W H 1 T E*8 SELBORNE &B> 220 ■y-Pl Presented to the LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by Hugh Anson-Cartwright THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from University of Toronto https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryof01whit White's House “ The Wakes,’ ’ from the garden. Natural History OF AND OBSERVATIONS ON NATURE BY GILBERT WHITE WITH THE TEXT AND NEW LETTERS OF THE BUCKLAND EDITION INTRODUCTION BY JOHN BURROUGHS ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLIFTON JOHNSON TORONTO MUSSON BOOK CO., Limited 1 904 THIS EDITION IS LIMITED TO TWO HUNDRED SETS NUMBERED 3Z AND SIGNED BY THE PUBLISHERS. President LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. I. White’s house, “ The Wakes,” from the garden Interior of Selborne church .... Under the great yew in Selborne churchyard . Faringdon church ...... Selborne church from the short lythe A Faringdon byway . White’s grave ....... A stile in the long lythe ..... Selborne from the Hanger . . . . A bit of Selborne village ..... The Plestor . An old chalk-pit . Wolmer forest . Wolmer pond ....... One of the old Selborne houses A snipe ........ The great yew in the churchyard A corn-rick in Norton farmyard A white rook ....... A bird’s nest found ...... The butcher’s shop . A friendly chat on Selborne street . Stonehenge ....... Cottages next to “ The Wakes ” Beeches in the long lythe .... A cottage in the lythe ..... A family of landrails .... PAGE Frontispiece • X • xiii . . XV Facing xv i • xviii . xxii • • xxiii Facing I • . 2 • 6 • • IO Facing IS • 27 • 33 . 39 • 48 • • 54 . • 53 • • 63 • • /i • • 77 Facing Si • 93 Facing 96 Facing 93 • • 99 v Among the hedgerows Golden-crested wrens The cuckoo A hedgehog Song thrushes . The backdoor walk to a cottage garden Ring-ousels A “ rookstarver ” A fieldfare Entrance to an old Sel borne lane A redwing A rook .... A starling In a Selborne beechwood A crow .... A bullfinch Lapwings House martins . White’s sundial at the bottom of his garden A rookery ...... PAGE . . 108 . 113 . 121 . 124 . 129 Facing 132 . 140 • 143 • 153 . 162 . 167 • 173 . 174 Facing 183 . 190 . 192 • 193 • 195 Facing 202 Facing 207 VI INTRODUCTION. One of the few books which I can return to and re-read every six or seven years is this book of Gil¬ bert White’s. It has a perennial charm. It is much like country things themselves. One does not read it with excitement or eager avidity ; it is in a low key ; it touches only upon minor matters ; it is not eloquent, or witty, or profound ; it has only now and then a twinkle of humour or a glint of fancy, and yet it has lived an hundred years and promises to live many hundreds of years more. So many learned and elaborate treatises have sunk beneath the waves upon which this cockle-shell of a book rides so safely and buoyantly ! What is the secret of its longevity ? One can do little more than name its qualities without tracing them to their sources. It is simple and wholesome, like bread, or meat, or milk. Perhaps it is just this same unstrained qual¬ ity that keeps the book alive. Books that are pi¬ quant and exciting like condiments, or cloying like confectionery or pastry, it seems, have a much less Vll chance of survival. The secret of longevity of a man — what is it? Sanity, moderation, regularity, and that plus vitality, which is a gift. The book that lives has these things, and it has that same plus vitality, the secret of which cannot be explored. The sensational, intemperate books set the world on fire for a day, and then end in ashes and forget¬ fulness. White’s book diffuses a sort of rural England at¬ mosphere through the mind. It is not the work of a city man who went down into the country to write it up, but of a born countryman — one who had in the very texture of his mind the flavour of rural things. Then it is the growth of a particular local¬ ity. Let a man stick his staff into the ground any¬ where and say “This is home,” and describe things from that point of view, or as they stand related to that spot — the weather, the fauna, the flora — and his account shall have an interest to us it could not have if not thus located and defined. This is one secret of White’s charm. His work has a home air, a certain privacy and particularity. The great world is afar off ; Selborne is as snug and secluded as a chimney corner; we get an authentic glimpse into the real life of one man there; we see him go¬ ing about intent, lovingly intent, upon every phase of nature about him. We get glimpses into humble cottages and into the ways and doings of the people; we see the bacon drying in the chimneys; we see viii the poor gathering- in Wolmer Forest the sticks and twigs dropped by the rooks in building their nests ; we see them claiming the “ lop and top ” when the big trees are cut. Indeed, the human touches, the human figures here and there in White’s pages add much to the interest. The glimpses we get of his own goings and comings — we wish there were more of them. We should like to know what took him to London during that great snow-storm of January, 1776, or how he got there, inasmuch as the roads were so blocked by the snow that the carriages from Bath with their fine ladies on their way to attend the Queen’s birthday were unable to get through. “ The ladies fretted, and offered large rewards to labourers if they would shovel them a track to Lon¬ don, but the relentless heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed.” The parson found the city bedded deep in snow, and so noiseless by reason of it that “ it seemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of deso¬ lation.” When one reads the writers of our own day upon rural England and the wild life there, he finds that they have not the charm of the Selborne naturalist ; mainly, I think, because they go out with deliberate intent to write up nature. They choose their theme; the theme does not choose them. They love the birds and flowers for the literary effects they can produce out of them. It requires no great talent to go out in the fields or woods and describe in grace- IX ful sentences what one sees there — birds, trees, flow¬ ers. clouds, streams, etc. ; but to give the atmosphere of these things, to seize the significant and interesting Interior of Selborne Church. x features and to put the reader into sympathetic com¬ munication with them, that is another matter. Hence back of all, the one thing that has told most in keeping White’s book alive is undoubtedly its sound style — sentences actually filled with the living breath of a man. We are everywhere face to face with something genuine and real ; objects, ideas, stand out on the page ; the articulation is easy and distinct. The style of the born writer is like an open fire : we are in direct communication with his mind; we see the play of the forces at work ; we get that precious sense of reality. All this is true of White’s pages. Vet he had no literary ambitions. His style is that of a scholar, but of a scholar devoted to natural knowledge. There was evidently something winsome and charming about the man personally, and these qualities reappear in his pages. White was a type of the true observer — the man with the detective eye. He did not seek to read his own thoughts and theories into Nature, but sub¬ mitted his mind to her with absolute frankness and ingenuousness. He had infinite curiosity, and de- lighted in nothing so much as a new fact about the birds and the wild life around him. To see the thing as it was in itself and in its relations, that was his am¬ bition. He could resist the tendency of his own mind to believe without sufficient evidence. Apparently he wanted to fall in with the notion current during the last century, that swallows hybernated in the J ' J XI mud in the bottoms of streams and ponds, but he could not gather convincing proof. It was not enough that a few belated specimens were seen in the fall lingering about such localities, or again hov¬ ering over them early in spring ; or that some old grandfather had seen a man who had taken live swallows out of the mud. Produce the man and let us cross-question him — that was White’s attitude. Dr. Johnson said confidently that swallows did thus pass the winter in the mud “ conglobulated into a ball,” but Johnson had that literary cast of mind that prefers a picturesque statement to the exact fact. White was led astray by no literary ambition. His interest in the life of nature was truly a scientific one ; he must know the fact first, and then give it to the humanities. How true it is in science, in literature, in life, that any secondary motives vitiate the result ! Seek ye the kingdom of truth first and all things shall be added. But White seems finally to have persuaded him¬ self that at least a few swallows passed the winter in England in a torpid state — if not in the bottom of streams or ponds, then in holes in their banks. He reasoned from analogy, though he had expressed his distrust of the mode of reasoning. If bats, insects, toads, turtles, and other creatures can thus pass the winter, why not swallows? On many different occasions of a mild day late in the fall, and early in the spring, he saw house-martins flying about ; on Xll the weather suddenly changing- to colder, they quick¬ ly disappeared. Bats and turtles came forth and then vanished in the same way. White finally con- Under the great yew in Selbome Churchyard. eluded that the mystery was the same in both cases — that the creatures were brought from their winter retreats by the warmth, only to retire to them again when it changed to cold. If he had xni adhered to his usual caution he would have waited for actual proof of this fact — the finding of a torpid swallow. He made frequent search for such, but never found any. This notion so long current about the swallows probably had its origin in two things : first, their partiality for mud as nesting material ; and secondly, the habit of these birds, after they have begun to collect into flocks in midsummer, preparatory to their migrations, of passing the night in vast numbers along the margins of streams and ponds. White knew of their habits in this respect, and wanted to see in the fact presumptive evidence of the truth of the notion that, though they may not retire into the water itself, yet that they “ may conceal them¬ selves in the banks of pools and rivers during the un¬ comfortable months of the year.” One midsummer twilight in northern Vermont I came upon hundreds of swallows — barn and cliff — settled for the night upon some low alders that grew upon the margin of a deep still pool in the river. The bushes bent down with them as with an over-load of fruit. This attraction for the water on the part of the swallow family is certainly a curious one, and is not easily ex¬ plained. Our sharp-eyed parson had observed that the nesting habits of birds afford a clue to their roosting habits ; that they usually pass the night in such places as they build their nests. Thus, the tree-build- Xiv ers roost in trees ; the ground-builders upon the ground. I have seen our chickadee and woodpeck¬ er enter, late in the day, the cavities in decaying limbs of trees. I have seen the oriole dispose of her¬ self for the night on the end of a maple branch where her “ pendent bed and procreant cradle ” was begun a few days later. In walking through the summer fields in the twilight, the vesper sparrow or the song sparrow will oft¬ en start up from almost beneath one’s feet. It is said that the snow - bunting will plunge be¬ neath the snow and pass the night there. The ruffed grouse often does this, but the swallows seem to be an exception to this rule. I have seen a vast cloud of swifts take up their lodging for the night in a tall, unused chimney; but the barn swallows and the cliff and white-bellied Fa ) ingdon Ch urck. 2 xv swallows, at least after the young- have flown, ap¬ pear to pass the night in the vicinity of streams. White noticed also — and here the true observer again crops out — that the fieldfare, a kind of thrush, though a tree-builder, yet always appears to pass the night on the ground. “ The larkers, in drag¬ ging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat stubbles." He learned, as every observer sooner or later learns, to be careful of sweeping statements — that the truth of nature is not always caught by the biggest generalisations. After speak¬ ing of the birds that dust themselves, earth their plumage — pulveratrices , as he calls them — he says : “As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash, and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust ; but here I find myself mistaken," and instances the house sparrow as doing both. White seems to have been about the first writer upon natural history who observed things minutely ; he saw through all those O J o sort of sleight-o'-hand movements and ways of the birds and beasts. He held his eye firmly to the point. He saw the swallows feed their young on the wing : he saw the fern-owl while hawking about a large oak “ put out its short leg while on the wing, and by a bend of the head deliver something into its mouth.” This explained to him the use of its middle toe, “ which is curiously furnished with a ser¬ rated claw." He times the white owls feeding their XVI Selbome Church from the short lythe , young under the eaves of his church, with watch in hand. He saw them transfer the mouse they brought from the foot to the beak, that they might have the free use of the former in ascending to the nest. In his walks and drives about the country he was all attention to the life about him, simply from his delight in any fresh bit of natural knowledge. His curiosity never flagged. He had naturally an alert mind. His style reflects this alertness and sensitive¬ ness. In his earlier days he was an enthusiastic sportsman, and he carried the sportsman’s trained sense and love of the chase into his natural-history studies. He complained that faunists were too apt to content themselves with general terms and bare descriptions ; the reason, he says, is plain — “ be¬ cause all that may be done at home in a man’s study ; but the investigation of the life and conversa¬ tion 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.” He himself had the true inquisi¬ tiveness and activity, and the loving, discriminating eve. He saw the specific marks and differences at a glance. Then, his love of these things was so well known in the neighbourhood, that this kind of knowl¬ edge flowed to him from all sides. He was a magnet that attracted all the fresh, natural lore about him. People brought him birds and eggs and nests, and XVII A Faringdon byway. animals or any natural curiosity, and reported to him any unusual occurrence. They loaned him the use of their eyes and ears. One day a countryman told xviii him he had found a young- fern-owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground, and that it was fed by the little bird. “ I went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark ; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing to have its large wings extended beyond the nest,'’ ‘ in tenui re Majores pennaes nido, extendisse,’ and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger, as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffetting with its wings like a gamecock. The dupe of a dam appeared at a dis¬ tance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude.” He observed that the train of the peacock was really not its tail, but an entirely separate appendage, lie remarked how extremely fond cats are of fish, and yet of all quadrupeds “are the least disposed towards the water.” This is a curious fact to him. A neighbour of his, in ploughing late in the fall, turned a water-rat out of his hybernaculum in a field far re- moved from any water. The rat had laid up above a gallon of potatoes for its winter food. This was another curious fact that set the writer speculating His correspondent tells him of a heronry near some manor-house that excites his curiosity much. “ Four¬ score nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity xix which I would ride half as many miles to get a sight of.” Such a lively curiosity had the parson. His thirst for exact knowledge was so great, that on one occasion he took measurements of the carcass of a moose when he was probably compelled to hold his nose to finish the task. At one place he heard of a woman who professed to cure cancers by the use of toads ; some of his brother clergymen believed the story, but when he came to sift the evi¬ dence he made up his mind that the woman was a fraud. He said truly, “ There is such a propensity in man¬ kind 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.” The observations of hardly one man in five hun¬ dred are of any value for scientific purposes. Wh ite had the true scientific caution, and was, as a rule, very careful to verify his statements. Of course the science of White’s time was far be¬ hind our own. The phenomenon of the weather, for instance, was not understood then as it is now. The great atmospheric waves that sweep across the con¬ tinents and the regular alternations of heat and cold were unsuspected. White observes that cold de¬ scended from above, but he thought that thaws often originated under ground, “ from warm vapours which arise.” He was greatly puzzled, too, when, during XX the severe cold of December, 1784, the thermometer fell many degrees lower in the valley bottoms than on the hills. He had not observed that the very cold air on such occasions settles down into the val¬ leys and fills them like water, marking the height to which it rises by a level line upon the trees or foliage. It is a wonder that his sharp eye did not detect the true source of heavy dew, but it did not. He thought it proceeded from the effluvia of flowers, which, being drawn up into the sky by the warmth of the sun by day, descended again as dew by night. When a French anatomist announced that he had discovered why the cuckoo did not hatch its own eggs — namely, because the crop or craw of the bird was placed back of the sternum, so as to make a pro¬ tuberance on the belly — White dissected a cuckoo for himself, and, finding the fact as stated, proceeded to dissect other birds that he knew did incubate, as the fern-owl and a hawk ; and finding the craw situ¬ ated the same as in the cuckoo, justly charged the Frenchman with having reached an unscientific con¬ clusion. In his seventy-seventh letter White clearly antici¬ pates Darwin as to the beneficial functions of earth¬ worms in the soil, and tells farmers and gardeners that the little creatures which they look upon as their enemy is really their best friend. Changes are slow in England. All the essential o o features of Selborne remain about as they were in XXI White’s time. It is still a humble rural village. His church, his house, the Hanger, Wolmer Forest, the old yew, all remain. I spent two days there in June, 1882. The pictures of Mr. Johnson that illustrate this edition, taken as they were from the actual scenes, bring back the memory of my visit very viv¬ idly. The stone that marks White’s grave has only his initials upon it. I could not see any signs of its being visited any of- tener than the un¬ known graves. At the inn a copy of his book was not to be had. In a meadow near the church the haymakers, mostly women, were at work. A mother set her baby down amid the hay, where it cried long and lustily while she continued uncon¬ cerned with her rake. I walked amid the noble but dripping beeches of the Hanger and along green lanes and across fields in other directions. I saw and heard the black-cap White s grave. xxn warbler, but took little note of other birds. I was more especially in quest of the nightingale, but failed to find her. Rural England has charms of which we get but faint glimpses in this country, and I found Selborne deeply interesting in itself, as well as for its associa¬ tions with the famous nature-loving parson. John Burroughs. April , iSgy. A stile in the long lythe. xxm Selbome from the Hanger. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. LETTER I. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. The parish of SELBORNE lies in the extreme east¬ ern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey ; it is about fifty miles south-west of Lon¬ don, in latitude 510, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Far- ingdon, Hartelev-Mauduit, Great Wardleham, Kings¬ ley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, and Greatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and aspects. The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hill of chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into a sheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, or grace¬ ful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasant park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of the hill-coun¬ try, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, woodlands, heath, and water. A bit of Selborne village. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains called the Sussex downs, by Guilddown 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 exten¬ sive outline. At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three-quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with the Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appearance removed from chalk ; but 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 remark¬ able 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 inclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure ; and these may perhaps have been the original site of the town ; while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet : that 3 at the north-west end frequently fails ; but the other is a fine perennial spring, called Well-head, little in¬ fluenced by drought or wet seasons, inasmuch as it produced on the 14th September, 1781, after a se¬ vere hot summer and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, at a time when many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry. This spring breaks out of some high grounds joining to Xore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, re¬ markable 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 fall¬ ing into the British Channel : the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Blackdown stream at Hed- leigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford Bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godaiming ; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge ; and thus at the Xore 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 ele¬ ment, but which does not lather well with soap. To the north-west, north, and east of the village is a range of fair inclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, 4 which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moul¬ ders to pieces and becomes manure to itself. Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops. As the parish still inclines down towards Wol- mer Forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand, the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for its timber and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval tim¬ ber ; 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 min¬ gles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips. LETTER II. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. In the court of Norton farmhouse, a manor-farm to the north-west of the village, on the white malm, stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, 5 or wych hazel, Ulmus folio latissirno scabro, of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough, equal to a moderate tree, in the great storm in the year 1703, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber ; and being too bulky for carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it meas¬ ured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain ; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation. In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of ground surrounded by houses, The P lest or. and vulgarly called the Plestor. In the midst of this spot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short 6 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 for¬ mer sat in grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long might it have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, to the infinite regret of the inhabitants and the vicar, who bestowed several pounds in setting it in its place again : but all his care could not avail ; the tree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This oak I mention to show to what a bulk planted oaks also may arrive : and planted this tree must cer¬ tainly have been, as appears from what is known concerning the antiquities of the village. On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel’s, of a few acres, that was lately fur¬ nished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth and great value ; they were tall and taper like firs, but standing near together had very small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. About twenty years ago, the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton Court, being much decayed, some trees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, and would measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did a pur¬ veyor find in this little wood, with this advan¬ tage, that many of them answered the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold at twenty pounds apiece. In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their resi¬ dence for such a series of years, that the oak was dis- tinguished by the title of the Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry : the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling:, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazard¬ ous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in per¬ fect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall ; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest ; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground. 8 LETTER III. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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 appear¬ ance ; which, to an incurious eye, seems like a petri¬ fied fish of about four inches long, the cardo (hinge) passing for a head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of the Linnsean genus of Mytiliis , and the species of Crista Galli ; called by Lister, Rastellum ; by Rumphius, Ostreum plicatum minus ; by D’Argen- ville, Anris 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 mu¬ seum at Leicester House, permission was given me to examine for this article ; and though I was disap¬ pointed 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 9 flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my speci¬ men are much easier expressed by the pencil than by words. Cornua Ammonis are very common about this vil¬ lage. As we were cutting an inclining path up the Hanger, the labourers found them frequently on that steep, just under the soil, in the chalk, and of a con- An old chalk pit. siderable size. In the lane above Well-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound in the bank, in a dark¬ ish 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, per¬ haps fourteen or sixteen inches in diameter. But as these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed IO 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 of very recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of the Hanger, large nautili are some¬ times observed. In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scallops or pectines , having both shells deeply stri¬ ated, and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are highly impregnated with, if not wholly com¬ posed of, the stone of the quarry. LETTER IV. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular. This stone is in great re¬ quest for hearthstones and the beds of ovens ; and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account ; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar; the sand of which fluxes, and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty years. When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone ; and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and finer grain than Portland ; and rooms are floored with it ; but it proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone, cutting in all directions ; yet has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should not be sur- bedded — that is, set edgewise, contrary to its position in the quarry — but laid in the same position that it occupies there. On the ground abroad this fire-stone will not succeed for pavements, because, probably, some degree of saltness prevailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces.* Though this stone is too hard to be acted on by vinegar, yet both the white part and even the blue rag ferment strongly in min¬ eral 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 valu¬ able 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 con- * “Fire-stone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: it must be close grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts ; salt- stone perishes when exposed to wet and frost.” — Plot’s Staff, p. 152. 12 siderable expense. Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue ; and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls. In Wolmer Forest, I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand or forest-stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore : is very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented to¬ gether by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never be¬ coming slippery in frost or rain ; is excellent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface of the ground, but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow and the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable. From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail, and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls : this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly “ whether we fastened our walls together with ten- penny nails.” LETTER V. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Among the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second ; so that they look more like water-courses than roads ; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields ; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken sides ; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged, gloomy scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths above, and make timid horsemen shud¬ der while they ride along them ; but delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particu- 14 larly with the curious filices with which they abound. The manor of Selborne, were it strictly looked after, with all its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game ; even now hares, partridges, and pheasants abound ; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few quails, because they more affect open fields than inclosures ; 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 busi¬ ness, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles. The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but rather moist from the effluvia of so many trees ; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues. The quantity of rain that falls on it is very con¬ siderable, as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my experience in meas¬ uring the water is but of short date, I am not quali¬ fied to give the mean quantity, but 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 meas¬ ured it for a very long period. I only know that 15 Inch. Hund. From May I, 1779, to the end of the year there fell . 28 37 ! From Jan. I, 1780, to Jan. 1, 1781 . 27 32 From Jan. 1, 1781, to Jan. 1, 1782 . 30 71 From Jan. 1, 1782, to Jan. 1, 1783 . 50 26 ! From Jan. 1, 1783, to Jan. 1, 1784 . 33 71 From Jan. I, 1784, to Jan. 1, 1785 . 38 80 From Jan. 1, 1785, to Jan. 1, 1786 ....... 31 55 From Jan. 1, 1786, to Jan. 1, 1787 . 39 57 The village of Selborne, and the large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single farms, and many scat¬ tered 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 cham¬ bers 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 har¬ vest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the dead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that time for summer wear ; and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neigh¬ bouring town, by some of the people called Quakers. The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity, and the parish swarms with children. 16 LETTER VI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Should I omit to describe with some exactness the Forest of Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vege¬ table, and has often afforded me much entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist. The royal Forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in length by two-and-a-half in breadth, running nearly from north to south, and is abutted on — to begin to the south, and so to pro¬ ceed eastward — by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rotate, 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 sub¬ terraneous trees ; though Dr. Plot says positively * that “ there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties.” But he was mis¬ taken : for I myself have seen cottages on the verge * See his History of Staffordshire. 17 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. Old people, however, have assured me that on a winter’s morning they have discovered these trees in the bogs by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed than on the surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. 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 exami¬ nation, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing res¬ inous in them ; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree. This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed there in the summer ; such as lapwings, snipes, wild ducks, and, as I have dis¬ covered 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 excur¬ sions : and in particular in the dry summer of 1740 and 1741, and some years after, they swarmed to such a degree that parties of unreasonable sports- 18 4 Wolmer forest. ■ ■ - men killed twenty and sometimes thirty brace in a day. But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which I have heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became so common, and that was the heath-cock, or black ^ame. When I was a little boy I recollect one com- ing now and then to my father’s table. The last pack remembered was killed about thirty-five vears ago ; and within these ten vears one solitary grey hen was sprung by some beagles in beating for a hare. The sportsman cried out, “A hen pheasant!" but a gen¬ tleman present, who had often seen black game in the north of England, assured me that it was a grey hen. Xor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the Fauna Selborniensis ; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is wanting : I mean the red-deer, which towards the beginning of this century amounted to about five hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There is an old keeper, now alive, named Adams, whose great-grand¬ father (mentioned in a perambulation taken in 1635), grandfather, father and self, enjoyed the head keeper- ship of Wolmer Forest in succession for more than a hundred years. This person assures me, that his father has often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeying on the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royal regard. *9 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 atten¬ tion 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 Cumber¬ land. About the year 1737, his highness sent down a huntsman, and six yeomen-prickers, in scarlet jack¬ ets 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 car¬ ried off, such fine chases were exhibited as served the country people for matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards. I saw m)Tself one of the yeomen- prickers single out a stag from the herd, and must confess it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld. The exertions made by the horse and deer much exceeded all my expectations; though the former greatly excelled the latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated from his companions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for twenty minutes ; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue, and a most gallant scene ensued. LETTER VII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible ; for most men are sportsmen by constitution : and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century, all 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 enor¬ mities, that Government was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary Act called the Black Act (9 Geo. I. c. 22), which comprehends more felonies than any law that ever was framed before. And therefore, Dr. Hoadley, the Bishop of Winchester, when urged to re-stock Waltham-chase, refused, from 21 a motive worthy of a prelate, replying that “it had done mischief enough already.” Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet : it was but a little while ago that they used to recount, over their ale, 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 man¬ ner : — Some fellows, suspecting that a calf new-fallen was deposited in a certain spot of thick fern, went, with a lurcher, to surprise it ; when the parent hind rushed out of the brake, and, taking a vast spring with all her feet close together, pitched upon the neck of the dog, and broke it short in two. Another temptation to idleness and sporting was a number of rabbits, which possessed all the hillocks and dry places ; but these being inconvenient to the huntsmen, on account of their burrows, when they came to take away the deer they permitted the coun¬ try people to destroy them all. Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are removed, are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, by furnishing them with peat and turf for their firing ; with fuel for the burning their lime ; and with ashes 22 for their grasses; and by maintaining their geese and their stock of young cattle at little or no expense. The manor-farm of the parish of Greatham has an admitted claim, I see (by an old record taken from the Tower of London), of turning all live stock on the forest, at proper seasons, bidentibus except is. For this privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annually seven bushels of oats. In the Holt Forest, where a full stock of fallow-deer has been kept up till lately, no sheep are admitted. The reason, I presume, being that sheep are such close grazers, they would pick out all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving. Though (by statute 4 and 5 Wm. and Mary, c. 23) “to burn on any waste, between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath, and furze gorse or fern, is punishable with whipping and confine¬ ment in the House of Correction ; ” yet, in this for¬ est, about March or April, according to the dryness of the season, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they often get to a masterless head, and, catch¬ ing the hedges, have sometimes been communicated to the underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. The plea for these burn¬ ings is, that when the old coat of heath, &c., is con¬ sumed, young will sprout up and afford much tender browse for cattle ; but, where there is large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the very ground ; so that for hundreds of acres nothing 23 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 vege¬ tation are to be found for years. These conflagra¬ tions, 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 twen¬ ty-five miles distance was surprised much with smoke and a hot smell of fire ; and concluded that Alresford was in flames ; but when he came to that town, he then had apprehensions for the next vil¬ lage, and so on to the end of his journey.* On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest stand two arbours or bowers made of the boughs of oaks ; the one called Waldon Lodge, the other Brimstone Lodge : these the keepers renew * This description reminds the scholar of the stubble-burning described in Virgil's “ Georgies,” i. S4, Mitford. There is no better fertilizer for the soil than the ashes of weeds and other vegetable growths, and this the poet knew. “ Saepe etiam steriles incendere profuit agros, Atque levem stipulam crepitantibus urere flammis : Sive inde occultas vires et pabula terrae Pinguia concipiunt.” “ Long practice has a sure improvement found, With kindled fires to burn the barren ground ; When the light stubble, to the flames resigned. Is driven along, and crackles to the wind.” — Dryden. 24 annually on the feast of St. Barnabas, taking- the old materials for a perquisite. The farm called Black- moor, in this parish, is obliged to find the posts and brushwood for the former; while the farms at Great- ham, in rotation, furnish for the latter ; and are all enjoined to cut and deliver the materials at the spot. This custom I mention, because I look upon it to be of very remote antiquity. LETTER VIII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. On the verge of the forest, as it is now circum¬ scribed, are three considerable lakes, two in Oak- hanger, of which I have nothing particular to say ; and one called Bin’s, or Bean’s Pond, which is worthy the attention of a naturalist or a sports¬ man. For, being crowded at the upper end with willows, and with the Care. x espitosa ; the sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the for¬ esters, torrets ; a corruption, I suppose, of turrets ; it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild ducks, teals, and snipes, 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. By a perambulation of Wolmer Forest and the 25 Holt, made in 1635, and in the eleventh year of Charles the First (which now lies before me), it appears that the limits of the former are much cir¬ cumscribed. For, to say nothing of the farther side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on this side, in old times, came into Binswood ; and extended to the ditch of Wardleham Park, in which stands the curious mount called King John’s Hill, and Lodge Hill ; and to the verge of Hartley Mau- duit, called Mauduit Hatch ; comprehending also Shortheath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods ; a large dis¬ trict, 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 consider¬ able, 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 26 by no means peculiar to them, I cannot pass over in silence ; and that is, that instinct by which in sum- Wolmer pond. mer 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 feed¬ ing. 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 sub¬ sisted but from this contingency. Thus nature, who is a great economist, converts the recreation of one 27 animal to the support of another! Thomson, who was a nice observer of natural occurrences, did not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. He says, in his “ Summer,'’ “ A various group the herds and flocks compose: - on the grassy bank Some ruminating lay ; while others stand Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip The circling surface.” Wolmer Pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake, is a vast lake for this part of the world, con¬ taining, in its whole circumference, 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 reck¬ oning. On the face of this expanse of waters, and per¬ fectly secure from fowlers, lie all day long, in the winter season, vast flocks of ducks, teals, and wid¬ geons, of various denominations ; where they preen and solace and rest themselves, till towards sunset, when they issue forth in little parties (for in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows ; returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two 28 more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valu¬ able 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.* LETTER IX. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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,f * The circumstances under which these coins were discovered are thus related in the author’s “Antiquities of Selborne : ” — “In the very dry summers of 1740 and 41, the bed of this lake became as dry and dusty as the surrounding heath ; and some of the forest cottagers, remem¬ bering stories of coins found by their fathers and grandfathers, began to search also, and with great success ; they found great heaps of coin, one lying on the other, as shot there out of a bag, many of them in good preservation. They consisted solely of Roman copper coin in hundreds, and some medals of the Lower Empire. The neighbouring gentry and clergy chose what they liked, and some dozens fell to the author, chiefly of Marcus Aurelius and the Empress Faustina. Those of Faustina were in high relief, exhibiting agreeable features, and the medals of a paler colour than the coins.” f “ In Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest, in Scaccar. 36 Ed. 3, it is called Aisholt.” In “Tit. Wolmer and Aisholt Hantisc,” we are told “the Lord King had one chapel in his park at Kingesle.” “ Dominus Rex 29 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 Hughs ; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who married a dowager Lady Pembroke ; Henry Bilson Legge and lady ; and now Lord Stawel, their son. The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced J age, long surviving her husband ; and, at her death, left behind her man}" curious pieces of mechanism of her father’s constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic and artist, as well as warrior ; and, among the rest, a very complicated clock, lately in posses¬ sion of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game-painter at Earnham, in the county of Surrey. Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of in closures, 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 habet unam capellam in liaia sna de Kingesle.." “ Haia, sepes, sepimentum , parens; a Gall, haie and hayeP — Spelman’s Glossa?y , p. 272. nearly 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 Bent¬ ley ; all of which have right of common. One thing is remarkable, that though the Holt has been of old well stocked with fallow-deer, unre¬ strained 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 keep¬ ers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them as often as they have been de¬ tected 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 de¬ stroyed them.* * German boars and sows were also turned out in the New Forest by Charles the First, which bred and increased : and their stock is supposed to exist still. — Mitford. 3i A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has been cut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest ; one-fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop and top ; but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, assert that it belongs to them ; and assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken it all away. One man, who keeps a team, has carried home, for his share, forty stacks of wood. Forty-five of these people his lordship has served with actions. These trees, which were very sound and in high perfection, were winter-cut, viz., in February and March, before the bark would run. In old times, the Holt was esti¬ mated 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 Godaiming, in the county of Surrey. LETTER X. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbour whose studies have led him 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 rustics) being found in a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of One of the old Selbome houses. Wi ght, or any part of this country, 1 never heard any such account worth attending to. But a clergy¬ man, of an inquisitive turn, assures me that, when he was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down the battlements of a church tower early in the spring, found two or three swifts (. Hirundines apodes) among the rubbish, which seemed, at their first ap¬ pearance, dead ; but, on being carried towards the 5 33 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 peo¬ ple found swallows among the rubbish ; but, on my questioning him whether he saw any of those birds himself, to my no small disappointment he answered me in the negative, but that others assured him they did. Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July the eleventh, and young martins {Hi- rundines 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 the eighteenth. Are not these late hatchings more in favour of hiding than migra¬ tion ? Nay, some young martins remained in their nests last year so late as September the twenty- ninth ; and yet they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October. How strange 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; once I even saw numbers of house-martins on the seventh of No- 34 vember. The martins, redwings, and fieldfares were flying in sight together ; an uncommon assemblage of summer and winter birds ! [It is not easy to discover whether White really believes in the hybernation of swallows or not ; he clings to the idea, and returns to it, although his own arguments seem to refute the notion almost as completely as those of any recent author. Writing twenty years later than the date of this letter, he tells us, in his Observations on Nature, March 23, 1788, that a gentleman who was this week on a visit at Waverly, took the opportunity of examining some of the holes in the sand-bank with which that district abounds. As these are undoubtedly bored by bank martins, and there they avowedly breed, he was in hopes that they might have slept there also, and that he might have surprised them just as they were waking from their winter slumbers. “ When we had dug for some time,” he says, “ we 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 for¬ mer summers, but no torpid birds were to be found. The same search was made many years ago with as little success.” March 2, 1793, Mr. White adds, “ A single sand-martin was seen hovering and playing round the sandpit at Short-heath, where they abound in summer. April 9, 1793, a sober herd assures me that this day he saw several on West Hanger com- 35 mon, between Hadleigh and Frensham, several sand- martins playing in and out and hanging before some nest-holes where the birds nestle. “ This incident confirms my suspicions, that this species of hirundo is to be seen the first of any, and gives reason to suppose that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are secreted amidst the clefts and caverns of these abrupt cliffs. The late severe weather considered, it is not very probable that these birds should have migrated so early from a tropical region, through all these cutting winds and pinching frosts ; but it- is easy to suppose that they may, like bats and flies, have been awakened by the influence of the sun, amidst their secret latebrce where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid state, and in the profoundest slumbers. “ There is a large pond at West Hanger which induces these sand-martins to frequent the district ; for I have ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either rivers or lakes.” A year later, he says, “ 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, ncr do any in¬ sects appear for their support. That they can retire to rest and sleep away these uncomfortable periods as bats do, is a matter rather suspected than proved ; or do they not rather spend their time in deep and 36 sheltered vales near waters where insects are to be found ? Certain it is that hardly any individuals have, at such times, been seen for days together. “September 13, 1791, the congregating flocks of hirundines on the church and tower are both beauti¬ ful and amusing. When they fly off together from the roof on any alarm, they quite swarm in the air. But they soon settle again in heaps, and pulling their feathers and lifting up their wings to admit the sun, they seem to enjoy the warm situation. Thus they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their mi¬ gration, 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 num¬ ber ; but there are other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time. It is re¬ markable that, though most of them sit on the battle¬ ments and roof, yet many of them hang or cling for some time by their claws against the surface of the walls in a manner not practised by them at other times of their remaining with us. The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies on trees. “November 3, 1789, the swallows were seen this morning, at Newton Vicarage house, hovering and settling on the roofs and outbuildings. None have been observed at Selborne since October 11. It is very remarkable that after the hirundines have disap¬ peared for some weeks, a few are occasionally seen 37 again ; sometimes in the first week of November, and that only for one day. Do they not withdraw and slumber in some hiding-place during the inter¬ val ? for we cannot suppose they had migrated to warmer climes, and 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 ? These swallows looked like young ones."] A little yellow bird (the Motacilla trochilus ) still continues to make a sibilous shivering noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray is called, in your Zoology, the fly-catcher. There is one cir¬ cumstance 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 which visits us. Mr. Derham supposes, in Ray’s “ Philos. Letters," that he has discovered three. In these there is again an instance of some very common birds that have as yet no English name. Mr. Stillingfleet makes a question whether the blackcap (. Motacilla atricapilld) 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 33 once, into these parts, but are never seen in the win¬ ter. 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 pip¬ ing and hum¬ ming 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 plentiful in harvest, at which time I will take care to get more ; and will endeavour to put it out of doubt whether it be a nondescript species or not. I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray says, and Linnaeus after him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind. Now I have dis¬ covered a rat on the banks of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is an excellent swimmer and diver : it answers exactly to the Mus amphibius of Linnaeus, which, he says, swims and dives in ditches, “ natat in fossis et urinatur.” I should be glad to procure “ one with the feet feathering out 39 A snipe. like a palm," “ 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,” a field-mouse, with “ a large head and a short tail," 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, such as you would say it had formerly been, seeing that the re¬ mains are what they are," “ quale m dices . , . antehac fuisse, tales cum siut reliquice ! ” It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild ducks and snipes ; but when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer to any of our Eng¬ lish hawks ; neither could I find any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring Gar¬ dens. 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 coun- trv, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. August 4, 1767. jin severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and titlarks resort to watered meadows for food ; the 40 latter wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects, and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many gnats are on the snow near the water ; these support the birds in part. Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour, for though white currants are a much sweeter fruit than red, yet they seldom touch the former till they have devoured every bunch of the latter. Redstarts, fly-catchers, and blackcaps arrive early in April. If these little delicate beings are birds of passage, 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 reappearing of the short - winged summer birds is a very puzzling circumstance in natural his¬ tory ! When the boys bring me wasps’ nests, my ban¬ tam 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. Birds of prey occasionally feed on insects: thus have I seen 41 a tame kite picking up the female ants full of eggs with much satisfaction.] — Observations on Nature. LETTER XL To Thomas Pennant, Esq. It will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your thoughts with regard to the fcilco ; as to its weight, breadth, &c. I wish I had set them down at the time; but, to the best of my remem¬ brance, it weighed two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of its eyelids a bright yellow. As it had been killed some days, and the eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation on the colour of the pupils and the iridesA The most unusual birds I ever observed in these parts were a pair of Hoopoes ( iipupci ), which came several years ago in the summer, and frequented an ornamented piece of ground, which joins to my gar¬ den, 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. * The irides are brown in all the British falcons. 42 Three grosbeaks (. Loxia coccothraustes ) appeared some years ago in my fields, in the winter ; one of which I shot ; since that, now and then, one is occa¬ sionally seen in the same dead season. [Mr. B. shot a cock grosbeak which he had ob¬ served 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, however, no buds were to be seen, but a mass of kernels of the stones of fruits. Mr. B. ob¬ served 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 orni¬ thologists call this bird coccothraustes , i. e., berry- breaker, because with its large horny beak it cracks and breaks the shells of stone-fruits for the sake of the seed or kernel. Birds of this sort are rarely seen in England, and only in winter.] — Observations on Nature. A cross-bill ( Loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood. Our streams, which are small, and rise onlv at the end of the village, yield nothing but the bull’s head,* or miller’s thumb ( Gobius fluviatilis capita t us), the trout ( Trutta fluviatilis ), the eel ( anguilla ), the lam- * Salmo fario. Linn. 43 pern ( Lampctra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickle¬ back ( Pisciculus aculeatus). We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river, and therefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams of ducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed ; and multitudes of widgeons and teals fre¬ quent our lakes in the forest in hard weather. Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find that it casts up the fur of mice and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner of hawks : when full, like a dog, it hides what it can¬ not eat. The young of the barn owl are not easily raised, as they want a constant supply of fresh mice : where¬ as the young of the brown owl will eat indiscrim¬ inately all that is brought ; snails, rats, kittens, pup¬ pies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal. The house-martins have eggs still, and squab- young. The last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August ; it was a straggler. Redstarts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and gold- crested wrens, reguli non cristati, still appear ; but I have seen no blackcaps lately. I forsrot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church college quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny, warm morning, a house-martin flying about, and settling on the parapet, so late as the twentieth of November. 44 At present I know only two species of bats, the common Vespertilio murinus and the Vespertilio au- ritus. I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person’s hand. If you gave it anything to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of ob¬ servation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered : so that the notion that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men’s bacon seems no im¬ probable story. While I amused myself with this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down on a flat sur¬ face cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware of ; but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner. Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as they play over pools and streams. They love to frequent waters, not only for the sake of drinking, but on account of the insects which are found over them in the greatest plenty. As I was going, some years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond to Sunbury, on a warm summer’s evening, I think I saw myriads of bats between the two 45 places : the air swarmed with them all along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time. Selborne, Sept. 9, 1767. LETTER XII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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 be¬ fore ; but that I find would be a difficult task. I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller, and more slender, than the Mus domesticiis niedius 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 many7 as eight at a litter, in a little round nest, composed of the blades of grass or wheat. 46 One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat ; perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no discovering to what part it be¬ longed. It was so compact and well filled, that it would roll across the table without being discom¬ posed, though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively, so as to administer a teat to each ? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over ; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which, moreover, would be daily in¬ creasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cra¬ dle, and elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheatfield, 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 ex¬ pect : but the moment I took it in hand, I pronounced it the male Garrulus Bohemicus , or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags or points which it carries at the ends of five of the short remiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety be called an’ English bird : and yet I see, by Ray’s “ Philosophi- 47 cal Letters,” that great flocks of them appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685, feeding on haws. The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation. For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy and common. Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on the ber¬ ries 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. Query. — Might not Canary-birds be naturalized to this climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, 4> 5i Hirundo. 19. Caprimulgus. S. Cuculus. 14. Alauda. 12. Charadrius. 20. Muscicapa. Most soft-billed birds live on insects, and not on grain and seeds ; and therefore at the end of summer thev retire : but the following soft-billed birds, though insect-eaters, stay with us the year round : — RAII NOMINA. Redbreast, Wren, Rube cilia. Passer ti'oglodytes. ' These frequent houses, and \ haunt outbuildings in the l winter : eat spiders. II edge-sparrow, Curruca. Haunts sinks for crumbs and other sweepings. These frequent shallow rivu¬ White-wagtail, Motacilla alba. lets near the spring heads, Y ello w-wagtail, Motacilla flava. -i where thev never freeze ; eat Grey-wagtail, Motaci lla ci nerea . 1 the aui-elice of Phrvganea. ' The smallest birds that walk. Wheat-ear, Oenanthe. Some of these are to be seen with us the winter through. Whin-chat, Oenanthe secunda. Stone-chatter, Oenanthe teriia. Golden-crowned wren, 1 ' Re gill us cn status. 0 f 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, rangred somewhat in the order in which they appear : — 1 00 1. Ring-ousel, 2. Redwing, 3. Fieldfare, 4. Royston-crow, 5. Woodcock, 6. Snipe, 7. Jack-snipe, f This is a new migration, which ! I have lately discovered about Merula torquata. , , 1 1 Michaelmas week, and asam [_ about the 14th of March. Turdus iliacus. About old Michaelmas. Turdus pilaris. { ThouSh a Percher by day’ [ roosts on the ground. Cornix cinerea. Most frequent on downs. Scolopax. Appears about old Michaelmas. r' it ■ f Some snipes constantly breed 6 -aUinago minor. \ r J l with us. Gallinago minima. 8. Wood-pigeon, 9. Wild-swan, 10. Wild-goose, 11. Wild-duck, 12. Pochard, 13. Widgeon, 14. Teal, breeds with us in j Wolmer For- j est, j 15. Cross-beak, 16. Cross-bill, 17. Silk-tail, \ Oenas. Cygnus ferns. A user ferns. f Anas torquata [ minor. Anas fera fnsca. Penelope. ■ Qnerqnednla. Coccoth ra ustes. Loxia. Garrulns bohemi- cns. j Seldom appears till late : not L in such plenty as formerly. On some large waters. ► On our lakes and streams. 1 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 : — I, 2, 3, Turdus. 4, Corvus. 5, 6, 7, Scolopax. 8, Coin mb a. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. A nas. 15, 16, Loxia. 17, Ampelis. Birds that sing in the night are but few : — f “ In shadiest covert hid.” — - Milton. Nightingale, Luscinia. Woodlark, Less reed-sparrow, -j Alauda arborea. Suspended in mid air. [ ceus minor. j I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing- after Midsummer, but, as they are rather numer- ous, they would exceed the bounds of this paper; be¬ sides, as this is now the season for remarking on that subject, I am willing to repeat my observations on some birds concerning the continuation of whose song I seem at present to have some doubt. Selborne, June 30, 1769. [As one of my neighbours was traversing Wolmer Forest from Bramshot, across the moors, he found a large uncommon bird fluttering in the heath, but not wounded, which he brought home alive. On exam, ination it proved to be Colymbus glacialis, Linn., the great speckled diver or loon, which is most excel¬ lently described in “ Willughby’s Ornithology.” Every part and proportion of this bird is so in¬ comparably adapted to its mode of life, that in no in¬ stance do we see the wisdom of God in the creation to more advantage. The head is sharp, and smaller than the part of the neck adjoining, in order that it may pierce the water ; the wings are placed forward and out of the centre of gravity, for a purpose which shall be noticed hereafter ; the thighs quite at the podex, in order to facilitate diving ; and the legs are flat, and as sharp backwards almost as the edge of a 102 knife, that in striking they may easily cut the water : while the feet are palmated, and broad for swim¬ ming, 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 long¬ est ; the nails flat and broad, resembling the human, which give strength and increase the power of swim¬ ming. The foot, when expanded, is not at right angles to the leg or body of the bird ; but the exte¬ rior part inclining towards the head forms an acute angle with the body ; the intention being not to give motion in the line of the legs themselves, but by the combined impulse of both in an intermediate line — the line of the body. Most people know, that have observed at all, that the swimming of birds is nothing more than a Walk¬ ing 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, im¬ pel and row themselves forward by a motion of their wings, as well as by the impulse of their feet: but such is really the case, as any person may easily be convinced, who will observe ducks when hunted by dogs in a clear pond. Nor do I know that any one has given a reason why the wings of diving fowls are placed so forward : doubtless, not for the purpose of promoting their speed in flying, since that position certainly impedes it ; but probably for the increase of their motion under water, by the use of four oars 103 instead of two ; yet, were the wings and feet nearer together, as in land-birds, they would, when in ac¬ tion, rather hinder than assist one another. This colymbus was of considerable bulk, weighing only three drachms short of three pounds avoirdu¬ pois. It measured in length from the bill to the tail (which was very short) two feet, and to the extremi¬ ties 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 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. A man brought me a landrail 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: vet from its formation seems to be poorly qualified for migration ; for its wings are short, and placed so forward and out of the centre of gravity, that it flies in a very heavy and embarrassed manner, with its legs hanging down ; and can hardly be sprung a sec- 104 ond time, as it runs very fast, and seems to depend more on the swiftness of its feet than on its flying. When we came to draw it, we found the entrails so soft and tender, that in appearance they might have been dressed like the ropes of a woodcock. The craw or crop was small and lank, containing a mucus ; the gizzard thick and strong, and filled with small shell-snails, some whole, and many ground to pieces through the attrition which is occasioned by the muscular force and motion of that intestine. We saw no gravels among the food ; perhaps the shell- snails might perform the functions of gravels or peb¬ bles, and might grind one another. Landrails 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 oz., was fat and tender, and in flavour like the flesh of a wood¬ cock. The liver was very large and delicate.] — Ob¬ servations ox Nature. LETTER XXVI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the ousel migration pleases you. You put a very shrewd question when you ask me how I know that their autumnal migration is southward? Was not candour and openness the very life of natural his¬ tory, I should pass over this query just as a sly com¬ mentator does over a crabbed passage in a classic ; but common ingenuousness obliges me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I only rea¬ soned in that case from analogy. For as all other autumnal birds migrate from the northward to us, to partake of our milder winters, and return to the northward again when the rigorous cold abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same, as well as their congeners the fieldfares ; and especially as ring-ousels are known to haunt cold mountainous countries : but 1 have good reason to suspect since that they may come to us from the westward ; be¬ cause 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 eve and a tawny rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, and have procured several specimens ; and am perfectly persuaded myself (and trust you will soon be convinced of the same) that it is neither more nor less than the Passer arundinacens minor of Ray. This bird, by some means or other, seems to be en¬ tirely omitted in the “ British Zoology ; ” and one 106 reason probably was, because it is so strangely classed in Ray, who ranges it among his Pici affine s. It ought no doubt to have gone among his small birds with the tail of one colour ( Avionics caudd uni¬ colore ), and among your slender-billed birds of the same division. Linnaeus might, with great propriety, have put it into his genus of motacilla , and the Mo- tacilla sahcaria of his “ Fauna Suecica ” seems to come the nearest to it. It is no uncommon bird, haunting the sides of ponds and rivers where there is covert, and the reeds and sedges of moors. The country people in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings incessantly night and day during the breeding time, imitating the note of a sparrow, a swallow,, a sky¬ lark, and has a strange hurrying manner in its song. My specimens correspond most minutely to the de¬ scription of your ien-sa/icaria shot near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent characteristic of it when he says, — “ Rostrum et pedes in Jidc avicula multo major es sunt quam pro corporis rationed “ The beak and feet of this little bird are much too large for its body.” I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus , or stone- curlew, which was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground : there were two ; but the finder in¬ advertently 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 107 10 have of stinking to defend themselves, se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a tame snake, which a Among the hedgerows. was in its person as sweet as any animal while in good humour and unalarmed ; but as soon as a stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable. Thus the skunck, or stonck, of Ray’s Synop. Ouadr., is an innocuous and ioS sweet animal ; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such a most pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, than which nothing can be more horrible. A gentleman sent me lately a fine specimen of the Lanins minor cinerascens cum macula in scapulis alba Raii ; which is a bird that, at the time of your pub¬ lishing your first two volumes of British Zoology, I find you had not seen. You have described it well from Edwards’s drawing. Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769. LETTER XXVII. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. 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 pas¬ sage 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 Eng¬ land, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night. According to mv proposal, I shall now proceed to such birds (singing birds strictly so called) as continue in full song till after Midsummer ; and shall range them somewhat in the order in which they first begin to open as the spring advances. RAII NOMINA. 1. Woodlark, A Ian da arbor ea. 2. Song-thrush, 1 Turdns simpliciter dictus. 3. Wren, Passer troglodytes. - 4. Redbreast, Rubecula. Hedge-spar- r J & r ^ Curruca. row, j 6. Yellow-ham- mer, ' Emberiza ftava. 7. Skylark, Alauda vulgaris. S. Swallow, Hirundo domestica. 9. Blackcap, Atiicapilla. 10. Titlark, Alauda praiorum. ^ l 11. Blackbird, r Merula vulgaris, f 12. White-throat, Ficedula affinis. j 13. Goldfinch, _ r Carduelis. 14. Greenfinch, Chloris. 13. Fess reed-spar- 'Passer atundiua- r 1 . y row, ceus jmtior. 16. Common lin¬ net, V Linaria vulgaris. 1 In January, and continues to sing through all the summer and autumn. In February and on to August, reassume their song in autumn. All the year, hard frost ex¬ cepted. Ditto. Early in February to July the loth. Early in February, and on through July to August the 2 1 st. In February, and on to October. From April to September. Beginning of April to July the 13th. From middle of April to July the 16th. Sometimes in February and March, and so on to July the 23rd ; reassumes in autumn. In April, and on to July the 23rd. April, and through to Septem¬ ber the 16th. On to July and August the 2nd. May, on to beginning of July. Breeds and whistles on till August ; reassumes its note when they begin to congre- gate in October, and again early before the flocks sepa¬ rate. no Birds that cease to be in full song, and are usually silent at or before midsummer: — RAII NOMINA. 17. Middle willow- [ 'Regains non cris- [Middle of June: begins in wren, [_ tatus. iS. Redstart, Ruticilla. 19. Chaffinch, 20. Nightingale, Birds that the spring : — Fringilla. Luscinia. \ \ [_ April. Ditto : begins in May. f Beginning of June: sings first ' in February. f Middle of June: sings first in 21. Missel-bird, 22. Great Tit¬ mouse, or Ox-eye, L April. sing for a short time, and very early in January the 2nd, 1770, in Feb¬ ruary. Is called in Hampshire and Sussex the storm-cock, because its song is supposed to forbode windy, wet weath¬ er : is the largest singing bird we have. In February, March, April : re¬ assumes for a short time in September. Tardus vi.\ civ or us. 1 r Fringillago. J Birds that have somewhat of a note or song, and yet are hardly to be called singing birds : — 23. Golden-crown- j ed wren, ' Its note as minute as its per¬ son : frequents the tops of Regains cnstatus. ^ , • , , , r „ J * 1 high oaks and firs : the small- I . [ est British bird. 24. Marsh-tit- | Haunts great woods : two r Paras fialustris. \ , , , mouse, j r y harsh, sharp notes. 25. Small willow- j Regains non cris- j Sings in March, and on to Sep- wren, j tatus. i tember. 26. Largest ditto, Ditto. \ f “ Cantat voce stridula locustae from end of April to August. 27. Grasshopper- \ Alauda minima f Chirps all night, from the middle lark, j voce locustce. ^ of April to the end of July. in ~ ,. rr ■ , .. f All the breeding time; from 2b. Martin, Hirundo agrestis. ^ ’ L May to September. 29. Bullfinch, Pyrrhula. tj rr 7 ■ jl From the end of January to 30. Bunting-, Fmbenza alba. 4 j j l July. All singing birds, and those that have any pre¬ tensions to song, not only in Britain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnaean or do of passeres. The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numer¬ ically, belong to the following Linnaean genera : — 1, 7, 10, 27. 2, 11, 21. 3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17, iS, 20, 23, 25, Alauda. T urdus. 1 r r Motacilla. 26. j 6, 30. Emberiza. 8, 28. Hirundo. 13, 16, 19. Fringilla. 22, 24. Par us. 14, 29. Loxia. Birds that sing as they fly are but few : — RAII NOMINA. Skylark, Alauda vulgaris. Rising, suspended, and falling. In its descent ; also sitting on Titlark, Alauda pratoVum. trees, and walking on the l ground. Woodlark, Alauda arborea. f Suspended ; in hot summer nights all night long. Blackbird, Merula. Sometimes from bush to bush. White-throat, Fi cedula affinis. f Uses when singing on the wing i odd jerks and gesticulations. Swallow, Hirundo domestica. In soft sunny weather. Wren, Passer troglodytes. Sometimes from bush to bush. Birds that breed most early in these parts : — Raven, Corvus. Hatches in F ebruary and March. Song-thrush, Turdus. In March. Blackbird, Merula. Ditto. 1 12 Rook, Woodlark, Ring-dove, Cornix frugilega. Alanda arborea. | Pahimbus torqua- y tiis. Builds the beginning of March. Hatches in April. 1 r Lays the beginning of April. All birds that continue in full song- till after Mid¬ summer appear to me to breed more than once. Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in proportion to their bulk ; I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and an¬ noyed : but in Ascension Island, and many other desolate places, mariners have found fowls so unacquainted with a human figure, that they would stand still to be taken ; as is the case with boobies, &c. As an example of what is advanced, 1 remark that the golden- crested wren (the smallest Golden-crested wrens. concerned until 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. British bird) will stand un Selborne, Nov. 2, 1769. LETTER XXVIII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. I WAS much gratified by your communicative let¬ ter on your return from Scotland, where you spent, I find, some considerable time, and gave yourself good room to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry ; because men seldom allot them¬ selves half the time they should do: but, fixing on a day for their return, post from place to place, rather as if they were on a journey that required despatch, than as philosophers investigating the works of na¬ ture. You must have made, no doubt, many dis- coveries, and laid up a good fund of materials for a future edition of the British Zoology ; and will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed so much pains on a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examined before. It has always been matter of wonder to me that fieldfares, which are so congenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed in England : but that they should not think even the highlands cold and northerly, and sequestered enough, is a cir¬ cumstance 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 au¬ tumn 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 thirtieth of September : but their flocks were larger than common, and their stay protracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the whole winter with us, as some of their con¬ geners 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 fort¬ night at Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the beginning 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- flock, 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 be¬ gin to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds wo are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward. It pleases me to find that white hares are so fre- quent on the Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species, for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a great acquisition. The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a bird that it would grace our fauna much. I never was informed before where wild geese are known to breed. You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen- 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 Buff on, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse ; but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of the white hare. As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously laid up in an hy- bernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow la)' about a gallon of po¬ tatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to have sup¬ ported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me is how this amphibius inns came to fix its win- 116 ter 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 weie planted there ? or is it the practice of the apuatic lat to for¬ sake the neighbourhood of the water in the colder months ? Though 1 delight very little in analogous reason- ing, knowing how fallacious it is with respect to nat¬ ural 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 apis, or swift, so many weeks before its congeners ; and that not only with us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire about the beginning of August. The great large bat* (which by the way is at present a nondescript in England, and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summer: it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a different region of the air ; and that is the reason I never could procure 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 * The little Bat appears almost every month in the year ; but I have never seen the large one till the end of April, nor after July. They are most common in June, but never very plentiful. water. From hence I would conclude that these hir undines , and the larger bats, are supported by some sorts of high-flying gnats, scarabs, or phalcence that are short of continuance ; and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by the defect of their food. By my journal it appears that curlews clamoured on to October the 31st; since which I have not seen or heard any. Swallows were observed on to No- vember the third. Selborne, Dec. 8, 1769. LETTER XXIX. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. It was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you were not displeased with my little methodus of birds. If there is any merit in the sketch, it must be in its exactness. For many months I car¬ ried a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be remarked on ; and, as I rode or walked about, I noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird’s song ; so that I am as sure 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 118 its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species con¬ tinued to warble after the beginning of July. The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the lat¬ ter 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 red¬ breast and wren, it is well known to the most in¬ curious observer that they whistle the year round, hard frost excepted ; especially the latter. It was not in my power to procure you a black¬ cap, or a lesser 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 blackcap 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 sedge-bird 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 advan¬ tage : it is notwithstanding a delicate polyglot. It is new to me that titlarks in cages sing in the night ; perhaps only caged birds do so. I once knew a tame redbreast in a cage that always sang as long as candles were in the room ; but in their wild state no one supposes they sing in the night. I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are to be seen much fewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithstanding so many young are hatched daily. Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect to the swallow tribes, which increase prodigiously as the summer advances. I saw, at the time mentioned, many hundreds of young wagtails on the banks of the Cherwell, which almost covered the meadows. If the matter appears as you say in the other species, may it not be owing to the dams being engaged in incubation, while the young are concealed by the leaves ? Many times have I had the curiosity to open the stomach of woodcocks and snipes ; but nothing ever occurred that helped to explain to me what their subsistence might be : all that I could ever find was a soft mucus, among which lay many pellucid small gravels. Selborne, Jan. 15, 1770. 120 LETTER XXX. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. Your observation that “ the cuckoo does not de¬ posit 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 tit¬ lark, the whitethroat, and the redbreast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr. 1 he cuckoo. Willughby mentions the nest of the palumbiis (ring-dove) and of the fringilla (chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food : but then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge, but says afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly possible that a soft-billed bird should subsist on the same food with the hard-billed ; for the former have thin membranaceous stomachs suited to their soft food, while the latter, the granivor- ous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which, like mills, grind, by the help of small gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed. This proceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such a monstrous outrage on maternal affection, one of the first great dictates of nature, and such a violence on instinct, that, had it only been related of a bird in the Brazils, or Peru, it would never have merited our belief. But yet, should it farther appear that this simple bird, when divested of that natural crropyp that seems to raise the kind in general above themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees of cunning and ad¬ dress, may be still endued with a more enlarged faculty of discerning what species are suitable and congenerous nursing mothers for its disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care, this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing, in a fresh manner, that the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various and changeable appearances. What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the defect of natural affection in O 122 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 understandings (Job xxxix. 1 6, 17.) Does each female cuckoo lay but one egg in a season, or does she drop several in different nests, according as opportunity offers? Selborne, Feb. 19, 1770. LETTER XXXI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Hedge-HOGS abound in my gardens and fields. The manner in which they eat the roots of the plan¬ tain in the grass-walk is very curious : with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed ; but they deface the walks in some measure by digging little round holes. It appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderable part of their food. In June last I procured a litter of five or 123 11 A hedgehog. six 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 flexi¬ ble at the time of their birth, or else the poor dam would have but §F a bad time of it in the critical moment of par¬ turition : but it is plain that they soon harden ; for these little pigs have 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 mus¬ cle that enables the creature to roll itself up in a ball was not then arrived at its full tone and firm¬ ness. Hedge-hogs make a deep and warm hyber- naculum with leaves and moss, in which they con¬ ceal themselves for the winter: but I never could find that they stored in any winter provision, as some quadrupeds certainly do. 124 I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the fieldfare ( Turdus pilaris ), which I think is particular enough : this bird, though it sits on trees in the day¬ time, and procures the greatest part of its food from whitethorn hedges ; yea, moreover, builds on very high trees, as may be seen by the “ Fauna Suecica,” yet always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen to come in flocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the heath on our for¬ est. And besides, the larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequently catch them in the wheat stub¬ bles ; while the bat-fowlers, who take many redwings in the hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why these birds, in the matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and from themselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for which I am by no means able to account. I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the moose-deer ; but in general foreign animals fall sel¬ dom in my way ; my little intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere of my own observations at home. Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770. 125 LETTER XXXII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Ox Michaelmas-day, 1768, I managed to get a sight of the female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood ; but was greatly disap¬ pointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the morning before. However, under¬ standing that it was not stripped, I proceeded to ex¬ amine this rare quadruped : I found it in an old green-house, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture ; but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this deer, and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange length of its legs ; on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the grallce order. I measured it, as they do an horse, and found that, from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four inches, which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive at : but then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no more than twelve inches ; so that, by strad¬ dling with one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest diffi¬ culty, between its legs : the ears were vast and lop- 126 ping, and as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like ; and had such a re¬ dundancy 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 contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in eating the nym- phcea , 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 con¬ sisted a great deal in the tibia , which was strangely long ; but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I for¬ got 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 that some arrive at ten feet and .a half ! This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which died the spring before. In the same garden was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there might have been a breed ; but their inequality of height must always be a bar. I should 127 have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c., minutely ; but the putrefaction pre¬ cluded all further curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had no front- antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edge. The noble owner of the dead moose pro¬ posed to make a skeleton of her bones. Please to let me hear if my female moose corre¬ sponds with that you saw ; and whether you think still that the American moose and European elk are the same creature. Selborne, March , 1770. LETTER XXXIII. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. 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 swal¬ low, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common lin¬ net, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I advance. 12S If this severe season does not interrupt the regu¬ larity 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-spar¬ row, which you kept in a cage, the thick - billed reed- sparrow of the “Zoology,” p. 30; or was it the less reed - sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird Son p thrushes. of Mr. Pennant’s o “ Zoology,” p. 16 ? As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frost, I have doubt within myself what should be the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws upon insensible perspiration. The case is just the same with black¬ birds, &c. ; and farmers and warreners observe, the 129 first, that their hogs fatten 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 al¬ tered ; for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human constitu¬ tions 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, field¬ fares, and then the song-thrushes. You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge- sparrows, &c. can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalized at the vastly disproportioned size of the supposititious egg; but the brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or number. For the common hen, as 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, more¬ over, 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 130 would that spring lay more than one. I will endeav¬ our to get a hen, and examine her. Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song recom¬ mences, is new and bold : I wish you could discover some good grounds for this suspicion. I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the cctprimulgus , or fern-owl ; you were, I find, ac¬ quainted with the bird before. When we meet, 1 shall be glad to have some con¬ versation 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 col¬ lect in many years would go into a very narrow compass. Some extracts from your ingenious “ Investiga¬ tions of the difference between the present tempera¬ ture of the air in Italy,” &c. have fallen in my way ; and gave me great satisfaction ; they have removed the objections that always arose in my mind when- ever 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 ! Two swallows have appeared amidst snows and frost. Selborne, April 12, 1770. LETTER XXXIV. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. Last month we had such a series of cold turbu¬ lent weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that the regular migra¬ tion or appearance of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some, as the blackcap and white- throat, did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time ; and some, as the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren, have not been heard yet. As to the fly-catcher, I have not seen it ; it is indeed one of the latest, but should ap¬ pear about this time: and yet, amidst all this mete- orous strife and war of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves as long ago as the nth of April, in frost and snow ; but they withdrew quickly and were not visible again for many days. House- 132 The backdoor walk to a cottage garden. martins, which are always more backward than swallows, were not observed till May came in. Among the monogamous birds several are to be found single after pairing-time, and of each sex : but whether this state of celibacy is matter of choice or necessity, is not so easily discoverable. When the house-sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and so for several times following. I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls, which made great havoc among the young pigeons: one of the owls was shot as soon as possible ; but the survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went on. After some time the new pair were both destroyed, and the annoyance ceased. Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal for the increase of his game being greater than his humanity, after paring-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 that she was still provided with a fresh para¬ mour, that did not take her away from her usual haunt. Again : I knew a lover of setting, an old sports¬ man, who has often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of partridges, 133 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 hsh, which appears to be their most favourite food : and yet nature in this instance seems to have planted in them an appetite that, un¬ assisted, 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 in¬ habitants 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. [One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an evening as it was returning from feed and going to roost. When his wife had picked and drawn it, she found its craw stuffed with the most nice and tender tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, and so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, culled and provided in this extraordinary manner. Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, J34 when grain fails, can subsist on the leaves of vege¬ tables. 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 cab¬ bage, lettuce, endive, &c., and poultry pick much grass ; while geese live for months together on com¬ mons 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.” Philipps’s Cyder. J — Observations on Nature. Selborne, May 12, 1770. LETTER XXXV. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. The severity and turbulence of last month so in¬ terrupted the regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others, as the whitethroat, the black¬ cap, the redstart, the fly-catcher, are apparently thin¬ ner than usual. I well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40, summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come hither proba- 135 bly with a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points ; but in that unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these dis¬ advantages, two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the eleventh of April, amidst frost and snow ; but they withdrew again for a time. I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with Scopoli’s new publication, “ x4nnus Primus Historico-Naturalis.” There is room to ex¬ pect great things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist : and one would think that an his¬ tory of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I could wish to see the 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 arundinciceus minor Raii) * is a soft-billed bird, and most probably migrates hence before winter ; whereas the bird you kept ( Passer torquatus Raii) f abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The * Sedge-warbler, Salicaria phragmitis , Selby, j- Reed-bunting, Emberiza schceniclus , Linn. 136 former has a variety of hurrying- notes, and sings all night. Some part of the song of the former, I sus¬ pect, is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed sort, which Mr. Pennant had entirely J left out of his “ British Zoology,” till I reminded him of his omission.* 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 consid¬ ered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small space, I shall say nothing further about it at present. f No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, “ because they are not to pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring.” As colours seem to be the chief external sexual distinc¬ tion in many birds, these colours do not take place till sexual attachments commence. The case is the same with quadrupeds, among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ but little ; but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards and brawny necks, &c., strongly discriminate the male from the female. We may instance still further 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 * See Letter XXVI., to Mr. Pennant, August 30, 1769. f See Letter LXXXIY., to Mr. Barrington, August 7, 1778. 137 12 life, for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible : — “ Quem si puellarum insereres choro, Mire sagaces falleret hospites Diserimen obscurum, solutis Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.” Hor. (ii. v. 21-24.) “ A fellow who, if you put him among a parcel of girls, the difficulty of distinguishing him from them would puzzle a very quick-sighted host, thanks to his long hairs and smooth ambiguous face." Selborxe, May 21, 1770. LETTER XXXVI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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 : “ Yerbositas praesentis saeculi, calamitas artis." “The verbosity of the present generation is the calamity of art.’ Pray how do you approve of Scopoli’s new work? as I admire his “ Entomologia,” I long to see it. I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert it 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. Barring¬ ton most obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and won¬ derful specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke’s, at Wilton, an horn-room furnished with more than thirty different pairs ; but I have not seen that house lately. Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing col¬ lections of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked that every species almost that came from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, &c., were thick-billed birds of the loxia and fringilla genera ; and no motacillce or muscicapce were to be met with. When f came to consider, the reason was obvious enough ; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board, while soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is a succe- daneum 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. Selborne, Aug. i, 1770. 139 LETTER XXXVII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags ; and are further assured that they con- Ring-ousels. tinue resident in those cold regions the whole year. From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so reg¬ ularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in their return, every April ? They are more early this year than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this month. An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that 140 they frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there ; but leave those haunts about the end of Sep¬ tember 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 Octo¬ ber and November, and return in spring. 1 his in¬ formation 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 all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each in their department, be more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, than more general writers ; and so by degrees may pave the way to an universal correct natural his¬ tory. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and at¬ tentive 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 “ it does not feed its young after it leaves the nest:” “pullos extra nidum non nutrit.” This assertion I know to be * “Annus Primus Historico-Xaturalis.” wrong from repeated observation this summer ; for house-martins do feed their young flying, though it must be acknowledged not so commonly as the O J house-swallow ; and the feat is done in so quick a manner as not to be perceptible to indifferent observers. He also advances some (1 was going to say) improbable facts ; as when he says of the woodcock that, “ as it flies from its enemies, it car¬ ries its young in its beak:” “ pullos rostro portat fugiens ab hoste.” But candour forbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false because 1 have never been witness to such a fact. I have only to remark, that the long unwieldy bill of the woodcock is per¬ haps the worst adapted of any among the winged creation for such a feat of natural affection. Selborxe, Sept. 14, 1770. LETTER XXXVIII. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. I am glad to hear that Kuckahn is to furnish you with the birds of Jamaica; a sight of the hinmdines of that hot and distant island would be a great en¬ tertainment to me. The “Anni” of Scopoli are now in my posses¬ sion ; and I have read the “ Annus Primus ” with satisfaction ; for though some parts of this work are 142 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 monog¬ rapher. The reason perhaps why he mentions noth¬ ing of Ray’s “ Or¬ nithology ” is the ex¬ treme poverty and dis¬ tance of his country, A “ rookstarver .’ into which the works of our great naturalist may never yet have 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 “ Entomologia ; ” and his characters of the ordines and genera are many of them new, express- 143 ive, and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linnaean genera with sufficient show of reason. It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no swallows at Staines : because, in my long observation of those birds, I never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility be¬ tween the species. Ray remarks that birds of the Gallince order, as cocks and hens, partridges and pheasants, &c., are pulveratrices, such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers and ridding them- selves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash : and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust: but here I find myself mistaken: for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices , being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads : and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark dust ? Query. — Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method of purification from these pulve¬ ratrices? 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 144 this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a titlark : it was become vastly too big for its nest, appear¬ ing “ to have its large wings extended beyond the nest,” — “ - in tenui re Majores pennas indo 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 express¬ ing 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 libcllidce , or dragon-flies ; some of which thev caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Not¬ withstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be in¬ duced to believe that the)' are birds of prey. This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at Selborne. In the first place con¬ siderable flocks of cross-beaks ( Loxice curvirostrce) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves be¬ longing to this house : the water-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven: and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring- 145 ousels (my newly discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex downs from Chichester to Lewes. Let them come from whence they will, it looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast, in order to pass the Channel when severe weather advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem, in their return ; and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to have no manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone. No doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex downs : the prospects and rides round Lewes are most lovely ! As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look-out in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some of the summer short-winged birds of passage crowd¬ ing towards the coast in order for their departure ; but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a redstart, whitethroat, blackcap, uncrested wren, fly¬ catcher, &c. And I remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to this place annually about this time. The birds most common along the coast at present are the stone- chatters, whinchats, buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, titlarks, &c. Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft, still, dry season. 146 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 also ; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hard¬ ly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dande¬ lions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. In a neigh¬ bouring 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. Ringmer, near Lewes, Oct. 8, 1770. LETTER XXXIX. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus and Bris- son, I begin to suspect that I discern my brother’s Hirundo hyberna in Scopoli’s new discovered Hirundo mpestris. His description of “ Supra murina, subtus albida ; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere interno ; pedes nudi, nigri ; rostrum nigrum ; remiges obscu- riores quam plumae dorsales ; rectrices remigibus 147 concolores, cauda emarginata, nec forcipata ; ” * agrees very well with the bird in question ; but when he comes to advance that it is “ statura hirundinis urbicae,” and that “ the definition given of the bank- martin suits this bird also,” — “ definitio hirundinis ripariae Linnaei 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 mere¬ ly from memory : for I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differ widely in every cir¬ cumstance 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 nonde¬ script or not, he will have the credit of first discov¬ ering that they spend their winters under the warm and sheltery shores of Gibraltar and Barbary. Scopoli’s characters of his ordines and genera are clear, just, and expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnaeus. These few remarks are the result of my first perusal of Scopoli’s “Annus Primus.” The bane of our science is the comparing one ani¬ mal 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 o o * “Above it is mouse-colour, below whitish, the guiding feathers with an oval white spot on the inner side, the feet bare and black, the beak black, the wing feathers darker than the dorsal ones, the guiders of the same colour as the wings, the tail well defined, not forked.” 148 birds as might be wished, as you justly observe: his Latin is easy, elegant, and expressive, and very supe¬ rior to Kramer’s “ Elenchus Vegetabilium et Anima- lium per Austriam Inferiorem.” I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds so well with yours. Selborxe, Oct. 29, 1870. LETTER XL. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. I was much pleased to see, among the collection of birds from Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer birds of passage concerning whose departure we have made so much inquiry. Now, if these birds are found in Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the Continent, and spend their winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe. This is certain, that many soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar appear there only in spring and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs to¬ wards the northward, for the sake of breeding during the summer months, and retiring in parties and broods towards the south, at the decline of the year: so that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous and place of observation from whence they take their 149 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 Eu¬ rope ; it is a 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, “ It has all the qualities of the preceding, save that the breast is white ; it is a little larger than the former ; ” “Omnia prioris ” (meaning the swift); “ sed pectus album ; paulo major priore.” I do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of the melba , that “it builds on the lofty Alpine cliffs;” “ 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 ac¬ count of the stone-curlew ( oedicnemus ), sends me the following account: — “In looking over my 'Natural¬ ist’s Journal ’ for the month of April, I find the stone- curlews are first mentioned on the 17th and 1 8th, which dates seem to me rather late. They live with J us all the spring and summer, and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by getting together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that may travel into some dry hilly country south of us, probably Spain, because of the abundance of sheep- walks in that country ; for they spend their summers with us in such districts. This conjecture I hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in England in the winter. I believe they are not fond of going near the water, but feed on earth¬ worms, that are common on sheep-walks and downs. They breed on fallows and lay fields abounding with grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in colour ; among which they skulk and conceal them¬ selves. 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 some¬ thing very analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat resembles in aspect and make, and in the structure of its feet. For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these birds in Andalusia ; and now he writes me word that, for the first time, he saw one dead in the market on the 3rd of September. When the stone-curlew {oedicnemus) flies, it stretch¬ es out its legs straight behind, like a heron. Selborne, Nov. 26, 1770. LETTER XLI. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. The birds that 1 took for abcrdavines were reed- sparrows (Passer cs torquati). There are doubtless many home internal migra¬ tions within this kingdom that want to be better un¬ derstood ; witness those vast flocks of hen chafflnches that appear with us in the winter with hardly any cocks among them. Now, was there a due propor¬ tion of each sex, it would seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of these little birds ; and much more when only one half of the species appears ; therefore we may conclude that the Fringilloe ccelebes, for some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of sexes in this species of birds should be interrupted in winter; since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd sepa¬ rately, except at the season when commerce is neces- sarv for the continuance of the breed. For this mat- J ter of the chafflnches, see “Fauna Suecica,” p. 85» and “ Systema Naturae,” p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chafflnches, 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 152 food is a great regulator of the actions and proceed¬ ings 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 circum¬ stance which you advance — that “ when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh-turned earth.'' Now if you mean that the business of congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat-sowing to the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us ; for larks and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs and harrows. Surely there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and retire to some districts more suit¬ able to the purpose of breed- , Tr/. r r A fieldfare. ing. That the former pair, and that the hens are forward with egg before they retire, I myself, when I was a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied that now and then we hear of a woodcock’s nest, or even young birds, discovered in some part or other of this 13 153 island : but then they are always mentioned as rari¬ ties, and somewhat out of the common course of things; but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sports¬ man 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 main¬ tains their congeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through. Hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or de¬ parture. Fieldfares and redwings disappear sooner or later, according as the warm weather comes on earlier or later, for I well remember, after that dreadful winter, 1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow on through April and May, and that these kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart as usual, but were seen linger¬ ing about till the beginning of June. The best authority that we can have for the nidi- fication of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have written pro¬ fessedly the natural history of particular countries. Now, as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his “ Fauna Suecica,” says of it, that “ it builds in the largest trees,” — “ maximis in arboribus nidificat;” and of the redwing he says, in the same place, that “it builds in 154 the middle of shrubs or hedges, and lays six bluish- green eggs with black spots," — “ nidificat in mediis arbusculis, sive sepibus : ova sex casruleoviridia ma- culis nigris variis." Hence we may be assured that fieldfares and redwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his “Annus Primus," of the woodcock, that “ it comes to us about the vernal equinox, and, after pairing, it builds its nest in marshy places, and lays its eggs," — “ nupta ad nos venit circa sequinoctium vernale ; " meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds, — “ nidificat in paludibus alpinis : ova ponit 3 — 5." It does not appear from Kramer that woodcocks breed at all in Austria ; but he says: — “ This bird dwells in the northern regions in summer, where, too, it generally builds its nest. As winter comes on it goes farther south, leaving this about the October full-moon. After pairing, it usually comes back to the north about the full March moon," — “ Avis haec septentrionalium provinciarum asstivo tempore incola est ; ubi plerumque nidificat. Appropinquante hyeme australiores provincias petit: hinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat. Tunc rursus circa pleniluni¬ um potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam matri- monio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit." For the whole passage (which I have abridged) see “ Elenchus," &c., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of the migration of woodcocks ; though little is proved concerning the place of breeding. 155 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. Selborne, Dec. 20, 1770. LETTER XLII. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the well-attested accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats, in a torpid state, and slumber away the more 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 sea- 156 son ; and these vast migrations consist not only of hirundines, but of bee-birds, hoopoes, Oro pendolos , or golden thrushes, &c. &c., and also of many of our soft-billed summer birds of passage ; and moreover of birds which never leave us, such as all the various sorts of hawks and kites. Old Belon, two hundred years ago, gives a curious account of the incredible armies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing the Thracian Bosporus 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, and especially birds of prey whose blood being heated with hot animal food are more impatient of a sultry climate, should retreat before the sun as it ad¬ vances, and retire to milder regions ; but then I can¬ not help wondering why kites and hawks, and such hardy birds as are known to defy all the severitv 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 can be laid on the difficulty and hazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast oceans, cross winds, &c. ; because, if we reflect, a bird, by crossing the water at Dover, and again at Gibraltar, may travel from England to the equator without launch¬ ing out and exposing itself to boundless seas. And 157 I advance this obvious remark with the more confi¬ dence, 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 Medi¬ terranean ; when arrived at Gibraltar, they do not “ - Ranged in figure wedge their way, - and set forth Their airy caravan high over seas Flying, and over lands with mutual win? 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 narrow¬ est 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, con¬ siderable as it is, I shall relate the following incident, which, though mentioned to have happened so man}’ years ago, was strictly matter of fact: — As some peo¬ ple were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the countv of Sussex, thev killed a duck in that dreadful winter of 1708-9, with a silver collar about its neck A * White adds in a note, “ I have read a like anecdote of a swan.” 158 on which were engraven the arms of the King: of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton at that time has often told to a near relation of mine ; and, to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in the possession of the rector. At present I do not know anybody near the sea¬ side that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come : if I lived near the sea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which wood¬ cocks 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 pre¬ sume to say. Nightingales not only never reach Northumber¬ land 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 Alanda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe 159 that was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in Letter XXXVIII. in 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 migration ; for as they fare in the winter like their congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. Was not Tenant, when a boy, mistaken ? Did he not find a missel-thrush’s nest, and take it for the nest of a fieldfare ? The stock-dove or wood-pigeon, Ainas Raii, is the last winter bird of passage which appears with us ; and is not seen till towards the end of November; about twenty years ago they abounded in the district of Selborne ; and strings of them were seen, morning and evening, that reached a mile or more ; but since the beechen woods have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. The ring-dove, Pa- lumbus Raii , stays with us the whole year, and breeds several times through the summer. Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked in my journal that the trees were un¬ usually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on 160 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 verv late in the year. M y musical friend, at whose house I am now vis¬ iting, has tried all the owls that are his near neigh¬ bours with a pitch-pipe set at concert-pitch, and finds they all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightin¬ gales next spring. Fyfield, near Andover, Feb. 12, 1771. LETTER XLIII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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 very minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye ; of a bright scarlet col¬ our, and of the genus of acanis .* They are to be met * Leptns autumnalis of Latreille. 161 with in gardens on kidneybeans, or any legumens, but prevail only in the hot months of summer. War- Entrance to an old Selborne lane. reners, as some have assured me, are much infested by them on chalky-downs, where these insects some¬ times swarm 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 162 very troublesome to the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the bacon while it is drying: these eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone, and make great waste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the Musca putris of Linnaeus : it is to be seen in the sum¬ mer in farm-kitchens, on the bacon-racks and about the mantelpieces, and on the ceilings. The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden (destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an animal that wants to be better known. The country people here call it the turnip-fly and black dolphin ; but I know it to be one of the coleoptcra ; the “ Chrysomcla olcracea saltato- ria, femoribus posticis crassissimis ” — “the vaulting chrysomela , with the back part of the thighs very thick.” 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 Linnasus,* is also passed over by late writers, and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in his “ Physico-Theology,” p. 250: an insect worthy of * This is a mistake on White’s part : the Horse Bot-fly, Gasterophilus equi , Leach, is described by Linnaeus under the name of CEstrus bovis. 163 remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexter¬ ous 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 won¬ derful star-tailed maggot which he mentions after¬ wards ; for more modern entomologists have discov¬ ered that singular production to be derived from the egg of the Musca chamceleon .* 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 al¬ lowed by the public to be a most useful and impor¬ tant work. What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected ; great improve¬ ments 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 pre¬ venting 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 ac¬ cording 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. Selborne, March 30, 1771. * Stratiomys chamceleon , De Geer. 164 LETTER XLIV To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 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 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 ful¬ crum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy when set on end. When the train is up, nothing ap¬ pears 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 mus¬ cular 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 flat. Selborne, 1771. LETTER XLV. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. My musical 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 the 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. Do these dif¬ ferent 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, which made a disagreeable concert; he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wol- mer Forest some in C.* As to nightingales, he says that their notes are so short and their transitions so * The editor of the edition of 1822 remarks that the cuckoo begins early in the season with a tray or third, next to a fourth, then a fifth, after which his voice breaks without attaining a sixth ; a very old obser- 166 rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key. Per¬ haps 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 won¬ der at all that they retreat from Scandinavian winters : and much more the or do of grallce which, all to a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach of winter. “ Grallas tan- quam conjuratag unanimiter in fugam se conjiciunt ; ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem inve¬ nire possimus ; ut enim asstate in australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque sic- cam ; ita nec in frigidis ob eandem causam,” says Ekmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise A redwing. vation, however, seeing it is the subject of an epigram in the scarce black letter, “ Epigrams of John Heywood,” dated 1587 : — “ Use maketh maistry, this hath been said alway ; But all is not alway as all men do say. In April, the koocoo can sing her song by rote, In June of tune she cannot sing a note : At first koocoo, koocoo, sing still can she do ; At last kooke, kooke, kooke, six kookes to one coo.” 167 called “ Migrationes Avium," which by all means you ought to read while your thoughts run on the subject of migration. — “ The grallce , as though they had con¬ spired, take themselves to flight in an unmannerly fashion; nor can we find even one dwelling amongst us ; for as they cannot live in the south during sum¬ mer because of the dryness of the ground, so neither can they live in the cold countries of the north in winter for the contrary reason." Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country and not in another: but the gi'allce (which procure their food from marshes and boggv grounds) must in winter forsake the more northerly parts of Europe, or perish for want of food. I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus concerning the woodcock : it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the motions and manner of life of the animals of his own “ Fauna.” Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare 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 countrv. Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specific differences ; which are almost universally constituted bv one or two particular 1 68 marks, the rest of the description running in general terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his followers and imitators in spite of the ad¬ vantage 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 slug¬ gish 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. Selborne, Aug. i, 1771. LETTER XLVI. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. The summer through I have seen but two of that large species of bat which I call Vespcrtilio ciltivolans, from its manner of feeding high in the air: I pro¬ cured one of them, and found it to be a male ; and made no doubt, as they accompanied together, that the other was a female ; but happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was somewhat 14 169 disappointed when it appeared to be also of the same sex. This circumstance and the great scarcity of this sort, at least in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a species, or whether it may not be the male part of the more known spe¬ cies, one of which may supply many females ; as is known to be the case in sheep, and some other quad¬ rupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination, and some attention to the sex, of more specimens: all that I know at present is, that my two were amply furnished with the parts of gen¬ eration much resembling those of a boar. In the extent of their wings they measured four¬ teen 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 cov¬ ered 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. Sept. 1771. 170 LETTER XLVII. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. On the 1 2th of July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the motions of the capriniulgus, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with Scarabcei solstit idles , 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 ser¬ rated claw. Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have forsaken us sooner this year than usual : for, on the 22nd of September, they rendezvoused in a neigh¬ bour’s walnut-tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up their lodgings for the night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they arose all to¬ gether in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rush¬ ing from the strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to a considerable distance : since that no flock has appeared, only a few stragglers. Some swifts staid late, till the 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! Selborne, 1771. LETTER XLYIII. * To the Honourable Daines Barrington. When I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious flocks of various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring these congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for those appearances almost peculiar to the season. The two great mo¬ tives 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 vear when that soft passion is not indulged ; besides, dur¬ ing the amorous season, such a jealousy prevails be- * See Letter XCVI. to INI r. Barrington. 172 tween the male birds that they can hardly bear to be together in the same hedge or field. Most of the singing and elation of spirits of that time seem to me to be the effect of ri¬ valry and emulation; and it is to this spir¬ it of jealousy that I chiefly attribute the equal dispersion of birds in the spring over the face of the country. Now as to the busi¬ ness of food : as these ani¬ mals are actuated by instinct to hunt for necessary food, they should not, one would suppose, crowd together in pursuit of a rook. sustenance at a time when it is most likely7 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? just as men crowd together when under great calam¬ ities, though they know not why. Perhaps ap¬ proximation may dispel some degree of cold ; and 173 a crowd may make each individual appear safer from the ravages of birds of prey and other dan¬ gers. If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate, I am the more struck when I see incongenerous 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 discern¬ ing scent than their attend¬ ants, and can lead them to spots more productive of food ? Anatomists say that rooks, by reason of two large nerves which run down between the eyes into the upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than other round¬ billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhaps then their as¬ sociates attend them on the mo¬ tive of interest, as greyhounds wait on the motions of their finders ; and as lions 174 A starling. are said to do on the yelpings of jackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate. Selborne, Feb. 8, 1772. LETTER XLIX. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. As a gentleman and myself were walking on the 4th of last November round the sea-banks at New- haven, 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 ac¬ counts which I meet with, I am more and more in¬ duced 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 * Concerning swallows, the reader will see that Mr. White appears to incline more and more in favour of their torpidity, and against their migration. Mr. D. Barrington is still more positive on the same side of the question ; yet the ancients generally mention this bird as wintering in Africa. See Anacreon \y. ed. Brunch, p. 38. The Rhodians had a festival called xeA.tchij'ja, when the boys brought about young swallows ; 175 to their latcbrce . 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, I should by proper observations, 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 opin- the song which they sang may be seen in the works of Meursius, v. 3, p. 974, fob vHA0e, * * * * vHA0e. xeAtSwi' KaXas, "flpas ayovcra, real KaXovs ’Eviavrovs vE7Ti ydcrrepa A evKa, k' em ou>ra /ueXaiva. “He comes ! He comes ! who loves to bear Soft sunny hours and seasons fair ; — The swallow hither comes to rest His sable wing and snowy breast.” And alluding to this custom, Avienus (who may be considered only as a very bad translator of an excellent poem, the “ Periegesis ” of Dionysius) thus says, v. 705, — “ Nam cum vere novo, tellus se dura relaxat, Culminibusque cavis, blandum strepit ales hirundo Gens devota choros agitat ! ” “ When in early spring the iron soil relaxes, comes the swallow chirp¬ ing pleasantly from the hollow eaves, and the pious people begin to dance.” From a passage in the “ Birds” of Aristophanes, we learn that among the Greeks the crane pointed out the time of solving ; the arrival of the kite , the time of sheep-shearing ; and the swallow , the time to put on summer-clothes. According to the Greek calendar of Flora, kept by Theophrastus at Athens, the Ornithian winds blow, and the swallow comes between the 28th of February and the 12th of March; the kite and nightingale appear between the nth and 26th of March ; the cuckoo appears at the same time the young figs come out, thence his name. — Stillingfleet’s Tracts on Natural History. 176 ion from what I have remarked during- some of our late springs, that though some swallows did make their appearance about the usual time, namely, the 13th or 14th of April, yet meeting with a harsh re¬ ception, and blustering cold north-east winds, they immediately withdrew, absconding for several days, till the weather gave them better encouragement. March 9, 1772. LETTER L. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. By my journal for last autumn it appears that the house-martins bred very late, and staid very late in these parts; for on the ist of October I saw young martins in their nest nearly fledged ; and, again, on the 2 1 st 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 Novem¬ ber ; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins were playing all dav long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the other side of the northern tropic ? Or rather, is 177 it not more probable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps sand-bank, lake, or pool, may become their hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat? We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every week. Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were seen at Christmas 1770 in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge of this county. Hence we may conclude that their mi¬ grations 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 shoul¬ ders ; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven years ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he killed sixteen himself in one afternoon: he added further, that some had appeared since in every autumn ; but he could not find that any had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn cantoned all along 178 the Sussex downs, wherever there were shrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes ; particularly in the autumn of 1 770. Selborne, March 15, 1773. LETTER LI. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the village near Lewes, from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the 1st of November I remarked that the old tortoise, for¬ merly mentioned, began first to dig the ground, in order to the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind ; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour- hand of a clock ; and suitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performing one feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity ; but as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day : and though I continued there till the 13th of November, 179 yet the work remained unfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened its opera¬ tions. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extreme timidity it always expresses with regard to rain ; for though it has a shell that would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discover as much solicitude about rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to it becomes an excellent weather-glass ; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal ani¬ mal, 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 eat¬ ing as well as breathing for a great part of the year. When first awakened it eats nothing ; nor again in the autumn before it retires : through the height of the summer it feeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices ; for as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only “the ox knoweth its owner, and the ass his master’s crib,”* * Isaiah i. 3. 180 but the most abject reptile and torpid of beings dis¬ tinguishes 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. April 12, 1772. LETTER LII. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. The more I reflect on the o-ropyr/ of animals, the more I am astonished at its effects. Nor is the vio¬ lence of this affection more wonderful than the short¬ ness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helpless¬ ness of her brood ; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty. This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens the sagacity of the brute creation. Thus a hen, just become a mother, is no longer that placid bird she used to be, but with feath¬ ers standing on end, wings hovering, and clucking 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 par¬ tridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order 181 to draw away the dogs from her helpless covey. In the time of nidihcation 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 suf¬ fer 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 cliffs of the rocks to chase away the kestrel or the sparrow-hawk. If you stand near the nest of a bird that has young, she will not be induced to betray them by an inadvertent fond¬ ness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouth for an hour together. Should I further corroborate what I have ad¬ vanced above by some anecdotes which I probably may have mentioned before in conversation, yet you will, I trust, pardon the repetition for the sake of the illustration. The flycatcher of the Zoology (the Stoparola of Rav) builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadver¬ tently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half-fledged, the reflection of 182 Sc l bo rue beechwood the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffer¬ ing 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 up a large bundle of long green moss, as it were carelessly thrown over the nest, in order to dodge the eye of an}7 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 15 i83 hold, especially when it appeared that they were so young as to be both naked and blind ! To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the < TTopy?] , which induces some females of the brute cre¬ ation 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 off¬ spring, I am not so much amazed ; since reason per¬ verted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable of any enormity : but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine. Selborne, March 26, 1773. LETTER Till. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. 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, 184 among the rest, some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery : this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history. We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through, the following remarks may not perhaps be unaccepta¬ ble : — 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 in¬ closures for them, which seem to be their only food. In this irregular country we can stand on an emi¬ nence and see them beat the fields over like a setting- dog, often dropping 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 adroit¬ ness that every animal is possessed of as far as re¬ gards 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 the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves. White owls seem not (but in this I am not posi¬ tive) to hoot at all : all that clamorous hooting ap¬ pears to me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tremen¬ dous manner; and these menaces will answer the intention of intimidating: for I have known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining the church-yard to be full of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly as they fly along ; from this screaming probably arose the com¬ mon people’s imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think attends the win¬ dows of dying persons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Per¬ haps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rush¬ ing, 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 im¬ proper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom, a 1S6 mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After some examination, he found that it was the 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 bal¬ ance to their large heavy heads: for, as most noc¬ turnal 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.* The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, social, and useful tribe of birds ; they touch no fruit in our gardens; delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to our houses; amuse us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous * It will be proper to premise here that the Letters LIII., LV., LVII., and LX., have been published already in the “ Philosophical Trans¬ actions,” but nicer observation has furnished several corrections and additions. 187 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 mosqui¬ toes, which fill the air, and render those coasts in¬ supportable. It would be worth inquiring whether any species of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked with them were it not for the friendly interposition of the swallows. 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 Hippoboscez hirundines , with narrow subulated wings, abounding in every nest ; and are hatched by the warmth of the bird’s own body during incuba¬ tion, and crawl about under its feathers. A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of England under the name of forest-fly ; and to some of side-fly, from its running sideways like a crab. It creeps under the tails, and about the groins, of horses, which at their first coming out of the north, are rendered half frantic by the tick- * See Ulloa’s “ Travels.” 188 ling sensation ; while our own breed little regards them. The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or rather piipce, of these flies as big as the flies them¬ selves, which he hatched in his own bosom. Any person that will take the trouble to examine the old nests of either species of swallows may find in them the black shining cases or skins of the pupce of these ‘insects: but for other particulars, too long for this place, we refer the reader to “ L’Histoire d’lnsects” of that admirable entomologist — tom. iv. pi. u. Selborne, July 8, 1773. LETTER LIV. To Thomas Pennant, Esq. As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I take the liberty of making the fol¬ lowing 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 Frin- sham pond, a great lake, 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. 189 A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted Park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne : they are rarce aves in this county. Crows go in pairs the whole year round. Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy Head and on all the cliffs of the Sus¬ sex coast. The common wild pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; and is usu¬ ally the latest winter-bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much A crow. destroyed, we had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a morning to feed. They leave us early in spring ; where do they breed ? The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery weather; its song often commences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards. A gentleman assures me he has taken the nests of ring-ousels on Dartmoor ; they build in banks on the sides of streams. Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they play and toy about on the wing ; and particularly while they are descending, and sometimes as they stand on the ground. Adanson’s testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that European swallows migrate dur¬ ing 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 men¬ tioned 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 the 23rd of October. The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house-swallow : viz. about the 24th or the 26th of April. Whin-chats and stone-chatters stay with us the whole year. Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through. Wagtails of 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 sound (perhaps I should have rather said a hum¬ ming), 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 ventril- oquous, or proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot say ; but this I know, that when this noise happens, the bird is al¬ ways descending, and his wings are violently agi¬ tated. Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they con- A bullfinch. gregate, and leaving the moors and marshes, betake them¬ selves to downs and sheep-walks. Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive and unhurt, but fluttering and unable to rise, in 192 a lane a few miles from Alresford, where there is a great lake : it was kept a while, but died. I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmer Forest in the beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild ducks. All the swallow kind sip their water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers : like Virgil’s bees they drink flying — “flumina sum- malibant.” In this meth¬ od of drinking perhaps this genus may be pe¬ culiar. p| jli Lapwings. The sedge-bird sings most part of the night ; its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative 193 of several birds ; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, by throw¬ ing 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. Selborne, Nov. 9, 1773. LETTER LV. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. In obedience to your injunctions I sit down to pfive you some account of the house-martin or mart- O J let ; * and, if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen to meet with your approbation, I may probably soon extend my inqui¬ ries to the rest of the British hir undines — the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin. A few house-martins begin to appear about the 1 6th of x4pril ; usually some few days later than the swallow. For some time after they appear, the hirun- dines in general pay no attention to the business of nidification, but play and sport about, either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if they do migrate at all, or else that their blood may recover its true tone and texture after it has been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the middle of J * Hirundo tirbica, Linnaeus. 194 May, if the weather be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing a mansion for its fam- House-martins. ily. 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 per¬ pendicular 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 su¬ perstructure. On this occasion the bird not only i95 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 plas¬ ters 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 provi¬ dent architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast ; but by building only in the morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful work¬ men when they build mud-walls (informed at first per¬ haps by this little bird) raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist ; lest the work should become top-heavy, and so be ruined by its own weight. By this method in about ten or twelve days is formed an hemispheric nest with a small aperture towards the top, strong, compact, and warm ; and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing is more common than for the house- sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it as its own, to eject the owner, and to line it after its own manner. After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as Nature seldom works in vain, martins will breed on for several years together in the same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered and se¬ cured from the injuries of weather. The shell or 196 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 inter¬ woven with wool. In this nest they tread, or engen¬ der, frequently during the time of building ; and the hen lays from three to five white eggs. At first when the young are hatched, and are in a naked and helpless condition, the parent birds, with tender assiduity, carry out what comes away from their young. Were it not for this affectionate clean¬ liness the nestlings would soon be burnt up, and de¬ stroyed 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 there¬ fore is the easier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. \ et, as Nature is cleanly in all her ways, the young perform this office for themselves in a little time by thrusting their tails out at the aperture of their nest. As the young of small birds presently arrive at their rfXucLa, or full growth, they soon be¬ come impatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out of the orifice, where the dams, by 197 clinging to the nest, supply them with food from morning till night. For a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents ; but the feat is done by so quick and almost imperceptible a slight, that a per¬ son 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 hover¬ ing 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 all together ; but the more forward birds get abroad some days before the rest. These approaching the eaves of buildings, and playing about before them, make people think that several old ones attend one nest. They are often capricious in fixing on a nesting-place, beginning many edifices, and leaving them unfinished ; but when once a nest is completed in a sheltered place, it serves for several seasons. Those which breed in a ready-finished house get the start in hatching of those that build new by ten days or a fortnight. These industrious artificers are at their labours in the long days before four in 198 the morning : when they fix their materials they plas¬ ter 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 fre¬ quently as swallows. It has been observed that mar¬ tins usually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sun may not crack and destroy their nests ; but instances are also remembered where they bred for many years in vast abundance in a hot stifled inn-yard, against a wall facing to the south. Birds in general are wise in their choice of situ¬ ation ; but in this neighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the contrary at a house with¬ out 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 “to patch the ruins of a fallen race — “generis lapsi sarcire ruinas.” Thus is instinct a most wonderful but 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 16 199 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 feath¬ ers 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. Accord¬ ingly, they make use of a placid easy motion in a middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and never sweeping long together over the surface of the ground or water. They do not wander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or under some hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. They breed the latest of all the swallow kind : in 1772 they had nestlings on to October the 21st, and are never without unfledged young as late as Michaelmas. As the summer declines the congregating flocks increase in numbers daily by the constant accession of the second broods, till at last they swarm in myriads upon myriads round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky as they fre¬ quent the aits of that river, where they roost. They retire, the bulk of them I mean, in vast flocks to¬ gether about the beginning of October ; but have appeared of late years in a considerable flight in this neighbourhood, for one day or two, as late as No- 200 vember the 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 district where they are bred, they must undergo vast devastations some¬ how, 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 man¬ ner in their nests. During the time of breeding they are often greatly molested with fleas. Selborne, Nov. 20, 1773. LETTER LVI. To the Honourable Daines Barrington. I received your last favour just as I was setting out for this place ; and am pleased to find that my monograph met with your approbation. My re¬ marks are the result of many years’ observations ; 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 201 make many additions, since subjects of this kind are inexhaustible. If you think my letter worthy the notice of your respectable society, you are at liberty to lay it before them ; and they will consider it, I hope, as it was intended, as 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 hir undines . Though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs upwards of thirty years, I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration year by year ; and think I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This range, which runs from Chichester eastward as far as Eastbourne, is about sixty miles in length, and is called the South Downs, properly speaking, only round Lewes. As you pass along, it commands 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 at Danny, just at the foot of these hills ; he was so ravished with the prospect from Plumpton-plain near Lewes, that he mentions those landscapes in his “ Wisdom of God in the Works of the Creation” with the utmost satisfaction, and thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe. Lor my own part, I think there is something 202 White s sundial , at the bottom of his garden. peculiarly sweet and pleasing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk-hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to you the same idea ; but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air of vegetative dilatation and expansion. Or was there ever a time when these immense masses of 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 ? By what I can guess of the admeasurements of the hills that have been taken round my house, I should suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average of about the rate of five hundred feet. One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from the westward until you get to the river Adur all the flocks have horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs ; and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen: but as soon as you pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding Hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, or, as they call them, poll-sheep ; and have moreover black faces with a white tuft of 203 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 val¬ ley 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 im¬ memorial ; and smile at your simplicity if you ask them whether the situation of these two different breeds might not be reversed? However, an in¬ telligent friend of mine near Chichester is de¬ termined to try the experiment, and has this au¬ tumn, 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. [The sheep on the downs in the winter of 1769 were very ragged, and their coats much torn ; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns, and they are always in that way in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice. After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much to 204 arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor , discriminating each individual personally ; which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they are newly marked ; for the brute creation recognize each other more from the smell than the sight; and in mat¬ ters of identity and diversity appeal much more to their noses than their eyes. After sheep have been washed there is the same confusion, from the reason given above.] — Observations on Nature. As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late a season of the vear, I was deter- mined 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 unaccount¬ able. The hirundines, if they please, are certainly capable of migration ; and yet no doubt are often found in a torpid state : but redstarts, nightingales, whitethroats, blackcaps, which 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, 205 which from day to day discern the other small birds that are known to abide our winters. But, notwith¬ standing- all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage : and, what is more strange, not one wheatear, though they abound so in the autumn as to be a considerable perquisite to the shepherds that take them ; and though many are to be seen to my knowledge all the winter through in many parts of the south of England. The most intelligent shep¬ herds tell me that some few of these birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw to breed probably in warrens and stone quarries : now and then a nest is ploughed up in a fallow on the downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time of wheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers; are sent for sale in vast quantities to Brighton and Tunbridge ; and appear at the tables of all the gentry that entertain with any de¬ gree 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 206 appear that any wheatears are taken to the west¬ ward 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 coverts ; but not one bird of this sort came within my ob¬ servation. I only saw a few larks and whinchats, some rooks, and several kites and buzzards. About summer a flight of crossbills comes to the pine-groves about this house, but never makes any long stay. The old tortoise, that 1 have mentioned in a for¬ mer letter, still continues in this garden ; and retired under ground about the 20th of November, and came out again for one day on the 30th : it lies now buried in a wet swampy border under a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud and mire ! Here is a large rookery round this house, the inhabitants of which seem to get their livelihood very easily ; for they spend the greatest part of the dav on their nest-trees when the weather is mild. J 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 207 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. Ringmer, near Lewes, Dec. g, 1773. 20S D. APPLETON & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. AM I LIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND I GARDEN. By F. Schuyler Mathews. Illustrated with 200 Drawings by the Author, and containing an elaborate Index showing at a glance the botanical and popular names, family, color, locality, environment, and time of bloom of several hun¬ dred flowers. i2mo. Library Edition, cloth, $1.75 ; Pocket Edition, flexible covers, $2.25. In this convenient and useful volume the flowers which one finds in the fields are identified, illustrated, and described in familiar language. Their connection with gar¬ den flowers is made clear. Particular attention is drawn to the beautiful ones which have come under cultivation, and, as the title indicates, the book furnishes a ready- guide to a knowledge of wild and cultivated flowers alike. “ I have examined Mr. Mathews’s little book upon ‘ Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden,’ and I have pleasure in commending the accuracy and beauty of the drawings and the freshness of the text. We have long needed some botany from the hand of an artist, who sees form and color without the formality of the scientist. T he book deserves a reputation.” — L. H. Bailey , Professor of Horticulture, Cornell University. “ I am much pleased with your ‘Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden.’ It is a useful and handsomely prepared handbook, and the elaborate index is an especially valuable part of it. Taken in connection with the many careful drawings, it would seem as though your little volume thoroughly covers its subject.” — Louis Prang “ The author describes in a most interesting and charming manner many familiar wild and cultivated plants, enlivening his remarks by crisp epigrams, and rendering identification of the subjects described simple by means of some two hundred draw¬ ings from Nature, made by his own pen. . . . The book will do much to more fully acquaint the reader with those plants of field and garden treated upon with which he may be but partly familiar, and go a long way toward correcting many popular errors existing in the matter of colors of their flowers, a subject to which Air. Mathews has devoted much attention, and on which he is now a recognized authority in the trade.” — New York Florists’ Exchange. “A book of much value and interest, admirably arranged for the student and the lover of flowers. . . . The text is full of compact information, well selected and interest¬ ingly presented. ... It seems to us to be a most attractive handbook of its kind.” — New York Sun. “A delightful book and very useful. Its language is plain and familiar, and the illustrations are dainty works of art. It is just the book for those who want to be familiar with the well-known flowers, those that grow in the cultivated gardens as wrell as those that blossom in the fields.” — Newark Daily Advertiser. “ Seasonable and valuable. The young botanist and the lover of flow’ers, who have only studied from Nature, will be greatly aided by this work.” — Pittsburg Post. “Charmingly written, and to any one wrho loves the flow’ers— and who does not? — will prove no less fascinating than instructive. It will open up in the garden and the fields a new world full of curiosity and delight, and invest them with a new interest in his sight.” — Christian Work. “ One need not be deeply read in floral lore to be interested in what Mr. Mathews has written, and the more proficient one is therein the greater his satisfaction is likely to be.” — New York Mail and Express. “ Mr. F. Schuyler Mathews’s careful description and graceful drawings of our ‘ Familiar Flowrers of Field and Garden ’ are fitted to make them familiar even to those who have not before made their acquaintance.”- — New York Evening Post. New York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue. D. APPLETON & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. TJ ANDBOOK OF BIRDS OF EASTERN ^ NORTH AMERICA. With Keys to the Species, Descrip¬ tions of their Plumages, Nests, etc. ; their Distribution and Migra¬ tion. Treating of all the birds, some five hundred and forty in num¬ ber, which have been found east of the Mississippi River, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. By Frank M. Chapman, Assistant Curator of Mammalogy and Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History. With over 200 Illustrations. i2mo. Library Edition, cloth, $3.00 ! Pocket Edition, flexible covers, $3.50. The author’s position has not only given him exceptional opportunities for the preparation of a work which may be considered as authoritative, but has brought him in direct contact with beginners in the stud}' of birds whose wants he thus thoroughly understands. The technicalities so confusing to the amateur are avoided, and by the use of illustrations, concise descriptions, analytical keys, dates of migration, and re¬ marks on distribution, haunts, notes, and characteristic habits, the problem of identi¬ fication, either in the field or study, is reduced to its simplest terms. OPINIONS OF ORNITHOLOGISTS AND THE PRESS. “ Written in simple, non-technical language, with special reference to the needs of amateurs and bird-lovers, yet with an accuracy of detail that makes it a standard authority on the birds of eastern North America.” — J. A. Allen, Editor of The Auk. “ I am delighted with the ‘ Handbook.’ So entirely trustworthy and up to date that I can heartily recommend it. It seems to me the best all-around thing we have had yet.'1 — Olive Thortie Miller. “ The ‘ Handbook ’ is destined to fill a place in ornithology similar to that held by Gray’s ‘Manual’ in botany. One seldom finds so many good things in a single vol¬ ume. and I cannot recommend it too highly. Its conciseness and freedom from errors, together with its many original ideas, make it the standard work of its class.” — John H. Sage, Secretary of the American Ornithologists’ Union. “ Your charming and most useful little book. ... I had good reason to expect an excellent book of the kind from your pen, and certainly have not been disappointed. We receive here very many inquiries concerning a popular book on birds, or rather. I should say, a book so combining popular and scientific features as to render it both entertaining and instructive. To all such inquiries I have been obliged to reply that no such book existed. Now, however, the ‘ long-felt want ’ has been satisfactorily sup¬ plied ; and it will give me great pleasure to answer such inquiries in future in a dif¬ ferent way.” — Robert Ridgzuay, United States National Museum, Washington, D. C. “A book so free from technicalities as to be intelligible to a fourteen-year-old boy, and so convenient and full of original information as to be indispensable to the work¬ ing ornithologist. . . . As a handbook of the birds of eastern North America it is bound to supersede all other works.” — Science. “ The author has succeeded in presenting to the reader clearly and vividly a vast amount of useful information.” — Philadelphia Press. “A valuable book, full of information compactly and conveniently arranged.” — New York Sun. “A charming book, of interest to ever}- naturalist or student of natural history.” — Cincinnati Times-Star. “ The book will meet a want felt by nearly ever}7 bird observer.” — Minneapolis Tribune. New York : D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.