The natural history of Selborne; with A naturalist's calendar & additional observations;

John 3wett

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
SELBORNE. BY GILBERT WHITE:
WITH A PREFACE BY RICHARD
JEFFERIES.

LONDON : WALTER SCOTT, LTD.

24 WARWICK LANE.

•ICUXT

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE —

Letters to Thomas Pennant . . , . ,3

Letters to the Hon. Daines Barrington . . , .no

A NATURALIST'S CALENDAR —

/

From the year 1768 to the year 1793 . . . .291

OBSERVATIONS IN VARIOUS BRANCHES OF NATURAL HISTORY —

Observations on Birds . 305

Observations on Quadrupeds ..... 332
Observations on Insects and Vermes , 334

Observations on Vegetables . . , . . 351

Meteorological Observations ..... 362

viii PREFACE.

to point out that, as a matter of style which Is so much talked of
now-a-days, it is very much superior to the stiffest writing of the
nineteenth century. He refers to the garden fauvet ; and those
who have gardens would find it interesting to plant the crown
imperial where it could be easily observed, in order to see the
incident repeated. The humming-bird-like fancy for sweet-
ness is not confined to this white-throat ; even the sparrows are
believed to sometimes peck open the nectaries of flowers for the
same purpose. Shrikes eat that part of the humble bee that
contains the honey, while the Redstart has a habit of watching
about where there are honey-laden flowers, with a view, not to
the honey, but to the insects that come for it. Out of this
observation of Mr. White's a variety of further observations
expand themselves, and you might go on and on till you had
written a long letter about it. You might ask, for instance,
whether the visits of birds to flowers may not have something
to do with modifying their form as well as those of insects. As
many animals eat honey, and as man himself in every country,
from the Hottentots upwards, seeks for honey, it may be said
that man in this way has worked out some part of the adaptations
of plant structure.

Here we branch off into abstruse scientific questions, and see
how different minds may trace out the bearing of the same fact.
The old naturalist at Selborne simply records it in language
which could not be better chosen, highly delighted evidently,
and taking a deep interest in it for its own sake. In the same
manner any one who has a taste for out-of-door observations
may study natural history without any previous scientific
learning. There is not the smallest need to know the Latin
names of the birds in order to watch them, or of the flowers in
order to gather them. Perhaps the Latin names are learned a
great deal easier afterwards than before. After you know the
things themselves, it is not at all difficult to fit the scientific
name to them, and quite easy to recollect the crabbed Latin. If
you try to get the nomenclature first, then it is very hard work.
If, on the other hand, your mind dwells upon science, and the
questions it has opened up of late years, and you feel yourself

PREFACE. ix

well armed with argument, then you may find in Mr. White's
book a number of facts which will give plenty of occasion for
exercising ingenuity. He will do more ; he will suggest to you
the way in which to make original notes — the spirit in which to
look at nature. Part of his success was owing to his coming to
the field with a mind unoccupied. He was not full of evolution
when he walked out, or variation, or devolution, or degeneration.
He did not look for microbes everywhere. His mind was free
and his eye open. To many it would do much good to read
this work if only with the object of getting rid of some of the
spiders' webs that have been so industriously spun over the
eyesight of those who would like to think for themselves.
" The quiet end of evening smiles —

Miles on miles,"

all across these pages. The shadows are stealing out ; the
hares are shaking their ears and thinking of the coming ramble,
and the jar of the night hawk is heard in the fern, but he will
not rise yet to pursue the moths ; the red cattle have ceased to
low ; the red stags in Wolmer Forest are glad that the heat of
the day is passed, and the happy cool of night is within thought ;
but still the sun stays. The sun stays, leaning on his staff, and
looking back over the world as a man might do at the last hill
of his journey. There is no haste. You may go down the
green lane very slowly, and pull the rushes, and gather the sedge-
like grasses, and note how some flowers have closed their petals
and some remain open. The swallows are the busiest. Mr.
White took much interest in swallows. Not only one evening
or two evenings, but a whole year of evenings, and several years,
are written in these letters. So quiet, without excitement — he
is ready to wait till next year, or a series of years, to verify any-
thing he supposed might be ; something so entirely opposed to
the modern lecturer. He gathered his facts very slowly ; they
were like experience, which takes a lifetime to grow. You
cannot sit down and make up experience, and write it as a
thesis ; it must come, and this is what he did— he waited till
things came. His book, for this reason, reads as if it had
been compiled in the evening.

x PREFACE.

A great master is under a disadvantage. You go to look at
an old and celebrated picture with exalted feelings, and when
you get there you say, "How disappointing! I have seen all this
before ; the style, the attitude, and the method of composition
are all familiar in a hundred engravings and modern pictures,
and, really, the old masters, instead of being such a guide, look a
long way behind the age. We can do things better now." The
secret is, the old master's work has been multiplied exceedingly,
and used as the ground- work on which to build innumerable
variations. Without his work these could never have come
into existence. From the stores accumulated by Gilbert White
a very great deal of the contents of modern books have been
drawn. Not only the facts but the general system has been
followed out in a hundred ways, so that his book suffers exactly
like the old picture, until you understand it. The more you
understand them the more you appreciate old masters, whether
artists or authors, until you would be ready, if you had the
means, to give the extraordinary prices for them that seem so
incomprehensible to outsiders. It is curious that White should
have had an artist's eye for landscape. He frequently, as he
rides along the South Downs, checks his horse to admire those
very scenes which Turner has made classic. He thinks them
glorious, as indeed they are ; yet one would scarcely expect, in
the world's judgment, a man who was not an authority on art to
find out for himself the views which the public now purchase so
eagerly. The sympathy he felt with nature enabled him to see
much farther than the hedges by which he walked, and brought
his mind into parallel lines with the great painter. At Mount
Caburn he was attacked by swarms of wild bees — a little incident;
but fifty years afterwards, or more, another naturalist, who had
paid particular attention to these insects, happened to visit the
same spot, and there he found colonies of the same bees, and
recognised the same species.

Anyone who desires to see some of the things that this man
saw, if he have the least inclination for drawing, cannot do
better than fix himself in some pleasant spot, and work there in
absolute quietness for as many days as possible. For it is in

PREFACE. xi

this quietness that the invisible becomes visible. The vacant
field gradually grows full of living things. In the hedges un-
suspected birds come to the surface of the green leaf to take
breath. Over the pond brilliantly coloured insects float to and
fro, and the fish that never seem to move from the dark depths
do move and do come up in sight. Be very careful not to go
too far; keep round the skirts of home near the garden, or in the
nearest field, else you will jump over the very best ; for it is a
fact that the greatest variety of information is generally gathered
in a very small compass. I have noticed that people are never
so astonished as when some fact of natural history is unexpec-
tedly pointed out to them, where it must have been for a long
time under their very eyes. There are people who have never
seen a humble bee drill a hole in the nectary of a snap-dragon,
and yet have whole gardens full of flowers. At least, do not go
out of your own locality much for some time.

The mass of this book was collected in the little Surrey
parish of Selborne. They say the place is very much the same
as when he was there a hundred years ago, for the country
changes very slowly ; the people, too, move slow, and their
memories linger long — memories never seem to die out. I
suppose in a modern villa people would hardly understand
what was meant by the allusion to bats creeping down
chimneys and gnawing the bacon. Of old time, in all country
houses, sides of bacon were hung up to smoke in the fumes of
the great wood fires, so that a bat might come down and eat
the edge. Bacon is not so much cured like this now ; but
in any country house they would at once understand what
was meant. Those who follow the studies of Mr. White out-
of-doors will find very little altered, and can take up the
picture as he left it, and begin to fill in the endless touches
which make nature.

If the great observer had put down what he saw of the people
of his day just as he has put down his notes of animals and
birds, there would have been a book composed of extraordinary
interest. Walking about among the cottages, he saw and heard
all their curious ways, and must have been familiar with their

xii PREFACE.

superstitions ; indeed, there are scattered notices of these as of
the shrew ash. He knew the farmers and the squires ; he had
access everywhere, and he had the quickest of eyes. It must
ever be regretted that he did not leave a natural history of the
people of his day. We should then have had a picture of
England just before the beginning of our present era, and a
wonderful difference it would have shown. The gallows-trees
grew far too plentifully at the cross roads in those days, and the
laws were inhuman, men were put to death like wild beasts : in
fact, they seemed to look on man as a species of wolf that could
only be tamed by stretching its neck. Let us not wish for the
good old times of Gilbert White, — they are gone ; but his
fields and hedges remain to us more peaceful now than ever.

Perhaps the Naturalises Calendar is that part of the book
that will be found most valuable to those who take up this
study. The dates are not the same every year of course, and
that is what makes the interest if you keep a pocket-book
founded on this model and look back in a year or two. By its
aid you will miss very little. I did not come across Mr. White's
book till late in the day, when it was, in fact, too late, else this
Calendar would have been of the utmost advantage to me.
Such data, though they may refer to apparently trivial details,
often prove in after years the basis of important scientific con-
clusions. I have said nothing of the different aspect that has
been cast on natural history in our days by the works of
Darwin and the general drift of modern science. To compare
the natural history of White with the natural history of our
time would require a large space. Better, perhaps, take them
apart and read the Natural History of Selborne as it was
written.

RICHARD JEFFERIES.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

THE

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTERS TO THOMAS PENNANT.

LETTER I.

THE parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern
corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the
county of Sussex, and not far from the county of
Surrey ; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude
fifty-one, and near mid-way between the towns of Alton
and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on
twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex — viz., Trotton
and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed
westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton
Valence, Furingdon, Harteley Mauduit, Great Ward-le-
ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate,
Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost
as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The
high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk,
rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided
into a sheep-down, the high wood and a long hanging wood,
called The Hanger. The covert of this eminence is
altogether beech, the most loVely of all forest trees, whether

4 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or
graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheepwalk, is a
pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space,
jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins
to break down into the plains, and commanding a very
engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands,
heath, and water. The prospect is bounded to the south-east
and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex
Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by the Downs
round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east,
which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and
Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 5

At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to
north-west, arises a small rivulet : that at the north-west
end frequently fails ; but the other is a fine perennial
spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called
Well-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds joining
to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable
for sending forth two streams into two different seas.
The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun,
running to Arundel, and so sailing into the British
Channel : the other to the north. The Selborne stream
makes one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Black-
down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham
stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river,
navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to
Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge ; and thus
at the Nore into the German Ocean.

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

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

Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of
white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture

* This spring produced, September 10th, 1871, after a severe hot
summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water
in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in
twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the
wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale were dry.

6 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep
in the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal
growing just at hand. The white soil produces the brightest
hops.

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

LETTER II.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 7

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

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

In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which,
though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a

8 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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
Haven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring
youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty whetted their
inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the
arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling,
it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their
grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknow-
ledged the undertaking to be too hazardous : so the ravens
built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal
day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was
in the month of February, when those birds usually sit.
The saw was applied to the butt, — the wedges were inserted
into the opening, — the woods echoed to the heavy blows of
the beetle or mall or mallet, — the tree nodded to its fal] ;
but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the
bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental
affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the
twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

LETTER III.

THE fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as
have fallen within my observation, must not be passed over
in silence. And first I must mention, as a great curiosity,
a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near
the side of the down, and given to me for the singularity of
its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 9

petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing
for a head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of the
Linnsean Genus of Mytilus, and the species of Crista Galli ;
called by Lister, Rastellum ; by Rumphius, Ostreum
plicatum minus ; by D' Argenville, Auris porci, s. - Crista
Galli; and by those who make collections, Cock's Comb.
Though I applied to several such in London, I never could
meet with an entire specimen ; nor could I ever find in
books any engraving from a perfect one. In the superb
museum at Leicester House, permission was given me to
examine for this article ; and, though I was disappointed
as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of
several of the shells themselves in high preservation. This
bivalve is only known to inhabit the Indian ocean, where it
fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by the name Gorgonia.
The curious foldings of the suture the one into the other,
the alternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of
my specimen are much easier expressed by the pencil than
by words.

Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village.
As we were cutting an inclining path up the Hanger, the
labourers found them frequently on that steep, just under
the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable size. In the
lane above Well-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound
in the bank, in a darkish sort of marl ; and are usually very
small and soft : but in Clay's Pond, a little farther on, at
the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out for manure,
I have occasionally observed them of large dimensions,
perhaps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But , as
these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a
kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they
were exposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away.
These seemed as if they were a very recent production. In

10 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

LETTER IV,

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

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 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,

* 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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELfiORNE. 11

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

In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by
the workmen sand, or forest-stone. This is generally of the
colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron

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

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

12 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

LETTER V.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 13

water-courses than roads ; and are bedded with naked rag
for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced
sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields ; and
after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild
appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among
the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken
sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into
icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work.
These rugged gloomy scenes affright the ladies when they
peep down into them from the paths above, arid 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 pheas-
ants abound ; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful.
There are few quails, because they more affect open fields
than enclosures ; after harvest some few landrails are
seen.

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

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

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

U NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE*

date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity.* I
only know that

Inch. Hund.

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

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

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

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

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

Jan. 1, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 , 33 80

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

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

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

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

* A very intelligent gentleman assures me (and he speaks from
upwards of forty years' experience), that the mean rain of any place
cannot be ascertained till a person has measured it for a very long
period. " If I had only measured the rain," says he, " for the four
first years, from 1740 to 1743, I should have said the mean rain at
Ljmdon was 16J inches for the year ; if from 1740 to 1750, 18J inches.
The mean rain before 1763 was 20J inches, from 1763 and since 25^
inches, from 1770 to 1780, 26 inches. If only 1773, 1774, and 1775
had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32
inches."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 15

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

LETTER VI.

SHOULD I omit to describe with some exactness the forest
of Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish,
my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a
district abounding with many curious productions, both
animal and 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, Bogate, and Trotton, in the county of
Sussex; by Bramshot, Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This
royalty consists entirely of sand covered with heath and
fern ; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales,
without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In
the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs,
which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though
Dr. Plot says positively,! that "there never were any

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

t See hia History of Staffordshire*

16 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

* Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they
have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay
longer over the space where they are concealed than in the surround-
ing 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. 29th, 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 Me on thatch, tiles, and the
tops of walls."— See Hale's Haemostatics, p. 360. QUERY, Might
not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the
discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses ; and in
Koman stations and camps lead to the finding of pavements, baths
and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity ?

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 17

This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many
sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the
winter, but breed there in the summer ; such as lapwings,
snipes, wild-ducks, and, as I have, discovered within these
few years, teals. Partridges in vast plenty are bred in
good seasons on the verge of this forest, into which they
love to make excursions; and in particular, in the dry
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 common, and that
was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse. When I was a
little boy I recollect one coming now and then to my
father's table. The last pack remembered was killed about
thirty-five years ago ; and within these ten years one
solitary grey hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for
a hare. The sportsmen cried out " A hen pheasant ! " but
a gentleman present, who had often seen grouse in the
north of England, assured me that it was a grey hen.

Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap
in the Fauna Selborniensis ; for another beautiful link in
the chain of beings is wanting : I mean the red-deer, which
toward the beginning of this century amounted to about
five hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There
is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great-
grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635)
grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head keepership
of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a hundred
years. This person assures me, that his father has often
told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the

293

18 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 19

LETTER VII.

'HOUGH large herds of deer do much harm to the neigh-
bourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of
more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation
is irresistible ; for most men are sportsmen by constitution :
and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human
nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain. Hence,
towards the beginning of this century all this country was
wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they
affected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to
be possessed of manhood or gallantry. The Waltham
blacks at length committed such enormities, that govern-
ment was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguin-

o

ary act called the "Black Act,"* which now comprehends
more felonies than any law that ever was framed before.
And, therefore, a late Bishop of Winchester, when urged
to re-stock Waltham Chase, f refused, from a motive
worthy of a prelate, replying " that it had done mischief
enough already,"

Our old race of deer-stealers is hardly extinct yet : it
was but a little while ago that, over their ale, they used to
recount the exploits of their youth ; such as watching the
pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped,
paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its
escape, till it was large and fat enough to be killed ; the
shooting at one of their neighbours with a bullet in a
turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer ; and
the losing a dog in the following extraordinary manner?

* Statute 9 Geo. I., cap. 22.

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

20 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was de-
posited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher,
to surprise it; when the parent-hind rushed out of the
brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her feet close
together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it
short in two.

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

Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irre-
gularities are removed, are of considerable service to neigh-
bourhoods 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 main-
taining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little
or no expense.

The manor-farm of the parish of Greatham has an admit-
ted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of
London), of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper
seasons, " bidentibus exceptis."* The reason, I presume,
why sheep f are excluded, is, because, being such close
grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and
hinder the deer from thriving.

Though (by statute 4 and 5, W. and Mary, c. 23) "to
burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer,
any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern, is punishable

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 21

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

On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest
stand two arbours or bowers, made of the boughs of oak ;
the one called Waldon Lodge, the other Brimstone Lodge :
these the keepers renew annually on the feast of St. Barna-
bas, taking the old materials for a perquisite. The farm
called Blackmoor, in this parish, is obliged to find the
posts and brush-wood for the former; while the farms
at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the latter ; and

22 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the
spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to
be of very remote antiquity.

LETTER VIII.

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

By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the Holt,
made in 1635, and the eleventh year of Charles I. (which
now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former
are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther
side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds
on this side, in old times, came into Binswood ; and
extended to the ditch of Ward-le-ham Park, in which
stands the curious mount called King John's Hill, and

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 23

Lodge Hill ; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called
Mauduit Hatch; comprehending also Short Heath, Oak-
hanger, and Oak woods ; a large district, now private
property, though once belonging to the royal domain.

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

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

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

24 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, 2,646 yards, or very near a mile and
a-half. The length of the north-west and opposite side is
about 704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end
about 456 yards. This measurement, which I caused to be
made with good exactness, gives an area of about sixty-
six acres, exclusive of a large irregular arm at the north-
east corner, which we did not take into the reckoning.

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

Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor
the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque
groups of cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the
great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about
forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly
belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 25

all particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my
series of letters respecting the more remote history of thia
village and district,

LETTER IX.

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

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

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

* " In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Edw. III., it is
called Aisholt."

In the same, "Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc. Dominus Rex
habet unam capellam in haia sua de Kingesle." " Haia, sepes, sepimen-
tum, parcus ; a Gall, haie and haye." — SPELMAN'S Glossary.

t This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto.

26 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and
reduced by the night hunters, who perpetually harass them
in spite of the efforts of numerous keepers, and the
severe 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 neighbourhood,
and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo ; but the country
rose upon them and destroyed them.

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one
thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 27

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

LETTER X.

August 4th, 1767.

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

As to swallows (Hirundines rusticce) being found in a
torpid state during the winter in the Isle of Wight or any
part of this country, I never heard any such account worth
attending to. But a clergyman, of an inquisitive turn,
assures me, that when he was a great boy, some workmen,

28 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

Another intelligent person has informed me, that while
he was a schoolboy at Brighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great
fragment of the chalk cliff fell down one stormy winter on
the beach, and that many people found swallows among the
rubbish ; but on my questioning him whether he saw any of
those birds himself, to my no small 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 llth, and young martins (Hirundines urbicce) 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 18th. Are not
these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migra-
tion 1 Nay, some young martins remained in their nests
last year so late as September 29th ; and yet they totally
disappeared with us by the 5th October.

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

A little yellow bird (it is either a species of the alauda

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 29

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

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

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

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

I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those
mice which I mentioned to you in town. The person that
brought me the last says they are plenty in harvest, at
which time I will take care to get more ; and will endeavour
to put the matter out of doubt, whether it be a 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-

SO NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

footed behind. Now I have discovered a rat on the banks
of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an
excellent swimmer and diver : it answers exactly to the Mus
amphibius of Linnaeus (see Syst. Nat.) which he says " natat
in fossis et urinatur" I should be glad to procure one
" plantis palmatis." Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle 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 brachyurus," of Hay, is widely
different from the water-rat, both in size, make, and manner
of life.

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

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 31

LETTER XI.

SELBORNE, September 9th, 1767.

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

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

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

A crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this
neighbourhood.

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of
the village, yield nothing but the bull's head or miller's
thumb (Gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (Trutta
Jluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (Lampcetra parva
et fluviatilis\ and the stickle-back (Pisciculus aculeatus).

We are twenty miles from the sea. and almost as many

32 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea birds.
As to wild fowls, we have a few teems of ducks bred in the
moors where the snipes breed ; and multitudes of widgeons
and teals in hard weather frequent our lakes in the forest.

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

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

The house-martins have eggs still, and squab young.
The last swift I observed was about the 21st 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
parapet, so late as the 20th November.

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 33

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

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

LETTER XII.

November 4th, 1767.

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

I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my
former letters, a young one and a female with young, both
of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour,

294

34 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his
servant had shot one last January, in that severe weather,
which he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it this
summer, not knowing what to expect, but the moment I
took it in hand, I pronounced it the male Garrulus bohemi-
CUS) or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 35

or points which it carries at the ends of five of the short
remiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, be
called an English bird ; and yet I see, by Ray's Philoso-
phical Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws,
appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685.

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

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

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

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

36 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that
he talks, in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swal-
low's going under water in the beginning of September, as he
would of his poultry going to roost a little before sunset.

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

Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which per-
haps had not been hatched but a few weeks) should, at that
late season of the year, and from so midland a county,
attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as the
equator 1 *

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

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

* See Adansorfs Voyage to Senegal.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 37

LETTER XIII.

SELBORNE, Jan. 22nd, 1768.

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

For many years past I have observed that towards
Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the
fields ; many more, I used to think, than could be hatched
in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to observe
them more narrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed
to me to be almost all hens. I communicated my suspicions
to some intelligent neighbours, who, after taking pains
about the matter, declared that they also thought them
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 person in the north, whether there are any
large flocks of these finches with them in the winter, and of
which sex they mostly consist 1 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.

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 chirp-
ing, as if they were about to break up their winter quarters
and betake themselves to their proper summer homes. It

38 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

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

I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen
of the navy ; but have written to a friend, who was a sea-
chaplain in the late war, desiring him to look into his
minutes, with respect to birds that settled on their rigging

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 39

during their voyage up or down the Channel. What
Hasselquist says on that subject is remarkable ; there were
little short-winged birds frequently coming on board his
ship all the way from our channel quite up to the Levant,
especially before squally weather.

What you suggest, with regard to Spahi, 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. Willughby*
passed through that kingdom on such an errand ; but he
seems to have skirted along in a superficial manner and an
ill-humour, being much disgusted at the rude, dissolute
manners of the people.

I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about
the swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames : nor can
I hear any more about those birds which I suspected were
Merulce 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 rendezvous
seems to be in corn-ricks, into which they are carried at
harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the
thatch of which were assembled nearly 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

* See Hay's Travels, p. 466.

40 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBO&NE.

a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of
them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny,
which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois : so that I
suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A
full-grown Mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce
lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as
the mouse above ; and measures from nose to rump four
inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have
had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My
thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below
the freezing-point, within doors. The tender evergreens
were injured pretty much. It was very providential that
the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow,
else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously.
There is reason to believe that some days were more severe
than any since the year 1739-40.

LETTER XIV.

SELBORNB, March I'2tht 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, besides 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 con-
siderable time : but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can
open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 41

a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an
extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention ;
and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any
naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be
suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were
stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of
singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free
respiration : and no doubt these additional nostrils are
thrown open when they are hard run. Mr. Ray observed
that at Malta the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses
as were hard worked : for they, being naturally straight or
small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they
travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate. And we know
that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils
necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.
Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to
have had some notion that stags have four spiracula —
" TerpadvfjLOL pives, iriovpes &von)b<. StauAoi."

" Quadrifidse nares, quadruplices ad respiration ein canales."

— Orp. CYN. Lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say
that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the
contrary: — "AA/c/xcucov yap OVK aXrjOrj Aeyet, <£a//,evos avairveiv
ras aiyas Kara ra wra." " Alcmseon does not advance
what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through
their ears." — History of Animals. Book I., chap. xi.

42 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XV.

SELBORNE, March SQlh, 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 reddish
beast, riot much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer,
which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be
little depended on ; but farther inquiry may be made.

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white
rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, 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-white.

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

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

I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-
pint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 43

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 parus ; and was too long and
too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like
the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back
downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same
place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed
my aim.

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

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

44 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XVI.

SELBORNE, April 18^, 1768.

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

I make no doubt but there are three species of the
willow-wrens ; two I know perfectly, but have not been
able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ
more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two
that I am acquainted with ; for the one has a joyous, easy,
laughing note, the other a harsh loud chirp. The former
is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer,
and weighs two drachms and a-half, while the latter weighs
but two ; so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the
chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 45

that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his
two notes in the middle of March, and continues them
through the spring and summer till the end of August, as
appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these
two are flesh-coloured ; of the less black.

The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields
last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the
whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by
though at 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 whisper-
ing in the bushes. The country people laugh when you
tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful
creature, skulking in the thickest .part of a bush ; and will
sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was
obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge
where it haunted, and then it would run, creeping like a
mouse, before us for a hundred yards together, through the
bottom of the thorns ; yet it would not come into fair sight ;
but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on
the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings.
Mr. Ray himself had no knowledge of this bird, but received
his account from Mr. Johnson, who apparently confounds
it with the Reguli non cristati, from which it is very distinct.
See Ray's Philos. Letters, p. 108.

The fly-catcher (Stoparola) has not yet appeared ; it
usually breeds in my vine. The redstart begins to sing, its
note is short and imperfect, but is continued till about the
middle of June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort) are
horrid pests in a garden, destroying the peas, cherries, cur-
rants, etc. } and are so tame that a gun will not scare them.

46

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

Smallest willow-wren,

Wryneck,

House-swallow,

Martin,

Sand-martin,

Cuckoo,

Nightingale,

Blackcap,

Whitethroat,

Middle willow-wren,

Swift,

Stone-curlew ?

Turtle-dove ?

Grasshopper-lark,

Landrail,

Largest willow-wren,

Redstart,

Goat-sucker, or fern-owl,

Fly-catcher,

LINN^EI NOMINA.

Motacilla trochilus.
Junx torquilla.
Hirundo rustica.
Chelidon urbica.
Cotile riparia.
Cuculus canorus.
Lusinia philomela.
Motacilla atricapilla.
Motacilla sylvia.
Motacilla trochilus.
Hirundo apus.
Charadrius oedicnemus ?
Turtur aldrovandi ?
Alauda trivialis.
Rallus crex.
Motacilla trochilus.
Motacilla phcenicura.
Caprimulgus Europcea.
Muscicapa grisola.

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

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

In breeding-time snipes play over the moors, piping and
humming; they always hum as they are descending. Is

NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 47

not their hum ventriloquous like that of the turkey 1 Some
suspect it is made by their wings.

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

LETTEE XVII.

SELBORNE, June 18th, 1768.

ON Wednesday last arrived your agreeable letter of June
10th. It gives me great satisfaction to find that you
pursue these studies still with such vigour, and are in such
forwardness with regard to reptiles and fishes.

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

The method in which toads procreate and bring forth
seems to be very much in the dark. Some auth^-s 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 low pev
ctiorofcotj «(£(o Se fooTOKoi, as is known to be the case with the
viper.

The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it ;
for Swammerdam proves that the male has no penis intrans)

48 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

is notorious to everybody : because we see them sticking
upon each other's backs for a month together in the spring :
and yet I never saw, or read of toads being observed in the
same situation. It is strange that the matter with regard
to the venom of toads has not been yet settled. That they
are not noxious to some animals is plain : for ducks,
buzzards, owls, stone-curlews, and snakes eat them, to my
knowledge, with impunity. And I well remember the time,
but was not eyewitness to the fact (though numbers of
persons were), when a quack, at this village, ate a toad to
make the country people stare ; afterwards he drank oil.

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

I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading
of the excellent account there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray's
Wisdom of God in the Creation (p. 365), concerning the
migration £f frogs from their breeding ponds. In this
account he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their
dropping from the clouds in rain ; showing that it is from
the grateful coolness and moisture of those showers that
they are tempted to set out on their travels, which they
defer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state ;
but, in a few weeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm for
a few days with myriads of those emigrants, no larger than

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 49

my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a most accurate
account of the method and situation in which the male
impregnates the spawn of the female. How wonderful is
the economy of Providence with regard to the limbs of so
vile a reptile ! While it is an aquatic it has a fish-like tail,
and no legs ; as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off
as useless, and the animal betakes itself to the land !

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

It is to be remembered that the Salamandra aquatica
of Ray (the water-newt or eft) will frequently bite at the
angler's bait, and is often caught on his hook. I used to
take it for granted that the Salamandra aquatica was
hatched, lived, and died in the water. But John Ellis,
Esq., 1T.R.S. (the coralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter to the
Royal Society, dated June 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. Speaking 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, £ 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,

295

50 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 publica-
tions, you will not omit to mention common salad-oil
as a sovereign remedy against the bite of the viper. As
to the blind worm (Anguis fragilis, so-called because it
snaps in sunder with a small blow), I have found, on exami-
nation, that it is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring
yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints)
killed and opened a female viper about the 27th 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
go far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudi-
ments 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 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, %Mr. Barrington, that no such thing ever happens.
The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in a year; or
rather, but only just at one season of the year. Country
people talk much of a water-snake, but, I am pretty sure,
without any reason ; for the common snake (Coluber
natrix) delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a
view to procure frogs and other food.

I cannot well guess how you are to make out your twelve

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 51

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

LETTER XVIII.

SELBOKNE, July 27th, 1768.

I RECEIVED your obliging and communicative letter of June
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 bull's heads ; but I
could procure no minnows. This basket will be in Fleet
Street by eight this evening ; so I hope Mazel will have
them fresh and fair to-morrow morning. I gave some
directions, in a letter, to what particulars the engraver
should be attentive.

Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a
reasonable distance of Ambresbury, I sent a servant over
to that town, and procured several living specimens of

52 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY Off SELBORNE. 53

as is mentioned she would be well." Now is it likely that
this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness
for this single sufferer, and not feel any for the many
thousands that daily languish under this terrible disorder 1
Would he not have made use of this invaluable nostrum for
his own emolument ; or, at least, by some means of publica-
tion or other, have found a method of making it public for
the good of mankind ? In short, this woman (as it appears
to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress, finds it expedient
to amuse the country with this dark and mysterious
relation.

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

LETTER XIX.

SELBORNE, August \ltkt 1768.

I HAVE now, past dispute, made out three distinct species
of the willow-wrens (Notacillce trochili) which constantly
and invariably use distinct notes. But at the same time

54 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

I am obliged to confess that I know nothing of your
willow-lark. In my letter of April 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 other two, and the yellow-green of
the whole upper part of the body is more vivid, and the
belly of a clearer white. I have specimens of the three
sorts now lying before me, and can discern that there are
three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black
legs, and the other two flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest
bird is considerably the largest, and has its quill-feathers
and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others
have not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in high
beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper-like noise,
now and then, at short intervals, shivering a little with
its wings when it sings ; and is, I make no doubt now,
the Regulus non cristatus of Hay, which he says " cantat
voce striduld locustce." Yet this great ornithologist never
suspected that there were three species.

LETTER XX.

SELBORNE, October 8th, 1768.

IT is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany : all nature is
so full that that district produces the greatest variety
which is the most examined. Several birds, which are
said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in
the south. I have discovered this summer three species

NATURAL HISTORY Of SELtiORttE. 55

of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be
seen in the northern counties. The first that was brought
me (on the 14th May) was the sandpiper, Tringa
hypoleucus : it was a cock bird, and haunted the banks of
some ponds near the village ; and, as it had a companion,
doubtless intended to have bred near that water. Besides,
the owner has told me since, that, on recollection, he has
seen some of the same birds round his ponds in former
summers.

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

The next rare birds (which were procured for me last
week) were some ring-ousels, Tordus torquatus.

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 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 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

56 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

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 migrations
the writers are silent ; but if these birds should prove the
ousels of the north of England, then here is a migration
disclosed within our own kingdom never before remarked.
It does not yet appear whether they retire beyond the
bounds of our island to the south ; but it is most probable
that they usually do, or else one cannot suppose that
they would have continued so long unnoticed in the
southern counties. The ousel is larger than a blackbird,
and feeds on haws ; but last autumn (when there were
no haws) it fed on yew-berries : in the spring it feeds
on ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March
and April.

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

My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in
the examination of a buck's head. As far as your dis-
coveries reach at present, they seem much to corroborate

my suspicions; and I hope Mr. may find reason to

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

As yet I have not quite done with my history of the

NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 57

oedicnemus, or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman
in Sussex (near whose house these birds congregate in
vast flocks in the autumn) to observe nicely when they
leave him (if they do leave him), and when they return
again in the spring : I was with this gentleman lately,
and saw several single birds.

LETTER XXL

SELBORNE, Nov. 2Sth, 1768.

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

And here will be the properest place to mention, while
I think of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned

58 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

gentleman told me when I was last at his house ; which was
that, in a warren joining 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 water-fowls
(viz., the puffins) breed, I know, in that manner ; but I
should never have suspected the daws of building in holes
on the flat ground.

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

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 59

foreign birds which visit us. You will be sure, I hope, not
to omit to make inquiry whether your ring-ousels leave your
rocks in the autumn. What puzzles me most, is the very
short stay they make with us ; for in about three weeks
they are all gone. I shall be very curious to remark
whether they will call on us at their return in the spring,
as they did last year.

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

LETTER XXII.

SELBORNE, Jan. 2nd, 1769.

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 county. 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 hundred pounds a-year, whose
houses of worship make little better appearance than dove-
cots. When I first saw Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire,
and Huntingdonshire, and the fens of Lincolnshire, I was
amazed at the number of spires which presented themselves

60 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

in every point of view. As an admirer of prospects, I
have reason to lament this want in my own county ; 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,
lias well remarked that " every kind of beasts, and of birds,
and of serpents, and things in the sea, is tamed, and hath
been tamed, of mankind."

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

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

In your account of your error with regard to the two
species of herons, you incidentally gave me great entertain
ment in your description of the heronry at Cressi Hall ;
which is a curiosity I never could manage to see. Four-
score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which
I would ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray
be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi Hall is,
and near what town it lies. I have often thought that

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 61

those vast extents of fens have never been sufficiently
explored. If half-a-dozen gentlemen, furnished with a
good strength of water-spaniels, were to beat them over
for a week, they would certainly find more species.

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied
more than that of the caprimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it
is a wonderful and curious creature ; but I have always
found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I
know it does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting
on a bough ; and I have for many 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 pur.
You will credit me, I hope, when I assure you that, as
my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage on the side
of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these churn-owls
came and settled on the cross of that little straw edifice and
began to chatter, and continued his note for many minutes ;
and we were all struck with wonder to find that the organs
of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensible
vibration to the whole building ! This bird also sometimes
makes a small squeak, repeated four or five times ; and
I have observed that to happen when the cock has been
pursuing the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a
tree.

62 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

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

LETTER XXIII.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 63

themselves very well, but never bred. Whether this
circumstance will prove anything either way I shall not
pretend to say.

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

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

If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last
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) clustering on the stunted shrubs and
bushes, as if they had roosted there all night. As soon as
the air became clear and pleasant they were all on the
wing at once ; and, by a placid and easy flight, proceeded
011 southward towards the sea : after this I did not see any
more flocks, only now and then a straggler.

I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the
swallow kind disappear some and some gradually, as they
come, for the bulk of them seem to withdraw at once ;

64 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE*

only some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do
never, there is the greatest reason to believe, leave this
island. Swallows seem to lay themselves up, and to come
forth in a warm day, as bats do continually of a 'warm
evening, after they have disappeared for weeks. For a
very respectable gentleman assured me that, as he was
walking with some friends under Merton wall on a remark-
ably hot noon, either in the last week in December or the
first week in January, he espied three or four swallows
huddled together on the moulding of one of the windows
of that college. I have frequently remarked that swallows
are seen later at Oxford than elsewhere ; is it owing to the
vast massy buildings of that place, to the many waters
round it, or to what else 1

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 65

LETTER XXIV.

SELBORNE, May 29^, 1769.

The Scarabceus fullo I know very well, having seen it in
collections ; but have never been able to discover one wild
in its natural state. Mr. Banks told me he thought it
might be found on the sea coast.

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

One of my neighbours lately brought me a new Salicaria,
which at first I suspected might have proved your willow-
lark, but, on a nicer examination, it answered much better
to the description of that species which you shot at Revesby,
in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus — "It is a size

296

66 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK

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

The question that you put with regard to those genera of
animals that are peculiar to America — viz., how they came
there, and whence 1 is too puzzling for me to answer ; and
yet so obvious as often to have struck me with wonder. If
one looks into the writers on that subject little satisfaction
is to be found. Ingenious men will readily advance plausible
arguments to support whatever theory they shall choose to
maintain ; but then the misfortune is, every one's 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,"

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 67

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

THE NATURALIST'S SUMMER-EVENING WALK

-" equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis

Ingenium." — VIRG. Georg.

WHEN day declining sheds a milder gleam,

What time the May-fly* haunts the pool or stream ;

When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,

What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ;

Then be the time to steal adown the vale,

And listen to the vagrantf cuckoo's tale ;

To hear the clamorous { curlew call his mate,

Or the soft quail his tender pain relate ;

To see the swallow sweep the 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 !

* The angler's May-fly, the ephemera vulgata LINN., comes forth
from its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in the
evening, 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 June, and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See
Swammerdam, Derham, ScopoH, etc.

t Vagrant cuckoo ; so called because, being tied down by no
incubation or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wandera
without control.

J Charadrius cedlcnemus.

68 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

While deepening shades obscure the face of day,
To yonder bench leaf-sheltered let us stray,
'Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night ;
To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill* cricket cry ;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood ;
To catch the distant falling of the flood ;
While o'er the cliff th' 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'df woodlark 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.

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

* Gryllus campestris.

t In hot summer nights wood-larks soar to a prodigious height, and
hang singing in the air.

$ 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 scarabosus.

§ See the story of Hero and Leander.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 69

LETTER XXV.

SELBOKNE, 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 ? Was not candour and openness
the Tery life of natural history, I should pass over this
query just as a sly commentator does over a crabbed
passage in a classic ; but common ingenuousness obliges me
to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I only
reasoned in that case from analogy. For as all other
autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to par-
take of our milder winters, and return to the northward
again when the rigorous cold abates, so I concluded that
the ring-ousels did the same, as well as their congener^ the
fieldfares ; and especially as ring-ousels are known to haunt
cold mountainous countries : but I have good reason to
suspect since that they may come to us from the westward ;
because I hear, from very good authority, that they breed
on Dartmoor, and that they forsake that wild district
about the time that our visitors appear, and do not return
till late in the spring.

I have taken a great deal of pains about your salicaria
and mine, with a white stroke over its eye and a tawny
rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and have pro-
cured several specimens, and am perfectly persuaded myself
(and trust you will soon become convinced of the same)
that it is no more nor less than the Passer arundinaceus
minor of Bay. This bird, by some means or other, seems
to be entirely omitted in the British Zoology ; and one

70 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

reason probably was because it is so strangely classed in Hay,
who ranges it among his Pici affines. It ought, no doubt,
to have gone among his Amculce caudd 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 Motacilla salicaria of his Fauna
Suecica seems to come the nearest to it. It is no uncommon
bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is
covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors. The country
people in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings
incessantly night and day during the breeding-time, imi-
tating 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 characteristic of it when he says, "Rostrum et
pedes in hdc aviculd multo majores sunt quam pro corporis
rationed See letter, May 29th, 1769. (Preceding letter,
xxiv.)

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

When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had
not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of
stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a
tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any
animal while in good humour and unalarrned ; but as soon
as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing,
and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered
it hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of
Ray's Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal;
but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 71

a most pestilent 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 maculd in scapulis albd, Raii;
\vhich is a bird that, at the time of your publishing your
two first volumes of British Zoology, I find you had
not seen. You have described it well from Edwards's
drawing.

LETTER XXVI.

SELBOUNE, December 8th, 1769.

I WAS much gratified by your communicative letter on
your return from Scotland, where you spent some consider-
able 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 ; but, fixing on a day
for their return, post from place to place, rather as if
they were on a journey that required dispatch, than as
philosophers investigating the works of nature. You must
have made, no doubt, many discoveries, and laid up a good
fund of materials for a future edition of the JBritish
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 field-
fares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds,
should never choose to breed in England ; but that they
should not think even the highlands cold and northerly,

72 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange
and wonderful. The ring-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland
the whole year round ; so that we have reason to conclude
that those migrators that visit us for a short space every
autumn do not come from thence.

And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention
that those birds were most punctual again in their migration
this autumn, appearing, as before, about the 30th Sep-
tember ; 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 oi
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 birdg
we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far
to the southward.

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 73

majestic a bird, that it would grace our fauna much. I
never was informed before where wild-geese are known to
breed.

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

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

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

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

74 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

many weeks before its congeners ; and that not only with
us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire
about the beginning of August.

The great large bat (which by-the-bye is at present a non-
descript in England, and what I have never been able yet
to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summer ; it
also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a different
region of the air ; and that is the reason I never could
procure one. Now this is exactly the case with the swifts ;
for they take their food in a more exalted region than the
other species, and are very seldom seen hawking for flies
near the ground, or over the surface of the water. From
hence I would conclude that these hirundines and the larger
bats are supported by some sorts of high-flying 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 31st; since which I have not seen nor heard any.
Swallows were observed on to November 3rd.

LETTER XXVII.

SELBORNE, Feb. 22nd, 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 mandible, which is
much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant,
and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 75

untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as they
destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface the
walks in some measure by digging little round holes. It
appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that
beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June
last I procured a litter of four or five young hedgehogs,
which appeared to be about five or six days old : they, I
find, like puppies, are born blind, and could not see when
they came to my hands. No doubt their spines are soft
and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam
would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of
parturition, but it is plain they soon harden ; for these
little pigs had such stiff prickles on their backs and sides as
would easily have fetched blood, had they not been handled
with caution. Their spines are quite white at this age ;
and they have little 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
firmness. Hedgehogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum
with leaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for
the winter : but I never could find that they stored in any
winter provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do.

I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the field-
fare (T urdus 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 white-thorn
hedges ; yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may
be seen by the Fauna Suecica ; yet always appears with us
to roost oi? the ground. They are seen to come in flocks

76 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the
heath on our forest. And besides, the larkers, in dragging
their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat
stubbles ; while the bat-fowlers, who take many red-wings
in the hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why
these birds, in the matter of roosting, should differ from all
their 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.

LETTER XXVIII.

SELBORNE, March 1770.

ON Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the
female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Good-
wood ; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the
spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a lan-
guishing way for some time, on the morning before. How-
ever, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded to
examine this rare quadruped ; I found it in an old green-
house, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in a
standing posture ; but, though it had been dead for so short
a time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench was
hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this
deer, and any other species that I have ever met with,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 77

consisted 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 straddling with one foot
forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain
ground, with the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the
ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck ; the
head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like ; and had
such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, with
huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty
dish in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose
that this creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of
trees, and by wading after water plants; towards which
way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must con-
tribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in
eating the nymphcea, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the
belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight
inches : the length of the legs before and behind consisted
a great deal in the tibia> which was strangely long ; but, in
my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to measure that
joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an inch long ;
the colour was a grizzly black ; the mane about four inches
long ; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat
and splayed. The spring before, it was only two years old,
so that most probably it was not then come to its growth.
What a vast tall beast must a full grown stag be ! I have
been told some arrive at ten feet and a half ! This poor
creature had at first a female companion of the same
species, which died the spring before. In the same garden

78 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and this
moose it was hoped that there might have been a
breed; but their inequality of height must have always
been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should
have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips,
hoofs, etc., minutely \ but the putrefaction precluded
all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me,
seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the
former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of
a male moose, which had no front antlers, but only a broad
palm with some snags on the edge. The noble owner of
the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.

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

LETTER XXIX.

SELHOBNE, May 12th, 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 white throat •
and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark
and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I have not
seen it ; it is indeed one of the latest, but should appear
about this time : and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife
and war of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 79

as long ago as April llth, 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 easy discoverable. When the house-sparrows deprive
my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to be shot,
the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and
so for several times following.

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

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

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

There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats
that is very remarkable ; I mean their violent fondness for
fish, which appears to be their most favourite food : and yet
nature in this instance seems to have planted in them an

80 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify :
for of all quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards
water ; and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a
foot, much less to plunge into that element.

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

LETTER XXX.

SELBORNE, Aug. 1st, 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 1 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 81

obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you
were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see
many strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I re-
member, 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 collections
of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world.
After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked
that every species almost that came from distant regions,
such as South America, the coast of Guinea, etc., were
thick-billed birds of the loooia and fringilla genera ; and no
motacillce or muscicapas were to be met with. When I
came to consider, the reason was obvious enough ; for the
hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried
on board ; while the soft-billed birds, which are supported
by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them,
fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious
voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections
(curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of
some of the most delicate and lively genera.

LETTER XXXI.

SELBORNE, Sept. Itih, 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,

297

82 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

and make their appearance again, as if in their return,
every April 1 They are more early this year than common,
for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this
month.

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

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

Scopoli's new work (which I have just procured) has its
merit in ascertaining many of the birds of the 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 the works of nature,
these partial writers may, each in their department, be
more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors,
than more general writers ; and so by degrees may pave the
way to an universal correct natural history. Not that
Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive to the life and
conversation of his birds as I could wish : he advances
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 (T was going to say) improbable facts • as when he

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 83

says of the woodcock that "pullos rostro portat fugiens db
hoste." But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any
fact is false because I have never been witness to such
a fact. I have only to remark, that the long unwieldy bill
of the woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among
the winged creation for such a feat of natural affection,

LETTER XXXII.

SELBORNB, October 29^, 1770.

AFTER an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I
begin to suspect that I discern my brother's Hirundo
hyberna in Scopoli's new discovered Hirundo rupestris, p.
167. His description of "Supra murina, subtus albida ;
rectrices maculd ovali albd in latere interno ; pedes nudi,
nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscuriores quam plumce
dorsales ; rectrices remigibus concolores ; cauda emarginatd,
necforcipata /" agrees very well with the bird in question •
but when he comes to advance that it is " statura hirun-
dinis urbicce" and that "definitio hirundinis riparice Linncei
huic quoque convenit" he in some measure invalidates all
he has said ; at least he shows at once that he compares them
to these species merely from memory : for I have compared
the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in every
circumstance of shape, size, and colour. However, as you
will have a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your
judgment is in the matter.

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

84 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

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

LETTER XXXIII.

SELBORNE, Nov. 26th, 1770.

I WAS much pleased to see, among the collection of birds
from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer
birds of passage concerning whose departure we have made
so much inquiry. Now, if these birds are found in
Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may easily be
supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the
Continent, and spend their winters in some of the warmer
parts of Europe. This is certain, that many soft-billed
birds that come to Gibraltar appear there only in spring

* See his Elenchtts Vegetabilium et Animalium per Amtriam
Inferiorem, etc.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 85

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 observation from whence
they take their departure . each way towards Europe or
Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery, I think, to find
that our small short-winged summer birds of passage are to
be seen spring and autumn on the very skirts of Europe ;
it is presumptive proof of their emigrations.

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

My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense,
but no naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone-
curlew, oedicnemus, sends me the following account : —
" In looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the month of
April, I find the stone-curlews are first mentioned on the
seventeenth and eighteenth, which date seems to me rather
late. They live with us all the spring and summer, and at
the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by getting
together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that
may travel into some dry hilly country south of us,
probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep-walks in
that country j 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

86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELSORNE.

feed on earthworms, that are common on sheep-walks and
downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding
with grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in
colour ; among which they skulk and conceal themselves.
They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground,
producing in common but two- at a time. There is reason
to think their young run soon after they are hatched ; and
that the old ones do not feed them, but only lead them
about at the time of feeding, which, for the most part, is in
the night." Thus far my friend.

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

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

When the oedicnemus flies, it stretches out its legs
straight behind, like a heron.

LETTER XXXIV.

SELBORNE, March 30^, 1771.

THERE is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts,
which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of
the summer, getting into people's skins, especially those of
women and children, and raising tumours which itch
intolerably. This animal (which we call a harvest bug) is

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87

very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye; of a
bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of acarus. They
are to be met with in gardens on 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 some-
times to so infinite a degree as to discolour their nets, and
to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as
to be thrown into fevers.

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

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

There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every
ploughboy ; which, because it is omitted by Linnseus, is
also passed over by late writers ; and that is the curvicauda
of old Mofuet, mentioned by Derham in his Physico-
Theology^ p. 250 ; an insect worthy of remark for depositing

88 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

its eggs as it flies in so dexterous a manner on the single
hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But then
Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is
the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he
mentions afterwards ; for more modern entomologists have
discovered that singular production to be derived from the
egg of the Musca chamceleon ; see Geoffroy, t. xvii. f. 4.

A full history of noxious insects hurtful in the field,
garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely
means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public
to be a most useful and important work. What knowledge
there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ;
great improvements would soon follow of course. A
knowledge of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in
short, of the life and conversation of these animals, is a
necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing
their depredations.

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

LETTER XXXV.

SELBORNB, 1771.

HAPPENING to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I
could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent
birds appear by no means to be their tails ; those long

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 89

feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up
their backs. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, about
six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and
serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and
top-heavy when set on end. When the train is up, nothing
appears of the bird before but its head and neck ; but this
would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only
in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a
strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibration these
birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like
the swords of a sword-dancer ; they then trample very
quick with their feet, and run backwards towards the
females.

I should tell you that I have got an uncommon Calculus
cegogropila, 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 fiat.

LETTER XXXVL

Sept. 1771.

THE summer through I have seen but two of that large
species of bat which I call Vespertilio altivolans, from its
manner of feeding high in the air : I procured one of them,
and found it to be a male ; and made no doubt, as they
accompanied together, that the other was a female ; but
happening in an evening or two to procure the other like-
wise, I was somewhat disappointed when it appeared to be
also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great

90 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 : all
that I know at present is, that my two were amply
furnished with the parts of generation, much resembling
those of a boar.

In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen
inches and 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 anatomist. These
creatures sent forth a very rancid and offensive smell.

LETTER XXXVIL

SELBOENE, 1771.

ON the 12th July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating
the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it was
playing round a large oak that swarmed with Scarabcei

NATURAL HISTORY OF SEIBORNE. 91

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

Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have
forsaken us sooner this year than usual ; for on September
22nd they rendezvoused in a neighbour's walnut-tree, where
it seemed probable they had taken up their lodging for the
night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they
arose all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a
rushing from the strokes of their wings against the hazy
air, as might be heard to a considerable distance : since that
no flock has appeared, only a few stragglers.

Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd of August — a rare
instance ! for they usually withdraw within the first week.

On the 24th of September three or four ring-ousels
appeared in my fields for the first time this season ; how
punctual are these visitors in their autumnal and spring
migrations !

LETTER XXXVIII.

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 1st of October I saw young martins in their

92 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

nest nearly fledged; and again, on the 21st 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 the 3rd of
November ; 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 nestling twelve days ago, shift their quarters at
this late season of the year to the other side of the northern
tropic ? Or rather, is it not more probable that the next
church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sandbank,
lake or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say), may
become their hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and
obvious retreat 1

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 accustomed
to places of much resort. Navigators mention that in the
Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds
are so little acquainted with the human form that they
settle on men's shoulders ; and have no more dread of
a sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing.
A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about
seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 93

in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one after-
noon; he added further, that some had appeared since
in every autumn ; but he could not find that any had been
observed before the season in which he shot so many.
I myself have found these birds in little parties in the
autumn cantoned all along the Sussex downs, wherever there
were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ;
particularly in the autumn of 1770.

LETTER XXXIX.

SELBORNE, Nov. 9tht 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 Zoology.

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

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

Crows go in pairs all the year round.

Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head, and
on all the cliffs on the Sussex coast.

The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage
in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end

94 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

of November ; is usually the latest winter-bird of passage.
Before our beechen woods were so much destroyed we had
myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as
they went out in a morning to feed. They leave us early
in spring ; where do they breed ?

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

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

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

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

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

In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till
October 23rd.

The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the
house-swallow — viz., about the 24th or 26th April.

Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole
year.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 95

Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.

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

Bullfinches, when fed on hempseed, often become wholly
black.

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

When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes make
a bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should rather
have 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 humming is ventriloquous, or
proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but
this I know, that when this noise happens the bird is
always descending, and his wings are violently agitated.

Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congre-
gate, and, leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves
to downs and sheep-walks.

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

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

Speaking of the swift, that page says " its drink the
dew ; " whereas it should be, " it drinks on the wing ; " for
all the swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over the
face of pools or rivers : like Virgil's bees, they drink flying ;
"jlumina summa libant" In this method of drinking
perhaps this genus may be peculiar.

Of the sedge-bird be pleased to say it sings most part of
the night ; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and

96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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.

SELBOENE, Sept. 2nd, 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 that give it that forked shape ; with this
difference, that they are longer in the tail of the male than
in that of the female.

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

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 97

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 Ely. The threads sometimes discovered in eels are
perhaps their young : the generation of eels is very dark
and mysterious.

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

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

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

Many birds which become silent about Midsummer
reassume their notes again in September ; as the thrush,
blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, etc. ; hence August is by
much the most mute month, the spring, summer, and
autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because
the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring 1

LinnaBUS 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

298

98 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK

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: not-
withstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do much
mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.*

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

Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.

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

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

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

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

In the garden of the Black Bear inn in the town of

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 99

Reading, is a stream or canal running under the stables and
out into the fields on the other side of the road : in this
water are many carps, which lie rolling about in sight,
being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing
them bread ; but as soon as the weather grows at all severe,
these fishes are no longer seen, because they retire under
the stables, where they remain till the return of spring-
Do they lie in a torpid state 1 If they do not, how are they
supported ?

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

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

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

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

100 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

build in orchards and about houses ; with us he perches on
the vane of a tall maypole.

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

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

On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries
with it a quaint and magisterial air, and is very senten-
tious ; 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.

IT is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those
species of soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter
through subsist during the dead months. The imbecility of
birds seems not to be the only reason why they shun the
rigour of our winters ; for the robust wryneck (so much

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 101

resembling the hardy race of woodpeckers) migrates, while
the feeble little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a
bird, braves our severest frosts without availing himself of
houses or villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd
in distressful seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and
woods; but perhaps this may be the reason why they may
often perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird
we know.

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

Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard
weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings ;
and in mild weather they procure worms, which are 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 outhouses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders
and flies that have laid themselves up during the cold season.
But the grand support of the soft-billed birds in winter is
that infinite profusion of aurelia of the Lepidoptera ordo,
which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their trunks ; to
the pales and walls of gardens and buildings ; and is found
in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in
the ground itself.

Every species of titmouse winters with us : they have
what I call a kind of intermediate bill between the
hard and the soft, between the Linnsean genera of
Fringilla and Motacilla. One species alone spends its
whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating

102 'NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

for succour in the severest seasons to houses and neigh*
bourhoods, 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 (Parus
fringillago), and the marsh titmouse (Parus palustris),
all resort at times to buildings, and in hard weather
particularly. The great titmouse, driven by stress of
weather, much frequents houses ; and, in deep snows, I
have seen this bird, while it hung with its back downwards
(to my no small delight and admiration), draw straws
lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses, in order
to pull out the flies that were concealed between them, and
that in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch,
and gave it a ragged appearance.

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELLORNE. 103

LETTER XLII.

SELBORNE, March Mh, 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 unaccompanied by a
botanist, because the mountains have scarcely been
sufficiently examined ; and the southerly counties of so
mild an island may possibly afford some plants little to be
expected within the British dominions. A person of a
thinking turn of mind will draw many just remarks from
the modern improvements of that country, both in arts and
in agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they
were heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives,
their superstitions, their prejudices, their sordid way of life,
will extort from him many useful reflections. He should
also take with him an able draughtsman ; for he must by
no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the
extensive and picturesque lakes and waterfalls, and the
lofty, stupendous mountains, so little known, and so
engaging to the imagination when described and exhibited
in a lively manner : such a work will 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

104: NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

country want to be well distinguished. The military roads
formed by General Wade are so great and Roman-like an
undertaking that they well merit attention. My old map,
Moll's map, takes notice of Fort William, but could not
mention the other forts that have been erected long
since ; therefore a good representation of the chain of
forts should not be omitted.

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

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

LETTER XLIII.

A PAIR of honey-buzzards, Buteo opivorus, sive Vespivorus
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

NATURAL HISTORY Of1 SELBORNE. 105

each end with small red spots, and surrounded in the
middle with a broad bloody zone.

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

About the 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 in the
village that had chickens or ducklings under their care.
A boy climbed the tree, and found the young so fledged
that they all escaped from him ; but discovered that a good
house had been kept: the larder was well-stored with
provisions ; for he brought down a young blackbird, jay,
and house-martin, all clean-picked, and some half devoured.
The old birds had been observed to make sad havoc for
some days among the new-flown swallows and martins,
which, being but lately out of their nests, had not acquired
those powers and command of wing that enable them,
when more mature, to set such enemies at defiance.

106 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XLIV.

SELBORNE, Nov. 30^, 1780.

EVERY incident that occasions a renewal of our correspond-
ence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me.

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

Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in
manners from itself in summer, no species seems more
unlikely to be domesticated, and to make 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 February, lives the
same wild life with the ring-dove, Palumbus torquatus ;
frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly by
mast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it
be known in what manner stock-doves build, the doubt
would be settled with me at once, provided they construct
their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect
they do.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 107

For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing
that house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-
pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place, the wild
stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house-
dove, against the usual rule of domestication, which
generally enlarges the breed. Again, those two remarkable
black spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove,
which are so characteristic of the species, would .not, one
should think, be totally lost by its being reclaimed, but
would often break out among its descendants. But what
is worth a hundred arguments is, the instance you give in
Sir Roger Mostyn's house-doves in Csenarvonshire ; which,
though tempted by plenty food and gentle treatment, can
never be prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time ;
but, as soon a's 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.

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

I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth
year, who tells me that fifty or sixty years back, when the
beechen woods were much more extensive than at present,
the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing ; that he has
often killed near twenty in a day ; and that with a long
wild-fowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the
wing as they came wheeling over his head : he moreover
adds, which I was not aware of, that often there were
among them little parties of small blue doves, which he
calls rockiers. The food of these numberless emigrants was
beech-mast and some acorns ; and particularly barley, which
they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the
vast increase of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a

108 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

great part of their support in hard weather ; and the holes
they pick in these roots greatly damage the crop. From
this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which
occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who
thought them before a delicate dish. They were shot not
only as they were feeding in the fields, and especially in
snowy weather, but also at the close of the evening, by men
who lay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill
them as they came in to roost. * These are the principal
circumstances relating to this wonderful internal migration,
which with us takes place towards the end of November,
and ceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in
Selborne high wood about 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 rendezvoused here by
thousands., if they happened to be suddenly roused from
their roost-trees on an evening,

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

It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to
add, that I had a relation in this neighbourhood who made
it a practice, for a time, whenever he could procure the
eggs of a ring-dove, to place them under a pair of doves
that were sitting in his own 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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 109

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

Yirgil, 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 farther excuse I shall add
his translation also : —

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

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

LETTERS TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON>

LETTER I.

SELBORNE, June 30£A, 1769.

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

THE FOLLOWING IS A LlST OF THE SUMMER BlRDS OF PAS-
SAGE WHICH I HAVE DISCOVERED IN THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD,
RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY
APPEAR :—

KAII NOMINA. USUALLY APPEARS ABOUT

1. Wryneck. Junxt sive torquitta. {Thneo™ddle °f March : harsh

2. Smallest ml- f Eeguli^s non crista- /March 23rd: chirps till

low-wren, \ tus. \ September.

3. Swallow, Eirundo domestica. April 13th.

4. Martin, Hirundo rustica. Ditto.

5. Sand-martin, ffirimdo riparia. Ditto.

6. Blackcap, Atricapilla. Ditto : a sweet wild note.

7. Nightingale, Luscinia. Beginning of April.

8. Cuckoo, Guculus. Middle of April.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. Ill

«. BAII NOMINA. TJSTJALLY APPEARS ABOUT

9. Middle willow- fEegulus non crista- /Middle of April : a sweot
wren, \ tus. \ plaintive note.

10. White-throat,- Ficedula affinls. P^LJ***^ n°v6 ; sing3

\ on till September.

11. Red-start, Euticilla. Ditto : more agreeable song.

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

turnal whistle.

13. Turtle-dove, Turtur.

14. Grasshopper- (Alauda minima [Mi(*d!e of April : a small

lark, locust* wee. \ sibiloiw note, till he

\ end of July.

15. Swift, Hirundo apus. About April 27th.

16. Less reed-spar- f Passer arundinaceus f A sweet polyglot, but

row, \ minor. 1 "}« : lfc ^a,s the

^ 01 many birds.

17. Land-ra Ortygomctra. | A ^ud ,liarsh note» * ' crox*

18. Largest wil- ( Regulus non CTista,(Gantatvocestriduldlocustce;

low wren, \ tus. end of April on the tops

^ of high beeches.

singular noise.
TMay 12th: a very mute

20, Fly-catcher, Stoparola. \ bird ; this is the latest

summer bird of passage.

f

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

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

1, Jynx. 17. Columba.

2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18, Motacilla. 13. Rallus.

8, 4, 5, 15, Hirundo. 19. Caprimulgus.

8. Cuculus. 14. Alauda.

12. Charadrius. 20. Muscicapa.

112 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

Redbreast,
Wren,

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

Wheat-ear,

Whin-chat,
Stone-chatter,

EAII NOMINA.

Jtubecula.
Passer troglodytes.

Hedge-sparrow, Curruca.

Motacilla alba.
Motacilla flava.
Motacilla cinerea.

Oenanthe.

Oenanthe secunda.
Oenanthe tertia.

f These frequent houses, and
haunt out-buildings in

[ the winter : eat spiders.

/Haunts sinks for crumbs

\ and other sweepings.

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

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

A LIST OF THE WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE ROUND THIS

NEIGHBOURHOOD, RANGED SOMEWHAT IN THE ORDER IN
WHICH THEY APPEAR : —

RAII NOMINA,

1. Ring-ousel, Merula torquata.

2. Redwing,

3. Fieldfare,

Turdus iliacus.
Turdus pilaris.

fThis is a new migration,
which I have lately d'is-
covered about Michaelmas
week, and again about
the 14th March.
About old Michaelmas.
/Though a percher by day,
\ roosts on the ground.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 113

BAII NOMINA.

4. Royston-crow, Gornix cinerea.

5. Woodcock, Scolopax.

6. Snipe, Gallinago minor.

7. Jack-snipe, Gallinago minima.

8. Wood-pigeon, Oenas.

9. Wild-swan, Cygnusferus.

10. Wild-goose, Anser ferns.

11. Wild-duck, Anas torquata minor.

12. Pochard, Anas f era fusca.

13. Widgeon, Penelope.

14. Teal, breeds \

Forest,

15. Cross-beak,

16. Cross-bill,

17. Silk- tail,

Coccothraustes.

Loxia.

Garrulus bohemicus.

Most frequent on downs.
/ Appears about old
\ Michaelmas.
f Some snipes constantly
\ breed with us.

/Seldom appears till late;
\ not so 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, Corvus.

5, 6, 7, Scolopax.
8, Columba.

9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, Anas.

15, 16, Loxia.

17.

Birds that sing in the night are but few : —

{«

Nightingale,

Woodlark, Alauda arborea.

Less reed-sparrow,

In shadiest covert hid."

— MILTON.
Suspended in mid air.

Among reeds and willows.

I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing
after midsummer, but, as they are rather numerous, they
would exceed the bounds of this paper ; besides, as this is

299

114 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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.

LETTER IL

SELBORNE, Nov. 2n^ 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.

1. Woodlark,

2. Song-thrush,

3. Wren,

4. Redbreast,

BAII NOMINA.

Alauda arlorea,

f In Janu
-! to sin
[ summ

didus.

fat** troglodyte.
Rubecula.

January, and continues
sing through all the
summer and autumn.
(^ In February and on to

t August ; reassume their
song in autumn.
/ All the year, hard frost ex-
Ditto.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 115

RAII NOMINA.

5. Hedge-sparrow, Curruca,

6. Yellow-hammer, Emleriza Jlava.

7. Skylark,

8. Swallow,

9. Blackcap,

10. Titlark,

11. Blackbird,

Alauda vulgaris.
Hirundo domestica.
Atricapilla.

Alauda pratorum.
Merula vulgaris.

f Early in February to July
1 10th.

f Early in February, and on
-! through July to August
[ 21st.

f In February, and on to
\ October.

From April to September:
/ Beginning of April to July
\ 13th.

/From middle of April to
\ July 16th.

f Sometimes in February and
J March, and so on to July
| 23rd ; reassumes in
V. autumn.

In April, and on to July 23rd.

{April, and through to Sep-
tember 16th.
On to July and August 2nd.

12. White-throat, Ficedulos affinis.

13. Goldfinch, Carduelis.

14. Greenfinch, Chloris.

15. Less reed-spar- \Passer arundinaceus f May, on to beginning of

row, f minor. \ July.

i Breeds and whistles on tLJl
August ; reassumes its
«C3S %*•&&£
and again early before
the flocks separate.

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

RAII NOMINA.

17. Middle willow- \Regulus

wren,

18. Redstart,

19. Chaffinch,

J talus.
Ruticilla.

Fringilla.

20. Nightingale, Luscinia,

non cris- ( Middle of June ; begins in
| April.

Ditto ; begins in May.
/Beginning of June; sings
\ first in February.
/ Middle of June ; sings first
\ in April.

116 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

spring :—

EAII NOMINA.

21. Missel-bird, Turdus mscivoruj.

22-

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

( In February, March, April;

-I reassumes for a short

^ time in September.

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

23. Golden-crown-
ed wren,

j- Eegulus cristatus.

24. Marsh-titmouse

nail wi
wren,

26. Largest ditto

(Its note as minute as its
person ; frequents the
tops of high oaks and firs ;
the smallest British bird.
f Haunts great woods ; two
\ harsh sharp notes.

25. Small willow- Rcgulus non cris- ( Sings in March, and on to

\ September.
( Cantat vocestriduld locustcc ;
-j from end of April to
^ August.

tatus.
Ditto,

27. Grasshopper-

lark,

28. Martin,

29. Bullfinch,

30. Bunting,

Hirundo agrestis.

Pyrrhula.
Emberiza alba.

end of July.
/ All the breeding time ; from
\ May to September.

( From the end of January to
t July.

All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to
song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through,
come- under the Linnsean ordo of passer es*

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 117

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

1, 7, 10, 27, Alauda. 8, 28, Hirundo.

2, 11, 21, Turdus. 13, 16, 19, Fringilla.

3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17, \MotapillfL 22, 24, Parus.
18, 20, 23, 25, 26, J «««««? H> ^

6, 30, JEmberiza.

Birds that sing as they fly are but few : —

KAII NOMINA.

Skylark,

Alauda vulgar is.

j .tusing, suspended, ana

Titlark,
Woodlark,

Alauda pratorum.

f In its descent ; also sitting
-j on trees, and walking on
I the ground.
/ Suspended ; in hot summer
"I nights all night long.

Blackbird,

Merula.

I Sometimes from uusn to
1 Dusn.

White-throat,

Swallow,
Wren,

Ficedula affirm.

Hirundo domestica.
Passer troglodytes.

f Uses when singing on the
-j wing odd jerks and
^ gesticulations.
In soft sunny weather.
f Sometimes from bush to

Birds that

breed most early in

these parts : —

Raven,

Corvus.

{HMahrcLin February aud

Song-thrush,
Blackbird,

Rook,
Woodlark,
Ring-dove,

Turdus. In March.
Merula. In March.

CormxfrugiUga. {^arcK^ begfaming °f
Alauda arbor ea* Hatches in April.

T» i T j j. I Lavs tne heffinnin&r of
Palumbus torguatus. 1 1 nril

All birds that continue in full song till after midsummer
appear to me to breed more than onca

118 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, etc. As an example of what is advanced, I remark
that the golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird)
will stand unconcerned till you come within three or four
yards of it, while the bustard (otis), the largest British
land fowl, does not care to admit a person within so many
furlongs.

LETTER III.

SELBORNE, Jan. 15th, 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 remarked, and, as I
rode or walked about my business, I noted each day the
continuance or omission of each bird's song ; so that I am
as sure of the certainty of my facts as a man can be of any
transaction whatsoever.

I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which
you put in your two obliging letters, in the best manner
that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where
you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, and
therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 119

your eye on ray last letter, you will find that many species
continued to warble after the beginning of July.

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

It was not in my power to procure you a 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 them :
they are both distinguished songsters. The note of the
former has such a wild sweetness that it always brings to
my mind those lines in a song in " As You Like It " —

' ' And tune his merry note
Unto the wild bird's throat."— SHAKESPEARE.

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

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

I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are
to be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former
month, notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily.
Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect to the

120 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

swallow tribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer
advances : and I saw, at the time mentioned, many
hundreds of young wagtails on the banks of the Cherwell,
which almost covered the meadows. If the matter appears
as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to the
dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are
concealed by the leaves 1

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

LETTER IV.

SELBORNE, Feb. 19^, 1770.

YOUR observation that u the cuckoo does not deposit its
egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes
in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in some degree
. congenerous, with whom to intrust its young," is perfectly
new to me ; and struck me so forcibly, that I naturally fell
into a train of thought that led me to consider whether the
fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I
came to recollect and inquire, I could not find that any
cuckoo had ever been seen in these parts, except in the nest
of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-
throat, and the red-breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds.
The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest of the
palumbus (ring-dove), and of the fringilla (chaffinch), birds
that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food ; but

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 121

then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge ;
but says afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail
feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly possible that a
soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food with the
hard-billed : for the former have thin membranaceous
stomachs suited to their soft food ; while the latter, the
granivorous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which,
like mills, grind, by the help of small gravels and peebles,
what is swallowed. This proceeding of the cuckoo, of
dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous
outrage on maternal affection, one of the first great dictates
of nature, and such a violence on instinct, that, had it only
been related of a bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it would never
have merited our belief. But yet, should it farther appear
that this simple bird, when divested of that natural o-ropyij
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 con-
generous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and
young, and may deposit them only under their care, this
would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a
fresh manner, that the methods of Providence are not
subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new
lights, and in various and changeable appearances.

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

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

" Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath
he imparted to her understanding."*
*Jobxxxix. 16, 17.

122 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Query. — Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a
season, or does she drop several in different nests according
as opportunity offers 1

LETTER V.

SELBOKNE, April 12th, 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 yellow-hammer no doubt persists with more steadiness
than any other ; but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast,
the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common
linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I
advanced.

If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of
the summer migrations, the blackcap will be here in two or
three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one
of those songsters; but I am no 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 1

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 123

throws upon insensible perspiration. The case is just the
same with blackbirds, etc. ; and farmers and warreners
observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such
times, and the latter that their rabbits are never in such
good case as in a gentle frost. But when frosts are severe,
and of long continuance, the case is soon altered ; for then
a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned
by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that
some human constitutions are more inclined to plumpness
in winter than in summer.

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

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

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

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

Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruc-
tion in singing birds while they are mute, and that when
this is removed the song recommences, is new and bold : I

124 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 some conversation
with you concerning the proposal you make of my drawing
up an account of the animals in this neighbourhood. Your
partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear,
that I am able to do more than is in my power : for it is no
small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to
begin a natural history from his own autopsia ! Though
there is endless room for observation in the field of nature,
which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man
endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow
progress ; and all that one could collect in many years
would go into a very narrow compass.

Some extracts from your ingenious Investigations of
the Difference between the Present Temperature of the
Air in Italy, etc., have fallen in my way, and gave me
great satisfaction : they have removed the objections that
always 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 !

F.S. — Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 125

LETTER VI.

SELBORNE, May 21stt 1770.

THE severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted
the regular process of summer migration, that some of the
birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are
apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat, the
blackcap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember
that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40,
summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come
probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blows
between those points; but in that unfavourable year the
winds bio wed the whole spring and summer through from
the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvan-
tages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared
this year as early as the llth April amidst frost and snow;
but they withdrew again for a time.

I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little
satisfied with Scopoli's new publication ; there is room to
expect great things from the hands of that man, who is a
good naturalist : and one would think that a history of the
birds of so distant and southern a region as Oarniola would
be new and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and
hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the
wretches that work in the quicksilver mines of that district.

When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving
it seeds, I could not help wondering; because the reed-
sparrow which I mentioned to you (Passer arundinaceus
minor Rail) 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 whether the latter be much of a

126 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

songster \ but in this matter I want to be better informed.
The former has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings . all
night. Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is
attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed
sort, which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his
British Zoology, till I reminded him of his omission. See
British Zoology last published, p. 16.

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

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

1 ' Quern si puellarum insereres choro,
Mirfc sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum, solutis
Crimbus, ambiguoqne vultu."

HOE. ODES. II. od. 5-21, p. 131, orig. edit.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 127

LETTER VII,

RINGMER, near LEWES, Oct. Sth, 1770.

I AM glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the
birds of Jamaica ; a sight of the hvrundines 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 acquainted with : every kingdom, every
province, should have its own monographer.

The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Hay'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 the ordines and
genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly.
He has ventured to alter some of the Linnsean genera with
sufficient show of reason.

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

Ray remarks that birds of the Gallince order, as cocks

128 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

and hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc., are pulveratrices,
such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing
their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin. As
far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never
wash ; and I once thought that those birds that wash them-
selves 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-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 phe-
nomenon, 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 libellula, or dragon-flies, some of which

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 129

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

As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look-
out in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of
the year, have discovered some of the summer short-winged-
birds of passage crowding towards the coast in order for
their departure : but it was very extraordinary that I never
saw a red-start, white-throat, blackcap, uncrested wren,
fly-catcher, etc. And I remember to have made the same
remark in former years, as I usually come to this place
annually about this time. The birds most common along

300

130 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whincliats,
buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, etc.
Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong
their stay by this soft, still, dry season.

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

LETTER VIII.

SELBOENE, Dec. 202A, 1770.

THE birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows
(Passer es torquati).

There are doubtless many home internal migrations
within this kingdom that want to be better understood :
witness those vast flocks of hen-chaffinches that appear
with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among
them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it
should seem very improbable that any one district should

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 131

produce such numbers of these little birds; and much
more when only one-half of the species appears ; therefore
we may conclude that the Fringillce ccelebest for some good
purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which
the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the
intercourse of sexes in this species of bird should be inter-
rupted in winter ; since in many animals, and particularly
in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, except at the
season when commerce is necessary for the continuance of
the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches see Fauna
Suecica, p. 58, and Sy sterna Natures, p. 318. I see every
winter vast flights of hen-chaffinches, but none of cocks.

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

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

132 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 all always mentioned as rarities,
and somewhat out of the common course of things : but as
to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has
ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the
nest or young of those species in any part of these
kingdoms. And I the more admire at this instance as
extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in
summer as well as in winter might support them here which
maintains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did
they choose to stay the summer through. From hence it
appears that it is not food alone which determines some
species of birds with regard to their stay or departure.
Fieldfares or redwings disappear sooner or later according
as the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well
remember, after that dreadful winter 173940, that cold
north-east winds continued to blow on through April and
May, and that these kind of birds (what few remained of
them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering
about till the beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidification
of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testi-
mony of faunists that have written professedly the natural
history of particular countries. Now as to the fieldfare,
Linnseus, in his Fauna Suecica, says of it, that " maximis
in arboribus nidificat ; " and of the redwing he says, in the
same place, that " nidificat in mediis arbusculis, sive
sepibus : ova sex cceruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis."
Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings
build in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 133

the woodcock, that " nupta ad nos venit circa cequinoctium
vernale / " meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And
afterwards he adds "nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova
ponit 3-5." It does not appear from Kramer that wood-
cocks breed at all in Austria; but he says, "Avis hcec
septentrionalium provinciarum cestivo tempore incola est ;
ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme austral'
iores provincias petit; hinc circa plenilunium mensis
Octobris plerumque Austrian* transmigrate Tune rursus
circa plenilunium potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam
matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit.'*
For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see
ElencliuSy etc., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of
the migration of woodcocks ; though little is proved
concerning the place of breeding.

P.S. — There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks
of this present very wet weather, seven inches and 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.

LETTER IX.

FYFIELD, near ANDOVER, Feb. \Wi, 1772.

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

134 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid
on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their
migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, etc. ;
because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 135

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

". . . Rang'd in figure wedge their way,
. . . . . And set forth
Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight ; . . . . "— MILTON.

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

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

* " I have read a like anecdote of a swan."

136 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the
rector.

At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that
will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon
woodcocks first come ; if I lived near the sea myself I
would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used
to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times
in which 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 presumptive argument that
these birds come over to us from the continent at the
narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward.

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

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

Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel
for Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will
endeavour to get him one when they call on us again in
April. I am glad that you and that gentleman saw my
Andalusian birds ; I hope they answered your expectation.
Royston, or grey crows, are winter birds that come much
about the same time with the woodcock; they, like
the fieldfare and redwing, have no apparent reason for

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 137

migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their con-
geners, so might they in all appearance in the summer.
Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken? did he not find a
missel thrush's nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ?

The stock-dove, or wood-pigeon, JZnas Rail, is the last
winter bird of passage which appears with us ; it is not seen
till towards the end of November : about twenty years ago
they abounded in the district of Selborne ; and strings of
them were seen morning and evening that reached a mile or
more ; but since the beechen woods have been greatly
thinned they are much decreased in number. The ring-
dove, Palumbus fiaii, stays with us the whole year, and
breeds several times through the summer.

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

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

138 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER X.

SELBOKNE, Aug. 1st, 1771.

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

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 139

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 conjuratcet unani-
miter in fug am se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem
inter nos habitantem invenire possimus ; ut enim cestate in
australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum,
terramque 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 subject of
migration. See Amosnitates Academic^ 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 northerly parts of Europe,
or perish for want of food.

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

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

Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their
specific differences, which are almost universally constituted
by one or two particular marks, the rest of the description
running in general terms. But our countryman, the
excellent Mr. Kay, is the only describer that conveys some
precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his

140 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the
advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information.

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

LETTER XL

SELBORNE, Feb. 8th, 1772.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, HI

to me to be the effect of rivalry and emulation : and it
is to this spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute the equal
dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the
country.

Now as to the business of food : as these animals are
actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they should
not, one would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of
sustenance at a time when it is most likely to fail ; yet
such associations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and
thicken as the severity increases. As some kind of self-
interest and self-defence is no doubt the motive for the
proceeding, may it not arise from the helplessness of their
state in such rigorous seasons; as men crowd together,
when under great calamities, though they know not why 1
Perhaps approximation may dispel some degree of cold ;
and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from
the ravages of birds of prey and other dangers.

If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love
to congregate, I am the more struck when I see incongruous
ones in such strict amity. If we do not much wonder to
see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train of daws,
yet it is strange that the former should so frequently have
a flight of starlings for their satellites. Is it because rooks
have a more discerning scent than their attendants, and can
lead them to spots more productive of food 1 Anatomists
say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run
down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a
more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round-billed
birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight.
Perhaps, then, their associates attend them on the 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.

142 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XII

March 9ft, 1772.

As a 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-swallows gliding very
swiftly by us. That morning was rather chilly, with the
wind at north-west ; but the tenor of the weather for some
time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably
warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts
which I meet with, I am more and more induced to believe
that many of the swallow kind do not depart from this
island, but lay themselves up in holes and caverns ; and do,
insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and then
retire again to their latebrce. Nor make I the least doubt
but that, if I lived at Newhaven, Seaford, Brighthelm stone,
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 April, yet meeting with a harsh reception, and
blustering cold north-east winds, they immediately with-
drew, absconding for several days, till the weather gave
them better encouragement.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 143

LETTER XIII.

April 12&, 1772.

WHILE I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at
the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the
pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st November I
remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began
first to dig the ground in order to the forming its hyber-
naculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of
hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and
throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion of
its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand
of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an animal said
to be a whole month in performing one feat of copula-
tion. 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
November, yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher
weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its
operations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more
than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard
to rain ; for though it has a shell that would secure it
against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover a
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

144 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 [f or more than thirty years, it
hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity ;
but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the
ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib,"* but
the most abject reptile and torpid of beings distinguishes
the hand that feeds it, and is touched with the feelings of
gratitude !

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

LETTER XIV.

SELBORNE, March 26ih, 1773.

THE more I reflect on the o-ropyyj 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

* Isa. i. 3.

NATURAL HISTORY OF S EL BORNE. 145

proportion to the helplessness of her brood ; and will Hy 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 inven-
tion, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus
a hen, just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird
she used to be, but with feathers standing on end, wings
hovering, and clocking note, she runs about like one
possessed. Dams will throw themselves in the way of the
greatest danger in order to avert it from their progeny,
Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in
order to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey. In
the time of nidification the most feeble birds will assault
the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a village are up
in arms at the sight of 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 fondness, but
will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for
an hour together.

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

The fly-catcher of the Zoology (the Stoparola of E/ay),
builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my

301

146 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

house. A pair of these little birds had one year inad-
vertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a
shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that
followed. But a hot sunny season coming on before the
brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became
insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the
tender young, had nob 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 then-
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 disturb her,
though we saw she eyed us with some degree of jealousy.
Some days after as we passed that way we were desirous of
remarking how this brood went on ; but no nest could be
found, till I happened to take a large bundle of long green
moss, as it were, carelessly thrown over the nest in order to
dodge the eye of any impertinent intruder.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 147

To these instances of tender attachment, many more of
which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of
nature, may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous
perversion of the a-ropy^, 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 murder.
When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that
destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed ; since
reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable
of any enormity ; but why the parental feelings of brutes,
that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should some-
times be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler
philosophers than myself to determine.

LETTER XV.

SELBORNE, July 8th, 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 alive, which upon examina-
tion 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

148 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to
hoot at all ; all that clamorous hooting appears to me to
come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed
snore and hiss in a tremendous manner ; and these menaces
well answer the intention of intimidating ; for I have
known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion,
imagining the churchyard to be full of goblins and spectres.
While 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 149

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

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 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.

[It will be proper to premise here that the sixteenth,
eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first letters have been

150 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

published already in the Philosophical Transactions; but
as nicer observation has furnished several corrections and
additions, it is hoped that the republication of them will
not give offence ; especially as these sheets would be very
imperfect without them, and as they will be new to many
readers who had no opportunity of seeing them when they
made their first appearance.]

" The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, enter-
taining, social, and useful tribe of birds; they touch no
fruit in our gardens; delight, all except one species, in
attaching themselves to our houses ; amuse us with their
migrations, songs, and marvellous agility ; and clear our
outlets from the annoyances of gnats and other troublesome
insects. Some districts in the south seas, near Guiaquil,*
are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of venomous
mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those coasts
insupportable. It would be worth inquiring whether any
species of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever
contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sun-
beams 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 dipterous insects,
which infest every species, and are so large, in proportion
to themselves, that they must be extremely irksome and
injurious to them. These are the Hippoboscce hirundines^
with narrow subulated wings, abounding in every nest ; and
are hatched by the warmth of the bird's own body during
incubation, and crawl about under its feathers.

*See Ulloa's Travels,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 151

" A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south
of England under the name of forest-fly ; and to some of
side-fly, from its running sideways like a crab. It creeps
under the tails, and about the groins, of horses, which,- at
their first coming out of the north, are rendered half frantic
by the tickling sensation ; while our own breed little
regards them.

" The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or
rather 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 pupae of these insects ; but for other particu-
lars, too long for this place, we refer the reader to
L'llistoire dlnsectes of that admirable entomologist. Tom.
iv., pi. ii."

LETTER XVL

SELBORNE, Nov. 2Qth, 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
April ; usually some few days later than the swallow. For
some time after they appear the hirundines in general pay

152 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

no attention to the business of nidification, but play and
sport about, either to recruit from the fatigue of their
journey, if they do migrate at all, or else that their blood
may recover its true tone and texture after it has been so
long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the
middle of May, if the weather be fine; the martin begins to
think in earnest of providing a mansion for its family.
The crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed of such
dirt or loam as comes most readily to hand, and is tempered
and wrought together with little bits of broken straws to
render it tough and tenacious. As this bird often builds
against a perpendicular wall without any projecting ledge
under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first founda-
tion 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 inclining its
tail against the wall, making that a fulcrum ; and thus
steadied, it works and plasters the materials into the face
of the brick or stone. But then, that this work may not,
while it is soft and green, pull itself down by its own
weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbear-
ance enough not to advance her work too fast ; but by
building only in the morning, and by dedicating the rest of
the day to food and amusement, gives it sufficient time to
dry and harden. About half-an-inch seems to be a sufficient
layer for a day. Thus careful workmen, when they build
mud-walls (informed at first perhaps by this little bird),
raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist, lest
the work should become top-heavy, and so be ruined by its
own weight. By this method in about ten or twelve days
is formed a hemispheric nest with a small aperture towards
the top, strong, compact, and warm ; and perfectly fitted
for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then

NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 153

nothing is more common than for the ho use- sparrow, as
soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to
eject the owner, and to line it after its own manner.

After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion,
as Nature seldom works in vain, martins will breed on for
several years together in the same nest, where it happens
to be well sheltered and secure from the injuries of weather.
The shell or crust of the nest is a sort of rustic work, full
of knobs and protuberances on the outside ; nor is the
inside of those that I have examined smoothed with any
exactness at all ; but is rendered soft and warm, and fit for
incubation, by a lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers,
and sometimes by a bed of moss interwoven with wool.
In this nest they tread, or engender, frequently during the
time of building ; and the hen lays from three to five white

At first when the young are hatched, and are in a naked
and helpless condition, the parent birds, with tender
assiduity, carry out what comes away from their young.
Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the nestlings
would soon be burnt up, and destroyed in so deep and
hollow a nest, by their own caustic excrement. In the
quadruped creation the same neat precaution is made use
of ; particularly among dogs and cats, where the dams lick
away what proceeds from their young. But in birds there
seems to be a particular provision, that the dung of nest-
lings is enveloped in a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is
the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet,
as nature is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this
office for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails
out of the aperture of their nest. As the young of small
birds presently arrive at their ?;A.ucta, or full growth, they
soon become impatient of confinement, and sit all day with

154 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK. 155

and destroy their nests ; but instances are also remembered
where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot
stifled inn-yard against a wall facing to the south.

Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation ; but
in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof
to the contrary at 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 changing their aspect or house. It is
a piteous sight to see them labouring when half their nest
is washed away and bringing dirt. . . . "generis lapsi
sarcire ruinas." Thus is instinct a most wonderful unequal
faculty ; in some instances so much above reason, in other
respects so far below it ! Martins love to frequent towns,
especially if there are great lakes and rivers at hand ; nay,
they even affect the close air of London. And I have not
only seen them nesting in the borough, but even in the
Strand and Fleet Street ; but then it was obvious from the
dinginess of their aspect that their feathers partook of the
filth of that sooty atmosphere. Martins are by far the
least agile of the four species ; their wings and tails are
short, and therefore they are not capable of such surprising
turns and quick and glancing evolutions as the swallow,
Accordingly they make use of a placid easy motion in a
middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great
height, and never sweeping long together over the surface
of the ground or water. They do not wander far for food,
but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or under some
hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy
weather. They breed the latest of all the swallow kind :

156 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

in 1772 they had nestlings on to October 21st, and are
never without unfledged young as late as Michaelmas.

As the summer declines the congregating flocks increase
in numbers daily by the constant accession of the second
broods ; till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads
round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of
the sky as they frequent the aits of that river, where they
roost. They retire, the bulk of them I mean, in vast flocks
together about the beginning of October ; but have ap-
peared of late years in a considerable flight in this neigh-
bourhood, for one day or two, as late as November 3rd and
6th, after they were supposed to have been gone for more
than a fortnight. They therefore withdraw with us the
latest of any species. Unless these birds are very short-
lived indeed, or unless they do not return to the districts
where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations
somehow, and somewhere ; for the birds that return yearly
bear no manner of proportion to the birds that retire.

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

LETTER XVII.

RINGMER, near LEWES, Dec. 9th, 1773.

I RECEIVED your last favour just as I was setting out for
this place; and am pleased to find that my monography

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 157

met with your approbation. My remarks are the result of
many years' observation ; and are, I trust, true in the whole,
though I do not pretend to say that they are perfectly void
of mistake, or that a more nice observer might not
make many additions, since subjects of this kind are
inexhaustible.

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

Though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs upwards
of thirty years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic
mountains with fresh admiration year by year ; and I think
I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This range,
which runs from Chichester eastward as far as Eastbourne,
is about sixty miles in length, and is called the South
Downs, properly speaking, only round Lewes. As you
pass along you command a noble view of the wild, or weald,
on one hand, and the broad downs and sea on the other.
Mr. Ray used to visit a family just at the foot of these
hills, and was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton
Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes in his
Wisdom of God in the Works of Creation with the utmost
satisfaction, and thinks them equal to anything he had
seen in the finest parts of Europe.

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

158 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so
happy as to convey to you the same idea; but I never
contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive
somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and
smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and
regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of
vegetative dilation and expansion. . . .

... Or was there ever a time when these immense
masses of calcareous matter were thrown into fermentation
by some adventitious moisture ; were raised and leavened
into such 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 1

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 Seeding 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 Brambler 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 159

simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these
two different breeds might not be reversed 1 However, an
intelligent friend of mine near Ohichester is determined to
try the experiment; and has this autumn, at the hazard of
being laughed at, introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless
rams among his horned western ewes. The black-faced
poll-sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool.

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

160 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on tho
clowns under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the
time of wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great
numbers ; are sent for sale in vast quantities to Brighthelm-
stone and Tunbridge ; and appear at the tables of all the
gentry that entertain with any degree of elegance. About
Michaelmas they retire, and are seen no more till March,
Though these birds are, when in season, in great plenty on
the south downs round Lewes, yet at Eastbourne, which is
the eastern extremity of those downs, they abound much
more. One thing is very remarkable, that though in the
height of the season so many hundreds of dozens are taken,
yet they never are seen to flock ; and it is a rare thing to
see more than three or four at a time ; so that there must
be a perpetual flitting and constant progressive succession.
It does not appear that any wheat-ears are taken to the
westward of Houghton Bridge, which stands on the river
Arun.

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

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

The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former
letter, still continues in this garden, and retired under-
ground about the 20th November, and came out again for
one day on the 30th : it lies now buried in a wet swampy

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 161

border under a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at
present in mud and mire !

Here is a large rookery round this house, the inhabitants
of which seem to get their livelihood very easily, for they
spend the greatest part of the day on their nest-trees when
the weather is mild. These rooks retire every evening all
the winter from this rookery, where they only call by the
way, as they are going to roost in deep woods : at the
dawn of day they always revisit their nest-trees, and are
preceded a few minutes by a flight of daws, that act, as
it were, as their harbingers.

LETTER XVIII.

SELBOBNE, Jan. 29th, 1774.

THE house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the
first comer of all the British hirundines, and appears in
general on or about 13th 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 particular,
that if these early visitors happen to find frost and snow, as
was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and 1771,
they immediately withdraw for a time — a circumstance this

302

162 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

much more in favour of hiding than migration, since it is
much more probable that a bird should retire to its hyber-
naculum just at hand, than return for a week or two 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 j and so she did in
Yirgil's time —

. . . "Ante
Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo.IJ

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELRORNE. 103

of the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep dish.
This nest is lined with fine grasses and feathers, which are
often collected as they float in the air.

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

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

164 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORKE. 165

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 littly party of
swallows for miles together, which plays before and behind
them, sweeping around them, and collecting all the skulking
insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses'
feet : when the wind blows hard, without this expedient,
they are often forced to settle to pick up their lurking prey.

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

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

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

After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning
oropyrf 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

166 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

LETTER XIX.

SELBORNE, Feb. Uth, 1774.

I RECEIVED your favour of the 8th, 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELSORNE. 167

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

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

As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it ;
yet the epithet nlgra 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. JSTor can the
clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy) of the martin well
represent the sudden and artful evolutions and quick turns
which Juturna gave to her brother's chariot, so as to elude
the eager pursuit of the enraged ^Eneas. The verb sonat
also seems to imply a bird that is somewhat loquacious.*

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

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

— DJBYD. YIRG. Mn, xii, line 691.

168 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBOKNE.

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

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

LETTER XX.

SELBORNE, Feb. 2Gth, 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 Brisson asserts

NATURAL HISTORY Of1 SELBORNE. 169

that there is one much smaller, and that is the Hirundo
esculenta.

But it is much to bo regretted that it is scarce possible
for any observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in
reciting the circumstances attending the life and conversa-
tion of this little bird, since it is fera naturd, at least in
this part of the kingdom, disclaiming all domestic attach-
ments, and haunting wild heaths and commons where there
are large- lakes; while the other species, especially the
swallow and house-martin, are remarkably gentle and
domesticated, and never seem to think themselves safe but
under the protection of man.

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

It 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 and securely fixing
crusts or shells of loam as cunabula for their young, the

170 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

bank-martin terebrates a round and regular hole in the
sand or earth, which is serpentine, horizontal, and about
two feet deep. At the inner end of this burrow does this
bird deposit, in a good degree of safety, her rude nest,
consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usually goose-feathers,
very inartificially laid together.

Perseverance will accomplish anything ; though at first
one would be disinclined to believe that this weak bird,
with her soft and tender bill and claws, should ever be able
to bore the stubborn sand-bank without entirely disabling
herself ; yet with these feeble instruments I have 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 not been able to discover,
for reasons given above ; but it would be a matter worthy
of observation, where it falls in the way of any naturalist
to make his remarks. This I have often taken notice of,
that several holes of different depths are left unfinished at
the end of summer. To imagine that these beginnings were
intentionally made in order to be in the greater forwardness
for next spring is allowing perhaps too much foresight and
rerwn prudentia 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 1 Or may they not in other places
fall in with a soil as much too loose and mouldering,
liable to flounder, and threatening to overwhelm them and
their labours 1

One thing is remarkable — that, after some years, the old

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 171

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

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

The sand-martin arrives much about the same time with
the swallow, and lays, as she does, from four to six white
eggs. But as this species is cryptogame, carrying on the
business of nidification, incubation, and the support of its
young in the dark, it would not be so easy to ascertain the
time of breeding, were it not for the coming forth of the
broods, which appear much about the time, or rather some-
what earlier than those of the swallow. The nestlings are
supported in common like those of their congeners, with
gnats and other small insects ; and sometimes they are fed
with libellulce (dragon-flies) almost as long as themselves.
In the last week in June we have seen a row of these
sitting on a rail near a great pool as perchers, and so young
and helpless, as easily to be taken by hand ; but whether
the dams ever feed them on the wing, as swallows and house-
martins do, we have never yet been able to determine ; nor
do we know whether they pursue and attack birds of prey.

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

172 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

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

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

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

Sand-martins differ from their congeners in the diminu-
tiveness of their size, and in their colour, which is what

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 173

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

LETTER XXI.

SELBORNE, Sept. 28$, 1774.

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

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

174 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE,

Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidifica-
tion 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 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 observation. The fact that I
would advance is, that swifts tread, or copulate, on the
wing ; and I would wish any nice observer, that is startled
at this supposition, to use his own eyes, and I think he
will soon be convinced. In another class of animals — viz.,
the insect — nothing is so common as to see the different
species of many genera in conjunction as they fly. The
swift is almost continually on the wing ; and as it never
settles on the ground, on trees, or roofs, would seldom find
opportunity for amorous rites, was it not enabled to indulge
them in the air. If any person would watch these birds of
a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round at a groat
height from the ground, he would see, every now and then,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 175

one drop on the back of another, and both of them sink down
together for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek.
This I take to be the juncture when the business of
generation is carrying on.

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

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

When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth jusb
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

176 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

a little lump of insects in their mouths, which they pouch
and hold under their tongue. In general they feed in a
much higher district than the other species ; a proof that
gnats and other insects do also abound to a considerable
height in the air ; they also range to vast distances, since
locomotion is no labour to them who are endowed with such
wonderful powers of wing. Their powers seem to be in
proportion to their levers ; and their wings are longer in
proportion than those of almost any other bird. When they
mute, or case themselves in flight, they raise their wings,
and make them meet over their backs.

At some certain times in the summer I had remarked
that swifts were hawking very low for hours together over
pools and streams ; and could not help inquiring into the
object of their pursuit that induced them to descend so
much below their usual range. After some trouble, I found
that they were taking phryganece, ephemerae, and libellulw
(caddis-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 July I repeated the same
inquiry, and found that they had made very little progress
towards a fledged state, but were still naked and helpless.
From whence we may conclude that birds whose way of life

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 177

keeps them perpetually on the wing would not be able to
quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows and
martins, that have numerous families, are continually
feeding them every two or three minutes ; while swifts,
that have but two young to maintain, are much at their
leisure, and do not attend on their nest 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 of our attention. When
they arrive in the spring, they are all over of a glossy, dark
soot-colour, except their chins, which are white ; but, by
being all day long in the sun and air, they become quite
weather-beaten and bleached before they depart, and yet
they return glossy again in the spring. Now, if they pursue
the sun into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to
enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not return
bleached 1 Do they not rather perhaps retire to rest for a
season, and at that juncture moult and change their
feathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon
after the season, of breeding ?

Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting-
from all their congeners not only in the number of their
young, but in breeding but once in a summer ; whereas all
the other British hirundines breed invariably twice. It is

303

178 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

past all doubt that swifts can breed but once, since they
withdraw in a short time after the flight of their young,
and some time before their congeners bring out their second
broods. We may here remark, that, as swifts breed but
once in a summer, and only two at a time, and the other
hirundines twice, the latter, who lay from four to six eggs,
increase at an average five times as fast as the former.

But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their
early retreat. They retire, as to the main body of them,
by the 10th 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 November. This early
retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time is often
the sweetest season in the year. But what is more extra-
ordinary, they begin to retire still earlier in the most
southerly parts of Andalusia, where they can be in no ways
influenced by any defect of heat ; or, as one might suppose,
failure of food. Are they regulated in their motions with
us by a defect of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or
by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what 1
This is one of those incidents in natural history that not
only baffles our searches, but almost eludes our guesses !

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

Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh screaming

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 179

note ; yet there are ears to which it is not displeasing'
from an agreeable association of ideas, since that note never
occurs but in the most lovely summer weather.

They never can settle on the ground but through
accident ; and when down, can hardly rise, on account of
the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings ;
neither can they walk, but only crawl ; but they have a
strong grasp with their feet, by which they cling to walls.
Their bodies being flat, they can enter a very 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 disposed as to
carry " omnes quatuor digitos anticos " — all its four toes for-
ward ; besides, the least toe, which should be the back toe,
consists of one bone alone, and the other three only of two
a-piece, — a construction most rare and peculiar, but nicely
adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed.
This, and some peculiarities attending the nostrils and
under mandible, have induced a discerning* naturalist to
suppose that this species might constitute a genus per se.

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

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

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

180 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases
over their . wings, as well as on the softer insects ; but
it does not appear how they can procure gravel to grind
their food, as swallows do, since they never settle on the
ground. Young ones, overrun with hippoboscce, are some-
times 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 j yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely
roofs, — a good proof this that the same birds return to the
same spots. As they must stoop very low to get up under
these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch
them on the wing.

On July 5th, 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 o-ropyfj 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 unwieldly
disproportioned abdomina, and their heads, too heavy for
their necks to support, we could not but wonder when we
reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more than a
fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost
with the inconceivable swiftness of a meteor, and perhaps
in their emigration must traverse vast continents and
oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does Nature
advance small birds to their ?/At/aa, or state of perfection ;
while the progressive growth of men and large quadrupeds
is slow and tedious !

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 181

LETTER XXII.

SELBORNE, Sept. I3th, 1774.

BY means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportun-
ity 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 per-
formed to a considerable depth in the chimney was
somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes migh^
undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.*

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

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

* " The same night also I returned from the burial and slept by the
wall of my courtyard, being polluted, and my face was uncovered. —

"And I knew not that there were sparrows (swallows ?) in the wall,
and my eyes being open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine
eyes, and a whiteness came in mine eyes ; and I went to the
physicians, but they helped me not." — TOBIT ii. 10.

182 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

the winter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and
make plenty of dung.

Linnaeus says that hawks " paciscuntur inducia scum
avibusy quamdiu cuculus cuculat ; " but it appears to me,
that during that period many little birds are taken and
destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by their feathers
left in lanes and under hedges.

The missel-thrush is, while 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 magpie, jay,
or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts ; and is,
for the time, a good guard to the new-sown legumens. In
general, he is very successful in the defence of his family ;
but once I observed in my garden, that several magpies
came determined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush : the
dams defended their mansion with great vigour, and
fought resolutely pro aris 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 com-
paratively tame. Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields,
though they are continually frequented ; and the missel-
thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and
winter, builds in ray garden close to a walk where people are
passing all day long.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 183

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

" And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out."

LETTER XXI1L

SELBORNE, June Sth, 1775.

ON September 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 in-
cumbrances 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

184 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

ones which no season but the autumn produces ; cloudless,
calm, serene, and worthy of the south of France itself.

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

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

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

At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for
whose veracity and intelligent turn we have the greatest
veneration) who observed it the moment he got abroad ;
but concluded that, as soon as he came upon the hill above
his house, where he took his morning rides he should be
higher than this meteor, which he imagined might have
been blown, like thistle-down, from the common above ;
but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the most
elevated part of the down, 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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 185

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

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

Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see
those spiders shooting out their webs and mounting aloft :
they will go off from your finger if you will take them into
your hand. Last summer one alighted on my book as I
was reading in the 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

186 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

breath. So that these little crawlers seem to have, while
mounting, some locomotive power without the use of wings,
and to move in the air faster than the air itself.

LETTER XXIV.

SELBORNE, Aug. 15th, 1775.

THERE is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute
creation, independent of sexual attachment : the congre-
gating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable
instance.

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

But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals
of the same species; for we know a doe, still alive, that was
brought up from a little fawn with a dairy of cows ; with
them it goes a-field, and with them it returns to the yard.
The dogs of the house take no notice of this deer, being

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 187

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 lo wings and menacing horns,
drive the assailants quite out of the pasture.

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

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

LETTER XXV.

SELBORNE, Oct 2nd, 1775.

WE have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the
south and west of England, and come round in their circuit
two or three times in the year. One of these tribes calls

188 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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

With regard to those peculiar people, the gypsies, one
thing is very remarkable, and especially as they came from
warmer climates ; and that is, that while other beggars
lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses, these sturdy savages
seem to pride themselves in braving the severities of winter,
and in living sub dio the whole year round. Last Sep-
tember was as wet a month as ever was known ; and yet
during those deluges did a young gipsy girl lie in the midst
of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing
over her but a piece of a blanket extended on a few hazel-
rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at each
•end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same con-
dition ; yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln,
into the chambers of which she might have retired, had she
thought shelter an object worthy her attention.

Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovinga

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 189

of these vagabonds ; for Mr. Bell, in his return from
Pekin, met a gang of those people on the confines of
Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate those deserts
and try their fortune in China.

Gypsies are called in French, Bohemians ; in Italian and
modern Greek, Zingari.

LETTER XXVI.

SELBORNE, Nov. 1st, 1775.

" Hie . . . taedse pingues, hie plurimus ignis
Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri."

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

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

190 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

must be flung into water, and kept there, for otherwise they
will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. At first a
person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its
peel or rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib
from top to bottom that may support the pith ; but this,
like other feats, soon becomes familiar even to children ;
and we have seen an old woman, stone blind, performing
this business with great dispatch, and seldom failing to
strip them with the nicest regularity. When these Junci
are thus far prepared, they must lie out on the grass to be
bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and afterwards
be dried in the sun.

Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the
scalding fat or grease ; but this knack also is to be attained
by practice. The careful wife of an industrious Hampshire
labourer obtains all her fat for nothing, for she saves the
scummings of her bacon-pot for this use ; and if the grease
abounds with salt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the
bottom by setting the scummings in a warm oven. Where
hogs are not much in use, and especially by the sea-side, the
coarser animal-oils will come very cheap. A pound of
common grease may be procured for fourpence, and about
six pounds of grease will dip a pound of rushes, and one
pound of rushes 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 ren-
der it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn longer \
mutton-suet would have the same effect.

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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 191

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

In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to
be weighed and numbered, we found upwards of one
thousand six hundred individuals. Now suppose each of
these burns, one with another, only half-an-hour, then a
poor man will purchase eight hundred hours of light, a
time exceeding thirty-three entire days, for three shillings.
According to this account each rush, before dipping, costs
3*5- of a farthing, and TXT afterwards. Thus a poor family
will enjoy five and a-half hours of comfortable light for a
farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that
one pound and a-half of rushes completely supplies his
family the year round, since working people burn no
candles in the long days, because they rise and go to bed
by daylight.

Little farmers use rushes much in the short days both
morning and evening, in the dairy and kitchen ; but the
very poor, who are always the worst economists, and there-
fore 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 nowhere else — that is, little neat besoms
which our foresters make from the stalks of the Polytricum
commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which they call
silk-wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is

192 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

well combed and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, it
becomes of a beautiful bright-chestnut colour ; and, being-
soft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds,
curtains, carpets, hangings, etc. If these besoms were
known to the brush-makers in town, it is probable they
might come much in use for the purpose above mentioned.

LETTER XXVII.

SELBOENE, Dec. \Wi, 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 amuse-
ment, his sole object. And as people of this caste have
seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all
his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he
dozed away his time, within his father's house, by the
fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from
the chimney-corner ; but in the summer he was all alert,
and in quest of his game in the fields, and on sunny banks.
Honey-bees, bumble-bees, and wasps, were his prey where-
ever he found them ; he had no apprehensions from their
stings, but would seize them nudis manibus, and at once
disarm them of their weapons, and suck their bodies for the
sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his
bosom, between his shirt and his skin, with a number of
these captives, and sometimes would confine them in bottles.
He was a very merops apiaster, or bee-bird, and very
injurious to men that kept bees ; for he would slide into
their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 193

would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the
bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn
hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately
fond. Where metheglin was making he would linger
round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he
called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a
humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of
bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous
complexion, and, except in his favourite pursuit, in which
he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of under-
standing. Had his capacity been better, and directed to
the same object, he had perhaps abated much of our
wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees ;
and we may justly say of him now —

"... .Thou,

Had thy presiding star propitious shone,
Shouldst Wildman be ... ."

When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a
distant village, where he died, as I understand, before
he arrived at manhood.

LETTER XXVIII.

SELBORNE, Jan. 8ih> 1776.

IT is the hardest thing in the world to shake off super-
stitious prejudices: they are sucked in, as it were, with
our mother's milk ; and, growing up with us at a time when
they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting
impressions, become so interwoven into our very constitu-
tions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage

3°4

194 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

ourselves from them. No wonder, therefore, that the lower
people retain them their whole lives through, since their
minds are not invigorated by a liberal 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 persuasion that, by
such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their
infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in
the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully
swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together,
as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any
adroitness at all, the party was cured ; but, where the cleft
continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would
prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden
not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of
which did not grow together.

We have several persons now living in the village, who,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 195

in their childhood, were supposed to be healed by this
superstitious ceremony, derived down perhaps from our
Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to
Christianity.

At the fourth corner of the Plestor, or area, near the
church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old,
grotesque, hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been
looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now
a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently
applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the
pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-
mouse over the part affected ; for it is supposed that a
shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that
wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep,
the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and
threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against
this accident, to which they were continually liable, our
provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand,
which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for
ever. A shrew-ash was made thus :— Into the body of the
tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor
devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in,
no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since
forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a con-
secration are no longer understood, all succession is at an
end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor
or hundred.

As to that on the Plestor,

" The late Vicar stubb'd and burnt it,"

when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of

the bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation,

urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been

"Religione patrum multos servata per annos."

196 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXIX.

SELBORNE, Feb. 7th, 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
cart-way stood in puddles and the ruts ran with water,
though the ground in general was dusty.

In some of our smaller islands in the West Indies, if I
mistake not, there are no springs or rivers ; but the people
are supplied with that necessary element, water, merely by
the dripping of some large teak 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 condensa-
tions 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, evergreens imbibe very little. These
facts may furnish the intelligent with hints concerning
what sorts of trees they should plant round small ponds

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 197

that they would wish to be perennial ; and show them how
advantageous some trees are in preference to others.

Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check
evaporation so much, that woods are always moist ; no
wonder, therefore, that they contribute much to pools and
streams.

That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers appears
from a well-known fact in North America ; for, since the
woods and forests have been grubbed and cleared, all bodies
of water are much diminished ; so that some streams, that
were very considerable a century ago, will not now drive a
common mill. Besides, most woodlands, forests, and chases
with us abound with pools and morasses, no doubt for the
reason given above.

To a thinking mind few phenomena are more strange
than the state of little ponds on the summits of chalk-hills,
many of which are never dry in the most trying droughts
of summer. On chalk-hills I say, because in many rocky
and gravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on
the sides of elevated grounds and mountains ; but no
person acquainted with chalky districts will allow that
they ever saw springs in such a soil but in 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

198 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

beside. This pond, it is true, is overhung with two
moderate beeches, that, doubtless, at times afford it much
supply: but then we have others as small, that, without the
aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind,
and perpetual consumption by cattle, yet constantly main-
tain a moderate share of water, without overflowing in the
wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied by springs.
By my journal of May 1775 it appears that " the small
and even considerable ponds in the vales are now dried up,
while the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but
little affected." Can this difference be accounted for from
evaporation alone, which certainly is more prevalent in
bottoms 1 or rather, have not those elevated pools some un-
noticed 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 experiment, that "the moister the
earth is the more dew falls on it in a night ; and more than
a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of water than
there does on an equal surface of moist earth." Hence we
see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to
itself a large quantity of moisture nightly by condensation ;
and that the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and
even with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable
and never-failing resource. Persons that are much abroad,
and travel early and late, such as shepherds, fishermen, etc.,
can tell what prodigious fogs prevail in the night on
elevated downs, even in the hottest parts of summer ; and
how much the surfaces of things are drenched by those
swimming vapours, though, to the senses, all the while,
little moisture seems to fall.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 199

LETTER XXX.

SELBORNE, April 3rd, 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. According to this gentleman, the
crop, or craw, of a cuckoo does not lie before the sternum
at the bottom of the neck, as in the gallince, columbce, etc.,
but immediately behind it, on and over the bowels, so as to
make a large protuberance in the belly.

Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo; and,
cutting open the breast-bone, and exposing the intestines to
sight, found the crop lying as mentioned above. This
stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard, like a pin-
cushion, with food, which, upon nice examination, we found
to consist of various insects ; such as small scarabs, spiders,
and dragon-flies ; the last of which we have seen cuckoos
catching on the wing as they were just emerging out of the
aurelia state. Among this farrago also were to be seen
maggots, and many seeds, which belonged either to 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 remarkably
short, between which and the anus lay the crop, or craw,
and immediately behind that the bowels against the back-
bone.

It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the
crop placed just upon the bowels must, especially when full,

200 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

be in a very uneasy situation during the business of incuba-
tion; 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 somewhat hastily.

Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from its
habit and shape, we suspected might resemble the cuckoo in
its internal construction. Nor were our suspicions ill-
grounded ; for, upon the dissection, the crop, or craw, also
lay behind the sternum, immediately on the viscera, between
them and the skin of the belly. It was bulky, and stuffed
hard with large phalcence, moths of several sorts, and their
eggs, which no doubt had been forced out of those insects
by the action of swallowing.

Now as it appears that this bird, which is so well known
to practise incubation, is formed in a similar manner with
cuckoos, Monsieur Herissant's conjecture, that cuckoos are
incapable of incubation from the disposition of their
intestines, seems to fall to the ground ; and we are still at
a loss for the cause of that strange and singular peculiarity
in the instance of the Cticulus canorus.

We found the case to be the same with the ring-tail
hawk, in respect to formation ; and, as far as I can recollect,
with the swift ; and probably it is so with many more sorts
of birds that are not granivorous.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SBLBORffS. 201

LETTER XXXI.

SELBORNE, April 29th, 1776.

ON August 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper, which
seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the grass bask-
ing 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 a notion
of the situation of their natural weapons, and of using them
properly in their own defence, even before those weapons
subsist or are formed. Thus a young cock will spar at his
adversary before his spurs are grown ; and a calf or a lamb
will push with their heads before their horns are sprouted.
In- the same manner did these young adders attempt to bite
before their fangs were in being. The dam however was
furnished with very formidable ones, which we lifted up
(for they fold down when not used) and cut them off with
the point of our scissors.

There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever
been in the open air before ; and that they were taken in

202 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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.

CASTRATION has a strange effect : it emasculates both man,
beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of
the other sex. Thus eunuchs have smooth, unmuscular
arms, thighs, and legs ; and broad hips, and beardless chins,
and squeaking voices. Gelt stags and bucks have hornless
heads, like hinds and does. Thus wethers have small horns,
like ewes ; and oxen large bent horns, and hoarse voices
when they low, like cows : for bulls have short, straight
horns; and though they mutter and grumble in a deep
tremendous tone, yet they low in a shrill high key. Capons
have small combs and gills, and look pallid about the head,
like pullets ; they also walk without any parade, and hover
chickens like hens. Barrow-hogs have also small tusks like
sows.

Thus far it is plain that the deprivation of masculine
vigour puts a stop to the growth of those parts or append-
ages that are looked upon as its insignia. But the
ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on husbandry, carries it
much farther ; for he says that the loss of those insignia
alone has sometimes a strange effect on the ability itself :
he had a boar so fierce and venereous, that, to prevent
mischief, orders were given for his tusks to be broken off.
No sooner had the beast suffered this injury than his

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 203

powers forsook him, and he neglected those females to
whom before he was passionately attached, and from whom
no fences would restrain him.

LETTER XXXIII.

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 occasion to converse
with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates, and
march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept ;
and when her purpose was served would return by the same
means. At the age of about fifteen her litters began to be
reduced to four or five; and such a litter she exhibited
when in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon,
juicy, and tender ; the rind, or sw*rd, was remarkably thin,
At a moderate computation she was allowed to have been

204 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs — a prodigious
instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped ! She was
killed in spring 1775,

LETTER XXXIV.

•

SELBORNE, May §tht 1770.
M . , . adm6runt ubora tigres."

WE have remarked in a former letter* how much
incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to
each other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not be
amiss to recount a different motive which has been known
to create as strange a fondness.

My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him,
which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the
same time his cat kittened and the young were dispatched
and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be
gone the way of most foundlings, to be killed by some dog or
cat However, in about a fortnight, as the master was
sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he
observed his cat, -with tail erect, trotting towards him, and
calling with little short inward notes of complacency, sue!)
as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling
after, which proved to be the leveret that the cat had
supported with her milk, and continued to support with
great affection.

Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a
carnivorous and predaceous one !

* Letter XXIV.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 205

Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the
ferocious genus of Fells, 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 in her breast ; and by the
complacency and ease she derived to herself from the pro-
curing 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.

This incident is no bad solution of that strange circum-
stance which grave historians as well as the poets assert, of
exposed children being sometimes nurtured by female wild
beasts that probably had lost their young. For it is not
one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in
their infant state, should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that
a poor little sucking leveret should be fostered and cherished
by a bloody grimalkin.

"... viridi fcetarn Mavortis in antro
Procubuisse lupam : geminos huic ubera circurn
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos ; illain tereti eervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua"."*

The cave of Mars was dressed with mossy greens :
There by the wolf were laid the martial twins,
Intrepid on her swelling dugs they hung ;
The foster dam loll'd out her fawning tongue:
They su'ck'd secure, while bending back her head,
She lick'd their tender limbs ; and formed them as they fed."
— DRYD. VIBG. Mn. viii line 840.

206 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XXXV.

SELBORNE, May 20th, 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 the great promoters of vegetation, which
would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perfora-
ting, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to
rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks
of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing
up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-
casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for
grain and grass. Worms probably provide new soil for
hills and slopes where the rain washes the earth away ;
and they affect slopes, probably to avoid being flooded.
Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of worms ;
the former because they render their walks unsightly, and
make them much wcrk ; 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 207

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 tipulcB (long-legs) in their larva, or grub-state; and by
unnoticed myriads of small shell-less snails, called slugs,
which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havoc in
the field and garden.*

These hints we think proper to throw out in order to set
the inquisitive and discerning to work.

A good monography of worms would afford much enter-
tainment and information at the same time, and would open
a large and new field in natural history. Worms work
most in the spring ; but by no means lie torpid in the dead
months : are out every mild night in the winter, as any
person may be convinced that will take the pains to examine
his grass-plots with a candle ; are hermaphrodites, and much
addicted to venery, and consequently very prolific.

LETTER XXXVI.

SELBOENE, Nov. 22nd, 1777.

You cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th of last
March were very hot days — so sultry that everybody com-
plained and were restless under those sensations to which
they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches.

* Farmer Young, of Norton Farm, says, that this spring (1777)
about four acres of his wheat in one field were entirely destroyed by
slugs, which swarmed an the blades of corn, and devoured it as fast as
it sprang.

208 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many
summer coincidences ; for on those two days the thermometer
rose to 66° in the shade ; many species of insects revived
and came forth ; some bees swarmed in this neighbour-
hood ; the old tortoise, near Lewes, in Sussex, awakened
and came forth out of its dormitory ; and, what is most to
my present purpose, many house-swallows appeared, and
were very alert in many places, and particularly at
Chobham, in Surrey.

Eut as that short, warm period was succeeded as well as
preceded by harsh, severe weather, with frequent frosts and
ice, and cutting winds, the insects withdrew, the tortoise
retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen
no more until the 10th April, when, the rigour of the
spring abating, a softer season began to prevail.

Again, it appears by my journals for many years past
that house-martins retire, to a bird, about the beginning of
October; so that a person not very observant of such
matters would conclude that they had taken their last
farewell ; but then it may be seen in my diaries also that
considerable flocks have discovered themselves again in the
first week of November, and often on the 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 November more than
twenty house-martins, which, in appearance, had all
departed about the 7th 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 bluster-
ing, but the 4th was dark, and mild, and soft, the wind at

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELKORNE. 209

south-west, and the thermometer at 58J° — a pitch not
common at that season of the year. Moreover, it may not
be amiss to add in this place, that whenever the ther-
mometer is above 50°, the bat comes flitting out in every
autumnal and winter-month.

From all these circumstances laid together, it is obvious
that torpid insects, reptiles, and quadrupeds are awakened
from their profoundest slumbers by a little untimely
warmth ; and therefore that nothing so much promotes its
death-like stupor as a defect of heat. And farther, it is
reasonable to suppose that two whole species, or at least
many individuals of those two species of British hirundines,
do never leave this island at all, but partake of the same
benumbed state ; for we cannot suppose that, after a
month's absence, house-martins can return from southern
regions to appear for one morning in November, or that
house-swallows should leave the districts of Asia to enjoy in
March the transient summer of a couple of days.

LETTER XXXVII.

SELBORNE, Jan. 8th, 1778.

THERE was in this village several years ago a miserable
pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a leprosy,
as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it affected
only the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. This
scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the
spring and fall ; and, by peeling away, left the skin so thin
and tender that neither his hands nor feet were able to

305

210 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELWRNE.

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 ho
dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself and
his parish, which was obliged to support him till he was
relieved by death at more than thirty years of age.

The good women, who love to account for every defect in
children by the doctrine of longing, said that his mother
felt a great propensity for oysters, which she was unable to
gratify • and that the black, rough scurf on his hands and
feet were the shells of that fish. We knew his parents,
neither of which were lepers ; his father in particular lived
to be far advanced in years.

In all ages the leprosy has made dreadful havoc among
mankind. The Israelites seem to have been . greatly
afflicted with it from the most remote times, as appears from
the peculiar and repeated injunctions given them in the
Levitical law.* Nor was the rancour of this foul disorder
much abated in the last period of their commonwealth, as
may be seen in many passages of the New Testament.

Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all
Europe over: and our forefathers were by no means
exempt, as appears by the large provision made for objects
labouring under this calamity. There was an hospital
for female lepers in the diocese of Lincoln ; a noble one
near Durham ; three in London and Southwark ; 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.

* See Lev. xiii., xiv.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE, 211

It must, therefore, in these days be to a humane and
thinking person a matter of equal wonder and satisfaction,
when he contemplates how nearly this pest is eradicated,
and observes that a leper now is a rare sight. He will,
moreover, when engaged in such a train of thought,
naturally inquire for the reason. This happy change,
perhaps, may have originated and been continued from the
much smaller quantity of salted meat and fish now eaten in
these kingdoms ; from the use of linen next the skin ; from
the plenty of better bread; and from the profusion of
fruits, roots, legumes, and greens, so common in every
family. Three or four centuries ago, before there were any
enclosures, sown-grasses, field-turnips, or field-carrots, or
hay, all the cattle which had grown fat in summer, and
were not killed for winter use, were turned out soon after
Michaelmas to shift as they could through the dead months ;
so that no fresh meat could be had in winter or spring.
Hence the marvellous account of the vast stores of salted
flesh found in the larder of the eldest Spencer* in the days
of Edward II., even so late in the spring as the 3rd of May.
It was from magazines like these that the turbulent barons
supported in idleness their riotous swarms of retainers,
ready for any disorder or mischief. But agriculture is now
arrived at such a pitch of perfection that our best and
fattest meats are killed in the winter ; and no man need
eat salted flesh unless he prefers it, that has money to buy
fresh.

One cause of this distemper might be, no doubt, the
quantity of wretched fresh and salt fish consumed by the
commonalty at all seasons as well as in Lent ; which our
poor now would hardly be persuaded to touch.

* Viz., six hundred bacons, eighty carcasses of beef, and six
hundred muttons.

212 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 eruptions.

The plenty of good wheaten bread that now is found
among all ranks of people in the south, instead of that
miserable sort which used in old days to be made of barley
or beans, may contribute not a little to the sweetening
their blood and correcting their juices, for the inhabitants
of mountainous districts to this day are still liable to the
itch and other cutaneous disorders, from a wretchedness
and poverty of diet.

As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged person
of observation may perceive, within his own memory, both
in town and country, how vastly the consumption of vege-
tables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now support multi-
tudes 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 pro-
vide 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 district by means of premiums within these twenty
years only, and are much esteemed here now by the poor,
who would scarce have ventured to taste them in the last
reign.

Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage,
because they call the month of February " sprout-cale ; "
but long after their days the cultivation of gardens was
little attended to. The religious, being men of leisure, and

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 213

keeping up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the
first people among us that had gardens and fruit-trees in
any perfection within the wall of their abbeys* and priories.
The barons neglected every pursuit that did not lead to war
or tend to the pleasure of the chase.

It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticul-
ture 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 further adds — " Curled endive blanched is
much used beyond seas ; and for a raw sallet, seemed to
excell lettuce itself." Now this journey was undertaken no
longer ago than in the year 1663.

* " In monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, how-
ever dimly. In them men of business were formed for the state : the
art of writing was cultivated by the monks ; they were the only pro-
ficients in mechanics, gardening, and architecture." — DALRYMPLE'S
Annals of Scotland.

2H NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNK

LETTER XXXVIII.

SELBOKNE, Feb. 12^, 1778.

*' Fortfc puer, coraitum seductus ab agmine fido,
Dixerat, Ecquis adest ? et, Adest, responderat Echo.
Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in cranes ;
Voce, Veni, clamat magna. Yocat ilia vocantem."*

IN a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales
and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should
abound. Many we have discovered that return the cry of
a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting-horn, a tunable ring
of bells, or the melody of birds very agreeably ; but we
were still at a loss for a polysyllabical articulate echo, till a
young gentleman, who had parted from his company in a
summer evening walk, and was calling after them, stumbled
upon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be
expected. At first he was much surprised, and could not
be persuaded but that he was mocked by some boy ; but
repeating his trials in several languages, and finding his
respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned
the deception.

This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease, would
repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly,
especially if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables
of

u Tityre, tu patulse reeubans . . . "

were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first ; and
there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at

* " Chance parts the youth from his companions dear,
He cries, * Who's here I ' and Echo answers * Here ! '
He stares around, and for a while stands dumb,
Then shouts out, ' Come,1 and Echo answers, ' Come.' "

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 215

midnight, when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness
prevails, one or two syllables more might have been
obtained ; but the distance rendered so late an experiment
very inconvenient.

Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when we
came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed spondees
of the same number of syllables,

" Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens . , ,"

we could perceive a return but of four or five.

All echoes have some one place to which they are
returned stronger and more distinct than to any other;
and that is always the place that lies at right angles with
the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor too far
off. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much more articu-
lately than hanging woods or vales ; because in the latter
the voice is as it were entangled, and embarrassed in the
covert, and weakened in the rebound.

The true object of this echo, as we found by various
experiments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gally-lane,
which measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to
the eaves twelve feet. The true centrum phonicum, or just
distance, is one particular spot in the king's field, in the
path to Nore-hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above
the hollow cart-way. In this case there is no choice of
distance ; but the path, by mere contingency, happens to
be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises
or falls so immediately, if the speaker either retires or
advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below
the object.

We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exact-
ness, and found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's
rule for distinct articulation ; for the Doctor, in his history

216 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

of Oxfordshire, allows a hundred and twenty feet for the
return of each syllable distinctly ; hence this echo, which
gives ten distinct syllables, ought to measure four hundred
yards, or one hundred and twenty feet to each syllable ;
whereas our distance is only two hundred and fifty-eight
yards, or near seventy-five feet, to each syllable. Thus
our measure falls short of the Doctor's as five to eight ;
but then it must be acknowledged that this candid
philosopher was convinced afterwards, that some latitude
must be admitted of in the distance of echoes according to
time and place.

When experiments of this sort are making, it should
always be remembered that weather and the time of day
have a vast influence on an echo ; for a dull, heavy, moist
air deadens and clogs the sound ; and hot sunshine renders
the air thin and weak, and deprives it of all its springiness,
and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole. In a still,
clear, dewy evening the air is most elastic ; and perhaps
the later the hour the more so.

Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination,
that the poets have personified her ; and in their hands she
has been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor
need the gravest man be ashamed to appear taken with
such a 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 inoffensive j
yet Virgil advances a strange notion, that they are
injurious to bees. After enumerating some probable and
reasonable annoyances, such as prudent owners would wish
far removed from their bee-garden, he adds —

- ' ' aut ubi concava pulsu

Saxa sonant, vocisque otfensa resultat imago."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 217

This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted
by the philosophers of these days, especially as they all now
seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs
of hearing at all. But if it should be urged, that though
they cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the reper-
cussions of sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet
that these impressions are distasteful or hurtful, I deny,
because bees in good summers thrive well in my outlet,
where the echoes are very strong ; for this village is another
Anathoth, a place of responses and echoes. Besides, it
does not appear from experiment that bees are in any way
capable of being affected by sounds • for I have often tried
my own with a large speaking-trumpet held close to their
hives, and with such an exertion of voice as would have
hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and still these
insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and
without showing the least sensibility or resentment.

Some time since its discovery this echo is 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 quick-set hedge,
nurtured up for the purpose of shelter to the hop-ground,
entirely interrupts the impulse and repercussion of the
voice ; so that till those obstructions are removed no more
of its garrulity can be expected.

Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his
park or outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at
little or no expense. For whenever he had occasion for a
new barn, stable, dog-kennel, or like structure, it would be
only needful to erect this building on the gentle declivity

218 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

of a hill, with a like rising opposite to it, at a few hundred
yards distance ; and perhaps success might be the easier
insured could some canal, lake, or stream intervene. From
a seat at the centrum phonicum he and his friends might
amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle
of this loquacious nymph ; of whose complacency and
decent reserve more may be said than can with truth of
every individual of her sex ; since she is ...

" quae nee retieere loquenti,

Nee prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo."

P.S. — The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the follow-
ing lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and
so poetically accounting for their causes from popular
superstition : —

" Quse bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis
Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola
Saxa paries formas verborum ex ordine reddant,
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos
Quserimus, et magna disperses yoce ciemus.
Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces
Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis
Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre.
Hsec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere
Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ;
Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti
Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi,
Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas,
Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum :
Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans,
Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis,
Fistula silverstrem ne cesset fundere musam."*

—LUCRETIUS, Lib. iy. 1. 570.

* " Whence may'st thou solve, ingenuous J to the world
The rise of echoes, formed in desert scenes,
Mid rocks, and mountains, mocking every sound,
When late we wander through their solemn glooms,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE. 219

LETTER XXXIX.

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 invariably ;
at least the result of my inquiry has been exactly the same
for a long time past. The swallows and martins are so
numerous, and so widely distributed over the village, that it
is hardy possible to recount them ; while the swifts, though
they do not build in the church, yet so frequently haunt it,
and play and rendezvous round it, that they are easily
enumerated. The number that I constantly find are eight
pairs; about half of which reside in the church, and the
rest build in some of the lowest and meanest thatched
cottages. Now as these eight pairs, allowance being made
for accidents, breed yearly eight pairs more, what becomes
annually of this increase ; and what determines every

And, with loud voice, some lost companion call.
And oft re-echoes echo till the peal
Kings seven times round ; so rock to rock repels
The mimic shout, reiterated close.

Here haunt the goat-foot satyrs, and the nymphs,
As rustics tell, and fauns whose frolic dance,
And midnight revels oft, they say, are heard
Breaking the noiseless silence ; while soft strains
Melodious issue, and the vocal band
Strike to their madrigals the plaintive lyre,
Such, feign they, sees the shepherd obvious oft,
Led on hy Pan, with pine-leaved garland crown'd
And seven-mouth'd reed his labouring lip beneath,
Waking the woodland muse with ceaseless song."

— J. MASON GOOD.

220 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

spring which pairs shall visit us, and reoccupy their ancient
haunts ?

Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology,
I have always supposed that that sudden reverse of affec-
tion, that strange avTurropyr], 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 desti-
tute 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
prevent their crowding the one on the other. Whether the
swallows and house-martins return in the same exact
number annually is not easy to say, for reasons given
above ; but it is apparent, as I have remarked before in
my Monographies, that the numbers returning bear no
manner of proportion to the numbers retiring.

LETTER XL.

SELBORNE, June 2nd, 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 know-
ledge ; and, where the science is carried no further 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 221

laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues
of efficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation ; and
graft the gardener, the planter, and the husbandman on
the phytologist. Not that system is by any means to be
thrown aside : without system the field of Nature would be
a pathless wilderness ; but system should be subservient to,
not the main object of, pursuit.

Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention ; and in
itself is of the utmost consequence to mankind, and pro-
ductive of many of the greatest comforts and elegances of
life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine,
oil, linen, cotton, etc., what not only strengthens our hearts,
and exhilarates our spirits, but what secures us from in-
clemencies of weather and adorns our persons. Man, in
his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by spontan-
eous vegetation ; in middle climes, where grasses prevail, he
mixes some animal food with the produce of the field and
garden ; and it is towards the polar extremes only that,
like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with
flesh alone, and is driven to what hunger has never been
known to compel the very beasts, to prey on his own
species.

The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence
on the commerce of nations, and have been the great
promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of
sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginsing, betel, paper, etc. As
every climate has its peculiar produce, our natural wants
bring on a mutual intercourse ; so that by means of trade
each distant part is supplied with the growth of every
latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants and their
culture, we must have been content with our hips and
haws, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India and the
salutiferous drugs of Peru,

222 NATURAL HISTORY OF 8ELBORNE.

Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every
various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should
endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that are
useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb
of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at least
one sort of wheat or barley from another.

But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most
neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to
distinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from
the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry
and juiceless.

The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a
northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could
improve the sward of the district where he lived would be
an useful member of society : to raise a thick turf on a
naked soil would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge ;
and he would be the best commonwealth's man that could
occasion the growth of " two blades of grass where one
alone was seen before."

LETTER XLI.

SELBORNE, July 3rd, 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 champaign fields
cannot but furnish an ample Flora. The deep rocky lanes
abound with filices^ and the pastures and moist woods with

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 223

fungi. If in any branch of botany we may seem to be
wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants, which are
not to be expected on a spot far removed from rivers, and
lying up amidst the hill country at the spring heads. To
enumerate all the plants that have been discovered within
our limits would be a needless work ; but a short list of the
more rare, and the spots where they are to be found, may
be neither unacceptable nor unentertaining : —

Helleborus fcetidus, stinking hellebore, bear's foot, or
setterworth, — all over the High-wood and Coney-croft-
hanger : this continues a great branching plant the winter
through, blossoming about January, and is very ornamental
in shady walks and shrubberies. The good women give the
leaves powdered to children troubled with worms ; but it is
a violent remedy, and ought to be 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 the ground.

Vaccinium oxycoccos, creeping bilberries, or cranberries,
in the bogs of Bin's-pond.

Vaccinium myrtillus, 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 cinquefoil,
— in the bogs of Bin's-pond.

Hypericum androscemum, Tutsan, or St. John's wort, — •
in the stony, hollow lanes.

224 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Vinca minor, less periwinkle, — in Selborne-hanger and
Shrub-wood.

Monotropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or birds' nest, —
in Selborne-hanger under the shady beeches, to whose roots
it seems to be parasitical, at the north-west end of the
Hanger.

Chlora perfoliata, Blackstonia perfoliata, Hudsonii, per-
foliated yellow-wort, — on the banks in the King's-field.

Paris quadrifolia, herb of Paris, true-love, or one-berry,
—in the Ohurch-litten-coppica

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxifrage,
— in the dark and rocky hollow lanes.

Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian, or fell wort, — on
the Zigzag and Hanger.

Lathrcea squammaria, tooth-wort, — in the Church-litten-
coppice under some hazels near the foot-bridge, in Trim-
ming's garden hedge, and on the dry wall opposite Grange-
yard.

Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel, — in the Short and Long
Lithe.

Lathy rus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathy rus, — in
the bushes at the foot of the Short Lithe, near the path.

Ophrys spiralis, ladies' traces, — in the Long Lithe, and
towards the south corner of the common.

Ophrys nidus avis, birds' nest ophrys, — in the Long Lithe
under the shady beeches among the dead leaves ; in Great
Dorton among the bushes, and on the Hanger plentifully.

Serapias latifolia, helleborine, — in the High-wood under
the shady beeches.

Daphne laureola, spurge laurel, — in Selborne-hanger and
the High-wood.

Daphne Mezcreum, the mezereon, — in Selborne-hanger
among the shrubs, at the south-east end above the cottages.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 225

Ly coper don tuber, truffles, — in the Hanger and High-
wood.

Sambucus ebulns, dwarf elder, walwort, or danewort —
among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the Priory.

Of all the propensities of plants, none seem more strange
than their different periods of blossoming. Some produce
their flowers in the winter, or very first dawnings of spring ;
many when the spring is established ; some at midsummer,
and some not till autumn. When we see the Helleborus
fatidus and Helleborus niger blowing at Christmas, the
Helleborus hyemalis in January, and the Helleborus viridis
as soon as ever it emerges out of the ground, we do not
wonder, because they are kindred plants that we expect
should keep pace the one with the other ; but other con-
generous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flower-
ing, that we cannot but admire. I shall only instance at
present in the Crocus saiivus, the vernal and the autumnal
crocus, which have such an affinity, that the best botanists
only make them varieties of the same genus, of which there
is only one species, not being able to discern any difference
in the corolla, or in the internal structure. Yet the vernal
crocus expands its flowers by the beginning of March at
farthest, and often in very rigorous weather ; and cannot
be retarded but by some violence offered ; while the
autumnal (the saffron) defies the influence of the spring and
summer, and will not blow till most plants begin to fade
and run to seed. This circumstance is one of the wonders
of the creation, little noticed because a common occurrence ;
yet ought not to be overlooked on account of its being
familiar, since it would be as difficult to be explained as the
most stupendous phenomenon in nature.

" Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow
Congeal'd, the crocus, flamy bud to glow ?

306

226 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Say, what retards, amidst the summer's blaze,
Th' autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days ?
The GOD of SEASONS ; whose pervading power
Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower :
He bids each flower His quickening word obey,
Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay."

LETTER XLII.

" Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique
genere incessus est : aves solse vario meatu feruntur, et in teml,
et in acre."

SELBORNE, Aug. 7th, 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. But a bird
in motion

" Et ver& incessu patuit "

Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings
expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding manner
that the former are still called in the north of England
gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan, to glide. The kestrel,
or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode of 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 227

the ground regularly like a pointer or setting-dog. Owls
move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air ; they
seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to
ravens that must draw the attention even of the most
incurious — they spend all their leisure time in striking and
cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish ;
and, when they move from one place to another, frequently
turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be
falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them,
they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose
the centre of gravity. Hooks 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
falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which
incline downward, as a support while they run up trees.
Parrots, like all other hooked-clawed birds, walk awkwardly,
and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and
descending with ridiculous caution. All the gallince parade
and walk gracefully, and run nimbly ; but fly with difficulty,
with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line. Magpies
and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no
dispatch; herons seem encumbered with too much sail for
their light bodies, but these vast hollow wings are necessary
in carrying burdens, such as large fishes and the like ;
pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a
way of clashing their wings 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 love ; thus ringdoves,
though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring
hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner ;
thus the cock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former

228 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

flight, fans the air like the wind-hover \ and the green-finch,
in particular, exhibits such languishing and faltering ges-
tures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird ; the
king-fisher darts along like an arrow ; fern-owls, or goat-
suckers, glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a
meteor ; starlings as it were swim along, while missel-
thrushes use a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep
over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish
themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions; swifts
dash round in circles ; and the bank-martin moves with
frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small
birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance. Most
small birds hop ; but wagtails and larks walk, moving their
legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as
they sing ; woodlarks hang poised in the air ; and titlarks
rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent. The
white-throat uses odd jerks and gesticulations over the tops
of hedges and bushes. All the duck-kind waddle ; divers
and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on their tails :
these are the compedes of Linnaeus. Geese and cranes, and
most wild fowls, move in figured flights, often changing
their position. The secondary remiges of Tringae, wild-
ducks, and some others, are very long, and give their wings,
when in motion, a hooked appearance. Dabchicks, moor-
hens, and coots fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and
hardly make any dispatch ; the reason is plain, their wings
are placed too forward out of the true centre of gravity ; as
the legs of auks and divers are situated too backward.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 229

LETTER XLIII.

SELBORNE, Sept. 9th, 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 understand their language like
the vizier; who, by the recital of a conversation which
passed between two owls, reclaimed a sultan,* before
delighting in conquest and devastation ; but I would be
thought only to mean that many of the winged tribes have
various sounds and voices adapted to express their various
passions, wants, and feelings — such as anger, fear, love,
hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally
eloquent ; some are copious and fluent, as it were, in their
utterance, while others are confined to a few important
sounds. No bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though
some are rather silent. The language of birds is very
ancient, and, like other ancient modes of speech, very
elliptical ; little is said, but much is meant and understood.
The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing, and
about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have
been often assured by a curious observer of Nature, who
long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes
of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds.
Owls have very expressive notes ; they hoot in a fine vocal
sound, much resembling the vox humana, and reducible by
a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This note seems to express
complacency and rivalry among the males ; they use also a
quick call and a horrible scream, and can snore and hiss
when they mean to menace. Ravens, besides their loud

* See Spectator, Vol. vii., No. 512.

230 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the
woods to echo ; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and
ridiculous ; rooks, in the breeding season, attempt 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 clattering of
castanets. All the tuneful passeres express their compla-
cency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. The
swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrill
alarm bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and
bids them be aware the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and
gregarious birds, especially the nocturnal, that shift their
quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loquacious ; as
cranes, wild-geese, wild-ducks, and the like ; their perpetual
clamour prevents them from dispersing and losing their
companions.

In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as
much as can be expected ; for it would be endless to
instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation.
We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to
the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known,
and therefore best understood. And first the peacock, with
his gorgeous train, demands our attention ; but, like most
of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to
the ear : the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are
not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-
like and clanking, and once saved the Capitol at Rome, as
grave historians assert ; the hiss, also, of the gander is
formidable and full of menace, and " protective of his

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORN8. 231

young." Among ducks the sexual distinction of voice is
remarkable ; for, while the quack of the female is loud and
sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward and harsh, and
feeble, and scarce discernible. The cock turkey struts and
gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner ; he hath
*Uso a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adver-
sary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood she
keeps a watchful eye ; and if a bird of prey appear, though
ever so high in the air, the careful mother announces the
enemy with a little inward moan, and watches him with a
steady and attentive look; but, if he approach, her note
becomes earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled.
No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety
of expression and so copious a language as common poultry.
Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a
window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize
its prey, with little twitterings of complacency ; but if you
tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh,
and expressive of disapprobation and a sense of danger.
When a pullet is ready to lay she intimates the event by a
joyous and easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of their
life that of laying seems to be the most important ; for no
sooner has a hen disburdened herself, than she rushes forth
with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the rest
of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not
confined to the family 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 clocking and screaming about, and
seems agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock has
also a considerable vocabulary ; if he finds food, he calls a
favourite concubine to partake ; and if a bird of prey passes

232 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 dis-
tinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock or larum,
as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night.
Thus the poet elegantly styles him —

-the crested cock, whose clarion sounds

The silent hours."

A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most ot
his chickens by a sparrow-hawk, that came gliding down
between a faggot pile and the end of his house to the place
where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see
his flock thus diminished, hung a setting-net adroitly
between the pile and the house, into which the caitiff dashed,
and was entangled. Resentment 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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 233
LETTER XLIY.

<••" Monstreut

» . , . .

Quid tantura Oceano properent se tiugere solus
Hyberni; vel quse tardis mora noctibus obstet."

SELBORNE.

GENTLEMEN who have outlets might contrive to make
ornament subservient to utility : a pleasing eye-trap might
also contribute to promote science : an obelisk in a garden
or park might be both an embellishment and an heliotrope.

Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of
a good horizon, might, with little trouble, make two
heliotropes ; the one for the winter, the other for the
summer solstice : and the two erections might be constructed
with very little expense ; for two pieces of timber frame-
work, about ten or twelve feet high, and four feet broad at
the base, and close lined with plank, would answer the
purpose.

The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed
within sight of some window in the common sitting-
parlour ; because men, at the 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

234 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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, sensibly more remote than the former or following.
When beginning its recess from the summer tropic, it
would continue more and more to be hidden every night,
till at length it would descend quite behind the object
again ; and so nightly more and more to the westward.

CHAPTER XLV.

-Mugire videbis

Sub bedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos."

SELBORNE.

WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and
implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking
hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his Cyder,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 235

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 Marcely Hill ; the apple no where finds
A kinder mould ; yet 'tis unsafe to trust
Deceitful ground ; who knows but that once more
This mount may journey, and his present site
Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer
Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange
For law debates ? "

But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect
that though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet
that the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen
away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt.
This seems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham
Hills; and especially with the ridge between Harteley
Park and Ward-le-ham, where the ground has slid into
vast swellings and furrows ; and lies still in such romantic
confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause.
A strange event, that happened not long since, justifies our
suspicions ; which, though it befell not within the limits of
this parish, yet as it was within the hundred of Selborne,
and as the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a
place in a work of this nature.

The months of January and February, in the year 1774,
were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of
rain ; so that by the end of the latter month the land-
springs, or lavants, began to prevail, and to be near as high
as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of
March also went on in the same tenor ; when, in the night
between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable part
of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its

236 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

place, and fell down, leaving a high free-stone cliff naked
and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It
appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sapped and
undermined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going
down in a perpendicular direction ; for a gate which stood
in the field, on the top of the hill, after sinking with its
posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and
upright a position as to open and shut with great exactness,
just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still
standing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the
same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious
mass was absorbed in some gulf below, is plain also from
the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free
and unincumbered ; but would have been buried in heaps
of rubbish had the fragment parted and fallen forward.
About 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 a
farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family ; and,
just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inhabited by
an old woman and her son, and his wife. These people in
the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous,
observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began
to heave and part ; and that the walls seemed to open, and
the roofs to crack ; but they all agree that no tremor of
the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt ; only
that the wind continued to make a most tremendous
roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhab-
itants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost
solicitude and confusion, expecting every moment to be
buried under the ruins of their shattered edifices. When
daylight came they were at leisure to contemplate the
devastations of the night; they then found that a deep

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 237

rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn
them, as it were, in two ; and that one end oi the barn had
suffered in a similar manner : that a pond near the cottage
had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at the
shallow end, and so vice versd ; that many large oaks were
removed out of their perpendicular, some thrown down, and
some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees ; and that
a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so
as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot
of the cliff the general course of the ground, which is
pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and
is interspersed with some hillocks, which were 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 sid^
which was strangely torn and disordered. The second
pasture-field, being more soft and springy, was protruded
forward without many fissures in the turf, which was
raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right
angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the
soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some
oaks that obstructed their farther course, and terminated
this awful commotion.

The perpendicular height of the precipice in general is
twenty-three yards; the length of the lapse or slip as seen
from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-one ; and a
partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards
more; so that the total length of this fragment that fell
was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of
land suffered from this violent convulsion ; two houses
were entirely destroyed ; OIMJ e^d of a new barn was left in

238 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that
composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked
rock ; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken
and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time
neither fit for the plough nor safe for pasturage, till
considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in
levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures.

LETTER XLYI.

resonant arbusta —

SELBORNE.

THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field and interspersed with
furze close to the back of this village, well known by the
name of Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and
inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the
Gryllus campestris, or field-cricket ; which, though frequent
in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many
other counties.

As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the
attention of a naturalist, I have often gone down to
examine the economy of these grylli, and study their mode
of life ; but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy
matter to get a sight of them ; for feeling a person's foot-
steps 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 239

great stone ; or else in breaking up the ground we inad-
vertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so
bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which were long and
narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very tough
skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish the male
from the female ; the former of which is shining black,
with a golden stripe across his shoulders ; the latter is
more dusky, more capacious about the abdomen, and carries
a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is
the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies
and safe receptacles.

Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means
will often succeed, and so it proved in the present case ;
for, though a spade be too boisterous and rough an
implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into
the caverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and
quickly bring out the inhabitant ; and thus the humane
inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the
object of it. It is remarkable, that though these insects
are furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for
leaping, like grasshoppers ; yet when driven from their
holes they show no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless
manner, so as easily to be taken ; and again, though
provided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never
exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion.
The males only make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of
rivalry and emulation, 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 and
female, each as it may happen ; but there must be a time
when the sexes have some intercourse, and then the wings
may be useful perhaps during the hours of night. When

240 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 other that were intruded 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 them-
selves, though armed with such formidable weapons. Of
such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows
they eat indiscriminately, and on a little platform which
they make just by, they drop their dung ; and never, in
the day time, seem to stir more than two or three inches
from home. Sitting in the entrance of their caverns they
chirp all night as well as day from the middle of the month
of May to the middle of July ; and in hot weather, when
they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo, and in
the stiller hours of darkness may be heard to a considerable
distance. In the beginning of the season their notes are
more faint and inward ; but become louder as the summer
advances, and so die away again by degrees.

Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their
sweetness and melody ; nor do harsh sounds always dis-
please. We are more apt to be captivated or disgusted
with the associations which they promote than with the
notes themselves. Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket,
though sharp and stridulous, yet marvellously delights some
hearers, filling their minds with a train of summer ideas' of
everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous.

About the 10th March the crickets appear at the mouths

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 241

of their cells, which they then open and bore, and shape
very elegantly. All that ever I have seen at that season
were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments of
wings, lying under a skin or coat, which must be cast before
the insect can arrive at its perfect state ; from whence I
should suppose that the old ones of last year do not always
survive the winter. In August their holes begin to be
obliterated, and the insects are seen no more till spring.

Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a
colony to the terrace in my garden, by boring deep holes in
the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayed some time,
and fed and sung ; but wandered away by degrees, and were
heard at a farther distance every morning, so that it appears
that on this emergency they made use of their wings in
attempting to return to the spot from which they were
taken.

One of these crickets when confined in a paper cage and
set in the sun, and supplied with plants moistened with
water, will feed and thrive, and become so merry and loud
as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sitting j
if the plants are not wetted it will die.

LETTER XLVII.

1 ' Far from all resort of mirth
Save the cricket on the hearth."

— MILTON'S 11 Penseroso.

SELBOBNE.

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

307

242 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

itself upon our notice whether we will or no. This species
delights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased
with the moisture of the walls ; and besides, the softness of
the mortar enables them to burrow and mine between the
joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communications
from one room to another. They are particularly fond of
kitchens and bakers' ovens, on account of their perpetual
warmth.

Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the
short period of one summer, or else doze away the cold,
uncomfortable months in profound slumbers; but these,
residing, as it were, in a torrid zone, are always alert and
merry, — a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of
the dog-days. Though they are frequently heard by day,
yet is their natural time of motion only in the night. As
Boon 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 burn-
ing atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirsty race,
and show a great propensity for liquids, being found
frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth, or the
like. Whatever is moist they affect ; and therefore often
gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are
hung to the fire : they are the housewife's barometer, fore-
telling her when it will rain, and are prognostic sometimes,
she thinks, of ill or good luck, of the death of a near rela-
tion, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the
constant companions of her solitary hours they naturally
become the objects of her superstition. These crickets are
not only very thirsty, but very voracious ; for they will eat
the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread,
and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have
observed them to fly when it became dusk out of the windows,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 243

and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity ac-
counts for the sudden manner in which they often leave
their haunts, as it does for the method by which they come
to houses where they were not known before. It is remark-
able that many sorts of insects seem never to use their
wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters
and settle new colonies. When in the air they move
"volatu undoso" in waves or curves, like woodpeckers,
opening and shutting their wings at every stroke, and so
are always rising or sinking

When they increase to a great degree, as they did once
in the house where I am now writing, they become noisome
pests, flying into the candles, and dashing into people's
faces ; but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowder
discharged into their crevices and crannies. In families at
such ^times they are like Pharaoh's plague of frogs — " in
their bedchambers, and upon their beds, and in their ovens,
and in their kneading troughs."* Their shrilling noise is
occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Oats catch
hearth-crickets, and, playing 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 full.

* Exod. viii. 3.

244 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

LETTER XLVIII.

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 gryllo talpa
(the mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents
the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing all its
functions in a swampy, wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet,
curiously adapted to the purpose, it burrows and works
under ground like the mole, raising a ridge as it proceeds,
but seldom throwing up hillocks.

As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of
canals, they are unwelcome guests to the gardener, raising
up ridges in their subterraneous progress, and rendering the
walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchen quarters they
occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by
destroying whole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and
flowers. When dug out they seem very slow and helpless,
and make no use of their wings by day ; but at night they
come abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been
convinced by finding stragglers, in a morning, in improbable
places. In fine weather, about the middle of April, and
just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselves
with a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time
without interruption, and not unlike the chattering of the
fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but more inward.

About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was
once an eye-witness ; for a gardener at a house where I was

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 245

on a visit, happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that
month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep,
pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a
curious scene of domestic economy : —

-Ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram :

Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt :
Apparent penetralia. "

There were many caverns and winding passages leading
to a kind of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and
about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Within this secret
nursery were deposited near a hundred eggs of a dirty
yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately
excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being full of a
viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within
the influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh-
mowed mould, like that which is raised by ants.

When mole-crickets fly they move " cursu undoso" rising
and falling in curves, like the other species mentioned
before. In different parts of this kingdom people call them
fen-crickets, churr- worms, and eve-churrs, all very apposite
names.

Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these
insects, astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that,
from the structure, position, and number of their stomachs,
or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this
and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like
many quadrupeds !

246 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

LETTER XLIX.

SELBOKNE, May 7th, 1779.

IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some
attention to the ornithology of this district, without being
able to exhaust the subject : new occurrences still arise as
long as any inquiries are kept alive.

In the last week of last month five of those most rare
birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name,
but known to naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or
loripes, and Charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the
verge of Frinsham-pond, a large lake belonging to the
Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer-forest
and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The
pond keeper says there were three brace in the flock ; but,
that after he had satisfied his curiosity, he suffered the
sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens I
procured, and found the length of the legs to be so
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 proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen we
should have made large allowances for the fancy of the
draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and
might with propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson,
under that idea, gives them the apposite name of Vechasse.
My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed
only four ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of
the thigh measured three inches and a-half, and the legs
four inches and a-half. Hence we may safely assert that
these birds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELSORNE. 247

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
fraction more that 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 walker : but what adds to the wonder is, that
it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop to
support its steps it must be liable, in speculation, to
perpetual vacillations, and seldom able to preserve the true
centre of gravity.

The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny ; and, by
an awkward metaphor, implies that the legs are as slender
and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather. Neither
Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches, either
at home nor abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant
never met with it in all Great Britain, but observed it
often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris. Hasselquist
says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn ; and a most
accurate observer of Nature has assured me that he has
found it on the banks of the streams in Andalusia.

Our writers record it to have been found only twice iri
Great Britain. From all these relations it plainly appears

248 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

that these long-legged plovers are birds of South Europe, and
rarely visit our island ; and when they do, are wanderers
and stragglers, and impelled to make so distant and
northern an excursion from motives or accidents for which
we are not able to account. One thing may fairly be
deduced, that these birds come over to us from the Contin-
ent, 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.

SELBORNE, April 21s£, 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 awakened to
express its resentments by hissing ; and, packing it in a
box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The
rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that,
when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to
the bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, the
weather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and
continues still concealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now hare an oppor-
tunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life,
and propensities ; and perceive already that, towards the
time of coming forth, it opens a breathing place in the
ground near its head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration
as it becomes more alive. This creature not only goes
under the earth from the middle of November to the

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 249

middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer ; for
it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon,
and often does not stir in the morning till late. Besides,
it retires to rest for every shower ; and does not move at all
in wet days.

When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is
a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow
such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity,
on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander
more than two- thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor,
and be lost to all sensation for months together in the
profoundest of slumbers.

While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm after-
noon, with the thermometer at 50°, brought forth troops
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 j 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 </>epeoiKoi ! for so the
Greeks called both the shell-snail and the tortoise.

Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring,
unusually late : I have seen but one swallow yet. This
conformity with the weather convinces me more and more
that they sleep in the winter.

MOBE PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE OLD FAMILY TORTOISE,

BECAUSE we call this creature an abject reptile, we are too apt to
undervalue his abilities, and depreciate his powers of instinct. Yet he
is, as Mr. Pope says of his lord,

11 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.

250 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

Though he loves warm weather he avoids the hot sun ; because his
thick shell, when once heated, would, as the poets says of solid
armour, "scald with safety." He therefore spends the more sultry
hours under the umbrella of a large cabbage-leaf, or amidst the waving
forests of an asparagus bed.

But, as he avoids heat in the summer, so, in the decline of the year,
he improves the faint autumnal beams by getting within the reflection
of a fruit-wall ; and, though he never has read that planes inclining to
the horizon receive a greater share of warmth,* he inclines his shell, by
tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray.

Pitiable seems the condition of this poor embarrassed reptile ; to be
cased in a suit of ponderous armour, which he cannot lay aside ; to be
imprisoned, as it were, within his own shell, must preclude, we should
suppose, all activity and disposition for enterprise. Yet there is a
season of the year (usually the beginning of June) when his exertions
are remarkable. He then walks on tiptoe, and is stirring by five in
the morning ; and, traversing the garden, examines every wicket and
interstice in the fences, through which he will escape if possible ; and
often has eluded the care of the gardener, and wandered to some
distant field. The motives that impel him to undertake these
rambles seem to be of the amorous kind ; his fancy then becomes
intent on sexual attachments, which transport him beyond his usual
gravity, and induce him to forget for a time his ordinary solemn
deportment.

LETTER LI.

SELBOKNE, Sept. 3rd, 1781.

I HAVE now read your miscellanies through with much care
and satisfaction ; and am to return you my best thanks for

* Several years ago a book was written entitled Fruit Walls
Improved ly 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 perpen-
dicular.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 251

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 April last; on
that day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and
cavities of the suspected spot. The persons took pains, but
without any success ; however, a remarkable incident
occurred in the midst of our pursuit ; while the labourers
were at work a house-martin, the first that had been seen
this year, came down the village in the sight of several
people, and went at once into a nest, where it stayed a
short time, and then flew over the houses ; for some days
after no martins were observed, not till the 16th April, and
then only a pair. Martins in general were remarkably late
this year.

LETTER LII.

SBLBOKNB, Sept. 9O» 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 my attention on
that species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, with-
drew this year about the first day of August, all save one
pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a single

252 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 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, on which a second nest had been formed.
This double nest was full of the black shining cases of the
Hippoboscce hirundinis.

The following remarks on this unusual incident are
obvious. The first is, that though it may be disagreeable
to swifts to remain beyond the beginning of August, yet
that they can subsist longer is undeniable. The second is,
that this uncommon event, as it was owing to the loss of
the first brood, so it corroborates my former remark, that
swifts breed regularly but once ; since, was the 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 1780, so late as the 3rd September.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 253

LETTER LIII.

As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about
several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of
one sort which I little expected to have found in this
kingdom. I had often observed that one particular part of
a vine growing on the walls of my house was covered in
the autumn with a black dust-like appearance, on which the
flies fed eagerly ; and that the shoots and leaves thus
affected did not thrive, nor did the fruit ripen. To this
substance I applied my glasses ; but could not discover that
it had anything to do with animal life, as I at first expected :
but, upon a closer examination behind the larger boughs,
we were surprised to find that they were coated over with
husky shells, from whose sides proceeded a cotton-like
substance, surrounding a multitude of eggs. This curious
and uncommon production put me upon recollecting what
I have heard and read concerning the Coccus vitis viniferce
of Linnaeus, which, in the south of Europe, infests many
vines, and is a horrid and loathsome pest. As soon as I had
turned to the accounts given of this insect, I saw at once
that it swarmed on my vine ; and did not appear to have
been at all checked by the preceding winter, which had been
uncommonly severe.

Not being then at all aware that it had anything to do
tvith England, I was much inclined to think that it came
from Gibraltar among the many boxes and packages of
plants and birds which I had formerly received from
thence ; and especially as the vine infested grew imme-
diately 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

254 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 sea-port town to which the
coccus might be conveyed by shipping.

As many of my readers may possibly never have heard
of this strange and unusual insect, I shall here transcribe a
passage from a natural history of Gibraltar, written by the
Reverend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lanca-
shire, but not yet published : —

" In the year 1770 a vine, which grew on the east side of
my house, and which had produced the finest crops of
grapes for years past, was suddenly overspread on all the
woody branches with large lumps of a white fibrous sub-
stance resembling spiders' webs, or rather raw cotton. It
was of a very clammy quality, sticking fast to everything
that touched it, and capable of being spun into long threads.
At first I suspected it to be the product of spiders, but
could find none. Nothing was to be seen connected with it
but many brown oval husky shells, which by no means
looked like insects, but rather resembled bits of the dry
bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop o grapes
set when this pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was
manifestly injured by this foul encumbrance. 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 j but it was so slimy and tenacious
that it could by no means be cleared. The grapes never

NATURAL HISTORY OF S&LBORNE. 255

filled to their natural perfection, but turned watery and
vapid. Upon perusing the works afterwards of M. de
Reaumur, I found this matter perfectly described and
accounted for. Those husky shells, which I had observed,
were no other than the female coccus, from whose side this
cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering and
security for their eggs."

To this account I think proper to add, that, though the
female cocci are stationary, and seldom remove from the
place to which they stick, yet the male is a winged insect ;
and that the black dust which I saw was undoubtedly the
excrement of the females, which is eaten by ants as well as
flies. Though the utmost severity of our winter did not
destroy these insects, yet the attention of the gardener in a
summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from this
filthy annoyance.

As we have remarked above that insects are often con-
veyed from one country to another in a very unaccountable
manner, I shall here mention an emigration of small aphides,
which was observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago
than August 1st, 1774.

About three o'clock in the afternoon of that day, which
was very hot, the people of this village were surprised by a
shower of aphides, or smother-flies, which fell in these parts.
Those that were walking in the street at that juncture
found themselves covered with these insects, which settled
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

256 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

day in the easterly quarter. They were observed at the
same time in great clouds about Farnham, and all along
the vale from Farnham to Alton.

LETTER LIV.

WHEN I happen to visit a family where gold and silver
fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with
the occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of ob-
serving 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 vivarium, to which I paid no small
attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed
within its narrow limits. It was here that I first observed
the manner in which fishes die. As soon as the creature
sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and it stands as it
were on its head, till, getting weaker, and losing all poise,
the tail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of
the water with its belly uppermost. The reason why fishes,
when dead, swim in that manner is very obvious ; because,
when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly,
the broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity,
and turns the belly uppermost, as lighter from its being a
cavity, and because it contains the swimming-bladders,
which contribute to render it buoyant. Some that delight
in gold and silver fishes have adopted a notion that they
need no aliment. True it is that they will subsist for a
long time without any apparent food but what they can col-
lect from pure water frequently changed ; yet they must

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 257

draw some support from animalcula, and other nourishment
supplied by the water ; because, though they seem to eat
nothing, yet the consequences of eating often drop from
them. That they are best pleased with such jejune diet
may easily be confuted, since if you toss them crumbs they
will seize them with great readiness, not to say greediness ;
however, bread should be given sparingly, lest, turning
sour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed on the
water-plant called lemna (ducks' 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 immovable ; but these appa-
rently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as
occasions require. They take little notice of a lighted
candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounce and
seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand
against the support whereon the bowl is hung ; especially
when they have been motionless, and are perhaps asleep.
As fishes have no 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 contain-
ing such fishes; the double refractions of the glass and
water represent them, when moving, in a shifting and
changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours ;
while the two mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex
shape of the vessel, magnify and distort them vastly ; not
to mention that the introduction of another element and its
inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very

agreeable manner.

308

258 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE.

Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China
and Japan, yet are become so well reconciled to our climate
as to thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews.
Linnaeus ranks this species of fish under the genus of
cyprinus, or carp, and calls it Cyprinus auratus.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful
way ; for they cause a glass bowl to be blown with a large
hollow space within, that does not communicate with it.
In this cavity they put a bird occasionally ; so that you
may see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it were in the
midst of the water, and the fishes swimming in a circle
round it. The simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable
and pleasant ; but in so complicated a way becomes
whimsical and unnatural, and liable to the objection due
to him,

" Qui variare cupit rem prodigialit&r unam."

LETTER LV.

Oct. im, 1781,

I THINK I have observed before that much of the most
considerable part of the house-martins withdraw from
hence about the first week in October ; but that some, the
latter broods I am now convinced, linger on till towards
the middle of that month ; and that at times, once perhaps
in two or three years, a flight, for one day only, has
shown itself in the first week in November.

Having taken notice, in October 1780, that the last flight
was numerous, amounting perhaps to one hundred and fifty,

NATURAL HISTORY OF S EL BORNE. 259

and that the season was soft and still ; I was resolved to
pay uncommon attention to these late birds ; to find, if
possible, where they roosted, and to determine the precise
time of their retreat. The mode of life of these latter
hirundines is very favourable to such a design ; for they
spend the whole day in the sheltered district, between me
and the Hanger, sailing about in a placid, easy manner, and
feasting on those insects which love to haunt a spot so secure
from ruffling winds. As my principal object was to dis-
cover the place of their roosting, I took care to wait on
them before they retired to rest, and was much pleased to
find that for several evenings together, just at a quarter-
past five in the afternoon, they all scudded away in great
haste towards the south-east, and darted down among the
low shrubs above the cottages at the end of the hill. This
spot in many respects seemed to be well calculated for their
winter residence ; for in many parts it is as steep as the
roof of any house, and therefore secure from the annoyances
of water ; and it is moreover clothed with beechen shrubs,
which, being stunted and bitten by sheep, make the
thickest covert imaginable ; and are so entangled as to be
impervious to the smallest spaniel ; besides, it is the nature
of underwood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter ; so
that, with the leaves on the ground and those on the twigs,
no shelter can be more complete. I watched them on the
13th and 14th 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 October I observed two in the morning over the
village, and with them my remarks for the season ended.

From all these circumstances put together, it is more
than probable that this lingering flight, at so late a season
of the year, never departed from the island. Had they

260 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

indulged me that autumn with a November visit, as I much
desired, I presume that, with proper assistants, I should
have settled the matter past all doubt ; but though the 3rd
November was a sweet day, and in appearance exactly
suited to my wishes, yet not a martin was to be seen ; and
so I was forced, reluctantly, to give up the pursuit.

I have only to add that were the bushes, which cover
some acres, and are not my own property, to be
grubbed and carefully examined, probably those late
broods, and perhaps the whole aggregate body of the house-
martins of this district, might be found there, in different
secret dormitories ; and that, so far from withdrawing into
warmer climes, it would appear that they never depart
three hundred yards from the village.

LETTER LYI.

THEY who write on natural history cannot too frequently
advert to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which in
some instances raises the brute creation, as it were, above
reason, and in others leaves them so far below it. Philoso-
phers have defined instinct to be that secret influence by
which every species is compelled naturally to pursue, at
all times, the same way or track, without any teaching
or example ; whereas reason, without instruction, would
often vary and do that by many methods which instinct
effects by one alone. -Now this maxim must be taken in a
qualified sense ; for there are instances in which instinct
does vary and conform to the circumstances of place and
convenience.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 261

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
arid compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little
architect. Again, the regular nest of the house-martin
is hemispheric ; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice
may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as
to conform to the obstruction, and becomes flat, or
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 nut-hatch (Sitta
Europcea), which live much on hazel-nut ; and yet they
open them each in a different way. The first, after rasping
off the small end, splits the shell in two with his long fore-
teeth, as a man does with his knife ; the second nibbles
a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with a wimble,
and yet so small that one could 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 per-
forates the stubborn shell. We have often placed nuts in
the chink of a gate-post where nut-hatches have been known
to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily

262 NATURAL HISTORY OF

penetrated them. While at work they make a rapping
noise that may be heard at a considerable distance.

You that understand both the theory and practical part
of music may best inform us why harmony or melody
should so strangely assist some men, as it were by recollec-
tion, for days after the concert is over. What I mean the
following passage will most readily explain : —

" Prsehabebat porr6 vocibus humanis, iustrurnentisque
harmonicis musicam illam avium : non quod alia quoque
non delectaretur : sed quod ex music4 human<i rclinqueretur
in animo continens qusedam, attentionemque et somnum
conturbans agitatio ; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac
mutationes illae sonorum, et consonantiarum euntque,
redeuntque per phantasiam : — cum nihil tale reliriqui
possit ex modulationibus avium, quse, quod non sunt
perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde internam
facultatem commovere." — Gassendus in Vild Peireskii.

This curious quotation strikes me much by so well
representing my own case, and by describing what I have
so often felt, but never could so well express. When I
hear fine music I am haunted with passages therefrom
night and day ; and especially at first waking, which, by
their importunity, give me more uneasiness than pleasure •
elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recur
irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when I
am desirous of thinking of more serious matters.

XATURAL HISTORY Of SELtiORNE. 263

LETTER LYII.

A RARE, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden,
which I have great reason to think is the petti chaps : it is
common in some parts of the kingdom ; and I have
received formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar.
This bird much resembles the white-throat, but has a more
white or rather silvery breast and belly ; is restless and
active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from bough to
bough, examining every part for food ; it also runs up the
stems of the crown-imperials, and, putting its head into the
bells of those flowers, sips the liquor which stands in the
neclarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground
like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots
and mown walks.

One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man,
informs me that, in the beginning of May, and about ten
minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a
great cluster of house-swallows, thirty, at least, he supposes,
perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James
Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the
twittering of these birds, which sat 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
ther water. In this situation he watched them till he could
see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and
fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows have
some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter
of food ; and, though they may not retire into that element,
yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and
rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

One of the keepers of Wolmer Forest sent me a peregrine-

264 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was
devouring a wood-pigeon. The Falco peregrinus, or hag-
gard-falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the
southern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed in the
neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr.
Pennant into North Wales. * Since that time I have met
with none till now. The specimen mentioned above was in
fine preservation, and not injured by the shot : it measured
forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from
beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and 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 remarkably
short and well set ; the feet were armed with most formid-
able, 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 pro-
cess near the end of the upper mandible on each side ; its tail,
or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body ;
yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of
the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be
supposed to have been a female ; but I was not permitted
to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey,
which are usually lean, this was in high case : in its craw
were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop
of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot ; for
voracious birds do not eat grain, but, when devouring their
quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence swallow bones
and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This falcon
was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or
Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous
weather and deep snows that had lately fallen.

* See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman.

KATURAl HISTORY OF SELBORXE. 265

LETTER LVIIL

MY near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the
East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch
of the Chinese breed from Canton, such as are fattened in
that country for the purpose of being eaten : they are about
the size of a moderate spaniel ; of a pale yellow colour, with
coarse bristling hairs on their backs; sharp upright ears,
and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like
appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without
any bend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give
them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in
motion their tails are curved high over their backs like
those of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the
outside from the tip midway, that does not seem to be
matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes are
jet-black, small, and piercing ; the insides of their lips and
mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The
bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg ; the dog has none,
When taken out into a field the bitch showed some disposi-
tion for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a covey of
partridges till she sprung them, giving her tongue all the
time. The dogs in South America are dumb ; but these
bark much in a short thick manner like foxes, and have a
surly, savage demeanour like their ancestors, which are not
domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they are fed for
the table with rice-meal and other farinaceous food. These
dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could
not learn much from their dam ; yet they did not relish
flesh when they came to England. In the islands of the
Pacific Ocean the dogs are bred upon vegetables, and would
not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators.

266 NATURAL HISTORY of1

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 Obey, are engraved with
prick-ears, like those from Canton. The. Kamschatdales
also train the same sort of sharp- eared, peak-nosed dogs to
draw their sledges, as may be seen in an elegant print
engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be
impertinent to add that spaniels, as all sportsmen know,
though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were by
instinct, and with much delight and alacrity, yet will
hardly touch their bones when offered as food ; nor will a
mongrel dog of my own, though he is remarkable for finding
that sort of game. But when we came to offer the bones of
partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them
with much greediness, and licked the platter clean.

No sporting dogs will flush woodcocks till inured to the
scent and trained to the sport, which they then pursue with
vehemence and transport ; but then they will not touch
their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when
they are hungry.

Now, that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such
birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no wonder; but
why they reject and do not care to eat their natural game
is not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting
seems to be, that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs
again will not devour the more rancid water-fowls, nor
indeed the bones of any wild fowls ; nor will they touch
the foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage; and
indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in

NATURAL HISTORY Of1 SELBORNE. 26?

this circumstance of dislike j for vultures,* and kites, and
ravens, and crows, etc., were intended to be messmates with
dogsf over their carrion, and seem to be appointed by
Nature as fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous
nuisances from the face of the earth.

LETTER LIX.

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 butt-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 pon-
derous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter
for what purpose he had procured it, he told me that it was
to be sent to his brother, a joiner at Farnham, who was to
make use of it in cabinet-work, by inlaying it along with
whiter woods.

Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark,
in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird
passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short, quick
note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could

* ' ' 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."

t "The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like
quihloh."

268 NATURAL HISTORY OF SEL BORNE.

make out till lately. I am assured now that it is the stone-
curlew (Charadrius oedicnemus). Some of them pass over
or near my house almost every evening after it is dark,
from the uplands of the hill and North field, away down
towards Dorton, where, among the streams and meadows,
they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night
are obliged to be noisy ; their notes, often repeated, become
signals or watchwords to keep them together, that they may
not stray or lose each other in the dark.

The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are
curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they
return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and
rendezvous by thousands over Selborne-down, where they
wheel round in the air, and sport and dive in a playful
manner, all the while exerting their .voices, and making a
loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by the
distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a
confused noise or chiding, or, rather, a pleasing murmur,
very engaging to the imagination, and not unlike the cry of
a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing
of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a
pebbly shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last
gleam of day, they retire for the night to the deep beechen
woods of Tisted and Hopley. We remember a little girl
who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on such an
occurrence, in the true spirit of physieo-theology, that the
rooks were saying their prayers; and yet this child was
much too young to be aware that the Scriptures have said
of the Deity — that " He feedeth the ravens who call upon
Him."

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 269

LETTER LX.

IN reading Dr. Huxain's Observations de Aere, .etc.,
written at Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate
remarks, which contain an account of the weather from the
year 1727 to the year 1748, inclusive, that though there is
frequent rain in that district of Devonshire, yet the quantity
falling is not great ; and that some years it has been very
small : for in 1731 the rain measured only 17*266 in. ; and
in 1741, 20-354 in. ; and again, in 1743, only 20-908 in.
Places near the sea have frequent scuds, that keep the
atmosphere moist, yet do not reach far up into the country ;
making thus the maritime situations appear wet, when the
rain is not considerable. In the wettest years at Plymouth
the Doctor measured only once 36 \ and again once, viz.,
1734, 37-114 in. — a quantity of rain that has twice been
exceeded at Selborne in the short period of my observations.
Dr. Huxain remarks that frequent small rains keep the air
moist ; while heavy ones render it more dry, by beating
down the vapours. He is also of opinion that the dingy,
smoky appearance in the sky, in very dry seasons, arises
from the want of moisture sufficient to let the light through,
and render the atmosphere transparent; because he had
observed several bodies more diaphanous when wet than
dry, and did never recollect that the air had that look in
rainy seasons.

My friend, who lives just beyond the top of the down,
brought his three swivel guns to try them in my outlet,
with their muzzles towards the Hanger, supposing that the
report would have had a great effect ; but the experiment
did not answer his expectation. He then removed them to
the alcove on the Hanger, when the sound, rushing along

270 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

the Lythe and Combwood, 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 tearing up by the roots, but, turning
to the left, they pervaded the vale above Combwood ponds,
and after a pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to
extend round Hartley Hangers, and to die away at last
among the coppices and coverts of Ward-le-ham. It has
been remarked before that this district is an Anathoth. a
place of responses or echoes, and 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 Yalence. The tube was
first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when the
mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own ; but, being
filled twice again at Newton, the mercury stood, on account
of the great elevation of that house, three-tenths of an inch
lower than the barometers at this village, and so continues
to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what it may. The
plate of the barometer at Newton is figured as low as 27 ;
because in stormy weather the mercury there will sometimes
descend below 28. We have supposed Newton House to
stand two hundred feet higher than this house : but if the
rule holds good, which says that mercury in a barometer
sinks one-tenth of an inch for every hundred feet elevation,
then the Newton barometer, by standing three-tenths lower
than that of Selborne, proves that Newton House must be
three hundred feet higher than that in which I am writing,
instead of two hundred.

It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers at

NATURAL HISTORY OF SEIRORNE. 271

Selborno stand three tenths of an inch lower than the
barometers at South Lambeth : whence we may conclude
that the former place is about three hundred feet higher than
the latter ; and with good reason, because the streams that
rise with us run into the Thames at Weybridge, and so to
London, Of course, therefore, there must be lower ground
all the way from Selborne to South Lambeth ; the distance
between which, all the windings and indentings of the
streams considered, cannot be less than a hundred miles.

LETTER LXI.

SINCE the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its
natural history, I shall make no further apology for the
four following letters, which will contain many particulars
concerning some of the great frosts, and a few respecting
some very hot summers, that have distinguished themselves
from the rest during the course of my observations.

As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small time
it lasted, the most severe that we had then known for many
years, and was remarkably injurious to evergreens, some
account of its rigour, and reason of its ravages, may be
useful, and not unacceptable to persons that delight in
planting and ornamenting ; and may particularly become a
work that professes never to lose sight of utility.

For the last two or three days of the former year there
were considerable falls of snow, which lay deep and uniform
on the ground without any drifting, wrapping up the more
humble vegetation in perfect security. From the first day
to the fifth of the new year more snow succeeded ; but from

272 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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
evergreens was melted every day, and frozen intensely
every night ; so that the laurustines, bays, laurels, and
arbutuses looked, in three or four days, as if they had been
burnt in the fire ; while a neighbour's plantation of the
same kind, in a high cold situation, where the snow was
never melted at all, remained uninjured.

From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting
and freezing of the snow that is so fatal to vegetation,
rather than the severity of the cold. Therefore it highly
behoves every planter, who wishes to escape the cruel
mortification of losing in a few days the labour and hopes
of years, to bestir himself on such emergencies ; and if his
plantations are small, to avail himself of . mats, cloths,
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.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 273

Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same
inconvenience with respect to the more tender shrubs from
North America, which they therefore plant under north
walls. There should also perhaps be a wall to the east
to defend them from the piercing blasts from that quarter.

This observation might without any impropriety be
carried into animal life ; for discerning bee-masters now
find that their hives should not in the winter be exposed to
the hot sun, because such unseasonable warmth awakens
the inhabitants too early from their slumbers ; and, by
putting their juices into motion too soon, subjects them
afterwards to inconveniences when rigorous weather
returns.

The coincidents attending this short but intense frost
were, that the horses fell sick with an epidemic distemper,
which injured the winds of many, and killed some; that
colds and coughs were general among the human species ;
that it froze under people's beds for several nights ; that
meat was so hard frozen that it could not be spitted, and .
could not be secured but in cellars ; that several red-wings
and thrushes were killed by the frost ; and that the large
titmouse continued to pull straws lengthwise from the
eaves of thatched houses and barns in a most adroit manner,
for a purpose that has been explained already.

On the 3rd January, Benjamin Martin's themometer
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 continued north and north-east ; and
yet on the 8th roost-cocks, which had been silent, began to
sound their clarions, and crows to clamour, as prognostic of

3°9

274 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

milder weather ; and, moreover, moles began to heave and
work, and a manifest thaw took place. From the latter
circumstance we may conclude that thaws often originate
under ground from warm vapours which arise; else how
should subterraneous animals receive such early intimations
of their approach 1 Moreover, we have often observed that
cold seems to descend from above ; for, when a thermometer
hangs abroad in a frosty night, the intervention of a cloud
shall immediately raise the mercury 10° ; and a clear sky
shall again compel it to descend to its former gauge.

And here it may be proper to observe, on what has been
said above, that though frosts advance to their utmost
severity by somewhat of a regular gradation, yet thaws do
not usually come on by as regular a declension of cold ; but
often take place immediately from intense freezing ; as
men in sickness often mend at once from a paroxysm.

To the great credit of Portugal laurels and American
junipers, be it remembered that they remained untouched
amidst the general havoc : hence men should learn to orna-
ment chiefly with such trees as are able to withstand
accidental severities, and not subject themselves to the
vexation of a loss which may befall them once perhaps in
ten years, yet may hardly be recovered through the whole
course of their lives.

As it appeared afterwards, the ilexes were much injured,
the cypresses were half destroyed, the arbutuses lingered
on, but never recovered ; and the bays, laurustines, and
laurels were killed to the ground ; and the very wild
hollies, in hot aspects, were so much affected that they cast
all their leaves.

By the 14th 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 275

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.

LETTER LXII.

THERE were some circumstances attending the remarkable
frost in January 1776, so singular and striking, that a short
detail of them may not be unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the
passages from my journal, which were taken from time to
time, as things occurred. But it may be proper previously
to remark that the first week in January was uncommonly
wet, and drowned with vast rains from every quarter :
from whence may be inferred, as there is great reason to
believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom take place till
the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled with water ;* and
hence dry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous winters.

January 7th. — Snow driving all the day, which was
followed by frost, sleet, and some snow, till the 12th, when a
prodigious mass overwhelmed all the works of men, drifting
over the tops of the gates and filling the hollow lanes.

On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad;

* The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and
particularly the month of September, during which there fell at
Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, six inches and a-half of rain. And
the terrible long frost in 1739-40 set in after a rainy season, and when
the springs were very high.

276 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

and thinks he never before or since has encountered such
rugged Siberian weather. Many of the narrow roads were
now filled above the tops of the hedges, through which the
snow was driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes,
so striking to the imagination as not to be seen without
wonder and pleasure. The poultry dared not to stir out of
their roosting places ; for cocks and hens are so dazzled and
confounded by the glare of snow that they would soon
perish without assistance. The hares also lay sullenly in
their seats, and would not move till compelled by hunger,
being conscious — poor animals — that the drifts and heapa
treacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to
numbers of them.

From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and began
to stop the road waggons and coaches, which could no
longer keep on their regular stages ; and especially on the
western roads, where the fall appears to have been deeper
than in the south. The company at Bath, that wanted to
attend the Queen's birthday, were strangely incommoded •
many carriages of persons, who got in their way to town from
Bath as far as Marlborough, after strange embarrassments,
here met with a ne plus ultra. The ladies fretted, and
offered large rewards to labourers if they would shovel them
a track to London ; but the relentless heaps of snow were
too bulky to be removed ; and so the 18th passed over,
leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances
at the Castle and other inns.

On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since
the frost began ; a circumstance that has been remarked
before much in favour of vegetation. All this time the
cold was not very intense, for the thermometer stood at
29°, 28°, 25°, and thereabout; but on the 21st it descended
to 20°. The birds now began to be in a very pitiable and

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 277

starving condition. Tamed by the season, skylarks settled
in the streets of towns, because they saw the ground was
bare ; rooks frequented dunghills close to houses ; and
crows watched horses as they passed, and greedily devoured
what dropped from them : hares now came into men's
gardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured such plants
as they could find.

On the 22nd the author had occasion to go to London
through a sort of Laplandian scene, very wild and grotesque
indeed. But the metropolis itself exhibited a still more
singular appearance than the country ; for, being bedded
deep in snow, the pavement of the streets could not be
touched by the wheels or the horse's feet, so that the
carriages ran about without the least noise. Such an
exemption from din and clatter was strange, but not
pleasant ; it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of
desolation : —

" Ipsa silentia terrent."

On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening
the frost became very intense. At South Lambeth, for
the four following nights, the thermometer fell 11°,
7°, 6°, 6°; and at Selborne to 7°, 6°, 10°; and on the
31st January, just before sunrise, with rime on the trees
and on the tube of the glass, the quicksilver sunk exactly
to zero, being 32° below the freezing point ; but by eleven
in the morning, though in the shade, it sprang up to 16^°* —
a most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England !

* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the
author could hear of with certainty, though some reported at the time
that at a village in Kent the thermometer fell two degrees below zero
— viz., thirty-four degrees below the freezing point. The thermometer
used at Selborne was graduated by Benjamin Martin.

278 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 consti-
tutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was
at once so frozen over both above and below bridge that
crowds ran about on the ice. The streets were now strangely
encumbered with snow, which crumbled and trod dusty,
and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt ; what had fallen on
the roofs was so perfectly dry that, from first to last, it lay
twenty-six days on the houses in the city — a longer time
than had been remembered by the oldest housekeepers
living. According to all appearances we might now have
expected the continuance of this rigorous weather for weeks
to come, since every night increased in severity ; but
behold, without any apparent cause, on the 1st February a
thaw took place, and some rain followed before night,
making good the observation above, that frosts often go off
as it were at once, without any gradual declension of cold.
On the 2nd February the thaw persisted, and on the 3rd
swarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a
courtyard 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 Rut-
land, 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 the northern parts of this
kingdom.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 279

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 unhurt.

As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly
destroyed ; and the partridges, by the weather and poachers,
were so thinned that few remained to breed the following
year.

LETTER LXIII.

As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you,
I trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars ; and
especially when I promise to say no more about the
severities of winter after I have finished this letter.

The first week in December was very wet, with the baro-
meter very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at 28*5° —
came on a vast snow, which continued all that day and the
next, and most part of the following night ; so that by the
morning of the 9th the work of men were quite overwhelmed,
the lanes filled so as to be impassable, and the ground

280 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

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 graduated only to four degrees above
zero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball ; so that
when the weather became most interesting this was useless.
On the 10th, at eleven at night, though the air was
perfectly still, Dollond's glass went down to one degree
below zero ! This strange severity of the weather made me
very desirous to know what degree of cold there might be in
such an exalted and near situation as Newton. We had,
therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written to

Mr. , and intreated him to hang out his thermometer,

made by Adams, and to pay some attention to it morning
and evening, expecting wonderful phenomena, in so elevated
a region, at two hundred feet or more above my house.
But, behold ! on the 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 comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glasses

up, thinking that of Mr. mustj somehow, be

wrongly constructed. But, when the instruments came to
be confronted, they went exactly together ; so that, for one
night at least, the cold at Newton was 18° less than at
Selborne ; and, through the whole frost, 10° or 12° ; and
indeed, when we came to observe consequences, we could
readily credit this; for all my laurustines, bays, ilexes,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 281

arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels, and
(which occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel-hedge,
were scorched up; while, at Newton, the same trees have
not lost a leaf.

We had steady frost on the 25th, when the thermometer
in the morning was down to 10° with us, and at Newton
only to 21°. Strong frost continued till the 31st, when
some tendency to thaw was observed ; and, by January 3rd,
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 10th, being bright sun-
shine, the air was full of icy spiculce, 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 convinced to the contrary,
by making our observations in open places where no rime
could reach us. Were they watery particles of the air
frozen as they floated, or were they evaporations from the
snow frozen as they mounted 1

We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early
information they gave us ; and hurried our apples, pears,
onions, potatoes, etc., into the cellar and warm closets ;
while those who had not, or neglected such warnings, lost
all their store of roots and fruits, and had their very bread
and cheese frozen.

I must not omit to tell you that, during these two
Siberian days, my parlour cat was so electric, that had
a person stroked her, and 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

282 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

they were thrashing in a barn, that a mortification followed,
from which they did not recover for many weeks.

This frost killed all the furze and most of the ivy, and in
many places stripped the hollies of all their leaves. It
came at a very early time of the year, before old November
ended ; and yet may be allowed from its effects to have
exceeded any since 1730-40.

LETTER LXIV.

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the
northerly climate of England, where the summers are often
so defective in warmth and sunshine as not to ripen the
fruits of the earth so well as might be wished, I shall be
more concise in my account of the severity of a summer
season, and so make a little amends for the prolix account
of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniences that we
suffered from some late rigorous winters.

The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and
dry ; to them, therefore, I shall turn back in my journals,
without recurring to any more distant period. In the
former of these years my peach and nectarine-trees suffered
so much from the heat that the rind on the bodies was
scalded and came off; since which the trees have been in a
decaying state. This may prove a hint to assiduous
gardeners to fence and shelter their wall-trees with mats
or boards, as they may easily do, because such annoyance
is seldom of long continuance. During that summer also, I
observed that my apples were coddled, as it were, on the
trees ; so that they had no quickness of flavour, and would
not keep .in the winter. This circumstance put me in

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELEORNE. 283

mind of what I have heard travellers assert, that they
never ate a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe,
where the heats were so great as to render the juices vapid
and insipid.

The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all
the finer fruits just as they are coming into perfection. In
1781 we had none; in 1783 there were myriads, which
would have devoured all the produce of my garden, had not
we set the boys to take the nests, and caught thousands
with hazel-twigs tipped with bird-lime : we have since
employed the boys to take and destroy the large breeding
wasps in the spring. Such expedients have a great effect
on these marauders, and will keep them under. Though
wasps do not abound but in hot summers, yet they do not
prevail in every hot summer, as I have instanced in the two
years above-mentioned.

In the sultry season of 1783 honey-dews were so frequent
as to deface and destroy the beauties of my garden. My
honeysuckles, which were one week the most sweet and
lovely objects that the eye could behold, became the next
the most loathsome ; being enveloped in a viscous substance,
and loaded with black aphides, or smother-flies. The
occasion of this clammy appearance seems to be this, that
in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields and meadows
and gardens are drawn up in the day by a brisk evapora-
tion, and then in the night fall down again with the dews
in which they are entangled ; that the air is strongly
scented, and therefore impregnated with the particles of
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 mornings.

284 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about
London, the thermometer has been often observed to mount
as high as 83° or 84° ; but with us, in this hilly and woody
district, I have hardly ever seen it exceed 80° ; nor does it
often arrive at that pitch. The reason, I conclude, is, that
our dense clayey soil, so much shaded by trees, is not so
easily heated through as those above-mentioned ; and,
besides, our mountains cause currents of air and breezes ;
and the vast effluvia from our woodlands temper and
moderate our heats.

LETTER LXV.

THE summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and porten-
tous one, and full of horrible phenomena ; for, besides the
alarming meteors and tremendous thunderstorms that
affrighted and distressed the different counties of this
kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smoky fog, that prevailed
for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe,
and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary
appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of
man. By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange
occurrence from June 23rd to July 20th inclusive, during
which period the wind varied to every quarter without
any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as
blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferru-
ginous 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

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 285

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, lowering aspect of the sun; and indeed there was reason
for the most enlightened person to be apprehensive ; for, all
the while, Calabria and part of the Isle of Sicily were torn
and convulsed with earthquakes ; and about that juncture
a volcano sprang out of the sea on the coast of Norway,
On this occasion Milton's noble simile of the sun, in his
tirst book of " Paradise Lost," frequently occurred to my
mind ; and it is indeed particularly applicable, because,
towards the end, it alludes to a superstitious kind of dread,
with which the minds of men are always impressed by such
strange and unusual phenomena.

" As when the sun, new risen,

Looks through the horizontal, misty air,
Shorn of his learns ; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs- ."

LETTER LXVI.

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 direction to the east or
to the west, or sometimes divide in two, go in part to one
of those quarters, and in part to the other ; as was truly

286 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

the case in summer 1783, when, though the country round
was continually harassed with tempests, and often from the
south, yet we escaped them all, as appears by my journal of
that summer. The only way that I can at all account for
this fact — for such it is — is that, on that quarter, between
us and the sea, there are continual mountains, hill behind
hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser-hill, and Ports-
down, which somehow divert the storms, and give them a
different direction. High promontories, and elevated
grounds, have always been observed to attract clouds and
disarm them of their mischievous contents, which are
discharged into the trees and summits as soon as they come
in contact with those turbulent meteors ; while the humble
vales escape, because they are so far beneath them.

But, when I say I do not remember a thunderstorm
from the south, I do not mean that we never have suffered
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 -6^° and the wind north, I
observed a blue mist, smelling strongly of sulphur, hanging
along our sloping woods, and seeming to indicate that
thunder was at hand. I was called in about two in the
afternoon, and so missed seeing the gathering of the clouds
in the north ; which they who were abroad assured me had
something uncommon in its appearance. At about a
quarter after two the storm began in the parish of Hartley,
moving slowly from north to south ; and from thence it
came over Norton-farm, and so to Grange-farm, both in this
parish. It began with vast drops of rain, which were soon
succeeded by round hail, and then by convex pieces of ice,
which measured three inches in girth. Had it been as ex-
tensive as it was violent, and of any continuance (for it was
very short), it must have ravaged all the neighbourhood,

NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 287

In the parish of Hartley it did some damage to one
farm ; but Norton, which lay in the centre of the storm,
was greatly injured ; as was Grange, which lay next to it.
It did but just reach to the middle of the village, where the
hail broke my north windows, and all my garden-lights and
hand-glasses, and many of my neighbours* windows. The
extent of the storm was about two miles in length and one
in breadth. We were just sitting down to dinner ; but
were soon diverted from our repast by the clattering of tiles
and the jingling of glass. There fell at the same time
prodigious torrents of rain on the farms above-mentioned,
which occasioned a flood as violent as it was sudden ; doing
great damage to the meadows and fallows, by deluging the
one and washing away the soil of the other. The hollow
lane towards Alton was so torn and disordered as not to be
passable till mended, rocks being removed that weighed two
hundredweight. Those that saw the effect which the great
hail had on ponds and pools say that the dashing of the
water made an extraordinary appearance, the froth and
spray standing up in the air three feet above the surface.
The rushing and roaring of the hail, as it approached, was
truly tremendous.

Though the clouds at South Lambeth, near London, were
at that juncture thin and light, and no storm was in sight,
nor within hearing, yet the air was strongly electric ; for the
bells of an electric machine at that place rang repeatedly,
and fierce sparks were discharged.

When I first took the present work in hand, I proposed
to have added an Annus Historico-naturalis, or The Natural
History of the Twelve Months of the Year, which would
have comprised many incidents and occurrences that have
not fallen in my way to be mentioned in my series of
letters; but, as Mr. Aikin, of Warrington, has lately

288 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

published somewhat of this sort, and as the length of my
correspondence has sufficiently put your patience to the
test, I shall here take a respectful leave of you and natural
history together, and am,

With all due deference and regard,

Your most obliged and most humble servant,

GIL. WHITE.
SELBORNB, June 25^, 1787.

A NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

OBSERVATIONS

IN

VARIOUS BRANCHES OF NATURAL HISTORY

•Selected from Whites MSS.
WITH NOTES BY WILLIAM MARKWICK

A COMPARATIVE VIEW

THE NATURALIST'S CALENDAR,

As KEPT AT SELBORNE, IN HAMPSHIRE, BY THE LATE REV. GILBERT WHITE,
M.A. ; AND AT CATSPIELD, NEAR BATTLE, IN SUSSEX, BY WILLIAM MARKWICK.

ESQ., F.L.S., FROM THE YEAR 1768 TO THE YEAR 1793,

N.B.— The dates in the following Calendars, when more than one, express the earliest
and latest times in which the circumstance noted was observed.

Of the abbreviations used, fl. signifies flowering ; I. leafing ; and ap. the first

appearance.

REDBREAST (Sylvia rubecula) sings
Larks (Alauda arvenris) congregate
Nuthatch (Sitta Europoea) heard
Winter aconite (Helleborus hiemalis) fl.
Shelless snail or slug (Limax) ap.
Gray wagtail (Motacilla boarula) ap. [
White wagtail (Motacilla alba) ap. j
Missel thrush (Turdus viscivorus) sings
Bearsfoot (Helleborus fcetidus) fl.
Polyanthus (Primula Polyantha) fl.
Double daisy (Bellis perennis plena) fl.
Mezereon (Daphne mezereum) fl.
Pansie ( Viola tricolor) fl.
Red dead-nettle (Lamiumpurpureum) fl.
Groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) fl.
Hazel (Corylus avelana) fl.
Hepatica (Anemone hepatica) fl.
Hedge sparrow (Sylvia modularis) sings
Common flies (Musca domestica) seen in

numbers

Greater titmouse (Parus major) sings
Thrush (Turdus musicus) sings
Insects swarm under sunny hedges
Primrose (Primula vulgaris) fl.
Bees (Apis mellifica) ap.
Gnats play about
Chaffinches, male and female (Fringilla

ccelebs), seen in equal numbers
Furze or gorse (Ulex Europozus) fl.
Wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri ; seufru-

ticuloxus of Smith) fl.
Stock (Cheiranthus incanus) fl.
fimberiza alba (bunting) in great flocks
Linnets (Fringilla linota) congregate

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Jan. 1—12
Jan. 1—18

Jan. 3 — 31, and again Oct.
Oct. 16. Feb. 9 [6

Jan. 1—14

Mar. 8.

Apr. 10

Jan. 1. Feb. 18

Feb. 28.

Apr. 17

Jan. 2.

Jan. 16.

May 31

Jan. 2—11

Jan. 24.
Dec. 12

Mar. 23
Feb. 23

Jan. 2—14

Feb. 19

Apr. 14

Jan. 2. Feb. 14

Mar. 1.

May 6

Jan. 2. Apr. 12

Jan. 1.

Apr. 9

Jan. 2. Feb. 1

Mar. 17.

Apr. 29

Jan. 3. Feb. 16

Jan. 2.

Apr. 4

Jan. 3.

Jan. 1.

May 10

Jan. 3—21

Jan. 1.

Apr. 5

Jan. 3—15
Jan. 3. Feb. 28

Jan. 1-
Jan. 21.

Apr. 9
Mar. 11

Jan. 4. Feb. 18

Jan. 17.

Apr. 9

Jan. 6—12

Jan. 10.

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

Jan. 6. Mar. 19

Jan. 31.

Apr. 11 ; last

Jan. 6. Feb. 3

[seen Dec.

30

Jan. 6—11

Dec. 2.

Feb. 3

Jan. 8. Feb. 1

Jan. 1.

Mar. 27

Jan. 8. Apr. 1

Feb. 21.

May 9

Jan. 8—12

Feb. 1.

JuneS

Jan. 9.

Jan. 9.

Jan. 11

292

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Lambs begin to fall

Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) resort to their

nest trees

Black hellebore (Helleborus niger) fl.
Snowdrop (Oalanthus nivalis) fl.
White dead nettle (Lamium album) fl.
Trumpet honeysuckle fl.
Common creeping crow-foot (Ranuncu-
lus repens) fl.
House sparrow (Fringilla domestica)

chirps

Dandelion (Leontodon taraxacum) fl.
Bat (Vespertilio) ap.
Spiders shoot their webs
Butterfly ap.

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla) ap
Blackbird (Turdus nierula) whistles
Wren (Sylvia troglodytes) sings
Earthworms lie out
Crocus (Crocus vernus) fl.
Skylark (Alauda arvensis) sings
Ivy casts its leaves
Helleborus hiemalis fl.
Common dor or clock (Scarabceus stereo-

rarius)

Peziza acetabulum ap.
Helleborus viridi* fl.
Hazel (Corylus avellana) fl.
Woodlark (Alauda arbor ea) sings
Chaffinch (Fringilla ccelebs) sings
Jackdaws begin to come to churches
Yellow wagtail (Motacillajlava) ap.
Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) 1.
Field or procumbent speedwell (Veronica

agrestis) fl.

Nettle butterfly (Papilio Urticce) ap.
White wagtail (Motacilla alba) chirps
Shell snail (Helix nemoralis) ap.
Earthworms engender
Barren strawberry (Fragaria sterilis) fl.
Blue titmouse (Parsus coeruleus) chirps
Brown wood owls hoot
Hen (Phasianus gallus) sits
Marsh titmouse begins his two harsh

sharp notes
Gossamer floats
Musca tenax ap.
Larustine (Viburnum tinus) fl.
Butcher's broom (Ruscus aculeatus) fl.
Fox (Cants vulpes) smells rank
Turkey-cocks strut and gobble
Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)

sings

Brimstone butterfly (Papilio Rhamnifap.
Green woodpecker (Pious viridis) makes

a loud cry

Raven (Corvus Corax) builds
Yew treQ(Taxus baccata) fl.
Colesfoot (Tussilago farfara) fl.

WHITB.

MARKWICK.

Jan. 9—11

Jan. 6. Feb. 21

Jan. 10. Feb. 1

Jan. 23.

Jan. 10.

Apr. 27.

Jan. 10. Feb. 5

Jan. 18. Mar. 1

Jan. 13.

Mar. 23. May 10

Jan. 13.

Jan. 13.

Apr. 10. May 12

Jan. 14.

Feb. 17. May 9

Jan. 16. Mar. 1

Feb. 1. Apr. 7

Jan. 16. Mar. 24

Feb. 6. June 1, last seen

Jan. 16.

[Nov. 20

Jan. 16.

Feb. 21. May 8, last seen

Jan. 16.

Jan. 10—31 [Dec. 22

Jan. 17.

Feb. 15. May 13

Jan. 17.

Feb. 7. June 12

Jan. 18 Feb. 8

Jan. 13. Mar. 18

Jan. 20. Mar. 19

Jan. 21.
Jan. 22.

Jan. 12. Feb. 27, sings till
[Nov. 13

Jan. 22—24

Feb. 28. April 17

Jan. 23.

Feb. 12. Apr. 19, last seen

Jan. 23.

[Nov. 24

Jan. 23 Mar. 5

Jan. 23. Feb. 1

Jan. 27. Mar. 11

Jan. 24. Feb. 21

Jan. 28. June 5

Jan. 24. Feb. 15

Jan. 21. Feb. 26

Jan. 25. Mar. 4

Jan. 25. Apr. 14

Apr. 13. July 3, last seen

Jan. 25.

Jan. 1. Apr. 9 [Sept. 8

Jan. 27. Mar. 15

Feb. 12. Mar. 29

Jan. 27. Apr. 2

Mar. 5. Apr. 24, last seen

Jan. 28.

Mar. 16. [June 6

Jan. 28. Feb. 24

Apr. 2. June 11

Jan. 30.

Feb. 1. Mar. 26

Jan. 13. Mar. 26

Feb. 1.

Apr. 27.

Feb. 2.

Feb. 3.

Mar. 8 hatches

Feb. 3.

Feb. 4. Apr. 1

Feb. 4. Apr. 8

Feb. 6.

Jan. 1. Apr. 5

Feb. 6.

Jan. 1. May 10

Feb. 7.
Feb. 10.

May 19, young brought
[forth

Feb. 12.

Feb. 18 Apr. 28

Feb. 13. Apr. 2

Feb. 13. Mar. 8, last seen

[Dec. 24

Feb. 13. Mar. 23

Jan. 1. Apr. 17 [June 1

Feb. 14—17.

Apr. 1. has young ones

Feb. 14. Mar. 27

Feb. 2. Apr. 11

Feb. 15. Mar. 23

Feb. 18. Apr. 13

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

293

Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) build
Partridges (Perdix cinerea) pair
Peas (Pisum sativum) sown
House pigeon (Columba domestica) has

young ones

Field crickets open their holes
Common flea (Pulex irritans) ap.
Pilewort (Ficaria verna) fl.
Goldfinch (Fringilla carduelis) sings
Viper (Coluber berus) ap.
Wpodlouse (Oniscus asellus) ap.
Missel thrushes pair
Daffodil (Narcissus pseudonardssus) fl.
Willow (Salix alba) fl.
Frogs (Rana temporaria) croak
Sweet violet (Viola odorata) fl.
Phalcena Tinea vestianella ap.
Stone curlew (Otis cedicnemus) clamours
Filbert (Con/Zws sativus) fl.
Ring-dove coos

Apncot tree (Prunus armeniaca) fl.
Toad (Rana bufo) ap.
Frogs (Rana temporaria) spawn
Ivy-leaved speed well (Veronica hederifo-

Peach (Amygdalua Persica) fl.
Frog (Rana temporaria) ap.
Shepherd's purse (Thlaspi bursapastoris)

fl.

Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus) crows
Land tortoise comes forth
Lungwort (Pulmonoria officinalis) fl.
Podura fimetaria ap.
Aranea scenica saliens ap.
Scolopendra forficata ap.
Wryneck (Jynx torquilla) ap.
Goose (Anas anser) sits on its eggs
Duck (Anas boschas) lays
Dog's violet (Viola canina) fl.
Peacock butterfly (Papilio lo) ap.
Trouts begin to rise
Field beans ( Viciafaba) planted
Bloodworms appear in the water
Crow (Corvus Corone) builds
Oats (Avena sativa) sown
Golden-crowned wren (Sylvia regulus)

sings

Asp (Populus tremula) fl.
Common elder (Sambucus nigra) 1.
Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) fl.
Chrysomela Getting, ap.
Black ants (Formica nigra) ap.
Ephemerae bisetce ap.
Gooseberry (Ribes grossularia) 1.
Common stitchwort (Stellaria holostea)fi,
Wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa) fl.
Blackbird (Turdus Merula) lays
Raven (Corvus Corax) sits
Wheatear (Sylvia (Enanthe) ap.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Feb. 16. Mar. 6

Feb. 28. Mar. 5

Feb. 17.

Feb. 16. Mar. 20

Feb. 17. Mar. 8

Feb. 8. Mar. 31

Feb. 18.

Feb. 8.

Feb. 20. Mar. 30

Feb. 21—26.

Feb. 21. Apr. 13

Jan. 25. Mar. 26

Feb. 21. Apr. 5

Feb. 28. May 5 [Oct. 28

Feb. 22. Mar. 26

Feb. 23. May 6, last seen

Feb. 23, Apr. 1

Apr. 27. June 17

Feb. 24.

Feb. 24. Apr. 7

Feb. 26. April 18

Feb. 24. Apr. 2

Feb. 27. Apr. 11

Feb. 25.

Mar. 9. Apr. 20

Feb. 26. Mar. 31
Feb. 26.

Feb. 7. Apr. 5

Feb. 27. Apr. 24

June. 17.

Feb. 27.

Jan. 25. Mar. 26

Feb. 27. Apr. 5

Mar. 2. Aug. 10

Feb.

Feb. 28. Apr. 6

Feb. 28. Mar. 24

Mar. 15. July 1

Feb. 28 Mar. 22

Feb. 9. Apr. 10, tadpoles

[Mar. 19

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.l. May 22

Mar. 4. May 8

Mar. 4. Apr. 16

Mar. 2. May 19

Mar. 4.

Mar. 4.

Mar. 5—16.

Mar. 5. Apr. 25

Mar. 26. Apr. 23, last seen

Mar. 5.

Mar. 21. [Sept. 14

Mar. 5.

Mar. 28.

Mar. 6. Apr. 18

Feb. 28. Apr. 22

Mar. 6.

Feb. 13. Apr. 20, last seen

Mar. 7—14.

[Dec. 25

Mar. 8.
Mar. 8.

Apr. 29 emerge

Mar. 10.
Mar. 10—18.

July 1 has young ones
Mar. 16. Apr. 13

[Dec. 23. Jan. 26

Mar. 12. Apr. 30

Apr. 15. May. 22, seen

Mar. 12.

Feb. 26. Mar. 28

Mar. 13—20.

Jan. 24. Apr. 22

Mar. 15. May 21

Apr. 2. May 27

Mar. 15.

Mar. 15. Apr. 22

Mar. 2. May 18

Mar. 16.

Mar. 17* Apr. 11
Mar. 17. May 19

Feb. 26. Apr. 9
Mar. 8. May 7

Mar. 17. Apr. 22
Mar. 17.

Feb. 27. Apr. 10 [19
Apr. 14, young ones Mav

Mar. 17.
Mar. 18—36.

Apr. 1 builds [Oct 20
Mar. 13. May 23, last seen

294

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Musk- wood crowfoot (Adoxa moschat

teliina) fl.

Willow wren (Sylvia trochilus) ap.
Fumaria bulbosa fl.
Elm (Iflmutt camjtestris) fl.
Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) lays

House pigeons (Columba domestiea) sit
Marsh marigold (Caltha palustris) fl.
Buzz-fly (Bombylius medius) ap.
Sand martin (Hirundo riparia) ap.

Snake (Coluber natrix) ap.

Horse ant (Formica herculeana) 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) heard

Young ducks hatched

Golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium opposi

tifolium) fl.

Martin (Hirundo urbica) ap.
Double hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis)

fl*

Young geese (Anas anser)
Wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) fl.
Ring ousel (Turdus torquatus) seen
Barley (Hordeum sativum) sown
Nightingale (Sylvia luscinia) sings
Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) fl.
Spiders' webs on the surface of the

ground
Cnecquered daffodil (Fritillaria metea-

gris) fl.

Julus terrestris ap.
Cowslip (Primula veris) fl.
Ground ivy (Glecoma hederacea) fl.
Snipe pipes

Box tree (Buxus sempervirens) fl.
Elm (ULmus campestris) 1.
Gooseberry (Ribes grossularia) fl.
Currant (Ribes hortensis) fl.
Pear tree (Pyriis communis) fl.
Lacerta vulgaris (newt or eft) ap.

Dogs' mercury (Mercurialis perennis) fl.
Wych elm (Ulmus glabra seu montana of

Smith) fl

Ladysmock (Cardamine pratensis) fl.
Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) heard

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) fl.
Death watch (Termes pulsatorius) beat;*

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Mar. 18. Apr. 13

Feb. 23. Apr. 28

Mar. 19. Apr. 13
Mar. 19.

Mar. 30. May 16 sits May
[27, last seen Oct. 23

Mar. 19. Apr. 4

Feb. 17. Apr. 25

Mar. 19. Apr. 7

Mar. 18—25, sits Apr. 4,

Mar. 20.

[young ones Apr. 30
Mar. 20, young hatched

Mar. 20. Apr. 14

Mar. '22. May 8

Mar. 21. Apr. 28

Mar. 15. Apr. 30

Mar. 21. Apr. 12

Apr. 8. May 16, last seen

[Sept. 8

Mar. 22—30.

Mar. 3. Apr. 29, last seen

[Oct. 2

Mar. 22. Apr. 18

Feb. 4. Mar. 26, last seen

[Nov. 1

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 [18

Mar. 26. Apr. 20
Mar. 26. May 4

Apr. 7—27, last seen Nov.
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. 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. 1. May 1

Apr. 12. May 20
Apr. 5. July 4, last seen

Apr. 1. May 4

Mar. 16. May 8 [Aug. 29

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.

Apr. 3.

Mar. 27. May 8

Apr. 3.

Apr. 2. May 19

Apr. 3—14.

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

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

295

Gudgeon spawns

Redstart (Sylvia Phcenicurus) ap.

Crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialist fl.
Titlark (Alauda pratensis) sings
Beech (Fagus syloatica) 1.
Shellsnail (Helix nemoralis) comes out

in troops

Middle yellow wren ap.
Swift (Hirundo apus) ap.
Stinging fly (Conops calcitrans) ap.
Whitlow grass (Draba verna) fl.
Larch tree (Pinus-larix rubra) 1.
White-throat (Sylvia cinerea) ap.

Red ant (Formica rubra) ap.
Mole cricket (Gryllus gryUotalpa) churs
Second willow or laughing wren ap.
Red rattle (Pedicularis sylvatica) fl.
Common flesh-fly (Musca carnaria) ap.
Ladycow (Coccinella bipunctata) ap.
Grasshopper lark (Alauda locustce roce)

Willow wren, its shivering note heard
Middle willow wren (Regulus non crista-

tus medius) ap.

Wild cherry (Prunus cerasus) fl.
Garden cherry (Prunus cerasus) fl.
Plum (Prunus domestica) fl.
Harebell (Hyacinthus non-scriptus seu

Scilla nutans of Smith) fl.
Turtle (Columba turtur) coos
Hawthorn (Cratcegus seu Mespilus oxy-

cantha of Smith) fl.
Male fool's orchis (Orchis mascula) fl.
Blue flesh fly (Musca vomitorid) ap.
Black snail or slug (Limax ater) abounds
Apple tree (Pyrus-malus sativus) fl.
Large bat ap.
Strawberry wild wood (Fragaria vesca

sylv.) fl.

Sauce alone (Erysimum alliaria) fl.
Wild or bird cherry (Prunus avium) fl.
Apis Hypnorum ap.
Musca meridiana ap.
Wolf fly (Asilus) ap.
Cabbage butterfly (Papilio Brassicce)

ap.

Dragon fly (Libellula) ap.
Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus) fl.
Bombylius minor ap.
Glowworm (Lampyris noctilucd) shines
Fern-owl or goatsucker (Caprimulgus

Europceus) ap.

Common bugle (Ajuga reptans) fl.
Field crickets (Gryllus campestris) crink
Chafer or maybug (Scarabceus melolon-

tha) ap.
Honeysuckle (Lonicerapericlymenum) fl.

WHITE.

MARKW1CK.

Apr. 7.

Apr. 8—28.

Apr. 5, sings Apr. 25, last

Apr. 8—24.

[seen Sept. 30
Apr. 1. May 13

Apr. 9—19.

Apr. 14—29, silts June 16—

Apr. 10. May 8

Apr. 24. May 25 [27

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 24

Apr. 14.

Apr. 1. May 9

Apr. 14. May 14

Apr. 14. May 5, sings May

3—10, last seen Sept. 23

Apr. 14.

Apr. 9. June 26

Apr. 14.

Apr. 14—19—23,

Apr. 10. June 4

Apr. 15—19.

Apr. 15.

Apr. 16.

Apr. 16—30.

Apr. 17. May 7

Apr. 28. May 1

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, seen

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

Apr. 22. June 11

Apr. 23r-29.

Apr. 8—9

Apr. 23.

Mar. 31. May 8

Apr. 24.

Mar. 30. May 10

Apr. 24.

Apr. 24. May 28

Apr. 25.

Apr. 28. - May 20

Apr. 29. June 15

Apr. 30. May 21
Apr. 30. June 6

Apr. 18. May 13, last seen
Apr. 20. June 4 [Nov. 10

May 1.

May 1. June 11

June 19, Sept. 28

May 1—26.

May 16. Sept. 14

Mav l.

Mar. 27. May 10

May 2—24.

May 2—26.

May 2. July 7

May 3—30.

Apr. 24. June 21

296

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Tooth wort (Lathrcea squamaria) fl.
Shell snails copulate
Sedge warbler (Sylvia salicaria) sings
Mealy tree ( Viburnum lantana) fl.
Flycatcher (Stoparola or Muscicapa gris-

old) ap.

Apis longicornis ap.
Sedge warbler (Sylvia, salicaria) ap.
Oak (Quercus robur) fl.
Admiral butterfly (Papilio Atalanta) ap.
Orange tip (Papilio cardamines) ap.
Beech (Fagus sylvatica) fl.
Common maple (Acer campestre) fl.
Barberr-y tree (Berberis vulgaris) fl.
Wood argus butterfly (Papilio ^Bgeria)

ap.

Orange lily (Lilium bulbiferum) fl.
Burnet moth (Sphinx Filipendulce) ap.
Walnut (Juglans regia) 1.
Laburnum (Cytisus laburnum) fl.
Forest fly (Uippobosca equina) ap.
Saintfoin (Hedysarum onobrychis) fl.
Peony (Pcvonia officinalis) fl.
Horse chestnut (^Esculus hippocasta-

num) fl.

Lilac (Syringa vulgaris) fl.
Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris') fl.
Medlar (Mespilus germanica) fl.
Tormentil (Tormentilla erecta seu offi-
cinalis of Smith) fl.
Lily of the valley (Convallaria maja-

lis)fi.

Bees (Apis mellifica) swarm.
Woodroof (Asperula odorota) fl.
Wasp, female ( Vespa vulgaris)' 'ap.
Mountain ash (Sorbus seu Pyrus (*u-

cuparia of Smith) fl.
Bird's-nest orchis (Ophrys nidus avis) fl.
White-beam tree (Cratcegus seu Pyrus

aria of Smith) fl.
Milk wort (Poly gala vulgaris) fl.
Dwarf cistus (Cixtus helianthemum) fl.
G elder rose ( Viburnum opulus) fl.
Common elder (Sambucus nigra) fl.
Cantharis noctiluca ap.
Apis longicornis bores holes in walls.
Mulberry tree (Morus nigra) 1.
Wild service tree (Cratcegus seu Pyrus

to-nninalis of Smith) fl.
Sanicle (Sanicula Europcea) fl.
Avens (Gtfwm urbanum) fl.
Female fool's orchis (Orchis mono) fl.
Ragged Robin (Lychnis ftos cuculi) fl.
Burnet (Poterium sanguisorba) fl.
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) fl.
Corn flag (Gladiolus communis) fl.
Serapias longifol fl.
Raspberry (Rubus idceus) fl.
Herb Robert (Geranium jRobertianumyQ.

WHITE.

MARKWICR.

May 4—12.

May 4. June 17

May 4.

June 2—30*.

May 6—17.

Apr. 25. May 22

May 10—30.

Apr. 29. May 21

May 10. June 9

May 11—13.

Aug. 2

May 13—15.

Apr. 29. June 4

May 13.

May 14.

Mar. 30. May 19

May 15—26.

Apr. 23. May 28

May 16.

Apr. 24. May 27

May 17—26.

Apr. 28. June 4

May 17.

May 18. June 11

June 14, July 22

May 18. June 13

May 24. June 26

May 18.

Apr. 10. June 1

May 18. June 5

May 1. June 23

May 18. June 9

May 19. June 8

May 21. July 28

May 20. June 15

Apr. 18. May 26

May 21. June y

Apr. 19. June 7

May 21.

Apr. 15. May 30

May 21—27.

May 6. June 13

May 21. June 20

Apr. 8. June 19

May 21.

Apr. 17. June 11

May 22.

Apr. 27. June 13

May 22. July 22

May 12. June 23

May 22—25.

Apr. 14. June 4

May 23.

Apr. 2. June 4, last seen

[Nov. 2

May 23. June 8

Apr. 20. June 8

May 24. June 11

May 18. June 12

May 24. June 4

May 3.

May 24. June 7
May 25.

Apr. 13. June 2
May 4. Aug. 8

May 26.

May 10. June 8

May 26. June 25

May 6. June 17

May 26.

May 27. June 9

May 27. June 13

May 20. June 11

May 27.

May 13. June 19

May 27. June 13

Apr. 23. June 4

May 28.

May 9. June 11

May 28.

Apr. 17. May 20

May 29. June 1

May 12. June 8

May 29.

Apr. 30. Aug. 7

May 30. June 22

May 23. June 15

May 30. June 20

June 9. July 8

May 30. June 13

May 30. June 21

May 10. June 16

May 30.

Mar. 7. May 16

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

297

Figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) fl.
Cromwell (Lithospermum o/icinale) fl.
Wood spurge (Euphorbia amygdaloides)

fl.

Ramsons (Allium ursinum) fl.
Mouse-ear scorpion grass (Myosotis

scorpioides) fl.

Grasshopper (Gryllus grossus) ap.
Rose (Rosa hortensis) fl.
Mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilo-

sella) fl.

Buckbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) fl.
Rose chafer (Scarabceus auratus) ap.
Sheep (Ovis aries) shorn
Water flag (Iris pseudo-acorus) fl.
Cultivated rye (Secate cereale) fl.
Hounds tongue (Cynoglossum officinale)

fl.

Helleborine (Serapias latif&lid) fl.
Green gold fly (Musca Caesar) ap.
Argus butterfly (Papilio moera) ap.
Spearwort (Ranunculus flammuld) fl.
Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) fl.
Fraxinella or white dittany (Dictamnus

albus) fl.

Angler's may-fly (Ephemera vulg.) ap.

Ladies' finger (Anthyllis vulneraria) fl.

Bee orchis (Ophrys apiferd) fl.

Pink (Dianthus deltoides) fl.

Mock ora,nge(Philadelphus coronarius)f\.

Libellula Virgo ap.

Vine (Vitis vinifera) fl.

Portugal laurel (Prunus Lusitanicus) fl.

Purple spotted martagon(Z^7mw marta-

gon) fl.
Meadow cranes-bill (Geranium pratense)

fl.

Black bryony (Tamus communis) fl.
Field pea (Pisum savitum arvense) fl.
Bladder campion (Cucubalus behen ceu

Silene inflata of Smith) fl.
Bryony (Bryonia alba) fl.
Hedge nettle (Stachys sylvatica) fl.
Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara) fl.
Walnut (Juglans regia) fl.
Phallus impudicus ap.
Rosebay willow-herb (Epilobium an-

gustifolium) fl.

Wheat (Triticum hybernum) fl.
Coinfrey (Symphytum officinale) fl.
Yellow pimpernel (Lysimachia nemorum)

fl.

Tremella nostac ap.
Buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus) 1.
Cuckow-spit insect (Cicada spumaria) ap.
Dog-rose (Rosa canina) fl.
Puff-ball (Lycoperdon bovista) ap.
Mullein (verbascum thapsus) fl.

WHITE,

MARKWICK.

May 81.

May 12. June 20

May 31.

May 10—24.

June 1.

Mar. 23. May 13

June 1.

Apr. 21. June.4

June 1.

Apr. 11. June 1

June 1 — 14.

Mar. 25. July 6, last seen

June 1—21.

June 7 July 1 [Nov. 3

June 1. July 16

Apr. 19. June 12

June 1.

Apr. 20. JuneS

June 2—8.

Apr. 18. Aug. 4

June 2—23.

May 23. June 17

June 2.

May 8. June 9

June 2.

May 27.

June 2.

May 11. June 7

June 2. Aug. 6

July 22. Sept. 6

June 2.

June 2.

June 3.

Apr. 25. June 13

June 3.

Apr. 10. June 3

June 3—11.

June 9. July 24

June 3.

June 3—14.

June 4.

June 1. Aug. 16

June 4. July 4

June 6—19.

May 26. July 6

June 5,

May 16. June 23

June 6—20.

June 7. July 30

June 18. July 29

June 8. July 1

June 3. July 16

June 8 — 25.

June 18. July 19

June 8. Aug 1

June 8.

May 15. June 21

June 9.

May 15. June 21

June 9.

May 4. July 13

June 9.

Way 13. Aug. 17

June 10.

May 28. June 24

June 11.

May 15. June 20

June 12.

Apr. 18. June 1

June 12. July 23

June 12.

June 4. July 28

June 13. July 22

June 4—30.

June 13.

May 4. June 23

June 13—30.

Apr. 10. June 12

June 16. Aug. 24

June 16.

May 25.

June 16.

June 2—21.

June 17, 18.

May 24. June 21

June 17. Sept. 3
June 18.

May 6. Aug. 19
June 10. July 22

298

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Viper's bugloss (Echium anglicum seu
vulgare of Smith) fl.

Meadow hay cut.

Stag beetle (Lucanus eervus) ap.

Borage (Borago officinalis) fl.

Spindle tree (Evonymus Europceus) fl.

Musk thistle (Carduus nutans) fl.

Dogwood (Cornuis sanguinea) fl.

Field scabious (Scabiosa arvensis) fl.

Marsh thistle (Carduus palustris) fl.

Dropwort (Spircea filipendula) fl.

Great wild valerian (Valeriana officina-
lis) fl.

Quail (Perdix Coturnix) calls

Mountain willow herb (Epilobium mon-
tanum) fl.

Thistle upon thistle (Carduus crispus) fl.

Cow parsnep (Heracleumsphondylium) fl.

Earth-nut (Bunium bulbocastanum seu
Jlexuosum of Smith) fl.

Young frogs migrate.

(Estrus carvicauda ap.

Vervain ( Verbena ojficionalis) fl.

Corn poppy (Papaver Rhoeas) fl.

Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris) fl.

Agrimony (Agrimonia eupatoria) fl.

Great horse-fly (Tabanus bovinus) ap.

Greater knapweed (Centaureascabiosa)fi.

Mushroom (Agaricus carnpestris) ap.

Common mallow (Malva sylvestris) fl.

Dwarf mallow (Malva rotundifolia) fl.

St. John's wort ([lypericumperforatum)Q.

Broom rape (Orobanche major) fl.

Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) fl.

Goats-beard (Tragopogon pratense) fl.

Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) fl.

Truffles begin to be found

Young partridges fly

Lime tree (Tilia Europcea) fl.

Spear thistle (Carduus lanceolatus) fl.

Meadow sweet (Spircea ulmaria) fl.

Greenweed (Genista tinctoria) fl.

Wild thyme (Thymus serpyllum) fl.

Stachys germanic. fl.

Day lily (Hemerocallis flava) fl.

Jasmine (Jasminum ojftcinale) fl.

Holy oak (Alcea rosea) fl.

Monotropa hypopithys fl.

Ladies' bedstraw (Galium verum) fl.

Galium palustre fl.

Nipplewort (Lapsana comunis) fl.

Welted thistle (Carduus acanthoides) fl.

Sneezewort (Achillea ptarmica) fl.

Musk mallow (Malva moschata) fl.

Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) fl.

Hoary beetle (Scarabceus solstit.) ap.

Corn saw-wort (Serratula arvensis seu
Carduus arvensis of Smith)tfl.

WHITE.

MARK WICK.

June 19.

May 27. July 3

June 19. July 20

June 13. July 7

June 19.

June 14—21

June 20.

April 22. July 26

June 20.

May 11. June 25

June 20. July 4

June 4. July 25

June 21.

May 28. June 27

June 21.

June 16. Aug. 14

June 21— 27.

May 15. June 19

June 22. July 9

May 8. Sept. 3

June 22. July 7

May 22. July 21

June 22. July 4

July 23, seen Sept. 1—18

June 22.

June 5—21

June 23—29.

May 22. July 22

June 23.

May 27. July 12

June 23.

May 4—31

June 23. Aug. 2

June 24.

June 24.

June 10. July 17

June 24.

Apr. 30. July 15

June 24.

June 7—23

June 24—29.

June 7. July 9

June 24. Aug. 2

June 25.

June 7. Aug J4

June 26. Aug. 30

Apr. 16. Aua 16

June 26.

May 27. July 13

June 26.

May 12. July 30

June 26.

June 15. July 12

June 27. July 4

May 9. July 25

June 27.

May 13. June 19

June 27.

June 5 — 14

June 27.

May 22. Aug. 14

June 28. July 29

June 28. July 31
June 28. July 31

July 8—28
June 12. July 30

June 28. July 12

June 27. July 18

June 28.

June 16. July 24

June 28.

June 4. July 24

June 28.

June 6. July 19

June 29. July 20

June 29. July 4

May 23. June 9

June 29. July 30

June 27. July 21

June 29. Aug. 4

July 4. Sept. 7

June 29. July 23

June 29.

June 22. Aug. 3

June 29.

June 29.

May 30. July 24

June 29.

June 30.

June 22. Aug. 3

June 30.

June 9. July 14

June 30.

May 4. June 22

June 30. July 17

July 1.

June 15. July 15

NATURALISTS CALENDAR.

299

Pheasant's eye (Adonis annua seu

autumnalis of Smith) fl.
Red eyebright (Euphrasia seu Bartsia

odontites of Smith) fl.
Thorough wax (BupleurumrotundifoL)ft.
Cockle (Agrostemma Githago) fl.
Ivy-leaved wild lettuce (Prenanthes mu-

ralis) fl.
Feverfew (Matricariaseu Pyrethrum par-

thenium of Smith) fl.
Wall pepper (Sedum acre) fl.
Privet (Ligustrum vulgare) fl.
Common toadflax (Antirrhinum linaria)

fl.

Perennial wild flax (Linum perenne) fl.
Whortle-berries ripe (Vaccinium ulig.)
Yellow base rocket (Reseda lutea) fl.
Blue-bottle (Centaurea cyanus) fl.
Dwarf carline thistle (Carduus acaulis)

fl.

Bull-rush or cats-tail (Typha latifolia)ft.
Spiked willow herb (Lythrum salicaria)R.
Black mullein ( Verbascum niger) fl.
Chrysanthemum coronarium n.
Marigolds (Calendula ojjicinalis) fl.
Little field madder (Sherardia arvensis)R.
Calamint (MeMssa seu Thymus cala-

mintha of Smith) fl.
Black horehound (Ballota nigra) fl.
Wood betony (Betonica ojficinalis) fl.
Round leaved bell-flower (Campanula ro-

tundifolia) fl.

All-good(Chenopodium bonus Henricus)Q.
Wild carrot (Daucus carota) fl.
Indian cress (Epopceolum majus) fl.
Cat-mint (Nepeta cataria) fl.
Cow-wheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum

pratense of Smith) fl. .
Cross wort (Valantia cruciata seu Qalium

cruciatum of Smith) fl.
Cranberries ripe
Tufted vetch (Vicia cracca) fl.
Wood vetch (Vicia sylvat.) fl.
Little throat-wort (Campanula glomer-

ata) fl.

Sheep's scabious (Jasione montana) fl.
Pastinaca sylv. fl.
White lily (Lilium candidum) fl.
Hemlock (Conium maculatum) fl.
Caucalis anthriscus fl.
Flying ants ap.

Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia) fl.
Scarlet martagon (Lilium Chalcedoni-

cum) fl.

Lesser stitch wort (Stellaria graminea)ft.
Fool's parsley (^fithusa cynapium) fl.
Dwarf elder (Sambucus Ebulus) fl.
Swallows and martins congregate
Potatoe (Solanum tuberosum) fl.

WHITE.

MARK WICK.

Julyl.

April 11. July 15

July 2.
July 2.
July 2.

June 20. Aug. 10
May 14. July 25

July 2.

June 2. July 25

July 2.
July 3.
July 3.

June 19. July 24
June 8. July 12
June 3. July 13

July 3.
July 4.
July 4—24.
July 6.
July 6.

June 21. Aug. 3
Apr. 21. July 6

July 19
May 15. Oct. 14

July 5—12.
July 6.
July 6.
July 6.
July 6.
July 6—9.
July 7.

June 30. Aug. 4
June 29. July 21
Juno 24. Aug. 17

May 28. July 28
Apr. 20. July 16
Jan. 11. June 6

July 7.
July 7.
July 8—19.

July 21
June 16. Sept. 12
June 10. July 15

July 8.
July 8.
July 8.
July 8—20.
July 9.

June 12. July 29
Apr. 21. June 15
June 7. July 14
June 11. July 25

July 9.

May 2. June 22

July 9.
July 9—27.
July 10.
July 10.

April 10. May 28
May 31. July 8

July 11.
July 11.
July 12.
July 12.
July 13.
July 13.
July 13. Aug. 11
July 13.

July 28. Aug. 18
June 10. July 25

June 21. July 22
June 4. July 20

Aug. 20. Sept. 19
June 14. Aug. 16

July 14. Aug. 4
July 14.
July 14.
July 14—29.
July 14. Aug. 29
July 14.

June 21. Aug. 6
May 8. June 23
June 9. Aug. 9

Aug. 12. Sept. 8
June 3. July 12

300

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

WHITE.

MARKWTCK.

Angelica sylv. fl.

July 15.

Digitalis ferrugin. fl.

July 15—26.

Ragwort (Senecio jacobcea) fl.

July 15.

June 22. July 13

Golden rod (Solidago virgaurea) fl .
Star thistle (Centaurea calcitrapa) fl.

July 15.
July 16.

July 7. Aug. 29
July 16. Aug. 16

Tree primrose (Oenothera biennis) fl.

July 16.

June 12. July 18

Peas (Pisum sativum) cut

July 17. Aug. 14

July 13. Aug. 15

Galega officin. fl.

July 17.

Apricots (Prunus armeniaca) ripe
Clown's allheal (Stachys palustris) fl.

July 17. Aug. 21
July 17.

July 5. Aug. 16
June 12. July 14

Branching Willow-herb (Epilobium ra-

mos) fl.

July 17.

Rye harvest begins

July 17. Aug. 7

Yellow centaury (Chlora perfoliata) fl.

July 18. Aug. 15

June 15. Aug. 13

Yellow vetchling (Lathyrus aphacd) fl.
Enchanter's nightshade (Circcea luteti-

July 18.

ana) fl.

July 18.

June 20. July 27

Water hemp agrimony (Eupatorium

cannabinum) fl.

July 18.

July 4. Aug. 6.

Giant throatwort (Campanula trach-

elium) fl.

July 19.

July 13. Aug. 14

Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis) fl.
Hops (Humulus lupulus) fl.

July 19.
July 19. Aug. 10

May 28. July 19
July 20. Aug. 17

Poultry moult

July 19.

Dodder (Cuscuta europcea seu epithymum
of Smith) fl.

July 20.

July 9. Aug. 7

Lesser centaury (Gentiana seu Chironia

centaurium of Smith) fl.

July 20.

Juue 3. July 19

Creeping water parsnep (Sium nodiflo-

rum) fl.

July 20.

July 10. Sept. 11

Common spurrey (Spergula arvensis) fl.
Wild clover Trifolium pratense) fl.

July 21.
July 21.

Apr. 10. July 16
May 2. June 7

Buckwheat (Polygonutnfagopyrum) fl.

July 21.

June 27. July 10

Wheat harvest begins.

July 21. Aug. 23

July 11 Aug. 26

Great bur-reed (Sparganium erectum) fl.

July 22.

June 10. July 23

Marsh St. John's wort (Hypericum

Elodes) fl.

July 22—31.

June 16. Aug. 10

Sun-dew (Drosera rotundifolia) fl.

July 22.

Aug. 1.

March cinquefoil (Comarum palustre) fl.
Wild cherries ripe.

July 22.
July 22.

May 27. July 12

Lancashire asphodel (Anthericum os-

sifragum) fl.

July 22.

June 21. July 29

Hooded willow-herb (Scutellaria galeri-

culata) fl.

July 23.

June 2. July 31

Water dropwort ((Enanthe fistulos) fl.

July 23.

Horehound (Marrubium vulg.) fl.

July 23.

Seseli caruifol, fl.

July 24.

Water plantain (Alisma plantago) fl.
Alopecurus myosuroides fl.
Virgin's bower (Clematis vitalba) fl.

July 24.
July 25.
July 25. Aug. 9

May 31. July 21
July 13. Aug. 14

Bees kill the drones

July 25.

Teasel (Dypsacus sylvestris) fl.

July 26.

July 16. Aug. 3

Wild marjoram (Origanum vulgare) fl.

July 26.

July 17. Aug. 29

Swifts (Hirundo apus) begin to depart

July 27—29.

Aug. 5.

Small wild teasel (Dipsacus pilosus) fl.
Wood sage (Teucrium scorodonia) fl.
Everlasting pea (Lathyrus latifolius) fl.
Trailing St. John's wort (Hypericum

July 28, 29.
July 28.
July 28.

June 17. July 24
June 20. July 30

humifusum) fl.

July 29.

May 20. June 22

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

301

White hellebore (Veratrum album) fl.
Camomile (Anthemis nobilis) fl.
Lesser field Scabious (Scabiosa colum-
baria) fl.

Sunflower (Helianthut multiflorus) fl.
Yel. loosestrife (Lysimachia vulgaris) fl.
Swift (Hirundo apus) last seen
Oats (Avena sativa) cut
Barley (Hordturn sativum) cut
Lesser hooded willow-herb (Scutellaria

minor) fl.

Middle fleabane (Inula dysenterica) fl.
Apis manieata ap.
Swallow-tailed butterfly (Papalio ma-

chaon) ap.
Whame or burrel fly ((Estrus bows) lays

eggs on horses

Sow thistle (Sonchus arvensis) fl.
Plantain fritillary (Papilio cinxia) ap.
Yellow succory (Picris hieracioides) fl.
Musca mystacea ap.

Cant'bury bells (Campanula medium) fl.
Mentha longifol. fl.
Carline thistle (Carlina vulgaris) fl.
Venetian sumach (Rhus cotinus) fl.
Ptinus pectinicornus ap.
Burdock (Arctium lappa) fl.
Fell-wort (Gentiana amarella) fl.
Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) fl.
Mugwort (Artemisia vulqaris) fl.
S. Barn'by's thistle (Centaurea solstit.) fl.
Meadow saffron (Colchicurnautumnale)ft
Mich'lmas daisy (Aster Tradescanti) fl.
Meadow rue (Thalietrum flavum) fl.
Sea holly (Eryngium marit.) fl.
China aster (Aster chinensis) fl.
Boletus albus ap.
Less Venus looking-glass (Campanula

hybrida) fl.
Carthamus tinctor. fl.
Goldfinch (Fringilla carduelis) young

broods ap.

Lapwings (Tringa vanellus) congregate
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 squar-

rosa)Q.
Autumnal dandelion (Leontodon autum-

nale) fl.

Flies abound in windows
Linnets (Fringilla linota) congregate
Bulls make their shrill autumnal noise
Aster amellus fl.

Balsam (Jmpatiens balsamina) fl.
Milk thistle (Carduus marianus) fl.
Hop-picking begins

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

July 30.
July 30.

July 18—22.
June 21. Aug. 20

July 30.
July 31. Aug. 6
July 31.
July 31. Aug. 27

July 13. Aug. 9
July 4. Aug. 22
July 2. Aug. 7
Aug. 11.

Aug. 1—16.
Aug. 1—26.

July 26. Aug. 19
July 27. Sept. 4

Aug. 1.
Aug. 2.

Aug. 8. Sept. 7
July 7. Aug. 3

Aug. 2.

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. 5.

June 5. Aug. 11

Aug. 5.

Aug. 7.

July 21. Aug. 18

Aug. 7.

June 5. 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. 12. Sept. 27

Aug. 15. Sept. 29
Aug. 11. Oct. 8

Aug. 14.

Aug. 14.

Aug. 14. Sept. 28

Aug. 6. Oct. 2

Aug. 14.

May 10.

Aug. 15.

May 14.

Aug. 15.

Aug. 15.

June 15.

Aug. 15. Sept. 12

Sept. 25. Feb. 4.

Aug. 15.

Aug. 16.

Aug. 17.

June 22. Aug. 23

Aug. 17. Sept. 10

Aug. 18.

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 13

Aug. 24. Sept. 17

Sept. 1—16

302

NATURALIST'S CALENDAR.

Beech (Fagus sylvaticd) turns yellow
Soapwort (Saponaria ojficinalis) fl.
Ladies' traces (Ophrys spiralis) fl.
Small golden black-spotted butterfly

(Papuio phlceas) ap.
Swallow (Hirundo rustica) sings
Althcea frutex (Hibiscus syriacus) fl.
Great frittilary (Papilio paphia) ap.
Willow red under- wing moth (Phalcena

pacta) ap.

Stone-curlew (Otis cedicnemus) clamours
Phcelana russula ap.
Grapes ripen
Wood owls hoot

Saffron butterfly (Papilio hyale) ap.
Ring ouzel appears on its autumnal visit
Flycatcher (Muscicapa grisola) last seen
Beans ( Vicia faba) cut
Ivy (Bedera helix) fl.
Stares congregate

Wild honeysuckles fl. a second time
Woodlark sings
Woodcock (Scolopax rusticola) returns

Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) fl.

Wheat sown

Swallows last seen. (N.B.— The house

martin the latest)
Eedwing (Turdus iliacus) comes

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris) returns

Gossamer fills the air

Chinese holyoak (Alcea rosca) fl.

Hen chaffinches congregate

Wood pigeons come

Royston crow (Corvus cornix) returns

Snipe (Scolopax gallinago) returns

Tortoise begins to bury himself

Rooks (Corvus frugilegus) return to their

nest trees
Bucks grunt

Primrose (Primula vulgar is) fl.
Green whistling plover ap.
Helvetia mitra ap.
Greenfinches flock
Eepatica fl.

Furze (Ulex europceus) fl.
Polyanthus (Primula polyantha) fl.
Young lambs dropped
Moles work in throwing up hillocks
Helleborus fcetidus fl.
Daisy (Bellis perennis) fl.
Wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri sen fruti-

culosus of Smith) fl.
Mezereon fl.
Snowdrop fl.

WHITE.

MARKWICK.

Aug. 24. Sept. 22

Sept. 5—29.

Aug. 26.

July 19. Aug. 23

Aug. 27. Sept. 12

Aug. 18. Sept. 18

Aug. 29.

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. 6—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 ones

Oct. 1.

Apr. 28, last seen Apr. 11
May 21. Dec. 10

Oct. 3. Nov. 9

Sept. 23. Oct. 19

Oct. 4. Nov. 5

Nov. 16.

Oct. 10. Nov. 10

Oct.l. Dec.18.singsFeb.10,

Oct. 12. Nov. 23

Mar. 21, last seen Apr. 13
Oct. 13. Nov. 18, last seen

Oct. 15—27.

[May 1

Oct. 19.

July 7. Aug. 21

Oct. 20. Dec. 31

Oct. 23. Dec. 27

Oct. 23. Nov. 29

Oct. 13. 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. 6.

Dec. 15.

Dec 29.

IN SESE VERTITUR ANNUS.

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 pupce of insects,
and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many
gnats are on the snow near the water ; these support the
birds in parts.

Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by
colour, for though white currants are a much sweeter fruit
than red, yet they seldom touch the former till they have
devoured every bunch of the latter.

Red-starts, fly-catchers, and blackcaps arrive early in
April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage
(as we have reason to suppose they are, because they are
never seen in winter), how could they, feeble as they seem,
bear up against such storms of snow and rain, and make
their way through such meteorous turbulences, as one should
suppose would embarrass and retard the most hardy and
resolute of the winged nation? Yet they keep their
appointed times and seasons ; and in spite of frosts and
winds return to their stations periodically, as if they had
met with nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing and
appearance of the short- winged summer birds is a very
puzzling circumstance in natural history.

3"

306 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

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 one species of buzzard buteo
apivorus sive vespivorus, or the honey buzzard, because
some combs of wasps happened to be found in one of their
nests. The combs were conveyed thither doubtless for the
sake of the maggots or nymphs, and not for their honey,
since none is to be found in the combs of wasps. Birds of
prey occasionally feed on insects ; thus have I seen a tame
kite picking up the female ants full of eggs, with much
satisfaction. — WHITE.

That red-starts, fly-catchers, blackcaps and other slender-
billed insectivorous small birds, particularly the swallow
tribe, make their first appearance very early in the spring,
is a well-known fact ; though the fly-catcher is the latest of
them all in its visit (as this accurate naturalist observes in
another place), for it is never seen before the month of
May. If these delicate creatures come to us from a
distant country, they will probably be exposed in their
passage, as Mr. White justly remarks, to much greater
difficulties from storms and tempests than their feeble
powers appear to be able to surmount ; on the other hand,
if we suppose them to pass the winter in a dormant state
in this country, concealed in caverns or other hiding-places
sufficiently guarded from the extreme cold of our winter to
preserve their life, and that at the approach of spring they
revive from their torpid state and reassume their usual
powers of action, it will entirely remove the first difficulty,
arising from the storms and tempests they are liable to

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 307

meet with in their passage ; but how are we to get over the
still greater difficulty of their revivification from their torpid
state ? What degree of warmth in the temperature of the
air is necessary to produce that effect, and how it operates
on the functions of animal life, are questions not easily
answered.

How could Mr. White suppose that Ray named this
species the honey buzzard, because it fed on honey, when
he not only named it. in Latin buteo apivorus et vespivorus,
but expressly says that " it feeds on insects, and brings up
its young with the maggots or nymphs of wasps ? "

That birds of prey, when in want of their proper food,
flesh, sometimes feed on insects I have little doubt, and I
think I have observed the common buzzard, falco buteo, to
settle on the ground and pick up insects of some kind or
other. — MARKWICK.

ROOKS.

Rooks are continually fighting, and pulling each other's
nests to pieces : these proceedings are inconsistent with living
in such close community. And yet if a pair offer to build
on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demolished at
once. Some rooks roost on their nest trees. The twigs
which the rooks drop in building supply the poor with
brushwood to light their fires. Some unhappy pairs are
not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have completed
their building. As soon as they get a few sticks together,
a party comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as rooks
have finished their nests, and before they lay, the cocks
begin to feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a
fondling tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the
little blandishments that are expressed by the young, while

308 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

in a helpless state, This gallant deportment of the males
is continued through the whole season of incubation. These
birds do not copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on
the ground in the open fields. — WHITE.

After the first brood of rooks is 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 clamour till
they are all assembled together, they take up their abode
for the night. — MARK WICK.

THRUSHES.

Thrushes during long droughts are of great service in
hunting out shell-snails, which they pull to pieces for their
young, and are thereby very serviceable in gardens. Missel
thrushes do not destroy the fruit in gardens like the other
species of Turdi, but feed on the berries of mistletoe, and in
the spring on ivy berries, which then begin to ripen. In
the summer, when their young become fledged, they leave
neighbourhoods, and retire to sheep-walks and wild
commons.

The magpies, when they have young, destroy the broods
of missel thrushes, though the dams are fierce birds, and
fight boldly in defence of their nests. It is probably to
avoid such insults that this species of thrush, though wild
at other times, delights to build near houses, and in
frequented walks and gardens. — WHITE.

Of the truth of this I have been an eye-witness, having
seen the common thrush feeding on the shell-snail.

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 309

In the very early part of this spring (1797), a bird of
this species used to sit every morning on the top of some
high elms close by my windows, and delight me with its
charming song, attracted thither, probably, by some ripe ivy
berries that grew near the place.

I have remarked something like the latter fact, for I
remember, many years ago, seeing a pair of these birds fly
up repeatedly and attack some larger bird, which I suppose
disturbed their nest in my orchard, uttering at the same
time violent shrieks. Since writing the above, I have seen
more than once a pair of these birds attack some magpies
that had disturbed their nest, with great violence and loud
shrieks. — M ARK WICK.

POULTRY.

Many creatures are endowed with a ready discernment
to see what will turn to their own advantage and emolu-
ment, and often discover more sagacity than could be
expected. Thus my neighbour's poultry watch for waggons
loaded with wheat, and running after them, pick up a
number of grains which are shaken from the sheaves by the
agitation of the carriages. Thus, when my brother used
to take down his gun to shoot sparrows, his cats would run
out before him, to be ready to catch up the birds as they
fell.

The earnest and early propensity of the 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 ; turkeys and
guinea fowls, heavy as they are, get up into apple-trees ;

3 1 0 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

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 apprehension from
pole-cats and stoats, they never trust themselves to coverts,
but nestle together in the midst of large fields, far removed
from hedges and coppices, which they love to haunt in the
day, and where at that season they can skulk more secure
from the ravages of rapacious birds.

As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay web-feet
forbid them to settle on trees ; they therefore, in the hours
of darkness and danger, betake themselves to their own
element, the water, where, amidst large lakes and pools, like
ships riding at anchor, they float the whole night long in
peace and security. — WHITE.

Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather
resort, even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest
trees. Last winter, when the ground was covered with
snow, I discovered all my guinea fowls, in the middle of
the day, sitting on the highest boughs of some very tall
elms, chattering and making a great clamour : I ordered
them to be driven down lest they should be frozen to death
in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected without
much difficulty ; they 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

* The pheasants run into equal danger when they roost in the
trees ; for, although they are secure from ground vermin, yet do they
often fall victims to the poacher, who can see them plainly against
the sky.

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 31 1

how to account for this, unless it was occasioned by their
aversion to the snow on the ground, they being birds that
come originally from a hot climate.

Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr.
White calls them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign
species have the power of settling on the boughs of trees
apparently with great ease ; an instance of which I have
seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the
summer duck, anas sponsa, flew up, and settled on the
branch of an oak-tree in my presence : but whether any of
them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by
any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose not, but
that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water,
where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly
secure, as will appear from the following circumstance
which happened in this neighbourhood a few years since, as
I was credibly informed. A female fox was found in the
morning drowned in the same pond in which were several
geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam
into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the
gander, which being most powerful in its own element,
buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was
drowned. — MABKWICK.

HEN PARTRIDGE.

A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along
shivering with her wings and crying out as if wounded and
unable to get from us. While the dam acted this distress,
the boy who attended me saw her brood, that was small
and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-earth
under the bank. So wonderful a power is instinct. —
WHITE.

312 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself
wounded and run along on the ground fluttering and crying
before either dog or man, to draw them away from its help-
less unfledged young ones. I have seen it often, and once
in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old bird's
solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young
pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges :
the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just
before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a consider-
able 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. — MAEKWICK.

A HYBRID PHEASANT.

Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a
curious bird for my inspection. It was found by the
spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the
wing. The shape, air, and habit of the bird, and the
scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance
of a cock pheasant ; but then the head, and neck, and
breast, and belly were of a glossy black : and though it
weighed three pounds three ounces and a-half,* the weight
of a full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of

* Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces.

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 3 1 3

any spurs on the legs, as is usual with all grown cock
pheasants, who have long ones. The legs and feet were
naked of feathers, and therefore it could be nothing of the
grouse kind. In the tail were no bending feathers such as
cock pheasants usually have, and are characteristic of the
sex. The tail was much shorter than the tail of a hen
pheasant, and blunt and square at the end. The back,
wing, feathers, and tail were all of a pale russet curiously
streaked somewhat like the upper parts of a hen partridge.
I returned it with my verdict, that it was probably a
spurious or hybrid hen bird, bred between a cock pheasant
and some domestic fowl. When I came to talk with the
keeper who brought it, he told me that some pea-hens had
been known last summer to haunt the coppices and coverts
where this mule was found.

Mr. Elmer, of Farnham, the famous game painter, was
employed to take an exact copy of this curious bird.

N.B. — It ought to be mentioned, that some good judges
have imagined this bird to have been a stray grouse or
blackcock ; it is however to be observed, that Mr. W.
remarks, that its legs and feet were naked, whereas those
of the grouse are feathered to the toes. — WHITE.

Mr. Latham observes that " pea-hens, after they have
done laying, sometimes assume the plumage of the male
bird," and has given a figure of the male-feathered pea-
hen now to be seen in the Leverian Museum ; and M.
Salerne remarks, that " the hen pheasant, when she has
done laying and sitting, will get the plumage of the male."
May not this hybrid pheasant (as Mr. White calls it) be a bird
of this kind ? that is, an old hen pheasant which has just
begun to assume the plumage of the cock.— MARK WICK.

3 1 4 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

LAND-RAIL.

A man brought me a land-rail, or daker-hen, a bird so
rare in this district that we seldom see more than one or
two in a season, and those only in autumn.* This is
deemed a bird of passage by all the writers ; yet from its
formation seems to be poorly qualified for migration ; for
its wings are short, and placed so forward, and out of the
centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embar-
rassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly
be sprung a second time, as it runs very fast, and seems to
depend more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying.

When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft
and tender in appearance, they might have been dressed
like the ropes of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small
and lank, containing a mucus ; the gizzard thick and
strong, and filled with small shell-snails, some whole, and
many ground to pieces through the attrition which is
occasioned by the muscular force and motion of that
intestine. We saw no gravels among the food : perhaps
the shell-snails might perform the functions of gravels or
pebbles, and might grind one another. Land-rails used to
abound formerly, I remember, in the low wet bean-fields of
Christian Malford in North Wilts, and in the meadows
near Paradise Gardens at Oxford, where I have often heard
them cry "crex, crex." The bird mentioned above weighed
seven and a-half ounces, was fat and tender, and in flavour
like the flesh of a woodcock. The liver was very large and
delicate. — W H ITB.

* The land-rail is common in Shropshire, and I have found three or
four nests in a single hayfield. One of these birds was once brought
in, in a load of hay, and when discovered feigned to be dead. It was
laid aside, and recovered so quickly, that it made good its escape with
remarkable speed.

OBSER VA TJONS ON BIRDS. 315

Land-rails are more plentiful with us than in the
neighbourhood of Selborne. I have found four brace in an
afternoon, and a friend of mine lately shot nine in two
adjoining fields ; but I never saw them in any other reason
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 unwilling,
ness 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 gizzard, confirms my opinion, that it
frequents corn-fields, seed clover, and brakes or fern, more
for the sake of snails, slugs, and other insects which
abound in such places, than for the grain or seeds ; and
that it is entirely an insectivorous bird. — MARKWICK.

FOOD OF THE RING-DOYE.

One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening as
it was returning from feed, and going to roost. When his
wife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed
with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These she
cashed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice and delicate
plate of greens, culled and provided in this extraordinary
manner.

Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, when

31 6 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

grain fails, can subsist on the leaves of vegetables. There
is reason to suppose that they would not long be healthy
without ; for turkeys, though corn fed, delight in a variety
of plants, such as cabbage, lettuce, endive, etc., and poultry
pick much grass ; while geese live for months together on
commons by grazing alone.

" Nought is useless made ;-

-On the barren heath

The shepherd tends his flock that daily crop
Their verdant dinner from the mossy turf
Sufficient : after them the cackling goose,
Close-grazer, finds wherewith to ease her want."

— PHILIPS'S Cyder.
— WHITE.

That many graminivorous 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
give a peculiar flavour to their flesh, that is, to me, very
palatable : the flavour also of wild ducks and geese greatly
depends on the nature of their food j and their flesh
frequently contracts a rank unpleasant taste, from their
having lately fed on strong marshy aquatic plants, as I
suppose.

That the leaves of vegetables are wholesome and conducive
to the health of birds seems probable, for many 'people fat
their ducks and turkeys with the leaves of lettuce chopped
small. — MARK WICK.

HEN-HARRIER.

A neighbouring gentleman sprung a pheasant in a wheat
stubble, and shot at it ; when, notwithstanding the report
of the gun, it was immediately pursued by the blue hawk,
known by the name of the hen-harrier, but escaped into
some covert. He then sprung a second, and a third, in the

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 317

same field, that got away in the same manner ; the hawk
hovering round him all the while that he was beating the
field, conscious, no doubt, of the game that lurked in the
stubble. Hence we may conclude that this bird of .prey
was rendered very daring and bold by hunger, and
that hawks cannot always seize their game when they
please. We may farther observe, that they cannot pounce
their quarry on the ground where it might be able to make
a stout resistance, since so large a fowl as a pheasant could
not but be visible to the piercing eye of a hawk, when
hovering over the field. Hence that propensity of cower-
ing 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 Gallinse by the
invention of nets and guns. — WHITE,

Of the great boldness and rapacity of birds of prey when
urged on by hunger I have seen several instances ; par
ticularly, 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 off, 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 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

3 1 8 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

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 preceived (though indistinctly from the extreme
velocity of their motion) two birds fly directly against each
other, when instantly, to my great astonishment, down
dropped a partridge at my feet. The dog immediately
seized it, and on examination, I found the blood flow very
fast from a flesh wound in the head, but there was some
dry-clotted blood on its wings and side ; whence I concluded
that a hawk had singled out my wounded bird as the
object of his prey, and had struck it down the instant that
my approach had obliged the birds to rise on the wing ;
but the space between the hedges was so small, and the
birds so instantaneous and quick, that I could not distinctly
observe the operation. — MABKWICK.

GREAT SPECKLED DIVER, OR LOOK

As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer JTorest
from Bramshot across the moors, he found a large uncom-
mon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which
he brought home alive. On examination it proved to be
colymbus glaciaUs, Linn., the great speckled diver or
loon, which is most excellently described in Willughby's
Ornithology.

Every part and proportion of this bird is so incomparably
adapted to its mode of life, that in no instance do we see
the wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage.
The head is sharp and smaller than the part of the neck

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 3 1 9

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
quite flat, and as sharp backwards almost as the edge of a
knife, that in striking they may easily cut the water;
while the feet are palmated, and broad for swimming, yet so
folded up when advanced forward to take a fresh stroke as
to be full as narrow as the shank. The two exterior toes
of the feet are longest ; the nails flat and broad, resembling
the human, which give strength, and increase the power of
swimming. The foot, when expanded, is not at right
angles to the leg or body of the bird; but the exterior
part inclining towards the head forms an acute angle with
the body; the intention being not to give motion in the
line of the legs themselves, but by the combined impulse of
both in an intermediate line, the line of the body.

Most people know, that have observed at all, that the
swimming of birds is nothing nore than a walking in the
water, where one foot succeeds the other as on the land ;
yet no one, as far as I am aware, has remarked that diving
fowls, while under water, impel and row themselves for-
ward by a motion of their wings, as well as by the impulse
of their feet ; but such is really the case, as any person may
easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted
by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has
given a reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so
forward ; doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their
speed in flying, since that position certainly impedes it,
but probably for the increase of their motion under water,
by the use of four oars instead of two : yet were the wings
and feet nearer together, as in land-birds, they would, when
in action, rather hinder than assist one another.

320 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS,

This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only
three drachms short of three pounds avoirdupois. It
measured in length from the bill to the tail (which was
very short) two feet, and to the extremities of the toes four
inches more ; and the breadth of the wings expanded was
forty-two inches. A person attempted to eat the body, but
found it very strong and rancid, as is the flesh of all birds
living on fish. Divers or loons, though bred in the most
northerly parts of Europe, yet are seen with us in very
severe winters ; and on the Thames they are called sprat
loons, because they prey much on that sort of fish.

The legs of the colymbi and mergi are placed so very
backward, and so out of all centre of gravity, that these
birds cannot walk at all. They are called by Linnaeus
compedes, because they move on the ground as if shackled
or fettered. — WHITE.

These accurate and ingenious observations, tending to set
forth in a proper light the wonderful works of God in the
creation, and to point out His wisdom in adapting the sin-
gular 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

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 321

colymbus in their manner of life, which is spent chiefly in
the water, where they swim and dive with astonishing
rapidity, for which purpose their fin-toed feet, placed far
behind, and very short wings, are particularly well adapted,
and show the wisdom of God in the creation as conspicu-
ously as the bird before mentioned. These birds were the
greater and lesser crested grebe, podiceps cristatus et auritsu.
What surprised me most was, that the first of these birds
was found alive on dry ground, about seven miles from the
sea, to which place there was no communication by water.
How did it get so far from the sea? its wings and legs
being so ill adapted either to flying or walking. The lesser
crested grebe was also found in a fresh-water pond which
had no communication with other water, at some miles'
distance from the sea. — MARKWICK.

STONE-CURLEW.-

On the 27th February 1788 stone-curlews were heard to
pipe ; and on March 1st, after it was dark, some were pass-
ing over the village, as might be perceived by their quick
short note, which they use in their nocturnal excursions by
way of watchword, that they may not stray and lose their
companions.

Thus, we see, that retire whithersoever they may in the win-
ter, 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. — WHITE.

31*

322 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

On the 31st January 1792 I received a bird of this
species which had been recently killed by a neighbouring
farmer, who said he had frequently seen it in his fields
during the former part of the winter : this perhaps was an
occasional straggler, which by some accident was prevented
from accompanying its companions in their migration. —
MARKWICK.

THE SMALLEST UNORESTED WILLOW WREN.

The smallest uncrested willow wren, or chiff-chaff, is the
next early summer bird which we have remarked ; it utters
two sharp piercing notes, so loud in hollow woods as to
occasion an echo, and is usually first heard about the 20th
March. — WHITE.

This bird, which Mr. White calls the smallest willow
wren, or chiff-chaff, makes its appearance very early in the
spring, and is very common with us ; but I cannot make
out the three different species of willow wrens which he
assures us he has discovered. Ever since the publication of
his History of Selborne I have used my utmost endeavours .
to discover his three birds, but hitherto without success.
I have frequently shot the bird which "haunts only the
tops of trees, and makes a sibilous noise," even in the very
act of uttering that sibilous note, but it always proved to
be the common willow wren or his chiff-chaff. In short, I
never could discover more than one species, unless my
greater pettychaps, sylvia hortensis of Latham, is his
greatest willow wren. — MARKWICK.

FERN-OWL, OR GOAT-SUCKER.
The country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or
churn-owl, or eve-jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is
very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting as it strikes

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 323

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 caprimulgus ; and with us, of communicating a
deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of the matter is,
the malady above-mentioned is occasioned by the cestrus
boviSy a dipterous insect, which lays its eggs along the chines
of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their way
through the hide of the beast into the flesh, and grow to a,
very large size. I have just talked with a man who says
he has more than once stripped calves who have died of the
puckeridge ; that the ail or complaint lay along the chine,
where the flesh was much swelled, and filled with purulent
matter. Once I myself saw a large rough maggot of this
sort squeezed out of the back of a cow.

These maggots in Essex are called wornils.

The least observation and attention would convince men,
that these birds neither injure the goatherd nor the grazier,
but are perfectly harmless, and subsist alone, being night
birds, on night insects, such as scarabcei and phalcence ; and
through the month of July mostly on the scarabceus sol>
stitialis, which in many districts abounds at that season.
Those that we have opened have always had their craws
stuffed with large night moths and their eggs, and pieces of
chaffers : nor does it anywise appear how they can, weak and
unarmed as they seem, inflict any harm upon kine, unless
they possess the powers of animal magnetism, and can affecfj
them by fluttering over them.

* The goat-sucker, liko other birds, finds insects in attendance
on cattle ; hence its apparent " striking at them." Magpies and
starlings will coolly perch on the backs of animals and leisurely make
their meal.

S24 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

A fern-owl, this evening (August 27th), showed off in a
very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking round
and round the circumference of my great spreading oak for
twenty times following, keeping mostly close to the grass,
but occasionally glancing up amidst the boughs of the tree.
This amusing bird was then in pursuit of a brood of some
particular phalsena belonging to the oak, of which there are
several sorts ; and exhibited on the occasion a command
of wing superior, I think, to that of the swallow itself.

When a person approaches the haunt of fern-owls in an
evening, they continue flying round the head of the
obtruder ; and by striking their wings together above their
backs, in the manner that the pigeons called smiters are
known to do, make a smart snap : perhaps at that time
they are jealous for their young, and their noise and gesture
are intended by way of menace.

Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account
of food ; for the next evening we saw one again several times
among the boughs of the same tree ; but it did not skim
round its stem over the grass, as on the evening before. In
May these birds find the Scarabceus melolontha on the oak,
and the Scarabceus solstitialis at midsummer. These
peculiar birds can only be watched and observed for two
hours in the twenty-four ; and then in dubious twilight, an
hour after sunset and an hour before sunrise.

On this day (July 14th, 1789) a woman brought me two
eggs of a fern-owl, or evening jarr, which she found on the
verge of the Hanger, to the left of the hermitage, under a
fceechen 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 wese oblong, dusky, and streaked

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 326

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 4th, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern-
owl's eggs last year on July 14th, on this day produced me
two more, one of which had been laid this morning, as
appears plainly, because there was only one in the nest the
evening before. They were found, as last July, on the
verge of the down above the hermitage, under a beechen
shrub, on the naked ground. Last year" those eggs were
full of young, just ready to be hatched.

These circumstances point out the exact time when these
curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs and hatch
their young. Fern-owls, like snipes, stone-curlews, and
some other birds, make no nest. Birds that build on the
ground do not make much of nests. — WHITE.

No author that I am acquainted with has given so
accurate and pleasing an account of the manners and habits
of the goat-sucker as Mr. White, taken entirely from his
own observations. Its being a nocturnal bird has prevented
my having many opportunities of observing it. I suspect
that it passes the day in concealment amidst the dark and
shady gloom of deep-wooded dells, or as they are called here
gills; having more than once seen it roused from such
solitary places by my dogs, when shooting in the daytime.
I have also sometimes seen it in an evening, but not long

326 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

enough to take notice of its habits and manners. I have
never seen it but in the summer, between the months of
May and September. — MAEKWICK.

SAND-MARTINS.

March 23rd, 1788. A gentleman, who was this week on
a visit at Waverley, took the opportunity of examining
some of the holes in the sand-banks with which that district
abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank martins,
and are the places where they avowedly breed, he was in
hopes they might have slept there also, and that he might
have surprised them just as they were awaking from their
winter slumbers. When he had dug for some time, he
found the holes were horizontal and serpentine, as I had
observed before ; and that the nests were deposited at the
inner end, and had been occupied by broods in former
summers, but no torpid birds were to be found. He opened
and examined about a dozen holes. Another gentleman
made the same search many years ago, with as little success.

These holes were in depth about two feet.

March 21st, 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 9th, 1793. A sober hind assures us, that this day,
on Wishhanger common, between Hedleigh and Frinsham,
he saw several bank martins playing in and out, and
hanging before some nest-holes in a sand-hill, where these
birds usually nestle.

The incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of
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.

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 327

The late severe weather considered, it is not very prob-
able 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 latebrse, where they have spent the
uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state, and the
profoundest of slumbers.

There is a large pond at Wishhanger, which induces
these sand-martins to frequent that district. For I have
ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either
rivers or lakes. — WHITE.

Here, and in many other passages of his writings, this
very ingenious naturalist savours the opinion that part, at
least, of the swallow tribe pass their winter in a torpid
state in the same manner as bats and flies, and revive again
on the approach of spring.

I have frequently taken notice of all these circumstances,
which induced Mr. White to suppose that some of these
hirundines lie torpid during winter. I have seen so late as
November, on a finer day than usual at that season of the
year, two or three swallows flying backwards and forwards
under a warm hedge, or on the sunny side of some old
building; nay, I once saw on the 8th 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 asserted that these birds migrate back
again from some distant tropical region, merely on the
appearance of a fine day or two at this late season of the

328 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

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. —
MAKKWICK.

SWALLOWS, CONGREGATING AND
DISAPPEARANCE OF.

During the severe winds that often prevail late in the
spring, it is not easy to say how the hirundines subsist ; for
they withdraw themselves, and are hardly ever seen, nor do
any insects appear for their support. That they can retire
to rest, and sleep away these uncomfortable periods, as bats
do, is a matter rather to be suspected than proved ; or do
they not rather spend their time in deep and sheltered
vales near waters, where insects are more likely to be
found? Certain it is, that hardly any individuals of this
genus have at such times been seen for several days
together.

Sept. 13th, 1791. The congregating flocks of hirundines
on the church and tower are very beautiful and amusing !
When they fly off together from the roof, on any alarm,
they quite swarm in the air. But they soon settle in
heaps, and preening their feathers, and lifting up their
wings to admit the sun, seem highly to enjoy the warm
situation. Thus they spend the heat of the day, preparing

O3SE21 VA TIONS ON BIRDS. 329

for their emigration, and, as it were, consulting when and
where they are to go. The flight about the church seems
to consist chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in number ;
but there are other places of rendezvous about the village
frequented at the same time.

It is remarkable that though most of them sit 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 3rd, 1789. Two swallows were seen this
morning at Newton vicarage-house, hovering and settling
on the roofs and out-buildings. None have been observed
at Selborne since October llth. It is very remarkable,
that after the hirundines have disappeared for some weeks,
a few are occasionally seen again ; sometimes in the first
week in November, and that only for one day. Do they
not withdraw and slumber in some hiding-place in the
interval 1 For we cannot suppose they had emigrated to
warmer climes and so returned again for one day. Is it
not more probable that they are awakened from sleep, and,
like the bats, are come forth to collect a little food ? Bats
appear at all seasons through the autumn and spring
months, when the thermometer is at 50°, because then
phalsenae and moths are stirring.

These swallows looked like young ones. — WHITE.

Of their migration the proofs are such as will scarcely
admit of a doubt. Sir Charles Wager and Captain Wright
saw vast flocks of them at sea, when on their passage from

330 OBSER VA TIONS ON BIRDS.

one country to another. Our author, Mr. White, saw what
he deemed the actual migration of these birds, and which
he has described at p. 63 of his History of Selborne ; and
of their congregating together on the roofs of churches and
other buildings, and on trees, previous to their departure,
many instances occur ; particularly I once observed a large
stock of house-martins on the roof of the church here at
Catsfield, which acted exactly in the manner here described
by Mr. 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.
— MABKWICK.

WAGTAILS.

While the cows are feeding in the moist low pastures,
broods of wagtails, white and grey, run round them, close
up to their noses, and under their very bellies, availing
themselves of the flies that settle on their legs, and prob-
ably finding worms and larvce that are roused by the
trampling of their feet. Nature is such an economist, that
the most incongruous animals can avail themselves of each
other !

Interest makes strange friendships. — WHITE.

Birds continually avail themselves of particular and un-
usual circumstances to procure their food : thus wagtails
keep playing about the noses and legs of cattle as they
feed, in quest of flies and other insects which abound near
those animals ; and great numbers of them will follow close
to the plough to devour the worms, etc., that are turned up
by that instrument. The redbreast attends the gardener
when digging his borders • and will, with great familiarity

OBSER VA TIONS ON BIXDS. 331

and tameness, pick out the worms, almost close to his spade,
as I have frequently seen. Starlings and magpies very
often sit on the backs of sheep and deer to pick out their
ticks. — MAEKWICK.

WRYNECK.

These birds appear on the grass plots and walks ; they
walk a little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the
turf, in quest, I conclude, of ants, which are their food.
While they hold their bills in the grass, they draw out their
prey with their tongues, which are so long as to be coiled
round their heads.— WHITE.

GROSBEAK.

Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had observed to
haunt his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to
accuse this bird of making sad havoc among the buds of the
cherries, gooseberries, and wall-fruit of all the neighbouring
orchards. Upon opening its crop or craw, no buds were to
be seen ; but a mass of kernels of the stones of fruits, Mr
B. observed that this bird frequented the spot where plum-
trees grow, and that he had seen it with somewhat hard in
its mouth, which it broke with difficulty ; these were the
stones of damsons. The Latin ornithologists call this bird
Coccothraustes — i.e., berry-breaker — because with its large
horny beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone-fruits
for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are
rarely seen in England, and only in winter. — WHITE.

I have never seen this rare bird but during the severest
cold of the hardest winter ; at which season of the year I have
had in my possession two or three that were killed in this
neighbourhood in different years. — MARKWICK.

OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS.

SHEEP.

THE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged,
and their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear
their fleeces with their own mouths and horns, and
they are always that way in mild, wet winters, being
teased and tickled with a kind of lice.

After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion
and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to
distinguish one another as before. This embarrassment
seems not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece,
which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from
the defect of that notus ordo, discriminating each individual
personally ; which also is confounded by the strong scent of
pitch and tar wherewith they are newly marked ; for the
brute creation recognise each other more from the smell
than the sight ; and in matters of indentity and diversity
appeal much more to their noses than their eyes. After
sheep have been washed there is the same confusion, from
the reason given above. — WHITE.

BABBITS.

Babbits make incomparably the finest turf, for they not
only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no
bents to rise; hence warrens produce much the most
delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of
grasses. — WHITE.

OBSER VA TIONS ON Q UADR UPEDS. 333
CATS AND SQUIRRELS.

A boy has taken three young squirrels in their nest, or
drey as it is called in these parts. These small creatures
he put under the care of a cat who had lately lost her
kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them with
the same assiduity and affection as if they were her own
offspring. This circumstance corroborates my suspicion,
that the mention of exposed and deserted children being
nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young
may not be so improbable an incident as many have
supposed j and therefore may be a justification of those
authors who have gravely mentioned what some have
deemed to be a wild and improbable story.

So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled
by a cat, . that the foster mother became jealous of her
charge, and in pain for their safety; and therefore hid
them over the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance
shows her affection for these fondlings, and that she
supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus hens,
when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to
them as if they were their own chickens. — WHITE.

HORSE.

An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being
taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to
implore the help of men, and died the night following in
the street. — WHITE.

HOUNDS.

The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by
a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for
the stag that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a

334 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended
the dogs to see the deer unharboured ; but though the
huntsmen drew Hartley Wood, and Long Coppice, and
Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers, and in their way back
Hartley and Ward-le-ham Hangers, yet no stag could be
found.

The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out
before them, never drew the coverts with any address and
spirit, as many people that were present observed ; and this
remark the event has proved to be a true one. For as a
person was lately pursuing a pheasant that was wing-
broken in Hartley Wood, he stumbled upon the stag by
accident, and ran in upon him as he lay concealed amidst a
thick brake of brambles and bushes. — WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND
VERMES.

INSECTS IN GENERAL.

THE day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately ;
the papilios, muscse, and apes are succeeded at the close of
day by phalsenae, earwigs, woodlice, etc. In the dusk of
the evening, when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to
call ; these two circumstances are exactly coincident.

Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous
and dipterous insects. On sunny clays quite on to

OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 335

November they swarm on trees covered with this plant;
and when they disappear, probably retire under the shelter
of its leaves, concealing themselves between its fibres and
the trees which it entwines."* — WHITE.

This I have often observed, having seen bees and other
winged insects swarming about the flowers of the ivy very
late in the autumn. — MAKKWICK.

Spiders, woodlice, lepismse in cupboards and among sugar,
some empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phalsense
in hedges, earth-worms, etc., are stirring at all times when
winters are mild; and are of great service to those soft-
billed birds that never leave us.

On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of insects
usually called gnats (I suppose tipulae and empedes) appear
sporting and dancing over the tops of the evergreen trees in
the shrubbery, and striking about as if the business of
generation was still going on. Hence it appears that theso
diptera (which by their sizes appear to be of different
species) are not subject to a torpid state in the winter, as
most winged insects are. At night, and in frosty weather,
and when it rains and blows, they seem to retire into those
trees. They often are out in a fog. — WHITE.

This I have also seen, and have frequently observed
swarms of little winged insects playing up and down in the
air in the middle of winter, even when the ground has been
covered with snow. — MARKWICK.

* The ivy is haunted at night by swarms of moths and other insects.
I have seen an ivy bush, on a warm summer night, literally moving
with the number of moths which were feeding on it. The eyes of the
larger ones glowed like sparks of fire.

336 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

HUMMING IN THE AIR.

There is a natural occurrence to be met with upon the
highest part of our down in hot summer days, which always
amuses me much, without giving me any satisfaction with
respect to the cause of it ; and that is, a loud audible
humming of bees in the air, though not one insect is to be
seen. The sound is to be heard distinctly the whole
common through, from the Money-dells to Mr. White's
avenue gate. Any person would suppose that a large
swarm of bees was in motion, and playing about over his
head. This noise was heard last week, on June 28th.

*' Resounds the living surface of the ground,
Nor undeliglitful is the ceaseless hum
To him who muses at noon."

" Thick in yon stream of light a thousand ways.
Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd,
The quivering nations sport." — THOMSON'S Seasons.
—WHITE.

CHAFFERS.

CockchafFers seldom abound oftener than once in three
or four years ; when they swarm, they deface the trees
and hedges. Whole woods of oaks are stripped bare by
them.

Chaffers are eaten by the turkey, the rook, and tho
house-sparrow.

The scarabceus solstitialis first appears about June -26th :
they are very punctual in their coming out every year,
They are a small species, about half the size of the May-
chaffer, and are known in some parts by the name of tho
fern-chaffer. — WHITE.

A singular circumstance relative to the cock chaffer, or, as
i£ is called here, the May-bug, scarabceus melontha, happened

OB SEX VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 337

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
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 May, when it began to make its
appearance. How comes it, that though it was perfectly
formed so early as the 24th March, it did not show itself
above ground till nearly two months afterwards ? — •
MARKWICK.

PTINUS PECTINICORNIS.

Those maggots that make worm-holes in tables, chairs,
bed-posts, etc., and destroy wooden furniture, especially
where there is any sap, are the larvae of the ptinus pectini-
cornis. This insect, it is probable, deposits its eggs on the
surface, and the worms eat their way in.

In their holes they turn into their pupae state, and so
come forth winged in July, eating their way through the
valances or curtains of a bed, or any other furniture that
happens to obstruct their passage.

They seem to be most inclined to breed in beech : hence
beech will not make lasting utensils, or furniture. If their
eggs are deposited on the surface, frequent rubbing will
preserve wooden furniture. — WHITE.

BLATTA OBIENTALIS.— COCKROACH.

A neighbour complained 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 got up in a morning before daybreak.

313

338 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

Soon after this account I observed an unusual insect in
one of my dark chimney closets, and find since, that in the
night they swarm also in my kitchen. On examination I
soon ascertained the species to be the blatta orientalis of
Linnaeus, and the blatta molendinaria of Mouffet. The
male is winged ; the female is not, but shows somewhat like
the rudiments of wings, as if in the pupa state.

These insects belonged originally to the warmer parts of
America, and were conveyed from thence by shipping to
the East Indies ; and by means of commerce begin to pre-
vail in the more northern parts of Europe, as Russia,
Sweden, etc. How long they have abounded in England I
cannot say, but have never observed them in my house till
lately.

They love warmth, and haunt chimney closets and the
backs of ovens. Poda says that these and house crickets
will not associate together ; but he is mistaken in that
assertion, as Linnaeus suspected he was. They are alto-
gether night insects, lucifugce, never coming forth till the
rooms are dark and still, and escaping away nimbly at the
approach of a candle. Their antennae are remarkably long,
slender, and flexile.

October 1790. After the servants are gone to bed, the
kitchen hearth swarms with young crickets, and young
blattce 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 thousands
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 opon in the even-
ings, the males come flying in at the casements from the

OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 339

neighbouring houses, which swarm with them. How tho
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. —
WHITE.

GRYLLUS DOMESTICUS.— HOUSE CRICKET.

November. After the servants are gone to bed, the
kitchen hearth swarms with minute crickets not so large as
fleas, which must have been lately hatched. So that these
domestic insects, cherished by the influence of a constant
large fire, regard not the season of the year, but produce
their young at a time when their congeners are either dead,
or laid up for the winter, to pass away the uncomfortable
months in the profoundest slumbers, and a state of torpidity

When house-crickets are out, and running about in a
room in the night, if surprised by a candle, they give two
or three shrill notes, as it were for a signal to their fellows,
that they may escape to their crannies and lurking holes, to
avoid danger.— WHITE.

OIMEX LINEARIS.

August 12th, 1775. Cimices lineares are now in high
copulation on ponds and pools. The females, who vastly
exceed the males in bulk, dart and shoot along on the
surface of the water with the males on their backs. When
a female chooses to be disengaged, she rears, and jumps, and
plunges, like an unruly colt; the lover thus dismountedj
soon finds a new mate. The females, as fast as their

340 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

curiosities are satisfied, retire to another part of the lake,
perhaps to deposit their foetus in quiet ; hence the sexes are
found separate, except where generation is going on. From
the multitude of minute young of all gradations of sizes,
these insects seem without doubt to be viviparous. — WHITE,

PHAL^ENA QUERCUS.

Most of our oaks are naked of leaves, and even the Holt
in general, having been ravaged by the caterpillars of a
small phalcena which is of a pale yellow colour. These
insects, though a feeble race, yet, from their infinite numbers,
are of wonderful effect, being able to destroy the foliage of
whole forests and districts. At this 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 phalcencc. The aurelice of this moth is
shining and as black as jet ; and lies wrapped up in a leaf
of the tree, which is rolled round it, and secured at the ends
by a web, to prevent the maggot from falling out. — WHITE.

I suspect that the insect here meant is not the phalcena
quercus, but the pJwlcena 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

OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 841

exuvice, or remains of the chrysalis, from whence I suppose
the moths had issued, and whose caterpillar had eaten the
leaves. — MARKWICK.

EPHEMERA OATJDA BISETA. —MAY-FLY.

June 10th, 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
suoked them in as they lay struggling on the surface of the
stream, unable to rise till their wings were dried.

This appearance reconciled me in some measure to the
wonderful account that Scopoli gives of the quantities
emerging from the rivers of Oarniola. Their motions are
very peculiar, up and down for so many yards almost in a
perpendicular line. — WHITE.

1 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. — MARKWICK.

SPHYNX OCELLATA.

A vast insect appears after it is dusk, flying with a hum-
ming noise, and inserting its tongue into the bloom of the
honey-suckle ; it scarcely settles upon the plants, but feeds
on the wing in the manner of humming birds. — WHITE.

I have frequently seen the large bee moth, sphinx
stellatarum, inserting its long tongue or proboscis into the
centre of flowers, and feeding on their nectar, without
settling on them, but keeping constantly on the wing. —
MARKWICK.

342 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

WILD BEE.

There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-
campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it
turns to some purpose in the business of nidification. It is
very pleasant to see with what address it strips off the
pubes, running from the top to the bottom of a branch, and
shaving it bare with all the dexterity of a hoop-shaver.
When it has got a vast bundle, almost as large as itself, it
flies away, holding it secure between its chin and . its
fore legs.

There is a remarkable hill on the downs near Lewes in
Sussex, known by the name of Mount Carburn, which
overlooks that town, and affords a most engaging prospect
of all the country round, besides several-views of the sea.
On the very summit of this exalted promontory, and amidst
the trenches of its Danish camp, there haunts a species of
wild bee, making its nest in the chalky soil. When people
approach the place, these insects begin to be alarmed, and,
with a sharp and hostile sound, dash and strike round the
heads and faces of intruders. I have often been interrupted
myself while contemplating the grandeur of the scenery
around me, and have thought myself in danger of being
stung. — WHITE.

WASPS.

Wasps abound in woody wild districts far from neighbour-
hoods ; 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 cat ilies,

OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 343

and suck the honey from flowers, from ivy blossoms and
umbellated plants ; they carry off also flesh from butchers'
shambles. — WHITE.

In the year 1775 wasps abounded so prodigiously in this
neighbourhood, that, in the month of August, no less than
seven or eight of their nests were ploughed up in one field :
of which there were several instances, as I was informed.

In the spring, about the beginning of April, a single
wasp is 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.

OESTRUS OURYICAUDA.

This insect lays its nits or eggs on horses' legs, flanks,
etc., each on a single hair. The maggots, when hatched,
do not enter the horses' skins, but fall to the ground. It
seems to abound most in moist, moorish places, though
sometimes seen in the uplands. — WHITE.

NOSE-FLY.

About the beginning of July a species of fly (musca)
obtains, which proves very tormenting to horses, trying
still to enter their nostrils and ears, and actually laying
their eggs in the latter of those organs, or perhaps in both.
When these abound, horses in woodland districts become
very impatient at their work, continually tossing their
heads, and rubbing their noses on each other, regardless of
the driver, so that accidents often ensue. In the heat of
the day, men are often obliged to desist from ploughing.
Saddle-horses are also very troublesome at such seasons,
Country people call this insect the nose-fly. — WHITE.

344 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

Is not this insect the Oestrus nasalis of Linnseus, so well
described by Mr. Clark in the third volume of the
Linncean Transactions, under the name of Oestrus
veterinus ? — MARKWICK.

ICHNEUMON FLY.

I saw lately a small ichneumon fly attack a spider much
larger than itself on a grass-walk. When the spider made
any resistance, the ichneumon applied her tail to him and
stung him with great vehemence, so that he soon became
dead and motionless. The ichneumon then running back-
ward, drew her prey very nimbly over the walk into the
standing grass. This spider would be deposited in some
hole where the ichneumon would lay some eggs ; and as
soon as the eggs were hatched, the carcase would afford
ready food for the maggots.

Perhaps some eggs might be injected into the body of the
spider, in the act of stinging. Some ichneumons deposit
their eggs in the aurelia of moths and butterflies. — WHITE.

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 chrysales of a butterfly into
a box, and covered it with gauze, to discover what species
of butterfly they would produce ; but instead of a butter-
fly, 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
larvce ; but none more remarkable than that of the

OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS. 345

ichneumon tripulce, which pierces the tender bodies and
deposits its eggs in the larva of the Tipula tritici, an insect
which, when it abounds greatly, is very prejudicial to the
grains of wheat. This operation I have frequently seen it
perform with wonder and delight. — MARKWICK.

BOMBYLIUS MEDIUS.

The Bonibylius medius is much about in March and the
beginning of April, and soon seems to retire. It is a hairy
insect, like a humble-bee, but with only two wings, and a
long straight beak, with which it sucks the early flowers.
The female seems to lay its eggs as it poises on its wings,
by striking its tail on the ground, and against the grass
that stands in its way, in a quick manner, for several times
together. — WHITE.

I have often seen this insect fly with great velocity, stop
on a sudden, hang in the air in a stationary position for
some time, and then fly off again; but do not recollect
having ever seen it strike its tail against the ground, or
any other substance. — MARKWICK.

MUSCLE.— FLIES.

In the decline of the year, when the mornings and even-
ings become chilly, many species of flies (Muscce) retire into
houses, and swarm into 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

346 OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS.

feet, whereby they are enabled to stick on the glass and
other smooth bodies, and to walk on ceilings with their
backs downward, by means of the pressure of the atmos-
phere on those flaps ; the weight of which they easily
overcome in warm weather, when they are brisk and alert,
But in the decline of the year this resistance becomes
too mighty for their diminished strength ; and we see flies
labouring along, and lugging their feet in windows as if
they stuck to the glass, and it is with the utmost difficulty
they can draw one foot after another, and disengage their
hollow caps from the slippery surface.

Upon the same principle that flies stick and support
themselves do boys, by way of play, carry heavy weights
by only a piece of wet leather at the end of a string clapped
close on the surface of a stone. — WHITE.

OR EMPEDES.

May. Millions of empedes, or tipulce, come forth at the
close of day, and swarm to such a degree as to fill the air.
At this juncture they sport and copulate; as it grows
more dark they retire. All day they hide in the hedges.
As they rise in a cloud they appear like smoke.

I do not remember to have seen such swarms, except in
the fens of the Isle of Ely. They appear most over grass
grounds. — WHITE.

APHIDES.

On the 1st August, about half an hour after three in the
afternoon, the people of Selborne were surprised by a
shower of aphides which fell in these parts. They who
were walking in the streets at that time found themselves
covered with these insects, which settled also on the trees
and gardens, and blackened all the vegetables where they

OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 347

alighted. These armies, no doubt, were then in a state of
emigration, and shifting their quarters ; and might perhaps
come from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex, the
wind being that day at north. They were observed at the
same time at Farnham, and all along the vale to Alton, —
WHITE.

ANTS.

August 23rd. Every ant-hill about this time is a strange
hurry and confusion ; and all the winged ants, agitated by
some violent impulse, are leaving their homes, and, bent on
emigration, swarm by myriads in the air, to the great
emolument of the hirundines, which fare luxuriously.
Those that escape the swallows return no more to their
nests, but looking out for fresh settlements, lay a founda-
tion for future colonies. All the females at this time are
pregnant ; the males that escape being eaten, wander away
and die.

October 2nd. Flying-ants, male and female, usually
swarm and migrate on hot sunny days in August and
September : but this day a vast emigration took place in
my garden, and myriads came forth, in appearance from
the drain which goes under the fruit-wall, filling the air
and the adjoining trees and shrubs with their numbers.
The females were full of eggs. This late swarming is
probably owing to the backward wet season. The day
following not one flying ant was to be seen.

Horse-ants travel home to their nests laden with flies
which they have caught, and the aureliae of smaller anti,
which they seize by violence. — WHITE.

In my Naturalist's Calendar for the year 1777, on
September 6th, I find the following note to the article
Flying Ants : —

348 OB SEX VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

I saw a prodigious swarm of these ants flying about the
top of some tall elm-trees (close by my house) ; some were
continually dropping to the ground, as if from the trees,
and others rising up from the ground \ many of them were
joined together in copulation ; and I imagine their life is
but short, for as soon as produced from the egg by the heat
of the sun, they propagate their species, and soon after
perish. They were black, somewhat like the small black
ant, and had four wings. I saw also, at another place, a
large sort, which were yellowish. On the 8th September
1785 I again observed the same circumstance of a vast
number of these insects flying near the tops of the elms and
dropping to the ground.

On the 2nd March 1777 I saw great numbers of ants
come out of the ground. — MARKWICK.

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.

Little glow-worms, attracted by the light of the candles,
come into the parlour. — WHITE.

EARTH-WORMS.

Earth-worms make their casts most in mild weather,
about March and April ; they do not lie torpid in winter,
but come forth when there is no frost ; they travel about in
rainy nights, as appears from their sinuous tracks on the
soft muddy soil, perhaps in search of food.

When earth-worms lie out a-nights on the turf, though
they extend their bodies a great way, they do not leave

OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS. 349

their holes, but keep the ends of their tails fixed therein,
so that on the least alarm they can retire with precipitation
under the earth. Whatever food falls within their reach
when thus extended they seem to be content with — such as
blades of grass, straws, fallen leaves, the ends of which they
often draw into their holes ; even in copulation their hinder
parts never quit their holes ; so that no two, except they lie
within reach of each other's bodies, can have any commerce
of that kind ; but as every individual is an hermaphrodite,
there is no difficulty in meeting with a mate, as would be
the case were they of different sexes. — WHITE.

SNAILS AND SLUGS.

The shell-less snails called slugs are in motion all the
winter in mild weather, and commit great depredations on
garden plants, and much injure the green wheat, the loss of
which is imputed to earth-worms ; while the shelled snail,
the <£epeoiKos, 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 operculum formed from its own
saliva ; so that it is perfectly secured and corked up, as it
were, from all inclemencies. The cause why the slugs are
able to endure the cold so much better than shell-snails is,
that their bodies are covered with slime, as whales are with
blubber.

Snails copulate about midsummer, and soon after deposit
their eggs in the mould by running their heads and bodies
under ground. Hence the way to be rid of them is to kill
as many as possible before they begin to breed.

Large, grey, shell-less cellar-snails lay themselves up
about the same time with those that live abroad ; hence it

350 OBSER VA TIONS ON INSECTS.

is plain that a defect of warmth is not the only cause that
influences their retreat. — WHITE.

SNAKE'S SLOUGH.

" -There the snake throws her enamell'd skin."

— SHAKESPEAKE'S Midsummer 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 circumstances it
appeared as if turned wrong side outward, and as drawn off
backward, like a stocking or woman's glove. Not only the
whole skin, but scales from the very eyes are peeled off,
and appear in the head of the slough like a pair of spectacles.
The reptile, at the time of changing his coat, had entangled
himself intricately in the grass and weeds, so that the fric-
tion of the stalks and blades might promote this curious
shifting of the exuviae,

' Lubrica serpens

Exuit in spinis vestem." — LUCEET,

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. Whilst the scales of the eyes are growing
loose, and a new skin is forming, the creature in appearance

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES, 351

must be blind, and feel itself in an awkward, uneasy
situation. — WHITE.

I have seen many sloughs or skins of snakes entire, after
they have cast them off; and once in particular I remember
to have found one of these sloughs so intricately interwoven
amongst some brakes that it was with difficulty removed
without being broken ; this undoubtedly was done by the
creature to assist in getting rid of its encumberance.

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 March 1777 I saw one with some-
thing ragged hanging to it, which appeared to be part of its
old skin. — MABKWICK.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES,

TREES, ORDER OF LOSING THEIR LEAVES.

ONE of the first trees that becomes naked is the walnut ;
the mulberry, the ash, especially if it bears many keys, and
the horse-chestnut come next. All lopped trees, while
their heads are young, carry their leaves a long while.
Apple-trees and peaches remain green very late, often till
the end of November : young beeches never cast their
leaves till spring, till the new leaves sprout and push them
off; in the autumn the beechen-leaves turn of a deep
chestnut colour. Tall beeches cast their leaves about tho
end of October.

352 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

SIZE AND GROWTH.

Mr. Marsham of Stratton, near Norwich, informs me by
letter thus — " I became a planter early ; so that an oak
which I planted in 1720 is become now, at one foot from
the earth, twelve feet six inches in circumference, and at
fourteen feet (the half of the timber length) is eight feet
two inches. So if the bark was to be measured as timber,
the tree gives 116£ feet, buyer's measure. Perhaps you
never heard of a larger oak while the planter was living. I
flatter myself that I increased the growth by washing the
stem, and digging a circle as far as I supposed the roots to
extend, and by spreading sawdust, etc., as related in the
Phil. Trans. I wish I had begun with beeches (my
favourite trees as well as yours) ; I might then have seen
very large trees of my 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, etc. —
STRATTON, Uth-July, 1790."

The circumference of trees planted by myself at one foot
from the ground (1790) : —

Oak in 1730 . . . 4 ft. 5 in.

Ash 1730 4 6J

Great fir 1751 . „ .50

Greatest beech 1751 . . .40

Elm 1750 . . .53

Lime 1756 ... 5 5

The great oak in the Holt, which is deemed by Mr.
Marsham to be the biggest in this island, at seven feet from
the ground, measures in circumference thirty-four feet. It
has in old times lost several of its boughs, and is tending to
decay. Mr. Marsham computes that at fourteen feet length
this oak contains 1000 feet of timber.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 353

It has been the received opinion that trees grow in
height only by their annual upper shoot. But my
neighbour over the way, whose occupation confines him to
one spot, assures me that trees are expanded and raised in
the lower parts also. The reason that he gives is this : the
point of one of my firs began for the first time to peep
over an opposite roof at the beginning of summer ; but
before the growing season was over, the whole shoot of the
year, and three or four joints of the body beside, became
visible to him as he sits on his form in his shop. According
to this supposition, a tree may advance in height considerably
though the summer shoot should be destroyed every year.

FLOWING 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 cut, any part may be taken off without the
least inconvenience. So oaks may be barked while the leaf
is budding ; but as soon as they are expanded, the bark
will no longer part from the wood, because the sap that
lubricates the bark and makes it part is evaporated off
through the leaves.

RENOVATION OF LEAVES.

When oaks are quite stripped of their leaves by chaffers,
they are clothed again soon after midsummer with a
beautiful foliage ; but beeches, horse-chestnuts, and maples,
once defaced by those insects, never recover their beauty
again for the whole season. — WHITE.

ASH TREES.

Many ash trees bear loads of keys every year, others
never seem to bear any at all The prolific ones are naked

354 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

of leaves and unsightly ; those that are sterile abound in
foliage, and carry their verdure a long while, and are
pleasing objects. — WHITE.

BEECH.

Beeches love to grow in crowded situations, and will
insinuate themselves through the thickest covert, so as to
surmount it all : are therefore proper to mend thin places
in tall hedges. — WHITE.

SYCAMORE.

May 12th. 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. — WHITE.

GALLS OF LOMBARDY POPLAR.

The stalks and ribs of the leaves of the Lombardy poplar
are embossed with large tumours of an oblong shape, which
by incurious observers have been taken for the fruit of the
tree. These galls are full of small insects, some of which
are winged, and some not. The parent insect is of the
genus of cynips. Some poplars in the garden are quite
loaded with these excrescences. — WHITE.

CHESTNUT TIMBER.

John Carpenter brings home some old chestnut trees
which are very long; in several places the woodpeckers
had begua to bore them. The timber and bark of these trees
are so very like oak, as might easily deceive *in indifferent

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 355

observer, but the wood is very shaky, and towards the
heart cup-shaky (that is to say, apt to separate in round
pieces like cups), so that the inward parts are of no use.
They are bought for the purpose of cooperage, but must
make but ordinary barrels, buckets, etc. Chestnut sells for
half the price of oak ; but has sometimes been sent to the
king's docks, and passed off instead of oak. — WHITE.

LIME BLOSSOMS.

Dr. Chandler tells that in the south of France an infu-
sion of the blossoms of the lime tree, Tilia, is in much
esteem as a remedy for coughs, hoarseness, fevers, etc., and
that at Nismes he saw an avenue of limes that was quite
ravaged and torn to pieces by people greedily gathering the
bloom, which they dried and kept for these purposes.

Upon the strength of this information we made some tea
of lime blossoms, and found it a very soft, well-flavoured,
pleasant, saccharine julep, in taste much resembling the
juice of liquorice. — WHITE.

BLACKTHORN.

This tree usually blossoms while cold north-east winds
blow ; so that the harsh, rugged weather obtaining at this
season is called by the country people blackthorn winter.
— WHITE.

IVY BERRIES.

Ivy berries form a noble and providential supply for
birds in winter and spring ; for the first severe frost freezes
and spoils all the haws, sometimes by the middle of
November. Ivy berries do not seem to freeze. — WHITE.

356 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

HOPS.

The culture of Virgil's vines corresponds very exactly
with the modern management of hops. I might instance in
the perpetual diggings and hoeings, in the tying to the
stakes and poles, in pruning the superfluous shoots, etc.,
but lately I have observed a new circumstance, which was
a neighbouring farmer's harrowing between the rows of
hops with a small triangular harrow, drawn by one horse,
and guided by two handles. This occurrence brought to
my mind the following passage :

'ipsa

Flectere luctantes inter vineta juvencos." — GEORQ.

Hops are dioecious plants ; hence perhaps it might be
proper, though not practised, to leave purposely some male
plants in every garden, that their farina might impregnate
the blossoms. The female plants without their male
attendants are not in their natural state; hence we may
suppose the frequent failure of crop so incident to hop-
grounds ; no other growth, cultivated by man, has such
frequent and general failures as hops.

Two hop gardens much injured by a hailstorm, June 5th,
show now (September 2nd) 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 he pinched off when the binds are very gross
and strong 1 — WHITE.

SEED LYING DORMANT.

The naked part of the Hanger is now covered with
thistles of various kinds. The seeds of these thistles may

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 357

have lain probably under the thick shade of the beeches for
many years, but could not vegetate till the sun and air
were admitted. When old beech trees are cleared away,
the naked ground in a year or two becomes covered with
strawberry plants, the seeds of which must have lain in the
ground for an age at least. One of the slidders or trenches
down the middle of the Hanger, close covered over with
lofty beeches near a century old, is still called " strawberry
slidder," though no strawberries have grown there in the
memory of man. That sort of fruit did once, no doubt,
abound there, and will again when the obstruction is
removed. — WHITE.

BEANS SOWN BY BIRDS.

Many horse-beans sprang up in my field-walks in the
autumn, and are now grown to a considerable height. As
the Ewel was in beans last summer, it is most likely that
these seeds came from thence ; but then the distance is too
considerable for them to have been conveyed by mice. It
is most probable therefore that they were brought by birds,
and in particular by jays and pies, who seem to have hid
them among the grass and moss, and then to have forgotten
where they had stowed them. Some pease are growing
also in the same situation, and probably under the same
circumstances. — WHITE.

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

358 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

round the lights in a morning, till the glasses are opened.
Probatum est. — WHITE.

WHEAT.

A notion has always obtained that in England hot
summers 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 ]
— WHITE.

TRUFFLES.

August. A truffle-hunter called on us, having in his
pocket several large truffles found in this neighbourhood.
He says these roots are not to be found in deep woods, but
in narrow hedgerows and the skirts of coppices. Some
truffles, he informed us, lie two feet within the earth, and
some quite on the surface ; the latter, he added, have little
or no smell, and are not so easily discovered by the dogs as
those that lie deeper, Half-a-crown a pound was the price
which he asked for this commodity. Truffles never abound
in wet winters and springs. They are in season, in
different situations, at least nine months in the year. —
WHITE.

TREMELLA NOSTOO.

Though the weather may have been ever so dry and
burning, yet after two or three wet days this jelly-like
substance abounds on the walks. — WHITE.

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 359

FAIRY RINGS.

The cause, occasion, call it what you will, of fairy rings
subsists in the turf, and is conveyable with it :* for the
turf of my garden-walks, brought from the down above,
abounds with those appearances, which vary their shape,
and shift situation continually, discovering themselves now
in circles, now in segments, and sometimes in irregular
patches and spots. Wherever they obtain, puff-balls
abound ; the seeds of which were doubtless brought in the
turf. — WHITE.

YEW.

In the churchyard of this village is a yew-tree, whose
aspect bespeaks it to be of a great age : it seems to have
seen several centuries, and is probably coeval with the
church, and therefore may be deemed an antiquity : the
body is squat, short, and thick, and measures twenty -three
feet in the girth, supporting a head of suitable extent to it«
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

* Fairy rings are caused by certain fungi which throw their seeds
outwards, so that a gradually increasing circle is formed of greener
and brighter vegetation.

360 OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES.

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 aggot-stack of dead
yew, shall be found dead before the owner can be aware
that any danger is at hand ; and the writer has been
several times a sorrowful witness to losses of this kind
among his friends ; and in the island of Ely had once the
mortification to see nine young steers or bullocks of his own
all lying dead in a heap from browsing 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 of green yew in its paunch.
True it is that yew-trees stand for twenty years or more in
a field, and no bad consequences ensue ; but at some time
or other cattle, either from wantonness when full, or from

OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES. 361

hunger when empty (from both which circumstances we
have seen them perish), will be meddling, to their certain
destruction. The yew seems to be a very improper tree for a
pasture-field.

Antiquaries seem much at a loss to determine at what
period this tree first obtained a place in churchyards. 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 respectable
parishioners were buried under their shade before the
improper custom was introduced of burying within the
body of the church, where the living are to assemble.
Deborah, Rebekah's nurse,* was buried under an oak — the
most honourable place of interment probably next to the
cave of Machpelah,t which seems to have been appropriated
to the remains of the patriarchal family alone.

The farther use of yew-trees might be as a screen to
churches, by their thick foliage, from the violence of winds ;
perhaps also for the purpose of archery, the best long bows
being made of that material ; and we do not hear that they
are planted in the 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 appearance. In the south of
England every churchyard almost has its tree, and some

* Gen. xxxv. 8. t Gen. xxiii. 9.

362 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

two ; but in the north, we understand, few are to be
found.

The idea of R. 0. 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. Hag., vol.
1. p. 128.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

BAROMETER.

NOVEMBER 22nd, 1768. A remarkable fall of the barometer
all over the kingdom. At Selborne we had no wind, and
not much rain ; only vast, swagging, rock-like clouds
appeared at a distance. — WHITE.

PARTIAL FROST.

The country people, who are abroad in winter mornings
long before sunrise, talk much of hard frosts 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 dearest and freest from vapour. — WHITE.

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 363
THAW.

Thaws are sometimes surprisingly quick, considering the
small quantity of rain. "Does not the warmth at such
times come from below 1 The cold in still, severe seasons
seems to come down from above ; for the coming over of a
cloud in severe nights raises the thermometer abroad at
once full ten degrees. The first notices of thaws often
seem to appear in vaults, cellars, etc.

If a frost happens, even when the ground is considerably
dry, as soon as a thaw takes place the paths and fields are
all in a batter. Country people say that the frost draws
moisture. But the true philosophy is, that the steam and
vapours continually ascending from the earth are bound in
by the frost, and not suffered to escape till released by the
thaw. No wonder, then, that the surface is all in a float,
since the quantity of moisture by evaporation that arises
daily from every acre of ground is astonishing. — WHITE.

FROZEN SLEET.

January 20th. Mr. H.'s man says that he caught this
day, in a lane near Hack wood park, many rooks, which,
attempting to fly, fell from the trees with their wings
frozen together by the sleet, that froze as it fell. There
were, he affirms, many dozen so disabled. — WHITE.

MIST, CALLED LONDON SMOKE.

This is a blue mist which has somewhat the smell of coal
smoke, and as it always comes to us with a N.E. wind, is
supposed to come from London. It has a strong smell,
and is supposed to occasion blights. When such mists
appear they are usually followed by dry weather. — WHITE.

364 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

REFLECTION OF FOG.

When people walk in a deep white fog by night with a
lanthorn, if they will turn their backs to the light, they
will see their shades impressed on the fog in rude gigantic
proportions. This phenomenon seems not to have been
attended to, but implies the great density of the meteor at
that juncture. — WHITE.

HONEY DEW.

June 4th, 1783. Fast honey dews this week. The
reason of these seem to be, that in hot days the effluvia of
flowers are drawn up by a brisk evaporation, and then in
the night fall down with the dews with which they are
entangled.

This clammy substance is very grateful to bees, who
gather it with great assiduity, but it is injurious to the
trees on which it happens to fall, by stopping the pores of
the leaves. The greatest quantity falls in still close
weather ; because winds disperse it, and copious dews
dilute it, and prevent its ill effects. It falls mostly in
hazy warm weather. — WHITE.

MORNING CLOUDS.

After a bright night and vast dew, the sky usually
becomes cloudy by eleven or twelve o'clock in the afternoon,
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

METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 365

in a still warm evening, they will be seen to melt away and
disappear. — WHITE.

DRIPPING WEATHER AFTER DROUGHT.

No one that has not attended to such matters, and taken
down remarks, can be aware how much ten days' dripping
weather will influence the growth of grass or corn after a
severe dry season. This present summer, 1776, yielded a
remarkable instance : for till the 30th May the fields were
burnt up and naked, and the barley not half out of the
ground; but now, June 10th, there is an agreeable prospect
of plenty. — WHITE.

AURORA BOREALIS.

November 1st, 1787. The K 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. — WHITE.

BLACK SPRING, 1771.

Dr. Johnson says, that "in 1771 the season was so
severe in the island of Skye, that it is remembered by the
name of the 'black spring/ The snow, which seldom lies
at all, covered the ground for eight weeks, many cattle died,
and those that survived were so emaciated that they did
not require the male at the usual season." The case was
just the same. with us here in the south; never were so
many barren cows known as in the spring following that

366 METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS.

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. — WHITE.

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IF YOU NEGLECT THE FIRE,.

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WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD

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THE TWO PILGRIMS.
WHAT MEN LIVE BY.

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WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD

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THE GODSON.

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WHAT MEN LIVE BY.

WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A

MAN?

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THE TWO PILGRIMS.
IF YOU NEGLECT THE FIRE,

YOU DON'T PUT IT OUT.

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MASTER AND MAN.

Volume V. contains —
TOLSTOY'S PARABLES.

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TANGLEWOOD TALES.

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OUR OLD HOME.

MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE.

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THE POET AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE.
ELSIE VENNER.

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EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. GEDDES and THOMSON
ELECTRICITY IN MODERN LIFE. By G. W. DE TUNZEL-

MANN.

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PHYSIO. -NOMY AND EXPRESSION. By P. MANTEGAZZA.
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THE VILLAGE COMMUNITY. By G. L. GOMME.
THE CRIMINAL. By HAVELOCK ELLIS.
SANITY AND INSANITY. By Dr. C. MERCIER.
HYPNOTISM. By Dr. ALBERT MOLL (Berlin).
MANUAL TRAINING. By Dr. WOODWARD (St. Louis).
SCIENCE OF FAIRY TALES. By E. S. HARTLAND.
PRIMITIVE FOLK. By ELIE RECLUS
EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE. By LETOURNEAU.
BACTERIA AND THEIR PRODUCTS. Dr. WOOD HEAD.
EDUCATION AND HEREDITY. By C. M. GUYAU.
THE MAN OF GENIUS. By Prof. LOMBROSO.
THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE. By Prof. PEARSON.
PROPERTY: ITS ORIGIN. By CH. LETOURNEAU.
VOLCANOES PAST AND PRESENT. By Prof. HULL.
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CHRISTIAN YEAR. With Portrait of John Keole.
LONGFELLOW. With Portrait of Longfellow.
SHELLEY. With Portrait of Shelley.
WORDSWORTH. With Portrait of Wordsworth.
WHITTIER. With Portrait of Whittier.

BURNS. Songs ) With Portrait of Burns, and View of "The
BURNS. Poems/ Auld Brig o' Doon."

KEATS. With Portrait of Keats.
EMERSON. With Portrait of Emerson.

SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY. Portrait of D. G. Ro^setti.
WHITMAN. With Portrait of Whitman.

LOVE LETTERS OF A VIOLINIST. Portrait of Eric Mackay.
SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, ^ With Portrait of Sir Walter Scott,
etc. > and View of " The Silver

SCOTT. Marmion, etc. J Strand, Loch Katrine."
CHILDREN OF THE POETS. With an Engraving of " The

Orphans," by Gainsborough.

SONNETS OF EUROPE. With Portrait of J. A. Symonds.
SYDNEY DOBELL. With Portrait of Sydney Dobell.
HERRICK. With Portrait of Herrick.
BALLADS AND RONDEAUS. Portrait of W. E. Henley.
IRISH MINSTRELSY. With Portrait of Thomas Davis.
PARADISE LOST. With Portrait of Milton.
FAIRY MUSIC. Engraving from Drawing by C. E. Brock.
•GOLDEN TREASURY. With Engraving of Virgin Mother.
AMERICAN SONNETS. With Portrait of J. R. Lowell.
IMITATION OF CHRIST. With Engraving, " Ecce Homo."
PAINTER POETS. With Portrait of Walter Crane.
WOMEN POETS. With Portrait of Mrs. Browning.
POEMS OF HON. BOD EN NOEL. Portrait of Hon. R. No*L
AMERICAN HUMOROUS VERSE. Portrait of Mark Twain.
SONGS OF FREEDOM. With Portrait of William Morris.
SCOTTISH MINOR POETS. With Portrait of R. Tannahill.
CONTEMPORARY SCOTTISH VERSE. With Portrait of

Robert Louis Stevenson.

PARADISE REGAINED. With Portrait of Milton.
CAVALIER POETS. With Portrait of Suckling.
HUMOROUS POEMS. With Portrait of Hood.
HERBERT. With Portrait of Herbert
POE. With Portrait of Poe.
OWEN MEREDITH. With Portrait of late Lord Lyttou.

LOVE LYRICS. With Portrait of Raleigh.

GERMAN BALLADS. With Portrait of Schiller.

CAMPBELL. With Portrait of Campbell.

CANADIAN POEMS. With View of Mount Stephen.

EARLY ENGLISH POETRY. With Portrait of Earl of Surrey

ALLAN RAMSAY. With Portrait of Ramsay.

SPENSER. With Portrait of Spenser.

CHATTERTON. With Engraving " The Death of Chatterton."

CO WPER. With Portrait of Co wper.

CHAUCER. With Portrait of Chaucer.

COLERIDGE. With Portrait of Coleridge.

POPE. With Portrait of Pope.

£v52S' ™sceTllaneous \With Portraits of Byron.
BYRON. Don Juan /

JACOBITE SONGS. With Portrait of Prince Charlie.

BORDER BALLADS. With View of Neidpath Castle.

AUSTRALIAN BALLADS. With Portrait of A. L. Gordon.

HOGG. With Portrait of Hogg.

GOLDSMITH. With Portrait of Goldsmith.

MOORE. Writh Portrait of Moore.

DORA GREENWELL. With Portrait of Dora Greenwell.

BLAKE. With Portrait of Blake.

POEMS OF NATURE. With Portrait of Andrew Lang

PRAED. With Portrait.

SOUTHEY. With Portrait.

HUGO. With Portrait.

GOETHE. With Portrait.

BERANGER. With Portrait.

HEINE. With Portrait.

SEA MUSIC. With View of Corbiere Rocks, Jersey.

SONG-TIDE. With Portrait of Philip Bourke Marston.

LADY OF LYONS. With Portrait of Bulwer Lytton.

SHAKESPEARE : Songs and Sonnets. With Portrait.

BEN JONSON. With Portrait.

HORACE. With Portrait.

CRABBE. With Portrait.

CRADLE SONGS. With Engraving from Drawing by T. E. Macklin

BALLADS OF SPORT. Do. do.

MATTHEW ARNOLD. With Portrait.

AUSTIN'S DAYS OF THE YEAR. With Portrait.

PLOUGH'S BOTHIE, and other Poems. With View.

BROWNING'S Pippa Passes, etc. >,

BROWNING'S Blot in the 'Scutcheon, etc. -With Portrait.

BROWNING'S Dramatic Lyrics. J

MACKAY'S LOVER'S MISSAL. With Portrait.

KIRKE WHITE'S POEMS. With Portrait.

Great Writers.

A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES.

Edited by E. ROBERTSON and F. T. MARZIALS.

Cloth, Uncut Edges, Gilt Top. Price 1/6.
Longfellow . By Professor Eric S. Robertson

Coleridge By Hall Cain*

Dickens .... By Frank T. Marzials
Dante Gabriel Rossetti . . . By J. Knight
Samuel Johnson . . .By Colonel F. Grant

Darwin By G. T. Bettany

Charlotte Bronte . . . . By A. BirrelJ
Carlyle . . . . By R. Garnett, LL.D.
Adam Smith . . . By R. B. Haldane, M.P.

Keats By W. M. Rossetti

Shelley By William Sharp

Smollett By David Hannay

Goldsmith .... By Austin Dobsou

Scott By Professor Yon$«

Burns .... By Professor Blackia
Victor Hugo ... By Frank T. Marziaia
Emerson . . . . By R. Garnett, LL. D.

Goethe By James Sinw

Congreve By Edmund Gosse

Bunyan By Canon Venables

Crabbe By T. E. Kebbel

Heine By William Sharp

Mill By W. L. Courtney

Schiller .... By Henry W. Nevinson

Marryat By David Hannay

Leasing By T. W. Rollestoq

Milton . . . . By R. Garnett, LL. I>
Balzac .... By Frederick Wedmor*
George Eliot . . . .By Oscar Browning
Jane Austen . **.. . . By Gold win Smith
Browning ..... By William Sharp
Byron > . . . . By Hon. Roden Noel
Hawthorne . . . By Moncure D. Con way
Schopenhauer . . . By Professor Wallace

Sheridan By Lloyd Sanders

Thackeray. . By H. Merivale and F. T. Marziala
Cervantes . " . . . . By H. E. Watta

Voltaire .... By Francis Espinasse
Leigh Hunt . . . By Cosmo Monkhouse

Whittier By W. J. Lintor,

Renan .... By Francis Espinasse

Thoreau By H. S. Salt

A Complete Bibliography to each Volume, by

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