melted
away on the surface of the earth, except in several places in Bushy Park,
where there were drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow
continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry ; as also
where elm-pipes lay under ground ; a plain proof this, that those drains
intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths
below them : for the snow lay where the drain had more than four feet
depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the
tops of walls." See Hales's H&mastatics, 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 ?

[Some additional instances evidencing the ascent of warmth from beneath
the surface, are given by the author in his letter to Daines Barrington,
numbered LXI ; in which he describes the effects of the short but intense
frost of 1768.— E. T. B.]

3 A more recent instance of the occurrence of a log of the bog-oak is
recorded by Gilbert White in Letter LIX. to Daines Barrington : and the
stock is yet by no means exhausted, although fifty years have elapsed
since the time at which he wrote. The sides of the peat-moor to the
north-east of Wolmer pond show many heaps of chumps and stumps of
trees dug by the labourers, in the prosecution of their cuttings, from the
bog and the turf above it. Oak, and fir, and birch are certainly included
among them. They are in various stages of carbonization, dependent
on their position, or, in other words, on the length of time during which
they have been subjected to the action of moisture and pressure. Those
which occur among the peat are converted throughout their entire substance
into a charcoal, which is generally rather brown than black : of this
kind all the pieces that I observed were of small diameter, not exceeding

OF SELBORNE. 27

This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for
many sorts of wild fowls, which riot only frequent it in
the winter, but breed there in the summer ; such as
lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have discovered
within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty
are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest,
into which they love to make excursions : and in parti-
cular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, and some
years after, they swarmed to such a degree; that parties
of unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes
thirty brace in a day.

But there was a nobler species of game in this
forest, now extinct, which I have heard old people say
abounded much before shooting flying became so com-
mon, and that was the heath-cock, or black game.
When I was a little boy I recollect one corning now
and then to my father's table. The last pack remem-
bered, 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

three or four inches. On some of them the character of the oak bark was
well preserved. Above the peat is a layer of sand of eighteen inches or
two feet in thickness. On the top of this rests a thick layer of turf;
consisting of the blended roots of many generations of heath and other
plants, and approaching, in its lower part, to the character of the genuine
bog. It is from this compact layer that the greater number of the larger
blocks are obtained. Most of them exhibit but little of the charred
appearance ; their character is rather that of washed and bleached timber.
They are of comparatively recent date ; and, although no trees, nor even
shrubs, are now growing by this peat-moor, stumps are occasionally
stumbled against, among the heath, which belong, most probably, to the
same era with the bleached and larger trunks. To the trunks the comr
mencement of the roots remain, in most instances, attached ; and the
almost horizontal mode in which the main roots spread away from the
base of the stem, is quite in accordance with their having grown in a
soil difficult to be penetrated, and retaining moisture near the surface
alone. Among this bleached kind of upper bog timber there were,
towards the end of 1835, many stumps of oak of six and seven feet in
length and of thirty to forty inches in circumference ; portions of fir of
thirty inches in circumference ; and the lower part of one well-grown
stem of a young fir, fifteen feet in length and about five inches in
diameter.— E. T. B.

28 NATURAL HISTORY

sportsman cried out, " A hen pheasant ;" but a gentle-
man present, who had often seen black game in the
north of England, assured me that it was a gray hen4.

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

4 Black game still occur on the forest; and a few of them are shot
there almost every winter. On Bagshot Heath they yet remain ; and
even the red game has occasionally been met with.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 29

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

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.

THOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the
neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the
people is of more moment than the loss of their crops.
The temptation is irresistible ; for most men are sports-
men by constitution : and there is such an inherent
spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any
inhibitions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning
of this century, all this country was wild about deer-
stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to
call themselves, no young person was allowed to be pos-
sessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks
at length committed such enormities, that government
was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary
act called the black act1, which now comprehends
more felonies than any law that ever was framed
before. And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester,

1 Statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22.

30 NATURAL HISTORY

when urged to restock Waltham-chase *, refused, from
a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that " It had
done mischief enough already."

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

Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a
number of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and

3 This chase remains unstocked to this day : the Bishop was Dr.
Hoadley.

OF SELBORNE. 31

dry places ; but these being inconvenient to the hunts-
men, 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 the allurements to
irregularities are removed, are of considerable service
to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing
them with peat and turf for their firing ; with fuel for
the burning their lime ; and with ashes for their grasses ;
and by maintaining their geese and their stock of young
cattle at little or no expense.

The manor farm of the parish of Greatham has an
admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the
Tower of London), of turning all live stock on the
forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis3. The
reason, I presume, why sheep4 are excluded, is, be-
cause, being such close grazers, they would pick out all
the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving5.

Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23),
" to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Mid-
summer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern,
is punishable with whipping and confinement in the
house of correction6 ;" yet, in this forest, about March

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

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

5 Sheep obtain the first pair of central permanent incisors when about
fourteen months old, and are then occasionally referred to by the term
bidentes.

It is singular that sheep with a single row of incisor teeth pressing
against a cartilaginous pad, should be able to bite closer than a horse
with a well matched double row of teeth ; but it is a well known fact
that a horse would be starved on downs where sheep thrive. — W. Y.

6 In Scotland where the extensive burnings of heath are common, the
prohibited months have reference to the preservation of the eggs and
young of grouse and other game, as little other inconvenience is apt to
ensue when no woods are in the vicinity. It is a very splendid spectacle
to see, during a dai'k night, the skirts of a mountain range as far as the
eye can reach, enveloped in one expanded sheet of fire and flarne. Even
in the daytime, the pale blue smoke of Muir-burn, as it is termed, is a very

32 NATURAL HISTORY

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 some-
times been communicated to the underwoods, woods,
and coppices, where great damage has ensued7. The
plea for these burnings is, that, when the old coat of
heath &c. is consumed, young will sprout up, and afford
much tender browze for cattle: but, where there is
large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes
the very ground ; so that for hundreds of acres nothing
is to be seen but smother and desolation, the whole
circuit round looking like the cinders of a volcano ; and,
the soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation
are to be found for years. These conflagrations, as they
take place usually with a north-east or east wind, much
annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm
the country ; and, once in particular, I remember that
a gentleman, who lives beyond Andover, coining to my
house, when he got on the downs between that town
and Winchester, at twenty-five miles distance, was sur-
prised much with smoke and a hot smell of fire ; and
concluded that Alresford was in flames ; but, when he
came to that town, he then had apprehensions for the
next village, and so on to the end of his journey.

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

fine sight, and gives a peculiar and indescribable aspect to the landscape.
The process is productive in the succeeding summer, of an abundant crop
of young shoots of heath and grass, upon which the sheep feast luxuri-
ously.— RENNIE.

7 The description of the conflagration arising from the heath-fires here
mentioned, reminds the scholar of the stubble-burning described in Vir-
gil's Georgics, i. 84, and the commentary on the passage, by the elegant
and learned Mr. Holdsworth, p. 52. Compare Virgilii ./En. ii. 304. Ovid.
Epist. xv. 9. Sil. Ital. vii. 3C5.— MITFORD.

OF SELBORNE. 33

is obliged to find the posts and brushwood for the
former ; while the farms at Greatham, in rotation, fur-
nish for the latter; and are all enjoined to cut and
deliver the materials at the spot. This custom I men-
tion, because I look upon it to be of very remote
antiquity.

LETTER VIII.

TO THE SAME.

ON the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed,
are three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of
which I have nothing particular to say ; and one called
Bin's or Bean's Pond, which is worthy the attention of
a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being crowded at the
upper end with willows, and with the Carex cespitosa l,
it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks,
teals, snipes, &c. that they breed there. In the winter
this covert is also frequented by foxes, and sometimes
by pheasants; and the bogs produce many curious
plants2. [For which, consult Letter XLI. to Mr. Bar-
rington.]

By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and The Holt,
made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the
First (which now lies before me), it appears that the
limits of the former are much circumscribed. For, to
say nothing of the farther side, with which I am not so

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

2 Bin's Pond has been drained, and cattle graze in its bed. The
covert in which wild ducks and foxes formerly haunted, has almost
entirely disappeared. The place has lost much of its attraction for the
sportsman ; and the botanist, who might desire to search there for curious
plants would now run the risk of being disappointed, as in a thousand
other instances, of his expected harvest; deprived, by modern improve-
ments, of the soil in which alone his plants would thrive. — E. T. B.

34 NATURAL HISTORY

well acquainted, the bounds on this side, in old times,
came into Binswood ; and extended to the ditch of
Ward le ham Park, in which stands the curious mount
called King John's Hill, and Lodge Hill; and to the
verge of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit-hatch ; com-
prehending also Short-heath, Oakhanger, and Oak-
woods; a large district, now private property, though
once belonging to the royal domain3.

It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once
mentioned in this long roll of parchment. It contains,
besides the perambulation, a rough estimate of the value
of the timbers, which were considerable, growing at that
time in the district of The Holt4 ; and enumerates the
officers, superior and inferior, of those joint forests, for
the time being, and their ostensible fees and perquisites.
In those days, as at present, there were hardly any trees
in Wolmer Forest.

Within the present limits of the forest are three con-
siderable lakes, Hogmer, Cranmer, and Wolmer ; all of
which are stocked with carp, tench, eels, and perch :
but the fish do not thrive well, because the water is
hungry, and the bottoms are a naked sand5.

A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no

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

[According to the Report of the Commissioners here referred to, the
forests contain about fifteen thousand four hundred and ninety-three
acres, statute measure: but of that quantity about six thousand seven
hundred and ninety-nine acres belong to private proprietors ; the rest,
being about eight thousand six hundred and ninety-four acres, are forest
lands belonging to the crown. The royal forest of The Holt, with its
enclosures, comprehends two thousand seven hundred and forty-four
acres. Wolmer, with but two enclosures within its precincts, extends
over five thousand nine hundred and forty-nine acres. — E. T. B.]

4 The timber of The Holt, at the time of the survey referred to in the
preceding note, was valued at £.61,100.— E. T. B.

5 In the enumeration made to me by the intelligent keeper at Wolmer
Pond, the voracious pike was substituted for the perch, and the eel was
omitted. The harsh and unyielding nature of the bottom would be little
suited either to the eels themselves, or to the softer animals on which
they feed.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 35

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 con-
stantly to the water during the hotter hours ; where,
being more exempt from flies, and inhaling the coolness
of that element, some belly deep, and some only to mid-
leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about
ten in the morning till four in the afternoon, and then
return to their feeding. During this great proportion
of the day they drop much dung, in which insects
nestle ; and so supply food for the fish, which would be
poorly subsisted but from this contingency. Thus Na-
ture, who is a great economist, converts the recreation
of one animal to the support of another! Thomson,
who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did
not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. He
says, in his Summer,

" A various group the herds and flocks compose :

on the grassy bank

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

Wolmer-pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake,
is a vast lake for this part of the world, containing, in
its whole circumference, two thousand six hundred and
forty-six yards, or very near a mile and a half. The
length of the north-west and opposite side is about
seven hundred and four yards, and the breadth of the
south-west 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 north-east
corner, which we did not take into the reckoning.

On the face of this expanse of waters, and perfectly
secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter sea-
son, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and widgeons, of various
denominations ; where they preen and solace and rest

3b NATURAL HISTORY

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. But as such
discoveries more properly belong to the Antiquities of
this place, I shall suppress all particulars, for the pre-
sent, till I enter professedly on my series of Letters
respecting the more remote history of this village and
district.

LETTER IX.

TO THE SAME.

BY way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more
on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her
sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt1, 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 Briga-
dier-general Emanuel Scroop Howe, and his lady, Ru-

1 In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Ed. III. it is called
Aisholt.

In the same, " Tit. Woolmer & Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex habet
uiiain capellam in haia sua de Kingesle." " llnin, sepes, sepimentum,
parcus: a Gall, haie and haye." Spelman's Glossary.

[Several additional documents relating to the earlier history of the
forests, both that of Wolmer and The Holt, are given in a note on
Letter X. of the Antiquities.]

OF SELBORNE. 37

perta, who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert by
Margaret Hughs; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterbo-
rough family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ;
Henry Bilson Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawel,
their son2.

The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced
age, long surviving her husband ; and, at her death,
left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of
her father's constructing, who was a "distinguished
mechanic and artist3, as well as warrior; and among
the rest, a very complicated clock, lately in possession
of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game-painter at Farnham,
in the county of Surrey.

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

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

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

2 On the expiration of the grant to Lord Stawel, the Commissioners of
Woods and Forests resumed possession of The Holt. All the lands held
by him, and two-thirds of the formerly open Forest, have been subse-
quently enclosed and planted, and now contain as fine young oaks as any
plantations in the kingdom. — E. T. B.

3 This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto.

38 NATURAL HISTORY

were the red deer of Wolmer ever known to haunt the
thickets or glades of The Holt4.

At present the deer of The Holt are much thinned

4 In the distinctness thus strongly stated to have existed between the
ranges of the fallow deer and the red deer there is, at first sight, some-
thing so remarkable as to induce a consideration of the subject as regards
the localities and the habits of the animals.

Than The Holt and Wolmer Forest it is almost impossible for two
situations to be more dissimilar. The Holt is on the gault, and has all
the richness of meadow and nobleness of oak wood that distinguish that
formation. It consequently offered to the fallow deer, while they
remained on it, plentiful grazing, abundance of browzing, and open and
sheltered glades; advantages suited to the habits of that half domesti-
cated race, introduced into this country by man, and still requiring at his
hands care and protection. Wolmer Forest, on the lean and hungry
sand, scarcely affords any grass, and has no high covert; and the red
deer attached to it would have been limited for their provender almost
exclusively to the lichens, the heath tops, and the twigs of the very few
stunted bushes that occur here and there on its surface : retirement could
only have been obtained for them by plunging into the unfrequented
hollows interposed between its ridges. The more tender and exotic deer
was placed, and it might have seemed almost naturally, in the richer and
more sheltered forest of The Holt; the hardier and native race subsisted
on the coarse fare of the dreary and cheerless waste of Wolmer. Of the
two kinds, the one might have been regarded as approaching in some
degree towards the sheep ; while the other would more nearly have
resembled, in its enduring habits, the rein-deer or the roe.

It is not, however, necessary to seek so far for the cause of the perti-
nacity with which the different deer adhered to their several ranges.
Deer generally, without reference to the habits of particular species, are
by no means given to wander from their accustomed haunts. A deer,
almost from the moment at which it is born, becomes one of the herd
to which its mother belongs, and remains with them, throughout the
whole of its life, in the walks which they frequent. In the New Forest
there are more than twelve distinct herds of fallow deer, each of which
has its own range, and is under the charge of its especial keeper ; and it
scarcely ever happens that an individual from any of these herds quits
its companions and mingles with those of another walk. Every one of
the deer of each particular herd is so well known to its keeper as to be
immediately missed by him, if it were to escape; and to be at once recog-
nisable in the midst of another herd, had it associated with them. But
even a solitary instance of wandering is almost unknown.

In this case the deer are all of one kind ; for it is of the fallow deer
only that I have been here speaking. The red deer now on the New
Forest, amounting to about a hundred head, are not recognised as having
distinct haunts from the fallow deer: the herds never mix together, it is

OF SELBORNE. 39

and reduced by the night-hunters, who perpetually
harass them in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers,
and the severe penalties that have been put in force
against them as often as they have been detected, and
rendered liable to the lash of the law. Neither fines
nor imprisonments can deter them : so impossible is it
to extinguish the spirit of sporting, which seems to be
inherent in human nature.

General Howe turned out some German wild boars
and sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neigh-
bourhood ; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo : but
the country rose upon them, and destroyed them 5.

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one
thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz. 1784) in
The Holt forest ; one-fifth of which, it is said, belongs
to the grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the
lop and top : but the poor of the parishes of Binsted
and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it
belongs to them ; and, assembling in a riotous manner,
have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps
a team, has carried home, for his share, forty stacks of
wood. Forty-five of these people his lordship has
served with actions6. These trees, which were very

said ; but the red deer do not avoid the places to which the others are
accustomed to resort.

A most marked case of the adherence of deer to their respective walks
obtains in the Forest of Dean. The Forest adjoins immediately to the
High Meadow Woods, the property of Lord Gage, and in both of them
fallow deer are kept. The deer of the Forest are all black: those of the
High Meadow Woods are pale or spotted. A stray individual from either
would be instantly recognised amid the herds of the other. But it never
happens that either wanders from its own companions or quits its bounds.
— E. T. B.

5 German boars and sows were also turned out by Charles the First
in the New Forest, which bred and increased. Their stock is supposed
to exist now, remarkable for the smallness of their hind quarters. See
an Engraving of one in Gilpin's Forest Scenery, ii. 118. — MITFORD.

6 It appears that the defendants in these actions, though they made a
show of resistance, suffered judgment to go by default. The question
of right had, in fact, been tried in 1741, and determined against the
claimants. Yet notwithstanding this, so soon after as 1788, on the occa-

40 NATURAL HISTORY

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 Surrey7-

LETTER X.

TO THE SAME1.

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 attached from my
childhood.

sion of another fall of timber in The Holt, the people of Frinsham again
assembled aud carried off openly upwards of six thousand faggots.
So difficult is it to convince where interest opposes. — E. T. B.

7 The formation of the Basingstoke Canal has again reduced the
distance of The Holt from water-carriage ; which is now accessible,
either at Odiham or at Bagman's Castle, within about seven miles. —
E. T. B.

1 Pennant, the correspondent for many years of Gilbert White and the
esteemed friend to whom the first series of his Letters on the Natural
History of his native place were addressed, was among the most active
of the scientific and literary characters of his day. At the time when
the above Letter was written, the earliest in date of the published
correspondence of White, he was busily engaged in the preparation of
the octavo edition of his British Zoology : the first edition of that work
had preceded it but a few years ; and it was quickly followed by others;
and by other works on zoology, and on antiquities, and by tours, topo-
graphies, and other productions ; all of which were deservedly popular.
For more than forty years his pen was never idle. Industrious himself,
he was the cause also of industry in others ; and the enumeration which
he gives of the services he did to the professors of the art of engraving

OF SELBORNE. 41

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 clergyman, of an
inquisitive turn, assures me, that, when he was a great

by the multitude of plates executed by them for his several works,
while it furnishes a list of the principal of his productions, will also
afford some idea of the extent and variety of his labours.

British Zoology, folio ; 132

British Zoology, octavo or quarto 284

History of Quadrupeds 54

Tour in Scotland, the three volumes 134

Journey to London • . . . 23

Tour in Wales, two volumes 53

Moses Griffith's Supplemental Plates 10

Some Account of London, second edition 15

Indian Zoology 17

Genera of Birds 16

Arctic Zoology, two volumes 26

Systematic Index to de Buffon 1

Lightfoot's Flora Scotica, two volumes 37

802

Of many of these works several editions were required, and the super-
intendence of them added to the demands on him for continual devotion
to literary pursuits. Many minor works were also published by him,
including numerous papers in the Philosophical Transactions. He
maintained too an active correspondence both at home and abroad
throughout the whole of his life; and numbered among his friends the
most distinguished men in the several branches of knowledge which he
cultivated. Linnaeus was among his earliest correspondents ; and with
Pallas he was in frequent communication.

" I am often astonished," he says, in his Literary Life of himself, " at
the multiplicity of my publications, especially when I reflect on the
various duties it has fallen to my lot to discharge, as father of a family,
landlord of a small but numerous tenantry, and a not inactive magistrate.
I had a great share of health during the literary part of my days. Much
of this was owing to the riding exercise of my extensive tours, to my
manner of living, and to my temperance. I go to rest at ten ; and rise
winter and summer at seven, and shave regularly at the same hour, being
a true misopogon. I avoid the meal of excess, a supper ; and my soul
rises with vigour to its employs, and (I trust) does not disappoint the
end of its Creator."

Pennant died in 1798, in the seventy-third year of his age ; having
survived for more than seven years the literary death which he had
anticipated for himself in 1791. -E. T. B.

42 NATURAL HISTORY

boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battlements of
a church tower early in the spring, found two or three
swifts (Hirundmes apodes*} among the rubbish, which
were, at first appearance, dead ; but, on being carried
toward the fire, revived. He told me that, out of his
great care to preserve them, he put them in a paper
bag, and hung them by the kitchen fire, where they
were suffocated.

Another intelligent person has informed me that,
while he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sus-
sex, 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 ques-
tioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself,
to my no small disappointment, he answered me in the
negative ; but that others assured him they did.

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

How strange is it, that the swift, which seems to live
exactly the same life with the swallow and house-
martin, should leave us before the middle of August
invariably3! while the latter stay often till the middle
of October ; and once I saw numbers of house-martins
on the seventh of November4. The martins and red-

3 [Cypselus Apus, ILL.]

3 In making use of the above remark, under the head of Swift, in the
second volume of his British Zoology, 1768, p. 246, Pennant adds : " For
these, and several other observations, we owe our acknowledgements to
the Reverend Mr. White, of Selborne, Hampshire."— E. T. B.

4 Upwards of a hundred of these birds collected and apparently going
off, were seen on the thirteenth of November, 1831, at Dover.— W. Y.

OF SELBORNE. 43

wing fieldfares were flying in sight together ; an uncom-
mon assemblage of summer and winter birds !

A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the
Alauda trwialis, or rather perhaps of the Motacilla
Trochilus) still continues to make a sibilous shivering
noise in the tops of tall woods5.

The Stoparola of Ray (for which we have as yet no
name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, the
flycatcher. 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 6.

I perceive there are more than one species of the

3 The Motacilla or Sylvia Trochilus does not make a sibilous shivering
noise. The bird meant is the Sylvia sylvicola, called by Bechstein Sylv.
sibilatrix.—W. H.

6 This little visitant, the Muscicapa Grisola, LINN., arrives about the
same time as the whitethroat and redstart, and during the period of
incubation seeks the shelter afforded by our dwellings ; trusting, like
the martin and swallow, to the forbearance, while it seems to court the
protection, of man. Building most commonly, as White subsequently
describes it (in Letter XL.), at the end of a plate (a term employed in
Hampshire and Surrey to signify a beam, or rafter, that projects a little
from a house or building,) the bird has thence derived two of its local
names : in some districts it is called rafter, in others it is known as the
beam bird. In open exposed situations it has also acquired the name of
bee bird, on account of its being very destructive to hive bees ; not only
taking them flying, but waiting for them at the tee hole, or mouth of the
hive. But in sheltered places, near houses, and in villages, where
insects abound, it appears to be principally known as an expert fly-
catcher.—G. D.

Elsewhere the spotted flycatcher is known by other names. Mr. Ren-
nie informs us that in Kent it is called the post bird, from the habit
described in the text. In Northamptonshire, according to Morton, " This,
though called a bird without a name by Mr. Willughby, is well known,
and vulgarly called the copweb ; as usually building in the corners of
walls, and the like places, where spiders weave their webs." A MS.
note by Morton, in the copy of his work in the library of the British
Museum, adds, " and also building its nest in part of copwebs, inter-
woven with moss, straws, and the like." — E. T. B.

44 NATURAL HISTORY

Motacilla Trochilus : Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray's
Philosophical Letters, that he has discovered three.
In these there is again an instance of some very com-
mon birds that have as yet no English name.

Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the black-
cap (Motacilla Atricapilla7} 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 winter8.
They are delicate songsters9.

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

I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of
those mice which I mentioned to you in town. The
person that brought me the last says they are plenty in
harvest, at which time I will take care to get more ;

7 [Cttrrucrt Atricapilla, BECHST.]

8 A tine cock blackcap, which I purchased in the bird market at Paris,
in September, exhibited the migrative agitation about the end of that
month, again before Christmas, again in February, and finally on the
first of April, beginning at sunset to leap and flutter about the cage for
several hours every night, and remaining quiet and frequently sleeping
during the day. The agitation continued some weeks each time. I
would infer from this that the species migrates more than once after
leaving our shores. Dr. Heineken informs us that it is stationary at
Madeira : consequently Sir W. Jardine is wrong in thinking our birds
retire thither ; but we have no statements respecting the countries they
do visit in winter. They certainly go farther south than Gibraltar,
where they are only summer visitants. Mr. Lewin, as we are informed
by Dr. Latham, once shot a blackcap in January near Dartford, in Kent,
which will qualify Mr. White's statement that they are never seen in the
winter.— RENME.

An exception, such as the one quoted in the preceding note, can
scarcely be regarded as militating against a general rule : in the words
of the adage, the exception may rather be said to prove the rule.—
E. T. B.

9 The delightful song of the blackcap is beautifully described by our
author in Letter XL. The description there given was copied by Pen-
nant, in the third edition of his British Zoology, vol. i. p. 375. The
blackcap, as Mr. Mitford has remarked, is classed very highly by Dailies
Barrington in his scale of singing birds. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 45

and will endeavour to put the matter out of doubt,
whether it be a nondescript species or not.

I suspect much there may be two species of water-
rats. Ray says, and Linnaeus after him, that the
water-rat is web'-footed behind. Now I have dis-
covered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is
not web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and
diver: it answers exactly to the Mus amphibius of
Linnaeus (See Syst. Nat.), which he says, " natat in
fossis et urinatur.'1 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 10.

10 Willughby was the originator of the confusion alluded to. He
described the water-rat as having its toes connected together by inter-
vening webs ; and his description was published by Ray in the Synopsis
Quadrupedum. Linnaeus, believing that such authorities were to be
relied on, admitted a rat-like animal, having its hinder feet webbed, into
the several editions of his Fauna Suecica ; placing it, in the first of them,
where its technical characters directed him, in the genus Castor. Sub-
sequently he associated it with the rats ; and referred to it as of doubtful
existence, as being perhaps inaccurately described, and as probably to
be referred to his Mus terrestris. There can now be no doubt that he was
correct in regarding the large rat with a hairy tail of moderate length,
which frequents ditches in the summer time, and swims and dives well,
and which has on these accounts acquired the name of amphibius, as
identical with the one described by him as the terrestris, as having the
same outward form and colours, and as being found in burrows : the
winter nest of the species is described by White in Letter XXVI.
Willughby's error must have been occasioned by his having assumed
from a certain habit that a certain structure which he regarded as indi-
cated by it must necessarily be coexistent with it: but he should not
have forgotten, even for an instant, that natural history is a science of
observation, and not of theoretical deductions.

The Mus agrestis capite grandi, brachyuros, of Ray, is indeed widely
different from the water rat : it is the short-tailed field mouse or vole,
Arvicola agrestis, FLEM. ; the water rat, or rather water vole, being the
Arv . amphibia, DESM. The genera Arvicola and Mus do not belong even
to the same primary section of the rodents. — E. T. B.

40 NATURAL HISTORY

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 reliquice ll !"

It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild
ducks and snipes; but, when it was shot, had just
knocked down a rook, which it was tearing in pieces.
I cannot make it answer to any of our English hawks ;
neither could I find any like it at the curious exhibition
of stuffed birds in Spring Gardens. I found it nailed
up at the end of a barn, which is the countryman's
museum12.

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

LETTER XI.

TO THE SAME.

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 remembrance, it weighed
two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing
to wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were
yellow, and the circle of its eyelids a bright yellow. As

11 The species proved to be the Falco peregrlnus of authors; it is
common also in the United States, and was called by Wilson the duck
hawk. In this country it breeds principally among the rocks and cliffs
of the sea-shore, and preys upon water-fowl. — W. Y.

12 The naturalist may occasionally meet with rarities in such places ;
and I recollect seeing in Wiltshire the remains of a specimen of the rare
sparrow owl ( Noctua passerina, SAV.) thus nailed up to a barn-door, though
not in a fit condition to be set up in a cabinet.— RENNIE.

OF SELBORNE.

it had been killed some days, and the eyes were sunk,
I could make no good observation on the colour of the
pupils and the irides '.

The most unusual birds I ever observed in these
parts were a pair of hoopoes (Upupa}, which came

THE HOOl'OE.

several years ago in the summer, and frequented an
ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my garden,
for some weeks. They used to march about in a stately
manner, feeding in the walks, many times in the day ;
and seemed disposed to breed in my outlet ; but were
frighted and persecuted by idle boys, who would never
let them be at rest 2.

1 The irides of all the British species of true falcons are brown. —
W. Y.

2 But few instances have been recorded of the breeding in England of

48 NATURAL HISTORY

Three gros-beaks (Loxia Coccothraustes3^ appeared
some years ago in my fields, in the winter; one of
which I shot: since that, now and then, one is occa-
sionally seen in the same dead season.

A cross-bill (Loxia curvirostra) was killed last year
in this neighbourhood4.

that rare and occasional visitant, the hoopoe. The one mentioned in the
text is the earliest promise of an attempt at breeding here that I am
aware of. It is referred to by both Pennant and Montagu. — E. T. B.

3 [Coccothraustes vulgaris, FLEM.]

4 The most curious account of the cross-bill was published by Dr.
Townson, who kept them tame. See his Tracts on Natural History,

p. 116. — MlTFORI).

My friend Mr. Yarrell has published, in the fourth volume of the
Zoological Journal, an excellent and detailed anatomy of the muscles
by which the singular beak and tongue of the cross-bill are made to
serve the peculiar purposes for which they are designed. The most
powerful muscles are those which are devoted to the laterally separating
from each other of the points of the crossed jaws ; an apparent deformity
in the structure of the bird, but in reality a modification of the usual
adjustment of the organs essential to the special wants of the cross-bill.
" The great pine forests," says Mr. Townson, " such as the Hartz in
Germany, are the natural places of residence of the cross-beaks, and the
seed of the cones of those trees their food ; and it is to pull out the seeds
from between the squamae, or scales, of the cones, that this structure is
given them. Their mode of operation is thus : they first fix themselves
across the cone, then bring the points of the maxillae from their crossed
or lateral position to be immediately over each other. In this reduced
compass, they insinuate their beaks between the scales ; and then open-
ing them, not in the usual manner, but by drawing the inferior maxilla
sideways, force open the scales or squamae."

" At this stage of the proceeding," continues Mr. Yarrell, •' the aid of
the tongue becomes necessary, and this organ is no less admirably
adapted for the service required. The bone of the tongue has articulated
to its anterior extremity an additional portion, formed partly of bone
with a horny covering ; narrow in shape, about three-eighths of an inch
in length, extending downwards and forwards, with its sides curved
upwards, and its distant extremity shaped like a scoop, somewhat pointed,
and thin on the edges." Mr. Yarrell describes with greater detail this
superadded and distinct portion of the tongue, and the muscles by which
it is moved, and their action ; and then proceeds : " While, therefore, the
points of the beak press the shell from the body of the cone, the tongue^
brought forward by its own muscle (the genio-hyoideus), is enabled by
the additional muscles described, to direct and insert its cutting scoop
underneath the seed, and the food thus dislodged is conveyed to the
mouth : and it will be seen by a reference to the first figure, that when
the mandibles are separated laterally in this operation, the bird has an

OF SELBORNE. 49

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 flumatilis capitatus5}, the trout
(Trutta flumatilis^), the eel ( Anguilla1 ), the lampern

uninterrupted view of the seed in the cavity, with the eye on that side to
which the under mandible is curved."

The lateral power of the beak of the cross-bill has called forth expres-
sions of astonishment from all who have witnessed its effects. Mr. Town^
son gives some curious instances of them ; and a marked 'evidence of the
muscular strength connected with that organ was afforded by a bird kept
by Mr. Morgan, which Mr. Yarrell states to have broken off the point
of its beak by repeated efforts to draw a flat-headed nail that confined
some strong network : it persevered nevertheless, and was eventually
successful. A principal occupation with Mr. Morgan's birds was the
twisting out of the ends of the wires of their prison, which they accom-
plished with equal ease and dexterity : but their repeated success in
this operation occasioned the destruction of so many cages that sentence
of banishment was at length necessarily passed on those mischievous little
beings, whose unceasing delight it seemed to be to disunite all joined
substances that were placed within the reach of their bills.— E. T. B.

5 This and the succeeding names of fishes are derived from Ray's
Synopsis Avium et Piscium. The use of Ray's names in this department
of zoology, rather than of those of Linnaeus, would lead to the suspicion
that the author was acquainted with the works of the Swedish master of
natural history, through the medium only of the productions of Pennant.
At the date of this Letter, the first, or folio, edition of the British Zoology
had alone made its appearance ; the first two volumes of the second
edition, in quarto and octavo, were in preparation : but these extended
no farther than the mammals and birds of Britain. The third volume of
the second edition of the British Zoology, in which the fishes were for
the first time enumerated, was not published till 1T69. The information
in the text was no doubt communicated in answer to queries having for
their object the improvement of Pennant's forthcoming work.

The fish here alluded to is the Coitus Go/no, LINN.— E. T. B.

6 [Salmo Fario, LINN.]

7 In the absence of some definite character the fish here alluded to
cannot be safely referred to any of those species of eels, which a more
correct acquaintance with them has rendered it necessary for modern
ichthyologists to distinguish in the British rivers. It is to the acuteness
of Mr. Yarrell that we are originally indebted for most of our information
on this subject, which has been partly communicated through the medium
of the Zoological Society, and partly in other detached notices j and more
recently, in a defined and systematic form, in the Rev. L. Jenyns's Manual
of British Vertebrated Animals. Before this volume is published figures
and descriptions of them, by Mr. Yarrell himself, will have appeared in
his excellent work on British Fishes.

50 NATURAL HISTORY

(Lampetra parva et fluviatilis BJ, and the stickle-back
(Pisciculus aculeatusg).

To enable the reader to distinguish between them, their specific dif-
ferences may be thus noted.

In the sharp-nosed eel, Anguilla acutirostris, YARR., the snout is acute,
and compressed at the sides ; the gape does not extend farther back
than the middle of the eye ; and about one-third of the entire length of
the fish is situated in front of the commencement of the dorsal fin, and
between one-eighth and one-ninth before the pectorals. This species is
common throughout the country, and attains a considerable size ; mea-
suring two, three, or four feet in length, and sometimes more.

In the broad-nosed eel, Ang. latirostris, YARR., the snout is broad and
rounded ; the gape extends as far backwards as the hinder edge of the
orbit; and more than one-third of the entire length of the fish is in front
of the dorsal, and one-seventh in front of the pectoral fins. It rarely
exceeds two feet in length ; and appears to be almost equally common
with the preceding.

In the snigeel, Ang. mediorostris, YARR., the snout is rather long and
moderately broad ; the gape does not extend quite so far back as the
posterior edge of the orbit; there is rather less than one-third of the
entire length of the fish before the dorsal, and between one-seventh and
one-eighth before the pectoral fins.

Mr. Yarrell's specimens of the last were obtained from the river Avon.
It appears not to acquire so large a size as either of the others ; seldom
exceeding half a pound in weight: while the broad-nosed eel has been
known to weigh five pounds, and the sharp-nosed has even acquired the
enormous weight of twenty-eight pounds.

The more extensively these characters are tested in different localities,
the more assured will be our knowledge of the species of eels, of their
distribution, and of their habits : all subjects of considerable interest.—
E. T. B.

8 [Ammoccetes branchialis, DUM.]

8 On the stickle-back of the text a remark must be made, similar to
that which was elicited by the eel. Where, in the days of Gilbert White,
only one species was believed to exist, it is now known that there are
several. Cuvier clearly distinguished three, and indicated others, that
had previously been confounded under the common name of Gasterosteus
aculeatus ; and Mr. Yarrell subsequently made known the fact that these
several kinds were found in England also. In his History of British
Fishes he has given figures and descriptions of four different kinds of
three-spined stickle-back s, as well as of a four-spined species. The
latter was obtained from the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and is
regarded as altogether new; it is the Gast. spinulosus of Messrs. Yarrell
and Jenyns.

It is easy to distinguish between the several kinds of three-spined
stickle-backs, if attention be paid to the manner in which their sides are
covered. If the bony plates which spread away from the lateral line

OF SELBORNE. 51

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 in the moors where the snipes breed ; and
multitudes of widgeons and teals in hard weather fre-
quent 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 fiawks : when
full, like a dog, it hides what it cannot eat.

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

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

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

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

both above and below it, for the protection of the otherwise naked sides
of the fish, are extended along the whole of the side as far as the caudal
fin, it is the rough-tailed stickle-back, Cast, trachurus, Cuv. and VAL. :
if these bony plates do not extend farther backwards than the line of the
vent, it is the half-armed stickle-back, Gast. semiarmatus, Cuv. and VAL.:
if the lateral plates reach no farther backwards than the end of the
pectoral fin, it is either the smooth-tailed stickle-back, Gast. leiurus, Cuv.
and VAL., with the dorsal spines or stickles about one-sixth of the height
of the body ; or the short-spined stickle-back, Gast. brachycentrus , Cuv.
and VAL., with the dorsal spines not more than one-twelfth of the height
of the body. The latter is the largest of the stickle-backs found in the
United Kingdom : it occurs in the north of Ireland.

Including the ten-spined species, six distinct kinds of stickle-backs
are now known to inhabit the fresh waters of these islands ; and there are
few situations in which four of them, or at the least three, may not be
caught in the ponds and rivers. — E. T. B.

52 NATURAL HISTORY

At present I know only two species of bats, the com-
mon Vespertilio murinus 10 and the Vespertilio auritus n.

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat,
which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you
gave it any thing to eat, it brought its wings round
before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the
manner of birds of prey when they feed 12. The adroit-
ness it showed in shearing off the wings of the flies,
which were always rejected, was worthy of observation,
and pleased me much13. Insects seemed to be most
acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when
offered : so that the notion, that bats go down chimneys
and gnaw men's bacon, seems no improbable story.
While I amused myself with this wonderful quadruped,
I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that
bats when down on a flat surface cannot get on the
wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It
ran, I observed, with more dispatch than I was aware
of; but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner14.

10 Probably the pipistrelle bat, Vespertilio Pipistrellus, GMEL.— E. T. B.

II [Plecotus auritus, GEOFF.]

12 These particulars were published by Pennant, as favoured to him
by White, in the Appendix to the second volume of his British Zoology,
1768, p. 500.— E. T. B.

13 I have more than once kept bats in confinement, but none of them
exhibited any of the dexterity mentioned by Mr. White. On the contrary,
they seemed most remarkable for the awkwardness with which they
seized and treated the insects offered to them, and required to have
them almost put into their mouths before they perceived them. I attri-
buted this to its being unnatural for them to catch their prey except on
the wing, like the swallows (Hirundinidte) and the night jars. One of
them which I kept under an inverted bell-glass, slightly raised at the
edge to admit fresh air, contrived to insinuate the hook of its wing so as
to raise up the glass and effect its escape. I once saw one fly into a
cottage in Wiltshire, either by mistake, or -probably pursued by some
owl ; but notwithstanding the delicacy of tact ascribed to the species by
Spallanzani, it did not seem capable of discovering the door, and dashed
recklessly about till it was caught*.— RENNIE.

14 I am indebted to Mr. Daniell for the following particulars of the
habits of two species of British bats, which were kept by him in confine-

* Might not this have been owing to the alarm or excitement under
which the animal was labouring at the time ?— E. T. B.

OF 8ELBORNE. 53

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

ment. They were originally given to me as a commentary on the state-
ment in the text ; but were subsequently communicated, at my request,
to the Zoological Society at its meeting on November 11, 1834.

" In July, 1833," Mr. Daniell says, " I received five specimens of the
pipistrelle bat from Elvetham, Hants ; all of which were pregnant
females. There were many more congregated with them in the ruins of
the barn in which they were taken; but the rest escaped. They were
brought to me in a tin powder canister, in which they had been kept for
several days ; and on turning them loose into a common packing-case
with a few strips of deal nailed over its front to form a cage, they
pleased me much by the great activity which they displayed in the
larger space into which they had been introduced; progressing rapidly
along the bottom of the box, ascending by the bars to the top, and then
throwing themselves off as if endeavouring to fly. I caught some flies
and offered one of them to one of the bats, which seized it with the
greatest eagerness, and devoured it greedily, and then thrust its nose
repeatedly through the bars, with its jaws extended, closing them from
time to time with a snap, and evincing the utmost anxiety to obtain an
additional supply of this agreeable food. The flies were then offered to
the whole of them, and the same ravenous disposition was displayed ; all
the bats crowding together at the end of the box at which they were fed,
and crawling over, snapping at, and biting each other, like so many
curs, uttering at the same time a disagreeable grating squeak. I soon
found that my pets were so hungry as to require more time to be
expended in fly-catching than I was disposed to devote to them ; and I
then tried to feed them with cooked meat : but this they rejected. Raw
beef was, however, eaten with avidity ; and an evident preference was
given to those pieces which had been moistened with water. The
feeding with beef answered exceedingly well, two objects being gained
by it : the bats were enabled to feed without assistance ; and my curiosity
was gratified by observing them catching flies for themselves.

" A slice of beef attached to the side of the box in which they were
kept not only spared me the trouble of feeding them, but also, by
attracting the flies, afforded good sport in observing the animals obtain
their own food by this new kind of bat-fowling. The weather being
warm, many blue-bottle flies were attracted by the meat ; and, on one of
these approaching within range of the bats' wings, it was sure to be
struck down by their action, the animal itself falling at the same instant
with all its membranes expanded, cowering over the devoted fly, with its
head thrust under them in order to secure its prey. When the head was
again drawn forth, the membranes were immediately closed, and the fly
was observed to be almost invariably taken by the head. The act of
deglutition was a laboured operation : the mastication consisting of a
succession of eager bites or snaps ; and the sucking process, if I may so
term it, by which the insect was drawn into the mouth, being greatly
assisted by the loose lips of the animal. Several minutes were usually

54 NATURAL HISTORY

love to frequent waters, not only for the sake of drink-
ing, but on account of insects, which are found over

occupied in swallowing a large fly. Those which I offered, in the first
instance, were eaten entire ; but I subsequently observed detached wings
in the bottom of the box in which the bats were kept : I never, however,
observed the rejection of the wings by the bats, and am inclined to think
that they are generally swallowed. The olfactory nerves of the pipis-
trelle are acutely sensible, readily distinguishing between an insect and
a bit of beef; for when one of them has been hanging at rest, attached
by its hinder extremities to one of the bars in the front of its cage, I have
frequently placed a small piece of beef within a short distance of its
nose, but the beef has always been disregarded ; when, on the other
hand, I have put a fly in the same situation, the bat instantly commenced
snapping after it. They would eat the beef when they were hungry ;
but they never refused a fly,

" In the day time they sometimes clustered together in a corner of the
cage. Towards evening they became very lively, and gave rapid utter-
ance to their harsh, creaking notes. The longest survivor of them died
after a captivity of nineteen days.

" My intimate acquaintance with the noctule bat, the species of which
Gilbert White appears to have been the first English observer, and for
which he indicated the specific name altivolans, commenced on tin Kith
of May, 1834. I obtained on that day from Hertfordshire five specimens,
four of which were pregnant females. The fifth individual, a male, was
exceedingly restless and savage from the first ; biting the females, and
breaking his teeth against the wires of the cage in his attempts to escape
from his place of confinement. He rejected all food, and died on the
18th. Up to this time the remaining four had continued sulky ; but
towards the evening they ate a few small pieces of raw beef, in prefer-
ence to flies, beetles, or gentles, all of which were offered to them : only
one, however, fed kindly. On the 20th one died ; and on the 22nd, two
others. The survivor was tried with a variety of food, for I was anxious
to preserve her as long as possible ; and as she evinced a decided pre-
ference for the hearts, livers, &c. of fowls, she was fed constantly upon
them. Occasionally I offered to her large flies, but they were always
rejected ; although one or two May chafers placed within her reach
were partially eaten. In taking the food the wings are not thrown for-
ward in the manner of the pipistrelle, as if to surround a victim and
prevent its escape ; the action of the noctule in seizing the meat was
similar to that of a dog. The appetite was sometimes voracious; the
quantity eaten exceeding half an ounce, although the weight of the
animal was no more than ten drachms. It was in the evening that it
came down to its food : throughout the day it remained suspended by its
hinder extremities at the top of the cage. It lapped the water that
drained from the food, and in this, no less than in its manner of feeding,
there was a marked distinction between the noctule and the pipistrelle :
the latter in drinking raises its head. The animal evidently became
quite reconciled to her new position. She took considerable pains in

OF SELBORNE. 55

them in the greatest plenty. As I was going some
years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond to
Sunbury, on a warm summer's evening, I think I saw
myriads of bats between the two places: the air swarmed
with them all along the Thames, so that hundreds were
in sight at a time. I am, &c.

LETTER XII.

TO THE SAME.
SIR, November 4, 1767.

IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the Falco1
turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should

cleaning herself, using the claws of the posterior extremities as a comb,
parting with them the hair on either side from the head to the tail, and
forming a straight line down the middle of the back : the membrane of
the wings was cleaned by forcing the nose through the folds, and thereby
expanding them.

" On the 23rd of June a young one was born, exceeding in size a
newly born mouse ; and having, from its birth, considerable power in its
hind legs and claws, by the aid of which it clung strongly to its dam or
to the deal sides of the cage. It was nestled so closely within the folds of
the membranes as to prevent any observation of the process of suckling.
The dam was exceedingly careful of it on the next day also, and was
observed to shift it from side to side to suckle it, keeping it still folded
in the membranes of the wings : on these occasions her usual position
was reversed. In the evening she was found to be dead ; but the young
one was still alive. It took milk from a sponge, and was kept carefully
wrapped up in flannel ; and by these attentions was preserved for eight
days, at the end of which period it died. Its eyes were not then opened,
and it had acquired very little hair." — G. D.

With the preceding notes Mr. Daniell also communicated to the Zoolo-
gical Society some other particulars respecting the female noctule,
which were published in the Proceedings of that body for 1834. These
are less adapted to the general, than to the scientific, reader.

It would seem probable, from the account given in the text of its
manner of feeding, that the tame bat observed by our author was the
pipistrelle : a bat which he and British zoologists generally, until very
recently, confounded with Vespertllio murinus; one of the most common,
with one of the rarest of the English species. — E. T. B.

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

[" It was a variety that differed from our falcon in having the whole

50* NATURAL HISTORY

have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent
you a bird that you had never seen before ; but that, I
find, would be a difficult task2.

I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my
former letter3, a young one and a female with young,

•

THK JMRVtST MOl'SE.

both of which I have preserved in brandy. From the
colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no
doubt but that the species is nondescript. They are
much smaller, and more slender, than the Mus domesticus
medius of Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or dor-
mouse colour : their belly is white ; a straight line along

under side of the body of a dirty deep yellow ; but the black bars were
the same in both." Pennant, Brit. Zoo!., 1768, p. 560.]

The Falco peregrinus, sent by Mr. White to Mr. Pennant, is a rare bird.
One of them was caught some years ago in Norfolk, in a trap baited with
a woodcock. Another was killed in January, 1812 (this present month),
in Sussex, while fighting with a raven. This falcon breeds in Glenmore,
and other rocks in the Highlands. See Pennant's Scotland, vol. i. p. 277.

— MlTFORD.

2 The specimen of the peregrine falcon mentioned in the text was killed
in Faringdon, the parish adjoining on the north-west to Selborne. Another
individual, shot at a much later period, on Wolmer Forest, is described
in Letter LVII. to Daines Harrington. — E. T. B.

3 [Letter X.]

OF SELBORNE. 57

their sides divides the shades of their back and belly.
They never enter into houses ; are carried into ricks
and barns with the sheaves; abound in harvest; and
build their nests amidst the straws of the corn above
the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed as
many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed
of the blades of grass or wheat4.

One of these nests I procured this autumn, most arti-
ficially platted, and composed of the blad-es of wheat ;
perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ;
with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was
no discovering to what part it belonged. It was so
compact and well filled, that it would roll across the
table without being discomposed, though it contained
eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this
nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her
litter respectively so as to administer a teat to each?
Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose,
adjusting them again when the business is over: but
she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball
with her young, which moreover would be daily increas-
ing in bulk. This wonderful " procreant cradle," an
elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in
a wheat field suspended in the head of a thistle5.

4 I took up one of these little mice in a stubble field in Hampshire, in
September, and put it into a cage. The next morning it had produced six
young ones, and a few hours after, it had eaten them all up. — W. H.

5 Zoology is indebted to Gilbert White for the addition to its stores of
the curious little mouse above referred to, which both by its minute-
ness and by the singularity of its habits, is well adapted to attract atten-
tion. The notice in the text is the first account that was given of it,
and the particulars there recorded, with the additional information
contained in some of the subsequent Letters, constituted for many years
the whole stock of our knowledge respecting it. Pennant, to whom
the facts relating to it were communicated, inserted it immediately in
an Appendix to the earliest octavo edition of his British Zoology ;
describing it as the less long-tailed field mouse, and acknowledging
himself indebted for his acquaintance with it to Gilbert White, whose
account of it he published almost entire. Other zoologists were con-
tented with copying what Pennant had printed ; with the exception of
Pallas, who, ten years later, appears to have described it under the

58 NATURAL HISTORY

A gentleman curious in birds, wrote me word that
his servant had shot one last January, in that severe

name of Mm minutus, asserting at the same time (but erroneously) that the
Mus messorius of Pennant, the Hampshire harvest-mouse, is only a small
variety of his Mus sylvaticus. Pallas found his animal in birch woods, in
several parts of Russia ; but he had not observed it in Germany. It has
since occurred in the latter country ; and Dr. Gloger has well described
its nest in a paper published in the Transactions of the German Academy.
It was beautifully and elaborately constructed of the panicles and leaves
of three stems of the common reed interwoven together, and forming a
roundish ball suspended on the living plants at a height of about five
inches from the ground. On the side opposite to the stems, rather below
the middle, was a small aperture, which appeared to be closed during the
absence of the parent, and was scarcely observable even after one of the
young had made its escape through it. The inside, when examined with
the little finger, was found to be soft and warm, smooth, and neatly
rounded, but very confined. This nest contained but five young ; but one
less elaborately formed, previously examined by Dr. Gloger, was found to
afford shelter to no less than nine. The panicles and leaves of the grass
were very artificially woven together, the latter being first slit by the
action of the little animal's teeth into more or less minute bands or
strings. No other substance was used in the construction of the nest,
which was altogether without cement, or any means of cohesion save
the interweaving of its component parts : it consequently suffered consi-
derable disturbance even from the most careful handling, losing in neat-
ness of form as much as it gained in its increasing size.

The fullest account that has yet appeared of the habits of the harvest
mouse in captivity has been furnished by the Rev. W. Bingley : his ob-
servations are so full of interest as to authorise their introduction here.

« About the middle of September, 1804," he says, « I had a female
harvest mouse given to me. It was put into a dormouse cage immedi-
ately when caught, and a few days afterwards produced eight young
ones. I entertained some hopes that the little animal would have nursed
these and brought them up ; but having been disturbed in her removal
about four miles from the country, she began to destroy them, and I took
them from her. The young ones at the time I received them, (not more
than two or three days old), must have been at least equal in weight to
the mother.

" After they were removed she became reconciled to her situation ;
and when there was no noise, would venture to come out of her hiding-
place at the extremity of the cage, and climb about among the wires of
the open part before me. In doing this, I remarked that her tail was
prehensile, and that, to render her hold the more secure, she generally
coiled the extremity of it round one of the wires : the toes of all the feet
were particularly long and flexible, and she could grasp the wires very
firmly with any of them. She frequently rested on her hind feet, some-
what in the manner of the jerboa, for the purpose of looking about her;
and, in this attitude, could extend her body at such an angle as at first

OF SELBORNE. 59

weather, which he believed would puzzle me. I called
to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect:

greatly surprised me. She was a beautiful little animal, and her various
attitudes, in cleaning her face, head, and body with her paws, were
peculiarly graceful and elegant. For a few days after I received this
mouse, I neglected to give it any water; but when I afterwards put
some into the cage, she lapped it with great eagerness. After lapping,
she always raised herself on her hind feet, and cleaned her head with
her paws. She continued even to the time of her death exceedingly shy
and timid ; and whenever I put into her cage any favourite food, such as
grains of wheat or maize, she would eat them before me. On the least
noise or motion, however, she immediately ran off, with the grains in her
mouth, to her hiding place.

" One evening, as I was sitting at my writing desk and the animal
was playing about in the open part of its cage, a large blue fly happened
to buzz against the wires : the little creature, although at twice or thrice
the distance of her own length from it, sprang along the wires with the
greatest agility, and would certainly have seized it had the space be-
tween the wires been sufficiently wide to have admitted her teeth or
paws to reach it. I was surprised at this occurrence, as I had been led
to believe that the harvest mouse was merely a granivorous animal. I
caught the fly, and made it buzz in my fingers against the wires. The
mouse, though usually shy and timid, immediately came out of her
hiding-place, and, running to the spot, seized and devoured it. From
this time I fed her with insects whenever I could get them ; and she
always preferred them to every other kind of food that I offei'ed her.

" When this mouse was first put into her cage, a piece of fine flannel
was folded up into the dark part of it as a bed, and I put some grass
and bran into the large open part. In the course of a few days all the
grass was removed; and, on examining the cage, I found it very neatly
arranged between the folds of the flannel and rendered more soft by
being mixed with the nap of the flannel, which the animal had torn off
in considerable quantity for the purpose. The chief part of this opera-
tion must have taken place in the night, for although the mouse was
generally awake and active during the day time, yet I never once
observed it employed in removing the grass.

" On opening its nest about the latter end of October, I remarked that
there were among the grass and wool at the bottom about forty grains of
maize. These appeared to have been arranged with some care and
regularity, and every grain had the corcule, or growing part, eaten out,
the lobes only being left. This seemed so much like an operation
induced by the instinctive propensity that some quadrupeds are endowed
with for storing up food for support during the winter months, that I
soon afterwards put into the cage about a hundred additional grains of
maize. These were all in a short time carried away ; and on a second
examination I found them stored up in the manner of the former. But
though the animal was well supplied with other food, and particularly
with bread, which it seemed very fond of; and although it continued

(>0 NATURAL HISTORY

but, the moment I took it in hand, I pronounced it the
male Garrulus Bohemicus, or German silk-tail, from the
five peculiar crimson tags or points which it carries at
the ends of live of the short remiges. It cannot, I sup-
pose, with any propriety, be called an English bird :
and yet I see, by Ray's Philosophical Letters, that great
flocks of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this king-
dom in the winter of 1685 6.

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

Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and
feeding on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered
to the description of the Merula torquata1, or rin^-ouzel,
were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed
some people to procure me a specimen, but without
success. See Letter XX.

Query — Might not canary birds be naturalized to this
climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into
the nest of some of their congeners, as goldfinches,
greenfinches, &c. ? Before winter perhaps they might
be hardened and able to shift for themselves.

About ten years ago I used to spend some wejeks
yearly at Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant vil-

perfectly active through the whole winter, on examining its nest a third
time, about the end of November, I observed that the food in its repo-
sitory was all consumed except about half a dozen grains." — E. T. B.

6 This statement is contained in a Letter to Ray from one of his fre-
quent correspondents, Mr. Johnson of Brignal, in Yorkshire; who sus-
pects " that the wars in those parts have frightened them thence, and
brought them hither this winter, (which with us was above measure
plentiful in haws,) for certainly they are not natives." The one described
by Ray, was obtained in March, 1685-6. As more than one of these birds,
killed in Yorkshire, are said by Lister to have been seen by him in 1680,
it should seem that at that time, as of late years, the Bohemian chatterer
was an occasional, although uncertain, winter visitant. — E. T. B.

7 [Turdus torquatus, LINN.]

OF SELBORNE. 61

lages lying on the Thames, near Hampton Court. In
the autumn, I could not help being much amused with
those myriads of the swallow kind which assemble in
those parts. But what struck me most was, that,
from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the
chimneys and houses, they roosted every night in the
osier-beds of the aits of that river. Now this resorting
towards that element, at that season of the year, seems
to give some countenance to the northern opinion
(strange as it is) of their retiring under water. A
Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact
that he talks, in his Calendar of Flora, as familiarly of
the swallow's going under water in the beginning of
September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a
little before sunset8.

An observing gentleman in London writes me word,
that he saw a house-martin, on the twenty-third of last
October, flying in and out of its nest in the Borough9.

8 In the Calendar of Flora, Swedish and English, made in the year
1755, and published in 1761 by Stillingfleet, among the occurrences of the
sowing month (which is defined as extending from the first blow of the
meadow saffron to the departure of the swallow) the concluding entry by
Linnaeus is " Swallow goes under water :" an entry made with as little
hesitation as would occur in the enunciation of the most ordinary and
undoubted fact. On this statement, however, Stillingfleet notes thus :
" Adanson, in the account of his voyage to Senegal, p. 121, says that in
October, 1749, European swallows lodged in the vessel in which he went
from Goree to Senegal : and that they are never seen there but at this
time of the year, along with quails, wagtails, kites, and some other birds
of passage, and do not build nests there. This testimony seems to take
away all doubts about this long contested point." — E. T. B.

9 On the 7th of October, 1835, a number of house martins congregated
on the roofs of the houses opposite to Cumberland Gate, Hyde Park.
They had been gathering for several days previous ; were numerous in
the streets; and flew so low, that the boys were trying to catch them in
their hats. On the 8th and 9th there were none to be seen. On the 15th
a pair were seen, hawking for flies, in Cumberland Crescent. The con-
gregating of the emigrants having been observed, and the departure of
the multitude being consequently regarded as certain, it became an object
of interest to watch this pair; and they were found to have a nest of
young at a house in Cumberland Place, fixed in the upper corner of a
blank window. On a subsequent visit, I found them feeding their young
at the opening of the nest, passing to and fro, in the most rapid manner.

62 NATURAL HISTORY

And I myself, on the twenty-ninth of last October (as
I was travelling through Oxford), saw four or five
swallows hovering round and settling on the roof of the
county hospital.

Now is it likely10 that these poor little birds (which

It was wet, cold, and foggy, witlj only occasional gleams of sunshine :
but in spite of the weather these birds continued to fulfil their parental
functions with the most persevering assiduity and industry. Taking
advantage of every propitious hour to prepare their young for their
distant journey, and as if instinctively aware of the necessity of expe-
diting their departure, they subsequently appeared to have brought them
out earlier than usual, and seemed to be teaching them to fly. They
were observed to pass under the young bird when it appeared to be
sinking, and were seen to raise its head, assisting it thus in its progres-
sion through the air. I saw them on the 23rd of October ; and on the
24th they had departed. On the 28th martins were observed at Maida
Hill, Paddington : these had possibly been beaten back by the violent
storm from the south which occurred on the night of the 25th. — G. D.

10 It is, however, quite certain that young swifts, the moment they leave
the nest, have often occasion to make the great migration. See Mr.
White's Observation, Letter LI I. to Daines Barrington. The various
species of Himndines remain in their nests till they are more completely
feathered than other birds, and when they come forth they are matured
for flight. I suspect that the troublesome insect, called Hippobosca Hintn-
ilinis, is a resource in the scheme of providence, to force them to venture
upon the wing from the perilous height at which their nest is placed, by
making the abode insupportable.

Few subjects are more interesting or more difficult to unravel, than the
instinct of birds. Instinct is explained by Dr. Johnson, to be desire or
aversion acting in the mind without the intervention of reason ; the power
of determining the will of brutes. He should have added in some parti-
cular cases, for it is not true generally. The will of brutes on many, and
indeed on most occasions, is influenced by memory of the past, and appre-
hension of the future, as much as that of a human being; and that which
is called reason in mankind is, perhaps, rather an improved state of
understanding, resulting from mutual communication of ideas through
the gift of speech, than a distinct and separate quality. Instinct is, in
fact, the immediate agency of the Almighty power on the mind of creatures
not endued with speech, which supplies the place of reason, and deter-
mines their most important actions : and perhaps in nothing is the uni-
versal superintendence of the Almighty more wonderfully displayed,
than in its immediate agency upon the minds of the most insignificant
creatures.

The difficulty attending this subject is, to distinguish imitation of the
parents, from instinctive propensities. It is well known to those who
teach young birds to pipe, or rear them to learn the notes of some better
songster, that, unless they are removed from hearing the parents, at the

OF SELBORNE. 63

perhaps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should,
at that late season of the year, and from so midland a

age of a very few days, they will sing a portion, if not the whole, of their
natural melody. In this respect, the power of observation and imitation
in the newborn creature displays itself most marvellously, and gives us
reason to attribute many other things to similar causes, which we might
otherwise have been induced to refer to instinct. Each bird builds its
nest in the same form, and of the same materials as its parent, and for
the most part in a similar situation. If the callow nestling is studying
and learning the song and call of its parents, from the 'moment its eyes
are open, why should not the more advanced nestling study every parti-
cular of the structure in which it is dwelling, and thus learn to build
hereafter in the same fashion and position, and with similar materials ?
I can entertain no doubt that such is the case: and if the eggs were trans-
posed into the nest of some nearly related species, and the produce kept
separate from all others of their own kind, they would, doubtless, make
their nests like those of the birds which had reared them, and would
adopt their notes. I have observed young blackcaps raised from the
nest in a large cage, in which the perches were placed very low, as soon
as they fed themselves, show a sudden anxiety at roosting time to find a
higher perch, and flutter about so intent upon this as to notice nothing
else, and at last settle to roost clinging to the wires near the top of the
cage. This appeared like a marvellous instinctive impulse ; but I appre-
hend that, while in their native bush, they had noticed the parents every
evening, at roosting time, fly upwards to a loftier situation, in which to
pass the night. I therefore refer this also to observation.

I had some cock blackcaps and whitethroats, reared from the nest in
May and the beginning of June : they were fed upon bread and ground
hempseed scalded. The blackcap is naturally a great devourer of fruit,
the whitethroat indifferent about it; but, before they were taken, the
young blackcaps had been fed by the parents on caterpillars and maggots,
and had tasted no fruit, nor could they have had any, for none was ripe ;
not even strawberries, and those, on account of their acidity, they do not
touch. After they were grown up, having one day mixed with their food
some of the black currant raisins of the shop, I observed the blackcaps
immediately pounce upon them, but the whitethroats either neglected
them or took them up and let them drop. In this I think that I discern
the immediate agency of an Almighty power, suggesting the food most
congenial to this species ; for this propensity had not been derived from
the habits of the parents. It so happened that the hens of the brood had
been placed in a cage at a window of another room, to be fed by the old
ones, for some time before they were restored to liberty, for the purpose
of observing what food was brought to them; and no fruit was brought
to them, nor could any berries have been found in the neighbourhood at
that season.

The next propensity that manifests itself in young birds, is the ardent
desire of washing themselves, in some species, and of dusting themselves
in others ; as, for instance, in the common wren. This I conceive must

64 NATURAL HISTORY

county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost
as far as the equator11 ?

be an instinctive incitement. It is barely possible that the little wrens
might see through the aperture of their covered nest, the parents dusting
themselves on the ground in some instances ; but their 'nests are often
placed where this could not be perceived, and the desire is equally pow-
erful in all individuals. On the other hand, the nestlings of the wood-
wren and many others, which wash themselves eagerly on the first
opportunity that presents itself, after they can feed themselves, could
never have seen the like, their nests having been situated under the roots
of a tree, upon a dry bank in a wood. This impulse is therefore inspired
by the Creator : and it is inspired with a force that, in captivity, is like
unto madness. It is very injurious to a nightingale to wash in the winter,
and it is fatal to it to do so often : yet the moment a pan of water is put
into its cage it rushes into the water and soaks itself, and then stands
shivering, the very image of chilliness and despair; yet, will it eagerly
repeat the operation, if allowed to do so, every day till it dies. Young
whin chats, sedge warblers, wood wrens, yellow wrens, &c. as soon as they
can feed themselves, if offered water in a cage, wash with similar avidity,
yet, if the temperature be much under seventy, and the sun not shining,
it is sure to kill them. In the younger birds it produces, some hours
after, or perhaps the next day, a sudden stroke of palsy, by which they
drop with a scream, having lost the use of one or both legs, and often with
the mouth distorted. In this state the general health does not seem to
be affected, but if both legs are paralyzed, they must soon perish. At a
little more advanced age, the consequence of a single washing in cool
weather is epileptic fits, which are repeated at shorter intervals, till they
occasion death. In a state of liberty, the bird would dry itself quickly
by rubbing against the leaves, and by very active motion, in the same
manner as the wrens, by perpetual activity, resist the severest frost, of
which the least attack would kill them in confinement; and, probably,
when birds have opportunities of washing always at hand, they choose
the most favourable moments. In a cage, it is necessary to give such
birds their water in a very narrow-mouthed fountain, to prevent their
killing themselves by washing. They will repeat it with equal eagerness,
if not prevented, till they die ; so strong is the inward impulse. I think
the desire of washing belongs most strongly to the birds which migrate
to hotter climates in winter ; that of dusting to those which remain with
us : a substitution wise as all the dispensations of the Creator, for if the
little wren in winter were to wash in cold water instead of dusting, it
must perish from the chill.

The next impulse that shows itself is the mutation of love into anti-
pathy, not only in the parents, but amongst the young of several species,
which impulse is denominated avri^opyij. As soon as the parents of
such species as are not gregarious, have completed the education of their
brood, they drive them away, while they perhaps give birth to a second

11 See Adanson's Voyage to Senegal.

OF SELBORNE. 65

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

As to the short-winged soft-billed birds, which come

family. But this is not all: as soon as the young of many species feed
themselves, they begin to fight with each other, though perfectly friendly
to birds of any other species in the same cage ; and if they do quarrel with
others, they do so more with those of cognate species. ^This appears to
be a natural impulse given to them in order to effect th*e dispersion of
their kind ; it cannot be the effect of imitation.

The next impulse that shows itself in young birds is at the season of
passage, and I can say, positively, that the desire of migration at the
usual periods, is as strong in those which have never been out of their
native country, and have been brought up in a cage, as in the old birds
that have made the passage. This uneasiness lasts nearly a month, both
in the autumn and spring. I have observed, at these periods, that they
usually go to roost quietly, but, upon a light being brought into the room
after they have been asleep, the bustle commences, and it is very difficult
to get them to settle on the perch again. The anxiety is always accom-
panied with a looking upwards, and bending the neck quite back, with
an aspiring motion of the body, as if the bird wished to soar. At these
times, if their perches are near the top of the cage, they bruise their heads
against it. It appears from this, as if the rise of the moon were the
summons for departure ; and the upward flight is probably necessary at
starting, to get above all impediments. It has been often observed that
woodcocks come over to us on moonlight nights. From these circum-
stances it is evident that birds do not migrate because their food fails
them. If it be said that the diminution or increase of temperature is
the channel through which they are warned of the necessity to depart, it
does not appear that they are distressed by those changes, for they settle
very well again as soon as the days of migration are passed, although the
alteration of temperature is daily increasing. Indeed the vernal change,
instead of creating a wish to depart, in the chilly species, should rather
tend to reconcile them to confinement. It cannot therefore be truly
averred that their desire of migration is occasioned by the pressure of
any inconvenience.

The result of these observations is, that there are certain impulses
given to birds, independent of their early imitative propensities, which
seem to proceed directly from the Almighty power that governs the
universe. The craniologist may, perhaps, expect to find such impulses
modified by the various conformation of their sculls ; but if it were
admitted that a particular shape of the head might induce a disposition
to migrate, what, but the agency of a higher intelligence, could impel
the young bird, reared in a cage by the hand of man, with a pan full
of food beside a comfortable fire, to travel north or south. The more this
subject is investigated, the more clearly, I believe, the direct agency of
God will be discovered. — VV. H.

(>6 NATURAL HISTORY

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 diffi-
culties attend that supposition ! that such feeble bad
fliers (who the summer long never flit but from hedge
to hedge) should be able to traverse vast seas and con-
tinents, in order to enjoy milder seasons amidst the
regions of Africa12!

LETTER XIII.

TO THE SAME.
SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 22, 17G8.

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

12 There certainly does exist a difficulty in conceiving how some of the
birds of passage, such feeble and bad fliers, should be able to migrate to
such a vast distance; but some of our wonder will perhaps diminish,
when we read an account of the manner in which the quail crosses the
Mediterranean, for the coast of Africa. " Towards the end of September,
the quails avail themselves of rf northerly wind to take their departure
from Europe, and flapping one wing, while they present the other to the
gale, half-sail, half-oar, they graze the billows of the Mediterranean with
their fattened rumps, and bury themselves in the sands of Africa, that
they may serve as food to the famished inhabitants of Zara." St. Pierre's
Studies of Nature, vol. i. p. 91.— MITFORD.

Mr. White subsequently arrived at a solution of this difficulty. See his
Letter XXXIII. to Pennant; and that to Daines Harrington numbered
IX.— W. Y.

OP SELEORNE. G?

For many years past I have observed that towards
Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in
the fields ; many more, I used to think, than could be
hatched in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came
to observe them more narrowly, I was amazed to find
that they seemed to me to be almost all hens. I com-
municated my suspicions to some intelligent neighbours,
who, after taking pains about the matter, jdeclared that
they also thought them all mostly females; at least
fifty to one. This extraordinary occurrence brought to
my mind the remark of Linnaeus ; that " before winter
all their hen chaffinches migrate through Holland into
Italy." Now I want to know, from some curious per-
son in the north, whether there are any large flocks of
these finches with them in the winter, and of which sex
they mostly consist? For, from such intelligence, one
might be able to judge whether our female flocks migrate
from the other end of the island, or whether they come
over to us from the continent 1.

We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common
linnets ; more, I think, than can be bred in any one
district. These, I observe, when the spring advances,
assemble on some tree in the sunshine, and join all in a
gentle sort of chirping, as if they were about to break
up their winter quarters, and betake themselves to their
proper summer homes2. It is well known, at least, that

1 Concerning the congregation of cock chaffinches in the winter season,
it may be observed that such is not an invariable habit. A pair of
chaffinches have frequented my window for food during three winters
without interruption, and have grown so tame as to take it while I stand
almost touching them. Having no difficulty in procuring sustenance, they
continue as paired birds during the whole winter, and in last June and
July they used to carry the food away for their young. A pair of robins
and hedgewarblers do the same, always making their nest at a very small
distance ; and the hedgewarbler even brings its young to the window to
feed them there.— W. H.

2 Linnets flock in September, and continue to congregrate till March.
At this season they are termed branchers, and assemble in vast numbers :
but they are broken up towards winter into smaller (locks, in which the
sexes are separate. In March they again assemble, when they are

68 NATURAL HISTORY

the swallows and the fieldfares do congregate with a
gentle twittering before they make their respective
departure.

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

Wagtails, both white and yellow, are with us all the
winter3. Quails crowd to our southern coast, and are
often killed in numbers by people that go on purpose.

Mr. Stillingfleet, in his Tracts, says that, " if the
wheatear (CEnanthe*) does not quit England, it certainly
shifts places; for about harvest they are not to be
found, where there was before great plenty of them."
This well accounts for the vast quantities that are
caught about that time on the South Downs near Lewes5,

termed flight birds, and are captured males and females together. At the
beginning of April they are taken in pairs. The flocking as the spring
advances, when they assemble on some tree in the sunshine, and join all
in a gentle sort of chirping, is for the purpose of choosing their mates,
and their emigration is only to the nests which the season renders
necessary.

Last season I reared a nest of linnets ; these were very tame, having
been brought up by hand. At the latter end of September, having nearly
completed moulting their quill feathers, they suddenly became very wild,
dropping their wings below their tails, stooping as if preparing to make
a start, and fluttering towards the light. This continued upwards of a
fortnight The true cause did not at first strike me, and I changed their
position, thinking that some object frightened them; but the change of
place was without effect, as they still continued wild and shy. I then
concluded, and have no doubt correctly, that they were instinctively
aware of the annual flocking of the species, in the season of flight. —
G. D.

3 The yellow wagtail cannot remain at Selborne all the winter. It is
a common summer visitant: but departs early. White most probably
was deceived by observing in the winter months the gray wagtail, the
under parts of which are yellow : this bird, as well as the pied wagtail,
is stationary throughout the year in the south of England.— G. D.

4 [Saxicola (Enanthe, BECKST.]

5 The popular name wheat-ear appears to have been originally local,
its use having been confined to the South Downs. It is believed to have

OF SELBORNE. 1)9

where they are esteemed a delicacy. There have been
shepherds, I have been credibly informed, that have
made many pounds in a season by catching them in
traps. And though such multitudes are taken, I never
saw (and I am well acquainted with those parts) above
two or three at a time : for they are never gregarious.
They may perhaps migrate in general; and, for that
purpose, draw towards the coast of Sussex in autumn :
but that they do not all withdraw 1 am sure ; because I
see a few stragglers in many counties, at all'times of the
year, especially about warrens and stone quarries6.

I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gen-
tlemen 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

been applied in that neighbourhood to the bird, as indicating the season
of its annual arrival. Elsewhere, Ray says, it is called white-tail.
Hwitaers may possibly have been its Saxon name. — E. T. B.

6 There are some dispersed over the country throughout the year,
generally frequenting fallows, and called by the country people, clod-
hoppers ; they are also known by this name to the London birdcatchers.
I have a female taken at Hampstead on the 14th of February, 1834.

There is as much difference in the habits of this species, at various
periods of the year, as there is between the plumage of the male in April
as contrasted with that in September. When numerous on the South
Downs in the autumn, they are a very shy bird. The shepherds make a
little cavity, and place horse-hair nooses in it, putting turfs above them
edgeways ; and upon the least alarm, even the shadow of a passing cloud,
the bird runs beneath the clods for shelter, and is taken in the noose : it
is customary if a stranger takes a bird from the trap, to deposit a penny
in its place. But in winter those birds that remain will perch on a gate,
or fence rail, and suffer you to approach quite close to them ; being then
almost as familiar as a robin. In September the plumage of an old male
is reddish brown on the crown and back : the throat and breast are
ferruginous red, becoming lighter on the sides and belly. But on raising
the feathers of the back, the base of them will be found to be gray. In
the spring this ground tint forces off the brown of winter, and the upper
parts assume a beautiful blueish gray colour: the throat and belly also
become white. Both the change from the summer gray to the winter
brown, and from the brown to the gray in the spring, are changes of colour
in the same feathers ; and are not dependent on moulting. In the winter
these birds are very fat, some of them weighing an ounce and a half: in
the spring they rarely weigh an ounce. — G. D.

70 NATURAL HISTORY

channel. What Hasselquist says on that subject is
remarkable : there were little short-winged birds fre-
quently coming on board his ship all the way from
our channel quite up to the Levant, especially before
squally weather.

What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly
probable. The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that,
in all likelihood, the soft-billed birds that leave us at
that season may find insects sufficient to support them
there.

Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and
leisure, should make an autumnal voyage into that
kingdom ; and should spend a year there, investigating
the natural history of that vast country. Mr. Wil-
lughby7 passed through that kingdom on such an
errand ; but he seems to have skirted along in a super-
ficial 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 sus-
pected were Merulce torquatce.

As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that
though they hang their nests for breeding up amidst
the straws of the standing corn, above the ground, yet
I find that, in the winter, they burrow deep in the earth,
and make warm beds of grass : but their grand rendez-
vous seems to be in corn-ricks, into which they are
carried at harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick
lately, under the thatch of which were assembled near
a hundred, most of which were taken ; and some I saw.
I measured them ; and found that, from nose to tail,
they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails
just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed
down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the
third of an ounce avoirdupois : so that I suppose they

7 See Ray's Travels, p. 460.

OF SELBORNE. 71

are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-
grown Mus domesticus medius weighs, I find, one ounce
lumping weight, which is more than six times as much
as the mouse above ; and measures from nose to rump
four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail.

We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this
month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees
and a half below the freezing point, within doors. The
tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was
very providential that the air was still, arid the ground
well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must
have sufl'ered prodigiously. There is reason to believe
that some days were more severe than any since the
year 1739-408.

I am, &c. &c.

LETTER XIV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, March 12, 1768.

IF some curious gentleman would procure the head of
a fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it
furnished with two spiracula, or breathing places, be-
sides the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta
lachrymalia in the human head. When deer are thirsty
they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep
under water while in the act of drinking, and continue
them in that situation for a considerable time : but, to
obviate any inconveniency, 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 extraor-
dinary 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

8 [A full account of the effects of this short but intense frost is given
in Letter LXI. to Daines Harrington.]

72 NATURAL HISTORY

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 run1.

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

[The structure of the glandular cavities, of which the orifices are here
alluded to, precludes the possibility of their ever being used as accessory
respiratory passages, or organs of scent.

The common integument is continued over the margins of the orifice, and
is reflected over the whole of the interior of the cavity, which is altogether
imperforate, except by the ducts of a large flattened mucous gland, which
occupies its base ; a few short hairs spring up in the interspaces of the
terminal orifices of the ducts. Mr. Hunter, whose attention was probably
called by his friend Pennant to this peculiarity of the deer and antelopes,
has left several preparations of the glands and sinus, taken from the
Indian and another species of antelope, and also from the deer: in which
their condition as tegumentary sacs, having no communication with the
nose, is clearly shown.

Conceiving that the secretion of these glands, when rubbed upon
projecting bodies, might serve to direct individuals of the same species to
each other, I prepared a tabular view of the relations between the habits
and habitats of the several species of antelopes, and their suborbital,
maxillary, post-auditory, and inguinal glands, in order to be able to com-
pare the presence and degrees of development of the glands, with the
gregarious and other habits of the antelope tribe.

From this table it was, however, evident, that there is no relation
between the gregarious habits of the antelopes which frequent the plains
and the presence of the suborbital and maxillary sinuses ; since these,
besides being altogether wanting in some of the gregarious species,
are present in many of the solitary frequenters of rocky mountainous
districts. The supposition, therefore, that the secretion might serve,
when left on shrubs or stones, to guide a straggler to the general herd,
falls to the ground.

The secretion of those cutaneous glands which are designed to attract
the sexes, is generally observed to acquire towards the reproductive
period a strong musky odour, as in the elephant and alligator, but the
secretion of the suborbital sinuses, even when these are most fully
developed, is devoid of any approach to a musky, or any other well defined
odour.

Nevertheless, the subjoined observations of Mr. Bennett tend to give

OF SELBORNE. 73

Mr. Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up
the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked: for

some probability to the theory which ascribes to the suborbital sinuses a
sexual relation. — R. O.]

[It seems probable that these organs, on the use of which it is by no
means creditable to naturalists to have now to speculate, may be designed
for the promotion of that intimate acquaintance between animals of the
same species which a primary law of nature requires : but it would be
difficult to explain in what manner they may avail to such an end. That
they have some connexion with the full developement of the animal powers
will appear, I think, from the consideration of a series of individuals now
living at the Zoological Society's Gardens.

Among the whole of the deer and antelopes that are provided with
suborbital sinuses, none have them more strongly marked than the Indian
antelope ; and in none of those animals are they more frequently brought
into use. A fully grown male, the moment you approach him, throws
back his head and thrusts himself rapidly forwards, as though about to
make an attack ; but the backward direction of his long spirally twisted
horns, and the freedom with which he offers to you his exposed neck and
chest, are scarcely indicative of a hostile movement. He has at this time
fully expanded the large bag beneath his eye ; its thick lips, which pout
considerably in the quiet state of the animal, are widely separated and
thrown back ; and the intervening space is actually everted, the base of
the sac forming a projection instead of a hollow. We see the bare skin,
covered only by a coating of a dark ceruminous secretion. This, if the
hand be within his reach, the animal attempts to rub against the knuckles ;
and we then feel that though the lining skin of the sac has no general
covering of hair, it is not destitute of a few bristles, which grate against
the finger subjected to the friction. The friction is evidently agreeable
to the animal, for it is often repeated : at times, it is even continued for a
minute or two. After the finger has been subjected for some time to this
rubbing, it will be found to have acquired a heavy odour, of a salt and
peculiar character.

The Zoological Society has at present, in its gardens in the Regent's
Park, four individuals of the Indian antelope : an adult and aged male,
brought by Col. Sykes from Bombay, and presented to the Society nearly
five years ago; a younger, yet adult, male, that was presented, in an
immature condition, about two years since ; an immature male, lately
arrived, and in about the same state of developement as that in which the
last mentioned individual was when he was originally presented ; and
an emasculated specimen of full growth. The series is singularly com-
plete as regards one sex : the other sex has not yet been possessed by the
Society, and is, indeed, rarely seen in Europe. Destitute of horns, and
never acquiring the rich deep colour of the males, the female is probably
considered as less worthy of exportation from the native country of the
species.

During the time that the old male has remained in the Gardens he has
constantly behaved in the manner described above : the conduct of his

74 NATURAL HISTORY

they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit
air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or

several predecessors has been precisely similar. He widely expands the
suborbital sinus, and brings it near to any substance offered to him ; he
might even be suspected of a disposition to test, by some special sense
lodged in it, the nature of the substance offered : but he usually drives
the naked and everted skin against the hand, either thrusting it repeat-
edly or rubbing it. The peculiar odour is freely imparted to the substance
rubbed, but seems to offer no special attraction to his senses: he neither
smells to it remarkably, nor licks it. The second male, whose horns
have about three-fourths of their full growth, and whose rich colours are
only less deep than those of his more aged neighbour, acts in a similar
manner. His suborbital sinus, though strongly developed, is not so
extensive as that of the older animal : in its quiet state it is scarcely
completely closed, so thick are its lips; in its condition of excitement it
is widely expanded. The animal then thrusts it at the offered hand ;
but does not exhibit an equal readiness to rub it. The youngest male is
evidently immature ; its horns have only commenced making their first
spiral turn, and its colour is the fawn of the female, with her pale stripe
along the side : for in the Indian antelope, as in most animals in which the
adult males differ in colour from the females, the young of both sexes are
similarly coloured, and resemble the dam. In this individual the sub-
orbital sinus is small; its lips are closely applied to each other; and
they are but slightly moved when the animal is interested : if he uses his
nose, the sac is called into moderate action. He cares little for the
odour of his older relatives. The remaining specimen was probably of
nearly the same age with this younger male when that occurred which,
while it allowed of the animal's increasing in bulk, checked the develope-
nn • nt of the external characters that belong to the mature male. Its advance
towards perfection was arrested while the female livery of the young
animal was yet retained, and its colour is the fawn of the female with
the side marked lengthways by her paler line. Its horn too, normal in its
character as far as a point corresponding with the early part of the first
spiral turn, and about this point regularly ringed, afterwards loses the
form characteristic of the species, and instead of being completed by a
continuous series of spiral turns, surrounded by strongly marked rings,
becomes smooth, continues slender, and is directed backwards in one
single large sweep; forming a horn altogether monstrous, and one which
is sheep-like, though infinitely weak, rather than antilopine : only one
such horn remains. In this animal the suborbital sinus is not more
developed than in the youngest and immature male, and it is quite
unused: the sinus is little more than a mark existing in the ordinary
situation, and no motion whatever is observed in its lips; it is not
applied to any substance brought near to it, the nose being usually
employed. A finger loaded with the secretion from the sac of the mature
male is smelt to by this individual ; and is then freely licked : perhaps
on account of its saltness alone, but probably also on account of some
other and peculiar attraction. The same cause which induced the

OF SELBORNE.

laboured in that hot climate. And we know that
grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils
necessary, and a, perfection, in hunters and running
horses.

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

retention by this individual of the immature colours, and which arrested
the perfect growth of the horns, has also, I do not hesitate in believing,
checked the developement of the suborbital sinuses and rendered them
useless. •

I am not disposed, on this occasion, to enter farther into the specula-
tions which might be founded on the facts just recorded with respect to
the suborbital sinus in the Indian antelope ; and I quit the subject, for
the present, with the remark that they seem to me to justify the obser-
vation with which I commenced. More numerous facts, arid more full
consideration of them, will determine before long the degree of value
that should be attached to this view of the subject.

By a letter which I have just received from Mr. Hodgson, I find that
he has had his attention excited by the observation of the antelopes
which he has kept alive in Nepal ; and that he also has been led to the
conclusion that there exists a relation between these sinuses and their
secretions and the other functions referred to. His continued observa-
tion, favourably as he is circumstanced for the acquisition of information
on all subjects of Nepalese zoology, will doubtless tend to elucidate this
yet unsettled point, on which Dr. Jacob, at the meeting of the British
Association in Dublin, in 1835, laid before the members assembled some
valuable observations. — E. T. B.]

HEADS OK THE INLilAN ANTELOPE.

76 NATURAL HISTORY

vfiot pivcg, TtiavpiQ Trvotrjoi 8iav\oi."
" Quadrifidae nares, quadrupliues ad respirationem canales."

OPP. CYH. lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle
say that goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts
just the contrary : — " AAx/xa/wv ya% oux #Av^ Atyf/, (^ay^evoQ
uvci-isvF.iv rug u.iyct.<; uctrrot. TO. WT&" " Alcmaeon does not
advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe
through their ears." History of Animals, Book I.
chap, xi.2

LETTER XV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, March 30, 1768.

SOME intelligent country people have a notion that we
have in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum,
besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat ; a little

2 There is more reason in the supposition that the ears communicate
with the nose, than that the suborbital sinus has any such communication ;
since in all animals that have a tympanic cavity opening upon the surface
by an external passage, there is also another conduit leading inwards
from the tympanum to the nose : this latter passage is termed the Eusta-
chian tube, and its office appears to be two-fold. First, it prevents the
membrana tympani or ear-drum, which is stretched across the external
meatus, from having its state of tension disturbed by the variation of the
pressure of the atmosphere upon its outer surface, by conveying the same
atmosphere to the tympanic cavity where it must press with equal force
against the inner surface of the ear-drum. Secondly, it serves, like the
lachrymal passage of the eye, to convey superfluous moisture to the nose.
When the membrane of the tympanum is accidentally ruptured, air may be
forced or expired from the mouth through the ear, but the Eustachian
passage is too narrow in mammals to admit of inspiration or breathing
being performed through the ears alone, even supposing the ear-drum to
be destroyed. In the natural condition of the parts the Stagy rite is, a
fortiori, correct in stating that goats cannot breathe through their ears.

It is possible that the idea may have originated in the possession by
the chamois of post-auditory sinuses ; the openings of which behind the
base of the ears may have been regarded as orifices for breathing, in the
same manner as a similar function was erroneously ascribed to the
suborbital sinuses.— R. O.

OF SELBORNE. 77

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 made1.

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-
white rooks in one nest. A frooby of a carter, finding
them before they were able to fly, threw them down
and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who
would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity
in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against
the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their
bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white2.

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

A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage,

1 This I believe to be a pretty general error among the country people
in other counties also. This imaginary animal, in Suffolk, is called the
mouse-hunt, from its being supposed to live on mice. To discover the
truth of this report, I managed to have several of these animals brought
to me ; all of which I found to be the common weasel. The error I con-
ceive partly to have arisen from this animal, like most others, appearing
less than its real size, when running, and attempting to escape, a circum-
stance well known to the hunters in India, with respect to larger animals,
as the tiger, &c. — MITFORD.

The cane is a provincial name for the female of the common weasel,
which is usually one-fourth smaller than the male. Young females of
the year, frequently seen during harvest, are not much larger than a full-
sized field-mouse. — W. Y.

2 White, pied, and cream-coloured varieties of the rook occasionally
occur. A gentleman, in the year 1816, had a young rook of a light ash-
colour, most beautifully mottled all over with black, and with the quill and
tail-feathers elegantly barred. This curiosity he was naturally anxious
to keep : but, upon the bird moulting, all its mottled plumage vanished
entirely, it became a jet black rook, and in this state was suffered to join
his sable tribe as a fit companion in the fields. Hunt's British Birds
(Norwich).— W. Y.

White individuals, both as varieties merely and as albinoes, occur in
many birds. Instances are familiar in the sparrow, the chaffinch, the
magpie, &c. and, a contradiction in terms, white blackbirds are occasion-
ally met with. One such, captured in Northamptonshire, is now living
in the Zoological Society's Gardens.— E. T. B.

78 NATURAL HISTORY

which had been caught in the fields after it was come to
its full colours. In about a year it began to look dingy ;
and, blackening every succeeding year, it became coal-
black at the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed.
Such influence has food on the colour of animals ! The
pied and mottled colours of domesticated animals are
supposed to be owing to high, various, and unusual
food3.

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

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

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

I wonder that the stone curlew (Charadrius (Edicne-
, should be mentioned by the writers as a rare

3 Mr. White has justly remarked, that food has great influence on the
colour of animals. The dark colour in wild birds is a great safeguard
to them against their enemies; and this is the reason that, among birds
of bright plumage, the young do not assume their gay colours till the
second or third year, as the cygnet, the gold and silver pheasants, &c.
The remarkable change of plumage among the gull tribe, is a curious and
intricate subject. Is the circumstance mentioned by Mr. Pegge true,
" that butterflies partake of the colour of the flowers they feed on ?"
I think not. See Anonymiana, p 4C9. — MITFORD.

4 [(Edicnemus crcpitans, TEMM.]

OF SELBORNE. 79

bird : it abounds in all the campaign parts of Hamp-
shire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer,
having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn.
Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They
cannot, I think, with any propriety, be classed, as they
are by Mr. Ray, among birds, " circa aquas versantes;"
for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most
dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed
from water5 ; what they may do in the night I cannot
say. Worms are their usual food, but tney also eat
toads and frogs.

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

LETTER XVI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, April 18, 1T68.

THE history of the stone curlew (Charadrius CEdicne-
mus) is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never
more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest,
in the field ; so that the countryman, in stirring his fal-
lows, often destroys them. The young run immediately
from the egg like partridges, &c. and are withdrawn to
some flinty field by the dam, where they sculk among
the stones, which are their best security ; for their fea-
thers are so exactly of the colour of our gray spotted

5 With the exception of Dr. Latham and Pennant, every ornithologist,
until the time of M. Temminck, appears to have adhered to the mode of
considering the stone curlew which is here objected to : they have univer-
sally classed it, with Linnaeus, among the plovers. Dr. Latham placed
it among the bustards, retaining for it the very appropriate name of
thick-kneed. M. Temminck regards it as occupying a station interme-
diate between the plovers and the bustards. The name of curlew refers
of course to a resemblance of colour merely, and by no means implies
any near approximation in form to the Numenii. — E. T. B.

80 NATURAL HISTORY

flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches
the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs
are short and round ; of a dirty white, spotted with
dark bloody blotches. Though I might not be able,
just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could
show you them almost any day ; and any evening you
may hear them round the village, for they make a cla-
mour which may be heard a mile. (Edicnemus is a
most apt and expressive name for them, since their
legs seem swollen like those of a gouty man. After
harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-
fields.

I make no doubt but there are three species of the
willow wrens: two I know perfectly; but have not
been able yet to procure the third1. No two birds can

1 Mr. White clearly distinguishes three species of these little birds ;
and he seems to have had some idea of a fourth: but ou this point there
is a confusion in the entries in the Naturalist's Calendar, which has per-
haps arisen from his having used different names for the same bird in
noting down his observations in different years. The small uncrested
wren of the calendar, appearing on the 9th of March, is called in the
Natural History, p. 84, the chirper, and is said to have black legs: it
must be either Sylvia ri(/u or Sylv. loquax ; I believe the former, for I
doubt the fact of Sylv. loqutuc, the chiffchaff, which seems not to reach
the north of England, arriving so early. The third entry in the Calendar,
second willow or laughing wren, is certainly Sylv. Trochilus ; because he
says in the Natural History, p. 82, that the songster has a laughing note.
The fourth entry, large shivering wren, is unquestionably Sylv. Sylticola.
It appears to me that the second and fifth entries, middle yellow wren,
and middle willow wren, mean the same thing as second willow wren, and
refer alike to Sylv. Trochilus: but it is possible that, at a later period
than the date of Letter XIX. written in 1768, he may have suspected
the existence of a fourth species.

There has existed very great confusion in the works of British and
continental ornithologists concerning these nearly allied species, which
I am now enabled to clear up, by the examination of a considerable num-
ber killed in this country, compared with continental specimens of Sylr.
rufa, and the bird called Sylc. llippolais, or pouillot, by M. Temminck.
In the former edition of these notes I stated that I had never had in hand
the Sylv. Hippolais of M. Temminck, which I then understood to be the
monotonous wren or chingching, and acknowledged as an inhabitant of
this country in the summer time. It now appears that the Hippolais of
Temminck is not ascertained to have been ever seen in Great Britain : and
it becomes necessary to inquire, what is the bird to which the name

OF SELBORNK. 81

differ more in their notes, and that constantly, than
those two that I am acquainted with ; for the one has

Hippolais belongs by priority of appellation, and whether it be or not a
British species.

The name Hippolais appears to have originated with Linnaeus in his
Fauna Suecica. In his description he states that the bird to which he
gave it is perhaps the female of his Motacilla Curruca, the lesser white
throat ; that its body is ash-coloured above, ashy white underneath, its
throat white, its wings, when closed, ferruginous above, and the outer
margins of its quills ferruginous. Without entering into a further detail
of his description (Fauna Suecica, p. 90), I may assume that what I have
quoted is sufficient to show that no one of the five birds above mentioned
is the Motacilla Hippolais of Linnaeus, because no one of them agrees with
these particulars. It is quite apparent that Motacilla (or Sylvia, which
is a generic name of later introduction) Hippolais belongs to the fruit-
eating group of birds, and is closely allied to Sylvia Curruca (more pro-
perly called Curruca Silviella}, if indeed it be not that identical species
in a particular state of plumage. The name was first applied to a Bri-
tish bird by Dr. Latham in 1783, with a note that he was indebted for the
account of it to the Rev. Mr. Lightfoot ; and it is not clear that he him-
self ever saw the bird described by him as Mot. Hippolais or lesser petty-
chaps. The particulars given by him do not agree with any one of the
five wrens above mentioned, and appear to be an amalgamation of Lin-
naeus's description with that which he had received from Mr. Lightfoot ;
but as it is clear that no one of the wrens found in England, nor the con-
tinental bird of M. Temminck, admitting the possibility of its coming here
occasionally, is entitled to Linnaeus's name Hippolais^ it is quite unne-
cessary to conjecture what Mr. Lightfoot's bird was.

In the former edition of these notes I pointed out the chiff chaff as
overlooked by continental, and confounded with the bird supposed to be
Hippolais by English, writers, and I described it minutely, and named it
Sylv. loquax. I am now, by means of specimens kindly communicated to
me by Mr. Bennett, enabled to clear up the confusion in which these birds
have been so long involved. It is quite clear that Sylv. rufa is an English
bird, and that Sylv. loquax has been confounded with it, both here and
abroad, though very different. In Shaw's Zoology, the name Hippolais has
been applied to the chiff chaff, as it has also been in the later works of
Mr. Selby and the Rev. L. Jenyns, the name rufa being given in the last
of these as synonymous with it; but all these applications are erroneous.
I have now before me four species killed in this country. The first is
Sylv. sylvicola of Montagu, the wood wren ; it is the Sylv. sibilatrix of
Bechstein, whose name must give place to that of Montagu, published
many years before with an accurate description of the species. The
second is Sylv. Trochilus. These two species are well known, and no
mistake can arise concerning them. In Sylv. sylvicola the first quill,
which is diminutive in all the species, is almost obsolete, the second
shorter than the third, and scarcely shorter than the fourth ; the prolong-
ation of the third being greater in some specimens than in others. In

82 NATURAL HISTORY

a joyous, easy laughing note; the other a harsh loud
chirp. The former is every way larger, and three

Sylv. Trochilus the second is equal to the sixth, and shorter than the
three intermediate. In the foreign specimen of Sylv. rufa, a male bird,
and in that killed in England, the second is equal to the eighth, and
shorter than all the intermediate. In Sylv. loquax, the chiff chaff, now
before me, the second is longer than the seventh, and shorter than the four
intermediate ; and this exactly agrees with Mr. Sweet's bird, from which
I made the description in the former edition, after its death. It was a
male bird ; whence it appears that the difference is not that of sex, but of
species. In my former description, it should be remarked, I did not
count the obsolete quill, and my first was properly the second.

The chiff chaff is not plentiful in this country, unless perhaps in some
particular situations, which I have not visited. I never have seen one
in Yorkshire, and, though particularly watchful for it in the south of
England, it is six or seven years since I have seen one alive.

The bird which I supposed (as it now appears, erroneously, never
having been willing to kill these harmless creatures) to be the pouillot
or Hippolais of M. Temminck, I have seen sitting on the summit of an oak
tree at the time of its leafing, and reiterating its monotonous note ching
ching; and it has been pointed out to me at such moments by Mr. Sweet,
as being one of the allied wrens. In the Faune Franchise of Vieillot, I
find a Sylv. Collybita ; to which he quotes as synonymous, Motacilla rufa,
LINN., and rufous warbler, LATH., having improperly substituted a new
name for one which must not be changed, although rufous is but ill
warranted by a little reddish tint on the flanks. He subjoins as vulgar
names, compteur d'argent and chofti ; and states that it often sits on the
summits of trees, where the male utters its note, which has obtained it in
Normandy the name of money-counter. He continues to say that the
note of this bird has appeared to himself to express tip tap repeated
several times. It is, I think, quite clear, that the bird which is called,
on account of its note uttered on the top of a high tree, money-counter or
money-changer, is that which I have heard in such a situation, uttering
its unvaried ching or chink chink. The chiff chaff doe* not sit on the
summit of a tree, but is in perpetual motion, distinctly articulating chiff
chaff, chivvy chaffy ; and it is equally clear that such notes could never have
suggested the idea of chinking money, but they are the sounds which
Mr. Vieillot has not very accurately represented by tip tap. It must be
recollected, that to convey to a Frenchman the sound we give to chiff or
chaff, the letter t must be prefixed. It thus appears that two different
birds have been confounded under the name Sylv. Collybita, newly intro-
duced by Vieillot, and that of Mot. ru,fa of Linnaeus, on the continent, as
they hare been here : that Sylvia rufa is the ching ching, and that the chiff
chaff had never had any scientific name appropriated to it, till I desig-
nated it as Sylv. loquax, except the improper application of the names
Hippolais and rufa to it. Sylv. rufa is rather larger than Sylc. loqu<t.r, its
wing measuring four inches and seven-eighths, while that of loquax is
only four inches and a half long: besides the rufous tinge on its flanks,

OF SELBORNE. 83

quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and
a half; while the latter weighs but two : so the songster

which does not occur in loquax, the under edge of the wing is bright
yellow, while in loquax the yellow, if any, is faint. In Mr. Sweet's bird
there was no yellow ; in the specimen before me there is a little, the
bird being probably a young one. From the figure by Werner, I con-
clude that young males of rufa have the under parts very yellow in the
autumn, like those of Trochilus. The absence of the ch iff chaff from the
north of England renders it improbable that it should ever stray into the
northern parts of the continent, and it is not likely to occur in Sweden.
The pouillot of Temminck is the largest of the five, its wing measuring
five inches and one-eighth; the second feather is shorter than the third
and fourth, longer than the fifth. I have made exact representations of
the first portions of the wings of the five species, by which they may be
recognised.

The four allied species which frequent our island, besides the golden
wren, are as follows.

1. Sylvia sylvicola, MONT. ; sibilatrix, subsequently, of Bechstein ; wood
wren. This bird cannot easily be confounded with the others, being
readily distinguished by the shivering motion of its wings in the latter
part of its short and hurried song. It is much brighter coloured than
the Sylv. Trochilus. The upper parts are of a yellowish green, the tail,
quills, and wing coverts being edged with that colour, and brownish in
the middle. Above the eye a yellow line; a dark line passing from the
bill to the eye, and behind it; the throat and cheeks yellow; the under

W. Herbert, dtL WOOD WHEN.

parts pure white. In its habit it is much less erect than Sylv. Trochilm.

G 2

84 NATURAL HISTORY

is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being
the first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wry-
Werner's figure, in the Oiseaux d'Europe, is very faulty ; it is at least
three-fourths of an inch too long; the upper mandible is improperly pro-
longed and curved at the point ; the yellow on the throat and cheeks,
and above the eyes, is too pale, and continued too far down the breast ;
the upper surface too brown; the bill not opening far enough back.
Sweet's figure in his British Warblers is much better, but the legs and
under mandible are improperly coloured dark ; an untrue inky hue is
given to the quills; there is too much yellow underneath; and the bird
is rather too large. It frequents timber trees where there is an open
glade in a thicket, and low covert; in which it builds on the ground a
covered nest, upon a bank, and often places it at the foot of a young tree,
of which the stem divides the current in heavy rains, and sends it to the
right and left of the nest. Sylv. Trochilus always lines its nest with
feathers, Sylv. sylvicola never. The male continues singing near the same
spot till about midsummer. The young quit their nest in Yorkshire about
the 20th of June. It is a much more timid and startlish species than
Sylv. Trochilus ; those which are reared even to perch on the hand before
they feed themselves, become fearful afterwards.

QUILL-FEATHER* OF THE WOOD WREN.

2. Still-in Trochilus, LATH.; yellow wren, often called unmeaningly
willow wren. It is a very plentiful species, found in gardens, woods,
hedges, by road sides, and on furzy and rough commons, whereas the
wood wren frequents timber trees only. It frequently builds in straw-
berry beds, amongst periwinkles, or in any other low thicket, and comes
close to the windows of dwelling houses to peck the Aphides from the
rose bushes. Its song is soft and plaintive, but wants variety. The hen
is smaller and browner than the cock. The name yellow wren is very
near as inapplicable as willow wren, for the adults have very little yellow
except the stripe over the eye ; and the wood wren has much more, and
brighter yellow. I should propose to call it the garden wren, on account
of its frequently building in small gardens, and approaching dwelling
houses, and often entering conservatories in search of Aphides.

OF SKLBORNE.

neck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in the
middle of March, and continues them through the spring

The summer before last having observed a nest of this species at the
foot of the stem of an American Azalea in the garden, when they were just
on the point of flying I took a male bird which was sitting half out of the

W . Herbert, del.

nest, and brought it into the house. Being frequently handled it became
immediately so tame that, when it came to feed itself, on the door of its
cage being opened it would fly to me and perch on my hand or head, or
on the edge of my plate at breakfast, and suffered its head to be kissed
or its back stroked without the least apprehension ; and after taking its
exercise and amusing itself for a time it would return into its cage to
feed, and afterwards sit quietly on its perch. When this had become a
confirmed habit, its cage door was left open night and day, and it was the
most amiable little creature I ever saw. During my absence from home
it was scared out of window and lost.

QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE WILLOW WREN.

I may take this opportunity of saying that I can aver that the Sylv.flavi-
vcntris of Vieillot is the young male of this species in its autumnal dress.

8(> NATURAL HISTORY

and summer till the end of August, us appears by my
journals. The legs of the larger of these two are flesh-
coloured ; of the less, black.

He admits that some persons had told him it was so, but he cannot believe
that the young birds should have more brilliant plumage than adults.
The fact is however so, as above stated. I have had the young male in
September, with the under parts of a beautiful yellow, which disappears
before the breeding season.

3. Sylvia ri(/a, LATH. ; monotonous wren, ching ching, or lesser petty-
chaps. The name lesser pettychaps is absurd, because the pettychaps is
a bird of different affinities and habits, belonging to a different genus,
or division at least of the genus ; I therefore propose to call it mono-
tonous wren, being the only one of the four which expresses but a single
note or sound. I observed and listened to one for a long time a few
years ago, on the 28th of May, on some oak trees in Combe Wood, near
Kingston upon Thames, at which time the hen bird, of which I could see
nothing, was probably sitting in the thicket. I have frequently heard
the note in Yorkshire, and last spring directed my gamekeeper to try to
discover the nest of one that frequented the trees in a small coppice at
Spofforth ; but, under the erroneous impression that the bird was the pouil-
lot of M. Temminck, he was directed to seek above his head and it was not
discovered. The Sylv. rufa. is said to breed on the ground. This bird is
figured by Werner, but his specimen is of a very deep yellow on the under
parts, having been probably a young male. It is remarkable that all
this race of birds instead of putting on a brighter plumage in the season
of love, assume a plainer garb, and lose the bright yellow which adorns
the young males in autumn. This extends even to the pettychaps, Curruca
hortcnais.

QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE CHING CHING.

4. Sylvia loquax, HERBERT; loquacious wren or chiff chaff. This spe-
cies I proposed, in a Note on the edition of this work published in 1833.
to call loquaxj because it articulates its singular song chiff chaff, chivvy
chaffy, as distinctly as a man can pronounce it. It had never been
named, and had been entirely overlooked by ornithologists or con-
founded with either Sylv. Hippolais or rvfu. It is much scarcer than the
others, and like the golden wren it affects, I believe, the neighbourhood
of fir trees; and, unless it breeds, like the other three, on the ground, I
suspect that it may build in them, perhaps hanging its nest under the

OF SliLBORNE. 87

The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my
fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing

boughs, as the golden wren does. I have never been able to meet with
it in Yorkshire. The last live specimen I saw, was on a large cedar
tree on the lawn in the garden of Highclere House in Hampshire at
Whitsuntide in 1828 or 1829. It did not seem disposed to quit the tree,
but repeated frequently its remarkable and articulate notes. I sought
in vain on the ground for its nest, and it did not then occur to me to
search the cedar tree, which indeed would not have been easily accom-
plished. Mr. Sweet in his article Sylv. Hippolais, gives an account of a
Sylv. loquax which he kept in confinement, confounding-ij with the former
of the two species; and it does not appear whether the figure he gives
was taken from an English or a foreign specimen : but it is incorrect at
all events, and does not truly represent any one of the allied species. I
examined carefully a dead specimen of Sylv. loquax, which Mr. Sweet
had kept in a cage the previous autumn and winter. It was a male bird,
and had been caught in a net, and frequently articulated its chiff chaff,
chivvy chaffy, while in confinement. It measured at full stretch but four
inches from the tip of the bill to the extremity of the tail, having much
resemblance to the female of the Sylv. Trochilvs, which is always smaller
and browner than the cock. Sylo. loquax has no yellow about it; there
is no line over the eye ; the colour is a uniform greenish brown, paler on
the breast and belly. The tail-feathers and quill-feathers of the wings
are dusky, edged with greenish brown ; the legs are dusky, by which it
may at all times be distinguished from the small hen Sylv. Trochilus.
The bill, measuring from the forehead, is only five-sixteenths of an inch
long, the under mandible and edges yellow, the upper part of the upper
mandible brown. Its shape is slender. The second (considering the
small abortive feather to be the first) quill-feather is a quarter of an inch
shorter than the third, but is longer than the seventh, the third, fourth,
and fifth almost of equal length. Another specimen since communicated
to me by Mr. Bennett, agrees in every respect with Mr. Sweet's bird,
except that it has a little tinge of yellow, being probably a young bird.

QUILL-FEATHERS OF THE CHIFF CHAFF.

The outlines which I have made with minute exactness of the outer
part of the wing of each of these species, as well as of the pouillot of
M. Temminck (which not being Hippolais, I propose to call Sylv. Tem-
mincki), will render it easy to distinguish them. The quill-feathers of
Sylv. rufa are more pointed than those of loquax, and the whole bird
longer. Sylv. Nattereri, a species observed in Spain and Italy, is closely

&* NATURAL HISTORY

than the \vhisper 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 a most artful creature, sculking in
the thickest part of a bush ; and will sing at a yard
distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to
get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where
it haunted ; and then it would run, creeping like a
mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, through

allied to those which visit our island, but has never been found further
north.

QfILL- LEATHERS OF TKHMINCK'l WREN.

Nest of an unknown Warbler.— Two years ago I perceived in the foik
of a young willow, by the side of the brook Crimple, very near my house
at Spofforth, a nest with one egg in it. I did not touch it, expecting that
the bird to which the nest belonged would continue laying, but it was
deserted, and I could never discover the birds which constructed it. A
nest of the sedge warbler, Sylvia Phragmitis, was placed in a situation
exactly similar about twenty yards from it ; but the deserted nest differed
in being much deeper, and constructed with many feathers of the barn-
door cock, and the egg was longer and more acute than those of the
sedge warbler, and entirely free from spots, being of the same colour as
the ground of the sedge birds without the markings. The purselike
depth of the nest would agree with the form of the nest of Sylv. arundi-
nacea, the reed warbler, which I have not been able to discover in
Yorkshire, but all the accounts of that bird represent its eggs to be
spotted. It was certainly the nest of some aquatic warbler, but of all the
species whose propagation has been ascertained the eggs appear to be
spotted. I find no account of the eggs of Sylv. Cetti, the bouscarle of
the French, of which Temminck states, without quoting his authority,
that some individuals have been killed in England, and that it is apt to
be confounded with the reed warbler. The bouscarle is however said to

OF SELBORNR.

the bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come into
fair sight: but in a morning early, and when undis-
turbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering
with its wings. Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of
this bird, but received his account from Mr. Johnson,
who apparently confounds it with the Reguli non cristati,
from which it it is very distinct. See Ray's Philoso-
phical Letters, p. 108 2.

The flycatcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared : it
usually breeds in my vine.

frequent thorn bushes by the side of rivers, and Sylv. Turdoi'des, common
in Holland, and Sylv. aquatica which is closely allied to Sylv. Phragmitis,
have both spotted eggs. I know not therefore to what species I can
refer the nest and egg which is in my possession. — W. H.

W. H. Herbert, del.

8 This bird is not uncommon in Scotland, where its singular note is
popularly supposed to be caused by a species of rattlesnake, the con-
cealed habits of the bird rendering it seldom seen. Although I have
times innumerable listened to it, I have rarely seen it ; and only once
actually got within a very short distance of one which was perched on
the top of a furze bush in Musselburgh Haugh, near Edinburgh, trilling
its notes and shivering its wings, as White describes. In Ayrshire I
have heard it long after sunset ; though I should scarcely be disposed to
apply to it the term whisper, for it may be heard at the distance of a
quarter of a mile.— REMME.

DO NATURAL HISTORY

The redstart begins to sing : its note is short and im-
perfect, but is continued till about the middle of June.

The willow wrens (the smaller sort) are horrid pests
in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries, currants,
&c. 3 ; and are so tame that a gun will not scare them.

3 This sentence has probably been the cause of the murder of numbers
of these most innocent little birds, which are in truth peculiarly the
gardener's friends. My garden men were in the habit of catching the
hens on their nests in the strawberry beds, and killing them, under
the impression that they made great ravage among the cherries ; yet
I can assert that they never taste the fruit, nor can those which are
reared from the nest in confinement be induced to touch it. They peck
the Aphides which are injurious to the fruit trees, and being very pugna-
cious little birds, I have sometimes seen them take post in a cherry tree
and drive away every bird that attempted to enter it, though of greater
size and strength.

The birds which are mistaken for them are the young of the garden
warbler, Curruca hortensis, BECHST. with which Mr. White was not
acquainted, as it is not mentioned by him, and does not appear in his list
of summer birds: yet I am confident that they will be found plentifully
at Selborne, when the Kentish cherries are ripe. They attacked my
cherries in great numbers when I lived in the south of Berkshire, not
much more than twenty miles from Selborne. These young birds have a
strong tinge of yellow on the sides, which disappears after the moult, and
gives them very much the appearance of the yellow wren when seen upon
the tree, though they are larger and stouter, and in habits very much
resemble the blackcaps, with whom they are associated in the plunder of
cherry trees. I have never seen the pettychaps in Yorkshire until the
cherries are ripe, when they immediately make their appearance and
attack the Kentish cherry particularly, being so greedy that I have often
taken them with a fishing rod tipped with birdlime while they were
pulling at the fruit. The moment they have finished the last Kentish
cherry they disappear for the season. If they finish the cherries in the
morning, they are gone before noon. I am persuaded that they appear
and disappear in the same manner at Selborne, and are probably to
be found there only while the cherries are ripe, which accounts for
Mr- White's having mistaken them for yellow wrens when he saw them
in the fruit trees. They breed in the market gardens about London,
and I imagine that as the cherries ripen they migrate from garden to
garden in pursuit of them. I am told that near London they remain late
enough to attack the elder berries, of which the fruit-eating warblers are
very fond, but in Yorkshire they do not even wait for the later cherries.
The number of these visitants depends upon the crop of early cherries.
This year the crop having nearly failed, I saw but two of them, which
appeared on the 15th of July and were not seen after the 17th. The
blackcap remains eating the currants and honeysuckle berries; they are

OF SELBORNE. 1)1

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

Nomina.

Smallest willow wren, Motacilla Trochilus* [Sylvia loquax, HERB.] :
Wryneck, Yunx Torquilla:

House swallow, Hirundo rustica:

Martin, Hirundo urbica :

Sand martin, Hirundo riparia:

Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus :

Nightingale, Motacilla Luscinia [Philomela Luscinia,S WAINS.] :

Blackcap, Motacilla Atricapilla [Curruca Atricapilla,

BECHST.] :

Whitethroat, Motacilla Sylvia [Curruca cinerea, BECHST.] :

Middle willow wren, Motacilla Trochilus4 [Sylvia Trochilus, LATH.] :
Swift, Hirundo Apus [Cypselus Apus, ILL.] :

Stone curlew ? Charadrius (Edicnemus [(Edicnemus crepilans,

TEMM.] ?

Turtle-dove? Columba Turtur?

Grasshopper lark, Alauda trivialis [Salicaria Locustella, SELB.] :

Landra?!, Rallus Crex [Crex pratensis, BECHST.]:

Largest willow wren, Motacilla Trochilus* [Sylvia sibilatrix, BECHST.] :
Redstart, Motacilla Phcenicurus [Phccnicura Ruticilla,

SWAINS.] :

Goatsucker, or fern owl, Caprimulgus Europceus:
Flycatcher, Musicapa Grisola.

both very fond in confinement of ripe pears, and I believe, in the south
of England, they peck some of them before their departure.

Vieillot states that the garden warbler is not found in the neighbour-
hood of Paris, though it occurs in Piedmont and Provence, where it fre-
quents the vicinity of pine forests. I am persuaded that this is entirely
erroneous. That bird is abundant in the gardens round London, where
it breeds and where I have seen the nest and young birds. I have never
known it breed in the northern counties of England, where its visits are
of short duration while the supply of ripe cherries lasts. In confine-
ment it appears much more tender of cold than the blackcap and white-
throat, and there is some difficulty in saving it through a severe winter.
It is therefore evident that it prefers the more southern latitudes, and as
it is a frequenter of fruit gardens and not of uncultivated wastes, and

4 Mr. White does not seem to have had any reason for putting the
Latin name Motacilla Trochilus to three distinct birds. There is no cause
for believing that Linnaeus confounded them, though he only named one
of them and overlooked the others. Indeed the wood wren could not be
confounded with the yellow wren by any person of the least discrimina-
tion.—W. H.

J)^ NATURAL HISTORY

My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a
clatter with his bill against a dead bough, or some old

especially as it performs a series of migrations in search of cherries,
advancing northward when the supply fails in the south, and returning
to eat the early pears and elder berries when the northern cherries are
consumed, it is quite certain that the bird must be found in similar
situations in France ; and wherever the gardens are by which Paris is
supplied, its nest will be discovered. If it visits the forests at all, it is
probably to attack the cherry trees of the cottagers.

I could not persuade my gardener that the yellow wrens did not eat
the cherries, till he had shot some of the pettychaps in the act of eating
them, and compared them with the wrens, when he became satisfied of
the error. In order to ascertain, beyond doubt, whether the yellow wrens
ever eat fruit, I left some which had been reared tame from the nest,
and of course were more likely to feed upon any new thing than the wild
birds, without victuals, till they were very hungry, and I then offered
them little bits of ripe cherry. They seized them with avidity, but imme-
diately threw them down again, and it was evident that they would rather
have starved than eat the fruit. I had no doubt of the fact, but I wished
to set the question completely at rest, for I have seen them pulling the
leaves of the cherry trees so near the fruit that any person might be
deceived, and think they were eating it, and the young of the pettychaps
look so like them, that I am not in the least surprised at their having got
into bad repute with the gardeners. I had an opportunity of watching
lately a little family of them, which sat many days in a low standard
cherry tree in my garden, not more than a few feet above my head. The
old ones took no notice of me at all, but were perpetually feeding them
close to me. They flitted about the cherry tree, picking the little Aphides
off the leaves and bringing them one by one to the young, and sometimes
tugging very hard at a leaf to get out a little caterpillar that was twisted
up in it, the cherries being ripe at the time. The young sat still for hours
together, close to each other, occasionally stretching their legs or wings,
or hunching up their hind quarters. This very singular movement is, I
think, peculiar to, or at least it is more usual amongst, soft-billed birds.
It is a sign of health, and is frequent with the growing young birds. I
do not observe those which feed upon seed use it, though they frequently
stretch the leg or wing. The young sedge warblers hunch up their hind
quarters to a degree that is singularly ridiculous, and when they do so
they are always thriving.

The yellow wrens appear in confinement to have stronger powers of
digestion than the wood wrens, though, I believe, they feed naturally
upon similar insects. The hens are singularly tame. I had one taken
when able to feed itself, what the bird-catchers call a brancher, which
soon became so familiar that it would fly upon my finger to feed. The
cocks are larger and rather more shy.

Last year I had reared three cocks from the nest, and in July I wished
to set one of them at liberty. Having let it out of the cage which stood
near a window which was opened, it continued for a long time hopping

OF SELBORNE. 03

pales, calling it a jar-bird. I procured one to be shot
in the very fact ; it proved to be the Sitta Europcea (the
nuthatch). Mr. Ray says that the less spotted wood-

and flying about the top of the cage, and sitting upon the pots upon the
ledge, and on a bar to which the roses were tied across the window.
At last it began to travel up the creepers against the house, and getting
upon the roof it flew over the buildings, and I did not expect to see it
again ; but two hours after it returned exceedingly hungry, and lit upon
the upper bar of the middle pane of the lower sash of the same window,
and pecked hard for admittance. It was let in, and fed-heartily from my
hand, after which it took its leave. I saw no more of it for two days,
when it returned again for a short visit in very good case, and not appear-
ing at all pressed for food. About a week after, it returned to the same
pane of glass, pecking as before, but I was occupied with a stranger, on
business, and could not attend to it, and it departed for the season. On
the 23rd of July, in the following summer, I was standing at the same
window, when a fine stout cock of this species lit upon the bar of the
same pane close to my face, and began to peck as before for admission.
Neither alarmed by my voice, nor my little boy's jumping up from his
seat to look at it, it flew down upon some of the cage pans which hap-
pened to be on the ledge of the window, and began pecking them as if to
get food from them. It quickly departed again. But this is so contrary to
the habits of the wild bird, that I consider it quite certain that the bird
was my own nursling which had returned after its trip to Africa, to look
at the window where it had been reared in its nest. The visit was a
very pleasant little incident. How many things, which Europeans in
vain desire to see, had my little wanderer witnessed since he last pecked
at my window. Perhaps he had sung his plaintive notes near the grave of
Clapperton, or peeped into the seraglio of the King of Timbuctoo, since
we had parted.

These little birds are exceedingly gentle till they feed themselves per-
fectly ; after which, they become exceedingly quarrelsome. I had some
in the same cage with young wood wrens, brown wrens, and sedge
warblers. One of them, more than a week before it could feed itself,
took to feeding two wood wrens which were ten days older than it, and
able to feed themselves, though still very willing to be fed by another.
It showed exactly the same discrimination that an old bird does in lean-
ing over the one it had last fed, notwithstanding its clamorous entreaties,
in order to give the food to the other. No importunities of the brown
wrens could obtain a morsel from it. There was sagacity even in this,
for the brown wren is a much less nearly allied species, and is now
referred to a separate genus. Its own fellow nestlings did not importune
it for food. It was a cock bird, and three weeks after it beat the cock
wood wren so, that it was necessary to separate them. The wood wrens
and sedge warblers are not quarrelsome, but squall very loud when
attacked or alarmed. The little brown wrens, as far as I have seen, are
not quarrelsome, but perfectly fearless, and very much on the alert to

J)4 NATURAL HISTORY

pecker does the same. This noise may be heard u
furlong or more.

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

In breeding time snipes play over the moors, piping
and humming : they always hum as they are descending.
Is not their hum ventriloquous like that of the turkey?
Some suspect it is made by their wings5.

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

Yours, &c. &c.

snatch any thing they like out of the mouth of a larger bird, and run
under a pan with it to avoid being pursued.

It is remarkable that many birds, which are quite kindly disposed to
other birds, will not tolerate the presence of another of their own species.
The redstart fights with his brother nestling in the same cage as soon as
he is full grown ; he will not tolerate the presence of a stone chat or
whin chat, whose habits are very similar to his own, but he does not
attack a nightingale, and behaves decently in a cage full of seed birds.
I have seen two yellow wrens, not two months old, fight like bulldogs,
holding tight, and pulling the skin, but they very rarely attack any but
of their own kind. A nightingale which had lived two years in a cage
full of birds in perfect amity with them, and even suffered the brown
wrens to jump and rub themselves on its back, instantly attacked, in the
most violent manner, another nightingale which was put into the cage.
Two robins will never frequent a hothouse or conservatory in peace, but
fight till the weakest is killed, or yields full possession to his antagonist,
and they often break the tender young plants in their conflicts*. — W. H.

3 The drumming of snipes in the breeding season is again adverted to
in Letter XXXIX. ; where a Note by Mr. Herbert is subjoined, expla-
natory of the mode in which the sound is produced.— E. T. B.

* In reference to the pugnacious character of the robin there is some-
where an old Latin proverb, indicating that one bush does not hold t\vo
robins : ttnum arbustum non alit duos erithncos. — W. Y.

OF SELBORNH. 95

LETTER XVII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORJSE, June 18, 1768.

ON Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of
June the LOth. It gives me great satisfaction to find
that you pursue these studies still with" -such vigour,
and are in such forwardness with regard to reptiles
and fishes.

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

The method in which toads procreate and bring forth
seems to be very much in the dark. Some authors say
that they are viviparous : and yet Ray classes them
among his oviparous animals ; and is silent with regard
to the manner of their bringing forth. Perhaps they
may be ecu p^ev wVroxw, l^w tie ^WOTOXO/, as is known to be
the case with the viper.

*H TCOV $arpa%wt GVVU.($V\ (vf on crvvatyq eotxe, o Swammer-
dam yap &£?%& or/, ru appsvi «x IV* wsiptv $ IIQ ryv
eqt xEpiQavys' ypi yap aAA«£ aAAwv fV

Jvtje opdo^ev &$6TOre $6 v\ hdov
TSC; (pucraAH^ TUVTU Tpet7TOpL6We supxffQcu1 .

It is strange that the matter with regard to the
venom of toads has not been yet settled2. That they

1 In this respect the toad does not differ from the frog.— E. T. B.

2 The question of the venom of toads is now set at rest. The old pre-
judice that they possess the power of communicating poison by their bite
is wholly unfounded ; and the fluid which they eject from the cloaca
when frightened or handled is, in their case as in frogs, pure limpid

96 NATURAL HISTORY

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

I have been informed also, from undoubted authority,
that some ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste)
took a fancy to a toad, which they nourished, summer
after summer, for many years, till he grew to a mon-
strous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh ilirs.
The reptile used to come forth every evening from a
hole under the garden steps ; and was taken up, after
supper, on the table to be fed. But at last a tame
raven, kenning him as he put forth his head, gave him
such a severe stroke with his horny beak as put out one
eye. After this accident the creature languished for
some time and died3.

water. The skin, however, has been ascertained by Dr. Davy to secrete
an acid liquid, not perhaps poisonous, but capable of producing an
uncomfortable sensation on the tongue; a secretion of somewhat similar
qualities is poured out on the surface of the common land salamander of
Europe.

The aqueous fluid above mentioned, which is thrown out in consider-
able quantities by a frog or toad on being taken in the hand, is held in a
double bladder which opens into the cloaca : and this fact is connected
with the absorbing power of the skin. The cutaneous surface of these
animals is now known to serve the purposes of respiration ; but in order
to perform this function, it is necessary that it should be kept constant l\
in a moist condition. When placed in water or in a sufficiently damp
situation, the surface of the body absorbs a considerable quantity of
water, which is conveyed to the receptacle above mentioned, there to
remain as in a reservoir for future use; and if the animal be exposed to
a dry atmosphere, the fluid is re-absorbed, and again secreted on the sur-
face of the skin, in order to keep up its respiratory function. This is the
true history of the poisonous liquid of toads, as it is considered, which
renders them the objects of dread and hatred to the ignorant of all parts
of the country.— T. B.

3 I have had a toad so tame, that when it was held in one hand, it would
take its food from the other held near it. The manner in which this
animal takes its prey is very interesting. The tongue, when at rest, is

OF SELBORNE. 97

I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive
reading: of the excellent account there is from Mr. Der-

doubled back upon itself in the mouth, and the apex, which is broad, is
imbued with a most tenacious mucus. On seeing an insect, the animal
fixes its beautiful eyes upon it, leans or creeps forward, and when within
reach, the tongue is projected upon the insect, and again returned into the
mouth with the captive prey, by a motion so rapid, that without the most
careful observation the action cannot be followed. An insect is never taken
unless when in motion ; and I have often seen a toad remain motionless
for some minutes, with its eyes fixed upon an insect, and the instant it
moved, it disappeared with the quickness of lightningl- The insect is
swallowed whole, and alive; and I have often seen the reptile much
incommoded by the struggles of its imprisoned prey, particularly if it
consist of large and hard insects, as full grown cockroaches for instance,
when the twitching of its sides, from the irritation produced by the
movements of the insects in the stomach, is sufficiently ludicrous. — T. B.

My ingenious friend, the late George Newenham, Esq., of Summer Hjll,
Cork, carried a live toad with him from Edinburgh, which he kept at his
country seat of Summer Hill for several years, where it became quite
tame, in the same way as that mentioned by White. The most amusing
feat which it performed was the swallowing of a worm, which it seemed
to relish highly, and was eager to master in proportion to the difficulty
presented by the writhings of the creature. The spring before I was at
Summer Hill, this singular pet had not made its appearance from its
unknown winter retreat, and consequently was supposed to have died, as
it was not likely to wander from a spot with which it had become so
familiar.

Mr. Husenbeth has given a very interesting account of a tame toad
which he placed " in a large glass jar, with moss at the bottom and some-
times water enough to saturate the moss, but oftener with only a piece of
green sod, which I changed," he says, " when the grass began to
wither. Sometimes I contrived to let him have a little well of water in
the sod ; but I never saw him go into water freely ; only when he was
frightened, he would plunge in and bury his head at the bottom under
the sod. Whether he ever knew me, I much doubt; but certainly he
was always perfectly tame, and would sit on my hand, let me stroke
him, and walk about my table or carpet with apparent familiarity and
contentment. I usually let him out on the table every day; and he
would jump down upon the carpet, and hop and crawl about, always
making for the skirting-board, which he climbed very ludicrously, and
seemed fond of sitting in a corner on the top of it. He ate freely,
from the first day I had him ; but would never take any thing unless he
saw it move. In the whole time, I gave him all the following varieties :
flies of all kinds ; wasps, and bees, first removing their stings ; gnats,
which he would snap up at the window, while I held him on my hand
up to the pane of glass, with an eagerness that appeared insatiable, and
was very amusing ; clap-baits, lady-birds, caddices, ants : of these last I
used occasionally to give him a treat, by bringing home part of a hillock,

98 NATURAL HISTORY

ham, in Ray's Wisdom of God in the Creation (p. 365),
concerning the migration of frogs from their breeding
ponds4. In this account he at once subverts that
foolish opinion of their dropping from the clouds in
rain ; showing that it is from the grateful coolness and
moisture of those showers that they are tempted to set
out on their travels, which they defer till those fall.
Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state ; but, in a few
weeks, our lanes, paths, fields will swarm for a few
days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than
my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most ac-

and putting him down in the midst of it. He would raise himself on all
fours, and with his eyes glistening with something like civic ecstasy,
would dart out his tongue, right and left, as rapidly as lightning, and
lap up the ants in quick succession, with the most laughable gulosity. I
also gave him earwigs, glowworms, woodlice, grasshoppers, spiders,
dragon-flies, ticks, horse-leeches, grubs, moths, and any insect I could
meet with. All seemed equally welcome, either by night or by day;
but it was most diverting to see him contend with a worm. He would
dart upon it, secure one end, and swallow with all his might; but the
worm would annoy him by creeping out of his mouth before he could
swallow it entirely; and I have known him persevere for nearly half an
hour, attempting to secure his prize, while the worm kept constantly
escaping. He would take a snail, when he once saw it extended and in
motion ; though he always dashed at the shell, and took all down toge-
ther in a moment, but could not manage one of large size. It was to me
a great source of amusement to feed him and watch his singular move-
ments. He was often frightened, but seldom provoked. I once or twice,
however, provoked him, I think, to as much wrath as his cold nature
was susceptible of; but I feel quite assured that the toad is at all times
perfectly harmless and inoffensive : the idea of its spitting, or otherwise
discharging venom is, I am convinced, wholly unfounded. In the winter
months my toad always refused food, though he did not become torpid,
but grew thin, and moved much less than at other times. He did not eat
from the end of November till March, gradually losing his appetite and
gradually recovering it: he never seemed affected by cold, except in the
way of losing his inclination for food." — RENNIE.

4 Concerning the reason of frogs coming out in rainy weather, the
reader will be amply gratified, by referring to the experiments made by
Dr. Townson on his two frogs, Damon and Musidora. See his Tracts, p.
50. The general result of which has proved the following curious fact:
— " that frogs take in their supply of liquid through the skin alone, all
the aqueous fluid which they take in being absorbed by the skin, and all
they reject being transpired through it. One frog in an hour and a half
absorbed nearly its own weight of water." — MITFORD.

OF SELBORNE. 99

curate account of the method and situation in which
the male impregnates the spawn of the female. How
wonderful is the economy of Providence with regard to
the limbs of so vile a reptile ! While it is an aquatic it
has a fish-like tail, and no legs : as soon as the legs
sprout, the tail drops off as useless, and the animal
betakes itself to the land5 !

Merret, I trust, is widely mistaken when he advances
that the Rana arborea6 is an English reptile j it abounds
in Germany and Switzerland7.

It is to be remembered that the Salamandra aquatica
of Ray (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at

5 The whole of the typical Batrachia, the frogs, toads, newts, salaman-
ders, &c. undergo a complete metamorphosis. In the land species, as
from their habits they have not constant access to water, the aquatic
portion of their existence, during which the gills remain attached, cannot
be passed in that medium in the same manner as the frogs, &c. They
undergo the metamorphosis therefore in the oviduct, before they are
excluded from the mother, and come forth in the perfect condition. But
in the other forms, the change takes place in the water, and the young
live there for a time in a fish-like state, as regards not only their respira-
tion, but most of the other functions of life. There is, however, another
deviation from this rule, still more remarkable than that of the salaman-
der, in the pipa or Surinam toad ; in which the male places the eggs on the
back of the female, impregnates them, and leaves them attached by a very
glutinous mucus. The skin of the mother grows up around the eggs,
foi-ming a cell for each, in which the young leave the egg, and undergo
their metamorphosis.

The common water newt or eft exhibits a beautiful example of this
interesting change, retaining its pretty reddish leaf-like gills till the
animals are an inch or more in length. — T. B.

6 [Hyla viridis, LAUR.]

7 From the way in which Mr. White speaks of the tree frog, it might
be inferred that he thought it was possessed of injurious qualities,
whereas a more innocent creature does not exist ; and it is besides so
little, and of so beautiful a green, that it is a very common pet in Ger-
many. My friend, J. C. Loudon, Esq. the well known author of the
Encyclopaedia of Gardening, kept one for several years; and in the
autumn of 1830, I caught one sitting on a bramble at Cape La He"ve, on
the coast of Normandy, which I kept for many weeks; but it finally
escaped from me between Bayswater and Hyde Park Corner, by the
gauze covering of its glass accidentally slipping off before I was aware.
— RENNIE.

H 2

100 NATURAL HISTORY

the angler's bait, and is often caught on his hook. I
used to take it for granted that the Salamandra aquatica
was hatched, lived, and died, in the water. But
John Ellis, Esq., F. R. S., (the coralline Ellis), asserts,
in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June the 5th,
1766, in his account of the mud inguana, an amphibious
bipes from South Carolina, that the water-eft, or newt,
is only the larva of the land-eft, as tadpoles are of
frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand
his meaning, I shall give it in his own words. Speak-
ing of the opercula, or coverings to the gills, of the mud
inguana, he proceeds to say that " The form of these
pennated coverings approaches very near to what I
have some time ago observed in the larva, or aquatic
state, of our English Lacerta, known by the name of eft,
or newt ; which serve them for coverings to their gills,
and for fins to swim with while in this state; and
which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails, when
they change their state and become land animals, as
I have observed, by keeping them alive for some time
myself."

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

Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of
but one venomous reptile of the serpent kind in these
kingdoms, and that is the viper. As you propose the
good of mankind to be an object of your publications,
you will not omit to mention common salad-oil as a
sovereign remedy against the bite of the viper8.

8 The efficacy of oil as a remedy against the bite of the viper has pro-
bably been overrated. It is generally believed in those parts of the
country where vipers abound to be very efficacious as an external appli-
cation, as is also the fat of the reptile itself. The exhibition of ammonia
both as an external and internal remedy, is recommended probably on
surer grounds. I never heard of a well authenticated instance of the
bite of the English viper proving fatal, though I have known and seen
several cases in which the symptoms appeared to be extremely dangerous.
— T. B.

OF SELBORNE.

As to the blind worm (Anguis fragilis, so called
because it snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have
found, on examination, that it is perfectly innocuous9.

A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for
some good hints) killed and opened a female viper
about the 27th of May : he found her filled with a chain
of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird ;
but none of them were advanced so far towards a state
of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young.
Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous
also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then
bringing them forth. Whereas snakes lay chains of
eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite of all
that my people can do to prevent them ; which eggs do
not hatch till the spring following, as I have often
experienced. Several intelligent folks assure me that
they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her

9 A blind-worm, that I kept alive for nine weeks, would, when touched,
turn and bite, although not very sharply: its bite was not sufficient to
draw blood, but it always retained its hold until released. It drank
sparingly of milk, raising the head when drinking. It fed upon the little
white slug (Umax agrestis, LINN.) so common in fields and gardens,
eating six or seven of them one after the other ; but it did not eat every
day. It invariably took them in one position. Elevating its head slowly
above its victim, it would suddenly seize the slug by the middle, in the
same manner that a ferret or dog will generally take a rat by the loins ; it
would then hold it thus sometimes for more than a minute, when it would
pass its prey through its jaws, and swallow the slug head foremost. It
refused the larger slugs, and would not touch either young frogs or mice.
Snakes kept in the same cage took both frogs and mice. The blind-worm
avoided the water : the snakes, on the contrary, coiled themselves in
the pan containing water, which was put into the cage, and appeared to
delight in it. The blind-worm was a remarkably fine one, measuring
fifteen inches in length. It cast its slough while in my keeping. The
skin came off in separate pieces, the largest of which was two inches in
length ; splitting first on the belly, and the peeling from the head being
completed the last. After the skin was cast the colour of the reptile was
much lighter than it had before been.

I had for the first time, while this blind-worm was in my custody, an
opportunity of witnessing the power which slugs have of suspending
themselves by a thread. They availed themselves of it in escaping from
the cage of the reptile. The cage was on a shelf four feet six inches
from the floor, and, with the aid of the glutinous filament which they
exuded, the slugs lowered themselves from it to the ground. — G. D.

NATURAL HISTORY

helpless young down her throat on sudden surprises,
just as the female opossum does her brood into the
pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies ; and
yet the London viper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Bar-
rington, that no such thing ever happens10. The serpent
kind eat, I believe, but once in a year ; or, rather, but
only just at one season of the year11. Country people
talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure,
without any reason ; for the common snake (Coluber
Natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps
with a view to procure frogs and other food.

I cannot well guess how you are to make out your
twelve species of reptiles, unless it be by the various
species, or rather varieties, of our Lacertce, of which
Ray enumerates five. I have not had opportunity of
ascertaining these ; but remember well to have seen,
formerly, several beautiful green Lacertce on the sunny
sandbanks near Farnham, in Surrey 12 ; and Ray admits
there are such in Ireland.

10 I have been assured by a very honest and worthy gardener in Dor-
setshire, that he had seen the young vipers enter the mouth of the mother
when alarmed. I have never been able to obtain further evidence of the
fact, though I have made the most extensive inquiries in my power. If
it be untrue, the popular error may have arisen from the circumstance of
fully formed young having been found in the abdomen of the mother,
ready to be excluded. The actions of the young which were emancipated
from the oviduct by White on a subsequent occasion (see Letter XXXI.
to Daines Harrington) do not appear necessarily to bear upon the question,
as there are many instances of the young of animals manifesting the
habits and instincts of their species immediately on coming into the world
— as in the case of young ducks seeking the water, &c. — T. B.

II The slow power of digestion possessed by serpents renders them
capable of remaining long without food. If a snake swallows a frog,
or a viper a mouse, it is several weeks before it is digested. It is
probable, accordingly, that they do not eat above three or four times in
the course of a summer, and in winter not at all. During the summer of
1830, I kept both a slow worm ( Anguis fragilis) and a snake (Coluber
Natrix) for several months, during which time they refused every sort of
food I could offer them. When taken in the autumn, M. Bory St. Vincent
says they will endure abstinence for an incredible period ; but this will
not be the case if they are taken in spring. — RENNIE.

12 [See Letter XXII.]

OF SELBORNE. 103

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, July 27, 17C8.

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

A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but
could find no such fish as the Gasterosteus Pungitius :
he found the Gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This
morning, in a basket, I packed a little earthen pot full
of wet moss, and in it some sticklebacks, male and
female ; the females big with spawn : some lamperns ;
some bulls-heads; but I could procure no minnows.
This basket will be in Fleet Street by eight this even-
ing; so I hope Mazel1 will have them fresh and fair
to-morrow morning. I gave some directions, in a letter,
to what particulars the engraver should be attentive.

Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a
reasonable distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant
over to that town, and procured several living speci-
mens of loaches, which he brought safe and brisk in a
glass decanter. They were taken in the gullies that
were cut for watering the meadows. From these fishes
(which measured from two to four inches in length) I

1 Mr. Peter Mazel [Mazell] was the engraver of the plates of the
British Zoology. He was living at the time of the (anticipated) literary
death of Pennant, March 1, 1791 ; " and of whose skill and integrity I
had always occasion to speak well," remarks his employer in his Literary
Life. He also engraved some of the plates for the original edition of this
work.— E. T. B.

104 NATURAL HISTORY

took the following description : " The loach, in its
general aspect, has a pellucid appearance : its back is
mottled with irregular collections of small black dots,
not reaching much below the linea lateralis, as are the
back and tail fins: a black line runs from each eye
down to the nose ; its belly is of a silvery white ; the
upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded
with six feelers, three on each side: its pectoral fins
are large, its ventral much smaller ; the fin behind its
anus small ; its dorsal fin large, containing eight spines ;
its tail, where it joins to the tail fin, remarkably broad,
without any taperness, so as to be characteristic of
this genus : the tail fin is broad, and square at the end.
From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail it
appears to be an active nimble fish 2."

In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and
did not forget to make some inquiries concerning the
wonderful method of curing cancers by means of toads.
Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do,
I find, give a great deal of credit to what was asserted
in the papers: and I myself dined with a clergyman
who seemed to be persuaded that what is related is
matter of fact : but, when I came to attend to his
account, I thought I discerned circumstances which
did not a little invalidate the woman's story of the
manner in which she came by her skill. She says of
herself, " that labouring under a virulent cancer, she
went to some church where there was a vast crowd :
on going into a pew, she was accosted by a strange
clergyman; who, after expressing compassion for her
situation, told her that if she would make such an

8 Ambresbury had become notorious for its loaches, on account of
sportsmen frequently, in frolic, swallowing one of them alive in a glass
of white wine : but the fish is by no means a local one. It occurs
generally throughout the country in brooks and rivulets, lurking under
stones.

The use of the word spine in the above description is, it may be
remarked, not altogether correct ; the rays of the dorsal fin being soft and
branched, as is usual in malacopterygian fishes. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 105

application of living toads as is mentioned she would
be well." Now is it likely that this unknown gentle-
man should express so much tenderness for this single
sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that
daily languish under this terrible disorder? Would he
not have made use of this invaluable nostrum for his
own emolument ; or, at least, by some means of publi-
cation or other, have found a method of making it
public for the good of mankind ? In short, this woman
(as it appears to me) having set up for a" cancer-doc-
tress, finds it expedient to amuse the country with this
dark and mysterious relation.

The water-eft has not, that I can discern, the least
appearance of any gills ; for want of which it is conti-
nually rising to the surface of the water to take in fresh
air3. I opened a big-bellied one indeed, and found it
full of spawn. Not that this circumstance at all in-
validates the assertion that they are larvce: for the
larva of insects are full of eggs, which they exclude
the instant they enter their last state. The water-eft
is continually climbing over the brims of the vessel,
within which we keep it in water, and wandering away :
and people every summer see numbers crawling out of
the pools where they are hatched, up the dry banks.
There are varieties of them, differing in colour ; and
some have fins up their tail and back, and some have
not4.

3 I have kept several of these creatures in a jar of water ; but it is
painful to observe their constant efforts to take breath by rising every two
or three minutes to the surface, so that breathing seems to be the only
business of their lives, requiring infinitely more labour than most other
animals undergo to procure food. It is clearly impossible for them ever
to sleep except upon land. Those which I kept cast off the whole of the
scarf skin (epidermis) every two or three weeks, but never the true skin
as serpents do. They also laid eggs enveloped in a gelatinous substance,
somewhat like frog spawn. — RENNIE.

4 The appearance of fin-like expansions on the back and tail of the
several species of Triton is confined to the male, and to the season of
breeding ; when their presence is obviously advantageous to animals of
habits altogether different from those of frogs and toads.— T. B.

106 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XIX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Aug. 17, 17G8.

I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct
species of the willow wrens (Motacillce Trochili) which
constantly and invariably use distinct notes. But, at
the same time, I am obliged to confess that I know
nothing of your willow lark1. In my letter of April
the 18th, I had told you peremptorily that I knew your
willow lark, but had not seen it then : but, when I came
to procure it, it proved, in all respects, a very Motacilla
Trochilus ; only that it is a size larger than the two
other, and the yellow green of the whole upper part of
the body is more vivid, and the belly of a clearer white.
I have specimens of the three sorts now lying before
me ; and can discern that there are three gradations of
sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other
two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is con-
siderably the largest, and has its quill feathers and
secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others
have not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in
high beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper-
like noise, now and then, at short intervals, shivering a
little with its wings when it sings ; and is, I make no
doubt now, the Regulus non cristatus of Ray ; which
he says " cantat voce stridula locustce." Yet this great
ornithologist never suspected that there were three
species 2.

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

[White subsequently determined, see Letter XXV. that the bird in
question was the hedge warbler; and Pennant acquiesced in, and adopted,
his decision.— E. T. B.]

a It is curious that the clearness with which Gilbert White distin-
guished in this Letter the three kinds of true Sylvia that were known to
him, should not have led immediately to a perfect acquaintance with the

OF SELBORNE. 107

LETTER XX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR sm, SELBORNE, Oct. 8, 1768.

IT is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is
so full, that that district produces the greatest variety
which is the most examined. Several birds, which are
said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in
the south. I have discovered this summer three spe-
cies of birds with us, which writers mention as only to
be seen in the northern counties l.

The first that was brought me (on the 14th of May)

characteristic marks of these little birds. Yet it is only within these few
years that they have been well understood ; and it is even now occasion-
ally necessary to insist upon the really distinctive characters between
them. Nothing, however, can be more defined than the statement in the
text. There are three sorts of willow wrens, the smallest of which has
black legs ; this is the chiff-chaff, the earliest in its arrival, the chirper of
but two notes, referred to in Letter XVI., and described in a note on that
letter by the Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert under the name of Sylv. loquax:
the others have flesh-coloured legs. One of them, the largest bird of the
three, has the yellow green of its upper surface more vivid than the
others, and its belly of a clearer white ; it haunts the tops of trees, and
makes a sibilous noise, shivering with its wings, this is the Sylv . sibilatrix,
BECHST. The remaining bird, of intermediate size, and having a joyous,
easy, laughing note, is the Sylv. Trochilus, LATH. The distinctions are
thoroughly intelligible. Arranged in a tabular form they would stand
thus, Sylvia.

Legs black Sylv. loquax.

flesh-coloured,

Belly yellowish . . Sylv. Trochilus.

white .... Sylv. sibilatrix.

E. T. B.

1 There is nothing highly remarkable in the occurrence of these birds
in southern counties. The sandpiper is disposed to breed in any part of
England, where it can be free from disturbance. The red-backed butcher
bird belongs rather to the south, and is scarcely ever met with in the
north. And the ring-ousel is in Hampshire a bird of passage, crossing
that county in the spring and autumn, in its way to and from its breeding
places in the rocky districts of the north and west. — E. T. B.

108 NATURAL HISTORY

was the sandpiper ( Tringa Hypoleucos *) : it was a cock
bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds near the
village ; and, as it had a companion, doubtless intended
to have bred near that water. Besides, the owner has
told me since, that, on recollection, he has seen some of
the same birds round his ponds in former summers.

The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May)
was a male red-backed butcher-bird (Lanius Collurio).
My neighbour, who shot it, says that it might easily
have escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chat-
terings of the whitethroats and other small birds drawn
his attention to the bush where it was: its craw was
filled with the legs and wings of beetles3.

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

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

3 [Totanus Hypoleucos, TEMM.]

3 The circumstance mentioned in the text of the clamour of small birds
against the flusher (Laniits Collurio), by no means accords with my obser-
vation ; for though the bird is very common in my neighbourhood, where
it is called Jack Baker, I never remarked any small birds manifesting
any hostility towards it Captain Mitford also, an excellent observer,
assured Mr. Selby that he never witnessed " any particular hostility
displayed by them towards the neighbouring smaller birds; and that he
has found the nest of different species (Sylvia, &c.) within a very short
distance of that of one of these shrikes, which allowed them to bring up
their young without molestation." — RENME.

OF SELBORNE. 109

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

I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so
lately on the study of reptiles) that my people, every
now and then, of late, draw up with a bucket of water
from my well, which is sixty-three feet deep, a large
black warty lizard with a fin-tail and yellow belly4.
How they first came down at that depth, and how they
were ever to have got out thence without help, is more
than I am able to say.

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

reason to give his decision in my favour ; and then, I
think, we may advance this extraordinary provision of
nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the
creation.

4 The black warty lizard is Triton palustris ; and the dorsal expansion
proves that the individuals in question were males. — T. B.

110 NATURAL HISTORY

As yet I have not quite done with my history of the
(Edicnemus, or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentle-
man in Sussex (near whose house these birds congre-
gate in vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely
when they leave him (if they do leave him), and when
they return again in the spring : I was with this gentle-
man lately, and saw several single birds5.

LETTER XXI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 28, 1768.

WITH regard to the (Edicnemus , or stone-curlew, I
intend to write very soon to my friend near Chichester,
in whose neighbourhood these birds seem most to
abound ; and shall urge him to take particular notice
when they begin to congregate, and afterward to watch
them most narrowly whether they do not withdraw
themselves during the dead of the winter. When I
have obtained information with respect to this circum-
stance, I shall have finished my history of the stone-
curlew ; which I hope will prove to your satisfaction,
as it will be, I trust, very near the truth. This gentle-
man, as he occupies a large farm of his own, and is
abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon
the motions of these birds : and besides, as I have
prevailed on him to buy the Naturalist's Journal (with
which he is much delighted), I shall expect that he will
be very exact in his dates1. It is very extraordinary,

4 [See Letter XXXIII.]

1 The Naturalist's Journal. Printed for W. Sandby, Fleet Street, Lon-
don; 1767. Price one shilling and sixpence. Such is the title of the
work commended in the text ; and recommended publicly and strongly by
Pennant, nearly at the same time, to general use. The reader of the
Natural History of Selborne owes much to it. The habit of recording
daily not only fixes correctly the time of each occurrence, but creates the
desire to have somewhat to record : there is consequently a stimulus to

OF SELBORNE. Ill

as you observe, that a bird so common with us should
never straggle to you2.

And here will be the properest place to mention,
while I think of it, an anecdote which the above men-
tioned gentleman told me when I was last at his house ;
which was that, in a wan-enjoining to his outlet, many
daws (Corvi Monedulce) build every year in the rabbit
burrows under ground. The way he and his brothers
used to take their nests, while they were boys, was by
listening at the mouths of the holes ; and, if they heard
the young ones cry, they twisted the nest out with a
forked stick. Some waterfowls (viz. the puffins) breed,
I know, in that manner ; but I should never have sus-
pected the daws of building in holes on the flat ground.

the acquisition of facts, and an extrinsic value superadded to those facts
by the regularity with which they are noted. The Naturalist's Calendar,
which forms part of the contents of this volume, is a digest of the daily
entries made by Gilbert White, during a quarter of a century, in the form
of natural history book keeping, as it may be called, which was published
by Sandby. He entered in it also many casual observations of various
interest : for it was always at hand, and formed really his day-book. It
is chiefly from these entries that his Observations on various branches of
Natural History, which succeed the Natural History of Selborne, were
derived.— E. T. B.

2 Mr. White considers it very extraordinary that a bird so common in
his1 vicinity, as the Charadrius CEdicnemus (CEdicnemus crepitans, TEMM.)
should never straggle into the neighbourhood of his friend. My obser-
vation is, that it is found only on chalk. I used to find it and its two
eggs on the bare ground in September, at Highclere, in Hampshire, but
only where there was a chalk subsoil. It never strayed to the sand
or gravel, and consequently was not upon the heaths; but in the chalky
turnip fields. Temminck says it is found on high sandy uncultivated
tracts and heaths far from water. I have found it only on chalk and
ploughed land. I have seen it on the chalk district in Kent. I have
never seen it in Yorkshire, nor in the vicinity of the moors, where it
should be found if Temminck's account were true. I do not believe that
it ever lays an egg upon sand as he states. The dotterell (Charadrius
Morinellas) also is peculiar to dry chalk districts, and feeds chiefly on
small green beetles ; but Temminck most erroneously states that it lives
in desert miry places, lieux deserts etfangeux. He should have said dry
sheep walks. It is probable that the insects to which this species is
partial reside only in the chalk districts, but they may possibly thrive on
a different subsoil in the South of Europe, though I am very little
disposed to believe it. — W. H.

112 NATURAL HISTORY

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

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

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

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

I want to be better informed with regard to ichthyo-
logy3. If fortune had settled me near the seaside, or

9 At the time when White's remark was made, Pennant had in prepa-
ration the third volume of his British Zoology, which was intended to
supply the want that he, in common with others, felt ; it was published in
the following year, and was well adapted to fulfil the object had in view. In

OF SELBORNE. 113

near some great river, my natural propensity would
soon have urged me to have made myself acquainted
with their productions : but as I have lived mostly in
inland parts, and in an upland district, my knowledge
of fishes extends little farther than to those common
sorts which our brooks and lakes produce.

I am, &c.

the subsequent editions improvements were introduced, and especially in
that of 1812; the editor of which, Mr. Hanmer it is believed, revised it
with so much care as to render it almost a new work. Until very recently
the third volume of the British Zoology has been the most generally
available authority on our native fishes ; for the work of Donovan, con-
sisting of highly finished coloured figures, is by far too expensive for
general use.

But the system adopted by Pennant (and by Donovan also) was that of
Linnaeus, the groups of which are too comprehensive to be suitable to the
prevailing taste among zoologists for minute analysis of animal forms ;
and his work, although still valuable as regards species, had become alto-
gether unsatisfactory with respect to genera and to arrangement. Many
and important additions had also been made, by observers on various parts
of the coast, to this department of our Fauna ; and more defined views had
been obtained as to those fishes which inhabit the fresh waters of Britain.
It had consequently become as desirable in 1835 as it was in 1768, that
the student should be better informed with regard to ichthyology ; and
my friend Mr. Yarrell, of whose extensive knowledge in this as in many
other branches of zoology it is unnecessary to speak, has taken up the
subject with that steady clearness which belongs to him, and will, before
this sheet appears, have completed a History of British Fishes. Adopt-
ing the classification of Cuvier he has characterised in that work upwards
of two hundred species, that have been taken on our coasts or in our
rivers and lakes ; has described them fully ; and has entered into some
account of their natural history, so far as so difficult a subject is at
present understood. His work is illustrated by numerous beautifully
executed wood cuts ; including representations (with only three or four
exceptions) of every fish that is yet known to belong to the British
Fauna.

The deserved success of Mr. Yarrell's Fishes, it may be remarked, has
caused it to be regarded, in some measure, as the commencement of a
series of works on the British Fauna, to be executed in the same style
with it. Mr. Bell has undertaken the second of these works, the British
Quadrupeds, liberally illustrated, like the Fishes, with wood cuts, and
promising to be a fit companion to that useful as well as handsome book,
— E. T. B.

114 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 2, 17G9.

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

What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads
raises my curiosity. An ancient author, though no
naturalist, has well remarked that " Every kind of
beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and things in the
sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed, of mankind1."

It is a satisfaction to me to find that a green lizard
has actually been procured for you in Devonshire ;
because it corroborates my discovery, which I made
many years ago, of the same sort, on a sunny sandbank
near Farnham, in Surrey. I am well acquainted with
the south hams of Devonshire ; and can suppose that
district, from its southerly situation, to be a proper
habitation for such animals in their best colours2.

1 James, iii. 7.

2 These were probably unusually bright and large individuals of
Lacerta stirpium, now ascertained to be indigenous to this country. See
Jenyns, Brit. Vert. p. 291.— T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 115

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

In your account of your error with regard to the two
species of herons, you incidentally gave me "great enter-
tainment in your description of the heronry at Cressi
Hall ; which is a curiosity I never could manage to see.
Fourscore nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity
which I would ride half as many miles to have a sight
of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat
Cressi Hall is, and near what town it lies3. I have
often thought that those vast extents of fens have
never been sufficiently explored. If half a dozen gen-
tlemen, furnished with a good strength of water-spaniels,
were to beat them over for a week, they would certainly
find more species.

3 Cressi Hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire.

[Cressi Hall was the seat of a branch of the very ancient family of
Heron. Its position in the fens was less suited to the human race than
to the birds who were probably encouraged there for namesake, with a
feeling similar to that which actuated the town of Berne, during the
time that it deemed it important to be always possessed of bears. The
owner, at the period when Pennant visited it, left it away from the Lin-
colnshire branch of the family to a branch which had long been settled
in Scotland ; and about forty years ago the property was sold. The
house was soon afterwards burnt down by accident. It was a large
modern house, with a small chapel attached to it ; but was not of sufficient
consequence to attract much notice : the arms of the family were carved
in stone upon the front of the chapel. The motto probably was also
there, connecting, like the heronry, the bird with the family that bears its
name, and punningly declaring, in the words ardua petit ardea, the soar-
ing propensities of both.

Sir Robert Heron informs me that about sixty years ago, which must
have been almost immediately after Pennant's visit, the trees of the
heronry were cut down. When Sir Robert visited the place forty -eight
years ago there were still many disconsolate herons about, mourning the
desolation of their city. In the year 1819, when he was again in the
neighbourhood, he saw none of the race remaining. — E. T. B.]

116 NATURAL HISTORY

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have
studied more than those of the Caprimulgus (the goat-
sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious creature : but
I have always found that though sometimes it may
chatter as it flies, as I know it does, yet in general it
utters its jarring note sitting on a bough : and I have
for many a half hour watched it as it sat with its under
mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. It
perches usually on a bare twig, with its head lower
than its tail, in an attitude well expressed by your
draughtsman in the folio British Zoology. This bird
is most punctual in beginning its song exactly at the
close of day ; so exactly that I have known it strike
up more than once or twice just at the report of the
Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear when the
weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt that
its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers
of the parts of its windpipe, formed for sound, just as
cats purr. You will credit me, I hope, when I assure
you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an her-
mitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink tea4,
one of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross
of that little straw edifice and began to chatter, and
continued his note for many minutes ; and we were all
struck with wonder to find that the organs of that little
animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration
to the whole building ! This bird also sometimes makes
a small squeak, repeated four or five times ; and I have
observed that to happen when the cock has been pur-
suing the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a
tree.

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

4 See the Vignette to this book.

OF SELBORNK. 117

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

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

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

LETTER XXIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Feb. 28, 1769.

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

I return you thanks for your account of Cressi Hall ;
but recollect, not without regret, that in June, 1746, 1
was visiting for a week together at Spalding, without
ever being told that such a curiosity was just at hand.
Pray send me word in your next what sort of tree it is
that contains such a quantity of herons' nests; and

118 NATURAL HISTORY

whether the heronry consist of a whole grove or wood,
or only of a few trees.

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

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

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

OF SELBORNE. 119

Oxford than elsewhere : is it owing to the vast massy
buildings of that place, to the many waters round it, or
to what else ?

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

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

LETTER XXIV.

TO THE SAME.
WEAR SIR, SELBORNE, May 29, 1769.

THE Scarabceus Fullo1 1 know very well, having seen it
in collections ; but have never been able to discover

MELOLONTHA MJLLO.

[MelolontJia Fullo, FABR.]

120 NATURAL HISTORY

one wild in its natural state. Mr. Banks told me he
thought it might be found on the seacoast2.

On the 13th of April, I went to the sheep-down,
where the ring-ousels have been observed to make
their appearance at spring and fall, in their way per-
haps to the north or south ; and was much pleased to
see three birds about the usual spot. We shot a cock
and a hen ; they were plump and in high condition.
The hen had but very small rudiments of eggs within
her, which proves they are late breeders ; whereas those
species of the thrush kind that remain with us the
whole year have fledged young before that time. In
their crops was nothing very distinguishable, but some-
what that seemed like blades of vegetables nearly
digested. In autumn they feed on haws and yew-ber-
ries, and in the spring on ivy-berries. I dressed one
of these birds, and found it juicy and well flavoured.
It is remarkable, that they make but a few days stay in
their spring visit, but rest near a fortnight at Michael-
mas. These birds, from the observations of three springs
and two autumns, are most punctual in their return;
and exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the writers
who supposed they never were to be seen in any of
the southern counties.

One of my neighbours lately brought me a new Sali-
caria, which, at first, I suspected might have proved
your willow lark3, but on a nicer examination, it
answered much better to the description of that species
which you shot at Revesby, in Lincolnshire4. My bird

a All the specimens of this noble chafer that have yet been captured
in England, and they are very far from numerous, have occurred on the
coast of Kent. Dover seems to be the middle point of their range, from
which they extend westward as far as Hythe, and northward to Sand-
wich. Mr. Stephens has recorded the capture, by a lady, of no less than
eight specimens in one year, in the neighbourhood of Sandwich; a num-
ber probably nearly equal to all the others that are known to have been
at any time taken in this country.— E. T. B.

3 For this Salicaria see Letter, August 30, 1769. [XXV.]

4 The seat of Sir Joseph Banks, at which Pennant remained on a visit
in May, 1767. —E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 121

I describe thus : " It is a size less than the grasshop-
per lark ; the head, back, and coverts of the wings, of a
dusky brown, without those dark spots of the grasshop-
per lark ; over each eye is a milkwhite stroke ; the chin
and throat are white, and the under parts of a yellowish
white ; the rump is tawny, and the feathers of the tail
sharp pointed; the bill is dusky and sharp, and the
legs are dusky; the hinder claw long and crooked."
The person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed
sparrow5 that he took it for one; and that "it sings all
night: but this account merits farther inquiry. For
my part, I suspect it is a second sort of Locustella,
hinted at by Dr.-Derham in Ray's Letters : see p. 108.
He also procured me a grasshopper lark.

5 This is an error which runs through most of our books of ornithology.
The reed bunting, commonly called the reed sparrow, has no song. Like
its congeners, in this country, it has only a monotonous cry. The bird
above mentioned, Snlicaria Phragmitis, or sedge warbler, is perpetually
singing by night, if disturbed, as well as by day, and the reed bunting
has often got the credit of its song. The sedge warbler is very abundant
at Spofforth, but I have never discovered the reed warbler, its near con-
gener, here. Bewick has confounded these two species, and has given a
plate and description of the sedge warbler, under the name of the reed
warbler, which last has not been observed north of the Trent. The reed
warbler is of a uniform reddish brown with a little olive cast on the
upper parts, and whitish on the belly ; the sedge warbler has a light
stripe over the eye, and the middle of each feather, on the upper parts,
dashed with very dark brown. I have found its nest on the ground in a
tuft of rushes, in long grasses and herbs, being made fast to their stalks,
in a dead hedge, but most frequently in thorn fences, and low bushes,
and willows, often in the currant bushes in gardens near a wet ditch or
stream. The reed wren builds in general higher, sometimes in a poplar
tree, often in the tall lilacs in the Regent's Park : our books mostly state
willows, and that it builds in the reeds, but it often prefers a tall bush
or a small tree if there be one in the neighbourhood. Its bill is stronger
than that of the sedge warbler, and it seems to be less patient of cold.
Its nest is deeper. The song of individuals of the two species is very
similar, and cannot easily be distinguished. Mr. White calls the sedge
warbler a delicate polyglott; and speaks of its song as very superior to
that of the whitethroat, in which I can by no means agree with him. Its
notes are very hurried, some parts of its song are good, but others singu-
larly harsh and disagreeable. They are greedy birds, and in confinement
are apt to die from excessive fat; becoming so unwieldy as to hurt and
bruise themselves by tumbling down.— W. H.

122 NATURAL HISTORY

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

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.
THE

NATURALISTS' SUMMER EVENING WALK.

equidem credo, quia sit divinities illis

Ingenium. VIRG. GEORG.

WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the May -fly 6 haunts the pool or stream ;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;

6 The angler's May-fly, the Ephetncra vulgata, LINN, comes forth from
its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water, about six in the evening,
and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly state in
about five or six hours. They usually begin to appear about the 4th of
June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See Swammerdam,
Derham, Scopoli, &c.

OF SELBORNE. 123

Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's7 tale;
To hear the clamorous curlew 8 call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ;
To see the swallow sweep the darkening plain
Belated, to support her infant train ;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing :
Amusive birds! say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat ;
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ?
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride,
The GOD of NATURE is your secret guide !

While deepening shades obscure the face of day
To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray,
Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night ;
To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket 9 cry ;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ;
To catch the distant falling of the flood ;
While o'er the cliff the' awaken'd churn-owl hung
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song ;
While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft enamour'd woodlark 10 sings :
These, NATURE'S works, the curious mind employ,
Inspire a soothing melancholy joy :
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein !

Each rural sight, each sound, each smell, combine ;
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine ;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage chimney smoking through the trees.

7 Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no incuba-
tion or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wanders without
control.

8 Charadrius CEdicnemus.

9 Gryllus campestris .

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

124 NATURAL HISTORY

The chilling night dews fall : — away, retire ;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire u !
Thus, ere night's veil had half obscured the sky,
The* impatient damsel hung her lamp on high :
True to the signal, by love's meteor led,
Leander hastened to his Hero's bed ".

I am, &c.

LETTER XXV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, Si i HUH M , Aug. 30, 1769.

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

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

[I have proved by experiment, that this opinion is incorrect, or at least
extremely doubtful. See Insect Miscelkmies, pp. 222 — 6. — RENNIE.]

12 See the story of Hero and Leander.

OP SELBORNE. 125

they breed on Dartmoor; and that they forsake that
wild district about the time that our visitors appear,
and do not return till late in the spring.

I have taken a great deal of pains about your Sali-
caria and mine, with a white stroke over its eye and a
tawny rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and
have procured several specimens; and am perfectly
persuaded myself (and trust you will soon be convinced
of the same) that it is no more nor less than the Passer
arundinaceus minor of Ray. This bird, by some means
or other, seems to be entirely omitted in the British
Zoology; and one reason probably was because it is
so strangely classed in Ray, who ranges it among his
Picis affines. It ought no doubt to have gone among
his Aviculce cauda unicolore, and among your slender-
billed small birds of the same division. Linnaeus
might with great propriety have put it into his genus
of Motacilla ; and the Motacilla Salicaria of his Fauna
Suecica seems to come the nearest to it. It is no un-
common bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers
where there is covert, and the reeds and sedges of
moors. The country people in some places call it the
sedge bird. It sings incessantly night and day during
the breeding time, imitating the note of a sparrow, a
swallow, a skylark ; and has a strange hurrying manner
in its song. My specimens correspond most minutely
to the description of your fen Salicaria shot near
Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent charac-
teristic of it when he says, " Rostrum et pedes in hac
avicula multo major es sunt quam pro corporis rationed
(See Letter, May 29, 1769 [XXIV.])

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

When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I
had not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have
of stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who

12G NATURAL HISTORY

kept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as
any animal while in good humour and unalarmed ; but
as soon as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell
to hissing, and tilled the room with such nauseous
effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable *. Thus the
squnck, or stonck, of Ray's Synopsis Quadrupedum is
an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed
hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most pesti-
lent and fetid smell and excrement that nothing can be
more horrible.

A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the
Lanius minor cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba,
RAH2; which is a bird that, at the time of your pub-
lishing your two first volumes of British Zoology, I
find you had not seen. You have described it well
from Edwards's drawing.

LETTER XXVI.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Dec. 8, 17G9.

I WAS much gratified by your communicative letter on
your return from Scotland, where you spent, I find,
some considerable time, and gave yourself good room
to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive
kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of
the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is
hurry; because men seldom allot themselves half the
time they should do ; but, fixing on a day for their re-
turn, post from place to place, rather as if they were on
a journey that required dispatch, than as philosophers
investigating the works of nature. You must have

1 I have had tame snakes which were almost inodorous under ordinary
circumstances, but which became exceedingly offensive when alarmed or
irritated.— T. B.

* [Lanius rvftis, BRISS.]

OF SELBORNE. 127

made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a good
fund of materials for a future edition of the British
Zoology; and will have no reason to repent that you
have bestowed so much pains on a part of Great Britain
that perhaps was never so well examined before.

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

And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention
that those birds were most punctual again in their
migration this autumn, appearing, as before, about the
30th of September: but their flocks were larger than
common, and their stay protracted somewhat beyond
the usual time. If they came to spend the whole
winter with us, as some of their congeners do, and
then left us, as they do, in spring, I should not be so
much struck with the occurrence, since it would be
similar to that of the other winter birds of passage ;
but when I see them for a fortnight at Michaelmas,
and again for about a week in the middle of April, I
am seized with wonder, and long to be informed whence
these travellers come, and whither they go, since they
seem to use our hills merely as an inn or baiting place.

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

128

NATURAL HISTORY

which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the south-
ward.

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

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

THE EAGLE OWL.

1 It has lately been ascertained that Ireland has also its peculiar hare,
which is apt to become white in winter when kept in parks or other
enclosures. Specimens of this animal have been repeatedly exhibited in
the Zoological Society's Gardens ; where its different appearance from
that of the English hare has often induced visitors to remark on it as a
" curious rabbit." Its head, as pointed out by Mr. Yarrell at a Meeting
of the Society in 1833, is shorter and more rounded than that of the
common hare; its ears are proportionally, as well as absolutely, shorter,
not equalling the head in length ; and its limbs are less lengthened. Its

OF SEL BORNE. 129

so majestic a bird, that it would grace our Fauna
much 2.

I never was informed before where wild geese are
known to breed.

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

De Buffon, 1 know, has described the water shrew-
mouse: but still I am pleased to find you have dis-
covered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given
in the article of the white hare.

As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky
field, far removed from any water, he turned out a
water rat, that was curiously laid up in an hybernacu-
lum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one
end of the burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regu-
larly stowed, on which it was to have supported itself
for the winter. But the difficulty with me is how this
amphibius mus came to fix its winter station at such a
distance from the water. Was it determined in its
choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the
potatoes which were planted there ; or is it the constant
practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood
of the water in the colder months ?

Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning,
knowing how fallacious it is with respect to natural
history ; yet, in the following instance, I cannot help
being inclined to think it may conduce towards the

fur consists of only one kind of hair, and is useless as an article of com-
merce : a test which affords strong evidence of the distinction of the Irish
from the English hare.- E. T. B.

2 The eagle owl (Bubo maximus, GER.) has been shot in Yorkshire
and Suffolk, as well as in Scotland.— Montagu, Orn. Diet.

130 NATURAL HISTORY

explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before,
with respect to the invariable early retreat of the Hi-
rundo Apus, or swift, so many weeks before its con-
geners ; and that not only with us, but also in Andalusia,
where they also begin to retire about the beginning of
August.

The great large bat s (which by the by is at present
a nondescript in England, and what I have never been
able yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in
the summer: it also ranges very high for its food,
feeding in a different region of the air ; and that is the
reason I never could procure one4. Now this is exactly
the case with the swifts ; for they take their food in a
more exalted region than the other species, and are
very seldom seen hawking for flies near the ground, or
over the surface of the water. From hence I would
conclude that these Hirundines, and the larger bats, are
supported by some sorts of highflying gnats, scarabs,
or Phalcence, that are of short continuance ; and that the
short stay of these strangers is regulated by the defect
of their food.

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

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

4 Vespertilio Noctvla certainly winters in England. I once procured
some in a torpid state in February. It flies high in the early part of the
evening; but descends, as the night closes in, towards the surface of
waters to procure its food. — G. D.

OF 8KLUORNF. 13L

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Feb. 22, 1770.

HEDGEHOGS abound in my gardens and fields. The
manner in which they eat the roots of the. plantain in
my grass walks is very curious : with their upper man-
dible, which is much longer than their lower, they bore
under the plant, and so eat the root on" upwards, leaving
the tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are
serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed ;
but they deface the walks in some measure by digging
little round holes. It appears, by the dung that they
drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable
part of their food 1. In June last I procured a litter of
four or five young hedgehogs, which appeared to be

1 Hedgehogs have now become so well known in the metropolis on
account of their insectivorous propensities, that they are offered for sale
at those markets which are supplied by the country people with vege-
tables. The lower parts of many of the houses in London are overrun
by black beetles to such an extent as to render it necessary to apply
some means of diminishing the numbers of these disagreeable intruders ;
and among the modes that have been resorted to for the purpose of
destroying them, the introduction of a hedgehog into the kitchen is one
of the most effectual. For the support of the animal, in addition to the
beetles which it devours, a little bread and milk is requisite ; and it is very
fond of picking bones. In such circumstances a hedgehog has occasionally
become in some degree domesticated; and its familiarity has been carried
to the extent of allowing itself to be handled, especially by children, and
to be lifted from the ground by its spines, without attempting to coil
itself up into its usual ball-like posture of defence : a form which it
would immediately assume when touched by a stranger. It would run
too after its little playmates ; and when excluded from the room in
which they were, would scratch at the door as if to ask admittance
among them. In the instance especially referred to the little creature
was on one occasion missing for six weeks ; and, on recovering from its
long nap, resumed at once its accustomed habits, the usual scratching at
the door being the first notice given of the return of the long lost pet.
Eventually it was excluded altogether from society, and was closely
confined ; when it refused its food and died.— E. T. B.

132 NATURAL HISTORY

about five or six days old : they, I find, like puppies,
are born blind, and could not see when they came to
my hands. No doubt their spines are soft and flexible
at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam would
have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of par-
turition : but it is plain that they soon harden ; for
these little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs
and sides as would easily have fetched blood, had they
not been handled with caution. Their spines are quite
white at this age; and they have little hanging ears,
which I do not remember to be discernible in the old
ones. They can, in part, at this age draw their skin
down over their faces; but are not able to contract
themselves into a ball, as they do, for the sake of
defence, when full grown. The reason, I suppose, is,
because the curious muscle that enables the creature
to roll itself up in a ball was not then arrived at its full
tone and firmness2. Hedgehogs make a deep and warm

a The reason given in the text is probably the physical cause of the
fact observed by White. I have witnessed the same fact in the course
of this summer, in the young of a nest discovered in the Zoological
Society's Gardens in the Regent's Park. There were in it five young
ones, not two inches in length, and probably, at the time it was taken,
not more than two or three days old. The absence of the power of con-
tracting their skins gave to the little creatures a form very different from
that of the mother, who was taken at the same time with them. If the
similitude of the animal's form to that of the sea-hedgehog, indicated by
the name of the latter, be borne in mind, the shape of the parent would
have resembled, in its height as well as in its spiny covering, the edible
sea-egg, Echinus esculentus, LINN.; that of the younger ones would have
approached more nearly to the depressed sea-eggs of the genus Spatun-
gus, KLEIN, and the white short spines borne out on their otherwise
naked blue skin, were adapted to give greater force to the resemblance.
The body of the parent, elevated in the back and dropping rapidly down
on either side, presented a marked contrast with that of the young,
flattened above and spread out on the sides: the adult might be com-
pared to an egg; the young to the yolk of the same egg, deprived of the
support of the shell, but rather more extended lengthwise than across :
the shortness of the legs, in both cases, being such as scarcely to detract
from the similitude. The backward direction of the spines, in the young
animal, is well adapted to obviate an inconvenience hinted at by White
in a preceding passage.

It is not perhaps altogether unworthy of remark that the whole of the

OF SELBORNE. 133

hybernaculum with leaves and moss, in which they
conceal themselves for the winter: but I never could
find that they stored in any winter provision, as some
quadrupeds certainly do.

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

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

young ones of this nest, notwithstanding that they were immediately
removed with their dam and placed in one of the ordinary cages in which
the smaller mammals are kept, notwithstanding also the occasional dis-
turbance of the family for the inspection of curious visitors, were taken
care of by the mother, and three of them were living three months after
their capture.

The helpless condition of the young in this instance is quite in accord-
ance with that law of nature, by which the young of many animals,
including all the mammals, are thrown for nourishment and protection
on their parents. It is in accordance with this law that the hedgehog
should, in the earlier period of its existence, be destitute of the means of
defence with which nature has provided the adult animal, that of so
contracting its body into a ball as to secure from injury all the parts
which have only the ordinary covering of other quadrupeds, and of thus
presenting to the attacks of its enemies nothing but an uncertain mass
bristling with horrid spines. — E. T. B.

NA 1 URAL HISTORY

LETTER XXVIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SKI.BORNE, March, 1770.

ON Michaelmas-day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of
the female moose belonging to the duke of Richmond,
at Goodwood; but was greatly disappointed, when I
arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having
appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the
morning before. However, understanding that it was
not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadru-
ped. I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under the
belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture;
but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it was
in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly sup-
portable. The grand distinction between this deer,
and any other species that I have ever met with, con-
sisted in the strange length of its legs; on which it
was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the
Grallce order. I measured it, as they do a horse, and
found that, from the ground to the wither, it was just
five feet four inches; which height answers exactly to
sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive at: but
then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably
short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by strad-
dling with one foot forward, and the other backward, it
grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty,
between its legs : the ears were vast and lopping, and
as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty inches
long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of
upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils.
This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in
North America. It is very reasonable to suppose that

OF SELBORNE. 135

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

1 They belong, moreover, to very distinct sections of the great and yet
undivided genus Cervus. Independently of the peculiarities of form in
the moose, described by Gilbert White, this is also indicated by its
broadly palmated horns as opposed to the rounded stem and antlers of
the red deer.— E. T. B.

13(J NATURAL HISTORY

Please to let me hear if my female moose corre-
sponds with that you saw ; and whether you think still
that the American moose and European elk are the
same creature.

I am,
With the greatest esteem, &c.

LETTER XXIX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBOKNE, May 12, 1770.

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

Among the monogamous birds several are to be
found, after pairing- time, single, and of each sex : but
whether this state of celibacy is matter of choice or
necessity, is not so easily discoverable. When the
house sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as
soon as I cause one to be shot, the other, be it cock or
hen, presently procures a mate, and so for several
times following.

OF SELBORNE. 137

I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of
white owls, which made great havock among the young
pigeons : one of the owls was shot as soon -as possible ;
but the survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief
went on. After some time the new pair were both
destroyed, and the annoyance ceased.

Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose
zeal for the increase of his game being greater than his
humanity, after pairing-time l he always shot the cock
bird of every couple of partridges upon his grounds ;
supposing that the rivalry of many males 2 interrupted
the breed : he used to say, that, though he had widowed

1 The very beautiful, one may almost say poetical way, in which the
male bird procures a mate by the power of his song, may be seen in the
preface to Mr. Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary, p. xxx. ; from which
this corollary may be inferred, that if a confined bird had learned the
song of another, without retaining any part of its natural notes, and was
set at liberty, it is probable, that it would never find a mate of its own. —
MITVORD.

2 Mr. Montagu has observed that some birds exert themselves in
rivalry of singing, as a mode of wooing the female. I think I have some
reason to believe that the cocks very much predominate in number over
the females, amongst the birds which are the most ardent songsters ; and
the females are most numerous amongst those which have vocal powers,
but are sluggish in using them. Two of the most ardent songsters we
have are the nightingale and the whitethroat : the whitethroat, whose
song Mr. White strangely undervalues, appears to exert itself to the
utmost, and perpetually. I have found the cocks very prevalent amongst
the young of these two species. Indeed of seven whitethroats reared
from the nest within the last few years, the whole number proved to be
cocks. A nest of nightingales which I reared contained only cocks.
On the other hand, of seventeen young whin chats only three were cocks,
and I think the general average is quite as much in favour of the females.
The whin chat reared under other birds will learn to sing from all, but
in its wild state it seldom sings continuously or with variety. The
males and females seem pretty equally divided in the nests of blackcaps;
and they, though perpetually singing, are lazy, and rarely exert them-
selves to vary their strain as much as they are able to do. The bird-
catchers reckon, when they take a cock nightingale which has a mate,
that if they leave the hen she will have another mate in a few days, and
sometimes they take five or six successive husbands from one female.
Having taken a young stone chat, and caught the old cock which
belonged to the brood, I found, three days after, that the hen had pro-
vided herself with another mate, and he was just as solicitous about the
young as their own father had been. — W. H.

NATURAL HISTORY

the same hen several times, yet he found she was still
provided with a fresh paramour, that did not take her
away from her usual haunt.

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

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

Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious : such
is the otter, which by nature is so well formed for

diving, that it makes great havock among the inhabi-
tants of the waters. Not supposing that we had any
of those beasts in our shallow brooks, I was much

OF SELBORNE. 139

pleased to see a male otter brought to me, weighing
twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank of
our stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides
the parish of Selborne from Harteley Wood.

LETTER XXX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Aug. 1, 1770.

THE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix
in their natural history. What Linnaeus says with
respect to insects, holds good in every other branch :
" Verbositas prcesentis sceculi, calamitas artis."

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

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

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

Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collec-
tions of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the
world. After I had studied over the latter for a time,
I remarked that every species almost that came from

140 NATURAL HISTORY

distant regions, such as South America, the coast of
Guinea, &c. were thick-billed birds of the Loxia and
Fringilla genera ; and no Motacillce or Muscicapce, were
to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason
was obvious enough ; for the hard-billed birds subsist
on seeds which are easily carried on board ; while the
soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and
insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh raw
meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious voy-
ages. It is from this defect of food that our collections
(curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived
of some of the most delicate and lively genera.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Sept. 14, 1770.

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

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

Another intelligent person assures me that they breed
in great abundance all over the Peak of Derby, and
are called there Tor-ousels ; withdraw in October and

OF SELBORNE. 141

November, and return in spring. This information
seems to throw some light on my new migration.

Scopoli's new work1 (which I have just procured)
has its merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the
Tyrol and Carniola. Monographers, come from whence
they may, have, I think, fair pretence to challenge some
regard and approbation from the lovers of natural
history ; for, as no man can alone investigate all the
works of nature, these partial writers may, each in their
department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and
freer from errors, than more general writers ; and so
by degrees may pave the way to a universal correct
natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial
and attentive to the life and conversation of his birds
as I could wish : he advances some false facts ; as
when he says of the Hirundo urbica that " pullos extra
nidum non nutrit." This assertion I know to be wrong
from repeated observation this summer; for house
martins do feed their young flying, though it must be
acknowledged not so commonly as the house swallow ;
and the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be
perceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances
some (I was going to say) improbable facts ; as when
he says of the woodcock that "pullos rostra portat
fugiens ab hoste" But candour forbids me to say abso-
lutely that any fact is false, because I have never been
witness to such a fact. I have only to remark that
the long unwieldy bill of the woodcock is perhaps the
worst adapted of any among the winged creation for
such a feat of natural affection.

I am, &c.

1 Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis.

NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SEIJJORNE, Oct. 29, 1770.

AFTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, &c.
I begin to suspect that I discern my brother's Hirundo
hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered Hirundo rupestris,
p. 167. His description of" Supra murina, subtus albida ;
rectrices macula ovali alba in latere interno ; pedes nudi,
nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quam plumcc
dor sales ; rectrices remigibus concolores ; cauda emarginata
nee forcipata ;" agrees very well with the bird in ques-
tion ; but when he comes to advance that it is " statura
Hirundinis urbicce" and that " definitio Hirundinis riparice
Linncei huic quoque convenit" he in some measure invali-
dates all he has said ; at least he shows at once that
he compares them to these species merely from memory :
for I have compared the birds themselves, and lind they
differ widely in every circumstance of shape, size, and
colour. However, as you will have a specimen, I
shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in the
matter1.

Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript
or not, he will have the credit of first discovering that

1 It seems highly probable that Gilbert White's suspicion of the iden-
tity of his brother's Gibraltar swallow with the Hirundo rupestris was
correct : indeed, if the Gibraltar bird exhibited a white spot on the inner
barb of each of the tail feathers (except the two intermediate ones), it
could have been no other than the bird first characterized by Scopoli, in
his Annus Primus, under the name quoted. According to M. Temminck
the rock swallow is abundant along the shores of the Mediterranean ;
common in Savoy and in Piedmont ; less numerous in Switzerland ; rare
in Germany ; and a bird of passage in some of the southern departments
of France. He states that individuals from Africa and from South
America [!] scarcely differ from each other.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 143

they spend their winters under the warm and sheltery
shores of Gibraltar and Barbary2.

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

The bane of our science is the comparing one animal
to the other by memory: for want of caution in this
particular Scopoli falls into errors: he is .not so full
with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as
might be wished, as you justly observe: his Latin is
easy, elegant, and expressive, and very superior to
Kramer's3.

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

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 26, 1770.

I WAS much pleased to see, among the collection of
birds from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged Eng-
lish summer birds of passage, concerning whose depar-

2 This remark is not to be understood as limiting the residence of the
rock swallow at Gibraltar to the winter only ; but merely as indicating
that it does not quit the neighbourhood of that place, like the other
swallows, during the colder months. It is, in fact, stationary throughout
the year. M. Risso states it to be stationary also in the more northern
locality of Nice ; where all the other swallows are, as in England, birds
of passage. They arrive, he remarks, about the fifth of March, and
depart about the tenth of October : a general observation which, as it is
applied equally to all the species that in England differ so considerably
in the length of their summer residence, would seem to indicate that
M. Risso is less given to make precise entries in the Naturalist's Journal
than was Gilbert White.— E. T. B.

3 See his Elenchus vegetabilium et animalium per Austrian) inferio-
rcm, &c.

144 NATURAL HISTORY

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

Scopoli seems to me to have found the Hirundo
Melba1, the great Gibraltar swift, in Tyrol, without
knowing it. For what is his Hirundo alpina but
the afore-mentioned bird in other words? Says he,
" Omnia prioris " (meaning the swift) ; " sed pectus
album; paulo major priore" I do not suppose this to
be a new species. It is true also of the Melba, that
" nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus" Vid. Annum
Primum.

My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good
sense, but no naturalist, to \vhom I applied on account
of the stone curlew (CEdicnemusJ, sends me the follow-
ing account : " In looking over my Naturalist's Journal
for the month of April, I find the stone curlews are first
mentioned on the 17th and 18th, which date seems to
me rather late. They live with us all the spring and
summer, and at the beginning of autumn prepare to

1 Cypselus Melba, ILL. (Cyps. alpinus, TEMM.) Stragglers of this spe-
cies, the large white-bellied swift, have lately occurred, in three several
instances, within the range of the British Fauna. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE.

145

take leave by getting together in flocks. They seem to
me a bird of passage that may travel into some dry
hilly country south of us, probably Spain, because of
the abundance of sheep-walks in that country ; for they
spend their summers with us in such districts. This
conjecture I hazard, as I have never met with any one
that has seen them in England in the winter. I believe
they are not fond of going near the water, but feed on
earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks and
downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abound-
ing with gray mossy flints, which much resemble their
young in colour ; among which they skulk and conceal
themselves. They make no nest, but lay their eggs on
the bare ground, producing in common but two at a time.
There is reason to think their young run soon after
they are hatched ; and that the old ones do not feed
them, but only lead them about at the time of feeding,
which, for the most part, is in the night." Thus far my
friend.

•

•TONR Cl RI,K.\V.

In the manners of this bird you see there is some-

14() NA riJKAL HIS Toll V

thing very analogous to the bustard, whom it also
somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in the
structure of its feet.

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

When the (Edicnemus flies it stretches out its
straight behind, like a heron.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAM SIR, SELBORNE, March 30, 1771.

THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky dis-
tricts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the
latter end of the summer, getting into people's skins,
especially those of women and children, and raising
tumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which
we call a harvest bug) is very minute, scarce discerni-
ble to the naked eye, of a bright scarlet colour, and of
the genus of Acarus. They are to be met \vith in gar-
dens on kidney beans, or any legumens; but prevail
only in the hot months of summer. Warreners, as
some have assured me, are much infested by them on
chalky downs; where these insects swarm sometimes
to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and to
give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten
as to be thrown into fevers1.

1 The harvest bug, as it is termed, is a very minute mite : it has been
figured by Shaw in his Naturalist's Miscellany, and also by Professor
Dume'ril in the Atlas of the Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles. On
account of its possessing only six legs Latreille removed it, (as well as
other mites which are similarly circumstanced,) from among the great
genus Acarus of Linnaeus : in his classification it is the Leptus autumnu-
lis. It seems, from the account given of it by M. Dumeril, to be as»

OF SRLBORNE. 147

There is a small long- shining fly in these parts very
troublesome to the housewife, by getting into the chim-
neys, and laying its eggs in the bacon while it is drying :
these eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which,
harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs,
eat down to the bone, and make great waste. This fly
I suspect to be a variety of the Musca putris of Lin-
naeus : it is to be seen in the summer in farm-kitchens
on the. bacon racks, and about the mantel-pieces, and
on the ceilings2.

common in France as it is in England. In the former country it is
known by the names of rouget, derived from its colour, and of bdte d'
Aout, and pique-Aofit, indicating the season of its appearance and the
annoyance produced by it. It occurs there from the middle of July to
the middle of September, and is most abundant in years of great drought
and heat. The root of the hairs is its favourite place of attack, and the
legs are naturally most apt to suffer from a creature that makes its first
approach either from the ground or from low vegetables. They travel
quickly on the skin, but are often stopped in their progress upwards by
garters or other ligatures. The itching occasioned by their punctures is
intolerable, and the large pimples produced by them are very apt to
suppurate, if irritated by the scratching which they seem designed to
provoke. Concentrated spirit or strong vinegar will destroy them ; but
such applications ought not, of course, to be resorted to if the skin has
been broken. Similar annoyances, from similar causes, and even to a
much greater extent than are here produced by the harvest mite, are
recorded by Messrs. Kirby and Spence as occurring in South America
and the West India Islands.

It has been suggested that as many of the mites are known to have, in
the early stage of their existence, six legs only, and to acquire subsequently
an additional pair, the harvest mite may perhaps be merely the young
condition of a true Acarus : but of this no evidence has yet been adduced
beyond the general analogy. The danger of reasoning from analogy in
natural history has been hinted at by White in Letter XXVI. ; but the
consideration of analogous cases may sometimes be encouraged with the
view of attracting attention to points in the history of animals which
might otherwise be overlooked. — E. T. B.

2 Are not these jumpers, and the fly that is produced from them,
identical with the hoppers of the cheese, the maggots which become in
their final state the Tyrophaga Casei, HERB.? Their leaping powers are
thus described by Messrs. Kirby and Spence. " These maggots have long
been celebrated for their saltatorious powers. They effect their tremen-
dous leaps— laugh not at the term, for they are truly so when compared
with what human force and agility can accomplish — in nearly the same
manner as salmon are stated to do when they wish to pass over a cataract,

148 NATURAL HISTORY

The insect that infests turnips and many crops in
the garden (destroying often whole fields while in their
seedling leaves) is an animal that wants to be better
known. The country people here call it the turnip-fly
and black dolphin ; but I know it to be one of the
Coleoptera ; the " Chrysornela oleracea, saltatoria, femo-
ribus posticis crassissimis." In very hot summers they
abound to an amazing degree, and as you walk in a field
or in a garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping
on the leaves of the turnips or cabbages \

by taking their tail in their mouth and letting it go suddenly. When it
prepares to leap, our larva first erects itself upon its anus, and then
bending itself into a circle by bringing its head to its tail, it pushes forth
its unguiform mandibles, and fixes them in two cavities in its anal
tubercles. All being thus prepared, it next contracts its body into an
oblong, so that the two halves are parallel to each other. This done, it
lets go its hold with so violent a jerk that the sound produced by its
mandibles may be readily heard, and the leap takes place. Swainmerdam
saw one, whose length did not exceed the fourth part of an inch, jump in
this manner out of a box six inches deep; which is as if a man six feet
high should raise himself in the air by jumping one hundred and forty-
four feet ! He had seen others leap a great deal higher."— E. T. B.

3 In this work of destruction, although a share is taken by the Hnlticn
oleracea, GEOFFR. (Chrysomela olei'acea, LINN.) the most powerful agent is
the Halt, nemorum, a still smaller beetle, about the twelfth part of an inch
in length, black above, and having a yellowish stripe along the middle of
each of its wing-cases. The injury inflicted on the turnip crops by these
pigmy depredators is in some years immense: it has been calculated tlutt
in Devonshire alone, in 1786, the damage inflicted by them on the a^ri< nl-
turist amounted to not less than one hundred thousand pounds. The
turnip-fly, or turnip-flea (as Messrs. Kirby and Spence propose to rail it,
not from its entomological affinities, but from its diminutive size and
leaping powers J is the earliest enemy of the turnip crops. The instant
that the plant appears above the ground, it is attacked by the little
insect which destroys the seedling or smooth leaves, and the plant
perishes in consequence. After the rough leaf has made its appearance,
the crop may generally be regarded as safe from severe injury from this
cause. This is the more fortunate, as the turnip-fly is always active
during the summer, and is ever at hand prepared by regaling itself on its
favourite food to ruin the hopes of the farmer. Rapid growth of the
crop (and to secure rapid growth good cultivation and suitable manure
are the effectual means,) is the most natural way of preserving it : while
it is in the smooth leaf it is in jeopardy ; when in the rough leaf its
danger from this enemy may be looked upon as escaped.

But although the turnip may have assumed the rough leaf, and have

OF SKLBORNK. 149

There is an (Estrus, known in these parts to every
ploughboy ; which, because it is omitted by Linnaeus,

thus attained a stage of its existence when the attacks of the black fly are
no longer to be dreaded, it is not even then to be regarded as absolutely safe.
In some seasons, particularly in those when the summer is marked by a
long continuance of drought, another pest is inflicted on the crop, which
is to the full as destructive as the ordinary fly. In the summer of 1835>
this enemy was active at Selborne, and many of the fields on the malm
lands were laid waste by its ravages : the only goodturnigs to be seen in
the district, in the autumn of that year, were in the neighbourhood of
Oakwoods, on the sandy lands near the Forest. Here, as elsewhere,
the crops on the chalky soils appear to have been most obnoxious to
injury ; although the damage was by no means limited to them.

Mr. Yarrell has given to the Zoological Society some account of the
visitation of the black worm, as it was generally called, in 1835. Early
in July, he says, the " yellow fly" was seen upon the young turnips. It
was remembered by some that this was the fly which prevailed in 1818,
and which was followed by the caterpillars known by the name of the
'• blacks." The appearance of the perfect insect was quickly succeeded
by that of the black caterpillar, or turnip pest, feeding in myriads on the
leaves of the turnips, but leaving their fibres untouched. So complete
and so rapid was the destruction in some instances, that a whole field has
been found, in two or three days, to present only an assemblage of
skeletonized leaves ; and this too when the plants had attained a consider-
able size. The destruction of the leaves caused, in most cases, the loss of
the root also : and where the root did not altogether perish, it became pithy,
and of little comparative value. A second and even a third sowing were
necessary, in consequence of the destruction of the earlier crops ; and, so
extensive was the failure, that large importations from the continent were
required to supply the deficiency. The caterpillar, finally casting its
black skin and assuming a slaty appearance, buried itself in the ground,
forming a cocoon from which the perfect fly quickly emerged, filled with
eggs and prepared to renew the swarms of fresh depredators. By these
repeated broods the devastation was successively continued, till it was at
length put an end to on the occurrence of those heavy rains in September
by which the unusually dry and lengthened summer was terminated.

The insect produced from the black caterpillar is a kind of saw-fly, or
Tenthredo, little more than a quarter of an inch in length, of a pale
yellow colour, with a black head and a black patch on each side of the
thorax: it is believed to be the Athalia Cent'tfolice, LEACH; but the
species of this genus resemble each other so nearly as to render the
discrimination of them difficult.

A visitation of these pests in Norfolk, in 1782, was described by
Mr. Marshall in the following year, in a paper contributed by him to the
Philosophical Transactions. They are there spoken of under the name
of the black canker caterpillar. Many thousands of acres, on which a

150 NATURAL HISTORY

is also passed over by late writers; and that is the
Curvicauda of old Mouffet, mentioned by Derham in his
Physico-Theology, p. 250 : an insect worthy of remark
for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a
manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of
grass horses 4. But then Derham is mistaken when he

fairer prospect for a crop of turnips had not been seen for many years,
were ploughed up in consequence of their attacks. Their ravages were
preceded by the appearance of the yellow fly in immense numbers ; and
it was believed, as they occurred most freely on the coast, that they
arrived from across the ocean : some fishermen even declared that they
saw them come in cloud-like flights. But there is no sufficient reason
for attributing to them other than a home origin. They are seen here every
summer; although it is only occasionally, when circumstances combine to
favour an extraordinarily rapid growth and frequent broods among them,
that they are so numerous as to become extensively destructive.

Against the attacks of the black caterpillar no preventive has yet been
suggested. When it prevails the most effectual means of keeping it
under is by freely sprinkling the infested fields with lime, and renewing
the sprinkling as often as the fine powder may happen to be carried away
by the wind. The same process appears also to have been the most
successful that has yet been resorted to against the attacks of the little
enemy of every season. It is strongly recommended in a report on the
ordinary turnip-fly, published in 1834 by the Doncaster Agricultural
Society, as the result of a very extensive correspondence, instituted with
the especial view of collecting, from all parts of England, information on
a subject of so much importance to the agriculturist. — £. T. B.

4 It is by no means surprising that Gilbert White should have believed
that the horse bot-fly had been omitted from his works by Linnaeus; for
it could scarcely have occurred to him to look for it, either in the Systema
Naturae or in the Fauna Suecica, under the very inappropriate name
of CEstrus Bocis: yet by that name he would have found it described
in both those works. The habitats assigned to it by Linnaeus, the
stomach of the horse and the back of kine, show that he confounded
together two distinct insects, the maggots of which infest the several
situations referred toby him. The maggots of the one, known by the names
of wormals or warbles and sometimes by that of bots, are found beneath
the skin of cattle: these are the larvae of the true (Estrus Boris, the
perfect fly of which was probably unknown to the great Swedish natu-
ralist. The maggots of the other, known, in common with those of some
other species, by the name of bots, are found with the larvae of those
other bot-flies in the stomachs of horses. The one whose habits are
described by White, may be called the spotted-winged bot-fly : it is
described by Linnaeus under the erroneous name of CEstrus Boris ; by
Mr. Bracy Clark under the name of Oestrus Eqiti ; and is, in modern

OP SEL BORNE. 151

advances that this (Estrus is the parent of that wonder-
ful star-tailed maggot which he mentions afterwards ;

systems, the Gasterophilus Equi, LEACH ; the generic appellation being
founded on the aptitude of the maggots for residence in the stomachs of
living animals.

Mr. Bracy Clark, who has well described the habits of these insects
in his Observations on the Genus GEstrus, published in the third volume
of the Linnean Transactions, and subsequently in an Essay on the Bots
of Horses, dwells with more detail on the fact recorded in the text.
Speaking of the spotted-winged bot-fly, he says, " The m«de pursued by
the parent fly to obtain for its young a situation in the stomach of the
horse is truly singular, and is effected in the following manner: — When
the female has been impregnated, and the eggs are sufficiently matured,
she seeks among the horses a subject for her purpose, and approaching
it on the wing, she holds her body nearly upright in the air, and her tail,
which is lengthened for the purpose, curved inwards and upwards : in
this way she approaches the part where she designs to deposit the egg;
and suspending herself for a few seconds before it, suddenly darts upon
it, and leaves the egg adhering to the hair: she hardly appears to settle,
but merely touches the hair with the egg held out on the projected point
of the abdomen. The egg is made to adhere by means of a glutinous
liquor secreted with it. She then leaves the horse at a small distance,
and prepares a second egg, and, poising herself before the part, deposits
it in the same way. The liquor dries, and the egg becomes firmly glued
to the hair: this is repeated by various flies, till four or five hundred
eggs are sometimes placed on one horse.

" The inside of the knee is the part on which these flies are most fond
of depositing their eggs, and next to this on the side and back part of
the shoulder, and less frequently on the extreme ends of the hairs of the
mane. But it is a fact worthy of attention, that the fly does not place
them promiscuously about the body, but constantly on those parts which
are most liable to be licked with the tongue ; and the ova therefore are
always scrupulously placed within its reach. Whether this be an act of
reason or of instinct, it is certainly a very remarkable one. I should
suspect, with Dr. Darwin, it cannot be the latter, as that ought to direct
the performance of any act in one way only."

The eggs thus deposited are not, in Mr. Bracy Clark's opinion, removed
from the hairs by the moisture of the horse's tongue, aided by its rough-
ness, in the act of licking, and thus conveyed to the stomach : but remain,
he conceives, attached to the hairs for four or five days until they have
become " ripe, after which time the slightest application of warmth and
moisture is sufficient to bring forth in an instant the latent larva. At this
time, if the tongue of the horse touches the egg, its operculum is thrown
open, and a small active worm is produced, which readily adheres to the
moist surface of the tongue, and is from thence conveyed into the
stomach." For the manner in which the larva affixes itself in the
stomach by means of the two hooks with which it is furnished at its
smaller extremity ; its mode of growth ; its detachment, when fully

15:2 NATURAL HISTORY

for more modern entomologists have discovered that
singular production to be derived from the egg of the
Musca Chamceleon5 : see Geoffroy, t. 17. f. 4.

A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field,
garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely
means of destroying them, would be allowed by the

grown, from the stomach; its passage through the intestines to remain,
during its pupa state, in some convenient spot of dung or earth ; some
anatomical particulars respecting it; and many other facts relating to
the fly in its various stages, as well as to other species ; the reader is
referred to the paper in the Linnean Transactions, from which the above
extracts are taken. Interesting as they are, the explanation of them
would extend this note to too great a length, and would carry it alto-
gether away from the point to which it is chiefly directed, — the admira-
ble provision adverted to in the text for securing for the bots the only
habitation in which they could exist.

One other observation may, however, be permitted. Mr. Bracy Clark
does not appear to regard these larvae of the bot-fly as being productive
of injurious effects to horses; but, on the contrary, he suggests that the
local irritation produced by them may be useful in preventing the access
of disease. The opinion expressed by him on this point in 1796 would
seem to have been confirmed by his subsequent experience ; for, nearly
twenty years afterwards, in 1815, he gave the name of salutiferus to a
species then discovered by him in a somewhat curious manner. Having
observed in the stomachs of dead horses which he had examined several
larvae which appeared to him to be different from any that he had previously
seen, he removed some of them and forced them down the throat of his
own horse: two or three months afterwards the pupae were received from
the latter, and were placed on some light mould in a jar, in which they
quickly buried themselves. This curious attempt at breeding a bot-fly,
the first experiment of the kind on record, proved thoroughly successful ;
and Mr. Bracy Clark was rewarded for his sagacious discrimination, by
obtaining, on the developement of the fly, specimens of a nondescript
species of a genus which he had made especially his own. — E. T. B.

3 The singular and highly interesting larva of the Stratiomys Chama-
leon, DE GEEK, has been repeatedly figured and described , and the use
of the star-like circle of feathered hairs appended to its tail, as a means
of suspending that part and the orifice of the respiratory tube in their
centre, has been often explained: it is among the most beautiful as well
as the most curious contrivances resorted to for such a purpose by ever
varying nature. The eggs from which these lar\a? are produced are
affixed by the parent fly to plants living in the water in which the deve-
lopement of the maggot is to take place : those seen by Messrs. Kirby
and Spence were " arranged like tiles on a roof one laid partly over
another, on the under side of the leaves of the water-plantain." —
E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 153

public to be a most useful and important work. What
knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants
to be collected ; great improvements would soon follow
of course. A knowledge of the properties, economy,
propagation, and, in short, of the life and conversation
of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some
method of preventing their depredations.

As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend
entomology more than some neat plates, that should
well express the generic distinctions of insects accord-
ing to Linnaeus ; for I am well assured that many
people would study insects, could they set out with a
more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be
conveyed at first by words alone6.

LETTER XXXV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, 1771.

HAPPENING to make a visit to my neighbour's pea-
cocks, I could not help observing that the trains of

6 It is possible that the suggestion in the text may have had some
share, through the intervention of Pennant, in encouraging the publica-
tion, which took place about ten years afterwards, of Barbut's Genera
Insectorum of Linnaeus, exemplified by figures taken exclusively from
English specimens. But the genera adopted by Linnaeus were so few
in number that most of them included, of necessity, many variations of
form ; and as a single figure could give the representation but of one of
those variations, no sufficient idea of the others could be thus obtained.
Barbut's work remained, however,until of late years, the only English book
usually had recourse to for illustrations of the genera of insects : but the
English student has now, for such a purpose, in the British Entomology
of Mr. Curtis, a work which will always be of standard excellence. It
comprises already admirable representations of about six hundred insects,
typical of so many forms, inhabiting the British islands ; and furnishes,
in the most accurate manner, those detailed dissections of the cibarian
organs which are essential to a perfect knowledge of the economy of the
several genera, and to their proper disposition in a natural series. —
K. T. B.

154 NATURAL HISTORY

those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their
tails ; those long feathers growing not from their uropy-
yium, but all up their backs. A range of short brown
stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the vropy-
gium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop
the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set an
end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the
bird before but its head and neck ; but this would not
be the case were those long feathers fixed only in the
rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a
strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibration
these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers
clatter like the swords of a sword dancer; they then
trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards
towards the females1.

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

LETTER XXXVI.

TO THE SAME.
DKAR SIR, Sept. 1771.

THE summer through I have seen but two of that large
species of bat which I call Vespertilio altivolans, from

1 In other birds, as well as in the pea-fowl, the feathers of different
parts sometimes assume the appearance of a tail. In the elegant Trngon
resplendens, which has been adopted by the United States of Central
America us their national emblem, the beautiful flowing feathers that
hang gracefully behind the bird and measure more than three times its
total length, although they would popularly be termed the tail, belong
in reality to the back. Again, in those cranes which belong to the genus
Anthropoiilcs, the lengthened feathers which, in the chastely elegant spe-
cies dedicated by Mr. Vigors to Lord Stanley, sweep like a graceful
train along the ground, are quite unconnected with the tail of the bird,
and form actually a part of the wing. — E. T. B.

OF S EL BORNE. 155

its manner of feeding high in the air : I procured one of
them, and found it to be a male ; and made no doubt,
as they accompanied together, that the other was a
female: but, happening in an evening or two to pro-
cure the other likewise, I was somewhat disappointed,
when it appeared to be also of the same sex. This
circumstance, and the great scarcity of this sort, at
least in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my
mind whether it is really a species, or whether it may
not be the male part of the more known species, one of
which may supply many females; as is known to be
the case in sheep, and some other quadrupeds. But
this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examina-
tion, and some attention to the sex, of more specimens :
Nuv Je T8TO fjiovov ffatyus ivt$epMt9 a/xCfo/v etqctvixot, T& dtioTa
Qavepug TfTu%eW/' TO, $s vog dtioioiQ /x#A/^r# eoMcuri.

In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen
inches and a half; and four inches and a half from the
nose to the tip of the tail : their heads were large, their
nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular ;
and their whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing
could be more sleek and soft than their fur, which was
of a bright chestnut colour ; their maws were full of
food, but so macerated that the quality could not be
distinguished ; their livers, kidneys, and hearts were
large, and their bowels covered with fat. They weighed
each, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm.
Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar
structure that I did not understand perfectly ; but refer
it to the observation of the curious anatomist1. These
creatures sent forth a very rancid and offensive smell.

1 In the great tendency of the bats to produce foliaceous expansions of
the skin resides the principal characteristic of the family. The spreading
out of membranes between the lengthened bones of the fingers, and the
extension of them from the fore to the hinder limbs, are common to all the
species ; and many of them have, in addition, another membrane inter-
posed between the hinder limbs and enveloping the tail, either in whole
or in part, when that organ exists. These expansions belong principally
to the peculiar mode of locomotion for which the animals are con-

NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, 1771.

ON the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of con-
templating the motions of the Caprimulgus, or fern-owl,
as it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with

structed. The lateral membranes perform the functions of wings, and
serve to propel the body through the air ; while the interfemoral mem-
brane acts, by its expansion, as a parachute, and prevents the bat from
rapidly falling to the ground.

But although the larger membranes belong chiefly to locomotion, they
contribute also to extend the means by which the animal is enabled to
acquire a knowledge of the circumstances in which it is moving. The
actions of the bat are confined to the darkness of the night, or at best to
the uncertain glimmering of the dusky twilight ; and the sense of vision
is consequently comparatively inadequate to guide it in its flights and in
the pursuit of its prey. To compensate for the imperfection of its vision,
other senses should be rendered more acute ; and this is effected by the
exposure of a large extent of naked skin, and by the developement of
processes adapted to direct the impulses of the air on the several organs
which are destined to appreciate them.

Destitute almost entirely of hair, the flying membranes of the bats
become organs of touch ; and the great surface which they expose to
atmospheric impulses must necessarily render them highly susceptible of
the finest impressions to which that sense is liable. The perfection of
the sense of smell also is, in many cases, aided by a peculiar arrange-
ment ; a membrane being frequently developed on the nose, which, by
directing the air towards the nostrils, renders more assured the affecting
of the olfactory organs by the scents with which the atmosphere may be
impregnated. A somewhat similar arrangement adds to the efficiency of
the sense of hearing : for the great expansion of the external ear which
often occurs in bats, is equally adapted for directing towards the auditory
passages the air charged with sounds ; and even in those cases in which
the external ears are not disproportionally large, the nakedness of these
organs, qualifying them to act also as organs of touch, renders them so
susceptible to the finer impulses of the atmosphere as to cause them
quickly to assume the state of tension most fitted for directing sound. It
would seem, indeed, that the quantity of sound forced occasionally into
the ears of bats was so great as to render it necessary to provide the
power of closing the auditory passage, by the folding down over it of a
kind of internal or second ear; itself, like the outer or ordinary ear, a
naked and membranous expansion of the skin, and of course equally

OF S EL BORNE. 157

Scarabcei solstitiales1 , or fern-chafers. The powers of its
wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various

susceptible of delicate impressions, and acted upon by them to the
performance of its special functions with equal acuteness and rapidity.
The tragus, which exists in man only as a small lobe projecting in front
over the auditory opening, becomes in many of the bats a lengthened
process, variously shaped, and evidently of considerable importance in
the physiology of the organ with which it is connected. It is the tragus
to which Gilbert White refers in the text as offering within the ear
somewhat of a peculiar structure : and as its form, as welLthe form of the
other cutaneous appendages of the bats, is of considerable importance in
the distinguishing of these animals from each other ; and as, moreover,
the distinction of the several kinds of bats is highly desirable, in order
to guide us to a more definite knowledge of these imperfectly understood
animals, and especially of the habits peculiar to each, it may be well to
refer to them as indicating, in most instances, specific characters for the
British bats.

It is worthy of remark, however, before commencing this enumeration,
that at the time when White first wrote to Pennant on this subject, he
knew but two indigenous kinds: the long-eared and that which he
regarded as the short-eared : these, in fact, being all that were even
known to Linnaeus as European. White subsequently became acquainted
with another ; the great bat of the text. Pennant knew and described a
fourth, the horse- shoe bat. Many years subsequently elapsed without
the addition of another. The four indigenous species known in 1771
have now been increased to at the least fourteen distinct kinds ; so great
have been the advances that have of late years been made in England in
the search after animals and in the discrimination between them.

The presence or absence of a nose-leaf is generally regarded as of
primary importance in the subdivision of the insectivorous bats. Of
those that possess such an appendage we have in England only two
kinds. These are the horse-shoe bats, forming part of the genus Rhino-
lophus, and readily distinguishable by their size into the greater (the
head and body of which are two and a half inches long,) and the less
(which does not measure in total length one inch and a half). Neither
of these is very generally distributed throughout the country, although
in some situations they are not uncommon : they chiefly frequent old
houses and caves.

The remaining British bats are destitute of the nose-leaf, and may be
distinguished into genera by characters derived from the expansion of the
outer ear. In some of them the two ears meet in the middle of the fore-
head, and are united at their inner margins. Such is the case with the
barbastelle, constituting the genus Barhastellus of Mr. Gray, in which the
ears are shorter than the head; and the ears are also united on their
inner edge in the long-eared bats, Plecotvs, GEOFF, in which the external
ear is so largely and disproportionately developed as almost to equal in

[AmjthimnUd solstttialis, LATR.]

'•">s NATURAL HISTORY

evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But
the circumstance that pleased me most was, that 1 saw

length the entire body and head. The common long-eared bat, Plecotus
auritus, GEOFF, is frequent in the vicinity of houses : the expansion of its
wings is fully ten inches. A second long-eared bat, which has been
suspected to be the young of the former, has been described by the
Rev. L. Jenyns as differing from it in many particulars, and especially in
the comparative shortness of its fingers, whence he has called it brevima-
nus: the expansion of its wings is less than seven inches. Of this latter
the only individual that has yet occurred was taken from a tree.

All the other bats that have yet been captured in England have their
ears distinct from each other, and belong to the genus Vcspertilio, which
is still an extensive one, notwithstanding the numerous dismemberments
to which it has been subjected. Of these some have the ears as long as,
or slightly longer than, the head: such are the Vesp. Murinus, DKSM. and
Vesp. Bechsteinii, LI.I-I... in which the tragus is about half the length of
the auricle, is somewhat expanded on its outer side just above its base,
and terminates in a point, the latter species being^most readily distin-
guishable by its exceedingly slender thumb; and the Vesp. Natter, ri.
KUHL, in which the tragus is linear, and full two-thirds of the length of
the auricle. Others, and these the more numerous, have the auricle not
so long as the head. In Vesp. niystacinus, LEISL., the tragus is half as
long as the auricle, and is lanceolate: in Vesp. enwrginatus, GEOFF., the
tragus is also half the length of the somewhat lengthened ear, but is
subulate: in Vesp. pygnueus, LEACH, the tragus is of the same comparative
length as in the two preceding, and is subulate ; the species being distin-
guished (if, indeed, it be a species and not the young of some other,
perhaps of the Vesp. Serotinus) by its very diminutive size, the expansion
of its wings being scarcely more than five inches: in Vesp. .SV/W/MMX,
GM EI,., the tragus is also subulate, but is not half the length of the ear :
in Vesp. discolor, N.vrr, the tragus is scarcely one-third the length of the
ear, and of almost equal breadth throughout: in the pipistrelle, Vesp.
Pipistrdlus, GMEL., which is the bat of most frequent occurrence in
England, (where, on account of its diminutive size as compared with the
noctule, it is often called the mouse-bat,) the tragus is half the length of
the ear, and is terminated by a rounded head ; the expansion of its wings
is rather more than eight inches : in the remaining two species, which are
nearly of a uniform chestnut colour both above and below, the tragus has
almost the same form as in the last, and in the Vesp. Leisleri, KLHL., 14
scarcely smaller than in the pipistrelle; while in the noctule, Vesp.
Noctvla, GMEL , it is much reduced in size, bein# little more than one
quarter of the length of the ear, and consists of a rather broad base,
becoming expanded towards the tip, especially on the outer side, so
widely as to form a head about twice the breadth of the stem that
supports it. The noctule is the largest of the English bats, except the
rare Vesp. Murinus, its wings extending, when expanded, to the width of
fourteen inches: it occurs more frequently than any of the others, with
the exception of the pipistrelle (erroneously named JY.s-/). Mi'rinus by all

OF SELBORNE.

159

it distinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while
on the wing, and, by a bend of the head, deliver some-
what into its mouth. If it takes any part of its prey
with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to
suppose it does these chafers, I no longer wonder at
the use of its middle toe, which is curiously furnished
with a serrated claw.

THE GOATSUCKER.

Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have
forsaken us sooner this year than usual ; for, on Sep-

British writers until very recently) and of the long-eared bat. A not
unfrequent name for it, indicative of its superiority of size over the pipis-
trelle, is the rat-bat.

By this enumeration of the indigenous species some idea will have been
obtained of the variations in form and developement of the curious struc-
ture within the ear referred to by the author, as they occur in the genus
Vespertilio, to an extent so great as almost to afford characters for the
distinction of every species. In Plecotus the tragus is also developed to
an extent proportioned to the exceeding amplitude of the ears themselves.
In Barbastellus it also exists in a marked degree. In the horse-shoe bats
no such appendage is present; although in many exotic genera the
additional leaflet of the ear coexists with that which is superadded to the
nose.— E.T. B.

160 NATURAL HISTORY

tember the twenty-second, they rendezvoused in a neigh-
bour's walnut tree, where it seemed probable they had
taken up their lodging for the night. At the dawn of
the day, which was foggy, they rose all together in
infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing from the
strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be
heard to a considerable distance : since that no flock
has appeared, only a fewr stragglers.

Some swifts stayed late, till the twenty-second of
August — a rare instance! for they usually withdraw
within the first week2.

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

LETTER XXXVIIL

TO THE SAME.
DFAK sin, SELBORNE, March 15, 1773.

BY my journal for last autumn it appears that the
house martins bred very late, and stayed very late in
these parts; for, on the first of October, I saw young
martins in their nest nearly fledged ; and again, on the
twenty-first of October, we had, at the next house, a
nest full of young martins just ready to fly ; and the
old ones were hawking for insects with great alertness.
The next morning the brood forsook their nest, and
were flying round the village. From this day I never
saw one of the swallow kind till November the third ;
when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house martins were
playing all day long by the side of the hanging wood,
and over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some
of which were nestlings twelve days ago, shift their

a See Letter LI I. to Mr. Harrington.

OP SELBORNE. 161

quarters at this late season of the year to the other
side of the northern tropic ? Or rather, is it not more
probable that the next church, ruin, chalk cliff, steep
covert, or perhaps sandbank, lake or pool (as a more
northern naturalist would say), may become their
hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and obvious
retreat?

We now begin to expect our vernal migration of
ring-ousels every week. Persons worthy of credit
assure me that ring-ousels were seen at "Christmas,
1770, in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge
of this county. Hence we may conclude that their
migrations are only internal, and not extended to the
continent southward, if they do at first come at all
from the northern parts of this island only, and not
from the north of Europe. Come from whence they
will, it is plain, from the fearless disregard that they
show for men or guns, that they have been little accus-
tomed to places of much resort. Navigators mention,
that, in the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate
districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human
form that they settle on men's shoulders ; and have no
more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat
that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex,
assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels
abounded so about that town in the autumn, that he
killed sixteen himself in one afternoon : he added fur-
ther, that some had appeared since in every autumn ;
but he could not find that any had been observed
before the season in which he shot so many. I myself
have found these birds in little parties in the autumn
cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there
were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes;
particularly in the autumn of 1770.

I am, &c.

> NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXIX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 9, 1773.

As you desire me to send you such observations as
may occur, I take the liberty of making the following
remarks, that you may, according as you think me
right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in
your intended new edition of the British Zoology1.

The osprey2 was shot about a year ago at Frinsham-
pond, a great lake, at about six miles from hence,
while it was sitting on the handle of a plough and
devouring a fish : it used to precipitate itself into the
water, and so take its prey by surprise.

A great ash-coloured3 butcher-bird was shot last
winter in Tisted Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird
at Selborne : they are rarce aves in this county.

Crows4 go in pairs the whole year round.

Cornish choughs5 abound, and breed on Beechy
Head and on all the cliffs of the Sussex coast.

The common wild pigeon6, or stock dove, is a bird
of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing
till towards the end of November ; is usually the latest
winter bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were
so much destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching
in strings for a mile together as they went out in a

1 In the date of this Letter we have the fullest evidence of the earnest
zeal with which Pennant prosecuted his design of giving to his coun-
try a complete British Zoology. It was in 1770 that the last volume
of the second edition of his work was published; and in 1773 we find
him already preparing for a new edition of it. This appeared in 1776,
and among other additions and corrections had the advantage of possess-
ing those forwarded by our author in this and the succeeding letter, most
of which are embodied in its pages. — E. T. B.

2 British Zoology, vol. i. p. 128. 3 p. 161. 4 p. 167.
5 p. 197. 6 p. 216.

OF SELBORNE. 163

morning to feed. They leave us early in spring; where
do they breed ?

The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-
bird7 the storm-cock, because it sings early in the
spring in blowing showery weather; its song often
commences with the year: with us it builds much in
orchards.

A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of
ring-ousels8 on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the
sides of streams.

Titlarks9 not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees,
but also as they play and toy about on the wing; and
particularly while they are descending, and sometimes
as they stand on the ground 10.

Adanson's11 testimony seems to me to be a very poor
evidence that European swallows migrate during our
winter to Senegal; he does not talk at all like an
ornithologist ; and probably saw only the swallows of
that country, which I know build within Governor
O'Hara's hall against the roof. Had he known Eu-
ropean swallows, would he not have mentioned the
species12?

7 British Zoology, vol. i. p. 223. 8 p. 229. 9 Vol. ii. p. 236.

10 It is a frequent habit with this sweet songster to mount high into the
air from one tree, and to sing as it descends to another. It also frequently
sings in descending from the top of a tree to a stake in a hedge or even
to the ground. — G. D.

11 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 242.

12 Concerning swallows, the reader will see, that Mr. White appears
to incline more and more in favour of their torpidity, and against their
migration. Mr. D. Barrington is still more positive on the same side of
the question. See his Miscellanies, p. 225. The ancients generally
mention this bird, as wintering in Africa. See Anacreon, Xy. ed. Brunck.
p. 38. The Rhodians had a festival called %£\i^6vta, when the boys
brought about young swallows ; the song which they sang may be seen
in the works of Meursius, vol. iii. p. 974, fol.

"Gpa£ ayovaa, Kal KaXovQ 'Eviavrovg
Em ydcrrepa \evica K a-m v&ra /weXaiva.

" He comes ! he comes ! who loves to bear
Soft sunny hours, and seasons fair ;

164 NATURAL HISTORY

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

In 1772 there were young house martins13 in their
nest till October the 23d.

The swift14 appears about ten or twelve days later
than the house swallow : viz. about the 24th or 26th of
April.

Whin chats and stone chats15 stay with us the whole
year16.

The swallow hither comes to rest
His sable wing, and snowy breast."

And alluding to this custom, Avienus (who may be considered only as
a very bad translator of an excellent poem, the Periegesis of Dionysius),
thus says, v. 705.

" Nam cum vere novo, tellus se dura relaxat
Culminibusque cavis, blandum strepit ales hirundo
Gens devota choros agitat!"

From a passage in the " Birds" of Aristophanes, we learn that among
the Greeks, the crane pointed out the time of sowing ; the arrival of the
kite, the time of sheep-shearing ; and of the swallow, the time to put on
summer clothes. According to the Greek calendar of Flora, kept by
Theophrastus at Athens, the Ornithian winds blow, and the swallow
comes, between the 28th of February and the 12th of March : the kite
and nightingale appear between the llth and 26th of March : the cuckoo
appears at the same time the young figs come out, thence his name. See
Stillingfleet's Tracts on Natural History, p. 324. — MITFORD.

13 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 244. '« p. 245. " p. 271, 272.

18 A few whin chats and stone chats may remain the whole year in warm
situations, but the greater number certainly leave the country, nor does
the whin chat return to us early. It is very much more tender of cold than
the nightingale, and requires a much higher temperature to keep it alive.
It is very abundant in the neighbourhood of Spofforth, where it is called
the grass chat, and breeds in almost every meadow and rough pasture.
I saw one last year at the beginning of November, the weather having
been unusually warm; but excepting an accidental straggler, they quit
us entirely at the very beginning of September. The stone chats return
to this neighbourhood about the middle of March. I have observed a
stone chat two successive years on the 14th and 16th, the weather being
frosty, in the hedge on the road side in the cultivated country, their usual

OF SELBORNE. 165

Some wheatears 17 continue with us the winter through.
Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter,
Bullfinches18 when fed on hempseed, often become
wholly black J9.

haunts being at that time too cold for them. They breed very early. In
the neighbourhood of London the young are out of the nest in the second
week of May, after which they continue for near three weeks skulking
under furze bushes, though able when disturbed to fly a hundred yards
at once, and they do not show themselves openly till they are able to do
without the old ones. Most of our books of ornithology state erroneously
that the whin chat is a more rare bird than the stone chat : the latter is
found only on heath and furze ; the whin chat is abundant in enclosures
as well as on wastes. Its young are produced much later than those of
the stone chat. The whin chat reared from the nest by hand will learn
the song of every bird it hears, and becomes a fine songster. It may be
fed on ground hempseed and egg scalded, with some hard yolk of egg,
and occasionally a very little meat. The stone chat is equally imitative
in confinement, but not so easily preserved in health. Le Vaillant men-
tions an African chat allied to the wheatear (Traquet imitateurj which
imitates the notes of every bird in its vicinity in its wild state, and this
faculty appears to belong to the whole genus Saxicola. I have heard a
whin chat, breeding in a meadow adjoining to my garden, sing very like
the blackcap. There seems to be an enormous predominancy of females
amongst the young whin chats. (See the note on page 137.)

I have observed a fresh caught whin chat void with its dung a small
but entire snail shell of the long spiral kind. They will swallow gree-
dily a wasp maggot, but are very indifferent about eating a fly. The
support therefore of those which remain late with us is, amongst other
things, small shell snails and cockchafer grubs, and they are less af-
fected than many other warblers by the failure of winged insects. The
stone chat eats a few whortle berries in its wild state, and both species
will occasionally eat a currant in confinement. — W. H.

17 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 269. 18 p. 300.

19 In using this observation of our author Pennant gives to it the ex-
tension with which we have already seen it stated in Letter XX. He
adds, " Mr. Morton, in his History of Northamptonshire, gives another
instance of such a change, with this addition, that the year following,
after moulting, the bird recovered its native colours." — E. T. B.

This is not peculiar to the bullfinch. I have seen a woodlark nearly
black from living on dry bread and hemp. The oil of the hemp has pro-
bably this effect on the plumage. I have never found bread and hemp
scalded affect the colours of birds ; probably the oil so diluted loses its
power.

I believe that no attention has been paid to the effects of different
kinds of food on the colours of birds. The beautiful nonpareil or painted
finch, of the Southern States of North America, in its glory, has the head

NATURAL HISTORY

We have vast flocks of female chaffinches20 all the
winter, with hardly any males among them.

of a rich blue, all the under parts of a brilliant red, the wings, tail, and
upper part of the back, green, and the lower part of the back and the
rump of a changeable coppery red. When fed upon seed in confinement
it loses its brilliancy after the first moult ; the red of the under parts
degenerates to a dull pale yellow, the blue of the head becomes less
intense, and all the upper parts are of a dull green. Under the same
treatment these birds often moult with difficulty, and die. If, in addition
to their usual supply of seed, they have melting pears and elder berries
given to them, they will moult freely and their natural colours will
reappear, on the new feathers, in full brilliancy. Flies and other insects
are also essential to them occasionally.

The linnet and redpole in confinement lose after the first moult their
red colour, and it does not return. Is this owing to the want of the pe-
culiar food they would take in the spring, if at liberty, or to their being
less exposed to the sunshine ? I once saw the English white water lily
blow of a pale rose colour after a week of unusual heat in July.

Birds that change their colours at different seasons, usually put on their
bright garb in the warm season. I have repeatedly observed, in a splen-
did bird (Loxia Madagascar iensis, LINN.) which I possess, that, although
it moults partially twice in the year, the colour of the larger feathers on
the wings and back changes gradually from yellowish brown to scarlet,
and fades again at the approach of winter. In this bird, the change to
red is very clearly occasioned by the increase of temperature. I have
observed in the spring that the supervention of cold weather stops its
progress In the Whidah bird, the mutation of dress is rapid, accom-
panying the moult in June and July. The American blue bird pushes
brown feathers in its summer moult, which are very suddenly turned to
blue. There is a mystery in these mutations which we do not understand,
but they certainly depend in some degree upon temperature. The
Whidah bird acquires usually its long tail and fine colours at the vernal
moult and loses them in the autumn. It happened one year that the
months of August and September had been very cold, and the tem-
perature was unusually high in October and the beginning of November,
so that with the addition of a fire my room was much warmer at the
moment of the autumnal moult than it had been for some time before, and
the consequence was that the Whidah bird produced a long tail and
coloured plumage again at that season, and continued in beauty for the
space of a year and a half. Food has also appeared to me to affect the
brilliancy of the plumage, for the nonpareils which had had elder berries
or soft pears to peck acquired a deeper red on the breast.

The Loxia Madagascariensis has been ten years in my room and is still
in perfect health. It belongs to a genus quite distinct from Loxia, to
which Lox. Oiyx (the Cape grenadier bird), Lox. Phillippina, and Lox.
pensilis belong also, as well as two splendid species which have been

20 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 306.

OF SELBORNE. 167

When you say that in breeding time the cock snipes21
make a bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I
should have rather said a humming), I suspect we
mean the same thing. However, while they are playing
about on the wing they certainly make a loud piping
with their mouths : but whether that bleating or hum-
ming is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of
their wings, I cannot say ; but this I know, that when
this noise happens the bird is always descending, and
his wings are violently agitated22.

Soon after the lapwings23 have done breeding, they
congregate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake
themselves to downs and sheep-walks.

Two years ago last spring the little auk24 was found

several years living in my room, known in the London shops by the name
of bishop birds. Numbers of one of these two species have been im-
ported of late years, and in the summer time they become orange and
black, but the imported skins have invariably the plumage scarlet and
black. If they are kept in a very cool and airy room in this country,
they do not acquire their perfect plumage, which they retain five or six
months in a warmer situation. The different colour of the foreign spe-
cimens I attribute chiefly to a higher temperature. The second sort,
which is rarely imported, is of a bright yellow and black, but quite a
different species. — W. H.

21 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 358.

22 I have observed the drumming of snipes in bright days at the begin-
ning of April, and I could very clearly discern the manner in which the
sound is produced. After rising high and crying peet, peet, peet, which
is the snipe's vernal note, it lets itself drop obliquely through the air,
keeping the wings motionless, but turning by some muscular contraction
each individual quill sideways in the same manner that the bars of a
Venetian blind are turned to admit more light, and having descended to
the customary point, it readjusts its feathers and rises again obliquely
without sound. They will continue for hours together amusing them-
selves in this manner upon a mild day, and when they are in this mood
the sportsman has very little chance of getting near them. The cushat
has a sportive movement a little similar, in the summer time, in the
narrow wooded valleys amongst the hills : it is less observed in flat
countries. It descends obliquely without any motion of the wings, and
when it has dived to the usual point of descent, flaps its wings with a
loud noise and towers again obliquely to the other side of the valley.
— W. H.

23 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 360. 24 p. 409.

J68 NATURAL HISTORY

alive and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in a
lane a few miles from Alresford, where there is a great
lake : it was kept awhile, but died.

I saw young teals25 taken alive in the ponds of
Wolmer Forest in the beginning of July last, along
with flappers, or young wild ducks.

Speaking of the swift86 that page says "its drink the
dew ;" whereas it should be " it drinks on the wing ;"
for all the swallow kind sip their water as they sweep
over the face of pools or rivers : like Virgil's bees, they
drink flying ; "flumina summa libant" In this method
of drinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar.

Of the sedge-bird27 be pleased to say it sings most
part of the night ; its notes are hurrying, but not un-
pleasing, and imitative of several birds ; as the sparrow,
swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the
night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes where
it sits, you immediately set it a singing; or, in other
words, though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as it
is awakened it reassumes its song.

LETTER XL.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SKLBORNE, Sept. 2, 1774.

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

29 British Zoology, vol. ii. p. 475. * Vol. iv. p. 15. w p. 16.

OF SELBORNE. 169

that give it that forked shape ; with this difference, that
they are longer in the tail of the male than in that of
the female.

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

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

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

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

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

There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the
island of Ely1. The threads sometimes discovered in
eels are perhaps their young : the generation of eels is
very dark and mysterious2.

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

1 Three species of eels are now pretty clearly made out. Descriptions
and figures of them, with other particulars, have been given in the History
of British Fishes.— W. Y.

[See the note on page 50.]

- Eels are infested by several kinds of intestinal worms, which are
doubtless the thread-like bodies referred to. But the situation in which
the parasites are found will generally be sufficient to indicate their true
nature : filiform bodies within the intestines of an eel can be nothing but
worms. Bodies of that form occurring externally to the intestines and
within the abdomen may still be regarded as worms that have escaped
from the intestinal cavity. And other worms, internal parasites, occur
naturally within the serous cavity of the abdomen.

The reproduction of eels has been sedulously attended to for several
years by Mr. Yarrell, whose observations, recorded in the Zoological
Society's Proceedings, in Jesse's Gleanings in Natural History, and in
his own History of British Fishes, leave little doubt that these fishes
spawn in a manner similar to most of their class, the roe of the female
being filled with countless myriads of ova which are deposited in the
winter months.~E. T. B.

170 NATURAL HISTORY

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

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

Many birds which become silent about Midsummer
reassume their notes again in September ; as the thrush,
blackbird, woodlark, willow wren, &c. ; hence August
is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer,
and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again
because the temperament of autumn resembles that of
spring8 ?

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

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

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

Redbreasts sing all through the spring, summer, and
autumn. The reason that they are called autumn
songsters is, because in the two first seasons their
voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus ; in
the latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many
songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cock
redbreasts of that year: notwithstanding the prejudices

3 There can be little doubt that the autumnal song is that of the young
males of the year.— G. D.

OF SELBORNE. 171

in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to
the summer fruits4.

The titmouse, which early in February begins to
make two quaint notes, like the whetting of a saw,
is the marsh titmouse: the great titmouse sings with
three cheerful joyous notes, and begins about the same
time5.

Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.

House martins came remarkably late this year both

4 They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the
Euonymus Europceus, or spindle-tree.

[I have seen a robin feed its young, which were reared in a conserva-
tory, entirely upon red currants. It used to alight on the ledge of the
window, and always brought one red currant in its bill. I do not think
they eat any other fruit, but they are troublesome in the hothouse. They
devoured last year every seed of Hcemanthus multiflorus and Grijfinia hya-
cinthinajust as they were ripening; and it is very difficult to save the ber-
ries of any Daphne from them. — W. H.]

[A redbreast which I had in a cage greedily devoured the berries of
Solatium Dulcamara, but would not touch those of privet. — RENNIE.]

5 Several species of the genus Parus congregate in clusters when at
roost. I have observed Par. ater and Par. caudatus in this state. On a
cold wintry night, if the moon is bright, they may be seen in the hedges
clinging together, having the appearance of a bundle of dried leaves. Par.
ater is said by Dr. Fleming to be a rare bird in England, but it appears
to be common in Hampshire. I have received a great number of speci-
mens from that county at various times ; and once had nine sent to me,
that were taken from a cluster by bird-batting, many having escaped
from the nets.

The bottle tit sometimes builds near houses, though rarely. A pair
built in a large willow tree in a garden at Bayswater, close to the house,
and brought out a numerous brood of young that swarmed in at the bed-
room windows on the first day of their coming out from the nest : they
were very diminutive pretty creatures. It is to be remarked, that this
garden was sacred to birds : there were many nests in it, no one being
permitted to disturb them, and no cat being kept.

Par. coeruleus is a very bold bird, and very destructive, particularly to
bees ; sitting on the stool, and tapping with its bill against the hive, as
soon as the bee comes forth to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, the
bird swallows it.

I kept the Par. biarmicus in a cage last year. There were several
males and females together, which were exceedingly gentle and affec-
tionate ; caressing and feeding each other in the same manner as doves.
This was the more remarkable, as the period of incubation was past.

Both Par. coeruleus and Par. major occasionally visit London. — G. D»

172 NATURAL HISTORY

in Hampshire and Devonshire : is this circumstance
for or against either hiding or migration ?

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

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

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

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

The note of the whitethroat, which is continually re-
peated, and often attended with odd gesticulations on
the wing, is harsh and displeasing. These birds seem
of a pugnacious disposition ; for they sing with an
erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance ; are
shy and wild in breeding time6, avoiding neighbour-
hoods, and haunting lonely lanes and commons ; nay,
even the very tops of the Sussex Downs, where there
are bushes and covert; but in July and August they

6 So far from being wild and shy in the breeding season, the white-
throat frequents at that period the vicinity of London, and forms part
even of the Fauna of St. Marylebone, covered as that parish now is with
buildings. I have a nest taken by myself from a bramble-bush, by the
side of a foot-path, just beyond the houses in the Avenue Road, Regent's
Park — G. D.

OF SELBORNE. 173

bring their broods into gardens and orchards, and
make great havock among the summer fruits7.

7 The whole of this passage is founded in error. There are no birds
less shy and less pugnacious than whitethroats. They are amicable in
the highest degree, and having kept four or five cocks together in the
same cage I never saw an instance of the least dispute among them.
They were extremely fond of each other ; and one of them having been
taken from the nest to try if it would breed with a hen blackcap, died
the next day, having, from vexation at finding itself separated from them,
neglected to feed itself. I have seen the eldest of a nest.give victuals to
the youngest, when they were just beginning to feed themselves. Those
which are caught become tame very quickly, but such as are raised from
the nest are the very perfection of amiability, and will come out gently
the moment their cage door is opened, and not have the least fear of being
handled. The blackcap, however tame while it requires to be fed, be-
comes very mistrustful as soon as it can shift for itself, especially the
cocks, which are very wary, and in the wild state cannot in general be
taken with a trap. I have taken many hen blackcaps in the cherry-trees
with a limed rod, but never a cock. It is very difficult to get a sight of
the cock blackcap while it is singing : it is always on the watch and
shifting its place so as to avoid being seen : but the whitethroat sings
boldly close to a person looking at it, and although Mr. White depreci-
ates its song, I think it is only surpassed by the blackbird and thrush,
excepting of course the matchless nightingale, with whose song all com-
parison of melody in this world is idle. In a room the song of the white-
throat is very pleasing, and the young ones will sometimes learn some of
the nightingale's notes; and their excessive familiarity and gentleness,
and their healthy constitution, make them to my mind the most pleasing
bird that can be kept in a cage. Their general food should be ground
hempseed and bread scalded together, and a little German paste given
dry. Insects, and almost any thing which is not salt that a man eats,
may be given to them in small quantities as a treat, but much variety only
makes them grow too fat.

This pleasing little bird appears to have been very much out of favour
with Mr. White, who accuses it of making great ravages in gardens. I
never have seen a single instance of the whitethroat attacking the cher-
ries, and it comes very little into walled gardens, unless there be a thick
whitethorn fence in them, or very thick bushes which attract it, and in
such vicinities they will sometimes attack the green peas. They are
very fond of ripe pears in confinement, but our pears are scarcely ripe
enough for them before they leave us, and they always abide about low
thick covert.

Mr. White's mistake about the fruit has probably arisen from his con-
founding two different birds. Sylvia silviella of English writers, the lesser
whitethroat or blue-gray, breeds in our pleasure gardens and haunts the
little garths and gardens of villages, and in company with the blackcaps
and pettychaps it sometimes attacks cherries, though its attacks are not
so determined, and it is very fond of small caterpillars and flies. It is

174 NATURAL HISTORY

The blackcap has, in common, a full, sweet, deep,
loud, and wild pipe ; yet that strain is of short continu-

very singular that so common a bird as this should have been so much
overlooked. I make no doubt of its being a regular inmate of Selborne
parish. It is abundant near London. AtSpofforth I often see them about
the skirts of the village; sometimes a solitary individual sitting almost
asleep upon an exposed branch of a thorn bush, when its pure white breast
is very conspicuous. There never fails to be a nest of them in my garden
in Yorkshire: at the moment that I write this, they have a nest within
five yards of my chair in a double white rose bush close to my window :
yet Mr. Selby has omitted this species in the first edition of his British
Ornithology, published in 1825, saying that he is aware such a bird has
been found in the southern counties, but he could never meet with one.

W, H. Herbert, dtL ,

NEST AND EGO* OP THE LESSER WJIITETHROAT.

Its song is pleasing, but not so strong and varied as that of the white-
throat. It is quite distinct in form, colour, and habits. It builds in gar-
dens like the blackcaps, and with them attacks the fruit, though less per-
tinaciously, as it is very fond of flies and small caterpillars, and probably
on the whole does more good than harm in a garden. Gardeners indeed
are too apt to destroy little birds that pick a few of their cherries or cur-
rants, without considering the great good they do in destroying the insects
which would perhaps have made the fruit abortive. Its nest is very
small and slender, so that it may actually be seen through, and it is
placed in the fork of a rose bush or thorn, sometimes eight or nine feet
from the ground, sometimes in a low brier. It does not lay, as far as I

OF SELBORNE. 175

ance, and his motions are desultory ; but when that bird
sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours

have seen, above four eggs. The colour of its upper parts is a bluish
gray, and it has none of the mahogany tint of the common whitethroat.
The throat and under parts are of a much purer white, and its legs dark
lead colour, whereas those of the whitethroat are yellowish. It is a
smaller bird and looks rather less slender and fuller of feathers about
the neck. It has a little the manners of the titmice, often running along
the wires at the top of its cage suspended by the feet, which is not usual
with birds of the genus Sylvia. It is of a remarkably, tame nature ; I
have taken a cock bird with its young, and the day after it was taken it
fed them with bread and hemp, and reared them ; and some months after
it would even perch upon my hand to feed itself. If fed too richly, with
much meat or milk, they will be subject to fits which are sure to be soon
fatal. They are fond of the seeds of the broad-leaved plantain.

It is remarkable that the British name of the bird is noticed by no con-
tinental writer, and that it is entirely overlooked in Temminck's ornitho-
logy of Europe as if he had never heard of it; though there is a plate of
the bird, riest, and eggs (certainly a very bad one) in Latham's supple-
mental volume, which he might be expected to have seen. It cannot,
however, be doubted that the species must be as common on the continent
as it is here ; it is a more delicate bird than the whitethroat, and it can-
not easily escape notice, because it lives in the gardens and close to the
abodes of men. On comparing the various contradictory descriptions of
different authors of Sylvia Curruca, la fauvette babillarde of the French,
I am quite satisfied of its identity with the Sylv. silviella of English
writers. In the first place Sylv. Curruca is said to extend from Italy into
Sweden, yet has never been noticed in Great Britain ; secondly, Sylv. sil-
viella has been noticed in England only. I cannot doubt Scopoli's bian-
chetto, abundant in the gardens of Italy, being our silviella; the pure
white of its under parts deserves the name bianchetto ; their habits cor-
respond exactly, and bianchetto is quoted as a synonym to Sylv. Curruca.
Temminck says that Sylv. Curruca has greenish white eggs with bluish
and brownish spots. Latham says greenish spotted with brown, but in a
note he quotes from Linnaeus' Fauna Suecica ash colour spotted with fer-
ruginous, which accords with the eggs of Sylv. silviella. Bewick says
that the eggs of our lesser whitethroat (Sylv. silviella of Turton, Sweet,
Stephens in Shaw's Zoology, &c.) are " white spotted with brown, inter-
mixed with other spots of a pale bluish ash colour." This description
agrees very closely with Temminck's account of the eggs of Sylv. Curruca.
On close inspection of the eggs of the blue-gray or lesser whitethroat,
which are of a dirty white spotted with ferruginous, it appears that sorite
of the spots are strong, others deep-seated and dim, as if covered over by
a film, and seen through the ash colour or dirty white of the general sur-
face. This dimness of the spots is what Temminck and Bewick call
bluish without much reason, but no name of a colour is so frequently
misapplied as blue. The colour of the legs of Sylv. Curruca is not men-
tioned by Temminck; Latham says brown; in Werner's engraving they

17() NATURAL HISTORY

forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses
great variety of soft and gentle modulations, superior

are made of a dirty flesh colour, being probably very incorrect, as having
been evidently drawn from a stuffed specimen, in which the natural co-
lour of the leg would not remain. Those of the lesser whitethroat are
of a dark and blackish lead colour, by which the bird may be at once dis-
tinguished from the whitethroat, of which the legs are yellowish. In
other respects Werner's specimen of Sylv. Curruca accords sufficiently with
our Sylv. silviella, though the shape and attitude are very ill given, but this
is the fault (and the usual fault) of the stuffer, not of the artist. On the
whole I am confident that Sylv. silviella is to be struck out of the ranks in
books of ornithology, and set down as a synonym to Sylv. Curruca ; and
that Sylv. Curruca, the blue-gray or lesser whitethroat, must take its place
as a British bird common in the neighbourhood of gardens ; or rather, as
Curruca will probably be adopted as the generic name for the fruit-eating
Sylviadte, it must be called Curruca silviella.

The division of the genus Sylvia to which this bird belongs, and which
eat fruit and vegetables, are not in general pugnacious like those that live
upon insects ; but the blue-gray, although the smallest species, is more
quarrelsome than the rest. It likes to have undisputed possession of the
pan of victuals, when disposed to feed. I have seen the little tyrant
seize a large pettychaps by the neck and actually throw it behind him by
a jerk of the head : but, as bullies generally are, it was very cowardly
when resisted or attacked by another; when persecuted a little by a red-
start which it had offended, it would make its escape, screaming as if in
the last agonies.

I may take this opportunity of mentioning that birds have their resent-
ments, and treasure up the memory of an offence, and that some of them
are as fond of practical jokes as monkeys are. The redstart above men-
tioned, preserved its antipathy to the little blue-gray, which arose from its
having once presumed to be saucy, as long as they lived together. I have
noticed the commencement of a feud between two birds which has lasted
for months, and rendered it necessary to separate them, originating in the
one having a feather in its bill which the other wished to take from it,
before which offence they had lived in perfect amity. Pulling tails is
the most usual practical joke amongst them. I have a nonpareil, or
painted finch, which often sits demurely upon a perch behind the other
birds, and from thence makes excursions to pull their tails, poising itself
upon the wing like the kestril or windhover hawk, underneath another
bird, while it pulls its tail, and almost drags it from the perch, regain-
ing its own post before the other can steady itself or look round. It is
very fond of molesting, in this manner, a beautiful red bird, which had
lost a foot before it reached this country, and to whom the joke is on that
account particularly inconvenient ; and I have been amused at observing,
when the nonpareil went down soon after to feed, the red bird look down
upon it with an aspect that spoke as plain as words could express it, You
rascal, you are the fellow that pulled my tail. It is very singular that
birds of the genus Sylvia reared from the nest, in confinement, are very

OF SKLBORNE. 177

perhaps to those of any of our warblers, the nightingale
excepted.

troublesome to each other in plucking out feathers from their compa-
nions, and swallowing the small ones. Those which are grown up before
they are caught have not the same mischievous propensity.

I cannot close this note without protesting against the injudicious
manner in which the genus Sylvia has been subdivided in the supplement
to Shaw's Zoology. What can be said in favour of a system that confines
the name Sylvia to the redbreast, bluebreast, and two European redstarts,
which have no sylvan habits, and lumps the nightingale and all the
aquatic warblers with the fruit-eating birds, under the" name Curruca?
There is a broad line of distinction which no ornithologist has noticed,
separating the fruit-eating Sylviae (Curruca, BECHST.) from the aquatic
warblers and the nightingale. In all the true Curruca, which live
mainly on vegetable food, the inside of the mouth and throat is of a fine
red : in the others of a yellow orange. Show me a nest of Sylviadtz, just
hatched, and by that feature I shall instantly determine to which family
they belong. I have seen no engravings or descriptions of birds, in
which due attention has been paid to the aperture of the bill. In the
true Curruca, or fruit-eating birds, it descends with a curvature below
the eye : in the wrens (I do not mean the troglodyte or common wren)
and in the aquatic warblers or sedge birds, it is straight and anterior to
the eye, the bill being in the wrens, or Reguli, slender and weak ; in the
sedge birds, of which I should make a genus Schcenia, strong and dilated
at the base. The incomparable nightingale has a very peculiar bill, and
I suspect that its two species, the larger and lesser, form a genus by them-
selves, unless the little known Sylv. sericea belong to them. But I should
think it belonged to the true Currncce as well as Sylv. Nissoria, Orphea,
melanocephala, Sarda, conspicillata, and subalpina. If Sylv. Provincialis
does not belong to them, but forms a separate genus as in Shaw's supple-
ment, Sylv. passerina will probably be found to belong to it. It is quite
an error of Bewick to give the passerine warbler as an English bird; that
which he represents is not the passerine warbler, but a repetition of the
Sylv. hortensis, with which he appears to have been imperfectly ac-
quainted, and calls erroneously Motacilla Hippolais. It varies much in
colour according to the age of the bird.

Three years ago I saw, beside a wide green lane in the parish of East
Woodhay, in Hampshire, a pair of Sylvia of the fruit-eating division, or
Currucce, being individuals of a species which has never been described.
Mr. Sweet mentions, in his British Warblers, that he saw several one
summer attacking the fruit in the garden of Mr. Bright, near Bristol,
exactly answering to the description of my birds, and he adds that he
never saw any of them but in that one season. Those which I saw were
formed much like a whitethroat, but as large as a nightingale, the upper
parts rufous, with a dark line over the eye, the under parts of a glossy
silver colour, which shone very conspicuously in the sun. My attention
was first attracted at a considerable distance by one of these birds sitting
on a low branch of the hedge with its breast towards me. It did not stir

178

NATURAL HISTORY

Blackcaps mostly haunt orchards and gardens: while
they warble, their throats are wonderfully distended.

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

The flycatcher is of all our summer birds the most
mute and the most familiar; it also appears the last of

till I came close to it, when I perceived that there were a pair exactly
alike in colour and size. They were not in the least shy, but sat very
still either on a low branch of an oak tree, or on some part of the fence,
and were quite mute. I remained examining them above a quarter of an
hour, being at times very close to them. It was in the month of May, at
which time the foliage was thin in the hedges, and very little on the oaks.
They were undoubtedly breeding in the neighbourhood, but I left the
country the next morning and could not investigate their habits any fur-
ther. There were gardens at a very short distance from the spot where
I saw them. I propose to call the species Sylvia (or rather Cwruca)
Bidehensis.—W. H.

KAST WOOPHAY WARBLER.

OF SELBORNE. 179

any. It builds in a vine, or a svveetbriar, against the
wall of a house, or in the hole of a wall, or on the end
of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door
where people are going in and out all day long. This
bird does not make the least pretension to song, but
uses a little inward wailing note when it thinks its
young in danger from cats or other annoyances: it
breeds but once, and retires early8.

Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times
more than half the birds that are ever seen in all
Sweden ; the former has produced more than one hun-
dred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred
and twenty-one. Let me add also that it has shown
near half the species that were ever known in Great
Britain 9.

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

LETTER XLI.

TO THE SAME.

IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those
species of soft-billed birds, that continue with us the
winter through, subsist during the dead months. The
imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason

8 I have known the spotted flycatcher build and breed twice. — W. Y.

9 Sweden two hundred and twenty-one, Great Britain two hundred
and fifty-two species.

[Ray enumerated, in 1678, one hundred and ninety species of British
birds. The number at present known is about three hundred ; exclu-
sive of upwards of twenty presumed stragglers of doubtful authority. —
E. T. B.]

180 NATURAL HISTORY

why they shun the rigour of our winters ; for the robust
wryneck (so much resembling the hardy race of
wood-peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden-
crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our
severest frosts without availing himself of houses or
villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd in
distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and
woods ; but perhaps this may be the reason why they
may often perish, and why they are almost as rare as
any bird we know1.

I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed
birds, which winter with us, subsist chiefly on insects
in their aurelia state. All the species of wagtails in
severe weather haunt shallow streams near their spring-

1 I think it worthy of remark that this bird abounds in Scotland. I
saw many hundreds there last autumn. In Kent I have observed only a
few pairs. — RENNIE.

The golden-crested wren and the common brown wren are both
very impatient of cold. In confinement, the least frost is immediately
fatal to them. In a wild state, they keep themselves warm by constant
active motion in the day, and at night they secrete themselves in places
where the frost cannot reach them ; but I apprehend that numbers do
perish in severe winters. I once caught half a dozen golden wrens at
the beginning of winter, and they lived extremely well upon egg and
meat, being exceedingly tame. At roosting time there was always a
whimsical conflict amongst them for the inside places as being the warm-
est, which ended of course by the weakest going to the wall. The scene
began with a low whistling call amongst them to roost, and the two birds
on the extreme right and left flew on the backs of those in the centre, and
squeezed themselves into the middle. A fresh couple from the flanks
immediately renewed the attack upon the centre, and the conflict conti-
nued till the light began to fail them. A severe frost in February killed
all but one of them in one night, though in a furnished drawing-room.
The survivor was preserved in a little cage by burying it every night
under the sofa cushions ; but having been, one sharp morning, taken from
under them before the room was sufficiently warmed by the fire, though
perfectly well when removed, it was dead in ten minutes. The nightin-
gale is not much more tender of cold than a canary-bird. The golden-
crowned wren very much frequents spruce fir trees and cedars, and hangs
its nest under their branches: it is also fond of the neighbourhood of
furze bushes, under which it probably finds warm refuge from the cold.
The brown wren is very apt, in frosty weather, to roost in cowhouses,
where the cattle keep it warm. — W. H.

OF SELBORNE. 181

heads, where they never freeze; and, by wading, pick
out the aurelias of the genus of Phryganece, &c.2

Hedge sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard
weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweep-
ings : and in mild weather they procure worms, which
are stirring every month in the year, as any one may
see that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle
to a grass-plot on any mild winter's night. Redbreasts
and wrens in the winter haunt out-houses, stables,
and barns, where they find spiders and flies that have
laid themselves up during the cold season. But the
grand support of the soft-billed birds in winter is that
infinite profusion of aureliae of the Ordo Lepidoptera,
which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their trunks;
to the pales and walls of gardens and buildings ; and is
found in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and
even in the ground itself.

Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have
what I call a kind of intermediate bill between the hard
and the soft, between the Linnaean genera of Fringilla
and Motacilla. One species alone spends its whole
time in the woods and fields, never retreating for suc-
cour in the severest seasons to houses and neighbour-
hoods ; and that is the delicate long-tailed titmouse,
which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned wren :
but the blue titmouse, or nun (Parus cceruleus), the cole-
mouse (Parus ater), the great black-headed titmouse
(Fringillago*), and the marsh titmouse, (Paruspalustris),
all resort, at times, to buildings ; and in hard weather
particularly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of
weather, much frequents houses, and, in deep snows, I
have seen this bird, while it hung with its back down-
wards (to my no small delight and admiration), draw
straws lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses,
in order to pull out the flies that were concealed be-

2 See Derham's Physico-Theology, p. 235.

3 [Parus mqjor, LINN.]

182 NATURAL HISTORY

tween them, and that in such numbers that they quite
defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance.

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

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

I am, &c.

LETTER XLII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, March 9, 1775.

SOME future Faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope,
extend his visits to the kingdom of Ireland ; a new
field, and a country little known to the naturalist. He
will not, it is to be wished, undertake that tour unac-
companied by a botanist, because the mountains have
scarcely been sufficiently examined ; and the southerly
counties of so mild an island may possibly afford some
plants little to be expected within the British domi-
nions. A person of a thinking turn of mind will draw

OF SELBORNE. 183

many just remarks from the modern improvements of
that country, both in arts and agriculture, where pre-
miums obtained long before they were heard of with us.
The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions,
their prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort
from him many useful reflections. He should also take
with him an able draughtsman; for he must by no
means pass over the noble castles and seats, the
extensive and picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and
the lofty stupendous mountains, so little known, and so
engaging to the imagination when described and ex-
hibited in a lively manner : such a work would be well
received.

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

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY

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

I am. &c.

LETTER XLIII.

TO THE SAME.

A PAIR of honey buzzards (Buteo apivorus sive vespivo-
rus, RAII), built them a large shallow nest, composed
of twigs and lined with dead beechen leaves, upon a tall
slender beech near the middle of Selborne Hanger, in
the summer of 1780. In the middle of the month of
June a bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on
so steep and dizzy a situation, and brought down an
egg, the only one in the nest, which had been sat on
for some time, and contained the embryo of a young
bird. The egg was smaller, and not so round as those
of the common buzzard ; was dotted at each end with
small red spots, and surrounded in the middle with a
broad bloody zone.

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

About the 10th of July in the same summer a pair
of sparrow hawks bred in an old crow's nest on a low
beech in the same Hanger ; and as their brood, which
was numerous, began to grow up, became so daring
and ravenous, that they were a terror to all the dames

OF SELBORNE. 185

in the village that had chickens or ducklings under
their care. A boy climbed the tree, and found the
young so fledged that they all escaped from him ; but
discovered that a good house had been kept : the larder
was well stored with provisions ; for he brought down
a young blackbird, jay, and house-martin, all clean
picked, and some half devoured. The old birds had
been observed to make sad havock for some days among
the new-flown swallows and martins, which, being but
lately out of their nests, had not acquired those powers
and command of wing that enable them, when more
mature, to set such enemies at defiance.

LETTER XLIV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 30, 1780.

EVERY incident that occasions a renewal of our corres-
pondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.

As to the wild wood-pigeon, the (Enas or Vinago of
Ray1, 1 am much of your mind ; and see no reason for
making it the origin of the common house-dove: but
suppose those that have advanced that opinion may
have been misled by another appellation, often given to
the (Enasy which is that of stock-dove2.

1 [Columba (Enas, LINN.]

2 It is curious to observe Gilbert White declaring himself much of the
same mind as Pennant in the matter of the stock-dove and the house-
dove, and stating subsequently that he readily concurs with his corres-
pondent in supposing that house-doves are derived from the small blue
rock pigeon. There is no reason to imagine that White ever thought
otherwise : but Pennant, whom he seems willing to allow to lead him
where, in truth, he had never gone astray, was so far from this view of
the subject in 1776 that he then stated expressly that the " small sort that
is frequent on most of our cliffs is only a variety of the wild pigeon ;"
and that " the tame pigeon, and all its beautiful varieties, derive their
origin from one species, the stock dove : the English name implying its
being the stock or stem from which the other domestic kinds sprung."

186 NATURAL HISTORY

Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in
manners from itself in summer, no species seems more
unlikely to be domesticated, and to make a house-dove.
We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor
does it ever haunt the woods ; but the former, as long
as it stays with us, from November perhaps to Febru-
ary, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove (Palum-
bus torquatus) ; frequents coppices and groves, supports
itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in the tallest
beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock-
doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at
once, provided they construct their nests on trees, like
the ring-dove, as I much suspect they do3.

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

For my own part, I readily concur with you in sup-
posing that house-doves are derived from the small
blue rock -pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place,

Pennant thus evidently confounded the stock-dove with the small blue
rock-pigeon, and blended into one presumed species the Columba CEnns
and Col. Livia.

The view taken by White is the correct one : that these two races are
distinct species ; and that the blue rock-pigeon is the parent of all the
domesticated varieties. But it is only very recently that ornithologists
have fully concurred in so regarding it : and it is possible that from time
to time the stock-dove will accidentally be referred to as the origin of
the domesticated pigeon by Englishmen, for to them will the error from
this source be confined. The two meanings of the word stock will still
occasionally mislead, and it will sometimes be forgotten that in this in.
stance it refers only to the trees which the bird haunts.— E. T. B.

3 The stock-dove, Columba CEnas, LINN., builds in trees : they are
called stock-doves because they make their nests in the stocks or rough
tops of trees that have been headed down. In default of trees to build
in, they take to rabbit burrows or other holes in the ground. The rock,
dove, Columba Liria, TEMM. is the origin of the domestic breeds and is
never seen to settle in a tree, unless wounded.— W. Y.

OF SELBORNE. 187

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

" Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret."

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

188 NATURAL HISTORY

and especially in snowy weather, but also at the close
of the evening, by men who lay in ambush among the
woods and groves to kill them as they came in to
roost4. These are the principal circumstances relating
to this wonderful internal migration, which with us
takes place towards the end of November, and ceases
early in the spring. Last winter we had, in Selborne
high wood, about a hundred of these doves ; but in
former times the flocks were so vast, not only with
us but all the district round, that on mornings and
evenings they traversed the air, like rooks, in strings,
reaching for a mile together. When they thus rendez-
voused here by thousands, if they happened to be sud-
denly roused from their roost trees on an evening,

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

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

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

OF SELBORNE. 189

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

" Quails spelunca subitd commota Columba,
Cui domus et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,
Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pejinis
Dat tecto ingentem — mox aere lapsa quieto,
Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas."

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

I am, &c.

li)0 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER I.

TO THE HONOURABLE DA1NES HARRINGTON1.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, June 30, 17G9.

WHEN I was in town last month I partly engaged that
I would some time do myself the honour to write to you
on the subject of natural history : and I am the more
ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a
gentleman of great candour, and one that will make
allowances ; especially where the writer professes to
be an outdoor naturalist, one that takes his observa-
tions from the subject itself, and not from the writings
of others.

The following is a list of summer birds of passage
which I have discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged
somewhat in the order in which they appear :

RAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT

1. Wry neck, JJynx sine torquil-) The middle of March: harsh

(la: S ""'''•

2. Smallest willow > Regulus non ci'ista- ) March 23: chirps till Septem-

wren, £ tus: > her.

3. Swallow, Hirundodomestica: April 13.

4. Martin, Hirundo agrestis : Ditto.

5. Sand martin, Hirundo riparia : Ditto.

6. Blackcap, Atricapilla : Ditto : a sweet wild note.

1 Daines Barrington, honourable by birth and respected for his talents,
was well suited by the pursuits to which from choice he had devoted
himself, to become the favourite correspondent of an observer like Gilbert
White. The legal studies which he had originally cultivated as a pro-
fessional duty, and in which he had been so successful as to have merited
the office of recorder of Bristol, and to have become subsequently a Welsh

OF SELBORNE. 191

7. Nightingale, Luscinia : Beginning of April.

8. Cuckoo, Cuculus : Middle of April.

9. Middle willow ( Regulns non ci'ista- > TV.,.

wren ) tus- \ Ditto : a sweet plaintive note.

10. Whitethroat, Ficedulce affinis : \ Di"° :. me,an note ' sinSs on til1

1 1. Redstart, Ruticilla - \ Middle of April : more agreeable

( song.

12. Stone curlew ? GEdicnemus : j ^thfstte ^ ' 1O"d n°CtUrnal

13. Turtle-dove ? Turtur :

judge, were eventually laid aside by him : although not until after they
had fostered in him an attachment to antiquarian pursuits which he re-
tained through life so strongly as to entitle him to be distinguished among
his fellow students in that department of knowledge as a vice president
of the Antiquarian Society. To the transactions of that body he was a
frequent contributor. He also made numerous communications to the
Royal Society, which were printed in the Philosophical Transactions.
Many of them were afterwards republished by himself in a separate
form, under the title of Miscellanies ; a work alluded to with satisfaction
by our historian in his Letter LI. In his essays Barrington availed
himself freely of the information imparted to him by White, whose au-
thority he repeatedly quotes, and whose merits as a " well read, inge-
nious, and observant" naturalist he is ever ready to acknowledge.

A large proportion of the essays in the Miscellanies are on subjects of
natural history ; and in many of them Daines Barrington was the advo-
cate of views directly opposed to those of our author's other corres-
pondent, Pennant. Thus, for instance, while Pennant felt a full con-
viction as to the migration of many birds, Barrington was most sceptical
on the subject ; and it is scarcely to be doubted that his letters to Gilbert
White tended to keep alive and to increase the suspicions which the
historian of Selboi-ne always entertained that the little creatures whose
presence delighted him during the summer, were still at hand, though
hidden from him, in the winter. Another point on which his two corres-
pondents disagreed was as to the authority which they attributed to Ray
and to Linnaeus ; and White was evidently quite aware of the difference
of their feelings on this subject, and humoured them so far as to accom-
modate himself to the wishes of each when addressing him in particular.
When sending to Pennant, in his Letter XVI, a list of the summer birds
of passage, the Latin names which he uses are " Linnaei nomina:" in his
correspondence with Barrington, in this Letter I. and elsewhere, he
designates his birds, scientifically, by " Raii Nomina." Barrington argued
so warmly against the deficiencies of the Linnaean characters, and ad-
vocated so strongly the excellencies of our countryman John Ray, that
he is carried on by the discussion in which he was engaged to inquire, no
doubt in his estimation triumphantly, " After this comparison can there
be a doubt whether the English botanist should consult Ray or Linnaeus
for an English plant?"— E. T. B.

192 NATURAL HISTORY

14. Grasshopper {Alauda. minima lo-) Middleof April: a small sibilous

lark, ( custcevoce: \ note, till the end of July.

15. Swift, Hirundo apus: About April 27.

16. Less reed spar- ( Passer arundina- ) A sweet polyglot, but hurrying:

row, ? ceus minor : ) it has the notes of many birds.

17. Land-rail, Ortygometra: A loud harsh note, crex, crex.

18. Largest wil- I Regains non cris- $ " Ca"iat ™ce *tridul* ,'««•<"••"

low wren, \ tatus: j ?nd. °K APnl» on the toPs of

( high beeches.

19. Goatsucker, or> r.; \ Beginning of May : chatters by

fern owl, { ^apri } night with a singular noise.

f May 12. A very mute bird : this

20. Flycatcher, Stopnrola: j is the latest summer bird of

( passage.

This assemblage of curious and amusing birds be-
longs to ten several genera of the Liniuvan system :
and are all of the Ordo of Passeres, save the Jynx and
Cttculvt, which are Piece, and the Charadrius (CEdicne-
rnus) and Rallus (Ortygometra), which are Grallcc.

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

1, Jynx: 13. Columba :

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

3, 4, 5, 15. Hirundo : 19. Caprimulgus :
8. Cvculus: 14. Alauda:

12. Charadriua: 20. Muscicapa:

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

RAH NO.M1NA.

Redbreast, RubeaOa: $Th?se ^quent houses ; and

P*sserTrMes:\ ^ ^^ » th,

Hedge sparrow, Curruca :

/'These frequent shallow rivulets

White wagtail, Motacilla alba: \ near the spring heads, where

Yellow wagtail, Motacilla fiat a : -/ they never freeze : eat the an-

Gray wagtail, Motacilla cinerea : i reliaeof Phryganeae. The siual 1-

V. est birds that walk.

Wheatear <En««a«:

Whin chat (Enanthf secunda :

OF SELBORNE.

193

RAII NOMINA.

Stone chat,

Golden - crowned
wren,

GEnanthe tertia :

( This is the smallest British bird :
[ Regulus cristatus : 1 haunts the tops of tall trees ;
( stays the winter through.

A list of the winter birds of passage round this
neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which
they appear:

("This is a new migration, which
) I have lately discovered, about
"S Michaelmas week, and again
( about the 14th of March.

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

Most frequent on downs.

Appears about old Michaelmas.

1. Ring-ousel, Merula torquata

2. Redwing,

3. Fieldfare,

Turd us iliacus
Turdus pilaris

4. Royston crow, Comix cinerea

5. Woodcock,

6. Snipe,

7. Jack snipe,

8. Wood-pigeon,

9. Wild swan,

10. Wild goose,

11. Wild duck,

12. Pochard,

Scolopax :
Gallinago minor:
Gallinago minima.
(Unas :

13. Wigeon,

14. Teal, breeds
with us in Wol-]
mer Forest,

15. Grosbeak,

16. Crossbill,

17. Silktail,

Cygnus ferns :
Anserferus:
Anas torquata mi-
nor:

Anas f era fusca :
Penelope :

Querquedula:

Coccothraustes :
Loxia :

Garndus Bohemi-
cus:

Some snipes constantly breed
with us.

Seldom appears till late : not in

such plenty as formerly.
On some large waters.

On our lakes and streams.

'These are only wanderers that
) appear occasionally, and are
\ not observant of any regular
migration.

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

1,2,3. Turdus:

4. Core/us :

5, 6, 7. Scolopax:
8. Columba :

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

15, 16.

17.

Anas:
Loxia :
Ampelis.

Birds that sing in the night are but few.

•vr. , 4. , T . .

Nightingale, Luscima:

Woodlark, Alauda arborea:
spar-

" In shadiest covert hid.

Suspended in mid air.
Among reeds and willow*

NATURAL HISTORY

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

I am, &c.

LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 2, 1769.

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

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

RAII NOMINA.

C In January, and continues to sing
1. Woodlark, Alauda arborea : j through all the summer and

( autumn.

2 Song-thrush 5 Turdus slmplicitcr < In February, and on to August ;
' { dictus: I reassume their song in autumn.

S.Wren, Passer troglodytes : All the year, hard frost excepted.

4. Redbreast, Rvbccula: Ditto.

6. Vellowham-

5. Hedge spar-£ cnrruca. \ Early in February, to July the

row, j ^ 10th.

Jr , . Wfr « February and or.

^hnibenzafluva: j through July to August the

OF SELBORNE.

195

7. Skylark,
8. Swallow,
9. Blackcap,

10. Titlark,

RA1I NOMINA.

Alauda vulgaris:
Hirundo domestica:
Atricapilla :

Alauda pratorum:

In February, and on to October.
From April to September.
Beginning of April to July 13th.

°f

11. Blackbird,

12. Whitethroat,

13. Goldfinch,

14. Greenfinch,
,5.

("Sometimes in February and
< March, and so on to July the
( 23d ; reassumes in autumn.
In April, and on to July 23.

16. Common

lin-

Merula vulgaris:

Ficedulce qffinis :

Carduelis:

Chloris : On to July and August 2.

^-f^ May,on to thebeginningof July.

f Breeds and whistles on till Au-

)r. . , . J g«st; reassumes its note when

£ Linarw vulgaris: < they begin to congregate in

October, and again early be-

^ fore the flocks separate.

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

Middle of June: begins in Apri,.

18. Redstart,

Ruticilla:

Ditto: beg

19. Chaffinch,

Fringilla :

(Beginning
( February

20. Nightingale,

Luscinia :

(Middle of
( April .

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

f January the 2nd, 1770, in Fe-

21. Missel-bird, Turdusviscivorus:

22.

Fringittago:

bruary. Is called in Hamp-
shire and Sussex the storm-
cock, because its song is sup-
posed to forebode windy wet
weather: is the largest singing
bird we have.

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

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

23. Golden-crown-
ed wren,

«„_,.,„. -„-.*„*„„ .
Kegulus cnstatus .

s note as minute as its person ;
frequents the tops of high oaks
and firs : the smallest British
bird.

NATURAL HISTORY

RAII NO.MINA.

24. Marsh tit->
mouse, $
25. Small willow- j
wren, j

26. Largest ditto,

27. Grasshopper- )
lark, $

28. Martin,

29. Bullfinch,
30. Bunting,

Pariis pal us tr is :

1 Regulus now cris-
; tatus :

Ditto:

Alauda minima voce
locustcc :

Hirundo agrestis :

Pyrrhula :
Emberiza alba :

< Haunts great woods : two harsh
t sharp notes.
< Sings in March, and on to Sep-
f tember.
< Cantat voce stridulA locustce; from
( end of April to August.
J Chirps all night, from the middle
( of April to the end of July.

From the end of January to July.

All singing birds, and those that have any preten-
sions to song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the
world through, come under the Linnaean Ordo of Pas-
seres.

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

1, 7, 10, 27. Alauda: 8, 28. Hirundo :

2, 11,21. Turdiu: 13, 16, 19. Fringilla:

3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15. > mtacUa . 22, 24. Paru*:
17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26, $ - 14, 29. Loxia.
6, 30. Emberiza :

Birds that sing as they fly are but few :

Skylark, Alauda vulgaris : Rising, suspended, and falling.

Tin its descent; also sitting on
Titlark, Alauda pratoi-wti : % trees, and walking on the

( ground.

Woodlark,

Blackbird, Merula vulgaris : Sometimes from bush to bush.

White,h,oat, Fice^ affini, :

Swallow, Hirundo domestica : In soft sunny weather.

Wren, Passei' troglodytes : Sometimes from bush to bush.

Birds that breed most early in these parts :

Raven, Corcus: Hatches in February and March.

Song-thrush, Turdus: In March.

Blackbird, Merula vulgaris : In March.

Rook, Comix J rug ilega: Builds the beginning of March.

Woodlark, Alauda arborea : Hatches in April.

Ring dove, | ^f "* '°''9M<1' | Lays the beginning of April.

OF SELBORNE.

197

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

Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy
somewhat in proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this
island, where they are much pursued and annoyed : but
in Ascension Island, and many other desolate places,
mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a
human figure, that they would stand still to be taken ;
as is the case with boobies, &c. As an example of
what is advanced, T remark that the golden crested
wren (the smallest British bird) will stand unconcerned
till you come within three or four yards of it, while the
bustard (Otis), the largest British land fowl, does not
care to admit a person within so many furlongs1.

1 The bustard is extinct in Scotland ; and as it is now so scarce in
England, owing to population and enclosures, it becomes interesting to

198 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER III.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 15, 1770.

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

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

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

remark, that two birds of this kind (male and female) have been kept in
the garden ground belonging to the Norwich Infirmary, and have but
lately been sold by the owner of them. The male bird was very beau-
tiful and courageous, apparently afraid of nothing, seizing any one that
came near him by the coat; yet on the appearance of any small hawk,
high in the air, he would squat close to the ground expressing strong
marks of fear. The female was very shy. A tolerably good resemblance
of the male is in Pennant's British Zoology, vol i. p. 281. — MITFORD.

OF SELBORNE. 199

whistle the year round, hard frost excepted ; especially
the latter.

It was not in my power to procure you a blackcap,
or a less reed-sparrow, or sedge bird, alive. As the
first is undoubtedly, and the last, as far as I can yet
see, a summer bird of passage, they would require more
nice and curious management in a cage than I should
be able to give them1: they are both distinguished song-
sters. The note of the former has such a- .wild sweet-
ness that it always brings to my mind those/ lines in
a song in " As You Like It."

" And tune his merry note
Unto the wild bird's throat."

SHAKSPEARE.

The latter has a surprising variety of notes resem-
bling the song of several other birds ; but then it has

1 [In the preceding edition several Notes by the late Mr. Sweet, intro-
duced in various parts of the volume, were principally directed to the
supplying of information on the habits in confinement of many of the more
delicate birds, and on the care and treatment necessary for them in cap-
tivity : the success of that well-known horticulturist in preserving these
interesting creatures has never been exceeded. His observations bring
many of them before us under circumstances in which they were not stu-
died by Gilbert White, and convey to us, in consequence, additional know-
ledge respecting them : while to those who may be desirous of retaining
in captivity any of these sweetest of songsters, it will be advantageous to
be made acquainted with the plan which he pursued with respect to those
that were from time to time under his care. His Notes are here subjoined
in a single series ; preceded by his general observations on the]

FOOD OF SOFT-BILLED BIRDS (Sylviado?). — The birds of this sort, though
the finest songsters and most interesting of all the feathered tribe, have
been less known or noticed than others, probably owing to the greater
number only visiting us in summer, when the trees are so densely clothed
with foliage, that birds are not easily seen, and when heard sing, are
generally considered by those who hear them, to be either blackbirds or
thrushes, or some of the more common singing birds. When they are
seen the greater number of them receive the general appellation of white-
throats without distinction, though this is rather singular, since they are
all very distinct when examined, and their songs are all very different.
If you speak to a bird-fancier or bird-catcher about any of them, you
might as well talk of a bird in the wilds of America, for they know no-
thing of them. Many of them are therefore difficult to be procured in the
neighbourhood of London, though most of them are plentiful there.

With care, the whole of them may be preserved in good health through
the year, and many of them will sing through the greater part of the

200 NATURAL HISTORY

also a hurrying manner, not at all to its advantage : it
is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot.

winter, if properly managed. They require to be kept warm : the room
in which they are should never be allowed to be below temperate, or they
will suffer from it, particularly the tender sorts; at first, the cold will
make them lose their sight, after which they seldom recover. The red-
start and nightingale are most subject to this ; it sometimes also happens
to the greater pettychaps or garden warbler, and also to the whin chat.

When in a wild state, the birds of this sort feed principally on insects,
or fruit and berries of various kinds. None of them are seed birds, so
that they must be managed accordingly. The general food which I give
them is hempseed bruised up in boiling water, as small as it can be made.
I then put to this about the same quantity, or rather more, of bread, on
which is also poured boiling water; and then the whole is bruised up
together into a moist paste, particular care being required that there be
little or no salt in the bread, for should there be rather much, it will kill
the whole of the birds. The food should also be mixed up fresh every
morning, as it soon spoils and turns sour, in which case the birds will not
touch it, and sometimes it will make them go off their food altogether.
When given to the birds, some fresh, raw, lean meat ought to be cut up
small enough for them to swallow, and mixed with it. I generally put
about the same quantity of meat as paste, and sometimes they will peck
out the meat and leave the paste ; at other times they will eat the paste
and leave the meat ; but in general they eat it all up together, particu-
larly where several different species are kept together in the same large
cage ; a plan which I consider by far the best, as they amuse each other,
and keep one another warm in cold weather. Besides the above food, an
egg should be boiled very hard, the yolk taken out and crumbled or cut
in small pieces for them : the white they will not eat. One egg I consi-
der enough for twenty birds for one day, with their other food, it being
only intended as a change of diet, without which they will not continue
well in health.

Some of the sorts which feed on insects when wild should have some
of these preserved for them through the winter, except where they can
be procured at all seasons. At a baker's shop, for instance, there are
always plenty of mealworms, crickets, and cockroaches, of which most of
these birds are very fond. When those are not to be procured, a good
substitute is the large white caterpillar that produces the cockchafer,
which in some years is very plentiful, and may be kept in pots of turfy
earth through the winter ; as may also the maggots of the blue bottle fly,
if procured late in autumn ; and they may be generally had as late as
December. A quantity of these kept in a pot of turfy earth in a cellar or
any other cool place, where they may not turn into flies too soon, is I
think one of the best sorts of insects, and easiest kept and procured, for
such birds through the winter. They will not touch them until they are
well cleaned in the mould, but are then very fond of them, and a few
every day keeps them in excellent health, and provokes them to sing.

The Nightingale, (Philomela. Luscinia, SWAINS.)— One of the finest song-
sters of the feathered race, generally visiting us, about London, the be-

OF SELBORNE. 201

It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the
night ; perhaps only caged birds do so. I once knew a

ginning of April ; in Somersetshire it seldom arrives till the middle or
latter end of that month, and sometimes not till the beginning of May :
Devonshire, and Cornwall, and some other counties, it does not visit at
all : it generally leaves us again the beginning of September. Its song,
when wild, is very fine, but lasts but a few weeks : to have it in the
greatest perfection is, to have a good bird in a cage, where, if it be a very
kindly one, it will begin singing the beginning of December, and continue
till June. I had a very fine one that only left off singing the latter end
of June last ; it began again a little in September, and on" the 1st of De-
cember it was in full song, and continued to sing through the whole of
the month, and nearly all day long, as fine as if at Midsummer, and would
have continued on had not the frost set in so severe : when singing in a
cage none of the soft notes are lost ; they are all heard quite clear, which
is not the case when heard in the woods or hedges.

The best way to be certain of a good nightingale is to get one that is
just caught in spring; for there is no dependance on a young one bred
up from the nest, or a young brancher, except it be kept with a good old
bird, to learn its proper notes from ; a young one being apt to catch all it
hears, good or bad, and to be deficient of many of its natural ones. I
had one three years, and it never sang worth any thing : the year before
last I turned it out, and it continued in the gardens round the house
until it left the country in autumn ; it returned back to the same place
last spring, where I recognised it by its bad song, and it continued about
the same place all the summer, and bred up a nest of young ones. A
female that I had also been keeping for six years, to see if she would
breed, I also turned out with him, but whether she came back and was
partner in the nest, I cannot say, as I had no mark to know her by: this
female I kept four years, and it never attempted to sing; the fifth year it
sang frequently, a pretty soft nightingale's note. I have found that the
case with several female birds, they do not sing till they become aged ;
but it is not a rule universally applicable, as I have had a female willow
wren that sang when quite young.

I treat my nightingales in exactly the same manner as is before
mentioned, which is at variance with the bird-fanciers' method, who
feed them on grated beef and egg, and German paste ; but I have never
heard of any being kept many years on that food : the German paste I do
not approve at all, as the maw-seeds, honey, sugar, and such out of the
way ingredients, I am convinced must be very injurious to their health.
The best thing to keep them in good health and spirits is, to give them as
much insect food as possible, and there are scarcely any insects they will
refuse except hairy caterpillars : they are particularly fond of ants and
their eggs, for which they will leave any other food ; they are also very
partial to all sorts of smooth caterpillars, earwigs, crickets, grasshoppers,
cockroaches, common maggots, and meal-worms : but there is nothing that
all the birds of this tribe are so fond of, as the young larvae in the combs
of wasps and hornets ; they will even eat them after they become winged.
I have, when a boy, kept nightingales, blackcaps, the greater pettychaps,
and whitethroats, for two months at a time on nothing else.

202 NATURAL HISTORY

tame redbreast in a cage that always sang as long as
candles were in the room; but in their wild state no
one supposes they sing in the night.

The Blackcap, (Curruca Atricapilla, BECHST.)— Of all the birds that
reside in or visit the British islands, there is none that can come up to
the present for song, except the nightingale ; and by some persons it is
more admired than even that bird. Its earliest arrival in Ihis country is
generally about the first week in April, and the earliest that ever I saw
was on the 25th of March : they leave us again about the end of Septem-
ber ; sometimes a straggling one may be seen the beginning of October ;
the latest I ever saw in a wild state was on the 15th of that month. When
it first arrives in this country, its chief food is the early ripened berries
of the ivy; and where those are, there the blackcaps are first to be heard,
singing their melodious and varied song. By the time the ivy berries are
over, the little green larvae of the small moths will be getting plentiful,
rolled up in the young shoots and leaves ; these then become their chief
food, until the strawberries and cherries are ripe : after that, there is no
want of fruit or berries till their return, and there is no sort of fruit or
berry that is eatable, or wholesome, that they will refuse. After they
have cleared the elder-berries in autumn, they immediately leave us.

This is certainly by far the most desirable of all birds for the cage, and
there is none that can be more easily kept ; their general food is the same
as that for the other birds already mentioned, bruised hempseed and bread,
with some fresh, lean, raw meat mixed up in it ; they do not even refuse
a bit of fat, and a little yolk of egg: occasionally a few insects may be
given, particularly if the birds appear not well ; now and then a fly, a
green or brown caterpillar from a cabbage, or a spider : they care very
little for insects if they have plenty of fruit, and other changes of food ;
although, like other birds of this tribe, they are particularly fond of the
larva in the wasp and hornet combs*.

* The blackcaps are very vivacious in a cage, if well taken care of.
Milk, which Mr. Sweet recommends, I have found very fatal to many of
the soft billed birds, and I never give it ; but the blackcaps do not seem
to suffer from itf. They are very fond of a boiled carrot mashed and
moistened, or beet root boiled and mashed. A boiled carrot will keep
fresh many days in a basin of cold water, and is an excellent substitute
for fruit in feeding them. Boiled cabbage, cauliflower, and green peas,
are good for them : as well as all sorts of puddings. A very little roast
meat minced, I give them every day ; and a little yolk of egg when it
suits, but it is not necessary. The standard food is hempseed ground in a
coffee mill, and bread crumbs scalded and mashed up together, and fresh
every day. They are very fond of ripe pears and elder-berries (but elder-
berries stain the cage very much), currants, cherries, honeysuckle, and
privet berries. — W. H.

t I have more than once given the blackcap and other birds a little
milk by way of medicine, when they appeared drooping or sickly, and
with manifest advantage. — RENNIE.

OF SEL BORNE. 203

I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there
are to be seen much fewer birds in July than in any

What makes the blackcap more desirable is, that it is more hardy than
any of the other species, except the whitethroat, which is also a delight-
ful bird. The blackcap sings almost the whole of the year, if kept in
good health, only stopping a few weeks while moulting, and even then
I have known it break out into song. If bred up from the nest, they may
be taught any tune, or the song of one or more sorts of birds ; the nightin-
gale's song they learn readily, also that of the blackbird, thrush, greater
pettychaps, redstart, and most probably any other; but without learning
those, their own song is delightful : but it is impossible to keep some of
them from mocking other birds, as they even do so when flying wild, and
they have generally a favourite note which they repeat more frequently
than any other.

The Whitethroat^ (Curruca cinerea, BECHST.) — One of the most delight-
ful and pleasing birds that can be imagined if kept in a large cage with
other birds : it is so full of anticks in flying and frisking about, and erect-
ing its crest, generally singing all the time, that certainly nothing can be
more amusing. It is also quite as hardy as the blackcap, and if a good
one be procured it is little inferior in song; but in this they all vary con-
siderably, the wild ones as well as those in a cage. I have had one in
my possession about eleven years, which is in as good health, and sings
as well as ever, being now in full song while writing this account, and
certainly no song need be louder, sweeter, or more varied : it is of the same
temper as a nightingale, never suffering itself to be outdone. The fol-
lowing is an account of the same bird, published in the first number of
my British Warblers in 1823. " One that I at present possess will sing
for hours together against a nightingale, now in the beginning of Janu-
ary, and it will not suffer itself to be outdone ; when the nightingale
raises its voice it also does the same, and tries its utmost to get above it;
sometimes in the midst of its song it will run up to the nightingale and
stretch out its neck as if in defiance, and whistle as loud as it can, staring
it in the face : if the nightingale attempts to peck it, away it is in an
instant, flying round the aviary and singing all the time."

In a wild state, the present species is generally to be found in hedges
and gardens, and is the most common of our British warblers, visiting
us the beginning or middle of April, and leaving us towards the end of
September : sometimes a solitary one may be seen in October, but not
frequently. The same sort of food as recommended for the two last species
is perfectly suitable to the present, with occasionally the addition of a
few flies, of which it is particularly fond, or a rose branch covered
with Aphides will please very much.

The lesser Whitethroat, (Curruca Sylviella, BECHST.) — A handsome little
lively species, nearly related to the whitethroat, but more elegant, smaller,
and of a purer colour, its throat being as white as snow : it generally
visits us the beginning or middle of April, and leaves us again the end of
August or beginning of September. Its song is not so agreeable as most
of the other species ; it is however soft and pretty, and very different from
any other : it is also more valuable by being much more rare ; in some

204 NATURAL HISTORY

former month, notwithstanding so many young are
hatched daily. Sure I am, that it is far otherwise with

seasons very few visit us, in others they are sufficiently plentiful. Its
habits are somewhat similar to the whitethroat, but it is much more quar-
relsome ; sometimes so much so that it must be taken from the other birds,
or it will worry them to death, even if they are double its size.

In confinement, it will soon become tame and familiar, and will
readily take to feed on bread and milk, and also on bruised hemp-seed
and bread. One that I bred up from the nest became so attached to its
cage, that it could not be prevailed upon to quit it for any length of time ;
when the door of it was set open, it would generally come out quickly
and first perch on the door, then mount to the top of the cage, from
which it would fly to any other cages that were in the room, and catch
such flies as came within its reach ; sometimes it would descend to the
floor, or perch on a table or chair, and would fly up and take a fly out of
the hand, or drink milk out of a spoon if invited : of this it was very fond.
As soon as it was the least frightened it would fly immediately to its cage,
first on the top, thence to the door, and would enter in exactly as it came
out. I have often hung it out at the window perched on the top of its
cage, with the door open, and it would never attempt to fly away ; some-
times if a fly should happen to pass near it, it would fly off and catch it.
and return with it to the top of the cage ; after remaining there a consi-
derable time it would either return into it, or fly in at the window and
perch on the cages of the other birds.

It requires precisely the same treatment as the whitethroat, in food
and management, but is rather more tender.

The Garden Warblei; (Curruca hortensis, BECHST.)— This interesting
species is scarcely inferior to the blackcap in song, and by some persons
is even preferred ; its song is certainly very loud and musical, its notes
very deep and harmonious, but it wants the blackcap's lively, shrill, and
cheerful song. It is, however, a great favourite with me, as its song is
so different from any other bird, and has a sort of foreign sound with it ;
the song is of great length and very variable in the notes, which it raises
and lowers in a curious manner. Although so fine a songster, and in
some years very plentiful, it is quite unknown amongst the bird-catchers
and bird fanciers ; but it is, since my publication on the British Warblers
with figures, becoming to be known a little about London, where it is now
known by the name of garden warbler. It is more tender than the black-
cap, and will not succeed well, if the room in which it is kept be allowed
to get below temperate in winter. Its food is entirely the same as the
blackcap, fruit and berries being its favourite food ; but it is also very
partial to some sorts of insects, particularly caterpillars, moths, and but-
terflies, of which it will swallow enormously large ones : grasshoppers
and crickets it is also fond of, and it is very curious to see what very
large ivy-berries it will swallow whole. There is no occasion to make
the least difference between the food of the present and the blackcap ;
and when in a cage they will agree very well together, and succeed much
better than when kept separate.

It is one of the latest visitants to this country, seldom arriving till

OF SELBORNE. 205

respect to the swallow tribe, which increases prodi-
giously as the summer advances: and I saw, at the

towards the middle of May, when it is readily detected by its loud song,
which I believe is often mistaken for that of the blackbird ; this it con-
tinues the greater part of the time it stops with us, which is seldom later
than the beginning of September, sometimes not later than the end of
August. While in this country its food is chiefly fruit and berries : when
none can be procured, caterpillars, moths, and butterflies are substituted
instead, and with those it chiefly brings up its young. I have had a bird
of this species in perfect health in a cage for seven years:.

The Grasshopper Warbler, (Salicaria Locustella, SELB.) — The present
species is known amongst bird-catchers by the name of the grasshopper
lark, as it was originally placed amongst the larks by ornithologists :
but it has been very properly removed from them by later authors, as it
wants the most characteristic mark of that family, namely, its long claw.
It is a very rare bird in the neighbourhood of London*, and I have never
been able to procure but one of them, which I lost the first winter by let-
ting it wash too much : in confinement it requires the same sort of ma-
nagement as recommended for the last species, and it will succeed very
well. I am not acquainted with their song, never having lived in any
neighbourhood where they visit, but I have been credibly informed that
they have none, but a note like the chirping of the grasshopper : this may
probably be the case ; but I have often heard the same report of some of
our finest songsters, which people had confused with very common birds,
there being very few who do not confuse under the general name of white-
throats the common flycatcher, both whitethroats, the greater pettychaps,
the blackcaps when young, and many even confuse with these the wil-
low wren, the wood wren, and lesser pettychaps. This tribe of birds,
being only summer visitants, are less known than any others.

These birds are not uncommon in several parts of England, they are
said to be plentiful on Malmesbury Common, Wiltshire, in summer,
where they breed ; they are also frequently seen in Norfolk and Suffolk,
and in various other parts, where they build their nest among some high

* I have seen a great number of these birds on a furzy piece of ground
in Acton near London, by the side of the Paddington Canal. The furze
was thick and tall at the lower end of the common near the water, and
the male birds continued uttering their singular song on all sides of me,
sitting on the tallest branches of the furze ; but, the moment I tried to
approach any one of them, it secreted itself in the thicket underneath.
They frequented no other part of the common, and the furze in that quar-
ter having been since cut down, not one was to be seen there the following
year. When it shall have grown to a sufficient height, the birds will pro-
bably resort there again in the breeding season. They must be sought
where the ground is rather spongy and covered with thick furze in the
neighbourhood of water. I have seen a nest of the young brought into
London. Those who wish to discover the nest, must attack the furze
thicket, where it is carefully secreted. — W. H.

20(5 NATURAL HISTORY

time mentioned, many hundreds of young wagtails on
the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the

grass or sedge, in which it is so concealed that it is with difficulty found,
except by watching the old birds carrying food to their young ones ; or
when building, they may be seen carrying materials to construct their
nest.

In a wild state these birds feed entirely on insects, such as flies, moths,
butterflies, spiders, ants, and their eggs, small beetles, and numerous
other sorts, so that in confinement they will frequently require insect
food.

The Reed Warbler, (Salicaria arundinacea, SELB,)— This is a very vari-
able bird in its colours, some being of a very pale colour, and others alto-
gether as dark, and those that are pale one season, frequently become
dark the ensuing one. It is a curious little lively bird, often known by
the name of reed wren. It generally makes its appearance with us in
the beginning of April, and leaves us in September, its early or late de-
parture seeming to depend a good deal on the warmth or coolness of the
season. It is a very merry bird, almost continually singing, and will
sing by night as well as day, sitting amongst the reeds, or in some bush
or tree near the water, where it feeds on the gnats and other insects that
frequent moist situations. It is very fond of flies, spiders, small cater-
pillars, moths, grasshoppers, crickets, and many other insects, and will
swallow a larger one than could be imagined for so small a bird.

In confinement, it will feed readily on the general food, but is also very
fond of the yolk of an egg boiled hard, so that it may be crumbled on the
top of the other food, or put in the cage in an empty egg-shell ; it should
also be occasionally supplied with a few insects, such as flies, spiders,
small caterpillars, moths, or butterflies. Being an inhabitant of the sides
of ditches and rivers, it is very partial to washing, which it must not be
allowed to do in winter, or it will wash itself until it is so weak that it
may never recover.

The Sedge IFarbler, (Salicaria Phragmitis, SELB.)— In habit and manner,
the present species approaches to the former, but is a much handsomer
bird, though not so rare. It frequents the sides of ditches, ponds, and
rivers, like the last species, where it pours forth its variable diurnal and
nocturnal song almost incessantly, on its first arrival to this country,
which is generally the beginning of April. It leaves us again about the
middle of September. It builds its nest in a thicket of reeds, or other
tall water-grass, on which it is fastened with the webs of caterpillars,
similar to that of the former, which is bound to the branches of trees so
that no wind or storm can move it.

The song of the present species is somewhat similar to that of the last,
but is more shrill and chattering. Some people prefer it to that of
the reed bird, but I do not, as it wants several tine deep notes that the
other possesses. It is also an imitative bird, its song being intermixed
with the call of the sparrow, and parts of the songs of other birds. Its
food is precisely the same as that of the last species, and in confinement
the treatment for both must be exactly alike.

OF SELBORNE. 207

meadows. If the matter appears as you say in the
other species, may it not be owing to the dams being

The Yellnv Wren, (Sylvia Trochilus, LATH.)— This is another little
favourite songster, and a most deserving one it is. It visits us the latter
end of March, or beginning of April, and leaves us again the end of Sep-
tember or beginning of October. On its first arrival it enlivens our woods
and groves with its lively piercing song, and gay frolics, flying about from
tree to tree, catching the small gnats and flies that come in its way. It
builds its nest on the ground in a thicket amongst dead leaves and moss,
with a dome-formed covering, of the same materials as those lying all
around, so that it is impossible to find it without watching one of the old
ones to the nest, which in general consists of six or seven young ones.
They may either be brought up from the nest, or caught wild, being easily
tamed. When first put in the cage with a tame bird, the general food,
bread and milk, and eggs, should be stuck full of small flies, Aphides,
small caterpillars, or other small insects, in picking out which it will
taste the other food, and take to eat it readily. It soon becomes very
tame in confinement. One that I caught in September was, in three
days afterwards, let out of the aviary into the room to catch the flies,
which were numerous at that season : after amusing itself for some time
in catching flies, it began singing ; it did the same several other times
when it was let out, and in a few days began to sing in the aviary. It
soon became so familiar that it would take flies out of the hand, and when
out in the room, if a fly was held towards it, it would fly up and take it
immediately.

Although the present species is so small a bird, it is very courageous,
being generally the master of the cage ; and as it is so fine a songster,
and almost continually in song, no little bird can be more desirable in a
cage with other birds, its note when in full song being so loud and shrill,
that its voice is plainly heard above the nightingale when both are in
full song.

The Wood Wren, (Sylvia sibilatrix, BECHST.) — This elegant and beautiful
little species ranks itself among my list of favourites. It visits this coun-
try in the beginning of April, and leaves it in August or the beginning of
September. It is generally found in summer amongst tall trees in woods
and plantations, where it is readily detected on its arrival by a shrill
shaking sort of note, that may be heard at a great distance, and cannot
be confounded with that of any other bird. On its first arrival it sings
the greater part of the day, and continues its song more or less through
the summer, except at the time it is engaged in feeding its young. Its
nest is built on the ground in a thicket among moss and dead leaves, so
that it is impossible to find it without watching one of the old ones to the
nest, whicli is easily done when they have young. They may either be
tamed or reared from the nest, and are not difficult to be caught when
young with a little birdlime at the end of a fishing rod, as may several
other species of this interesting tribe.

As the present species feeds entirely upon insects when wild, the
greater part of which it catches on the wing, it will be useless to give it

208 NATURAL HISTORY

engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed
by the leaves ?

any sort of fruit or berry; but bread and milk, bruised herapseed and
bread, with bits of fresh lean meat cut very small and mixed up in it,
should be its general food. It is also very fond of the yolk of an egg
boiled hard, and crumbled small, or stirred up with the point of a knife
that it may peck it out of the shell as it likes. Sometimes they are apt to
go off their other food, and will live on egg several days. At such times,
if a few flies could be procured for them it would be the most likely
means to restore them to their appetite.

In the cages of all the birds already mentioned, I generally keep a pan
of water, that they may wash when they please, which they are very
fond of doing: but the present, like the reed and sedge warblers and the
whitethroat, should not be allowed to wash much in winter, or they will
kill themselves with it. A little cup just large enough for them to get
their head in filled with water is sufficient in the winter season, but they
may be allowed to wash frequently in summer.

The Wheatear, (Saxicola (Enanthe, BECHST.)— The present interesting
species generally arrives in this country about the middle of March, and
mostly leaves it again the latter end of September or the beginning of
October; I, one year, saw a pair in Hyde Park as late as the 17th of
November. In a wild state they are generally to be found on downs and
commons, and in Sussex some hundred dozens are caught annually by
the shepherds, who sell them for the sake of their flesh, which is very
delicious, particularly in autumn, when they become very fat.

This is a very interesting bird in confinement, and is almost continually
singing; it will also sing by night, as well as by day, if there is a light
in the room where it is kept : it has a very pleasant, variable, agreeable
song, different from all other birds, which, in confinement, it continues
all the winter. When a pair of them are kept together in a large cage
or aviary it is very amusing to see them at play with each other, flying
up and down, and spreading open their long wings in a curious manner,
dancing and singing at the same time. I have very little doubt but a
young bird, brought up from the nest, might be taught to talk, as they are
very imitative.

When wild, the present species feeds entirely on insects, so that the
more it has given it when in confinement the better : there are very few
sorts that it will refuse ; small beetles, cockroaches, crickets, grasshop-
pers, most sorts of caterpillars, butterflies, moths, earwigs, woodlice, the
common maggots, and almost all other sorts of insects, it is very fond of,
and the more that is given it, the finer will be its song. Its common food
is bruised hempseed and bread, intermixed with fresh, raw, lean meat, as
mentioned in the general observations, to be the general food of the \\ hole
tribe ; also a little of the yolk of an egg boiled hard occasionally for a
change.

The Whin Chat, (Saxicola Rubetra, BECHST.)— This pretty species is
known by the name of furze chat and whin chat, and is also often con-
founded with the stone chat, which is a very different species. It gene-

OF SELBORNE. 209

Many times have I had the curiosity to open the
stomachs of woodcocks and snipes ; but nothing ever

rally visits this country in the beginning of April, and leaves us towards
the end of September : all the fore part of the season visiting commons,
where it may be seen on the furze bushes, flying backwards and forwards
after the insects that pass. It builds its nest on the ground in a thicket,
which it covers up with dry grass, so that it is impossible to find it with-
out watching the old ones, either in carrying materials to build, or food
to their young. I have generally found them with six or seven young
ones, which with care are easily bred up from the nest> keeping them
warm, dry, and clean, and feeding them with the same sort of food as
recommended for the old ones : they should not be taken till quite
fledged, and should at first be placed in a little basket with a cover, as
they will then readily open their mouths for food. I consider those
reared from the nest much the best, or at least such as are caught very
young, as they may then be taught any tune, or will learn the song of any
bird they hear, their own song not being a very good one.

This bird may be considered as one of the tenderest of the tribe, being
very susceptible of cold. It is one of my greatest favourites. One that I
bred from the nest by hand learned the song of the whitethroat, the red-
start, willow wren, nightingale, and also that of a missel thrush, which
it frequently heard singing in a garden near; of this latter song it was
so fond, that we were frequently obliged to put our favourite out of the
room, not being able to bear its loud tune. It was certainly the best bird
I ever kept of any kind, singing nearly the whole year through, and vary-
ing its song continually ; the only fault was its strong voice. At last our
favourite was turned out of its cage by a mischievous servant on a cold
winter day, when we were from home for about an hour, and we could
not entice it back : it most probably died from the cold, or took its flight
to a warmer region. I scarcely entertain any hopes of ever getting such
another.

The food of the present species is precisely the same as the last.

The Stone Chat, (Saxicola rubicola, BECHST.) — This, like the preceding,
is generally to be found on hills and commons, harbouring chiefly amongst
the furze bushes. It feeds, as far as I have observed, entirely on insects.
It is not so tender as the whin chat ; for some few of them occasionally
stay in this country all the winter. Its food is precisely the same as the
last, feeding, when wild, on small beetles, flies, ants, and their eggs, as
also all sorts of butterflies, moths, caterpillars, woodlice, and various
other insects. In confinement the food must be the same as that of the
last species.

They soon become very tame, and if bred up from the nest will learn
the notes of other birds, which are in general better than their own : their
own song, though loud, is very short, but they have a strong voice to re-
peat the notes of another bird.

The Redstart, (Phoenicura Ruticilla, SWAINS.) — This is one of the hand-
somest of the British species of Sylviada, visiting us the latter end of
March or beginning of April : the earliest arrival I ever noticed was the

210 NATURAL HISTORY

occurred that helped to explain to me what their sub-
sistence might be : all that I could ever find was a soft
mucus, among which lay many pellucid small gravels.

I am, &c.

25th of March. They generally leave us the beginning of September.
When they first arrive, they mostly frequent old buildings or outhouses,
for the sake of flies and small insects that often abound there. They
build their nest in a hole or crevice of a wall, or in a hollow tree. They
frequently ascend to the top of the highest tree within their haunt, and
there sit, sometimes for a considerable time, pouring out their quick and
sort of fretful song. When kept in confinement, I consider it the most
sensible, and if brought up from the nest, the most attached, of all small
birds ; but it may be considered the most tender of the whole tribe. It is
a real mocker, and if bred up from the nest, will learn the note or call of
almost any other bird. It will also learn a tune that is whistled or sung
to it, and will sing by night as well as by day, if a light be kept in the
room where it is.

I was in possession of a handsome male bird of this species, which
I kept more than six years. It became very tame : though an old wild
bird when first caught, it was so attached to its cage, that one day having
got its liberty, it flew away into the gardens, where it staid six or seven
hours, after which it returned to its cage again. In the year 1825, I saw
a female bird of this species so late as the 21st of November, flying about
as lively as at Midsummer : it had probably escaped or been turned out
of a cage. The same sort of food as is recommended for the yellow wren
is equally applicable to the present: when in confinement it is particularly
partial to ants and their eggs, and to the common maggots. — SWEET.

[Birds kept in confinement are doubtless more subject to ailments than
those that have the free range of their natural haunts : and a knowledge
of the afflictions to which they are liable is important to those who charge
themselves with the care of such pets. Mr. Herbert has entered largely
into this subject in the subjoined note on the]

DISEASES OF BIRDS.— In a note concerning the instinct of birds (p. 64,)
I have had occasion to mention that some kinds are subject to a paralytic
stroke depriving them instantaneously of the use of their legs at a tender
age, and when a little older to a succession of epileptic fits which usually
prove fatal at last, in consequence of washing in cold water in confine-
ment under a low temperature. Such epileptic fits are also frequently
brought on by fear; blackcaps, and blue-grays or lesser whitethroats,
and pettychaps, which have been fed in a cage through the wires by the
old birds, are very subject to be attacked, when they grow up, with epi-
lepsy ; which appears to arise from the agitation of nerve which has
existed while the old birds were with them, and timidity after they are
withdrawn ; and, when the system is so affected, a bird flying across the
room, or close to the window, will occasion a fit by the sudden alarm it
creates. The titmouse tribe, which are in constant activity when at
liberty, are particularly subject to apoplexy and epilepsy when confined

OF SELBORNE. 211

LETTER IV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR sm,. SELBORNE, Feb. 19, 1770.

YOUR observation, that "the cuckoo1 doe§ not deposit
its egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that

in cages, and can only be kept in health by a very meagre diet. The
beautiful bearded titmice, which are brought to us from Holland, where
they abound in the beds of reed, are fond of meat and egg, but they die
of apoplexy, if they have any better diet than crumbs of bread and hemp
or mawseed. The same is the case with the little blue titmouse; and the
larger black-headed titmouse or oxbird, being of a stronger constitution,
will be attacked by epilepsy, if well fed while in a cage.

I had one of these, which was taken out of a nest the gardener was
about to destroy, and reared by hand. It continued quite healthy while
growing, but soon after it came to its size it was affected with epilepsy,
the fits gradually becoming more frequent till at last it had above a dozen
in a day, each of which was expected to prove fatal. In consequence of
its illness I had frequently shut it out of window, being desirous of
giving it the chance of recovering health and liberty together, but it never
would go away, but continued pecking at the glass for admittance, or, if

1 Since this letter of Mr. White's, much has been added to our know-
ledge of the cuckoo, by the patient attention of Dr. Jenner.

Concerning the singing of the cuckoo, mentioned by Mr. White at
p. 235, I will add the following curious memoranda from the seventh vo-
lume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society. " The cuckoo begins
early in the season with the interval of a minor third, the bird then pro-
ceeds to a major third, next to a. fourth, then a. fifth, after which the voice
breaks without attaining a minor sixth." This curious circumstance
was, however, observed very long ago ; and it forms the subject of an
epigram, in that scarce black-letter volume, the " Epigrams of John
Heywood, 1587."

OF USE, 95.

" Use maketh maistry, this hath been said alway,

But all is not alway, as all men do say,

In April, the koocoo can sing her song by rote,

In June, of tune, she cannot sing a note ;

At first, koo coo, koo coo sing still can she do ;

At last, kooke, kooke, kooke ; six kookes to one koo !"

MlTFORD.

212 NATURAL HISTORY

comes in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in
some degree congenerous, with whom to intrust its
young," is perfectly new to me; and struck me so
forcibly, that I naturally fell into a train of thought that
led me to consider whether the fact was so, and what
reason there was for it. When I came to recollect and

it went a little off", speedily returning, so that it had been several times
taken in again; for when admission was positively refused, it found its
way into a bedchamber by some open window, and was found there half
starved. It was at last turned loose in my room, where it established
itself on the top of one of two large cages which were in different parts
of the room, and some food was placed there for it. It continued more
than a twelvemonth there, frequently flying round the room, but never
perching on any thing but the top of one of the two cages, which, much
to my convenience, it seemed to think the only fit position for a bird
to occupy. While at liberty to exercise itself by flight round the room
it was perfectly free from fits, but if replaced in a cage, the fits returned
if it had any thing richer than bread to eat, even the difference of a roll
instead of the household loaf brought on symptoms of illness. After it
had continued for above a year to be a very agreeable inmate of my room
occasioning no inconvenience, it acquired a habit of ensconcing itself at
roosting time in a small pan of glazed white earthenware, or in an open
tin box which happened to be on the top of the cage; and after some time
it was discovered that this was an artifice to escape the molestation of a
swarm of little bird-bugs, which had been introduced into the cage un-
observed with some foreign birds from London, and had bred rapidly in
the hot weather in the crevices of the cage. Before they could be effec-
tually destroyed, these bloodsuckers had made his quarters so uncom-
fortable, that one evening he fled to roost where he espied the place of a
book vacant in the bookcase, and from that moment, having acquired the
knowledge, that birds could securely live elsewhere than either in or on
a bird-cage, he became the greatest possible nuisance, hammering at the
unbound books with his bill and picking them to pieces. I had long
hoped in vain that he wo.uld avail himself of the open window to depart,
till one day having flown rapidly round the room three or four times in
the swing of his flight, he dashed out at the window, and having gone
forward into the high trees he was seen no more.

Having once indulged a nightingale with milk to drink instead of
water, it drank it with such avidity for a week, that it brought on an at-
tack of plethora, in consequence of which it sat immoveable and as if
stupefied on its perch for three days without tasting food, and died.

Salad oil I have found to be the best physic that can be given to a bird
in illness.

I had some years ago a bird which I am quite confident was a maniac,
and that such intellect as those little creatures enjoy, was in it deranged.
The bird was a whitethroat, which had been reared from the nest, and
had been extremely tame and familiar, living in company with several

OF SELBORNE. 213

inquire, I could not find that any cuckoo had ever been
seen in these parts, except in the nest of the wagtail,
the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the whitethroat, and the
redbreast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excel-
lent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest of the ring-dove
(Palumbus), and of the chaffinch (Fringilla), birds that
subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food : but

other birds, two of which were of its own species. The first ailment was
exhibited by sudden unaccountable fits of fear without any apparent
cause, greater than the motion of some other bird, when it would dash
itself about in the greatest trepidation, and hide itself under the pans,
where it continued in the greatest alarm. This increased so much upon
it that it was necessary to put it in a small cage by itself. There also it
showed frequent attacks of terror, and soon after it became so fierce, that,
quite contrary to the habit of the species, it would attack any person that
touched its cage, and even myself who had reared it. In this state of
strange nervous excitement it continued, till at the end of about six months
it died, its bodily health having gradually declined.

The power of disgorging what would be noxious is not confined to the
birds that prey on flesh and insects, though seed birds have not the same
occasion to exercise it. I had brought by the mail-coach with me from
London a foreign bird, which appeared soon after the journey's end to be
very ill, till it was relieved by disgorging near a teaspoonful of entire
millet seed which it had swallowed without cracking the husk, in conse-
quence of the jolting of the carriage.

One of the most singular derangements of the system in birds, is the
loathing of their artificial food and the impossibility of subsisting on it,
which some species, especially the stone chat and redstart show, soon
after they become full grown, though they had thriven well upon it and
with appetite while younger and advancing in growth. It may possibly
arise from the same want of exercise which causes plethora in the tit-
mice ; it has not been found practicable to keep the stone chat many
months in a cage, though it thrives well for a time. I do not know that
it has been tried in a spacious aviary.

I have not been in the habit of rearing thrushes, but I have been told
by a person who reared them for sale, that they frequently dropped in a
fit from the perch through fear, on seeing a stranger approach their cage,
and died in consequence. Young canaries, if disturbed before they are
ready to leave the nest, fly suddenly out in terror, and lose the use of
their legs by a paralytic stroke similar to that which is occasioned in the
SylviadcB by washing unseasonably, and the affection is absolutely in-
curable. The general health does not seem in either case to be injured ;
the appetite continues with a cheerful look of the eye, but the bird
being utterly helpless and unable to keep itself clean, cannot survive
long. I have kept them a fortnight in that state, trying whether a cure
was practicable. Superficial observers fancy that the young canaries
break their legs in living too soon from the nest; but it is simply para-
lysis induced by fear. — W. H.

214 NATURAL HISTORY

then he does not mention them as of his own know-
ledge; but says afterwards that he saw himself a wag-
tail feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly possible that
a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food with
the hard-billed : for the former have thin membrana-
ceous stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the
latter, the granivorous tribe, have strong muscular
gizzards, which, like mills, grind, by the help of small
gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed. This proceed-
ing of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it were by
chance, is such a monstrous outrage on maternal affec-
tion, one of the first great dictates of nature ; and such
a violence on instinct ; that, had it only been related of
a bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it would never have
merited our belief. But yet, should it farther appear
that this simple bird, when divested of that natural
GTo^yvf that seems to raise the kind in general above
themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees
of cunning and address, may be still endued with a
more enlarged faculty of discerning what species are
suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers for its dis-
regarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only
under their care, this would be adding wonder to won-
der, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that the methods
of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule,
but astonish us in new lights, and in various and
changeable appearances.

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

" She is hardened against her young ones, as though
they were not her's:

" Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither
hath he imparted to her understanding2."

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

I am, &c.

2 Job, xxxix, 16, 17.

OF SELBORNE. 215

LETTER V.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, April 12, 1770.

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

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

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

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

216 NATURAL HISTORY

spiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human
constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter
than in summer.

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

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

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

I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine1.

1 In a female cuckoo, dissected at the breeding season, I found only
one ovum in the oviduct, situated in the calcifying segment, or uterus as
it is termed, and with the shell partially formed : the rest of the oviduct
was disposed in close transverse folds, and not exceeding two lines in
diameter. The ovary, besides a cluster of small ova, contained one ovum
about half an inch in diameter, and no doubt ready to pass into the ovi-
duct, when disburthened of the egg which it was then perfecting. The
ovum or yelk, next in size, was about three lines in diameter, but whe-
ther its further development would have been progressive or retrograde
can only be conjectured. As only one empty and collapsed calyx existed
in the ovary, the egg in the oviduct must have been the first which the
cuckoo would have laid this year. The appearances generally bespoke
a bird that produced more than one egg in the season ; but whether one,
two, or more additional ova would have passed into the oviduct I am
unable to determine.

I am not aware that more than one ovum is ever contained in the ovi-
duct at one time in any bird. — R. O.

OF SELBORNE. 217

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

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

When we meet, I shall be glad to have 9o.me conver-
sation with you concerning the proposal you make of
my drawing up an account of the animals in this neigh-
bourhood. Your partiality towards my small abilities
persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do more than is
in my power: for it is no small undertaking for a man
unsupported and alone to begin a natural history from
his own autopsia ! Though there is endless room for
observation in the field of nature, which is boundless,
yet investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure
of his facts) can make but slow progress ; and all that
one could collect in many years would go into a very
narrow compass.

Some extracts from your ingenious " Investigations
of the Difference between the present Temperature of
the Air in Italy," &c. have fallen in my way ; and gave
me great satisfaction: they have removed the objections
that always arose in my mind whenever I came to the
passages which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil,
when writing a didactic poem for the region of Italy,
could never think of describing freezing rivers, unless
such severity of weather pretty frequently occurred !

P. S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

218 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER VI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, May 21, 1770.

THE severity and turbulence of last month so inter-
rupted the regular process of summer migration, that
some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves,
and others are apparently thinner than usual ; as the
whitethroat, the blackcap, the redstart, the flycatcher.
I well remember that after the very severe spring in
the year 1739-40, summer birds of passage were very
scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east
wind, or when it blows between those points; but in
that unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole
spring and summer through from the opposite quarters.
And yet amidst all these disadvantages two swallows,
as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early
as the llth of April, amidst frost and snow ; but they
withdrew again for a time.

I am not pleased to find that some people seem so
little satisfied with Scopoli's new publication 1 ; there
is room to expect great things from the hands of that
man, who is a good naturalist : and one would think
that a history of the birds of so distant and southern a
region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I
could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sent
down2. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that
work in the quicksilver mines of that district.

When you talked of keeping a reed sparrow, and
giving it seeds, I could not help wondering: because

1 This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico Naturalis.

2 Later in the same year the author procured the work here spoken of.
His observations on it will be found in his Letters to Pennant, numbered
XXXI. and XXXII., as well as incidentally in others. See also the
following Letter.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 219

the reed sparrow which I mentioned to you (Passer
arundinaceus minor, RAH3) is a soft-billed bird, and
most probably migrates hence before winter ; whereas
the bird you kept (Passer torquatus, RAII*) abides all
the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whe-
ther the latter be much of a songster; but in this
matter I want to be better informed5. The former has
a variety of hurrying notes, and sings all night. Some
part of the song of the former, I suspect, *£ attributed
to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed sort ;
which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his British
Zoology, till I reminded him of his omission. See
British Zoology last published, p. 16 6.

I have somewhat to advance on the different manners
in which different birds fly and walk ; but as this is a
subject that I have not enough considered, and is of
such a nature as not to be contained in a small space,
I shall say nothing farther about it at present7.

No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their
first plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as
you say, " because they are not to pair and discharge
their parental functions till the ensuing spring." As
colours seem to be the chief external sexual distinction
in many birds, these colours do not take place till
sexual attachments begin to obtain. And the case is
the same in quadrupeds ; among whom, in their younger
days, the sexes differ but little : but, as they advance
to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards and
brawny necks, &c. &c. strongly discriminate the male
from the female. We may instance still farther in our
own species, where a beard and stronger features are

3 [The sedge warbler, Salicaria Phragmitis, SELB.]

4 [The reed bunting, Emberiza Schccniclus, LINN.]

5 See on this subject Mr. Herbert's note on Letter XXIV. to Pennant.
— E. T. B.

6 See Letter XXV. to Mr. Pennant. [See also Letters XXIV. and
XXVI.]

i See Letter XLII. to Mr. Bafrington.

220 NATURAL HISTORY

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

" Quern si puellarum insereres choro,
Mire sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum, solutis
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu." — Hon.

LETTER VII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, RINGMER, near LEWES, Oct. 8, 1770.

I AM glad to hear that Kuckahn l is to furnish you with
the birds of Jamaica; a sight of the Hirundines of that
hot and distant island would be a great entertainment
to me.

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

1 Kuckahn is only known to me by a paper, published in the Philoso-
phical Transactions for 1770, on the preservation of dead birds. It
discusses with judgment the various modes that had been adopted by
others, most of which the writer states that he has himself tried ; and
then describes minutely the proceeding which he regards as the most
advantageous. He also speaks of the care to be bestowed on the keep-
ing of a collection, after it is formed. His allusions to the attention that
should be paid to attitude are almost poetical; and the fervour with
which he insists on the necessity of making each part of the action cor-
respond with all the other evidences of it in the position of the bird, even
to the ruffling of its feathers when excited, is quite in accordance with
thorough devotion to the Horatian maxim — " Qualis ab incepto proces-
Berit servetur ad iiuum. ' — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 221

acquainted with : every kingdom, every province,
should have its own monographer.

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

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

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

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

A countryman told me he had found a young fern

222 NATURAL HISTORY

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

in tenui re

Majores pennas nido extendisse

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

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

This district affords some birds that are hardly ever
heard of at Selborne. In the first place considerable
flocks of crossbeaks (Loxice curvirostrce ) have appeared
this summer in the pine-groves belonging to this house ;
the water-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the
Lewes river, near Newhaven ; and the Cornish chough
builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex
shore.

I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-
ousels (my newly discovered migraters) scattered, at
intervals, all along the Sussex downs from Chichester
to Lewes. Let them come from whence they will, it
looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the
coast in order to pass the channel when severe weather
advances. They visit us again in April, as it should
seem, in their return ; and are not to be found in the
dead of winter. It is remarkable that they are very

OF SELBORNE. 223

tame, and seem to have no manner of apprehensions of
danger from a person with a gun. There are bustards
on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone. No doubt
you are acquainted with the Sussex downs : the pros-
pects and rides round Lewes are most lovely !

As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp
look-out in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at
this time of the year, have discovered some of the sum-
mer short-winged birds of passage crowdipg towards
the coast in order for their departure: but it was
very extraordinary that I never saw a redstart, white-
throat, blackcap, uncrested wren, flycatcher, &c. And
I remember to have made the same remark in former
years, as I usually come to this place annually about
this time. The birds most common along the coast at
present are the stonechatters, whinchats, buntings,
linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, &c. Swallows
and house martins abound yet, induced to prolong their
stay by this soft, still, dry season.

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

224 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER VIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Dec. 20, 1770.

THE birds that I took for Aberdavines were reed spar-
rows (Passeres torquati).

There are, doubtless, many home internal migrations
within this kingdom that want to be better understood ;
witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear
with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among
them. Now, was there a due proportion of each sex,
it should seein very improbable that any one district
should produce such numbers of these little birds ; and
much more when only one half of the species appears :
therefore we may conclude that the chaffinches (Frin-
gillce ccelebes), for some good purposes, have a peculiar
migration of their own in which the sexes part. Nor
should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of
sexes in this species of birds should be interrupted in
winter; since in many animals, and particularly in
bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, except at
the season when commerce is necessary for the conti-
nuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches
see Fauna Suecica, p. 85, and Systema Naturae, p. 318.
I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but
none of cocks1.

1 Amongst our vernal birds of passage, the cock birds generally arrive
about a fortnight before the hens, a circumstance well known to the bird-
catchers, who are certain that all which are caught out of the first flight
will prove males. The cock nightingales generally appear in the neigh-
bourhood of London on the 12th of April. They are sometimes taken a
few days earlier, but that is the day upon which those who make a trade
of catching them depend upon their arrival.

It is very difficult to understand the reason of this precession of the
males. It has been supposed by some writers, that the females were
delayed by the care of a young brood; but it seems to me nearly certain

OF SELBORNE. 225

Yoiir method of accounting for the periodical mo-
tions of the British singing birds, or birds of flight, is
a very probable one ; since the matter of food is a
great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the
brute creation: there is but one that can be set in
competition with it, and that is love. But I cannot
quite acquiesce with you in one circumstance, when
you advance that, " when they have thus feasted, they
again separate into small parties of five- .or six, and

that our summer birds do not breed again when they visit Africa during
our winter months. Those who have been accustomed to keep nightin-
gales in confinement, know that one which has been taken from the nest
before it could fly, and reared in a cage, will never sing the true song of
its species, unless it have the advantage of hearing an old nightingale
sing throughout the autumn and winter; that a young nightingale caught
in the summer after the old birds have begun to moult and have ceased
singing, will sing rather more correctly than that which was taken from
the nest, because it has had the advantage of hearing the notes of its
parent longer; but that, without further education under an old male in
autumn and winter, it will only be able to execute parts of the nightin-
gale's beautiful melody, and will repeat too often some of the loud notes,
and harp upon them in a manner that is quite disagreeable. These two
classes of young birds seldom become true songsters in confinement;
because, unless a considerable number of old nightingales are kept in the
same room with them, they have not the same opportunity of hearing and
learning that they would have had in the woods; and if any other birds
are kept within hearing, they will imitate their notes and retain the habit
of singing them. The old nightingales cease to sing in England for the
most part towards the end of June, and after that time the young ones
can have no farther opportunity of learning their song while they remain
in Europe ; they merely record, or practise in the throat, what they can
recollect. It is therefore certain, that on their arrival in Africa, they
must consist of two classes — old experienced songsters, and half-taught
young ones. Including the time consumed in the passage, the nightin-
gales spend pretty exactly an equal portion of the year in the north and
in the south. Therefore if they were to breed again in Africa, there
would be a flight of young half-educated birds on their return to us
in April, as there is on their return to the south in September; but
that is not the case. The birds which return to England are all
fully educated (though, as in other species, some individuals will be
more skilful songsters than others), and none of them are liable to take
the notes of other birds in confinement. These observations appear
to me to afford conclusive proof that they do not breed while they are
in the south. The same result will be drawn from the examination
of the plumage of other species, such as the redstart, &c. of which the
young have not acquired the colours of the adult when they leave us in

226 NATURAL HISTORY

get the best fare they can within a certain district,
having no inducement to go in quest of fresh turned
earth." Now, if you mean that the business of con-
gregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of
wheat sowing to the season of barley and oats, it is
not the case with us; for larks and chaffinches, and
particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in
the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is
busy with his ploughs and harrows.

autumn, but of which all return in their perfect plumage. It seems,
therefore, that the periodical dispersion of migratory birds towards the
north is not occasioned merely by a failure of food, but by some inapti-
tude of the climate in which they spend our winter months, to the pro-
pagation of their kind. If they were induced to migrate only on account
of the inconvenience of the heavy tropical rains, and the failure of winged
insects, which are probably beaten down and destroyed by their violence,
I conceive no reason why they should not breed in the half of the year
which is favourable to their existence in the southern latitudes. I suspect
the solution of the point in question to be this : their residence in our
winter months is near the equator, where the days are comparatively
short and the nights long ; even in our longest days, the redstart, who
rears six or seven young, and commences feeding them at three o'clock
in the morning, and continues her toil till sunset, has difficulty to main-
tain itself well and furnish its young with food ; and if the feeding hours
were reduced from seventeen to twelve, the little family would not be so
easily reared. If I have disposed of the reason usually assigned for the
earlier arrival of the males, it remains to suggest another. It is evident
that the migratory impulse is instinctive, and not merely the result of
example and education, because young birds which have been brought
up in confinement show strong symptoms of uneasiness when the time of
departure arrives. Upon dissection of the males when they arrive in the
spring, an organic excitement and enlargement is perceptible ; and if the
effect of that excitement, in its commencement, creates a restless uneasi-
ness and an instinctive desire to seek the proper breeding quarters, the
same general law of nature which makes the male solicit what the female
hesitates to permit, would make the cocks precede in the act of migra-
tion, while the hens with more tardy excitement do not immediately
follow them.

I may take this opportunity of making some further remarks on the
acquisition of song or peculiar notes by young birds. The nightingale,
which far surpasses all other birds in ]the natural modulation and variety
of its notes, and cannot be equalled by any in execution, even if they
have learned its song, is peculiarly apt in its first year, when confined, to
learn the song of any other bird that it hears. Its beautiful song is the
result of long attention to the melody of the older birds of its species.
The young whin chat, wheatear, and others of the genus Saxicola, which

OF SELBORNE. 227

Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and
fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the
seas, and to retire to some districts more suitable to the
purpose of breeding. That the former pair before they
retire, and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself,
when I was a sportsman, have often experienced. It
cannot indeed be denied but that now and then we hear
of a woodcock's nest, or young birds, discovered in
some part or other of this island : but then they are

have little natural variety of song, are no less ready in confinement to
learn from other species, and become as much better songsters as the
nightingale degenerates, by borrowing from others. The bullfinch, whose
natural notes are weak, harsh, and insignificant, has a greater facility
than any other bird of learning human music. It is pretty evident that
the Germans, who bring vast numbers of them to London which they
have taught to pipe, must have instructed them more by whistling to
them, than by an organ ; and that their instructions have been accom-
panied by a motion of the head and body in accordance with the time ;
which habit the birds also acquire, and is no doubt of great use to them
in regulating their song. In the same manner, that wonderful bird,
Colonel O'Kelly's green parrot, which I had the satisfaction of seeing
and hearing (about the year 1799, if I recollect rightly), beat the time
always with its foot ; turning round upon the perch while singing, and
marking the time as it turned. This extraordinary creature sang per-
fectly about fifty different tunes of every kind— God save the King,
solemn psalms, and humorous or low ballads, of which it articulated
every word as distinctly as a man could do, without ever making a mis-
take. If a bystander sang any part of the song, it would pause and take
up the song where the person had left off, without repeating what he had
said. When moulting and unwilling to sing, it would answer all solici-
tations by turning its back and repeatedly saying, " Poll's sick." I am
persuaded that its instructor had taught it to beat time. The canary-
bird, whose song, in its artificial state in Europe, is a compound of notes
acquired from other birds, is able to learn the song of the nightingale,
but not to execute it with the same power as the nightingale itself. I
have never heard one that sung it quite correctly, but I have heard it
approach near enough to prove that with more careful education it might
learn it right. Those who have taken the most pains about it have been
contented with placing, under nightingales, young canaries, as soon as
they could feed themselves ; but such will necessarily have learned part
at least of their parents' song. The linnet and linnet mule is said to be
able to come nearer the execution of the nightingale, when properly
instructed. The best way would be to use an experienced hen canary-
bird who will rear her young without the cock, and to take the cock
away before the young are hatched : or to set the canary-eggs under a
hen paired with a goldfinch, which, kept in a darkish situation, will pro-

228 NATURAL HISTORY

always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat out of the
common course of things : but as to redwings and field-
fares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I
could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young
of those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I
the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since,
to all appearance, the same food in summer as well as
in winter might support them here which maintains
their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they
choose to stay the summer through. From hence it
appears that it is not food alone which determines
some species of birds with regard to their stay or
departure. Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner
or later according as the warm weather comes on earlier
or later. For I well remember, after that dreadful
winter, 1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued

bably not sing ; to remove the cock, at all events, if it sings, as soon as
possible ; to place the young birds very close to the singing nightingale,
and as soon as practicable to remove the hen canary also. The rearing
of a canary-bird by hand, even from the egg, has been accomplished by
artificial heat and unremitting care. Birds learn the song of others most
readily when they are not in song themselves, and when they are dark-
ened and covered, so that their attention is not distracted : for birds are
amused by what they see as much as we are, when not alarmed by it. I
had once a tame whitethroat which, when let out of its cage, appeared to
take the greatest pleasure in minutely examining the figured patterns of
the chair-covers, perhaps expecting to find something eatable amongst
the leaves and branches of the pattern. I reared a blackcap and some
•whitethroats, taken when a fortnight old, under a singing nightingale,
and removed all other singing birds : they did not, however, learn a
single note from the nightingale, but sang their wild note pretty truly;
on the other hand, a blackcap two years old, from hearing a nightingale
sing a great deal, acquired two passages from its song and executed them
correctly, though not very powerfully. I understand that the robin reared
in a cage is not observed to learn from other birds, but sings the wild
note pretty accurately. I can at present suggest no key to these diversi-
ties ; nor do I understand why the young nightingale, taken when the
old birds cease to sing, will in confinement learn the note of other birds
and retain them, although it may hear its own species sing again as soon
as they recommence in the autumn ; and yet, at liberty, with the same
cessation of the parental song, it would have learned nothing else ; unless
it be that from want of other amusement it listens more when it is
confined.— W. H.

OF SELBORNE.

to blow on through April and May, and that these
kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not
depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the
beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidifica-
tion of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the
testimony of faunists that have written professedly the
natural history of particular countries. Now, as to the
fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his Fauna Suecica5 says of it,
that " maximis in arboribus nidificat :" and of the red-
wing he says, in the same place, that " nidificat in mediis
arbusculis, sive sepibus : ova sex ccsruleo-viridia maculis
nigris variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares
and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his
Ann us Primus, of the woodcock, that " nupta ad nos
venit circa cequinoctium vernale :" meaning in Tyrol, of
which he is a native. And afterwards he adds, " nidi-
ficat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 — 5." It does not
appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in
Austria : but he says, " Avis hac septentrionalium provin-
ciarum cestivo tempore incola est ; ubi plerumque nidificat.
Appropinquante hyeme, australiores provincias petit : hinc
circa plenilunium mensis O ctobr is plerumque Austriam trans-
migrat. Tune rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis
Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales
provincias redit" For the whole passage (which I have
abridged) see Elenchus, &c. p. 351. This seems to be a
full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; though little
is proved concerning the place of breeding.

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

230 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER IX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. 12, 1771.

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

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

Now, it is no wonder that birds residing in Africa
should retreat before the sun as it advances, and retire
to milder regions, and especially birds of prey, whose
blood being heated with hot animal food, are more

OF SELBORNE. 231

impatient of a sultry climate : but then I cannot help
wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy birds
as are known to defy all the severity of England, and
even of Sweden and all north Europe, should want to
migrate from the south of Europe, and be dissatisfied
with the winters of Andalusia1.

It does not appear to me that much stress may be
laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in
their migrations, by reason of vast oceans, 'cross winds,
&c. ; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from Eng-
land to the equator without launching out and exposing
itself to boundless seas, and that by crossing the water
at Dover, and again at Gibraltar. And I with the more
confidence advance this obvious remark, because my
brother has always found that some of his birds, and
particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing of their
pains in crossing the Mediterranean : for when arrived
at Gibraltar, they do not

" Ranged in figure wedge their way,

and set forth

Their airy caravan high over seas

Flying, and over lands with mutual wing

Easing their flight." MILTON.

but scout and hurry along in little detached parties of
six or seven in a company; and sweeping low, just
over the surface of the land and water, direct their
course to the opposite continent at the narrowest pas-
sage they can find. They usually slope across the bay

1 May not the migration of the kites and hawks, and other birds of
prey, at these seasons, be determined by that of the smaller birds in whose
company they are found ? The swallows and other ordinary birds of
migration pass northwards, impelled by the stimulus that urges them to
seek their usual breeding places : their enemies travel with them, proba-
bly because they are assured of full banquets from among the armies of
small and defenceless creatures which are on such occasions congregated.
The stragglers in such a multitude, and those that weary in their flight
and drop off from the main body, must alone be almost innumerable. —
E. T. B.

232 NATURAL HISTORY

to the south-west, and so pass over opposite to Tangier,
which, it seems, is the narrowest space.

In former letters we have considered whether it was
probable that woodcocks in moonshiny nights cross the
German ocean from Scandinavia. As a proof that birds
of less speed may pass that sea, considerable as it is,
I shall relate the following incident, which, though
mentioned to have happened so many years ago, was
strictly matter of fact: — As some people were shooting
in the parish of Trotton, in the county of Sussex, they
killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a
silver collar about its neck2, on which were engraven
the arms of the king of Denmark. This anecdote the
rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near
relation of mine ; and, to the best of my remembrance,
the collar was in the possession of the rector.

At present I do not know any body near the seaside
that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the
moon woodcocks first come: if I lived near the sea
myself, I would soon tell you more of the matter. One
thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that
there were times in which woodcocks were so sluggish
and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed
just before the spaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a
gun that had been fired at them : whether this strange
laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey, I
shall not presume to say.

Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland
and Scotland, but also, as I have been always told,
Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two last counties
we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of
warmth : the defect in the west is rather a presumpth o
argument that these birds come over to us from the
continent at the narrowest passage, and do not stroll
so far westward3.

2 I have read a like anecdote of a swan.

3 In a western direction the nightingale visits Dorsetshire and the
eastern part only of Devonshire; is never heard in Cornwall; visits

OF SELBORNE. 233

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

The titlark, or Alauda pratensis of Ray, was the poor
dupe that was educating the booby of a cuckoo men-
tioned in my letter of October last.

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

The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon4, ((Enas, RAII), is

Somersetshire ; and goes northwards on the western side of England as
high as Carlisle. On the eastern side it is never heard beyond the city
of York, yet visits much higher latitudes on the European continent.
Linnasus includes it in his Fauna Suecica. Great pains were taken by
(I think) Sir John Sinclair to establish the nightingale in Scotland, but
without success. An old notion, referred to by Montagu, that the night-
ingale possibly might not be found in any part but where cowslips grow
plentifully, seems incorrect: cowslips grow in great luxuriance in Gla-
morganshire, and also north of Carlisle. A gentleman of Gower, which
is the peninsula beyond Swansea, procured from Norfolk and Surrey, a
few years back, some scores of young nightingales, hoping that an
acquaintance with his beautiful woods and their mild climate would
induce a second visit ; but the law of Nature was too strong for him, and
not a single bird returned. Dyer, in his Grongar Hill, makes the night-
ingale a companion of his muse in the vale of Towey or Carmarthen, but
this is a poetical license, as this bird is not heard there. — W. Y.

4 Here, as in a previous passage, the author has spoken of the wood-
pigeon as synonymous with the stock-dove. It is more usual to apply
that name to the ring-dove. Perhaps, indeed, with the view of avoiding
confusion, it would be better that the use of the name wood-pigeon should
be altogether abandoned.— E. T. B.

234 NATURAL HISTORY

the last winter bird of passage which appears with us ;
and is not seen till towards the end of November:
about twenty years ago they abounded in the district
of Selborne ; and strings of them were seen morning
and evening that reached a mile or more : but since the
beechen woods have been greatly thinned, they are
much decreased in number5. The ring-dove, (Palumbm,
RAII), stays with us the whole year, and breeds several
times through the summer.

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

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

I am, &c. &c.

LETTER X.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Aug. 1, 1771.

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

5 This subject is treated of, in more detail, in Letter XLIV. to Pen-
nant.—E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 235

went almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried
their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe,
such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords ; it was
the common London pitch.

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear,
remarks that the owls about this village hoot in three
different keys, in G flat, or F sharp, in B flat and A flat.
He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat,
and the other in B flat. Query : Do these different
notes proceed from different species, or only from
various individuals ? The same person finds upon trial
that the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one
species) varies in different individuals ; for, about Sel-
borne wood, he found they were mostly in D : he heard
two sing together, the one in D, the other in D sharp,
who made a disagreeable concert : he afterwards heard
one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest some in C.
As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so
short, and their transitions so rapid, that he cannot
well ascertain their key. Perhaps in a cage and in a
room, their notes may be more distinguishable. This
person has tried to settle the notes of a swift, and of
several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any
criterion.

As I have often remarked that redwings are some of
the first birds that suffer with us in severe weather, it is
no wonder at all that they retreat from Scandinavian
winters : and much more the Ordo of Grallce, who all,
to a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the
approach of winter. " Grallce tanquam conjuratce una-
nimiter in fugam se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem
inter nos habitantem invenire possimus ; ut enim cestate in
australibus degere nequeunt ob defection lumbricorum, ter-
ramque siccam ; ita nee in frigidis ob eandem causam"
says Ekmarck, the Swede, in his ingenious little
treatise called Migrationes Avium, which by all means
you ought to read while your thoughts run on the

236 NATURAL HISTORY

subject of migration. See Amccnitates 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 grounds) must in winter forsake the more nor-
therly parts of Europe, or perish for want of food.

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

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

Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague
in their specific differences ; which are almost univer-
sally constituted by one or two particular marks, the
rest of the description running in general terms. But
our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only de-
scriber that conveys some precise idea in every term or
word, maintaining his superiority 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 re-
collect at what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish
or alert when I was a sportsman : but, upon my men-
tioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has
observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy

1 Turnstones leave our eastern coast the last week in May, and are
back again with their young by the first week in August. Mr. Hewitson
found them breeding in Norway. Dr. Fleming says that they are sta-
tionary in Zetland.— W. Y.

OF SELBORNE. 237

foul weather : if this should be the case, then the inap-
titude for flying arises only from an eagerness for food ;
as sheep are observed to be very intent on grazing
against stormy wet evenings.

I am, &c. &c.

LETTER XL

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Feb. 8, 1772.

WHEN I ride about in the winter, and see such pro-
digious flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help
admiring at these congregations, and wishing that it
was in my power to account for those appearances
almost peculiar to the season. The two great motives
which regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are
love and hunger; the former incites animals to per-
petuate their kind, the latter induces them to preserve
individuals : whether either of these should seem to be
the ruling passion in the matter of congregating is to be
considered. As to love, that is out of the question at
a time of the year when that soft passion is not in-
dulged ; besides, during the amorous season, such a
jealousy prevails between the male birds, that they can
hardly bear to be together in the same hedge or field.
Most of the singing and elation of spirits of that time
seems to me to be the effect of rivalry and emulation :
and it is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute
the equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face
of the country.

Now as to the business of food : as these animals are
actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they
should not, one would suppose, crowd together in pur-
suit of sustenance at a time when it is most likely to
fail; yet such associations do take place in hard weather

238 NATURAL HISTORY

chiefly, and thicken as the severity increases. As some
kind of self-interest and self-defence is no doubt the
motive for the proceeding, may it not arise from the
helplessness of their state in such rigorous seasons ; as
men crowd together, when under great calamities, though
they know not why ? Perhaps approximation may dispel
some degree of cold ; and a crowd may make each in-
dividual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey
and other dangers1.

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
satellites2. Is it because rooks have a more discerning
scent than their attendants, and can lead them to spots
more productive of food ? Anatomists say that rooks,
by reason of two large nerves which run down between
the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate
feeling in their beaks than other round-billed birds, and
can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps,

1 Is not the flocking together of birds in seasons of scarcity occasioned
chiefly by hunger? For though it is true that a multitude of feeders will
speedily exhaust a limited spot, and that a hungry bird consequently
ought not, if aware of this indisputable fact, to resort to a place where
numbers of its race are already engaged in search of food: yet the bird,
urged on like its brethren by the cravings of appetite, has an object in
common with them ; it knows, by their actions, of what they are in pur-
suit; it perceives, among so many, some at least that are successful; it is
thus assured that food exists in the spot resorted to ; and it joins in the
search in the hope that where the wished-for morsel is, it may not be an
unsuccessful competitor in the scramble for it.

The congregation of rooks, and the following in their train of daws and
starlings, noticed in the succeeding paragraph of the text, seem to be re-
ferred to a similar cause, and, indeed, to be altogether dependent on it.—
E. T. B.

2 Mr. White says it is strange, that rooks and starlings accompany
each other: but this is the case with other birds: the short-eared owl
often accompanies flights of woodcocks in this country. See Pennant's
Scotland, vol. i. p. 11. In Greece, the cuckoo migrates with the turtle-
flocks, thence they call him trigouokracti, or turtle leader. — MITFORD.

OF SELBORNE. 239

then, their associates attend them on the motive of
interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their
finders ; and as lions are said to do on the yelpings of
jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.

LETTER XII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, March 9, 1772.

Asa gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of
last November round the sea-banks at Newhaven, near
the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural
knowledge, we were surprised to see three house swal-
lows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was
rather chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the
tenor of the weather for some time before had been
delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this
incident, and from repeated accounts which I meet
with, I am more and more induced to believe that many
of the swallow kind do not depart from this island ;
but lay themselves up in holes and caverns ; and do,
insectlike and batlike, come forth at mild times, and
then retire again to their latebra. Nor make I the
least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford,
Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the chalk-
cliffs of the Sussex coast, by proper observations, I
should see swallows stirring at periods of the winter,
when the noons were soft and inviting, and the sun
warm and invigorating. And I am the more of this
opinion from what I have remarked during some of
our late springs, that though some swallows did make
their appearance about the usual time, viz. the 13th or
14th of April, yet, meeting with a harsh reception, and
blustering cold north-east winds, they immediately
withdrew, absconding for several days, till the weather
gave them better encouragement.

240 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, April 12, 1772.

WHILE I was in Sussex last autumn, my residence
was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had for-
merly 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 its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just
beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the
ground with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back
with its hind ; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously
slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock1; and
suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a
whole month in performing one feat of copulation.
Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature
night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its
great body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that
season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was
continually interrupted, and called forth, by the heat
in the middle of the day; and though I continued
there till the 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 timi-
dity it always expresses with regard to rain ; for though
it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of

1 The motion of the tortoise's legs being, as Mr. White remarks, ridi-
culously slow, is taken notice of in Homer's Hymn to Hermes, v. 28.

BoffKOfiivt) 7rp07rdpot0€ Sopotr, Ipi9rj\ia TTOIT/V
SavXd iroffiv fiaivovaa.

" Feeding far off from man, the flowery herb
Slow moving with his feet." — MITFORD.

OF SELBORNE. 241

a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude
about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling
away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up
in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent
weather-glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it
were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a
morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally
a diurnal animal, and never pretends to stir after it
becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, has an
arbitrary stomach as well as lungs ; and can refrain
from eating as well as breathing for a great part of the
year. When first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again
in the autumn before it retires; through the height of
the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food
that comes in its way. I was much taken with its
sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices : for,
as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has
waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles
towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; but
remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the
ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib2,"
but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distin-
guishes the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the
feelings of gratitude !

I am, &c. &c.

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

2 Isaiah, i. 3.

242 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XIV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, March 26, 1773.

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

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

OF SELBORNE. 243

ness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in
her mouth for an hour together.

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

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

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

A still more remarkable mixture of sagacity and
instinct occurred to me one day as my people were
pulling off the lining of a hotbed, in order to add some
fresh dung. From out of the side of this bed leaped an
animal with great agility that made a most grotesque
figure; nor was it without great difficulty that it could
be taken ; when it proved to be a large white-bellied field
mouse with three or four young clinging to her teats by

244 NATURAL HISTORY

their mouths and feet. It was amazing that the desul-
tory and rapid motions of this dam should not oblige
her litter to quit their hold, especially when it appeared
that they were so young as to be both naked and
blind !

To these instances of tender attachment, many more
of which might be daily discovered by those that are
studious of nature, may be opposed that rage of affec-
tion, that monstrous perversion of the oropyvf, which
induces some females of the brute creation to devour
their young because their owners have handled them
too freely, or removed them from place to place ! Swine,
and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats,
are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder1.
When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that
destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed ; since
reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are
capable of any enormity : but why the parental feelings
of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor,
should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave
to abler philosophers than myself to determine.

I am, ,\ < .

LETTER XV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, July 8, 1773.

SOME young men went down lately to a pond on the
verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young
wild-ducks, many of which they caught, and, among
the rest, some very minute yet well fledged wild-fowls

1 Professor Coleman's opinion that want of milk causes mothers to
destroy their offspring, is not sufficient to account for the female killing
and eating those young which have been handled or moved, and which
she had previously suckled.— W. Y.

OF SELBORNE. 245

alive, which upon examination I found to be teals. I
did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south
of England, and was much pleased with the discovery :
this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history.

We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of
white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of
this church. As I have paid good attention to the
manner of life of these birds during their season of
breeding, which lasts the summer through, the follow-
ing remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable : — About
an hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run)
they sally forth in quest of prey, and hunt all round the
hedges of meadows and small enclosures for them,
which seem to be their only food. In this irregular
country we can stand on an eminence and see them
beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop
down in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds
with my watch for an hour together, and have found
that they return to their nest, the one or the other of
them, about once in five minutes1; reflecting at the
same time on the adroitness that every animal is pos-
sessed of as far as regards the well-being of itself and
offspring. But a piece of address, which they show
when they return loaded, should not, I think, be passed
over in silence. As they take their prey with their
claws, so they carry it in their claws to their nest : but,
as the feet are necessary in their ascent under the tiles,
they constantly perch first on the roof of the chancel,
arid 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.

J Colonel Montagu has observed, that the wren returns once in two
minutes, or upon an average thirty-six times in an hour: and this conti-
nued full sixteen hours in a day, which, if equally divided between eight
young ones, each would receive seventy-two feeds in the day, the whole
amounting to five hundred and seventy-six. See Ornithological Diet,
p. 35. To this I will add, that the swallow never fails to return to its
nest at the expiration of every second or third minute.— MITFORD.

246 NATURAL HISTORY

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

While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper
to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the
county of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow
pollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for cen-
turies, he discovered at the bottom a mass of matter
that at first he could not account for. After some exa-
mination, 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. Perhaps the case may
be the same with all birds of prey. When owls fly they
stretch out their legs behind them as a balance to their
large heavy heads : for as most nocturnal birds have

OF SELBORNE. 247

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

I am, &c.

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

The Hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless,
entertaining, social, and useful tribe of birds: they
touch no fruit in our gardens ; delight, all except one
species, in attaching themselves to our houses ; amuse
us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous agility :
and clear our outlets from the annoyances of gnats and
other troublesome insects. Some districts in the South
Seas, near Guayaquil2, are desolated, it seems, by the
infinite swarms of venomous mosquitoes, which fill the
air, and render those coasts insupportable. It would
be worth inquiring whether any species of Hirundines
is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates the
myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a
summer evening in this country, will soon be convinced
to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked
with them was it not for the friendly interposition of
the swallow tribe.

Many species of birds have their peculiar lice; but
the Hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with Dipte-
rous insects, which infest every species, and are so
large, in proportion to themselves, that they must be

2 See Ulloa's Travels.

248 NATURAL HISTORY

extremely irksome and injurious to them. These are
the Hippobosca Hirundinis 3t 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 feathers4.

A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the
south of England under the name of forest-fly ; and to
some of side-fly, from its running sideways like a crab.
It creeps under the tails, and about the groins, of horses,
which, at their first coming out of the north, are ren-
dered half frantic by the tickling sensation ; while our
own breed little regards them5.

» [Craterina Hirundinis, OLF.]

4 The Hippobosca Hirundinis of the text is now referred by entomologists
to a genus established by Olfers for its reception ; it stands in the syste-
matic lists under the name of Craterina Hirundinis, OLF. The house-
swallow is principally and seriously infested by its annoyance:

The swift, differing in genus from the swallows, appears to have its
peculiar genus of insects appropriated to it ; that which has been named
by the Rev. W. Kirby, Oxypterum:

The forest-fly again, attached to a different race of animals, belongs
also to its own genus in the insect class ; and for this has been retained
the name of Hippobosca, originally applied to the whole of these pests :

The sheep, and perhaps the deer, are obnoxious to the attacks of ano-
ther genus of the same family of insects ; the Melophagvs of Latreille :

The black grouse, the crow, and other birds are infested by yet another
genus of the same group ; Ornithomyia, LATR. :

And an allied genus, Nycteribia, LATR., is appropriated to the Bats.

The genera enumerated, with the addition of that named by Mr. Cur-
tis H<etnobora, the precise habitat of which has not yet been ascertained,
constitute the class Omaloptera of Dr. Leach, so far as it has yet been
observed in this country. This class has been removed from among the
Diptera, chiefly on account of the nature of its metamorphosis : the larva1,
instead of being free, as in the Diptera, and seeking their own nourish-
ment, being in the Omaloptera nourished within the abdomen of the mo-
ther : when fully grown they are passed in the form of a pupa covered
with the indurated skin of the maggot.

Besides the several species of swallows and the swift, it will thus be
seen that other birds are annoyed with insects which have been, until
recently, considered as Dipterous; such have been found on the crow, the
black grous, the tit-pippit, the yellow hammer, &c. &c. — E. T. B.

* In the New Forest in Hampshire, whence its name of forest fly,
the Hippobosca equina, LINN., abounds in such profusion that Mr. Sa-
luouelle states, in his Entomologist's Useful Compendium, that he has

OF SELBORNE. 249

The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or
rather pupce, of these flies, as big as the flies themselves,
which he hatched in his own bosom. Any person that
will take the trouble to examine the old nests of either
species of swallows may find in them the black shining
cases or skins of the pupce of these insects : but for
other particulars, too long for this place, we refer the
reader to L'Histoire des Insectes of that admirable
entomologist, torn. iv. pi. 31.

LETTER XVI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 20, 1773.

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

A few house martins begin to appear about the 16th
of April ; usually some few days later than the swal-
low. For some time after they appear, the Hirundines
in general pay no attention to the business of nidifica-
tion, but play and sport about either to recruit from the
fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate at all, or else
that their blood may recover its true tone and texture
after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of

obtained from the flanks of one horse six handfuls, which consisted of
upwards of a hundred specimens. He adds, " Mr. Bentley informs me,
from observations he made in the summer of 1818, while in Hampshire,
that the Hippoboscce are found in a considerably greater abundance on
white and light-coloured horses than on those of a black and dark colour ;
and this observation was confirmed by the stable-keepers in the vicinity
of the Forest."— E. T. B.

250 NATURAL HISTORY

winter. About the middle of May, if the weather be
fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing
a mansion for its family. The crust or shell of this
nest seems to be formed of such dirt or loam as comes
most readily to hand, and is tempered and wrought
together with little bits of broken straws to render it
tough and tenacious. As this bird often builds against
a perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge under,
it requires its utmost efforts to get the first foundation
firmly fixed, so that it may safely carry the superstruc-
ture. On this occasion the bird not only clings with
its claws, but partly supports itself by strongly inclin-
ing 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 enoifgh not to advance her work too
fast ; but by building only in the morning, and by dedi-
cating the rest of the day to food and amusement, gives
it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an inch
seems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful
workmen when they build mud walls (informed at first
perhaps by this little bird) raise but a moderate layer at
a time, and then desist; lest the work should become
top-heavy, and so be ruined by its own weight. By this
method in about ten or twelve days is formed an hemis-
pheric nest with a small aperture towards the top, strong,
compact, and warm; and perfectly fitted for all the pur-
poses for which it was intended. But then nothing is
more common than for the house sparrow, as soon as
the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to eject
the owner, and to line it after its own manner.

After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a man-
sion, as Nature seldom works in vain, martins will
breed on for several years together in the same nest,
where it happens to be well sheltered and secure from
the injuries of weather. The shell or crust of the nest

OFSELBORNE. 251

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 some-
times by a bed of moss interwoven with wool. In this
nest they tread, or engender, frequently during the time
of building ; and the hen lays from three to five white
eggs. ••*•*£< .

At first when the young are hatched, and are in a
naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with
tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their
young. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness
the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and destroyed
in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own caustic
excrement. In the quadruped creation, the same neat
precaution is made use of; particularly among dogs
and cats, where the dams lick away what proceeds from
their young. But in birds there seems to be a particu-
lar provision, that the dung of nestlings is enveloped in
a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is the easier con-
veyed off without soiling or daubing1. 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 qA/x/a, or full growth, they

1 It is a very curious provision made by nature, that the dung of
all nestlings is enclosed in a thin membrane, which enables the old birds
to carry it away in their bills, which they do regularly each time they
bring food to the nest. The young instinctively, even before they can
see, protrude their hind quarters to eject the dung from the nest ; but if
the parent did not carry it away, there would be a congeries of dirt under
the nest, which would not only be uncleanly, but would attract attention
and discover their retreat. As long as young birds are kept to their
nest in a basket or box, the membranous covering continues ; if they are
let out to perch, it ceases ; if they are shut down again in the nest or
basket, it reappears. The warmth and quiescence of the nest certainly
occasion it, and principally the quiescence ; but how it should have that
effect I cannot pretend to understand. It is a marvellous provision of
Almighty wisdom. — W. H.

252 NATURAL HISTORY

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 morn-
ing to night. For a time, the young are fed on the wing
by their parents; but the feat is done by so quick and
almost imperceptible a 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, con-
gregate in great flocks, and are the birds that are seen
clustering and hovering on sunny mornings and even-
ings round towers and steeples, and on the roofs of
churches and houses. These congregatings usually be-
gin 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 old ones
attend one nest. They are often capricious in fixing on
a nesting-place, beginning many edifices, and leaving
them unfinished ; but when once a nest is completed in
a sheltered place, it serves for several seasons. Those
which breed in a ready-finished house get the start, in
hatching, of those that build new, by ten days or a fort-
night. 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 mo-
tion. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very
hot weather, but not so frequently as swallows. It has
been observed that martins usually build to a north-
east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sun may
not crack and destroy their nests : but instances are
also remembered where they bred for many years in

OF SELBORNE. 253

vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard, against a wall
facing to the south.

Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation :
but in this neighbourhood, every summer, is seen a
strong instance to the contrary at a house without eaves
in an exposed district, where some martins build year
by year in the corners of the windows. But, as the
corners of these windows (which face to the south-east
and south-west) are too shallow, the nests, are washed
down every hard rain ; and yet these birds drudge on
to no purpose from summer to summer, without chang-
ing 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 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 mount-
ing to any great height, and never sweeping long toge-
ther over the surface of the ground or water. They do
not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts,
over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in
some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They
breed the latest of all the swallow kind : in 1772 they
had nestlings on to October the 21st, and are never
without unfledged young as late as Michaelmas.

As the summer declines, the congregating flocks
increase in numbers daily, by the constant accession of

254 NATURAL HISTORY

the second broods ; till at last they swarm in myriads
upon myriads round the villages on the Thames, dark-
ening the face of the sky as they frequent the aits of
that river, where they roost. They retire, the bulk of
them I mean, in vast flocks together, about the begin-
ning of October : but have appeared of late years in a
considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day
or two, as late as November the 3d and 6th, after they
were supposed to have been gone for more than a fort-
night. They therefore withdraw with us the latest of
any species. Unless these birds are very short-lived
indeed, or unless they do not return to the district
where they are bred, they must undergo vast devasta-
tions somehow, and somewhere ; for the birds that
return yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds
that retire.

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

I am, &c.

LETTER XVII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, RINGMER, near LEWES, Dec. 9, 1773.

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

OF SELBORNE. 255

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

Though I have now travelled the Sussex downs up-
wards of thirty years, yet I still investigate that chain
of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by
year ; and think I see new beauties every time I tra-
verse it. This range, which runs from Chichester east-
ward as far as East-Bourn, is about sixty miles in
length, and is called the South Downs, properly speak-
ing, only round Lewes. As you pass along you com-
mand a noble view of the wild, or weald, on one hand,
and the broad downs and sea on the other. Mr. Ray
used to visit a family l just at the foot of these hills,
and was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton
Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions j;hose scapes in his
" Wisdom of God in the Works of the Creation" with
the utmost satisfaction, and thinks them equal to any
thing he had seen in the finest parts of Europe.

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

Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so
happy as to convey to you the same idea ; but I never
contemplate these mountains without thinking I per-
ceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle
swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their
fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes, that carry
at once the air of vegetative dilatation and expansion.
Or was there ever a time when these immense

1 Mr. Courthope, of Danny.

256 NATURAL HISTORY

masses of calcareous matter were thrown into fermenta-
tion by some adventitious moisture; were raised and
leavened into such shapes by some plastic power ; and
so made to swell and heave their broad backs into the
sky so much above the less animated clay of the wild
below?

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

One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from
the westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks
have horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs;
and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen : but as soon
as you pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding
Hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, or, as they
call them, poll sheep ; and have moreover black faces,
with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, and
speckled and spotted legs: so that you would think
that the flocks of Laban were pasturing on one side of
the stream, and the variegated breed of his son-in-law
Jacob were cantoned along on the other. And this
diversity holds good respectively on each side from the
valley of Bramber and Beeding to the eastward, and
westward all the whole length of the downs. If you
talk with the shepherds on this subject, they tell you
that the case has been so from time immemorial ; and
smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the
situation of these two different breeds might not be
reversed. However, an intelligent friend of mine near
Chichester is determined to try the experiment; and
has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at,
introduced a parcel of black -faced hornless rams among
his horned western ewes. The black-faced poll sheep
have the shortest legs and the finest wool2.

2 To assert that the black-faced, hornless race of sheep, known as
South Downs, can exist westward of the river Adur, would be super-
fluous : they are not only to be seen on the downs to the west of Bramber,

OF SELBORNE. 257

As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at
so late a season of the year, I was determined to keep
as sharp a look out as possible so near the southern
coast, with respect to the summer short-winged birds
of passage. We make great inquiries concerning the
withdrawing of the swallow kind, without examining
enough into the causes why this tribe is never to be
seen in winter ; for, entre nous, the disappearing of the
latter is more marvellous than that of the* -former, and
much more unaccountable. The Hirundines, if they
please, are certainly capable of migration ; and yet, no
doubt, are often found in a torpid state : but redstarts,
nightingales, whitethroats, blackcaps, &c. &c. are very
ill provided for long flights; have never been once
found, as I ever heard of, in a torpid state ; and yet can
never be supposed, in such troops, from year to year to
dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive,
which from day to day discern the other small birds
that are known to abide our winters. But, 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 autumn as to
be a considerable perquisite to the shepherds that take
them; and though many are to be seen to my know-
ledge all the winter through in many parts of the south
of England. The most intelligent shepherds tell me
that some few of these birds appear on the downs in
March, and then withdraw to breed, probably, in war-
rens and stone-quarries : now and then a nest is
ploughed up in a fallow on the downs under a furrow,
but it is thought a rarity. At the time of wheat harvest,
they begin to be taken in great numbers ; are sent for

but every where throughout England ; so strongly have they been recom-
mended to general favour by their short legs and their fine wool. The
Dorsets, as they are called, the horned sheep with smooth white faces and
white legs, now occur much more rarely than the rival breed. Yet the
observation in the text is curious, as indicating .the rapid advance that
has taken place, in little more than half a century, in the knowledge and
power of the agriculturist. — E. T. B.

258 NATURAL HISTORY

sale in vast quantities to Brighthelmstone and Tun-
bridge ; and appear at the tables of all the gentry that
entertain with any degree of elegance. About Michael-
mas 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 hun-
dreds of dozens are taken, yet they never are seen to
flock ; and it is a rare thing to see more than three or
four at a time : so that there must be a perpetual flitting
and constant progressive succession. It does not ap-
pear that any wheatears are taken to the westward of
Hough ton Bridge, which stands on the river Arun3.

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

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 former
letter, still continues in this garden ; and 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 inha-

3 Mr. White says, that no wheatears are taken to the westward of
Houghton Bridge, on the river Arun ; it appears, however, this is not the
case. See the note to Mrs. Charlotte Smith's Poems, 1807, p. 168.—

MlTFORD.

OF SELBORNE. 259

bitants 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.

Pam, &c.

LETTER XVIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 29, 1774.

THE house swallow, or chimney swallow, is, undoubt-
edly, 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
now and then a straggler is seen much earlier : and, in
particular, when I was a boy, I observed a swallow for
a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday;
which day could not fall out later than the middle of
March, and often happened early in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first
about lakes and mill-ponds ; and it is also very parti-
cular, 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 immediately withdraw1 for a
time. A circumstance this, much more in favour of
hiding than migration ; since it is much more probable
that a bird should retire to its hybernaculum just at

1 It appears to me very doubtful whether the swallows which appear
unseasonably for a few days do not perish when they are said to with-
draw. I do not see how they are identified when they are supposed to
reappear in due time. — W. H.

26'0 NATURAL HISTORY

hand, than return for a week or two only to warmer
latitudes.

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

" Ante

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

Five or six or more feet down the chimney, does this
little bird begin to form her nest about the middle of
May, which consists, like that of the house martin, of
a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud, mixed with
short pieces of straw, to render it tough and permanent ;
with this difference, that whereas the shell of the martin
is nearly hemispheric, that 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

OP SELBORNE. 261

security through so narrow a pass. When hovering
over the mouth of the funnel, the vibrations of her
wings acting on the confined air occasion a rumbling
like thunder. It is not improbable that the dam sub-
mits 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 nest-
lings.

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

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

All the summer long is the swallow a most instructive
pattern of unwearied industry and affection ; for, from

262 NATURAL HISTORY

morning to night, while there is a family to be sup-
ported, 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 watchcase;
but the motion of the mandibles is too quick for the
eye.

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

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny
weather sings both perching and flying; on trees in a
kind of concert, and on chimney tops : is also a bold
flyer, ranging to distant downs and commons even in
windy weather, which the other species seem much to
dislike ; nay, even frequenting exposed seaport towns,
and making little excursions over the salt water.
Horsemen on wide downs are often closely attended
by a little party of swallows for miles together, which
plays before and behind them, sweeping around, and
collecting all the skulking insects that are roused by

OF SELBORNE. 263

the trampling of the horses' feet : when the wind blows
hard, without this expedient, they are often forced to
settle to pick up their lurking prey.

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

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

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

After this circumstantial detail of the life and dis-
cerning oropyjf 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 were 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 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

264 NATURAL HISTORY

year a pair, probably the same pair, built their nest in
the conch, and laid their eggs2.

The owl and the conch make a strange grotesque
appearance, and are not the least curious specimens in
that wonderful collection of art and nature3.

Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its
way, an undistinguishing, limited faculty ; and blind to
every circumstance that does not immediately respect
self-preservation, or lead at once to the propagation or
support of their species4.
I am,

With all respect, &c. &c.

* This anecdote is related, almost in the same words, and evidently
originally from the same pen, in Barrington's Miscellanies, p. 240. —
E. T. B.

The identical specimen is still preserved in the collection of one of my
friends.— W. Y.

3 Sir Aston Lever's Museum : [since entirely sold off, and variously
distributed.]

4 Two or three days after the flight of swallows had departed from this
country in September, I found a swallow sitting on the gravel walk before
the house door. When I had taken it up it sat on my finger, and ap-
peared to have been shot in the body near the base of the wing ; it was
quite emaciated, and looked most piteously at me, so that in compassion
I brought it on my finger into the house, and held it to a pane of the win-
dow where there were some flies, which it snapped at and devoured
greedily. I then offered it some nightingale's food on the point of a pen,
which it ate with equal satisfaction. In pity I found myself compelled
to take care of it, and I preserved it through the winter upon moist meat
and egg with a mixture of bread crumbs and fig dust, the nightingale's
food being too laxative for it. I had hoped that, if it survived, it would
recover the power of flight by the spring, when I had intended to give it
its liberty, but the injury had been too severe, and it was never able to
rise above a foot from the ground. I did not find it suffer from the sus-
ceptibility of cold in its feet, which has been mentioned by a gentleman,
who stated himself to have been unable to preserve swallows without
covering the perches with flannel. It was kept in the same situation as
some foreign birds, in a warmly furnished and inhabited room, and seemed
quite healthful, though weak from its wound. I observed some peculi-
arities in its habits ; that it had no notion of turning its back to the light
to spring up on a higher perch ; the consequence of which was, that in a
cage with a wooden back or hung against a wall, it would continue
always sitting on the lowest perch, which was nearer the light than the
upper one. It usually sat at the end of the perch furthest from the light,

OF SELBORNE. 265

LETTER XIX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR sin, SELBORNE, Feb. 14, 1774.

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

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

In the first place the epithet garrula suits the swal-
low well, who is a great songster ; and not the martin,
which is rather a mute bird ; and when it sings is so

and, when hungry, slided itself along the perch towards its food, which it
seized with a sudden snap, and then returned to its place. On removing
it into a larger cage which was light on all sides, the only way to make
it sit on a high perch was to turn the ends of the perches to the light ;
and it appeared to want the common sense of other little birds in another
respect, that unless its pan of food was placed within convenient reach
of a perch on which it was disposed to sit, it would starve, and not move
from its perch to seek it. In a wild state it has the habit of taking its
food on the wing, and when it settles on a tree or rail, it remains there
for rest till it takes wing again, and has no habit of moving from twig to
twig, either in search of food or for recreation. Imprisonment, where it
has not space to take exercise on the wing, must therefore be very grievous
to it. The bird, which I had preserved through the winter, died in the
month of June, while I was absent from home. Its crippled state must
have added much to the unhealthiness of confinement without due exer-
cise. In a room large enough to admit of their flight, I make no doubt
that swallows might be very easily preserved through the winter, placing
their food conveniently by some perch on which they would willingly
alight.— W. H.

266 NATURAL HISTORY

inward as scarce to be heard. Besides, if tignum in
that place signifies a rafter rather than a beam, as it
seems to me to do, then I think it must be the swallow
that is alluded to, and not the martin ; since the former
does frequently build within the roof against the rafters ;
while the latter always, as far as I have been able to
observe, builds without the roof against eaves and
cornices.

As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on
it ; yet the epithet nigra speaks plainly in favour of the
swallow, whose back and wings are very black ; while
the rump of the martin is milk-white, its back and wings
blue, and all its under part white as snow. Nor can the
clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy) of the martin
well represent the sudden and artful evolutions and
quick turns which Juturna gave to her brother's cha-
riot, so as to elude the eSger pursuit of the enraged
^Eneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird
that is somewhat loquacious1.

"We have had a very wet autumn and winter, so as
to raise the springs to a pitch beyond any thing since
1764 ; which was a remarkable year for floods and high
waters. The land springs, which we call lavants, break
out much on the downs of Sussex, Hampshire, and
Wiltshire. The country people say when the lavants
rise, corn will always be dear; meaning that when the
earth is so glutted with water as to send forth springs
on the downs and uplands, that the corn vales must be
drowned ; and so it has proved for these ten or eleven
years past. For land springs have never obtained more
since the memory of man than during that period ; nor
has there been known a greater scarcity of all sorts of

i « 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."

OF SELBORNE. 267

grain, considering the great improvements of modern
husbandry. Such a run of wet seasons a century or
two ago, would, I am persuaded, have occasioned a
famine. Therefore pamphlets and newspaper letters,
that talk of combinations, tend to inflame and mislead ;
since we must not expect plenty till Providence sends
us more favourable seasons.

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

I am, &c.

LETTER XX.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Feb. 26, 1774.

THE sand martin, or bank martin, is by much the least
of any of the British Hirundines; and, as far as we have
ever seen, the smallest known Hirundo: though Bris-
son asserts that there is one much smaller, and that is
the Hirundo esculenta.

But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce pos-
sible for any observer to be so full and exact as he
could wish in reciting the circumstances attending the
life and conversation of this little bird, since it is f era
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 gentle and domesticated, and never
seem to think themselves safe but under the protection
of man.

NATURAL HISTORY

Here arc in this parish, in the sand pits and banks of
the lakes of Wolmer Forest, several colonies of these

SAND MARTINS' OOLO.VY AT OAKHANOBR.

birds ; and yet they are never seen in the village ; nor
do they at all frequent the cottages that are scattered
about in that wild district. The only instance I ever
remember where this species haunts any building is at
the town of Bishop's Waltham, in this county, where
many sand martins nestle and breed in the scaffold
holes of the back wall of William of Wykeham's sta-
bles : but then this wall stands in a very sequestered
and retired 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 abound-
ing, but near vast pools or rivers : and in particular it
has been remarked that they swarm in the banks of the
Thames in some places below London Bridge.

It is curious to observe with what different degrees
of architectonic skill Providence has endowed birds of
the same genus, and so nearly correspondent in their
general mode of life ! for while the swallow and the
house martin discover the greatest address in raising

OF SELBORNE. 269

and securely fixing crusts or shells of loam as cunabula
for their young, the bank martin terebrates a round and
regular hole in the sand or earth, which is serpentine,
horizontal, and about two feet deep. At the inner end
of this burrow does this bird deposit, in a good degree
of safety, her rude nest, consisting of fine grasses and
feathers, usually goose feathers, very inartificially laid
together.

SAND MARTIN'S NEST.

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

In what space of time these little artists are able to
mine and finish these cavities I have never been able to
discover, for reasons given above; but it would be a
matter worthy of observation, where it falls in the way
of any naturalist to make his remarks. This I have
often taken notice of, that several holes of different
depths are left unfinished at the end of summer. To

270 NATURAL HISTORY

imagine that these beginnings were intentionally made
in order to be in the greater forwardness for next spring,
is allowing perhaps too much foresight and rerumpru-
dentia to a simple bird. May not the cause of these
latebrce being left unfinished arise from their meeting in
those places with strata too harsh, hard, and solid, for
their purpose, which they relinquish, and go to a fresh
spot that works more freely ? Or may they not in other
places fall in with a soil as much too loose and mould-
ering, 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 fetid from
long use, or because they may so abound with fleas as
to become untenantable. This species of swallow more-
over is strangely annoyed with fleas : and we have seen
fleas, bed fleas (Pulex irritans1), 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

1 The flea of the sand martin, although to the unassisted eye so exceed-
ingly similar to the bed flea as to be scarcely distinguishable from it, is
altogether distinct. It appears even to be distinct from the flea of the
swallow, named by Mr. Stephens Pulex hinmdinis ; and has been indi-
cated by Mr. Curtis under the appellation of btfasciatus. By the latter
the sand martin's flea is referred to a genus separated by him from the
ordinary flea, Pulex, LINN., and distinguished by the name of Cerate-
phyllus : he having discovered that the antennae of the numerous insects
referrible to this last-named group have four or more joints; while in
Pulex irritans and its congeners those organs are only two-jointed.

Although it was stated by Latreille, so long since as the date of the
publication of his Genera Crustaceorum et Insectorum, that fleas possess
antennae, which he described as being situated on each side in a cavity
behind the eye, the minuteness of these little creatures rendering their
examination difficult, obstructed until about three years since the verifi-
cation of the fact by others : Latreille himself appearing, in 1829, to have
hesitated in averring it with the same certainty that he had expressed
upwards of twenty years before. In 1832, however, Mr. Haliday and
Mr. Curtis in England, and later in the year, M. Duges in France, redis-
covered these organs : and figures of them, as they were observed in se-
veral species, were given in the British Entomology and in the Annalcs

OF SELBORNE. 271

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, car-
rying on the business of nidification, incubation, and
the support of its young in the dark, it would not be
so easy to ascertain the time of breeding, were it not
for the coming forth of the broods, which appear much
about the time, or rather somewhat earlier than those
of the swallow. The nestlings are supported, in com-
mon like those of their congeners, with gnats and other
small insects ; and sometimes they are fed with Libel-
lulce (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 swal-
lows and house martins do, we have never yet been
able to determine : nor do we know whether they pur-
sue and attack birds of prey.

When they happen to breed near hedges and enclo-
sures, they are dispossessed of their breeding holes by

des Sciences Naturelles. It may aid those who may be disposed to search
for so minute an organ on so small a creature to be informed that, accord-
ing to M. Duges, there is behind each eye a shallow but broad cavity,
ending below in a cleft and covered by a kind of operculum which is tri-
angular and immoveable : an arrangement which he compares to the orbit,
the temporal fossa, and the zygoma of the human skull. Under the oper-
culum and within the cleft is hidden a small flat body, which is raised, at
times, briskly into the uncovered portion of the depression. This is the
antenna, of larger size than is well adapted to the small space in which
it is lodged, and rendered capable of being contained in so limited a ca-
vity only by the flexures of its joints. The number or the form of these
joints appears to differ in almost every one of the indigenous fleas, nearly
twenty of which have now been discovered infesting various quadrupeds
and birds ; each of them being generally appropriated to its peculiar
species.

The sand martin's flea remains in considerable numbers in the deserted
nests after the departure of the bird.— E. T. B.

272 NATURAL HISTORY

the house sparrow, which is on the same account a fell
adversary to house martins.

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

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

These birds have a peculiar manner of flying; flitting
about with odd jerks and vacillations, not unlike the
motions of a butterfly. Doubtless the flight of all
Hirundines is influenced by, and adapted to, the pecu-
liar 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 Lon-
don, 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 scaflbld
holes of some old or new deserted building. They dip
and wash as they fly sometimes, like the house martin
and swallow.

Sand martins differ from their congeners in the dimi-
nutiveness of their size and in their colour, which is

OF SELBORNE. 273

what is usually called a mouse colour. Near Valencia,
in Spain, they are taken, says Willughby, and sold in
the markets for the table ; and are called by the country
people, probably from their desultory jerking manner of
flight, Papilion di Montagna*.

LETTER XXI,

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Sept. 28, 1774.

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

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

2 As connected with the question of migration it should be remembered
that Willughby was at Valencia about the end of September, or rather,
according to the new style, after the beginning of October. At the same
time there were also great numbers of swallows in the markets for sale. —
E. T. B.

274 NATURAL HISTORY

server in such matters, that they do collect feathers for
their nests in Andalusia; and that he has shot them
with such materials in their mouths.

Swifts, like sand martins, carry on the business of
nidification quite in the dark, in crannies of castles,
and towers, and steeples, and upon the tops of the walls
of churches under the roof; and therefore cannot be so
narrowly watched as those species that build more
openly : but, from what I could ever observe, they begin
nesting about the middle of May; and I have remarked,
from eggs taken, that they have sat hard by the 9th of
June. In general they haunt tall buildings, churches,
and steeples, and breed only in such : yet in this village
some pairs frequent the lowest and meanest cottages,
and educate their young under those thatched roofs.
We remember but one instance where they breed out of
buildings ; and that is in the sides of a deep chalk-pit
near the town of Odiham, in this county, where we
have seen many pairs entering the crevices, and skim-
ming and squeaking round the precipices.

As I have regarded these amusive birds with no
small attention, if I should advance something new
and peculiar with respect to them, and different from
all other birds, I might perhaps be credited ; especially
as my assertion is the result of many years exact obser-
vation. The fact that I would advance is, that swifts
pair on the wing: and I would wish any nice observer,
that is startled at this supposition, to use his own eyes,
and I think he will soon be convinced. In another
class of animals, viz. the insect, nothing is so common
as to see the different species of many genera pairing
as they fly. The swift is almost continually on the
wing ; and as it never settles on the ground, on trees,
or roofs, would seldom find opportunity for pairing ex-
cept in the air. If any person would watch these birds
of a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round
at a great height from the ground, he would see, every

OFSELBORNE. 275

now and then, two meet, and both of them sink down
together for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek.

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

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

When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth
just as it is almost dark, and stretches and relieves her
weary limbs, and snatches a scanty meal for a few
minutes, and then returns to her duty of incubation.
Swifts, when wantonly and cruelly shot while they have
young, discover a little lump of insects in their mouths,
which they pouch and hold under their tongue1. In

1 An example of the bird, shot under these circumstances, was exhi-
bited by Dr. Heming to the Zoological Society in 1834. The collection

T 2

276 NATURAL HISTORY

general they feed in a much higher district than the
other species : a proof that gnats and other insects do
also abound to a considerable height in the air: they
also range to vast distances; since locomotion is no
labour to them, who are endowed with such wonderful
powers of wing. Their powers seem to be in proportion
to their levers; and their wings are longer in proportion
than those of almost any other bird. When they mute,
or 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 Phryganece,
Ephemera, and Libellulce (cadew-flies, may-flies, and
dragon-flies), that were just emerged out of their aurelia
state. I then no longer wondered that they should be
so willing to stoop for a prey that afforded them such
plentiful and succulent nourishment.

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

On the 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 state, but were

of insects, in this instance, was much larger than would have been antici-
pated from the notice in the text, and formed a considerable lump at the
base of the lower jaw and upper part of the throat, of a rounded form,
and measuring in length eleven lines and in depth half an inch : the skin
was so distended over it as to show distinctly and widely separated the
insertion of each of the small feathers. It was ascertained, by opening it,
to be merely a dilatation of the throat, and not a distinct pouch or cavity.
— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 277

still naked and helpless. From whence we may con-
clude that birds whose way of life keeps them perpetu-
ally on the wing would not be able to quit their nest till
the end of the month. Swallows and martins, that have
numerous families, are continually feeding them every
two or three minutes ; while swifts, that have but two
young to maintain, are much at their leisure, and do
not attend on their nests for hours together.

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

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 depart2, and yet they return glossy again in the
spring. Now, if they pursue the sun into lower lati-
tudes, as some suppose, in order to enjoy a perpetual
summer, why do they not return bleached? Do they
not rather, perhaps, retire to rest for a season, and at
that juncture moult and change their feathers, since all
other birds are known to moult soon after the season of
breeding.

Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dis-
senting from all their congeners not only in the number

2 Our swift departs before its moult, and when its plumage is at the
worst from wear and tear. Our summer visiters generally complete
their moult before they leave us, but not the Hirundinidte. — W. Y.

278 NATURAL HISTORY

of their young, but in breeding but once in a summer;
whereas all the other British Hirundines breed invari-
ably twice. It is past all doubt that swifts can breed
but once, since they withdraw in a short time after the
flight of their young, and some time before their con-
geners bring out their second broods. We may here
remark, that, as swifts breed but once in a summer, and
only two at a time, and the other Hirundines twice, the
latter, who lay from four to six eggs, increase at an
average five times as fast as the former.

But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their
early retreat. They retire, as to the main body of them,
by the 10th of August, and sometimes a few days
sooner: and every straggler invariably withdraws by
the 20th, while their congeners, all of them, stay till the
beginning of October ; many of them all through that
month, and some occasionally to the beginning of No-
vember. This early retreat is mysterious and wonder-
ful, since that time is often the sweetest season in the
year. But, what is more extraordinary, they begin to
retire still earlier in the most southerly parts of Anda-
lusia, where they can be no ways influenced by any
defect of heat ; or, as one might suppose, defect of
food. Are they regulated in their motions with us by
a failure of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or
by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by
what? This is one of those incidents in natural history
that not only baffles our researches, but almost eludes
our guesses !

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

OF SELHORNE. 279

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 acci-
dent; 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; buf-they have a
strong grasp with their feet, by which they cling to
walls. Their bodies being flat they can enter a very
narrow crevice ; and where they cannot pass on their
bellies they will turn up edgewise.

The particular formation of the foot discriminates the
swift from all the British Hirundines ; and indeed from
all other known birds, the Hirundo Melba, or great white-
bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted ; for it is so dis-
posed as to carry " omnes quatuor digitos anticos," all its
four toes forward ; besides, the least toe, which should
be the back toe, consists of one bone alone, and the
other three only of two apiece: a construction most
rare and peculiar, but nicely adapted to the purposes
in which their feet are employed. This, and some
peculiarities attending the nostrils and under mandible,
have induced a discerning naturalist8 to suppose that
this species might constitute a genus per se*.

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

4 The genus suggested by Scopoli has been adopted by modern zoolo-
gists, and has been made to include all the species of swifts: but the
name which he gave to it has been superseded by that of Cypselus, ap-
plied to it by Illiger and adopted from Aristotle, which is considered as
indicating the habit of hiding their nests in holes. And not only has the
generic name been altered, but an attempt, and apparently a successful
one, in one instance at least, has been made to change the trivial appel-
lations also of the two European species ; the Hirundo Apns of Linnaeus
being the Cypselus murarius of M. Temminck, and the Hirundo Melba the
Cups. Alpinus of the author last quoted. Both these birds are now in-
cluded in the British list.— E. T. B.

Three examples of the great white-bellied swift of Gibraltar have
been killed in the British islands since the days of Gilbert White : one

280 NATURAL HISTORY

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

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

Swifts feed on Coleoptera, or small beetles with hard
cases over their wings, as well as on the softer insects ;
but it does not appear how they can procure gravel5
to grind their food, as swallows do, since they never
settle on the ground. Young ones, overrun with Hip-
pobosca, are sometimes found, under their nests, fallen
to the ground ; the number of vermin rendering their
abode insupportable any longer. They frequent in this
village several abject cottages; yet a succession still

on the south coast of Ireland, recorded by Mr. Selby, to whom the bird
was sent; one in Norfolk ; and one by the gardener of R. Holford, Esq.
at Kingsgate on the coast of Kent.— W. Y.

6 Very few of the soft billed birds eat gravel ; the nightingale never,
nor does the redstart. The whin chat in confinement will sometimes
swallow stones as large as swan shot, which pass through very soon ;
but he seems to eat them like a fool, taking them for victuals, in the same
manner as I have seen tame redstarts, which do not naturally choose ve-
getable food, swallow green peas, after passing several minutes in trying
to kill them. But these birds have the power of regurgitating the shells
and hard parts of insects which they cannot digest, throwing them off in
little oval balls. Young birds before they feed themselves appear to be
endowed with powers of digestion which they do not afterwards retain.
There is no difficulty in rearing any young Sylvia; till they are full grown ;
but after this period the difficulty of preserving them by artificial food
commences. The redstart gives to its young such beetles as the aged bird
is afraid of swallowing. It feeds its young entirely with flies, and cole-
opterous insects. The brown wren does the same, often giving them the
large lambda moth. The yellow wren gives aphides and small green
caterpillars. Full grown whitethroats, which have been reared in a cage,
at the sight of a green caterpillar, immediately perk i.p their heads, and
cry etchat, etchat. Tame Sylvia are such fools, that if the floor of their
cage is cleaned by a flannel rubber or woollen mop, they eat the woollen
hairs, which form an indigestible ball in their stomach, which they cannot
regurgitate, and which is sure to kill them. — W. H.

OF SELBORNE. 281

haunts the same unlikely roofs: a good proof this that
the same birds return to the same spots. As they must
stoop very low to get up under these humble eaves, cats
lie in wait, and sometimes catch them on the wing.

On the 5th of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a
roof over the nest of a swift. The dam sat in the nest;
but so strongly was she affected by natural cro^y^ for
her brood, which she supposed to be in danger, that,
regardless of her own safety, she would not 'stir, but lay
sullenly by them, permitting herself to be taken in hand.
The squab young we brought down and placed on the
grass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as
helpless as a new-born child. While we contemplated
their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportioned ab-
domina, and their heads, too heavy for their necks to
support, we could not but wonder when we reflected
that these shiftless beings in a little more than a fort-
night would be able to dash through the air almost with
the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor ; and, perhaps,
in their emigration, must traverse vast continents and
oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature
advance small birds to their yXiyJu, or state of perfec-
tion ; while the progressive growth of men and large
quadrupeds is slow and tedious6!

I am, &c.

6 On the 15th of July I observed some children tossing up a full grown
young swift which could not fly, and had fallen down from its nest in the
lofty tower of the church. It was full feathered. I took it from them
and brought it into my room, and fed it, thinking it might possibly be able
to fly away after taking some food, and so rejoin its parents. I crammed
it with some nightingale's food, and before long it tools victuals willingly,
snapping it sharply off the end of a pen ; but though completely feathered
it was quite inert, unable to fly, and not desirous of moving. Having
taken it in from chanty, I could not now get rid of it. The food of the
nightingale was too laxative for it, but a little meat and hard egg mixed
with bread, and a good deal of finely sifted fig dust (which is, I believe,
oatmeal, from oats which have not been kiln-dried), and given, not very
moist, in little pellets, agreed with it perfectly. It never cried like other
little birds for food, but when left too long without, it would get under
way and crawl round the room.

I was much surprised at finding that, although quite mute in the day-

282 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Sept. 13, 1774.

BY means of a straight cottage chimney I had an op-
portunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how
swallows ascend and descend through the shaft: but
my pleasure in contemplating the address with which
this feat was performed to a considerable depth in the

time, it made a singular singing noise at night when the candles were lit,
though covered over with a sheet of paper. The noise was like the chirp-
ing of a cricket, or rather like the singing of a teakettle. I cannot doubt
that the old ones do likewise by night.

Finding its scrambling about the room inconvenient, I made it an en-
closure in the embrasure of one of the windows, where some sheets of
paper had been spread to prevent its dirtying the room, and which I
fenced in by a row of quarto books. It lived in general in a small square
box which had something soft at the bottom for it to lie upon, and two op-
posite apertures near the top which accommodated its head and tail. The
bottom of the apertures was two inches and a half from the ground, and
it showed some skill in climbing into the box, which it did by means of
its bill, using it like a parrot

After I had had it a week I tried to practise it in flying; it could not,
unless lifted, rise many inches above the carpet, but it improved gra-
dually. During the first week it appeared to take very little notice of
me, seizing the victuals offered to it at the point of a quill as if mechani-
cally with a sudden snap of the bill ; but after that time it began to look
up to me for food, when I approached : when hungry it descended from
the box in which it was usually placed, and began scrambling about its
enclosure, giving no notice of its wants but by the rustling of the paper
as it moved. I judged from this that its parents had probably been shot,
and that hunger made it quit the nest : when I had had it ten days, if
tossed up gently it could fly once round the room and then dropped, but
it could not surmount the quarto volumes by which it was penned in. It
could however climb well up the wires of a cage, and would cling fast to
them. On the last day of July it flew three times round the room before
it fell, but the next day it did not succeed so well.

It seemed now to listen when the swifts out of doors were screaming,
and tried much to get out of its bounds by climbing up on the plinth, and
trying from thence to get over the books, which it effected once. On the
4th of August in the evening I thought of taking it down into a large
level pasture and practising it in flying there, for the swifts had not many

OF SELBORNE. 283

chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions
lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of
Tobit1.

Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear
at what times the different species of Hirundines arrived
this spring in three very distant counties of this king-
dom. With us the swallow was seen first on April the
4th, the swift on April the 24th, the bank martin on
April the 12th, and the house martin not till April the
30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not
arrive till April the 25th ; swifts in plenty, on May the
1st; and house martins not till the middle of May. At
Blackburne, 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 any thing for or against migration ?

A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two
teams of asses ; one of which works till noon, and the
other in the afternoon. When these animals have done
their work, they are penned all niglit, 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
j quamdiu cuculus cuculat :" but it appears to me

more days to remain in England, and I feared they would depart without
my nursling. I had carried it through two or three rooms lying on the
palm of my hand, and had just passed the threshold of the house door,
and was in the act of stroking its head with my fingers, when, upon the
swifts screaming in the air, it suddenly sprang out of my hand and flew
low round the carriage drive, as it had been accustomed to fly round the
room ; and, passing over my head as it came round, it rose high in the air
to join the wild swifts, and was never seen by us again. Three days after,
the swifts had all departed ; and I make little doubt that in less than a
week after its vain attempts to surmount Johnson's Dictionary, my young
friend was flying sky high in the heart of Africa. I know nothing more
marvellous, than such an abrupt transition from a state of the most imbe-
cile helplessness and sloth, to such etherial activity.

A solitary swift was seen by me flying high near the church tower on
the 21st of August, being near a fortnight after the general migration.
This might have been the bird which I had brought up. — W. H.

> Tobit, ii. 10.

284 NATURAL HISTORY

that, during that period, many little birds are taken and
destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their
feathers left in lanes and under hedges.

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

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

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

Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly,
and half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those
fits are upon me I lose all the pleasing notices and little
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 :

" Aud Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."

OF SELBORNE. 285

LETTER XXIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, June 8, 1775.

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

As the morning advanced the sun became bright and
warm, and the day turned out one of those most lovely
ones which no season but the autumn produces; cloud-
less, 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 in-
terruption till the close of the day. These webs were
not single filmy threads, floating in the air in all direc-
tions, but perfect flakes or rags; some near an inch
broad, and five or six long, which fell with a degree of
velocity, that showed they were considerably heavier
than the atmosphere.

On every side as the observer turned his eyes might
he behold a continual succession of fresh flakes falling-

286 NATURAL HISTORY

into his sight, and twinkling like stars as they turned
their sides towards the sun.

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

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

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

The remark that I shall make on these cobwebliko
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 shoot-
ing 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

OP SELBORNE. 287

supposition, I should imagine that those filmy threads,
when first shot, might be entangled in the rising dew,
and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a brisk evapora-
tion into the regions where clouds are formed : and if
the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening their
webs in the air, as Dr. Lister says they have [see his
Letters to Mr. Ray], then, when they were become
heavier than the air, they must fall.

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

LETTER XXIV1.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Aug. 15, 1775.

THERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute
creation, independent of sexual attachment : the con-
gregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remark-
able instance.

Many horses, though quiet with company, will not
stay one minute in a field by themselves : the strongest

1 Barrington has inserted this Letter in his Miscellanies, p. 251 ; pre-
facing it thus : " I shall here, on this head, subjoin part of a letter which
I have received from my often-mentioned correspondent, the Rev. Mr.
White, of Selborne, in Hampshire."— E. T. B.

288 NATURAL HISTORY

fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour's horse
will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he will
not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without
discovering the utmost impatience, and endeavouring
to break the rack and manger with his fore feet : he
has been known to leap out at a stable window,
through which dung was thrown, after company ; an1
yet in other respects is remarkably quiet. Oxen and
cows will not fatten by themselves; but will neglect
the finest pasture that is not recommended by society.
It would be needless to instance in sheep, which con-
stantly flock together.

But this propensity seems not to be confined to ani-
mals 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 ensues ; while the master smiles to see his
favourite securely leading her pursuers over hedge, or
gate, or stile, till she returns to the cows, who, with
fierce lowings and menacing horns, drive the assailants
quite out of the pasture.

Even great disparity of kind and size does not always
prevent social advances and mutual fellowship. For a
very intelligent and observant person has assured me
that, in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse,
he happened also on a time to have but one solitary
hen. These two incongruous animals spent much of
their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw
no creature but each other. By degrees an apparent
regard began to take place between these two seques-
tered individuals. The fowl would approach the qua-
druped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently
against his legs ; while the horse would look down with
satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution and
circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminu-
tive companion. Thus, by mutual good offices, each

OF SELBORNE. 289

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."

I am, &c.

LETTER XXV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Oct. 2, 1775.

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 dis-
tinguished by an appellative somewhat remarkable.
As far as their harsh gibberish can be understood, they
seem to say that the name of their clan is Curleople :
now the termination of this word is apparently Grecian :
and as Mezeray and the gravest historians all agree
that these vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt
and the East, two or three centuries ago, and so spread
by degrees over Europe, may not this family-name, a
little corrupted, be the very name they brought with
them from the Levant? It would be matter of some
curiosity, could one meet with an intelligent person
among them, to inquire whether, in their jargon, they
still retain any Greek words: the Greek radicals will
appear in hand, foot, head, water, earth, &c. It is pos-
sible that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect many
mutilated remains of their native language might still
be discovered.

With regard to those peculiar people, the gipsies,
one thing is very remarkable, and especially as they

290 NATURAL HISTORY

came from warmer climates ; and that is, that while
other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses,
these sturdy savages seem to pride themselves in braving
the severities of winter, and in living sub dio the whole
year round. Last September was as wet a month as ever
was known ; and yet during those deluges did a young
gipsy girl lie-in 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 condition :
yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into
the chambers of which she might have retired, had she
thought shelter an object worthy her attention.

Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the
rovings of these vagabonds : for Mr. Bell, in his return
from Pekin, met a gang of these people on the confines
of Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate those
deserts and try their fortune in China1.

Gipsies are called in French, Bohemiens, in Italian
and modern Greek, Zingari.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXVI.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Nov. 1, 1775.

" Hie taedae pingues, hie plurimus ignis

Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri."

1 SHALL make no apology for troubling you with the
detail of a very simple piece of domestic economy,
being satisfied that you think nothing beneath your
attention that tends to utility : the matter alluded to is
the use of rushes instead of candles, which I am well

1 See Bell's Travels in China.

OF SELBORNE. 291

aware prevails in many districts besides this ; but as I
know there are countries also where it does not obtain,
and as I have considered the subject with some degree
of exactness, I shall proceed in my humble story, and
leave you to judge of the expediency.

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

Some address is required in dipping these rushes in
the scalding fat or grease ; but this knack also is to be
attained by practice *. The careful wife of an industri-
ous 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

1 The fat is usually melted in a dripping-pan, and in this the dipping
is performed. — E. T. B.

292 NATURAL HISTORY

oils will come very cheap. A pound of common grease
may be procured for four pence ; and about six pounds
of grease will dip a pound of rushes; and one pound of
rushes may be bought for one shilling : so that a pound
of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three
shillings. If men that keep bees will mix a little wax
with the grease, it will give it a consistency, and render
it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn longer: mut-
ton suet would have the same effect.

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

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

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

Little farmers use rushes much in the short days,
both morning and evening, in the dairy and kitchen ;
but the very poor, who are always the worst economists,

OF SELBORNE. 29-3

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.

While on the subject of rural economy, it may not be
improper to mention a pretty implement of housewifery
that we have seen no where else; that is, little neat
besoms which our foresters make from the "stalks of the
Polytrichum commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which
they call silk- wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When
this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested of
its outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut
colour; and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for
the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. If
these besoms were known to the brush-makers in town,
it is probable they might come much in use for the
purpose above mentioned2.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXVII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Dec. 12, 1775.

WE had in this village, more than twenty years ago, an
idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child,
showed a strong propensity to bees; they were his
food, his amusement, his sole object : and as people of
this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so
this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pur-
suit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his
father's house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state,
seldom departing from the chimney-corner ; but in the
summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the

2 A besom of this sort [was] to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever's Museum.

NATURAL HISTORY

fields, and on sunny banks. Honey bees, humble bees,
and wasps, were his prey wherever he found them : he
had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize
them nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their
weapons, and suck their bodies for the sake of their
honey-bags. Sometimes he wrould fill his bosom be-
tween his shirt and his skin with a number of these
captives: and sometimes would confine them in bottles.
He was a very Merops Apiaster, or bee-bird ; and very
injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide into
their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools,
would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the
bees as they came out. He has been known to over-
turn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was pas-
sionately fond. Where metheglin was making he would
linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of
what he called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to
make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the
buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of
a cadaverous complexion ; and, except in his favourite
pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered
no manner of understanding. Had his capacity been
better, and directed to the same object, he had perhaps
abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more
modern exhibiter of bees ; and we may justly say of
him now,

- « Thou,

Had thy presiding star propitious shone,
Shouldst ll il.lHian be."

When a tall youth, he was removed from hence to a
distant village, where he died, as I understand, before
he arrived at manhood.

I am, &c.

OF SELBORNE. 295

LETTER XXVIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 8, 1776.

IT is the hardest thing in the world to shake off super-
stitious prejudices: they are sucked in, as ft were, with
our mother's milk ; and, growing up with us at a time
when they take the fastest hold and make the most
lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very
constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required
to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder, there-
fore, that the lower people retain them their whole lives
through, since their minds are not invigorated by a
liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make
any efforts adequate to the occasion.

Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we
enter on the superstitions of this district, lest we should
be suspected of exaggeration in a recital of practices
too gross for this enlightened age.

But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do
well to remember, that no longer ago than the year
1751, and within twenty miles of the capital, they
seized on two superannuated wretches, crazed with age,
and overwhelmed with infirmities, on a suspicion of
witchcraft ; and, by trying experiments, drowned them
in a horse-pond.

In a farm-yard, near the middle of this village, stands
at this day, a row of pollard- ashes, which, by the seams
and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show
that, in former times, they have been cleft asunder.
These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and
held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped
naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a per-
suasion that, by such a process, the poor babes would
be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation

NATURAL HISTORY

was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered
with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts
coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out,
where the feat was performed with any adroitness at
all, the party was cured ; but where the cleft continued
to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove
ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not
long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of
which did not grow together.

We have several persons now living in the village,
who, in their childhood, were supposed to be healed by
this superstitious ceremony, derived down, perhaps,
from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their
conversion to Christianity1.

At the south corner of the Plestor, or area near the
church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old
grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which, for ages, had been
looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash.
Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches,
when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immedi-
ately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the
running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected : for it
is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and
deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a
beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is

1 Much nearer to the metropolis than Selborne, and in days later than
those alluded to by White, the ceremony described by him has been prac-
tised. The ash resorted to for the charm, in the instance referred to, is
in the hedge of an orchard belonging to a house near Enfield, in which
some of my earlier years were spent : a man living in the neighbourhood,
and at the time when I was best acquainted with it (1810) about sixty
years of age, was indicated as the individual on whose behalf recourse
had been had to the observance. The tree had healed, and the cure had,
of course, been performed.

Is it worth the remark that as ashes seem seldom to fail to grow toge-
gether after having been split, so also does it rarely happen that infants
affected with umbilical hernia fail to be relieved from it at a very early
age; and that, consequently, the charm-tree would, almost beyond the
probability of an exception, accord in its healing with that of the infant
whose fate was thus supposed to have been mysteriously connected with
it?-E.T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 297

afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the
loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to
which they were continually liable, our provident fore-
fathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when
once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A
shrew-ash was made thus2: — Into the body of the tree
a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor de-
voted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged
in, no doubt with several quaint incantations long since
forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a con-
secration are no longer understood, all succession is at
an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the
manor or hundred.

As to that on the Plestor,

" The late vicar stubb'd and burn'd it,"

when he was way-warden, regardless of the remon-
strances of the bystanders, who interceded in vain for
its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, and
alleging that it had been

" Religione patrum multos servata per annos."

I am, &c.

3 For a similar practice, see Plot's Staffordshire.

[Dr. Plot relates that two workmen, on sawing the trunk of a solid
oak, cut through the body of " a Hardishrew or Nursrow (as they here
call them,) i. e. a field-mouse" and that " the case remains an inexplicable
riddle to all those about to this very day. Butme-thinks, to any one that
considers the superstitious custom they have in this country of making
Nursrow-trees for the cure of unaccountable swellings in their cattle, the
thing should not seem strange. For to make any tree, whether oak, ash,
or elm, it being indifferent which, a Nursrow-tree, they catch one or more
of these mice (which they fancy bite their cattle, and make them swell),
and having bored a hole to the centre in the body of the tree, they put
the mice in, and then drive a peg in after them of the same wood, where
they starving at last, communicate forsooth such a virtue to the tree, that
cattle thus swoln being whipped with the boughs of it, presently recover:
of which trees they have not so many (though so easily made) but that at
some places they go eight or ten miles to procure this remedy." — E.T. B.]

298 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXIX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Feb. 7, 1776.

IN heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees
are perfect alembics : and no one, that has not attended
to such matters, can imagine how much water one tree
will distil in a night's time, by condensing the vapour,
which trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to
make the ground below quite in a float. In Newton
Lane, in October, 1775, on a misty day, a particular
oak in leaf dropped so fast that the 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 Indies, if
I mistake not, there are no springs or rivers : but the
people are supplied with that necessary element, water,
merely by the dripping of some large tall trees, which,
standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their heads
constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, from which
they dispense their kindly never-ceasing moisture ; and
so render those districts habitable by condensation
alone.

Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of
surface than those that are naked, that, in theory, their
condensations should greatly exceed those that are
stripped of their leaves; but, as the former imbibe also
a great quantity of moisture, it is difficult to say which
drip most: but this I know, that deciduous trees that
are entwined with much ivy seem to distil the greatest
quantity. Ivy leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold,
and therefore condense very fast ; and besides, ever-
greens imbibe very little. These facts may furnish the
intelligent with hints concerning what sorts of trees
they should plant round small ponds that they would

OF SELBORNE. 299

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 cen-
tury ago, will not now drive a common mill1. Besides,
most woodlands, forests, and chases, with us, abound
with pools and morasses ; no doubt, for the reason given
above.

To a thinking mind, few phenomena are more strange
than the state of little ponds on the summits of chalk-
hills, many of which are never dry in the most trying
droughts of summer. On chalk-hills I say, because in
many rocky and gravelly soils, springs usually break
out pretty high on the sides of elevated grounds and
mountains ; but no person acquainted with chalky dis-
tricts will allow that they ever saw springs in such a
soil, but in valleys and bottoms, since the waters of so
pervious a stratum as chalk all lie on one dead level,
as well-diggers have assured me again and again.

Now, we have many such little round ponds in this
district; and one in particular on our sheep-down,
three hundred feet above my house; which, though
never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more
than thirty feet in diameter, and containing perhaps not
more than two or three hundred hogsheads of water,
yet never is known to fail, though it affords drink for
three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least
twenty head of large cattle beside. This pond, it is true,
is overhung with two moderate beeches, that, doubtless,

1 Vide Kalm's Travels to North America.

300 NATURAL HISTORY

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 con-
sumption by cattle, yet constantly maintain a moderate
share of water, without overflowing in the wettest sea-
sons, as they would do if supplied by springs. By my
journal of May, 1775, it appears that " the small and
even considerable ponds in the vales are now dried up,
while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but
little affected." Can this difference be accounted for
from evaporation alone, which certainly is more preva-
lent in bottoms? or rather, have not those elevated
pools some unnoticed recruits, which in the night-time
counterbalance the waste of the day; without which,
the cattle alone must soon exhaust them? And here it
will be necessary to enter more minutely into the cause.
Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances, from ex-
periment, that " the moister the earth is, the more dew
falls on it in a night : and more than a double quantity
of dew falls on a surface of water than there does on an
equal surface of moist earth." Hence we see that water,
by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to itself a large
quantity of moisture nightly, by condensation ; and that
the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and even
with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable
and never-failing resource. Persons that are much
abroad, and travel early and late, such as shepherds,
fishermen, &c. can tell what prodigious fogs prevail in
the night on elevated downs, even in the hottest parts
of summer; and how much the surfaces of things are
drenched by those swimming vapours, though, to the
senses, all the while, little moisture seems to fall.

I am, &c.

OF SELBORNE. 30L

LETTER XXX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, April 3, 1776.

MONSIEUR HERISSANT, a French anatomist, seems
persuaded that he has discovered the reason why
cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs : the impediment,
he supposes, arises from the internal structure of their
parts, which incapacitates them for incubation. Ac-
cording to this gentleman, the crop, or craw, of a cuckoo
does not lie before the sternum at the bottom of the
neck, as in poultry (GaUince), pigeons (Columbce), &c.
but immediately behind it, on and over the bowels, so
as to make a large protuberance in the belly1.

Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo;
and, cutting open the breast-bone, and exposing the
intestines to sight, found the crop lying as mentioned
above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed
hard, like a pincushion, with food, which, upon nice
examination, we found to consist of various insects ;
such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies ; the
last of which, as they were just emerging out of the
aurelia state, we have seen cuckoos catching on the
wing. Among this farrago also were to be seen mag-
gots, and many seeds, which belonged either to goose-
berries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit ; so
that these birds apparently subsist on insects and fruits:
nor was there the least appearance of bones, feathers,
or fur, to support the idle notion of their being birds of
prey.

The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be remark-
ably short, between which and the anus lay the crop,

1 Histoire de l'Acad£mie Royale, 1752.

302 NATURAL HISTORY

or craw, and immediately behind that, the bowels
against the backbone.

It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that
the crop placed just upon the bowels must, especially
when full, be in a very uneasy situation during the
business of incubation ; yet the test will be, to examine
whether birds that are actually known to sit for certain
are not formed in a similar manner. This inquiry I
proposed to myself to make with a fern-owl, or goat-
sucker, as soon as opportunity offered: because if their
formation proves the same, the reason for incapacity in
the cuckoo will be allowed to have been taken up some-
what hastily.

Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from
its habit and shape, we suspected might resemble the
cuckoo in its internal construction. Nor were our sus-
picions ill grounded ; for, upon the dissection, the crop,
or craw, also lay behind the sternum, immediately on
the viscera, between them and the skin of the belly.
It was bulky, and stuffed hard with large Phalcence of
several sorts, and their eggs, which, no doubt, had been
forced out of those insects by the action of swallowing.

Now, as it appears that this bird, which is so well
known to practise incubation, is formed in a similar
manner with cuckoos, Monsieur Herissant's conjecture,
that cuckoos are incapable of incubation from the dis-
position of their intestines, seems to fall to the ground ;
and we are still at a loss for the cause of that strange
and singular peculiarity in the instance of the Cuculus
canorus*.

a The cuckoo has no true crop, and the position of its proventriculus
does not differ from that of other scansorial birds; the oesophagus de-
scends along the posterior or dorsal part of the thorax, inclining to the
left side, and, when opposite to the lower margin of the left lung, it begins
to expand into the glandular cavity or proventriculus. The gizzard,
which is neither large nor strong, is in immediate contact with the abdo-
minal parietes, not separated from them by an intervening stratum of
intestines; but this position cannot be supposed to interfere with the
power of incubation, since it occurs also in other birds that do incubate,
as the owl and Caryocatactes. — R. O.

OP SELBORNE. 303

We found the case to be the same with the ring-tail
hawk, in respect to formation ; and, as far as I can re-
collect, with the swift ; and probably it is so with many
more sorts of birds that are not granivorous.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, April 29, 1776.

ON August the 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper,
which seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the
grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut it up,
we found that the abdomen was crowded with young,
fifteen in number ; the shortest of which measured full
seven inches, and were about the size of full grown
earthworms. This little fry issued into the world with
the true viper spirit about them, showing great alertness
as soon as disengaged from the belly of the dam : they
twisted and wriggled about, and set themselves up, and
gaped very wide when touched with a stick, showing
manifest tokens of menace and defiance, though as yet
they had no manner of fangs that we could find, even
with the help of our glasses.

To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than
that early instinct which impresses young animals with
the notion of the situation of their natural weapons,
and of using them properly in their own defence, even
before those weapons subsist or are formed. Thus a
young cock will spar at his adversary before his spurs
are grown ; and a calf or lamb will push with its head
before its horns are sprouted. In the same manner did
these young adders attempt to bite before their fangs
were in being. The dam, however, was furnished with
very formidable ones, which we lifted up (for they fold

304 NATURAL HISTORY

down when not used) and cut them off with the point
of our scissars.

There was little room to suppose that this brood had
ever been in the open air before; and that they were
taken in for refuge, at the mouth of the dam, when she
perceived that danger was approaching : because then
probably we should have found them somewhere in the
neck, and not in the abdomen.

LETTER XXXII.

TO THE SAME.

CASTRATION has a strange effect: it emasculates both
man, beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resem-
blance of the other sex. Thus eunuchs have smooth
unmuscular arms, thighs, and legs; and broad hips,
and beardless chins, and squeaking voices. Gelt stags
and bucks have hornless heads, like hinds and does.
Thus wethers have small horns, like ewes; and oxen
large bent horns, and hoarse voices when they low, like
cows : for bulls have short straight horns ; and though
they mutter and grumble in a deep tremendous tone,
yet they low in a shrill high key. Capons have small
combs and gills, and look pallid about the head like
pullets; they also walk without any parade, and hover
chickens like hens1. Barrow-hogs have also small
tusks like sows.

Thus far it is plain that it puts a stop to the growth
of those appendages that are looked upon as its in-
signia. But the ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on
husbandry, carries it much farther ; for he says that the
loss of those insignia alone has sometimes a strange
effect : he had a boar so fierce and amorous, that, to

1 Reaumur trained capons to nurse the chickens which he hatched by
artificial heat. They clucked exactly like a hen, and proved as good
nurses as a real mother could have been. — RENNIE.

OF SELBORNE. 305

prevent mischief, orders were given for his tusks to be
broken off. No sooner had the beast suffered this
injury than his powers forsook him, and he neglected
those females to whom before he was passionately
attached, and from whom no fences could restrain
him.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE SAME.

THE natural term of a hog's life is little known, and
the reason is plain — because it is neither profitable nor
convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full
extent of its time : however, my neighbour, a man of
substance, who had no occasion to study every little
advantage to a nicety, kept a half-bred Bantam sow,
who was as thick as she was long, and whose belly
swept on the ground, till she was advanced to her
seventeenth year; at which period she showed some
tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and the decline
of her fertility.

For about ten years this prolific mother produced
two litters in the year, of about ten at a time, and
once above twenty at a litter ; but, as there were near
double the number of pigs to that of teats, many died.
From long experience in the world this female was
grown very sagacious and artful : when she found occa-
sion to converse with a boar she used to open all the
intervening gates, and march, by herself, up to a dis-
tant farm where one was kept ; and when her purpose
was served would return by the same means. At the
age of about fifteen her litters began to be reduced to
four or five ; and such a litter she exhibited when in her
fatting pen. She proved when fat, good bacon, juicy,
and tender; the rind, or sward, was remarkably thin.

306 NATURAL HISTORY

At a moderate computation she was allowed to have
been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs: a prodi-
gious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped!
She was killed in spring, 1775.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, May 9, 1770.

" admdrunt ubera tigres."

WE have remarked in a former letter how much incon-
gruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to
each other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not
be amiss to recount a different motive which has been
known to create as strange a fondness.

My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him,
which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about
the same time his cat kittened, and the young were
dispatched and buried. The hare was soon lost, and
supposed to be gone the way of most fondlings, — to be
killed by some dog or cat. However, in about a fort-
night, as the master was sitting in his garden in the
dusk of the evening, he observed his cat, with tail erect,
trotting towards him, and calling with little short in-
ward notes of complacency, 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 car-
nivorous and predaceous one1!

1 An additional instance, which fell under the author's notice, is given
in the Observations on various Parts of Nature, printed in a subsequent
part of this volume : it is there headed Cat and Squirrels. — E. T. B.

OP SELBORNE. 307

Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the
ferocious genus of Feles, the murium leo, as Linnaeus
calls it, should be affected with any tenderness towards
an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to
determine.

This strange affection probably was occasioned by
that desiderium, those tender maternal feelings, which
the loss of her kittens had awakened higher breast;
and by the complacency and ease she derived to herself
from the procuring her teats to be drawn, which were
too much distended with milk, till, from habit, she
became as much delighted with this foundling as if it
had been her real offspring 2.

This incident is no bad solution of that strange cir-
cumstance which grave historians as well as the poets
assert, of exposed children being sometimes nurtured

2 It is an almost every day occurrence in young dogs to take upon them-
selves the office of relieving the domestic cat, with whom they have con-
tracted an intimacy by residing at the same hearth, from the inconvenience
which the presence of milk occasions them on the destruction of their
kittens. It is equally common to witness the cat of a former litter acting
under similar circumstances the part of a sucking kitten ; an overgrown
but an indulged and happy bantling. In these instances, however, there
is not that marked distinction in the habits of the animal performing the
office of mother from those of her nursling which belongs to the one no-
ticed by Gilbert White, and which has not unfrequently been paralleled.

All these cases, it may be remarked, bear with no small degree offeree
on the nutrition of the young cuckoo by its foster parent. In the higher
classes of animals the parental stimulus to nourish after the young have
been produced strongly prevails : her own offspring are those towards
whom the care of the mother is first extended, as it is for their advantage
that the desire is implanted in her: but, failing these, the desire still
remains powerful, and will be gratified in favour of any object that will
accommodate itself to her views. The gaping mouths and craving cries
of her nestlings add to the stimulus which impels the dam to provide for
their wants ; and the young cuckoo in the hedge sparrow's nest will not,
it is presumed, be less craving than its natural inmates. Its greater bulk
and more rapid growth soon enable it to acquire strength enough to
remove all rival claimants for any portion of the food provided by the
industrious dam, and the destroyer of her progeny thus becomes the sole
inheritor of the cares which would have been equally shared among the
entire brood. It is not in the hedge sparrow's nest alone that importu-
nity and selfishness are thus successful, to the extinction of stronger and
more natural ties.— E. T. B.

x 2

308 NATURAL HISTORY

by female wild beasts that probably had lost their
young. For it is not one whit more marvellous that
Romulus and Remus, in their infant state, should be
nursed by a she- wolf, than that a poor little sucking
leveret should be fostered and cherished by a bloody
grimalkin.

u viridi fcetam Mavortis in antro

Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circum
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua."

LETTER XXXV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, May 20, 1777.

LANDS that are subject to frequent inundations are
always poor ; and probably, the reason may be because
the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects
and reptiles are of much more consequence, and have
much more influence in the economy of Nature, than
the incurious are aware of; and are mighty in their
effect, from their minuteness, which renders them less
an object of attention; and from their numbers and
fecundity. Earthworms, though in appearance a small
and despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost,
would make a lamentable chasm. For to say nothing
of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are
almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be
great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed
but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and
loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains
and the fibres of plants; by drawing straws and stalks
of leaves and twigs into it; and, most of all, by throwing
up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm

OP SELBORNE. 309

casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure
for grain and grass 1. 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 detesta-
tion of worms ; the former because they render their
walks unsightly, and make them much work : and the
latter because, as they think, worms eat^ their green
corn. But these men would find that the earth without
worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void
of fermentation ; and consequently sterile : and besides,
in favour of worms, it should be hinted that green corn,
plants, and flowers, are not so much injured by them
as by many species of Coleoptera (scarabs) and Tipulce
(long-legs), in their larva, or grub state ; and by unno-
ticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs,
which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havock
in the field and garden. Farmer Young, of Norton
Farm, says that this spring (1777) about four acres of
his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs,
which swarmed on the blades of corn, and devoured it
as fast as it sprang.

These hints we think proper to throw out in order to
set the inquisitive and discerning to work.

A good monography of worms would afford much
entertainment and information at the same time, and
would open a large and new field in natural history.
Worms work most in the spring ; but by no means lie

1 If the earth of worm-casts be really useful as manure, it would be
difficult to account for its fertilizing effects unless by supposing them to
result from the friable condition and fine state of subdivision into which
the soil has been brought by the process it has undergone within the in-
testines of the animal. In its passage through the digestive canal it has
been deprived of those animal and vegetable substances, which, as derived
from organized nature, are adapted to support organic life ; and the worm,
having secured for itself all the nutritious particles mixed up with the
soil swallowed by it while making its perforations, rejects the inert mass
at the hole by which it commenced its boring, forming with it a kind of
outwork for the protection of its citadel of retreat. — E. T. B.

310 NATURAL HISTORY

torpid in the dead months ; are out every mild night in
the winter, as any person may be convinced that will
take the pains to examine his grassplots with a candle ;
are hermaphrodites, and very prolific.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXVI1.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, Si I. ll<> II M , NOV. 22, 1777.

You cannot but remember, that the 26th and 27th of
last March were very hot days ; so sultry that every-
body complained and were restless under those sensa-
tions to which they had not been reconciled by gradual
approaches.

This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many
summer coincidences : for on those two days the ther-
mometer rose to 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 appeared 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 insects withdrew,
the tortoise retired again into the ground, and the swal-
lows were seen no more until the 10th of April, when,
the rigour of the spring abating, a softer season began
to prevail.

1 This Letter was first printed in Barrington's Miscellanies, (1781),
p. 225. " I shall here," he says, " subjoin a letter which I have received
from that ingenious and observant naturalist, the Rev. Mr. White, of Sel-
borne, Hampshire." — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 311

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 ob-
servant 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 disco-
vered themselves again in the first week of November,
and often on the fourth day of that month only for one
day ; and that not as if they were in actual migration,
but playing about at their leisure and feeding calmly,
as if no enterprise of moment at all agitated their spirits.
And this was the case in the beginning of this very
month ; for, on the 4th of November, more than twenty
house martins, which, in appearance, had all departed
about the 7th of October, were seen again, for that one
morning only, sporting between my fields and the
Hanger, and feasting on insects which swarmed in
that sheltered district. The preceding day was wet
and blustering, but the 4th was dark and mild, and
soft, the wind at south-west, and the thermometer
at 58|°; a pitch not common at that season of the
year. Moreover, it may not be amiss to add in this
place, that whenever the thermometer is above 50°,
the bat comes flitting out in every autumnal and winter
month.

From all these circumstances laid together, it is
obvious that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds,
are awakened from their profoundest slumbers by a
little untimely warmth ; and therefore that nothing so
much promotes this death-like stupor as a defect of
heat. And farther, it is reasonable to suppose that
two whole species, or at least many individuals of
those two species, of British Hirundines, do never
leave this island at all, but partake of the same be-
numbed state : for we cannot suppose that, after a
month's absence, house martins can return from south-
ern regions to appear for one morning in November, or

312 NATURAL HISTORY

that house swallows should leave the districts of Africa
to enjoy, in March, the transient summer of a couple
of days2.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXVII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Jan. 8, 1778.

THERE was in this village, several years ago, a miser-
able pauper, who, from his birth, was afflicted with a
leprosy, as far as we are aware, of a singular kind,
since it affected only the palms of his hands and the
soles of his feet. This scaly eruption usually broke out
twice in the year, at the spring and fall ; and, by peel-
ing away, 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. His habit was lean,
lank, and cadaverous. In this sad plight he dragged
on a miserable existence, a burthen to himself and his
parish, which was obliged to support him till he was
relieved by death, at more than thirty years of age.

The good women, who love to account for every
defect in children by the doctrine of longing, said that
his mother felt a violent propensity for oysters, which
she was unable to gratify ; and that the black rough
scurf on his hands and feet were the shells of that fish.
We knew his parents, neither of which were lepers ;

a It appears a more obvious explanation of the appearance of the
swallows in November, that they are late broods from the north ; and
that those seen in March, are early arrived birds on their way to the
north. When on their migratory journeys, they always hawk for flies, as
Mr. White describes.— RENNIE.

OF SELBORNE. 313

his father, in particular, lived to be far advanced in
years.

In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havock
among mankind. The Israelites seem to have been
greatly afflicted with it, from the most remote times;
as appears from the peculiar and repeated injunctions
given them in the Levitical law1. Nor was the rancour
of this foul disorder much abated in the last period of
their commonwealth, as may be seen in many passages
of the New Testament.

Some centuries ago, this horrible distemper prevailed
all Europe over ; and our forefathers were by no means
exempt, as appears by the large provision made for
objects labouring under this calamity. There was an
hospital for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln, a
noble one near Durham, three in London and South-
wark, and perhaps many more in or near our great
towns and cities. Moreover, some crowned heads, and
other wealthy and charitable personages, bequeathed
large legacies to such poor people as languished under
this hopeless infirmity.

It must, therefore, in these days, be, to a humane and
thinking person, a matter of equal wonder and satisfac-
tion, when he contemplates how nearly this pest is
eradicated, and observes that a leper now is a rare
sight. He will, moreover, when engaged in such a train
of thought, naturally inquire for the reason. This
happy change perhaps may have originated and been
continued from the much smaller quantity of salted
meat and fish now eaten in these kingdoms ; from the
use of linen next the skin; from the plenty of better
bread ; and from the profusion of fruits, roots, legumes,
and greens, so common in every family. Three or four
centuries ago, before there were any enclosures, sown-
grasses, field-turnips, or field-carrots, or hay, all the
cattle which had grown fat in summer, and were not

1 See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xiv.

314 NATURAL HISTORY

killed for winter use, were turned out soon after Michael-
mas 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 Spencer2
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 is now arrived at such a
pitch of perfection, that our best and fattest meats are
killed in the winter ; and no man needs eat salted flesh,
unless he prefers it, that has money to buy fresh.

One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the
quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by
the commonalty at all seasons as well as in Lent;
which our poor now would hardly be persuaded to
touch.

The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room
of sordid and filthy woollen, long worn next the skin, is
a matter of neatness comparatively modern ; but must
prove a great means of preventing cutaneous ails. At
this very time, woollen instead of linen prevails among
the poorer Welsh, who are subject to foul eruptions3.

The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found
among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that
miserable sort which used in old days to be made of

a Viz. six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six hundred
muttons.

3 Mr. Rennie has remarked that the prevalent practice of wearing flan-
nel next the skin, is, in a medical point of view, liable to all the judicious
objections made by Mr. White : but the objections seem rather to sordid
and filthy woollen, long worn. If the skin be not unusually irritable, the
increased activity of the cutaneous circulation occasioned by the wearing
of frequent changes of flannel will rarely be productive of the minor evil
of eruptions; while, against the heavier inflictions of visceral inflamma-
tions and rheumatism, and the other serious consequences of checked
perspiration, it furnishes the most approved preventive that our variable
climate admits of.— E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 315

barley or beans, may contribute not a little to the
sweetening their blood and correcting their juices; for
the inhabitants of mountainous districts, to this day,
are still liable to the itch and other cutaneous disorders,
from a wretchedness and poverty of diet.

As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged
person of observation may perceive, within his own
memory, both in town and country, how vastly the con-
sumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in
cities now support multitudes in a comfortable state,
while gardeners get fortunes. Every decent labourer
also has his garden, which is half his support, as well
as his delight ; and common farmers provide plenty of
beans, peas, and greens, for their hinds to eat with their
bacon ; and those few that do not, are despised for their
sordid parsimony, and looked upon as regardless of the
welfare of their dependants. Potatoes have prevailed
in this little district, by means of premiums, within
these twenty years only ; and are much esteemed here
nbw by the poor, who would scarce have ventured to
taste them in the last reign.

Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cab-
bage, because they call the month of February sprout-
cale*; but long after their days, the cultivation of
gardens was little attended to. The religious, being
men of leisure, and keeping up a constant correspond-
ence with Italy, were the first people among us that
had gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection, within
the walls of their abbeys5 and priories. The barons

4 As our Saxon ancestors called the month of February ' Sprout-
cale,' so the names of many other months were equally significant; viz.
March, stormy month ; May, Thrimilchi, the cows then being milked
three times a day ; June, dig and weed month ; September, barley month,

&C. — MlTFORD.

5 " In monasteries, the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however
dimly. In them, men of business were formed for the state : the art of
writing was cultivated by the monks ; they were the only proficients in
mechanics, gardening, and architecture." See Dalrymple's Annals of
Scotland.

316 NATURAL HISTORY

neglected every pursuit that did not lead to war or tend
to the pleasure of the chase.

It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horti-
culture themselves, that the knowledge of gardening
made such hasty advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila,
and Mr. Waller of Beaconsfield, were some of the first
people of rank that promoted the elegant science of
ornamenting without despising the superintendence of
the kitchen quarters and fruit walls.

A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray, in his Tour
of Europe, at once surprises us, and corroborates what
has been advanced above ; for we find him observing,
so late as his days, that " the Italians use several herbs
for sallets, which are not yet or have not been but
lately used in England, viz. selleri (celery) which is
nothing else but the sweet smallage ; the young shoots
whereof, with a little of the head of the root cut off, they
eat raw with oil and pepper." And farther, he adds,
"curled endive blanched is much used beyond seas;
and, for a raw sallet, seemed to excel lettuce itself."
Now, this journey was undertaken no longer ago than
in the year 1G63.

I am, &c.

LETTER XXXVIII.

TO THE SAME.

" Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido,
Dixerat, ecquis adest? et, adest, responderat echo.
Hie stupet; utque acieni partes divisit in omnes,
Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat ilia vocantem."

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Feb. 12, 1778.

IN a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow
vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes
should abound. Many we have discovered that return
the cry of a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting horn,

OF SELBORNE. 317

a tunable ring of bells, or the melody of birds, very
agreeably : but we were still at a loss for a polysyllabi-
cal, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had
parted from his company in a summer evening walk,
and was calling after them, stumbled upon a very curi-
ous one in a spot where it might least be expected, At
first he was much surprised, and could not be per-
suaded but that he was mocked by some boy; but,
repeating his trials in several languages, and finding
his respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then
discerned the deception.

This echo, in an evening, before rural noises cease,
would repeat ten syllables most articulately and dis-
tinctly, especially if quick dactyls were chosen. The
last syllables of

" Tityre, tu patulae recubans "

were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first:
and there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but
that at midnight, when the air is very elastic, and a
dead stillness prevails, one or two syllables more might
have been obtained ; but the distance rendered so late
an experiment very inconvenient.

Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best; for
when we came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embar-
rassed spondees of the same number of syllables,

" Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens "

we could perceive a return but of four or five.

All echoes have some one place to which they are
returned stronger and more distinct than to any other ;
and that is always the place that lies at right angles
with the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor
too far off. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much
more articulately than hanging woods or vales; be-
cause in the latter the voice is, at it were, entangled
and embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the
rebound.

The true object of this echo, as we found by various

318 NATURAL HISTORY

experiments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gaily
Lane, which measures in front forty feet, and from the
ground to the eaves twelve feet. The true centrum pho-
nicum, or just distance, is one particular spot in the
King's Field, in the path to Nore Hill, on the very
brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart-way. In
this case there is no choice of distance ; but the path,
by mere contingency, happens to be the lucky, the iden-
tical spot, because the ground rises or falls so immedi-
ately, 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 syllable distinctly:
hence this echo, which gives ten distinct syllables,
ought to measure four hundred yards, or one hundred
and twenty feet to each syllable ; whereas our distance
is only two hundred and fifty-eight yards, or near
seventy-five feet, to each syllable. Thus our measure
falls short of the Doctor's, as five to eight : but then it
must be acknowledged that this candid philosopher was
convinced afterwards, that some latitude must be ad-
mitted of in the distance of echoes according to time
and place1.

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 sun-
shine 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.

1 It is evident too, from the previous statement of the different number
of syllables returned by the echo, according to whether they were quick
dactyls or heavy spondees, that some allowance must be made on this
account also. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 319

Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination,
that the poets have personified her ; and in their hands
she has been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction.
Nor need the gravest man be ashamed to appear taken
with such a phenomenon, since it may become the
subject of philosophical or mathematical inquiries.

One should have imagined that echoes, if not enter-
taining, must at least have been harmless and inoffen-
sive ; yet Virgil advances a strange notion, that they
are injurious to bees. After enumerating some pro-
bable and reasonable annoyances, such as prudent
owners would wish far removed from their bee-gardens,
he adds,

" aut ubi concava pulsu

Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago."

This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admit-
ted by the philosophers of these days; especially as
they all now seem agreed that insects are not furnished
with any organs of hearing at all2. But, if it should

2 The opinion advanced in the text as one in which the philosophers of
the author's day seemed all agreed, was shared by Linnaeus and Bonnet,
naturalists of the highest authority. But repeated observations and expe-
riments have since shown that many insects, and among these it is highly
probable that bees are to be included, possess the sense of hearing. With-
out the aid of experiment it might, indeed, almost be regarded as esta-
blished, that in those cases in which the faculty of producing sound is
possessed by one sex of an animal, that of hearing it should belong to the
other sex ; and it would seem rather preposterous to grant the existence
of a sense in one sex of an insect and deny it to the other. Gilbert White,
in his Letter respecting the field cricket (XL VI.), although in the earlier
part of it he seems to guard himself from admitting that these insects
hear by assuming that they feel " a person's footsteps as he advances,"
must be regarded as insinuating the possession of that sense when he
subsequently remarks that " the males only make that shrilling noise,
perhaps out of rivalry and emulation" — a rivalry and emulation which
could not be excited in others by a sound unheard by them.

But reasoning and conjecture are both equally unnecessary in a case
in which direct observation may be adduced in proof. Brunelli's experi-
ments seem on this point altogether satisfactory, and to prove that both
the males and the females possess the sense of hearing. He kept several
males of the large green grasshopper in a closet, where they were very
merry and continued singing all the day : but a tap at the door would

320 NATURAL HISTORY

be urged, that though they cannot hear, yet perhaps
they may feel the repercussion of sounds, I grant it is
possible they may. Yet that these impressions are
distasteful or hurtful, I deny ; because bees, in good
summers, thrive well in my outlet, where the echoes are
very strong: for this village is another Anathoth, a
place of responses or echoes. Besides, it does not
appear from experiment that bees are in any way capa-
ble 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 undis-
turbed, and without showing the least sensibility or
resentment.

Some time since its discovery, this echo is become
totally silent, though the object or hop-kiln remains :
nor is there any mystery in this defect; for the field
between is planted as a hop-garden, and the voice of
the speaker is totally absorbed and lost among the
poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when
the poles are removed in autumn, the disappointment is
the same; because a tall quickset hedge, nurtured up
for the purpose of shelter to the hop-ground, entirely
interrupts the impulse and repercussion of the voice :
so that, till those obstructions are removed, no more of
its garrulity can be expected.

immediately silence them. In this instance they might, perhaps, have
been affected by the concussion of the air ; and the result might rather
have been owing to acuteness of touch than to hearing. But his subse-
quent experiments were not open to such an objection. He learned to
imitate the chirping of these grasshoppers : and when he did this at the
door of the closet in which they were kept, they soon began to answer
him ; at first by the gentle chirpings of a few, and then by a full chorus of
the whole of them. He afterwards enclosed a male grasshopper in a
box, and placed it in one part of his garden, leaving a female at liberty
in a distant part of it : as soon as the male began to sing, the female
immediately hopped away towards him. This latter experiment was
frequently repeated, and in every case the female, as soon as the male
began to chirp, hastened to join him. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 321

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, with a like rising opposite to
it, at a few hundred yards' distance ; and perhaps suc-
cess might be the easier ensured, could .some canal,
lake, or stream intervene. From a seat at the centrum
phonicum, he and his friends might amuse themselves
sometimes of an evening with the prattle of this loqua-
cious nymph ; of whose complacency and decent reserve
more may be said than can with truth of every indivi-
dual of her sex ; since she is

" quae nee reticere loquenti,

Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo."

I am, &c.

P. S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the
following lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes,
and so poetically accounting for their causes from
popular superstition :

" Qua? bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis
Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola
Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant,
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos
Quaerimus, et magna disperses 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
Finitiini fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ;
Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti
Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi,
Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas,
Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum :
Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans,
Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis,
Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam."

Lucretius, lib. iv. 1. 576.
Y

NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XXXIX.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, May 13, 1778.

AMONG the many singularities attending those amusing
birds the swifts, I am now confirmed in the opinion
that we have every year the same number of pairs inva-
riably; 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 round it, that they are easily enumerated.
The number that I constantly find are eight pairs ;
about half of which reside in the church, and the rest
build in some of the lowest and meanest thatched cot-
tages. Now, as these eight pairs, allowance being made
for accidents, breed yearly eight pairs more, what be-
comes annually of this increase; and, what determines
every spring which pairs shall visit us, and reoccupy
their ancient haunts1?

1 Mr. White observes also, in a former letter, that there must be a great
destruction of swallows somewhere ; because they do not return in the
same numbers that departed from hence. But this is the case with all
birds in a wild state, unless under particular circumstances; the numbers
are not greater each successive spring, however prolific the parents may
be, but the supply is fitted to the consumption. It may be readily con-
ceived, that large numbers of our birds of passage may be destroyed by
birds of prey in the interior of Africa, and it is more difficult to account
for the annual consumption of the small birds that remain the whole year
with us, where the hawks are much destroyed and few in number. Night-
ingales live nine or ten years in confinement, and there is no reason to
believe swallows to be more short-lived. Chaffinches and yellowhammers
have few enemies but the sparrow hawk ; and yet, supposing each pair to
raise but six young, which if they breed twice must be a low average,

OF SELBORNE. 323

Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornitho-
logy, I have always supposed that that sudden reverse
of affection, that strange avnoTopyjj which immediately
succeeds in the feathered kind to the most passionate
fondness, is the occasion of an equal dispersion of birds
over the face of the earth. Without this provision, one
favourite district would be crowded with inhabitants,
while others would be destitute and forsaken. But the
parent birds seem to maintain a jealous "superiority,
and to oblige the young to seek for new abodes : and
the rivalry of the males in many kinds prevents their
crowding the one on the other.

Whether the swallows and house martins return in
the same exact number annually is not easy to say, for
reasons given above : but it is apparent, as I have re-
marked before in my Monographies, that the numbers
returning bear no manner of proportion to the numbers
retiring.

three out of every four birds must perish before the next summer, or the
numbers would increase annually.

I have been even more puzzled to understand the enormous consump-
tion of toads, for I scarcely know what will eat them. If a hungry pike
seizes one, he disgorges it again in disgust, though he eats a frog greedily.
I have observed the flat margin of a small pond very near to me, in York-
shire, on the 22d of June, swarming with innumerable millions of young
toads, which make a black belt for a yard or two round it, so crowded
in some places that a pin could not be pushed in between any of them.
After a while, these climb the higher ground and disperse in the woods
and fields. On the 10th of July not one remained near the pond ; they
were scattered about the upland grounds. But what becomes of them
ultimately ? for the longevity of toads is known to be very great: they are
liable to few accidents : if a man tread upon an old toad with his whole
weight, it is not injured by it; and even when stunned at the first, it soon
recovers ; nor can I find how they are consumed. Do the rooks, jays,
and magpies eat them? Mr. White says that ducks, buzzards, owls,
stone curlews, and snakes, eat toads : but there are no ducks, buzzards,
or stone curlews in the quarter where these myriads are produced, and
snakes and owls are very rare in the neighbourhood ; yet, through some
unascertained channel of consumption, the whole of this enormous
increase of toads disappears before the next summer. — W. H.

324 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XL.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, June 2, 1778.

THE standing objection to botany has always been,
that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises
the memory, without improving the mind or advancing
any real knowledge : and, where the science is carried
no farther than a mere systematic classification, the
charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous
of wiping off this aspersion, should be by no means
content with a list of names ; he should study plants
philosophically, should investigate the laws of vegeta-
tion, should examine the powers and virtues of effica-
cious herbs, should promote their cultivation ; and graft
the gardener, the planter, and the husbandman, on the
phytologist. Not that system is by any means to be
thrown aside ; without system the field of Nature would
be a pathless wilderness ; but system should be subser-
vient to, not the main object of, pursuit.

Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention ; and in
itself is of the utmost consequence to mankind, and
productive of many of the greatest comforts and elegan-
cies of life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer,
honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, &c. what not only
strengthens our hearts, and exhilarates our spirits, but
what secures us from inclemencies of weather and
adorns our persons. Man, in his true state of nature,
seems to be subsisted by 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
kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with flesh
alone, and is driven, to what hunger has never been

OF SELBORNE. 325

known to compel the very beasts, to prey on his own
species 1.

The productions of vegetation have had a vast influ-
ence on the commerce of nations, and have been the
great promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the
articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel,
paper, &c. As every climate has its peculiar produce,
our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse ; so that
by means of trade each distant part is supplied with the
growth of every latitude. But, without the knowledge
of plants and their culture, we must have been content
with our hips and haws, without enjoying the delicate
fruits of India and the salutiferous drugs of Peru.

Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every
various species of each obscure genus, the botanist
should endeavour to make himself acquainted with
those that are useful. You shall see a man readily
ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know wheat
from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley
from another.

But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be
most neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem
to distinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy
from the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from
the dry and juiceless.

The study of grasses would be of great consequence
to a northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that
could improve the sward of the district where he lived,
would be a useful member of society : to raise a thick
turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of syste-
matic knowledge ; and he would be the best common-
wealth's man that could occasion the growth of " two
blades of grass where one alone was seen before2."

I am, &c.

1 See the late voyages to the South Seas.

2 A contribution worthy of a nobleman of the highest rank and most
extensive possessions, has been made to the knowledge of the agricul-
turist and to the wants of civilized man, by the Duke of Bedford, whose

326 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER XLI.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, July 3, 1778.

IN a district so diversified with such a variety of hill
and dale, aspects and soils, it is no wonder that great
choice of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands,
sheep-walks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and

experiments, instituted at Woburn Abbey and conducted under the super-
intendence of the late George Sinclair, have furnished data for judging
how most probably two blades of grass may be made to grow where one
only was before found. The object of the experiments was to ascertain
what kinds of grass yielded the largest crops and the greatest quantity
of nutriment; and to determine the soils which were best adapted to each
of them. Their consequence was the publication, in 1816, of the Hortus
Gramineus Woburnensis, or an Account of the Results of the Experi-
ments on the Produce and nutritive Qualities of different Grasses and
other Plants, used as the Food of the more valuable domestic Animals.
" Spots of ground, each containing four square feet, were enclosed by
boards in such a manner that there was no lateral communication between
the earth enclosed by the boards and that of the garden : the soil was
removed in these enclosures, and new soils supplied, or mixtures of soils
were made in them, to furnish, as far as possible, to the different grasses
those soils which seem most favourable to their growth, a few varieties
being adopted for the purpose of ascertaining the effects of different soils
on the same plant." Most of the species were grown on sandy, clayey,
loamy, and peaty soils, of various proportions, the chemical composition
of each being ascertained by Sir Humphry Davy ; and the quantity of
nutritive matter afforded by the crop was also determined by a simple
process indicated by the same eminent chemist. " The grass, in its green
or dry state, was submitted to the action of hot water till all its soluble
parts were taken up: the liquor was then separated from the woody fibre
of the grass by means of blotting paper : it was then evaporated to dry-
ness. The product, or solid matter, is the nutritive matter of the grass,"
consisting, " for the most part, of five distinct vegetable substances, viz.
mucilaginous, saccharine, albuminous, bitter extractive, and saline
matters."

Under this treatment, as an instance, it may be mentioned that it was
found that the cock's foot grass, when cultivated on a peat soil, produced
one-sixth more in weight than on a sandy loam ; but that the grass was
of an inferior quality as to nutriment; so that the crop, although heavier,
was of less value in the proportion of nine to eight : that the first leaves

OF SELBORNE. 327

champaign fields, cannot but furnish an ample Flora.
The deep rocky lanes abound with Filices, and the pas-
tures and moist woods with Fungi. If in any branch of
botany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in the
large aquatic plants, which are not to be expected on a
spot far removed from rivers, and lying up amidst the
hill country at the spring heads. To enumerate all the
plants that have been di severed within our limits
would be a needless work ; but a short list of the more
rare, and the spots where they are to be found, may be
neither unacceptable nor unentertaining : —

of the spring are more nutritive than those of the end of the year, sixty-
four drachms at the beginning of April affording sixty-nine grains of nu-
tritive matter, while the same quantity in the month of November yielded
only thirty-nine grains : that the herbage, when suffered to grow rank or
old from want of sufficient stocking, contains nearly one half less nourish-
ment than that which is of recent growth, the quantity in sixty-four
drachms being in the one case only twenty grains, and in the other thirty-
six: and that the leaves and stalks are equally nutritious. The de-
duction is, that the cock's foot grass is more valuable for pasture than for
hay ; and that it is necessary to pasture or cut it closely in order to de-
rive the greatest advantage from it. As a farther and general deduction,
it is stated that the cock's foot grass appears to have a greater variety of
merits for alternate husbandry than almost any other kind : and it is re-
commended that it should constitute three parts at least of a mixture of
grasses for such cultivation, the remainder of the combination consisting
of such kinds as possess in a greater degree the qualities in which it is
deficient, such as Poa trivialis, Phleum pratense, Lolium perenne, &c.

From this instance a slight idea may be obtained of the valuable re-
sults brought under the observation of those who may be disposed to
profit by them for the improvement of their fields. Every ordinary grass,
even those that offered but little promise of advantage, was submitted to
experiment; and a record of each was equally kept. To aid in the deter-
mination of the several kinds of grasses, dried specimens of each accom-
panied, in the original edition, the account given of it; and thus supplied
the most tangible means of ascertaining the object meant : and specimens
of the seeds being also included in the work, those errors which might
have occurred, had descriptions only been given, were guarded against
by obvious and simple means, and in the most effectual manner.

A second edition of the Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis, published in
1825, has coloured representations of the several grasses experimented
on, as well as some additional facts of interest to the agriculturist : to
whose advantage it is a contribution of the highest value, offered by one
of the most enlightened of the proprietors and cultivators of the soil of
England.— E. T. B.

328 NATURAL HISTORY

Helleborus fcetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's foot, or
setterwort,— all over the High Wood and Coney Croft
Hanger: this continues a great branching plant the
winter through, blossoming about January, and is very
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 Oxycoccus, creeping bilberries, or cranber-
ries,— in the bogs of Bin's pond ;

Vaccinium myrtillust whortle, or bilberries, — on the dry
hillocks of Wolmer Forest ;

Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sundew, — in the
bogs of Bin's Pond ;

Drosera longifolia, long-leaved sundew, — in the bogs
of Bin's Pond ;

Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh 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 Hanger and
Shrub Wood ;

Monotropa Hypopitys, yellow monotropa, or bird's
nest, — in Selborne Hanger under the shady beeches, to
whose roots it seems to be parasitical — at the north
west end of the Hanger ;

Chloraperfoliata,13lackstoniaperfoliata,HuDSO*ii,per-
foliated yellow wort, — on the banks in the King's Field ;

Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true love, or one berry,
— in the Church Litten Coppice;

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxi-
frage,— in the dark and rocky hollow lanes ;

OF SELBORNE. 329

Gentiana Amarella, autumnal gentian, or fellvvort, —
on the Zigzag and Hanger ;

Lathrcca Squamaria, tooth wort, — in the Church Litten
Coppice under some hazels near the foot bridge, in
Trimming's garden hedge, and on the dry wall opposite
Grange Yard ;

Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel, — in the Short and Long
Lith;

Lathyrus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathyrus, —
in the bushes at the foot of the Short Lith, near the
path;

Ophrys spiralis, ladies' traces, — in the Long Lith, and
towards the south corner of the common ;

Ophrys Nidus Avis, 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 l ;

1 Until I had discovered the extraordinary manner in which this plant
propagates itself, I was much puzzled how a plant of such rapid and vi-
gorous growth, bearing seed like the finest particles of dust, could spring
up in a few weeks in the spring, where there had been no intimation of
its existence the preceding season, and without ever being seen in a
young state ; and I had observed that after disappearing for a few years,
it would rise again in vigour and abundance in the same place.

Many years ago, being amongst beech woods in the winter where the
plant abounded and where the dead flower-stalks were still standing, I
determined to investigate its secret history. The plant sometimes grows
in the earth, but oftener in masses of dead beech leaves. On removing
the leaves or mould to the bottom of the dead stalks, it appeared to have
grown out of a bundle of fleshy fibres, about as thick as a crow-quill, di-
verging every way. The heart of the bundle, where they were connected,
adjoining to the flower stem, was decaying; the fibres were falling apart,
and the plant appeared to have died as an annual after flowering. On
stirring the leaves further, at a small distance, I discovered a live bundle
of similar fibres, with a very strong white shoot or eye, like the dormant
shoot of a perennial herbaceous plant, which was evidently to produce a
flowering stem in the next summer. Pursuing my researches, I soon
discovered other similar bundles of different sizes, which were clearly
immature and not ready to sprout in the following spring. On examina-
tion of the smallest, I found that it grew from the end of a half dead fibre ;
and recurring to the dead plant which I had first taken up, I perceived
that its several fibres, or at least many of them, though dead at the base
or end, which had been attached to the old plant, were alive at the other

330 NATURAL HISTORY

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 Hanger
among the shrubs at the south-east end above the cot-
tages ;

Lycoperdon tuber, truffles, — in the Hanger and High
Wood;

Sambucus Ebulus, dwarf elder, wall wort, or Banewort,
— 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 dawn-
ings of spring ; many when the spring is established ;
some at midsummer ; and some not till autumn. When
we see the Helleborus fcetidus and Helleborus niger blow-
ing at Christmas, the Helleborus hyemalis in January,

end, antl beginning to bristle or protrude young fibres near the extremity.
By further research, I clearly ascertained that the plant dies after flower-
ing, but is capable of reproducing a new plant from the point of each of
its fibres, after they have fallen apart, the extreme point becoming the eye
or shoot, which increases in size till its maturity, and the lateral bristles
becoming the fibres by which the plant is to be nourished, and afterwards
propagated. The young roots continue thus to increase in bulk under
ground till they come to the flowering age, when they push up vigorously,
die, and spawn again in the same extraordinary manner. The disap-
pearance and reappearance of the plant is thus completely accounted for.
I did not make a memorandum of the number of different sizes, but if I
recollect right they are five years old when they flower. I potted several
of them, which flowered in the green-house, but all that were left in pots
out of doors were killed by frost. Though ophrys and orchis roots abide
the severest winter in their native situation, if planted in pots and left
out, they will certainly be destroyed by frost. The dead leaves or turf
protect them where they grow.

It is not generally known that the Orchis b\folia, or white butterfly
orchis, is the most fragrant of flowers, and that two or three of them in a
pot will perfume a whole house at night. They are scentless by day.
They will flourish in any part of London, if the pots are kept in the room
with little water in the winter, and the plants allowed a little air at the
window when growing. — W. H.

OF SELttORNE. 331

and the Helleborus viridis as soon as ever it emerges
out of the ground, we do not wonder, because they
are kindred plants that we expect should keep pace
the one with the other. But other congenerous vege-
tables 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 cro-
cus, which have such an affinity, that the best botanists
only make them varieties of the same genus, of which
there is only one species ; not being able to discern any
difference in the corolla, or in the internal structure2.
Yet the vernal crocus expands its flowers by the begin-
ning 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 cir-
cumstance is one of the wonders of the creation, little
noticed, because a common occurrence ; yet ought not
to be overlooked on account of its being familiar, since
it would be as difficult to be explained as the most
stupendous phenomenon in nature.

Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow
Congeal'd, the crocus' flamy bud to glow ?

2 The more minute analysis that has obtained since the time of Gilbert
White has produced an immense change in the views of botanists with re-
spect to this genus. Crocus now consists not of one species, but of thirty
at the least ; and no fewer than four distinct kinds are included among
the plants of Britain. Yet this more strict definition of the crocuses
scarcely tends to diminish the wonder expressed above, why, among
plants so extremely similar in appearance, differences so striking should
exist in their seasons of developement. Another singularity in the genus
would doubtless have excited the admiration of our author, had he been
acquainted with it: he would have viewed with the interest that attaches
to a problem requiring solution the peculiarity of the naked -flowering saf-
fron, and would probably have spoken of it also as of one of the wonders
of the creation, on account of its producing its flowers, like the meadow-
saffron, unaccompanied by the protection or the presence of leaves, which
in these instances instead of preceding the bloom do not appear until after
the flower has faded.— E. T. B.

332 NATURAL HISTORY

Say, what retards, amidst the summer's blaze,
The' autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days?
The GOD of SEASONS ; whose pervading power
Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower:
He bids each flower his quickening word obey ;
Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay.

LETTER XLII.

TO THE SAME.

" Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi et in suo cuique
genere incessus est : aves solae vario meatu feruntur et in terra et in
acre/' PUN. Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 38.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Aug. 7, 1778.

A GOOD ornithologist should be able to distinguish
birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape ;
on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush
as well as in the hand. For, though it must not be
said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar
to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least,
that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a
judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some
certainty. 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 kestril or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode
of hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the
while being briskly agitated. Hen harriers fly low over
heaths or fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly
like a pointer or setting-dog. Owls move in a buoyant
manner, as if lighter than the air; they seem to want
ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that
must draw the attention even of the most incurious —

OF SKLBORNE. 333

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, fre-
quently 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 ; wood-
peckers fly volatu undoso, opening and closing their
wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or fall-
ing 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 awk-
wardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot,
climbing and descending with ridiculous caution. All
the Gallince parade and walk gracefully, and run nimbly ;
but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and
in a straight line. Magpies and jays flutter with power-
less wings, and make no dispatch ; herons seem encum-
bered with too much sail for their light bodies; but
these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying bur-
thens, such as large fishes, and the like ; pigeons, and
particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of
clashing their wings the one against the other over their
backs with a loud snap; another variety called tum-
blers turn themselves over in the air. Some birds have
movements peculiar to the season of pairing: thus ring-
doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in
the spring hang about on the wing in a toying and play-
ful manner ; thus the cock-snipe, while breeding, for-
getting his former flight, fans the air like the wind-hover;
and the greenfinch in particular exhibits such languish-
ing and faltering gestures as to appear like a wounded
and dying bird; the kingfisher darts along like an
arrow ; fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk
over the tops of trees like a meteor; starlings, as it
were, swim along, while missel- thrushes use a wild and

334 NATURAL HISTORY

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 vacil-
lations like a butterfly. Most of the small birds fly by
jerks, rising and falling as they advance. Most small
birds hop; but wagtails and larks walk, moving their
legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly
as they sing; woodlarks hang poised in the air; and
titlarks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their
descent. The whitethroat uses odd jerks and gesticu-
lations 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 Tringce, wild ducks, and some
others, are very long, and give their wings, when in
motion, a hooked appearance1. Dabchicks, moorhens,
and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and
hardly make any dispatch; the reason is plain, their
wings are placed too forward out of the true centre of
gravity ; as the legs of auks and divers are situated too
backward.

LETTER XLIII.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, Sept. 9, 1778.

FROM the motion of birds, the transition is natural
enough to their notes and language, of which I shall
say something. Not that I would pretend to under-
stand their language like the vizier, who, by the re-

1 The elongated feathers are the tertials : the secondaries are short. —
W.Y.

OF SELBORNE. 335

cital of a conversation which passed between two owls,
reclaimed a sultan, before delighting in conquest and
devastation l ; 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 under-
stood.

The notes of the eagle kind are shrill and piercing ;
and about the season of nidification much diversified,
as I have been often assured by a curious observer of
Nature who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles
abound. The notes of our hawks much resemble those
of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive notes ;
they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the
vox humana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical
key2. This note seems to express complacency and
rivalry among the males: they use also a quick call
and a horrible scream; and can snore and hiss when
they mean to menace. Ravens, beside their loud croak,

1 See Spectator, vol. vii. No. 512.

2 The brown owl hoots ; the white owl screams.

It appears that amongst the various caprices of St. Patrick, he admitted
the screech-owl into Ireland, but excluded the hooters. To counteract
his machinations, some years ago a gentleman took over to Ireland some
brown owls to turn out by the lake of Killarney, where he was not
satisfied with the screeching generation. I never heard whether he was
successful in establishing a colony of hooters. — W. H.

Sir William Jardine says the white or barn owl hoots, and he has shot
it in the act of hooting. Mr. Waterton is disposed to deny this, and says
the tawny owl is the only owl which hoots : " About an hour before day-
break," he adds, " I hear with extreme delight its loud, clear, and sono-
rous notes, resounding far and near through hill and dale. Very different
from these is the screech of the barn owl." — RENNIE.

336 NATURAL HISTORY

can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woods
to echo ; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and
ridiculous ; rooks, in the breeding season, attempt some-
times, in the gaiety of their hearts, to sing, but with no
great success ; the parrot kind have many modulations
of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human
sounds ; doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner,
and are emblems of despairing lovers; the woodpecker
sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh ; the fern-owl or
goat-sucker, from the dusk till daybreak, serenades his
mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful
Passeres express their complacency by sweet modula-
tions, 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 nocturnal, that shift
their quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loqua-
cious ; as cranes, wild geese, wild ducks, and the like :
their perpetual clamour prevents them from dispersing
and losing their companions.

In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are
as much as can be expected: for it would be endless
to instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered
nation. We shall therefore confine the remainder of
this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards, which
are most known and therefore best understood. And
first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands our
attention ; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes
are grating and shocking to the ear : the yelling of cats,
and the braying of an ass, are not more disgustful. The
voice of the goose is trumpetlike, and clanking; and
once saved the Capitol at Rome, as grave historians
assert: the hiss also of the gander is formidable and
full of menace, and " protective of his young." Among
ducks the sexual distinction of voice is remarkable ;
for while the quack of the female is loud and sonorous,
the voice of the drake is inward and harsh, and feeble,

OF SELBORNE. 337

and scarce discernible. The cock turkey struts and
gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner ; he
hath also a pert and petulant note when he attacks his
adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young
brood she keeps a watchful eye ; and if a bird of prey
appear, though ever so high in the air, the careful
mother announces the enemy with a little inward moan,
and watches him with a steady and attentive look; but,
if he approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming,
and her outcries are redoubled.

No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such
a variety of expression and so copious a language as
common poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days
old, and hold it up to a window where there are flies,
and it will immediately seize its prey, with little twit-
terings of complacency ; but if you tender it a wasp or
a bee, at once its note becomes harsh and expressive of
disapprobation and a sense of danger. When a pullet
is ready to lay, she intimates the event by a joyous and
easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of their life that
of laying seems to be the most important; for no sooner
has a hen disburthened herself, than she rushes forth
with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the
rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult
is not confined to the family concerned, but catches
from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead
within hearing, till at last the whole village is in an
uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a mother, her new
relation demands a new language ; she then runs clock-
ing and screaming about, and seems agitated as if pos-
sessed. The father of the flock has also a considerable
vocabulary : if he finds food, he calls a favourite con-
cubine to partake ; and if a bird of prey passes over,
with a warning voice he bids his family beware. The
gallant chanticleer has, at command, his amorous
phrases and his terms of defiance. But the sound by
which he is best known is his crowing : by this he has
been distinguished in all ages as the countryman's

338 NATURAL HISTORY

clock or larum, as the watchman that proclaims the
divisions of the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles
him

" the crested cock, whose clarion sounds

The silent hours."

A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most
of his chickens by a sparrow hawk, that came gliding
down between a faggot pile and the end of his house
to the place where the coops stood. The owner, in-
wardly vexed to see his flock thus diminishing, hung a
setting net adroitly between the pile and the house, into
which the caitiff dashed, and was entangled. Resent-
ment suggested the law of retaliation: he therefore
clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and fixing
a cork on his bill, threw him down among the brood-
hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued ;
the expressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired
were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before :
the exasperated matrons upbraided, they execrated,
they insulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never
desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had
torn him in a hundred pieces.

LETTER XLIV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE.

monstrent

Quid tan turn Oceano properent se tingere soles
Hyberni ; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet."

GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make
ornament subservient to utility: a pleasing eyetrap
might also contribute to promote science: an obelisk
in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and
a heliotrope.

OF SELBORNE. 339

Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage
of a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two
heliotropes; the one for the winter, the other for the
summer solstice: and these two erections might be
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 common
sitting parlour; because men, at that dead season of
the year, are usually within doors at the close of the
day; while that for the latter might be fixed for any
given spot in the garden or outlet: whence the owner
might contemplate, in a fine summer's evening, the
utmost extent that the sun makes to the northward at
the season of the longest days. Now nothing would be
necessary but to place these two objects with so much
exactness, that the westerly limb of the sun, at setting,
might but just clear the winter heliotrope to the west of
it on the shortest day ; and that the whole disc of the
sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also
clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it.

By this simple expedient it would soon appear that
there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice :
for, from the shortest day, the owner would, every clear
evening, see the disc advancing, at its setting, to the
westward, of the object; and, from the longest day,
observe the sun retiring backwards every evening at its
setting towards the object westward, till, in a few nights,
it would set quite behind it, and so by degrees to the
west of it : for when the sun comes near the summer
solstice, the whole disc of it would at first set behind
the object; after a time the northern limb would first
appear, and so every night gradually more, till at length
the whole diameter would set northward of it for about
three nights ; but on the middle night of the three, sen-
sibly more remote than the former or following. When

340 NATURAL HISTORY

beginning its recess from the summer tropic, it would
continue more and more to be hidden every night, till at
length it would descend quite behind the object again ;
and so nightly more and more to the westward.

LETTER XLV.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE.

" Mugire videbis

Sub pedibus terrain, et descendere montibus ornos."

WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment
and implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of
walking hills and travelling mountains. John Philips,
in his 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 Marcley Hill ; the apple no where finds
A kinder mould : yet 'tis unsafe to trust
Deceitful ground : who knows but that, once more,
This mount may journey, and, his present site
Forsaking, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer
The goodly plants, affording matter strange
For law debates !"

But, when I came to consider better, I began to
suspect that though our hills may never have journeyed
far, yet that the ends of many of them have slipped and
fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare
and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with
Nore and Whetham Hills ; and especially with the
ridge between Harteley Park and Wardleham, where
the ground has slid into vast swellings and furrows ;
and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannot be
accounted for from any other cause. A strange event,
that happened not long since, justifies our suspicions ;
which, though it befell not within the limits of this parish,

OF SELBORNE. 341

yet, as it was within the hundred of Selborne, and as
the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a
place in a work of this nature.

The months of January and February, in the year
1774, were remarkable for great melting snows and
vast gluts of rain; so that by the end of the latter
month the land-springs, or lavants, began to prevail,
and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of
1764. The beginning of March also went on in the
same tenor; when, in the night between the 8th and
9th of that month, a considerable part of the great
woody hairger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and
fell down, leaving a high free-stone cliff naked and bare,
and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It ap-
pears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped
and undermined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed,
going down in a perpendicular direction; for a gate
which stood in the field, on the top of the hill, after
sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained
in so true and upright a position as to open and shut
with great exactness, just as in its first situation.
Several oaks also are still standing, and in a state of
vegetation, after taking the same desperate leap. That
great part of this prodigious mass was absorbed in
some gulf below is plain also from the inclining ground
at the bottom of the hill, which is free and unincum-
bered ; but would have been buried in heaps of rubbish,
had the fragment parted and fallen forward1.

1 That neither the rock which had parted from the cliff, nor any frag-
ments of it, remained upon the surface below the naked face of the es-
carpment, is indeed sufficient evidence of its having passed beneath the
soil. But to account for its subsidence, it is by no means necessary to
assume, as appears to be conjectured in the text, the existence of a gulf
below it, into which it had been absorbed. The geological relations of the
strata point to a much easier, as well as a more correct, explanation of the
occurrence. Here, as elsewhere throughout the district, the malm rock
or freestone of the upper green sand formation rests upon the gault or
blue clay : a rock upon a yielding base. An adequate weight, placed
upon so unfirm a soil as the lower of these formations, must of necessity

342 NATURAL HISTORY

About a hundred yards from the foot of this hanging
coppice stood a cottage by the side of a lane ; and two
hundred yards lower, on the other side of the lane, was

sink into it. So prodigious a mass as that, which, on the occasion de-
scribed in the text, was separated from its adhesion to its native rock,
and left to be supported by the soft clay alone, was more than its pulpy
nature could support, and it gave way accordingly ; receiving into its
yielding substance, and burying almost entirely beneath its surface, the
detached face of the dill', which subsided into it so easily and so perpen-
dicularly as not to disturb the adjustment of a gate upon the sunken
mass, once on the top, and now at the foot of the escarpment.

But the reception into the clay of so immense a bulk necessarily dis-
placed a portion of it equal in quantity to that of the mass which had been
received into it. Reduced by a long continued series of rains to a mor-
tar-like consistence, it gave way with the utmost freedom to the pressure.
That which was in the first instance displaced, drove forwards the por-
tion immediately in advance of it, and, the force being applied from below
as well as from behind, the subjacent pastures were torn into wavy clefts
and ridges.

The hillocks in the first pasture below the Hanger, rounded in their
outline like the knolls occasionally met with in the London Clay (such
for instance, as that at Child's Hill, near Hampstead), may possibly indi-
cate that a similar slip to that of 1774, but probably in greater mass, had
previously occurred in the same situation. Eminences so marked as
these are not usual in the gault immediately beneath the malm rock
escarpments : generally its surface either at once assumes the level cha-
racter which belongs to it generally, or slopes gradually into the flat bot-
tom formed entirely by it, and from which its junction with the freestone
is never far distant. But here there are two well pronounced knolls,
and in the pasture beyond them there is still a tendency in the surface to
the same form, though the hillocks are there less marked. I cannot but
suspect that beneath these hillocks are buried masses of the freestone
derived from a former slip, which has forced the clay into so unusual a
form : and this is the more probable, as the rounded mass near Worldham,
known by the name of King John's Hill, is actually so constituted.

An additional inducement to the belief that they owe their existence to
such a cause, is the occurrence behind the first of them, between the hil-
lock and the foot of the Hanger, of a pond, antecedent, like the knolls
themselves, to the slip of 1774. I do not recollect an instance in which
a pond is met with in the gault ; and certainly not in so comparatively
high a situation, yet almost immediately adjoining to much lower grounds.
It is scarcely to be conceived that a substance of so slight cohesion should
allow of the formation in it of a cup-like cavity, in which water could be
retained ; unless on a dead level, in a spot where the drainage was re-
ceived in greater quantity than could be readily discharged, and where
the water might consequently rest. But here the water would soak stea-
dily through some portion of the base of the adjoining hillock, were that
hillock composed of the gault alone, and, sapping the soft material, would

OF SELBORNK. 343

a farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family ;
and just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inha-
bited by an old woman and her son, and his wife. These

rapidly procure for itself an outlet ; and the drainage, instead of remain-
ing in a pond, would pass along a gutter or a streamlet to the lower lands.

At the base of Hawkley Slip, however, there is a pond, small though
it be : and the existence of so uncommon a basin in that situation may, I
think, be accounted for on the supposition that the hillock interposed
between it and the green slope into the flat bottom, consists, in its mass,
of portions of the freestone, escaped from the front of the terrace above ;
and that the freestone buried in the hillocks rises so high beneath the cover-
ing earth as to be elevated above the ordinary level of the water drained
into the pond from above ; thus forming, with the base of the slip, a cup
composed of a substance which does not yield, like the blue clay, to the
sapping influence of the liquid. A slight drainage exists, probably sinking
through small interstices of the masses of rock which I have assumed to
be buried in this situation, and indicates its course not merely by an im-
pressed line on the soil, but also by occasional oaks of moderate age
crossing the pasture at a right angle with the Hanger.

With so very slight a drainage as that indicated, and it is all the dis-
charge that I have observed for the waters that are poured upon this side
of the Hanger, it is not surprising that they should accumulate to so
great an extent as to cause occasional slips. On the opposite verge, the
range of the terrace of malm-rock is intersected by a deeply penetrating
ravine, along the gault bottom of which an ample drainage exists for the
whole of the side towards Empshot, by a streamlet running into the
Hawkley stream between Hawkley and Greatham mills, and consequently
forming one of the higher feeders of the Arun. The dip of the freestone
being slightly towards the north, the terrace, of whose southern escarp-
ment the slip forms only a small part, inclines also in that direction, and
hence the streamlet, its natural drainage, is, as natural drainages in all
but the flattest countries must necessarily be, a very efficient one. But
the history of the Hawkley slip shows that it may happen that all the
water poured from the clouds shall not escape from the surface in that
direction : so much as is showered on the face of the Hanger cannot be
carried off by it, but must find a vent elsewhere.

In other situations, and particularly on the southern coast of the Isle
of Wight, slips similar to that of Hawkley have taken place, and from
the same cause : either the separation of a portion of the freestone rock
of the upper green sand formation and its subsidence into the gault ; or
the loosening of the gault and the subsequent separation and subsidence
of a portion of the free stone, which could no longer be supported when
its natural foundation had thus given way. The delicious scenery of the
celebrated and enchanting district of the Isle of Wight, known as the
Undercliff, is owing to a similar accident; but of gigantic extent as com-
pared with that of Hawkley : its history, however, belongs to other days.
But within days of recent record an immense fall of the same kind has
taken place at the well-known land-slip on the same coast, under St. Ca-
therine's Down, near Niton ; in the midst of which is seated the powerful

344 NATURAL HISTORY

people, in the evening, which was very dark and tem-
pestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens
began to heave and part ; and that the walls seemed to
open, and the roofs to crack : but they all agree that no
tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was
ever felt ; only that the wind continued to make a most
tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The
miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained
in the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting every
moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered

mineral water of the Sand-rock spring. And yet more recently, and still
on the same coast, another slip, and of similar character, has occurred
between Luccomb and Bonchurch. Of the two latter events the parti-
culars have been well described : but the length of the present note
admonishes me to refrain from entering upon them.

Yet one remark respecting them must be made ; the reference to them,
as to analogous cases, might otherwise induce the belief that they were,
in all particulars, similar to the Hawkley Slip. They are analogous, for
the strata concerned in them are the same ; and the parting from the face
of the rock of a portion of its escarpment, and the displacement of the
soft inferior clay, belong equally to both. But in one respect, and it is
an important one as connected with the present appearance of the several
slips, they differ materially : in the Hawkley Slip at no time were there
any debris visible on the surface ; that which was pasture is still pas-
ture, covered with a smooth and beautiful sward : in the slips of the Isle
of Wight, the surface is irregular in the extreme, covered with masses of
stones of all imaginable sizes and forms, scattered and heaped together
in the greatest confusion, and forming an intricate and highly broken
surface ; in the remote slip of the Undercliff especially there occur single
blocks of stone of immense size, each bulky enough to shelter cottages,
and in one instance, at St. Lawrence, an isolated block is seen of suffi-
cient size to support the parish church, diminutive indeed, but still the
parish church, which is erected on it. But if we reflect that, in the one
case, there is an expanse of gault of sufficient extent to admit of its being
moved, not for half a mile only, but to almost any conceivable distance,
(for the subsidence of the entire mass of the terrace would probably merely
cause the sliding of the gault upon the adjoining sandy strata of Woliner
Forest,) we shall not be surprised at its swallowing so much of the rock
as was, in the Hawkley Slip, immersed in it. Whereas, on the southern
coast of the Isle of Wight, the greater part of the small portion of gault
intercepted in the cliff would, on such an occurrence, be at once squeezed
out into the sea and be washed away, and the freestone of the slip would
be received on the under sand of that iron-bound shore ; retaining, how-
ever, among its gigantic fragments, some portions of the blue clay, dis-
persed in patches which, by their fertility, in the midst of the rocky
masses, give so lovely and peculiar a character to the Undercliff. —
E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 345

edifices. When daylight came they were at leisure to
contemplate the devastations of the night: they then
found that a deep rift or chasm, had opened under their
houses, and torn them, as it were, in two; and that one
end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner ; that
a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange re-
verse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice
versa ; that many large oaks were removed out of their
perpendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into
the heads of neighbouring trees ; and that a gate was
thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so as to re-
quire a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the
cliff, the general course of the ground, which is pasture,
inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is
interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted, in
every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger,
as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began ;
and running across the lane, and under the buildings,
made such vast shelves that the road was impassable
for some time; and so over to an arable field on the
other side, which was strangely torn and disordered.
The second pasture field, being more soft and springy,
was protruded forward without many fissures in the
turf, which was raised in long ridges resembling graves,
lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom of
this enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet against
the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farther
course and terminated this awful commotion.

The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general,
is twenty-three yards ; the length of the lapse, or slip,
as seen from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-
one ; and a partial fall, concealed in the coppice, ex-
tends 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 vio-
lent 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

NATURAL HISTORY

some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and
rifted by the chasms as to be rendered, for a time,
neither fit for the plough nor safe for pasturage, till
considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in
levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures.

HAWKLRY HJP.

LETTER XLVI.

TO THE SAME,

SKI, BORNE.

resonant arbusta

THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with
furze close to the back of this village, well known by
the name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry
soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot
abounds with the Gryllus campestris, or field cricket,
which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means
a common insect in many other counties.

OF SELBORNE. 347

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 footsteeps as he advances, they stop short in
the midst of their . song, and retire backward nimbly
into their burrows, where they lurk till all suspicion of
danger is over.

At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade,
but without any great success : for either we could not
get to the bottom of the hole, which often terminated
under a great stone ; or else, in breaking up the ground,
we inadvertently squeezed the poor insect to death.
Out of one so bruised we took a multitude of eggs,
which were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and
covered with a very tough skin. By this accident
we learned to distinguish the male from the female :
the former of which is shining black, with a golden

HELD CIIICKET.

stripe across his shoulders; the latter is more dusky,
more capacious about the abdomen, and carries a long
sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is the
instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies
and safe receptacles.

Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle
means will often succeed ; and so it proved in the pre-
sent case : for though a spade be too boisterous and
rough an implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insi-
nuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to

348 NATURAL HISTORY

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 be-
hind, 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 ap-
paratus of wings, yet they never exert them when there
seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only
make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of rivalry and
emulation, as is the case with many animals which
exert some sprightly note during their breeding time :
it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the
other. They are solitary beings, living singly, male or
female, each as it may happen ; but there must be a
time when they pair, and then the wings may be useful,
perhaps during the hours of night. When the males
meet they will fight fiercely, as I found by some which
I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I
should have been glad to have made them settle. For
though they seemed distressed by being taken out of
their knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the
chinks would seize on any that were obtruded upon
them with a vast row of serrated fangs. With their
strong jaws, toothed like the shears of a lobster's claws,
they perforate and round their curious regular cells,
having no fore claws to dig like the mole cricket.
When taken in hand, I could not but wonder that they
never offered to defend themselves, though armed with
such formidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow be-
fore the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscrimi-
nately ; 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 iroin
home. Sitting in the entrance of their caverns, they
chirp all night as well as day from the middle of
(he month of May to the middle of July ; and in hot
weather, when they are most vigorous, they make the

OF SELBORNE. 349

hills echo ; and, in the stiller hours of darkness, may be
heard to a considerable distance. In the beginning of
the season their notes are more faint and inward ; but
become louder as the summer advances, and so die
away again by degrees.

Sounds do not always give us pleasure according
to their sweetness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds
always displease. We are more apt to be captivated
or disgusted with the associations which tfiey promote,
than with the notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of
the field cricket, though sharp and stridulous, yet mar-
vellously delights some hearers, filling their minds with
a train of summer ideas of every thing 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 I ever have seen at
that season were in their pupa state, and had only the
rudiments of wings lying under a skin or coat, which
must be cast before the insect can arrive at its perfect
state l ; from whence I should suppose that the old
ones of last year do not always survive the winter. In
August their holes begin to be obliterated, and the
insects are seen no more till spring.

Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant
a colony to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep
holes in the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayed
some time, and fed and sung ; but wandered away by
degrees, and were heard at a farther distance every
morning ; so that it appears that on this emergency
they made use of their wings in attempting to return to
the spot from which they were taken2.

1 We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then
seen lying at the mouths of their holes.

2 I have been as unsuccessful in transplanting the hearth cricket, as
Mr. White was with the field cricket. In two. different houseSj I have
repeatedly introduced crickets, but could not prevail upon them to stay.
One of my trials, indeed, was made in summer, with insects brought from
a garden wall, and it is probable, they deemed the kitchen fireside too
hot, at that season. — RENNIE.

350 NATURAL HISTORY

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 XLVII.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR, SELBORNE.

" 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 woods, and waters, the Gryllus domesticus, or
house cricket, resides altogether within our dwellings,
intruding itself upon our notice, whether we will or no.
This species delights in new-built houses, being, like
the spider, pleased with the moisture of the walls ; and
besides, the softness of the mortar enables them to bur-
row and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones,
and to open communications from one room to another.
They are particularly fond of kitchens and bakers' ovens,
on account of their perpetual warmth.

JlorsKCKh-KK.l.

Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the
short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold
uncomfortable months in profound slumbers ; but these,
residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert,
and merry : a good Christmas fire is to them like the
heats of the dog-days. Though they are frequently

OF SELBORNE. 351

heard by day, yet is their natural time of motion only
in the night. As soon as it grows dusk, the chirping
increases, and they come running forth, and are from
the size of a flea to that of their full stature. As one
should suppose, from the burning atmosphere which
they inhabit, they are a thirsty race, and show a great
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 prognostic sometimes, she
thinks, of ill or good luck ; of the death of a near rela-
tion, or the aproach of an absent lover. By being the
constant companions of her solitary hours they natu-
rally become the objects of her superstition. These
crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious ;
for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt,
and crumbs of bread ; and any kitchen offal or sweep-
ings. In the summer we have observed them to fly,
when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over
the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts
for the sudden manner in which they often leave
their haunts, as it does for the method by which
they come to houses where they were not known be-
fore. 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 colo-
nies. When in the air they move volatu undoso,. in
waves or curves, like woodpeckers, opening and shut-
ting their wings at every stroke, and so are always
rising or sinking.

When they increase to a great degree, as they did
once in the house where I am now writing, they become
noisome pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into
people's faces; but may be blasted and destroyed by
gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies.
In families, at such times, they are, like Pharaoh's
plague of frogs, — " in their bed-chambers and upon their

352 NATURAL HISTORY

beds, and in their ovens, and in their knead ing-troughs V
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 phials half
filled with beer, or any liquid, and set in their haunts ;
for, being always eager to drink, they will crowd in till
the bottles are full2.

LETTER XLVIIL

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE.

How diversified are the modes of life not only of incon-
gruous but even of congenerous animals ; and yet their
specific distinctions are not more various than their
propensities. Thus, while the field cricket delights in
sunny dry banks, and the house cricket rejoices amidst
the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven, the
Gryllus Gryllotalpa1, or mole cricket, haunts moist mea-
dows, and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of
streams, performing all its functions in a swampy wet
soil. With a pair of fore feet, curiously adapted to the
purpose, it burrows and works under ground like the
mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds, but seldom throw-
ing up hillocks.

As mole crickets often infest gardens by the sides of
canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener,
raising up ridges in their subterraneous progress and
rendering the walks unsightly. If they take to the kit-
chen quarters, they occasion great damage among the
plants and roots, by destroying whole beds of cabbages,
young legumes, and flowers. When dug out they seem

1 Exod. viii. 3.

2 Some additional particulars respecting the house cricket will be
found in the Observations on various parts of Nature, printed in a sub-
sequent part of this volume. — E. T. B.

1 [Grytlotalpa rulgaris, LATR.]

OF SELBORNE.

353

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 strag-
glers in a morning, in improbable places. In fine wea-
ther, 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 interrup-
tion, and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or
goat-sucker, but more inward.

MOLE CRICKET AND NEST.

About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I
was once an eye-witness; for a gardener, at a house
where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the
(3th 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 :

irigentem lato dedit ore fenestram :

Apparet domus intfts, et atria longa patescunt :
Apparent penetralia."

A A

354

NATURAL HISTORY

There were many caverns and winding passages
leading to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and
rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box.
Within this secret nursery were deposited near a hun-
dred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a
tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain any rudi-
ments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The
eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence of the
sun, just under a little heap of fresh moved mould, like
that which is raised by ants.

When mole crickets fly, they move cursu undoso, rising
and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned
before. In different parts of this kingdom people call
them fen crickets, churr worms, and eve churrs, all very
apposite names.

Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of
these insects, astonish me with their accounts ; for they
say that, from the structure, position, and number of
their stomachs, or maws, there seems to be good reason
to suppose that this and the two former species rumi-
nate or chew the cud like many quadrupeds2!

2 In the Hunterian Collection are preparations of the singularly com-
plex stomach here alluded to as it exists in the mole cricket (No. 611)
and in the locust (Nos. 474,610.) The structure is similar in both, as to
the number of cavities, but differs in their relative positions. The Grst
cavity, or crop, is formed in the locust by a gradual dilatation of the
gullet; but in the mole cricket it is appended, like the crop of a grani-
M irons bird, to one side of the gullet, communicating with it by a lateral
opening. The canal which intervenes between the crop and gizzard is
relatively longer in the mole cricket than in the locust. Its gizzard is
small, but armed internally with longitudinal rows of complex teeth.
Two large lateral pouches open into the lower part, or termination, of the
gizzard. The analogy between this digestive apparatus and that of the
ruminants is vague, and does not extend beyond the number of cavities.
It is more like that of the bird ; and since the comminuting or masti-
cating organs are situated, as in the feathered class, in the stomach, it
cannot be supposed that the food is again returned to the mouth, where
it has already received all the division which the oral instruments can
effect.— R. O.

OF SELBORNE. 355

LETTER XLIX.

TO THE SAME.

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 Himan-
topus, or Loripes, and Charadrius Himantopus1, were shot
upon the verge of Frinsham Pond, a large lake belong-
ing to the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between
Wolmer Forest, and the town of Farnham, in the county
of Surrey. The pond-keeper says there were three
brace in the flock; but that, after he had satisfied his
curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested.
One of these specimens I procured, and found the length
of the legs to be so extraordinary, that, at first sight,
one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened
on to impose on the credulity of the beholder : they
were legs in caricatura; and had we seen such propor-
tions on a Chinese or Japan screen we should have
made large allowances for the fancy of the draughtsman.
These birds are of the plover family, and might with
propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under
that idea, gives them the apposite name of L'Echasse.
My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper,
weighed only four ounces and a quarter; though the
naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a
half, and the legs four inches and a half. Hence we

1 [Himantopus melanopterus, TEM.M.]
A A 2

356 NATURAL HISTORY

may safely assert that these birds exhibit, weight for
inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of any
known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the
most long-legged birds, and yet it bears no manner of

•

proportion to the Himantopus ; for a cock flamingo
weighs, at an average, about four pounds avoirdupois ;
and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty
inches. But four pounds are fifteen times and a frac-
tion more than four ounces and one quarter ; and if
four ounces and a quarter have eight inches of legs,
four pounds must have one hundred and twenty inches
and a fraction of legs ; viz. somewhat more than ten
feet ; such a monstrous proportion as the world never
saw ! If you should try the experiment in still larger
birds, the disparity would still increase. It must be
matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover move ;
to observe how it can wield such a length of lever with
such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished
with. At best one should expect it to be but a bad

OF SELJBORNE. 357

walker : but what adds to the wronder is, that it has no
back toe. Now without that steady prop to support
its steps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual
vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true centre
of gravity.

The old name of Himantopus is taken from Pliny ;
and, by an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs
are as slender and pliant as if cut out of. a thong of
leather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curi-
ous researches, either at home or abroad, ever saw this
bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all Great Bri-
tain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious
at Paris. Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt
in the autumn: and a most accurate observer of nature
has assured me that he has found it on the banks of the
streams in Andalusia.

Our writers record it to have been found only twice
in Great Britain. From all these relations it plainly
appears that these long-legged plovers are birds of
South Europe, and rarely visit our island ; and when
they do, are wanderers and stragglers, and impelled to
make so distant and northern an excursion from mo-
tives or accidents for which we are not able to account.
One thing may fairly be deduced, that these birds come
over to us from the continent, since nobody can suppose
that a species not noticed once in an age, and of such
a remarkable make, can constantly breed unobserved
in this kingdom.

LETTER L.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, April 21, 1780.

THE old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you
so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its
winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough

358 NATURAL HISTORY

awakened to express its resentments by hissing ; and,
packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles
in post chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey
so perfectly roused it, that, when I turned it out on a
border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my gar-
den: however, in the evening, the weather being cold,
it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues still
concealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an
opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode
of life, and propensities ; and perceive already that,
towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing
place in the ground near its head, requiring, I conclude,
a freer respiration as it becomes more alive. This
creature not only goes under the earth from the middle
of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great
part of the summer; for it goes to bed in the longest
days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in
the morning till late. Besides, it retires to rest for
every shower ; and does not move at all in wet days.

When one reflects on the state of this strange being,
it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should
bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste
of longevity on a reptile that appears to relish it so
little as to squander more than two thirds of its exist-
ence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for
months together in the profoimdest of slumbers.

While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm
afternoon, with the thermometer at 50°, brought forth
troops of shell-snails; and, at the same juncture, the
tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head ; and
the next morning came forth, as it were raised from the
dead ; and walked about till four in the afternoon. This
was a curious coincidence ! a very amusing occurrence!
to see such a similarity of feelings between the two
Qfqtomoi ! for so the Greeks call both the shell-snail and
the tortoise.

Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring,

OF SELBORNE. 359

unusually late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This
conformity with the weather convinces me more and
more that they sleep in the winter.

More particulars respecting the old family tortoise.

Because we call this creature an abject reptile, we
are too apt to undervalue his abilites, and depreciate
his powers of instinct. Yet he is, as Mr. Pope says of
his lord,

" Much too wise to walk into a well :"

and has so much discernment as not to fall down a
haha; but to stop and withdraw from the brink with
the readiest precaution.

Though he loves warm weather, he avoids the hot
sun ; because his thick shell, when once heated, would,
as the poet says of solid armour — " scald with safety."
He therefore spends the more sultry hours under the
umbrella of a large cabbage leaf, or amidst the waving
forests of an asparagus bed.

But as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline
of the year, he improves the faint autumnal beams, by
getting within the reflection of a fruit-wall : and, though
he never has read that planes inclining to the horizon
receive a greater share of warmth1, he inclines his
shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit
every feeble ray.

Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed
reptile: to be cased in a suit of ponderous armour,
which he cannot lay aside ; to be imprisoned, as it
were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should
suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet
there is a season of the year (usually the beginning of
June) when his exertions are remarkable. He then

1 Several years ago a book was written entitled " Fruit- walls improved
by inclining them to the Horizon:" in which the author has shown, by
calculation, that a much greater number of the rays of the sun will fall on
such walls than on those which are perpendicular.

360 NATURAL HISTORY

walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in the morning ;
and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and
interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if
possible; and often has eluded the care of the gardener,
and wandered to some distant field. The motives that
impel him to undertake these rambles seem to be of the
amorous kind : his fancy then becomes intent on sexual
attachments, which transport him beyond his usual gra-
vity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary
solemn deportment2.

3 Interesting as the old family tortoise has been rendered by the anec-
dotes related of him by Gilbert White, his history may be closed by the
statement that his life was not prolonged much beyond that of his pro-
tector. He died, it is believed, in the spring of 1794 ; after an existence
extended in England to about fifty-four years, the last fourteen of which
were spent at Selborne. The thick shell, in which he was coffined while
alive, is preserved in the residence of the master who secured for him an
enduring existence in the memories of many.

My friend Mr. Bell regards the specimen, which he has had an oppor-
tunity of inspecting, as an old and worn shell of the bordered tortoise,
Test, marginata, SCHCEPFF: and all who are acquainted with the extent
and accuracy of his knowledge of the Te8tudinata,must be aware that any
one who differs from him on such a subject, is probably in the wrong. Yet
at this risk I have ventured to regard the Selborne tortoise as a distinct
species. Its shell is less elevated than is usual in the bordered tortoise,
once named on that account the bell-shaped : its wrinkles are less strongly
marked and less sharp: itssubcaudal plates form with each other a much
more open angle : and its anterior supra-femoral plate, instead of running
to a point towards the back, has an inner margin nearly of equal length
with its anterior and its posterior edges. But the general form of the
shell of a tortoise, the sculpture of its surface, and the shape of particular
plates, are all too variable in many species to warrant the adoption of
any or all of these characters as absolutely distinctive; and on them no
assured reliance can consequently be placed. More stress may be laid on
the animal, and on particular organs or plates attached to its body ; and
in the case of Gilbert White's tortoise there is a fragment remaining of
the skin of one of the thighs which principally induces me to regard it as
distinct from the bordered species : for on this fragment of skin there is
a large white conical process or spur. No such process was noted by
Mr. Bell on the specimen of the bordered tortoise which he had alive,
and which is beautifully figured in his splendid work on the Testudinata :
evidence, it is true, of a negative character only, but becoming positive
when taken in conjunction with the distinct statement of M. Bibron, (in
the Erpe"tologie Generate, which he is now publishing in conjunction with
M. Dumeril,) that there are no large horny tubercles in that species on
the hinder face of the thighs. Although the bordered tortoise is far from

OF SELBORNE. 361

LETTER LI.

TO THE SAME.

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 determined to make
some search about the south-east end of the hill, where
I imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable
months of winter. But supposing that the examination
would be made to the best advantage in the spring, and
observing that no martins had appeared by the llth of
April last ; on that day I employed some men to explore

uncommon in Greece, and in other countries on the shores of the Medi-
terranean basin, I am compelled to refer to authorities for its structure,
as I am not aware of the existence in London of a living or preserved
specimen of the animal : Mr. Bell has the only two shells of it that are
known to me. Mrs. White's, for the loan of which I am indebted to her
kindness, may be a third : but it seems to me, with our present know-
ledge on the subject, that it must be regarded as distinct.
I propose for it the name of Testudo Whitei: in English

GILBERT WHITE'S TORTOISE.

E. T. «.

362 NATURAL HISTORY

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 pur-
suit— while the labourers were at work, a house martin,
the first that had been seen this year, came down the
village in the sight of several people, and went at once
into a nest, where it stayed a short time, and then flew
over the houses ; for some days after, no martins were
observed, not till the 16th of April, and then only a
pair. Martins in general were remarkably late this
year.

LETTER LII.

TO THE SAME.

SELBORNE, Sept. 9, 1781.

I HAVE just met with a circumstance respecting swifts,
which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my
observations ever since I have bestowed any attention
on that species of Hirundines. Our swifts, in general,
withdrew this year about the first day of August, all
save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced
to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual
made me suspect that the strongest of motives, that of
an attachment to her young, could alone occasion so
late a stay. I watched therefore till the 24th of August,
and then discovered that, under the eaves of the church,
she attended upon two young, which were fledged, and
now put out their white chins from a crevice. These
remained till the 27th, looking more alert every day,
and seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day
they were missing at once; nor could I ever observe
them with their dam coursing round the church in the
act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently do.
On the 31st I caused the eaves to be searched, but we
found in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking swifts,

OF SELBORNE. 303

on which a second nest had been formed. This double
nest was full of the black shining cases of the Hippo-
bosca Hirundinis.

The following remarks on this unusual incident are
obvious. The first is, that though it may be disagree-
able to swifts to remain beyond the beginning of August,
yet that they can subsist longer is undeniable. The
second is, that this uncommon event, as it. was owing
to the loss of the first brood, so it corroborates my former
remark, that swifts breed regularly but once; since, was
the contrary the case, the occurrence above could neither
be new nor rare.

P. S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of
Rutland, in 1782, so late as the 3rd of September.

LETTER LIII.

TO THE SAME.

As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about
several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an
account of one sort which I little expected to have
found in this kingdom. I had often observed that one
particular part of a vine growing on the walls of my
house was covered in the autumn with a black, dustlike
appearance, on wrhich 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 any thing to
do with animal life, as I at first expected : but, upon a
closer examination behind the larger boughs, we were
surprised to find that they were coated over with husky
shells, from whose sides proceeded a cottonlike sub-
stance, surrounding a multitude of eggs. This curious
and uncommon production put me upon recollecting
what I have heard and read concerning the Coccus Vitis

•3C4 NATURAL HISTORY

vinifera 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 pre-
ceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe.

Not being then at all aware that it had any thing to
do with England, I was much inclined to think that it
came from Gibraltar among the many boxes and pack-
ages of plants and birds which I had formerly received
from thence ; and especially as the vine infested grew
immediately under my study-window, where I usually
kept my specimens. True it is that I had received
nothing from thence for some years : but as insects, we
know, are conveyed from one country to another in a
very unexpected manner, and have a wonderful power
of maintaining their existence till they fall into a nidus
proper for their support and increase, I cannot but
suspect still that these Cocci came to me originally
from Andalusia. Yet, all the while, candour obliges
me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot has written me word,
that he once, and but once, saw these insects on a vine
at Weymouth in Dorsetshire ; which, it is here to be
observed, is a seaport town to which the Coccus might
be conveyed by shipping.

As many of my readers may possibly never have
heard of this strange and unusual insect, I shall here
transcribe a passage from a natural history of Gibraltar,
written by the Reverend John White, late vicar of
Blackburn in Lancashire, but not yet published : —

" In the year 1770 a vine which grew on the east side
of my house, and which had produced the finest crops
of grapes for years past, was suddenly overspread on
all the woody branches with large lumps of a white
fibrous substance resembling spiders' webs, or rather
raw cotton. It was of a very clammy quality, sticking
fast to every thing that touched it, and capable of being
spun into long threads. At first I suspected it to be

OF SELBORNE. 365

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 incumbrance. It remained all the
summer, still increasing, and loaded the. woody and
bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled off
great quantities by handfuls ; but it was so slimy and
tenacious that it could by no means be cleared. The
grapes never filled to their natural perfection, but turned
watery and vapid. Upon perusing the works after-
wards of M. de Reaumur, I found this matter perfectly
described and accounted for. Those husky shells,
which I had observed, were no other than the female
Coccus, from whose sides this cottonlike substance
exudes, and serves as a covering and security for their
eggs.'*

To this account I think proper to add, that, though
the female Cocci are stationary, and seldom remove
from the place to which they stick, yet the male is a
winged insect; and that the black dust which I saw
was undoubtedly the excrement of the females, which
is eaten by ants as well as flies. Though the utmost
severity of our winter did not destroy these insects, yet
the attention of the gardener in a summer or two, has
entirely relieved my vine from this filthy annoyance1.

As we have remarked above that insects are often
conveyed from one country to another in a very unac-
countable manner, I shall here mention an emigration

1 It is not usual for the Coccus of the vine to continue for several years
in succession attached to a tree in the open air in England, the severity
of the winter commonly destroying it at an early period. But to plants
kept in greenhouses it often proves a serious evil. It can scarcely be
regarded as an indigenous insect, and has probably been introduced into
this country, from time to time, with the exotic plants to which it is at-
tached, and perhaps with others also of the numerous kinds that orna-
ment our gardens. — E. T. B.

NATURAL HISTORY

of small Aphides, which was observed in the village of
Selborne no longer ago than August the 1st, 1785.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day,
which was very hot, the people of this village were sur-
prised by a shower of Aphides, or smother-flies, which
fell in these parts. Those that were walking in the
street at that juncture found themselves covered with
these insects, which settled also on the hedges and
gardens, blackening all the vegetables where they
alighted. My annuals were discoloured with them,
and the stalks of a bed of onions were quite coated
over for six days after. These armies were then, no
doubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting their
quarters; and might have come, as far as we know,
from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex, the
wind being all that day in the easterly quarter. They
were observed at the same time in great clouds about
Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham to
Alton2.

LETTER LIV.

TO THE SAME.

DEAR SIR,

WHEN I happen to visit a family where gold and silver
fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased
with the occurrence, because it offers me an opportu-
nity 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

2 For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters,
see Derhara's Physico-Theology.

1 First published in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1786, (vol. Ivi.
p. 488,) with the date of June 12, and under the signature of V. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 367

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 x>bvious ; be-
cause, when the body is no longer balanced by the fins
of the belly, the broad muscular back preponderates by
its own gravity, and turns the belly uppermost, as lighter
from its being a cavity, and because it contains the
swimming-bladders, which contribute to render it
buoyant. Some that delight in gold and silver fishes
have adopted a notion that they need no aliment. True
it is that they will subsist for a long time without any
apparent food but what they can collect from pure
water frequently changed ; yet they must draw some
support from animalcula, and other nourishment sup-
plied by the water ; because, though they seem to eat
nothing, yet the consequences of eating often drop from
them. That they are best pleased with such jejune diet
may easily be confuted, since if you toss them crumbs
they will seize them with great readiness, not to say
greediness : however, bread should be given sparingly,
lest, turning sour, it corrupt the water. They will also
feed on the water-plant called Lemna, (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 inconceivable rapidity. It has
been said that the eyes of fishes are immoveable : 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

368 NATURAL HISTORY

the bowl is hung ; especially when they have been mo-
tionless, and are perhaps asleep. As fishes have no
eyelids, it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping
or not, because their eyes are always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl con-
taining such fishes : the double refractions of the glass
and water represent them, when moving, in a shifting
and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and
colours; while the two mediums, assisted by the con-
cavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify and distort
them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of
another element and its inhabitants into our parlours
engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner.

Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of
China and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to
our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast in our
ponds and stews2. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish
under the genus of Cyprinus, or carp, and calls it Cypri-
nus auratus.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful

a What Mr. White has remarked of the fishes of Japan thriving in our
climate, is true also of the plants ; the trees and shrubs brought from the
Japanese islands bearing our winters, and growing freely ; as for instance,
that beautiful tree, the gingko, now called by Dr. Smith the Salisburia ;
and the no less beautiful and scarce Sophora Japonica ; the finest speci-
mens of which trees now in England are probably in the curious garden
of John Orde, Esq. at Fulham. As I am on this subject, I will mention
that the garden belonging to the Palace of the Bishop of London at Ful-
ham, the earliest receptacle of scarce and foreign trees in this country,
is now almost worn out. Not above twelve of the original trees could be
found in the survey made in 1793. I remarked in 1811, that some of these
were gone, but the pinaster and the ilex remain. — MITFOKD.

To those who cultivate aquatic plants in the stove, it may be useful to
know that the little fishes called thornbacks or sticklebacks, Gasterostei,
will live in a high temperature in which minnows would perish immedi-
ately, and that they are very serviceable in destroying the small insects
that feed on the fibres of plants under the water. They are singularly
pugnacious, and in a pretty large vessel or small cistern the strongest
fish will persecute his kind, and not tolerate the presence of another indi-
vidual of his own species. When hungry they are so bold that they will
bite at a pencil, or even at the finger if held in the water. I have kept
one for two or three years in the stove with Nymphcca cttrulea. — W. H.

OF SELBORNE. 369

way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a
large hollow space within, that does not communicate
with it. In this cavity they put a bird occasionally;
so that you may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as
it were in the midst of the water, and the fishes swim-
ming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of the
fishes is agreeable and pleasant ; but in so complicated
a way becomes whimsical and unnatural, and liable to
the objection due to him,

" Qui variare cupit rem prodigialit^r imam."

I am, &c.

LETTER LV.

TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, October 10, 1781.

I THINK I have observed before, that much the most
considerable part of the house martins withdraw from
hence about the first week in October ; but that some,
the latter broods, I am now convinced, linger on till
towards the middle of that month ; and that at times,
once perhaps in two or three years, a flight, for one day
only, has shown itself in the first week in November.

Having taken notice, in October, 1780, that the last
flight was numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred
and fifty; and that the season was soft and still; I was
resolved to pay uncommon attention to these late birds;
to find, if possible, where they roosted, and to deter-
mine 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

B B

370 NATURAL HISTORY

place of their roosting, I took care to wait on them
before they retired to rest, and was much pleased to
find that, for several evenings together, just at a quarter
past five in the afternoon, they all scudded away in
great haste towards the south-east, and darted down
among the low shrubs above the cottages at the end of
the hill. This spot in many respects seems to be well
calculated for their winter residence : for in many parts
it is as steep as the roof of any house, and therefore
secure from the annoyances of water ; and it is moreover
clothed with beechen shrubs, which, being stunted and
bitten by sheep, make the thickest covert imaginable;
and are so entangled as to be impervious to the smallest
spaniel : besides, it is the nature of underwood beech
never to cast its leaf all the winter ; so that, with the
leaves on the ground, and those on the twigs, no shelter
can be more complete. I watched them on to 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 22nd of October, I observed two, in
the morning, over the village, and with them my re-
marks 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 island1.

1 Mr. White appears to have; a strong bias to believe that martins, &c.
remain dormant in this country, having taken up a very erroneous notion
of the difficulty of the passage. Mr. Cartwright, during many winters'
residence on the coast of Labrador, had repeated opportunities of minut-
ing and measuring the flight of birds from point to point in their migration
to and from the north, and he asserts from the results of repeated obser-
vations that the eider duck at the time of migration flies at the rate of
ninety miles an hour, and there is no reason to suppose that the flight of
that bird is particularly rapid. A large bird is easily distinguished in
the air at the distance of a mile ; and if we consider that in less than a
minute when flying from one hill to another it passes out of sight ; we
shall easily satisfy ourselves that the calculation does not at all exceed
the bounds of probability. The passage of birds across the Mediterranean,
the British channel, and the Sound, is by no means long, and, if it be per-
formed at a rate at all approaching that at which the wild fowl are ascer-

OF SELBORNE. 371

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 November was a sweet
day, and in appearance exactly suited to my wishes,
yet not a martin was to be seen ; and so I was forced,
reluctantly, to give up the pursuit.

I have only to add, that were the bushes, which cover
some acres, and are not my own property, to be grubbed
and carefully examined, probably those late broods,
and perhaps the whole aggregate body of the house

tained to fly, it is by no means an arduous undertaking, and must be
quickly accomplished, especially if a moment be chosen when the wind
is favourable. The only danger arises from violent squalls of cross or
contrary winds, and we know that in such cases birds are driven out of
their accustomed course and seek for refuge in ships, and sometimes are
drowned.

Mr. White draws from circumstances probabilities which are not jus-
tified by his statements. Why should it be imagined, because a flight of
martins roosted in a thick warm covert some nights before their last
appearance at the cold season of the year, that, instead of following the
rest of their kind to more genial regions, they should have ensconced
themselves there in a state of torpidness. Coppices are felled in winter,
and there are few which are not thoroughly ransacked by sportsmen, and
it is impossible that lurkers should not be often brought to light, if such
habits of concealment prevailed amongst them.

But there is nothing in the whole course of Mr. White's observation
tending in the slightest manner to justify the belief of their somnolency ;
on the contrary all his evidence weighs the other way, and if it be true
that they ever do secrete themselves in obscure winter quarters, the fact
must rest upon the testimony of other persons: but, if true at all, such
concealment appears to be only a resource of nature for stragglers which
have not departed in due season. Those which were observed by
Mr. White in November seemed to be young birds, bred too late to mi-
grate in company with the rest of their species. Granting that Hirundines
may have in a few instances been found torpid, they are said to have been
aroused from their sleep only to die presently : it is nowhere demon-
strated that when a straggling martin or two have been seen for a few
days, the same birds ever reappeared ; and it is much more probable,
that, having missed their time of passage and lost their conductors, or
come over too soon, they ramble about attempting to improve their situa-
tion, and either succeed in so doing, or perish ultimately, than that they
should pass from a state of torpor at an uncongenial season, and return to
it again.— W. H.

BB 2

372 NATURAL HISTORY

martins of this district, might be found there, in dif-
ferent secret dormitories ; and that, so far from with-
drawing into warmer climes, it would appear that they
never depart three hundred yards from the village.

LETTER LVI.

TO THE SAME.

THEY who write on natural history cannot too fre-
quently 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 in-
stinct 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 qua-
lified sense; for there are instances in which instinct
does vary and conform to the circumstances of place
and convenience.

It has been remarked that every species of bird has
a mode of nidification peculiar to itself; so that a
schoolboy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest
before him. This is the case among fields and woods
and wilds ; but in the villages round London, where
mosses and gossamer, and cotton from vegetables, are
hardly to be found, the nest of the chaffinch has not
that elegant, finished appearance, nor is it so beautifully
studded with lichens, as in a more rural district ; and
the wren is obliged to construct its house with straws
and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity
and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that

OF SELBORNE. 373

little architect1. 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
Europaa), which live much on hazel-nuts ; and yet they
open them each in a different way. The first, after
rasping off the small end, splits the shell in two with
his long fore teeth, as a man does with his knife ; the
second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if
drilled with a wimble, and yet so small that one would
wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it ;
while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its
bill: but as this artist has no paws to hold the nut
firm while he pierces it, like an adroit workman, he
fixes it, as it were, in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, or
in some crevice ; when, standing over it, he perforates
the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in the
chink of a gate-post where nuthatches have been known
to haunt, and have always found that those birds have
readily penetrated them. While at work they make a

1 It would appear that there is in this case a kind of free agency, if the
term may be allowed, on the part of the bird ; or at least an instinctive
adaptation to circumstances and locality. I have a wren's nest, which I
took in the farm yard at Malthouse, near Hartley, Hants. A corner of
the thatch of the pigsty was broken off, and the little architect constructed
its nest so perfectly to resemble, and make good the corner of the thatch,
that it was really difficult to distinguish the one from the other. The
opening was in the inside under the thatch. It was not obliged, in that
district, to construct its nest of straws for want of moss.

It seems to me that the use of bright and fresh materials in the rural
districts, and of those of a different or more sombre description in the
metropolitan, is to answer the same purpose — to elude observation. The
nests brought to me by boys from the Hampstead fields, possess every
character of those sent from Hampshire, with the exception that the
Hampshire specimens are brighter. The whitethroat's nest from Hamp-
shire, and that taken in the Marylebone fields, were both alike con-
structed of the dried stalks of Galium Aparine. — G. D.

374 NATURAL HISTORY

rapping noise that may be heard at a considerable
distance.

You that understand both the theory and practical
part of music may best inform us why harmony or
melody should so strangely affect some men, as it were
by recollection, for days after a concert is over. What
I mean the following passage will most readily explain :

" Praehabebat porr6 vocibus humanis instrumentisque
harmonicis musicam illam avium: non quod alia quoque
non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica humana re-
linqueretur in animo continens quaedam, attentionem-
que et somnum conturbans, agitatio; dum ascensus,
exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illae sonorum et con-
sonantiarum euntque redeuntque per phantasiam :—
cum nihil tale relinqui possit ex modulationibus avium,
quae, quod non sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non
possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere." —
Gassendus in Vita Peireskii.

This curious quotation strikes me much by so well
representing my own case, and by describing what I
have so often felt, but never could so well express.
When I hear fine music I am haunted with passages
therefrom night and day ; and especially at first waking,
which, by their importunity, give me more uneasiness
than pleasure : elegant lessons still tease my imagina-
tion, and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons,
and even when I am desirous of thinking of more
serious matters.

I am, &c.

OF SELBORNE. 375

LETTER LVIT.

TO THE SAME.

A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my
garden, which I have great reason to think'is the petty-
chaps l : it is common in some parts of the kingdom ;
and I have received formerly several dead specimens
from Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white-
throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breast
and belly; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens,
and hops from bough to bough, examining every part
for food ; it also runs up the stems of the crown-im-
perials, and, putting its head into the bells of those
flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the nectarium
of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like
the hedge sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots
and mown walks.

One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing
man, informs me that, in the beginning of May, and

1 This bird certainly was not the pettychaps, which has not the manners
here described. The detail exactly answers to the blue-gray or lesser
whitethroat (Sylvia silviella) of some English authors, which I have de-
monstrated to be the Sylvia Curruca by priority of name, la fauvette
babillarde of French writers, and bianchetto of Scopoli. I suspect that
the name linty-white in North Britain belongs to this bird, though attri-
buted by Bewick to the chiffchaff, which I have never been able to meet
with in the north of England, though it may be found in some parts
thereof; but its colour can in no ways deserve that name : whereas the
white breast of the blue-gray cannot fail to attract notice. I have given
a full description and account of it in a note on page 173. In Yorkshire
the yellowhammer is called goldfinch ; the goldfinch, redcap ; the chaf-
finch, bull's-pink or bullfinch ; the ox bird or large titmouse, blackcap;
the hedge warbler, cuddy ; the brown wren, tomtit ; the yellow wren,
small-straw ; and the whin chat, grass chat : synonyms which I have not
seen recorded. I cannot find that the true blackcap or the blue-gray have
any name in Yorkshire, where they seem to escape observation amongst
the lower orders, which is singular, considering how loud the blackcap
sings all summer, and how much it attacks the fruit. — W. H.

376 NATURAL HISTORY

about ten minutes before eight o'clock in the evening,
he discovered a great cluster of house swallows, thirty
at least, he supposes, perching on a willow that hung
over the verge of James Knight's upper pond. His
attention was first drawn by the twittering of these
birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough,
with their heads all one way, and, by their weight,
pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the
water. In this situation he watched them till he could
see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring
and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house swal-
lows have some strong attachment to water, indepen-
dent of the matter of food ; and, though they may not
retire into that element, yet they may conceal 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 pere-
grine falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district
as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The Falco pere-
grinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk
seldom seen in the southern counties. In winter, 17G7,
one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Faringdon,
and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales2.
Since that time I have met with none till now. The
specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation,
and not injured by the shot; it measured forty-two
inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak
to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standing
weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully
formed for rapine : its breast was plump and muscular;
its thighs long, thick, and brawny ; and its legs remark-
ably short and well set : the feet were armed with most
formidable, sharp, long talons : the eyelids and cere of
the bill were yellow ; but the irides of the eyes dusky ;
the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour,
and had a jagged process near the end of the upper

8 See my tenth and eleventh [and twelfth] Letters to that gentleman.

OF SELBORNE.

377

mandible on each side : its tail, or train, was short in
proportion to the bulk of its body : yet the wings, when
closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From
its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to
have been a female ; but I was not permitted to cut
open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which
are usually lean, this was in high case: in its craw
were many barleycorns, which probably came from the
crop of the wood pigeon, on which it was feeding when
shot : for voracious birds do not eat grain ; but, when
devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehe-
mence swallow bones and feathers, and all matters,
indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven
from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland, where
they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and
deep snows that had lately fallen.

PEREtilUNR FALCON.

378 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER LVIII.

TO THE SAME.

MY near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service
of the East India Company, has brought home a clog
and a bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton ; such as
are fattened in that country for the purpose of being
eaten : they are about the size of a moderate spaniel ;
of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on
their backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads,
which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind
legs are unusually straight, without any bend at the
hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an auk-
ward gait when they trot. When they are in motion
their tails are curved high over their backs like those
of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the
outside, from the tip midway, that does not seem to be
matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes
are jet black, small, and piercing ; the insides of their
lips and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues
blue. The bitch has a dew-claw on each hind-leg; the
dog has none. When taken out into a field the bitch
showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the
scent of a covey of partridges till she sprung them,
giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in South
America are dumb; but these bark much in a short
thick manner, like foxes; and have a surly, savage
demeanour like their ancestors, which are not domesti-
cated, but bred up in sties, where they are fed for the
table with rice-meal and other farinaceous food. These
dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned,
could not learn much from their dam; yet they did not
relish flesh when they came to England. In the islands
of the Pacific Ocean the dogs are bred up on vegeta-

OF SELBORNE. 379

bles, and would not eat flesh when offered them by our
circumnavigators .

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have
sharp, upright, fox-like ears; and that hanging ears,
which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice
breeding and cultivation. Thus, in the Travels of
Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China, the dogs which
draw the Tartars on snow sledges near the river Oby
are engraved with prick-ears, like those from Canton.
The Kamtschatdales also train the same sort of sharp-
eared, peaked-nosed dogs to draw their sledges; as
may be seen in an elegant print engraved for Captain
Cook's last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be
impertinent to add, that spaniels, as all sportsmen
know, though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it
were by instinct, and with much delight and alacrity,
yet will hardly touch their bones when offered as food ;
nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though he is remark-
able for finding that sort of game. But, when we came
to offer the bones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs,
they devoured them with much greediness, and licked
the platter clean.

No sporting dogs will flush woodcocks till inured to
the scent and trained to the sport, which they then pur-
sue with vehemence and transport ; but then they will
not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhor-
rence, even when they are hungry.

Now that dogs should not be fond of the bones of
such birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no won-
der ; but why they reject and do not care to eat their
natural game is not so easily accounted for, since the
end of hunting seems to be, that the chase pursued
should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the more
rancid water-fowls, nor indeed the bones of any wild-
fowls ; nor will they touch the foetid bodies of birds that
feed on offal and garbage: and indeed there may be

380 NATURAL HISTORY

somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance
of dislike; for vultures1, and kites, and ravens, and
crows, &c. were intended to be messmates with dogs2
over their carrion; and seem to be appointed by Nature
as fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous nui-
sances from the face of the earth.

I am, &c.

LETTER LIX.

TO THE SAME.

THE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer Forest
is not yet all exhausted ; for the peat cutters now and
then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which
was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of
this village ; this was the but-end of a small oak, about
five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It
had apparently been severed from the ground by an
axe, was very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon
asking the carpenter for what purpose he had procured
it, he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, a
joiner at Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabi-
net work, by inlaying it along with whiter woods.

Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is
dark, in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal
bird passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short
quick note. This bird I have remarked myself, but
never could make out till lately. I am assured now
that it is the stone-curlew (Charadrius (Edicnemus).
Some of them pass over or near my house almost every

1 Hasselquist, in his Travels to the Levant, observes that the dogs and
vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring
up their young together in the same place.

2 The Chinese word for a dog to a European ear sounds like quihloh.

OF SELBORNE. 381

evening after it is dark, from the uplands of the hill
and North Field, away down towards Dorton; where,
among the streams and meadows, they find a greater
plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged to
be noisy ; their notes often repeated become signals or
watch-words to keep them together, that they may not
stray or lose each the other in the dark.

The evening proceedings and manceuvres*of the rooks
are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before
dusk they return in long strings from the foraging of the
day, and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne Down,
where they wheel round in the air, and sport and dive
in a playful manner, all the while exerting their voices,
and making a loud cawing, which, being blended and
softened by the distance that we at the village are
below them, becomes a confused noise or chiding; or
rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagi-
nation, and not unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in
hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing of the wind in
tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly
shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last
gleam of day, they retire for the night to the deep
beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember
a little girl who, as she was going to bed, used to remark
on such an occurrence, in the true spirit of physico-the-
ology, that the rooks were saying their prayers; and
yet this child was much too young to be aware that the
scriptures have said of the Deity — that " he feedeth the
ravens who call upon him."

I am, &c.

382 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER LX.

TO THE SAME.

IN reading Dr. Huxham's Observations de Aere, &c.
written at Plymouth, I find by those curious and accu-
rate remarks, which contain an account of the weather
from the year 1727 to the year 1748, inclusive, that
though there is frequent rain in that district of Devon-
shire, yet the quantity falling is not great; and that
some years it has been very small : for in 1731 the rain
measured only 17-2(>6 inches ; and in 1741, 20-354; and
again in 1743, only 20-908. Places near the sea have
frequent scuds, that keep the atmosphere moist, yet do
not reach far up into the country ; making thus the
maritime situations appear wet, when the rain is not
considerable. In the wettest years at Plymouth the
doctor measured only once 36; and again once, viz.
1734, 37-114 : a quantity of rain that has twice been
exceeded at Selborne in the short period of my obser-
vations. Dr. Huxham remarks, that frequent small
rains keep the air moist; while heavy ones render it
more dry, by beating down the vapours. He is also of
opinion that the dingy, smoky appearance in the sky,
in very dry seasons, arises from the want of moisture
sufficient to let the light through, and render the atmo-
sphere transparent; because he had observed several
bodies more diaphanous when wet than dry; and did
never recollect that the air had that look in rainy sea-
sons.

My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down,
brought his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet,
with their muzzles towards the Hanger, supposing that
the report would have had a great effect; but the expe-
riment did not answer his expectation. He then re-
moved them to the Alcove on the Hanger; when the

OF SELBORNE. 383

sound, rushing along the Lythe and Comb Wood, was
very grand : but it was at the Hermitage that the echoes
and repercussions delighted the hearers ; not only filling
the Lythe with the roar, as if all the beeches were tear-
ing up by the roots ; but turning to the left, they per-
vaded the vale above Comb Wood Ponds ; and after a
pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to extend
round Harteley Hangers, and to die away at last among
the coppices and coverts of Ward le ham. It has been
remarked before that this district is an Anathoth, a place
of responses or echoes, and therefore proper for such
experiments : we may farther add, that the pauses in
echoes, when they cease and yet are taken up again,
like the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and have
a fine effect on the imagination.

The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a
barometer in his parlour at Newton Valence. The tube
was first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when
the mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own;
but being filled again twice at Newton, the mercury
stood, on account of the great elevation of that house,
three- tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at
this village,, and so continues to do, be the weight of
the atmosphere what it may. The plate of the baro-
meter at Newton is figured as low as 27° ; because in
stormy weather the mercury there will sometimes de-
scend below 28°. We have supposed Newton House to
stand two hundred feet higher than this house : but if
the rule holds good, which says that mercury in a baro-
meter sinks one-tenth of an inch for every hundred feet
elevation, then the Newton barometer, by standing
three-tenths lower than that of Selborne, proves that
Newton House must be three hundred feet higher than
that in which I am writing, instead of two hundred.

It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers
at Selborne stand three-tenths of an inch lower than
the barometers at South Lambeth : whence we may
conclude that the former place is about three hundred

384 NATURAL HISTORY

feet higher than the latter ; and with good reason, be-
cause the streams that rise with us run into the Thames
at Weybridge, and so to London. Of course therefore
there must be lower ground all the way from Selborne
to South Lambeth ; the distance between which, all
the windings and indentings of the streams considered,
cannot be less than a hundred miles.

I am, &c.

LETTER LXI.

TO THE SAME.

SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of
its natural history, I shall make no further apology for
the four following letters, which will contain many par-
ticulars concerning some of the great frosts and a few
respecting some very hot summers, that have distin-
guished themselves from the rest during the course of
my observations.

As the frost in January, 1768, was, for the small time
it lasted, the most severe that we had then known for
many years, and was remarkably injurious to ever-
greens, some account of its rigour, and reason of its
ravages, may be useful, and not unacceptable to persons
that delight in planting and ornamenting ; and may
particularly become a work that professes never to
lose sight of utility.

For the last two or three days of the former year
there were considerable falls of snow, which lay deep
and uniform on the ground, without any drifting, wrap-
ping up the more humble vegetation in perfect security.
From the first day to the fifth of the new year more
snow succeeded ; but from that day the air became
entirely clear ; and the heat of the sun about noon had
a considerable influence in sheltered situations.

It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author's

OF SELBORNE. 385

ever-greens was melted every-day, and frozen intensely
every night ; so that the laurustines, bays, laurels, and
arbutuses looked, in three or four days, as if they had
been burned in the fire ; while a neighbour's plantation
of the same kind, in a high cold situation, where the
snow was never melted at all, remained uninjured.

From hence I would infer, that it is the repeated melt-
ing and freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegeta-
tion, rather than the severity of the cold. Therefore it
highly behoves every planter, who wishes to escape the
cruel mortification of losing in a few days the labour and
hopes of years, to bestir himself on such emergencies ;
and, if his plantations are small, to avail himself of
mats, cloths, pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such
covering for a short time; or if his shrubberies are
extensive, to see that his people go about with prongs
and forks, and carefully dislodge the snow from the
boughs : since the naked foliage will shift much better
for itself, than where the snow is partly melted and
frozen again.

It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox ; but
doubtless the more tender trees and shrubs should never
be planted in hot aspects; not only for the reason
assigned above, but also because, thus circumstanced,
they are disposed to shoot earlier in the spring, and to
grow on later in the autumn than they would otherwise
do, and so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For
this reason also plants from Siberia will hardly endure
our climate: because, on the very first advances of
spring, they shoot away, and so are cut off by the
severe nights of March or April.

Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same
inconvenience with respect to the more tender shrubs
from North America ; which they therefore plant under
north walls. There should also perhaps be a wall to
the east to defend them from the piercing blasts from
that quarter.

This observation might without any impropriety be

c c

38(3 NATURAL HISTORY

carried into animal life; for discerning bee-masters
now find that their hives should not in the winter be
exposed to the hot sun, because such unseasonable
warmth awakens the inhabitants too early from their
slumbers; and, by putting their juices into motion too
soon, subjects them afterwards to inconveniences when
rigorous weather returns.

The coincidents attending this short but intense frost
were, that the horses fell sick with an epidemic distem-
per, which injured the winds of many, and kilted some;
that colds and coughs were general among the human
species ; that it froze under people's beds for several
nights ; that meat was so hard frozen that it could not be
spitted, and could not be secured but in cellars ; that
several redwings and thrushes were killed by the frost ;
and that the large titmouse continued to pull straws
lengthwise from the eaves of thatched houses and barns
in a most adroit manner, for a purpose that has been
explained already l.

On the 3rd of January, Benjamin Martin's thermo-
meter within doors, in a close parlour where there was
no fire, fell in the night to 20°, and on the 4th to 18°, and
on the 7th to 17|°, a degree of cold which the owner
never since saw in the same situation ; and he regrets
much that he was not able at that juncture to attend
his instrument abroad. All this time the wind conti-
nued north and north-east; and yet on the 8th roost-
cocks, which had been silent, began to sound their
clarions, and crows to clamour, as prognostic of milder
weather; and, moreover, moles began to heave and
work, and a manifest thaw took place. From the latter
circumstance we may conclude that thaws often origi-
nate under ground from warm vapours which arise, else
how should subterraneous animals receive such early
intimations of their approach. Moreover, we have often
observed that cold seems to descend from above; for,

1 See Letter XLI. to Mr. Pennant.

OF SELBORNE. 387

when a thermometer hangs abroad in a frosty night, the
intervention of a cloud shall immediately raise the mer-
cury ten degrees ; and a clear sky shall again compel it
to descend to its former gage.

And here it may be proper to observe, on what has
been said above, that though frosts advance to their
utmost severity by somewhat of a regular gradation,
yet thaws do not usually come on by as. regular a
declension of cold ; but often take place immediately
from intense freezing; as men in sickness often mend
at once from a paroxysm.

To the great credit of Portugal laurels and American
junipers, be it remembered that they remained untouched
amidst the general havock : hence men should learn to
ornament chiefly with such trees as are able to with-
stand accidental severities, and not subject themselves
to the vexation of a loss which may befall them once
perhaps in ten years, yet may hardly be recovered
through the whole course of their lives.

As it appeared afterwards the ilexes were much
injured, the cypresses were half destroyed, the arbu-
tuses lingered on, but never recovered ; and the bays,
laurustines, and laurels, were killed to the ground ; and
the very wild hollies, in hot aspects, were so much
affected that they cast all their leaves.

By the 14th of January the snow was entirely gone ;
the turnips emerged not damaged at all, save in sunny
places; the wheat looked delicately; and the garden
plants were well preserved ; for snow is the most kindly
mantle that infant vegetation can be wrapped in : were
it not for that friendly meteor no vegetable life could
exist at all in northerly regions. Yet in Sweden the
earth in April is not divested of snow for more than
a fortnight before the face of the country is covered
with flowers.

c c 2

388 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER LXII.

TO THE SAME.

THERE were some circumstances attending the remark-
able frost in January, 1776, so singular and striking, that
a short detail of them may not be unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the
passages from my journal, which were taken from time
to time as things occurred. But it may be proper pre-
viously to remark, that the first week in January was
uncommonly wet, and drowned with vast rains from
every quarter: from whence may be inferred, as there
is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts
seldom take place till the earth is perfectly glutted and
chilled with water1; and hence dry autumns are seldom
followed by rigorous winters.

January 7th. — Snow driving all the day, which was
followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 32th,
when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of
men, drifting over the tops of the gates and filling the
hollow lanes.

On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much
abroad ; and thinks he never before or since has en-
countered such rugged Siberian weather. Many of the
narrow roads were now filled above the tops of the
hedges ; through which the snow was driven into most
romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to the ima-
gination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure.
The poultry dared not to stir out of their roosting
places ; for cocks and hens are so dazzled and con-

1 The autumn preceding January, 1768, was very wet, and particu-
larly the month of September, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the
county of Rutland, six inches and a half of rain. And the terrible long
frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when the springs were
very high.

OF SELBORNE.

founded by the glare of snow, that they would soon
perish, without assistance. The hares also lay sullenly
in their seats, and would not move till compelled by
hunger; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts
and heaps treacherously betray their footsteps, and
prove fatal to numbers of them.

From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and
began to stop the road waggons and coaches, which
could no longer keep on their regular stages ; and espe-
cially on the western roads, where the fall appears to
have been deeper than in the south. The company at
Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen's birth-day, were
strangely incommoded : many carriages of persons who
got in their way to town, from Bath, as far as Marlbo-
rough, after strange embarrassments, here met with a
ne plus ultra. The ladies fretted, and offered large re-
wards to labourers if they would shovel them a track to
London: but the relentless heaps of snow were too
bulky to be removed ; and so the 18th passed over,
leaving the company in very uncomfortable circum-
stances at the Castle and other inns.

On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since
the frost began ; a circumstance that has been remarked
before much in favour of vegetation. All this time the
cold was not very intense, for the thermometer stood at
29°, 28°, 25°, and thereabout ; but on the 21st it descended
to 20°. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable
and starving condition. Tamed by the season, sky-
larks settled in the streets of towns, because they saw
the ground was bare ; rooks frequented dunghills close
to houses ; and crows watched horses as they passed,
and greedily devoured what dropped from them ; hares
now came into men's gardens, and, scraping away the
snow, devoured such plants as they could find.

On the 22nd the author had occasion to go to London
through a sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and
grotesque indeed. But the metropolis itself exhibited
a still more singular appearance than the country ; for

390 NATURAL HISTORY

being bedded deep in snow, the pavement of the streets
could not be touched by the wheels or the horses' feet,
so that the carriages ran about without the least noise.
Such an exemption from din and clatter was strange,
but not pleasant ; it seemed to convey an uncomfort-
able idea of desolation :

ipsa silentia terrent.'

On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the even-
ing the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth,
for the four following nights, the thermometer fell to 11°,
7°, 6°, 6° ; and at Selborne to 7°, 6°, 10°; and on the 31st
of January, just before sunrise, with rime on the trees
and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly
to zero, being 32 degrees below the freezing point ; but
by eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it sprung
up to 16|°2 — a most unusual degree of cold this for the
south of England ! During these four nights the cold
was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warm
chambers and under beds; and in the day the wind
was so keen that persons of robust constitutions could
scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at once so
frozen over both above and below bridge that crowds
ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely
incumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty ;
and, turning gray, resembled bay-salt: what had fallen
on the roofs was so perfectly dry, that, from first to
last, it lay twenty-six days on the houses in the city ; a
longer time than had been remembered by the oldest
housekeepers living. According to all appearances we
might now have expected the continuance of this rigor-
ous weather for weeks to come, since every night in-
creased in severity ; but behold, without any apparent

3 At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the
author could hear of with certainty: though some reported at the time
that at a village in Kent the thermometer fell 2 degrees below zero, viz.
34 degrees below the freezing point.

The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin
Martin.

OF SELBORNE. 391

cause, on the 1st of February a thaw took place, and
some rain followed before night ; making good the ob-
servation above, that frosts often go off as it were at
once, without any gradual declension of cold. On the
2nd of February the thaw persisted ; and on the 3rd
swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a
court-yard at South Lambeth, as if they had felt no
frost. Why the juices in the small bodies and smaller
limbs of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter
of curious inquiry.

Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents ;
for at the same juncture, as the author was informed by
accurate correspondents, at Lyndon in the county of
Rutland, the thermometer stood at 19° : at Blackburn,
in Lancashire, at 19°: and at Manchester at 21°, 20°, and
18°. Thus does some unknown circumstance strangely
overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes
much greater in the southern than in the northern parts
of this kingdom .

The consequences of this severity were, that in Hamp-
shire, at the melting of the snow, the wheat looked well,
and the turnips came forth little injured. The laurels
and laurustines were somewhat damaged, but only in
hot aspects. No evergreens were quite destroyed ; and
not half the damage sustained that befell in January,
1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched on the
south sides were perfectly untouched on their north
sides. The care taken to shake the snow day by day
from the branches seemed greatly to avail the author's
evergreens. A neighbour's laurel-hedge, in a high
situation, and facing to the north, was perfectly green
and vigorous; and the Portugal laurels remained un-
hurt.

As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were
mostly destroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather
and poachers, were so thinned that few remained to
breed the following year.

392 NATURAL HISTORY

LETTER LXIII.

TO THE SAME.

As the frost in December, 3784, was very extraordi-
nary, you, I trust, will not be displeased to hear the
particulars ; and especially when I promise to say no
more about the severities of winter after I have finished
this letter.

The first week in December was very wet, with the
barometer very low. On the 7th, with the barometer
at 28° — five tenths, came on a vast snow, which con-
tinued all that day and the next, and most part of the
following night ; so that by the morning of the 9th the
works of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled
so as to be impassable, and the ground covered twelve
or fifteen inches without any drifting. In the evening
of the 9th the air began to be so very sharp that we
thought it would be curious to attend to the motions of
a thermometer : we therefore hung out two ; one made
by Martin and one by Dollond, which soon began to
show us what we were to expect; for, by ten o'clock,
they fell to 21, and at eleven to 4, when we went to
bed. On the 10th, in the morning, the quicksilver
of Dollond's glass was down to half a degree below
zero; and that of Martin's, which was absurdly gra-
duated only to four degrees above zero, sunk quite
into the brass guard of the ball; so that when the
weather became most interesting, this was useless. On
the 10th, at eleven at night, though the air was perfectly
still, Dolloud's glass went down to one degree below
zero ! This strange severity of the weather made me
very desirous to know what degree of cold there might
be in such an exalted and near situation as Newton.
We had, therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written to
Mr. , and entreated him to hang out his therino-

OF SELBORNE. 393

meter, made by Adams ; and to pay some attention to
it morning and evening; expecting wonderful pheno-
mena, in so elevated a region, at two hundred feet
or more above my house. But, behold ! on the 10th,
at eleven at night, it was down only to 17°, and the
next morning at 22°, when mine was at 10°! We
were so disturbed at this unexpected reverse of com-
parative local cold, that we sent one of my .glasses up,

thinking that of Mr. must, somehow, be wrongly

constructed. But, when the instruments came to be
confronted, they went exactly together : so that, for
one night at least, the cold at Newton was 18 degrees
less than at Selborne ; and, through the whole frost, 10
or 12 degrees; and, indeed, when we came to observe
consequences, we could readily credit this ; for all my
laurustines, bays, ilexes, arbutuses, cypresses, and
even my Portugal laurels1, and (which occasions more
regret) my fine sloping laurel hedge, were scorched
up ; while, at Newton, the same trees have not lost a
leaf!

We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the ther-
mometer in the morning was down to 10° with us, and
at Newton only to 21°. Strong frost continued till the
31st, when some tendency to thaw was observed ; and,
by January the 3d, 1785, the thaw was confirmed, and
some rain fell.

A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was
new to us, is, that on Friday, December the 10th, being
bright sunshine, the air was full of icy spiculcs, floating
in all directions, like atoms in a sunbeam let into a
dark room. We thought them at first particles of the
rime falling from my tall hedges ; but were soon con-
vinced to the contrary, by making our observations in

1 Mr. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says positively that the
Portugal laurels remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739-40.
So that either that accurate observer was much mistaken, or else the
frost of December, 1784, was much more severe and destructive than that
in the year abovementioned.

394 NATURAL HISTORY

open places where no rime could reach us. Were they
watery particles of the air frozen as they floated ; or
were they evaporations from the snow frozen as they
mounted ?

We were much obliged to the thermometers for the
early information they gave us ; and hurried our apples,
pears, onions, potatoes, &c. into the cellar, and warm
closets; while those who had not, or neglected, such
warnings, lost all their stores of roots and fruits, and
had their very bread and cheese frozen.

I must not omit to tell you that, during those two
Siberian days, my parlour cat was so electric, that had
a person stroked her, and been properly insulated, the
shock might have been given to a whole circle of
people.

I forgot to mention before, that, during the two severe
days, two men, who were tracing hares in the snow, had
their feet frozen ; and two men, who were much better
employed, had their fingers so affected by the frost,
while they were thrashing in a barn, that a mortifica-
tion followed, from which they did not recover for many
weeks.

This frost killed all the furze and most of the ivy,
and in many places stripped the hollies of all their
leaves. It came at a very early time of the year, before
old November ended ; and yet may be allowed from its
effects to have exceeded any since 1739-40.

LETTER LXIV.

TO THE SAME.

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in
the northerly climate of England, where the summers
are often so defective in warmth and sunshine as not
to ripen the fruits of the earth so well as might be
wished, I shall be more concise in my account of the

OF SELBORNE. 395

severity of a summer season, and so make a little
amends for the prolix account of the degrees of cold,
and the inconveniences that we suffered from some late
rigorous winters.

The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot
and dry; to them therefore I shall turn back in my
journals, without recurring to any more distant period.
In the former of these years my peach and nectarine
trees suffered so much from the heat that the rind on
the bodies was scalded and came off; since which the
trees have been in a decaying state. This may prove
a hint to assiduous gardeners to fence and shelter their
wall-trees with mats or boards, as they may easily do,
because such annoyance is seldom of long continuance.
During that summer also, I observed that my apples
were coddled, as it were, on the trees ; so that they had
no quickness of flavour, and would not keep in the
winter. This circumstance put me in mind of what I
have heard travellers assert, that they never ate a good
apple or apricot in the south of Europe, where the heats
were so great as to render the juices vapid and insipid.

The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy
all the finer fruits just as they are coming into per-
fection. In 1781 we had none ; in 1783 there were
myriads ; which would have devoured all the produce
of my garden, had we not set the boys to take the nests,
and caught thousands with hazel twigs tipped with
birdlime : we have since employed the boys to take
and destroy the large breeding wasps in the spring.
Such expedients have a great effect on these marauders,
and will keep them under. Though wasps do not
abound but in hot summers, yet they do not prevail in
every hot summer, as I have instanced in the two years
abovementioned.

In the sultry season of 1783 honeydews were so fre-
quent as to deface and destroy the beauties of my
garden. My honeysuckles, which were one week the
most sweet and lovely objects that the eye could behold,

396 NATURAL HISTORY

became the next the most loathsome ; being enveloped
in a viscous substance, and loaded with black aphides,
or smother-flies. The occasion of this clammy appear-
ance seems to be this, that in hot weather the effluvia
of flowers in fields and meadows and gardens are drawn
up in the day by a brisk evaporation, and then in the
night fall down again with the dews, in which they are
entangled ; that the air is strongly scented, and there-
fore impregnated with the particles of flowers in summer
weather, our senses will inform us; and that this clammy
sweet substance is of the vegetable kind we may learn
from bees, to whom it is very grateful : and we may be
assured that it falls in the night, because it is always
first seen in warm still mornings1.

On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages
about London, the thermometer has been often observed
to mount as high as 83° or 84° ; but with us, in this hilly
and woody district, I have hardly ever seen it exceed
80°; nor does it often arrive at that pitch. The reason,
I conclude, is, that our dense clayey soil, so much
shaded by trees, is not so easily heated through as those
abovementioned : and, besides, our mountains cause
currents of air and breezes ; and the vast effluvia from
our woodlands temper and moderate our heats.

1 It will hardly be deemed a discredit to an observer so patient, so
accurate, and so faithful as Mr. White, to mention that his conjecture
concerning the origin of honeydew is erroneous. The subject has been
elucidated by the observation of Mr. William Curtis, who has discovered
that this substance is the excrement of the Aphides. See Transactions
of the Linnean Society, Vol.vi. No. 4. — MITFORD.

Had Mr. White carefully looked into the proceedings of the black
Aphides which he mentions, he would have found that the honeydew
was nothing more than their ejecta. In order to convince a friend who
was sceptical as to this undoubted fact, I placed a sheet of writing paper
under a branch where some Aphides were feeding, and over the leaves
below them, which I previously cleaned from honeydew. The result, as
I certainly anticipated, was, that the paper was soon covered with honey-
dew, while the leaves below it were free.— RENNIE.

OF SELBORNE. 397

LETTER LXV.

TO THE SAME.

THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and
portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena ; for,
besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-
storms that affrighted and distressed the different coun-
ties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog
that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in
every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a
most extraordinary appearance, unlike any thing known
within the memory of man. By my journal I find that
I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23 to
July 20 inclusive, during which period the wind varied
to every quarter without making any alteration in the
air. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded
moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the
ground, and floors of rooms ; but was particularly lurid
and blood-coloured at rising and setting. All the time
the heat was so intense that butchers' meat could hardly
be eaten on the day after it was killed ; and the flies
swarmed so in the lanes and hedges that they rendered
the horses half frantic, and riding irksome. The country
people began to look with a superstitious awe, at the
red, louring aspect of the sun; and indeed there was
reason for the most enlightened person to be apprehen-
sive ; for, all the while, Calabria and part of the isle of
Sicily were torn and convulsed with earthquakes ; and
about that juncture a volcano sprung out of the sea on
the coast of Norway. On this occasion Milton's noble
simile of the sun, in his first book of Paradise Lost,
frequently occurred to my mind; and it is indeed parti-
cularly applicable, because, towards the end, it alludes
to a superstitious kind of dread, with which the minds
of men are always impressed by such strange and un-
usual phenomena.

398 NATURAL HISTORY

As when the sun, new riseii,

Looks through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse disasterous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs."

LETTER LXVI.

TO THE SAME.

WE are very seldom annoyed with thunderstorms; and
it is no less remarkable than true, that those which
arise in the south have hardly been known to reach this
village ; for before they get over us, they take a direc-
tion to the east or to the west, or sometimes divide into
two, and go in part to one of those quarters, and in
part to the other, as was truly the case in summer
1783, when though the country round was continually
harassed with tempests, and often from the south, yet
we escaped them all ; as appears by my journal of that
summer1. The only way that I can at all account for
this fact — for such it is — is that, on that quarter, be-
tween us and the sea, there are continual mountains,
hill behind hill, such as Nore Hill, the Barnet, Butser
Hill, and Portsdown, which somehow divert the storms,
and give them a different direction. High promontories,
and elevated grounds, have always been observed to
attract clouds, and disarm them of their mischievous
contents, which are discharged into the trees and sum-
mits as soon as they come in contact with those turbu-
lent meteors; while the humble vales escape, because
they are so far beneath them.

1 To this awful summer of 1783, Cowper also alludes, in his Task,
book ii. p. 41.

-A world that seems

To toll the death-bell of its own decease ;
And by the voice of all the elements
To preach the general doom."

OF SELBORNE. 399

But, when I say I do not remember a thunderstorm
from the south, I do not mean that we never have suf-
fered from thunderstorms at all ; for on June 5th, 1784,
the thermometer in the morning being at 64°, and at
noon at 70°, the barometer at 29° — six tenths one-half,
and the wind north, I observed a blue mist, smelling
strongly of sulphur, hanging along our sloping woods,
and seeming to indicate that thunder was art hand. I
was called in about two in the afternoon, and so missed
seeing the gathering of the clouds in the north, which
they wrho were abroad assured me had something un-
common in its appearance. At about a quarter after two
the storm began in the parish of Hartley, moving slowly
from north to south; and from thence it came over
Norton Farm, and so to Grange Farm, both in this
parish. It began with vast drops of rain, which were
soon succeeded by round hail, and then by convex
pieces of ice, which measured three inches in girth.
Had it been as extensive as it was violent, and of any
continuance (for it was very short); it must have ravaged
all the neighbourhood. In the parish of Hartley it did
some damage to one farm ; but Norton, which lay in
the centre of the storm, was greatly injured ; as was
Grange, which lay next to it. It did but just reach to
the middle of the village, where the hail broke my north
windows, and all my garden-lights and hand-glasses,
and many of my neighbours' windows. The extent of the
storm was about two miles in length and one in breadth.
We were just sitting down to dinner; but were soon
diverted from our repast by the clattering of tiles and
the jingling of glass. There fell at the same time pro-
digious torrents of rain on the farms abovementioned,
which occasioned a flood as violent as it was sudden ;
doing great damage to the meadows and fallows, by
deluging the one and washing away the soil of the
other. The hollow lane towards Alton was so torn
and disordered as not to be passable till mended, rocks
being removed that weighed two hundred weight. Those

400 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

that saw the effect which the great hail had on ponds
and pools say that the dashing of the water made an
extraordinary appearance, the froth and spray standing
up in the air three feet above the surface. The rushing
and roaring of the hail, as it approached, was truly tre-
mendous.

Though the clouds at South Lambeth, near London,
were at that juncture thin and light, and no storm was
in sight, nor within hearing, yet the air was strongly
electric ; for the bells of an electric machine at that
place rang repeatedly, and fierce sparks were dis-
charged.

When I first took the present work in hand, I pro-
posed to have added an Antius Historico-Naturalis, or
the Natural History of the Twelve Months of the Year ;
which would have comprised many incidents and oc-
currences that have not fallen into my way to be men-
tioned in my series of letters;— but, as Mr. Aikin of
Warrington has lately published somewhat of this sort,
and as the length of my correspondence has sufficiently
put your patience to the test, I shall here take a re-
spectful leave of you and natural history together;
and am,

With all due deference and regard,
Your most obliged,

And most humble servant,

GIL. WHITE.

SELBORNE,
June 25, 1787.

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR:

WITH

OBSERVATIONS

VARIOUS BRANCHES OF NATURAL HISTORY.

EXTRACTED FROM THE PAPERS

THE REV. GILBERT WHITE;

JOHN AIKIN, M. D.

WITH REMARKS BY MR. MARKWICK AND OTHERS.

D D

DR. AIKIN'S ADVERTISEMENT.

THE Rev. Mr. White, so agreeably known "to the public
by his Natural History of Selborne, left behind him a
series of yearly books, containing his diurnal observa-
tions on the occurrences in the various walks of rural
nature, from the year 1768 to the time of his death in
1793. From these annals he had already extracted all
the matter comprised in the work abovementioned, down
to the middle of 1787 ; but several curious facts in the
preceding numbers had not been thus employed; and
all the subsequent ones remained untouched. It was
thought a mark of respect due to his memory, and to
the reputation he had acquired as a faithful and elegant
observer, not to consign these relics to neglect. The
manuscripts were accordingly put into my hands for
the purpose of selecting from them what might seem
worthy of laying before the public. The present small
publication is the fruit of my research. With no small
pains I collected the materials of it, dispersed through
the records of so many years, and gave them such an
arrangement as I thought would present them in the
most agreeable and useful manner to the lovers of natu-
ral knowledge.

J. AIKIN1.

LONDON, Jan. 1, 1795.

1 How singularly are the Natural History of Selborne and the Natu-
ralist's Calendar connected together ! In the last paragraph of the former
work, Gilbert White announces that he had proposed to have added a
Natural History of the Twelve Months of the Year, and that a main
inducement to him to forego his intention had been the publication by
Mr. Aikin of somewhat of the same kind: the commencement of the
Naturalist's Calendar is a Preface by Mr. Aikin himself, explanatory of

D D2

404 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

his proceeding in the construction of such a work from the materials left
by Gilbert White. The Naturalist's Calendar is a fulfilling of the original
intentions of the historian by the individual who had previously contri-
buted in some degree to render them nugatory.

The original editor of the present work is known both as the author of
numerous and popular productions and as one of an eminently literary
and scientific family. He dedicates to his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, his
Calendar of Nature, referring to her children's books as having raised
the character of such publications. " Had it been designed," he says,
speaking of his own work, " for a different class of readers, a larger com-
pass might have been taken, and a more learned and elevated character of
writing have been aimed at, yet it must still have remained essentially the
same ; and its merit must still have been that of compilation. The plan
itself is a borrowed one ; and you must certainly recollect its model in
one of your own little books, where, in a very entertaining manner, you
give a brief description of the several months, formed of some of the most
striking circumstances attending each. What you have done for a child
three or four years old, I have attempted for young people from ten to
fourteen." In editing from the MSS. of White, he carried yet higher his
desires of extending acquaintance with natural history ; the work com-
piled by him from that source being adapted to students of adult powers,
and embodying many facts which were altogether new, at the time of their
publication, to naturalists generally. Founded on the observation of
nature their interest is calculated to endure. — E.T. B.

THE

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR,

AS KEPT AT

SELBORNE, IN HAMPSHIRE,

FROM THE YEAR 1768, TO THE YEAR 1793:

BY THE

REV. GILBERT WHITE, M. A.

TO WHICH ARE APPENDED,

PARALLEL OBSERVATIONS MADE AT CATSFIELD, NEAR
BATTLE, IN SUSSEX.

BY WILLIAM MARKWICK, ESQ. F. L. S.

PREFACE

THE NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

THE mode in which the following rural Calendar of the
year has been composed, was to copy out from the
journals all the circumstances thought worthy of noting,
with the several dates of their recurrence, and to pre-
serve the earliest and latest of those dates ; so that the
Calendar exhibits the extreme range of variation in the
first occurrence of all the phenomena mentioned. To
many of them only one date is annexed, only one obser-
vation having been entered. This is particularly the
case with respect to the flowering of plants, with which
the book of 1768 alone was copiously filled ; and it is
to be noted that this was rather a backward year, —
[J. A.]

[In the preface to the edition of the Natural History,
published in 1802 it is stated that

A very valuable addition to the Calendar and Obser-
vations has been obtained from the kindness of William
Markwick, Esq. F. L. S., well known as an accurate
observer of nature; whose parallel calendar, kept in
the county of Sussex, is given upon the opposite
columns1.]

1 William Markwick, afterwards Eversfield, derived from his residence
in the country opportunities of observing nature, which he embraced with
a readiness worthy of a pupil of Gilbert White. His Naturalist's Calen-
dar affords ample evidence of his perseverance in attending to and noting
occurrences in both the organized kingdoms of the creation; and the

408 NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

remarks subjoined by him, in numerous instances, to our author's Obser-
vations on various Parts of Nature, shew him to have been a sensible as
well as a diligent observer. He communicated to the Linnean Society
various essays on subjects of interest to the British zoologist, which were
published in the earlier volumes of the Transactions of that body : the
first of them, On the Migration of certain Birds, and on other Matters
relating to the Feathered Tribes, included a Table of the annual appear-
ance and disappearance of certain birds, which was continued to the end
of 1794 in a subsequent communication, entitled Aves Sussexienses ; or,
a Catalogue of Birds found in the County of Sussex, with Remarks.
His last paper consisted of Observations on the Clover Weevil, and was
published in 1801. His death took place ill 1813.— E. T. B.

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

WHITE'S AND MARKWICK'S CALI^NDARS.

Of the abbreviations used, fl. signifies flowering ; I. leajing ; and ap. the first
appearance.

REDBREAST (Sylvia Rubecula) whis-
tles

Larks (Alauda arvensis) congregate
Nuthatch ( Sitta Europcea) chatters
Winter aconite (Helleborus hiemalis)

fl.

Shelless snail or slug (Limax) ap.
Gray wagtail (Motacilla Boarula)}

ap.

White wagtail (Motacilla alba) ap.)
Missel thrush (Turdus viscivorus)

sings

Bearsfoot ( Helleborus fcetidus ) fl.
Polyanthus (Primula polyantha) fl.
Double daisy (Bellisperennis plena )i\.
Mezereon (Daphne Mezereum) fl.
Pansie (Viola tricolor) fl.
Red dead-nettle ( Lamium purpureum)

fl.

Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) fl.
Hazel (Corylus Avellana) catkins

open

Hepatica (Anemone hepatica) fl.
Hedge sparrow (Sylvia modularis)

whistles
Common flies (Musca domestica) seen

in windows
Greater titmouse (Parus major) makes

its spring note

Thrush (Tvrdus musicus) sings
Insects swarm under sunny hedges
Primrose (Primula vulgaris) fl.
Bees (Apis mellifica) corne out of their

hives

Gnats play about
Hen chaffinches (Fringilla Calebs)

flock

Jan. 2—14 Feb. 19. Apr. 14

Jan. 2. Feb. 14 Mar. 1. May 5
Jan. 2. Apr. 12 Jan. 1. Apr. 9
Jan. 2. Feb. 1 I Mar. 17. Apr. 29
Jan. 3. Feb. 16 Jan. 2. Apr. 4
Jan. 3. I Jan. 1. May 10

WHITE.

Jan. 1—12
Jan. 1—18
Jan. 1—14

Jan. 1.
Jan. 2

Feb. 18

Jan. 2—11

MARKWICK.

[Oct. 6

Jan. 3—31 : and again
Oct. 16. Feb. 9
Mar. 3. Apr. 10

Feb. 28. Apr. 17
Jan. 16. May 31

Jan. 24. Mar. 26
Dec. 12. Feb. 23

Jan, 3—21
Jan. 3—15

Jan. 1. Apr. 5
Jan. 1. Apr. 9

Jan. 3. Feb. 28 Jan. 21. Mar. 11, fl.
Jan. 4. Feb. 18 Jan. 17. Apr. 9

Jan. 5—12

Jan. 16. Mar. 13

Jan. 5. Feb. 3

May 15

Jan. 6. Feb. 6

Feb. 17. Mar. 17

Jan. 6—22

Jan. 15. Apr. 4

Jan. 6

Jan. 6. Apr. 7

Jan. 3. Mar. 22

[seen Dec. 30

Jan. 6. Mar. 19

Jan. 31. Apr. 11: last

Jan. 6. Feb. 3

Jan. 6—11

Dec. 2. Feb. 3, male

and female seen iu

equal numbers

410

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Furze or gorse ( Ulex Europccus) fl.
Wallflower (Chcinmthus Clieiri; seu

frnticulosus of Smith) fl.
Stock (Cheiranthus incanus) fl.
Bunting (Emberiza alba) in great

flocks
Linnets (Fringilla Linota) congregate

in vast flocks
Lambs begin to fall
Hooks ( ( 'orvus frug'degus) resort to

their nest trees

Black hellebore (Helleborus niger) fl.
Snowdrop (Galanthus nitalls) fl.
White dead-nettle ( Lamium album}

fl.

Trumpet honeysuckle fl.
Common creeping crow-foot (Ranun-
culus re-pens) fl.
House sparrow (Fringilla domestica}

chirps

Dandelion (Leontodon Taraxacum} fl.
Bat ( VespertilioJ ap.
Spiders shoot their webs
Butterfly ap.
Brambling (Fringilla Montifringilla)

ap.

Blackbird (Turdus Merula) whistles
Wren (Sylvia Troglodytes} sings
Earthworms (Lumbncus terrestris}

lie out

Crocus (Crocus vemus) fl.
Skylark (Alauda areensis} sings
Ivy (Hedera Helix) casts its leaves
Helleborus hiemalis fl.
Common dor or clock (Scarabteus

stercorarius) ap.
Peziza acetabulum ap.
Helleborus viridis fl.
Hazel (Corylus Avellana} shows its

female blossoms

Woodlark (Alauda arborea) sings
Chaffinch (Fringilla Calebs) sings
Jackdaw (Corvus Monedula) begins

to come to churches
Yellow wagtail ( Motacilla fiara ) ap.
Honeysuckle (Lonicera Periclyme-

num) 1.

Field or procumbent speedwell ( Ve-
ronica agrestis) fl.
Small tortoise-shell butterfly (Papi-

lio Urtica) ap.

White wagtail (Motacilla alba) sings
Shell snail (Helix nemoralis) ap.
Earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris)

engender
Barren strawberry (Fragaria sterilis}

fl.
Tomtit (Pants cccruleus) makes its

spring note

WlllTR.

Jan. 8. Feb. 1

Jan. 8. Apr. 1
Jan. 8—12

Jan. 9

Jan. 9
Jan. 9—11

Jan. 10. Feb. 11

Jan. 10

Jan. 10. Feb. 5

Jan. 13
Jan. 13

Jan. 13

Jan. 14
Jan. 10. Mar.
Jan. 16. Mar.
Jan. 1G
Jan. 16

Jan. 16
Jan. 17
Jan. 17

Jan. 18. Feb. 8
Jan. 18. Mar. 18
Jan. 21
Jan. 22
Jan. 22—24

Jan. 23
Jan. 23
Jan. 23. Mar. 6

Jan. 23. Feb. 1
Jan. 24. Feb. 21
Jan. 24. Feb. 15

Jan. 25. Mar. 4
Jan. 25. Apr. 14

Jan. 25

Jan. 27. Mar. 15

Jan. 27. Apr. 2

Jan. 28

Jan. 28. Feb. 24

Jan. 30

Feb. 1. Mar. 26

Feb. 1

MARK.WICK.

Jan. 1. Mar. 27

Feb. 21. May 9
Feb. 1. June 3

Jan. 11
Jan. 6.

Feb. 21

last

Jan. 23
Apr. 27
Jan. 18. Mar. 1

Mar. 23. May 10

Apr. 10. May 12

Feb. 17. May 9
Feb. 1. Apr. 17
Feb. 6. June 1 :

[seen Nov. 20
Feb. 21. May 8: last

[seen Dec. 22
Jan. 10—31
Feb. 15. May 13
Feb. 7. June 12

Jan. 20. Mar. 19
Jan. 12. Feb. 27: sings
[till Nov. 13
Feb. 28. Apr. 17

Feb. 12. Apr. 19: last
[seen Nov. 24

Jan. 27. Mar. 11,
Jan. 28. June 5
Jan. 21. Feb. 26

Apr. 13. July 3: last
[seen Sept. 6
Jan. 1. Apr. 9

Feb. 12. Mar. 29

[seen June 0
Mar. 5. Apr. 24 : last
Mar. 16.
Apr. 2. June 11

Jan. 13. Mar. 26
Apr. 27

NATURALIST S CALENDAR.

411

Brown wood owl (Strix stridula)

hoots

Hen (Phasianus Gallus) sits
Marsh titmouse ( Parus palustris) be-
gins his two harsh sharp notes
Gossamer floats
Musca tenax ap.

Laurustine ( Viburnum Tinus) fl.
Butcher's broom ( Ruscus aculeatus)

fl.

Fox (Canis Vulpes) smells rank
Turkey cock struts and gobbles
Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)

sings
Brimstone butterfly (Papilio Rhamni)

ap.
Green woodpecker (Picus viridis)

laughs

Raven (Corrus C&rax) builds
Male yew tree (Taxus baccata) sheds

its farina

Coltsfoot (Tussilago Farfara) fl.
Rooks ( Corvus frugilegus ) build
Partridges (Pcrdix cinerea) pair
Peas (Pisum sativum ) sown
House pigeon (Columba domestica)

builds
Field crickets (Gryllus campestris)

open their holes

Common flea (Pulex irritans) ap.
Pilewort (Ficaria verna) fl.
Goldfinch (Fringilla Carduelis) sings
Viper (Coluber Berus) ap.

Woodlouse (Oniscus Asellus) ap.
Missel thrushes (Turdus viscivorus)

pair
Daftbdil (Narcissus Pseudonarcissus)

fl.

Willow (Salix alba) fl.
Frogs (Rana temporaria) croak
Sweet violet ( Viola odorata) fl.
Phalana Tinea vestianella ap.
Stone curlew (CEdicnemus crepitans)

clamours

Filberd (Corylus sativus) fl.
Ring-dove (Columba Palumbus) coos
Apricot tree (Prunus Armeniaca) fl.
Toad (Rana Bufo) ap.
Frogs (Rana temporaria) spawn
Ivy-leaved speedwell ( Veronica hcde-

rtfolia) fl.

Peach (Amygdalus Persica) fl.
Frog (Rana temporaria) ap.
Shepherd's purse (Thlaspi Bursa pas-

toris) fl.

Pheasant ( Phasianus Colchicus)cvows
Land tortoise comes forth
Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis) fl

WHITE.

MARKW1CK.

Feb. 2

Feb. 3

Mar. 8, hatches

Feb. 3

Feb. 4. Apr. 1

Feb. 4. Apr. 8

Feb. 5

Jan. 1. Apr. 5

Feb. 5

Jan. 1. May 10

Feb. 7

May 19 : young brought

Feb. 10

[forth

Feb. 12

Feb. 18. Apr. 28

Feb. 13. Apr. 2

Feb. 13. Mar. 8: last

[seen Dec. 24

Feb.'IS. Mar. 23

Jan. 1. Apr. 17

Feb. 14 — 17

Apr. 1. has young ones

[June 1

Feb. 14. Mar. 27

Feb. 2. Apr. 11, fl.

Feb. 15. Mar. 23

Feb. 18. Apr. 13

Feb. 16. Mar. 6

Feb. 28. Mar. 5

Feb. 17

Feb. 16. Mar. 20

Feb. 17. Mar. 8

Feb. 8. Mar. 31

Feb. IS

Feb. 8. has young ones

Feb. 20. Mar. 30

Feb. 21—26

Feb. 21. Apr. 13

Jan. 25. Mar. 26

Feb. 21. Apr. 5

Feb. 28. May 5

Feb. 22. Mar. 26

Feb. 23. May 6: last

[seen Oct. 28

Feb. 23. Apr.l

Apr. 27. June 17

Feb. 24

Feb. 24. Apr. 7

Feb. 26. Apr. 18

Feb. 24. Apr. 2

Feb. 27. Apr. 11

Feb. 25

Mar. 9. Apr. 20

Feb. 26. Mar. 31

Feb. 7. Apr. 5

Feb. 26

Feb. 27. Apr. 24

June 17

Feb. 27

Jan. 25. Mar. 26

Feb. 27. Apr. 5

Mar. 2. Aug. 10

Feb.

Feb. 28. Apr. 5

Feb. 28. Mar. 24

Mar. 15. July 1

Feb. 28. Mar. 22

Feb. 9. Apr. 10 : tad-

poles Mar. 1 9

Mar. 1. Apr. 2

Feb. 16. Apr. 10

Mar. 2. Apr. 17

Mar. 4. Apr. 29

Mar. 2. Apr. 6

Mar. 9

Mar. 3

Jan. 2. Apr. 16

Mar. 3—29

Mar. 1. May 22

Mar. 4. May 8

Mar. 1. Apr. 16

Mar. 2. May 19

412

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Podura fimetaria ap.

Aranea scenica saliens ap.

Scolopendraforficata ap.

Wryneck ( Yvnx Torquilla) returns

Goose (Anas Anser) lays

Duck (Anas Boschas) lays

Dog violet (Viola canina) fl.

Peacock butterfly (Papilio Jo) ap.

Trouts (Salmo Fario) begin to rise

Beans ( Vicia Faba) planted

Bloodworms appear in the water

Crow (Corvus Curone) builds

Oats ( Apena sativa) sown

Golden crested wren (Sylvia Regu-

lus) sings

Aspen (Populus tremnla) fl.
Common elder (Sambucus nigra) 1.
Laurel (Prunus Laurocerasus ) fl.
Chrysomela Gottingensis ap.
Black ant (Formica nigra) ap.
Ephemera biseta ap.
Gooseberry ( Ribes Grossularia) 1.
Common stitch wort (Stellaria holos-

tea) fl.
Wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa)

fl.
Blackbird (Tnrdus Mcrula) sits

Raven (Corrus Corax) sits
Wheatear (Sylvia (Enanthe) returns'
Musk wood crowfoot (Adoxa Moscha-

tellina) fl.
Small uncrested willow wren3 ap.

Fumaria bulbosa fl.
Elm ( Ulmus campestris) fl.
Turkey ( Meleagris Gallopato) lays
House pigeon (Columba domestica)

sits
Marsh marigold (Calthtt palustris)

fl.

Buzz-fly ( Bombylius mcdius) ap.
Sand martin (Hit-undo riparia) ap.

Snake (Coluber Natrix) ap.

WHITE.

Mar. 4

Mar. 5—16

Mar. 5. Apr. 25

Mar. 5

Mar. 6. Apr. 18

Mar. 6

Mar. 7—14

Mar. 8

Mar. 10

Mar. 10—18

Mar. 12. Apr. 30
Mar. 12
Mar. 13—20
Mar. 15. May 21
Mar. 15

Mar. 15. Apr. 22
Mar. 10
Mar. 17. Apr. 11

Mar. 17. May 19

Mar. 17.
Mar. 17

Mar. 17
Mar. 18

Mar. 18.
Mar. 19.

Apr. 22

—30

Apr. 13
Apr. 13

Mar. 19
Mar. 19.
Mar. 19.

Mar. 20

Apr. 4
Apr. 7

Mar. 20. Apr. 14
Mar. 21. Apr. 28
Mar. 21. Apr. 12

Mar. 22 -30

[seen Sept. 1 1
Mar. 20. Apr. 23 : last
Mar. 21
Mar. 28

Feb. 28. Apr. 22
Feb. 13. Apr. 2J: last

[seen Dec. 25
Apr. 29 emerge.

July 1, has young ones
Mar. 16. Apr. 13

[Dec. 23. Jan. 26
Apr. 15. May 22. seen
Feb. 26. Mar. 28
Jan. 24. Apr. 22
Apr. 2. May 27

Mar. 2. May 18
Feb. 26. Apr. 9
Mar. 8. May 7

Feb. 27. Apr. 10

Apr. 14, lays: y«>m<
[ones May 19

Apr. 1, builds

Mar. 13. May 23 : ln*l
[seen Oct. 2ii

Feb. 23. Apr. 28

Willow wren (Sylri.i
Trochilus) Mar. 30.
May 16: sits May 27 :
last seen Oct. 23

Feb. 17. Apr. 25

Mar. 18 — 25 : sits Apr.
[4 : young ones Apr. 30

Mar. 20: young hatched

Mar. 22. May 8
Mar. 15. Apr. 30
Apr. 8. May 16: last

[seen Sept. 8
Mar. 3. Apr. 29: last

[seen Oct. 2

* Seen at Spofforlh, Apr. 5, 1833.— W. H.

1 There is strange confusion in the entries respecting the willow wrens in the Calendar pub-
lished from Mr. White's papers after his death. Three sorts were known to him, as he distinctly
says in a former passage : the Syh-ia Troc/tilus, or yellow wren; the Syfc. tykicola, or wood wren;
and the Sylv. loytuue, or chifichaff : but there are five entries of such wrens in the Calendar. By
reference to what he has said in other places, it should seem that the chiffchaff appears the first.
Therefore, in the entry, March 19th, we must read, instead ol Small uncreated willow wren, Chiftcbaff,
Sylv. loqtuu. In a subsequent page, Mr. White states this bird to be the chitfchaff, and to be usually
heard about the 20lh of March — W. H.

NATURALIST S CALENDAR.

413

Horse ant (Formica herculanea) ap.

Greenfinch (Loxia Chloris) sings
Ivy (Hedera Helix) berries ripe
Periwinkle (Vinca minor) fl.
Spurge laurel (Daphne Laureola) fl.
Swallow (Hirundo rustica) ap.

Blackcap (Sylvia Atricapilla) whis-
tles3

Ducks ( Anas Boschas) hatched

Golden saxifrage ( Chrysosplenium op-
posit if olium) fl.

House martin (Hirundo urbica) ap.

Chimney swallow (Hirundo rustica)
ap. 4

Dou ble hyacinth (Hyacinthus Orienta-
lis) fl.

Young geese (Anas Anser)

Wood sorrel ( Oxalis Acetosella) fl.

Ring ouzel (Turdus torquatus) ap.

Barley (Hordeum sativum) sown

Nightingale (Sylvia Luscinia) sings

Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) fl.
Spiders' webs on the surface of the

ground
Chequered daffodil ( Fritillaria Me-

leagris) fl.
Julus terrestris ap.
Cowslip (Primula veris) fl.
Ground ivy (Glechoma hcderacea) fl.
Snipe (Scolopax Gallinago) pipes
Box tree (Buxus sempcrvirens} fl.
Elm ( Ulmus campestris) 1.
Gooseberry (Ribes Grossularia) fl.
Currant (Ribes hortensis) fl.
Pear tree (Pyrus communis) fl.
Newt or eft (Lacerta vulgaris) ap.
Dogs' mercury (Mercurialis perennis)

fl.
Wych elm ( Ulmus glabra seu montana

of Smith) fl.
Ladies smock (Cardamine pratensisj

fl.
Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) heard5

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) fl.
Deathwatch (Termes pulsatorius)
beats

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Mar. 22. Apr. 18

Feb. 4. Mar. 26: last

[seen Nov. 12

Mar. 22. Apr. 22

Mar. 6. Apr. 26

Mar. 23. Apr. 14

Feb. 16. May 19

Mar. 25

Feb. 6. May 7

Mar. 25. Apr. 1

Apr. 12—22

Mar. 26. Apr. 20

Apr. 7 — 27 : last seen

[Nov. 16

Mar. 26. May 4

Apr. 14. May 18: seen

Apr. 14. May 20: last

seen Sept. 19

Mar. 27

Apr. 6. May 16

Mar. 27. Apr. 9

Feb. 7. Mar. 27

Mar. 28. May 1

Apr. 14. May 8 : last

[seen Dec. 8

Mar. 28. Apr. 13

Mar. 29. Apr. 22

Mar. 13. Apr. 24

Mar. 29

Mar. 29. Apr. 19

Mar. 30. Apr. 22

Feb. 26. Apr. 26

Mar. 30. Apr. 17

Oct. 11

Mar. 31. Apr. 30

Apr. 12. May 20

Apr. 1. May 1

Apr.5. July 4 : last seen

[Aug. 29

Apr. 1. May 4

Mar. 16. May 8

Apr. 1

Apr. 2—24

Apr. 15. May 1

Apr. 2

Apr. 3—24

Mar. 3. May 17

Apr. 3 — 15

Mar. 2. Apr. 16

Apr. 3

Mar. 27. May 8

Apr. 3
Apr. 3—14

Apr. 2. May 19
Mar. 21. May 1

Apr. 3—5

Mar. 24. Apr. 28

Apr. 3. May 21

Mar. 30. Apr. 30

Apr. 4

Feb. 17. Apr. 15: last

[seen Oct. 9

Apr. 5—19

Jan. 20. Apr. 16

Apr. 5

Apr. 19. May 10, 1.

Apr. 6—20

Feb. 21. Apr. 26

Apr. 7—26

Apr. 15. May 3 : last

[heard June 28

Apr. 7. May 10

Mar. 16. May 8

Apr. 7

Mar. 28. May 28

3 At Spofforth, May 10, 1817. May 1, 1818. Apr. 19, 1829. Apr. 9, 1831. Apr. 6, 1832. Apr.
19, 1833. Apr. 7, 1834. May 4, 1835. Sang for a few moments, Sept. 11, 1831.— W. H.

* At Spofforth, Apr. 11, 1830. Apr. 23, 1831. Two had been seen a week before and went
away. Apr. 26, 1834. Apr. 27, 1835.— W. H.

* Heard at Spofforth, May 8, 1817. Apr. 27, 1818. Apr. 27, 1831. May 1, 1834.— W. H.

414

NATURALIST S CALENDAR.

Gudgeon ( Gobio fluviatills ) spawns
Redstart (Sylvia Phcenicurus) ap.6
Crown imperial (Fritillaria imperia-

lis) fl.
Titlark (Alauda pratensis) sings

Beech (Fagus sylvatica) 1.

S lie 11 snail (Helix nemoralis) comes

out in troops
Middle yellow wren7 ap.
Swift (Hirundo apus) ap. 8
Stinging fly (Conops calcitrans) ap.
Whitlow grass ( Draba verna) fl.
Larch tree (Pinus larix rubra) 1.
Whitethroat (Sylvia cinerea) ap. 9

Red ant (Formica rubra) ap.

Mole cricket (Gryllus Gryllotalpa)

churs
Second willow or laughing wren I0

ap.

Red rattle (Pedicularis sylvatica) fl.
Common flesh-fly ( Musca carnaria}

ap.

Ladycow (Coccinella bipunctata) &p.
Grasshopper lark (Alauda locustcc

voce) ap. ' '
Large shivering willow wren Ia

Middle willow wren 13 (Regulus non

crlstatus medius) ap.
Wild cherry (Prunus Cerasua) fl.
Garden cherry (Prunus Cerasua) fl.
Plum (Prunus domestica) fl.
Harebell (Uyacinthus non-scriptus seu

Scilla n n tn us of Smith) fl.
Turtle (Columba Turtur) coos
Hawthorn (Cratagus seu Mespilus

Oxyacantha of Smith) fl.
Male fool's orchis (Orchis mascula) fl.
Blue flesh fly (Musca vomitoria) ap.
Black snail or slug (Limax atcr)

abounds
Apple tree (Pyrus Malus sativus) fl.

WHITE.

Apr. 7

MARKWICK.

Apr. 8—28

Apr. 5 : sings Apr. 25

[last seen Sept. 3-

Apr. 8—24

Apr. I. May 13

Apr. 9—19

Apr. 14 — 29: sits Jum

[16-2?

Apr. 10. May 8

Apr. 24. May 25

Apr. 11. May 9

May 17. June 11 ap.

Apr. 11

Apr. 13. May 7

Apr. 28. May 19

Apr. 14. May 17

Apr. 14

Jan. 15. Mar. 2 1

Apr. 14

Apr. 1. May 9

Apr. 14. May 14

Apr. 14. May 5 : sin-

May 3 — 10: lastseci

Sept. 23

Apr. 14

Apr. 9. June 26

Apr. 14. May 27

Apr. 14—19—23

Apr. 15—19

Apr. 10. June 4

Apr. 15

Apr. 16

Apr. 16—30

Apr. 17. May 7

Willow wren,its shivor

ing note heard Apr

28. May 14

Apr. 17—27

Apr. 18. May 12

Mar. 30. May 10

Apr. 18. May 11

Mar. 25. May 6

Apr. 18. May 5

Mar. 24. May 6

Apr. 19—25

Mar. 27. May 8

Apr. 20—27

May 14. Aug. 10: seei

Apr. 20. June 11

Apr. 19. May 26

Apr. 21

Mar. 29. May 13

Apr. 21. May 23

Apr. 22

Feb. 1. Oct. 24, ap.

Apr. 22. May 25

Apr. 11. May 26

6 Seen at Spofforth, May 11, 1317. Apr. 0, 1820. Apr. 12, 1830. Apr. 2C, 1831 W. IF.

7 Yellow wren (Sylvia Troc/iiiiuj. — W. H.

8 Seen at Spofforth, May 3, 1834.— W. H.

9 Sang at Spofforth, May 8, 1817. Apr. 27, 1831, with a south wind, several sang: none befor.
that day. Apr. 25, 1834. May 8, 1835.— W. H.

10 Yellow wren (Sylvia Trochiliu).—Vf. H.

" At Spofforth, Apr. 26, 1834 — W. H.

»* Wood wren (Sylvia sylvicola}. Seen at Spofforth, May 8, 1835.— W. II.

i3 Yellow wren (Sylwt TrocMlus}.—W. H.

NATURALIST S CALENDAR.

415

Large bat ap.

Strawberry, wild wood (Fragaria

vesca) fl.

Sauce alone (Erysimum AlUaria) fl.
Wild or bird cherry (Prunus Avium)

fl.

Apis Hypnorum ap.
Mnsca meridiana ap.
Wolf fly (Asilus) ap.
Cabbage butterfly (Papilio Brassica)

ap.
Dragon fly ( Libcllula) ap.

Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) fl.

Bombylius minor ap.

Glowworm (Lampyris noctiluca)

shines
Fern owl or goatsucker (Caprimulgus

Europceus) returns
Common bugle ( Ajuga reptans) fl.
Field crickets (Gryllus campestris)

crink
Chafer or maybug (Scarabceus Melo-

lontha) ap.
Honeysuckle (Lonicera Periclyme-

num) fl.

Toothwort (Lathraa squamaria) fl.
Shell snails (Helix nemoralis) pair
Sedge warbler (Sylvia salicaria)

sings

Mealy tree (Viburnum Lantana) fl.
Flycatcher (Stoparola or Muscicapa

Grisoln) ap.
Apis longicornis ap.
Reed warbler (Sylvia arundinacea)

ap.

Oak (Quercus Robur) in male bloom
Admiral butterfly (Papilio Atalanta)

ap.
Orange tip butterfly (Papilio Carda-

mines) ap.

Beech (Fagus sylvatica) fl.
Common maple ( Acer campestris) fl.
Barberry tree (Berberis vulgaris) fl.
Wood Argus butterfly (Papilio JEge-

ria) ap.

Orange lily (Lilium bulbiferum) fl.
Burnetmoth (Sphinx Filipendulte) ap.
Walnut (Juglans regia) 1.
Laburnum (Cytisus Laburnum) fl.
Forest fly (Hippobosca equina) ap.
Saintfoin (Hedysarum Onobrychis) fl.
Peony (Pceonia officinalis) fl.
Horse chestnut (JEsculus Hippocasta-

num) fl.

Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) fl.
Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) fl.
Medlar (Mespilus Germanica) fl.
Tormentil (Tormentilla reptans) fl.

WHITE.

Apr. 22. June 11

MARKWICK.

Apr. 23—29
Apr. 23

Apr. 8—9
Mar. 31. May 8

Apr. 24
Apr. 24
Apr. 24. May 28
Apr. 25

Mar. 30. May 10

Apr. 28. May 20
Apr. 30. May 21

Apr. 30. June 6
May 1

Apr. 29. June 15
Apr.rs. May 13: last
[seen Nov. 10
Apr. 20. June 4

May 1. June 11

June 19. Sept. 28

May 1—26
May 1

May 16. Sept. 14
Mar. 27. May 10

May 2—24

May 2—26

May 2. July 7

May 3—30
May 4—12
May 4— June 17

Apr. 24. June 21

May 4
May 5—17

June 2 — 30
Apr. 25. May 22

May 10—30
May 10. June 9

Apr. 29. May 21

May 11—13
May 13—15

Aug. 2
fl. Apr. 29. June 4

May 13

May 14
May 15—26
May 16
May 17—26

Mar. 30. May 19
Apr. 23. May 28
Apr. 24. May 27
Apr. 28. June 4

May 17
May 18. June 11
May 18. June 13
May 18
May 18. June 5
May 18. June 9
May 19. June 8
May20. June 15

June 14. July 22
May 24. June 26
Apr. 10. June 1
May 1. June 23

May 21. July 28
Apr. 18. May 26

May 21. June 9
May 21
May 21—27
May 21. June 20
May 21

Apr. 19. June 7
Apr. 15. May 30
May 6. June 13
Apr. 8. June 19
Apr. 17. June 11

416

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Lily of the valley ( Convallaria Maja
lis) fl.

Bees (Apis mellifica) swarm

Woodroof (Asperula odorata) fl.

Wasps, female ( Vespa vulgaris) ap.

Mountain ash (Sorbus seu Pyrus au-
cuparia of Smith) fl.

Birds-nest orchis (Ophrys Nidi
fl.

White-beam tree (Cratcegus seu Pyrus
Aria of Smith) 1.

Milkwort (Polygala vulgaris) fl.

Dwarf cistus ( Cistus Helianthemum
fl.

Gelder rose ( Viburnum Opulus) fl.

Common elder (Sambucus nigra) fl.

('nut Inn-is noctiluca ap.

Apis longicornis bores holes in walks

Mulberry tree (Morns nigra)

Wild service tree (Cratcegus seu Py-
rus torminalis of Smith) fl.

Sanicle (Sanicula Europtea) fl.

Avens (Geum urbanum) fl.

Female fool's orchis (Orchis Mono)

Ragged Robin (Lychnis Flos Cuculi)

fl.

Burnet ( Poterium Sanguisorba) fl.
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) fl.
Corn flag (Gladiolus communis) fl.
Serapias longifolia fl.
Raspberry (Rubus Idceus) fl.
Herb Robert (Geranium Robertia-

n it in > fl.

Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) fl.
Gromwell ( Lithospermum officinale) fl.
Wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloi-

des) fl.

Ramsons ( Allium ursinum) fl.
Mouse-ear scorpion grass (Myosotis

scorpioides) fl.
Grasshopper (Gryllus grossus) ap.

Rose (Rosa hortensis) fl.

Mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium
Pilosella) fl.

Buckbean (Menyanthes trtfoliata) fl.

Rose chafer (Scarabteus auratus) ap.

Sheep (Oris Aries) shorn

Water flag (Iris Pseudacorus) fl.

Cultivated rye (Secale cereale) fl.

Hound's tongue (Cynoglossum offici-
nale) fl.

Helleborine (Serapias lat\folia) fl.

Green gold fly (Musca Ccesar) ap.

Argus butterfly (Papilio Moera) ap.

Spearwortf Ranunculus Flammula) fl.

Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus comiculatus)
fl.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

May 22
May 22. July 22
May 22—25
May 23

May 23. June 8

Apr. 27. June 13
May 12. June 23
Apr. 14. June 4
Apr. 2. June 4: las
[seen Nov. :
Apr. 20. June 8

May 24. June 11

May 18. June 12

May 24. June 4
May 24. June 7

May 3
Apr. 13. June 2

May 25
May 26
May 26. June 25
May 26
May 27. June 9
May 27. June 13

May 4. Aug. 8
May 10. June 8
May 6. June 17

May 20. June 11

May 27
May 27. June 13
May 28

May 13. June 19
Apr. 23. June 4
May 9. June 11

May 28

Apr. 17. May 20

May 29. June 1
May 29
May 30. June 22
May 30. June 20
May 30. June 13
May 30. June 21

May 12. June 8
Apr. 30. Aug. 7
May 23. June 15
June 9. July 8

May 10. June 16

May 30
May 31
May 31

Mar. 7. May 16
May 12. June 20
May 10—24

June 1
June 1

Mar. 23. May 13
Apr. 21. June 4

June I
June 1—14

June_l— 21

Apr. 11. June I
Mar. 25. July 6: last
[seen Nov. 11
June 7. July 1

June 1. July 16
June 1
June 2—8
June 2—23
June 2
June 2

Apr. 19. June 12
Apr. 20. June 8
Apr. 18. Aug. 4
May 23. June 17
May 8. June 9
May 27

Fune 2
Fune 2. Aug. 6
Fune 2
Fune 2

1 inn- 3

Way 11. June 7
July 22. Sept. 6

Apr. 25. June 13

1 inn- 3

Apr. 10. June 3

NATURALIST S CALENDAR.

417

Fraxinella or white dittany (Dictam-

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

nus albus) fl.

June 3—11

June 9. July 24

Phryganea nigra ap.

June 3

Angler's may-fly (Ephemera vulgata)

ap.

June 3 — 14

Ladies fingers (Anthyllis vulneraria)

fl.

June 4

June 1. Aug. 16

Bee orchis (Ophrys apifera) fl.

June 4. July 4

Pink (Dianthm deltoides) fl.

June 5 — 19

May 26. July 6

Syringa ( Philadelphus coronarius) fl.

June 5

May 16. June 23

Libellula Virgo ap.

June 5—20

Vine C Vitis vinifera) fl.

June 7. July 30

June -18. July 29

Portugal laurel (Prunus Lusitanicus)

fl.

June 8. July 1

June 3. July 16

Purple spotted martagon (Lilium

Martagon) fl.

June 8 — 25

June 18. July 19

Meadow cranes-bill (Geranium pra-

tense) fl.

June 8. Aug. 1

Black bryony (Tamus communis) fl.

June 8

May 15. June 21

Field pea (Pisum sativum arvense) fl.

June 9

May 15. June 21

Bladder campion (Cucubalus Behen

seu Silene inflata of Smith) fl.

June 9

May 4. July 13

Bryony (Bryonia alba) fl.

June 9

May 13. Aug. 17

Hedge nettle (Stachys sylvatica) fl.

June 10

May 28. June 24

Bittersweet (Solanum Dulcamara} fl.

June 11

May 15. June 20

Walnut (Juglans regia) fl.

June 12

Apr. 18. June 1

Phallus impudicus ap.

June 12. July 23

Rosebay willow-herb (Epilobium an-

gustifolium) fl.

June 12

June 4. July 28

Wheat (Triticum hybernum) fl.

June 13. July 22

June 4 — 30

Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) fl.

June 13

May 4. June 23

Yellow pimpernel ( Lysimachia nemo-

rum) fl.

June 13 — 30

Apr. 10. June 12

Tremella Nostoc ap.

June 15. Au#.24

Buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus) fl.

June 16

May 25

Cuckow-spit insect ( Cicada spumaria)

ap.

June 16

June 2—21

Dog-rose (Rosa canina) fl.

June 17, 18

May 24. June 21

Large puff-ball (Lycoperdon Bovista)

ap.

June 17. Sept. 3

May 6. Aug. 19

Mullein ( Verbascum Thapsus) fl.

June 18

June 10. July 22

Viper's bugloss ( Echium vulgare) fl.

June 19

May 27. July 3

Meadow hay cut

June 19. July 20

June 13. July 7

Stag beetle (Lucanus C'ervus) ap.

June 19

June 14—21

Borage (Borago officinalis) fl.

June 20

Apr. 22. July 26

Spindle tree (Evonymus Europceus}

fl.

June 20

May 11. June 25

Musk thistle (Carduus nutans) fl.

June 20. July 4

June 4. July 25

Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) fl.

June 21

May 28. June 27

Field scabious (Scabiosa arvensis) fl.

June 21

June 16. Aug. 14

Marsh thistle ( Carduus palustris ) fl.

June 21—27

May 15. June 19

Dropwort (Spircea Filipendula) fl.
Great wild valerian ( Valeriana offici-

June 22. July 9

May 8. Sept. 3

nalis) fl.

June 22. July 7

May 22. July 21

Quail (Perdix Coturnix) calls

June 22. July 4

July 23 : seen Sept. 1 —

Mountain willow herb (Epilobium

[18

montanunn) fl.

June 22

June 5—21

Thistle upon thistle (Carduuscrispus)

fl.

June 23—29

May 22. July 22

E E

418

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Cow parsnep (Heracleum Sphondyli-
um) fl.

Earth-nut (Bunium Bulbocastanum
aeuftexuosum of Smith) fl.

Young frogs ( Rana temporaria) mi-
grate

CEstrus curvicauda ap.

Vervain ( Verbena qfficinali*) fl.

Corn poppy (Papaver Rhceas) fl.

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) fl.

Agrimony (Agrimonia Eupatoria) fl.

Great horse-fly (Tabanus borinus) ap.

Greater knapweed (Centaurea Scabi-
osa) fl.

Mushroom (Agaricus campestris) ap.

Common mallow ( Malta sylvestris ) fl.

Dwarf mallow (Malta rotundtfolia)
fl.

St. John's wort (Hypericum perfora-
tum) fl.

Broom rape (Orobanche major) fl.

Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) fl.

Goats-beard (Tragopogon pratensis)
fl.

Deadly nightshade (Atropa Belladon-
na) fl.

Truffles (Lycoperdon Tuber} begin to
be found

Young partridges (Perdix cinerea}
fly

Lime tree (Tilia Europaa) fl.

Spear thistle (Carduus lanceolatus ) f\.

Meadow sweet (Spirtea Ulmaria) fl.

Greenweed (Genista tinct<n*ia) fl.

Wild thyme (Thymus Serpyllum) fl.

Stachys Germanica fl.

Day lily ( Hemerocallis flara ) fl.

Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) fl.

Holyoak ( Alcea rosea) fl.

Monotropa Hypopitys fl.

Ladies bedstraw (Galium verum) fl.

Galium palustre fl.

Nipplewort (Lapsana communis) fl.

Welted thistle (Carduus acanthoides}

Sneezewort (Achillea Ptarmica) fl.
Musk mallow (Malta moschata) fl.
Pimpernel (Anagallis arcensis) fl.
Hoary beetle (Scarabaws solstitialis)

ap.
Common thistle (Serratula arrensis

seu Carduus arvensis of Smith) fl.
Pheasant's eye (Adonis annua seu

autumnalis of Smith) fl.
Red eyebrightf Euphrasia seu Bartsia

Odontites of Smith) fl.
Thorough wax (Bupleurum rotundi-

folium) fl.
Cockle (Agrostemma Githago) fl.

WHITE.

MARK WICK.

June 23

May 27. July 12

June 23

May 4—31

June 23. Aug. 2
June 24
June 24
June 24
June 24
June 24—29
June 24. Aug. 2

June 10. July 17
Apr. 30. July 15
June 7—23
June 7. July 9

June 25
June 26. Aug. 30
June 26

June 7. Aug. 14
Apr. 16. Aug. 16
May 27. July 13

June 26

May 12. July 30

June 26
June 27. July 4
June 27

June 15. July 12
May 9. July 25
May 13. June 19

June 27

June 5 — 14

June 27

May 22. Aug. 11

June28. July 29

June28. July 31
June 28. July 31
June28. July 12
June 28
June 28
June 28
June 29. July20
June 29. July 4
June 29. July 30
June 29. Aug. 4
June 29. July 23
June 29
June 29
June 29

July g—28
June 12. July 30
June 27. July 18
June 16. July 21
June 4. July 24
June 6. July 19

May 29. June 9
June 27. July 21
July 4. Sept. 7

June 22. Aug. 3
May 30. July 24

June 29
June 30
June 30
June 30

June 22. Aug. 3
June 9. July 14
May 4. June 22

June 30. July 17

July 1

June 15. July 15

July 1

April 11. July 15

July 2

June 20. Aug. 10

July 2
July 2

May 14. July 25

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

419

Ivy-leaved wild lettuce (Prenanthes

muralis) fl.
Feverfew (Matricaria seu Pyrethrum

Parthenium of Smith) fl.
Stonecrop (Sedum acre) fl.
Privet (Ligustrum vulgare) fl.
Common toadflax ( Antirrhinum Lina-

ria) fl.
Perennial wild flax (Linum perenne)

fl.
Whortle-berries (Vaccinlum Myrtil-

lus) ripe

Yellow base rocket (Reseda lutea) fl.
Blue-bottle (Centaurea Cyanus) fl.
Dwarf carline thistle (Carduus acau-

lis) fl.
Bull-rush or cats-tail CTypha lati-

folia) fl.
Spiked willow-herb (Lythrum Sali-

caria) fl.

Black mullein ( Verbascum nigrum) fl.
Chrysanthemum coronarium fi.
Marigolds (Calendula officinalis) fl.
Little field madder (Sherardia arven-

sis)ft.
Field calamint (Melissa seu Thymus

Nepeta of Smith) fl.
Black horehound (Ballota nigra) fl.
Wood betony (Betonica officinalis) fl.
Round leaved bell-flower (Campanula

rotundifolia) fl.
All-good (Chenopodium bonus Ilenri-

cus) fl.

"Wild carrot (Daucus Carota) fl.
Indian cress (Troptcolum majus) fl.
Cat-mint (Nepeta cataria) fl.
Cow- wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum

seu pratense of Smith) fl.
Crosswort ( Valantia cruciata seu Ga-

lium cruciatum of Smith) fl.
Cranberries (Vaccinium Oxycoccus)

ripe

Tufted vetch ( Vida Cracca) fl.
Wood vetch (Vida sylvatica) fl.
Little throat- wort (Campanula glome-

rata) fl.

Sheep's scabious (Jasionemontana) fl.
Wild parsnep ( Pastinaca sylvestris)ft.
White lily (Lilium candidum) fl.
Hemlock (Conium maculatum) fl.
Hedge parsley (Caucalis Anthriscus)

fl.

Flying ants ap.
Moneywort (Lysimachia Nummula-

ria) fl.
Scarlet martagon (Lilium Chalcedoni-

cum) fl.
Lesser stitchwort ( Stellar iagraminea)

fl.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

July 2

June 2. July 25

July 2
JulyS
JulyS

June 19. July 24
June 8. July 12
June 3. July 13

JulyS

June 21. Aug. 3

July 4

Apr. 21. July 6

July 4—24
July 5
July 5

July 19
May 15. Oct. 14

July 5_12

June 30. Aug. 4

July 6

June 29. July 21

July 6
July 6
July 6
July 6—9

June 24. Aug. 17

May 28. July 28
Apr. 20. July 16

July 7

July 7
July 7
July 8—19

Jan. 11. June 6
Thymus Culamintha Ju-
[Iy21
June 16. Sept. 12
June 10. July 15

July 8

June 12. July 29

JulyS
July 8
July 8—20
July 9

Apr. 21. June 15
June 7. July 14
June 11. July 25

July 9

May 2. June 22

July 9

Apr. 10. May 28

July 9—27
July 10
July 10

May 31. July 8

July 11
July 11
July 12
July 12
July 13

3uly 28. Aug. 18
June 10. July 25

June 21. July 22
June 4. July 20

July 13
Julyl3-Aug.il

Aug. 20. Sept. 19

July 13

June 14. Aug. 16

July 14. Aug. 4

June 21. Aug. 6

July 14

May 8. June 23

420

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Fool's parsley (JEthvsa Cynapium) fl.
Dwarf elder (Sambucus Ebulus) fl.
Young martins and swallows begin

to congregate

Potatoe (Solanum tubcrosum) fl.
Wood angelica (Angelica sylcestris)

fl.

Digitalis f err uginea fl.
Ragwort (Senecio Jacobaa) fl.
Golden rod (Soltdago Virgaurea) fl.
Star thistle (Centaurea Calcitrapa) fl.
Tree primrose (Oenothera biennis) fl.
Peas ( Pisum sativum) cut
Galega officinalls fl.
Apricots (Prunus Armeniaca) ripe
Clown's allheal ( Stocky spalustris) ft.
Branching willow-herb (Epilobium

ramosum) fl.
Rye harvest begins
Yellow centaury (Chlora perfoliata)

fl.
Yellow yetchling (Lathyrus Aphaca)

fl.
Enchanter's nightshade (Circaa Ltite-

tiana) fl.
Water hemp agrimony (Eupatorium

cannabinum) fl.
Giant throatwort (Campanula lattfo-

lia) fl.

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalls) fl.
Hops f Hum H I us Lupulus) fl.
Poultry moult
Dodder (Cuscuta Europaa seu Epi-

thymum of Smith) fl.
Lesser centaury ( Gentiana seu Chiro-

nia Centaurittm of Smith) fl.
Creeping water parsnep ( Sium nodi-

flornm) fl.
Common spurrey ( Spergula artensis)

fl.

Wild clover (Trifoliumpratense) fl.
Buckwheat (Polygonum Fagopyrum)

fl.

Wheat harvest begins
Great bur-reed (Sparganium erectum)

fl.
Marsh St. John's-wort (Hypericum

Elodes) fl.

Sun-dew ( Drosera rotundifolia) fl.
Purple marsh cinquefoil (Comarum

palustre) fl.

Wild cherries (Prunns Cerasus) ripe
Lancashire asphodel (Antluricum os-

sifragum) fl.
Hooded willow-herb (Scutellaria ga-

lericulata) fl.
Water dropwort (CEnanthe fistulosa)

fl.
Horehound (Marrubium rulgare) fl.

WHITE.

July 14

MARKWICK.

June 9. Aug. 9

July 14—29

July 14. Aug.29

Aug. 12. Sept. 8

July 14

JuneS. July 12

July 15

July 15—25

July 15

June 22. July 13

July 15

July 7. Aug. 29

July 16

July 10. Aug. 16

July 16

June 12. July IH

July 17. Aug. 14

July IS. Aug. 15

July 17

July 17. Aug. 21

July 5. Aug. 16

July 17

June 12. July 14

July 17

July 17. Aug. 7

July 18. Aug. 15

June 15. Aug. 13

July 18

June 20. July 27

July 18

July 4. Aug. 6

[13. Aug. 14

July 19

Camp.Tracheliuw. July

July 19

May 29. July 19

July 19. Aug. 10

July 20. Aug. 17

July 19

July 20

July 9. Aug. 7

July 20

June 3. July 19

July 20

July 10. Sept. 11

July 21

Apr. 10. July 10

July 21

May 2. June 7

July 21

June 27. July 10

July 21. Aug. 23

July 11. Aug. 26

July 22

June 10. July 23

July 22—31

June 16. Aug. 10

July 22

Aug. 1

July 22

May 27. July 12

July 22

June 21. July 29

July 23

June 2. July 31

July 23

NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

Seseli caruifolium fl.

Water plantain (Alisma Plantago) fl.

Alopecurus myosuroides fl.

Virgin's bower (Clematis Vitalba) fl.

Bees kill the drones

Teasel (Dipsacus sylcestris) fl.

Wild marjoram ( Origanum vulgare)ft.

Swifts (Hir undo A pus )begin to depart

Small wild teasel (Dipsacus pilosus)

fl.

Wood sage (Teucrium Scorodonia) fl.
Everlasting pea (Lathyrus latifolius)

fl.
Trailing St. John's wort (Hypericum

humifusum) fl.

White hellebore ( Veratrum album) fl.
Camomile (Anthemis nobilis) fl.
Lesser field scabious (Scabiosa Colum-
baria) fl.

Sunflower (Helianthus multiflorus) fl.
Yellow loosestrife ( Lys imachia vul-

garis) fl.

Swift ( Hirundo Apus) last seen
Oats (Avena sativa) cut
Barley (Hordeum satirum) cut
Lesser hooded willow-herb (Scutel-

laria minor) fl.

Middle fiea.ba.ne(Inuladysenterica)i\.
Afris manicata ap.
Swallow-tailed butterfly (Papilio Ma-

chaon) ap.
Whame or burrel fly (CEstrus Equi)

lays eggs on horses
Sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis) fl.
Plantain fritillary (Papilio Cinxia)

ap.

Yellow succory ( Picrishieracioides)ft.
Musca mystacea ap.
Canterbury bells (Campanula Trache-

lium) fl.

Mentha longifolia fl.
Carline thistle (Carlina vulgnris) fl.
Venetian sumach (Rims Cotinus) fl.
Ptinus pectinicornis ap.
Burdock (Arctium Lappa) fl.
Fell-wort (Gentiana Amarella) fl.
Wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium)

fl.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) fl.
St. Barnaby's thistle (Centaurea sol-

stitialis) fl.
Meadow saffron (Colchicum autum-

nale) fl.
Michaelmas daisy (Aster Tradescan-

ti)fi.

Meadow rue (Thalictrumflavum) fl.
Sea holly (Eryngiummaritimum) fl.
China aster (Aster Chinensis) fl.
Boletus albus ap.

WH1TK.

July 24

MAKK.WICK.

July 24

May 31. July 21

July 25

July 25. Aug. 9

July 13. Aug. 14

July 25

July 26

July 16. Aug. 3

July 26

July 17. Aug. 29

July 2T— 29

Aug. 5

July 28, 29

July 28

Jun*J7. July 24

July 28

June 20. July 30

July 29

May 20. June 22

July 30

July 18—22

July 30

June 21. Aug. 20

July 30

July 13. Aug. 9

July 31. Aug. 6

July 4. Aug. 22

July 31

July 2. Aug. 7

July 31. Aug. 27

Aug. 11

Aug. 1—16

July 26. Aug. 19

Aug. 1—26

July 27. Sept. 4

Aug. 1

Aug. 8. Sept. 7

Aug. 2

July 7. Aug. 3

Aug. 2

Apr. 20. June 7: last

[seen Aug. 28

Aug. 3—19

Aug. 3

June 17. July 21

Aug. 3

Aug. 4

June 6—25

[Aug. 11

Aug. 5

Camp, media. June 5.

Aug. 5

Aug. 7

July 21. Aug. 18

Aug. 7

JuneS. July 20

Aug. 7

Aug. 8

June 17. Aug. 4

Aug. 8. Sept. 3

Aug. 8

July 22. Aug. 21

Aug. 8

July 9. Aug. 10

Aug. 10

Aug. 10. Sept. 13

Aug. 15. Sept. 29

Aug. 12. Sept. 27

Aug. 11. Oct. 8

Aug. 14

Aug. 14. Sept 28

Aug. 6. Oct. 2

Aug. 14

May 10

422

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Less Venus looking-glass (Campa-
nula hybrida) fl.

Carthamus tinctorius fl.

Goldfinch (Fringilla Carduelis) young
broods ap.

Lapwings (Tringa Vanellus) congre-
gate

Black-eyed marble butterfly (Papilio
Semele) ap.

Birds reassume their spring notes

Devil's bit (Scabiosa succisa) fl.

Thistle down floats

Ploughman's spikenard (Conyza
squarrosa) fl.

Autumnal dandelion (Leontodon au-
tumnale) fl.

Flies abound in windows

Linnets (Fringilla Linota) congre-
gate

Bulls make their shrill autumnal
noise

Aster Amellus fl.

Balsam ( Impatiens Balsamina) fl.

Milk thistle (Carduus Marianus) fl.

Hop-picking begins

Beeches (Fagus sylvatica} begin to
be tinged with yellow

Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) fl.

Ladies traces ( Ophrys spiralis) fl.

Small golden black-spotted butterfly
(Papilio Phleeas) ap.

Swallow (Hirundo rustica) sings

Althaafrutex (Hibiscus Syriacus) fl.

Great fritillary (Papilio Paphia) ap.

Willow red under-wing moth (Plia-
Uena pacta) ap.

Stone curlew (Otis (Edicnemus)
clamours

rhnltiiiti russula ap.

Grapes ripen

Wood owls (Strix Aluco) hoot

Saffron butterfly (Papilio Hyale) ap.

Ring ouzel (Turdus torquatus) ap-
pears on its autumnal visit

Flycatcher (Muscicapa Grisola) with-
draws

Beans ( Vicia Faba) cut

Ivy (Hedera Helix) fl.

Stares (Sturnus vulgaris) congregate

Wild honeysuckles (Lonicera Peri-
clymenum) fl. a second time

Woodlark (Alauda arborea) sings

Woodcock (ScolapaxRusticolaJ) comes

Strawberry tree (Arbutus Unedo) fl.
Wheat sown

Swallows last seen. (N. B. The
house martin the latest.)

WHITE.

MAKKWICk.

Aug. 15

May 14

Aug. 15

June 15

Aug. 15. Sept. 12

Sept. 25. Feb. 4

Aug. 15

Aug. 10

Aug. 17

June 22. Aug. 23

Aug. 17. Sept. 10

Aug. 18

July 25

Aug. 18

Aug. 18. Nov. 1

Aug. 22. Nov. 8

Aug. 20

Aug. 22

Aug. 23

May 22. July 26

Aug. 24

Apr. 21. July 18

Aug.24. Sept. 17

Sept 1—15

Aug.24. Sept.22

Sept. 5—29

Aug. 25

July 19. Aug. 23

Aug. 27. Sept. 12

Aug. 18. Sept. 18

Aug. 29

Apr. 11. Aug. 20

Aug. 30. Sept 2

July 20. Sept. 28

Aug. 30

Aug. 31

Sept. 1. Nov. 7

June 17

Sept. 1

Sept. 4. Oct. 24

Aug. 31. Nov. 4

Sept. 4. Nov. 9

Sept. 4

Aug. 5. Sept. 26

Sept. 4—30

Sept. C— 29

Sept. 4—30

Sept. 11

Aug. 9. Oct. 14

Sept. 12. Oct. 2

Sept. 18. Oct. 28

Sept. 12. Nov. 1

June 4. Mar. 21

Sept. 25

Sept. 28. Oct. 24

Sept. 29. Nov. 11

Oct. 1. Nov. 1 : young

onesApr.28: lastseen

Apr. 11

Oct. 1

May 21. Dec. 10

Oct. 3. Nov. 9

Sept. 23. Oct. 19

Oct. 4. Nov. 5

Nov. 1C

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

423

Redwing (Turdus iliacus) conies

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) comes
Gossamer fills the air
Chinese holyoak (Alcea rosea) fl.
Hen chaffinches (Fringilla Calebs)

congregate
Wood pigeons (Columba Palumbus)

come
Royston crow (Corvus Comix) comes

Snipes (Scolopax Gallinago) come up

into the meadows
Tortoise begins to bury himself
Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) visit their

nest trees
Bucks grunt

Primrose (Primula vulgaris) fl.
Green whistling plover (Charadrius

Pluvialis) ap.
Helvella mitra ap.

Greenfinches (Fringilla Chloris)ftock
Hepatica fl.

Furze ( Ulex Europaus) fl.
Polyanthus (Primula potyantha) fl.
Young lambs dropped
Moles work in throwing up hillocks
Helleborus fcetidus fl.
Daisy (Bellis perennis) fl.
Wallflower (Cheiranthus Cheiri seu

fruticulosus of Smith) fl.
Mezereon (Daphne Mezereum) fl.
Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) fl.

WHITE.

Oct. 10. Nov. 10

UtRKWICK..

Oct. 1. Dec. 18 : sings

Feb. 10. Mar. 21: last

seen Apr. 13

Oct. 12. Nov. 23

Oct. 13. Nov. 18 : last

Oct. 15—27

[seen May 1

Oct. 19

July 7. Aug. 21

Oct. 20. Dec. 31

Oct. 23. Dec. 27

Oct. 23. Nov. 29

Oct. J3. Nov. 17 : last

[seen Apr. 15

Oct. 25. Nov. 20

Sept. 29. Nov. 11: last

Oct. 27. Nov. 26

[seen Apr. 14

Oct. 31. Dec. 25

June 29. Oct. 20

Nov. 1

Nov. 10

Oct. 7. Dec. 30

Nov. 13, 14

Nov. 16

Nov. 27

Nov. 30. Dec. 29

Feb. 19

Dec. 4—21

Dec. 16—31

Dec. 7—16

Dec. 31

Dec. 11—27

Dec. 12. Feb. 21

Dec. 12—23

Dec. 14—30

Dec. 15

Dec. 26—31

Dec. 15

Nov. 5

Dec. 15

Dec. 29

IN SESE VERT1TUR ANNUS.

OBSERVATIONS

VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE,

FROM MR. WHITE'S MSS.

WITH REMARKS, BY MR. MARKWICK AND OTHERS.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

BIRDS IN GENERAL.

IN severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and
titlarks, resort to watered meadows for food : the latter
wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects,
and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds.
Many gnats are on the snow near the water; these sup-
port the birds in part.

Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by
colour, for though white currants are a much sweeter
fruit than red, yet they seldom touch the former till they
have devoured every bunch of the latter.

Redstarts, flycatchers, and blackcaps, arrive early in
April. If these little delicate beings are birds of pas-
sage (as we have reason to suppose they are, because
they are never seen in winter) how could they, feeble
as they seem, bear up against such storms of snow and
rain, and make their way through such meteorous tur-
bulences, as one should suppose would embarrass and
retard the most hardy and resolute of the winged nation?
Yet they keep their appointed times and seasons ; and
in spite of frost and winds return to their stations pe-
riodically, as if they had met with nothing to obstruct
them. The withdrawing and appearance of the short-
winged summer birds is a very puzzling circumstance
in natural history !

When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam
fowls fare deliciously, and when the combs are pulled
to pieces, devour the young wasps in their maggot
state with the highest glee and delight. Any insect-
eating bird would do the same ; and therefore I have
often wondered that the accurate Mr. Ray should call

428 OBSERVATIONS ON

one species of buzzard Buteo apivorus sive vespivorus,
the honey buzzard, because some combs of wasps hap-
pened to be found in one of their nests. The combs
were conveyed thither doubtless for the sake of the
maggots or nymphs, and not for their honey : since
none is to be found in the combs of wasps. Birds of
prey occasionally feed on insects : thus have I seen a
tame kite picking up the female ants full of eggs with
much satisfaction *.

1 That redstarts, flycatchers, blackcaps, and other slender-billed in-
sectivorous small birds, particularly the swallow tribe, make their first
appearance very early in the spring, is a well known fact; though the
flycatcher is the latest of them all in its visit (as this accurate naturalist
observes in another place), for it is never seen before the month of May.
If these delicate creatures come to us from a distant country, they will
probably be exposed in their passage, as Mr. White justly remarks, to
much greater difficulties from storms and tempests than their feeble
powers appear to be able to surmount : on the other hand, if we suppose
them to pass the winter in a dormant state in this country, concealed in
caverns or other hiding places sufficiently guarded from the extreme cold
of our winter to preserve their life, and that at the approach of spring
they revive from their torpid state and reassume their usual powers of
action, it will entirely remove the first difficulty, arising from the storms
and tempests they are liable to meet with in their passage ; but how are
we to get over the still greater difficulty of their revivification from their
torpid state ? What degree of warmth in the temperature of the air is
necessary to produce that effect, and how it operates on the functions of
animal life, are questions not easily answered *.

How could Mr. White suppose that Ray named this species the honey
buzzard because it fed on honey, when he not only named it in Latin
Buteo apivorus sive vespivorus, but expressly says, that " it feeds on in-
sects, and brings up its young with the maggots or nymphs of wasps ?"

That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food, flesh, sometimes
feed on insects I have little doubt, and think I have observed the com-
mon buzzard (Falco Buteo^) to settle on the ground and pick up insects
of some kind or other J. — MARKWICK.

* Little weight can be attached to this argument, the difficulty assumed
being so far from insurmountable, that it occurs equally in every case of
hybernation.— E. T. B.

t [Buteo vulgar is, BECHST.]

t Mr. White observes, that birds of prey, as hawks, feed on insects.
There is reason to believe, that insects form also part of the food even of
the larger beasts of prey. " Beetles, flies, worms, form part of the lion and
tiger's food, as they do that of the fox." See Jarrold's Dissert, on Man.
— MITFORD.

BIRDS. 429

ROOKS.

ROOKS are continually fighting and pulling each other's
nests to pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with
living in such close community. And yet if a pair offer
to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and de-
molished 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 un-
happy 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 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 blandish-
ments that are expressed by the young, while in a
helpless state. This gallant deportment of the male
is continued through the whole season of incubation.
These birds do not pair on trees, nor in their nests, but
on the ground in the open fields2.

THRUSHES.

THRUSHES during long droughts are of great service
in hunting 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 Turdi, but feed on the
berries of misseltoe, and in the spring on ivy berries,
which then begin to ripen. In the summer, when their

2 After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all leave
their nest trees in the daytime, and resort to some distant place in search
of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their nest
trees, where, after flying round several times with much noise and cla-
mour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for
the night. — MARKWICK.

[This proceeding of the rooks is beautifully described by White in
Letter LIX. to Daines Barrington, p. 381.]

430 OBSERVATIONS ON

young become fledged, they leave neighbourhoods, and
retire to sheep-walks and wild commons.

The magpies, when they have young, destroy the
broods of missel thrushes ; though the dams are tierce
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 gardens3.

POULTRY.

MANY creatures are endowed with a ready discernment
to see what will turn to their own advantage and emo-
lument; and often discover more sagacity than could
be expected. Thus my neighbour's poultry watch for
waggons loaded with wheat, and running after them

3 Of the truth of the first of these observations I have been an eye-
witness, having seen the common thrush feeding on the shell snail*.

In the very early part of this spring (1797) a bird of this species used
to sit every morning on the top of some high elms close by my windows,
and delight me with its charming song, attracted thither, probably, by
some ripe ivy berries that grew near the place.

I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I remember, many
years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly up repeatedly and attack some
larger bird, which I suppose disturbed their nest in my orchard, uttering
at the same time violent shrieks. Since writing the above, I have seen
more than once a pair of these birds attack some magpies, that had dis-
turbed their nest, with great violence and loud shrieks. — MARRWICK.

Opposite my study windows at Lee, I observed, last summer, a missel
thrush fly boldly at a carrion crow and persecute him with bill and wing,
till he seemed glad to leave the field. This, however, is far outdone by
the account M. Le Vaillant gives of a party of missel thrushes attacking
and actually vanquishing an eagle. — RENNIE.

* It is common with the French ornithologists, in enumerating the food
of insectivorous Sylvia, to mention limafons, by which they mean the very
small shell snails. I have found none but the whin chat that would eat
the slug or shelless snail (Limax), and that only after it was killed and
dry.

I have observed that if a very large brown slug be trod upon and killed
on a moist gravel walk, frequented by others of its size and kind, one or
more will be found the next day upon its body apparently eating it ; and
by leaving the dead ones on the spot the large slugs may thus be succes-
sively destroyed. — W. H.

BIRDS. 431

pick up a number of grains which are shaken from
the sheaves by the agitation of the carriages. Thus,
when my brother used to take down his gun to shoot
sparrows, his cats would run out before him, to be ready
to catch up the birds as they fell4.

4 The insolence of some birds, when they are quite tame, is astonishing;
and in none more than the silver pheasant, and the peacock. The male
of the former is armed with such a formidable spur, that he is a dan-
gerous antagonist. There was one which lived some years at liberty in
company with some bantams and gold pheasants at the lodge by the gate
at the entrance into the garden at Highclere, which was so ferocious that
he was the terror of the nursery maids, and indeed of every person wha
was not provided with a stick to keep him off. He was so persevering,
that having provided myself with a large bough of a tree in my left hand
wherewith to push him off, and a long switch to chastise him, I have
whipped him till he screamed with rager but without his showing the
least disposition to give up the conflict and retreat. He was disabled first
in one leg, and afterwards in a wing, and finally killed by some person
unobserved, whom he had probably attacked. I recollect also seeing an
old man employed in weeding a compartment in my brother's menagerie
at Pixton, who said, " he had an unked time with the pheasant cock ;"
and in truth a silver pheasant, that was alone in itr had passed the whole
day spurring at him, which was particularly inconvenient to a person
whose occupation caused him to use a stooping posture,by which his face
was exposed to the enemy.

I remember also that my mother had a pet flock of sheep, which she
occasionally introduced to eat some of the grass in the extensive garden
at Highclere, and a little boy on those occasions attended to prevent their
nibbling the shrubs or invading the borders, bringing his dinner in a small
bag suspended from his shoulder. One day about noon we found him
crying and sobbing piteously, and, being questioned as to the cause of his
trouble, he only vociferated in broken accents amidst his sobs, " the pea-
cock, the peacock," and at last added, on being pressed for some further
explanation, " he will have my dinner;" and in truth we had some diffi-
culty in delivering him from the invader, who was careering round him
in all the pride of his gorgeous plumage, with a determined purpose of
sharing in the repast. It appeared on further inquiry r that the bird knew
the time of day when the boy usually opened his store, and regularly
drew nigh at the opportune moment, and had on the previous day abso-
lutely beat him off, and remained undisputed master of the bread and
cheese.

I have now an American blue-bird, which on its arrival was so wild,
that it fluttered against the wires if even looked at^but after it had been
with me about a year and a half, it became so tame and impudent, that
now, on the door of the large cage,, in which it is confined with other
small birds, being opened to change the food, it immediately presents
itself, and it is necessary to push it back with the hand ; and it has
several times forced its way out under my hand, not with any desire of
escaping, but through insolent familiarity.— W. H.

432 OBSERVATIONS ON

The earnest and early propensity of the Gallince to
roost on high is very observable ; and discovers a strong
dread impressed on their spirits respecting vermin that
may annoy them on the ground during the hours of
darkness. Hence poultry, if left to themselves and not
housed, will perch the winter through on yew trees and
fir trees ; and turkeys and guinea fowls, heavy as they
are, get up into apple trees : pheasants also in woods
sleep on trees to avoid foxes ; while pea-fowls climb to
the tops of the highest trees round their owner's house
for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blowing.
Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having
the faculty of perching; but then the same fear prevails
in their minds ; for, through apprehensions from pole-
cats 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 them to settle on trees; they therefore, in
the hours of darkness and danger, betake themselves to
their own element, the water, where amidst large lakes
and pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float the
whole night long in peace and security5.

5 Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, even
in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest trees.

Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all
my guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest boughs
of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great clamour : I ordered
them to be driven down, lest they should be frozen to death in so ele-
vated a situation, but this was not effected without much difficulty, they
being very unwilling to quit their lofty abode, notwithstanding one of
them had its feet so much frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know
not how to account for this, unless it was occasioned by their aversion to
the snow on the ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot
climate*.

Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls

* In one of his Letters to Daines Barrington, LXII, Gilbert White has
remarked of poultry generally, that they are so dazzled and confounded
by the glare of snow, that they dared not, in the severe winter of 1776, to
stir from their roosting places.— E. T. B.

BIRDS. 433

HEN PARTRIDGE.

A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along
shivering with her wings, and crying out as if wounded
and unable to get from us. While the dam acted this
distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that
was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old
fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is
instinct6.

them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the power of
settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease ; an instance
of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the
summer duck ( Anas sponsa) flew up and settled on the branch of an oak
tree in my presence; but whether any of them roost on trees in the night,
we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose
not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where
the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear
from the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood
a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was found
in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were several geese,
and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam into the pond to de-
vour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being the most
powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the
head till it was drowned. — MARKWICK.

6 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and
run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or man,

F F

OBSERVATIONS ON

HYBRID PHEASANT.

LORD STAWELL sent me from the great lodge in the
Holt a curious bird for my inspection. It was found
by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and
shot on the wing. The shape, and air, and habit of the
bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well
with the appearance of a cock pheasant : but then the
head and neck, and breast and belly, were of a glossy
black : and though it weighed three pounds three ounces
and a half7, the weight of a large full-grown cock phea-
sant, yet there were no signs of any spurs on the legs, as
is usual with all grown cock pheasants, who have long
ones. The legs and feet \vere naked of feathers ; and
therefore it could be nothing of the grous kind. In the
tail were no long bending feathers, such as cock phea-
sants usually have, and are characteristic of the sex.
The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen
pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back,
wing-feathers, and tail, were all of a pale russet curi-
ously streaked, somewhat like the upper parts of a hen
partridge. I returned it with my verdict, that it was
probably a spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a
cock pheasant and some domestic fowl. When I came
to talk with the keeper who brought it, he told me that

to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I have seen
it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old
bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young pointer,
the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges; the old bird cried, flut-
tered, and ran tumbling along just before the dog's nose till she had
drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took wing and flew still
farther off, but not out of the field : on this the dog returned to me, near
which place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the old
bird no sooner perceived than she flew back again to us, settled just
before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about drew off
his attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second
time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of
young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and
fighting with all their might to preserve their brood. — MARKWICK.

7 Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.

BIRDS. 435

some pea-hens had been known last summer to haunt
the coppices and coverts where this mule was found.

Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was
employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird.

[It ought to be mentioned that some good judges
have imagined this bird to have been a stray grous or
black cock ; it is, however, to be observed, that Mr. \V.
remarks, that its legs and feet were nak^d, whereas
those of the grous are feathered to the toes. — J. A.]8

8 Dr. Latham observes, that " pea-hens, after they have done laying,
sometimes assume the plumage of the male bird," and has given a figure
of the male-feathered pea-hen now to be seen in the Leverian Museum ;
and M. Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when she has done lay-
ing and sitting, will get the plumage of the male." May not this hybrid
pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird of this kind? that is, an old
hen pheasant which had just begun to assume the plumage of the cock. —
MARKWICK.

Concerning the hybrid pheasant, see the account by John Hunter, in the
Philosophical Transactions, Art. xxx. 1760. " The subject of the account
is a hen pheasant with the feathers of the cock. The author concludes,
that it is most probable that all those hen pheasants, which are found
wild, and have the feathers of the cock, were formerly perfect hens, but
that now they are changed with age, and perhaps by certain constitu-
tional circumstances/' It appears, also, that the hen taking the plumage
of the cock is not confined to the pheasant alone, it takes place equally
with the pea-hen, as was seen in the specimen belonging to Lady Tynte,
when in the Leverian Museum. After many broods, this hen took much
of the plumage of the cock, and also the fine train belonging to that bird.
See also Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary, Art. Pheasant. — MITFORD.

I saw this curious bird stuffed, in the collection of the Earl of Egre-
mont at Petworth, in the year 1804, and I have not the slightest hesita-
tion in pronouncing that it was a mule between the black cock and the
common pheasant. I was informed at the time by Lord Egremont that it
was Mr. White's bird, and I examined it with the most minute attention,
compared it with the description in the Naturalist's Calendar, and wrote
at the moment marginal memoranda on my copy of that book. In
Mr. White's description of the bird, where he says that the back, wing-
feathers, and tail, were somewhat like the upper parts of a hen part-
ridge, I scratched out, at the time, the words, "somewhat like" and
wrote in the margin "much browner than," and with that alteration I
believe Mr. White's description to be quite correct; but I noted down
that the plate was exceedingly ill coloured, which indeed may be per-
ceived by comparing it with the description. I did not then, nor do I
now, entertain the slightest doubt of its being a mule between the black
game and the pheasant. I understand that some doubt exists at present

FF2

436* OBSERVATIONS ON

LAND-RAIL.

A MAN brought me a land-rail or daker-hen, a bird so
rare in this district that we seldom see more than one
or two in a season, and those only in autumn. This is

whether it was Mr. White's identical specimen, though I am quite positive
from my notes that it was at the time (now above thirty years ago) stated
to me to have been so; and I am persuaded that it was his: but if there
was any misunderstanding on that point, and it could have been a second
specimen killed in the same line of country, there is not the slightest
doubt that it was of like origin and appearance, for I had no exceptions
to take to White's description, except that the back was much browner
than that of a partridge instead of somewhat like, which is not in fact con-
tradictory. The whole of Lord Egremont's collection was afterwards
destroyed by maggots, and the specimen has long ceased to exist.

As I understand it has been surmised that the hybrid bird described by
White might have been a young black cock in moult, I wish to state, in
the most positive manner, that I am certain it was not. I had, at the
period when I examined it, been in the annual habit of shooting young
black game, and was perfectly well acquainted with all their variations
of plumage ; and had also been accustomed to see them reared in confine-
ment. It is a point on which I could not be deceived. The bird had
neither the legs and feet, nor the plumage, of a black cock in any stage
of its growth.— W. H.

Evidence more direct than that given in the preceding note by the
Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert can now, it should seem, scarcely be adduced
towards the decision of the somewhat vexata quaestio as to the hybrid
pheasant of White. In the destruction of Lord Egremont's collection at
Petworth by the moths, the bird described by Mr. Herbert perished with
the rest ; and the notes made by him, with the specimen before him, are
all that is now accessible regarding it. But these notes furnish an au-
thentic record of its existence and appearance at the time of his visit. If
there were not a possibility that some misconception might have existed
as to the identity of the specimen with the bird seen by White, there could
no longer remain the slightest ground for doubt upon the subject.

But the absolute determination of the nature of the bird in question is
of less importance in itself than by the discussions to which it has given
rise, and which have led to the ascertaining of various collateral facts of
interest, and to rendering them popularly known. Three opinions have
been advanced with respect to it, and each has had its advocates. It may
be advantageous to refer to them in succession, and to offer a few remarks
upon them.

The first theory propounded on the subject regards the bird as a hybrid
between the pheasant and some other species ; a view which is entitled
to great respect, independent of all other considerations, on account of
its having been entertained by White, whose opportunities for judging

BIRDS. 437

deemed a bird of passage by all the writers : yet from
its formation seems to be poorly qualified for migration ;

respecting it surpassed those of later observers, he having seen the bird
when it was first shot. He, however, looked upon it as a mule with some
domestic fowl, such as the pea-hen: a parentage which no subsequent
naturalist has attributed to it ; those who have considered it as a hybrid
bird from the pheasant having joined with that bird, like Mr. Herbert,
the black game. And the glossy black of the fore and-under parts, and
the white spot on the shoulder, are marks so characteristic of the black
game as scarcely to leave a doubt that that bird had some share at least
in the production. We know well that hybrids between the pheasant
and the black game are at times produced, and two such have been exhi-
bited to the Zoological Society on different occasions, and from different
parts of the country; one of them having been killed in Cornwall, and
the other in Leicestershire. The latter was described by Mr. Eyton, in
whose collection the specimen is preserved ; and as his description enters
into more particulars of this curious mule than any that has yet been
published, I extract it from the Proceedings of the Society.

" For some years past a single gray hen has been observed in the neigh-
bourhood of the Merrington covers, belonging to Robert A. Slaney, Esq.
but she was never observed to be accompanied by a black cock, or any
other of her species. In November last a bird was shot on the manor ad-
joining Merrington, belonging to J. A. Lloyd, Esq. resembling the black
game in some particulars, and the pheasant in others. In December ano-
ther bird was shot in the Merrington covers, resembling the former, but
smaller : it is now in my collection, beautifully preserved by Mr. Shaw of
Shrewsbury. It is a female, and may be thus shortly described :

" Tarsi half-feathered, without spurs, of the same colour as in the phea-
sant. Bill resembling that of the pheasant, both in colour and shape.
Irides hazel. Crown and throat mottled black and brown. Neck glossy
black, with a tinge of brown. Breast of nearly the same colour as that
of the cock pheasant, but more mottled with black. Tail of the same
colour as in the gray hen ; middle tail feathers longest ; under tail coverts
light brown.

" The plumage of this bird is very curious ; as some parts of it resemble
either sex of both black game and pheasant.

" I had an opportunity of examining the body after it was taken from
the skin, and of comparing it with the black game and the pheasant, and
the following are some remarks which I made on its anatomy:

" Left oviduct very imperfect; the ovaries very small ; the eggs scarcely
perceptible, and very few in number.

" The sternum approaches nearer to that of the black grous than of the
pheasant; but the bone is not so massive, the anterior edge of the keel is
more scolloped, and the bone between the posterior scollops is not so
broad as in the black game. The os furcatorium is that of the pheasant,
being more arched than in the black game, and having the flat process at
the extremity next the sternum broader. The pelvis is exactly inter-
mediate between the two, having more solidity, and being both* broader

438 OBSERVATIONS ON

for its wings are short, and placed so forward, and out
of the centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and

and longer than in the pheasant ; but resembling that of the pheasant in
having the two processes on each side of the caudal vertebrae, which serve
for the attachments of the levator muscles of the tail.

" The subjoined Table shows some comparative measurements between
the hybrid bird in question, the cock pheasant, and the gray hen.

Gray Hen.

Hybrid Bird.
Female.

Male
Pheasant.

Ft. In.
0 2vi

Ft. In.
0 2i

Ft. In.
0 3A

0 2J*

0 2$

0 2 -

Expansion of the wings

2 0

2 2

2 44

Length of the middle tail feathers

0 4

0 74

1 74

Length of the intestinal canal from vent t

4 2

3 54.

4 0

0 6

0 5*

0 44

Length of the caeca •

2 0

0 8i"

It is worthy of especial remark that this mule, although a female, was
so much influenced by its pheasant parentage as to have the middle tail
feathers longer than the others, and produced to nearly twice the length
of those of the gray hen, its dam. In White's bird the tail was mucli
shorter than that of a hen pheasant, and was blunt and square at the end.

The second opinion is that adverted to by Dr. Aikin as having been
advanced by some good judges, that the assumed hybrid pheasant is
merely a black cock: and Mr. Yarrell has more recently stated his be-
lief that it is a young black cock in which the first moult has been par-
tially completed. It is a very general law, although not free from many
exceptions, that in birds in which the adults of the two sexes differ mate-
rially in plumage, the young previously to the first moult exhibit no dif-
ference of outward character, but resemble, in their colours, the mother.
In the case of the black cock this rule obtains. The young male has at
first the plumage nearly agreeing with that of the gray hen ; it is chiefly
of a reddish brown mottled and barred with black. In the autumn of his
first year he moults, and then assumes the glossy violet black feathers
which afterwards entirely invest him. In parting with his mottled brown
feathers, and assuming those of the bright and uniform black, some weeks
are occupied; and a portion of the moult being completed before the re-
mainder is commenced, the bird is for a time in external appearance
partly a black cock and partly a gray hen or hen pheasant. Mr. Yarrell
believed that White's bird was a black cock, shot at this intermediate
period of its growth.

Another friend has fully adopted the same view. He obtained, " near
the end of November, 1835, a young black cock undergoing its first moult.
Its length was twenty inches and a half; its breadth, thirty inches ; and
its weight, two pounds three ounces and three quarters. The head and
neck were iridescent black. A naked red spot above the eye. The

BIRDS. 439

embarrassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and
can hardly be sprung a second time, as it runs very fast,

middle of the back, lower sides of the neck, sides and middle of the belly,
breast, cheeks, chin, and tail, black. A stripe on each side of the middle
of the belly, uniting on the breast, and passing up the neck on its under
side to the throat; the borders of the breast feathers under the wings ; and
the upper sides of the neck, extending from above the eyes to the back ;
brown, with black and dusky bars and tips. The crown^and a stripe ex-
tending all down the back of the neck, the rump, and tail coverts, dusky
black, freckled with dark chocolate brown. Primaries, dusky with pale
freckled tips and edges ; their shafts white. Secondaries, dusky freckled
with brown, the basal half (forming the wing spot) and the tips white ;
their shafts black. Primary wing coverts dusky black, white at the base.
Spurious quills black, the second and third with a white spot at the base
of the outer web. Scapularies and upper wing coverts dusky black
freckled and mottled with chocolate brown, margined towards the body
with a few lighter brown feathers which are spotted and barred with
black. Under wing, and under tail coverts white. Vent and legs dirty
grayish white with dusky bars, becoming darker on the tarsus. Toes
and back of the tarsi naked. Beak and claws black."

The writer of this description so warmly advocates his view of the case
that he remarks, " There can be no doubt that this bird, a little earlier
in the season, is the hybrid of White : I say a little earlier, on account
of the tail, which has moulted off black. But even in its present state,
as regards shape, the tail proves much. White distinctly says it had * no
long bending feathers such as cock pheasants usually have:' now all the
hybrids from the pheasant that I have seen have those produced feathers.
When closed, the tail in my bird is shorter than the tail of a hen phea-
sant, and blunt and square at the end : and this description of the tail,
especially when closed, is that of White's bird ; for the lateral feathers
being but slightly produced or recurved at this age, have a blunt ap-
pearance and the middle feathers are square. White says, i the head
and neck and breast and belly were of a glossy black/ This certainly is
not the case with the representation of the bird. Yet this very circum-
stance proves the identity of the hybrid with the young black cock. For,
placing the bird on its back, the throat, and the lower sides of the neck,
breast, and belly are visible, < black and glossy.' This is precisely what
White describes. But the painter laid the bird on its side, and repre-
sented the upper side of the neck, which is mouse brown with dusky bars
at the tips ; and he showed the partridge-like wing falling over the breast.
Thus this seeming incongruity between the description and the repre-
sentation is satisfactorily accounted for, and is indeed a proof of the
identity of the bird. The wings are exact to the description : and it is
remarkable that they agree particularly as regards the wing spot, and
also in the white spot on the spurious quills. From White's description
of the bird I should conclude that he looked at it in a hurry, which may
possibly account for the description of the feet and legs. The back of
the tarsi and the toes are naked in my bird, and the front of the tarsus is

440 OBSERVATIONS ON

and seems to depend more on the swiftness of its feet
than on its flying.

comparatively but thinly clothed : this is the only point of importance in
which the supposed hybrid differs from the black cock in its present state
of plumage. At an earlier period the feathering on the tarsi is still less,
as I have ascertained by the examination of a specimen killed in Selkirk-
shire in October, which is almost destitute of any covering: and I am in-
formed by the friend who shot this bird that the younger the black cock
is the less are the legs feathered, and that he has killed pouts without
any feathering whatever. At that earlier period of the moult, before the
tail-feathers had been changed, it is consequently to be concluded that
the tarsi would have been nearly or wholly naked. The shape of the
beak is that of the grouse : and the situation of the spot over the eye is
decidedly grouse-like, the pheasant's spot being situated at the back of
and below the eye. These, with the black colour of so large a portion of
the plumage, and the absence of those lengthened feathers which I have
hitherto invariably observed in pheasant hybrids, are in my estimation,
decisive marks of the identity of the hybrid of White with the young
black cock.

" I am bound to admit that the weight mentioned by White differs from
that of my bird by a pound : but in his weight some error may be sus-
pected. I have never yet met with a cock pheasant that weighed so
much as he states. The weight would argue also, although not to the
same extent, against the bird being a hybrid between the pheasant and
the black cock ; for the produce of a heavier and a lighter bird ought not
to weigh so much as the heaviest sex of the heavier parent, even if itself
of the heavier sex, which White did not believe his bird to be."

From this description it will be seen how very nearly the black game,
in a certain condition, approaches to White's bird : an approach so near
as to induce the describer to regard them as identical. Mr. Herbert was,
however, at the time when he saw the bird at Petworth, thoroughly ac-
quainted with the black cock in all its states, and could not have been
mistaken when he declared that the bird which he saw there was cer-
tainly not a moulting bird of the year.

The third theory with respect to Gilbert White's bird has had fewer
supporters than either of the others. It was advanced by Markwick, and
has rather the air of a guess than of an opinion; and as his question was
evidently to be answered in the negative as to the species to which he
referred, it has scarcely received any consideration whatever. Adverting
to the fact, known in his time in consequence of the inquiries of Hunter
(inquiries which have since been carried further by the industry of
Mr. Yarrell), that hen birds, when incapacitated by age or other causes
from producing young, lose the characters of their sex and assume the
plumage of the male, wearing even the spurs and other masculine in-
signia ; Markwick asks whether White's hybrid may not be an old hen
pheasant that had begun to assume the plumage of the cock? There is
so little in common with the cock pheasant in the deviations from the
ordinary pheasant colouring described by White, that this question must

BIRDS. 441

When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so
soft and tender, that in appearance they might have
been dressed like the ropes of a woodcock. The craw
or crop was small and lank, containing a mucus; the
gizzard thick and strong, and filled with small shell
snails, some whole, and many ground to pieces through
the attrition which is occasioned by the muscular force
and motion of that intestine. We saw no gravel among
the food: perhaps the shell snails might perform the
functions of gravels or pebbles, and might grind one
another.

Land-rails used to abound formerly, I remember,
in the low wet bean fields of Christian Malford in
North Wilts, and in the meadows near Paradise Gar-
dens at Oxford, where I have often heard them cry
crex, crex.

The bird mentioned above weighed seven ounces
and a half, was fat and tender, and in flavour like the
flesh of a woodcock. The liver was very large and
delicate9.

have been answered in the negative even when such birds were less
familiar than they now are. They are now generally known to sports-
men, and no sportsman would recognise in the description given by White
the slightest approach to the female pheasant in that peculiar condition
in which she is known to him as a mule bird.

But although the idea that White's bird was a hen changing into male
plumage is unquestionably to be rejected so far as the pheasant is assumed
to be concerned in it, I would by no means reject it altogether. The gray
hen is no doubt equally capable with other female birds of assuming the
male plumage ; and although, pursued as they are by the sportsman, few
probably live to attain advanced age, it may have happened in one in-
stance that a blotched and freckled female has been shot when she had
partially put on the black feathers of the cock. The supposition may not
deserve to have much weight attached to it : yet, as the change of feathers
would be analogous to that which takes place in the young male in the
first moult, all the arguments deduced from the colours of the plumage in
that case would be equally applicable to this : but certainly, the naked-
ness of the tarsus in the young bird would incline the balance in its di-
rection, and leave it more probable that it, rather than an old female, was
the individual undergoing the change. — E. T. B.

9 Land-rails are more plentiful with us than in the neighbourhood of
Selborne. I have found four brace in an afternoon, and a friend of mine

442 OBSERVATIONS ON

FOOD FOR THE RING-DOVE.

ONE of ray neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening
as it was returning from feed and going to roost. When
his wife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw

lately shot nine in two adjoining fields; but I never saw them in any
other season than the autumn.

That it is a bird of passage there can be little doubt, though Mr. White
thinks it poorly qualified for migration, on account of the wings being
short, and not placed in the exact centre of gravity : how that may be I
cannot say, but I know that its heavy sluggish flight is not owing to its
inability of flying faster, for I have seen it fly very swiftly, although in
general its actions are sluggish. Its unwillingness to rise proceeds, I
imagine, from its sluggish disposition, and its great timidity, for it will
sometimes squat so close to the ground as to suffer itself to be taken up
by the hand, rather than rise ; and yet it will at times run very fast *.

What Mr. White remarks respecting the small shell snails found in its

* It occurred to me many years ago to be shooting in September with
Mr. Webb, tenant of Church Farm in East Woodhay, who had the depu-
tation of the manor from my father. I had just asked him whether he
ever found quails in that quarter ; to which he replied, that he had not
seen one in the parish in his whole life. We were then in a large wheat
stubble which sloped towards us from the down-hill, of which it and the
adjoining fields formed the base, and I was walking with my body stooped
forwards, and my gun held with my two hands behind my back, the day
being hot and the ascent of the ground gradual. Another word had not
been spoken between us, when he called out " What is the matter?" on
seeing me throw myself suddenly forward on the ground ; to which I
answered, " Nothing, but I have caught a quail :" and the fact was so,
my inclined posture having enabled me to descry a solitary quail sitting
close in the stubble before my feet. The bird was taken home and pini-
oned ; and it lived for many years at Highclere in a walled garden with
some gold pheasants that were kept by my mother. I had the greatest
difficulty, and perhaps did not quite succeed, in persuading my companion
that the bird had not been previously concealed in my pocket, and brought
forth to astonish him. When we consider how many millions of chances
there must have been against our finding a quail in a parish where one
had not been observed for half a century, and that, almost instantaneously,
after the inquiry had been made and negatived ; against the bird's being
at that very moment within a few yards in the precise line in which I was
advancing ; against its lying still without attempting to escape, and my
being enabled, as both my hands were at the moment occupied, to secure
it : it is impossible not to reflect, that, had such an occurrence taken place
with relation to any circumstance of importance to the affairs of mankind,
instead of one so absolutely insignificant, it must have assumed the

BIRDS. 443

stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips.
These she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a

gizzard, confirms my opinion, that it frequents corn fields, seed clover,
and brakes or fern, more for the sake of snails, slugs*, and other insects

appearance of a prodigy with a degree of force that would have staggered
the strongest understanding, if the possibility of fraud could have been
clearly disproved ; and that many grave occurrences which have been
rejected as fictions on account of their improbability, may rest upon the
same foundation of truth with this singular but unimportant accident in
the concatenation of events, which I am well aware that nothing but its
entire want of importance will induce the reader to believe. — W. H.

* I have not been able to discover the bird that will eat slugs, and I
do not believe that a land-rail would touch one. The ruffs and reeves
which I have kept in confinement eat earth worms, as the lapwings also
do, but they will not touch a slug. I have in vain flattered myself that
ducks would deliver the garden from this nuisance, and have never found
that they would touch them. The godwit in confinement also refuses
them, and it is curious to observe that this very long-billed bird, which,
as well as the snipe and woodcock, has been said by naturalists to live
by suction, cannot suck at all, and will die of thirst unless it has a vessel
of water deep enough to enable it to immerse its bill quite to the base, or
broad enough to enable it to shovel up the water by placing its bill in a
horizontal position. It feeds freely upon barley, which it seizes with
the tip of the bill and by a sudden jerk it throws the grain into its throat.
It will fatten on barley, and bits of bread or of boiled potatoes, and will
scarcely eat a worm. The long bill is probably provided to enable it to
pick up rice and other grains or seeds of aquatic plants in flooded tracts
of land. Ruffs will live well in confinement on dry bread, crust and
crumb, cut into square bits of such size as they can swallow, and boiled
potatoes crumbled, and they will become marvellously fat on that food.
I have kept a stint for two years on bread and milk, when it died from
excessive fatness. The redshank in confinement is more carnivorous, and
eats raw beef voraciously ; and is so greedy after worms, that an old bird
which I winged in March, and turned loose in the room, after a very few
hours came across the room to take a worm from my hand. They will
eat bread and potatoes, but cannot be preserved without meat or worms,
and they consume a great quantity of food. Ruffs will eat barley when
hungry, but not when they can get bread or potatoes. They are however
so foolish, that, turned into a garden, I have known them poison them-
selves by eating currants, which occasioned convulsions. Copious doses
of sweet oil is the remedy for birds in all such cases. — W. H.

Having, since the publication of the first edition of these notes, kept
some ruffs, redshanks, and godwits in confinement, some observations
concerning them may be thought interesting.

The birds, having been imported from Holland, were kept about two
months in London on a large leaded platform which was fortunately not

444 OBSERVATIONS ON

choice and delicate plate of greens, culled and provided
in this extraordinary manner.

which abound in such places, than for the grain or seeds ; and that it is
entirely an insectivorous bird*. — MARKWICK.

visited by cats, and they throve there exceedingly well on bread, boiled
potatoes, barley, and raw beef, each bird having one wing clipped. The
ruffs fought a little, but not seriously. It was observable that the red-
shanks ate little but the raw beef, of which they were marvellously vora-
cious, but they grew very lean, and it became ultimately evident that they
were not thriving, though active and lively. The ruffs and reeves ate
very little of the meat, which they appeared to disregard, occasionally
swallowed a grain of barley, but fared mainly on the potatoes and bread,
preferring the latter, which was cut into little squares, and they would
swallow it when quite hard, crust as well as crumb. The godwits ate
scarcely any thing but barley, which to my surprise appeared to be their
natural food : a single grain of barley was taken up with the point of
the extremely long bill, and by a sudden rapid jerk it was thrown into
the throat and swallowed. The godwits were incapable of drinking,
unless the vessel of water was either deep enough for the whole bill to
be immersed, or wide enough to allow the horizontal admission of the
entire bill, and their usual mode of drinking was to stoop the head to the
ground, and shovel up the water into the mouth.

On their removal into the country they were turned into a large walled
garden, where after a few hours a godwit and ruff were found drowned
in a small pond where gold fish were kept, having jumped in. They were
both plump, and very good to eat when roasted. Soon after, a ruil' and
reeve were found in convulsions, the cause of which appeared to be their
having ate some ripe currants which were lying under the bushes. Large
doses of sweet oil were given to them ; the reeve died the next day, but
the ruff having continued two days in the most extraordinary convulsions,
and unable to run many paces without falling, recovered, and lived for a
year after, though with convulsive movements and contraction of the
neck. The redshanks soon died. The other ruffs throve exceedingly,
till successively killed by cats. One, of which half the body was res-
cued, was singularly fat. The last survivor lived through two winters
in perfect health in a small netted enclosure upon bread and potatoes,
with a few worms thrown to it occasionally, of which it was fond. When
there were only two ruffs, they fought perpetually.

I apprehend that the natural use of the marvellously long bill of the
godwit must be to enable it to pick grains of rice and other aquatic
plants from the bottom of the water. This is remarkable concerning a
bird which naturalists have said to live by suction, and which yet is
unable to suck the water out of a pan, and would die of drought with
a narrow and shallow vessel of water at its side. — W. H.

* The numerous interesting facts connected with the migration of
birds, in the splendid works of Wilson and Audubon, lead us to conclude

BIRDS. 445

Hence we may see that granivorous birds, when grain
fails, can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There is
reason to suppose that they would not long be healthy
without ; for turkeys, though corn-fed, delight in a va-
riety of plants, such as cabbage, lettuce, endive, &c. and
poultry pick much grass ; while geese live for months
together on commons by grazing alone.

•

" Nought is useless made :

On the barren heath

The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf
Sufficient: after them the cackling goose,
Close grazer, finds wherewith to ease her want."

PHILIPS 's CIDER 10.

10 That many granivorous birds feed also on the herbage or leaves of
plants, there can be no doubt : partridges and larks frequently feed on
the green leaves of turnips, which gives a peculiar flavour to their flesh,
that is, to me, very palatable : the flavour also of wild ducks and geese
greatly depends on the nature of their food ; and their flesh frequently
contracts a rank unpleasant taste, from their having lately fed on strong
marshy aquatic plants, as I suppose.

That the leaves of vegetables are wholesome and conducive to the
health of birds, seems probable, for many people fat their ducks and tur-
keys with the leaves of lettuce chopped small. — MARKWICK.

that the annual migration is much more general in North America than
in Europe, owing, no doubt, to the greater severity of the winters there,
which would render it impossible for the soft-billed birds to find food.
Even in our own country, some of those which do not migrate, are, in
severe winters, exposed to great privations. At first view it appears
not a little singular, that, among birds differing very little in habit, some
should remain with us, and others should migrate ; but a slight know-
ledge of natural history will lead to a solution of the singularity. Soft-
billed birds, like the robin, depend upon caterpillars and worms for their
principal food ; and, as many species of caterpillars live through the
winter, such birds are enabled to procure food. In open weather, also,
earthworms occasionally make their appearance as well as small slugs.
The redbreast, accordingly, and more particularly the wren, may be seen
prying with a keen eye into the roots of trees and shrubs for the cater-
pillars, which lurk there, and hopping over the grass-plots in gardens
to pounce upon an earthworm, that may have strayed from its hole;
while the wagtail endeavours to pick up a scanty meal of the small win-
ter gnats, which occasionally play about running water in fine weather.
The winter supply, however, of live insects would be far from sufficient
for the numerous soft-billed birds which haunt our woods and- hedges

44(5 OBSERVATIONS ON

HEN HARRIER.

MR. WHITE, of Newton, sprung a pheasant in a
wheat stubble, and shot at it; when, notwithstanding
the report of the gun, it was immediately pursued by
the blue hawk, known by the name of the hen harrier,
but escaped into some covert. He then sprung a
second, and a third, in the same field, that got away in
the same manner; the hawk hovering round him all
the while that he was beating the field, conscious no
doubt of the game that lurked in the stubble. Hence
we may conclude that this bird of prey was rendered
very daring and bold by hunger, and that hawks can-
not always seize their game when they please. We
may farther observe, that they cannot pounce their
quarry on the ground, where it might be able to make
a stout resistance, since so large a fowl as a pheasant
could not but be visible to the piercing eye of a hawk,
when hovering over the field. Hence that propensity
of cowering and squatting till they are almost trod on,
which no doubt was intended as a mode of security:
though long rendered destructive to the whole race of
Gallince by the invention of nets and guns11.

11 Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey, when urged on
by hunger, I have seen several instances ; particularly, when shooting in
the winter in company with two friends, a woodcock flew across us closely
pursued by a small hawk ; we all three fired at the woodcock instead of
the hawk, which, notwithstanding the report of three guns close by it,
continued its pursuit of the woodcock, struck it down, and carried it oil,
as we afterwards discovered.

At another time, when partridge shooting with a friend, we saw a ring-
tail hawk rise out of a pit with some large bird in its claws; though at a
great distance, we both fired and obliged it to drop its prey, which proved
to be one of the partridges which we were in pursuit of. And lastly, in an

in summer; and therefore, it has been so ordained, that the nightingale,
the whitethroat, and many others should migrate during the winter to a
warmer climate, where they can be in little danger of perishing by famine.
The swallows, flycatchers, and other birds, which capture insects on the
wing, would obviously be starved to death at the very commencement of
the cold weather.— RENME.

BIRDS. 447

GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOON.

As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer
Forest from Bramshot across the moors, he found a
large uncommon bird fluttering in the heath, but not
wounded, which he brought home alive. On examina-
tion it proved to be Colymbus glacialis, LINN., the great
speckled diver or loon, which is most excellently de-
scribed in Willughby's Ornithology.

Every part and proportion of this bird is so incom-
parably adapted to its mode of life, that in no instance
do we see the wisdom of God in the creation to more
advantage. The head is sharp and smaller than the
part of the neck adjoining, in order that it may pierce
the water ; the wings are placed forward and out of the
centre of gravity, for a purpose which shall be noticed
hereafter; the thighs quite at the podex, in order to
facilitate diving; and the legs are flat, and as sharp

evening, I shot at and plainly saw that I had wounded a partridge, but
it being late was obliged to go home without finding it again. The next
morning I walked round my land without any gun, but a favourite old
spaniel followed my heels. When I came near the field where I wounded
the bird the evening before, I heard the partridges call, and seeming to
be much disturbed. On my approaching the bar-way they all rose, some
on my right, and some on my left hand ; and just before and over my head,
I perceived (though indistinctly, from the extreme velocity of their mo-
tion) two birds fly directly against each other, when instantly, to my great
astonishment, down dropped a partridge at my feet: the dog immediately
seized it, and on examination I found the blood flow very fast from a
fresh wound in the head, but there was some dry clotted blood on its
wings and side ; whence I concluded that a hawk had singled out my
wounded bird as the object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant
that my approach had obliged the birds to rise on the wing : but the space
berween the hedges was so small, and the motion of the birds so instan-
taneous and quick, that I could not distinctly observe the operation. —
MARKWICK.

The merlin of my collection afforded a forcible example of the ruling
passion strong in death. It was shot while pursuing a yellowhammer,
and fell behind a hedge. On my friend advancing to the spot, he was
surprised to see the Citrinella flying towai-ds him, as if for protection. At
the same instant the falcon followed in pursuit, struck its quarry, and
both fell dead together. It was found on examination to have received
a full charge of shot.— G. D.

OBSERVATIONS ON

backwards almost as the edge of a knife, that in striking
they may easily cut the water ; while the feet are pal-
mated, and broad for swimming, yet so folded up when
advanced forward to take a fresh stroke, as to be full
as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes of the
feet are longest ; the nails flat and broad, resembling
the human, which give strength and increase the power
of swimming. The foot, when expanded, is not at right
angles to the leg or body of the bird : but the exte-
rior part inclining towards the head forms an acute
angle with the body; the intention being not to give
motion in the line of the legs themselves, but, by the
combined impulse of both, in an intermediate line, the
line of the body.

Most people know, that have observed at all, that
the swimming of birds is nothing more than a walking
in the water, where one foot succeeds the other as on
the land; yet no one, as far as I am aware, has re-
marked that diving fowls, while under water, impel and
row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as
well as by the impulse of their feet : but such is really
the case, as any person may easily be convinced, \\Iio
will observe ducks when hunted by dogs in a clear
pond. Nor do I know that any one has given a reason
why the wings of diving fowls are placed so forward :
doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their speed
in flying, since that position certainly impedes it; but
probably for the increase of their motion under water,
by the use of four oars instead of two ; yet were the
wings and feet nearer together, as in land birds, they
would, when in action, rather hinder than assist one
another.

This Colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing
only three drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois.
It measured in length from the bill to the tail (which
was very short) two feet ; and to the extremities of the
toes four inches more; and the breadth of the wings
expanded was forty-two inches. A person attempted

KIRDS. 44f)

to eat the body, but found it very strong and rancid, as
is the flesh of all birds living on fish. Divers or loons,
though bred in the most northerly parts of Europe, yet
are seen with us in very severe winters ; and on the
Thames are called sprat loons, because they prey much
on that sort of fish.

The legs of the Colymbi and Mergi are placed so
very backward, and so out of all centre of-gravity, that
these birds cannot walk at all. They are called by
Linnaeus compedes, because they move on the ground
as if shackled or fettered 12.

STONE CURLEW.

ON the 27th of February, 1788, stone curlews were
heard to pipe; and on March 1st, after it was dark,
some were passing over the village, as might be per-
ceived by their quick short note, which they use in their
nocturnal excursions by way of watch- word, that they
may not stray and lose their companions.

12 These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set forth in a
proper light the wonderful works of God in the creation, and to point out
his wisdom in adapting the singular form and position of the limbs of this
bird to the particular mode in which it is destined to pass the greatest
part of its life in an element much denser than the air, do Mr. White
credit, not only as a naturalist, but as a man and as a philosopher, in the
truest sense of the word, in my opinion ; for were we enabled to trace the
works of nature minutely and accurately, we should find, not only that
every bird, but every creature, was equally well adapted to the purpose for
which it was intended ; though this fitness and propriety of form is more
striking in such animals as are destined to any uncommon mode of life.

I have had in my possession two birds, which,though of a different genus,
bear a great resemblance to Mr. White's Colymbus, in their manner of life,
which is spent chiefly in the water, where they swim and dive with asto-
nishing rapidity, for which purpose their fin toed feet, placed far behind,
and very short wings, are particularly well adapted, and show the wis-
dom of God in the creation as conspicuously as the bird before mentioned.
These birds were the greater and lesser crested grebe, Podiceps cristatus
et auritus. What surprised me most was, that the first of these birds was
found alive on dry ground, about seven miles from the sea, to which place
there was no communication by water. How did it get so far from the
sea? its wings and legs being so ill adapted either to flying or walking.
The lesser crested grebe was also found in a fresh water pond which had
no communication with other water, at some miles distance from the sea.
— MARKWICK.

G G

450 OBSERVATIONS ON

Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in
the winter, they return again early in the spring, and
are, as it now appears, the first summer birds that come
back. Perhaps the mildness of the season may have
quickened the emigration of the curlews this year.

They spend the day in high elevated fields and sheep-
walks ; but seem to descend in the night to streams and
meadows, perhaps for water, which their upland haunts
do not afford them".

THE SMALLEST UNCRESTED WILLOW WREN.

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 March14.

FERN-OWL, OR GOAT-SUCKER.

TH E country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or
churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge,
is very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting, as

13 On the 31st of January, 1792, 1 received a bird of this species, which
had been recently killed by a neighbouring farmer, who said that he had
frequently seen it in his fields during the former part of the winter : this
perhaps was an occasional straggler, which, by some accident, was pre-
vented from accompanying its companions in their migration.— MARK-
WICK.

14 The spring birds having made their appearance I looked for the
Sylviu ntfa, and find it by no means scarce here. I saw two of them yes-
terday in one little wood, where they were reiterating their incessant
chink chink. One of them sat in the full sun within six or seven yards
of me, on the same branch of a young leafless tree, for a quarter of an
hour, moving very little, but occasionally from one twig to another. I
was perfectly satisfied from seeing it so near that it was the Sylv. rufa,
but to-day I desired my gamekeeper to shoot one in the act of chinking,
to remove all doubt on the subject. The bird now before me is decidedly
the Sylv. rufa, with the second feather a little shorter than the eighth.
Its legs are very dark, and so is its bill except at the base of the lower
mandible. The under wing coverts are dull yellow; a very pale ferruginous
tint on the sides ; the thighs and under tail coverts pale yellowish. —
Spofforth, May 14, 1830.— W. H.

BIRDS. 451

it strikes at them, the fatal distemper known to cow-
leeches by the name of puckeridge. Thus does this
harmless ill-fated bird fall under a double imputation
which it by no means deserves — in Italy, of sucking the
teats of goats, whence it is called Caprimulgus15 ; and
with us, of communicating a deadly disorder to cattle.
But the truth of the matter is, the malady above-men-
tioned is occasioned by the CEstrus Bovis','& dipterous
insect, which lays its eggs along the chines of kine,
where the maggots, when hatched, eat their way through
the hide of the beast into the flesh, and grow to a very
large size. I have just talked with a man, who says he
has more than once stripped calves who have died of
the puckeridge ; that the ail or complaint lay along the
chine, where the flesh was much swelled, and filled with
purulent matter. Once I myself saw a large rough
maggot of this sort squeezed out of the back of a cow.

15 This poor bird appears to be the butt of innumerable mistakes in all
quarters; for, though it feeds, like the bats, upon nocturnal moths and
other night-flying insects, the small birds show by the attacks they make
upon it, that they believe it to prey upon them. The attacks made by
swallows and other small birds upon hawks, shrikes, polecats, and in-
deed on all animals of prey, must have met the observation of almost
every person, all the weakest and most helpless birds in a neighbour-
hood uniting in a body to drive the invaders away. I have somewhere
met with an account of a similar attack upon a hunting spider by flies,
though I must look upon this as quite anomalous, for amongst thousands
of these spiders whose proceedings I have watched, I never observed
such an occurrence. But connected with such singular attacks of the
weak upon the strong, a much more remarkable circumstance is fre-
quently witnessed ; for passing over the cuckoo, who is persecuted by
small birds, evidently because they mistake him for a hawk, most night-
birds are attacked in the same way whenever they make their appearance
by day. We might perhaps refer this in the case of owls to the general
principle, though owls never prey upon birds, if they can procure mice
and other small quadrupeds.

The name which this bird has received in all languages of goat-sucker
(most absurdly continued by most recent naturalists in the term Capri-
mulgus), shows the opinion entertained of it by the vulgar. It is however
as impossible for the night-jar to suck the teats of cattle (though most
birds are fond of milk) as it is for cats to suck the breath from sleeping
infants, of which they are absurdly accused, inasmuch as the structure of
their organs would baffle any such attempts.— RENNIE.

GG 2

452 OBSERVATIONS ON

These maggots in Essex are called wormils.

The least observation and attention would convince
men, that these birds neither injure the goatherd nor
the grazier, but are perfectly harmless, and subsist
alone, being night birds, on night insects, such as
Scarabcei, and Phalcence ; and through the month of
July mostly on the Scarabceus solstitialis, which in many
districts abounds at that season. Those that we have
opened have always had their craws stuffed with large
night moths and their eggs, and pieces of chafers : nor
does it anywise appear how they can, weak and un-
armed as they seem, inflict any harm upon kine, unless
they possess the powers of animal magnetism, and can
affect them by fluttering over them.

A fern-owl, this evening (August 27), showed off in
a very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking
round and round the circumference of my great spread-
ing oak for twenty times following, keeping mostly close
to the grass, but occasionally glancing up amidst the
boughs of the tree. This amusing bird was then in
pursuit of a brood of some particular Phalcena belonging
to the oak, of which there are several sorts ; and exhi-
bited on the occasion a command of wing superior, I
think, to that of the swallow itself.

When a person approaches the haunt of fern-owls in
an evening, they continue flying round the head of the
obtruder; and by striking their wings together above
their backs, in the manner that the pigeons called
smiters are known to do, make a smart snap : perhaps
at that time they are jealous for their young ; and this
noise and gesture are intended by way of menace.

Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on ac-
count of food ; for the next evening we saw one again
several times among the boughs of the same tree; but
it did not skim round its stem over the grass, as on the
evening before. In May these birds find the Scarabceus
Melolontha on the oak ; and the Scarabceus solstitialis at
midsummer. These peculiar birds can only be watched

BIRDS. 453

and observed for two hours in the twenty-four; and
then in a dubious twilight an hour after sunset and an
hour before sunrise.

On this day (July 14, 1789) a woman brought me two
eggs of a fern-owl, or eve-jarr, which she found on the
verge of the Hanger, to the left of the hermitage, under
a beechen shrub. This person, who lives just at the
foot of the Hanger, seems well acquainted with these
nocturnal swallows, and says she has often found their
eggs near that place, and that they lay only two at a
time on the bare ground. The eggs were oblong, dusky,
and streaked somewhat in the manner of the plumage
of the parent bird, and were equal in size at each end.
The dam was sitting on the eggs when found, which
contained the rudiments of young, and would have
been hatched perhaps in a week. From hence we may
see the time of their breeding, which corresponds pretty
well with that of the swift, as does also the period of
their arrival. Each species is usually seen about the
beginning of May. Each breeds but once in a summer;
each lays only two eggs.

July 4, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern-
owl's eggs last year on July 14, on this day produced
me two more, one of which had been laid this morning,
as appears plainly, because there was only one in the
nest the evening before. They were found, as last July,
on the verge of the down above the hermitage under a
beechen shrub, on the naked ground. Last year those
eggs were full of young, and just ready to be hatched.

These circumstances point out the exact time when
these curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs
and hatch their young. Fern-owls, like snipes, stone
curlews, and some other birds, make no nest. Birds
that build on the ground, do not make much of nests 16.

16 No author that I am acquainted with has given so accurate and
pleasing an account of the manners and habits of the goat-sucker as
Mr. White, taken entirely from his own observations. Its being a noc-
turnal bird, has prevented my having many opportunities of observing it.

454 OBSERVATIONS ON

SAND MARTINS.

MARCH 23, 1788. A gentleman, who was this week on
a visit at Waverley, took the opportunity of examining
some of the holes in the sand banks with which that
district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by
bank martins, and are the places where they avowedly
breed, he was in hopes they might have slept there also,
and that he might have surprised them just as they
were awaking from their winter slumbers. When he
had dug for some time, he found the holes were hori-
zontal and serpentine, as I had observed before; and
that the nests were deposited at the inner end, and had
been occupied by broods in former summers ; but no
torpid birds were to be found. He opened and examined
about a dozen holes. Another gentleman made the
same search many years ago, with as little success.

These holes were in depth about two feet.

March 21, 1790. A single bank or sand martin was
seen hovering and playing round the sand pit at Short
Heath, where in the summer they abound.

April 9, 1793. A sober hind assures us, that this day,
on Wish-hanger common, between Hedleigh and Frins-
ham, he saw several bank martins playing in and out,
and hanging before some nest holes in a sand hill, where
these birds usually nestle.

This incident confirms my suspicions that this species
of Hirundo is to be seen first of any ; and gives great
reason to suppose that they do not leave their wild
haunts at all, but are secreted amidst the clefts and
caverns of those abrupt cliffs where they usually spend
their summers.

I suspect that it passes the day in concealment amidst the dark and shady
gloom of deep-wooded dells, or as they are called here gills ; having
more than once seen it roused from such solitary places by my dogs,
when shooting in the daytime. I have also sometimes seen it in an even-
ing, but not long enough to take notice of its habits and manners. I have
never seen it but in the summer, between the months of May and Sep-
tember.— MARKWICK.

BIRDS. 455

The late severe weather considered, it is not very
probable that these birds should have migrated so early
from a tropical region, through all these cutting winds
and pinching frosts: but it is easy to suppose that they
may, like bats and flies, have been awakened by the
influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrce, where
they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in
a torpid state, and the profoundest of slumbers.

There is a large pond at Wish-hanger, which induces
these sand martins to frequent that district. For I
have ever remarked that they haunt near great waters,
either rivers or lakes17.

SWALLOWS, CONGREGATING AND DISAPPEAR-
ANCE OF.

DURING the severe winds that often prevail late in
the spring, it is not easy to say how the Hirundines

17 Here, and in many other passages of his writings, this very inge-
nious naturalist favours the opinion that part at least of the swallow tribe
pass their winter in a torpid state in the same manner as bats and flies,
and revive again on the approach of spring.

I have frequently taken notice of all those circumstances which in-
duced Mr. White to suppose that some of the Hirundines lie torpid during
winter. I have seen, so late as November, on a finer day than usual at
that season of the year, two or three swallows flying backwards and for-
wards under a warm hedge, or on the sunny side of some old building;
nay, I once saw on the 8th of December two martins flying about very
briskly, the weather being mild. I had not seen any considerable number
either of swallows or martins for a considerable time before ; from whence
then could these few birds come, if not from some hole or cavern where
they had laid themselves up for the winter ? Surely it will not be as-
serted that these birds migrate back again from some distant tropical
region, merely on the appearance of a fine day or two at this late season
of the year. Again, very early in the spring, and sometimes immediately
after very cold severe weather, on its growing a little warmer, a few of
these birds suddenly make their appearance, long before the generality
of them are seen. These appearances certainly favour the opinion of
their passing the winter in a torpid state, but do not absolutely prove the
fact; for who ever saw them reviving of their own accord from their
torpid state, without being first brought to the fire, and as it were forced
into life again ; soon after which revivification they constantly die.—
MARKWICK.

456 OBSERVATIONS ON

subsist: for they withdraw themselves, and are hardly
ever seen, nor do any insects appear for their support.
That they can retire to rest, and sleep away these un-
comfortable periods as the bats do, is a matter rather to
be suspected than proved : or do they not rather spend
their time in deep and sheltered vales near waters,
where insects are more likely to be found ? Certain it
is, that hardly any individuals of this genus have at
such times been seen for several days together.

September 13, 1791. The congregating flocks of
Hirundines on the church and tower are very beautiful
and amusing ! When they fly off all together from the
roof, on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air. But
they soon settle -in heaps, and preening their feathers,
and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, seem highly
to enjoy the warm situation. Thus they spend the heat
of the dfty, preparing for their emigration, and, as it
were, consulting when and where they are to go. The
flight about the church seems to consist chiefly of house
martins, about four hundred in number : but there are
other places of rendezvous about the village frequented
at the same time.

It is remarkable, that though most of them sit on the
battlements and roof, yet many hang or cling for some
time by their claws against the surface of the walls,
in a manner not practised by them at any other time of
their remaining with us.

The swallows seem to delight more in holding their
assemblies on trees.

November 3, 1789. Two swallows were seen this
morning at New ton vicarage-house, hovering and settling
on the roofs and out-buildings. None have been ob-
served at Selborne since October 1 1. It is very remark-
able, that after the Hirundines have disappeared for
some weeks, a few are occasionally seen again ; some-
times, in the first week in November, and that only for
one day. Do they not withdraw and slumber in some
hiding place during the interval? for we cannot suppose

BIRDS. 457

they had migrated to warmer climes, and so returned
again for one day. Is it not more probable that they
are awakened from sleep, and like the bats are come
forth to collect a little food? Bats appear at all seasons
through the autumn and spring months, when the ther-
mometer is at 50°, because then moths, Phalcence, are
stirring.

These swallows looked like young onesfs.

WAGTAILS.

WHILE the cows are feeding in moist low pastures,
broods of wagtails, white and gray, run round them
close up to their noses, and under their very bellies,
availing themselves of the flies that settle on their legs,
and probably finding worms and larvce that are roused
by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such an ceco-
nomist, that the most incongruous animals can avail
themselves of each other! Interest makes strange
friendships19.

18 Of their migration the proofs are such as will scarcely admit of a
doubt. Sir Charles Wager and Captain Wright saw vast flocks of them
at sea, when on their passage from one country to another. Our author,
Mr. White, saw what he deemed the actual migration of these birds, and
which he has described in his History of Selborne*: and of their con-
gregating together on the roofs of churches and other buildings, and on
trees, previous to their departure, many instances occur; particularly I
once observed a large flock of house martins on the roof of the church
here at Catsfield, which acted exactly in the manner here described by
Mr. White, sometimes preening their feathers and spreading their wings
to the sun, and then flying off all together, but soon returning to their
former situation. The greatest part of these birds seemed to be young
ones.— MARKWICK.

The best proof of actual migration is drawn from the American swal-
lows which Audubon actually traced from the north to Florida, and saw
them the whole winter through at New Orleans, whence they departed
for the north again in spring. — REN ME.

19 Birds continually avail themselves of particular and unusual cir-
cumstances to procure their food ; thus wagtails keep playing about the
noses and legs of cattle as they feed, in quest of flies and other insects
which abound near those animals ; and great numbers of them will follow

* Letter XXIII. to Pennant, p. 118.

458 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

WRYNECK.

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.

GROSBEAK.

MR. B. shot a cock grosbeak, which he had observed
to haunt his garden for more than a fortnight. I began
to accuse this bird of making sad havock 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 dam-
sons. The Latin ornithologists call this bird Cocco-
thraustes, i. e. berry-breaker, because with its large
horny beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone
fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this
sort are rarely seen in England, and only in winter20.

close to the plough to devour the worms, &c. that are turned up by that
instrument. The redbreast attends the gardener when digging his bor-
ders ; and will, with great familiarity and tameness, pick out the worms
almost close to his spade, as I have frequently seen. Starlings and mag-
pies very often sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their ticks.
— MARKWICK.

50 I have never seen this rare bird but during the severest cold of the
hardest winters; at which season of the year I have had in my possession
two or three that were killed in this neighbourhood in different years. —
MARKWICK.

459

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS.

SHEEP.

THE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very
ragged, and their coats much torn ; the shepherds say
they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns,
and that they are always in that way in mild wet win-
ters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice.

After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great con-
fusion and bleating, neither the dams nor the young
being able to distinguish one another as before. This
embarrassment seems not so much to arise from the
loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in
their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor,
discriminating each individual personally; which also
is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar
wherewith they are newly marked ; for the brute crea-
tion recognise each other more from the smell than the
sight ; and in matters of identity and diversity appeal
much more to their noses than to their eyes. After
sheep have been washed there is the same confusion,
from the reason given above.

RABBITS1.

RABBITS make incomparably the finest turf; for they
not only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they

1 Having found in a stubble field a rabbit's nest, with young about four
days old, which could not see, I had them brought home and given to be
suckled to a tame doe which was kept by one of my children, and had
young ones which were just old enough to be taken from her. She readily
undertook the care of her new charge and reared them. When they came
to see, it was observable that they were much more startlish and shy than
the young rabbits of tame descent, and as they grew bigger they continued

460 OBSERVATIONS ON

allow no bents to rise : hence warrens produce much
the most delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch
the stalks of grasses.

CAT AND SQUIRRELS2.

A BOY has taken three little young squirrels in their
nest, or drey as it is called in these parts. These small
creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately
lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles
them with the same assiduity and affection as if they
were her own offspring. This circumstance corrobo-
rates 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

so, and did not begin near so soon to eat what was offered to them. It is
not customary with children to disturb the young rabbits till they are a
few days old, so that these wild rabbits had exactly the same education
as the tame ones, and yet the result was different. It is evident then that
there was a natural difference of character between them from their birth,
and a consideration of this point may be important in understanding even
the differences between the several races of mankind. It is probable that
the state of constant apprehension in which the wild rabbit lives, occa-
sions an irritability of nerve which does not exist in the domestic race,
and that such irritability occasions an actual difference in the quality of
its fibres which is descendible in its generations. In the same manner it
appears to me likely that savages do not acquire acuteness of hearing
and some other peculiarities merely from the greater exercise of certain
faculties from infancy, but because the extraordinary exercise of those
faculties during several generations has rendered the organs which ap-
pertain to them different in their texture and tone from those of other
races of men in whom those faculties have been quiescent, and more
rarely or less intensely called into use.

These rabbits from wild parents, being now above half grown, continue
to start away and crouch upon any quick movement of the boy that feeds
them, while those of the domestic stock crowd round him ; their timidity
and want of confidence being unquestionably an inherited and not an
acquired peculiarity. — W. H.

2 The squirrel's nest is not only called a drey in Hampshire, but, also,
in other counties ; in Suffolk it is called a bay. The word drey, though
now provincial, I have met with in some of our old writers.— MITFORD.

The drey is not only the breeding-place, but the storehouse for the
animal's provisions.— G. D.

In the north of Hampshire a great portion of the squirrels have white
tails. None of this variety, as far as I can learn, reach the London market.

QUADRUPEDS. 461

an incident as many have supposed ; and therefore may
be a justification of those authors who have gravely
mentioned, what some have deemed to be a wild and
improbable story.

So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled
by a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her
charge, and in pain for their safety ; and therefore hid
them over the ceiling, where one died. This circum-
stance shows her affection for these foundlings, and that
she supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus
hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally
attached to them as if they were their own chickens.

HORSE.

AN old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being
taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were
to implore the help of men, and died the night following
in the street.

HOUNDS.

THE king's stag hounds came down to Alton, attended
by a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to
try for the stag that has haunted Harteley Wood and
its environs for so long a time. Many hundreds of
people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the
deer unharboured ; but though the huntsman drew

I was much surprised at hearing from a man who kept a bird and cage
shop in London, that not less than twenty thousand squirrels are annually
sold there for the menus plaisirs of cockneys, part of which come from
France, but the greater number are brought in by labourers to Newgate
and Leadenhall markets, where any morning during the season four or
five hundred might be bought. He said that he himself sold annually
about seven hundred : and, he added, that about once in seven years the
breed of squirrels entirely fails, but that in other seasons they are equally
prolific The subject was introduced by his answering to a woman who
came in to buy a squirrel, that he had not had one that season, but
before that time in the last season he had sold five hundred. It appears
that the mere manufacture of squirrel cages for Londoners is no small
concern. — W. H.

462 OBSERVATIONS ON

Harteley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood,
and Temple Hangers ; and in their way back Harteley
and Ward le ham Hangers, yet no stag could be found.

The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned
out before them, never drew the coverts with any ad-
dress and spirit, as many people that were present
observed : and this remark the event has proved to be
a true one. For as a person was lately pursuing a
pheasant that was wing-broken, in Harteley Wood, he
stumbled upon the stag by accident, and ran in upon
him as he lay concealed amidst a thick brake of bram-
bles and bushes.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES.

INSECTS IN GENERAL.

THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alter-
nately : the Papilios, Muscce, and Apes, are succeeded at
the close of the day by Phalcence, earwigs, woodlice, &c.
In the dusk of the evening, when beetles begin to buz,
partridges begin to call; these two circumstances are
exactly coincident.

Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopte-
rous and dipterous insects. On sunny days, quite on
to November, they swarm on trees covered with this
plant ; and when they disappear, probably retire under
the shelter of its leaves, concealing themselves between
its fibres and the trees which it entwines1.

Spiders, woodlice, Lepismce in cupboards and among
sugar, some Empides, gnats, flies of several species,
some Phalcence in hedges, earthworms, &c. are stirring

1 This I have often observed, having seen bees and other winged
insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy very late in the autumn. —
MARK WICK.

INSECTS AND VERMES. 463

at all times, when winters are mild ; and are of great
service to those soft-billed birds that never leave us.

On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of
insects, usually called gnats (I suppose Tipulce and
Empides) appear sporting and dancing over the tops
of the evergreen trees in the shrubbery, and frisking
about as if the business of generation was still going
on. Hence it appears that these Diptera'( which by
their sizes appear to be of different species) are not
subject to a torpid state in the winter as most winged
insects are. At night, and in frosty weather, and when
it rains and blows, they seem to retire into those trees.
They often are out in a fog2.

HUMMING IN THE AIR.

THERE is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the
highest part of our down in hot summer days, which
always amuses me much, without giving me any satis-
faction with respect to the cause of it ; and that is a
loud audible humming of bees in the air, though not
one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be heard
distinctly the whole common through, from the Money-
dells, to Mr. White's avenue gate. Any person would
suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion, and
playing about over his head3. This noise was heard
last week, on June 28th.

2 This I have also seen, and have frequently observed swarms of little
winged insects playing up and down in the air in the middle of winter,
even when the ground has been covered with snow. — MARKWICK.

3 I have frequently observed this humming in the neighbourhood of
London, in Copenhagen Fields, on Hampstead Heath, and at Shooter's
Hill, and for some time was as much puzzled to explain it as White : till
I, on several occasions, remarked a troop of swallows busily hawking
high overhead, where the humming was heard. There could be no
doubt, therefore, that it was occasioned by insects, invisible to me in
consequence of their distance. In another instance, I could plainly see
numbers of bees passing in their way to and from some blossomed lime
trees, as I supposed, which were at a good distance from the spot where
I stood— the primary cause, perhaps, of their flying high.— RENME.

464 OBSERVATIONS ON

" Resounds the living surface of the ground,
Nor undelightful is the ceaseless hum

To him who muses at noon."

" Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways,

Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved,

The quivering nations sport." THOMSON'S SEASONS.

CHAFERS.

COCKCHAFERS seldom abound oftener than once in
three or four years ; when they swarm they deface the
trees and hedges. Whole woods of oaks are stripped
bare by them.

Chafers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and the
house sparrow.

The Scarabceus sohtitialis first appears about June
26: they are very punctual in their coming out every
year. They are a small species, about half the size of
the May chafer, and are known in some parts by the
name of the fern chafer4.

PTINUS PECTINICORNIS.

THOSE maggots that make worm holes in tables, chairs,
bedposts, &c., and destroy wooden furniture, especially
where there is any sap, are the larvae of the Ptinus pec-
tinicornis. This insect, it is probable, deposits its eggs
on the surface, and the worms eat their way in.

In their holes they turn into their pupa state, and so
come forth winged in July; eating their way through
the valances or curtains of a bed, or any other furniture
that happens to obstruct their passage.

4 A singular circumstance relative to the cockchafer, or, as it is called
here, the May-bug, Scarabteus Melolontka, happened this year (1800): —
My gardener in digging some ground found, about six inches under the
surface, two of these insects alive and perfectly formed so early as the
24th of March. When he brought them to me, they appeared to be as
perfect and as much alive as in the midst of summer, crawling about as
briskly as ever : yet I saw no more of this insect till the 22nd of May,
when it began to make its appearance. How comes it, that though it
was perfectly formed so early as the 24th of March, it did not show itself
above ground till nearly two months afterwards ? — MARKWICK.

INSECTS AND VERMES. 465

They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech ;
hence beech will not make lasting utensils, or furni-
ture. If their eggs are deposited on the surface, frequent
rubbings will preserve wooden furniture5.

BLATTA OR1ENTALIS — COCKROACH.

A NEIGHBOUR complained to me that her house was
overrun with a kind of black beetle, or, as she expressed
herself, with a kind of black bob, which swarmed in her
kitchen when they get up in a morning before daybreak.

Soon after this account, I observed an unusual insect
in one of my dark chimney closets, and find since, that
in the night they swarm also in my kitchen. On exa-
mination, I soon ascertained the species to be the
Blatta Orientalis of Linnaeus, and the Blatta molendina-
ria of Mouffet. The male is winged ; the female is not,
but shows somewhat like the rudiments of wings, as if
in the pupa state.

These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts
of America, and were conveyed from thence by ship-
ping to the East Indies ; and by means of commerce
begin to prevail in the more northern parts of Europe,
as Russia, Sweden, &c. How long they have abounded
in England I cannot say ; but have never observed them
in my house till lately.

They love warmth, and haunt chimney closets, and
the backs of ovens. Poda says that these and house
crickets will not associate together ; but he is mistaken
in that assertion, as Linnaeus suspected he was. They
are altogether night insects (lucifugcej, never coming
forth till the rooms are dark and still, and escaping

5 The Ptilinus pectinicornis, FABR., is by no means the only insect that
is destructive to furniture. Various species of Anobium also perforate it
in all directions. Linnaeus's chairs were bored through and destroyed
by An. pertinax; and the Rev. Mr. Kirby has had his chairs, his picture-
frames, and the floor of his chamber eaten in every direction by the An.
striatum: the last named beetle attacks any furniture, not even abstain-
ing altogether from mahogany. — E. T. B.

II M

466 OBSERVATIONS ON

away nimbly at the approach of a candle. Their an-
tenna are remarkably long-, slender, and flexile.

October, 1790. After the servants are gone to bed,
the kitchen hearth swarms with young crickets, and
young Blattce molendinarice of all sizes, from the most
minute growth to their full proportions. They seem to
live in a friendly manner together, and not to prey the
one on the other.

August, 1792. After the destruction of many thou-
sands of Blattce molendinarice, we find that at intervals
a fresh detachment of old ones arrives; and particularly
during this hot season : for the windows being left open
in the evenings, the males come flying in at the case-
ments from the neighbouring houses, which swarm with
them. How the females, that seem to have no perfect
wings that they can use, can contrive to get from house
to house, does not so readily appear. These, like many
insects, when they find their present abodes overstocked,
have powers of migrating to fresh quarters. Since the
Blattce have been so much kept under, the crickets have
greatly increased in number.

GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS — HOUSE CRICKET.

NOVEMBER. After the servants are gone to bed, the
kitchen hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large
as fleas, which must have been lately hatched. So that
these domestic insects, cherished by the influence of a
constant large fire, regard not the season of the year,
but produce their young at a time when their congeners
are either dead, or laid up for the winter, to pass away
the uncomfortable months in the profoundest slumbers,
and a state of torpidity.

When house crickets are out, and running about in a
room in the night, if surprised by a candle, they give
two or three shrill notes, as it were for a signal to their
fellows, that they may escape to their crannies and
lurking holes, to avoid danger.

INSECTS AND VERMES. 467

CIMEX LINEARIS.

AUGUST 12, 1775. Cimices linear es6 are now eagerly
pairing on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly
exceed the males in bulk, dart and shoot along on the
surface of the water with the males on their backs.
When a female chooses to be disengaged, she rears,
and jumps, and plunges, like an unruly colt • the lover
thus dismounted, soon finds a new mate. The females
afterwards retire to another part of the lake, perhaps to
deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are found
separate, except in the pairing season. From the mul-
titude of minute young of all gradations of sizes, these
insects seem without doubt to be viviparous7.

RANATRA LINEARfS.

6 [Ranatra linearis, FABR.]

7 The egg of the long water-bug has been sufficiently known for many
years. It is armed at one end by two bristles, arid is inserted into the
stem of an aquatic plant, generally of a club rush, in which it is so deeply
immersed by the aid of the lengthened ovipositor of the insect, as to be
entirely hidden from view ; the bristles alone projecting from the place
of concealment. The object of this curious arrangement is among the
most beautiful and beneficent of the provisions of nature. While a recep-

H H 2

468 OBSERVATIONS ON

PHAL^NA QUERCUS.

MOST of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the
Holt in general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars
of a small Phalcena which is of a pale yellow colour.
These insects, though a feeble race, yet, from their infi-
nite numbers, are of wonderful effect, being able to
destroy the foliage of whole forests and districts. At
this season they leave their aurelia, and issue forth in
their fly state, swarming and covering the trees and
hedges.

In a field at Greatham, I saw a flight of swifts busied
in catching their prey near the ground ; and found they
were hawking after these Phal&na. The aurelia of this
moth is shining and as black as jet ; and lies wrapped
up in a leaf of the tree, which is rolled round it, and
secured at the ends by a web, to prevent the maggot
from falling out8.

tacle is allotted to the egg in a soft and moist nidus, sheltered from the
attacks of its enemies, an exit is at the same time secured for the little
larva about to be hatched from it, which will only have to advance itself
to separate the projecting bristles, and consequently to spread, sufficiently
wide to allow of its passage between them, the ridges of the culm which
have been, by their intervention, prevented from uniting after the wound
inflicted on them : a union which would have effectually enclosed and
buried the included egg with its larva, unfurnished as the latter appa-
rently is with any means of forcing for itself a passage. The egg of the
much more common flat water-bug, Nepa cinerea, LINN., is still more
extensively furnished with the curious appendages adverted to: it has
no less than seven bristles, forming a crown, as it were, round one of its
extremities.— E. T. B.

8 I suspect that the insect here meant is not the Phalcena Quei-cus, but
the Phalcena viridata, concerning which, I find the following note in my
Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1785:

About this time, and for a few days last past, I observed the leaves of
almost all the oak trees in Denn Copse to be eaten and destroyed, and,
on examining more narrowly, saw an infinite number of small beautiful
pale green moths flying about the trees ; the leaves of which that were
not quite destroyed were curled up, and withinside were the exuvice or
remains of the chrysalis, from whence I suppose the moths had issued,
and whose caterpillar had eaten the leaves. — MARKWICK.

It is by no means improbable, notwithstanding the differences in their

INSECTS AND VERMES. 469

EPHEMERA CAUDA TRISETA — MAY FLY.

JUNE 10, 1771. Myriads of May flies appear for the
first time on the Alresford stream. The air was crowded
with them, and the surface of the water covered. Large
trouts sucked them in as they lay struggling on the

descriptions, that Markwick may have correctly indicated the insect ob-
served by White : for I am not aware that the caterpillar of any small moth,
except the Tortrix viridana, denudes the oak of its foliage to so great an
extent as that noticed in the text. White's insect evidently belonged to
the family of TortricidcE, or leaf-rollers, as they may be called ; as is shown
by its pupa being wrapped up in a leaf, which was rolled round it, and
secured at the ends by a web to prevent it from falling out It conse-
quently could not have been the Phalama Querc&s, LINN., a large moth
belonging to the Bombycida, the pupa of which is enveloped in a cocoon
of considerable size, as is seen in that of the silk-worm, perhaps the most
familiar instance of the family. The Phalcena quercana is a leaf-roller :
but this could scarcely have been White's moth, as its deep rufous-yellow
wings would not have appeared to him of a pale yellow colour ; and I
have besides no reason for believing that it ever abounds on the oak so
excessively as to strip the trees of their leaves. The latter remark would
also apply to the Tortrices of the genus Dictyopteryx of Mr. Stephens ;
some one of which may, however, possibly have been the insect meant.
But great ravages are unquestionably committed by the moth described
by Markwick, known to aurelians by the name of the pea-green. Ha-
worth's remarks on it, in his Lepidoptera Britannica, are confirmatory of
Markwick's observations, and are worthy of perusal, not merely on that
account, but as they include also an exposition of one of those admirable
provisions of nature by which excess in any single department is coun-
teracted.

" In most seasons," Mr. Haworth says, " this insect occurs in greater
abundance than any other of the genus ; but a few summers since they
were produced in such amazing quantities about London, and also in
Norfolk, as threatened annihilation to our oaks; and must eventually
have really destroyed them, had not nature, by one of her admirable
efforts, cured the calamity in her own way : by simply starving the Tor-
trices. The oaks were defoliated by their voracious larvae ; not a perfect
leaf, nay hardly the rib of one, was left; in consequence of which myriads
of the caterpillars perished through want and hunger, or failed, through
weakness, to surmount the difficulties of pupation. So that very few
eggs were deposited for the following season ; which, as I predicted,
was not overburthened with an increase of the Tortrix, as many expected,
and which would have ruined the oaks : but, with such an astonishing
diminution, that hardly a single specimen was to be found where, but the
year before, thousands swarmed on every oak." — E. T. B.

470 OBSERVATIONS ON

surface of the stream, unable to rise till their wings
were dried.

This appearance reconciled me in some measure to
the wonderful account that Scopoli gives of the quan-
tities emerging from the rivers of Carniola. Their
motions are very peculiar, up and down for many yards
almost in a perpendicular line9.

SPHINX OCELLATA.

A VAST insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a
humming noise, and inserting its tongue into the bloom
of the honeysuckle ; it scarcely settles upon the plants,
but feeds on the wing in the manner of humming birds10.

WILD BEE.

THERE is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-
campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it

9 I once saw a swarm of these insects playing up and down over the
surface of a pond in Denn Park, exactly in the manner described by this
accurate naturalist. It was late in the evening of a warm summer's day,
when I observed them. — M ARKWICK.

10 I have frequently seen the large bee moth (Sphinx Stellatarum)
inserting its long tongue or proboscis into the centre of flowers, and feed-
ing on their nectar, without settling on them, but keeping constantly on the

MACROT,|.OSS* STKLI.ATAH'. M.

INSECTS AND VERMES. 471

turns to some purpose in the business of nidification.
It is very pleasant to see with what address it strips
off the pubes, running from the top to the bottom of a
branch, and shaving it bare with all the dexterity of a
hoop shaver11. When it has got a vast bundle, almost
as large as itself, it flies away, holding it secure between
its chin and its fore legs.

There is a remarkable hill on the downs" near Lewes
in Sussex, known by the name of Mount Carburn, which
overlooks that town, and affords a most engaging pros-
pect of all the country round, besides several views of
the sea. On the very summit of this exalted promon-
tory, and amidst the trenches of its Danish camp, there
haunts a species of wild bee, making its nest in the
chalky soil12. When people approach the place, these
insects begin to be alarmed, and, with a sharp and hos-
tile sound, dash and strike round the heads and faces of
intruders. I have been often interrupted myself while
contemplating the grandeur of the scenery around me,
and have thought myself in danger of being stung,

WASPS,

WASPS abound in woody wild districts far from neigh-
bourhoods ; they feed on flowers, and catch flies and
caterpillars to carry to their young. Wasps make their
nests with the raspings of sound timber ; hornets, with
what they gnaw from decayed: these particles of wood
are kneaded up with a mixture of saliva from their
bodies and moulded into combs.

When there is no fruit in the gardens, wasps eat
flies, and suck the honey from flowers, from ivy blos-
soms, and umbellated plants : they carry off also flesh
from butchers' shambles13.

11 I possess a specimen of the stem of the garden or rose campion, upon
which a bee was thus employed; but being scared away by my approach
left the cotton it had shaved off in a neatly rolled up parcel. — RENNIE.

13 Probably Bombus lapidarius. — RENNIE.

la In the year 1775 wasps abounded so prodigiously in this neighbour-

472 OBSERVATIONS ON

(ESTRUS CURVICAUDA.

THIS insect lays its nits or eggs on horses' legs, flanks,
&c. each on a single hair. The maggots when hatched
do not enter the horses' skins, but fall to the ground.
It seems to abound most in moist moorish places, though
sometimes seen in the uplands14.

NOSE FLY.

ABOUT the beginning of July, a species of fly (Musca)
obtains, which proves very tormenting to horses, trying
still to enter their nostrils and ears, and actually laying
their eggs in the latter of those organs, or perhaps in
both. When these abound, horses in woodland districts
become very impatient at their work, continually toss-
ing their heads, and rubbing their noses on each other,
regardless of the driver, so that accidents often ensue.
In the heat of the day, men are often obliged to desist
from ploughing. Saddle horses are also very trouble-
some at such seasons. Country people call this insect
the nose fly15.

ICHNEUMON FLY.

I SAW lately a small ichneumon fly attack a spider
much larger than itself on a grass walk. When the

hood, that, in the month of August, no less than seven or eight nests were
ploughed up in one field : of which there were several instances, as I
was informed.

In the spring, about the beginning of April, a single wasp is sometimes
seen, which is of a larger size than usual ; this I imagine is the queen or
female wasp, the mother of the future swarm. — MARKWICK.

14 A full account of the proceedings of the Gasterophilus Equi, LEACH,
will be found in Letter XXXIV. to Pennant, and in the note subjoined
to it, at p. 150.— E. T. B.

15 Is not this insect the CEstrus nasalis of Linnaeus, so well described by
Mr. Clark in the third volume of the Linnean Transactions, under the
name of CEstrus veterinus*?— MARKWICK.

* [Gayterofthilus nasalis, CURT.]

INSECTS AND VERMES. 473

spider made any resistance, the ichneumon applied
her tail to him, and stung him with great vehemence,
so that he soon became dead and motionless. The
ichneumon then running backward, drew her prey very
nimbly over the walk into the standing grass. This
spider would be deposited in some hole where the ich-
neumon would lay some eggs; and as soon as the
eggs were hatched, the carcass would afford ready food
for the maggots.

Perhaps some eggs might be injected into the body
of the spider, in the act of stinging. Some ichneumons
deposit their eggs in the aurelia of moths and butter-
flies16.

16 The caterpillar of the small eggar moth (Phalana Lanestris*) is
peculiarly subject to the attacks of a very small ichneumon fly. Indeed,
I believe that not one in a thousand escapes, luckily for the thorn hedges,
which would otherwise be entirely devoured by them, for no bird will
touch them on account of their hairs, and the sole eating of them seems
to be given to the ichneumons. The creature continues feeding and
thriving with a whole colony of maggots within it, till full grown ; and
the maggots come to maturity at the same time precisely. At the moment
when the caterpillar is preparing to spin its web, they gnaw a hole through
its side, and issuing through it, immediately begin to spin their own webs,
and turn to chrysalides all huddled together ; and so completely have
they devoured its inside, that nothing remains but a dead skin of a cater-
pillar attached to their webs ; yet, strange to say, I have seen the cater-
pillar walking just before they burst out — W. H.

In my Naturalist's Calendar for 1795, July 21st, I find the following
note:

It is not uncommon for some of the species of ichneumon flies to deposit
their eggs in the chrysalis of a butterfly : some time ago I put two of the
chrysalis of a butterfly into a box, and covered it with gauze, to discover
what species of butterfly they would produce ; but instead of a butterfly,
one of them produced a number of small ichneumon flies.

There are many instances of the great service these little insects are to
mankind in reducing the number of noxious insects, by depositing their
eggs in the soft bodies of their larva; ; but none more remarkable than
that of the Ichneumon Tipulte^ which pierces the tender body and deposits
its eggs in the larva of the Tipula Tritici\, an insect which, when it
abounds greatly, is very prejudicial to the grains of wheat. This opera-
tion I have frequently seen it perform with wonder and delight. — MARK-
WICK.

* [Eriogaster Lanestris, GERM.] t [Ceddomyia Tritici, KIRB.]

474 OBSERVATIONS ON

BOMBYLIU8 MEDIUS.

THE Bombyliw medius is much about in March and the
beginning of April, and soon seems to retire. It is a
hairy insect, like an bumblebee, but with only two
wings, and a long straight beak, with which it sucks
the early flowers. The female seems to lay its eggs as
it poises on its wings, by striking its tail on the ground,
and against the grass that stands in its way, in a quick
manner, for several times together17.

MUSCLE — FLIES.

IN the decline of the year, when the mornings and even-
ings become chilly, many species of flies (Musca) retire
into houses, and swarm in the windows.

At first they are very brisk and alert; but as they
grow more torpid, one cannot help observing that they
move with difficulty, and are scarce able to lift their
legs, which seem as if glued to the glass; and by
degrees many do actually stick on till they die in the
place.

It has been observed that divers flies, besides their
sharp hooked nails, have also skinny palms, or flaps to
their feet, whereby they are enabled to stick on glass
and other smooth bodies, and to walk on ceilings with
their backs downward, by means of the pressure of the
atmosphere on those flaps : the weight of which they
easily overcome in warm weather when they are brisk
and alert. But in the decline of the year, this resist-
ance becomes too mighty for their diminished strength ;
and we see flies labouring along, and lugging their feet
in windows, as if they stuck fast to the glass, and it is
with the utmost difficulty they can draw one foot after

17 I have often seen this insect fly with great velocity, stop on a sudden,
hang in the air in a stationary position for some time, and then fly off
again; but do not recollect having ever seen it strike its tail against the
ground, or any other substance. — MARKWICK.

INSECTS AND VKRMES. 475

another, and disengage their hollow caps from the
slippery surface.

Upon the same principle that flies stick and support
themselves, do boys, by way of play, carry heavy
weights by only a piece of wet leather at the end of a
string clapped close on the surface of a stone.

•

TIPUL^E, OR EMPIDES.

MAY. Millions of Empides, or Tipula, come forth at
the close of day, and swarm to such a degree as to fill
the air. At this juncture they sport and copulate ; as
it grows more dark they retire. All day they hide in
the hedges. As they rise in a cloud they appear like
smoke.

I do not ever remember to have seen such swarms,
except in the fens of the Isle of Ely. They appear
most over grass grounds.

ANTS.

AUGUST 23. Every ant hill about this time is in a
strange hurry and confusion ; and all the winged ants,
agitated by some violent impulse, are leaving their
homes, and, bent on emigration, swarm by myriads in
the air, to the great emolument of the Hirundines, which
fare luxuriously. Those that escape the swallows re-
turn no more to their nests, but, looking out for fresh
settlements, lay a foundation for future colonies. All
the females at this time are pregnant : the males that
escape being eaten wander away and die.

October 2. Flying ants, male and female, usually
swarm and migrate on hot sunny days in August and
September ; but this day a vast emigration took place
in my garden, and myriads came forth, in appearance,
from the drain which goes under the fruit wall ; filling
the air and the adjoining trees and shrubs with their
numbers. The females were full of eggs. This late
swarming is probably owing to the backward, wet

476 OBSERVATIONS ON

season. The day following, not one flying ant was to
be seen.

Horse ants travel home to their nests laden with flies,
which they have caught, and the aurelige of smaller
ants, which they seize by violence18.

GLOW-WORMS.

BY observing two glow-worms which were brought from
the field to the bank in the garden, it appeared to us,
that these little creatures put out their lamps between
eleven and twelve, and shine no more for the rest of the
night.

Male glow-worms, attracted by the light of the
candles, come into the parlour.

EARTHWORMS.

EARTHWORMS make their casts most in mild weather
about March and April ; they do not lie torpid in winter,
but come forth when there is no frost ; they travel about
in rainy nights, as appears from their sinuous tracks on
the soft muddy soil, perhaps in search of food.

When earthworms lie out a nights on the turf, though
they extend their bodies a great way, they do not quite
leave their holes, but keep the ends of their tails fixed
therein, so that on the least alarm they can retire with

18 In my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1777, on September 6th, I
find the following note to the article Flying Ants :

I saw a prodigious swarm of these ants flying about the top of some
tall elm trees close by my house ; some were continually dropping to the
ground as if from the trees, and others rising up from the ground : many
•of them were pairing; and I imagine their life is but short, for as soon
as produced from the egg by the heat of the sun, they propagate their
species, and soon after perish. They were black, somewhat like the
small black ant, and had four wings. I saw also, at another place, a
large sort which were yellowish. On the 8th of September, 1785, 1 again
observed the same circumstance of a vast number of these insects flying
near the tops of the elms and dropping to the ground.

On the 2nd of March, 1777, I saw great numbers of ants come out of
the ground.— MARKVVICK.

INSECTS AND VERMES. 477

precipitation under the earth. Whatever food falls
within their reach when thus extended, they seem to be
content with, such as blades of grass, straws, fallen
leaves, the ends of which they often draw into their
holes ; even when pairing their hinder parts never quit
their holes : so that no two, except they lie within
reach of each other's bodies, can pair ; but as every
individual is an hermaphrodite, there is no'difficulty in
meeting with a mate, as would be the case were they of
different sexes.

SNAILS AND SLUGS.

THE shell-less snails called slugs are in motion all the
winter in mild weather, and commit great depredations
on garden plants, and much injure the green wheat,
the loss of which is imputed to earthworms ; while the
shelled snail, the Qepeomog, does not come forth at all till
about April 10th, and not only lays itself up pretty
early in autumn, in places secure from frost, but also
throws out round the mouth of its shell a thick opercu-
lum formed from its own saliva ; so that it is perfectly
secured, and corked up as it were, from all inclemencies.
The cause why the slugs are able to endure the cold so
much better than shell snails is, that their bodies are
covered with slime as whales are with blubber.

Snails pair about Midsummer; and soon after deposit
their eggs in the mould by running their heads and
bodies underground. Hence the way to be rid of them
is to kill as many as possible before they begin to
breed.

Large, gray, shell-less, cellar snails lay themselves
up about the same time with those that live abroad ;
hence it is plain that a defect of warmth is not the only
cause that influences their retreat.

478 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS, ETC.

SNAKES' SLOUGH.

" There the snake throws her enamell'd skin."

SHAKSPEARE, Mids. Night's Dream.

ABOUT the middle of this month (September) we found
in a field near a hedge the slough of a large snake,
which seemed to have been newly cast. From circum-
stances it appeared as if turned wrong side outward,
and as drawn off backward, like a stocking or woman's
glove. Not only the whole skin, but scales from the
very eyes, are peeled off, and appear in the head of the
slough like a pair of spectacles. The reptile, at the
time of changing his coat, had entangled himself intri-
cately in the grass and weeds, so that the friction of the
stalks and blades might promote this curious shifting
of his exuviae.

Lubrica serpens

IX u it in spinis vestem." LUCRET.

It would be a most entertaining sight could a person
be an eye-witness to such a feat, and see the snake in
the act of changing his garment. As the convexity of
the scales of the eyes in the slough is now inward, that
circumstance alone is a proof that the skin has been
turned : not to mention that now the present inside is
much darker than the outer. If you look through the
scales of the snake's eyes from the concave side, viz. as
the reptile used them, they lessen objects much. Thus
it appears from what has been said, that snakes crawl
out of the mouth of their own sloughs, and quit the tail
part last, just as eels are skinned by a cook maid.
While the scales of the eyes are growing loose, and a
new skin is forming, the creature, in appearance, must
be blind, and feel itself in an awkward uneasy situa-
tion1^

19 I have seen many sloughs or skins of snakes entire, after they have
cast them off; and once in particular I remember to have found one of

479

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

TREES, ORDER OP LOSING THEIR LEAVES.

ONE of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut:
the mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys,
and the horse-chestnut, come next. All lopped trees,
while their heads are young, carry their leaves a long
while. Apple-trees and peaches remain green till very
late, often till the end of November: young beeches
never cast their leaves till spring, till the new leaves
sprout and push them off: in the autumn the beechen
leaves turn of a deep chestnut colour. Tall beeches
cast their leaves about the end of October.

these sloughs so intricately interwoven amongst some brakes that it was
with difficulty removed without being broken: this undoubtedly was done
by the creature to assist in getting rid of its incumbrance.

I have great reason to suppose that the eft or common lizard also casts
its skin or slough, but not entire like the snake ; for on the 30th of March,
1777, I saw one with something ragged hanging to it, which appeared to
be part of its old skin*. — MARKWICK.

* I have often seen caterpillars in the act of changing their skins, and
of throwing off the skin and becoming chrysalides; and also the fly in the
act of coming forth. The skin is thrown offby a wriggling motion of the
body, beginning from the head : the fly breaks through by quick and
sharp exertion of the legs ; the wings of the moth and butterfly are in
miniature when they come forth ; they immediately climb to a situation
where by position the wings hang down, and the wings quickly grow to
their full size and become rigid. If they are prevented from reaching
such a situation, or dislodged before the wings are full grown and
stiffened, they will remain rumpled and unserviceable. — W. H.

480 OBSERVATIONS ON

SIZE AND GROWTH.

MR. MARSH AM of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me
by letter thus : " I became a planter early ; so that an
oak which I planted in 1720 is become now, at one foot
from the earth, twelve feet six inches in circumference,
and at fourteen feet (the half of the timber length) is
eight feet two inches. So if the bark was to be mea-
sured as timber, the tree gives one hundred and sixteen
and a half feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you never
heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I
flatter myself that I increased the growth by washing
the stem, and digging a circle as far as I supposed the
roots to extend, and by spreading sawdust, &c. as re-
lated in the Philosophical Transactions. I wish I had
begun with beeches, (my favourite trees as well as
yours), I might then have seen very large trees of iny
own raising. But I did not begin with beech till 1741,
and then by seed ; so that my largest is now, at five
feet from the ground, six feet three inches in girth, and
with its head spreads a circle of twenty yards diameter.
This tree was also dug round, washed, &c." Stratton,
24 July, 1790 *.

1 Robert Marsham, of Stratton Strawless, a country gentleman of similar
tastes in many respects with Gilbert White, commenced his observations
on some of the proceedings of nature at an earlier period than our his-
torian, and continued them to a later date. A register of the indications
of spring, published by him in the Philosophical Transactions, begins in
1736, and is continued for more than half a century. His latest paper in
that valuable collection, is devoted to an account of the measurements of
trees, being supplemental to a communication made by him nearly forty
years before. It contains, among others, the girth of the oak planted by
himself in 1720: a singular instance of longevity combined with perse-
verance in the same pursuit. Few are the men who live to measure trees
planted by themselves seventy-seven years previously !

It was at the hospitable seat of his "very worthy and ingenious friend,
Robert Marsham," that Stillingfleet prepared his Calendar of Flora for
1755, which has been already referred to. He thus speaks of its situa-
tion : " All the country about is a dead flat ; on one side is a barren black
heath ; on the other a light sandy loam ; partly tilled, partly pasture land
sheltered with fine groves."— E. T. B.

VEGETABLES. 481

The circumference of trees planted by myself, at one
foot from the groimd (1790).

Oak in 1730 .

Ash 1730 .

Great fir 1751 .

Greatest beech 1751 .

Elm 1750 .

Lime 1756 .

The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by
Mr. Marsham to be the biggest in this island, at seven

feet.

4
4
5
4
5
5

inches.

61
0
0
8

THE GRINDSTONE OAK, IN THE HOLT FOREST.

2 It is now impossible so to identify the trees whose measurements are
given in the text, as to warrant a statement of their actual circumference,
and thus to afford data for determining their rate of growth in their

I I

482 OBSERVATIONS ON

feet from the ground, measures in circumference thirty-
four feet. It has in old times lost several of its boughs,
and is tending to decay. Mr. Marsham computes, that
at fourteen feet length this oak contains one thousand
feet of timber3.

It has been the received opinion that trees grow in
height only by their annual upper shoot. But my neigh-
bour over the way, whose occupation confines him to
one spot, assures me that trees are expanded and raised
in the lower parts also. The reason that he gives is
this: the point of one of my. firs began for the first time
to peer over an opposite roof at the beginning of sum-
mer ; but before the growing season was over, the whole
shoot of the year, and three or four joints of the body
beside, became visible to him as he sits on his form in
his shop4. According to this supposition, a tree may

earlier, and in their more mature years. The greatest beech which I
observed in 1835, in the park-like enclosure at the back of Gilbert White's
house at Selborne, measured ten feet in circumference at about one foot
from the ground: the largest ash in the same enclosure, nine feet: and a
fine fir, which the author was wont to speak of as his eldest son, and
which is perhaps the great fir alluded to above, measured eight feet
in circumference. If, however, the great fir be the same with Gilbert
White's eldest son, its growth during the last forty-five years has been
slow as compared with that which took place in the forty earlier years
of its existence.— E. T. B.

3 There are in the Holt two great oaks ; one known as the Grindstone,
and the other as the Buck's Horn. The former, I apprehend, is the one
measured by Mr. Marsham. At about five feet from the ground its cir-
cumference is fully thirty-six feet. It is now a ruin merely, and desti-
tute altogether of life : a massive ruin, however, which will resist, through
generations yet to come, the utmost force of the elements. Its singularly
formed and gigantic vertical branch will probably be severed, before
many years are past, from the stupendous trunk : but the trunk itself
will endure. The care which has been judiciously taken to preserve it
from wanton or thoughtless, injury, is highly praiseworthy : both it and
the Buck's Horn are surrounded by a fence and hedge.

The Buck's Horn oak is of a very different form from the Grindstone.
It is not yet entirely dead. A figure of it, from a sketch taken at the
same time with that from which the above drawing was made, will be
given in the work entitled Selborne and its Vicinity, to which I have
already had occasion to refer for the further illustration of much of the
local scenery.— E. T. B.

4 Mr. White is innocent of this observation, and merely relates the

VEGETABLES. 483

advance in height considerably, though the summer
shoot should be destroyed every year.

FLOWING OF SAP.

IF the bough of a vine is cut late in the spring, just
before the shoots push out, it will bleed considerably ;
but after the leaf is out, any part may He taken off
without the least inconvenience. So oaks may be
barked while the leaf is budding ; but as soon as they
are expanded, the bark will no longer part from the
wood, because the sap that lubricates the bark and
makes it part, is evaporated off through the leaves.

RENOVATION OF LEAVES.

WHEN oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by chafers,
they are clothed again soon after Midsummer with a
beautiful foliage; but beeches, horse-chestnuts, and
maples, once defaced by those insects, never recover
their beauty again for the whole season.

ASH-TREES.

MANY ash-trees bear loads of keys every year, others
never seem to bear any at all. The prolific ones are
naked of leaves and unsightly ; those that are sterile
abound in foliage, and carry their verdure a long while,
and are pleasing objects.

BEECH.

BEECHES love to grow in crowded situations, and will
insinuate themselves through the thickest covert, so as
to surmount it all : are therefore proper to mend thin
places in tall hedges.

assertion of a shopkeeper, which I apprehend was erroneous. It seems
quite impossible that an expansion of such magnitude should have taken
place.— W. H.

484 OBSERVATIONS ON

SYCAMORE.

MAY 12. The sycamore, or great maple, is in bloom,
and at this season makes a beautiful appearance, and
affords much pabulum for bees, smelling strongly like
honey. The foliage of this tree is very fine, and very
ornamental to outlets. All the maples have saccharine
juices.

GALLS OP LOMBARDY POPLAR.

THE stalks and ribs of the leaves of the Lombardy
poplar are embossed with large tumours of an oblong
shape, which, by incurious observers, have been taken
for the fruit of the tree. These galls are full of small
insects, some of which are winged, and some not. The
parent insect is of the genus of Cynips. Some poplars in
the garden are quite loaded with these excrescences.

CHESTNUT TIMBER.

JOHN CARPENTER brings home some old chestnut-
trees which are very long ; in several places the wood-
peckers had begun to bore them. The timber and bark
of these trees are so very like oak, as might easily
deceive an indifferent observer, but the wood is very
shakey, and towards the heart cup-shakey (that is to
say, apt to separate in round pieces like cups), so that
the inward parts are of no use. They were bought for
the purpose of cooperage, but must make but ordinary
barrels, buckets, &c. Chestnut sells for half the price
of oak; but has sometimes been sent into the king's
docks, and passed off instead of oak.

LIME BLOSSOMS.

DR. CHANDLER tells, that in the south of France, an
infusion of the blossoms of the lime-tree ( Tilia) is in
much esteem as a remedy for coughs, hoarsenesses,

VEGETABLES. 485

fevers, &c. and that at Nismes, he saw an avenue of
limes that was quite ravaged and torn in pieces by
people greedily gathering the bloom, which they dried
and kept for these purposes.

Upon the strength of this information we made some
tea of lime blossoms, and found it a very soft, well
flavoured, pleasant, saccharine julep, in-jtaste much
resembling the juice of liquorice.

BLACKTHORN.

THIS tree usually blossoms while cold north-east winds
blow; so that the harsh rugged weather obtaining at
this season is called by the country people, blackthorn
winter.

IVY BERRIES.

IVY berries afford a noble and providential supply for
birds in winter and spring; for the first severe frost
freezes and spoils all the haws, sometimes by the middle
of November ; ivy berries do not seem to freeze.

HOPS.

THE culture of Virgil's vines corresponded very exactly
wi th the modern management of hops. I might instance
in the perpetual diggings and hoeings, in the tying to
the stakes and poles, in pruning the superfluous shoots,
&c.; but lately I have observed a new circumstance,
which was, a neighbouring farmer's harrowing between
the rows of hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn
by one horse, and guided by two handles. This occur-
rence brought to my mind the following passage :

ipsa

Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos."

GEORGIC. II.

Hops are dioecious plants ; hence perhaps it might be
proper, though not practised, to leave purposely some

486 OBSERVATIONS ON

male plants in every garden, that their farina iiiiirht
impregnate the blossoms. The female plants without
their male attendants are not in their natural state:
hence we may suppose the frequent failure of crop so
incident to hop-grounds; no other growth, cultivated
by man, has such frequent and general failures as hops.
Two hop-gardens much injured by a hailstorm,
June 5, show now (September 2) a prodigious crop,
and larger and fairer hops than any in the parish. The
owners seem now to be convinced that the hail, by
beating off the tops of the binds, has increased the
side shoots, and improved the crop. Query therefore,
should not the tops of hops be pinched off when the
binds are very gross and strong ?

SEED LYING DORMANT.

THE naked part of the Hanger is now covered with
thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles
may have lain probably under the thick shade of the
beeches for many years, but could not vegetate till the
sun and air were admitted. When old beech-trees are
cleared away, the naked ground in a year or two be-
comes covered with strawberry plants, the seeds of
which must have lain in the ground for an age at least.
One of the slidders or trenches down the middle of the
Hanger, close covered over with lofty beeches near a
century old, is still called Strawberry Slidder, though no
strawberries have grown there in the memory of man.
That sort of fruit, did once, no doubt, abound there, and
will again when the obstruction is removed5.

5 Many years ago I observed the whole line of the fresh-made bank of
a new cut then in progress near Spalding in Lincolnshire completely
covered with wild mustard, though not a plant of it was to be seen else-
where in the neighbourhood. This seed must have been thrown up from
the bottom of the cut, which to the best of my recollection was twelve or
fourteen feet deep: and I conclude that it must have been antedilu-
vial.— W. H.

VEGETABLES. 487

BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS.

MANY horsebeans sprang up in my field-walks in the
autumn, and are now grown to a considerable height.
As the Ewel was in beans last summer, it is most likely
that these seeds came from thence; but then the dis-
tance is too considerable for them to have"- been con-
veyed by mice. It is most probable therefore that they
were brought by birds, and in particular by jays and
pies, who seem to have hid them among the grass and
moss, and then to have forgotten where they had stowed
them. Some pease are also growing in the same situa-
tion, and probably under the same circumstances.

CUCUMBERS SET BY BEES.

IF bees, who are much the best setters of cucumbers,
do not happen to take kindly to the frames, the best
way is to tempt them by a little honey put on the male
and female bloom. When they are once induced to
haunt the frames, they set all the fruit, and will hover
with impatience round the lights in a morning, till the
glasses are opened. Probatum est.

WHEAT.

A NOTION has always obtained, that in England hot
summers are productive of fine crops of wheat ; yet in
the years 1780 and 1781, though the heat was intense,
the wheat was much mildewed, and the crop light.
Does not severe heat, while the straw is milky, occasion
its juices to exude, which being extravasated, occasion
spots, discolour the stems and blades, and injure the
health of the plants ?

TRUFFLES.

AUGUST. A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his
pocket several large truffles found in this neighbour-

488 OBSERVATIONS ON

ood. He says these roots are not to be found in deep
woods, but in narrow hedge-rows and the skirts of
coppices. Some truffles, he informed us, lie two feet
within the earth, and some quite on the surface; the
latter, he added, have little or no smell, and are not so
easily discovered by the dogs as those that lie deeper.
Half-a-crown a pound was the price which he asked
for this commodity.

Truffles never abound in wet winters and springs.
They are in season, in different situations, at least nine
months in the year6.

TREMELLA NOSTOC.

THOUGH the weather may have been ever so dry and
burning, yet after two or three wet days, this jellylike
substance abounds on the walks.

FAIRY RINGS7.

THE cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy
rings, subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it;

6 We discovered, many years ago, an immense stock of very small
truffles crowded together under a young cedar-tree upon the lawn, near
the house at Highclere. Mr. Gowen tried successfully the experiment
of transplanting several of these and setting them under beech-trees,
marking the spots where they were planted. They increased in size,
and became much finer than those which were left. — W. H.

7 Mr. Dovaston of Shrewsbury has lately published a very ingenious
paper on this subject, in which he adopts the electric theory of their
formation. His doctrine is, that when a column of electric matter affects
the earth, either ascending or descending, it scorches the ground all
around its edge, and leaves the centre untouched Consequently the
grass is withered, which contributes to fertilize the spot where the
herbage springs luxuriantly the following season, and at the same time
brings into vegetation the dormant seeds of fungi, which grow and disap-
pear rapidly, and with them the fairy ring — rarely existing two successive
seasons. The common fungi of fairy rings are Agaricus, Boletus, or Lyco-
perdon, and, sometimes, Clavaria. — RENNIE.

Mr. Jessopp, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1675, propounded
the electrical theory, and adduced in support of it the testimony of a friend
who, walking out one day among some mowing grass, in which he had

VEGETABLES. 489

for the turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down
above, abounds with those appearances, which vary
their shape, and shift situation continually, discovering
themselves now in circles, now in segments, and some-
times in irregular patches and spots. Wherever they
obtain, puffballs abound ; the seeds of which were
doubtless brought in the turf.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

BAROMETER.

NOVEMBER 22, 1768. A remarkable fall of the ba-
rometer all over the kingdom. At Selborne we had no
wind, and not much rain ; only vast, swagging, rocklike
clouds appeared at a distance.

PARTIAL FROST.

THE country people, who are abroad in winter mornings
long before sunrise, talk much of hard frost in some
spots, and none in others. The reason of these partial
frosts is obvious, for there are at such times partial
fogs about ; where the fog obtains, little or no frost
appears : but where the air is clear, there it freezes
hard. So the frost takes place either on hill or in dale,
wherever the air happens to be clearest and freest from
vapour.

been but a little while before, after a great storm of thunder and light-
ning which seemed by the noise and flashes to have been very near him,
observed a circle of about four or five yards diameter, the border of it
about a foot broad, newly burnt bare, as the colour and bitterness of the
grass roots plainly testified. He knew not what to ascribe it to but the
lightning. After the grass was mowed, the next year it came up more
fresh and green in the place burnt than in the middle, and at mowing
time was much taller and ranker. — E, T. B.

490 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

THAW.

THAWS are sometimes surprisingly quick, considering
the small quantity of rain. Does not the warmth at
such times come from below ? The cold in still, severe
seasons seems to come down from above : for the
coming over of a cloud in severe nights raises the ther-
mometer abroad at once full ten degrees. The first
notices of thaws often seem to appear in vaults, cel-
lars, &c.

If a frost happens, even when the ground is con-
siderably dry, as soon as a thaw takes place, the paths
and fields are all in a batter. Country people say that
the frost draws moisture. But the true philosophy is,
that the steam and vapours continually ascending from
the earth, are bound in by the frost, and not suffered to
escape till released by the thaw. No wonder then that
the surface is all in a float ; since the quantity of
moisture by evaporation that arises daily from every
acre of ground is astonishing8.

8 In the neighbourhood of Spofforlh, when a very sudden and mild
thaw takes place with perfect calm after a severe frost of some duration,
I am able to prognosticate that a most violent gale of wind will come on
in about twenty-four hours. Numbers of times have I prophesied this,
and I do not remember having been once wrong. So invariably have I
found this to occur that I have acted upon it; and I remember, particu-
larly, surprising my groom on a very still and mild day after a frost, by
telling him that I would not ride the horse he proposed to have ready for
me the next morning on account of its being very skittish in a gale of
wind, and the next day it blew a hurricane as I had expected. I appre-
hend that it is occasioned by the volume of cold air from Craven and the
moors which rushes down upon our lower regions, when the temperature
is suddenly raised, and becomes unusually warm. — W. H.

The disappearance of frost and the melting of the snows, accompanied
with copious rains, are intended by nature to loosen the soil for the
expansion of the roots of plants, and at the same time to supply the fluids
which are to form the sap. Where chalk, limestone, or marble abounds
either in rock masses, or diffused through the soil in the form of sand or
gravel, the thaws of the season tend to disintegrate the more compact
portions and set free their carbonic acid, which, being washed down to
the roots of plants by rain, constitutes an important portion of their nutri-
ment, or at least serves as a stimulant to excite the absorbent orifices of
the fibrillae to imbibe nutritive juices.— RENNIE.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 491
FROZEN SLEET.

JANUARY 20. Mr. H.'s man says, that he caught this
day, in a lane near Hackwood Park, many rooks, which,
attempting to fly, fell from the trees with their wings
frozen together by the sleet, that froze as it fell. There
were, he affirms, many dozen so disabled. *•

MIST, CALLED LONDON SMOKE.

THIS is a blue mist which has somewhat the smell of
coal-smoke, and as it always comes to us with a north-
east wind, is supposed to come from London. It has a
strong smell, and is supposed to occasion blights. When
such mists appear they are usually followed by dry
weather.

REFLECTION OF FOG.

WHEN people walk in a deep white fog by night with a
Ian thorn, if they will turn their backs to the light, they
will see their shades impressed on the fog in rude gigan-
tic proportions. This phenomenon seems not to have
been attended to, but implies the great density of the
meteor at that juncture9.

9 It appeared to me very singular that the phenomenon called mirage by
the French, and for which we have no other name in our language, should
have created so much surprise when the French and British armies were
in Egypt, and that it should have been looked upon as a marvel belonging
to that country. I was well acquainted with the phenomenon, and had
repeatedly seen it in the flats of Lincolnshire and the adjoining counties.
I have seen it day after day in hot weather upon Peterborough Common,
of which the remoter parts, though quite dry, looked like a great lake of
water in which every willow and cow was beautifully and distinctly
reflected downwards. I have seen the whole country between Spalding
and Fossdike-wash in dry weather appear like part of the sea, in the
middle of which rose the tower of Boston church, looking like the masts
and sails of a large ship standing in towards the person looking at it ;
and a gentleman unacquainted with the country who was with me wished
very much to make a wager with me that it actually was a ship, and the
whole extent of dry land a portion of the sea. I believe that the mirage
may always be seen in the flat grass districts upon a bright day in sum-
mer.— W. H.

492 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

HONEYDEW10.

JUNE 4, 1783. Vast honeydews this week. The
reason of these seems to be, that in hot days the effluvia
of flowers are drawn up by a brisk evaporation, and
then in the night fall down with the dews with which
they are entangled.

This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who
gather it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the
trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores
of the leaves. The greatest quantity falls in still close
weather ; because winds disperse it, and copious dews
dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in
hazy warm weather.

MORNING CLOUDS.

AFTER a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually
becomes cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the fore-
noon, and clear again towards the decline of the day.
The reason seems to be, that the dew, drawn up by
evaporation, occasions the clouds ; which, towards
evening, being no longer rendered buoyant by the
warmth of the sun, melt away, and fall down again in
dews. If clouds are watched in a still warm evening,
they will be seen to melt away, and disappear11.

10 Honeydews are owing to a cause very different from that to which
they are here attributed : the remarks on them, but that Gilbert White
regarded them as derived from the atmosphere, ought rather to be placed
under the head of entomological than of meteorological observations. In
the notes on page 396 their true nature is explained. — E. T. B.

11 During the last summer, as well as in former seasons, I have very
frequently remarked that when the sky was beautifully streaked with the
wane clouds, variously denominated mare's-tail and wind reels (Cirro-
stratus, HOWARD), rain almost to a certainty followed within twelve
hours ; and hence when the firmament is most pleasing to the eye and
gives token to the inexperienced of continued fine weather, storms are in
the meanwhile gradually brewing to belie the appearance. It reminds
me of .flSsop's shepherd, who was tempted to become a sailor by the tem-
porary but treacherous tranquillity of the sea. In the same way I have

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 493

DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT.

No one that has not attended to such matters, and
taken down remarks, can be aware how much ten days
dripping weather will influence the growth of grass or
corn after a severe dry season. This present summer,
1776, yielded a remarkable instance; for till the 30th
of May the fields were burnt up and naked, and the
barley not half out of the ground ; but now, June 10,
there is an agreeable prospect of plenty.

AURORA BOREALIS.

NOVEMBER 1, 1787. The Northern Aurora made a
particular appearance, forming itself into a broad, red,
fiery belt, which extended from E. to W. across the
welkin : but the moon rising at about ten o'clock, in
unclouded majesty in the E., put an end to this grand,
but awful meteorous phenomenon.

been frequently tempted into a rather distant excursion by these beautiful
wane-clouds, till repeated experience taught me, as it did Solomon, that
" beauty is vain," and that they only

" Lured to betray and dazzled to blind."

PARNELL.

During autumn, more particularly than at other seasons, I have
observed the whole sky covered with what may with propriety be
called a network of clouds (Cirro-cumulus, HOWARD), as if little tufts of
accumulated vapour had been carded through each other by opposite
winds, — crossing and recrossing them over one another, like the osiers
interwoven into a transparent basket. The clouds, again, which frequently
bound this field of chequered vapour, are not spread out in tufts, but
rolled up in enormous volumes, as white as snow on the edges, but dark-
ening into ravines, and caverns, and overhanging precipices of endless
forms, which are varied every instant by the influence of electricity or of
the predominant winds. When the clouds assume these picturesque
forms about sunset, the aspect of the sky becomes very grand. The
magnificent netting in the area of the firmament transmits through its
interstices a multitude of luminous rays — which tinge two sides of each
tuft of vapour with ruddy orange, and the other two sides with shining
gold — in tints which no pencil can imitate, and no language describe. —
RENNIE.

494 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

BLACK SPRING, 1771.

DR. JOHNSON says, that "in 1771 the season was so
severe in the island of Sky, that it is remembered by
the name of the Black Spring. The snow, which seldom
lies at all, covered the ground for eight weeks, many
cattle died, and those that survived were so emaciated
that they did not require the male at the usual season."
The case was just the same with us here in the south ;
never were so many barren cows known as in the spring
following that dreadful period. Whole dairies missed
being in calf together.

At the end of March the face of the earth was naked
to a surprising degree. Wheat hardly to be seen, and
no signs of any grass; turnips all gone, and sheep in a
starving way. All provisions rising in price. Farmers
cannot sow for want of rain.

SUMMARY

THE WEATHER.

490

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SUMMARY

THE WEATHER.

1 768. BEGINS with a fortnight's frost and snow. .Rainy during
February. Cold and wet spring. Wet season from the begin-
ning of June to the end of harvest. Latter end of September
foggy, without rain. All October and the first part of Novem-
ber rainy ; and thence to the end of the year alternate rains
and frosts.

1769. January and February, frosty and rainy, with gleams
of fine weather in the intervals. To the middle of March, wind
and rain : to the end of March, dry and windy. To the middle
of April, stormy, with rain. To the end of June, fine weather,
with rain. To the beginning of August, warm, dry weather.
To the end of September, rainy, with short intervals of fine
weather. To the latter end of October, frosty mornings, with
fine days. The next fortnight rainy ; thence to the end of
November dry and frosty. December, windy, with rain and
intervals of frost, and the first fortnight very foggy.

1770. Frost for the first fortnight : during the 14th and 15th
all the snow melted. To the end of February, mild, hazy wea-
ther. The whole of March frosty, with bright weather. April
cloudy, with rain and snow. May began with summer showers,
and ended with dark cold rains. June, rainy, chequered with
gleams of sunshine. The first fortnight in July, dark and sul-
try ; the latter part of the month, heavy rain. August, Septem-
ber, and the first fortnight in October, in general fine weather,
though with frequent interruptions of rain : from the middle of
October to the end of the year, almost incessant rains.

1771. Severe frost till the last week in January. To the
first week in February, rain and snow: to the end of February,
spring weather. To the end of the third week in April, frosty
weather. To the end of the first fortnight in May, spring wea-
ther, with copious showers. To the end of June, dry, warm
weather. The first fortnight in July, warm, rainy weather. To
the end of September, warm weather, but in general cloudy,
with showers. October, rainy. November, frost, with intervals
of fog and rain. December, in general bright, mild weather,
with hoar frosts.

K Is

498 SUMMARY OF

1772. To the end of the first week in February, frost ami
snow. To the end of the first fortnight in March, frost, sleet,
rain, and snow. To the middle of April, cold rains. To the
middle of May, dry weather, with cold piercing winds. To the
end of the first week in June, cool showers. To the middle of
August, hot, dry summer weather. To the end of September,
rain, with storms and thunder. To December 22, rain, with
mild weather. December 23, the first ice. To the end of the
month, cold, foggy weather.

1773. The first week in January, frost; thence to the end of
the month, dark, rainy weather. The first fortnight in February,
hard frost. To the end of the first week in March, misty,
showery weather: bright spring days to the close of the month.
Frequent showers to the latter end of April. To the end of
June, warm showers, with intervals of sunshine. To the end
of August, dry weather, with a few days of rain. To the end
of the first fortnight in November, rainy. The next four weeks,
frost; and thence to the end of the year, rainy.

1774. Frost and rain to the end of the first fortnight in
March : thence to the end of the month, dry weather. To the
15th of April, showers: thence to the end of April, fine spring
days. During May, showers and sunshine in about an equal
proportion. Dark, rainy weather to the end of the third week
in July: thence to the 24th of August, sultry, with thunder and
occasional showers. To the end of the third week in Novem-
ber, rain, with frequent intervals of sunny weather. To the end
of December, dark, dripping fogs.

1^75. To the end of the first fortnight in March, rain almost
every day. To the first week in April, cold winds with showers
of rain and snow. To the end of June, warm, bright weather,
with frequent showers. The first fortnight in July, almost
incessant rains. To the 26th of August, sultry weather, with
frequent showers. To the end of the third week in September,
rain, with a few intervals of fine weather. To the end of the
year, rain, with intervals of hoar-frost and sunshine.

1776. To January 24, dark, frosty weather, with much
snow. March 24, to the end of the month, foggy, with hoar-
frost. To the 30th of May, dry, dark, harsh weather, with cold
winds. To the end of the first fortnight in July, warm, witli
much rain. To the end of the first week in August, hot and
dry, with intervals of thunder showers. To the end of October,
in general fine seasonable weather, with a considerable propor-

THE WEATHER. 499

tion of rain. To the end of the year, dry, frosty weather, with
some days of hard rain.

1777. To the 10th of January, hard frost: to the 20th of
January, foggy, with frequent showers. To the 18th of February,
hard, dry frost, with snow. To the end of May, heavy showers,
with intervals of warm, dry, spring days. To the 8th of July,
dark, with heavy rain : to the 18th of July, dry, warm weather:
to the end of July, very heavy rains. To the 12th of October,
remarkably fine, warm weather. To the end of the year, gray,
mild weather, with but little rain, and still less frost.

1778. To the 13th of January, frost, with a little snow: to
the 24th of January, rain: to the 30th, hard frost. To the 23rd
of February, dark, harsh, foggy weather, with rain : to the end
of the month, hard frost with snow. To the end of the first
fortnight in March, dark, harsh weather. From the 1st, to the
end of the first fortnight in April, spring weather : to the end
of the month, snow and ice. To the llth of June, cool, with
heavy showers. To the 19th of July, hot, sultry, parching
weather : to the end of the month, heavy showers. To the
end of September, dry warm weather. To the end of the
year, wet, with considerable intervals of sunshine.

1779. Frost and showers to the end of January. To the
2 1st of April, warm, dry weather. To the 8th of May, rainy.
To the 7th of June, dry and warm. To the 6th of July, hot
weather, with frequent rain : to the 18th of July, dry, hot
weather. To August 8, hot weather, with frequent rains : to
the end of August, fine dry harvest weather. To the end of
November, fine autumnal weather, with intervals of rain. To
the end of the year, rain, with frost and snow.

1780. To the end of January, frost. To the end of February,
dark, harsh weather, with frequent intervals of frost. To the
end of March, warm, showery, spring weather. To the end of
April, dark, harsh weather, with rain and frost. To the end
of the first fortnight in May, mild, with rain. To the end of
August, rain, and fair weather in pretty equal proportions. To
the end of October, fine autumnal weather, with intervals of
rain. To the 24th of November, frost. To December 16, mild,
dry, foggy weather. To the end of the year, frost and snow.

1781. To January 25, frost and snow. To the end of
February, harsh and windy, with rain and snow. To April 5,
cold, drying winds. To the end of May, mild, spring weather,
with a few light showers. June began with heavy rain, but

KK 2

500 SUMMARY OF

thence to the end of October, dry weather, with a few flying
showers. To the end of the year, open weather, with frequent
rains.

1782. To February 4, open, mild weather : to February
22, hard frost. To the end of March, cold, blowing weather,
with frost and snow and rain. To May 7, cold, dark rains ; to
the end of May, mild, with incessant rains. To the end of
June, warm and dry. To the end of August, warm, with
almost perpetual rains. The first fortnight in September, mild
and dry ; thence to the end of the month, rain. To the end of
October, mild, with frequent showers. November began with
hard frost, and continued throughout with alternate frost and
thaw. The first part of December frosty : the latter part mild.

1783. To January 16, rainy, with heavy winds : to the 24th,
hard frost. To the end of the first fortnight in February, blow-
ing, with much rain. To the end of February, stormy, dripping
weather. To the 9th of May, cold, harsh winds (thick ice on the
5th of May). To the end of August, hot weather with frequent
showers. To the 23rd of September, mild, with heavy driving
rains. To November 12, dry, mild weather. To the 18th of
December, gray, soft weather, with a few showers. To the end
of the year, hard frost.

1784. To February 19, hard frost, with two thaws; one, the
14th of January, the other, the 5th of February : to February
28, mild, wet fogs. To the 3rd of March, frost, with ice : to
March 10, sleet and snow. To April 2, snow and hard frost:
to April 27, mild weather, with much rain. To May 12, cold,
drying winds : to May 20, hot, cloudless weather. To June 27,
warm, with frequent showers. To July 18, hot and dry. To
the end of August, warm, with heavy rains. To November 6,
clear, mild, autumnal weather, except a few days of rain at the
latter end of September. To the end of the year, fog, rain, and
hard frost (on December 10, the therm. 1 deg. below 0.)

1785. A thaw began on the 2nd of January, and rainy wea-
ther with wind continued to January 28. To the 15th of March,
very hard frost: to the 21st of March, mild, with sprinkling
showers. To April 7, hard frost. To May 17, mild, windy
weather, without a drop of rain : to the end of May, cold, with
a few showers. To June 9, mild weather, with frequent soft
showers. To July 13, hot, dry weather, with a few showery
intervals : to July 22, heavy rain. To the end of September,
warm, with frequent showers. To the end of October, frequent

THE WEATHER. 501

rain. To the 18th of November, dry, mild weather. (Hay-
making finished November 9, and the wheat harvest Novem-
ber 14.) To December 23, rain. To the end of the year hard
frost.

1786. To the 7th of January, frost and snow: to January 13,
mild, with much rain : to the 21st of January, deep snow. To
February 1 1, mild, with frequent rains : to the 2 1 st^of February,
dry, with high winds. To the 10th of March, hard frost. To
the 13th of April, wet with intervals of frost: to the end of
April, dry, mild weather. On the 1st and 2d of May, thick
ice: to the 10th of May, heavy rain. To June 14, fine, warm,
dry weather. From the 8th to the llth of July heavy showers.
To October 13, warm, with frequent showers : to October 19,
ice : to October 24, mild, pleasant weather. To November 3,
frost. To December 16, rain, with a few detached days of
frost. To the end of the year, frost and snow.

1787. To January 24, dark, moist, mild weather: to Ja-
nuary 28, frost and snow. To February 16, mild, showery
weather : to February 28, dry, cool weather. To March 10,
stormy, with driving rain : to March 24, bright, frosty weather.
To the end of April, mild, with frequent rain. To May 22,
fine bright weather. To the end of June, mostly warm, with
frequent showers (on June 7, ice as thick as a crown piece).
To the end of July, hot and sultry, with copious rain. To the
end of September, hot, dry weather, with occasional showers.
To November 23, mild, with light frosts and rain : to the end
of November, hard frost. To December 21, still and mild, with
rain. To the end of the year, frost.

1788. To January 13, mild and wet: to January 18, frost:
to the end of the month, dry, windy weather. To the end of
February, frosty, with frequent showers. To March 14, hard
frost : to the end of March, dark, harsh weather, with frequent
showers. To April 4, windy, with showers. To the end of
May, bright, dry, warm weather, with a few occasional showers.
From June 28 to July 17, heavy rains. To August 12, hot,
dry weather. To the end of September, alternate showers and
sunshine. To November 22, dry, cool weather. To the end
of the year, hard frost.

1789. To January 13, hard frost : to the end of the month,
mild, with showers. To the end of February, frequent rain,
with snow showers and heavy gales of wind. To the 13th of
March, hard frost, with snow. To April 18, heavy rain, with

502 SUMMARY OF THE WEATHER.

frost and snow and sleet : to the end of April, dark, cold wea-
ther, with frequent rains. To June 9, warm, spring weather,
with brisk winds and frequent showers: from June 4 to the
end of July, warm, with much rain. To August 29, hot, dry,
sultry weather. To September 11, mild, with frequent showers :
to the end of September, fine autumnal weather, with occasional
showers. To November 17, heavy rain, with violent gales of
wind. To December 18, mild, dry weather, with a few showers.
To the end of the year, rain and wind.

1790. To January 16, mild, foggy weather, with occasional
rains: to January 21, frost : to January 28, dark, with driving
rains. To February 14, mild, dry weather : to February 22,
hard frost. To April 5, bright, cold weather, with a few
showers: to April 15, dark and harsh, with a deep snow: to
April 21, cold, cloudy weather, with ice. To June 6, mild
spring weather, with much rain. From July 3 to July 14,
cool, with heavy rain : to the end of July, warm, dry weather.
To August 6, cold, with wind and rain: to August 24, fine
harvest weather. To September 5, strong gales, with driving
showers. To November 26, mild autumnal weather, with fre-
quent showers. To December 1, hard frost and snow. To the
end of the year, rain and snow, and a few days of frost.

1791. To the end of January, mild, with heavy rains. To
the end of February, windy, with much rain and snow. From
March to the end of June, mostly dry, especially June : (March
and April, rather cold and frosty ; May and June, hot). July,
rainy. Fine harvest weather, and pretty dry, to the end of
September. Wet October, and cold towards the end. Very
wet and stormy in November. Much frost in December.

1792. Some hard frost in January, but mostly wet and mild.
February, some hard frost and a little snow. March, wet and
cold. April, great storms on the 13th, then some very warm
weather. May and June, cold and dry. July, wet and cool ;
indifferent harvest, rather late and wet. September, windy
and wet. October, showery and mild. November, dry and
fine. December, mild.

POEMS,

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

POEMS.

THE INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

SEE SELBORNE spreads her boldest beauties round,
The varied valley, and the mountain ground,
Wildly majestic ! what is all the pride
Of flats, with loads of ornament supplied ?
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compared with Nature's rude magnificence.

Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste ;
The unfinish'd farm awaits your forming taste :
Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true ;
Through the high arch call in the length'ning view ;
Expand the forest sloping up the hill ;
Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill ;
Extend the vista, raise the castle mound
In antique taste with turrets ivy-crown'd ;
O'er the gay lawn the flowery shrub dispread,
Or with the blending garden mix the mead ;
Bid China's pale, fantastic fence, delight ;
Or with the mimic statue trap the sight.

Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still,
The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill,
To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour,
Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower ] ;
Or where the Hermit hangs the straw-clad cell2,
Emerging gently from the leafy dell ;
By Fancy plann'd ; as once the' inventive maid
Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade ;

1 A kind of an arbour on the side of a hill.

2 A grotesque building, contrived by a young gentleman, who used on
occasion to appear in the character of a hermit.

506 POEMS.

Romantic spot ! from whence in prospect lies
Whate'er of landscape charms our feasting eyes ;
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture-plain,
The russet fallow, or the golden grain,
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,
Till all the fading picture fail the sight.

Each to his task ; all different ways retire ;
Cull the dry stick; call forth the seeds of fire ;
Deep fix the kettle's props, a forky row,
Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow.

Whence is this taste, the furnish'd hall forgot,
To feast in gardens, or the unhandy grot?
Or novelty with some new charms surprises,
Or from our very shifts some joy arises.
Hark, while below the village-bells ring round,
Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften'd sound ;
But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar,
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.

Adown the vale, in lone, sequestered nook,
Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook,
The ruin'd Convent lies; here wont to dwell
The lazy canon midst his cloister'd cell3;
While papal darkness brooded o'er the land,
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand :
Still oft at eve belated shepherd-swains
See the cowl'd spectre skim the folded plains.

To the high Temple would my stranger go4,
The mountain-brow commands the woods below ;
In Jewry first this order found a name,
When madding Croisades set the world in flame ;
When western climes, urged on by Pope and priest,
Poured forth their millions o'er the deluged east :
Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy
To mortal fight Turcestan chivalry.

3 The ruins of a priory, founded by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of
Winchester.

4 The remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars; at least it
was a farm dependant upon some preceptory of that order. I find it was
a preceptory, called the Preceptory of Sudington ; now called South-
ington.

POEMS. 507

Nor be the Parsonage by the muse forgot ;
The partial bard admires his native spot;
Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child,
(Unconscious why) its scapes grotesque, and wild.
High on a mound the' exalted gardens stand,
Beneath, deep valleys scoop'd by Nature's hand.
A Cobham here, exulting in his art,
Might blend the General's with the Gardener's part ;
Might fortify with all the martial trade
Of rampart, bastion, fosse, and palisade;
Might plant the mortar with wide threatening bore,
Or bid the mimic cannon seem to roar.

Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below,
Where round the blooming village orchards grow ;
There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat,
A rural, sheltered, unobserved retreat.

Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes,
The pendent forests, and the mountain greens
Strike with delight; there spreads the distant view,
That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue :
Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight,
Rills purl between, and dart a quivering light.

SELBORNE HANGER.

A WINTER PIECE.

TO THE MISS BATTIES.

THE Bard, who sang so late in blithest strain
Selbornian prospects, and the rural reign,
Now suits his plaintive pipe to sadden'd tone,
While the blank swains the changeful year bemoan.

How fallen the glories of these fading scenes !
The dusky beech resigns his vernal greens,
The yellow maple mourns in sickly hue,
And russet woodlands crowd the darkening view.

508 POEMS.

Dim, clustering fogs involve the country round,
The valley and the blended mountain-ground
Sink in confusion ; but with tempest-wing
Should Boreas from his northern barrier spring,
The rushing woods with deafening clamour roar,
Like the sea tumbling on the pebbly shore.
When spouting rains descend in torrent tides,
See the torn Zigzag weep its channePd sides :
Winter exerts its rage ; heavy and slow,
From the keen east rolls on the treasured snow ;
Sunk with its weight the bending boughs are seen,
And one bright deluge whelms the works of men.
Amidst this savage landscape, bleak and bare,
Hangs the chill hermitage in middle air ;
Its haunts forsaken, and its feasts forgot,
A leaf-strown, lonely, desolated cot !

Is this the scene that late with rapture rang,
Where Delphy danced, and gentle Anna sang ;
With fairy-step where Harriet tripp'd so late,
And on her stump reclined the musing Kitty sate ?

Return, dear Nymphs; prevent the purple spring,
Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing ;
Ere the first swallow sweeps the freshening plain,
Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain ;
Let festive glee the* enlivened village raise,
Pan's blameless reign, and patriarchal days ;
With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise,
And bring all Arcady before our eyes.

Return, blithe maidens ; with you bring along
Free, native humour, all the charms of song,
The feeling heart, and unaffected ease,
Each nameless grace, and every power to please.

Nov. 1, 17C3.

POEMS. 509

ON THE RAINBOW. .

" Look upon the Rainbow, and praise him that made it : very beautiful
is it in the brightness thereof." — Eccles. xliii. 11.

ON morning or on evening cloud impress'd,
Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines
Delightfully, to the levelPd sun opposed :
Lovely refraction ! while the vivid brede
In listed colours glows, the* unconscious swain
With vacant eye gazes on the divine
Phenomenon, gleaming o'er the illumined fields,
Or runs to catch the treasures which it sheds.

Not so the sage, inspired with pious awe ;
He hails the federal arch1; and looking up
Adores that God, whose fingers form'd this bow
Magnificent, compassing heaven about
With a resplendent verge, " Thou madest the cloud,
Maker Omnipotent, and thou the bow ;
And by that covenant graciously hast sworn
Never to drown the world again2: henceforth,
Till time shall be no more, in ceaseless round,
Season shall follow season : day to night,
Summer to winter, harvest to seed time,
Heat shall to cold in regular array
Succeed." — Heaven-taught, so sang the Hebrew bard3.

1 Gen. ix. 12—17. 2 Gen. viii. 22. J Moses.

510 POEMS.

A HARVEST SCENE.

WAKED by the gentle gleamings of the morn,
Soon clad, the reaper, provident of want,
Hies cheerful-hearted to the ripen'd field ;
Nor hastes alone ; attendant by his side
His faithful wife, sole partner of his cares,
Bears on her breast the sleeping babe ; behind,
With steps unequal, trips her infant train :
Thrice happy pair, in love and labour joined !

All day they ply their task; with mutual chat,
Beguiling each the sultry, tedious hours.
Around them falls in rows the severed corn,
Or the shocks rise in regular array.

But when high noon invites to short repast,
Beneath the shade of sheltering thorn they sit,
Divide the simple meal, and drain the cask :
The swinging cradle lulls the whimpering babe
Meantime; while growling round, if at the tread
Of hasty passenger alarm'd, as of their store
Protective, stalks the cur witli bristling back,
To guard the scanty scrip and russet frock.

POEMS. 511

ON THE

DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER,

OCCASIONALLY HAPPENING IN THE WINTER MONTHS.

THE* imprison'd winds slumber within their caves
Fast bound : the fickle vane, emblem of change,
Wavers no more, long settling to a point.

All Nature nodding seems composed : thick steams
From land, from flood updrawn, dimming the day,
" Like a dark ceiling stand :" slow through the air
Gossamer floats, or stretch'd from blade to blade
The wavy network whitens all the field.

Push'd by the weightier atmosphere, up springs
The ponderous mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube l.

While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft, enamour'd woodlark runs
Through all his maze of melody ; the brake
Loud with the blackbird's bolder note resounds.
Sooth' d by the genial warmth, the cawing rook
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate,
Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest torn.

The ploughman inly smiles to see upturn
His mellow glebe, best pledge of future crop.
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds :
E'en pining sickness feels a short relief.

The happy schoolboy brings transported forth
His long forgotten scourge, and giddy gig :
O'er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop,
Or triumphs in the dusty fields of taw.

1 The barometer.

512 POEMS.

Not so the museful sage : abroad he walks
Contemplative, if haply he may find
What cause controls the tempest's rage, or whence
Amidst the savage season winter smiles.

For days, for weeks, prevails the placid calm.
At length some drops prelude a change : the sun
With ray refracted bursts the parting gloom ;
When all the chequer'd sky is one bright glare.
Mutters the wind at eve : the horizon round
With angry aspect scowls : down rush the showers,
And float the deluged paths, and miry fields.

THE

ANTIQUITIES

SELBORNE,

THE COUNTY OF SOUTHAMPTON.

Juvat ire ....

Desertosque videre locos VIRGIL.

L L

THE

ANTIQUITIES

SELBORNE.

LETTER I.

IT is reasonable to suppose that in remote ages this
woody and mountainous district was inhabited only by
bears and wolves. Whether the Britons ever thought
it worthy their attention, is not in our power to deter-
mine1: but we may safely conclude, from circumstances,

1 It is curious that Gilbert White should not have felt himself assured
as to the residence of Britons within the parish of Selborne. Setting
aside the historical fact that the favourite resorts of the ancient Britons
were the natural fastnesses of the forests and the morasses, whence it
might have been inferred that this wooded and rugged district would
have been regarded as peculiarly adapted to the known habits of that
people ; setting aside also various minor evidences that might be adduced :
setting these aside, as probabilities merely, (although on smaller proba-
bilities greater theories have sometimes been raised), Wolmer Forest
affords evidence the most visible and most tangible of its having been of
importance in the days of the earliest known inhabitants of England. The
observer has but to place himself on the northern side of Wolmer Pond,
looking towards the south; and on his right hand, and on his left, and in
front of him; barrows will be visible. Two of these works rise above the
level of Wall Down : one is on the top of the down immediately across the
pond : several others are on the elevations in the direction of Greatham.
These are remarkable objects in the circuit of the horizon : and on the
expanse of the Forest there are many others. Several of them have, from
lime to time, been opened, and have been found to contain, as usual, in

L L 2

516 ANTIQUITIES

that it was not unknown to the Romans. Old people
remember to have heard their fathers and grandfathers
say that, in dry summers and in windy weather, pieces
of money were sometimes found round the verge of
Wolmer Pond ; and tradition had inspired the foresters
with a notion that the bottom of that lake contained
great stores of treasure. During the spring and sum-
mer of 1740 there was little rain; and the following
summer also, 1741, was so uncommonly dry, that many
springs and ponds failed, and this lake in particular,
whose bed became as dusty as the surrounding heaths
and wastes. This favourable juncture induced some
of the forest cottagers to begin a search, which was
attended with such success, that all the labourers in
the neighbourhood flocked to the spot, and with spades
and hoes turned up great part of that large area.
Instead of pots of coins, as they expected, they found
great heaps, the one lying on the other, as if shot out
of a bag; many of which were in good 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 virtti stirring at
that time in this neighbourhood ; however, some of
the gentry and clergy around bought what pleased them
best, and some dozens fell to the share of the author2.

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

the middle of the mound, fragments of human bones and of pottery. In
one instance, but a few years since, an entire urn was obtained, of a sub-
stance not unlike unburned clay, capable of containing about a gallon,
and having within it fragments of bones. All these indications concur to
prove that these barrows were of British origin in Roman times.— E. T. B.
2 Such coins are still occasionally found by labourers and others who
work upon the Forest ; but their occurrence is now uncommon. They
have not been found in numbers since the time mentioned by Gilbert
White, and it is only casually that one is met with. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 517

that were rejected became current, and passed for
farthings at the petty shops. Of those that we saw,
the greater part were of Marcus Aurelius, and the
Empress Faustina, his wife, the father and mother of
Commodus. Some of Faustina were in high relief, and
exhibited a very agreeable set of features,, which pro-
bably resembled that lady, who was more" celebrated
for her beauty than for her virtues. The medallions in
general were of a paler colour than the coins. To
pretend to account for the means of their coming to
this place would be spending time in conjecture. The
spot, I think, could not be a Roman camp, because it
it commanded by hills on two sides ; nor does it show
the least traces of intrenchments ; nor can I suppose
that it was a Roman town, because I have too good an
opinion of the taste and judgment of those polished
conquerors to imagine that they would settle on so
barren and dreary a waste3.

LETTER II.

THAT Selborne was a place of some distinction and
note in the time of the Saxons we can give most
undoubted proofs. But, as there are few, if any,
accounts of villages before Domesday, it will be best
to begin with that venerable record. " Ipse rex tenet
Selesburne. Eddid regina tenuit, et nunquam geldavit.
De isto manerio dono dedit rex Radfredo presbytero
dimidiam hidam cum ecclesia. Tempore regis Edwardi
et post, valuit duodecim solidos et sex denarios ; modo

3 It is far from improbable that the heaps of coins were the spoils of
some successful attack on the invaders, in which the military chest (as it
might now be called) fell into the hands of the native conquerors, and
was carried away by them into their fastness : and that there, in their
haste, it was lost. It may even have been rejected as unworthy of notice,
when it was ascertained that its contents were coins of the baser metal
only.— E. T. B.

518 ANTIQUITIES

octo solidos ct quatuor denarios." Here we see that
Selborne was a royal manor; and that Editha, the
queen of Edward the Confessor, had been lady of that
manor; and was succeeded in it by the Conqueror;
and that it had a church. Beside these, many circum-
stances concur to prove it to have been a Saxon
village ; such as the name of the place itself1, the
names of many fields, and some families2, with a
variety of words in husbandry and common life, still
subsisting among the country people.

What probably first drew the attention of the Saxons
to this spot was the beautiful spring or fountain called

1 Selesburne, Selebnrne, Selburn, Selbourn, Selborne, and Selborn, as
it has been variously spelt at different periods, is of Saxon derivation ;
for AW signiOes great, and burn torrens, a brook or rivulet : so that the
name seems to be derived from the great perennial stream that breaks
out at the upper end of the village. Sel also signifies " bonus. item,/<rcun-
dus, fertilis. Sel-^aejir-ton : fcecunda graminis clausura ; fertile pascuum.
Abiit tamen apud nonnullos in nomen proprium. Inde pratum quoddam
apud Godelming in agro Surriensi hodie vocatur Sal-gars-ion." — Lye's
Saxon Dictionary, in the Supplement, by Mr. Manning.

2 Thus the name of Aldred signifies all-reverend, and that of Knnp
means a soldier. Thus we have a church-litton, or enclosure for dead
bodies, and not a church-yard: there is also a Culver-croft near the
Grange-farm, being the enclosure where the priory pigeon-house stood,
from culver, a pigeon. Again there are three steep pastures in this parish
called the Lithe, from Hlithe, clitus. The wicker-work that binds and
fastens down a hedge on the top is called ether, from ether a hedge.
When the good women call their hogs they cry sic, sic *, not knowing that
sic is Saxon, or rather Celtic, for a hog. Coppice or brushwood our
countrymen call rise, from hris, frondes ; and talk of a load of rise.
Within the author's memory the Saxon plurals, housen and peason, were
in common use. But it would be endless to instance in every circum-
stance : he that wishes for more specimens must frequent a farmer's
kitchen. I have therefore selected some words to show how familiar the
Saxon dialect was to this district, since in more than seven hundred years
it is far from being obliterated.

* Siiccr, porcus, apud Lacones ; un Porceau chez les Lacedemoniens :
ce mot a sans doute este" pris des Celtes, qui disoent sic, pour marquer un
porceau. Encore aujour'huy quand les Bretons chassent ces animaux,
ils ne disent point autrement, que sic, sic. Antiquite" de la Nation et de
la Langue des Celtes, par Pezron.

OF SELBORNE. 519

Well-head1, which induced them to build by the banks
of that perennial current ; for ancient settlers loved to
reside by brooks and rivulets, where they could dip for
their water without the trouble and expense of digging
wells and of drawing.

It remains still unsettled among the antiquaries at
what time tracts of land were first appropriated to the
chase alone for the amusement of the sovereign. Whe-
ther our Saxon monarchs had any royal forests does
not, I believe, appear on record ; but the Constitutiones
de Foresta of Canute, the Dane, are come down to us.
We shall not therefore pretend to say whether Wolmer
Forest existed as a royal domain before the conquest.
If it did not, we may suppose it was laid out by some
of our earliest Norman kings, who were exceedingly
attached to the pleasures of the chase, and resided
much at Winchester, which lies at a moderate distance
from this district. The Plantagenet princes seem to
have been pleased with Wolmer ; for tradition says that
King John resided just upon the verge, at Ward le ham,
on a regular and remarkable mount, still called King
John's Hill, and Lodge Hill ; and Edward III. had a
chapel in his park, or enclosure, at Kingsley4. Hum-
phrey, Duke of Gloucester, and Richard, Duke of York,
say my evidences, were both, in their turns, wardens of
Wolmer Forest; which seems to have served for an
appointment for the younger princes of the royal family,
as it may again.

I have intentionally mentioned Edward III. and the
Dukes Humphrey and Richard, before King Edward II.
because I have reserved, for the entertainment of my
readers, a pleasant anecdote respecting that prince,
with which I shall close this letter.

As Edward II. was hunting on Wolmer Forest,

3 Well-head signifies spring-head, and not a deep pit from whence we
draw water. — For particulars about which see Letter I. to Mr. Pennant.

4 The parish of Kingsley lies between, and divides Wolmer Forest
from Ayles Holt Forest. — See Letter IX. to Mr. Pennant.

520 ANTIQUITIES

Morris Ken, of the kitchen, fell from his horse several
times; at \vhich accidents the king laughed immode-
rately : and, when the chase was over, ordered him
twenty shillings5; an enormous sura for those days!
Proper allowances ought to be made for the youth of
this monarch, whose spirits also, we may suppose, were
much exhilarated by the sport of the day : but, at the
same time, it is reasonable to remark that, whatever
might be the occasion of Ken's first fall, the subsequent
ones seem to have been designed. The scullion appears
to have been an artful fellow, and to have seen the
king's foible; which furnishes an early specimen of
that his easy softness and facility of temper, of which
the infamous Gaveston took such advantages, as brought
innumerable calamities on the nation, and involved the
prince at last in misfortunes and sufferings too deplora-
ble to be mentioned without horror and amazement.

LETTER III.

FROM the silence of Domesday respecting churches, it
has been supposed that few villages had any at the
time when that record was taken ; but Selborne, we see,
enjoyed the benefit of one: hence we may conclude,
that this place was in no abject state even at that very
distant period. How many fabrics have succeeded each
other since the days of Radfredrus the presbyter, we
cannot pretend to say ; our business leads us to a
description of the present edifice, in which we shall be
circumstantial.

Our church, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary,
consists of three aisles, and measures fifty-four feet in

5 "Item, paid at the lodge at Wolmer, when the king was stag-hunt-
ing there, to Morris Ken, of the kitchen, because he rode before the king
and often fell from his horse, at which the king laughed exceedingly — a
gift, by command, of twenty shillings." — A MS. in possession of Thomas
Astle, Esq. containing the private expenses of Edward II.

OF SELBORNE. 521

length by forty-seven in breadth, being almost as broad
as it is long. The present building has no pretensions
to antiquity; and is, as I suppose, of no earlier date

SOUTH VIEW OF SELBORNE CHURCH.

than the beginning of the reign of Henry VII. It is
perfectly plain and unadorned, without painted glass,
carved work, sculpture, or tracery. But when I say it
has no claim to antiquity, I would mean to be under-
stood of the fabric in general; for the pillars which
support the roof are undoubtedly old, being of that
low, squat, thick order, usually called Saxon. These,
I should imagine, upheld the roof of a former church,
which, falling into decay, was rebuilt on those massy
props, because their strength had preserved them from
the injuries of time1. Upon these rest blunt Gothic
arches, such as prevailed in the reign above-mentioned,
and by which, as a criterion, we would prove the date
of the building.

1 In the same manner, to compare great things with small, did Wyke-
ham, when he new built the cathedral at Winchester, from the tower
westward, apply to his purpose the old piers or pillars of Bishop Walke-
lin's church, by blending Saxon and Gothic architecture together.— See
Lowth's Life of Wykeham.

522 ANTIQUITIES

At the bottom of the south aisle, between the west
and south doors, stands the font, which is deep and
capacious, and consists of three massy round stones,
piled one on another, without the least ornament or
sculpture: the cavity at the top is lined with lead, and
has a pipe at bottom to convey oft* the water after the
sacred ceremony is performed.

The east end of the south aisle is called the South
Chancel, and, till within these thirty years, was divided
off by an old carved Gothic frame work of timber, [the
line of which may still be traced in a beam of partition
between the pews,] having been a private chantry. In
this opinion we are more confirmed by observing two
Gothic niches within the space, the one in the east
wall and the other in the south, near which there pro-
bably stood images and altars: [but these niches are
in a different style of arch, and were probably not
formed at the same time.]

In the middle aisle there is nothing remarkable : but
I remember when its beams were hung with garlands in
honour of young women of the parish, reputed to have
died virgins , and recollect to have seen the clerk's wife
cutting, in white paper, the resemblances of gloves, and
ribbons to be twisted into knots and roses, to decorate
these memorials of chastity. In the church of Faring-
don, which is the next parish, many garlands of this
sort still remain. [The pulpit is placed at the eastern
end of the middle aisle. At the western end is an
organ loft and organ : the latter being a gift of the
Rev. William Cobbold, the present vicar, to his pa-
rishioners.]

The north aisle is narrow and low, with a sloping
ceiling, reaching within nine or ten feet of the floor.
It had originally a flat roof covered with lead, till,
within a century past, a churchwarden stripping off the
lead, in order, as he said, to have it mended, sold it to
a plumber, and ran away with the money. This aisle
has no door, for an obvious reason ; because the north

OF SELBORNK. 523

side of the churchyard, being surrounded by the vicar-
age garden, affords no path to that side of the church.
Nothing can be more irregular than the pews of this
church, which are of all dimensions and heights, being
patched up according to the fancy of the owners : but
whoever nicely examines them will find that the middle
aisle had, on each side, a regular row of benches of
solid oak, all alike, with a low back-board to each.
These we should not hesitate to say are coeval with
the present church : and especially as it is to be
observed that, at their ends, they are ornamented with
carved blunt Gothic niches, exactly correspondent to
the arches of the church, and to a niche in the south
wall. The south aisle also has a row of these benches;
but some are decayed through age, and the rest much
disguised by modern alterations2.

At the upper end of this aisle, and running out to the
north stands a transept, known by the name of the
North Chancel, measuring twenty-one feet from south
to north, and nineteen feet from east to west : this was
intended, no doubt, as a private chantry; and was
also, till of late, divided off by a Gothic frame work of
timber. In its north wall, under a very blunt Gothic
arch, lies perhaps the founder of this edifice, which,

2 Considerable alteration has taken place in the fittings of the interior.
The pews, although still of various dimensions, are now of uniform height
throughout. The oaken benches have been removed from the situations
which they formerly occupied ; and most of them have altogether disap-
peared. But there yet remain portions of them in various parts of the
church. One, of a very solid and substantial make, has been fixed under
the more modern bench along the wall of the north aisle : and the upright
at its west end, coeval with the bench supported by it, exhibits the deeply
carved Gothic niche referred to in the text. Others will be found in the
lower part of the south aisle, one of which has the Gothic niche ; and a
similar niche is observable on three of the moveable benches near the
south door. These relics of the accommodation provided in remote times
for those who frequented the church of this retired district, have attached
to them a degree of interest as connected with the simplicity of the days
in which they were originally placed. — E. T. B.

524 ANTIQUITIES

from the shape of its arch, may be deemed no older
than the latter end of the reign of Henry VII. The
tomb was examined some years ago, but contained
nothing except the scull and thigh bones of a large tall
man, and the bones of a youth or woman, lying in a
very irregular manner, without any escutcheon or other
token to ascertain the names or rank of the deceased.
The grave was very shallow, and lined with stone at
the bottom and on the sides3.

From the east wall project four stone brackets, which
I conclude supported images and crucifixes. In the
great thick pilaster, jutting out between this transept
and the chancel, there is a very sharp Gothic niche, of
older date than the present chantry or church. But the
chief pieces of antiquity are two narrow stone coftin
lids, which compose part of the floor, and lie from west
to east, with the very narrow ends eastward : these
belong to remote times ; and, if originally placed here,
which I doubt, must have been part of the pavement
of an older transept. At present there are no coffins
under them, whence I conclude they have been removed
to this place from some part of a former church. One
of these lids is so eaten by time, that no sculpture can
be discovered upon it ; or, perhaps, it may be the wrong
side uppermost: but on the other, which seems to be
of stone of a closer and harder texture, is to be discerned
a discus, with a cross on it, at the end of a staff or rod,
the well known symbol of a Knight Templar4.

This order was distinguished by a red cross on the
left shoulder of their cloak, and by this attribute in their
hand. Now, if these stones belonged to Knights Tem-
plars, they must have lain here many centuries; for

a Tu the north wall of the North Chancel there is now no vestige of a
tomb. Several stone steps rising in succession occupy its lower part :
above these are the windows described in a succeeding page.— E. T. B.

4 See Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. ii. where there is a fine
engraving of a Knight-Templar, by Hollar.

OF SELBORNE. 525

this order came into England early in the reign of
King Stephen, in 1113 ; and was dissolved in the time
of Edward II. in 1312, having subsisted only one hun-
dred and ninety-nine years. Why I should suppose
that Knights Templars were occasionally buried at this
church, will appear in some future letter, when we come
to treat more particularly concerning the property they
possessed here, and the intercourse that subsisted
between them and the priors of Selborne.

We must now proceed to the chancel, properly so
called, which seems to be coeval with the church, and
is in the same plain unadorned style, though neatly
kept. This room measures thirty-one feet in length,
and sixteen feet and a half in breadth, and is wains-
coted all round, as high as to the bottom of the windows.
[It is raised one step above the body of the church.]
The space for the communion table is raised two steps
above the rest of the floor, and railed in with oaken
balusters. [Over the communion table is a painting in
three compartments of the Offering of the Wise Men,
presented by Benjamin White, Esq. It is attributed to
John de Maubeuge.]

Here I shall say somewhat of the windows of the
chancel in particular, and of the whole fabric in general.
They are mostly of that simple and unadorned sort
called Lancet, some single, some double, and some in
triplets. At the east end of the chancel are two of a
moderate size, near each other; and in the north wall
two very distant small ones, unequal in length and
height : and in the south wall are two, one on each side
of the chancel door, that are broad and squat, and of a
different order. At the east end of the south aisle of
the church there is a large lancet-window in a triplet;
and a very small, narrow, single one in the south wall,
and two broad squat windows beside, and a double
lancet one in the west end ; so that the appearance is
very irregular. In the north aisle are two windows,

526 ANTIQU1TIKS

made shorter when the roof was sloped ; and in the
north transept a large triple window, shortened at the
time of a repair in 1721 ; when over it was opened a
round one of considerable size, which affords an agree-
able light, and renders that chantry the most cheerful
part of the edifice.

The church and chancels have all coved roofs, ceiled
about the year 1683 ; before which they were open to
the tiles and shingles, showing the naked rafters, and
threatening the congregation with the fall of a spar, or
a blow from a piece of loose mortar.

On the north wall of the chancel is fixed a large oval
white marble monument, with the following inscription ;
and at the foot of the wall, over the deceased, and
inscribed with his name, age, arms, and time of death,
lies a large slab of black marble :

Prope hunc Parietem Sepelitur
GILBERTUS WHITE, SAMSONIS WHITE, de

Oxon. Militis Filius tertius, Collegii Magdale-

-nensis ibidem Alumnus, & Socius. Tandem faven-

1 1 • Cullegio ad hanc Ecclesiam promotus ; ubi prinuc-

-va Morum Simplicitate, et diffusS. crga Omnes Bene-

-volnit ia feliciter Consenuit.

Pastor Fidelis, Comis, Affabilis,

Maritus, et Pater Amantissimus,

A Conjuge invicem, et Liberis, atque

A Parochianis, impens6 dilectus.

Pauperibus ita Beneficus
ut Decimam partem Census

Moribundus

Piis usibus Consecravit.

Mentis demum juxta et Anuis plenus

ex hac Vita migravit Feb. 13°.

Anno Salutis 172£

jEtatis Suae 77.

Hoc Posuit Rebecca

Conjux illius inaestissima,

mox Secutura.

On the same wall is newly fixed a small square table
monument of white marble, inscribed in the following
manner :

OF SELBORNE. 527

Sacred to the Memory

of the Rev<>. ANDREW ETTY, B. D.

23 Years Vicar of this Parish :

In whose Character
The Conjugal, The Parental, and The Sacerdotal Virtues

were so happily combined

as To deserve the Imitation of Mankind. "-

And if in any particular he followed more invariably

The steps of his blessed Master,

It was in his Humility.

His Parishioners,

Especially the Sick and Necessitous,
as long as any Traces of his Memory shall remain,

Must lament his Death.

To perpetuate such an example, this Stone is erected ;
As while Living he was a Preacher of Righteousness,

So, by it, he being Dead yet Speaketh.
He died April 8th. 1784. Aged 66 years.

[But the most interesting monument to the visitant of
Selborne, that its church can ever contain, is one affixed
to the south wall. A square tablet of white marble,
surrounded by black and having a lightly ornamented
margin and a label below bearing the arms of the family,
is thus inscribed :

In the fifth Grave from this Wall are interred the Remains of

The Revd. GILBERT WHITE, M. A.
Fifty Years Fellow of Oriel College in Oxford,

and Historian of this, his native Parish.
He was the eldest Son of John White, Esquire, Barrister at Law,

and Anne, his Wife, only Child of

Thomas Holt, Rector of Streatham, in Surrey,

which said John White was the only Son of Gilbert White,

formerly Vicar of this Parish.
He was Kind and Beneficent To His Relations,

Benevolent to the Poor,

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

and died June 20, 1793.

Nee bono quicquam mali evenire potest,

nee vivo, nee mortuo.]

528 ANTIQUITIKS

LETTER IV.

WE have now taken leave of the inside of the church,
and shall pass by a door at the west end of the middle
aisle into the belfry. This room is part of a handsome
square embattled tower of forty-five feet in height, and
of much more modern date than the church ; but old
enough to have needed a thorough repair in 178 L, when
it was neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by a
set of workmen who were employed on it for the greatest
part of the summer. The old bells, three in number,
loud and out of tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast
into four ; to which Sir Simeon Stuart, the grandfather
of the present baronet, added a fifth at his own expense:
and, bestowing it in the name of his favourite daughter
Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with the follow-
ing motto round it :

" Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria :
1 1 1 ins et laudes nomen ad astra SODO."

The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was
observed as a high festival by the village, and rendered
more joyous, by an order from the donor, that the treble
bell should be fixed bottom upward in the ground, and
filled with punch, of which all present were permitted
to partake.

The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and
would not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine
sharp Gothic door-way. This is undoubtedly much
older than the present fabric ; and, being found in good
preservation, was worked into the wall, and is the grand
entrance into the church : nor are the folding doors to
be passed over in silence; since, from their thick and
clumsy structure, and the rude flourished work of their
hinges, they may possibly be as ancient as the door-
way itself.

OF SKLBORN R. 521)

The whole roof of the south aisle, and the south side
of the roof of the middle aisle, is covered with oaken
shingles instead of tiles, on account of their lightness,
which favours the ancient and crazy timber frame.
And indeed, the consideration of accidents by fire ex-
cepted, this sort of roofing is much more eligible than
tiles. For shingles well seasoned, and cleft from quar-
tered timber, never warp, nor let in drifting snow ; nor
do they shiver with frost; nor are they liable to be
blown off, like tiles ; but, when well nailed down, last
for a long period, as experience has shown us in this
place, where those that face to the north are known to
have endured, untouched, by undoubted tradition for
more than a century.

Considering the size of the church, and the extent of
the parish, the churchyard is very scanty; and especially
as all wish to be buried on the south side, which is become
such a mass of mortality that no person can be there
interred without disturbing or displacing the bones of
his ancestors. There is reason to suppose that it once
was larger, and extended to what is now the vicarage
court and garden ; because many human bones have
been dug up in those parts several yards without the
present limits. At the east end are a few graves ; yet
none till very lately on the north side ; but, as two or
three families of best repute have begun to bury in that
quarter, prejudice may wear out by degrees, and their
example be followed by the rest of the neighbourhood1.

In speaking of the church, I have all along talked of
the east and west end, as if the chancel stood exactly
true to those points of the compass ; but this is by no
means the case, for the fabric bears so much to the north
of the east that the four corners of the tower, and not

1 To precept our excellent author added the weight of example. He
lies buried in the open ground on the northern side of the chancel ; a low
head stone and foot stone, bearing his initials and the date of his death,
mark the fifth grave from the church wall, in which were deposited his
perishable remains. — E. T. B.

M M

530 ANTIQUITIES

the four sides, stand to the four cardinal points. The
best method of accounting for this deviation seems to
be, that the workmen, who probably were employed in
the longest days, endeavoured to set the chancels to
the rising of the sun.

THE VICARAOB MOOOU

Close by the church, at the west end, stands the
vicarage house ; an old, but roomy and convenient
edifice. It faces very agreably to the morning sun,
and is divided from the village by a neat and cheerful
court. According to the manner of old times, the hall
was open to the roof; and so continued, probably, till
the vicars became family-men, and began to want more
conveniences ; when they flung a floor across, and, by
partitions, divided the space into chambers. In this
hall we remember a date, some time in the reign of
Elizabeth; it was over the door that leads to the stairs.

Behind the house is a garden of an irregular shape,
but well laid out ; whose terrace commands so romantic
and picturesque a prospect, that the first master in
landscape might contemplate it with pleasure, and deem
it an object well worthy of his pencil.

OF SELBORNE. 531

LETTER V.

IN the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose
aspect bespeaks it to be of a great age : it-.seems to
have seen several centuries, and is probably coeval
with the church, and therefore may be deemed an anti-
quity : the body is squat, short, and thick, and measures
[upwards of] twenty-three feet in the girth, supporting
a head of suitable extent to its bulk. This is a male
tree, which in the spring sheds clouds of dust, and fills
the atmosphere around with its farina.

As far as we have been able to observe, the males of
this species become much larger than the females ; and
it has so fallen out that most of the yew-trees in the
churchyards of this neighbourhood are males : but this
must have been matter of mere accident, since men,
when they first planted yews, little dreamed that there
were sexes in trees.

In a yard, in the midst of the street, till very lately,
grew a middle sized female tree of the same species,
which commonly bore great crops of berries. By the
high winds usually prevailing about the autumnal
equinox, these berries, then ripe, were blown down into
the road, where the hogs ate them. And it was very
remarkable, that, though barrow-hogs and young sows
found no inconvenience from this food, yet milch-sows
often died after such a repast: a circumstance that can
be accounted for only by supposing that the latter,
being much exhausted and hungry, devoured a larger
quantity.

While mention is making of the bad effects of yew-
berries, it may be proper to remind the unwary, that
the twigs and leaves of yew, though eaten in a very
small quantity, are certain death to horses and cows,
and that in a few minutes. A horse tied to a yew
hedge, or to a faggot stack of dead yew, shall be found

M M 2

532 ANTIQUITIES

dead before the owner can be aware that any danger is
at hand : and the writer has been several times a sor-
rowful witness to losses of this kind among his friends ;
and in the island of Ely had once the mortification to
see nine young steers or bullocks of his own all lying
dead in a heap from browzing a little on a hedge of
yew in an old garden into which they had broken in
snowy weather. Even the clippings of a yew hedge
have destroyed a whole dairy of cows when thrown
inadvertently into a yard. And yet sheep and turkeys,
and, as park-keepers say, deer, will crop these trees
with impunity.

Some intelligent persons assert that the branches of
yew, while green, are not noxious ; and that they will
kill only when dead and withered, by lacerating the
stomach : but to this assertion we cannot by any means
assent, because, among the number of cattle that we
have known fall victims to this deadly food, not one
has been found, when it was opened, but had a lump ol
green yew in its paunch. True it is, that yew trees
stand for twenty years or more in a field, and no bad
consequences ensue : but at some time or other cattle,
either from wantonness when full, or from hunger when
empty (from both which circumstances we have seen
them perish), will be meddling, to their certain destruc-
tion ; the yew seems to be a very improper tree for a
pasture field.

Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at
what period this tree first obtained a place in church-
yards. A statute passed A. D. 1307 and 35 Edward I.
the title of which is " Ne rector arbores in cemeterio
prosternat." Now if it is recollected that we seldom
see any other very large or ancient tree in a churchyard
but yews, this statute must have principally related to
this species of tree ; and consequently their being planted
in churchyards is of much more ancient date than the
year 1307.

As to the use of these trees, possibly the more re-

OF SELBORNE. 533

spectable parishioners were buried under their shade
before the improper custom was introduced of burying
within the body of the church, where the living are to
assemble. Deborah, Rebekah's nurse1, was buried
under an oak ; the most honourable place of interment
probably next to the cave of Machpelah2, which seems
to have been appropriated to the remains of the patri-
archal family alone.

The farther use of yew trees might be as a screen to
churches, by their thick foliage, from the violence of
winds; perhaps also for the purpose of archery, the
best long bows being made of that material: and we
do not hear that they are planted in the churchyards of
other parts of Europe, where long bows were not so
much in use. They might also be placed as a shelter
to the congregation assembling before the church doors
were opened, and as an emblem of mortality by their
funereal appearance3. In the south of England every
churchyard almost has its tree, and some two ; but in
the north, we understand, few are to be found.

The idea of R. C. that the yew tree afforded its
branches instead of palms for the processions on Palm
Sunday, is a good one, and deserves attention. — See
Gent. Mag. vol. i. p. 128.

LETTER VI.

THE living of Selborne was a very small vicarage ; but,
being in the patronage of Magdalen College, in the
university of Oxford, that society endowed it with the
great tithes of Selborne, more than a century ago : and
since the year 1758 again with the great tithes of Oak-
hanger, called Bene's Parsonage : so that, together, it is

1 Gen. xxxv. 8. a Gen. xxiii. 9.

3 Or rather, perhaps, as an emblem of immortality by their evergreen
foliage : whence, also, most probably, the derivation of their name ; yew,
q. d. ewigj everlasting. — E. T. B.

ANTIQUITIES

become a respectable piece of preferment, to which one
of the fellows is always presented. The vicar holds
the great tithes, by lease, under the college. The great
disadvantage of this living is, that it has not one foot
of glebe near home1.

ITS PAYMENTS ARE,

t'. *. tl.

King's books 821

Yearly tenths 0 16 2|

Yearly procurations for Blackmore and Oak-
hanger Chap: with acquit: 017

Selborne procurations and acquit : ... 0 9 0

I am unable to give a complete list of the vicars of
this parish till towards the end of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth ; from which period the registers furnish a
regular series.

In Domesday we find thus — " De isto manerio dono
dedit Rex Radfredo presbytero dimidiam hidam cum
ecclesia." So that before Domesday, which was com-
piled between the years 1081 and 1086, here was an
officiating minister at this place.

After this, among my documents, I find occasional
mention of a vicar here and there : the first is
Roger, instituted in 1254.
In 1410 John Lynne was vicar of Selborne.
In 1411 Hugo Tybbe was vicar.

The presentations to the vicarage of Selborne gene-
rally ran in the name of the prior and the convent ; but
Tybbe was presented by prior John Wynechestre only.

June 29, 1528, William Fisher, vicar of Selborne,
resigned to Miles Peyrson.

1594, William White appears to have been vicar to
this time. Of this person there is nothing remarkable,
but that he hath made a regular entry twice in the

1 At Bene's, or Bin's, parsonage there is a house and stout barn, and
seven acres of glebe. Bene's parsonage is three miles from the church.

OF SELBORNE. 535

register of Selborne of the funeral of Thomas Cowper,
Bishop of Winchester, as if he had been buried at
Selborne ; yet this learned prelate, who died 1594, was
buried at Winchester, in the cathedral, near the episco-
pal throne2.

1595, Richard Boughton, vicar.

[Sept, 6] 1596, William Inkforbye, vicar. [Buried
Jan. 6, 1606.]

May [16] 1606, Thomas Phippes, vicar. [Buried
May 27, 1631, at Harteley Mauduit]

June 1631, Ralph Austine, vicar. [Buried at Oxford,
March 24, 1631.]

July 1632, John Long worth. This unfortunate gen-
tleman, living in the time of Cromwell's usurpation,
was deprived of his preferment for many years, probably
because he would not take the league and covenant : for
I observe that his father-in-law, the Reverend Jethro
Beal, rector of Faringdon, which is the next parish,
enjoyed his benefice during the whole of that unhappy
period. Longworth, after he was dispossessed, retired
to a little tenement about one hundred and fifty yards
from the church, where he earned a small pittance by
the practice of physic. During those dismal times it
was not uncommon for the deposed clergy to take up
a medical character; as was the case in particular, I
know, with the Reverend Mr. Yalden, rector of Comp-
ton, near Guildford, in the county of Surrey. Vicar
Longworth used frequently to mention to his sons, who
told it to my relations, that, the Sunday after his depri-
vation, his puritanical successor stepped into the pulpit
with no small petulance and exultation ; and began his

2 See Godwin de Praesulibus Angliae, folio, Cant. 1743, page 239.

[It is possible that William White may have been the officiating priest;
a duty which would have so far exceeded the ordinary calls on him as to
have become, in his estimation, an event of magnitude sufficient to be
twice recorded in his register. One of the entries favours this idea. It
is prominently conspicuous by being written in a bold German text hand,
and concludes thus : " per me, W. White, Mr."— E. T. B.]

5: Jo ANTIQMTiCS

sermon from Psalm xx. 8: "They are brought down
mid fallen ; but we are risen and stand upright." This
person lived to be restored in 1660, and continued vicar
for eighteen years ; but was so impoverished by his
misfortunes, that he left the vicarage house and pre-
mises in a very abject and dilapidated state.

July 1678. Richard By field, [B. D.] who left eighty
pounds by will, the interest to be applied to apprentice
out poor children : but this money, lent on private
security, was in danger of being lost, and the bequest
remained in an unsettled state for near twenty years,
till 1700; so that little or no advantage was derived
from it. About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost
danger by the failure of a borrower; but, by prudent
management, has since been raised to one hundred
pounds stock in the three per cents reduced. The
trustees are the vicar and the renters or owners of
Temple, Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger
House, for the time being. This gentleman seemed
inclined to have put the vicarial premises in a comfort-
able state ; and began, by building a solid stone wall
round the front court, and another in the lower yard,
between that and the neighbouring garden ; but was
interrupted by death from fulfilling his laudable inten-
tions. [He lies buried in the chancel of his church ;
and a black slab, within the rails of the communion
table and near the north wall, commemorates him.]

April [7], 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. [Dr.
Long appears to have resigned the vicarage in conse-
quence of obtaining other preferment. We learn from
Wood that on the 6th of February, Ki81, he was installed
prebend of Botesant in the church of York ; and, on the
24th of May, 1682, of Stillington also. From the same
authority it may be added that he died in 1685.]

June [23], 1681. This living was now in such low
estimation in Magdalen College, that it descended to a
junior fellow, Gilbert White, M. A. who was instituted

OF SKLBORNE. 537

to it in the thirty-first year of his age. At his first
coming1 he ceiled the chancel, and also floored and
wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before, were
paved with stone, and had naked walls ; he enlarged
the kitchen and brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well:
he also built a large new barn in the lovvej* yard, re-
moved the hovels in the front court, which he laid out
in walks and borders ; and entirely planned the back
garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst
of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed " the sum
of forty pounds to be laid out in the most necessary
repairs of the church: that is, in strengthening and
securing such parts as seem decaying and dangerous."
With this sum two large buttresses were erected to
support the east end of the south wall of the church ;
and the gable end wall of the west end of the south aisle
was new built from the ground.

By his will also he gave " One hundred pounds to be
laid out on lands ; the yearly rents whereof shall be
employed in teaching the poor children of Selbourne
parish to read and write, and say their prayers and
catechism, and to sew and knit : — and be under the
direction of his executrix as long as she lives ; and,
after her, under the direction of such of his children
and their issue, as shall live in or within five miles of
the said parish : and on failure of any such, then under
the direction of the vicar of Selbourn for the time being;
but still to the uses above-named." With this sum were
purchased, of Thomas Turville, of Hawkely, in the
county of Southampton, yeoman, and Hannah his wife,
two closes of freehold land, commonly called Collier's,
containing, by estimation, eleven acres, lying in Hawke-
ley aforesaid. These closes are let at this time, 1785,
on lease, at the rate of three pounds by the year3.

This vicar also gave by will two hundred pounds

3 The fac-simile of the historian's autograph, subjoined to the adver-
tisement prefixed to the present volume, is taken from his signature to the
lease here referred to, which is now in the editor's possession.— E. T. B.

538 ANTIQUITIES

towards the repairs of the highways4 in the parish of
Selborne. That sum was carefully and judiciously
laid out in the summer of the year 1730, by his son
John White, who made a solid and firm causey from
Rood Green, all down Honey Lane, to a farm called
Oak Woods, where the sandy soil begins. This miry
and gulfy lane was chosen as worthy of repair, because
it leads to the forest, and thence through the Holt to
the town of Farnham in Surrey, the only market in
those days for men who had wheat to sell in this neigh-
bourhood. This causey was so deeply bedded with
stone, so properly raised above the level of the soil, and
so well drained, that it has, in some degree, withstood
fifty-four years of neglect and abuse ; and might, with
moderate attention, be rendered a solid and comfortable
road. The space from Rood Green to Oak Woods
measures about three quarters of a mile.

In 1727, William Henry Cane, B. D. became vicar ;
and, among several alterations and repairs, new built
the back front of the vicarage house.

On February 1, 1740, Buncombe Bristowe, D. D. was
instituted to this living. What benefactions this vicar
bestowed on the parish will be best explained by the
following passages from his will: — "Item, I hereby
give and bequeath to the minister and churchwardens
of the parish of Selbourn, in the county of Southampton,
a mahogany table, which I have ordered to be made
for the celebration of the Holy Communion ; and also
the sum of thirty pounds, in trust, to be applied in
manner following ; that is, ten pounds towards the
charge of erecting a gallery at the west end of the
church ; and ten pounds to be laid out for clothing, and
such like necessaries, among the poor (and especially
among the ancient and infirm) of the said parish : and
the remaining ten pounds to be distributed in bread,

4 " Such legacies were very common in former times, before any effec-
tual laws were made for the repairs of highways." — Sir John Cullum's
Hawsted, p. 15.

OF SELBORNK. 530

at twenty shillings a week, at the discretion of John
White, Esq. or any of his family, who shall be resident
in the said parish. "

On November 12, 1758, Andrew Etty, B. D. became
vicar. Among many useful repairs he new roofed the
body of the vicarage house ; and wainscoted, up to the
bottom of the windows, the whole of the chancel ; to
the neatness and decency of which he always paid the
most exact attention.

On September 25, 1784, Christopher Taylor, B. D.
was inducted into the vicarage of Selborne.

[August 10, 1800. John Covey, B. D., by cession of
Dr. Taylor. He made several alterations and improve-
ments in the vicarage house and court; and removed
the stone wall from the front court, which he separated
from the Plestor by an open palisade.

1809. William Alcock, D. D. This vicar, in a fit of
melancholy, destroyed himself. He lies buried in the
churchyard, on the northern side, without any mark to
distinguish his grave.

1813. William Rust Cobbold. The present vicar
has added considerably to the comfort of the vicarage
house by alterations which have increased the number
of rooms, and have rendered them more light and
cheerful. He has also much improved the original
gardens of the vicarage, having converted them into
ornamental grounds enriched with luxuriant exotics,
including the finest of the American shrubs ; and he
has formed, south of his rick yard, an entirely new fruit
and kitchen garden, which, being on the black malm,
is of surprising fertility. His donation of an organ
to the church has been already mentioned : and it is
in a great measure under his superintendence that the
interior of the church has assumed the decent and
orderly appearance that now belongs to it. He has
also built and fitted up two rooms near the Plestor,
the use of which he has offered for the schooling of
the children of the poorer parishioners.]

ANTIQUITIES

LETTER VII.

I SHALL now proceed to the Priory, which is undoubt-
edly the most interesting part of our history.

The Priory of Selborne was founded by Peter de la
Roche, or de Rupibus *, one of those accomplished
foreigners that resorted to the court of King John,
where they were usually caressed, and met with a more
favourable reception than ought, in prudence, to have
been shown by any monarch to strangers. This adven-
turer was a Poictevin by birth, had been bred to arms
in his youth, and distinguished by knighthood. Histo-
rians all agree not to speak very favourably of this
remarkable man ; they allow that he was possessed of
courage and fine abilities, but then they charge him
with arbitrary principles, and violent conduct. By his
insinuating manners he soon rose high in the favour of
John ; and in 1205, early in the reign of that prince,
was appointed Bishop of Winchester. In 1214 he
became Lord Chief Justiciary of England, the first
magistrate in the state, and a kind of viceroy, on whom
depended all the civil affairs in the kingdom. After the
death of John, and during the minority of his son
Henry, this prelate took upon him the entire manage-
ment of the realm, and was soon appointed protector
of the king and kingdom.

The barons saw with indignation a stranger pos-
sessed of all the power and influence, to part of which
they thought they had a claim ; they therefore entered
into an association against him, and determined to
wrest some of that authority from him which he had so
unreasonably usurped. The bishop discerned the storm
at a distance ; and, prudently resolving to give way to
that torrent of envy which he knew not how to with-

1 See Godwin de Praesulibus Angliae, folio, Cant. 1743, p. 217.

OF SELBORNE. 541

stand, withdrew quietly to the Holy Land, where he
resided some time.

At this juncture a very small part of Palestine re-
mained in the hands of the Christians : they had been
by Saladine dispossessed of Jerusalem, and all the
internal parts, near forty years before ; arwj with diffi-
culty maintained some maritime towns and garrisons :
yet the busy and enterprising spirit of de Rupibus
could not be at rest; he distinguished himself by the
splendour and magnificence of his expenses, and amused
his mind by strengthening fortresses and castles, and by
removing and endowing of churches. Before his expe-
dition to the east he had signalized himself as a founder
of convents, and as a benefactor to hospitals and
monasteries.

In the year 1231 he returned again to England ; and
the very next year, in 1232, began to build and endow
the PRIORY of SELBORNE. As this great work fol-
lowed so close upon his return, it is not improbable
that it was the result of a vow made during his voyage;
and especially as it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Why the bishop made choice of Selborne for the scene
of his munificence can never be determined now : it can
only be said that the parish was in his diocese, and lay
almost midway between Winchester and Farnham, or
South Waltham and Farnham; from either of which
places he could without much trouble overlook his
workmen, and observe what progress they made ; and
that the situation was retired, with a stream running by
it, and sequestered from the world, amidst woods and
meadows, and so far proper for the site of a religious
house2.

2 The institution at Selborne was a priory of Black Canons of the order
of St. Augustine, called also Canons Regular. Regular Canons were
such as lived in a conventual manner, under one roof, had a common
refectory and dormitory, and were bound by vows to observe the rules
and statutes of their order: in fine, they were a kind of religious, whose
discipline was less rigid than the monks'. The chief rule of these canons
was that of St. Augustine, who was constituted Bishop of Hippo, A.D.

542 ANTIQUITIES

The first person with whom the founder treated about
the purchase of land was Jacobus de Achangre, or
Ochangre, a gentleman of property who resided at that
hamlet ; and, as appears, at the house now called Oak-
hanger House. With him he agreed for a croft, or little
close of land, known by the name of La Liega, or La
Lyge, which was to be the immediate site of the Priory.

De Achangre also accommodated the bishop at the
same instant with three more adjoining crofts, which
for a time was all the footing that this institution ob-
tained in the parish. The seller in the conveyance
says, " Warantizabimus, defendemus, et acquietabimus
contra omnes gentes;" viz. "We will warrant the thing
sold against all claims from any quarter." In modern
conveyancing this would be termed a covenant for fur-
ther assurance. Afterwards is added — " Pro hac autem
donacione, &c. dedit mihi pred. Episcopus sexdeceni
marcas argenti in Gersumam :" i. e. " the bishop gave
me sixteen silver marks as a consideration for the tiling-
purchased."

As the grant from Jac. de Achangre was without
date3, and the next is circumstanced in the same man-
ner, we cannot say exactly what interval there was
between the two purchases ; but we find that Jacobus
de Nortun, a neighbouring gentleman, also soon sold
to the Bishop of Winchester some adjoining grounds,
through which our stream passes, that the priory might
be accommodated with a mill, which was a common
necessary appendage to every manor : he also allowed
access to these lands by a road for carts and waggons.

395 : but they were not brought into -England till after the conquest ;
and seem not to have obtained the appellation of Augustine Canons till
some years after. Their habit was a long black cassock, with a white
rocket over it; and over that a black cloak and hood. The monks were
always shaved : but these canons wore their hair and beards, and caps on
their heads. There were of these canons, and women of the same order
called Canonesses, about one hundred and seventy-five houses.

3 The custom of affixing dates to deeds was not become general in the
reign of Henry III.

OF SELBORNE. 543

— " Jacobus de Nortun concedit Petro Winton episcopo
totum cursum aque que descend!! de Molendino de
Durton, usq ; ad boscum Will. Mauduit, et croftam
terre vocat : Edriche croft, cum extensione ejusdem et
abuttamentis ; ad fundandam domum religiosam de
ordine Sti. Augustini. Concedit etiam viam ad carros,
et caretas," &c. This vale, down which runs the brook,
is now called the Long Lithe, or Lythe. Bating the fol-
lowing particular expression, this grant runs much in
the style of the former ; " Dedit mihi episcopus predic-
tus triginta quinque marcas argenti ad me acquietandum
versus Judceos" — That is, " the bishop advanced me
thirty-five marks of silver to pay my debts to the Jews,"
who were then the only lenders of money.

Finding himself still straitened for room, the founder

applied to his royal master, Henry, who was graciously

pleased to bestow certain lands in the manor at Selborne

on the new priory of his favourite minister. These

grounds had been the property of Stephen de Lucy;

and, abutting upon the narrow limits of the convent,

became a very commodious and agreable acquisition.

This grant, I find, was made on March the 9th, in the

eighteenth year of Henry, viz. 1234, being two years

after the foundation of the monastery. The royal donor

bestowed his favour with a good grace, by adding to it

almost every immunity and privilege that could have

been specified in the law language of the times. —

" Quare volumus prior, &c. habeant totam terram, &c.

cum omnibus libertatibus in bosco et piano, in viis et

semitis, pratis et pascuis; aquis et piscariis; intra

burgum, et extra burgum, cum soka et saca, Thol et

Them, Infangenethef et Utfangenethef, et hamsocne et

blodwite, et pecunia que dari solet pro murdro et forstal,

et flemenestrick, et cum quietancia de omni scotto et

geldo, et de omnibus auxiliis regum, vicecomitum, et

omn: ministralium suorum; et hidagio et exercitibus,

et scutagiis, et tallagiis, et shiris et hundredis, et placitis

et querelis, et warda et wardpeny, et opibus castellorum

544 ANTIQUITIES

et pontium, et clausuris parcorum, et omni carcio et
sumagio, et domor: regal: edificatione, et omnimoda
reparatione, et cum omnibus aliis libertatibus." This
grant was made out by Richard, Bishop of Chichester,
then chancellor, at the town of Northampton, before the
lord chief justiciary, who was the founder himself.

The charter of foundation of the Priory, dated 1233,
comes next in order to be considered ; but being of
some length, I shall not interrupt my narrative, by
placing it here4. My copy, taken from the original,

4 Carta Petri et conventus ecclesie Winton. profundatione prioratus de Sele-
burne, ifc. dat. 1233.

Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos prescns scriptum pervencrit. P.
divitia miseracione IVinton ecclesie minister huinilis saiutem in Domino :
Ex otlicio pastorali tenemur viros religiosos, qui pauperes spiritu <^sr pro
Christo neglectis lucris temporalibus elegerunt; spirituali affectu dili-
gere, fovere pariter et creare, eorumq ; quieti sollicite providere; ut tanto
uberiores fructus de continua in lege Dei raeditatione percipiant, quanto
a conturbationibus malignorum amplius fuerint ex patroni provisione et
ecclesiastica defensione securi. Hinc est quod universitati vestre notili-
camus, nos divine caritatis instinctu, de assensu conventus ecclesie nostre
II int n, fundasse domum religiosam, ordinis roagni patris Augustini, in
honore Dei et gloriose semper virginis ejusdem Dei genetricis Marie,
apud Seleburne ; ibidemque canonicos regulares instituissc : ad quorum
sustentationem et hospitum et pauperum susreptionem, dedimus, conces-
siniiis, et presenti carta nostra conOrmavimus eisdem canoniris, totam
terram quam habuimus de dono Jacobi de Acangre: et totam terrain, cur-
sum aque, boscum et pratum que habuimus de dono Jacobi de Nortone; et
totam terram boscum et redditum que habuimus de dono domini Henrici
regis Anglic; cum omnibus predictarum possessionum pertinentiis. Di'di-
mus etiam et concessimus in proprios usus eisdem canonicis ecclesiam
predicte ville de Seleburne, et ecclesias de Basing, et de Basingestok, cum
omnibus earundem ecclesiarum capellis, libertatibus, et aliis pertinenciis ;
salva honesta et sufficient! sustentatione vicariorum in predictis ecclesiis
ministrantium ; quorum presentatio ad priorem predicte domus religiose
de Seleburne et canonicos ejusdem loci in perpetuum pertinebit. Preterea
possessiones et redditus, ecclesias sive drcimas, quas in episcopatu nostro
adempti sunt, vel in posterum, Deo dante, justis modis poterunt adipisci,
sub nostra et Winton ecclesie protectione suscepimus, et episcopalis auc-
toritate officii confirmavimus ; eadem auctoritate firmiter inhibentes, ne
quis locum, in quo divino sunt officio mancipati, seu alias eorum posses-
siones, invadere vi vel fraude vel ingenio malo occupare audeat, vel etiam
retinere, aut fratres converses, servientes, vel homines eorum aliqua vio-
lentia perturbare, sive fugientes ad eos causa salutis sue conservande a
septis domus sue violenter presumat extraere. Precipimus autem ut in

OF SELBORNE. 545

I have compared with Dugd ale's copy, and find that
they perfectly agree ; except that in the latter the
preamble and the names of the witnesses are omitted.
Yet I think it proper to quote a passage from this
charter — " Et ipsa domus religiosa a cujusllbet alterius
domus religiosce subjectione libera permaneat, etin omnibus
absolute? — to show how much Dugdale was mistaken
when he inserted Selborne among the alien priories ; for-
getting that this disposition of the convent contradicted
the grant that he had published. In the Monasticon
Anglicanum, in English, p. 119, is part of his catalogue
of alien priories, suppressed 2 Henry V. viz. 1414, where
may be seen as follows :

S.
Sele, Sussex.

SELEBURN.

Shir burn.

This appeared to me from the first to have been an
oversight, before I had seen my authentic evidences.
For priories alien, a few conventual ones excepted,
were little better than granges to foreign abbeys ; and

cadem donio religiosa de Seleburne ordo canonicus, et regularis conver-
satio, secundum regulam magni patris Augustini, quam primi inhabita-
tores professi sunt, in perpetuum observetur ; et ipsa domus religiosa a
cujuslibet alterius domus religiose subjectione libera permaneat, et in
omnibus absoluta ; salva in omnibus episcopali auctoritate, et WintMi
ecclesie dignitate. Quod ut in posterum ratum permaneat et inconcus-
sum, present! scripto et sigilli nostri patrocinis duximus confirmandum.
His testibus domino Waltero abbate de Hyda. Domino Walters Priore de
sancto Swithuno, domino Stephano priore de Motesfonte, magistro J /anode
Stoke; magistro Willo de saucte Marie ecclesia, tune official! nostro ;
Luca archidiacon' de surr'. magistro Huntfrido de Millers, Henrico &
Hugone capellanis, Roberto de Clinchamp, et Petro Rossinol clericis, et
multis aliis. Datum apud Wines* per manum P. de cancellis. Indie
sanctorum martirum Fabiani et Sebastiani. Anno Domi milesimo ducen-
tesimo tricesimo tercio.

Seal, two saints and a bishop praying:
Legend: SVI. M. SIT6. BONI. P6TR' PAVL' 6 PATRONI.

* Probably Wolvesey-house near Winchester.

N N

546 ANTIQUITIES

their priors little more than bailiffs, removeable at will:
whereas the priory of Selborne possessed the valuable
estates and manors of Selborne, Achangre, Norton,
Brompden, Bassinges, Basingstoke, and Natele; and
the prior challenged the right of Pillory, Thurcet, and
Furcas, and every manerial privilege.

I find next a grant from Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, to
the prior of Selborne — " de tota mora [a moor or bog]
ubi Bene oritur, usque ad campum vivarii, et de prato
voc. Sydenrneade cum abutt: et de cursu aque molen-
dini." And also a grant in reversion " unius virgate
terre," [a yard land] in Achangre at the death of Richard
Actedene his sister's husband, who had no child. He
was to present a pair of gloves of one penny value to
the prior and canons, to be given annually by the said
Richard: and to quit all claim to the said lands in
reversion, provided the prior and canons would engage
anually to pay to the king, through the hands of his
bailiffs of Aulton, ten shillings at four quarterly pay-
ments, " pro omnibus serviciis, consuetudinibus, exac-
tionibus, et demandis."

This Jo. de Venur was a man of property at Oak-
hanger, and lived probably at the spot now called
Chapel Farm. The grant bears date the seventeenth
year of the reign of Henry III. [viz. 1233.]

It would be tedious to enumerate every little grant
for lands or tenements that might be produced from my
vouchers. I shall therefore pass over all such for the
present, and conclude this letter with a remark that
must strike every thinking person with some degree of
wonder. No sooner had a monastic institution got a
footing, but the neighbourhood began to be touched
with a secret and religious awe. Every person round
was desirous to promote so good a work; and either by
sale, by grant, or by gift in reversion, was ambitious of
appearing a benefactor. They who had not lands to
spare gave roads to accommodate the infant founda-
tion. The religious were not backward in keeping up

OF SELBORNE. 547

this pious propensity, which they observed so readily
influenced the breasts of men. Thus did the more
opulent monasteries add house to house, and field to
field ; and by degrees manor to manor : till at last
"there was no place left;" but every district around
became appropriated to the purposes of their founders,
and every precinct was drawn into the vortex.

LETTER VIII.

OUR forefathers in this village were no doubt as busy
and bustling, and as important, as ourselves : yet have
their names and transactions been forgotten from cen-
tury to century, and have sunk into oblivion ; nor has
this happened only to the vulgar, but even to men
remarkable and famous in their generation. I was led
into this train of thinking by finding in my vouchers
that Sir Adam Gurdon was an inhabitant of Selborne,
and a man of the first rank and property in the parish.
By Sir Adam Gurdon I would be understood to mean
that leading and accomplished malecontent in the
Mountfort faction, who distinguished himself by his
daring conduct in the reign of Henry III. The first
that we hear of this person in my papers is, that with
two others he was bailiff of Alton before the sixteenth
of Henry III. viz. about 1231, and then not knighted.
Who Gurdon was, and whence he came, does not ap-
pear : yet there is reason to suspect that he was origi-
nally a mere soldier of fortune, who had raised himself
by marrying women of property. The name of Gurdon
does not seem to be known in the south ; but there is a
name so like it in an adjoining kingdom, and which
belongs to two or three noble families, that it is pro-
bable this remarkable person was a North Briton ; and
the more so, since the Christian name of Adam is a
distinguished one to this day among the family of the
Gordons. But, be this as it may, Sir Adam Gurdon

NN 2

548 ANTIQUITIES

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
himself amidst the forests and woodlands with which
he was so well acquainted. Prince Edward, desirous
of putting an end to the troubles which had so long
harassed the kingdom, pursued the arch-rebel into his
fastnesses; attacked his camp; leaped over the in-
trenchments ; and, singling out Gurdon, ran him down,
wounded him, and took him prisoner1.

There is not perhaps in all history a more remarkable
instance of command of temper, and magnanimity, than
this before us: that a young prince, in the moment of
victory, when he had the fell adversary of the crown
and royal family at his mercy, should be able to with-
hold his hand from that vengeance which the vanquished
so well deserved. A cowardly disposition would have
been blinded by resentment: but this gallant heir-
apparent saw at once a method of converting a most
desperate foe into a lasting friend. He raised the fallen
veteran from the ground, he pardoned him, he admitted
him into his confidence, and introduced him to the queen,
then lying at Guildford, that very evening1. This un-
merited and unexpected lenity melted the heart of the
rugged Gurdon at once ; he became in an instant a loyal
and useful subject, trusted and employed in matters of
moment by Edward when king, and confided in till the
day of his death.

1 M. Paris, p. 075, and Triveti Annales.

OF SELBORNE. 549

LETTER IX.

IT has been hinted in a former letter that Sir Adam
Gurdon had availed himself by marrying "women of
property. By my evidences it appears that he had
three wives, and probably in the following order : Con-
stantia, Ameria, and Agnes. The first of these ladies,
who was the companion of his middle life, seems to
have been a person of considerable fortune, which she
inherited from Thomas Makerel, a gentleman of Sel-
borne, who was either her father or uncle. The second,
Ameria, calls herself the quondam wife of Sir Adam,
" qua? fui uxor," &c. and talks of her sons under age.
Now Gurdon had no son : and beside Agnes in another
document says, "Ego Agnes quondam uxor Domini
Adae Gurdon in pura et ligea viduitate mea :" but Gur-
don could not leave two widows; and therefore it seems
probable that he had been divorced from Ameria, who
afterwards married, and had sons. By Agnes Sir Adam
had a daughter Johanna, who was his heiress, to whom
Agnes in her lifetime surrendered part of her jointure :
— he had also a bastard son.

Sir Adam seems to have inhabited the house now
called Temple, lying about two miles east of the church,
which had been the property of Thomas Makerel.

In the year 1262 he petitioned the prior of Sel borne
in his own name, and that of his wife Constantia only,
for leave to build him an oratory in his manor house,
" in curia sua." Licenses of this sort were frequently
obtained by men of fortune and rank from the bishop of
the diocese, the archbishop, and sometimes, as I have
seen instances, from the pope; not only for conveni-
ence sake, and on account of distance, and the badness
of the roads, but as a matter of state and distinction.
Why the owner should apply to the prior, in preference
to the bishop of the diocese, and how the former became

550 ANTIQUITIES

competent to such a grant, I cannot say ; but that the
priors of Selborne did take that privilege is plain, be-
cause some years afterward, in 1280, Prior Richard
granted to Henry Waterford and his wife Nicholaa a
license to build an oratory in their court house, " curia
sua de Waterford,'* in which they might celebrate divine
service, saving the rights of the mother church of
Basynges. Yet all the while the prior of Selborne
grants with such reserve and caution, as if in doubt of
his power, and leaves Gurdon and his lady answerable
in future to the bishop, or his ordinary, or to the vicar
for the time being, in case they should infringe the rights
of the mother church of Selborne.

TEMPLE, IN THE PARISH OF

The manor house called Temple is at present a single
building, running in length from south to north, and has
been occupied as a common farm house from time im-
memorial. The south end is modern, and consists of
a brewhouse, and then a kitchen, The middle part is
a hall twenty-seven feet in length, and nineteen feet in
breadth ; and has been formerly open to the top ; but
there is now a floor above it, and also a chimney in the

OF SELBORNE. 551

western wall. The roofing consists of strong massive
rafter-work ornamented with carved roses. I have often
looked for the lamb and flag, the arms of the Knights
Templars, without success ; but in one corner found a
fox with a goose on his back, so coarsely executed, that
it required some attention to make out the device.

Beyond the hall to the north is a small parlour with a
vast heavy stone chimney-piece ; and, at the end of all,
the chapel or oratory, whose massive thick walls and
narrow windows at once bespeak great antiquity. This
room is only sixteen feet by sixteen feet eight inches ;
and full seventeen feet nine inches in height. The
ceiling is formed of vast joists, placed only five or six
inches apart. Modern delicacy would not much ap-
prove of such a place of worship : for it has at present
much more the appearance of a dungeon than of a room
fit for the reception of people of condition. The field
on which this oratory abuts is still called Chapel Field.
The situation of this house is very particular, for it
stands upon the immediate verge of a steep abrupt hill.

Not many years since, this place was used for a hop-
kiln, and was divided into two stories by a loft, part of
which remains at present, and makes it convenient for
peat and turf, with which it is stowed 1.

1 There is now not a vestige remaining of the house described by
Gilbert White. But the modern residence, in its whitened walls and
slated roof and squared form the very reverse of the irregular and pictu-
resque building represented on the opposite page, occupies nearly the
same position with its predecessor, and commands that extensive view
over the forest, which was so advantageous in other times to its warder,
and which now delights the spectator by its variety and extent. The
grander features of nature have not changed here since Adam Gurdon
looked on them, and in the details, as seen from this position, there has
probably occurred but little alteration. Another view, equally lovely
but less extensive, is obtained from the orchard of Temple, formerly the
Chapel Field. In this prospect, and in that from the terrace by the side
of the house, a range of view is comprised extending over more than half
the compass, and stretching away uninterruptedly for miles over the
richest foreground imaginable to the dreary wastes of the Forest, enli-
vened by its little lakes, and bounded by the high downs that rise in the
distance into the clouds. — E. T. B.

552

ANTIQUITIES

LETTER X.

THE Priory at times was much obliged to Gurclon and
his family. As Sir Adam began to advance in years
he found his mind influenced by the prevailing opinion
of the reasonableness and efficacy of prayers for the
dead ; and, therefore, in conjunction with his wife
Constantia, in the year 1271, granted to the prior and
convent of Selborne all his right and claim to a certain
place, placea, called La Pleystow, in the village afore-

THK PLKSTOR.

said, "in liberam, puram, et perpetuam elemosinam." This
Pleystow 1t 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 Plestor2.

1 In Saxon Plejepcop, or Plesprop; vjz. Plegestow, or Plegstow.

8 At this juncture probably the vast oak, mentioned p. 8, was planted
by the prior, as an ornament to his new acquired market-place. Accord-
ing to this supposition the oak was aged four hundred and Unity-two
years when blown down.

OF SELBORNE. 553

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 a«d amuse-
ments of its young people3.

As soon as the prior became possessed of this piece
of ground, he procured a charter for a market4 from
King Henry III. and began to erect houses and stalls,
" seldas," around it. From this period Selborne became
a market town : but how long it enjoyed that privilege
does not appear. At the same time Gurdon reserved
to himself, and his heirs, a way through the said Plestor
to a tenement and some crofts at the upper end, abut-
ting on the south corner of the churchyard. This was,
in old days, the manerial house of the street manor,
though now a poor cottage ; and is known at present
by the modern name of Elliot's. Sir Adam also did,
for the health of his own soul, and that of his wife Con-
stantia, their predecessors and successors, grant to the
prior and canons quiet possession of all the tenements
and gardens, " cMrtillagia" which they had built and
laid out on the lands in Selborne, on which he and his
vassals, " homines" had undoubted right of common :
and moreover did grant to the convent the full privi-
lege of that right of common; and empowered the
religious to build tenements and make gardens along
the king's highway in the village of Selborne.

3 For more circumstances respecting the Plestor, see Letter II. to
Mr. Pennant.

4 Bishop Tanner, in his Notitia Monastica, has made a mistake respect-
ing the market and fair at Selborne: for, in his references to Dodsworth,
cart. 54 Hen. III. m. 3. he says, " De mcrcatu, etferia de Seleburn" But
this reference is wrong; for, instead of Seleburn, it proves that the place
there meant was Lekeborne, or Legeborn, in the county of Lincoln. This
error was copied from the index of the Cat. MSS. Angl. It does not
appear that there ever was a chartered fair at Selborne. For several
particulars respecting the present fair at Selborne see Letter XXVI.
of these Antiquities.

554 ANTIQUITIES

From circumstances put together it appears that the
above were the first grants obtained by the Priory in
the village of Selborne, after it had subsisted about
thirty-nine years : moreover they explain the nature of
the mixed manor still remaining in and about the village,
where one field or tenement shall belong to Magdalen
College in the university of Oxford, and the next to
Norton Powlet, Esq. of Rotherfield House ; and so
down the whole street. The case was, that the whole
was once the property of Gurdon, till he made his
grants to the convent ; since which some belongs to the
successors of Gurdon in the manor, and some to the
college; and this is the occasion of the strange jumble
of property. It is remarkable that the tenement and
crofts which Sir Adam reserved at the time of granting
the Plestor should still remain a part of the Gurdon
manor, though so desirable an addition to the vicarage
that is not as yet possessed of one inch of glebe at
home: but of late, viz. in January, 1785, Magdalen
College purchased that little estate, which is life-hold-
ing, in reversion, for the generous purpose of besto \\in<r
it, and its lands, being twelve acres (three of which
abut on the churchyard and vicarage garden) as an
improvement hereafter to the living, and an eligible
advantage to future incumbents.

The year after Gurdon had bestowed the Plestor on
the Priory, viz. in 1272, Henry III. King of England
died, and was succeeded by his son Edward. This
magnanimous prince continued his regard for Sir Adam,
whom he esteemed as a brave man, and made him war-
den, " custos" of the forest of Wolmer5. Though little

5 Since the letters respecting Wolmer Forest and Ayles Holt, from p.
25 to 40, were printed, the author has been favoured with the following
extracts :

In the " Act of Resumption, 1 Hen. VII." it was provided, that it be
not prejudicial to " Harry at Lode, ranger of our forest of Wolmere, to
him by oure letters patents before tyme gevyn."— Rolls of Parl. vol. vi.
p. 370.

In the 11 Hen. VII. 1495.—" Warlham [Ward le ham] and the office of

OF SELBORNE. 555

emolument might hang to this appointment, yet are
there reasons why it might be highly acceptable ; and,
in a few reigns after, it was given to princes of the
blood6. In old days gentry resided more at home on
their estates, and, having fewer resources of elegant
in-door amusement, spent most of their leisure hours
in the field and the pleasures of the chase. A large
domain, therefore, at little more than a mile distance,
and well stocked with game, must have been a very
eligible acquisition, affording him influence as well as

forest [forester] of Wolmere " were held by Edmund, Duke of Suffolk. —
Rolls, ib. 474.

Act of general pardon, 14 Hen. VIII. 1523, not to extend to "Rich.
Bp. of Wynton [Bishop Fox] for any seizure or forfeiture of liberties, &c.
within the forest of Wolmer, Alysholt, and Newe Forest ; nor to any
person for waste, &c. within the manor of Wardlam, or parish of Ward-
lam [Ward le ham ;] nor to abusing, &c. of any office or fee, within the said
forests of Wolmer or Alysholt, or the said park of Wardlam."— County
Suth't. Rolls prefixed to first Vol. of Journals of the Lords, p. xciii. b.

To these may be added some other particulars, taken from a book
lately published, entitled "An Account of all the Manors, Messuages,
Lands, &c. in the different Counties of England and Wales, held by
Lease from the Crown ; as contained in the Report of the Commissioners
appointed to inquire into the State and Condition of the Royal Forests,"
&c.— London, 1787.

" Southampton."

P. 64. " A fee-farm rent of 3H. 2s. lid. out of the manors of East and
West Wardleham; and also the office of lieutenant or keeper of the
forest or chase of Aliceholt and Wolmer, with all offices, fees, commodi-
ties, and privileges thereto belonging.

" Names of lessees, William, Earl of Dartmouth and others (in trust).

" Date of the last lease, March 23, 1780 ; granted for such term as
would fill up the subsisting term to thirty-one years.

" Expiration March 23, 1811."

" Appendix, No. III."
" Southampton."

" Hundreds — Selborne and Finchdeane."
" Honours and manors," &c.

" Aliceholt Forest, three parks there.

" Bensted and Kingsley ; a petition of the parishioners concerning the
three parks in Aliceholt Forest."

William, first Earl of Dartmouth, and paternal grandfather to the pre-
sent Lord Stawel, was a lessee of the forests of Aliceholt and Wolmer
before brigadier-general Emanuel Scroope Howe.

6 See Letter II. of these Antiquities.

556 ANTIQUITIES

entertainment; and especially as the manerial house
of Temple, by its exalted situation, could command a
view of near two-thirds of the forest.

That Gurdon, who had lived some years the life of an
outlaw, and, at the head of an army of insurgents, was,
for a considerable time in high rebellion against his
sovereign, should have been guilty of some outrages,
and should have committed some depredations, is by
no means matter of wonder. Accordingly we find a
distrmgas against him, ordering him to restore to the
Bishop of Winchester some of the temporalities of that
see, which he had taken by violence and detained ; viz.
some lands in Hocheleye, and a mill7. By a breve, or
writ, from the king he is also enjoined to readmit the
Bishop of Winchester, and his tenants of the parish
and town of Farnham, to pasture their horses, and
other larger cattle, " averia," in the Forest of Wolmer,
as had been the usage from time immemorial. This
writ is dated in the tenth year of the reign of Edward,
viz. 1282.

All the king's writs directed to Gurdon are addressed
in the following manner: "Edwardus, Dei gratia, &c.
dilecto et fideli suo Ade Gurdon salutem ;" and again,
" Custodi foreste sue de Wolvemere."

In the year 1293 a quarrel between the crews of an
English and a Norman ship, about some trifle, brought
on by degrees such serious consequences, that in 1295
a war broke out between the two nations. The French
king, Philip the Hardy, gained some advantages in
Gascony ; and, not content, with those, threatened
England with an invasion, and, by a sudden attempt,
took and burnt Dover.

Upon this emergency Edward sent a writ to Gurdon,
ordering him and four others to enlist three thousand
soldiers in the counties of Surrey, Dorset, and Wilt-

7 Hocheleye, now spelt Hawkley, is in the hundred of Sel borne, and
has a mill at this day.

OF SELBORNE. 557

shire, able-bodied men, " tarn sagittare quam balistare
potentes:" and to see that they were marched, by the
feast of All Saints, to Winchelsea, there to be embarked
aboard the king's transports.

The occasion of this armament appears- also from a
summons to the Bishop of Winchester to parliament,
part of which I shall transcribe on account of the
insolent menace which is said therein to have been
denounced against the English language: — " qualiter
rex Franciae de terra nostra Gascon nos fraud ulenter
et cautelose decepit, earn nobis nequiter detinendo . . .
vero predictis fraude et nequitia non contentus, ad
expugnationem regni nostri classe maxima et bella-
torum copiosa multitudine congregatis, cum quibus
regnum nostrum et regni ejusdem incolas hostiliter jam
invasurus, linguam Anglicam, si concepte iniquitatis
proposito detestabili potestas correspondeat, quod Deus
avertat, omnino de terra delere proponit." Dated 30th
September, in the year of King Edward's reign xxiii8.

The above are the last traces that I can discover of
Gurdon's appearing and acting in public. The first
notice that my evidences give of him is, that, in 1232,
being the sixteenth of Henry III. he was the king's
bailiff, with others, for the town of Alton. Now, from
1232 to 1295 is a space of sixty-three years ; a long
period for one man to be employed in active life !
Should any one doubt whether all these particulars can
relate to one and the same person, I should wish him
to attend to the following reasons why they might. In
the first place, the documents from the Priory mention
but one Sir Adam Gurdon, who had no son lawfully
begotten : and in the next, we are to recollect that he
must have probably been a man of uncommon vigour
both of mind and body ; since no one, unsupported by
such accomplishments, could have engaged in such

8 Reg. Wynton, Stratford, but query Stratford ; for Stratford was not
Bishop of Winton till 1323, near thirty years afterwards.

558 ANTIQUITIES

adventures, or could have borne up against the diffi-
culties which he sometimes must have encountered: and,
moreover, we have modern instances of persons that
have maintained their abilities for near that period.

Were we to suppose Gurdon to be only twenty years
of age in 1232, in 1295 he would be eighty-three ; after
which advanced period it could not be expected that he
should live long. From the silence, therefore, of my
evidences it seems probable that this extraordinary
person finished his life in peace, not long after, at his
mansion of Temple. Gurdon's seal had for its device
— a man with a helmet on his head, drawing a cross-
bow ; the legend, " Sigillum Ade de Gurdon ;" his arms
were, " Goulis et iii floures argent issant de testes de
leopards9."

If the stout and unsubmitting spirit of Gurdon could
be so much influenced by the belief and superstition of
the times, much more might the hearts of his ladies and
daughter. And accordingly we find that Ameria, by
the consent and advice of her sons, though said to be
all under age, makes a grant for ever of some lands
down by the stream at Durton ; and also of her right of
the common of Durton itself10. Johanna, the daughter
and heiress of Sir Adam, was married, I find, to Richard
Achard ; she also grants to the prior and convent lands
and tenements in the village of Selborne, which her
father obtained from Thomas Makerel ; and all also her
goods and chattels in Selborne for the consideration of
two hundred pounds sterling. This last business was
transacted in the first year of Edward II. viz. 1307. It
has been observed before that Gurdon had a natural
son : this person was called by the name of John Das-
tard, alias Wastard, but more probably Bastard ; since

9 From the collection of Thomas Martin, Esq. in the Antiquarian Re-
pertory, vol. iii. p. 109, No. XXXI.

10 Durton, now called Dorton, is still a common for the copyholders of
Selborne manor.

OP SELBORNE. 559

bastardy in those days was not deemed any disgrace,
though dastard y was esteemed the greatest. He was
married to Gimnorie Duncun ; and had a tenement
and some land granted him in Selborne by his sister
Johanna.

LETTER XL

THE Knights Templars1, who have been mentioned in
a former letter, had considerable property in Selborne ;
and also a preceptory at Sudington, now called South-
ington, a hamlet lying one mile to the east of the village.

1 The Military Orders of the Religious.

The Knights Hospitalars of St. John of Jerusalem, afterwards called
Knights of Rhodes, now of Malta, came into England about the year
1100, 1 Hen. I.

The Knights Templars came into England pretty early in Stephen's
reign, which commenced 1135. The order was dissolved in 1312, and
their estates given by act of Parliament to the Hospitalars in 1323, (all
in Edw. II.) though many of their estates were never actually enjoyed
by the said Hospitalars. — Vid. Tanner, p. xxiv. x.

The commandries of the Hospitalars, and preceptories of Templars,
were each subordinate to the principal house of their respective religion
in London. Although these are the different denominations, which Tan-
ner at p. xxviii. assigns to the cells of these different orders, yet through-
out the work very frequent instances occur of preceptories attributed to
the Hospitalars ; and if in some passages of Notitia Monast. commandries
are attributed to the Templars, it is only where the place afterwards
became the property of the Hospitalars, and so is there indifferently
styled preceptory or commandry ; see p. 243, 263, 276, 577, 678. But, to
account for the first observed inaccuracy, it is probable the preceptories
of the Templars, when given to the Hospitalars, were still vulgarly,
however, called by their old name of preceptories ; whereas in propriety
the societies of the Hospitalars were indeed (as has been said) comman-
dries. And such deviation from the strictness of expression in this case
might occasion those societies of Hospitalars also to be indifferently
called preceptories, which had originally been vested in them, having
never belonged to the Templars at all. — See in Archer, p. 609. Tanner,
p. 300. col. 1. 720. note e.

It is observable that the very statute for the dissolution of the Hospi-
talars holds the same language ; for there, in the enumeration of particu-
lars, occur "commandries, preceptories." Codex, p. 1190. Now this
intercommunity of names, and that in an act of parliament too, made

530 ANTIQUITIES

Bishop Tanner mentions only two such houses of the
Templars in all the county of Southampton, viz. Godes-
field, founded by Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester,
and South Badeisley, a preceptory of the Knights Tem-
plars, and afterwards of St. John of Jerusalem, valued
at one hundred and eighteen pounds sixteen shillings
and seven pence per annum. Here then was a precep-
tory unnoticed by antiquaries, between the village and
Temple. Whatever the edifice of the preceptory might
have been, it has long since been dilapidated ; and tin-
whole hamlet contains now only one mean farm-house,
though there were two in the memory of man.

It has been usual for the religious of different orders
to fall into great dissensions, and especially when they
were near neighbours. Instances of this sort we have
heard of between the monks of Canterbury; and again
between the old abbey of St. Swythun, and the compa-
ratively new minster of Hyde in the city of Winchester2.

some of our ablest antiquaries look upon a preceptory and command ry
as strictly synonymous; accordingly we find Camden, in his Britannia,
explaining prteceptoria in the text by a commandry in the margin, p. 350,
510.— J. L.

Commandry, a manor or chief messuage with lands, &c. belonging to
the priory of St. John of Jerusalem ; and he who had the government of
such house was called the commander, who could not dispose of it but
to the use of the priory, only taking thence his own sustenance, accord-
ing to his degree, who was usually a brother of the same priory. Cowell.
He adds (confounding these with preceptories) they are in many places
termed Temples, as Temple Bruere in Lincolnshire, &c. Preceptories
were possessed by the more eminent «ort of Templars, whom the chief
master created and called Prteceptores Templi. Cowell, who refers to
Stephens de Jurisd. lib. 4. c. 10. num. 27.

Placita de juratis et assis coram Salom. de Roff et sociis suis justic.
Itiner. apud Wynton, &c. anno regni R. Edwardi fil. Reg. Hen. octavo. —
" et Magr. Milicie Templi in Angl. ht emendasst* panis, & suis [cerevisia-]
in Sodington, & nescint q°. war. et — et magist. Milicie Templi non ven iu
distr. — Chapter House, Westminster.

2 Notitia Monastica, p. 155.

" Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a
house and chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought
out of Flanders: but afterwards projected, and by his will ordered, a
noble church or religious house to be built in the cemetery on the north

OF SELBORNE. 561

These feuds arose probably from different orders being
crowded within the narrow limits of a city, or garrison-
town, where every inch of ground was precious, and an
object of contention. But with us, as far as my evi-
dences extend, and while Robert Saunford was master3,
and Richard Carpenter was preceptor, the Templars
and the Priors lived in an intercourse of mutual good
offices.

My papers mention three transactions, the exact
time of which cannot be ascertained, because they fell
out before dates were usually inserted ; though proba-
bly they happened about the middle of the thirteenth
century ; not long after Saunford became master. The
first of these is that the Templars shall pay to the
priory of Selborne, annually, the sum of ten shillings at
two half yearly payments from their chamber, " camera"
at Sudington, " per manum preceptoris, vel ballivi nostri,
qui pro tempore fuerit ibidem," till they can provide
the prior and canons with an equivalent in lands or
rents within four or five miles of the said convent. It
is also further agreed that, if the Templars shall be in

side of the old minster or cathedral ; and designed that Grimbald should
preside over it. This was begun A. D. 901, and finished to the honour of
the Holy Trinity, Virgin Mary, and St. Peter, by his son King Edward,
who placed therein secular canons: but A. D. 963, they were expelled,
and an abbot and monks put in possession by Bishop Ethelwold.

" Now the churches and habitations of these two societies being so
very near together, the differences which were occasioned by their sing-
ing, bells, and other matters, arose to so great a height, that the religious
of the new monastery thought fit, about A. D. 1119, to remove to a better
and more quiet situation without the walls, on the north part of the city
called HYDE, where King Henry I. at the instance of Will. Gifford,
Bishop of Winton, founded a stately abbey for them. St. Peter was
generally accounted patron ; though it is sometimes called the monastery
of St. Grimbald, and sometimes of St. Barnabas," &c.

Note. A few years since a county bridewell, or house of correction,
has been built on the immediate site of Hyde Abbey. In digging up the
old foundations the workmen found the head of a crosier in good preser-
vation.

3 Robert Saunforde was master of the Temple in 1241 ; Guido de
Foresta was the next in 1292. The former is fifth in a list of the masters
in a MS. Bib. Cotton. Nero. E. VI.

O O

562 ANTIQUITIES

arrears for one year, that then the prior shall be em-
powered to distrain upon their live stock in Bradeseth.
The next matter was a grant from Robert de Saunford
to the priory for ever, of a good and sufficient road,
" cheminum" capable of admitting carriages, and proper
for the drift of their larger cattle, from the way which
extends from Sudington towards Blakemere, on to the
lands which the convent possesses in Bradeseth.

The third transaction (though for want of dates \\r
cannot say which happened first and which last) was a
grant from Robert Saunford to the priory of a tenement
and its appurtenances in the village of Selborne, given
to the Templars by Americus de Vasci4. This pro-
perty, by the manner of describing it,—" totum tene-
mentum cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, scilicet in terris,
& hominibus, in pratis & pascuis, & nemoribus," &c.
seems to have been no inconsiderable purchase, and
was sold for two hundred marks sterling, to be applied
for the buying of more land for the support of the holy
war.

Prior John is mentioned as the person to whom
Vasci's land is conveyed. But in Willis's list there is
no prior John till 1339, several years after the dissolu-
tion of the order of the Templars in 1312 ; so that unless
Willis is wrong, and has omitted a prior John since
1262 (that being the date of his first prior), these trans-
actions must have fallen out before that date.

I find not the least traces of any concerns between
Gurdon and the Knights Templars ; but probably after
his death his daughter Johanna might have, and might
bestow, Temple on that order in support of the holy
land ; and, moreover, she seems to have been moving
from Selborne when she sold her goods and chattels to
the priory, as mentioned above.

4 Americus Vasci, by his name, must have been an Italian, and had
been probably a soldier of fortune, and one of Gurdon's captains. Ame-
ricus Vespucio, the person who gave name to the new world, was a
Florentine.

OF SELBORNE. 503

Temple no doubt did belong to the knights, as may
be asserted, not only from its name, but also from ano-
ther corroborating circumstance of its being still a
manor tithe-free ; " for, by virtue of their order," says
Dr. Blackstone, "the lands of the Knights. Templars
were privileged by the pope with a discharge from
tithes."

Antiquaries have been much puzzled about the terms
preceptores and preceptorium, not being able to determine
what officer or edifice was meant. But perhaps all the
while the passage quoted above from one of my papers
" per manum preceptoris vel ballivi nostri, qui pro tern-
pore fuerit ibidem," may help to explain the difficulty.
For if it be allowed here that preceptor and ballivus are
synonymous words, then the brother who took on him
that office resided in the house of the Templars at
Sudington, a preceptory ; where he was their preceptor,
superintended their affairs, received their money ; and,
as in the instance there mentioned, paid from their
chamber, " camera" as directed : so that, according to
this explanation, a preceptor was no other than a
steward, and a preceptorium was his residence. I am
well aware that, according to strict Latin, the vel should
have been sen or sive, and the order of the words "pre-
ceptoris nostri, vel ballivi, qui"— et " ibidem" should have
been ibi ; ibidem necessarily having reference to two or
more persons: but it will hardly be thought fair to
apply the niceties of classic rules to the Latinity of the
thirteenth century, the writers of which seem to have
aimed at nothing farther than to render themselves
intelligible.

There is another remark that we have made, which,
I think, corroborates what has been advanced; and
that is, that Richard Carpenter, preceptor of Suding-
ton, at the time of the transactions between the Tem-
plars and Selborne Priory, did always sign last as a
witness in the three deeds : he calls himself frater, it is

oo 2

564 ANTIQUITIES

true, among many other brothers, but subscribes with
a kind of deference, as if, for the time being, his office
rendered him an inferior in the community5.

LETTER XII.

THE ladies and daughter of Sir Adam Gurdon were
not the only benefactresses to the Priory of Selborne ;
for, in the year 1281, Ela Longspee obtained masses
to be performed for her soul's health; and the prior
entered into an engagement that one of the convent
should every day say a special mass for ever for the
said benefactress, whether living or dead. She also
engaged within five years to pay to the said convent
one hundred marks of silver for the support of a
chantry and chantry-chaplain, who should perform his
masses daily in the parish church of Selborne1. In
the east end of the south aisle there are two sharp-
pointed Gothic niches ; one of these probably was the
place under which these masses were performed ; and

* In two or three ancient records relating to St. Oswald's hospital in
the city of Worcester, printed by Dr. Nash, p. 227 and 228, of his Collec-
tions for the History of Worcestershire, the words preceptorium and prc-
ceptoria signify the mastership of the said hospital : " ad preceptorium sive
magisterium presentavit — preceptorii sive magistcrii patronus. Vacavit
dicta preceptoria seu magisterium— ad preceptoriam et regimen dicti hospi-
talis — Te preceptorem sive magistrum prefecimus."

Where preceptorium denotes a building or apartment it may probably
mean the master's lodgings, or at least the preceptor's apartment, what-
soever may have been the office or employment of the said preceptor.

A preceptor is mentioned in Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, or His-
tory of Leeds, p. 225, and a deed witnessed by the preceptor and chaplain
before dates were inserted.— Du Fresne's Supplement: " Preceptoria,
praedia preceptoribus assignata." — Cowell, in his Law Dictionary, enume-
rates sixteen preceptorice, or preceptories, in England ; but Sudington is not
among them. — It is remarkable that Gurtlerus, in his Historia Templario-
rum, Amstel. 1691, never once mentions the words preceptor or preceptorium.

1 A chantry was a chapel joined to some cathedral or parish church,
and endowed with annual revenues for the maintenance of one or more
priests to sing mass daily for the soul of the founder, and others.

OF SELBORNE. 565

there is the more reason to suppose as much, because,
till within these thirty years, this space was fenced off
with Gothic wooden railing, and was known by the
name of the south chancel2.

The solicitude expressed by the donor plainly shows
her piety and firm persuasion of the efficacy of prayers
for the dead ; for she seems to have made every provi-
sion for the payment of the sum stipulated within the
appointed time ; and to have felt much anxiety lest her
death, or the neglect of her executors or assigns, might
frustrate her intentions. — " Et si contingat me in solu-
cione predicte pecunie annis predictis in parte aut in
toto deficere, quod absit ; concedo et obligo pro me et

assignatis meis, quod Vice-Comes... Oxon et qui

pro tempore fuerint, per omnes terras et tenementa, et
omnia bona mea mobilia et immobilia ubicunque in
balliva sua fuerint inventa ad solucionem predictam
faciendam possent nos compellere." And again — " Et
si contingat dictos religiosos labores seu expensas
facere circa predictam pecuniam, seu circa partem dicte
pecunie; volo quod dictorum religiosorum impense et
labores levantur ita quod predicto priori vel uni cano-
nicorum suorum super hiis simplici verbo credatur sine
alterius honere probacionis ; et quod utrique predic-
torum virorum in unam marcam argenti pro cujuslibet
distrincione super me facienda tenear. — Dat. apud
Wareborn die sabati proxima ante festum St. Marci
evangeliste, anno regni regis Edwardi tertio decimo3."

But the reader perhaps would wish to be better
informed respecting this benefactress, of whom as yet
he has heard no particulars.

2 For what is said more respecting this chantry see Letter III. of
these Antiquities. — Mention is made of a Nicholas Langrish, capellanus
de Selborne, in the time of Henry VIII. Was he chantry-chaplain to
Ela Longspee, whose masses were probably continued to the time of the
reformation? More will be said of this person hereafter.

3 Ancient deeds are often dated on a Sunday, having been executed
in churches and churchyards for the sake of notoriety, and for the conve-
nieucy of procuring several witnesses to attest.

56G ANTIQUITIES

The Ela Longspcc therefore above-mentioned was a
lady of high birth and rank, and became countess to
Thomas de Nevvburgh, the sixth Earl of Warwick :
she was the second daughter of the famous Ela Long-
spec, Countess of Salisbury, by William Longspee,
natural son of King Henry II. by Rosamond.

Our lady, following the steps of her illustrious
mother4, " was a great benefactress to the university
of Oxford, to the canons of Oseney, the nuns of God-
stow, and other religious houses in Oxfordshire. She
died very aged in the year 1300 5, and was buried
before the high altar in the abbey church of Oseney, at
the head of the tomb of Henry D'Oily, under a flat
marble, on which was inlaid her portraiture, in the
habit of a vowess, engraved on a copper-plate." —
Edmondson's History and Genealogical Account of the
Grevilles, p. 23.

LETTER XIII.

THE reader is here presented with five forms respect-
ing the choosing of a prior1. Such evidences are rare
and curious, and throw great light upon the general

4 Ela Longspee, Countess of Salisbury, in 1232, founded a monastery
at Lacock, in the county of Wilts, and also another at Hendon, in the
county of Somerset, in her widowhood, to the honour of the Blessed
Virgin and St. Bernard. — CAM MIA.

5 Thus she survived the foundation of her chantry at Selborne fifteen
years. About this lady and her mother consult Dugdale's Baronage, I.
72, 175, 177.— Dugdale's Warwickshire, I. 383.— Leland's Itin. II. 45.

1 (No. 108.)
Carta petens licentiam eligendi prelatum a Domino Episcopo Wintoniensi.

Defuncto prelato forma petendi licentiam eligendi.

Domino et patri in Christo reverendo domino & P. Dei gratia Win-
toniensi episcopo, devoti sui filii supprior monasterii de S. Wintoniensis
dioceseos salutem cum subjectione humili, reverentiam, et honorem.
Monasterio nostro de S. in quo sub protectione vestra vivimus, sub habitu
regular!, Prioris solacio destitute per mortem bone memorie,&c. quondam
Prioris nostri, qui tali hora in aurora diem clausit cxtrcmuin, vestrc pater-

OF SELBORNE. 567

monastico-ccclesiastical history of this kingdom, not
yet sufficiently understood.

nitati reverende et domination! precipue istum nostrum et nostri monas-
terii casum flebilem cum nierore nunciamus ; ad vestre paternitatis
refugium fratres nostros A. et C. canonicos destinantesj. rogando et
petendo devote quatenus nobis dignemini licenciam tribuere, ut monas-
terio predicto, Prioris regimine destitute, providere possimus, invocata
Spiritus sancti gratia, per electionem canonicam de Priore. Actum in
monasterio predicto 5 kalend. &c. anno Domini, &c, Valeat reverenda
paternitas vestra semper in Domino.

Forma licencie concesse.

P. Dei gratia Wintoniensis episcopus dilectis in Christo filiis suppriori
et conventui talis loci salutem, gratiam, et benedictionem. Viduitatem
monasterii vestri vacantis per mortem quondam R. Prioris vestri, cujus
anime propicietur altissimus, paterno compacientes aflectu, petitam a
nobis eligendi licenciam vobis concedimus, ut patronus. Datum apud,
&c. 3 kalend. Jul. anno consecrationis nostre tertio.

Forma decreti post electionem conficiendi.

In nomine Domini nostri Jhesu Christi, Amen. Monasterio beate
Marie talis loci Winton. dioc. solacio destitute per mortem R. quondam
Prioris ipsius ; ac corpore ejus, prout moris est, ecclesiastice sepulture
commendato ; petita cum devocione licentia per fratres K. et . canonicos
a ven : in Christo patre et domino domino P. Dei gratia Wintoniensi
episcopo ejusdem monasterii patrouo, eligendi priorem, et optenta ; die
dato, a toto capitulo ad eligendum vocati fuere evocandi, qui debuerunt,
voluerunt, et potuerunt comode electioni prioris in monasterio predicto
intcresse: omnes canonici in capitulo ejusdem ecclesie convenerunt tali
die, anno Dora. &c. ad tractandum de electione sui prioris facienda; qui,
invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, ad procedendum per formam scrutinii
concencientes.

(N. 108.) Modus procedendi ad electionem per formam scrutinii.
Omnibus in capitulo congregatis qui debent volunt et possunt comode
interesse electioni eligendi sunt tres de capitulo* non nostro obediencias
orest, qui erunt scrutatores, et sedebunt in angulo capituli; et primo
requii-ent vota sua propria, videlicet, duo requirent tertium et duo alterum,
&c. dicendo sic, " Frater P. in quern concentis ad eligendum in prelatum
nostrum?" quibus examinatis, et dictis eorum per vicem ex ipsis in scrip-
tura redactis, vocabunt ad se omnes fratres singillatim, primo suppriorem,
&c. Et unus de tribus examinatoribus scribet dictum cujuslibet. Cele-
brato scrutinio, publicare db coram omnibus. Facta ptmodu concensum col-
lectione apparebit in quern pars major capituli et sanior concentit ; quo
viso, major pars dicet minori, " Cum major pars et sanior capituli nostri

* Fratres canonicos. See Forma decreti, Sfc.

t Obedientiores sc. more regular. In virtute obedientia? occurs in
•Vw/. Visit.

569 ANTIQUITIES

In the year 1324 there was an election for a prior at
Selborne ; when some difficulties occurring, and a devo-

concenciat in fratrem R. ipse est eligendus, unde, si placet, ipsum com-
muniter eligamus;" si vero omnes acquieverint, tune ille qui majorem
vocem habet in capitulo surgens dicet, " Ego frater R. pro toto capitulo
eligo fratrem R. nobis in pastorem;" et omnes dicent; " Placet nobis."
Et incipient, " TE DEUM LAUDAMUS." Si vero in unum concordare nequi-
verint, tune hiis, qui majorem vocem habet inter illos qui majorem et
saniorem partem capituli constituerint, dicet, " Ego pro me et illis qui
mecum concenciunt in fratrem R. eligo ipsum in," &c. Et illi dicent,
" Placet nobis," &c.

Forma ricte presentandi elect urn.

Reverendo in Christo patri et domino domino P. Dei gratia Winton.
episcopo devoti sui filii frater R. Supprior conventualis beate Marie de
tali loco, et ejusdem loci Conventus, cum subjectione humili, omnem obe-
dienciam, reverenciam, et honorem. Cum conventualis ecclesia beate
Marie talis loci, in qua sub protectione vestra vivimus sub habitu regulari,
per mortem felicis recordationis R. quondam prioris nostri destituta
ecclesia priore, qui 6to kalend. Jul. in aurora anno Dom. &c. diem clausit
extremum ; de corpore ejus, prout moris est, ecclesiastice tradito sepul-
ture ; petita a vobis, tanquam a Domino, et vero ejusdem ecclesie patrono
et pastore, licencia eligendi priorem et optenta ; eonvenientibus omnibus
canonicis predicte ecclesie in capitulo nostro, qui voluerunt debuerunt et
potuerunt comode elcctioni nostre interesse, tali die anno Dom. supradicto,
invocata Spiritus Sancti gratia, fratrem R. de C. ejusdem ecclesie canoni-
cum unanimi assensu et voluntate in priorem nostrum, ex puris votis sin-
gulorum, unanimiter eligimus. Quern reverende paternitati vestre et
dominacioni precipue Priorem vero patrono nostro et pastore confirman-
dum, si placet, tenore presentium presentamus ; dignitatem vestram hunii-
liter et devote rogantes, quatenus, dicte electioui felicem prebere volentes
assensum, eidem R. electo nostro nunc contirmabitis, et quod vestrum est
pastorali solicitudine impendere dignemini. In cujus rei testimonium
presentes litteras sigillo capituli nostri signatas paternitati vestre l/vo/.s-
mittimus. Valeat reverenda paternitas vestra semper in Domino. Datum
tali loco die et anno supradictis. Omnes et singuli, per fratres A. B. ct
C. ejusdem ecclesie canonicos de voluntate tocius conventus ad inquircnda
vota singulorum constitutes, secreto et singillatim requisiti ; tandem pub-
licato scrutinio et facta votorum colectione inventum est, majorem et
saniorem partem tocius capituli dicte ecclesie in fratrem S. de B. dicte
ecclesie canonicum unanimiter et concorditer concencisse ; vel sic, quando
inventum omnes canonicos dicte ecclesie preter duos in fratrem, A. D.
quibus statim majori parti eligendum adquiescenter : frater k. supprior
ecclesie memorate, juxta potestatem sibi a toto conventu traditam, vice
consociorum suorum et sua ac tocius conventus, dictum fratrem S. de B.
in priorem ejusdem ecclesie elegit, sub hac forma ; " Ego frater supprior
conventualis ecclesie beate Marie talis loci, potestate et auctoritate mihi
a toto conventu dicte ecclesie tradita et commissa, quando, puplicato

OF SELBORNE. 569

lution taking place, application was made to Stratford,
who was Bishop of Winchester at that time, and of
course the visiter and patron of the convent at the spot
above-mentioned 2.

AN EXTRACT FROM REG. STRATFORD. WINTON.

P. 4. " Commissio facta sub-priori de Selebourne"
by the bishop, enjoining him to preserve the discipline
of the order in the convent during the vacancy made
by the late death of the prior, (" nuper pastoris solatio
destituta,") dated 4to. kal. Maii ann. 2do sc. of his con-
secration, [sc. 1324.]

P. 6. " Custodia Prioratus de Seleburne vacantis,"
committed by the bishop to Nicholas de la . . . , a lay-
man, it belonging to the bishop " ratione vacationis
ejusdem," in July, 1324. Ibid. " Negotium electionis
de Selebourne. Acta coram Johanne Episcopo, &c.
1324 in negotio electionis de fratre Waltero de Insula
concanonico prioratus de Selebourne," lately elected by
the sub-prior and convent, by way of scrutiny ; that it
appeared to the bishop, by certificate from the Dean of
Alton, that solemn citation and proclamation had been
made in the church of the convent where the election
was held, that any who opposed the said election or
elected should appear. Some difficulties were started,
which the bishop overruled, and confirmed the election,
and admitted the new prior sub hac forma:

" In Dei nomine Amen. Ego Johannes permissione
divina, &c. te Walterum de Insula ecclesie de Selebourne

scrutinio et omnibus circa hoc rite peractis, inveni majorem et partem
saniorem tocius capituli nostri in fratrem S. de B. virum providum unani-
niiter concencisse, ipsum nobis et ecclesie nostre, vice tocius conventus,
in priorem eligendum ; et eidem election! subscribe ; cui election! omnes
canonici nostri concencerunt, et subscripserunt." — " Ego frater de C. pre-
senti electioni concencio, et subscribe." Et sic de singulis electoribus;
in cvjus rei testimonium sigillum capituli nostri apponi fecimus ad pre-
sentes.

2 Stratford was Bishop of Winchester from 1323 to 1333, wheu he was
translated to Canterbury.

570 ANTIQUITIES

nostro diocescos nostrique patronatus vacantis, canoni-
cum et cantorem, virum utique providum, ct discretum,
literarum scientia preditum, vita moribus et conversa-
tione merito commendatum, in ordine sacerdotali et
etate legitima constitutum, de legitimo matrimonio
procreatum, in ordine et religione Sancti Augustini dc
Selebourne expresse professum, in spiritualibus et tem-
poralibus circumspectum, jure nobis hac vice devoluto in
hac parte, in dicte ecclcsie de Selebourne perfcctum
priorem ; curam et administrationem ejusdem tibi in
spiritualibus et temporalibus committentes. Dat. apud
Selebourne XIII kalend. Augusti anno supradicto."

There follows an order to the sub-prior and convent
pro obedientia :

A mandate to Nicholas above-named to release the
Priory to the new prior :

A mandate for the induction of the new prior.

LETTER XIV.

" IN the year 1373 Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester,
held a visitation of his whole diocese; not only of the
secular clergy through the several deaneries, but ;ilso
of the monasteries, and religious houses of all sorts,
which he visited in person. The next year he sent his
commissioners with power to correct and reform the
several irregularities and abuses which he had disco-
vered in the course of his visitation.

" Some years afterward, the bishop having visited
three several times all the religious houses throughout
his diocese, and being well informed of the state and
condition of each, and of the particular abuses which
required correction and reformation, besides the orders
which he had already given, and the remedies which
he had occasionally applied by his commissioners, now
issued his injunctions to each of them. They wi-re
accommodated to their several exigencies, and intended

OF SELBORNK. 571

to correct the abuses introduced, and to recall them all
to a strict observation of the rules of their respective
orders. Many of these injunctions are still extant,
and are evident monuments of the care and attention
with which he discharged this part of his episcopal
duty1."

Some of these injunctions I shall here produce; and
they are such as will not fail, I think, to give satis-
faction to the antiquary, both as never having been
published before, and as they are a curious picture of
monastic irregularities at that time.

The documents that I allude to are contained in the
Notabilis Visitatio de Seleburne, held at the Priory of
that place, by Wykeham in person, in the year 1387.

This evidence, in the original, is written on two skins
of parchment ; the one large, and the other smaller, and
consists of a preamble, thirty-six items, and a conclu-
sion, which altogether evince the patient investigation
of the visiter, for which he had always been so remark-
able in all matters of moment, and how much he had
at heart the regularity of those institutions, of whose
efficacy in their prayers for the dead he was so firmly
persuaded. As the bishop was so much in earnest, we
may be assured that he had nothing in view but to cor-
rect and reform what he found amiss ; and was under
no bias to blacken or misrepresent, as the commis-
sioners of Thomas Lord Cromwell seem in part to have
done at the time of the reformation2. We may there-
fore with reason suppose that the bishop gives us an
exact delineation of the morals and manners of the
canons of Selborne at that juncture ; and that what he
found they had omitted he enjoins them ; and for what
they have done amiss, and contrary to their rules and
statutes, he reproves them ; and threatens them with
punishment suitable to their irregularities.

1 See Lowth's Life of Wykeham.

2 Letters of this sort from Dr. Layton to Thomas Lord Cromwell, are
still extant.

572 ANTIQUITIES

This visitatio is of considerable length, and cannot be
introduced into the body of this work3; we shall there-
fore take some notice, and make some remarks, on the
most singular items as they occur.

In the preamble the visiter says — " Considering the
charge lying upon us, that your blood may not be
required at our hands, we came down to visit your
Priory, as our office required : and every time we re-
peated our visitation we found something still not only
contrary to regular rules but also repugnant to religion
and good reputation."

In the first article after the preamble — " he commands
them on their obedience, and on pain of the greater
excommunication, to see that the canonical hours by
night and by day be sung in their choir, and the masses
of the Blessed Mary, and other accustomed masses, be
celebrated at the proper hours with devotion, and at
moderate pauses ; and that it be not allowed to any
to absent themselves from the hours and masses, or to
withdraw before they are finished."

Item 2d. He enjoins them to observe that silence to
which they are so strictly bound by the rule of St. Au-
gustine at stated times, and wholly to abstain from
frivolous conversation.

[Item 3rd. That whereas, although in health, they
have many times neglected the celebration of masses,
and have thereby defrauded the souls of the founders
and other benefactors ; he enjoins them to confess fre-
quently, and devoutly to celebrate mass, as well for the
living as the dead, as often as may be. If any impedi-
ment occur to prevent the celebration they are to report
it within three days to the prior ; who is also required
to search diligently every month into breaches of this
rule, and to punish the delinquents.]

3 It was printed entire in an Appendix to the first edition : but as the
principal items have been abstracted in the text by Gilbert White, and as
the heads of the remaining items are now given [between brackets] by the
editor, it has been judged unnecessary to reprint on this occasion, verba-
tim, an article of such considerable length. — E. T. B.

OF SELBORNE. 573

Item 4th. " Not to permit such frequent passing of
secular people of both sexes through their convent, as
if a thoroughfare, from whence many disorders may
and have arisen."

Item 5th. " To take care that the doors, of their
church and Priory be so attended to that no suspected
and disorderly females, ' suspectae et aliae inhonestae,'
pass through their choir and cloister in the dark ;" and
to see that the doors of their church between the nave
and the choir, and the gates of their cloister opening
into the fields, be constantly kept shut until their first
choir-service is over in the morning, at dinner time,
and when they meet at their evening collation4.

Item 6th mentions that several of the canons are
found to be very ignorant and illiterate, and enjoins
the prior to see that they be better instructed by a
proper master.

[Item 7th. The decretals concerning their order are
not read, on which account they, in consequence of
their ignorance of them, to the peril of their souls act in
a manner therein expressly forbidden. Wherefore they
are required to have these decretals written in a volume,
and read twice a year in the chapter for the information
of the seniors ; and to have them explained, in the vul-
gar, to the novices, so that they may know them as it
were by heart. This charge is laid upon the prior, under
pain of suspension.]

Item 8th. The canons are here accused of refusing to
accept of their statutable clothing year by year, and of
demanding a certain specified sum of money, as if it
were their annual rent and due. This the bishop forbids,
and orders that the canons shall be clothed out of the
revenue of the Priory, and the old garments be laid by
in a chamber and given to the poor, according to the
rule of St. Augustine.

In Item 9th is a complaint that some of the canons

4 A collation was a meal or repast on a fast day in lieu of a supper.

574 ANTIQUITI

arc given to wander out of the precincts of the convent
without leave; and that others ride to their manors and
farms, under pretence of inspecting the concerns of the
society, when they please, and stay as long as they
please. But they are enjoined never to stir either
about their own private concerns or the business of the
convent without leave from the prior : and no canon is
to go alone, but to have a grave brother to accompany
him.

The injunction in Item 10th, at this distance of time,
appears rather ludicrous; but the visiter seems to be
very serious on the occasion, and says that it has been
evidently proved to him that some of the canons, living
dissolutely after the flesh, and not after the spirit, sleep
naked in their beds without their breeches and shirts,
"absque femoralibus et camisiis5." He enjoins that
these culprits shall be punished by severe fasting, espe-
cially if they shall be found to be faulty a third time ;
and threatens the prior and sub-prior with suspension
if they do not correct this enormity.

In Item llth the good bishop is very wroth with some
of the canons, whom he finds to be professed hunters
and sportsmen, keeping hounds, and publicly attending
hunting-matches. These pursuits, he says, occasion
much dissipation, danger to the soul and body, and
frequent expense; he, therefore, wishing to extirpate
this vice wholly from the convent " radicibus extirpare"
does absolutely enjoin the canons never intentionally
to be present at any public noisy tumultuous huntings ;
or to keep any hounds, by themselves or by others,
openly or by stealth, within the convent, or without0.

5 The rule alluded to in Item 10th, of not sleeping naked, was enjoined
the Knights Templars, who also were subject to the rules of St. Augus-
tine.—See Gurtleri Hist. Templariorum.

6 Considering the strong propensity in human nature towards the
pleasures of the chase, it is not to be wondered that the canons of Sel-
borne should languish after hunting, when, from their situation so near
the precincts of Wolmer Forest, the king's hounds must have been often

OF SELBORNE. 575

Iii Item 12th he forbids the canons in office to make
their business a plea for not attending- the service of
the choir; since by these means either divine worship
is neglected or their brother canons are overburdened.

[Item 13th directs that two of the canons Shall twice
in every year personally visit the manors, and report in
writing their condition and the live and dead stock at
each ; that in case of the death of any officer, the con-
vent may not be left in ignorance as to the state of his
charge: neglect to be severely punished, according to
the bishop's discretion.]

By Item 14th we are informed that the original num-
ber of canons at the Priory of Selborne was fourteen ;
but that at this visitation they were found to be let down
to eleven. The visiter therefore strongly and earnestly
enjoins them that, with all due speed and diligence, they
should proceed to the election of proper persons to fill
up the vacancies, under pain of the greater excommu-
nication.

[Item 15th is especially addressed to the prior, who
has neglected to make inquisition as to proprietary
canons, " whence it has resulted that the old enemy,
taking advantage of the continued sloth of the shepherd,
has seduced the wretched and erring sheep by means of
the snare of property into the thirst of avarice," to the
serious peril of their souls. He is required, twice a year
at least, to make inquisition and to punish offenders.
In neglect of this duty he is ipso facto suspended.]

[Item 16th refers to the constitutions as requir-
ing that abbots and priors, and other officers, should
twice at least in each year, in the presence of the whole
convent, or of a certain number deputed by the chapter,
render a full account of their administration ; and avers
that this has not been attended to in the Priory of Sel-

in hearing, and sometimes in sight from their windows. If the bishop
was so offended at these sporting canons, what would he have said to
our modern fox-hunting divines?

576 ANTIQUITIES

borne. Requires that it be observed in future, under
pain of suspension.]

In Item 17th, the prior and canons are accused of
suffering, through neglect, notorious dilapidations to
take place among their manorial houses and tenements,
and in the walls and enclosures of the convent itself,
[sumptuously erected by the industry of their prede-
cessors,] to the shame and scandal of the institution :
they are therefore enjoined, under pain of suspension,
to repair all defects within the space of six months.

Item 18th. Charges them with grievously burdening
the said Priory by means of sales, and grants of liveries7
and corrodies8.

The bishop, in item 19th, accuses the canons of
neglect and omission with respect to their perpetual
chantry-services.

Item 20th. The visiter here conjures the prior and
canons not to withhold their original alms, " eleemosy-
nas ;" nor those that they were enjoined to distribute
for the good of the souls ef founders and benefactors :
he also strictly orders that the fragments and broken
victuals, both from the hall of their prior and their
common refectory, should be carefully collected toge-
ther by their eleemosynarius, and given to the poor
without any diminution; the officer to be suspended
for neglect or omission.

[Item 21st. It could scarcely be anticipated that it
should have been necessary to enjoin that the brethren
should be supplied, when sick, with suitable food and
drink, and with fitting medicines, out of the common

7 " Liber ationes, or liberaturce, allowances of corn, &c. to servants, deli-
vered at certain times, and in certain quantities, as clothes were, among the
allowances from religious houses to their dependants." — See the corrodies
granted by Croyland abbey. — Hist, of Croyland, Appendix, No. XXXIV.

" It is not improbable that the word in after-ages came to be confined
to the uniform of the retainers or servants of the great, who were hence
called livery servants."— Sir John Cullum's Hist, of Hawsted.

8 A corrody is an allowance to a servant living in an abbey or priory.

OF SELBORNE. 577

stock " sicut antiquitus fieri consueverat ; " and have
also the use of the rooms of the infirmary : yet such is
the tenor of this item. It appears as though some one
had claimed for himself a property in the infirmary, to
the exclusion of the others.]

[Item 22nd. Since negligence or remissness towards
offenders is in itself detestable, and since facility of
pardon operates as an incentive to delinquency ; orders
that, without exception of persons, correction shall be
used according to the amount of the delinquency ; and
that the regular observances shall be duly kept.]

Item 23d. He bids them distribute their pittances,
"pitancias9," regularly on obits, anniversaries, festi-
vals, &c.

[Item 24th. Prohibits the sale of wood, the farming
out of manors or of churches, or the transaction of
any other important business, without consultation and
consent of the whole convent, or of the larger and dis-
creeter portion of it : otherwise there is no validity in
the proceeding. " Ilia quoque que omnes tangunt ab
omnibus merito debeant approbari."]

Item 25th. All and every one of the canons are
hereby inhibited from standing godfather to any boy
for the future, " ne compatres alicujus pueri de cetero
fieri presumatis," unless by express license from the
bishop obtained ; because from such relationship favour
and affection, nepotism, and undue influence, arise, to
the injury and detriment of religious institutions10.

9 " Pitancia, an allowance of bread and beer, or other provision to any
pious use, especially to the religious in a monastery, &c. for augmenta-
tion of their commons." — Gloss, to Rennet's Par. Antiq.

10 « The relationship between sponsors and their god-children, who
were called spiritual sons and daughters, was formerly esteemed much
more sacred than at present. The presents at christenings were some-
times very considerable: the connexion lasted through life, and was
closed with a legacy. This last mark of attention seems to have been
thought almost indispensable : for, in a will, from whence no extracts
have been given, the testator left every one of his god-children a bushel
of barley."— Sir John Cu Hum's Hist, of Hawsted.

" D. Margarets filiae Regis primogenitae, quam filiolam, quia ejus in

P P

578 ANTIQUITIES

Item 26th. The visiter herein severely reprimands
the canons for appearing publicly in what would be
called in the universities an unstatutable manner, and for
wearing of boots, " caligae de Burneto, et sotularium
in ocrearum loco, ad modum sotularium11.

It is remarkable that the bishop expresses more
warmth against this than any other irregularity ; and
strictly enjoins them, under pain of ecclesiastical cen-
sures, and even imprisonment if necessary (a threat
not made use of before) for the future to wear boots,
"ocreis sen botis," according to the regular usage of
their ancient order.

[Item 27th. Requires that, according to the consti-
tutions, three or at the least two parts of the convent
should daily eat together in the refectory ; and forbids
all dining in private places, with certain exceptions.
One of the privileged places is the " aula prioris:" but
the prior is desired to use due diligence that, without
exception of persons, he invite sometimes one and
sometimes another of those whom he knows to be most
in need.]

[Item 28th. That as the lives of the younger mem-
bers of the community are watched over by the seniors,
so also the seniors are required by the constitutions to
have witnesses of their proceedings. Enjoins that the
prior should annually change his chaplain; both with

baptismo compater fuit, appellat, cyphum aureum et quadraginta libras,
legavit." — Archbishop Parker de Antiquitate Eccles. Brit, speaking of
Archbishop Morton.

11 Du Fresne is copious on caligee of several sorts. «< Hoc item de
Clericis, presertim beneficiatis : callgis scacatis (chequered) rubeis, et
viridibus publice utentibus dicimus esse censendum." — Statut. Eccles.
Tutel. The chequered boots seem to be the Highland plaid stockings. —
" Burnetum, i. e. Brunetum, pannus non ex lana nativi coloris confec-
tus." — " Sotularium, i. e. subtalaris, quia sub talo est. Peculium genus,
quibus nmxime Monachi nocte utebantur in aestate ; in hyeme vero
Soccis."

This writer gives many quotations concerning Sotularia, which were
not to be made too shapely ; nor were the calig<s to be laced on too
nicely.

OF SELBORNE. 579

the view of securing greater efficiency in the discharge
of the duties, and in order that he might have ready an
unsuspected witness respecting him, in the event of any
scandal or imputation being cast upon him by malice.]

Item 29th. He here again, but with less earnestness,
forbids them foppish ornaments, and the affectation of
appearing like beaux with garments edged with costly
furs, with fringed gloves, and silken girdles trimmed
with gold and silver. It is remarkable that no punish-
ment is annexed to this injunction.

[Item 30th. The bishop appears to have believed
in the vulgar adage that what is every body's business
is nobody's business; and probably attributed to this
cause much of the disorder that prevailed. He here
remarks, that as each office ought to be committed to a
special officer, he requires that to be done for the future:
such officers to be elected according to the custom of
the Priory. The penalty for disobedience in this case
is no less than excommunication.]

Item 31st. He here singly and severally forbids each
canon not admitted to a cure of souls to administer
extreme unction, or the sacrament, to clergy or laity;
or to perform the service of matrimony, till he has taken
out the license of the parish priest.

Item 32nd. The bishop says in this item that he
had observed and found, in his several visitations, that
the sacramental plate and cloths of the altar, surplices,
&c. were sometimes left in such an uncleanly and dis-
gusting condition as to make the beholders shudder with
horror; — "quod aliquibus sunt horrori12;" he therefore

12 "Men abhorred the offering of the Lord." — 1 Sam. chap. ii. v. 17.
Strange as this account may appear to modern delicacy, the author, when
first in orders, twice met with similar circumstances attending the sacra-
ment at two churches belonging to two obscure villages. In the first he
found the inside of the chalice covered with birds' dung ; and in the
other the communion-cloth soiled with cabbage and the greasy drippings
of a gammon of bacon. The good dame at the great farm-house, who
was to furnish the cloth, being a notable woman, thought it best to save
her clean linen, and so sent a foul cloth that had covered her own table
for two or three Sundays before.

580 ANTIQUITIES

enjoins them lor the future to see that the plate, cloths,
and vestments, be kept bright, clean, and in decent
order: and, what must surprise the reader, adds — that
he expects for the future that the sacrist should provide
for the sacrament good wine, pure and unadulterated ;
and not, as had often been the practice, that which was
sour, and tending to decay: — he says farther, that it
seems quite preposterous to omit in sacred matters that
attention to decent cleanliness, the neglect of which
would disgrace a common convivial meeting13.

Item 33d says that, though the relics of saints, the
plate, holy vestments, and books of religious houses,
are forbidden by canonical institutes to be pledged or
lent out upon pawn ; yet, as the visiter finds this to be
the case in his several visitations, he therefore strictly
enjoins the prior forthwith to recall those pledges, and
to restore them to the convent ; and orders that all the
papers and title deeds thereto belonging should be safely
deposited, and kept under three locks and keys.

[Item 34th. That as religious men ought continually
to be advancing in holiness, he enjoins them, when they
have performed the observances of their order and
regular discipline, to frequent the cloisters for the
reading of the holy scriptures and for devout contrm-
plation.]

[Item 35th. A special injunction to the prior, exem-
plifying the hospitality that prevailed in monastic
establishments. That when any relation of any of the
canons should come on a visit to him, his reception
should be liberal according to his condition : suggesting,
however, that the brethren should avoid being over-
burthensome to the Priory in such matters.]

[Item 36th. It avails but little to make laws unless
attention is paid to their execution. In order that they
may by frequent hearing be impressed on the most

13 '« . ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa

Corruget nares ; ne non et cantharus, et lanx
Ostendat tibi te . ."

OF SELBORNE. .581

treacherous memories, and that no one may pretend
ignorance of them; enjoins and orders that these injunc-
tions and the before-mentioned decrees shall be written
in a volume, and all and singular of them "be read fully
in the presence of the whole convent twice in every
year. Requires observance of all of them under penal-
ties. Finally, reserves to himself the power of altering
in any way either the injunctions or the penalties.]

In the course of the Visitatio Notabilis the constitu-
tions of Legate Ottobonus are frequently referred to.
Ottobonus was afterwards Pope Adrian V. and died in
1276. His constitutions are in Lyndewood's Provin-
ciale, and were drawn up in the 52nd of Henry III.

In the Visitatio Notabilis the usual punishment is
fasting on bread and beer; and in cases of repeated
delinquency on bread and water. On these occasions
quarto, feria, et sexta feria, are mentioned often, and are
to be understood of the days of the week numerically
on which such punishment is to be inflicted.

LETTER XV.

THOUGH Bishop Wykeham appears somewhat stern
and rigid in his visitatorial character towards the
Priory of Selborne, yet he was on the whole a liberal
friend and benefactor to that convent, which, like every
society or individual that fell in his way, partook of the
generosity and benevolence of that munificent prelate.

" In the year 1377 William of Wykeham, out of his
mere good will and liberality, discharged the whole
debts of the prior and convent of Selborne, to the
amount of one hundred and ten marks eleven shillings
and sixpence1; and, a few years before he died, he
made a free gift of one hundred marks to the same
Priory : on which account the prior and convent volun-

1 Yet in ten years time we find, by the Notabilis Visitatio, that all
their relics, plate, vestments, title deeds, &c. were in pawn.

582 ANTIQUITIES

tarily engaged for the celebration of two masses a day
by two canons of the convent for ten years, for the
bishop's welfare, if he should live so long ; and for his
soul if he should die before the expiration of this
term2.

At this distance of time it seems matter of great
wonder to us how these societies, so nobly endowed,
and whose members were exempt by their very institu-
tion from every means of personal and family expense,
could possibly run in debt without squandering their
revenues in a manner incompatible with their function.

Religious houses might sometimes be distressed in
their revenues by fires among their buildings, or large
dilapidations from storms, &c. ; but no such accident
appears to have befallen the Priory of Selborne. Those
situate on public roads, or in great towns, where there
were shiines of saints, were liable to be intruded on by
travellers, devotees, and pilgrims ; and were subject to
the importunity of the poor, who swarmed at their
gates to partake of doles and broken victuals. Of
these disadvantages some convents used to complain,
and especially those at Canterbury; but this Priory,
from its sequestered situation, could seldom be subject
to either of these inconveniences, and therefore we
must attribute its frequent debts and embarrassments,
well endowed as it was, to the bad conduct of its
members, and a general inattention to the interests of
the institution.

LETTER XVI.

BEAUFORT was Bishop of Winchester from 1405 to
1447; and yet, notwithstanding this long episcopate,
only torn. i. of Beaufort's Register is to be found. This
loss is much to be regretted, as it must unavoidably

3 Lowth's Life of Wykeham.

OF SELBORNE. 583

make a gap in the History df Selborne Priory, and per-
haps in the list of its priors.

In 1410 there was an election for a prior, and again
in 1411.

In vol. i. p. 24, of Beaufort's Register, is the instru-
ment of the election of John Wynchestre to be prior —
the substance as follows :

Richard Elstede, senior canon, signifies to the bishop
that brother Thomas Weston, the late prior, died Octo-
ber 18th, 1410, and was buried November llth. That
the bishop's license to elect having been obtained, he
and the whole convent met in the chapter-house, on the
same day, about the hour of vespers, to consider of the
election: — that brother John Wynchestre, then sub-
prior, with the general consent, appointed the 12th of
November, ad horam ejusdem diei capitularem, for the
business: — when they met in the chapter-house, post
missam de sancto Spirituf solemnly celebrated in the
church ; — to wit, Richard Elstede; Thomas Halyborne;
John Lemyngton, sacrista ; John Stepe, cantor ; Wal-
ter Ffarnham ; Richard Put worth, celerarius ; Hugh
London ; Henry Brampton, alias Brompton ; John
Wynchestre, senior; John Wynchestre, junior ; — then
" proposito primitus verbo Dei," and then " ympno
Veni Creator Spiritus" being solemnly sung, cum " ver-
siculo et oratione," as usual, and his letter of license,
with the appointment of the hour and place of election,
being read, alta voce, in valvis of the chapter-house ; —
John Wynchestre, senior, the sub-prior, in his own
behalf and that of all the canons, and by their mandate,
" quasdam monicionem et protestacionem in scriptis
redactas fecit, legit, et interposuit" — that all persons
disqualified, or not having right to be present, should
immediately withdraw ; and protesting against their
voting, &c. — that then having read the constitution of
the general council " Quia propter," and explained the
modes of proceeding to election, they agreed unani-
mously to proceed " per viam seu formam simplicis

584 ANTIQUITIES

compromissi;" when John Wynchestre, sub-prior, and
all the others (the commissaries under-named excepted)
named and chose brothers Richard Elstede, Thomas
Halyborne, John Lemyngton the sacrist, John Stepe,
chantor, and Richard Putworth, canons, to be commis-
saries, who were sworn each to nominate and elect a
fit person to be prior : and empowered by letters patent
under the common seal, to be in force only until the
darkness of the night of the same day; — that they, or
the greater part of them, should elect for the whole
convent, within the limited time, from their own num-
ber, or from the rest of the convent; — that one of them
should publish their consent in common before the
clergy and people: — they then all promised to receive
as prior the person these five canons should fix on.
These commissaries seceded from the chapter-house to
the refectory of the Priory, and were shut in with mas-
ter John Penkester, bachelor of laws ; and John Couke
and John Lynne, perpetual vicars of the parish churches
of Newton and Selborne; and with Sampson Maycock,
a public notary ; where they treated of the election ;
when they unanimously agreed on John Wynchestre,
and appointed Thomas Halyborne, to choose him in
common for all, and to publish the election, as cus-
tomary; and returned long before it was dark to the
chapter-house, where Thomas Halyborne read pub-
licly the instrument of election ; when all the brothers,
the new prior excepted, singing solemnly the hymn " Te
Deum laudamus," fecerunt deportari novum electum, by
some of the brothers, from the chapter-house to the
high altar of the church1; and the hymn being sung,
dictisque versiculo et oratione consuetis in hacparte, Thomas
Halyborne, mox tune ibidem, before the clergy and peo-
ple of both sexes solemnly published the election in

1 It seems here as if the canons used to chair their new elected prior
from the chapter-house to the high altar of their convent-church. In
Letter XXI. on the same occasion, it is said — " et sic canentes dictum
electum ad inajus altare ecclesie deiluximus, ut apud uos inoris est."

OF SELBORNE. 585

vulyari. Then Richard Elstede, and the whole convent
by their proctors and nuncios appointed for the pur-
pose, Thomas Halyborne and John Stepe, required
several times the assent of the elected ; "" et tandem
post diutinas interpellations, et deliberationem provi-
dam penes se habitam, in hac parte divine nolens, ut
asseruit, resistere voluntati," within the limited time he
signified his acceptance in the usual written form of
words. The bishop is then supplicated to confirm their
election, and do the needful, under common seal, in the
chapter-house. November 14, 1410.

The bishop, January 6, 1410, apud Esher in camera
inferiori, declared the election duly made, and ordered
the new prior to be inducted — for this the Archdeacon
of Winchester was written to ; " stallumque in choro,
et locum in capitulo juxta morem preteriti temporis,"
to be assigned him ; and every thing beside necessary
to be done.

BEAUFORT'S REGISTER, Vol. I.

P. 2. Taxatio spirituals Decanatus de Aulton,
Ecclesia de Selebourn, cum Capella, — xxx marc,
decima x lib. iii sol. Vicaria de Selebourn non taxatur
propter exilitatem.

P. 9. Taxatio bonorum temporalium religiosorum in
Archidiac. Wynton.

Prior de Selebourn habet maneria de

Bromdene taxat. ad ..... xxx s. ii d.

Apud Schete ad xvii s.

P. Selebourne ad vi lib.

In civitate Wynton de reddit . . vi lib. viii ob.

Tannaria sua taxat. ad .... x lib. s.
Summa tax. xxxviii lib. xiiii d. ob. Inde decima vi
lib. s. q. ob.

580 ANTIQUITIES

LETTER XVII.

INFORMATION being sent to Rome respecting the
havock and spoil that was carrying on among the reve-
nues and lands of the Priory of Selborne, as we may
suppose by the Bishop of Winchester, its visiter, Pope
Martin1, as soon as the news of these proceedings came
before him, issued forth a bull, in which he enjoins his
commissary immediately to revoke all the property that
had been alienated.

In this instrument his holiness accuses the prior and
canons of having granted away (they themselves and
their predecessors) to certain clerks and laymen their
tithes, lands, rents, tenements, and possessions, to some
of them for their lives, to others for an undue term of
years, and to some again for a perpetuity, to the great
and heavy detriment of the monastery : and these leases
were granted, he continues to add, under their own
hands, with the sanction of an oath and the renuncia-
tion of all right and claims, and under penalties, if the
right was not made good. But it will be best to give
an abstract from the bull.

N. 298. Pope Martin's bull, touching the revoking
of certaine things alienated from the Priory of Sele-
burne. Pontif. sui ann. 1.

" Martinus Eps. servus servorum Dei. Dilecto filio
Priori de Suthvale2 Wyntonien. dioc. Salutem & apos-
tolicam ben. Ad audientiam nostram pervenit quam
tain dilecti filii prior et conventus monasterii de Sele-
burn per Priorem solid gubernari ordinis Su. Augustini
Wintoii. dioc. quam de predecessores eorum decimas,

1 Pope Martin V. chosen about 14 17. He attempted to reform the church,
but died in 1431,just as he had summoned the council of Basle.

2 Should have been no doubt Southwick, a priory under Portsdown.

OF SELBORNE. 587

terras, redditus, domos, possessiones, vineas3, et quedam
alia bona ad monasterium ipsum spectantia, datis super
hoc litteris, interpositis juramentis, factis remmtiation-
ibus, et penis adjectis, in gravem ipsius* monasterii
leskmem, nonnullis clericis et laicis, aliquibus eorum
ad vitam, quibusdam vero ad non modicum tempus, &
aliis perpetuo ad firm am, vel sub censu annuo conces-
serunt; quorum aliqui dicunt super hiis a sede apfica~
in communi forma confirmationis litteras impetrasse.
Quia vero nostri interest lesis monasteriis subvenire —
[He the Pope here commands] — ea ad jus et proprie-
tatem monasterii studeas legitime revocare," &c.

The conduct of the religious had now for some time
been generally bad. Many of the monastic societies,
being very opulent, were become voluptuous and licen-
tious, and had deviated entirely from their original
institutions. The laity saw with indignation the wealth
and possessions of their pious ancestors perverted to
the service of sensuality and indulgence, and spent in
gratifications highly unbecoming the purposes for which
they were given. A total disregard to their respective
rules and discipline drew on the monks and canons a
heavy load of popular odium. Some good men there
were who endeavoured to oppose the general delin-
quency; but their efforts were too feeble to stem the
torrent of monastic luxury. As far back as the year
1381 Wicklifie's principles and doctrines had made
some progress, were well received by men who wished
for a reformation, and were defended and maintained
by them as long as they dared ; till the bishops and
clergy began to be so greatly alarmed, that they pro-

3 Mr. Harrington is of opinion that anciently the English vinea was in
almost every instance an orchard ; not perhaps always of apples merely,
but of other fruits ; as cherries, plums, and currants. We still say a
plum or cherry-orchard. — See Vol. III. of Archaeologia.

In the instance above the pope's secretary might insert tineas merely
because they were a species of cultivation familiar to him in Italy.

[Orchard, properly speaking, is merely a garden : q. d. wort-yard.—
E. T. B.]

588 ANTIQUITIES

cured an act to be passed by which the secular arm
was empowered to support the corrupt doctrines of the
church; but the first lollard was not burnt until the
year 1401.

The wits also of those times did not spare the gross
morals of the clergy, but boldly ridiculed their igno-
rance and profligacy. The most remarkable of these
were Chaucer, and his contemporary, Robert Lange-
lande, better known by the name of Piers Plowman.
The laughable tales of the former are familiar to almost
every reader ; while the visions of the latter are but in
few hands. With a quotation from the Passus Decimus
of this writer 1 shall conclude my letter; not only on
account of the remarkable prediction therein contained,
which carries with it somewhat of the air of a prophecy ;
but also as it seems to have been a striking picture of
monastic insolence and dissipation ; and a specimen of
one of the keenest pieces of satire now perhaps subsist-
ing in any language, ancient or modern.

" Now is religion a rider, a romer by streate ;
A leader of leve-days, and a loud begger;
A pricker on a palfry from maner to maner,
A heape of hounds at his arse, as he a lord were.
And but if his knave kneel, that shall his cope bring,
He loureth at him, and asketh him who taught him curtesie.
Little had lords to done, to give lands from her heirs,
To religious that have no ruth if it rain on her altars.
In many places ther they persons be, by hemself at ease :
Of the poor have they no pity, and that is her charitie ;
And they letten hem as lords, her lands lie so broad.
And there shal come a king4, and confess you religious;
And beate you, as the bible telleth, for breaking your rule,
And amend monials, and monks, and chauons,
And put hem to her penaunce ad pristinum statum ire"

4 F. 1. a. " This prediction, although a probable conclusion concerning a
king who after a time would suppress the religious houses, is remarkable.
I imagined it was foisted into the copies in the reign of king Henry VIII.
but it is in MSS. of this poem, older than the year 1400."

" Again, foL Ixxxv. a. where he, Piers Plowman, alludes to the Knights
Templars, lately suppressed, he says,

OF SELBORNE. 589

LETTER XVIII.

WILLIAM OF WAYNFLETE became Bishop of Win-
chester in the year 1447, and seems to have pursued
the generous plan of Wykeham, in endeavouring to
reform the priory of Selborne.

When Waynflete came to the see he found prior
Stype, alias Stepe, still living, who had been elected as
long ago as the year 1411.

Among my documents I find a curious paper of the
things put into the custody of Peter Bernes the sacrist,
and especially some relics : the title of this evidence is
" No. 50. Indentura prioris de Selborne quorundam
tradit. Petro Bernes sacristae, ibidem, ann. Hen. VI. . . .
una cum confiss. ejusdem Petri script." The occasion
of this catalogue, or list of effects, being drawn between
the prior and sacrist does not appear, nor the date when ;
only that it happened in the reign of Hen. VI. This
transaction probably took place when Bernes entered
on his office ; and there is the more reason to suppose
that to be the case, because the list consists of vest
inents and implements, and relics, such as belonged to
the church of the Priory, and fell under the care of the
sacrist. I shall just mention the relics, although they
are not all specified ; and the state of the live stock of
the monastery at that juncture.

" Item 2 osculator. argent.

"Item 1 osculatorium cum osse digiti auricular. —
Su. Johannis Baptistae1.

" Men of holie kirk

Shall turne as Templars did ; the tyme approacheth nere".

" This, I suppose, was a favourite doctrine in Wickliffe's discourses."
— Warton's Hist, of English Poetry, vol. i. p. 282.

1 How the convent came by the bone of the little finger of St. John
the Baptist does not appear ; probably the founder, while in Palestine,
purchased it among the Asiatics, who were at that time great traders in

590 ANTIQUITIES

" Item 1 parvam cruccm cum V. rellquiis.

" Item 1 anulum argent, et deauratum St. Edmundi2.

" Item 2 osculat. de coper.

" Item Ijunctorium St. Ricardi3.

" Item 1 pecten St. Ricardi4."

The staurum, or live stock, is quite ridiculous, con-
sisting only of " 2 vacce, 1 sus, 4 hoggett. et 4 porcell."
viz. two cows, one sow, four porkers, and four pigs5.

relics. We know from the best authority that as soon as Herod had
cruelly beheaded that holy man, " his disciples came and took up the
body and buried it, and went and told Jesus." — Matt. xiv. 12.— Farther
would be difficult to say.

3 November 20, in the calendar, Edmund king and martyr, in the ninth
century. — See also a Sanctus Edmundus in Godwin, among the arch-
bishops of Canterbury, in the thirteenth century ; his surname Rich, in
1234.

3 April 3, ibid. Richard, Bishop of Chichester, in the thirteenth cen-
tury ; his surname De la Wich, in 1245.

' Junctorium, perhaps a joint or limb of St. Richard ; but what parti-
cular joint the religious were not such osteologists as to specify. This
barbarous word was not to be found in any dictionary consulted by the
author.

4 " Pecten inter ministeria sacra recensetur, quo scil. sacerdotes ac
clerici, antequam in ecclesiam procederent, crines pecterent. E quibus
colligitur monachos, tune temporis, non omnino tonsos fuissi." — Du
Fresne.

The author remembers to have seen in great farm houses a family
comb chained to a post for the use of the hinds when they came in to their
meals.

5 (No. 50.)
INDENTURA PRIORIS de SELBORNE quorundam tradit. Petro Barnes sacristte

ibidem ann. Hen. 6. una cum confiss. ejusdem Petri script.

HEC indentura facta die lune proxime post ffestum natalium DnTanno

regis Henrici sexti post conquestum anglie v. inter ffratrem Jo-

hannem Stepe priorem ecclesie beate Marie de Selborne & Petrum Bernes
sacrist, ibidem videlicet quod predictus prior deliveravit prefato Petro
omnia subscripta In primis XXH ainit xxxi aubes vid. v. sine parura pro
quadragesima xxu manicul. Item xxu stole Item viu casule vid. in albe
pro quadragesima Item xi dalmatic, vid. i debit. Item xvi cape vid. mi
veteres Item unam amittam i albam cum paruris unum manipulum i sto-
lam i casulam et duas dalmaticas de dono Johannis Combe capellani de
Cicestria pro diebus principalibus Item i amittam i aubam cum paruris
i manipulum i stolam i casulam de dono ffratris Thome Halybone cano-
nicis Item i amittam i aubam cum paruris i manipulum i stolam i casulam
pertinentem ad altare sancte Catherine virginis pro priore Item i amittam

OF SELBORNE. 591

LETTER XIX.

STEPE died towards the end of the year 1453, as we
may suppose pretty far advanced in life, having been
prior forty-four years.

On the very day that the vacancy happened, viz.
January 26, 1453-4, the sub-prior and convent peti-

n aubas cum paruris n manipul 11 stolas et n casulas pertinentes ad altare
sancti Petri de dono patris Ricardi holte. Item de douo ejusdem n tuella
vid. i cum fruictello et i canvas pro eodem altare Item i tuellum penden-
tem ad terram pro quadragesima Item vi tuelt cum ffruictibus xv tueff
sine ffruictell. Item niiTueTl pro lavatore Item v corporas Item n ffruic-
tell pro summo altare sine tuellis Item n coopertor pro le ceste Item n
pallias de serico debili Item i velum pro quadragesima Item i tapetum
viridis coloris pro summo altare n ridell cum mi ridellis parvis pertinent,
ad diet, altare Item vn offretor vid. v debit. Item mi vexilla Item mi
pelves m quessones vid. i de serico Item n super altaria Item quinq ;
calices vid. mi de auro Item n cruettes de argento de dono dni Johannis
Combe capellani de Cicestre Item vm cruettes de peuter Item i coupam
argent, et deaur. Item n osculator argent. Item i osculatorium cum osse
digiti auricular &'"• Johannis Baptiste Item i crux argent, et deaur. non
radicat. Item turribulum argent et deaur. Item i anulum cum saphiro
Item i aliud anulum i politum aureum Item i anulum argent, et deau-
ratum Sli- Edmundi. Item i concha cum pereo infixo Item i cistam argent,
et deaur. Item i imaginem beate Marie argent, et deaurat. Item i parvam
crucem cum v reliquiis Item ijunctorium Sl{- Ricardi Item i tecam pro reli-
quiis imponencl Item i calef actor Sli- Ricardi Item mi candelabra vid. n
de stagno et n de ferro Item i pecten Sli- Ricardi Item n vieUde cristali
In parte fract Item i pelvim de coper ad lavator Item n osculat. de coper
Item i parvum turribulum de latyn Item i vas de coper pro frank et sence
consecrand Item i pixidem de juery pro corpore Christi Item n vasa de
plumbo pro oleo conservando Item i patellam eneam ferro ligat. Item
i tripodem ferr. Item i costrell contum n lagen et i potfeTI. Item n ba-
byngyres Item n botelles de corio vid. i de quarte et i de pynte Item HI
anul. arg. et i pixidem Ste Marie de Waddon Item ( ) Instru-

menta pro Sandyng Item i ledbnyff Item i shasshobe Item i securim
Item H scabell. de ferro pro cancell Item i plane Item i cistam sine
cerura Item xim sonas Item xix taperes ponder xm ft et dimid. Item
n torches ponder xx ft Item xn ft cere et dimid. Item de candelis de
cera ponder vi ft Item 1 ft de frank et sence Item i lagenam olei Item
ix poudera de plumbo

(Vide^de stauro in tergo) et in tergo scribuntur hsec, " n
vacce i sus mi hoggett et mi porcell"

592 ANTIQUITIES

tioned the visiter — " vos unicum levamen nostrum et
spem unanimiter rogamus, quatinus eligendum ex nobis
unum confratrem de gremio nostro, in nostra religione
probatum et expertum, licenciam vestram paternalem
cum plena libertate nobis concedere dignemini gra-
ciose." — Reg. Waynflete, torn. i.

Instead of the license requested we find next a com-
mission "custodie prioratus de Selebourne durante
vacatione," addressed to brother Peter Berne, canon-
regular of the Priory of Selebourne, and of the order
of St. Augustine, appointing him keeper of the said
Priory, and empowering him to collect and receive the
profits and revenues, and "alia bona" of the said
Priory ; and to exercise in every respect the full power
and authority of a prior; but to be responsible to the
visiter finally, and to maintain this superiority during
the bishop's pleasure only. This instrument is dated
from the bishop's manor-house in Southwark, March 1,
1453-4, and the seventh of his consecration.

After this transaction it does not appear that the
chapter of the Priory proceeded to any election: on
the contrary, we find that at six months end from the
vacancy the visiter declared that a lapse had taken
place ; and that therefore he did confer the priorship on
canon Peter Berne. — " Prioratum vacantem et ad nos-
tram collationem seu provisionem, jure ad nos in hac
p&rteper lapsum temporis legitime devoluto spectantem,
tibi (sc. P. Berne) de legitimo matrimonio procreato,
&c. — conferimus," &c. This deed bears date, July 28,
1454.— Reg. Waynflete, torn. i. p. 69.

On February 8, 1462, the visiter issued out a power
of sequestration against the Priory of Selborne on
account of notorious dilapidations which threatened
manifest ruin to the roofs, walls, and edifices of the
said convent; and appointing John Hammond, B. D.
rector of the parish church of Hetlegh, John Hylling,
vicar of the parish church of Newton Valence, and
Walter Gorfin, inhabitant of the parish of Selborne, his

OF SELBORNE.

593

sequestra tors, to exact, collect, levy, and receive, all
the profits and revenues of the said convent: he adds
" ac ea sub arcto et tuto custodiatis, custodirive facia-
tis;" as they would answer it to the bishop at their
peril.

In consequence of these proceedings prior Berne, on
the last day of February, and the next year, produced
a state of the revenues of the Priory, No. 381, called
" A paper conteyning the value of the manors and lands
pertayning to the Priorie of Selborne. 4 Edward III.
with a note of charges yssuing out of it V

1 (N. 381.)

A Paper conteyning the value of the Manors and Lands pertayning to the
Priorie ofSelborne. iv. Edw. 3. With a note of charges yssuing out of it.

SELEBORNE PRIORATUS.

SUMMA totalis valoris maneriorum terrarum tenementorum et premissorum
ejusdern Prioratus in ffesto Sci. Michaelis Archang. anno secundo Regis
Edvardi 4^. ut patet Rotul. de valoribus libeTaT.

mi vi li. (i. e. LXXXVI li.) x s. vi d.

Inde in redditibus resolutis domino pape domino Archiepiscopo et in
diversis ffeodis certis personis concessis ac aliis annualibus reprisis in
eisdem Rotul. de valoribus annotatis per annum xmi li. xix s. v d.

Et remanet de claro valore LXXI li. x s. vm d.

Quatuor canonicis et quatuor ffamulis deo et ecclesie ibid, ser-
vientibus pro eorum vadiis vestur. et diet, ut patet per bill inde
fact, per annum xxx li.

Diversis creditoribus pro eorum debitis persolvendis ut patet
per parcell inde fact, xv li. xv s. mi d.

Reparacionibus Ecclesiarum domorum murorum et clausu-
rarum ejusdem Prioratus per annum xv li. xv s. mi d.

Annua pencione Domini Prioris ei assignata per annum quous-
que remanet x li.

SELEBORNE PRIORATUS.

Modo sequitur de Reformatione premissorum.

f Summa total, valorum. ibid, misis et
j desperatis inde deductis prout patet per
I declaracionem Dni. Petri Prioris de Sele-

borne ad man. Dni nostri Wynton apud

Palacium suum de Wolsley presentat.
j per ipsum ultimo die ffebr. Ann. Domini
I MCCCCLXII. et penes ipsum remanet. J

!•!<

LXXI li. x s. vm d.
unde per ipsum Dnum
nostrum Wynton as-
signantur in fforma
sequente videlicet.

Q Q

594 ANTIQUITIES

This is a curious document. From circumstances in
this paper it is plain that the sequestration produced

Pro quatuor canonicis et quatuor ffa- *\
inulis deo et ecclesie ibid, servientibus f ,.

pro corn in Diet, vadiis et vestur. ut patet C
per bill inde fac£ '

Pro annua pencione Prioris quousque ^
remanet. S

f x

_eorum | p

xv li. xv s. mi d.

Pro diversis creditoribus pro_eprum ( per 11 annos ad xx\i
debitis persolvendis ut patet per bill inde <( li. x s. viti d. ultra
f^t I LV li. xnii d. de ven-

1^ d it. stauri.

XV li. xv s. mi d.

per 11 annos ad x\\i
li. x s. vin d. Sum-

Pro diversis reparacionibus ecclesi-

ma total, valoris pro

arum domorum murorum et clausurarum ^ debitis et reparacioni-
ut patet per bill. b"9 assignat. curnj^v

li. MIII d. de vendit.

•&: I Stauri ut supra CXVHI

I. I li. ii s. vi d.

Debita que debentur ibid, per diversos tenentes et ffirmarios ad festum
S11. Michaelis anno tertio Regis Edvardi 4^. videlicet.

Abbas de Derford de ffeod ffirme sua ad ix li. vi s. ? xx ^ VIJ g M d
viu d. per annum a retro >

Thomas Perkyns armig. flRrmarius Rectorie de Est- ^
worlam pro uno anno finiente ad fiestum Sci. Mich. > JJf. s.
anno n. Regis Edvardi 4d. )

Johannes Shalmere balh de Selborne debet LXXV s.

Ricardus Cawry debet de eodem anno vi s.

Summa xxvnli. vins. xid.

Thomas Perkyns armig. debet de ffirme sua pre-T
dicta ad festum S". Mich. ann. vn et ultra feod. suum > vn li. vi s. vmd.
ad xx s. per annum 3

Thomas lussher debet pro ffirme sua ad XLS. per? c
annum cum feod. suis ad xx s. per annum )

Hugo Pakenham debet de reddit. suo ad xx s. per >
ann. S

Abbas de Derford debet de ffeod ffirme sua ultra ^
xx li. vn s. xi d. ut supra pro annis in. mi. et v. Sxxvm li.
Regis Edvardi 3

Walterus Berlond ffirmarius de Shene debet ix li. v s. 11 d.

Henr. Shafter ffirmarius ffeod de Basynstoke xn li. nn d.

Henr. lode nuper ffirmarius manerii de Chede debet xx li.

Summa LXVI li. xns. vid.
Total LXXXXIV li. xii d.

OF SELBORNE. 595

good effects ; for in it are to be found bills of repairs to
a considerable amount.

By this evidence also it appears that there were at
that juncture only four canons at the Priory2; and that
these, and their four household servants, during this
sequestration, for their clothing, wages, and diet, were
allowed per ann. xxx lib.; and that the annual pension
of the lord prior, reside where he would, was to be x
lib.

In the year 1468, prior Berne, probably wearied out
by the dissensions and want of order that prevailed in
the convent, resigned his priorship into the hands of the
bishop.

REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. i. pars ima, fol. 157.

March 28, A. D. 1468.

" In quadam alta camera juxta magnam portam ma-
nerii" of the Bishop of Wynton " de Waltham coram
eodem rev. patre ibidem tune sedente," Peter Berne,
prior of Selborne, " ipsum prioratum in sacras et vene-
rabiles manus," of the bishop, " viva voce libere resig-
navit:" and his resignation was admitted before two
witnesses and a notary public. In consequence, March
29th, before the bishop, in "capella manerii sui ante
dicti pro tribunal! sedente, comparuerunt fratres " Peter
Berne, Thomas London, William Wyndesor, and Wil-
liam Paynell, alias Stretford, canons regular of the Priory,
" capitulum, et conventum ejusdem ecclesie facientes ;
ac jus et voces in electione futura prioris dicti prioratus
solum et in solidum, ut asseruerunt, habentes ; " and
after the bishop had notified to them the vacancy of a
prior, with his free license to elect, deliberated awhile,
and then, by way of compromise, as they affirmed, una-
nimously transferred their right of election to the bishop

2 If Bishop Wykeham was so disturbed (see Notab. Visitatio) to find
the number of canons reduced from fourteen to eleven, what would he
have said to have seen it diminished below one third of that number?

QQ2

596 ANTIQUITIES

before witnesses. In consequence of this the bishop,
after full deliberation, proceeded, April 7th, " in capella
manerii sui de Waltham," to the election of a prior;
" et fratrem Johannein Morton, priorem ecclesie conven-
tualis de Reygate dicti ordinis S11 Augustini Wynton.
dioc. in priorem vice et nomine omnium et singulorum
canonicorum predictorum elegit, in ordine sacerdotal i,
et etate licita constitutum, &c." And on the same day,
in the same place, and before the same witnesses, Jolm
Morton resigned to the bishop the priorship of Reygate
viva voce. The bishop then required his consent to his
own election ; " qui licet in parte renitens tauti reve-
rendi patris se confirmans," obeyed, and signified his
consent oraculo vive vocis. Then was there a mandate
citing any one who would gainsay the said election to
appear before the bishop or his commissary in his chapd
at Farnham on the 2nd day of May next. The dean
of the deanery of Aulton then appeared before the chan-
cellor, his commissary, and returned the citation or
mandate dated April 22nd, 1468, with signification, in
writing, of his having published it as required, dated
Newton Valence, May 1st, 1468. This certificate
being read, the four canons of Selborne appeared and
required the election to be confirmed ; et ex super abun-
danti appointed William Long their proctor to solicit
in their name that he might be canonically confirmed.
John Morton also appeared, and proclamation \\as
made; and no one appearing against him, the commis-
sary pronounced all absentees contumacious, and pre-
cluded them from objecting at any other time ; and, at
the instance of John Morton and the proctor, confirmed
the election by his decree, and directed his mandate to
the rector of Hedley and the vicar of Newton Valence
to install him in the usual form.

Thus, for the first time, was a person, a stranger to
the convent of Selborne, and never canon of that monas-
tery, elected prior : though the style of the petitions in

OF SELRORNE. 597

former elections used to run thus,—" Vos .... rogamus
quatinus eligendum ex nobis unum confratrem de gremio
nostrOy — licentiam vestram — nobis concedere digne-
mini."

LETTER XX.

PRIOR MORTON dying in 1471, two canons, by them-
selves, proceeded to election, and chose a prior; but
two more (one of them Berne) complaining of not being
summoned, objected to the proceedings as informal ;
till at last the matter was compromised that the bishop
should again, for that turn, nominate as he had before.
But the circumstances of this election will be best
explained by the following extract :

REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. ii. pars ima, fol. 7.

Memorandum. A. D. 1471. August 22.

William Wyndesor, a canon-regular of the Priory of
Selborne, having been elected prior on the death of
brother John, appeared in person before the bishop in
his chapel at South Waltham. He was attended on
this occasion by Thomas London and John Bromes-
grove, canons, who had elected him. Peter Berne and
William Stratfeld, canons, also presented themselves at
the same time, complaining that in this business they
had been overlooked, and not summoned ; and that
therefore the validity of the election might with reason
be called in question, and quarrels and dissensions
might probably arise between the newly chosen prior
and the parties thus neglected.

After some altercation and dispute they all came to
an agreement with the new prior, that what had been
done should be rejected and annulled; and that they
would again, for this turn, transfer to the bishop their
power to elect, order, and provide them another prior,
whom they promised unanimously to admit.

51)8 ANTIQUITIES

The bishop accepted of this offer before witnesses ;
and on September 27, in an inner chamber near the
chapel above-mentioned, after full deliberation, chose
brother Thomas Fairwise, vicar of Somborne, a canon-
regular of St. Augustine in the Priory of Bruscough, in
the diocese of Coventry and Litchfield, to be prior of
Selborne. The form is nearly as above in the last elec-
tion. The canons are again enumerated ; W. Wynde-
sor, sub-prior, P. Berne, T. London, W. Stratfeld,
J. Bromesgrove, who had formed the chapter, and
had requested and obtained license to elect, but had
unanimously conferred their power on the bishop. In
consequence of this proceeding, the bishop taking the
business upon himself, that the Priory might not suffer
detriment for want of a governor, appoints the aforesaid
T. Fairwise to be prior. A citation was ordered as
above for gainsayers to appear October 4th, before the
bishop or his commissaries at South Waltham ; but
none appearing, the commissaries admitted the said
Thomas, ordered him to be installed, and sent the usual
letter to the convent to render him due obedience.

Thus did the Bishop of Winchester a second time
appoint a stranger to be prior of Selborne, instead of
one chosen out of the chapter. For this seeming irre-
gularity the visiter had no doubt good and sufficient
reasons, as probably may appear hereafter.

LETTER XXI.

WHATEVER might have been the abilities and dispo-
sition of prior Fairwise, it could not have been in his
power to have brought about any material reformation
in the Priory of Selborne, because he departed this life
in the month of August, 1472, before he had presided
one twelvemonth.

As soon as their governor was buried, the chapter
applied to their visiter for leave to choose a new prior,

OF SELBORNE. 599

which being granted, after deliberating for a time, they
proceeded to an election by a scrutiny. But as this
mode of voting has not been described but by the mere
form given in a note, an extract from the bishop's
register, representing the manner more fully, may not
be disagreeable to several readers.

REG. WAYNFLETE, torn. ii. pars ima, fol. 15.

" Reverendo, &c. ac nostro patrono graciocissimo
vestri humiles, et devote obedientie filii," &c.

To the right reverend Father in God, and our most
gracious patron, we, your obedient and devoted sons,
William Wyndesor, president of the chapter of the
Priory of Selborne, and the convent of that place, do
make known to your lordship, that our priorship being
lately vacant by the death of Thomas Fairwise, our
late prior, who died August llth, 1473, having com-
mitted his body to decent sepulture, and having re-
quested, according to custom, leave to elect another,
and having obtained it under your seal, we William
Wyndesor, president of the convent, on the 29th of
August, in our chapter-house assembled, and making
a chapter, taking to us in this business Richard ap
Jenkyn, and Galfrid Bryan, chaplains, that our said
Priory might not by means of this vacancy incur harm
or loss, unanimously agreed on August the last for the
day of election ; on which day, having first celebrated
mass, " De sancto spiritu," at the high altar, and having
called a chapter by tolling a bell about ten o' the clock,
we, William Wyndesor, president, Peter Berne, Thomas
London, and William Stratfeld, canons, who alone
had voices, being the only canons, about ten o' the
clock, first sung " Veni Creator," the letters and license
being read in the presence of many persons there.
Then William Wyndesor, in his own name, and that
of all the canons, made solemn proclamation, enjoining
all who had no right to vote to depart out of the chap-
ter-house. When all were withdrawn except Guyllery

GOO ANTIQUITIES

de Lacuna, in decretis Baccalarius, and Robert Peve-
rell, notary-public, and also the two chaplains, the first
was requested to stay, that he might direct and inform
us in the mode of election; the other, that he might
record and attest the transactions ; and the two last
that they might be witnesses to them.

Then, having read the constitution of the general
council, " Quia propter," and the forms of elections con-
tained in it being sufficiently explained to them by
De Lacuna, as well in Latin as the vulgar tongue, and
having deliberated in what mode to proceed in this
election, they resolved on that of scrutiny. Three of
the canons, Wyndesor, Berne, and London, were made
scrutators: Berne, London, and Stratfeld, choosing
Wyndesor; Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, choos-
ing Berne; Wyndesor, Berne, and Stratfeld, choosing
London.

„ They were empowered to take each other's vote, and
then that of Stratfeld ; " et ad inferiorem partem angu-
larem" of the chapter-house, "juxta ostium ejusdem
declinentes," with the other persons (except Stratfeld,
who stayed behind), proceeded to voting, two swearing,
and taking the voice of the third, in succession, privately.
Wyndesor voted tirst : " Ego credo Petrum Berne me-
liorem et utiliorem ad regimen istius ecclesie, et in
ipsum consentio, ac eum nornino," &c. Berne was
next sworn, and in like manner nominated Wyndesor ;
London nominated Berne: Stratfeld was then called
and sworn, and nominated Berne.

" Quibus in scriptis redactis," by the notary-public,
they returned to the upper part of the chapter-house,
where by Wyndesor "sic peracta fecerunt in com-
muni," and then solemnly, in form written, declared the
election of Berne : when all, " antedicto nostro electo
excepto, approbantes et ratificantes, cepimus decantare
solemuiter ' Te Deum Laudamus,' et sic canentes dictum
electum ad majus altare ecclesie deduximus, ut apud
nos est moris. Then Wyndesor electionem clero et

OF SELBORNE. 601

populo infra chorum dicte ecclesie congregatis publi-
cavit, et personam elect! publice et personaliter osten-
dit." We then returned to the chapter-house, except
our prior ; and Wyndesor was appointed by the other
two their proctor, to desire the assent of the elected, and
to notify what had been done to the bishop ; and to
desire him to confirm the election, and do whatever else
was necessary. Then their proctor, before the witnesses,
required Berne's assent in the chapter-house : " qui
quidem instanciis et precibus multiplicatis devictus,"
consented, "licet indignus electus," in writing. They
therefore requested the bishop's confirmation of their
election " sic canonice et solemniter celebrata," &c. &c.
Sealed with their common seal, and subscribed and
attested by the notary. Dat. in the chapter-house,
September 5th, 1472.

In consequence, September llth, 1472, in the bishop's
chapel at Esher, and before the bishop's commissary,
appeared W. Wyndesor, and exhibited the above instru-
ment, and a mandate from the bishop for the appear-
ance of gainsayers of the election there on that day : —
and no one appearing, the absentees were declared
contumacious ; and the election confirmed ; and the
vicar of Aulton was directed to induct and install the
prior in the usual manner.

Thus did canon Berne, though advanced in years,
reassume his abdicated priorship for the second time, to
the no small satisfaction, as it may seem, of the Bishop
of Winchester, who professed, as will be shown not long
hence, a high opinion of his abilities and integrity.

LETTER XXII.

As prior Berne, when chosen in 1454, held his priorship
only to 1468, and then made a voluntary resignation,
wearied and disgusted, as we may conclude, by the
disorder that prevailed in his convent ; it is no matter

602 ANTIQUITIES

of wonder that, when rechosen in 1472, he should not
long maintain his station ; as old age was then coming
fast upon him, and the increasing anarchy and misrule
of that declining institution required unusual vigour
and resolution to stem that torrent of profligacy which
was hurrying it on to its dissolution. We find, accord-
ingly, that in 1478 he resigned his dignity again into the
hands of the bishop.

REG. WAYNFLETE. Fol. 55.

Resignatio Prioris de Seleborne.

May 14, 1478. Peter Berne resigned the priorship.
May 16, the bishop admitted his resignation " in mane-
rio suo de Waltham," and declared the priorship void ;
" et priorat. solacio destitutum esse ;" and granted his
letters for proceeding to a new election : when all the
religious, assembled in the chapter-house, did transfer
their power under their seal to the bishop by the follow-
ing public instrument.

" In Dei nomine Amen," &c. A. D. 1478, Maii 19. In
the chapter-house for the election of a prior for that
day, on the free resignation of Peter Berne, having
celebrated in the first place mass at the high altar " De
spiritu sancto," and having called a chapter by tolling
a bell, ut moris est; in the presence of a notary and wit-
nesses appeared personally Peter Berne, Thomas Ash-
ford, Stephen Clydgrove and John Ashton, presbyters,
and Henry Canwood l, in chapter assembled ; and after
singing the hymn " Veni Creator Spiritus," " cum versi-
culo et oratione 'Deus qui cor da;' declarataque licentia
Fundatoris et patroni futurum priorem eligendi con-
cessa, et constitutione consilii generalis que incipit

1 Here we see that all the canons were changed in six years; and that
there was quite a new chapter, Berne excepted, between 1472 and 1478;
for, instead of Wyndesor, London, and Stratfeld, we find Ashford, Clyd-
grove, Ashton, and Canwood, all new men, who were soon gone in their
turn off the stage, and are heard of no more. For, in six years after,
there seem to have been no canons at all.

OF SELBORNE. 603

c Quia propter' declaratis ; viisque per quas possent ad
hanc electionem procedere," by the decretorum doctorem,
whom the canons had taken to direct them — they all
and every one " dixerunt et affirmarunt se nolle ad
aliquam viam procedere:" — but, for this turn only,
renounced their right, and unanimously transferred their
power to the bishop, the ordinary of the place, pro-
mising to receive whom he should provide; and ap-
pointed a proctor to present the instrument to the
bishop under their seal; and required their notary to
draw it up in due form, &c. subscribed by the notary.

After the visitor had fully deliberated on the matter,
he proceeded to the choice of a prior, and elected, by
the following instrument, John Sharp, alias Glasten-
bury.

Fol. 56. Provisio Prioris per Epm.

Willmus, &c. to our beloved brother in CHRIST,
John Sharp, alias Glastenbury, Ecclesie conventualis
de Bruton, of the order of St. Austin, in the diocese of
Bath and Wells, canon-regular, salutem, &c. " De tue
circumspectionis industria plurimum confidentes, te
virum providum et discretum, literarum scientia, et
moribus merito commendandum, &c. — do appoint you
prior — under our seal. " Dat. in manerio nostro de
Suthwaltham, May 20, 1478, et nostre Consec. 31."

Thus did the bishop, three times out of the four that
he was at liberty to nominate, appoint a prior from a
distance, a stranger to the place, to govern the convent
of Selborne, hoping by this method to have broken the
cabal, and to have interrupted that habit of mismanage-
ment that had pervaded the society: but he acknow-
ledges, in an evidence lying before us, that he never
did succeed to his wishes with respect to those late
governors, — " quos tamen male se habuisse, et inutiliter
administrare, et administrasse usque ad presentia tem-
pora post debitam investigationem, &c. invenit." The
only time that he appointed from among the canons, he

604 ANTIQUITIES

made choice of Peter Berne, for whom he had conceived
the greatest esteem and regard.

When prior Berne first relinquished his priorship, he
returned again to his former condition of canon, in
which he continued for some years : but when he was
rechosen, and had abdicated a second time, we find him
in a forlorn state, and in danger of being reduced to
beggary, had not the Bishop of Winchester interposed
in his favour, and with great humanity insisted on a
provision for him for life. The reason for this differ-
ence seems to have been, that, in the first case, though
in years, he might have been hale and capable of taking
his share in the duty of the convent; in the second, he
was broken with age, and no longer equal to the func-
tions of a canon.

Impressed with this idea the bishop very benevo-
lently interceded in his favour, and laid his injunctions
on the new elected prior in the following manner.

Fol. 56. " In Dei nomine Amen. Nos Willmus, &c.
considerantes Petruni Berne," late prior " in adminis-
tratione spiritualium et temporalium prioratus lauda-
biliter vixisse et rexisse; ipsumque senio et corporis
debilitate confractum ; ne in opprobrium religionis men-
dicari cogatur ; — eidem annuam pensionem a Domino
Johanne Sharp, alias Glastonbury, priore moderno,"
and his successors, and, from the Priory or church, to
be paid every year during his life, " de voluntate et ex
consensu expressis " of the said John Sharp, " sub ea
que sequitur forma verborum — assignamus :"

1st. That the said prior and his successors, for the
time being, honeste exhibebunt of the fruits and profits of
the priorship, " eidem esculenta et potulenta," while he
remained in the Priory, " sub consimili portione eorun-
dem prout convenienter priori," for the time being,
ministrari contigerit ; and in like manner uni famulo,
whom he should choose to wait on him, as to the servi-
entibus of the prior.

OF SELBORNE. 605

Item. " Invenient seu exhibebunt eidem unam hones-
tarn cameram " in the Priory, " cum focalibus necessa-
riis seu opportunis ad eundem."

Item. We will, ordain, &c. to the said P. Berne an
annual pension of ten marks, from the revenue of the
Priory, to be paid by the hands of the prior quarterly.

The bishop decrees farther, that John Sharp, and his
successors, shall take an oath to observe this injunction,
and that before their installation.

" Lecta et facta stint haec in quodam alto oratorio/'
belonging to the bishop at Suthwaltham, May 25, 1478,
in the presence of John Sharp, who gave his assent,
and then took the oath before witnesses, with the other
oaths before the chancellor, who decreed he should be
inducted and installed ; as was done that same day.

How John Sharp, alias Glastonbury, acquitted him-
self in his priorship, and in what manner he made a
vacancy, whether by resignation, or death, or whether
he was removed by the visiter, does not appear : we
only find that some time in the year 1484, there was no
prior, and that the bishop nominated canon Ashford to
fill the vacancy.

LETTER XXIII.

THIS Thomas Ashford was most undoubtedly the last
prior of Selborne; and therefore here will be the proper
place to say something concerning a list of the priors,
and to endeavour to improve that already given by
others.

At the end of Bishop Tanner's Notitia Monastica,
the folio edition, among Brown Willis's Principals of
Religious Houses, occur the names of eleven of the
priors of Selborne, with dates. But this list is imper-
fect, and particularly at the beginning ; for though the
Priory was founded in 1232, yet it commences with
Nich. de Cantia, elected in 1262 ; so that for the first

600 ANTIQUITIES

thirty years no prior is mentioned ; yet there must have
been one or more. We were in hopes that the register
of Peter de Rupibus would have rectified this omission;
but, when it was examined, no information of the sort
was to be found. From the year 1410 the list is much
corrected and improved ; and the reader may depend
on its being thenceforward very exact.

A List of the Priors of Selborne Priory, from Brown
Willis's Principals of Religious Houses, with addi-
tions within [ ] by the Author.

[John was prior, sine datl.~\

Nich. de Cantia. el 1262.

[Peter was prior in . . . . . * . ». 1271. J

[Richard was prior in •»;.«. •. » . 1280.]

Will. Basing was prior in . .-*••.' . •* ,--. . • . 1299.
Walter de Insula el. in ; , I .* $f*%^ -*• • 1324.
[Some difficulties, and a devolution ; but the
election confirmed by Bishop Stratford.]

John de Winton 1339.

Thomas Weston 1377.

John Winchester [Wynchestre] 1410.

[Elected by Bishop Beaufort " per viam vel

formam simplicis compromissi."]

[John S type, alias Stepe, in . . . . . «, . 1411.]
Peter Bene [alias Berne or Bernes, appointed
keeper, and, by lapse to Bishop Wayneflete,

prior] in 1454.

[He resigns in 1468.]

John Morton [Prior of Reygate] in .... 1468.
[The canons by compromise transfer the

power of election to the bishop.]
Will. Winsor [Wyndesor, prior for a few days] 1471.
[but removed on account of an irregular elec-
tion.]

1 See, in Letter XT. of these Antiquities, the reason why prior John

, who had transactions with the Knights Templars, is placed in the

list before the year 1262.

OF SELBORNE. G07

Thomas Farwill [Fairwise, vicar of Somborne] 1471.

[by compromise again elected by the bishop.]
[Peter Berne, reelected by scrutiny in ... . 1472.]

[resigns again in 1478.]
John Sharper [Sharp] alias Glastonbury . . 1478.

[Canon-reg. of Bruton, elected by the bishop

by compromise.]
[Thomas Ashford, canon of Selborne, last prior

elected by the Bishop of Winchester, some

time in the year 1484.

and deposed at the dissolution.]

LETTER XXIV.

BISHOP WAYNFLETE'S efforts to continue the Priory
still proved unsuccessful ; and the convent, without
any canons, and for some time without a prior, was
tending swiftly to its dissolution.

When Sharp's, alias Glastonbury 's, priorship ended
does not appear. The bishop says that he had been
obliged to remove some priors for mal-administration :
but it is not well explained how that could be the case
with any, unless with Sharp; because all the others,
chosen during his episcopate, died in their office, viz.
Morton and Fairwise ; Berne only excepted, who relin-
quished twice voluntarily, and was moreover approved
of by Waynflete as a person of integrity. But the way
to show what ineffectual pains the bishop took, and
what difficulties he met with, will be to quote the words
of the libel of his proctor Radulphus Langley, who
appeared for the bishop in the process of the impropria-
tion of the Priory of Selborne. The extract is taken
from an attested copy.

" Item — that the said bishop — dicto prioratui et per-
sonis ejusdem pie compatiens, sollicitudines pastorales,
labores, et diligentias gravissimas quain plurimas, tarn

008 ANTIQUITIES

per se quam per suos, pro reformatione preraissorum
impendebat: et aliquando illius loci prioribus, propter
malam et inutilem administrationem, et dispensationem
bonorum predict! prioratus, suis demeritis exigentilms,
amotis; alios priores in quorum circumspectione et
diligentia confidebat, prefecit : quos tainen male se
habuisse ac inutiliter administrare, et administrasse,
usque ad presentia tempora post debitam investigatio-
nem, &c. invenit." So that he despaired, with all his
care, — "statum ejusdem reparare vel restaurare: et
considerata temporis malicia, et preteritis tiinendo, et
conjecturando futura, de aliqua bona et sancta reli-
gione ejusdem ordinis, &c. juxta piam intentioncm
primevi fundatoris ibidem habend. desperatur."

William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester, founded
his college of St. Mary Magdalen, in the university of
Oxford, in or about the year 1459; but the revenues
proving insufficient for so large and noble an establish-
ment, the college supplicated the founder to augment
its income by putting it in possession of the estates
belonging to the Priory of Selborne, now become a de-
serted convent, without canons or prior. The president
and fellows state the circumstances of their numerous
institution and scanty provision, and the ruinous and
perverted condition of the Priory. The bishop appoints
commissaries to inquire into the state of the said
monastery; and, if found expedient, to confirm the
appropriation of it to the college, which soon after
appoints attorneys to take possession, September 24,
1484. But the way to give the reader a thorough
insight respecting this transaction, will be to transcribe
a farther proportion of the process of the impropriation
from the beginning, which will lay open the manner of
proceeding, and show the consent of the parties.

OF SELBORNE. C09

IMPROPRIATIO SELBORNE, 1485.

" Universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis, &c. Ricar-
dus Dei gratia prior ecclesie conventualis de Novo
Loco, &C.1 ad universitatem vestre notitie deducimus,
&c. quod coram nobis commissario predicto in ecclesia
parochiali Sli. Georgii de Essher, diet. Winton. dioc. 3°.
die Augusti, A. D. 1485, indictione tertia pontificat.
Innocentii 8vi. ann. lmo. judicialiter comparuit venera-
bilis vir Jacobus Preston, S. T. P. infrascriptus, et
exhibuit literas commissionis — quas quid em per niagis-
trum Thomara Somercotes notarium publicum, &c. legi
fecimus, tenorem sequentem in se continentes." The
same as No. 103, but dated — " In manerio nostro de
Essher, Augusti lmo A. D. 1485, et nostre consec. anno
39." [No. 103 is repeated in a book containing the like
process in the preceding year by the same commissary,
in the parish church of St. Andrew the apostle, at Farn-
ham, Sept. 6th, anno 1484.] " Post quarum literarum
lecturam — dictus magister Jacobus Preston, quasdarn
procuratorias literas mag. Richardi Mayewe presidents,
ut asseruit, collegii beate Marie Magdalene, &c. sigillo
rotundo communi, &c. in cera rubea impresso sigillatas
realiter exhibuit, &c. et pro eisdem dnis suis, &c. fecit
se partem, ac nobis supplicavit ut juxta formam in
eisdem traditam procedere dignaremur, &c." After these
proclamations no contradictor or objector appearing —
"ad instantem petitionem ipsius mag. Jac. Preston,
procuratoris, &c. procedendum fore decrevimus vocatis

1 Ecclesia Conventualis de Novo Loco was the monastery afterwards
called the New Minster, or Abbey of Hyde, in the city of Winchester.
Should any intelligent reader wonder to see that the prior of Hyde
Abbey was commissary to the Bishop of Winton, and should conclude that
there was a mistake in titles, and that the abbot must have been here
meant; he will be pleased to recollect that this person was the second in
rank ; for, " next under the abbot, in every abbey, was the prior."— Pref.
to Notit. Monast. p. xxix. Besides, abbots were great personages, and
too high in station to submit to any office under the bishop.

R R

010 ANTIQUITIES

jure vocandis ; nee non mag. Tho. Somercotes, &c. in
actorum nostrorura scribam nominavimus. Conse-
quenter et ibidem tune comparuit magister Michael
ClyfF, &c. et exhibuit in ea parte procuratorium suum,"
for the prior and convent of the cathedral of Winton,
" et fecit se partem pro eisdem. — Deinde comparuit
coram nobis, &c. honestus vir Willmus Cowper," proc-
tor for the bishop as patron of the Priory of Selborne,
and exhibited his " procuratorium, &c." After these
were read in the presence of Clyff and Cowper, " Pres-
ton, viva voce," petitioned the commissary to annex
and appropriate the Priory of Selborne to the college —
" propter quod fructus, redditus, et proventus ejusdem
coll. adeo tenues sunt et exiles, quod ad sustentatio-
nem ejus, &c. non sufficiunt. -The commissary, "ad
libellandum et articulandum in scriptis" — adjourned
the court to the 5th of August, then to be held again in
the parish church of Essher.

W. Cowper being then absent, Radulphus Langley
appeared for the bishop, and was admitted his proctor.
Preston produced his libel or article " in scriptis " for
the union, &c. " et admitti petiit eundem cum eflfectu ;
cujus libelli tenor sequitur. — In Dei nomine, Amen.
Coram nobis venerabili in Christo patre Richardo, priore,
&c. de Novo Loco, &c. commissario, &c." On the part
of the college of Magd. dicit, allegat, and in his "scriptis
proponit, &c."

" Imprimis — that said college consists of a president
and eighty scholars, besides sixteen choristers, thirteen
servientes inibi altissimo famulantibus, et in scientiis
plerisque liberalibus, presertim in sacra theologia stu-
dentibus, nedum ad ipsorum presidentis et scholarium
pro presenti et impostemm, annuente deo, incorporan-
dorum in eodem relevamen; verum etiam ad omnium
et singulorum tarn scholarium quam religiosorum cujus-
cunque ordinis undequaque illuc confluere pro salubri
doctrina volentium utilitatem multiplicem, ad incre-
menta virtutis fideique catholice stabilimentum. Ita

OF SELBORNE. 611

videlicet quod omnes et singuli absque personarum seu
nationum delectu illuc accedere volentes, lecturas pub-
licas et doctrinas tarn in grammatica, loco ad collegium
contiguo, ac philosophiis morali et naturali, quam in
sacra theologia in eodem collegio perpetuis temporibus
continuandas libere atque gratis audire valeant et
possint, ad laudem gloriam et honorem Dei, &c. extitit
fundatum et stabilitum."

For the first item in this process see the beginning of
this letter. Then follows item the second — " that the
revenues of the college non sufficiunt his diebus." " Item
— that the premisses are true, &c. ut super eisdem labo-
rarunt, et laborant publica vox et fama. Unde facta
fide petit pars eorundem that the Priory be annexed to
the college : ita quod dicto prioratu vacante liceat iis
ex tune to take possession, &c." This libel, with the
express consent of the other proctors, we, the commis-
sary, admitted, and appointed the 6th of August for
proctor Preston to prove the premisses.

Preston produced witnesses, "W. Gyfford, S. T. P.
John Nele, A. M. John Chapman, chaplain, and Robert
Baron, literatus, who were admitted and sworn, when
the court was prorogued to the 6th of August ; and the
witnesses, on the same 6th of August, were examined
by the commissary, "in capella infra manerium de
Essher situata, secrete et singillatim." Then follow
the " literse procuratoriae : " first that of the college,
appointing Preston and Langport their proctors, dated
August 30th, 1484 ; then that of the prior and convent
of the cathedral of Winton, appointing David Husband
and Michael Cleve, dated September 4th, 1484: then
that of the bishop, appointing \V. Gyfford, Radulphus
Langley, and Will. Cowper, dated September 3rd, 1484.
Consec. 38°. — " Quo die adveniente, in dicta ecclesia
parochiali, appeared " coram nobis" James Preston to
prove the contents of his libel, and exhibited some
letters testimonial with the seal of the bishop, and
these were admitted ; and consequenter Preston pro-

R R 2

612 ANTIQUITIES

duced two witnesses, viz. Dominum Thomam Ashforde
nuper priorem dicti prioratus, et Willm. Rabbys litera-
tum, who were admitted and sworn, and examined as
the others, by the commissary ; " tune & ibidem assis-
tente scriba secrete & singillatim ;" and their deposi-
tions were read and made public, as follows :

Mr. W. Gyfford, S. T. P. aged 57, of the state of
Magd. Coll. &c. &c. as before :

Mr. John Nele, aged 57, proves the articles also :
Robert Baron, aged 56 :

Johannes Chapman, aged 35, also affirmed all the
five articles :

Dompnus Thomas Ashforde, aged 72 years — " dicit
2dum 3um 4nm articulos in eodem libello contentos, con-
cernentes statum dicti prioratus de Selebourne, fuisse
et esse veros."

W. Rabbys, setat 40 ann. agrees with Gyfford, &c.
Then follows the letter from the bishop, " in subsi-
(1 iu in probationis," abovementioned — "Willmus, &c.
salutem, &c. noverint universitas vestra, quod licet nos
prioratui de Selebourne, &c. pie compacientes sollicitu-
dines pastorales, labores, diligentias quamplurimas per
nos & commissarios nostros pro reformatione status
ejus impenderimus, justicia id poscente ; nihilominus
tamen," &c. as in the article — to " desperatur," dated
" in manerio nostro de Essher, Aug. 3d, 1485, & consec.
39." Then, on the 6th of August, Preston, in the pre-
sence of the other proctors, required that they should
be compelled to answer ; when they all allowed the
articles " fuisse & esse vera ;" and the commissary, at
the request of Preston, concluded the business, and
appointed Monday, August 8th, for giving his decree
in the same church of Essher; and it was that day read,
and contains a recapitulation, with the sentence of
union, &c. witnessed and attested.

As soon as the president and fellows of Magdalen
College had obtained the decision of the commissary in
their favour, they proceeded to supplicate the pope, and

OF SELfcORNE. 613

to entreat his holiness that he would give his sanction
to the sentence of union. Some difficulties were started
at Rome ; but they were surmounted Ky the college
agent, as appears by his letters from that city. At
length Pope Innocent VIII. by a bull2 bearing date
the 8th day of June, in the year of our Lord 1486, and
in the second year of his pontificate, confirmed what
had been done, and suppressed the convent.

Thus fell the considerable and well endowed Priory
of Selborne, after it had subsisted about two hundred
and fifty-four years ; about seventy-four years after the
suppression of Priories alien by Henry V. and about
fifty years before the general dissolution of monasteries
by Henry VIII. The founder, it is probable, had fondly
imagined that the sacredness of the institution, and the
pious motives on which it was established, might have
preserved it inviolate to the end of time — yet it fell,

" To teach us that God attributes to place

No sanctity, if none be thither brought

By men, who there frequent, or therein dwell."

MILTON'S Paradise Lost.

LETTER XXV.

WAIN FLEET did not long enjoy the satisfaction arising
from this new acquisition ; but departed this life in a
few months after he had effected the union of the Priory
with his late founded college ; and was succeeded in
the see of Winchester by Peter Courtney, some time
towards the end of the year 1486.

In the beginning of the following year the new bishop
released the president and fellows of Magdalen College

2 There is nothing remarkable in this bull of Pope Innocent except
the statement of the annual revenue of the Priory of Selborne, which is
therein estimated at 160 flor. auri; whereas Bishop Godwin sets it at
337Z. 15s. 6%d. Now a floren, so named, says Camden, because made by
Florentines, was a gold coin of King Edward III. in value 6s. whereof
160 is not one seventh part of 337Z. 15s. 6±d.

• •

614 ANTIQUITIES

from all actions respecting the Priory of Selborne ; and
the prior and convent of St. Swithun, as the chapter of
Winchester cathedral, confirmed^ the release1.

N. 293. " Relaxatio Petri epi Winton Ricardo Ma-
yew President!, omnium actionum occasione indempni-
tatis sibi debite pro unione Prioratus de Selborne dicto
collegio. Jan. 2. 1487. et translat. anno IV

N. 374. " Relaxatio prioris et conventusjs* Swithini
Winton confirmans relaxationem Petri ep. Winton."
1487. Jan. 13.

Ashforde, the deposed prior, who had appeared as an
evidence for the impropriation of the Priory at the age
of seventy-two years, that he might not be destitute of
a maintenance, was pensioned by the college to the day
of his death ; and was living on till 1490, as appears by
his acquittances.

REG. A. ff. 46.

" Omnibus Christi fidelibus ad quos presens scriptum
pervenerit, Richardus Mayew, presidens, &c. et scolares,,
salutem in Domino."

" Noveritis nos prefatos presidentem et scolares de-
disse, concessisse, et hoc present! scripto conflrmasse
Thome Ashforde, capellanoy quendam annualem reddi-
tum sex librarum tresdecim solidorum et quatuor dena-
riorum bone et legalis monete Anglie — ad terminum
vite prefati Thome" — to be paid from the possessions
of the college in Basingstoke. — " In cujus rei testimo-
nium sigillum nostrum commune presentibus apponimus.
Dat. Oxon. in coll. nostro supradicto primo die mensis
Junii anno regis Ricardi tertii secundo," viz. 1484. The
college, in their grant to Ashforde, style him only capel-
lanus ; but the annuitant very naturally, and with a
becoming dignity, asserts his late title in his acquit-
tances, and identifies himself by the addition of nuper
priorem, or late prior.

1 The bishops of Winchester were patrons of the Priory.

OP SELBORNE. 615

As, according to the persuasion of the times, the
depriving the founder and benefactors of the Priory of
their masses and services would have beep deemed the
most impious of frauds, Bishop Wainfleet, having by
statute ordained four obits for himself to be celebrated
in the chapel of Magdalen College, enjoined in one of
them a special collect for the anniversary of Peter de
Rupibus, with a particular prayer — " Deus Indulgentia-
rum."

The college also sent Nicholas Langrish, who had
been a chantry priest at Selborne, to celebrate mass
for the souls of all that had been benefactors to the said
Priory and college, and for all the faithful who had
departed this life.

N. 356. Thomas Knowles, presidens, &c. — " damus
et concedimus Nicholao Langrish quandam capella-
niam, vel salarium, sive alio quocunque nomine censea-
tur, in prioratu quondam de Selborne pro termino 40
annorum, si tarn diu vixerit. Ubi dictus magr. Nicho-
laus celebrabit pro animabus omnium benefactorum
dicti prioratus et coll.nostri, et omnium fidelium defunc-
torum, &c. Insuper nos, &c. concedimus eidem ibidem
celebranti in sustentationem suam quandam annualem
pensionem sive annuitatem octo librarum, &c. — in dicta
capella dicti prioratus — concedimus duas cameras con-
tiguas ex parte boreali dicte capelle, cum una coquina,
et cum uno stabulo conveniente pro tribus equis, cum
pomerio eidem adjacente voc. le Orcheyard — Preterea
26s. Sd. per ann. ad inveniendum unum clericum ad
serviendum sibi ad altare, et aliis negotiis necessariis
ejus." — His wood to be granted him by the president
on the progress. — He was not to absent himself beyond
a certain time ; and was to superintend the coppices,
wood, and hedges.—" Dat. 5to. die Julii. an0. Hen. VHP1.
36°." [viz. 1546.]

Here we see the Priory in a new light, reduced as it
were to the state of a chantry, without prior and with-

AN TIQUITI H,S

out canons, and attended only by a priest, who \s;i-
also a sort of bailiff or woodman, his assistant clerk,
and his female cook 2. Owen Oglethorpe, president, and
Magdalen College, in the fourth year of Edward VI.
viz. 1551, granted an annuity of ten pounds a year for
life to Nich. Langrish, who, from the preamble, appears
then to have been fellow of that society : but, being now
superannuated for business, this pension is granted him
for thirty years, if he should live so long. It is said of
him — " cum jam sit provectioris etatis quam ut," &c.

Laurence Stubb, president of MagJ. Coll. leased out
the Priory lands to John Sharp, husbandman, for the
term of twenty years, as early as the seventeenth year
of Henry VIII. — viz. 1526: and it appears that Henry
Newlyn had been in possession of a lease before, pro-
bably towards the end of the reign of Henry VII.
Sharp's rent was vi11. per ann. — Regist. B. p. 43.

By an abstract from a lease lying before me, it appears
that Sharp found a house, two barns, a stable, and a
duf-house [dove-house], built, and standing on the south
side of the old Priory, and late in the occupation of
Newlyn. In this abstract also are to be seen the names
of all the iields, many of which continue the same to
this day3. Of some of them I shall take notice, where
any thing singular occurs.

And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise]
Mede. Every convent had its Paradise ; which proba-
bly was an enclosed orchard, pleasantly laid out, and
planted with fruit trees. Tylehouse Grove, so distin-

8 Una coquina would rather signify a kitchen than a female cook. —
E.T.B.

3 It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings,
farms, fields, woods, &c. which appear in the ancient deeds and evidences
of several centuries standing, are still preserved in common use with
little or no variation : — as Norton, Southington, Durton, Achangre, Black-
more, Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, &c. &c. At the same time it should be
acknowledged that other places have entirely lost their original titles, as
Le Buri and Trucstede in this village ; and La Liega, or La Lyge, which
was the name of the original site of the Priory, &e.

OF SELBORNE. 617

guished from having a tiled bouse near it4. Butt-wood
Close ; here the servants of the Priory and the village
swains exercised themselves with their long bows, and
shot at a mark against a butt, or banK5. Cundyth
[conduit] Wood : the engrosser of the lease not under-
standing this name has made a strange barbarous word
of it. Conduit Wood was and is a steep rough cow-
pasture, lying above the Priory, at about a quarter of
a mile to the south-west. In the side of this field there
is a spring of water that never fails ; at the head of
which a cistern was built which communicated with
leaden pipes that conveyed water to the monastery.
When this reservoir was first constructed does not
appear; we only know that it underwent a repair in the
episcopate of Bishop Wainfleet, about the year 1462 6.
Whether these pipes only conveyed the water to the
Priory for common and culinary purposes, or contri-
buted to any matters of ornament and elegance, we
shall not pretend to say ; nor when artists and mecha-
nics first understood any thing of hydraulics, and that
water confined in tubes would rise to its original level.

4 Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep
off the inclemencies of weather : and then by degrees laid straw or
haum. The first refinements in roofing were shingles, which are very
ancient. Tiles are a very late and imperfect covering, and were not
much in use till the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first tiled
house at Nottingham was in 1503.

[It is, perhaps, more probable that the tile house was the establishment
at which the tiles used in the convent flooring were made. The number
of plain tiles which were used there appears to have been considerable :
in the preparation of the ornamented ones much time must have been
occupied. The manufacture of them on the spot would have been quite
in accordance with the arrangements made by such establishments gene-
rally, and certainly by the Priory of Selborne, for carrying on trades
within themselves, and thus rendering themselves self-dependent only. —
E. T. B.]

5 There is also a Butt-close just at the back of the village.

6 N. 381. " Clausure terre abbatie ecclesie parochiali de Seleburne,
ixs. iiiid. Reparacionibus domorum predicti prioratus iiii. lib. xis. Aque
conduct, ibidem, xxiiid.

G18 ANTIQUITIES

There is a person now living who had been employed
formerly in digging for these pipes, and once discovered
several yards, which they sold for old lead.

There was also a plot of ground called Tan House
Garden : and " Tannaria sua" a tan-yard of their own,
has been mentioned in Letter XVI. This circumstance
I just take notice of, as an instance that monasteries
had trades and occupations carried on within them-
selves7.

Registr. B. pag. 112. Here we find a lease of the
parsonage of Selborne to Thomas Sylvester and Miles
Arnold, husbandmen — of the tythes of all manner of
corne pertaining to the parsonage — with the offerings at
the chapel of Whaddon belonging to the said parsonage.
Dat. June 1. 27th. Hen. 8th. [viz. 1536.]

As the chapel of Whaddon has never been mentioned
till now, and as it is not noticed by Bishop Tanner in
his Notitia Monastica, some more particular account
of it will be proper in this place. Whaddon was a
chapel of ease to the mother church of Selborne, and
was situated in the tithing of Oakhanger, at about two
miles distance from the village. The farm and field
whereon it stood are still called Chapel Farm and
Field8: but there are no remains or traces of the build-
ing itself, the very foundations having been destroyed
before the memory of man. In a farm yard at Oak-
hanger we remember a large hollow stone of a close
substance, which had been used as a hog-trough, but
was then broken. This stone, tradition said, had been
the baptismal font of Whaddon chapel. The chapel
had been in a very ruinous state in old days ; but was
new-built at the instance of Bishop Wainfleet, about
the year 1463, during the first priorship of Berne, in

7 There is still a wood near the Priory, called Tanner's Wood.

8 This is a manor-farm, at present the property of Lord Stawell ; and
belonged probably in ancient times to Jo. de Venur, or Venuz, one of the
first benefactors to the Priory.

OF SELBORNE. 619

consequence of a sequestration issued forth by that
visiter against the Priory on account of notorious and
shameful dilapidations9.

The Selborne rivulet becomes of some breadth at
Oakhanger, and, in very wet seasons, swells to a large
flood. There is a bridge over the stream at this hamlet
of considerable antiquity and peculiar shape, known by
the name of Tunbridge: it consists of one single blunt
Gothic arch, so high and sharp as to render the passage
not very convenient or safe10. Here was also, we find,
a bridge in very early times; for Jacobus de Hochangre,
the first benefactor to the Priory of Selborne, held his
estate at Hochangre by the service of providing the
king one foot soldier for forty days, and by building
this bridge. " Jacobus de Hochangre tenet Hochangre
in com, Southampton, per Serjantiam11 inveniendi unum
valectum in exercitu Domini regis [scil. Henrici IIItu.]
per 40 dies ; et ad faciendum pontem de Hochangre :
et valet per annn. C. s." — Blount's Ancient Tenures,
p. 84.

A dove-house was a constant appendant to a mane-
rial dwelling : of this convenience more will be said
hereafter.

A corn-mill was also esteemed a necessary appendage
of every manor; and therefore was to be expected of
course at the Priory of Selborne.

The prior had secta molendini, or ad molendinum™: a

9 See Letter XIX. of these Antiquities.—" Summa total, solut. de
novis edificationibus, et reparacionibus per idem tempus, ut patet per
comput."

" Videlicet de nova edificat. Capelle Marie de Wadden. xiiii lib. vs.
viiid. — Reparacionibus ecclesie Prioratus, canceller, et capellar. eccle-
siarum et capellarum de Selborne, et Estworhlam." — &c. &c.

10 Inconvenient antiquity has, in this instance, recently given way to
modern use. The little bridge over the rivulet at Oakhanger is now low
and easy of passage : it consists of three small arches. E. T. B.

11 Sargentia, a sort of tenure of doing something for the king.

12 " Servitium, quo feudatorii grana sua ad Domini molendinum, ibi
molenda perferre, ex consuetudine, astring^untur."

620 ANTIQUITIES

power of compelling his vassals to bring their corn to
be ground at his mill, according to old custom. He
had also, according to Bishop Tanner, secta molendini
de Strete : but the purport of Strete, we must confess,
we do not understand13. Strete, in old English, signifies
a road or highway, as Watling Strete, &c. therefore the
prior might have some mill on a high road. The Priory
had only one mill originally at Selborne ; but, by grants
of lands, it came possessed of one at Durton, and one
at Oakhanger, and probably some on its other several
manors14. The mill at the Priory was in use \\ithin
the memory of man, and the ruins of the mill-house
were standing within these thirty years : the pond and
dam, and miller's dwelling, still remain15. As the stream
was apt to fail in very dry summers, the tenants found
their situation very distressing, for want of water, and
so were forced to abandon the spot. This inconveni-
ence was probably never felt in old times, when the
whole district was nothing but woodlands : and yet
several centuries ago there seem to have been two or
three mills between Well-head and the Priory16.

Occasional mention has been made of the many pri-
vileges and immunities enjoyed by the convent and its
priors; but a more particular statement seems to be

13 If, however, it be borne in mind that in the Strete of Selborne there
existed another manor (Gurdon's), besides that of the Priory, it will ap-
pear probable that the privilege secta molendini de Strete extended the
power of the prior so far as to enable him to compel the vassals of that
manor, equally with his own vassals, to bring their corn also to be ground
at his mill.— E. T. B.

14 Thomas Knowles, president, &c. ann. Hen. 8vi xxiii.0 [viz. 1532.]
devised to J. Whitelie their mills, &c. for twenty years. Rent \\iii\.
iiiid. — Accepted Frewen, president, &c. anil. Caroli xv. [viz. 1640.]
demised to Jo. Hook and Elizabeth, his wife, the said mills. Rent as
above.

14 The miller's dwelling has since disappeared ; and the Mill-field,
now cultivated as a hop-ground, in name only commemorates the former
use of the spot.— E. T. B.

16 For the reason of this assertion, see Letter XXIX. to Mr. Bar-
rington.

OF SELBORNE. 621

necessary. The author therefore thinks this the proper
place, before he concludes these antiquities, to intro-
duce all that has been collected by the judicious Bishop
Tanner, respecting the Priory and its advantages, in his
Notitia Monastica, a book now seldom seen, on account
of the extravagance of its price ; and being but in few
hands cannot be easily consulted17. He also adds a
few of its many privileges from other authorities : — the
account is as follows. —Tanner, page 166.

SELEBURNE.

A Priory of black canons, founded by the often-men-
tioned Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, A. D.
1233, and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary : but
was suppressed — and granted to William Wainfleet,
Bishop of Winchester, who made it part of the endow-
ment of St. Mary Magdalene College in Oxford. The
Bishops of Winchester were patrons of it. [Pat. 17.
Ed. II.]— Vide in Mon. Angl. torn. ii. p. 343. "Car-
tarn fundationis ex ipso autographo in archivis Coll.
Magd. Oxon. ubi etiam conservata sunt registra, cartae,
rentalia et alia munimenta ad hunc prioratum spec-
tantia.

" Extracta quaedam e registro MS. in Bibl. Bodl. —
Dodsworth, vol. 89. f. 140."

" Cart, antiq. N. N. n. 33. P. P. n. 48. et 71. Q. Q. n.
40. plac. coram justit. itin. [Southampton] 20 Hen. rot.
25. De eccl. de Basing, & Basingstoke. Plac. de juratis
apud Winton. 40 Hen. III. rot.— Pro secta molendini de
Strete. Cart. 54. Hen. III. m. 3. [De mercatu, Sfferia apud
Seleborne, a mistake.] — Pat. 9. Edw. I. m.— Pat. 30.
Edw. I. m.— Pat. 33. Edw. I. p. 1. m.— Pat. 35. Edw. I.
m.— Pat. 1. Edw. II. p. 1. m. 9.— Pat. 5. Edw. II. p. 1.
m. 21. De terris in Achanger. — Pat. 6. Edw. II. p. 1.

17 A few days after this was written a new edition of this valuable
work was announced in the month of April of the year 1787, as pub-
lished by Mr. Nasmith.

G22 ANTIQUITIES

m. 7. De eisdem. — Brev. in Scacc. G Edw. II. Pascb.
rot. 8.— Pat. 17. Edw. II. p. 1. ra.— Cart. 10. Edw. III.
n. 24. — Quod terras suae in Seleburn, Achangre, Norton,
Basings, Basingstoke, and Nately, sint de afforestatae,
and pro aliis libertatibus. — Pat. 12. Edw. III. p. 3. in. 3. —
Pat. 13. Edw. III. p. 1. m.— Cart. 18. Edw. III. n. 24."

" N. N. 33. Rex concessit quod prior et canonici
de Seleburn habeant per terras suas de Seleburne,
Achangre, Norton, Brompden, Basinges, Basingstoke,
& Nately, diversas libertates.

" P. P. 48. Quod prior de Seleburne habeat terras
suas quietas de vasto et regardo." — Extracts from
Ayloffe's Calendars of Ancient Charters.

"Placita de juratis & assis coram Salom de Roff, 8c
sociis suis justic. itiner. apud Wynton in comitatu
Sutht. — anno regni R. Edvardi filii reg. Henr. octavo.
— Et Por de Seleborn ht. in Selebr. furc. thurset. pillory,
emendasse panis, fr suis." [cerevisiae.] — Chapter House,
Westminster.

" Placita Foreste apud Wynton in com. Sutham.—
Anno reg. Edwardi octavo coram Rog. de Clifford.—
&c. Justic. ad eadem placita atidienda et tminand.
assigtis.

" Carta Pror de Seleburn, H. Dei gra. rex. angl. &c.
Concessim. prior, see. Marie de Seleburn. et^anonicis

ibidem Deo servient q ipi et oes hoies sui in

pdcis terris suis et tenementis manentes sint in ppetum
quieti de sectis Swanemotor. et omnium alior. placitor.
for. et de espeltamentis canum. et de omnibus submo-
nitoibz. placitis querelis et exaccoibus et occoibz. ad
for. et for. et viridar. et eor. ministros ptinentibz." —
Chapter House, Westminster.

"Plita Forestarum in com. Sutht. apud Suthamton

anno regni regis Edwardi tcii post conquestum

quarto coram JoKe Mantvers. &c. justic. itinand &c.

De hiis qui clamant libtates intra Forestas in com.
Sutht.

" Prior de Selebourne clamat esse quietus erga dmn

OF SELBORNE. 623

regem de omnibus finibus et amerciamentis p tnsgr. et
omnibus exaccoibz ad Dom. regem vel hered. suos
ptinent. pret. plita corone reg.

" Item clamat qd si aliquis hominum sudrum de terris
et tenT. p. delicto suo vitam aut membrum debeat aniit-
tere, vel fugiat & judico~ stare noluerit, vel aliud delictum
fecit pro quo debeat catella sua amittere, ubicunq;
justitia fieri debeat omnia catella ilia sint ptci Prioris et
successor, suor. Et liceat eidem priori et ballis suis
ppnere se in seisinam in hujusmodi catall. in casibus
pdcis sine disturbacone ballivor. dni reg. quorum-
cunque.

" Item clam, quod licet aliqua libtatum p dnm regem
concessar. pcessu temporis quocunq ; casu contingente
usi non fuerint, nlommus postea eadm libtate uti possit.
Et pdcus prior quesitus p justic. quo warranto clamat
omn. terr. et ten. sua in Seleburne, Norton,_Basynges,
Basyngestoke, & Nattele, que prior_domus pdte huit &
tenuit Xmo. die April anno regni dni Hen. reg. pavi dni
reg. nue XVIII. imppm esse quieta de vasto et regardo,
et visu forestarior. et viridarior. regard ator. et omnium
ministrorum foreste." &c. &c. — Chapter House, West-
minster.

LETTER XXVI.

THOUGH the evidences and documents of the Priory
and parish of Selborne are now at an end, yet, as the
author has still several things to say respecting the
present state of that convent and its Grange, and other
matters, he does not see how he can acquit himself of
the subject without trespassing again on the patience
of the reader by adding one supplementary letter.

No sooner did the Priory (perhaps much out of repair
at the time) become an appendage to the college, but it
must at once have tended to swift decay. Magdalen
College wanted now only two chambers for the chantry
priest and his assistant; and therefore had no occasion
for the hall, dormitory, and other spacious apartments

024 ANTIQUITIES

belonging to so large a foundation. The roofs neglected,
would soon become the possession of daws and owls ;
and, being rotted and decayed by the weather, would
fall in upon the floors; so that all parts must have
hastened to speedy dilapidation and a scene of broken
ruins. Three full centuries have now passed since the
dissolution; a series of years that would craze the
stoutest edifices. But, besides the slow hand of time,
many circumstances have contributed to level this vene-
rable structure with the ground ; of which nothing now
remains but one piece of a wall of about ten feet long,
and as many feet high, which probably was part of an
out-house. As early as the latter end of the reign of
Hen. VII. we find that a farm-house and two barns
were built to the south of the Priory, and undoubtedly
out of its materials. Avarice, again, has much contri-
buted to the overthrow of this stately pile, as long as
the tenants could make money of its stones or timbers.
Wantonness, no doubt, has had a share in the demoli-
tion ; for boys love to destroy what men venerate and
admire. A remarkable instance of this propensity the
writer can give from his own knowledge. When a
schoolboy, more than fifty years ago, he was eyewit-
ness, perhaps a party concerned, in the undermining a
portion of that fine old ruin at the north end of Basing-
stoke town, well known by the name of Holy Ghost
Chapel. Very providentially the vast fragment, which
these thoughtless little engineers endeavoured to sap,
did not give way so soon as might have been expected;
but it fell the night following, and with such violence
that it shook the very ground, and, awakening the inha-
bitants of the neighbouring cottages, made them start
up in their beds as if they had felt an earthquake. The
motive for this dangerous attempt does not so readily
appear: perhaps the more danger the more honour,
thought the boys ; and the notion of doing some mis-
chief gave a zest to the enterprise. As Dryden says
upon another occasion,

" It look'd so like a sin it pleased the more-."

OF SELBORNE. 6*25

Had the Priory been only levelled to the surface of
the ground, the discerning eye of an antiquary might
have ascertained its ichnography, and some judicious
hand might have developed its dimensions. But, be-
sides other ravages, the very foundations have been
torn up for the repair of the highways : so that the site
of this convent is now become a rough, rugged pasture-
field, full of hillocks and pits, choked with nettles and
dwarf-elder, and trampled by the feet of the ox and the
heifer1.

As the tenant at the Priory was lately digging among
the foundations, for materials to mend the highways,
his labourers discovered two large stones, with which
the farmer was so pleased that he ordered them to be
taken out whole. One of these proved to be a large
Doric capital, worked in good taste ; and the other a
base of a pillar ; both formed out of the soft freestone
of this district. These ornaments, from their dimen-
sions, seem to have belonged to massive columns ; and
show that the church of this convent was a large and
costly edifice. They were found in the space which
has always been supposed to have contained the south

1 It has now been so effectually cleared as almost to have become a
smooth homestead. A few heaps of stones derived, it is believed, from
the last remnants of the foundations, and piled ready for use as materials,
are all that remains in the Priory field to evidence the former site of that
important building. Among the heaps are some fashioned stones, which
will not be broken to pieces. Some fragments of columns and of a pedi-
ment, perhaps of a monument of superior pretensions, have been pre-
served. These are placed, together with a stone coffin that has been dug
up on the spot, in the garden of the adjoining farm. A considerable
number of ornamented tiles have also been found ; some of which exhibit
merely fancy devices, some bear eagles displayed and other apparently
armorial emblems, and one bears a shield of three fleurs de luces, sup-
ported by two hawks. These tiles have been used to form the pavement
of a summer house in the garden of the Priory Farm. Some fragments
of stained glass have also been found, together with portions of the
ornamented leaden casement including them; affording additional proofs
of an important building.

Complete as the clearance has been, there is now but little probability
of the occurrence of any future discovery of interest on the spot from
which the very ruins of Selborne Priory have been swept away. — E. T. B.

S S

C26 ANTIQUITIES

transept of the Priory church. Some fragments of large
pilasters were also found at the same time. The dia-
meter of the capital was two feet three inches and a
half; and of the column, where it had stood on the
base, eighteen inches and three quarters.

Two years ago some labourers digging again among
the ruins found a sort of rude thick vase or urn of soft
stone, containing about two gallons in measure, on the
verge of the brook, in the very spot which tradition has
always pointed out as having been the site of the con-
vent kitchen. This clumsy utensil2, whether intended
for holy water, or whatever purpose, we were going to
procure, but found that the labourers had just broken it
in pieces, and carried it out on the highways.

The Priory of Selborne had possessed in this village
a Grange, an usual appendage to manerial estates,
where the fruits of their lands were stowed and laid up
for use, at a time when men took the natural produce
of their estates in kind. The mansion of this spot is
still called the Grange, and is the manor-house of the
convent possessions in this place. The author has
conversed with very ancient people who remembered
the old original Grange; but it has long given place to
a modern farm-house. Magdalen College holds a court-
lee t and court-baron3 in the great wheat-barn of the
said Grange, annually, where the president usually
superintends, attended by the bursar and steward of
the college4.

The following uncommon presentment at the court is

2 A judicious antiquary, \vho saw this vase, observed, that it possibly
might have been a standard measure between the monastery and its
tenants. The Priory we have mentioned claimed the assize of bread and
beer in Selborne manor : and probably the adjustment of dry measures
for grain, &c.

3 The time when this court is held is the mid-week between Easter
and Whitsuntide.

4 Owen Oglethorp, president, &c. an. Edw. Sexti primo [viz. 1547 ]
demised to Robert Arden, Selborne Grange, for twenty years. Rent vi'>.
— Index of Leases.

OF SELBORNE.

6*27

not unworthy of notice. There is on the south side of
the king's field (a large common field so called) a con-
siderable tumulus, or hillock, now covered with thorns
and bushes, and known by the name of Kite's Hill,
which is presented, year by year, in court as not
ploughed. Why this injunction is still kept up respect-
ing this spot, which is surrounded on all sides by arable
land, may be a question not easily solved, since the
usage has long survived the knowledge of the intention
thereof. We can only suppose that as the prior, be-
sides thurset and pillory, had also/ureas, a power of life
and death, that he might have reserved this little emi-
nence as the place of execution for delinquents. And
there is the more reason to suppose so, since a spot
just by is called Gaily [Gallows] Hill.

The lower part of the village next the Grange, in
which is a pond and a stream, is well known by the

WAY LEADING TO GKACIOUS SfRliET.

name of Gracious Street, an appellation not at all
understood. There is a lake in Surrey, near Chobham,
called also Gracious Pond : and another, if we mistake

s s 2

628 ANTIQUITIKS

not, near Hedleigh, in the county of Hants. This
strange denomination we do not at all comprehend,
and conclude that it may be a corruption from some
Saxon word, itself perhaps forgotten.

It has been observed already, that Bishop Tanner
was mistaken when he refers to an evidence of Dods-
worth, " De mercatu et FERIA de Seleburne." Selborne
never had a chartered fair ; the present fair was set up
since the year 1681, by a set of jovial fellows, who had
found in an old almanack that there had been a fair here
in former days on the 1st of August ; and were desirous
to revive so joyous a festival. Against this innovation
the vicar set his face, and persisted in crying it doun,
as the probable occasion of much intemperance. How-
ever the fair prevailed ; but was altered to the 29th of
May, because the former day often interfered with
wheat harvest. On that day it still continues to be
held, and is become a useful mart for cows and calves.
Most of the lower housekeepers brew beer against this
holiday, which is dutied by the exciseman ; and their
becoming victuallers for the day without a license is
overlooked.

Monasteries enjoyed all sorts of conveniences within
themselves. Thus at the Priory, a low and moist situa-
tion, there were ponds and stews for their fish : at the
same place also, and at the Grange in Culver Croft5,
there were dove-houses; and on the hill opposite to
the Grange the prior had a wanvn, us the names of
The Coney Crofts and Coney Croft Hanger plainly
testify6.

Nothing has been said as yet respecting the tenure
or holding of the Selborne estates. Temple and Norton
are manor farms and freehold ; as is the manor of Cha-
pel near Oakhanger, and also the estate at Oakhanger
House and Blackmoor. The Priory and Grange are

5 Culver, as has been observed before, is Saxon for a pigeon.
0 A warren was an usual appendage to a manor.

OF S EL BORNE. 6*29

leasehold under Magdalen College, for twenty-one years,
renewable every seven : all the smaller estates in and
round the village are copyhold of inheritajice under the
college, except the little remains of the Gurdon manor,
which had been of old leased out upon lives, but have
been freed of late by their present lord, as fast as those
lives have dropped.

Selborne seems to have derived much of its prosperity
from the near neighbourhood of the Priory. For monas-
teries were of considerable advantage to places where
they had their sites and estates, by causing great resort,
by procuring markets and fairs, by freeing them from
the cruel oppression of forest laws, and by letting their
lands at easy rates. But, as soon as the convent was
suppressed, the town which it had occasioned began to
decline, and the market was less frequented ; the rough
and sequestered situation gave a check to resort, and the
neglected roads rendered it less and less accessible.

That it had been a considerable place for size formerly
appears from the largeness of the church, which much
exceeds those of the neighbouring villages ; by the an-
cient extent of the burying ground, which, from human
bones occasionally dug up, is found to have been much
encroached upon; by giving a name to the hundred;
by the old foundations and ornamented stones, and
tracery of windows that have been discovered on the
north-east side of the village ; and by the many vestiges
of disused fish-ponds still to be seen around it. For
ponds and stews were multiplied in the times of popery,
that the affluent might enjoy some variety at their
tables on fast days ; therefore the more they abounded
the better probably was the condition of the inha-
bitants.

INDEX.

AMERIA, one of the wives of
AdamGurdon, makes agrant
of lands to the Priory, 558.

Anne, Queen, came to Wolmer
Forest to see the red deer, 28.

Ants, observations on, 475.

Aphides, shower of, 366.

, honey-dew their excre-
ment, 396, note.

April, 1770, remarkable incle-
mency of, 218.

Arum eaten in hard weather by
the thrush, 78.

Ash ford, Thomas, last prior of
Selbome, 605.

— , pensioned

by Magdalen College, 614.

Ash-tree, a rupture one, what,
295.

, a shrew one, what,

296.

Ash-trees, difference between
fertile and sterile, 483.

August, the most mute month
respecting the singing of
birds, 170.

Auk, Little, found near Aires-
ford, 167.

Aurora Borealis, observation
on, 493.

Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,
the forest of, 36.

Barker, Thomas, some account
of, 17, note.

Barometer, remarkable fall of,
489.

Barometers, Selborne and New-
ton, compared, 383.

, South Lambeth,

383.

Barragon, a genteel corded
stuff, 23.

Barrington, Daines, some ac-
count of, 190, note.

Bats, lame, some particulars
about, 52 and note.

drink on the wing, like

swallows, 53.

, the large sort, some par-
ticulars about, 116, 130, 154.

, characters of the British

species, 155, note.

Beans sown by birds, 487.

Beaufort, Bp. of Winchester,
his register imperfect, 582.

Beeches, observations on, 483.

Bees, wild, observations on,
470.

Berne, alias Bernes, Peter, sa-
crist of the Priory, 589.

appointed prior by lapse

to the visitor, 592.

resigned his priorship,

595.

is re-elected, 600.

relinquishes again, 602.

is pensioned, 604.

Bin's, or Bean's-pond, for what
remarkable, 33.

Birds, instinct of, 62 note, 372.

, white varieties of, 77

and notes.

, summer, of passage, a

list of, 91, 190.

, living, shown here, when

from distant regions, why
usually of the thick-billed
genera, 140.

, of summer passage, seen

spring and autumn at Gib-
raltar, 143.

032

INDEX.

Birds, resentments of, \76,no(e.

, soft-hilled, that winter

with us, how supported, 179.
--, of winter passage, a list

of, 193.

— that continue in full song

till after Midsummer, 194.

, soft-billed, their treat-
ment in captivity, 199 — 210,
note.

, diseases of, 210, note.

, why fatter in moderate

frosts, 215.

— , what sorts are pulvera-

t rices, 221.

-, what occasions their con-

gregating, 237.

, in the season of nidifica-

tion, tame, 284.

, various manner of mo-
tion of, 332.

, notes and language of,

334.

— , Observations on, 427.

Bird's-nest ophrys, its propa-
gation, 329, note.

Blackcap, an elegant songster,
44, 174, 199.

Black cock, supposed hybrid
conjectured to be a, 438,
note.

Black game, now extinct in the
Forest, 27.

Black spring of 1771, 494.

Blackthorn winter, what, 485.

Blind-worm, some account of,
101 and note.

Boinbylius medius, observations
on, 474.

Bot-fly, horse, some account
of, 149, and note.

Boy, an idiot, his strange pro-
pensity, 293.

Brimstone-lodge, some account
of, 32.

Brooks at Selborne, what fishes
they produce, 49, 103.

Buck's Horn Oak, in the Holt
Forest, 481, note.

Bug, harvest, some account of,
146.

Bullfinch turns black, 78, 165.

Bunting, a very rare bird at
Selborne, 68.

Bustard, some particulars re-
specting, 197 and mili:

Butcher-bird, red backed, 108,
162.

Buzzards, honey, some account
of, 184.

Calculus from the stomach of

an ox, 154.
Canary birds, suggestion for

their naturalization, 60.
Cancer said to be cured by

toads, 104, 112.
Cane, error regarding the ani-
mal so called, 76 and //«/<•.•.-.
Carp, their retirement in severe

weather, 172.
Carta pro fnnilntion" I*tiora(us

de Seleburne, 544, note.
Curt (i petens liceni'uiiH cli'/nidi

prelatum d Jom. eplscop. ll'iii-

ton, 566, note.
Castration, its strange effects,

304.

Caterpillars of the oak, 468.
Cats, house, fond offish, 138.
Chafers, observations on, 464.
Chaffinches, vast flocks of hen,

67, 78, 166, 244.
Chalk hills, why peculiarly

beautiful, 255.
Chestnut timber, observations

on, 484.
Church, Selborne, particulars

about, 520, 528.
Clouds, morning, cause of, 492.
Coccus vitis viniferte, rare in

England, 363.'
Cock-roach, observations on,

465.
Coins, Roman, found in great

abundance, 36, 516.
Connta.rlnimonis, where found,

13.

INDEX.

033

Cricket, field, a monography

of, 346.
• , hearth, a monography

of, 350.
, observations on

466.
, mole, a monography

of, 352.
Crocus, different seasons of

blossoming of, 331.
Crossbill, particulars about, 48

and note, 222, 258.
Crows go in pairs the whole

year, 162.
Cuckoo, various particulars

about, 211, 216, 222, 234,

235, 301.

Cucumbers set by bees, 487.
Cumberland, William Duke of,

takes away the red deer from

Wolmer Forest, 28.
Curlew, stone, various particu-
lars about, 78, 79, 144, 449.

Dastard, a/t'as Wastard, natural

son to Sir Adam Gurdon,

558.
Daws breed in unlikely places,

111, 112, 114.
Deer, red, in Wolmer Forest,

some account of, 28, 29.

, fallow, in Holt Forest, 37.

, their spiracula

(so called), 71.
Deer, their distinctness of range,

38 and note.
Dispersion of birds pretty

equal, why, 323.
Diver, great speckled, some ac-
count of, 447.
Dogs, Chinese, from Canton,

378.
Domesday-book, account of

Selborne from, 517.
Dove, ring, food of the, 442.
, stock, many particulars

of, 162, 185, 233.
Downs, Sussex, a lovely range,

255.

Dripping weather after drought,

its effects, 493.
Dung of nestling-birds, 251

and -note. -.

Echo, remarks on, 316—321.

Echoes occasioned by the dis-
charge of swivel guns, 382.

Eels, characters of the different
species, 49 and note, 169.

Etty, Rev. Andrew, vicar of Sel-
borne, his monument, 527.

Fair at Selborne, 628.

Fairy rings, cause of, 488 and

notes.
Falcon, peregrine, particulars

about, 45, 46, 376.
Female birds assuming male

plumage, 435 and note.
Fern-owl ; see Goat-sucker.
Fieldfares, various particulars

concerning, 127, 133.
, their disappearance

and nesting places, 228.
Fishes of the ponds on the

Forest, 34 and note.

of Selborne streams, 49.

• , gold and silver, why

very amusing in a glass

bowl, 368.
Flies, house, observations on,

474.
Fly, bacon, injurious to the

housewife, 147.
, whame, or burrel, CEslrus

curvicauda, 149.
Flycatcher, some particulars

of, 43, 178, 243.
Fog, reflection of, 491 and note.
Forest-fly, some account of,

248 and note.
Forms, five, respecting the

choosing of a prior, 566.
Fossils of the Selborne district,

11.

Frogs migrate from pools, 98.
Frost, that in January, 1768,

described, 71,384.

G34

INDEX.

Frost, that in January, 1776, Gurdon, Sir Adam, his seal

388. and arms, 558.

, that in December, 1784, , seems to

392. have had no concern with

, partial, reason of, 489. the Knights Templars, 562.

Geological character of Sel-

borne and its neighbour-
hood, 5, note.
German silk-tail, Garrulus Bo-

hemiciis, shot, 60.
Gipsies,some particulars about,

289.
Glow-worms, observations on,

476.
Goatsucker, some account of,

116, 118, 156,302,450.
Gossamer, a wonderful shower

of, 285.
Gracious Street, lower part of

the village so called, 627.
Grange, the, belonging to the

Priory, 626.
Grasses, importance of the

study of, 325 and note.
Greatham, the manor farm of,

its privilege in Wolmer Fo-
rest, 31.
Grindstone Oak, in the Holt

Forest, 481, note.
Grosbeak, some account of, 458.
Gurdon, Sir Adam, who and

what, 547.
, his wives,

549.
, builds an

oratory in his manor house,

549.

-, grants the

Plestor to the Priory, 552.
, becomes

warden of Wolmer Forest,
554.

, a distrin-

gas against him, 556.

, enlists

troops for the king, 556.

, his ad-

vanced age, 557.

Hail-storm at Selbome in sum-
mer, 1784, 398.

Hanger, the, 2.

Hares, Scottish and Irish, 128
and note.

Harvest scene, 510.

Hawk, sparrow, the dread of
housewives, 184.

Hawkley Hanger, the amazing
fall thereof, 341.

Haze, or smoky fog, the pecu-
liar one which prevailed in
the summer of 1783, 397.

Hazel, wych, 6, 7.

Heath-fires, why lighted up, 32.

Hedge-hog, some account of,
131.

Hedge-sparrows, some particu-
lars concerning, 170, 181.

Heliotropes, summer and win-
ter, how to make them, 338.

Hen harrier, instance of bold-
ness in, 446.

Herissant, Mons., mistaken in
his reason why cuckoos do
not use incubation, 301.

Herons and heronries, 1 15 and
note, 117.

Ulppobosca Hirundinis, some
account of, 247 and note.

Hirundines, British, when they
arrived in three very distant
counties, 283.

Hinindo rupestrls found at Gib-
raltar, 142.

Hogs would live, if suffered, to
a considerable age, 305.

Holt, Ayles, a royal forest,

some account of, 36.
Honey-dew, observations on,

492.

Hoopoes, a pair observed at
Selborne, 47.

INDEX.

635

Hops, the best soil for, 1.

, culture of, 485.

House, vicarage, at Selborne,
530.

House-sparrows, their places
of building, 170.

Howe, General, turns out wild
boars in Holt Forest, 39.

Humming- in the air, how pro-
duced, 463 and note.

Huxham, Dr. his account of
rain at Plymouth, 382.

Hybrid pheasant, supposed,
434.

Ichneumon fly, observations
on, 472.

Indentura Prtoris de Selborne
tradit. Petro Bernes, sacrista,
590, note.

Insects, noxious, some account
of, 146.

, their sense of hearing,

319 and note.

, Observations on, 462.

Instinct, sometimes varies and
conforms to circumstances,
372.

, often perfectly uni-
form, 372.

Invitation to Selborne, 505.

Ireland, why worthy the atten-
tion of a naturalist, 182.

Ivy berries, their great use,
485.

Jar-bird, what, 93.

Johanna, daughter and heiress
of Sir Adam Gurdon, grants
lands and tenements to the
Priory, 558.

Knights Templars had property

at Selborne, 559.
lived in a

mutual intercourse of good

offices with the Priory, 561.
Kuckahn, some account of,

220.

Land-rail, some account of,
436.

Lanes, hollow, rocky, their pe-
culiarities, -16, 17.

Langeland, Robert, severe on
the religious, 588.

Langrish, Nicholas, sent to ce-
lebrate mass at the dissolved
Priory, 615.

Lapwings, some particulars
about, 167.

Larks, white, probably snow-
flakes, 77.

, grasshopper, some cir-
cumstances about, 87, 169.

Leaves, renovation of, 483.

Leper, a miserable one in the
village, 312.

Leprosy, why probably less
common than of old, 313.

Leveret suckled .by a cat, 306.

Leverian Museum, account of,
11, note.

Lime blossoms, observations
on, 484.

Linnets congregate and chirp,
67.

Lizard, green, some account
of, 102, 114, 117.

Loaches from Ambresbury, 103.

Longspee, Ela, founds a chan-
try at Selborne, 564.

, who and what,

566.

Macroglossa Stellatarum, obser-
vations on, 470.

Male birds arrive earlier than
females, 224, note.

Malm, black, what sort of soil, 3.

, white, 4.

Manors and lands of the Priory,
593, note.

March, 1777, two wonderfully
hot days in, 310.

Markwick, William, some ac-
count of, 407, note.

Marsham, Robert, some ac-
count of, 480, note.

INDEX.

Martin, house, seen very late,
51,61, 112, 160, 164.

, a monograph y

of, 249.

, more particu-
lars concerning, 361, 369.

, sand or bank, a mono-

graphy of, 267.

, more

particulars about, 454.

Martin, Pope, his bull touch-
ing the Priory, 586.

Mates readily procured by
widowed birds, 136.

May-fly, observations on, 469.

Mazell, Peter, some account of,
103, note.

Melolonlha Fullo, 120.

Mercatu, de, et ferid de Sele-
burne, a mistake, 628.

Mice, harvest, nondescript, 44,
56.

, one of their nests

described, 57.

, further account

of, 70.

Migration of birds, 41, 61, &c.
67, 118, 143, 160, 163, 171,
179,222,224,230,239,257,
283, 370, 427, 455, 457.

, actual, somewhat

like it, 1 18.

at Gibraltar, ocular

demonstration of, 230.

Mills, water, the Priory in pos-
session of several, 620.

Mirage, observations on, 491
and note.

Mist called London smoke, 49 1 .

Moose-deer, a female, some ac-
count of, 134.

, a male, where kil-
led, 139.

Morton, John, appointed prior
of Selborne, 596.

Museum, countryman's, where,
46.

Music, its powerful effects on
some men's minds, 374.

Afytilni Cri^fa Gal/i, a curious
fossil shell, (so called by mis-
take), 12.

Naturalist's Calendar, 406.

Summer Evening

Walk, 122.

Newt, or eft, water, some ac-
count of, 99, 105.

Nightingales, some particulars
concerning, 169.

, their northern

and western limits, 232 and
note.

Nore Hill, 3.

Nose fly, observations on, 472.

Oak, a vast one planted on the

Plestor, 8.

Oaks of Temple and Black-
moor, 5.

of Losel's Wood, 9.

, the two great, in the

Holt, 481 and note.
Oakhanger ponds, 33.
Osprey, or sea eagle, shot at

Frinsham, 162.
Ostrea car mat a, a fossil of the

green sand formation, 12

and note.

Otter, where killed, 138, 139.
Owl, brown, a tame one, 51.
, white or barn, various

particulars respecting, 51,

137, 245.
Owls hoot in different keys,

234, 235.

Paradise of Selborne Priory,
616.

Partridge, hen, anecdote of,
433.

Partridges very plentiful on
the verge of Wolmer Fo-
rest, 27.

Peacocks, their train not a tail,
153, 154.

Pennant, short account of, 40
and -note.

INDEX.

G37

Pettychaps attacks the Kentish
cherries, 90, note.

, a very rare bird at

Selborne, 375.

Pheasant,supposed hybrid,434.

Pigeons, their peculiar mode
of drinking, 172.

Plants, the more rare in Sel-
borne, 326.

Pleslor, the, in the midst of
the village, what, 8, 552.

Plover, the stilt, a rare and cu-
rious bird, 355.

Poems, 503, &c.

Pofytrichum commune, used for
besoms, 293.

Pond, Wolmer, its measure-
ment, fowls, &c. 35.

Ponds on elevations, why sel-
dom dry, 299.

Poplar, galls of Lombardy,
484.

Porch, church, its gothic arch
and folding doors, 528.

Poultry, observations on, 430.

Preceptory, an unnoticed one
at Selborne, 560.

, attempt to explain

the meaning of the term, 563.

Priors of Selborne, a list of the,
606.

Priory of Selborne, when and
by whom founded, 540.

, how endowed at first,

541.

, paper containing the

value of its lands and ma-
nors, 593, note.

, its impropriation, 609.

, privileges and immuni-
ties of, 620.

, its present state, 625.

, fragments discovered in

its foundations, 625 and note.

Ptinus pectinicornis, observa-
tions on, 464.

Queen's bank, why so called, 28.
Rabbits, why destroyed, 30, 31.

Rabbits, some particulars con-
cerning, 459 and note.

Rain, mean of, not to be ascer-
tained till after many years,
17.

, what has fallen at Sel-
borne of late years, 17, 496.

of Selborne compared with

that of Plymouth, 382.

Rainbow, on the, 509.

Ranatra linearis, observations
on, 467 and note.

Rat, water, two species sus-
pected, 45.

, a curious anecdote

concerning, 129.

Redbreasts, why supposed to
sing in autumn only, 170.

Redstart, its singularities, 170,
178.

Redwings, their disappearance
and nesting places, 228.

, the first birds that

suffer by frost, 235.

Relics belonging to the Priory,
589.

Reptiles of the Selborne dis-
trict, 95.

Ring-ousel, various particulars
concerning, 108, 112, 115,
120, 124, 127, 140, 160, 163,
222, 258.

Rooks, some particulars con-
cerning, 258, 381, 429.

, perfectly white, 77.

Ruperta, whose daughter and
wife, 36, 37.

Rupibus, or Roche de la, Peter
de, who and what, 540.

Rushes instead of candles, of
much utility in humble life,
290.

Rutland, county of, what rain
fell there, 229.

Sand-martin's flea,270 and nofe.

Sandpiper found near Selborne,
108.

Sap, observations on the flow-
ing of, 483.

(>:38

Scallops, or pectines, where
found, 13.

Scenery of Selborne and its
neighbourhood, 5, note.

Scotland, in what its maps are
defective, 183.

Secta molendini, claimed by the
prior, 619.

Sedge-bird, some particulars
about, 120, 125, 129, 168,
199, 200.

Seeds lying- dormant, 486.

Selborne Hanger, a winter
piece, 507.

— parish, its situation

and abuttals, 1.

village, how circum-
stanced, 3.

, the manor of, abounds

with game, 17.

, parish of, of vast ex-
tent, why, 17.

, population, births,

and burials of, 20 and note.

, rain, quantity of, con-
siderable, why, 17.

produces nearly half

the birds of Great Britain,
179.

, why a Saxon village,

517,518.

becomes a market-

town, 553.
derived much of its

prosperity from the Priory,

629.
Sharp, John, appointed prior,

603.

Sheep, close grazers, 31 and nt.
, Sussex, horned and

hornless, 256 and note.
, some particulars con-
cerning, 459.
Shells, fossil, of the Selborne

district, 11.
Shingles, Selborne church

mostly covered with, 529.
Sleet, frozen, 49 L
Slugs suspending themselves

by a thread, 101, note.

Slugs very injurious to wheat,
309.

Snails and slugs, observations
on, 477.

Snake, delights in the water,
102.

, stinks se dcfemhndo, 1 25.

Snake's slough, some account
of, 478.

Snipes, their piping and hum-
ming, 44, 94, 167.

Snow-fleck sometimes seen at
Selborne, 124, 127.

Sociality in the brute creation,
instances of, 287.

Song of birds, how acquired,
226, note.

Sow, prodigious fecundity of
one, 305.

Sphinx ocellata, observations
on, 470.

Squirrels, some particulars con-
cerning, 460 and note.

suckled by a cat, 460.

Sticklebacks endure a high tem-
perature, 368 and note.

Stone, free, its uses and ad-
vantages, 14.

, rag, its qualities and

uses, 14.

, sand or forest, 15.

, yellow or rust-colour, 15.

Stonechat, its migration and
habits, 164 and note.

Stone curlew, some account of,
78, 79,80, 110, 144.

Sroyoy?; of animals, several in-
stances of, 242.

Storm-cock, what, and why so
called, 163.

Suborbital sinuses in deer and
antelopes, 72, notes.

Sudington, a preceptory, 559.

Summers, 1781 and 17*83, un-
usually sultry, 395.

Swallows, their supposed tor-
pidity, 41, 42.

. •, their congregating

and disappearing, 61, 118,
156, 455.

INDEX.

639

Swallows, comparative length
of the feathers in the tail of
the two sexes, 168.

, house, seen very late,

239.

Swallow, house or chimney, a
monography of, 259.

, more particulars

about, 376.

Swift, its mode of drinking,
168.

, or black martin, a mono-
graphy of, 273.

, the same number usually

seems to return to the same
place, 322.

, more circumstances

about, 362.

Swifts, their supposed tor-
pidity, 42.

Sycamore, observations on,484.

Sylvia, remarks on the subdivi-
sion of the genus, 177, note.

Teals, where bred, 168, 245.

Templars, Knights, their pro-
perty in Selborne, 559.

Temple, manor-house so called
described, 550.

Tenure of the Selborne estates,
628.

Thaws sometimes surprisingly
quick, 490.

Thrushes, why serviceable to
gardens, 429.

Thrush, missel, particulars con-
cerning, 284, 429.

Tiles, ornamented, used in the
Priory, 617, 625, notes.

Timber, a large fall of, in the
Holt Forest, 39.

of the Holt, its value,

34 and note.

Tipulce, observations on, 475.

Titlark, some account of, 163,
201.

Titmice, various particulars re-
specting, 171 und note, 181.

Toads, particulars about, 95
and note.

Toads, cancer said to be cured

by, 104, 112.
, enormous consumption

tion of, 328, note.
Tortoise, a family one, many

particulars concerning, 223,

240, 258, 357.
Tower, the church, 528.
f its bells

tuneable, 528.
1 motto on

the treble bell, just as it is

printed, 528.
Tree-frog, an innocent creature,

99, note.
Trees, why perfect alembics,

how, 171, 298.
• -, order of their losing

their leaves, 479.

, size and growth of, 480.

Tremella nostoc, 488.
Truffles, some particulars con-
cerning, 487.
Tun-bridge, by whom built,

619.
, its present state,

619, note.
Turnip-flies, their ravages, 148

and note.
Turnstones, their migrations,

236, note.

Vegetables, great increase in
the use of, 315.

Vicarage of Selborne, some ac-
count of, 533.

Vicars of Selborne, alist of, 534.

Viper, some account of, 100,
101, 303.

Visitatio notabilis de Seleburne,
abridged, 571, &c.

Wagtail, some account of, 457.

Waldon-lodge, what, and by
whom kept up, 32.

Waltham blacks much infested
Wolmer Forest, 28.

, by their enor-
mities occasioned the Black
Act, 29.

G40

INDKX.

Warblers, their treatment in
captivity, 199— 210, note.

Warbler, East Woodhay, de-
scribed, 177, note.

Wasps, observations on, 471.

Water, characteristics of hard
and soft, 4, note.

Waynflete, William of, endea-
vours to reform the Priory,
589.

, dis-
solves it, 612.

Weather, summary of the, 495,
497.

Well-head, a fine perennial
spring, 3.

Wells, their usual depth in
the village, 4.

Whaddon chapel, where, 618.

Wheat, hot summers produce
fine crops of, 487.

Wheatear, some account of, 68,
165, 257.

Whinchat, its migration and
habits, 164 and note.

White, Gilbert, his monument,
527.

White, Gilbert, grandfather of
the historian, his monument,
526.

Whitethroat, some particulars
about, 172.

, lesser, particulars

concerning, 173, note.

Willow-wrens, the different
species of, characterised, 80
and note, 106 and note.

Winchester, Hoadley Bishop
of, his humane objection to
restocking Waltham chase
with deer, 29.

Wolmer Forest, some account
of, 25, 33, 36.

— , how abutted

Wolmer Forest has abounded
with fossil trees, 25, 26, 3so.

haunted by

many sorts of wild fowl, 27.
once abounded

with black game, 27.
once abounded

upon, 25.

with red deer, 28.
Wood, fossil, where found, 26,

380.

Wood, Losel's, its taper oaks,!).
, its raven tree,

10.
Woodcocks, some account of,

227, 232, 236.
Worms, earth, some account

of, 308, 476.
Wren, golden-crowned, gome

particulars about, 180 and

note.
Wrens, willow, three species,

106.
Wryneck, some account of,

458.

Wykeham, William of, his li-
beral behaviour towards the

Priory, 581.
, his Vi-

sitatio notabilis, 571.
Wynchestre, John, chosen

prior, 583, 584.
Wyndesor, William, elected

prior irregularly, and set

aside by the visitor, 597, •">!>*.

Yard, church, of Selborne, a
scanty one, 529.

Yeoman-prickers, their agility
as horsemen, 28, 29.

Yew-tree, a vast one, in Sel-
borne churchyard, 531.

Yew-trees, their poisonous qua-
lities, 531.

, why planted in

churchwards, 533.

FINIS.

(IIISUKK: rniMKO HV c. \\nrnixoii A.M.

CASK

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