The Natural History of Selborne

Published：2026-07-30 10:03:58 Source: educational engineering kits for 13 year olds Author: Railway Toys

The best baby dolls for siblingsNatural History of Selborne

by Gilbert White

INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

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

Arise, my stranger, to these wild scenes haste;
The unfinish’d farm awaits your forming taste:
Plan the pavilion, airy, light, and true;
Through the high arch call in the length’ning view;
Expand the forest sloping up the hill;
Swell to a lake the scant, penurious rill;
Extend the vista; raise the castle mound
In antique taste, with turrets ivy-crown’d:
O’er the gay lawn the flow’ry shrub dispread,
Or with the blending garden mix the mead;
Bid China’s pale, fantastic fence delight;
Or with the mimic statue trap the sight.

Oft on some evening, sunny, soft, and still,
The Muse shall lead thee to the beech-grown hill,
To spend in tea the cool, refreshing hour,
Where nods in air the pensile, nest-like bower;
Or where the hermit hangs the straw-clad cell,
Emerging gently from the leafy dell,
By fancy plann’d; as once th’ inventive maid
Met the hoar sage amid the secret shade:
Romantic spot ! from whence in prospect lies
Whate’er of landscape charms our feasting eyes’—
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain,
The russet fallow, or the golden grain,
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,
Till all the fading picture fail the sight.

Each to his task; all different ways retire:
Cull the dry stick; call forth the seeds of fire;
Deep fix the kettle’s props, a forky row,
Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow.

Whence is this taste, the furnish’d hall forgot,
To feast in gardens, or th’ unhandy grot ?
Or novelty with some new charms surprises,
Or from our very shifts some joy arises.
Hark, while below the village bells ring round,
Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften’d sound;
But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar,
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.

Adown the vale, in lone, sequester’d nook,
Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook,
The ruin’d convent lies: here wont to dwell
The lazy canon midst his cloister’d cell,
While Papal darkness brooded o’er the land,
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand:
Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains
See the cowl’d spectre skim the folded plains.

To the high Temple would my stranger go,
The mountain-brow commands the woods below:
In Jewry first this order found a name,
When madding Croisades set the world in flame;
When western climes, urged on by pope and priest
Pour’d forth their minions o’er the deluged East:
Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy
To mortal fight Turcestan chivalry.

Nor be the parsonage by the Muse forgot —
The partial bard admires his native spot;
Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child,
Unconscious why, its capes, grotesque and wild.
High on a mound th’ exalted gardens stand,
Beneath, deep valleys, scoop’d by Nature’s hand.
A Cobham here, exulting in his art,
Might blend the general’s with the gardener’s part;
Might fortify with all the martial trade
Of rampart, bastion, fosse, and palisade;
Might plant the mortar with wide threat’ning bore,
Or bid the mimic cannon seem to roar:

Now climb the steep, drop now your eye belong
Where round the blooming village orchards grow;
There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat,
A rural, shelter’d, unobserved retreat.

Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes,
The pendent forests, and the mountain greens,
Strike with delight; there spreads the distant view,
That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue:
Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight,
Rills purl between and dart a quivering light.

SELBORNE HANGER.

A WINTER PIECE, TO THE MISS B*****S

The bard, who sang so late in blithest strain
Selbornian prospects, and the rural reign,
Now suits his plaintive pipe to sadden’d tone,
While the blank swains the changeful year bemoan.

How fallen the glories of these fading scenes !
The dusky beech resigns his vernal greens;
The yellow maple mourns in sickly hue,
And russet woodlands crowd the dark’ning view.

Dim, clust’ring fogs involve the country round,
The valley and the blended mountain ground
Sink in confusion; but with tempest-wing
Should Boreas from his northern barrier spring,
The rushing woods with deaf’ning clamour roar,
Like the sea tumbling on the pebbly shore.
When spouting rains descend in torrent tides,
See the torn zigzag weep its channel’d sides:
Winter exerts its rage; heavy and slow,
From the keen east rolls on the treasured snow;
Sunk with its weight the bending boughs are seen,
And one bright deluge whelms the works of men.
Amidst this savage landscape, bleak and bare,
Hangs the chill hermitage in middle air;
Its haunts forsaken, and its feasts forgot,
A leaf-strown, lonely, desolated cot !
Is this the scene that late with rapture rang,
Where Delphy danced, and gentle Anna sang ?
With fairy step where Harriet tripp’d so late,
And, on her stump reclined, the musing Kitty sate ?

Return, dear nymphs; prevent the purple spring,
Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing;
Ere the first swallow sweeps the fresh’ning plain,
Ere love-sick turtles breathe their amorous pain;
Let festive glee th’ enliven’d village raise,
Pan’s blameless reign, and patriarchal days;
With pastoral dance the smitten swain surprise,
And bring all Arcady before our eyes.

Return, blithe maidens; with you bring along
Free, native humour; all the charms of song;
The feeling heart, and unaffected ease;
Each nameless grace, and ev’ry power to please.

Nov. 1, 1763.

ON THE RAINBOW.

“Look upon the Rainbow, and praise him that made it: very beautiful is itin the brightness thereof.”—Eccles., xliii. 11.

On morning or on evening cloud impress’d,
Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines
Delightfully, to th’ levell’d sun opposed:
Lovely refraction ! while the vivid brede
In listed colours glows, th’ unconscious swain,
With vacant eye, gazes on the divine
Phenomenon, gleaming o’er the illumined fields,
Or runs to catch the treasures which it sheds.

Not so the sage: inspired with pious awe,
He hails the federal arch ; and looking up,
Adores that God, whose fingers form’d this bow
Magnificent, compassing heaven about
With a resplendent verge, “Thou mad’st the cloud,
“Maker omnipotent, and thou the bow;
“And by that covenant graciously hast sworn
“Never to drown the world again: henceforth,
“Till time shall be no more, in ceaseless round,
“Season shall follow season: day to night,
“Summer to winter, harvest to seed time,
“Heat shall to cold in regular array
“Succeed.”—Heav’n taught, so sang the Hebrew bard.

A HARVEST SCENE.

Waked by the gentle gleamings of the morn,
Soon clad, the reaper, provident of want,
Hies cheerful-hearted to the ripen’d field:
Nor hastes alone: attendant by his side
His faithful wife, sole partner of his cares,
Bears on her breast the sleeping babe; behind,
With steps unequal, trips her infant train;
Thrice happy pair, in love and labour join’d !

All day they ply their task; with mutual chat,
Beguiling each the sultry, tedious hours.
Around them falls in rows the sever’d corn,
Or the shocks rise in regular array.

But when high noon invites to short repast,
Beneath the shade of sheltering thorn they sit,
Divide the simple meal, and drain the cask:
The swinging cradle lulls the whimpering babe
Meantime; while growling round, if at the tread
Of hasty passenger alarm’d, as of their store
Protective, stalks the cur with bristling back,
To guard the scanty scrip and russet frock.

ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER.

OCCASIONALLY HAPPENING IN THE WINTER MONTHS.

Th’ imprison’d winds slumber within their caves,
Fast bound: the fickle vane, emblem of change,
Wavers no more, long settling to a point.

All Nature nodding seems composed: thick steams,
From land, from flood up-drawn, dimming the day,
“Like a dark ceiling stand:” slow through the air
Gossamer floats, or, stretch’d from blade to blade,
The wavy net-work whitens all the field.

Push’d by the weightier atmosphere, up springs
The ponderous mercury, from scale to scale
Mounting, amidst the Torricellian tube.

While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft, enamour’d woodlark runs
Through all his maze of melody; the brake,
Loud with the blackbird’s bolder note, resounds.

Sooth’d by the genial warmth, the cawing rook
Anticipates the spring, selects her mate,
Haunts her tall nest-trees, and with sedulous care
Repairs her wicker eyrie, tempest-torn.

The ploughman inly smiles to see upturn
His mellow globe, best pledge of future crop:
With glee the gardener eyes his smoking beds;
E’en pining sickness feels a short relief

The happy schoolboy brings transported forth
His long-forgotten scourge, and giddy gig:
O’er the white paths he whirls the rolling hoop,
Or triumphs in the dusty fields of taw.

Not so the museful sage:—abroad he walks
Contemplative, if haply he may find
What cause controls the tempest’s rage, or whence,
Amidst the savage season, Winter smiles.

For days, for weeks, prevails the placid calm.
At length some drops prelude a change: the sun
With ray refracted, bursts the parting gloom,
When all the chequer’d sky is one bright glare.

Mutters the wind at eve; th’ horizon round
With angry aspect scowls: down rush the showers,
And float the deluged paths, and miry fields.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

In a series of letters addressed to
THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.
and
The Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON

ADVERTISEMENT

The Author of the following Letters takes the liberty, with all properdeference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history, which, hethinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well asantiquities. He is also of opinion that if stationary men would pay someattention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish theirthoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials mightbe drawn the most complete county-histories, which are still wanting in severalparts of this kingdom, and in particular in the county of Southampton.

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

Of the authenticity of the documents above-mentioned there can be no doubt,since they consist of the identical deeds and records that were removed to theCollege from the Priory at the time of its dissolution; and, being carefullycopied on the spot, may be depended on as genuine; and, never having been madepublic before, may gratify the curiosity of the antiquary, as well as establishthe credit of the history.

If the writer should at all appear to have induced any of his readers to pay amore ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too frequently overlookedas common occurrences; or if he should by any means, through his researches,have lent an helping hand towards the enlargement of the boundaries ofhistorical and topographical knowledge; or if he should have thrown some smalllight upon ancient customs and manners, and especially on those that weremonastic, his purpose will be fully answered. But if he should not have beensuccessful in any of these his intentions, yet there remains this consolationbehind—that these his pursuits, by keeping the body and mind employed,have, under Providence, contributed to much health and cheerfulness of spirits,even to old age:—and, what still adds to his happiness, have led him tothe knowledge of a circle of gentlemen whose intelligent communications, asthey have afforded him much pleasing information, so, could he flatter himselfwith a continuation of them, would they ever be deemed a matter of singularsatisfaction and improvement.

GIL. WHITE.

Selborne,
January 1st, 1788.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

LETTERS to THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

Letter I

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county ofHampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county ofSurrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude 51, and nearmidway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large andextensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz.,Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, theadjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, Faringdon, Harteley Mauduit,Great Ward le Ham, Kingsley, Hedleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lysse, andGreatham. The soils of this district are almost as various and diversified asthe views and aspects. The high part to the south-west consists of a vast hillof chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village; and is divided into asheep down, the high wood, and a long hanging wood called the Hanger. Thecovert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most lovely of all foresttrees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, its glossy foliage, orgraceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep-walk, is a pleasing park-likespot, of about one mile by half that space, jutting out on the verge of thehill-country, where it begins to break down into the plains, and commanding avery engaging view, being an assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, andwater. The prospect is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range ofmountains called the Susses-downs, by Guild-down near Guildford, and by theDowns round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, whichaltogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble andextensive 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 inlength, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with the Hanger. The housesare divided from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet standon a rock of white stone, little in appearance removed from chalk; but seems sofar from being calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestonestill preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beecheswhich descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as wellon them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks.

The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two veryincongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank-clay, that requires the labourof years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east, and smallenclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called blackmalm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure; and thesemay perhaps have been the original site of the town; while the wood and covertsmight extend down to the opposite bank.

At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, arises asmall rivulet: that at the north-west end frequently fails; but the other is afine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, calledWell-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds joining to Core Hill, a noblechalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two streams into two differentseas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel,and so falling into the British Channel: the other to the north. The Selbornestream makes one branch of the Wey; and meeting the Black-down stream atHedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into aconsiderable river, navigable at Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford,and so into the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the GermanOcean.

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

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

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

* This soil produces good wheat and clover.

Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neitherchalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly forhops, which root deep into the freestone, and have their poles and wood forcharcoal growing just at hand. This white soil produces the brightest hops.

As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer-forest, at the juncture of theclays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, andinfamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in theestimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the treeson the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shakey, and so brittleas often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes anhungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will produce littlewithout the assistance of lime and turnips.

Letter II

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

In the court of Norton-farmhouse, a manor farm to the north-west of thevillage, on the white maims, stood within these twenty years a broad-leavedelm, or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it hadlost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 1703, equal toa moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, beingtoo bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where itmeasured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what abulk planted elms may attain; as this tree must certainly have been such fromits situation.

In the centre of the village, and near the church, is a square piece of groundsurrounded by houses, and vulgarly called the Plestor. In the midst of thisspot stood, in old times, a vast oak, with a short squat body, and hugehorizontal arms extending almost to the extremity of the area. This venerabletree, surrounded with stone steps, and seats above them, was the delight of oldand young, and a place of much resort in summer evenings; where the former satin grave debate, while the latter frolicked and danced before them. Long mightit have stood, had not the amazing tempest in 1703 overturned it at once, tothe infinite regret of the inhabitants, and the vicar, who bestowed severalpounds in setting it in its place again; but all his care could not avail; thetree sprouted for a time, then withered and died. This oak I mention to show towhat a bulk planted oaks also may arrive: and planted this tree must certainlyhave been, as will appear from what will be said farther concerning this area,when we enter on the antiquities of Selborne.

On the Blackmoor estate there is a small wood called Losel’s, of a fewacres, that was lately furnished with a set of oaks of a peculiar growth andgreat value; they were tall and taper like firs, but standing near together hadvery small heads, only a little brush without any large limbs. About twentyyears ago the bridge at the Toy, near Hampton-court, being much decayed, sometrees were wanted for the repairs that were fifty feet long without bough, andwould measure twelve inches diameter at the little end. Twenty such trees did apurveyor find in this little wood, with this advantage, that many of themanswered the description at sixty feet. These trees were sold for twenty poundsapiece.

In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tallon the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem.On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years,that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven-tree. Many were theattempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whettedtheir 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 wasso far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, andacknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nestupon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the woodwas to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usuallysit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into theopening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the treenodded to its fall; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, thebird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved abetter fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to theground.

Letter III

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

The fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have fallenwithin my observation, must not be passed over in silence. And first I mustmention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalkyfields, near the side of the down, and given to me for the singularity of itsappearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of aboutfour inches long, the cardo passing for an head and mouth. It is in reality abivalve of the Linnaean genus of Mytilus, and the species of Crista Galli;called by Lister, Rastellum; by Rumphius, Ostreum plicatum minus; byD’Argenville, Auris Porci, s. Crista Galli, and by those who makecollections cock’s comb. Though I applied to several such in London, Icould never meet with an entire specimen; nor could I ever find in books anyengraving from a perfect one. In the superb museum at Leicester-house,permission was given me to examine for this article; and though I wasdisappointed as to the fossil, I was highly gratified with the sight of severalof the shells themselves in high preservation. This bivalve is only known toinhabit the Indian Ocean, where it fixes itself to a zoophyte, known by thename Gorgonia. The curious foldings of the suture, the one into the other, thealternate flutings or grooves, and the curved form of my specimen being mucheasier expressed by the pencil than by words, I have caused it to be drawn andengraved.

Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village. As we were cutting aninclining path up the Hanger, the labourers found them frequently on thatsteep, just under the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable size. In thelane above Well-head, in the way to Emshot, they abound in the bank, in adarkish sort of marl; and are usually very small and soft: but in Clay’sPond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where the soil is dug out formanure, I have occasionally observed them of large dimensions, perhaps fourteenor sixteen inches in diameter. But as these did not consist of firm stone, butwere formed of a kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they wereexposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away. These seemed as if theywere a very recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of theHanger, large nautili are sometimes observed.

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

Letter IV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

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

This stone is in great request for hearth-stones and the beds of ovens: and inlining of lime-kilns it turns to good account; for the workmen use sandy loaminstead of mortar; the sand of which fluxes* and runs by the intense heat, andso cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat likeglass, that it is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures thirtyor forty years. When chiseled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, equalin colour and grain to the Bath stone; and superior in one respect, that, whenseasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of muchcloser and finer grain than Portland; and rooms are floored with it; but itproves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone, cutting in alldirections; yet has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, andtherefore should not be surbedded, but laid in the same position as it grows inthe quarry.** On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed forpavements, because, probably, some degree of saltness prevailing within it, therain tears the slabs to pieces.*** Though this stone is too hard to be acted onby vinegar, yet both the white part, and even the blue rag, ferments stronglyin mineral acids. Though the white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarryat 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 buildingof dry walls against banks, a valuable species of fencing, much in use in thisvillage, and for mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn, and willnot hew to a smooth face; but is very durable: yet, as these strata are shallowand lie deep, large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense.Among the blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rustcolour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now and thenballs of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls.

* There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime aproportion of sand: for few chalks are so pure as to have none.

** To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had in thequarry, says Dr. Plot, Oxfordsh., p. 77. But surbedding does not succeed in ourdry walls; neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best forTeynton stone.

*** ‘Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: must be closegrained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts; saltstoneperishes exposed to wet and frost.’ Plot’s Staff., p. 152.

In Wolmer-forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand, orforest-stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probablybe worked as iron ore; is very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture,and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by abrown, terrene, ferruginous matter; will not cut without difficulty, nor easilystrike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it makes goodpavement for paths about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain; isexcellent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts ofthat waste it lies scattered on the surface of the ground; but is dug onWeaver’s-down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where thepits 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 alarge nail; and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints oftheir freestone walls: this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and hasoccasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, ‘whether we fastenedour walls together with tenpenny nails.’

Letter V

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Among the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, the one toAlton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, runningthrough the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting ofwater, worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly throughthe second; so that they look more like water-courses than roads; and arebedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are reducedsixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields; and after floods, andin frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled rootsthat are twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down theirbroken sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles,hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frost-work. These rugged gloomy scenesaffright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths above, andmake timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but delight thenaturalist with their various botany, and particularly with their curiousfilices with which they abound.

The manor of Selborne, was it strictly looked after, with 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 arefew quails, because they more affect open fields than enclosures; after harvestsome few landrails are seen.

The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast district.Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days in the business, andare of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings, does notcomprise less than thirty miles.

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

The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may be supposedin so woody and mountainous a district. As my experience in measuring the wateris but of short date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity.* I only know that:

* A very intelligent gentleman assures me (and he speaks from upwards of fortyyears’ experience) that the mean rain of any plate cannot be ascertainedtill a person has measured it for a very long period. ‘If I had onlymeasured the rain,’ says he, ‘for the four first years from 1740 to1743, I should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 16 and a half inches forthe year, if from 1740 to 1750, 18 and a half inches. The mean rain before 1763was 20 and a quarter, from 1763 and since, 25 and a half; from 1770 to 1780,26. If only 1773, 1774 and 1775 had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would havebeen called 32 inches.’

The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oak-hanger, with the single farms,and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contain upwards of sixhundred and seventy inhabitants.* We abound with poor; many of whom are soberand industrious, and live comfortably in good stone or brick cottages, whichare glazed, and have chambers above stairs: mud buildings we have none. Besidesthe employment from husbandry the men work in hop gardens, of which we havemany; and fell and bark timber. In the spring and summer the women weed thecorn; and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in thedead months they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making ofbarragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that time for summer wear;and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some of the peoplecalled Quakers: but from circumstances this trade is at an end.** Theinhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity: and the parish swarmswith children.

* A state of the parish of Selborne, taken October 4, 1783.

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

Average of baptisms for 60 years.

From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive Males 6,9 Females
6,0 12,9
From 1730 to 1739, both years inclusive Males 8,2 Females
7,1 15,3
From 1740 to 1749, inclusive Males 9,2 Females 6,6 15,8
From 1750 to 1759, inclusive Males 7,6 Females 8,1 15,7
From 1760 to 1769, inclusive Males 9,1 Females 8,9 18,0
From 1770 to 1779, inclusive Males 10,5 Females 9,8 20
3

Total baptisms of Males 515
Females 465 980
Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, 60 years
980.

Average of burials for 60 years.

From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive Males 4,8 Females
5,1 9,9
From 1730 to 1739, both years inclusive Males 4,8 Females
5,8 10,6
From 1740 to 1749, inclusive Males 4,6 Females 3,8 8,4
From 1750 to 1759, inclusive Males 4,9 Females 5,1 10,0
From 1760 to 1769, inclusive Males 6,9 Females 6,5 13,4
From 1770 to 1779, inclusive Males 5,5 Females 6,2 11,7

Total of burials of Males 315
Females 325 640

Total of burials from 1720 to 1779 both inclusive, 60 years 640.

Baptisms exceed burials by more them one-third.

Baptisms of Males exceed Females by one-tenth, or one in ten.

Burials of Females exceed Males by one in thirty.

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

Twins thirteen times, many of whom dying young have lessened the chance forlife.

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

A TABLE of the Baptisms, Burials, and Marriages, from January 2, 1761, toDecember 25, 1780, in the Parish of Selborne.

Baptisms.

1761 Males 8 Females 10 Total 18 1762 7 8 151763 8 10 18 1764 11 9 20 1765 12 6 18 1766 9 13 22 1767 14 5 19 1768 7 6 13 1769 9 14 23 1770 10 13 23 1771 10 6 16 1772 11 10 21 1773 8 5 13 1774 6 13 19 1775 20 7 27 1776 11 10 21 1777 8 13 21 1778 7 1320 1779 14 8 22 1780 8 9 17 198 188 386

Burials.

1761 Males 2 Females 4 Total 6 1762 10 10 201763 3 4 7 1764 10 8 18 1765 9 7 16 1766 10 6 16 1767 6 5 11 1768 2 5 7 1769 6 5 11 1770 4 7 11 1771 3 4 7 1772 6 1016 1773 7 5 12 1774 2 8 10 1775 13 8 211776 4 6 10 1777 7 2 9 1778 3 9 12 1779 5 6 11 1780 11 4 15 123 123 246

Marriages.

1761 3 1762 6 1763 7 1764 6 1765 6 1766 4 1767 21768 6 1769 2 1770 3 1771 4 1772 3 1773 3 1774 11775 6 1776 6 1777 4 1778 5 1779 0 1780 3 83

During this period of twenty years the births of Males exceeded those ofFemales 10.

The burials of each sex were equal.

And the births exceeded the deaths 140.

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

Letter VI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of whichthree-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be veryimperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, bothanimal and vegetable; and has often afforded me much entertainment both as asportsman 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 isabutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed eastward, by the parishesof Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of Sussex; by Bramshot,Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists entirely of sand covered withheath and fern; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, withouthaving one standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, where the watersstagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees;though Dr. Plot says positively,* that ‘there never were any fallen treeshidden in the mosses of the southern counties.’ But he was mistaken: forI myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbersconsisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured methey procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some suchinstruments: but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so wellexamined, that none has been found of late.** Besides the oak, I have also beenshown pieces of fossil-wood of a paler colour, and softer nature, which theinhabitants called fir: but, upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, Icould discover nothing resinous in them; and therefore rather suppose that theywere parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.

* See his Hist. of Staffordshire.

** Old people have assured me, that on a winter’s morning they havediscovered these trees in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer overthe space where they were concealed, than on the surrounding morass. Nor doesthis seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. Dr.Hales saith, ‘That the warmth of the earth, at some depth under ground,has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather froma freezing to a thawing state, is manifest, from this observation, viz. Nov.29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the nextmorning, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in severalplaces in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with earth, onwhich the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water ordry; as also where elm-pipes lay under ground: a plain proof this, that thosedrains intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depthsbelow them: for the snow lay where the drain had more than four feet depth ofearth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the tops ofwalls.’ See Hales’s Haemastatics, p. 360. Quaere.— Might notsuch observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of oldobliterated drains and wells about houses; and in Roman stations and camps leadto the finding of pavements, baths and graves, and other hidden relics ofcurious antiquity?

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

But there was a nobler species of game in this forest, now extinct, which Ihave heard old people say abounded much before shooting flying became socommon, and that was the heath-cock, black-game, or grouse. When I was alittle boy I recollect one coming now and then to my father’s table. Thelast pack remembered was killed about thirty-five years ago; and within theseten years one solitary greyhen was sprung by some beagles in beating for ahare. The sportsmen cried out, ‘A hen pheasant’; but a gentlemanpresent, who had often seen grouse in the north of England, assured me that itwas a greyhen.

Nor does the loss of our black game prove the only gap in the FaunaSelborniensis; for another beautiful link in the chain of beings is wanting, Imean the red deer, which toward the beginning of this century amounted to aboutfive hundred head, and made a stately appearance. There is an old keeper, nowalive, named Adams, whose great-grandfather (mentioned in a perambulation takenin 1635), grandfather, father, and self, enjoyed the head keepership ofWolmer-forest in succession for more than an hundred years. This person assuresme, that his father has often told him, that Queen Anne, as she was journeyingon the Portsmouth road, did not think the forest of Wolmer beneath her royalregard. For she came out of the great road at Lippock, which is just by, andreposing herself on a bank smoothed for that purpose, lying about half a mileto the east of Wolmer-pond, and still called Queen’s-bank, saw with greatcomplacency and satisfaction the whole herd of red deer brought by the keepersalong the vale before her, consisting then of about five hundred head. A sightthis, worthy the attention of the greatest sovereign! But he further adds that,by means of the Waltham blacks, or, to use his own expression, as soon as theybegan blacking, they were reduced to about fifty head, and so continueddecreasing till the time of the late Duke of Cumberland. It is now more thanthirty years ago that his highness sent down an huntsman, and sixyeoman-prickers, in scarlet jackets laced with gold, attended by thestag-hounds; ordering them to take every deer in this forest alive, and conveythem in carts to Windsor. In the course of the summer they caught every stag,some of which showed extraordinary diversion; but, in the following winter,when the hinds were also carried off, such fine chases were exhibited as servedthe country people for matter of talk and wonder for years afterwards. I sawmyself one of the yeoman-prickers single out a stag from the herd, and mustconfess that it was the most curious feat of activity I ever beheld, superiorto anything in Mr. Astley’s riding-school. The exertions made by thehorse and deer much exceeded all my expectations; though the former greatlyexcelled the latter in speed. When the devoted deer was separated from hiscompanions, they gave him, by their watches, law, as they called it, for twentyminutes; when, sounding their horns, the stop-dogs were permitted to pursue,and a most gallant scene ensued.

Letter VII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the injury tothe morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops. Thetemptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by constitution: andthere is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce anyinhibitions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century, allthis country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as theyaffected to call themselves, no young person was allowed to be possessed ofmanhood or gallantry. The Waltham blacks at length committed such enormities,that government was forced to interfere with that severe and sanguinary actcalled the Black Act,* which now comprehends more felonies than any law thatever was framed before. And, therefore, a late bishop of Winchester, when urgedto re-stock Waltham-chase,** refused, from a motive worthy of a prelate,replying that ‘it had done mischief enough already.’

* Statute 9 Geo. I. c. 22.

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

Our old race of deer-stealers are hardly extinct yet: it was but a little whileago that, over their ale, they used to recount the exploits of their youth;such as watching the pregnant hind to her lair, and, when the calf was dropped,paring its feet with a penknife to the quick to prevent its escape, till it waslarge and fat enough to be killed; the shooting at one of their neighbours witha bullet in a turnip-field by moonshine, mistaking him for a deer; and thelosing a dog in the following extraordinary manner: Some fellows, suspectingthat 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 theneck of the dog, and broke it short in two.

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

Such forests and wastes, when their allurements to irregularities are removed,are of considerable service to neighbourhoods that verge upon them, byfurnishing them with peat and turf for their firing; with fuel for the burningtheir lime; and with ashes for their grasses; and by maintaining their geeseand 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 anold record taken from the Tower of London), of turning all live stock on theforest at proper seasons, bidentibus exceptis.* The reason, I presume, whysheep** are excluded, is, because, being such close grazers, they would pickout all the finest grasses, and hinder the deer from thriving.

* For the privilege the owner of that estate used to pay to the king annuallyseven bushels of oats.

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

Though (by statute 4 and 5 W. and Mary, c. 23) ‘to burn on any waste,between Candlemas and Midsummer, any grig, ling, heath and furze, goss or fern,is punishable with whipping and confinement in the house of correction’;yet, in this forest, about March or April, according to the dryness of theseason, such vast heath-fires are lighted up, that they often get to amasterless head, and, catching the hedges, have sometimes been communicated tothe underwoods, woods, and coppices, where great damage has ensued. The pleafor these burnings is, that, when the old coat of heath, etc., is consumed,young will sprout up, and afford much tender browse for cattle; but, wherethere is large old furze, the fire, following the roots, consumes the veryground; so that for hundreds of acres nothing is to be seen but smother anddesolation, the whole circuit round looking like the cinders of a volcano; andthe soil being quite exhausted, no traces of vegetation are to be found foryears. These conflagrations, as they take place usually with a north-east oreast wind, much annoy this village with their smoke, and often alarm thecountry; and, once in particular, I remember that a gentleman, who lives beyondAndover, coming to my house, when he got on the downs between that town andWinchester, at twenty-five miles distance, was surprised much with smoke and ahot smell of fire; and concluded that Alresford was in flames; but, when hecame to that town, he then had apprehensions for the next village, and so on tothe end of his journey.

On two of the most conspicuous eminences of this forest, stand two arbours orbowers, made of the boughs of oaks; the one called Waldon-lodge, the otherBrimstone-lodge: these the keepers renew annually on the feast of St. Barnabas,taking the old materials for a perquisite. The farm called Blackmoor, in thisparish, is obliged to find the posts and brush-wood for the former; while thefarms at Greatham, in rotation, furnish for the latter; and are all enjoined tocut and deliver the materials at the spot. This custom I mention, because Ilook upon it to be of very remote antiquity.

Letter VIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

On the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three considerablelakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing particular to say; and onecalled Bin’s or Bean’s Pond, which is worthy the attention of anaturalist or a sportsman. For, being crowded at the upper end with willows,and with the carex cespitosa,* it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter towild-ducks, teals, snipes, etc., that they breed there. In the winter thiscovert is also frequented by foxes, and sometimes by pheasants; and the bogsproduce many curious plants. [For which consult Letter XLI to Mr. Barrington.]

* I mean that sort which, rising into tall hassocks, is called by the foresterstorrets, a corruption, I suppose, of turrets. Note. In the beginning of thesummer 1787 the royal forests of Wolmer and Holt were measured by persons setdown by government.

By a perambulation of Wolmer-forest and the Holt, made in 1635, and in theeleventh year of Charles the First (which now lies before me), it appears thatthe limits of the former are much circumscribed. For, to say nothing on thefarther side, with which I am not so well acquainted, the bounds on this side,in old times, came into Binswood; and extended to the ditch of Ward le Hampark, in which stands the curious mount called King John’s Hill, andLodge Hill; and to the verge of Hartley Mauduit, called Mauduit-hatch;comprehending also Short-heath, Oakhanger, and Oakwoods; a large district, nowprivate property, though once belonging to the royal domain.

It is remarkable that the term purlieu is never once mentioned in, this longroll of parchment. It contains, besides the perambulation, a rough estimate ofthe value of the timbers, which were considerable, growing at that time in thedistrict of the Halt; and enumerates the officers, superior and inferior, ofthose joint forests, for the time being, and their ostensible fees andperquisites. In those days, as at present, there were hardly any trees inWolmer-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, andperch; but the fish do not thrive well, because the water is hungry, and thebottoms are a naked sand.

A circumstance respecting these ponds, though by no means peculiar to them, Icannot pass over in silence; and that is, that instinct by which in summer allthe kine, whether oxen, cows, calves, or heifers, retire constantly to thewater during the hotter hours; where, being more exempt from flies, andinhaling the coolness of that element, some belly deep, and some only tomid-leg, they ruminate and solace themselves from about ten in the morning tillfour in the afternoon, and then return to their feeding. During this greatproportion of the day they drop much dung, in which insects nestle; and sosupply food for the fish, which would be poorly subsisted but from thiscontingency. Thus nature, who is a great economist, converts the recreation ofone animal to the support of another! Thomson, who was a nice observer ofnatural occurrences, did not let this pleasing circumstance escape him. Hesays, in his Summer:

A various group the herds and flocks compose:
… on the grassy bank
Some ruminating lie; while others stand
Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip
The circling surface.

Wolmer-Pond, so called, I suppose, for eminence sake, is a vast lake for thispart of the world, containing, in its whole circumference, 2,646 yards, or verynear a mile and a half. The length of the north-west and opposite side is about704 yards, and the breadth of the south-west end about 456 yards. Thismeasurement, which I caused to be made with good exactness, gives an area ofabout sixty-six acres, exclusive of a large irregular arm at the north-eastcorner, which we did not take into the reckoning.

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

Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort ofvarious and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can renderthis meer so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were found in itsbed about forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly belong to theantiquities of this place, I shall suppress all particulars for the present,till I enter professedly on my series of letters respecting the more remotehistory of this village and district.

Letter IX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

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

* In ‘Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest. in Scaccar.,’ 36, Ed. 3, itis called Aisholt. In the same, ‘Tit. Woolmer and Aisholt Hantisc.Dominus Rex habet unam capellam in haia sua de Kingesle.’ ‘Haia,sepes, sepimentum, parcus: a Gall. haie and haye.’—Spelman’sGlossary.

The grantees that the author remembers are Brigadier-General Emanuel ScroopeHowe, and his lady, Ruperta, who was a natural daughter of Prince Rupert byMargaret Hughs; a Mr. Mordaunt, of the Peterborough family, who married adowager Lady Pembroke; Henry Bilson Legge and lady; and now Lord Stawel, theirson.

The lady of General Howe lived to an advanced age, long surviving her husband;and, at her death, left behind her many curious pieces of mechanism of herfather’s constructing, who was a distinguished mechanic and artist,** aswell as warrior; and, among the rest, a very complicated clock, lately inpossession of Mr. Elmer, the celebrated game-painter at Farnham, in the countyof Surrey.

** This prince was the inventor of mezzotinto.

Though these two forests are only parted by a narrow range of enclosures, yetno two soils can be more different: for the Holt consists of a strong loam, ofa miry nature, carrying a good turf, and abounding with oaks that grow to belarge 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 extentfrom north to south, and near as much from east to west, and contains within itmany woodlands and lawns, and the great lodge where the grantees reside; and asmaller lodge, called Goose-green; and is abutted on by the parishes ofKingsley, Frinsham, Farnham, and Bentley; all of which have right of common.

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

At present the deer of the Holt are much thinned and reduced by thenight-hunters, who perpetually harass them in spite of the efforts of numerouskeepers, and the severe penalties that have been put in force against them asoften as they have been detected, and rendered liable to the lash of the law.Neither fines nor imprisonment can deter them: so impossible is it toextinguish 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 thegreat terror of the neighbourhood; and, at one time, a wild bull or buffalo:but the country rose upon them and destroyed them.

A very large fall of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has beencut this spring (viz., 1784) in the Holt forest; one-fifth of which, it issaid, belongs to the grantee, Lord Stawel. He lays claim also to the lop andtop: but the poor of the parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley andKingsley, 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 lordshiphas served with actions. These trees, which were very sound and in highperfection, were winter-cut, viz., in February and March, before the bark wouldrun. In old times the Holt was estimated to be eighteen miles, computedmeasure, 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 thetown of Godalming in the county of Surrey.

Letter X

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

August 4, 1767.

It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies haveled them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of acompanion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made butslender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from mychildhood.

As to swallows (hirundines rusticae) being found in a torpid state during thewinter in the Isle of Wight, or any part of this country, I never heard anysuch account worth attending to. But a clergyman, of an inquisitive turn,assures me that, when he was a great boy, some workmen, in pulling down thebattlements of a church tower early in the spring, found two or three swifts(hirundines apodes) among the rubbish, which were, at first appearance, dead,but, on being carried toward the fire, revived. He told me that, out of hisgreat care to preserve them, he put them in a paper bag, and hung them by thekitchen fire, where they were suffocated.

Another intelligent person has informed me that, while he was a schoolboy atBrighthelmstone, in Sussex, a great fragment of the chalk cliff fell down onestormy winter on the beach; and that many people found swallows among therubbish; 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 othersassured him they did.

Young broods of swallows began to appear this year on July the eleventh, andyoung martins (hirundines urbicae) were then fledged in their nests. Bothspecies will breed again once. For I see by my Fauna of last year, that youngbroods come forth so late as September the eighteenth. Are not these latehatchings more in favour of hiding than migration? Nay, some young martinsremained in their nests last year so late as September the twenty-ninth; andyet they totally disappeared with us by the fifth of October.

How strange is it that the swift, which seems to live exactly the same lifewith the swallow and house-martin, should leave us before the middle of Augustinvariably! while the latter stay often till the middle of October; and once Isaw numbers of house-martins on the seventh of November. The martins andred-wing fieldfares were flying in sight together; an uncommon assemblage ofsummer and winter birds.

A little bird (it is either a species of the alauda trivialis, or ratherperhaps of the motacilla trochilus) still continues to make a sibilousshivering noise in the tops of tall woods. The stoparola of Ray (for which wehave as yet no name in these parts) is called, in your Zoology, thefly-catcher. There is one circumstance characteristic of this bird, which seemsto have escaped observation, and that is, that it takes its stand on the top ofsome stake or post, from whence it springs forth on its prey, catching a fly inthe air, and hardly ever touching the ground, but returning still to the samestand for many times together.

I perceive there are more than one species of the motacilla trochilus: 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 yetno English name.

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

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

I have had no opportunity yet of procuring any of those mice which I mentionedto you in town. The person that brought me the last says they are plenty inharvest, at which time I will take care to get more; and will endeavour to putthe matter out of doubt, whether it be a nondescript species or not.

I suspect much there may be two species of water-rats. Ray says, and Linnaeusafter him, that the water-rat is web-footed behind. Now I have discovered a raton the banks of our little stream that is not web-footed, and yet is anexcellent swimmer and diver: it answers exactly to the mus amphibius ofLinnaeus (see Syst. Nat.), which he says ‘natat in fossis eturinator.’ I should be glad to procure one ‘plantispalmatis.’ Linnaeus seems to be in a puzzle about his mus amphibius, andto doubt whether it differs from his mus terrestris; which if it be, as heallows, the ‘mus agrestis capite grandi brachyuros’ of Ray, iswidely 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 itdown to you into Wales; presuming on your candour, that you will excuse me ifit should appear as familiar to you as it is strange to me. Though mutilated‘qualem dices.. . antehac fuisse, tales cum sint religuiae!’

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

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

Letter XI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, September 9, 1767.

It will not be without impatience, that I shall wait for your thoughts withregard to the falco; as to its weight, breadth, etc., I wish I had set themdown at the time; but, to the best of my remembrance, it weighed two pounds andeight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cereand feet were yellow, and the circle of its eyelids bright yellow. As it hadbeen killed some days, and the eyes were sunk, I could make no good observationon the colour of the pupils and the irides.

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

Three gross-beaks (loxia coccothraustes) appeared some years ago in my fields,in the winter; one of which I shot: since that, now and then one isoccasionally seen in the same dead season.

A cross-bill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood.

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village, yieldnothing but the bull’s head or miller’s thumb (gobius fluviatiliscapitatus), the trout (trutta fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern(lampaetra parka et fluviatilis), and the stickle-back (pisciculus aculeatus).

We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river, andtherefore see but little of sea-birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams ofducks bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and multitudes of widgeons andteals in hard weather frequent our lakes in the forest.

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

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

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

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

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

At present I know only two species of bats, the common vespertilio murinus andthe vespertilio auritus.

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies outof a person’s hand. If you gave it anything to eat, it brought its wingsround before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds ofprey when they feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of theflies, which were always rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased memuch. Insects seem to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw fleshwhen offered: so that the notion that bats go down chimneys and gnawmen’s bacon, seems no improbable story. While I amused myself with thiswonderful quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, thatbats when down on a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by rising withgreat ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch than I wasaware of; but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner.

Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, as they playover pools and streams. They love to frequent waters, not only for the sake ofdrinking, but on account of insects, which are found over them in the greatestplenty. As I was going, some years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond toSunbury, on a warm summer’s evening, I think I saw myriads of batsbetween the two places: the air swarmed with them all along the Thames, so thathundreds were in sight at a time.

I am, etc.

Letter XII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

November 4, 1767.

Sir,

It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco* turned out an uncommonone. I must confess I should have been better pleased to have heard that I hadsent you a bird that you had never seen before; but that, I find, would be adifficult task.

* This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus; a variety.

I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young oneand a female with young, both of which I have preserved in brandy. From thecolour, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but that thespecies is nondescript. They are much smaller and more slender than the musdomesticus medius of Ray; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour:their belly is white, a straight line along their sides divides the shades oftheir back and belly. They never enter into houses; are carried into ricks andbarns with the sheaves; abound in harvest, and build their nests amidst thestraws of the corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed asmany as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades ofgrass or wheat.

One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, andcomposed of the blades of wheat; perfectly round, and about the size of acricket-ball; with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was nodiscovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well filled, thatit would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it containedeight 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 toeach? perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them againwhen the business is over: but she could not possibly be contained herself inthe ball with her young, which moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. Thiswonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, wasfound in a wheat-field, suspended in the head of a thistle.

A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his servant had shot one lastJanuary, in that severe weather, which he believed would puzzle me. I called tosee it this summer, not knowing what to expect: but, the moment I took it inhand, I pronounced it the male garrulus bohemicus or German silk-tail, from thefive peculiar crimson tags or points which it carries at the end of five of theshort remiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, be called an Englishbird: and yet I see, by Ray’s Philosoph. Letters, that great flocks ofthem, feeding upon haws, appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685.

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

Some birds, haunting with the missal-thrushes, and feeding on the berries ofthe yew-tree, which answered to the description of the merula torquata, orring-ousel, were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people toprocure me a specimen, but without success. See Letter XX.

Query…..Might not canary birds be naturalized to this climate, provided theireggs were put in the spring, into the nests of some of their congeners, asgoldfinches, greenfinches, etc. ? Before winter perhaps they might be hardened,and able to shift for themselves.

About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which is oneof those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton-court. In theautumn, I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallowkind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from thetime they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roostedevery night in the osier-beds of the aits of that river. Now this resortingtowards that element, at that season of the year, seems to give somecountenance to the northern opinion (strange as it is) of their retiring underwater. A Swedish naturalist is so much persuaded of that fact, that he talks,in his calendar of Flora, as familiarly of the swallows going under water inthe beginning of September, as he would of his poultry going to roost a littlebefore sunset.

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

Now is it likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps had not beenhatched but a few weeks) should, at that late season of the year, and from somidland a county, attempt a voyage to Goree or Senegal, almost as far as theequator?

* See Adamson’s Voyage to Senegal.

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

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

Letter XIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Jan. 22, 1768.

Sir,

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

For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast flocks ofchaffinches have appeared in the fields; many more, I used to think, than couldbe hatched in any one neighbourhood. But, when I came to observe them morenarrowly, I was amazed to find that they seemed to be almost all hens. Icommunicated my suspicions to some intelligent neighbours, who, after takingpains about the matter, declared that they also thought them all mostlyfemales; at least fifty to one. This extraordinary occurrence brought to mymind the remark of Linnaeus; that ‘before winter, all their henchaffinches migrate through Holland into Italy.’ Now I want to know, fromsome curious person in the north, whether there are any large flocks of thesefinches with them in the winter, and of which sex they mostly consist? For,from such intelligence, one might be able to judge whether our female flocksmigrate from the other end of the island, or whether they come over to us fromthe continent.

We have, in the winter, vast flocks of the common linnets; more, I think, thancan be bred in any one district. These, I observe, when the spring advances,assemble on some tree in the sunshine, and join all in a gentle sort ofchirping, as if they were about to break up their winter quarters and betakethemselves to their proper summer homes. It is well known, at least, that theswallows and the fieldfares do congregate with a gentle twittering before theymake their respective departure.

You may depend on it that the bunting, emberiza miliaria, does not leave thiscountry in the winter. In January 1767 I saw several dozen of them, in themidst of a severe frost, among the bushes on the downs near Andover: in ourwoodland enclosed district it is a rare bird.

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

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

I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of the navy: but havewritten to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the late war, desiring him tolook into his minutes, with respect to birds that settled on their riggingduring their voyage up or down the channel. What Hasselquist says on thatsubject is remarkable: there were little short-winged birds frequently comingon board his ship all the way from our channel quite up to the Levant,especially before squally weather.

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

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

* See Ray’s Travels, p. 466.

I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the swallows roosting onthe aits of the Thames: nor can I hear any more about those birds which Isuspected were merulae torquatae.

As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though they hang theirnests for breeding up amidst the straws of the standing corn, above the ground;yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow deep in the earth, and make warmbeds of grass: but their grand rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into whichthey are carried at harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under thethatch of which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were taken; andsome I saw. I measured them; and found that, from nose to tail, they were justtwo inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them ina scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about a third of anounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in thisisland. A full-grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce, lumpingweight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above; and measuresfrom nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail.

We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer wasone day fourteen degrees and a half below the freezing point, within doors. Thetender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providential that theair was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation ingeneral must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that somedays were more severe than any since the year 1739-40.

I am, etc., etc.

Letter XIV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, March 12, 1768.

Dear Sir,

If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow-deer, and have itdissected, he would find it furnished with two spiracula, or breathing-places,beside the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the humanhead. When the deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, verydeep under water, while in the act of drinking, and continue them in thatsituation for a considerable time, but, to obviate any inconvenience, they canopen two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communicationwith the nose. Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy ourattention; and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any naturalist.For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated, though both theirmouths and nostrils were stopped. This curious formation of the head may be ofsingular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free respiration: and nodoubt these additional nostrils are thrown open when they are hard run.* Mr.Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses aswere hard worked: for they, being naturally strait or small, did not admit airsufficient serve them when they travelled or laboured in that hot climate. Andwe know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils necessary,and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.

* In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious andpertinent reply:—‘I was much surprised to find in the antelopesomething analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in deer. This animalhas a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. Onholding an orange to one, the creature made as much use of those orifices as ofhis nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell it throughthem.’

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

Τετράδυμοι ῥινὲς, πίσυρες πνοίῃσι δίαυλοι.
Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales.
Opp. Cyn. lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe attheir ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary:—Ἀλκμαίων γὰρ οὐκ ἀληθλέγει, φάμενος ἀναπνεῖν τὰς αἶγας κατὰ τὰ ὠτά. ‘Alcmaeon does not advancewhat is true, when he avers that goats breathe through theirears.’—History of Animals. Book I. chap. xi.

Letter XV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Mark 30, 1768.

Dear Sir,

Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have, in these parts, aspecies of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, andpolecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a field mouse, but muchlonger, which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be littledepended on; but farther inquiry may be made.

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

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

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

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

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

In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, a little bird thatraised my curiosity: it was of that yellow-green colour that belongs to thesalicaria kind, and, I think, was soft-billed. It was no parus, and was toolong and too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like the largestwillow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back downwards, but never continuingone moment in the same place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that Imissed my aim.

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

I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnaeus, perhaps, wouldcall the species mus minimus.

Letter XVI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, April 18, 1768.

Dear Sir,

The history of the stone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus is as follows. It laysits eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without anynest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, oftendestroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc.,and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among thestones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of thecolour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless hecatches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round;of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I might not beable, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show you themalmost any day; and any evening you may hear them round the village, for theymake a clamour which may be heard a mile. Oedicnemus is a most apt andexpressive name for them, since their legs seem swollen like those of a goutyman. After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields.

I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow-wrens: two I knowperfectly; but have not been able yet to procure the third. No two birds candiffer more in their notes, and that constancy, than those two that I amacquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note; the other aharsh loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inchlonger, and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs but two: sothe songster is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being thefirst summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted)begins his two notes in the middle of March, and continues them through thespring and summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legsof the larger of these two are flesh-coloured; of the less, black.

The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields last Saturday.Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seemsto be close by though at an hundred yards distance; and, when close at yourear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a littleacquainted with insects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yethatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a locustawhispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that itis the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, skulking in the thickestpart of a bush; and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. Iwas obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where ithaunted; and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for a hundredyards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it would not come intofair sight: but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on the topof a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings. Mr. Ray himself had noknowledge of this bird, but received his account from Mr. Johnson, whoapparently confounds it with the reguli non cristati, from which it is verydistinct. See Ray’s Philosophical Letters, p. 108.

The fly-catcher (stoparola) has not yet appeared: it usually breeds in my vine.The redstart begins to sing: its note is short and imperfect, but is continuedtill about the middle of June. The willow-wrens (the smaller sort) are horridpests in a garden, destroying the pease, cherries, currants, etc., and are sotame that a gun will not scare them.

A List of the summer birds of passage discovered in this neighbourhood, rangedsomewhat in the order in which they appear:

My countrymen talk much of a bird that makes a clatter with its bill against adead bough, or some old pales, calling it a jar-bird. I procured one to be shotin the very fact; it proved to be the sitta europaea (the nut-hatch). Mr. Raysays that the less spotted woodpecker does the same. This noise may be heard afurlong or more.

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

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

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

Yours, etc., etc.

Letter XVII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, June 18, 1768.

Dear Sir,

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

The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I couldwish, with regard to their natural history. There is a degree of dubiousnessand obscurity attending the propagation of this class of animals, sometimesanalogous to that of the cryptogamia in the sexual system of plants: and thecase is the same as regards some of the fishes: as the eel, etc.

The method in which toads procreate and bring forth seems to me very much inthe dark. Some authors say that they are viviparous: and yet Ray classes themamong his oviparous animals; and is silent with regard to the manner of theirbringing forth. Perhaps they may be ἔσω μὲν ὠοτὸκοι, ἔξω δε ζωοτόκοι, as isknown to be the case with the viper.

The copulation of frogs (or at least the appearance of it; for Swammerdamproves that the male has no penis intrans) is notorious to everybody: becausewe see them sticking upon each other’s backs for a month together inspring: and yet I never saw, or read, of toads being observed in the samesituation. It is strange that the matter with regard to the venom of toads hasnot yet been settled. That they are not noxious to some animals is plain: forducks, buzzards, owls, stone curlews, and snakes, eat them, to my knowledge,with impunity. And I well remember the time, but was not eye-witness to thefact (though numbers of persons were), when a quack, at this village, ate atoad to make the country people stare; afterwards he drank oil.

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

I need not remind a gentleman of your extensive reading of the excellentaccount there is from Mr. Derham, in Ray’s Wisdom of God in the Creation(p. 365), concerning the migration of frogs from their breeding ponds. In thisaccount he at once subverts that foolish opinion of their dropping from theclouds in rain; showing that it is from the grateful coolness and moisture ofthose showers that they are tempted to set out on their travels, which theydefer till those fall. Frogs are as yet in their tadpole state; but in a fewweeks, our lanes, paths, fields, will swarm for a few days with myriads ofthese emigrants, no larger than my little finger nail. Swammerdam gives a mostaccurate account of the method and situation in which the male impregnates thespawn of the female. How wonderful is the oeconomy of Providence with regard tothe limbs of so vile a reptile! While it is aquatic it has a fish-like tail,and no legs: as soon as the legs sprout, the tail drops off as useless, and theanimal betakes itself to the land.

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

It is to be remembered that the salamandra aquatica of Ray (the water-newt oreft) will frequently bite at the angler’s bait, and is often caught onhis hook. I used to take it for granted that the salamandra aquatica washatched, lived, and died in the water. But John Ellis, Esq., F.R.S. (thecoralline Ellis), asserts, in a letter to the Royal Society, dated June 5th,1766, in his account of the mud inguana, an amphibious bides, from SouthCarolina, that the water-eft, or newt, is only the larva of the land-eft, astadpoles are of frogs. Lest I should be suspected to misunderstand his meaning,I shall give it in his own words. Speaking of the opercula or covering to thegills of the mud inguana, he proceeds to say that ‘The forms of thesepennated coverings approach very near to what I have some time ago observed inthe larva or aquatic state of our English lacerta, known by the name of eft, ornewt; which serve them for coverings to their gills, and for fins to swim withwhile in this state; and which they lose, as well as the fins of their tails,when they change their state, and become land animals, as I have observed, bykeeping them alive for some time myself:’

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

Providence has been so indulgent to us as to allow of but one venomous reptileof the serpent kind in these kingdoms, and that is the viper. As you proposethe good of mankind to be an object of your publications, you will not omit tomention common salad-oil as a sovereign remedy against the bite of the viper.As to the blind worm (anguis fragilis, so called because it snaps in sunderwith a small blow), I have found, on examination, that it is perfectlyinnocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints)killed and opened a female viper about the twenty-seventh of May: he found herfilled with a chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird; butnone of them were advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain anyrudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also,hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing them forth.Whereas snakes lay chains of eggs every summer in my melon beds, in spite ofall that my people can do to prevent them; which eggs do not hatch till thespring following, as I have often experienced. Several intelligent folks assureme that they have seen the viper open her mouth and admit her helpless youngdown her throat on sudden surprises, just as the female opossum does her broodinto the pouch under her belly, upon the like emergencies and yet the Londonviper-catchers insist on it, to Mr. Barrington, that no such thing everhappens. The serpent kind eat, I believe, but once in a year; or rather, butonly just at one season of the year. Country people talk much of a water-snake,but I am pretty sure, without any reason; for the common snake (coluber natrix)delights much to sport in the water, perhaps with a view to procure frogs andother food.

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

Letter XVIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, July 27, 1768.

Dear Sir,

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

A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could find no such fish asthe gasterosteus pungitius: he found the gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. Thismorning, in a basket, I packed a little earthen pot full of wet moss, and in itsome sticklebacks, male and female; the females big with spawn: some lamperns;some bull’s heads; but I could produce no minnows. This basket will be inFleet-street by eight this evening; so I hope Mazel will have them fresh andfair to-morrow morning. I gave some directions, in a letter, to whatparticulars the engraver should be attentive.

Finding, while I was on a visit, that I was within a reasonable distance ofAmbresbury, I sent a servant over to that town, and procured several divingspecimens of loaches, which he brought, safe and brisk, in a glass decanter.They were taken in the gullies that were cut for watering the meadows. Fromthese fishes (which measured from two to four inches in length) I took thefollowing description: ‘The loach, in its general aspect, has a pellucidappearance: its back is mottled with irregular collections of small black dots,not reaching much below the linea lateralis, as are the back and tail fins: ablack line runs from each eye down to the nose; its belly is of a silverywhite; the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with sixfeelers, three on each side; its pectoral fins are large, its ventral muchsmaller; the fin behind its anus small; its dorsal fin large, containing eightspines; its tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without anytaperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus: the tail-fin is broad, andsquare at the end. From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail, itappears to be an active nimble fish.’

In my visit I was not very far from Hungerford, and did not forget to make someinquiries concerning the wonderful method of curing cancers by means of toads.Several intelligent persons, both gentry and clergy, do, I find, give a greatdeal of credit to what was asserted in the papers: and I myself dined with aclergyman who seemed to be persuaded that what is related is matter of fact;but, when I came to attend to his account, I thought I discerned circumstanceswhich did not a little invalidate the woman’s story of the manner inwhich she came by her skill. She says of herself ‘that, labouring under avirulent cancer, she went to some church where there was a vast crowd: on goinginto a pew, she was accosted by a strange clergyman; who, after expressingcompassion for her situation, told her chat if she would make such anapplication of living toads as is mentioned she would be well.’ Now is itlikely that this unknown gentleman should express so much tenderness for thissingle sufferer, and not feel any for the many thousands that daily languishunder this terrible disorder? Would he not have made use of this invaluablenostrum for his own emolument; or, at least, by some means of publication orother, have found a method of making it public for the good of mankind ? Inshort, this woman (as it appears to me) having set up for a cancer-doctress,finds it expedient to amuse the country with this dark and mysterious relation.

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

Letter XIX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Aug. 17, 1768.

Dear Sir,

I have now, past dispute, made out three distinct species of the willow-wrens(motacillae trochili) which constantly and invariably use distinct notes. But,at the same time, I am obliged to confess that I know nothing of yourwillow-lark.* In my letter of April the 18th, I told you peremptorily that Iknew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then: but, when I came to procureit, it proved, in all respects, a very motacilla trochilus; only that it is asize larger than the two other, and the yellow-green of the whole upper part ofthe body is more vivid, and the belly of a clearer white. I have specimens ofthe three sorts now lying before me; and can discern that there are threegradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other twoflesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is considerably the largest, and hasits quill-feathers and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the othershave not. This last haunts only the tops of trees in high beechen woods, andmakes a sibilous grasshopper-like noise, now and then, at short intervals,shivering a little with its wings when it sings; and is, I make no doubt now,the regulus non cristatus of Ray, which he says ‘cantat voce stridulalocustae.’ Yet this great ornithologist never suspected that there werethree species.

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

Letter XX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, October 8, 1768.

It is, I find, in zoology as it is in botany: all nature is so full, that thatdistrict produces the greatest variety which is the most examined. Severalbirds, which are said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in thesouth. I have discovered this summer three species of birds with us, whichwriters mention as only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that wasbrought me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper, tringa hypoleucus: it was acock bird, and haunted the banks of some ponds near the village; and, as it hada companion, doubtless intended to have bred near that water. Besides, theowner has told me since, that, on recollection, he has seen some of the samebirds round his ponds in former summers.

The next bird that I procured (on the 21st of May) was a male red-backedbutcher bird, lanius collurio. My neighbour, who shot it, says that it mighteasily have escaped his notice, had not the outcries and chattering of thewhite-throats and other small birds drawn his attention to the bush where itwas: its craw was filled with the legs and wings of beetles.

The next rare birds (which were procured for me last week) were somering-ousels, turdi torquati.

This week twelve months a gentleman from London, being with us, was amusinghimself with a gun, and found, he told us, on an old yew hedge where there wereberries, some birds like blackbirds, with rings of white round their necks: aneighbouring farmer also at the same time observed the same; but, as nospecimens were procured little notice was taken. I mentioned this circumstanceto you in my letter of November the 4th, 1767 (you, however, paid but smallregard to what I said, as I had not seen these birds myself); but last week,the aforesaid farmer, seeing a large flock, twenty or thirty of these birds,shot two cocks and two hens: and says, on recollection, that he remembers tohave observed these birds again last spring, about Lady-day, as it were, ontheir return to the north. Now perhaps these ousels are not the ousels of thenorth of England, but belong to the more northern parts of Europe; and mayretire before the excessive rigour of the frosts in those parts; and return tobreed in the spring, when the cold abates. If this be the case, here isdiscovered a new bird of winter passage, concerning whose migrations thewriters are silent: but if these birds should prove the ousels of the north ofEngland, then here is a migration disclosed within our own kingdom never beforeremarked. It does not yet appear whether they retire beyond the bounds of ourisland to the south; but it is most probable that they usually do, or else onecannot suppose that they would have continued so long unnoticed in the southerncounties. The ousel is larger than a blackbird, and feeds on haws; but lastautumn (when there were no haws) it fed on yew-berries: in the spring it feedson ivy-berries, which ripen only at that season, in March and April.

I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on the study ofreptiles) that my people, every now and then of late, draw up with a bucket ofwater from my well, which is 63 feet deep, a large black warty lizard with afin-tail and yellow belly. How they first came down at that depth, and how theywere ever to have got out thence without help, is more than I am able to say.

My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the examination of abuck’s head. As far as your discoveries reach at present, they seem muchto corroborate my suspicions; and I hope Mr. … may find reason to give hisdecision in my favour; and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinaryprovision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in the creation.

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

Letter XXI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Nov. 28, 1768.

Dear Sir,

With regard to the oedicnemus, or stone curlew, I intend to write very soon tomy friend near Chichester, in whose neighbourhood these birds seem most toabound; and shall urge him to take particular notice when they begin tocongregate, and afterwards to watch them most narrowly whether they do notwithdraw themselves during the dead of the winter. When I have obtainedinformation with respect to this circumstance, I shall have finished my historyof the stone curlew; which I hope will prove to your satisfaction, as it willbe, I trust, very near the truth. This gentleman, as he occupies a large farmof his own, and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon themotions of these birds: and besides, as I have prevailed on him to buy theNaturalist’s Journal (with which he is much delighted), I shall expectthat he will be very exact in his dates. It is very extraordinary, as youobserve, that a bird so common with us should never straggle to you.

And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think of it, ananecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me when I was last at hishouse; which was that, in a warren joining to his outlet, many daws (corvimonedulae) build every year in the rabbit burrows under ground. The way he andhis brothers used to take their nests, while they were boys, was by listeningat the mouths of the holes; and, if they heard the young ones cry, they twistedthe nest out with a forked stick. Some water-fowls (viz., the puffins) breed, Iknow, in that manner; but I should never have suspected the daws of building inholes on the flat ground.

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

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

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

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

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, July 2, 1769.

Dear Sir,

As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the ground inrabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in reality, thereare hardly any towers or steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolkexcepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished with churches as almostany counties in the kingdom. We have many livings of two or three hundredpounds a year, whose houses of worship make little better appearance thandovecots. When I first saw Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire andHuntingdonshire, and the fens of Lincolnshire, I was amazed at the number ofspires which presented themselves in every point of view. As an admirer ofprospects, I have reason to lament this want in my own country; for suchobjects are very necessary ingredients in an elegant landscape.

What you mention with respect to reclaimed toads raises my curiosity. Anancient author, though no naturalist, has well remarked that ‘Every kindof beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed,and hath been tamed, of mankind.’

* James, chap. iii. 7.

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

Since the ring-ousels of your vast mountains do certainly not forsake themagainst winter, our suspicions that those which visit this neighbourhood aboutMichaelmas are not English birds, but driven from the more northern parts ofEurope by the frosts, are still more reasonable: and it will be worth yourpains to endeavour to trace from whence they come, and to inquire why they makeso very short a stay.

In your account of your error with regard to the two species of herons, youincidentally gave me great entertainment in your description of the heronry atCressi-hall; which is a curiosity I could never manage to see. Fourscore nestsof such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would ride half as many miles tohave a sight of. Pray be sure to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi-hallis, and near what town it lies.* I have often thought that those vast extentsof fens have never been sufficiently explored. If half a dozen gentlemen,furnished with a good strength of water-spaniels, were to beat them over for aweek, they would certainly find more species.

* Cressi-hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire.

There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied more than that of thecaplimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it is a wonderful and curious creature: but Ihave always found that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I knowit does, yet in general it utters its jarring note sitting on a bough; and Ihave for many an half hour watched it as it sat with its under mandiblequivering, and particularly this summer. It perches usually on a bare twig,with its head lower than its tail, in an attitude well expressed by yourdraughtsman in the folio British Zoology. This bird is most punctual inbeginning its song exactly at the close of day; so exactly that I have known itstrike up more than once or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth eveninggun, which we can hear when the weather is still. It appears to me past alldoubt that its notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers of the partsof its windpipe, formed for sound, just as cats pur. You will credit me, Ihope, when I tell you that, as my neighbours were assembled in an hermitage onthe side of a steep hill where we drink tea, one of these churn-owls came andsettled on the cross of that little straw edifice and began to chatter, andcontinued his note for many minutes: and we were all struck with wonder to findthat the organs of that little animal, when put in motion, gave a sensiblevibration to the whole building! This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak,repeated four or five times; and I have observed that to happen when the cockhas been pursuing the hen in a toying way through the boughs of a tree.

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

Your account of the Indian-grass was entertaining. I am no angler myself; butinquiring of those that are, what they supposed that part of their tackle to bemade of? they replied ‘of the intestines of a silkworm.’

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

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

Letter XXIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, February 28, 1769.

Dear Sir,

It is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our green lizard may bespecifically the same; all that I know is, that, when some years ago manyGuernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke college garden, in theUniversity of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy themselvesvery well, but never bred. Whether this circumstance will prove anything eitherway I shall not pretend to say.

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

It gave me satisfaction to find that we accorded so well about the caprimulgus:all I contended for was to prove that it often chatters sitting as well asflying; and therefore the noise was voluntary, and from organic impulse, andnot from the resistance of the air against the hollow of its mouth and throat.

If ever I saw anything like actual migration, it was last Michaelmas-day. I wastravelling, and out early in the morning: at first there was a vast fog; but,by the time that I was got seven or eight miles from home towards the coast,the sun broke out into a delicate warm day. We were then on a large heath orcommon, and I could discern, as the mist began to break away, great numbers ofswallows (hirundines rusticae) clustering on the stinted shrubs and bushes, asif they had roosted there all night. As soon as the air became clear andpleasant they all were on the wing at once; and, by a placid and easy flight,proceeded on southward towards the sea: after this I did not see any moreflocks, only now and then a straggler.

I cannot agree with those persons that assert that the swallow kind disappearsome and some gradually, as they come, for the bulk of them seem to withdraw atonce: only some stragglers stay behind a long while, and do never, there is thegreatest reason to believe, leave this island. Swallows seem to lay themselvesup, and to come forth in a warm day, as bats do continually of a warm evening,after they have disappeared for weeks. For a very respectable gentleman assuredme that, as he was walking with some friends under Merton-wall on a remarkablyhot noon, either in the last week in December or the first week in January, heespied three or four swallows huddled together on the moulding of one of thewindows of that college. I have frequently remarked that swallows are seenlater at Oxford than elsewhere: is it owing to the vast massy buildings of thatplace, to the many waters round it, or to what else?

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

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

Letter XXIV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, May 29, 1769.

Dear Sir,

The scarabaeus fullo I know very well, having seen it in collections; but havenever been able to discover one wild in its natural state. Mr. Banks told me hethought it might be found on the sea-coast.

On the thirteenth of April I went to the sheep-down, where the ring-ousels havebeen observed to make their appearance at spring and fall, in their way perhapsto the north or south; and was much pleased to see three birds about the usualspot. We shot a cock and a hen; they were plump and in high condition. The henhad but very small rudiments of eggs within her, which proves they are latebreeders; whereas those species of the thrush kind that remain with us thewhole year have fledged young before that time. In their crops was nothing verydistinguishable, but somewhat that seemed like blades of vegetables nearlydigested. In autumn they feed on haws and yew-berries, and in the spring onivy-berries. I dressed one of these birds, and found it juicy andwell-flavoured. It is remarkable that they make but a few days’ stay intheir spring visit, but rest near a fortnight at Michaelmas. These birds, fromthe observations of three springs and two autumns, are most punctual in theirreturn; and exhibit a new migration unnoticed by the writers, who supposed theynever were to be seen in any of the southern counties.

One of my neighbours lately brought me a new salicaria, which at first Isuspected might have proved your willow-lark,* but, on a nicer examination, itanswered much better to the description of that species which you shot atRevesby, in Lincolnshire. My bird I describe thus: ‘It is a size lessthan the grasshopper-lark; the head, back, and coverts of the wings of a duskybrown, without those dark spots of the grasshopper-lark; over each eye is amilk-white stroke; the chin and throat are white, and the under parts of ayellowish white; the rump is tawny and the feathers of the tail sharp-pointed;the bill is dusky and sharp, and the legs are dusky; the hinder claw long andcrooked. The person that shot it says that it sung so like a reed-sparrow thathe took it for one; and that it sings all night; but this account meritsfurther inquiry. For my part, I suspect it is a second sort of locustella,hinted at by Dr. Derham in Ray’s Letters: see p. 108. He also procured mea grasshopper-lark.

* For this salicaria see letter August 30, 1769.

The question that you put with regard to those genera of animals that arepeculiar to America, viz. how they came there, and whence? is too puzzling forme to answer; and yet so obvious as often to have struck me with wonder. If onelooks into the writers on that subject little satisfaction is to be found.Ingenious men will readily advance plausible arguments to support whatevertheory they shall choose to maintain; but then the misfortune is, everyone’s hypothesis is each as good as another’s, since they are allfounded on conjecture. The late writers of this sort, in whom may be seen allthe arguments of those that have gone before, as I remember, stock America fromthe western coast of Africa and the south of Europe; and then break down theIsthmus that bridged over the Atlantic. But this is making use of a violentpiece of machinery: it is a difficulty worthy of the interposition of a god!‘Incredulus odi.’

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

The Naturalist’s Summer-evening Walk

… equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis
Ingenium.

VIRG. GEORG.

When day declining sheds a milder gleam,
What time the may-fly[1] haunts the pool or stream;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed;
Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant[2] cuckoo’s tale,
To hear the clamorous[3] curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the dark’ning plain
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift in rapid giddy ring
Dash round the steeple, unsubdu’d of wing:
Amusive birds!—say where your hid retreat
When the frost rages and the tempests beat;
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head ?
Such baffled searches mock man’s prying pride,
The God of Nature is your secret guide!
While deep’ning shades obscure the face of day
To yonder bench, leaf-shelter’d, let us stray,
Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the fading landscape sinks in night;
To hear the drowsy dor come brushing by
With buzzing wing, or the shrill[4] cricket cry;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
To catch the distant falling of the flood;
While o’er the cliff th’ awakened churn-owl hung
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;
While high in air, and pois’d upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft enamour’d woodlark[5] sings:
These, Nature’s works, the curious mind employ,
Inspire a soothing melancholy joy:
As fancy warms, a pleasing kind of pain
Steals o’er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein!
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine;
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine;
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
The chilling night-dews fall: away, retire;
For see, the glow-worm lights her amorous fire![6]
Thus, ere night’s veil had half obscured the sky,
Th’ impatient damsel hung her lamp on high:
True to the signal, by love’s meteor led,
Leander hasten’d to his Hero’s bed.[7]

I am, etc.

[1] The angler’s may-fly, the ephemera vulgata Linn., comesforth from its aurelia state, and emerges out of the water about six in theevening, and dies about eleven at night, determining the date of its fly statein about five or six hours. They usually begin to appear about the 4th of June,and continue in succession for near a fortnight. See Swammerdam, Derham,Scopoli, etc.

[2] Vagrant cuckoo; so called because, being tied down by noincubation or attendance about the nutrition of its young, it wanders withoutcontrol.

[3] Charadrius aedicnemus.

[4] Gryllus campetris.

[5] In hotsummer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, and hang singing in theair

[6] The light of the female glow-worm (as she often crawls up thestalk of a grass to make herself more conspicuous) is a signal to the male,which is a slender dusky scarabaeus.

[7] See the story of Hero and Leander.)

Letter XXV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Aug. 30, 1769.

Dear Sir,

It gives me satisfaction to find that my account of the ousel migration pleasesyou. You put a very shrewd question when you ask me how I know that theirautumnal migration is southward? Was not candour and openness the very life ofnatural history, I should pass over this query just as the sly commentator doesover a crabbed passage in a classic; but common ingenuousness obliges me toconfess, not without some degree of shame, that I only reasoned in that casefrom 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 therigorous cold abates, so I concluded that the ring-ousels did the same, as wellas their congeners the fieldfares; and especially as ring-ousels are known tohaunt cold mountainous countries: but I have good reason to suspect since thatthey may come to us from westward; because I hear, from very good authority,that they breed on Dartmoor; and that they forsake that wild district about thetime 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 whitestroke over its eye, and a tawny rump. I have surveyed it alive and dead, andhave procured several specimens; and am perfectly persuaded myself (and trustyou will soon be convinced of the same) that it is no more nor less than thepasser arundinaceus minor of Ray. This bird, by some means or other, seems tobe entirely omitted in the British Zoology; and one reason probably was becauseit is so strangely classed in Ray, who ranges it among his picis affines. Itought no doubt to have gone among his aviculae cauda unicolore, and among yourslender-billed small birds of the same division. Linnaeus might with greatpropriety have put it into his genus of motacilla; and the motacilla salicariaof 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 andsedges of moors. The country people in some places call it the sedge-bird. Itsings incessantly night and day during the breeding-time, imitating the note ofa sparrow, a swallow, a sky-lark; and has a strange hurrying manner in itssong. My specimens correspond most minutely to the description of your fensalicaria, shot near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent characteristic ofit when he says, ‘Rostrum & pedes in hac avicula multo majores suntquam pro corporis ratione.’ See letter May 29, 1769.

I have got you the egg of an oedicnemus, or stone curlew, which was picked upin a fallow on the naked ground: There were two; but the finder inadvertentlycrushed one with his foot before he saw them.

When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had not forgot to mentionthe faculty that snakes have of stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman whokept a tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any animal while in agood 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 renderedit hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of Ray’s Synop. Ouadr.is an innocuous and sweet animal; but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, itcan eject such a pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that nothing can bemore horrible.

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

Letter XXVI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, December 8, 1769.

Dear Sir,

I was much gratified by your communicative letter on your return from Scotland,where you spent, I find, some considerable time, and gave yourself good room toexamine the natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of theislands, as well as those of the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditionsis hurry; because men seldom allot themselves half the time they should do:but, fixing on a day for their return, post from place to place, rather as ifthey were on a journey that required dispatch, than as philosophersinvestigating the works of nature. You must have made, no doubt, manydiscoveries, and laid up a good fund of materials for a future edition of theBritish Zoology; and will have no reason to repent that you have bestowed somuch pains on a part of Great Britain that perhaps was never so well examinedbefore.

It has always been matter of wonder to me that field-fares, which are socongenerous to thrushes and blackbirds, should never choose to breed inEngland: but that they should not think even the highlands cold and northerly,and sequestered enough, is a circumstance still more strange and wonderful. Thering-ousel, you find, stays in Scotland the whole year round; so that we havereason to conclude that those migrators that visit us for a short space everyautumn do not come from thence.

And here, I think, will be the proper place to mention that those birds weremost punctual again in their migration this autumn, appearing, as before, aboutthe 30th of September: but their flocks were larger than common, and their stayprotracted somewhat beyond the usual time. If they came to spend the wholewinter with us, as some of their congeners do, and then left us, as they do, inspring, I should not be so much struck with the occurrence, since it would besimilar to that of the other winter birds of passage; but when I see them for afortnight at Michaelmas, and again for about a week in the middle of April, Iam 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 orbaiting place.

Your account of the greater brambling, or snow-fleck, is very amusing; andstrange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such perilousvoyages over the northern ocean! Some country people in the winter time haveevery now and then told me that they have seen two or three white larks on ourdowns; but on considering the matter, I begin to suspect that these are somestragglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps may rove sofar to the southward.

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

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

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

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

As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, far removed from anywater, he turned out a water rat, that was curiously laid up in an hybernaculumartificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above agallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to have supported itselffor the winter. But the difficulty with me is how this amphibius mus came tofix its winter station at such a distance from the water. Was it determined inits choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the potatoes whichwere planted there; or is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat toforsake the neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?

Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how fallacious itis with respect to natural history; yet, in the following instance, I cannothelp being inclined to think it may conduce towards the explanation of adifficulty that I have mentioned before, with respect to the invariable earlyretreat of the hirundo apus, or swift, so many weeks before its congeners; andthat not only with us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retireabout the beginning of August.

The great large bat* (which by the by is at present a nondescript in England,and what I have never been able yet to procure) retires and migrates very earlyin the summer: it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a differentregion of the air; and that is the reason I never could procure one. Now thisis exactly the case with the swifts; for they take their food in a more exaltedregion than the other species, and are very seldom seen hawking for flies nearthe ground, or over the surface of the water. From hence I would conclude thatthese hirundines, and the larger bats, are supported by some sorts ofhigh-flying gnats, scarabs, or phalaenae, that are of short continuance; andthat the short stay of these strangers is regulated by the defect of theirfood.

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

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

Letter XXVII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Feb. 22, 1770.

Dear Sir,

Hedge-hogs abound in my gardens and fields. The manner in which they eat theirroots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very curious: with their uppermandible, which is much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, andso eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In thisrespect they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but theydeface the waffles in some measure by digging little round holes. It appears,by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles are no inconsiderablepart of their food. In June last I procured a litter of four or five younghedge-hogs, which appeared to be about five or six days old; they, I find, likepuppies, are born blind, and could not see when they came to my hands. No doubttheir spines are soft and flexible at the time of their birth, or else the poordam would have but a bad time of it in the critical moment of parturition: butit is plain that they soon harden; for these little pigs had such stiffprickles on their backs and sides as would easily have fetched blood, had theynot been handled with caution. Their spines are quite white at this age; andthey have little hanging ears, which I do not remember to be discernible in theold 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 ofdefence, when full grown. The reason, I suppose, is, because the curious musclethat enables the creature to roll itself up into a ball was not then arrived atits full tone and firmness. Hedge-hogs make a deep and warm hybernaculum withleaves and moss, in which they conceal themselves for the winter: but I nevercould find that they stored in any winter provision, as some quadrupedscertainly do.

I have discovered an anecdote with respect to the field-fare (turdus pilaris),which I think is particular enough: this bird, though it sits on trees in theday-time, and procures the greatest part of its food from white-thorn hedges;yea, moreover, builds on very high trees; as may be seen by the Fauna Suecica;yet always appears with us to roost on the ground. They are seen to come inflocks just before it is dark, and to settle and nestle among the heath on ourforest. And besides, the larkers, in dragging their nets by night, frequentlycatch them in the wheat-stubbles; while the bat-fowlers, who take manyred-wings in the hedges, never entangle any of this species. Why these birds,in the matter of roosting, should differ from all their congeners, and fromthemselves also with respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for which Iam by no means able to account.

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

Letter XXVIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, March, 1770.

On Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the female moose belongingto the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly disappointed, when Iarrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in alanguishing way for some time, on the morning before. However, understandingthat it was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped: I foundit in an old green-house, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in astanding posture; but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it was inso putrid a state that the stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinctionbetween this deer, and any other species that I have ever met with, consistedin the strange length of its legs; on which it was tilted up much in the mannerof birds of the grallae order. I measured it, as they do an horse, and foundthat, from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four inches; whichheight 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 thantwelve inches; so that, by straddling with one foot forward and the otherbackward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, betweenits legs: the ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck; the head wasabout twenty inches long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of upper lipas I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, isesteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose thatthis creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by wading afterwater-plants; towards which way of livelihood the length of leg and great lipmust contribute much. I have read somewhere that it delights in eating thenymphaea, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the belly behind the shoulder itmeasured three feet and eight inches: the length of the legs before and behindconsisted a great deal in the tibia, which was strangely long; but in my hasteto get out of the stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scutseemed to be about an inch long; the colour was a grizzly black; the mane aboutfour inches long; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat andsplayed. The spring before it was only two years old, so that most probably itwas not then come to its growth. What a vast tall beast must a full-grown stagbe! I have been told some arrive at ten feet and an half! This poor creaturehad at first a female companion of the same species, which died the springbefore. In the same garden was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and thismoose it was hoped that there might have been a breed; but their inequality ofheight must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. Ishould have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, etc.,minutely; but the putrefaction precluded all further curiosity. This animal,the keeper told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of theformer winter. In the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which hadno front-antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edge. The nobleowner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.

Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw; andwhether you think still that the American moose and European elk are the samecreature.

I am,

With the greatest esteem. etc.

Letter XXIX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, May 12, 1770.

Dear Sir,

Last month we had such a series of cold turbulent weather, such a constantsuccession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that the regularmigration or appearance of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some did notshow themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time; asthe black-cap and white-throat; and some have not been heard yet, as thegrasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I have notseen it; it is indeed one of the latest, but should appear about this time: andyet, amidst all this meteorous strife and war of the elements, two swallowsdiscovered themselves as long ago as the eleventh of April, in frost and snow;but they withdrew quickly, and were not visible again for many days.House-martins, which are always more backward than swallows, were not observedtill May came in.

Among the monogamous birds several are to be found, after pairing-time, single,and of each sex: but whether this state of celibacy is matter of choice ornecessity, is not so easily discoverable. When the house-sparrows deprive mymartins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to be shot, the other, be itcock 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 greathavoc 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 sometime the new pair were both destroyed, and the annoyance ceased.

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

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

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

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

Letter XXX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Aug. 1, 1770.

Dear Sir,

The French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in their natural history.What Linnaeus says with respect to insects holds good in every other branch:‘Verbositas praesentis saeculi, calamitas artis.’

Pray how do you approve of Scopoli’s new work? As I admire hisEntomologia, I long to see it.

I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert in theformer) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to island, inthe 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 riverSt. Lawrence: it was a monstrous beast, he told me; but he did not take thedimensions.

When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most obligingly carried me tosee many curious sights. As you were then writing to him about horns, hecarried me to see many strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember,at Lord Pembroke’s, at Wilton, an horn room furnished with more thanthirty different pairs; but I have not seen that house lately.

Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed and livingbirds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied over the latter for atime, I remarked that every species almost that came from distant regions, suchas South America, the coast of Guinea, etc., were thick-billed birds of theloxia and fringilla genera; and no motacillae, or muscicapae, were to be metwith. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for thehard-billed birds subsist on seeds, which are easily carried on board; whilethe soft-billed birds, which are supported by worms and insects, or, what is asuccedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tediousvoyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as theyare) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and livelygenera.

I am, etc.

Letter XXXI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Sept. 14, 1770.

Dear Sir,

You saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags; and arefarther assured that they continue resident in those cold regions the wholeyear. From whence, then, do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly everySeptember, 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 hillon the fourth of this month.

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

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

Scopoli’s* new work (which I have just procured) has its merits inascertaining many of the birds of the Tirol and Carniola. Monographers, comefrom whence they may, have, I think, fair presence to challenge some regard andapprobation from the lovers of natural history; for, as no man can aloneinvestigate all the works of nature, these partial writers may, each in theirdepartment, be more accurate in their discoveries, and freer from errors, thanmore general writers; and so by degrees may pave the way to an universalcorrect natural history. Not that Scopoli is so circumstantial and attentive tothe life and conversation of his birds as I could wish: he advances some falsefacts; as when he says of the hirundo urbica that ‘pullos extra nidum nonnutrit.’ This assertion I know to be wrong from repeated observationsthis summer, for house-martins do feed their young flying, though it must beacknowledged not so commonly as the house-swallow; and the feat is done in soquick a manner as not to be perceptible to indifferent observers. He alsoadvances some (I was going to say) improbable facts; as when he says of thewoodcock that, ‘pullos rostra portat fugiens ab hoste.’ But candourforbids me to say absolutely that any fact is false, because I have never beenwitness to such a fact. I have only to remark that the long unwieldy bill ofthe woodcock is perhaps the worst adapted of any among the winged creation forsuch a feat of natural affection.

* Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis.

I am, etc.

Letter XXXII

T Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, October 29, 1770.

Dear Sir,

After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I begin to suspect thatI discern my brother’s hirundo hyberna in Scopoli’s new discoveredhirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of ‘Supra murina, subtusalbida; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere inferno; pedes nudi, nigri;rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam plumae dorsales; rectrices remigibusconcolores; cauda emarginata, nec forcipata,’ agrees very well with thebird in question; but when he comes to advance that it is ‘staturahirundinis urbicae,’ and that ‘definitio hirundinis ripariaeLinnaei huic quoque convenit,’ he in some measure invalidates all he hassaid; at least he shows at once that he compares them to these species merelyfrom memory: for I have compared the birds themselves, and find they differwidely in every circumstance of shape, size, and colour. However, as you willhave a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what your judgment is in the matter.

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

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

The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to the other by memory: forwant of caution in this particular, Scopoli falls into errors: he is not sofull with regard to the manners of his indigenous birds as might be wished, asyou justly observe: his Latin is easy, elegant, and expressive, and verysuperior to Kramer’s.

* See his Elenchus vegerabilium et animalium per Austriam inferiorem, etc.

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXXIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Nov. 26, 1770.

Dear Sir,

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

Scopoli seems to me to have found the hirundo melba, the great Gibraltar swift,in Tirol, without knowing it. For what is his hirundo alpina but theafore-mentioned bird in other words? Says he, ‘Omnia prioris’(meaning the swift); ‘sed pectus album; paulo major priore.’ I donot suppose this to be a new species. It is true also of the melba, that‘nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus.’ Vid. Annum Primum.

My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no naturalist, towhom I applied on account of the stone curlew, oedicnemus, sends me thefollowing account: ‘In looking over my Naturalist’s Journal for themonth of April, I find the stone curlews are first mentioned on the seventeenthand eighteenth, which date seems to me rather late. They live with us all thespring and summer and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave bygetting together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that may travelinto some dry hilly country south of us, probably Spain, because of theabundance of sheep-walks in that country; for they spend their summers with usin such districts. This conjecture I hazard, as I have never met with any onethat has seen them in England in the winter. I believe they are not fond ofgoing near the water, but feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walksand downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with grey mossyflints, which much resemble their young in colour; among which they skulk andconceal themselves. They make no nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground,producing in common but two at a time. There is reason to think their young runsoon after they are hatched; and that the old ones do not feed them, but onlylead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the most part, is in thenight.’ Thus far my friend.

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

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

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXXIV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, March 30, 1771.

Dear Sir,

There is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, which is verytroublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer, getting intopeople’s skins, especially those of women and children, and raisingtumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which we call an harvest-bug) isvery minute, scarce discernible to the naked eye; of a bright scarlet colour,and of the genus of Acarus. They are to to be met with in gardens onkidney-beans, or any legumens; but prevail only in the hot months of summer.Warreners, as some have assured me, are much infested by them on chalky downs;where these insects swarm sometimes to so infinite a degree as to discolourtheir nets, and to give them a reddish cast, while the men are so bitten as tobe thrown into fevers.

There is a small long shining fly in these parts very troublesome to thehousewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in the bacon whileit is drying: these eggs produce maggots called jumpers, which, harbouring inthe gammons and best parts of the hogs, eat down to the bone, and make greatwaste. This fly I suspect to be a variety of the musca putris of Linnaeus: itis to be seen in the summer in the farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and aboutthe mantelpieces, and on the ceilings.

The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden (destroying oftenwhole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an animal that wants to bebetter known. The country people here call it the turnip-fly and black dolphin;but I know it to be one of the coleoptera; the ‘chrysomela oleracea,saltatoria, femoribus posficis crassissimis.’ In very hot summers theyabound to an amazing degree, and as you walk in a field or in a garden, make apattering 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 itis omitted by Linnaeus, is also passed over by late writers, and that is thecurvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham in his Physico-theology, p. 250:an insect worthy of remark for depositing its eggs as it flies in so dexterousa manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass-horses. But thenDerham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is the parent of thatwonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions afterwards; for more modernentomologists have discovered that singular production to be derived from theegg of the musca chamaeleon: see Geoffrey, t. 17, f. 4.

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

As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology more than some neatplates that should well express the generic distinctions of insects accordingto Linnaeus; for I am well assured that many people would study insects, couldthey set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions that can beconveyed at first by words alone.

Letter XXXV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, 1771.

Dear Sir,

Happening to make a visit to my neighbour’s peacocks, I could not helpobserving that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by no means to betheir tails; those long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all uptheir backs. A range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long,fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop thetrain, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up,nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck, but this would not bethe case were those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by theturkey-cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibration thesebirds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of asword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwardstowards the females.

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

Letter XXXVI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Sept. 1771.

Dear Sir,

The summer through I have seen but two of that large species of bat which Icall vespertilio altivolans, from its manner of feeding high in the air: Iprocured one of them, and found it to be a male; and made no doubt, as theyaccompanied together, that the other was a female: but, happening in an eveningor two to procure the other likewise, I was somewhat disappointed, when itappeared to be also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great scarcityof this sort, at least in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my mindwhether it is really a species, or whether it may not be the male part of themore known species, one of which may supply many females; as is known to be thecase in sheep, and some other quadrupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared bya farther examination, and some attention to the sex, of more specimens: allthat I know at present is, that my two were amply furnished with the parts ofgeneration, much resembling those of a boar.

In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen inches and an half, andfour inches and an half from the nose to the tip of the tail; their heads werelarge, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular, and theirwhole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could be more sleek and soft than theirfur, which was of a bright chestnut colour; their maws were full of food, butso macerated that the quality could not be distinguished; their livers,kidneys, and hearts were large, and their bowels covered with fat. They weighedeach, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm. Within the ear there wassomewhat of a peculiar structure that I did not understand perfectly; but referit to the observation of the curious anatomist. These creatures send forth avary rancid and offensive smell.

Letter XXXVII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, 1771.

Dear Sir,

On the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the motions ofthe caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a large oak that swarmedwith scarabaei solstitiales, or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing werewonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions and quick turns ofthe swallow genus. But the circumstance that pleased me most was that I saw itdistinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and, by abend of the head, deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any part of itsprey with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose it does thesechafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiouslyfurnished with a serrated claw.

Swallows and martins, the bulk of them, I mean, have forsaken us sooner thisyear than usual; for, on September the twenty-second, they rendezvoused in aneighbour’s walnut-tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up theirlodging for the night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they arose alltogether in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing from the strokes oftheir 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 twenty-second of August —a rareinstance! for they usually withdraw within the first week.

* See Letter LIII to Mr. Barrington.

On September the twenty-fourth three or four ring-ousels appeared in my fieldsfor the first time this season: how punctual are these visitors in theirautumns and spring migrations!

Letter XXXVIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, March 15, 1773.

Dear Sir,

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 first of October, I saw youngmartins in their nests nearly fledged; and again, on the twenty-first ofOctober, we had at the next house a nest full of young martins just ready tofly; and the old ones were hawking for insects with great alertness. The nextmorning the brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the village. Fromthis day I never saw one of the swallow kind till November the third; whentwenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins were playing all day long by the sideof the hanging wood, and over my fields. Did these small weak birds, some ofwhich were nestlings twelve days ago, shift their quarters at this late seasonof the year to the other side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is it not moreprobable that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhapssandbank, lake or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say), may becometheir hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and obvious retreat?

We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every week. Personsworthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were seen at Christmas 1770 in theforest of Bere, on the southern verge of this county. Hence we may concludethat their migrations are only internal, and not extended to the continentsouthward, if they do at first come at all from the northern parts of thisisland only, and not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, itis plain, from the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns, that theyhave been little accustomed to places of much resort. Navigators mention thatin the Isle of Ascension, and other such desolate districts, birds are solittle acquainted with the human form that they settle on men’sshoulders; and have no more dread of a sailor than they would have of a goatthat was grazing. A young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about sevenyears ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he killedsixteen himself in one afternoon: he added farther, that some had appearedsince in every autumn; but he could not find that any had been observed beforethe season in which he shot so many. I myself have found these birds in littleparties in the autumn cantoned all along the Sussex-downs, wherever there wereshrubs and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes; particularly in the autumn of1770.

I am, etc.

Letter XXXIX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Nov. 9, 1773.

Dear Sir,

As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I take the libertyof making the following remarks, that you may, according as you think me rightor wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in your intended new edition ofthe British Zoology.

The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinshampond, a great lake, at aboutsix miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a plough anddevouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself into the water, and so take itsprey by surprise.

A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted-park, and ared-backed butcher-bird at Selborne: they are rarae aves in this country.

Crows go in pairs the whole year round.

Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all the cliffs of theSussex coast.

The common wild-pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the south ofEngland, seldom appearing till towards the end of November; is usually thelatest winter bird of passage. Before our beechen woods were so much destroyedwe had myriads of them, reaching in strings for a mile together as they wentout 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, becauseit sings early in the spring in blowing showery weather; its song oftencommences with the year: with us it builds much in orchards.

A gentleman assures me that 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 andtoy about on the wing; and particularly while they are descending, andsometimes as they stand on the ground.

Adamson’s testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that Europeanswallows migrate during our winter to Senegal: he does not talk at all like anornithologist; and probably saw only the swallows of that country, which I knowbuild within Governor O’Hara’s hall against the roof. Had he knownEuropean swallows, would he not have mentioned the species ?

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

In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till October thetwenty-third.

The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house-swallow: viz.,about the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of April.

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

Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.

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

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

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

When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes make a bleating noise, and Ia drumming (perhaps I should have rather said an humming), I suspect we meanthe same thing. However, while they are playing about on the wing theycertainly make a loud piping with their mouths: but whether that bleating orhumming is ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannotsay; but this I know, that when this noise happens the bird is alwaysdescending, and his wings are violently agitated.

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

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

I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmerforest in the beginning ofJuly last, along with flappers, or young wild-ducks.

Speaking of the swift, that page says ‘its drink the dew’; whereasit should be ‘it drinks on the wing’; for all the swallow kind siptheir water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers: like Virgil’sbees, they drink flying, ‘flumina summa libant.’ In this method ofdrinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar.

Of the sedge-bird be pleased to say it sings most part of the night; its notesare hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several birds; as thesparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be silent in the night, bythrowing a stone or clod into the bushes where it sits you immediately set ita-singing; or in other words, though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as itis awakened it reassumes its song.

Letter XL

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Sept. 2, 1774.

Dear Sir,

Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been remarking andcomparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and this ere any youngbroods appeared; so that there was no danger of confounding the dams with theirpulli: and besides, as they were then always in pairs, and busied in the employof nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the sexes, nor theindividuals of different chimneys the one for the other. From all myobservations, it constantly appeared that each sex has the long feathers in itstail that give it that forked shape; with this difference, that they are longerin the tail of the male than in that of the female.

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

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

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

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

Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows’ nests, and the kestrel inchurches and ruins.

There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The threadssometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the generation of eels isvery dark and mysterious.

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

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

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

Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume their notes again inSeptember; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren, etc.; hence Augustis by much the most mute month, the spring, summer, and autumn through. Arebirds induced to sing again because the temperament of autumn resembles that ofspring ?

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

House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather becomes hotterthey get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and apple-trees. These birdshave been known sometimes to build in rooks’ nests, and sometimes in theforks of boughs under rooks’ nests.

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

Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The reason thatthey are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first seasons theirvoices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the latter their songbecomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cockred-breasts of that year: notwithstanding the prejudices in their favour, theydo much mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.

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

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

Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.

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

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

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

The appearance and flying of the scarabaeus solstitialis, or fern-chafer,commence with the month of July, and cease about the end of it. These scarabsare the constant food of caprimulgi, or fern-owls, through that period. Theyabound on the chalky downs and in some sandy districts, but not in the clays.

In the garden of the Black-bear inn in the town of Reading is a stream or canalrunning under the stables and out into the fields on the other side of theroad; in this water are many carps, which lie rolling about in sight, being fedby travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing them bread: but as soon as theweather grows at all severe these fishes are no longer seen, because theyretire under the stables, where they remain till the return of spring. Do theylie in a torpid state? if they do not, how are they supported?

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

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

Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble their throatsare wonderfully distended.

The song of the red-start is superior, though somewhat like that of thewhite-throat: some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting veryplacidly on the top of a tree in a village, the cock sings from morning tonight: he affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and loves to build inorchards and about houses; with us he perches on the vane of a tall maypole.

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

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

* Sweden, 221; Great Britain, 252 species.

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

Letter XLI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

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

I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which winter with us,subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state. All the species of wagtailsin severe weather haunt shallow streams near their spring-heads, where theynever freeze; and, by wading, pick out the aurelias of the genus ofPhryganeae,* etc.

* See Derham’s Physico-theology, p. 235.

Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they pick upcrumbs and other sweepings: and in mild weather they procure worms, which arestirring every month in the year, as any one may see that will only be at thetrouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter’s night.Red-breasts and wrens in the winter haunt out-houses, stables, and barns, wherethey find spiders and flies that have laid themselves up during the coldseason. But the grand support of the soft-billed birds in winter is thatinfinite profusion of aureliae of the lepidoptera ordo, which is fastened tothe twigs of trees and their trunks; to the pales and walls of gardens andbuildings; and is found in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and evenin the ground itself.

Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have what I call a kind ofintermediate bill between the hard and the soft, between the Linnaean genera offringilla and motacilla. One species alone spends its whole time in the woodsand fields, never retreating for succour in the severest seasons to houses andneighbourhoods; and that is the delicate long-tailed titmouse, which is almostas minute as the golden-crowned wren: but the blue titmouse, or nun (paruscaeruleus), the cole-mouse (parus ater), the great black-headed titmouse(fringillago), and the marsh titmouse (parus palustris), all resort, at times,to buildings; and in hard weather particularly. The great titmouse, driven bystress of weather, much frequents houses, and, in deep snows, I have seen thisbird, while it hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight andadmiration), draw straw lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses, inorder to pull out the flies that were concealed between them, and that in suchnumbers that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance.

The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a generaldevourer. Beside insects, it is very fond of flesh; for it frequently picksbones on dung-hills: it is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts butchers’shops. When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning caught with snapmousetraps, baited with tallow or suet. It will also pick holes in apples lefton the ground, and be well entertained with the seeds on the head of asunflower. The blue, marsh, and great titmice will, in very severe weather,carry away barley and oat straws from the sides of ricks.

How the wheat-ear and whin-chat support themselves in winter cannot be soeasily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and warrens; theformer especially, where there are stone quarries: most probably it is thattheir maintenance arises from the aureliae of the lepidoptera ordo, whichfurnish them with a plentiful table in the wilderness.

I am, etc.

Letter XLII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, March 9, 1775.

Dear Sir,

Some future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend his visits to thekingdom of Ireland; a new field, and a country little known to the naturalist.He will not, it is to be wished, undertake that tour unaccompanied by abotanist, because the mountains have scarcely been sufficiently examined; andthe southerly counties of so mild an island may possibly afford some plantslittle to be expected within the British dominions. A person of a thinking turnof mind will draw many just remarks from the modern improvements of thatcountry, both in arts and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before theywere heard of with us. The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions,their prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many usefulreflections. He should also take with him an able draughtsman: for he must byno means pass over the noble castles and seats, the extensive and picturesquelakes and water-falls, and the lofty stupendous mountains, so little known, andso engaging to the imagination when described and exhibited in a lively manner:such a work would be well received.

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

The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of Scotland that havefallen in my way is, a want of a coloured line, or stroke, that shall exactlydefine the just limits of that district called the Highlands. Moreover, all thegreat avenues to that mountainous and romantic country want to be welldistinguished. The military roads formed by General Wade are so great andRoman-like an undertaking that they well merit attention. My old map,Moll’s Map, takes notice of Fort William; but could not mention the otherforts that have been erected long since: therefore a good representation of thechain of forts should not be omitted.

The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed over. Mall takesnotice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such capital houses; but a new survey,no doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable for any greatevent, or celebrated for its paintings, etc. Lord Breadalbane’s seat andbeautiful policy are too curious and extraordinary to be omitted.

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

I am, etc.

Letter XLIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Dear Sir,

A pair of honey-buzzards, buteo opivorus, sive vespivorus Raii, built them alarge shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead beechen leaves, upona tall slender beech near the middle of Selborne-hanger, in the summer of 1780.In the middle of the month of June a bold boy climbed this tree, thoughstanding on so steep and dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the onlyone in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained the embrioof a young bird. The egg was smaller, and not so round as those of the commonbuzzard; was dotted at each end with small red spots, and surrounded in themiddle with a broad bloody zone.

The hen-bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. Ray’s description ofthat species; had a black cere, short thick legs, and a long tail. When on thewing this species may be easily distinguished from the common buzzard by itshawk-like appearance, small head, wings not so blunt, and longer tail. Thisspecimen contained in its craw some limbs of frogs, and many grey snailswithout shells. The irides of the eyes of this bird were of a beautiful brightyellow colour.

About the tenth of July in the same summer a pair of sparrow-hawks bred in anold crow’s nest on a low beech in the same hanger; and as their brood,which was numerous, began to grow up, became so daring and ravenous, that theywere a terror to all the dames in the village that had chickens or ducklingsunder their care. A boy climbed the tree, and found the young so fledged thatthey all escaped from him: but discovered that a good house had been kept: thelarder was well-stored with provisions; for he brought down a young blackbird,jay, and house martin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. The old birdshad been observed to make sad havoc for some days among the new-flown swallowsand martins, which, being but lately out of their nests, had not acquired thosepowers and command of wing that enable them, when more mature, to set suchenemies at defiance.

Letter XLIV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780.

Dear Sir,

Every incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence will ever bepleasing and agreeable to me.

As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, I am much of yourmind; and see no reason for making it the origin of the common house-dove: butsuppose those that have advanced that opinion may have been misled by anotherappellation, often given to the oenas, is that of stock-dove.

Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from itself insummer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated, and to make anhouse-dove. We very rarely see the latter settle on trees at all, nor does itever haunt the woods; but the former, as long as it stays with us, fromNovember perhaps to February, lives the same wild life with the ring-dove,palumbus torquatus; frequents coppices and groves, supports itself chiefly bymast, and delights to roost in the tallest beeches. Could it be known in whatmanner stock-doves build, the doubt would be settled with me at once, providedthey construct their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect theydo.

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

For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that house-doves arederived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many reasons. In the first place,the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger than the common house-dove, againstthe usual rule of domestication, which generally enlarges the breed. Again,these two remarkable black spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove,which are so characteristic of the species, would not, one should think, betotally lost by its being reclaimed; but would often break out among itsdescendants. But what is worth an hundred arguments is, the instance you givein Sir Roger Mostyn’s house-doves, in Caernarvonshire; which, thoughtempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be prevailed on toinhabit their cote for any time; but as soon as they begin to breed, betakethemselves to the fastnesses of Ormshead, and deposit their young in safetyamidst the inaccessible caverns and precipices of that stupendous promontory.

Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret.

I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who tells me thatfifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods were much more extensive thanat present, the number of wood-pigeons was astonishing; that he has oftenkilled near twenty in a day; and that with a long wildfowl piece he has shotseven or eight at a time on the wing as they came wheeling over his head: hemoreover adds, which I was not aware of, that often there were among themlittle parties of small blue doves, which he calls rockiers. The food of thesenumberless emigrants was beech-mast and some acorns; and particularly barley,which they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the vastincrease of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a great part of their supportin hard weather; and the holes they pick in these roots greatly damage thecrop. From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness which occasionsthem to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who thought them before adelicate dish. They were shot not only as they were feeding in the fields, andespecially in snowy weather, but also at the close of the evening, by men wholay in ambush among the woods and groves to kill them as they came in toroost.* These are the principal circumstances relating to this wonderfulinternal migration, which with us takes place towards the end of November, andceases early in the spring. Last winter we had in Selborne high wood about anhundred of these doves; but in former times the flocks were so vast not onlywith us but all the district round, that on mornings and evenings theytraversed the air, like rooks, in strings, reaching for a mile together. Whenthey thus rendezvoused here by thousands, if they happened to be suddenlyroused from their roost-trees on an evening,

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

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

It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, that I had arelation in this neighbourhood who made it a practice for a time, whenever hecould procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to place them under a pair of doves thatwere sitting in his own pigeon-house; hoping thereby, if he could bring abouta coalition, to enlarge his breed, and teach his own doves to beat out into thewoods and to support themselves by mast: the plan was plausible, but somethingalways interrupted the success; for though the birds were usually hatched, andsometimes grew to half their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. I myselfhave seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a strange ferocity ofnature, so as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and snapping with their billsby way of menace. In short, they always died, perhaps for want of propersustenance: but the owner thought that by their fierce and wild demeanour theyfrighted their foster-mothers, and so were starved.

Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes a dove hauntingthe cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, that I cannot refrain fromquoting the passage: and John Dryden has rendered it so happily in ourlanguage, that without farther excuse I shall add his translation also.

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

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

I am, &c.

LETTERS to DAINES BARRINGTON

Letter I

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, June 30, 1769.

Dear Sir,

When I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would sometime do myselfthe honour to write to you on the subject of natural history: and I am the moreready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a gentleman of great candour,and one that will make allowances; especially where the writer professes to bean out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations from the subjectitself, and not from the writings of others.

The following is a List of the Summer Birds of Passage which I have discoveredin this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which they appear.

Usually appears about:

1. Wry-neck, Raii nomina: Jynx, sive torquilla: The middle of March: harshnote.

2. Smallest willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: March 23: chirps tillSeptember.

3. Swallow, Hirundo domestica: April 13.

4. Martin, Hirundo rustica: Ditto.

5. Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia: Ditto.

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

7. Nightingale, Luscinia: Beginning of April.

8. Cuckoo, Cuculus: Middle of April.

9. Middle willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: Ditto, a sweet plaintive note.

10. White-throat, Ficedulae affinis: Middle of April: mean note; sings on tillSeptember.

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

12. Stone curlew, OEdicnemus: End of March; loud nocturnal whistle.

13. Turtle-dove, Turtur:

14. Grasshopper-lark, Alauda minima locustae voce: Middle of April: a smallsibilous note, till the end of July.

15. Swift, Hirundo apus: About April 27.

16. Less reed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus minor: A sweet polyglot, buthurrying: it has the notes of many birds.

17. Land-rail, Ortygometra: A loud harsh note, crex, crex.

18. Largest willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: Cantat voce stridula locustae;end of April, on the tops of high beeches.

19. Goat-sucker, or fern-owl, Caprimulgus: Beginning of May; chatters by nightwith a singular noise.

20. Fly-catcher, Stoparola: May 12. A very mute bird: this is the latest summerbird of passage.

This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten several genera ofthe Linnaean system; and are all of the ordo of passeres, save the jynx andcuculus, which are picae, and the charadrius (oedicnemus) and rallus(ortygometra) which are grallae.

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

1. Jynx.

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

3, 4, 5, 15. Hirundo.

8. Cuculus.

12. Charadrius.

13. Columba.

17. Rallus.

19. Caprimulgus.

14. Alauda.

20. Muscicapa.

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

Red-breast, Raii nomina: Rubecula:

Wren, Passer troglodytes: These frequent houses; and haunt outbuildings in thewinter; eat spiders.

Hedge-sparrow, Curruca: Haunt sinks for crumbs and other sweepings.

White-wagtail, Motacilla alba:

Yellow-wagtail, Motacilla flava:

Grey-wagtail, Motacilla cinerea: These frequent shallow rivulets near thespring heads, where they never freeze: eat the aureliae of Phryganea. Thesmallest 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 tertia:

Golden-crowned wren, Regulus cristatus: This is the smallest British bird:haunts the tops of tall trees; stays the winter through.

A List of the Winter Birds of Passage round this neighbourhood, ranged somewhatin the order in which they appear:

1. Ring-ousel, Raii nomina: Merula torquata: This is a new migration which Ihave lately discovered about Michaelmas week, and again about the fourteenthof March.

2. Redwing, Turdus iliacus: About Michaelmas.

3. Fieldfare, Turdus pilaris, Though a percher by day, roosts on the ground.

4. Royston-crew, Cornix cinerea: Most frequent on downs.

5. Wood-cock, Scolopax: Appears about old Michaelmas.

6. Snipe, Gallinago minor: Some snipes constantly breed with us.

7. Jack-snipe, Gallinago minima:

8. Wood-pigeon, OEnas: Seldom appears till late: not in such plenty asformerly.

9. Wild-swan, Cygnus ferus: On some large waters.

10. Wild-goose, Anser ferus:

11. Wild-duck, Anas torquata minor:

12. Pochard, Anas fera fusca:

13. Widgeon, Penelope:

14. Teal, breeds with us in Wolmer-forest, Querquedula: On our lakes andstreams.

15. Gross-beak, Coccothraustes:

16. Cross-bill, Loxia:

17. Silk-tail, Garrulus bohemicus: These are only wanderers that appearoccasionally, and are not observant of any regular migration.

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

1, 2, 3. Turdus.

4. Corvus.

5, 6, 7. Scolopax.

8. Columba.

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

15, 16. Loxia.

17. Ampelis.

Birds that sing in the night are but few:

Nightingale, Luscinia: ‘In shadiest covert hid.’—MILTON.

Woodlark, Alauda arborea: Suspended in mid air.

Less reed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus minor: Among reeds and willows.

I should now proceed to such birds as continue to sing after Midsummer, but, asthey are rather numerous, they would exceed the bounds of this paper: besides,as this is now the season for remarking on that subject, I am willing to repeatmy observations on some birds concerning the continuation of whose song I seemat present to have some doubt.

I am, etc.

Letter II

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Nov. 2, 1769.

Dear Sir,

When I did myself the honour to write to you about the end of last June on thesubject of natural history, I sent you a list of the summer birds of passagewhich I have observed in this neighbourhood; and also a list of the winterbirds of passage; I mentioned besides those soft-billed birds that stay with usthe winter through in the south of England, and those that are remarkable forsinging in the night.

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

1. Woodlark, Raii nomina: Alauda arborea: In January, and continues to singthrough all the summer and autumn.

2. Song-thrush, Turdus simpliciter dictus: In February and on to August,reassume their song in autumn.

3. Wren, Passer troglodytes: All the year, hard frost excepted.

4. Red-breast, Rubecula: Ditto.

5. Hedge-sparrow, Curruca: Early in February to July the 10th.

6. Yellow-hammer, Emberiza flava: Early in February, and on through July toAugust the 21st.

7. Skylark, Alauda vulgaris: In February, and on to October.

8. Swallow, Hirundo domestica: From April to September.

9. Black-cap, Atricapilla: Beginning of April to July 13.

10. Titlark, Alauda pratorum: From middle of April to July the 16th.

11. Blackbird, Merula vulgaris: Sometimes in February and March, and so on toJuly the twenty third; reassumes in autumn.

12. White-throat, Ficedulcae affinis: In April and on to July 23.

13. Goldfinch, Carduelis: April and through to September 16.

14. Greenfinch, Chloris: On to July and August 2.

15. Less reed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus minor: May, on to beginning of July.

16. Common linnet, Linaria vulgaris: Breeds and whistles on till August;reassumes its note when they begin to congregate in October, and again earlybefore the flock separate.

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

17. Middle willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: Middle of June: begins in April.

18. Red-start, Ruticilla: Middle of June: begins in May.

19. Chaffinch, Fringilla: Beginning of June: sings first in February.

20. Nightingale, Luscinia: Middle of June: sings first in April.

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

21. Missel-bird, Turdus viscivorus: January the 2nd, 1770, in February. Iscalled in Hampshire and Sussex the storm-cock, because its song is supposed toforebode windy wet weather: is the largest singing bird we have.

22. Great tit-mouse, or ox-eye, Fringillago: In February, March, April:reassumes for a short time in September.

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

23. Golden-crowned wren, Regulus cristatus: Its note as minute as its person;frequents the tops of high oaks and firs; the smallest British bird.

24. Marsh titmouse, Parus palustris: Haunts great woods; two harsh sharp notes.

25. Small willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: Sings in March and on toSeptember.

26. Largest ditto, Ditto: Cantat voce stridula locustae: from end of April toAugust.

27. Grasshopper-lark, Alauda minima voce locustae: Chirps all night, from themiddle of April to the end of July

28. Martin, Hirundo agrestis: All the breeding time; from May to September.

29. Bullfinch, Pyrrhula:

30. Bunting, Emberiza alba: From the end of January to July.

All singing birds, and those that have any pretensions to song, not only inBritain, but perhaps the world through, come under the Linnaean ordo ofpasseres.

The above-mentioned birds, as they stand numerically, belong to the followingLinnaean genera.

1, 7, 10, 27. Alauda.

2, 11, 21. Turdus.

3, 4, 5, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 25, 26. Motacilla.

6, 30. Emberiza.

8, 28. Hirundo.

13, 16, 19. Pringilla.

22, 24. Parus.

14, 29. Loxia.

Birds that sing as they fly are but few:

Skylark, Raii nomina. Alauda vulgaris: Rising, suspended, and falling.

Titlark, Alauda pratorum: In its descent; also sitting on trees, and walking onthe ground.

Woodlark, Alauda arborea: Suspended; in hot summer nights all night long.

Blackbird, Merula: Sometimes from bush to bush.

White-throat, Ficedulae affinis: Uses when singing on the wing odd jerks andgesticulations.

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 February and March.

Song-thrush, Turdus: In March.

Blackbird, Merula: In March.

Rook, Cornix frugilega: Builds the beginning of March.

Woodlark, Alauda arborea: Hatches in April.

Ring-dove, Palurnbus torquatus: Lays the beginning of April.

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

Most kinds of birds seem to me to be wild and shy somewhat in proportion totheir bulk; I mean in this island, where they are much pursued and annoyed: butin Ascension-island, and many other desolate places, mariners have found fowlsso unacquainted with an human figure, that they would stand still to be taken;as is the case with boobies, etc. As an example of what is advanced, I remarkthat the golden-crested wren (the smallest British bird) will stand unconcernedtill you come within three or four yards of it, while the bustard (otis), thelargest British land fowl, does not care to admit a person within so manyfurlongs.

I am, etc.

Letter III

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Jan. 15, 1770.

Dear Sir,

It was no small matter of satisfaction to me to find that you were notdispleased with my little methodus of birds. If there was any merit in thesketch, it must be owing to its punctually. For many months I carried a list inmy pocket of the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I rode or walked aboutmy business, I noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird’ssong; so that I am as sure of the certainty of my facts as a man can be of anytransaction whatsoever.

I shall now proceed to answer the several queries which you put in your twoobliging letters, in the best manner that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and itsenvirons, where you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, andtherefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my lastletter, you will find that many species continued to warble after the beginningof July.

The titlark and yellowhammer breed late, the latter very late; and therefore itis no wonder that they protract their song; for I lay it down as a maxim inornithology, 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 incurious observerthat they whistle the year round, hard frost excepted; especially the latter.

It was not in my power to procure you a black-cap, or a less reed-sparrow, orsedge-bird, alive. As the first is undoubtedly, and the last, as far as I canyet see, a summer bird of passage, they would require more nice and curiousmanagement in a cage than I should be able to give them; they are bothdistinguished songsters. The note of the former has such a wild sweetness thatit always brings to my mind those lines in a song in As You Like It,

And tune his merry note
Unto the wild bird’s throat.—Shakespeare.

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

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

I should be almost ready to doubt the fact, that there are to be seen muchfewer birds in July than in any former month, notwithstanding so many young arehatched daily. Sure I am that it is far otherwise with respect to the swallowtribe, which increases prodigiously as the summer advances: and I saw, at thetime 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 otherspecies, may it not be owing to the dams being engaged in incubation, while theyoung are concealed by the leaves ?

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

I am, etc.

Letter IV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 19, 1770.

Dear Sir,

Your observation that ‘the cuckoo does not deposit its eggindiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in its way, butprobably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous, with whom to intrust itsyoung,’ is perfectly new to me; and struck me so forcibly, that Inaturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider whether the factwas 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 inthe nest of the wagtail, the hedge-sparrow, the titlark, the white-throat, andthe red-breast, all soft-billed insectivorous birds. The excellent Mr.Willughby mentions the nest of the palumbus (ring-dove), and of the fringilla(chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food: butthen he does not mention them as of his own knowledge; but says afterwards thathe saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. It appears hardly possible that asoft-billed bird should subsist on the same food with the hard-billed: for theformer have thin membranaceous stomachs suited to their soft food; while thelatter, the granivorous tribe, have strong muscular gizzards, which, likemills, grind, by the help of small gravels and pebbles, what is swallowed. Thisproceeding of the cuckoo, of dropping its eggs as it were by chance, is such amonstrous outrage on maternal affection, one of the first great dictates ofnature, and such a violence on instinct, that, had it only been related of abird 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 the naturalστοργὴ that seems to raise the kind in general above themselves, and inspirethem with extraordinary degrees of cunning and address, may be still enduedwith a more enlarged faculty of discerning what species are suitable andcongenerous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and young, and may depositthem only under their care, this would be adding wonder to wonder, andinstancing in a fresh manner that the methods of Providence are not subjectedto any mode or rule, but astonish us in new lights, and in various andchangeable appearances.

What was said by a very ancient and sublime writer concerning the defect ofnatural affection in the ostrich, may be well applied to the bird we aretalking of:

‘She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were nothers:
Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to herunderstanding.’

* Job xxxix. 16, 17.

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

I am, etc.

Letter V

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, April 12, 1770.

Dear Sir,

I heard many birds of several species sing last year after Midsummer; enough toprove that the summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to the musicof the woods. The yellowhammer no doubt persists with more steadiness than anyother; but the woodlark, the wren, the red-breast, the swallow, thewhite-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted instances ofthe truth of what I advance.

If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the summermigrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three days. I wish it was inmy power to procure you one of those songsters; but I am no birdcatcher; and solittle used to birds in a cage, that I fear if I had one it would soon die forwant of skill in feeding.

Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick-billed reed-sparrowof the Zoology, p. 320; or was it the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-birdof Mr. Pennant’s last publication, p. 16?

As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frosts, I haveno doubt within myself what should be the reason. The thriving at those timesappears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold throwsupon insensible perspiration. The case is just the same with blackbirds, etc.;and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindlyat such times, and the latter that the rabbits are never in such good case asin a gentle frost. But when frosts are severe, and of long continuance, thecase is soon altered; for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletionoccasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that somehuman constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

When we meet, I shall be glad to have some conversation with you concerning theproposal you make of my drawing up an account of the animals in thisneighbourhood. Your partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, Ifear, that I am able to do more than is in my power: for it is no smallundertaking for a man unsupported and alone to begin a natural history from hisown autopsia! Though there is endless room for observation in the field ofnature, which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man endeavours to besure of his facts) can make but slow progress; and all that one could collectin many years would go into a very narrow compass.

Some extracts from your ingenious ‘Investigations of the differencebetween the present temperature of the air in Italy,’ etc., have fallenin my way, and gave me great satisfaction: they have removed the objectionsthat always rose in my mind whenever I came to the passages which you quote.Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic poem for the region ofItaly, could never think of describing freezing rivers, unless such severity ofweather pretty frequently occurred!

P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

Letter VI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, May 21, 1770.

Dear Sir,

The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the regular progressof summer migration, that some of the birds do but just begin to showthemselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat,the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after thevery severe spring in the year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were veryscarce. They come probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blowsbetween those points; but in that unfavourable year the winds blowed the wholespring and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all thesedisadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year asearly as the eleventh of April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew againfor a time.

I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied withScopoli’s new publication;* there is room to expect great things fromthe hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and one would think that anhistory of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would benew and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sentdown. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilvermines of that district.

* This work he calls his Annus Primus Historico-Naturalis.

When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, I could nothelp wondering; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you (passerarundinaceus minor Raii) is a soft-billed bird; and most probably migrateshence before winter; whereas the bird you kept (passer torquatus Raii) abidesall the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the latter be muchof a songster; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The former hasa variety of hurrying notes, and sings all night. Some part of the song of theformer, I suspect, is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of thesoft-billed sort; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his BritishZoology, till I reminded him of his omission. See British Zoology lastpublished, p. 16.

** See Letter XXV to Mr. Pennant.

I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which different birdsfly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough considered, andis of such a nature as not to be contained in a small space, I shall saynothing farther about it at present.

* See Letter XLIII to Mr. Barrington.

No doubt the reason why the sex of birds in their first plumage is so difficultto be distinguished is, as you say, ‘because they are not to pair anddischarge their parental functions till the ensuing spring.’ As coloursseem to be the chief external sexual distinction in many birds, these coloursdo not take place till sexual attachments begin to obtain. And the case is thesame in quadrupeds; among whom, in their younger days, the sexes differ butlittle: but, as they advance to maturity, horns and shaggy manes, beards andbrawny necks, etc., etc., strongly discriminate the male from the female. Wemay instance still farther in our own species, where a beard and strongerfeatures are usually characteristic of the male sex: but this sexual diversitydoes not take place in earlier life; for a beautiful youth shall be so like abeautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible:

Quem si puellarum insereres choro,
Mire sagaces falleret hospites
Discrimen obscurum, solutis
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu.—HOR.

Letter VII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Ringmer, near Lewes, Oct. 8, 1770.

Dear Sir,

I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the birds of Jamaica; asight of the hirundines of that hot and distant island would be greatentertainment to me.

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

The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray’s Ornithology may bethe extreme poverty and distance of his country, into which the works of ourgreat naturalist may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, I know,whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli: as tomyself, I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity; the style correspondswith that of his Entomology: and his characters of his Ordines and Genera aremany of them new, expressive, and masterly. He has ventured to alter some ofthe Linnaean genera with sufficient show of reason.

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

Ray remarks that birds of the gallinae order, as cocks and hens, partridges,and pheasants, etc., are pulveratrices, such as dust themselves, using thatmethod of cleansing their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin. Asfar as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash: and I oncethought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust; but here I findmyself mistaken; for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, beingfrequency seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads; and yet they are greatwashers. Does not the skylark dust?

Query.—Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method ofpurification from these pulveratrices? because I find from travellers ofcredit, that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where nowater is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and mostscrupulously 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 birdon the ground; and that it was fed by the little bird. I went to see thisextraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in thenest of a titlark; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing

… in tenui re
Majores pennas nido extendisse …

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

In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found, after someobservation, that they were feeding on the libellulae, or dragon-flies; some ofwhich they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on thewing. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be induced to believe thatthey are birds of prey.

This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at Selborne. Inthe first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks (loxiae curvirostrae) haveappeared this summer in the pine-groves belonging to this house; thewater-ousel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven; andthe Cornish chough builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussexshore.

I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ousels (my newly-discoveredmigrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Sussex-downs from Chichesterto Lewes. Let them come from whence they will, it looks very auspicious thatthey are cantoned along the coast in order to pass the channel when severeweather advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem, in theirreturn; and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable thatthey are very tame, and seem to have no manner of apprehensions of danger froma 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 ridesround Lewes are most lovely!

As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp lookout in the lanes andwoods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some of thesummer short-winged birds of passage crowding towards the coast in order fortheir departure: but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a red-start,white-throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, etc. And I remember tohave made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to this placeannually about this time. The birds most common along the coast at present arethe stone-chatters, whin-chats, buntings, linnets, some few wheatears,titlarks, etc. Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong theirstay by this soft, still, dry season.

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

Letter VIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Dec. 20, 1770.

Dear Sir,

The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows (passeres torquati).

There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom that wantto be better understood: witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches thatappear with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among them. Now was therea due proportion of each sex, it should seem very improbable that any onedistrict should produce such numbers of these little birds; and much more whenonly half of the species appears: therefore we may conclude that the fringillaecaelebes, for some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own inwhich the sexes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse ofsexes in this species of birds should be interrupted in winter; since in manyanimals, and particularly in bucks and does, the sexes herd separately, exceptat the season when commerce is necessary for the continuance of the breed. Forthis matter of the chaffinches see Fauna Suecica, p. 85, and Systema Naturae,p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen chaffinches, but none of cocks.

Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the British singingbirds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one; since the matter of food isa great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the brute creation: thereis but one that can be set in competition with it, and that is love. But Icannot quite acquiesce with you in one circumstance when you advance that,‘when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small parties offive or six, and get the best fare they can within a certain district, havingno inducement to go in quest of fresh-turned earth.’ Now if you mean thatthe business of congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion ofwheat-sowing to the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; forlarks and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as muchin the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs andharrows.

Sure there can be no doubt but that woodcocks and fieldfares leave us in thespring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to some districts moresuitable to the purpose of breeding. That the former pair before they retire,and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was a sportsman, haveoften experienced. It cannot indeed be denied but that now and then we hear ofa woodcock’s nest, or young birds, discovered in some part or other ofthis island: but then they are always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat outof the common course of things: but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsmanor naturalist has ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the nestor young of those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I the more admireat this instance as extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food insummer as well as in winter might support them here which maintains theircongeners, the blackbirds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summerthrough. From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines somespecies of birds with regard to their stay or departure. Fieldfares andredwings disappear sooner or later according as the warm weather comes onearlier or later. For I well remember, after that dreadful winter of 1739-40,that cold north-east winds continued to blow on through April and May, andthat these kinds of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart as usual,but were seen lingering about till the beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birdsabove-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have writtenprofessedly the natural history of particular countries. Now, as to thefieldfare, Linnaeus, in his Fauna Suecica, says of it that ‘maximis inarboribus nidificat’; and of the redwing he says, in the same place, that‘nidificat in mediis arbusculis, sive sepibus: ova sex caeruleo-viridiamaculis nigris variis.’ Hence we may be assured that fieldfares andredwings breed in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his Annus Primus, of the woodcock,that ‘nupta ad nos venit circa aequinoctium vernale’; meaning inTirol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds ‘nidificat inpaludibus alpinis: ova ponit, 3-5.’ It does not appear from Kramer thatwoodcocks breed at all in Austria: but he says ‘Avis haecseptentrionalium provinciarum aestivo tempore incola est; ubi plerumquenidificat. Appropinquante hyeme australiores provincias petit: hinc circaplenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat. Tunc rursus circaplenilunium potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta adseptentrionales provincias redit.’ For the whole passage (which I haveabridged) see Elenchus, etc., p. 351. This seems to be a full proof of themigration of woodcocks; though little is proved concerning the place ofbreeding.

P.S. There fell in the county of Rutland, in three weeks of this present verywet weather, seven inches and an half of rain, which is more than has fallen inany three weeks for these thirty years past in that part of the world. A meanquantity in that county one year is twenty inches and an half.

Letter IX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Fyfield, near Andover, Feb. 12, 1771.

Dear Sir,

You are, I know, no great friend to migration; and the well attested accountsfrom various parts of the kingdom seem to justify you in your suspicions, thatat least many of the swallow kind do not leave us in the winter, but laythemselves up like insects and bats, in a torpid state, to slumber away themore uncomfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather awakensthem.

But then we must not, I think, deny migration in general; because migrationcertainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in Andalusia has fullyinformed me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration for manyweeks together, both spring and fall: during which periods myriads of theswallow kind traverse the Straits from north to south, and from south to north,according to the season. And these vast migrations consist not only ofhirundines but of bee-birds, hoopoes, oro pendolos or golden thrushes, etc.,etc., and also many of our soft-billed summer-birds of passage; and moreover ofbirds 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 incrediblearmies of hawks and kites which he saw in the spring-time traversing theThracian Bosphorus from Asia to Europe. Besides the above-mentioned, he remarksthat the procession is swelled by whole troops of eagles and vultures.

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

It does not appear to me that much stress may be laid on the difficulty andhazard that birds must run in their migrations, by reason of vast oceans, crosswinds, etc.; because, if we reflect, a bird may travel from England to theequator without launching out and exposing itself to boundless seas, and thatby crossing the water at Dover, and again at Gibraltar. And I with the moreconfidence advance this obvious remark, because my brother has always foundthat some of his birds, and particularly the swallow kind, are very sparing oftheir pains in crossing the Mediterranean: for when arrived at Gibraltar, theydo not

… rang’d in figure wedge their way,
… and set forth
Their airy caravan high over seas
Flying, and over lands with mutual wing
Easing their flight …

MILTON.

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

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

* I have read a like anecdote of a swan.

At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side that will take the troubleto remark at what time of the moon woodcocks first come: if I lived near thesea myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used toobserve when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which woodcocks wereso sluggish and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just before thespaniels, nay, just at the muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them: whetherthis strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall notpresume to say.

Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scotland, but also, as Ihave been always told, Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two last counties wecannot attribute the failure of them to the want of warmth: the defect in thewest is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over to us from thecontinent at the narrowest passage, and do not stroll so far westward.

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

The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating the booby of acuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last.

Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for Mr. Tunstal duringtheir autumnal visit; but I will endeavour to get him one when they call on usagain 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 birdsthat come much about the same time with the woodcock: they, like the fieldfareand redwing, have no apparent reason for migration; for as they fare in thewinter like their congeners, so might they in all appearance in the summer. Wasnot 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, oenas Raii, is the last winter bird of passagewhich appears with us; and is not seen till towards the end of November: abouttwenty years ago they abounded in the district of Selborne; and strings of themwere seen morning and evening that reached a mile or more: but since thebeechen woods have been greatly thinned they are much decreased in number. Thering-dove, palumbus Raii, stays with us the whole year, and breeds severaltimes through the summer.

Before I received your letter of October last I had just remarked in my journalthat the trees were unusually green. This uncommon verdure lasted on late intoNovember; 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, inmany places, reduced whole woods to a leafless naked state. These trees shotagain at Midsummer, and then retained their foliage till very late in the year.

My musical friend, at whose house I am now visiting, has tried all the owlsthat are his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe, set at concert-pitch, and findsthey all hoot in B flat. He will examine the nightingales next spring.

I am, etc., etc.

Letter X

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Aug. 1, 1771.

Dear Sir,

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

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the owlsabout this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat, or F sharp, in Bflat and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, and theother in B flat. Query: Do these different notes proceed from differentspecies, or only from various individuals? The same person finds upon trialthat the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies indifferent individuals; for, about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly inD: he heard two sing together, the one in D, the other in D sharp, who made adisagreeable concert: he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and aboutWolmer-forest some in C. As to nightingales, he says that their notes are soshort, and their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key.Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more distinguishable. Thisperson has tried to settle the notes of a swift, and of several other smallbirds, but cannot bring them to any criterion.

As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first birds that sufferwith us in severe weather, it is no wonder at all they retreat fromScandinavian winters: and much more the ordo of grallae, who, all to a bird,forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach of winter. ‘Grallaetanquam conjugatae unanimiter in fugam se conjiciunt; ne earum unicam quideminter nos habitantem invenire possimus; ut enim aestate in australibus degerenequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque siccam; ita nec in frigidis obeandem causam,’ says Eckmarck the Swede, in his ingenious little treatisecalled Migrationes Avium, which by all means you ought to read while yourthoughts run on the subject of migration. See Amoenitates Academicae, vol. iv,p. 565.

Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country andnot in another: but the grallae (which procure their food from marshes andboggy grounds) must in winter forsake the more northerly parts of Europe, orperish for want of food.

I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnaeus concerning the woodcock: it isexpected of him that he should be able to account for the motions and manner oflife of the animals of his own Fauna.

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

Foreign systematics are, I observe, much too vague in their specificdifferences; which are almost universally constituted by one or two particularmarks, the rest of the description running in general terms. But ourcountryman, the excellent Mr. Ray, is the only describer that conveys someprecise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over hisfollowers and imitators in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries andmodern information.

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

I am, etc., etc.

Letter XI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 8, 1772.

Dear Sir,

When I ride about in the winter, and see such prodigious flocks of variouskinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these congregations, and wishing thatit was in my power to account for those appearances almost peculiar to theseason. The two great motives which regulate the proceedings of the brutecreation are love and hunger; the former incites animals to perpetuate theirkind, the latter induces them to preserve individuals; whether either of theseshould seem to be the ruling passion in the matter of congregating is to beconsidered. As to love, that is out of the question at a time of the year whenthat soft passion is not indulged; besides, during the amorous season, such ajealousy prevails between the male birds that they can hardly bear to betogether in the same hedge or field. Most of the singing and elation of spiritsof that time seem to me to be the effect of rivalry and emulation: and it is tothis spirit of jealousy that I chiefly attribute the equal dispersion of birdsin the spring over the face of the country.

Now as to the business of food: as these animals are actuated by instinct tohunt for necessary food, they should not, one would suppose, crowd together inpursuit of sustenance at a time when it is most likely to fail: yet suchassociations do take place in hard weather chiefly, and thicken as the severityincreases. As some kind of self-interest and self-defence is no doubt themotive for the proceeding, may it not arise from the helplessness of theirstate in such rigorous seasons; as men crowd together, when under greatcalamities, though they know not why? Perhaps approximation may dispel somedegree of cold; and a crowd may make each individual appear safer from theravages of birds of prey and other dangers.

If I admire when I see how much congenerous birds love to congregate, I am themore struck when I see incongruous ones in such strict amity. If we do not muchwonder to see a flock of rooks usually attended by a train of dews, yet it isstrange that the former should so frequently have a flight of starlings fortheir satellites. Is it because rooks have a more discerning scent than theirattendants, and can lead them to spots more productive of food? Anatomists saythat rooks, by reason, of two large nerves which run down between the eyes intothe upper mandible, have a more delicate feeling in their beaks than otherround-billed birds, and can grope for their meat when out of sight. Perhapsthen their associates attend them on the motive of interest, as greyhounds waiton the motions of their finders; and as lions are said to do on the yelpings ofjackals. Lapwings and starlings sometimes associate.

Letter XII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

March 9, 1772.

Dear Sir,

As a gentleman and myself were walking on the fourth of last November round thesea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of naturalknowledge, we were surprised to see three house-swallows gliding very swiftlyby us. That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west; but thetenor of the weather for some time before had been delicate, and the noonsremarkably warm. From this incident, and from repeated accounts which I meetwith, I am more and more induced to believe that many of the swallow kind donot depart from this island; but lay themselves up in holes and caverns; anddo, insect-like and bat-like, come forth at mild times, and than retire againto their latebrae. Nor make I the least doubt but that, if I lived at Newhaven,Seaford, Brighthelmstone, or any of those towns near the chalk-cliffs of theSussex coast, by proper observations, I should see swallows stirring at periodsof the winter, when the noons were soft and inviting, and the sun warm andinvigorating. And I am the more of this opinion from what I have remarkedduring some of our late springs, that though some swallows did make theirappearance about the usual time, viz., the thirteenth or fourteenth of April,yet meeting with an harsh reception, and blustering cold north-east winds, theyimmediately withdrew, absconding for several days, till the weather gave thembetter encouragement.

Letter XIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

April 12, 1772.

Dear Sir,

While I was in Sussex last autumn my residence was at the village near Lewes,from whence I had formerly the pleasure of writing to you. On the first ofNovember I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first todig the ground in order to the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed onjust beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with itsfore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of itslegs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock; andsuitable to the composure of an animal said to be a whole month in performingone feat of copulation. Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature nightand 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 continuallyinterrupted, and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day; and thoughI continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remainedunfinished. Harsher weather, and frosty mornings, would have quickened itsoperations. No part of its behaviour ever struck me more than the extremetimidity it always expresses with regard to rain; for though it has a shellthat would secure it against the wheel of a loaded cart, yet does it discoveras 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 walkselate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning,so sure will it rain before night. It is totally a diurnal animal, and neverpretends to stir after it becomes dark. The tortoise, like other reptiles, hasan arbitrary stomach as well as lungs; and can refrain from eating as well asbreathing 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 itfeeds voraciously, devouring all the food that comes in its way. I was muchtaken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices; for, assoon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more thanthirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity; butremains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only ‘the ox knoweth hisowner, and the ass has master’s crib,’* but the most abjectreptile and torpid of beings distinguishes the hand that feeds it, and istouched with the feelings of gratitude!

* Isaiah i. 3.

I am, etc., etc.

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

Letter XIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, March 26, 1773.

Dear Sir,

The more I reflect on the στοργὴ of animals, the more I am astonished at itseffects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than theshortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of theyard, in proportion to the helplessness of her brood; and will fly in the faceof a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she willdrive before her with relentless cruelty.

This affection sublimes the passions, quickens the invention, and sharpens thesagacity of the brute creation. Thus an hen, just become a mother, is no longerthat placid bird she used to be, but with feathers standing on end, wingshovering, and clocking note, she runs about like one possessed. Dams will throwthemselves in the way of the greatest danger in order to avert it from theirprogeny. Thus a partridge will tumble along before a sportsman in order to drawaway the dogs from her helpless covey. In the time of nidification the mostfeeble birds will assault the most rapacious. All the hirundines of a villageare up in arms at the sight of an hawk, whom they will persecute till he leavesthat district. A very exact observer has often remarked that a pair of ravensnesting in the rock of Gibraltar would suffer no vulture or eagle to rest neartheir station, but would drive them from the hill with an amazing fury: eventhe blue thrush at the season of breeding would dart out from the clefts of therocks to chase away the kestril, or the sparrow-hawk. If you stand near thenest of a bird that has young, she will not be induced to betray them by aninadvertent fondness, but will wait about at a distance with meat in her mouthfor an hour together.

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

The fly-catcher of the Zoology (the stoparola of Ray), builds every year in thevines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had oneyear inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time,not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But an hot sunny seasoncoming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall becameinsupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had notaffection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent-birds to hover overthe nest all the hotter hours, while with wings expanded, and mouths gaping forbreath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring.

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

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

To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might be dailydiscovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed that rage ofaffection, that monstrous perversion of the στοργὴ, which induces some femalesof the brute creation to devour their young because their owners have handledthem too freely, or removed them from place to place! Swine, and sometimes themore gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterousmurder. When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys heroffspring, I am not so much amazed; since reason perverted, and the badpassions let loose, are capable of any enormity: but why the parental feelingsof brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should sometimes be soextravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine.

I am, etc.

Letter XV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, July 8, 1773.

Dear Sir,

Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of Wolmer-forest to huntflappers, or young wild-ducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest,some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which, upon examination, Ifound to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the southof England, and was much pleased with the discovery: this I look upon as agreat stroke in natural history.

We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls that constantlybreed under the eaves of this church. As I have paid good attention to themanner of life of these birds during their season of breeding, which lasts thesummer through, the following remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable: —About an hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) they sally forthin quest of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small enclosuresfor them, which seem to be their only food. In this irregular country we canstand on an eminence and see them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, andoften drop down in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watchfor an hour together, and have found that they return to their nests, the oneor the other of them, about once in five minutes; reflecting at the same timeon the adroitness that every animal is possessed of as regards the well-beingof itself and offspring. But a piece of address, which they show when theyreturn loaded, should not, I think, be passed over in silence. — As theytake their prey with their claws, so they carry it in their claws to theirnest: but, as the feet are necessary in their ascent under the tiles, theyconstantly perch first on the roof of the chancel, and shift the mouse fromtheir claws to their bill, that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of theplate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves.

White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot at all: all thatclamorous hooting appears to me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl doesindeed snore and hiss in a tremendous manner; and these menaces well answer theintention of intimidating: for I have known a whole village up in arms on suchan occasion, imagining the church-yard to be full of goblins and spectres.White owls also often scream horribly as they fly along; from this screamingprobably arose the common people’s imaginary species of screech-owl,which they superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. Theplumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yetexamined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessary that thewings of these birds should not make much resistance or rushing, that they maybe enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry.

While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to mention what I was toldby a gentleman of the county of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollowpollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered atthe bottom a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. Afterexamination, he found it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps ofbirds and bats) that had been heaping together for ages, being cast up inpellets out of the crops of many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast upthe bones, fur, and feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks. Hebelieves, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of substance.

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

I am, etc.

The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, social, anduseful tribe of birds: they touch no fruit in our gardens; delight, all exceptone species, in attaching themselves to our houses; amuse us with theirmigrations, songs, and marvellous agility; and clear our outlets from theannoyances of gnats and other troublesome insects. Some districts in the southseas, near Guiaquil,* are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms ofvenomous mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those coasts insupportable.It would be worth inquiring whether any species of hirundines is found in thoseregions. Whoever contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeamsof a summer evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degreeour atmosphere would be choked with them was it not for the friendlyinterposition of the swallow tribe.

* See Ulloa’s Travels.

Many species of birds have their particular lice; but the hirundines alone seemto be annoyed with dipterous insects, which infest every species, and are solarge, in proportion to themselves, that they must be truly irksome andinjurious to them. These are the hippoboscae hirundinis with narrow subulatedwings, abounding in every nest; and are hatched by the warmth of thebird’s own body during incubation, and crawl about under its feathers.

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

The curious Reaumur discovered the large eggs, or rather pupae, of these fliesas big as the flies themselves, which he hatched in his own bosom. Any personthat will take the troupe to examine the old nests of either species ofswallows may find in them the black shining cases of the pupae of theseinsects: but for other particulars, too long for this place, we refer thereader to L’Histoire d’Insectes of that admirable entomologist.Tom. iv. pi. ii.

Letter XVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Nov. 20, 1773.

Dear Sir,

In obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some account of thehouse-martin, or martlet; and, if my monography of this little domestic andfamiliar bird should happen to meet with your approbation, I may probably soonextend my inquiries to the rest of the British hirundines — the swallow,the swift, and the bank-martin.

A few house-martins begin to appear about the sixteenth of April; usually somefew days later than the swallow. For some time after they appear the hirundinesin general pay no attention to the business of nidification, but play and sportabout either to recruit from the fatigue of their journey, if they do migrateat all, or else that their blood may recover its true tone and texture after ithas been so long benumbed by the severities of winter. About the middle of May,if the weather be fine, the martin begins to think in earnest of providing amansion for its family. The crust or shell of this nest seems to be formed ofsuch dirt or loam as comes most readily to hand, and is tempered and wroughttogether with little bits of broken straws to render it tough and tenacious. Asthis bird often builds against a perpendicular wall without any projectingledge under, it requires its utmost efforts to get the first foundation firmlyfixed, so that it may safely carry the superstructure. On this occasion thebird not only clings with its claws, but partly supports itself by stronglyinclining its tail against the wall, making that a fulcrum; and thus steadiedit works and plasters the materials into the face of the brick or stone. Butthen, that this work may not, while it is soft and green, pull itself down byits own weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough notto advance her work too fast; but by building only in the morning, and bydedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement, gives it sufficient timeto dry and harden. About half an inch seems to be a sufficient layer for a day.Thus careful workmen when they build mud-walls (informed at first perhaps bythis lithe bird) raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist; lestthe work should become top-heavy, and so be ruined by is own weight. By thismethod in about ten or twelve days is formed an hemispheric nest with a smallaperture towards the top, strong, compact, and warm; and perfectly fitted forall the purposes for which it was intended. But then nothing is more commonthan for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it asis own, to eject the owner, and to line it after is own manner.

After so much labour is bestowed in erecting a mansion, as nature seldom worksin vain, martins win breed on for several years together in the same nest,where it happens to be well sheltered and secure from the injuries of weather.The shed or crust of the nest is a sort of rustic work full of knobs andprotuberances on the outside: nor is the inside of those that I have examinedsmoothed with any exactness at all; but is rendered soft and warm, and fit forincubation, by a lining of small straws, grasses, and feathers, and sometimesby a bed of moss interwoven with wool. In this nest they tread, or engender,frequently during the time of building; and the hen lays from three to fivewhite 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 theiryoung. Was it not for this affectionate cleanliness the nestlings would soon beburnt up, and destroyed in so deep and hollow a nest, by their own causticexcrement. In the quadruped creation the same neat precaution is made use of;particularly among dogs and cats, where the dams lick away what proceeds fromtheir young. But in birds there seems to be a particular provision, that thedung of nestlings is enveloped into a tough kind of jelly, and therefore is theeasier conveyed off without soiling or daubing. Yet, as nature is cleanly inall her ways, the young perform this office for themselves in a little time bythrusting their tails out at the aperture of their nest. As the young of smallbirds presently arrive at their ἡλικία or full growth, they soon becomeimpatient of confinement, and sit all day with their heads out at the orifice,where the dams, by clinging to the nest, supply them with food from morning tonight. For a time the young are fed on the wing by their parents; but the featis done by so quick and almost imperceptible a sleight, that a person must haveattended 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 immediatelyturn 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 arethe birds that are seen clustering and hovering on sunny mornings and eveningsround towers and steeples, and on the mobs of churches and houses. Thesecongregations usually begin to take place about the first week in August; andtherefore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty wellover. The young of this species do not quit their abodes all together; but themore forward birds get abroad some days before the rest. These approaching theeaves of buildings, and playing about before them, make people think thatseveral old ones attend one nest. They are often capricious in fixing on anesting place, beginning many edifices, and leaving them unfinished; but whenonce 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 thosethat build new by ten days or a fortnight. These industrious artificers are attheir labours in the long days before four in the morning: when they fix thanmaterials they plaster them on with their chins, moving their heads with aquick vibratory motion. They dip and wash as they fly sometimes in very hotweather, but not so frequency as swallows. It has been observed that martinsusually build to a north-east or north-west aspect, that the heat of the sunmay not crack and destroy their nests: but instances are also remembered wherethey bred for many years in vast abundance in an hot stifled inn-yard, againsta wall facing to the south.

Birds in general are wise in their choice of situation: but in thisneighbourhood every summer is seen a strong proof to the contrary at an housewithout eaves in an exposed district, where some martins build year by year inthe corners of the windows. But, as the corners of these windows (which face tothe south-east and south-west) are too shallow, the nests are washed down everyhard 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 themlabouring when half their nest is washed away and bringing dirt ….‘generis lapsi sarcire ruinas.’ Thus is instinct a most wonderfulunequal faculty; in some instances so much above reason, in other respects sofar below it! Martins love to frequent towns, especially if there are greatlakes and rivers at hand; nay, they even affect the close air of London. And Ihave not only seen them nesting in the Borough, but even in the Strand andFleet-street; but then it was obvious from the dinginess of their aspect thattheir feathers partook of the filth of that sooty atmosphere. Martins are byfar the least agile of the four species; their wings and tails are short, andtherefore they are not capable of such surprising turns and quick and glancingevolutions as the swallow. Accordingly they make use of a placid easy motion ina middle region of the air, seldom mounting to any great height, and neversweeping long together over the surface of the ground or water. They do notwander far for food, but affect sheltered districts, over some lake, or undersome hanging wood, or in some hollow vale, especially in windy weather. Theybreed the latest of all the swallow kind: in 1772 they had nestlings on toOctober the twenty-first, and are never without unfledged young as late asMichaelmas.

As the summer declines the congregating docks increase in numbers daily by theconstant accession of the second broods, till at last they swarm in myriadsupon myriads round the villages on the Thames, darkening the face of the sky asthey frequent the aits of that river, where they roost. They retire, the bulkof them I mean, in vast flocks together about the beginning of October: buthave appeared of late years in a considerable eight in this neighbourhood, forone day or two, as late as November the third and sixth, after they weresupposed to have been gone for more than a fortnight. They therefore withdrawwith us the latest of any species. Unless these birds ate very short-livedindeed, or unless they do not return to the district where they are bred, theymust undergo vast devastations somehow, sad somewhere; for the birds thatreturn yearly bear no manner of proportion to the birds that retire.

House-martins ate distinguished from that congeners by having that legs covetedwith soft downy feathers down to their toes. They are no songsters, but twitterin a pretty inward soft manner in their nests. During the time of breeding theyare often greatly molested with fleas.

I am, etc.

Letter XVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Ringmer, near Lewes, Dec. 9, 1773.

Dear Sir,

I received your last favour just as I was setting out for this place; and ampleased to find that my monography met with your approbation. My remarks arethe result of many years’ observation; and are, I trust, true on thewhole: though I do not pretend to say that they are perfectly void of mistake,or that a more nice observer ought not make many additions, since subjects ofthis kind are inexhaustible.

If you think my letter worthy the notice of your respectable society, you areat liberty to lay it before them; and they win consider it, I hope, as it wasintended, as an humble attempt to promote a more minute inquiry into naturalhistory; into the life and conversation of animals. Perhaps hereafter I may beinduced to take the house-swallow under consideration, and from that proceedto the rest of the British hirundines.

Though I have now travelled the Sussex-downs upwards of thirty years, yet Istill investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh admiration yearby year; and think I see new beauties every time I traverse it. This range,which runs from Chichester eastward as far as East-Bourn, is about sixty milesin length, and is called the South Downs, properly speaking, only round Lewes.As you pass along you command a noble view of the wild, or weald, on one hand,and the broad downs and sea on the other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family* justat the foot of these hips, and was so ravished with the prospect fromPlumpton-plain near Lewes, that he mentions those scopes in his Wisdom of Godin the Works of the Creation with the utmost satisfaction, and thinks themequal to anything he had seen in the finest parts of Europe.

* Mr. Courthope, of Danny.

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

Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to convey to youthe same idea, but I never contemplate these mountains without thinking Iperceive somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings and smoochfungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, and regular hollows and slopes,that carry at once the air of vegetative dilation and expansion…. Or was thereever a time when these immense masses of calcareous matter were drown intofermentation by some adventitious moisture; were raised and leavened into suchshapes by some plastic power; and so made to swell and heave their broad backsinto the sky so much above the less animated clay of the wild below?

By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the hills that have been takenround my house, I should suppose that these hills surmount the wild at auaverage at about the rate of five hundred feet.

One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep: from the westward till you get tothe river Adur all the flocks have horns, and smooth white faces, and whitelegs; and a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen: but as soon as you pass theriver 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 whitetuft of wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs: so that youwould 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 theother. And this diversity holds good respectively on each side from the valleyof Bramber and Beeding to the eastward, and westward all the whole length ofthe downs. If you talk with the shepherds on this subject, they tell you thatthe case has been so from time immemorial: and smile at your simplicity if youask them whether the situation of these two different breeds might not bereversed? However, an intelligent friend of mine near Chichester is determinedto try the experiment; and has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at,introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned western ewes.The black-faced poll-sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool.

As I had hardly ever before travelled these downs at so late a season of theyear, I was determined to keep as sharp a look-out as possible so near thesouthern coast, with respect to the summer short-winged birds of passage. Wemake great inquiries concerning the withdrawing of the swallow kind, withoutexamining 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 ofthe former, and much more unaccountable. The hirundines, if they please, arecertainly capable of migration; and yet no doubt are often found in a torpidstate: but redstarts, nightingales, white-throats, black-caps, etc., etc., arevery ill provided for long flights; have never been once found, as I ever heardof, in a torpid state, and yet can never be supposed, in such troops, from yearto year to dodge and elude the eyes of the curious and inquisitive, which fromday to day discern the other small birds that are known to abide our winters.But, notwithstanding all my care, I saw nothing like a summer bird of passage:and, what is more strange, not one wheat-ear, though they abound so in theautumn as to be a considerable perquisite to the shepherds that take them; andthough many are to be seen to my knowledge all the winter through in many partsof the south of England. The most intelligent shepherds tell me that some fewof these birds appear on the downs in March, and then withdraw to breedprobably in warrens and stone-quarries: now and then a nest is plowed up in afallow on the downs under a furrow, but it is thought a rarity. At the time ofwheat-harvest they begin to be taken in great numbers; are sent for sale invast quantities to Brighthelmstone and Tunbridge; and appear at the tables ofall the gentry that entertain with any degree of elegance. About Michaelmasthey retire and are seen no more till March. Though these birds are, when inseason, in great plenty on the south downs round Lewes, yet at East-Bourn,which is the eastern extremity of those downs, they abound much more. One thingis very remarkable — that though in the height of the season so manyhundreds of dozens are taken, yet they never are seen to flock; and it is arare thing to see more than three or four at a time: so that there must be aperpetual flitting and constant progressive succession. It does not appear thatany wheat-ears are taken to the westward of Houghton-bridge, which stands onthe river Arun.

I did not fail to look particularly after my new migration of ring-ousels; andto 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 fromChichester to Lewes wherever there were any shrubs and covert: but not one birdof this sort came within my observation. I only saw a few larks and whin-chats,some rooks, and several kites and buzzards.

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

The old tortoise, that I have mentioned in a former letter, still continues inthis garden; and retired under ground about the twentieth of November, and cameout again for one day on the thirtieth: it lies now buried in a wet swampyborder under a wall facing to the south, and is enveloped at present in mud andmire!

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

I am, etc.

Letter XVIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Jan. 29, 1774.

Dear Sir,

The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer of allthe British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the thirteenth ofApril, as I have remarked from many years’ observation. Not but now andthen a straggler is seen much earlier: and, in particular, when I was a boy Iobserved a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday;which day could not fall out later than the middle of March, and often happenedearly in February.

It is worth remarking that these birds are seen first about lakes andmill-ponds; and it is also very particular, that if these early visitors happento find frost and snow, as was the case of the two dreadful springs of 1770 and1771, they immediately withdraw for a time. A circumstance this much more infavour of hiding than migration; since it is much more probable that a birdshould retire to its hybernaculum just at hand, than return for a week or twoonly to warmer latitudes.

The swallow, though called the chimney-swallow, by no means builds altogetherin chimneys, but often within barns and out-houses against the rafters; and soshe did in Virgil’s time:

… Ante
Garrula quam tignis nidos suspendat hirundo.

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

Here and there a bird may affect some odd, peculiar place; as we have known aswallow build down the shaft of an old well, through which chalk had beenformerly drawn up for the purpose of manure: but in general with us thishirundo breeds in chimneys; and loves to haunt those stacks where there is aconstant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth. Not that it can subsist in theimmediate shaft where there is a fire; but prefers one adjoining to that of thekitchen, and disregards the perpetual smoke of that funnel, as I have oftenobserved with some degree of wonder.

Five or six or more feet down the chimney does this little bird begin to formher nest about the middle of May, which consists, like that of thehouse-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud, mixed with shortpieces of straw to render it tough and permanent; with this difference, thatwhereas the shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow isopen at the top, and like half a deep dish: this nest is lined with finegrasses, and feathers which are often collected as they float in the air.

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

The swallow lays from four to six white eggs, dotted with red specks; andbrings out her first brood about the last week in June, or the first week inJuly. The progressive method by which the young are introduced into life isvery amusing: first, they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, andoften fall down into the rooms below: for a day or so they are fed on thechimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree,where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may thenbe called perchers. In a day or two more they become flyers, but are stillunable to take their own food; therefore they play about near the place wherethe dams are hawking for flies; and when a mouthful is collected, at a certainsignal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising towards each other, andmeeting at an angle; the young one all the while uttering such a little quicknote of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very littleregard to the wonders of nature that has not often remarked this feat.

The dam betakes herself immediately to the business of a second brood as soonas she is disengaged from her first; which at once associates with the firstbroods of house-martins; and with them congregates, clustering on sunny roofs,towers, and trees. This hirundo brings out her second brood towards the middleand end of August.

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

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

The swallow is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny weather sings bothperching and flying; on trees in a kind of concert, and on chimney-tops: isalso a bold flyer, ranging to distant downs and commons even in windy weather,which the other species seem much to dislike; nay, even frequenting exposedsea-port towns, and making little excursions over the salt water. Horsemen onwide downs are often closely attended by a little party of swallows for milestogether, which plays before and behind them, sweeping around, and collectingall the skulking insects that are roused by the trampling of the horses’feet: when the wind blows hard, without this expedient, they are often forcedto settle to pick up their lurking prey.

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

Some few pairs haunt the new and open streets of London next the fields, but donot enter, like the house-martin, the close and crowded parts of the city.

Both male and female are distinguished from their congeners by the length andforkedness of their tails. They are undoubtedly the most nimble of all thespecies: and when the male pursues the female in amorous chase, they then gobeyond their usual speed, and exert a rapidity almost too quick for the eye tofollow.

After this circumstantial detail of the life and discerning στοργὴ of theswallow, I shall add, for your farther amusement, an anecdote or two not muchin favour of her sagacity:

A certain swallow built for two years together on the handles of a pair ofgarden-shears, that were stuck up against the boards in an out-house, andtherefore must have her nest spoiled whenever that implement was wanted: and,what is stranger still, another bird of the same species built its nest on thewings and body of an owl that happened by accident to hang dead and dry fromthe rafter of a barn. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and with eggs inthe nest, was brought as a curiosity worthy the most elegant private museum inGreat Britain. The owner, struck with the oddity of the sight, furnished thebringer with a large shell, or conch, desiring him to fix it just where the owlhung: the person did as he was ordered, and the following year a pair, probablythe same pair, built their nest in the conch, and laid their eggs.

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

* Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum.

Thus is instinct in animals, taken the least out of its way, anundistinguishing, limited faculty; and blind to every circumstance that doesnot immediately respect self-preservation, or lead at once to the propagationor support of their species.

I am,

With all respect, etc., etc.

Letter XIX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 14, 1774.

Dear Sir,

I received your favour of the eighth, and am pleased to find that you read mylittle history of the swallow with your usual candour: nor was I less pleasedto find that you made objections where you saw reason.

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

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

As to the simile, too much stress must not be laid on it: yet the epithet nigraspeaks plainly in favour of the swallow, whose back and wings are very black;while the rump of the martin is milk-white, its back and wings blue, and allits under part white as snow. Nor can the clumsy motions (comparatively clumsy)of the martin well represent the sudden and artful evolutions and quick turnswhich Juturna gave to her brother’s chariot, so as to elude the eagerpursuit of the enraged Aeneas. The verb sonat also seems to imply a bird thatis somewhat loquacious.

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

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

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

Letter XX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 26, 1774.

Dear Sir,

The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least of any of the Britishhirundines; and, as far as we have ever seen, the smallest known hirundo;though Brisson asserts that there is one much smaller, and that is the hirundoesculenta.

But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any observer tobe so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the circumstances attendingthe life and conversation of this little bird, since it is fera natura, atleast in this part of the kingdom, disclaiming all domestic attachments, andhaunting wild heaths and commons where there are large lakes; while the otherspecies, especially the swallow and house-martin, are remarkably gentle anddomesticated, and never seem to think themselves safe but under the protectionof man.

Here are in this parish, in the sand-pits and banks of the lakes ofWolmer-forest, several colonies of these birds; and yet they are never seen inthe village; nor do they at all frequent the cottages that are scattered aboutin that wild district. The only instance I ever remember where this specieshaunts any building is at the town of Bishop’s Waltham, in this county,where many sand-martins nestle and breed in the scaffold-holes of theback-wall of William of Wykeham’s stables: but then this wall stands in avery sequestered and retired enclosure, and faces upon a large and beautifullake. And indeed this species seems so to delight in large waters, that noinstance occurs of their abounding, but near vast pools or rivers: and inparticular it has been remarked that they swarm in the banks of the Thames insome places below London-bridge.

It is curious to observe with what different degrees of architectonic skillProvidence has endowed birds of the same genus, and so nearly correspondent intheir general mode of life! for while the swallow and the house-martin discoverthe greatest address in raising and securely fixing crusts or shells of loam ascunabula for their young, the bank-martin terebrates a round and regular holein the sand or earth, which is serpentine, horizontal, and about two feet deep.At the inner end of this burrow does this bird deposit, in a good degree ofsafety, her rude nest, consisting of fine grasses and feathers, usuallygoose-feathers, very inartificially laid together.

Perseverance will accomplish anything: though at first one would be disinclinedto believe that this weak bird, with her soft and tender bill and claws, shouldever be able to bore the stubborn sand-bank without entirely disabling herself;yet with these feeble instruments have I seen a pair of them make greatdispatch: and could remark how much they had scooped that day by the fresh sandwhich ran down the bank, and was of a different colour from that which layloose and bleached in the sun.

In what space of time these little artists are able to mine and finish thesecavities I have never been able to discover, for reasons given above; but itwould be a matter worthy of observation, where it falls in the way of anynaturalist to make his remarks. This I have often taken notice of, that severalholes of different depths are left unfinished at the end of summer. To imaginethat these beginnings were intentionally made in order to be in the greaterforwardness for next spring, is allowing perhaps too much foresight and rerumprudentia to a simple bird. May not the cause of these latebrae being leftunfinished arise from their meeting in those places with strata too harsh,hard, and solid, for their purpose, which they relinquish, and go to a freshspot that works more freely ? Or may they not in other places fall in with asoil as much too loose and mouldering, liable to flounder, and threatening tooverwhelm them and their labours ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notwithstanding what has been advanced above, some few sand-martins, I see,haunt the skirts of London, frequenting the dirty pools in SaintGeorge’s-Fields, and about White-Chapel. The question is where thesebuild, since there are no banks or bold shores in that neighbourhood: perhapsthey nestle in the scaffold-holes of some old or new deserted building. Theydip and wash as they fly sometimes, like the house-martin and swallow.

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

Letter XXI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 28, 1774.

Dear Sir,

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

The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architecture, making nocrust, or shell, for its nest; but forming it of dry grasses and feathers, veryrudely and inartificially put together. With all my attention to these birds, Ihave never been able once to discover one in the act of collecting or carryingin materials: so that I have suspected (since their nests are exactly the same)that they sometimes usurp upon the house-sparrows, and expel them, as sparrowsdo the house and sand-martin; well remembering that I have seen them squabblingtogether at the entrance of their holes; and the sparrows up in arms, and muchdisconcerted at these intruders. And yet I am assured, by a nice observer insuch matters, that they do collect feathers for their nests in Andalusia; andthat he has shot them with such materials in their mouths.

Swifts, like sand-martins, carry on the business of nidification quite in thedark, in crannies of castles, and towers, and steeples, and upon the tops ofthe walls of churches under the roof; and therefore cannot be so narrowlywatched as those species that build more openly: but, from what I could everobserve, they begin nesting about the middle of May; and I have remarked, fromeggs taken, that they have sat hard by the ninth of June. In general they haunttall buildings, churches, and steeples, and breed only in such: yet in thisvillage some pairs frequent the lowest and meanest cottages, and educate theiryoung under those thatched roofs. We remember but one instance where they breedout of buildings; and that is in the sides of a deep chalk-pit near the town ofOdiham, in this county, where we have seen many pairs entering the crevices,and skimming and squeaking round the precipices.

As I have regarded these amusive birds with no small attention, if I shouldadvance something new and peculiar with respect to them, and different from allother birds, I might perhaps be credited; especially as my assertion is theresult of many years’ exact observation. The fact that I would advanceis, that swifts tread, or copulate, on the wing: and I would wish any niceobserver, that is startled at this supposition, to use his own eyes, and Ithink he will soon be convinced. In another class of animals, viz., the insect,nothing is so common as to see the different species of many genera inconjunction as they fly. The swift is almost continually on the wing; and as itnever settles on the ground, on trees, or roofs, would seldom find opportunityfor amorous rites, was it not enabled to indulge them in the air. If any personwould watch these birds of a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round ata great height from the ground, he would see, every now and then, one drop onthe back of another, and both of them sink down together for many fathoms witha loud piercing shriek. This I take to be the juncture when the business ofgeneration is carrying on.

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

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

When the hen has sat hard all day, she rushes forth just as it is almost dark,and stretches and relieves her weary limbs, and snatches a scanty meal for afew minutes, and then returns to her duty of incubation. Swifts, when wantonlyand cruelly shot while they have young, discover a little lump of insects intheir mouths, which they pouch and hold under their tongue. In general theyfeed in a much higher district than the other species; a proof that gnats andother insects do also abound to a considerable height in the air: they alsorange to vast distances; since locomotion is no labour to them, who are endowedwith such wonderful powers of wing. Their powers seem to be in proportion totheir levers; and their wings are longer in proportion than those of almost anyother bird. When they mute, or ease themselves in flight, they raise theirwings, and make them meet over their backs.

At some certain times in the summer I had remarked that swifts were hawkingvery low for hours together over pools and streams; and could not helpinquiring into the object of their pursuit that induced them to descend so muchbelow their usual range. After some trouble, I found that they were takingphryganeae, ephemerae, and libellulae (cadew-flies, may-flies, anddragon-flies) that were just emerged out of their aurelia state. I then nolonger wondered that they should be so willing to stoop for a prey thatafforded them such plentiful and succulent nourishment.

They bring out their young about the middle or latter end of July: but as thesenever become perchers, nor, that ever I could discern, are fed on the wing bytheir dams, the coming forth of the young is not so notorious as in the otherspecies.

On the thirtieth of last June I untiled the eaves of an house where many pairsbuild, and found in each nest only two squab naked pulli: on the eighth of JulyI repeated the same inquiry, and found they had made very little progresstowards a fledged state, but were still naked and helpless. From whence we mayconclude that birds whose way of life keeps them perpetually on the wing wouldnot be able to quit their nest till the end of the month. Swallows and martins,that have numerous families, are continually feeding them every two or threeminutes; while swifts, that have but two young to maintain, are much at theirleisure, and do not attend on their nests for hours together.

Sometimes they pursue and strike at hawks that come in their way; but not withthat vehemence and fury that swallows express on the same occasion. They areout all day long in wet days, feeding about, and disregarding still rain: fromwhence two things may be gathered; first, that many insects abide high in theair, even in rain; and next, that the feathers of these birds must be wellpreened to resist so much wet. Windy, and particularly windy weather with heavyshowers, they dislike; and on such days withdraw, and are scarce ever seen.

There is a circumstance respecting the colour of swifts, which seems not to beunworthy our attention. When they arrive in the spring they are all over of aglossy, dark soot-colour, except their chins, which are white; but, by beingall day long in the sun and air, they become quite weather-beaten and bleachedbefore they depart, and yet they return glossy again in the spring. Now, ifthey pursue the sun into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to enjoy aperpetual summer, why do they not return bleached ? Do they not rather perhapsretire to rest for a season, and at that juncture moult and change theirfeathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon after the season ofbreeding?

Swifts are very anomalous in many particulars, dissenting from all theircongeners not only in the number of their young, but in breeding but once in asummer; whereas all the other British hirundines breed invariably twice. It ispast all doubt that swifts can breed but once, since they withdraw in a shorttime after the flight of their young, and some time before their congenersbring out their second brood. We may here remark, that, as swifts breed butonce in a summer, and only two at a time, and the other hirundines twice, thelatter, who lay from four to six eggs, increase at an average five times asfast as the former.

But in nothing are swifts more singular than in their early retreat. Theyretire, as to the main body of them, by the tenth of August, and sometimes afew days sooner: and every straggler invariably withdraws by the twentieth,while their congeners, all of them, stay till the beginning of October; many ofthem all through that month, and some occasionally to the beginning ofNovember. This early retreat is mysterious and wonderful, since that time isoften the sweetest season in the year. But, what is more extraordinary, theybegin to retire still earlier in the most southerly parts of Andalusia, wherethey can be no ways influenced by any defect of heat; or, as one might suppose,defect of food. Are they regulated in their motions with us by a failure offood, or by a propensity to moulting, or by a disposition to rest after sorapid a life, or by what? This is one of those incidents in natural historythat not only baffles our searches, but almost eludes our guesses!

These hirundines never perch on trees or roofs, and so never congregate withtheir congeners. They are fearless while haunting their nesting places, and arenot to be scared with a gun; and are often beaten down with poles and cudgelsas they stoop to go under the eaves. Swifts are much infested with those peststo the genus called hippoboscae hirundinis; and often wriggle and scratchthemselves, in their flight, to get rid of that clinging annoyance.

Swifts are no songsters, and have only one harsh screaming note; yet there areears to which it is not displeasing, from an agreeable association of ideas,since that note never occurs but in the most lovely summer weather.

They never settle on the ground but through accident; and when down can hardlyrise, on account of the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings:neither can they walk, but only crawl; but they have a strong grasp with theirfeet, by which they cling to walls. Their bodies being flat they can enter avery narrow crevice; and where they cannot pass on their bellies they will turnup edgewise.

The particular formation of the foot discriminates the swift from all Britishhirundines; and indeed from all other known birds, the hirundo melba, greatwhite-bellied swift of Gibraltar, excepted; for it is so disposed as to carry‘omnes quatuor digitos anticos’ all its four toes forward; besides,the least toe, which should be the back-toe, consists of one bone alone, andthe other three only of two apiece. A construction most rare and peculiar, butnicely adapted to the purposes in which their feet are employed. This, and somepeculiarities attending the nostrils and under mandible, have induced adiscerning naturalist* to suppose that this species might constitute a genusper se.

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

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

The Swedes have bestowed a very pertinent name on this swallow, calling it ringswala, form the perpetual rings or circles that it takes round the scene of itsnidification.

Swifts feed on coleoptera, or small beetles with hard cases over their wings,as well as on the softer insects; but it does not appear how they can procuregravel to grind their food, as swallows do, since they never settle on theground. Young ones, over-run with hippoboscae, are sometimes found, under theirnests, fallen to the ground: the number of vermin rendering their abodeinsupportable any longer. They frequent in this village several abjectcottages: yet a succession still haunts the same unlikely roofs: a good proofthis that the same birds return to the same spots. As they must stoop very lowto get up under these humble eaves, cats lie in wait, and sometimes catch themon the wing.

On the fifth of July, 1775, I again untiled part of a roof over the nest of aswift. The dam sat in the nest; but so strongly was she affected by naturalστοργὴ for her brood, which she supposed to be in danger, that, regardless ofher own safety, she would not stir, but lay sullenly by them, permittingherself to be taken in hand. The squab young we brought down and placed on thegrass-plot, where they tumbled about, and were as helpless as a new-born child.While we contemplated their naked bodies, their unwieldy disproportionedabdomina, and their heads, too heavy for their necks to support, we could notbut wonder when we reflected that these shiftless beings in a little more thana fortnight would be able to dash through the air almost with the inconceivableswiftness of a meteor; and perhaps, in their emigration must traverse vastcontinents and oceans as distant as the equator. So soon does nature advancesmall birds to their ἡλικία or state of perfection; while the progressivegrowth of men and large quadrupeds is slow and tedious!

I am, etc.

Letter XXII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 13, 1774.

Dear Sir,

By means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportunity this summer ofremarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft;but my pleasure, in contemplating the address with which this feat wasperformed to a consideraable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted byapprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.

* Tobit ii. 10.

Perhaps it may be some amusement to you to hear at what times the differentspecies of hirundines arrived this spring in three very distant counties ofthis kingdom. With us the swallow was seen first on April the 4th, the swift onApril the 24th, the bank-martin on April the 12th, and the house-martin nottill April the 30th. At South Zele, Devonshire, swallows did not arrive tillApril the 25th; swifts, in plenty, on May the 1st; and house-martins not tillthe middle of May. At Blackburn, in Lancashire, swifts were seen April the28th, swallows April the 29th, house-martins May the 1st. Do these differentdates, in such distant districts, prove anything for or against migration ?

A farmer, near Weyhill, fallows his land with two teams of asses; one of whichworks till noon, and the other in the afternoon. When these animals have donetheir work, they are penned, all night, like sheep, on the fallow. In thewinter they are confined and foddered in a yard, and make plenty of dung.

Linnaeus says that hawks ‘paciscuntur inducias cum avibus, quamdiucuculus cuculat’ but it appears to me that, during that period, manylittle birds are taken and destroyed by birds of prey, as may be seen by theirfeathers left in lanes and under hedges.

The missel-thrush is, while breeding, fierce and pugnacious, driving such birdsas approach its nest, with great fury, to a distance. The Welch call it pen yllwyn, the head or master of the coppice. He suffers no magpie, jay, orblackbird, to enter the garden where he haunts; and is, for the time, a goodguard to the new-sown legumens. In general he is very successful in the defenceof his family: but once I observed in my garden, that several magpies camedetermined to storm the nest of a missel-thrush: the dams defended theirmansion with great vigour, and fought resolutely pro aris & focis; butnumbers at last prevailed, they tore the nest to pieces, and swallowed theyoung alive.

In the season of notification the wildest birds are comparatively tame. Thusthe ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are continually frequented; andthe missel-thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds inmy garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long.

Wall-fruit abounds with me this year: but my grapes, that used to be forwardand good, are at present backward beyond all precedent: and this is not theworst of the story; for the same ungenial weather, the same black coldsolstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discolouredand blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large.

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

And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Letter XXIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, June 8, 1775.

Dear Sir,

On September the 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and intent onfield-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I came into the enclosures, Ifound the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with a thick coat ofcobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully thatthe whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered with two or threesetting-nets drawn one over another. When the dogs attempted to hunt, theireyes were so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed, but wereobliged to lie down and scrape the incumbrances from their faces with theirfore-feet, so that, finding my sport interrupted, I returned home musing in mymind on the oddness of the occurrence.

As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, and the day turned outone of those most lovely ones which no season but the autumn produces;cloudless, calm, serene, and worthy of the South of France itself.

About nine an appearance very unusual began to demand our attention, a showerof cobwebs falling from very elevated regions, and continuing, without anyinterruption, till the close of the day. These webs were not single filmythreads, floating in the air in all directions, but perfect flakes or rags;some near an inch broad, and five or six long, which fell with a degree ofvelocity which showed they were considerably heavier than the atmosphere.

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

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

At the second of those places there was a gentleman (for whose veracity andintelligent turn we have the greatest veneration) who observed it the moment hegot abroad; but concluded that, as soon as he came upon the hill above hishouse, where he took his morning rides, he should be higher than this meteor,which he imagined might have been blown, like thistle-down, from the commonabove: but, to his great astonishment, when he rode to the most elevated partof the down, 300 feet above his fields, he found the webs in appearance stillas much above him as before; still descending into sight in a constantsuccession, and twinkling in the sun, so as to draw the attention of the mostincurious.

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

The remark that I shall make on these cobweb-like appearances, called gossamer,is, that, strange and superstitious as the notions about them were formerly,nobody in these days doubts but that they are the real production of smallspiders, which swarm in the fields in fine weather in autumn, and have a powerof shooting out webs from their tails so as to render themselves buoyant, andlighter than air. But why these rapturous insects should that day take such awonderful aerial excursion, and why their webs should at once become so grossand material as to be considerably more weighty than air, and to descend withprecipitation, is a matter beyond my skill. If I might be allowed to hazard asupposition, I should imagine that those filmy threads, when first shot, mightbe entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up, spiders and all, by a briskevaporation into the region where clouds are formed: and if the spiders have apower of coiling and thickening their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister says theyhave [see his Letters to Mr. Ray], then, when they were become heavier than theair, they must fall.

Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see those spiders shootingout their webs and mounting aloft: they will go off from your finger if youwill take them into your hand. Last summer one alighted on my book as I wasreading in the parlour; and, running to the top of the page, and shooting out aweb, took its departure from thence. But what I most wondered at, was that itwent off with considerable velocity in a place where no air was stirring; and Iam sure that I did not assist it with my breath. So that these little crawlersseem to have, while mounting, some loco-motive power without the use of wings,and to move in the air, faster then the air itself.

Letter XXIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775.

Dear Sir,

There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation, independent ofsexual attachment: the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is aremarkable instance.

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

But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same species;for we know a doe still alive, that was brought up from a little fawn with adairy of cows; with them it goes afield, and with them it returns to the yard.The dogs of the house take no notice of this deer, being used to her; but, ifstrange dogs come by, a chase ensues; while the master smiles to see hisfavourite securely leading her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till shereturns to the cows, who, with fierce longings and menacing horns, drive theassailants quite out of the pasture.

Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social advancesand mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and observant person has assuredme that, in the former part of his life, keeping but one horse, he happenedalso on a time to have but one solitary hen. These two incongruous animalsspent much of their time together in a lonely orchard, where they saw nocreature but each other. By degrees an apparent regard began to take placebetween these two sequestered individuals. The fowl would approach thequadruped with notes of complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs;while the horse would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatestcaution and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive companion.Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours of theother: so that Milton, when he puts the following sentiment in the mouth ofAdam, seems to be somewhat mistaken:

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Oct. 2, 1775.

Dear Sir,

We have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the south and west ofEngland, and come round in their circuit two or three times in the year. One ofthese tribes calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of which I have nothingparticular to say; but the other is distinguished by an appellative somewhatremarkable. — As far as their harsh gibberish can be understood, theyseem to say that the name of their clan is Curleople; now the termination ofthis word is apparently Grecian: and as Mezeray and the gravest historians allagree that these vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the East two orthree centuries ago, and so spread by degrees over Europe, may not this name, alittle corrupted, be the very name they brought with them from the Levant? Itwould be matter of some curiosity, could one meet with an intelligent personamong them, to inquire whether, in their jargon, they still retain any Greekwords: the Greek radicals will appear in hand, foot, head, water, earth, etc.It is possible that amidst their cant and corrupted dialect many mutilatedremains of their native language might still be discovered.

With regard to those peculiar people, the gypsies, one thing is veryremarkable, and especially as they came from warmer climates; and that is, thatwhile other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses, these sturdysavages seem to pride themselves in braving the severities of winter, and inliving sub dio the whole year round. Last September was as wet a month as everwas known; and yet during those deluges did a young gypsy-girl lie-in in themidst of one of our hop-gardens, on the cold ground, with nothing over her buta piece of blanket extended on a few hazel-rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuckinto the earth at each end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the samecondition: yet within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambersof which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object worthy herattention.

Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings of those vagabonds;for Mr. Bell, in his return from Peking, met a gang of these people on theconfines of Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate those deserts and trytheir fortune in China.

* See Bell’s Travels in China.

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Nov. 1, 1775.

Dear Sir,

Hic … taedae pingues, hic plurimus ignis
Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri.

I shall make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a very simplepiece of domestic Economy, being satisfied that you think nothing beneath yourattention that tends to utility: the matter alluded to is the use of rushesinstead of candles, which I am well aware prevails in many districts besidesthis; but as I know there are countries also where it does not obtain, and as Ihave considered the subject with some degree of exactness, I shall proceed inmy humble story, and leave you to judge of the expediency.

The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the juncus effusus, orcommon soft rush, which is to be found in most moist pastures, by the sides ofstreams, and under hedges. These rushes are in best condition in the height ofsummer; but may be gathered, so as to serve the purpose well, quite on toautumn. It would be needless to add that the largest and longest are best.Decayed labourers, women, and children, make it their business to procure andprepare them. As soon as they are cut they must be flung into water, and keptthere; for otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. Atfirst a person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its peel orrind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib from top to bottom that maysupport the pith: but this, like other feats, soon becomes familiar even tochildren; and we have seen an old woman, stone-blind, performing this businesswith great dispatch, and seldom failing to strip them with the nicestregularity. When these junci are thus far prepared, they must lie out on thegrass to be bleached, and take the dew for some nights, and afterwards be driedin the sun.

Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the scalding fat or grease;but this knack also is to be attained by practice. The careful wife of anindustrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her fat for nothing; for she savesthe scummings of her bacon-pot for this use; and, if the grease abounds withsalt, she causes the salt to precipitate to the bottom, by setting thescummings in a warm oven. Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by thesea-side, the coarser animal oils will come very cheap. A pound of commongrease may be procured for four pence; and about six pounds of grease will dipa pound of rushes; and one pound of rushes may be bought for one shilling: sothat a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will cost three shillings.If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with the grease, it will give it aconsistency, and render it more cleanly, and make the rushes burn longer:mutton-suet would have the same effect.

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

These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights (coated with tallow), it istrue, shed a dismal one, ‘darkness visible’; but then the wicks ofthose have two ribs of the rind, or peel, to support the pith, while the wickof the dipped rush has but one. The two ribs are intended to impede theprogress of the flame, and make the candle last.

In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to be weighed andnumbered, we found upwards of one thousand six hundred individuals. Now supposeeach of these burns, one with another, only half an hour, then a poor man willpurchase eight hundred hours of light, a time exceeding thirty-three entiredays, for three shillings. According to this account each rush, before dipping,costs 1/33 of a farthing, and 1/11 afterwards. Thus a poor family will enjoy5&1/2 hours of comfortable light for a farthing. An experienced oldhousekeeper assures me that one pound and a half of rushes completely supplieshis family the year round, since working people burn no candle in the longdays, because they rise and go to bed by daylight.

Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both morning and evening inthe dairy and kitchen; but the very poor, who are always the worst economists,and therefore must continue very poor, buy an halfpenny candle every evening,which, in their blowing open rooms, does not burn much more than two hours.Thus have they only two hours’ light for their money instead of eleven.

While on the subject of rural oeconomy, it may not be improper to mention apretty implement of housewifery that we have seen no where else; that is,little neat besoms which our foresters make from the stalk of the polytricumcommune, or great golden maiden-hair, which they call silk-wood, and findplenty in the bogs. When this moss is well combed and dressed, and divested ofits outer skin, it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut colour; and, beingsoft and pliant, is very proper for the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets,hangings, etc. If these besoms were known to the brushmakers in town, it isprobable they might come much in use for the purpose above-mentioned.

* A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum.

I am, etc.

Letter XXVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, December 12, 1775.

Dear Sir,

We had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, whom I wellremember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to bees; they were hisfood, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this cast have seldommore than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on thisone pursuit. In the winter he dosed away his time, within his father’shouse, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from thechimney-corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game inthe fields, and on sunny banks. Honeybees, humble-bees, and wasps, were hisprey wherever he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, butwould seize them nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, andsuck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill hisbosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives; andsometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very merops apiaster, orbee-bird; and very injurious to men that kept bees; for he would slide intotheir bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with hisfinger on the hives, and so take the bees as they came out. He has been knownto overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond.Where metheglin was making he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begginga draught of what he called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a hummingnoise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean andsallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favourite pursuit,in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of understanding. Hadhis capacity been better, and directed to the same object, he had perhapsabated much of our wonder at the feats of a more modern exhibitor of bees; andwe may justly say of him now,

… Thou,
Had thy presiding star propitious shone,
Should’st Wildman be. …

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXVIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Jan. 8, 1776.

Dear Sir,

It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices:they are sucked in as it were with our mother’s milk; and growing up withus at a time when they take the fastest hold and make the most lastingimpressions, become so interwoven into our very constitutions, that thestrongest good sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wondertherefore that the lower people retain them their whole lives through, sincetheir minds are not invigorated by a liberal education, and therefore notenabled to make any efforts adequate to the occasion.

Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter on the superstitions ofthis district, lest we should be suspected of exaggeration in a recital ofpractices too gross for this enlightened age.

But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well to remember, that nolonger ago than the year 1751, and within twenty miles of the capital, theyseized on two superannuated wretches, crazed with age, and overwhelmed withinfirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft; and, by trying experiments, drownedthem in a horse-pond.

In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at this day, a row ofpollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides,manifestly show that, in former times, they have been cleft asunder. Thesetrees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, whileruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under apersuasion that, by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of theirinfirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part,was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced andsoldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with anyadroitness at all, the party was cured; but, where the cleft continued to gape,the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. Having occasion toenlarge my garden not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one ofwhich did not grow together.

We have several persons now living in the village, who, in their childhood,were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down perhapsfrom our Saxon ancestors, who practiced it before their conversion toChristianity.

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

* For a similar practice, see Plot’s Staffordshire.

As to that on the Plestor,

The late vicar stubb’d and burnt it,

when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the by-standers, whointerceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, andalleging that it had been

Religione patrum multos servata per annos.

I am, etc.

Letter XXIX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Feb. 7, 1776.

Dear Sir,

In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are perfect alembics:and no one that has not attended to such matters can imagine how much water onetree will distil in a night’s time by condensing the vapour, whichtrickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in afloat. In Newton-lane, in October 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak inleaf dropped so fast that the cart-way stood in puddles and the ruts ran withwater, though the ground in general was dusty.

In some of our smaller islands in the West-Indies, if I mistake not, there areno springs or rivers; but the people are supplied with that necessary element,water, merely by the dripping of some large tall trees, which, standing in thebosom of a mountain, keep their heads constantly enveloped with fogs andclouds, from which they dispense their kindly never-ceasing moisture; and sorender those districts habitable by condensation alone.

Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface than those that arenaked, that, in theory, their condensations should greatly exceed those thatare stripped of their leaves; but, as the former imbibe also a great quantityof moisture, it is difficult to say which drip most: but this I know, thatdeciduous trees that are entwined with much ivy seem to distil the greatestquantity. Ivy-leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold, and therefore condensevery fast; and besides evergreens imbibe very little. These facts may furnishthe intelligent with hints concerning what trees they should plant round smallponds that they would wish to be perennial; and show them how advantageous sometrees are in preference to others.

Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evaporation so much, thatwoods are always moist: no wonder therefore that they contribute much to poolsand streams.

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

* Vide Kalm’s Travels to North America.

To a thinking mind few phenomena are more strange than the state of littleponds on the summits of chalk-hills, many of which are never dry in the mosttrying droughts of summer. On chalk-hills I say, because in many rocky andgravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on the sides of elevatedgrounds and mountains; but no person acquainted with chalky districts willallow that they ever saw springs in such a soil but in valleys and bottoms,since the waters of so pervious a stratum as chalk all lie on one dead level,as well-diggers have assured me again and again.

Now we have many such little round ponds in this district; and one inparticular on our sheep-down, three hundred feet above my house; which thoughnever above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than thirty feet indiameter, and containing perhaps not more than two or three hundred hogsheadsof water, yet never is known to fail, though it affords drink for three hundredor four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty head of large cattle beside.This pond, it is true, is over-hung with two moderate beeches, that, doubtless,at times afford it much supply: but then we have others as small, that, withoutthe aid of trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind, and perpetualconsumption by cattle, yet constantly maintain a moderate share of water,without overflowing in the wettest seasons, as they would do if supplied bysprings. By my journal of May 1775, it appears that ‘the small and evenconsiderable ponds in the vales are now dried up, while the small ponds on thevery tops of hills are but little affected.’ Can this difference beaccounted for from evaporation alone, which certainly is more prevalent inbottoms ? or rather have not those elevated pools some unnoticed recruits,which in the night time counterbalance the waste of the day; without which thecattle alone must soon exhaust them ? And here it will be necessary to entermore minutely into the cause. Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances,from experiment, that ‘the moister the earth is the more dew falls on itin a night: and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a surface of waterthan there does on an equal surface of moist earth.’ Hence we see thatwater, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to itself a large quantity ofmoisture nightly by condensation; and that the air, when loaded with fogs andvapours, and even with copious dews, can alone advance a considerable andnever-failing resource. Persons that are much abroad, and travel early andlate, such as shepherds, fishermen, etc., can tell what prodigious fogs prevailin the night on elevated downs, even in the hottest parts of summer; and howmuch the surfaces of things are drenched by those swimming vapours, though, tothe senses, all the while, little moisture seems to fall.

I am, etc.

Letter XXX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, April 3, 1776.

Dear Sir,

Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems persuaded that he has discoveredthe reason why cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs; the impediment, hesupposes, arises from the internal structure of their parts, whichincapacitates them for incubation. According to this gentleman, the crop orcraw of a cuckoo does not lie before the sternum at the bottom of the neck, asin the gallinae columbae, etc., but immediately behind it, on and over thebowels, so as to make a large protuberance in the belly.

* Histoire de l’Academie Royale, 1752.

Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo; and, cutting open thebreast-bone, and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying asmentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard like apin-cushion with food, which, upon nice examination, we found to consist ofvarious insects; such as small scarabs, spiders, and dragon-flies; the last ofwhich we have seen cuckoos catching on the wing as they were just emerging outof the aurelia state. Among this farrago also were to be seen maggots, and manyseeds, which belonged either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or somesuch fruit; so that these birds apparently subsist on insects and fruits: norwas there the least appearance of bones, feathers, or fur to support the idlenotion of their being birds of prey.

The sternum in this bird seemed to us to be remarkably short, between which andthe anus lay the crop, or craw, and immediately behind that the bowels againstthe backbone.

It must be allowed, as this anatomist observes, that the crop placed just uponthe bowels must, especially when full, be in a very uneasy situation during thebusiness of incubation; yet the test will be to examine whether birds that areactually known to sit for certain are not formed in a similar manner. Thisinquiry I proposed to myself to make with a fern-owl, or goat-sucker, as soonas opportunity offered: because, if their information proves the same, thereason for incapacity in the cuckoo will be allowed to have been taken upsomewhat hastily.

Not long after a fern-owl was procured, which, from its habit and shape, wesuspected might resemble the cuckoo in its internal construction. Nor were oursuspicions ill-grounded; for, upon the dissection, the crop, or craw, also laybehind the sternum, immediately on the viscera, between them and the skin ofthe belly. It was bulky, and stuffed hard with large phalaenae, moths ofseveral sorts, and their eggs, which no doubt had been forced out of thoseinsects by the action of swallowing.

Now as it appears that this bird, which is so well known to practiceincubation, is formed in a similar manner with cuckoos, MonsieurHerissant’s conjecture, that cuckoos are incapable of incubation from thedisposition of their intestines, seems to fall to the ground: and we are stillat a loss for the cause of that strange and singular peculiarity in theinstance of the cuculus canorus.

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXXI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, April 29, 1776.

Dear Sir,

On August the 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper, which seemed very heavyand bloated, as it lay in the grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut itup, we found that the abdomen was crowded with young, fifteen in number; theshortest of which measured full seven inches, and were about the size offull-grown earthworms. This little fry issued into the world with the trueviper-spirit about them, showing great alertness as soon as disengaged fromthe belly of the dam: they twisted and wriggled about, and set themselves up,and gaped very wide when touched with a stick, showing manifest tokens ofmenace and defiance, though as yet they had no manner of fangs that we couldfind, even with the help of our glasses.

To a thinking mind nothing is more wonderful than that early instinct whichimpresses young animals with the notion of the situation of their naturalweapons, and of using them properly in their own defence, even before thoseweapons subsist or are formed. Thus a young cock will spar at his adversarybefore his spurs are grown; and a calf or a lamb will push with their headsbefore their horns are sprouted. In the same manner did these young addersattempt to bite before their fangs were in being. The dam however was furnishedwith very formidable ones, which we lifted up (for they fold down when notused) and cut them off with the point of our scissors.

There was little room to suppose that this brood had ever been in the open airbefore; and that they were taken in for refuge, at the mouth of the dam, whenshe perceived that danger was approaching; because then probably we should havefound them somewhere in the neck, and not in the abdomen.

Letter XXXII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

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

Thus far it is plain that the deprivation of masculine vigour puts a stop tothe growth of those parts or appendages that are looked upon as its insignia.But the ingenious Mr. Lisle, in his book on husbandry, carries it much farther;for he says that the loss of those insignia alone has sometimes a strangeeffect on the ability itself: he had a boar so fierce and venereous, that, toprevent mischief, orders were given for his tusks to be broken off. No soonerhad the beast suffered this injury then his powers forsook him, and heneglected those females to whom before he was passionately attached, and fromwhom no fences could restrain him.

Letter XXXIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

The natural term of an hog’s life is little known, and the reason isplain — because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep thatturbulent animal to the full extent of its time: however, my neighbour, a manof substance, who had no occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety,kept an half-bred Bantam sow, who was as thick as she was long, and whose bellyswept on the ground, till she was advanced to her seventeenth year; at whichperiod she showed some tokens of age by the decay of her teeth and the declineof her fertility.

For about ten years this prolific mother produced two litters in the year ofabout ten at a time, and once above twenty at a litter; but, as there were neardouble the number of pigs to that of teats, many died. From long experience inthe world this female was grown very sagacious and artful:-when she foundoccasion to converse with a boar she used to open all the intervening gates,and march, by herself, up to a distant farm where one was kept; and when herpurpose was served would return by the same means. At the age of about fifteenher litters began to be reduced to four or five; and such a litter sheexhibited when in her fatting-pen. She proved, when fat, good bacon, juicy, andtender; the rind, or sward, was remarkably thin. At a moderate computation shewas allowed to have been the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs: aprodigious instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped! She was killed inspring 1775.

I am, etc.

Letter XXXIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, May 9, 1776.

Dear Sir,

… admorunt ubera tigres.

We have remarked in a former letter how much incongruous animals, in a lonelystate, may be attached to each other from a spirit of sociality; in this it maynot be amiss to recount a different motive which has been known to create asstrange a fondness.

My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, which the servants fedwith milk in a spoon, and about the same time his cat kittened and the youngwere dispatched and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be gone theway of most foundlings, to be killed by some dog or cat. However, in about afortnight, as the master was sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening,he observed his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and calling withlittle short inward notes of complacency, such as they use towards theirkittens, and something gamboling after, which proved to be the leveret that thecat had supported with her milk, and continued to support with great affection.

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

Why so cruel and sanguinary a beast as a cat, of the ferocious genus of Feles,the murium leo, as Linnaeus calls it, should be affected with any tendernesstowards an animal which is its natural prey, is not so easy to determine.

This strange affection probably was occasioned by that desiderium, those tendermaternal feelings, which the loss of her kittens had awakened in her breast;and by the complacency and ease she derived to herself from the procuring herteats to be drawn, which were too much distended with milk, till, from habit,she became as much delighted with this foundling as if it had been her realoffspring.

This incident is no bad solution of that strange circumstance which gravehistorians as well as the poets assert, of exposed children being sometimesnurtured by female wild beasts that probably had lost their young. For it isnot one whit more marvellous that Romulus and Remus, in their infant state,should be nursed by a she-wolf, than that a poor little sucking leveret shouldbe fostered and cherished by a bloody grimalkin.

… viridi fœtam Mavortis in antro
Procubuisse lupam: geminos huic ubera circum
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem
Impavidos: illam tereti cervice reflexam
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua.

Letter XXXV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, May 20, 1777.

Dear Sir,

Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are always poor; and probablythe reason may be because the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insectsand reptiles are of much more consequence, and have much more influence in theEconomy nature, than the incurious are aware of; and are mighty in theireffect, from their minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention;and from their numbers and fecundity. Earth-worms, though in appearance a smalland despicable link in the chain of nature, yet, if lost, would make alamentable chasm. For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds,which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the greatpromoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, byboring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rainsand the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs intoit; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earthcalled worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain andgrass. Worms probably provide new soil for hills and slopes where the rainwashes the earth away; and they affect slopes, probably to avoid being flooded.Gardeners and farmers express their detestation of worms; the former becausethey render their walks unsightly, and make them much work: and the latterbecause, as they think, worms eat their green corn. But these men would findthat the earth without worms would soon become cold, hard-bound, and void offermentation; and consequently sterile: and besides, in favour of worms, itshould be hinted that green corn, plants, and flowers, are not so much injuredby them as by many species of coleoptera (scarabs), and tipulae (long-legs), intheir larva, or grub-state; and by unnoticed myriads of small shell-lesssnails, called slugs, which silently and imperceptibly make amazing havoc inthe field and garden.

* Farmer Young, of Norton-farm, says that this spring (1777) about four acresof his wheat in one field was entirely destroyed by slugs, which swarmed on theblades of corn, and devoured it as fast as it sprang.

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

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXXVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Nov. 22, 1777.

Dear Sir,

You cannot but remember that the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh of last Marchwere very hot days; so sultry that everybody complained and were restless underthose sensations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches.

This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer coincidences; for onthose two days the thermometer rose to sixty-six in the shade; many species ofinsects revived and came forth; some bees swarmed in this neighbourhood; theold tortoise, near Lewes in Sussex, awakened and came forth out of itsdormitory; and, what is most to my present purpose, many house-swallowsappeared and were very alert in many places, and particularly at Cobham, inSurrey.

But as that short warm period was succeeded as well as preceded by harsh severeweather, with frequent frosts and ice, and cutting winds, the insects withdrew,the tortoise retired again into the ground, and the swallows were seen no moreuntil the tenth of April, when, the rigour of the spring abating, a softerseason began to prevail.

Again; it appears by my journals for many years past, that house-martinsretire, to a bird, about the beginning of October; so that a person not veryobservant of such matters would conclude that they had taken their lastfarewell: but then it may be seen in my diaries also that considerable flockshave discovered themselves again in the first week of November, and often onthe fourth day of that month only for one day; and that not as if they were inactual migration, but playing about at their leisure and feeding calmly, as ifno enterprise of moment at all agitated their spirits. And this was the case inthe beginning of this very month; for, on the fourth of November, more thantwenty house-martins, which, in appearance, had all departed about the seventhof October, were seen again, for that one morning only, sporting between myfields and the Hanger, and feasting on insects which swarmed in that sheltereddistrict. The preceding day was wet and blustering, but the fourth was dark andmild, and soft, the wind at south-west, and the thermometer at 58 1/2 ; a pitchnot common at that season of the year. Moreover, it may not be amiss to add inthis place, that whenever the thermometer is above 50 the bat comes flittingout in every autumnal and winter month.

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

I am, etc.

Letter XXXVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Jan. 8, 1778.

Dear Sir,

There was in this village several years ago a miserable pauper, who, from hisbirth, was addicted with a leprosy, as far as we are aware of a singular kind,since it affected only the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet. Thisscaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring and fall;and, by peeling away, left the skin so thin and tender that neither his handsor feet were able to perform their functions; so that the poor object was halfhis time on crutches, incapable of employ, and languishing in a tiresome stateof indolence and inactivity. His habit was lean, lank, and cadaverous. In thissad plight he dragged on a miserable existence, a burden to himself and hisparish, which was obliged to support him till he was relieved by death at morethan thirty years of age.

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

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

* See Leviticus, chap. xiii. and xiv.

Some centuries ago this horrible distemper prevailed all Europe over; and ourforefathers were by no means exempt, as appears by the large provision made forobjects labouring under this calamity. There was an hospital for female lepersin the diocese of Lincoln, a noble one near Durham, three in London andSouthwark, and perhaps many more in or near our great towns and cities.Moreover, some crowned heads, and other wealthy and charitable personages,bequeathed large legacies to such poor people as languished under this hopelessinfirmity.

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

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

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

The use of linen changes, shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid and filthywoollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of neatness comparatively modern;but must prove a great means of preventing cutaneous ails. At this very timewoollen instead of linen prevails among the poorer Welch, who are subject tofoul eruptions.

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

As to the produce of a garden, every middle-aged person of observation mayperceive, within his own memory, both in town and country, how vastly theconsumption of vegetables is increased. Green-stalls in cities now supportmultitudes in a comfortable state, while gardeners get fortunes. Every decentlabourer also has his garden, which is half his support, as well as hisdelight; and common farmers provide plenty of beans, peas, and greens, fortheir hinds to eat with their bacon; and those few that do not are despised fortheir sordid parsimony, and looked upon as regardless of the welfare of theirdependents. Potatoes have prevailed in this little district, by means ofpremiums, within these twenty years only; and are much esteemed here now by thepoor, who would scarce have ventured to taste them in the last reign.

Our Saxon ancestors certainly had some sort of cabbage, because they call themonth of February sprout-cale; but, long after their days, the cultivation ofgardens was little attended to. The religious, being men of leisure, andkeeping up a constant correspondence with Italy, were the first people among usthat had gardens and fruit-trees in any perfection, within the walls of theirabbies* and priories. The barons neglected every pursuit that did not lead towar or tend to the pleasure of the chase.

* ‘In monasteries the lamp of knowledge continued to burn, however dimly.In them men of business were formed for the state: the art of writing wascultivated by the monks; they were the only proficients in mechanics,gardening, and architecture.’ — See Dalrymple’s Annals ofScotland.

It was not till gentlemen took up the study of horticulture themselves that theknowledge of gardening made such hasty advances. Lord Cobham, Lord Ila, and Mr.Waller of Beaconsfield, were some of the first people of rank that promoted theelegant science of ornamenting without despising the superintendence of thekitchen quarters and fruit walls.

A remark made by the excellent Mr. Ray in his Tour of Europe at once surprisesus, and corroborates what has been advanced above; for we find him observing,so late as his days, that ‘the Italians use several herbs for sallets,which are not yet or have not been but lately used in England, viz., selleri(celery), which is nothing else but the sweet smallage; the young shootswhereof, with a little of the head of the root cut off, they eat raw with oiland pepper.’ And further he adds ‘curled endive blanched is muchused beyond seas; and, for a raw sallet, seemed to excel lettuce itself.’Now this journey was undertaken no longer ago than in the year 1663.

I am, etc.

Letter XXXVIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Fortè puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido,
Dixerat, ecquis adest ? et, adest, responderat echo.
Hic stupet; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes;
Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat illa vocantem.

Selborne, Feb. 12, 1778.

Dear Sir,

In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales, and hangingwoods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered thatreturn the cry of a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting-horn, a tunable ringof bells, or the melody of birds, very agreeably: but we were still at a lossfor a polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had partedfrom his company in a summer evening walk, and was calling after them, stumbledupon a very curious one in a spot where it might least be expected. At first hewas much surprised, and could not be persuaded but that he was mocked by someboy; but, repeating his trials in several languages, and finding his respondentto be a very adroit polyglot, he then discerned the deception.

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

Tityre, tu patulæ recubans …

were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first: and there is no doubt,could trial have been made, but that at midnight, when the air is very elastic,and a dead stillness prevails, one or two syllables more might have beenobtained; but the distance rendered so late an experiment very inconvenient.

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

Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens …

we could perceive a return but of four or five.

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

The true object of this echo, as we found by various experiments, is thestone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Galleylane, which measures in front 40 feet, andfrom the ground to the eaves 12 feet. The true centrum phonicum, or justdistance, is one particular spot in the King’s-field, in the path toNore-hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart way. Inthis case there is no choice of distance; but the path, by mere contingency,happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, because the ground rises or fallsso immediately, if the speaker either retires or advances, that his mouth wouldat once be above or below the object.

We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exactness, and found thedistance to fall very short of Dr. Plot’s rule for distinct articulation:for the Doctor, in his history of Oxfordshire, allows 120 feet for the returnof each syllable distinctly: hence this echo, which gives ten distinctsyllables, ought to measure 400 yards, or 120 feet to each syllable; whereasour distance is only 258 yards, or near 75 feet, to each syllable. Thus ourmeasure falls short of the Doctor’s, as five to eight: but then it mustbe acknowledged that this candid philosopher was convinced afterwards, thatsome latitude must be admitted of in the distance of echoes according to timeand place.

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

Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, that the poets havepersonified her; and in their hands she has been the occasion of many abeautiful fiction. Nor need the gravest man be ashamed to appear taken withsuch a phenomenon, since it may become the subject of philosophical ormathematical inquiries.

One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertaining, must at least havebeen harmless and inoffensive; yet Virgil advances a strange notion, that theyare injurious to bees. After enumerating some probable and reasonableannoyances, such as prudent owners would wish far removed from theirbee-gardens, he adds

… aut ubi concava pulsu
Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat image.

This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by the philosophers ofthese days; especially as they all now seem agreed that insects are notfurnished with any organs of hearing at all. But if it should be urged, thatthough they cannot hear yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of sounds, Igrant it is possible they may. Yet that these impressions are distasteful orhurtful, I deny, because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my outlet, wherethe echoes are very strong: for this village is another Anathoth, a place ofresponses or echoes. Besides, it does not appear from experiment that bees arein any way capable of being affected by sounds: for I have often tried my ownwith a large speaking-trumpet held close to their hives, and with such anexertion of voice as would have hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, andstill these insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and withoutshowing the least sensibility or resentment.

Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally silent, though theobject, or hop-kiln remains: nor is there any mystery in this defect, for thefield between is planted as an hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker istotally absorbed and lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops.And when the poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is the same;because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of shelter to thehop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and repercussion of the voice: sothat till those obstructions are removed no more of its garrulity can beexpected.

Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his park or outlet a pleasingincident, he might build one at little or no expense. For whenever he hadoccasion for a new barn, stable, dog-kennel, or the like structure, it would beonly needful to erect this building on the gentle declivity of an hill, with alike rising opposite to it, at a few hundred yards distance; and perhapssuccess might be the easier ensured could some canal, lake, or stream,intervene. From a seat at the centrum phonicum he and his friends might amusethemselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle of this loquacious nymph;of whose complacency and decent reserve more may be said than can with truth ofevery individual of her sex; since she is

… quæ nec reticere loquenti,
Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo.

I am, etc.

P.S. — The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following lovelyquotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically accounting for theircauses from popular superstition:

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

Lucretius, lib. iv. 1. 576.

Letter XXXIX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, May 13, 1778.

Dear Sir,

Among the many singularities attending those amusing birds the swifts, I am nowconfirmed in the opinion that we have every year the same number of pairsinvariably; at least the result of my inquiry has been exactly the same for along time past. The swallows and martins are so numerous, and so widelydistributed over the village, that it is hardly possible to recount them; whilethe swifts, though they do not all build in the church, yet so frequently hauntit, and play and rendezvous round it, that they are easily enumerated. Thenumber that I constantly find are eight pairs; about half of which reside inthe church, and the rest build in some of the lowest and meanest thatchedcottages. Now as these eight pairs, allowance being made for accidents, breedyearly eight pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase; and whatdetermines every spring which pairs shall visit us, and reoccupy their ancienthaunts ?

Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology, I have alwayssupposed that that sudden reverse of affection, that strange ἀντιστοργὴ, whichimmediately succeeds in the feathered kind to the most passionate fondness, isthe occasion of an equal dispersion of birds over the face of the earth.Without this provision one favourite district would be crowded withinhabitants, while others would be destitute and forsaken. But the parent birdsseem to maintain a jealous superiority, and to oblige the young to seek for newabodes: and the rivalry of the males, in many kinds, prevents their crowdingthe one on the other. Whether the swallows and house-martins return in the sameexact number annually is not easy to say, for reasons given above: but it isapparent, as I have remarked before in my Monographies, that the numbersreturning bear no manner of proportion to the numbers retiring.

Letter XL

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, June 2, 1778.

Dear Sir,

The standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a pursuit thatamuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without improving the mind oradvancing any real knowledge: and where the science is carried no farther thana mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanistthat is desirous of wiping off this aspersion should be by no means contentwith a list of names; he should study plants philosophically, shouldinvestigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues ofefficacious herbs, should promote their cultivation; and graft the gardener,the planter, and the husbandman, on the phytologist. Not that system is by anymeans to be thrown aside; without system the field of nature would be apathless wilderness: but system should be subservient to, not the main objectof, pursuit.

Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention; and in itself is of the utmostconsequence to mankind, and productive of many of the greatest comforts andelegancies of life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil,linen, cotton, etc., what not only strengthens our hearts, and exhilarates ourspirits, but what secures from inclemencies of weather and adorns our persons.Man, in his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by spontaneousvegetation: in middle climes, where grasses prevail, he mixes some animal foodwith the produce of the field and garden: and it is towards the polar extremesonly that, like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with fleshalone, and is driven, to what hunger has never been known to compel the verybeasts, to prey on his own species.

* See the late Voyages to the South-seas.

The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on the commerce ofnations, and have been the great promoters of navigation, as may be seen in thearticles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, betel, paper, etc. As everyclimate has its peculiar produce, our natural wants bring on a mutualintercourse; so that by means of trade each distant part is supplied with thegrowth of every latitude. But, without the knowledge of plants and theirculture, we must have been content with our hips and haws, without enjoying thedelicate fruits of India and the salutiferous drugs of Peru.

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

But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to be most neglected; neitherthe farmer nor the grazier seem to distinguish the annual from the perennial,the hardy from the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry andjuiceless.

The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a northerly and grazingkingdom. The botanist that could improve the sward of the district where helived would be an useful member of society; to raise a thick turf on a nakedsoil would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge; and he would be the bestcommonwealth’s man that could occasion the growth of ‘two bladesof grass where one alone was seen before.’

I am, etc.

Letter XLI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, July 3, 1778.

Dear Sir,

In a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale, aspects, andsoils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should be found. Chalks,clays, sands, sheep-walks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaignfields, cannot but furnish an ample flora. The deep rocky lanes abound withfilices, and the pastures and moist woods with fungi. If in any branch ofbotany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants, whichare not to be expected on a spot far removed from rivers, and lying up amidstthe hill country at the spring heads. To enumerate all the plants that havebeen discovered within our limits would be a needless work; but a short list ofthe more rare, and the spots where they are to be found, may be neitherunacceptable nor unentertaining:

Helleborus foetidus, stinking hellebore, bear’s foot, or setterworth,— all over the High-wood and Coney-croft-hanger: this continues a greatbranching plant the winter through, blossoming about January, and is veryornamental in shady walks and shrubberies. The good women give the leavespowdered to children troubled with worms; but it is a violent remedy, and oughtto be administered with caution.

Helleborus viridis, green hellebore, — in the deep stony lane on the lefthand just before the turning to Norton-farm, and at the top of Middle Dortonunder the hedge: this plant dies down to the ground early in autumn, andsprings again about February, flowering almost as soon as it appears aboveground.

Vaccinium oxycoccos, creeping bilberries or cranberries, — in the bogs ofBin’s-pond.

Vaccinium myrtillus, whortle, or bleaberries, — on the dry hillocks ofWolmer-forest.

Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sun-dew. Drosera longifolia, long-leavedditto. In the bogs of Bin’s-pond.

Comarum palustre, purple comarum, or marsh cinquefoil, — in the bogs ofBin’s-pond.

Hypericon androsaemum, tutsan, St. John’s wort, — in the stony,hollow lanes.

Vinca minor, less periwinkle, — in Selborne Hanger and Shrubwood.

Monotropa hypopithys, yellow monotropa, or bird’s nest, — inSelborne Hanger under the shady beeches, to whose roots it seems to beparasitical — at the north-west end of the Hanger.

Chlora perfoliata, Blackstonia perfoliata, Hudsoni, perfoliated yellow-won,— on the banks in the King’s-field.

Paris quadrifolia, herb Paris, true-love, or one-berry, — in the ChurchLitten coppice.

Chrysosplenium oppositifolium, opposite golden saxifrage, — in the darkand rocky hollow lanes.

Gentiana amarella, autumnal gentian or fellwort, — on the Zig-zag andHanger;

Lathraea squamaria, tooth-wort, — in the Church Litten coppice under somehazels near the foot-bridge, in Trimming’s garden-hedge, and on the drywall opposite Grange-yard.

Dipsacus pilosus, small teasel, — in the Short and Long Lith.

Lathyrus sylvestris, narrow-leaved, or wild lathyrus, — in the bushes atthe foot of the Short Lith, near the path.

Ophrys spiralis, ladies’ traces, — in the Long Lith, and towardsthe south-corner of the common.

Ophrys nidus avis, birds’ nest ophrys, — in the Long Lith under theshady beeches among the dead leaves; in Great Dorton among the bushes, and onthe Hanger plentifully.

Serapias latifolia, helleborine, — in the High-wood under the shadybeeches.

Daphne laureola, spurge laurel, — in Selborne Hanger and the High-wood.

Daphne mezereum, the mezereon, — in Selborne Hanger among the shrubs atthe south-east end above the cottages.

Lycoperdon tuber, truffles, — in the Hanger and High-wood.

Sambucus ebulus, dwarf elder, walwort, or danewort, — among the rubbishand ruined foundations of the Priory.

Of all the propensities of plants none seem more strange than their differentperiods of blossoming. Some produce their flowers in the winter, or very firstdawnings of spring; many when the spring is established; some at midsummer, andsome not till autumn. When we see the helleborus foetidus and helleborus nigerblowing at Christmas, the helleborus hyemalis in January, and the helleborusviridis as soon as ever it emerges out of the ground, we do not wonder, becausethey are kindred plants that we expect should keep pace the one with the other.But other congenerous vegetables differ so widely in their time of floweringthat we cannot but admire. I shall only instance at present in the crocussativus, the vernal, and the autumnal crocus, which have such an affinity, thatthe best botanists only make them varieties of the same genus, of which thereis only one species; not being able to discern any difference in the corolla,or in the internal structure. Yet the vernal crocus expands its flowers by thebeginning of March at farthest, and often in very rigorous weather; and cannotbe retarded but by some violence offered: — while the autumnal (thesaffron) defies the influence of the spring and summer, and will not blow tillmost plants begin to fade and run to seed. This circumstance is one of thewonders of the creation, little noticed, because a common occurrence: yet oughtnot to be overlooked on account of its being familiar, since it would be asdifficult to be explained as the most stupendous phaenomenon in nature.

Say, what impels, amidst surrounding snow,
Congealed, the crocus’ flamy bud to grow?
Say, what retards, amidst the summer’s blaze,
Th’ autumnal bulb till pale, declining days ?
The GOD of SEASONS; whose pervading power
Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower:
He bids each flower His quickening word obey;
Or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay.

Letter XLII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique genereincessus est: aves solae vario meatu feruntur, et in terra, et inäere.—PLIN. Hist. Nat. lib. x. cap. 38.

Selborne, Aug. 7, 1778.

Dear Sir,

A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as wellas by their colours and shape; on the ground as well as on the wing, and in thebush as well as in the hand. For, though it must not be said that every speciesof birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most generaat least, that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judiciousobserver to pronounce upon them with some certainty. Put a bird in moron

… Et verâ incessu patuit….

Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings expanded andmotionless; and it is from their gliding manner that the former are stillcalled in the north of England gleads, from the Saxon verb glidan to glide. Thekestrel, or wind-hover, has a peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place,his wings all the while being briskly agitated. Hen-harriers fly low overheaths or fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a pointer orsetting-dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air; theyseem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must drawthe attention even of the most incurious — they spend all their leisuretime in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playfulskirmish; and, when they move from one place to another, frequently turn ontheir backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When thisodd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, andthus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in afrolicsome manner; crows and daws swagger in their walk; wood-peckers flyvolatu undoso, opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so arealways rising or falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, whichincline downward, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all otherhook-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot,climbing and ascending with ridiculous caution. All the gallinae parade andwalk gracefully, and run nimbly; but fly with difficulty, with an impetuouswhirring, and in a straight line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerlesswings, and make no dispatch; herons seem incumbered with too much sail fortheir light bodies; but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carryingburdens, such as large fishes, and the like; pigeons, and particularly the sortcalled smiters, have a way of clashing their wings the one against the otherover their backs with a loud snap; another variety called tumblers turnthemselves over in the air. Some birds have movements peculiar to the season oflove: thus ring-doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in thespring hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner; thus thecock-snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air like thewind-hover; and the green-finch in particular exhibits such languishing andfaltering gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird; the king-fisherdarts along like an arrow; fern-owls, or goat-suckers, glance in the dusk overthe tops of trees like a meteor; starlings as it were swim along, whilemissal-thrushes use a wild and desultory flight; swallows sweep over thesurface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns andquick evolutions; swifts dash round in circles; and the bank-martin moves withfrequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small birds fly by jerks,rising and falling as they advance. Most small birds hop; but wagtails andlarks walk, moving their legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fallperpendicularly as they sing: woodlarks hang poised in the air; and titlarksrise and fall in large cubes, singing in their descent. The white-throat usesodd jerks and gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes. All theduck-kind waddle; divers and auks walk as if fettered, and stand erect on theirtails: these are the compedes of Linnaeus. Geese and cranes, and mostwild-fowls, move in figured flights, often changing their position. Thesecondary rerniges of tringae, wild-ducks, and some others, are very long, andgive their wings, when in motion, an hooked appearance. Dab-chicks, moor-hens,and coots, fly erect, with their legs hanging down, and hardly make anydispatch; the reason is plain, their wings are placed too forward out of thetrue centre of gravity; as the legs of auks and divers are situated toobackward.

Letter XLIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 9, 1778.

Dear Sir,

From the motion of birds, the transition is natural enough to their notes andlanguage, of which I shall say something. Not that I would pretend tounderstand their language like the vizier of the Spectator, who, by therecital of a conversation which passed between two owls, reclaimed a sultan,*before delighting in conquest and devastation; but I would be thought only tomean that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted toexpress their various passions, wants, and feelings; such as anger, fear, love,hatred, hunger, and the like. All species are not equally eloquent; some arecopious and fluent as it were in their utterance, while others are confined toa few important sounds: no bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though someare rather silent. The language of birds is very ancient, and, like otherancient modes of speech, very elliptical: little is said, but much is meant andunderstood.

* See Spectator, Vol. VII., No. 512.

The notes of the eagle-kind are shrill and piercing; and about the season ofnidification much diversified, as I have been often assured by a curiousobserver of nature, who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. Thenotes of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have veryexpressive notes; they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the voxhumana, and reducible by a pitch-pipe to a musical key. This note seems toexpress complacency and rivalry among the males: they use also a quick call andan horrible scream; and can snore and hiss when they mean to menace. Ravens,beside their loud croak, can exert a deep and solemn note that makes the woodsto echo; the amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous; rooks, in thebreeding season, attempt sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts to sing, butwith no great success; the parrot-kind have many modulations of voice, asappears by their aptitude to learn human sounds; doves coo in an amorous andmournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers; the wood-pecker sets upa sort of loud and hearty laugh; the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusktill day-break, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All thetuneful passeres express their complacency by sweet modulations, and a varietyof melody. The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by a shrillalarm bespeaks the attention of the other hirundines, and bids them be awarethat the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, especially thenocturnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are very noisy andloquacious; as cranes, wild-geese, wild-ducks, and the like; their perpetualclamour prevents them from dispersing and losing their companions.

In so extensive a subject, sketches and outlines are as much as can beexpected; for it would be endless to instance in all the infinite variety ofthe feathered nation. We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letterto the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known, and thereforebest understood. At first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands ourattention; but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating andshocking to the ear: the yelling of cats, and the braying of an ass, are notmore disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like, and clanking; and oncesaved the Capitol at Rome, as grave historians assert: the hiss also of thegander is formidable and full of menace, and ‘protective of hisyoung.’ Among ducks the sexual distinction of voice is remarkable; for,while the quack of the female is loud and sonorous, the voice of the drake isinward and harsh and feeble, and scarce discernible. The cock turkey struts andgobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner; he hath also a pert andpetulant note when he attacks his adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth heryoung brood she keeps a watchful eye: and if a bird of prey appear, though everso high in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy with a little inwardmoan, and watches him with a steady and attentive look; but if he approach, hernote becomes earnest and alarming, and her outcries are redoubled.

No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of expression and socopious a language as common poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old,and hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will immediately seizeits prey, with little twitterings of complacency; but if you tender it a waspor a bee, at once its note becomes harsh, and expressive of disapprobation anda sense of danger. When a pullet is ready to lay she intimates the event by ajoyous and easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of their life that of layingseems to be the most important; for no sooner has a hen disburdened herself,than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy, which the cock and the restof his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the familyconcerned, but catches from yard to yard, and spreads to every homestead withinhearing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar. As soon as a henbecomes a mother her new relation demands a new language; she then runsclucking and screaming about, and seems agitated as if possessed. The father ofthe flock has also a considerable vocabulary; if he finds food, he calls afavourite concubine to partake; and if a bird of prey passes over, with awarning voice he bids his family beware. The gallant chanticleer has, atcommand, his amorous phrases, and his terms of defiance. But the sound by whichhe is best known is his crowing: by this he has been distinguished in all agesas the countryman’s clock or larum, as the watchman that proclaims thedivisions of the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles him:

… the crested cock, whose clarion sounds
The silent hours.

A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most of his chickens by asparrow-hawk, that came gliding down between a faggot-pile and the end of hishouse to the place where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see hisflock thus diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and thehouse, into which the caitiff dashed and was entangled. Resentment suggestedthe law of retaliation; he therefore clipped the hawk’s wings, cut offhis talons, and, fixing a cork on his bill, threw him down among thebrood-hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued; the expressionsthat fear, rage, and revenge inspired, were new, or at least such as had beenunnoticed before: the exasperated matrons upbraided, they execrated, theyinsulted, they triumphed. In a word, they never desisted from buffeting theiradversary till they had torn him in an hundred pieces.

Letter XLIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne.

… monstrent.
* * * * *
Quid tantum Oceano properent se tingere soles
Hyberni; vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet.

Gentlemen who have outlets might contrive to make ornament subservient toutility; a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to promote science: anobelisk in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and an heliotrope.

Any person that is curious, and enjoys the advantage of a good horizon, might,with little trouble, make two heliotropes; the one for the winter, the otherfor the summer solstice: and these two erections might be constructed with verylittle expense; for two pieces of timber frame-work, about ten or twelve feethigh, and four feet broad at the base, and close lined with plank, would answerthe purpose.

The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed within sight of somewindow in the common sitting parlour; because men, at that dead season of theyear, are usually within doors at the close of the day; while that for thelatter might be fixed for any given spot in the garden or outlet: whence theowner might contemplate, in a fine summer’s evening, the utmost extentthat the sun makes to the northward at the season of the longest days. Nownothing would be necessary but to place these two objects with so muchexactness, that the westerly limb of the sun, at setting, might but just clearthe winter heliotrope to the west of it on the shortest day; and that the wholedisc of the sun, at the longest day, might exactly at setting also clear thesummer heliotrope to the north of it.

By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there is no such thing,strictly speaking, as a solstice; for, from the shortest day, the owner would,every clear evening, see the disc advancing, at its setting, to the westward ofthe object; and, from the longest day, observe the sun retiring backwards everyevening at its setting, towards the object westward, till, in a few nights, itwould set quite behind it, and so by degrees to the west of it: for when thesun comes near the summer solstice, the whole disc of it would at first setbehind the object: after a time the northern limb would first appear, and soevery night gradually more, till at length the whole diameter would set northof it for about three nights; but on the middle night of the three, sensiblymore remote than the former or following. When beginning its recess from thesummer tropic, it would continue more and more to be hidden every night, tillat length it would descend quite behind the object again; and so nightly moreand more to the westward.

Letter XLV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne.

… Mugire videbis
Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos.

When I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and implicit assent,accounts in Baker’s Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mountains.John Philips, in his Cyder, alludes to the credit that was given to suchstories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of theSplendid Shilling.

I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice
Of Marcley Hill: the apple no where finds
A kinder mould: yet ’tis unsafe to trust
Deceitful ground: who knows but that once more
This mount may journey, and his present site
Forsaken, to thy neighbour’s bounds transfer
Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange
For law debates!

But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that though our hillsmay never have journeyed that far, yet the ends of many of them have slippedand fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. Thisseems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham hills; and especially withthe ridge between Harteley Park and Ward-le-ham, where the ground has slid intovast swellings and furrows; and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannotbe accounted for from any other cause. A strange event that happened not longsince, justifies our suspicions; which, though it befell not within the limitsof this parish, yet as it was within the hundred of Selborne, and as thecircumstances were singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature.

The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were remarkable for greatmelting snows and vast gluts of rain, so that by the end of the latter monththe land-springs, or lavants, began to prevail, and to be near as high as inthe memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the sametenor; when, in the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerablepart of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and felldown, leaving a high freestone cliff naked and bare, and resembling the steepside of a chalk-pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being perhaps sappedand undermined by waters, foundered, and was engulfed, going down in aperpendicular direction; for a gate which stood in the field, on the top of thehill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in sotrue and upright a position as to open and shut with great exactness, just asin its first situation. Several oaks also are still standing, and in a state ofvegetation, after taking the same desperate leap. That great part of thisprodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below, is plain also from theinclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free and unincumbered; butwould have been buried in heaps of rubbish, had the fragment parted and fallenforward. About an hundred yards from the foot of this hanging coppice stood acottage by the side of a lane; and two hundred yards lower, on the other sideof the lane, was a farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family; and,just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inhabited by an old woman and herson and his wife. These people in the evening, which was very dark andtempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began to heaveand part; and that the walls seemed to open, and the roofs to crack: but theyall agree that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was everfelt; only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in thewoods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remainedin the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting every moment to be buriedunder the ruins of their shattered edifices. When day-light came they were atleisure to contemplate the devastations of the night: they then found that adeep rift, or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn them, as it were,in two; and that one end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner; that apond near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at theshallow end, and so vice versa; that many large oaks were removed out of theirperpendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neighbouringtrees; and that a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so asto require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the cliff the generalcourse of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for halfa mile, and is interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted, in everydirection, as well towards the great woody hanger, as from it. In the firstpasture the deep clefts began: and running across the lane, and under thebuildings, made such vast shelves that the road was impassable for some time;and so over to an arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn anddisordered. The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, wasprotruded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was raised in longridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom ofthis enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some oaksthat obstructed their farther course and terminated this awful commotion.

The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is twenty-three yards;the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen from the fields below, one hundredand eighty-one; and a partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventyyards more: so that the total length of this fragment that fell was two hundredand fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violentconvulsion; two houses were entirely destroyed; one end of a new barn was leftin ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that composed them; ahanging coppice was changed to a naked rock; and some grass grounds and anarable field so broken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered, for a time,neither fit for the plough or safe for pasturage, till considerable labour andexpense had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gapingfissures.

Letter XLVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne.

… resonant arbusta …

There is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furze close to the backof this village, well known by the name of the Short Lithe, consisting of arocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with thegryllus campestris, or field-cricket; which, though frequent in these parts, isby no means a common insect in many other counties.

As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a naturalist, Ihave often gone down to examine the oeconomy of these grylli, and study theirmode of life: but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy matter to geta sight of them; for, feeling a person’s footsteps as he advances, theystop short in the midst of their song, and retire backward nimbly into theirburrows, where they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over.

At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade, but without any greatsuccess; for either we could not get to the bottom of the hole, which oftenterminated under a great stone; or else, in breaking up the ground, weinadvertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so bruised we tooka multitude of eggs, which were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, andcovered with a very tough skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish themale from the female; the former of which is shining black, with a goldenstripe across his shoulders; the latter is more dusky, more capacious about theabdomen, and carries a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably isthe instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and safereceptacles.

Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will often succeed; andso it proved in the present case; for, though a spade be too boisterous andrough an implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into thecaverns, will probe their windings to the bottom, and quickly bring out theinhabitant; and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity withoutinjuring the object of it. It is remarkable that, though these insects arefurnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, likegrasshoppers; yet when driven from their holes they show no activity, but crawlalong in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken: and again, thoughprovided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them whenthere seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only make that shrillingnoise perhaps out of rivalry and emulation, as is the case with many animalswhich exert some sprightly note during their breeding time: it is raised by abrisk friction of one wing against the other. They are solitary beings, livingsingly male or female, each as it may happen: hut there must be a time when thesexes have some intercourse, and then the wings may be useful perhaps duringthe hours of night. When the males meet they will fight fiercely, as I found bysome which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I should havebeen glad to have made them settle. For though they seemed distressed by beingtaken out of their knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinkswould seize upon any that were obtruded upon them with a vast row of serratedfangs. With their strong jaws, toothed like the shears of a lobster’sclaws, they perforate and round their curious regular cells, having nofore-claws to dig, like the mole-cricket. When taken in hand I could not butwonder that they never offered to defend themselves, though armed with suchformidable weapons. Of such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrowsthey eat indiscriminately; and on a little platform, which they make just by,they drop their dung; and never, in the day-time, seem to stir more than two orthree inches from home. Sitting in the entrance of their caverns they chirp allnight as well as day from the middle of the month of May to the middle of July;and in hot weather, when they are most vigorous, they make the hills echo; and,in the stiller hours of darkness, may be heard to a considerable distance. Inthe beginning of the season, their notes are more faint and inward; but becomelouder as the summer advances, and so die away again by degrees.

Sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweetness and melody;nor do harsh sounds always displease. We are more apt to be captivated ordisgusted with the associations which they promote, than with the notesthemselves. Thus the shrilling of the field-cricket, though sharp andstridulous, yet marvellously delights some hearers, filling their minds with atrain of summer ideas of everything that is rural, verdurous, and joyous.

About the tenth of March the crickets appear at the mouths of their cells,which they then open and bore, and shape very elegantly. All that ever I haveseen at that season were in their pupa state, and had only the rudiments ofwings, lying under a skin or coat, which must be cast before the insect canarrive at its perfect state;* from whence I should suppose that the old ones oflast year do not always survive the winter. In August their holes begin to beobliterated, and the insects are seen no more till spring.

* We have observed that they cast these skins in April, which are then seenlying at the mouths of their holes.

Not many summers ago I endeavoured to transplant a colony to the terrace in mygarden, by boring deep holes in the sloping turf. The new inhabitants stayedsome time, and fed and sung; but wandered away by degrees, and were heard at afarther distance every morning; so that it appears that on this emergency theymade use of their wings in attempting to return to the spot from which theywere taken.

One of these crickets, when confined in a paper cage and set in the sun, andsupplied with plants moistened with water, will feed and thrive, and become somerry and loud as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sitting: ifthe plants are not wetted it will die.

Letter XLVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne.

Far from all resort of mirth
Save the cricket on the hearth.
MILTON’SIl Penseroso.

Dear Sir,

While many other insects must be sought after in fields and woods, and waters,the gryllus domesticus, or house-cricket, resides altogether within ourdwellings, intruding itself upon our notice whether we will or no. This speciesdelights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased with the moistureof the walls; and besides, the softness of the mortar enables them to burrowand mine between the joints of the bricks or stones, and to open communicationsfrom one room to another. They are particularly fond of kitchens andbakers’ ovens, on account of their perpetual warmth.

Tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period of onesummer, or else doze away the cold uncomfortable months in profound slumbers;but these, residing as it were in a torrid zone, are always alert and merry: agood Christmas fire is to them like the heats of the dog-days. Though they arefrequently heard by day, yet is their natural time of motion only in the night.As soon as it grows dusk, the chirping increases, and they come running forth,and are from the size of a flea to that of their full stature. As one shouldsuppose, from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit, they are a thirstyrace, and show a great propensity for liquids, being found frequently drownedin pans of water, milk, broth, or the like. Whatever is moist they affect; andtherefore often gnaw holes in wet woollen stockings and aprons that are hung tothe fire: they are the housewife’s barometer, foretelling her when itwill rain; and are prognostic sometimes, she thinks, of in or good luck; of thedeath of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being theconstant companions of her solitary hours they naturally become the objects ofher superstition. These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious;for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread;and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have observed them to fly,when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs. Thisfeat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in which they often leave theirhaunts, as it does for the method by which they come to houses where they werenot known before. It is remarkable, that many sorts of insects seem never touse their wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters and settlenew colonies. When in the air they move ‘volatu undoso,’ in wavesor curves, like wood-packers, opening and shutting their wings at every stroke,and so are always rising or sinking.

When they increase to a great degree, as they did once in the house where I amnow writing, they became noisome pests, flying into the candles, and dashinginto people’s faces; but may be blasted and destroyed by gunpowderdischarged into their crevices and crannies. In families, at such times, theyare, like Pharaoh’s plague of frogs, ‘in their bed-chambers, andupon their beds, and in their ovens, and in their kneading-troughs.’ *Their shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings. Catscatch hearth-crickets, and, playing with them as they do with mice, devourthem. Crickets may be destroyed, like wasps, by phials half fined with beer, orany liquid, and set in their haunts; for, being always eager to drink, theywill crowd in till the bottles are full.

* Exod. viii. 3.

Letter XLVIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne.

How diversified are the modes of life not only of incongruous but even ofcongenerous animals; and yet their specific distinctions are not more variousthan their propensities. Thus, while the field-cricket delights in sunny drybanks, and the house-cricket rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchenhearth or oven, the gryllus gryllotalpa (the mole-cricket) haunts moistmeadows, and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing allits functions in a swampy wet soil. With a pair of fore-feet, curiously adaptedto the purpose, it burrows and works under ground like the mole, raising aridge as it proceeds, but seldom throwing up hillocks.

As mole-crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals, they areunwelcome guests to the gardener, raising up ridges in their subterraneousprogress, and rendering the walks unsightly. If they take to the kitchenquarters, they occasion great damage among the plants and roots, by destroyingwhole beds of cabbages, young legumes, and flowers. When dug out they seem veryslow and helpless, and make no use of their wings by day; but at night theycome abroad, and make long excursions, as I have been convinced by findingstragglers, in a morning, in improbable places. In fine weather, about themiddle of April, and just at the close of day, they begin to solace themselveswith a low, dull, jarring note, continued for a long time without interruption,and not unlike the chattering of the fern-owl, or goat-sucker, but more inward.

About the beginning of May they lay their eggs, as I was once an eye-witness:for a gardener at an house, where I was on a visit, happening to be mowing, onthe 6th of that month, by the side of a canal, his scythe struck too deep,pared off a large piece of turf, and laid open to view a curious scene ofdomestic oeconomy:

… ingentem lato dedit ore fenestram:
Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt:
Apparent … penetralia.

There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber,neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a moderate snuff-box. Withinthis secret nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellowcolour, and enveloped in a tough skin, but too lately excluded to contain anyrudiments of young, being full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay butshallow, and within the influence of the sun, just under a little heap offresh-moved mould, like that which is raised by ants.

When mole-crickets fly they move ‘cursu undoso,’ rising and fallingin curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts of thiskingdom people call them fen-crickets, churr-worms, and eve-churrs, all veryapposite names.

Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects, astonish me withtheir accounts; for they say that, from the structure, position, and number oftheir stomachs, or maws, there seems to be good reason to suppose that this andthe two former species ruminate or chew the cud like many quadrupeds!

Letter XLIX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, May 7, 1779.

It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to theornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject: newoccurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive.

In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too uncommon tohave obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by the terms ofhimantopus, or loripes, and charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the verge ofFrinsham-pond, a large lake belonging to the bishop of Winchester, and lyingbetween Wolmer-forest, and the town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. Thepond keeper says there were three brace in the flock; but that, after he hadsatisfied his curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. One ofthese specimens I procured, and found the length of the legs to be soextraordinary, that, at first sight, one might have supposed the shanks hadbeen fastened on to impose on the credulity of the beholder: they were legs incaricature; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen weshould have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughtsman. These birdsare of the plover family, and might with propriety be called the stilt plovers.Brisson, under that idea, gives them the apposite name of l’echasse. Myspecimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and aquarter, though the naked part of the thigh measured three inches and an half,and the legs four inches and an half. Hence we may safely assert that thesebirds exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs ofany known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most long leggedbirds, and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the himantopus; for a cockflamingo weighs, at an average, about four pounds avoirdupois; and his legs andthighs measure usually about twenty inches. But four pounds are fifteen timesand a fraction more than four ounces and one quarter; and if four ounces and aquarter have eight inches of legs, four pounds must have one hundred and twentyinches and a fraction of legs; viz., somewhat more than ten feet; such amonstrous proportion as the world never saw! If you should try the experimentin still larger birds the disparity would still increase. It must be matter ofgreat curiosity to see the stilt plover move; to observe how it can wield sucha length of lever with such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnishedwith. At best one should expect it to be but a bad walker: but what adds to thewonder is that it has no back toe. Now without that steady prop support itssteps it must be liable, in speculation, to perpetual vacillations, and seldomable to preserve the true centre of gravity.

The old name of himantopus is taken from Pliny; and, by an awkward metaphor,implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong ofleather. Neither Willughby nor Ray, in all their curious researches either athome or abroad, ever saw this bird. Mr. Pennant never met with it in all GreatBritain, but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris.Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn: and a most accurateobserver of nature has assured me that he has found it on the banks of thestreams in Andalusia.

Our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain. From allthese relations it plainly appears that these long-legged plovers are birds ofSouth Europe, and rarely visit our island; and when they do are wanderers andstragglers, and impelled to make so distant and northern an excursion frommotives or accidents for which we are not able to account. One thing may fairlybe deduced, that these birds come over to us from the continent, since nobodycan suppose that a species not noticed once in an age, and of such a remarkablemake, can constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom.

Letter L

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, April 21, 1780.

Dear Sir,

The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become myproperty. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it wasenough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a boxwith earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry ofthe journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, itwalked twice down to the bottom of my garden; however, in the evening, theweather being cold, it buried itself in the loose mould, and continues stillconcealed.

As it will be under my eye, I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging myobservations on its mode of life, and propensities; and perceive already that,towards the time of coming forth, it opens a breathing place in the ground nearits head, requiring, I conclude, a freer respiration, as it becomes more alive.This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to themiddle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for it goes to bed in thelongest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morningtill late. Besides, it retires to rest for every shower; and does not move atall in wet days.

When one reflects on the state of this strange being, it is a matter of wonderto find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seemingwaste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as tosquander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lostto all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers.

While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with thethermometer at 50, brought forth troupe of shell-snails; and, at the samejuncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head; and the nextmorning came forth, as it were raised from the dead; and walked about till fourin the afternoon. This was a curious coincidence! a very amusing occurrence! tosee such a similarity of feelings between the two φερέοικοι! for so the Greekscall both the shell-snail and the tortoise.

Summer birds are, this cold and backward spring, unusually late: I have seenbut one swallow yet. This conformity with the weather convinces me more andmore that they sleep in the winter.

Letter LI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 3, 1781.

I have now read your miscellanies through with much care and satisfaction: andam to return you my best thanks for the honourable mention made in them of meas a naturalist, which I wish I may deserve.

In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the house-martinsdo not depart in the winter far from this village. I therefore determined tomake some search about the south-east end of the hill, where I imagined theymight slumber out the uncomfortable months of winter. But supposing that theexamination would be made to the best advantage in the spring, and observingthat no martins had appeared by the 11th of April last, on that day I employedsome men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot. The personstook pains, but without any success: however, a remarkable incident occurred inthe midst of our pursuit-while the labourers were at work a house-martin, thefirst that had been seen this year, came down the village in the sight ofseveral people, and went at once into a nest, where it stayed a short time, andthen flew over the houses; for some days after no martins were observed, nottill the 16th of April, and then only a pair. Martins in general wereremarkably late this year.

Letter LII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Selborne, Sept. 9, 1781.

I have just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which furnishes anexception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since I have bestowed anyattention on that species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, withdrew thisyear about the first day of August, all save one pair, which in two or threedays was reduced to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made mesuspect that the strongest of motives, that of an attachment to her young,could alone occasion so late a stay. I watched therefore till the twenty-fourthof August, and then discovered that, under the eaves of the church, sheattended upon two young, which were fledged, and now put out their white chinsfrom a crevice. These remained till the twenty-seventh, looking more alertevery day, and seeming to long to be on the wing. After this day they weremissing at once; nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing roundthe church in the act of learning to fly, as the first broods evidently do. Onthe thirty-first I caused the eaves to be searched, but we found in the nestonly two callow, dead, stinking swifts, on which a second nest had been formed.This double nest was full of the black shining cases of the hippoboscaehirundinis.

The following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious. The first is, thatthough it may be disagreeable to swifts to remain beyond the beginning ofAugust, yet that they can subsist longer is undeniable. The second is, thatthis uncommon event, as it was owing to the loss of the first brood, so itcorroborates my former remark, that swifts breed regularly but once; since, wasthe contrary the case, the occurrence above could neither be new nor rare.

P.S. One swift was seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, in 1782, so lateas the third of September.

Letter LIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about several kinds of insects, Ishall here send you an account of one sort which I little expected to havefound in this kingdom. I had often observed that one particular part of a vinegrowing on the walls of my house was covered in the autumn with a blackdust-like appearance, on which the flies fed eagerly; and that the shoots andleaves thus affected did not thrive; nor did the fruit ripen. To this substanceI applied my glasses; but could not discover that it had anything to do withanimal life, as I at first expected: but, upon a closer examination behind thelarger boughs, we were surprised to find that they were coated over with huskyshells, from whose sides proceeded a cotton-like substance, surrounding amultitude of eggs. This curious and uncommon production put me uponrecollecting what I have heard and read concerning the coccus vitis viniferaeof Linnaeus, which, in the South of Europe, infests many vines, and is anhorrid and loathsome pest. As soon as I had turned to the accounts given ofthis insect, I saw at once that it swarmed on my vine; and did not appear to beat all checked by the preceding winter, which had been uncommonly severe.

Not being then at all aware that it had anything to do with England, I was muchinclined to think that it came from Gibraltar among the many boxes and packagesof plants and birds which I had formerly received from thence; and especiallyas the vine infested grew immediately under my study-window, where I usuallykept my specimens. True it is that I had received nothing from thence for someyears: but as insects, we know, are conveyed from one country to another in avery unexpected manner, and have a wonderful power of maintaining theirexistence till they fall into a nidus proper for their support and increase, Icannot but suspect still that these cocci came to me originally from Andalusia.Yet, all the while, candour obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot haswritten me word that he once, and but once, saw these insects on a vine atWeymouth in Dorsetshire; which, it is here to be observed, is a seaport town towhich the coccus might be conveyed by shipping.

As many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this strange and unusualinsect, I shall here transcribe a passage from a natural history of Gibraltar,written by the Reverend John White, late vicar of Blackburn in Lancashire, butnot yet published:

‘In the year 1770 a vine which grew on the east side of my house, andwhich had produced the finest crops of grapes for years past, was suddenlyoverspread on all the woody branches with large lumps of a white fibroussubstance resembling spiders’ webs, or rather raw cotton. It was of avery clammy quality, sticking fast to everything that touched it, and capableof being spun into long threads. At first I suspected it to be the product ofspiders, but could find none. Nothing was to be seen connected with it but manybrown oval husky shells, which by no means looked like insects, but ratherresembled bits of the dry bark of the vine. The tree had a plentiful crop ofgrapes set, when this pest appeared upon it; but the fruit was manifestlyinjured by this foul incumbrance. It remained all the summer, still increasing,and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree. I often pulled offgreat quantities by handfuls; but it was so slimy and tenacious that it couldby no means be cleared. The grapes never filled to their natural perfection,but turned watery and vapid. Upon perusing the works afterwards of M. deReaumur, I found this matter perfectly described and accounted for. Those huskyshells, which I had observed, were no other than the female coccus, from whosesides this cotton-like substance exudes, and serves as a covering and securityfor their eggs.’

To this account I think proper to add, that, though the female cocci arestationary, and seldom remove from the place to which they stick, yet the maleis a winged insect; and that the black dust which I saw was undoubtedly theexcrement of the females, which is eaten by ants as well as flies. Though theutmost severity of our winter did not destroy these insects, yet the attentionof the gardener in a summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from thisfilthy annoyance.

As we have remarked above that insects are often conveyed from one country toanother in a very unaccountable manner, I shall here mention an emigration ofsmall aphides, which was observed in the village of Selborne no longer ago thanAugust the 1st, 1785.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon of that day, which was very hot,the people of this village were surprised by a shower of aphides, orsmother-flies, which fell in these parts. Those that were walking in the streetat that juncture found themselves covered with these insects, which settledalso on the hedges and gardens, blackening all the vegetables where theyalighted. My annuals were discoloured with them, and the stalks of a bed ofonions were quite coated over for six days after. These armies were then, nodoubt, in a state of emigration, and shifting their quarters; and might havecome, as far as we know, from the great hop-plantations of Kent or Sussex, thewind being all that day in the easterly quarter. They were observed at the sametime in great clouds about Farnham, and all along the vale from Farnham toAlton.

* For various methods by which several insects shift their quarters, seeDerham’s Physico-Theology.

Letter LIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Dear Sir,

When I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes are kept in aglass bowl, I am always pleased with the occurrence, because it offers me anopportunity of observing the actions and propensities of those beings with whomwe can be little acquainted in their natural state. Not long since I spent afortnight at the house of a friend where there was such a vivary, to which Ipaid no small attention, taking every occasion to remark what passed within itsnarrow limits. It was here that I first observed the manner in which fishesdie. As soon as the creature sickens, the head sinks lower and lower, and itstands as it were on its head; till, getting weaker, and losing all poise, thetail turns over, and at last it floats on the surface of the water with itsbelly uppermost. The reason why fishes, when dead, swim in that manner is veryobvious; because, when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly,the broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity, and turns the bellyuppermost, as lighter from its being a cavity, and because it contains theswimming-bladders, which contribute to render it buoyant. Some that delight ingold and silver fishes have adopted a notion that they need no aliment. True itis that they will subsist for a long time without any apparent food but whatthey can collect from pure water frequently changed; yet they must draw somesupport from animalcula, and other nourishment supplied by the water; because,though they seem to eat nothing, yet the consequences of eating often drop fromthem. That they are best pleased with such jejune diet may easily be confuted,since if you toss them crumbs, they will seize them with great readiness, notto say greediness: however, bread should be given sparingly, lest, turningsour, it corrupt the water. They will also feed on the water-plant calledlemna (duck’s meat), and also on small fry.

When they want to move a little they gently protrude themselves with theirpinnae pectorales; but it is with their strong muscular tails only that theyand all fishes shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity. It has been saidthat the eyes of fishes are immoveable: but these apparently turn them forwardor backward in their sockets as their occasions require. They take littlenotice of a lighted candle, though applied close to their heads, but flounceand seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the supportwhereon the bowl is hung; especially when they have been motionless, and areperhaps asleep. As fishes have no eyelids, it is not easy to discern when theyare sleeping or not, because their eyes are always open.

Nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such fishes: thedouble refractions of the glass and water represent them, when moving, in ashifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades, and colours; while thetwo mediums, assisted by the concavo-convex shape of the vessel, magnify anddistort them vastly; not to mention that the introduction of another elementand its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeablemanner.

Gold and silver fishes, though originally natives of China and Japan, yet arebecome so well reconciled to our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast inour ponds and stews. Linnaeus ranks this species of fish under the genus ofcyprinus, or carp, and calls it cyprinus auratus.

Some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way; for they cause aglass bowl to be blown with a large hollow space within, that does notcommunicate with it. In this cavity they put a bird occasionally; so that youmay see a goldfinch or a linnet hopping as it were in the midst of the water,and the fishes swimming in a circle round it. The simple exhibition of thefishes is agreeable and pleasant; but in so complicated a way becomes whimsicaland unnatural, and liable to the objection due to him,

Qui variare cupit rem prodigialiter unam.

I am, etc.

Letter LV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

October 10, 1781.

Dear Sir,

I think I have observed before that much the most considerable part of thehouse-martins withdraw from hence about the first week in October; but thatsome, the latter broods I am now convinced, linger on till towards the middleof that month: and that at times, once perhaps in two or three years, a flight,for one day only, has shown itself in the first week of November.

Having taken notice, in October 1780, that the last flight was numerous,amounting perhaps to one hundred and fifty; and that the season was soft andstill; I was resolved to pay uncommon attention to these late birds; to find,if possible, where they roosted, and to determine the precise time of theirretreat. The mode of life of these latter hirundines is very favourable to sucha design; for they spend the whole day in the sheltered district between meand the Hanger, sailing about in a placid, easy manner, and feasting on thoseinsects which love to haunt a spot so secure from ruffling winds. As myprincipal object was to discover the place of their roosting, I took care towait on them before they retired to rest, and was much pleased to find that,for several evenings together, just at a quarter past five in the afternoon,they all scudded away in great haste towards the south-east, and darted downamong the low shrubs above the cottages at the end of the hill. This spot inmany respects seems to be well calculated for their winter residence: for inmany parts it is as steep as the roof of any house, and therefore secure fromthe annoyances of water; and it is moreover clothed with beechen shrubs, which,being stunted and bitten by sheep, make the thickest covert imaginable; and areso entangled as to be impervious to the smallest spaniel: besides, it is thenature of underwood beech never to cast its leaf all the winter; so that, withthe leaves on the ground and those on the twigs, no shelter can be morecomplete. I watched them on to the thirteenth and fourteenth of October, andfound their evening retreat was exact and uniform; but after this they made noregular appearance. Now and then a straggler was seen; and on the twenty-secondof October, I observed two in the morning over the village, and with them myremarks for the season ended.

From all these circumstances put together, it is more than probable that thislingering flight, at so late a season of the year, never departed from theisland. Had they indulged me that autumn with a November visit, as I muchdesired I presume that, with proper assistants, I should have settled thematter past all doubt; but though the third of November was a sweet day, and inappearance exactly suited to my wishes, yet not a martin was to be seen; and soI was forced, reluctantly, to give up the pursuit.

I have only to add that were the bushes, which cover some acres, and are not myown property, to be grubbed and carefully examined, probably those late broods,and perhaps the whole aggregate body of the house-martins of this district,might be found there, in different secret dormitories; and that, so far fromwithdrawing into warmer climes, it would appear that they never depart threehundred yards from the village.

Letter LVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

They who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct,that wonderful limited faculty, which, in some instances, raises the brutecreation as it were above reason, and in others leaves them so far below it.Philosophers have defined instinct to be chat secret influence by which everyspecies is impelled naturally to pursue, at all times, The same way or track,without any teaching or example; whereas reason, without instruction, wouldoften vary and do chat by many methods which instinct effects by one alone. Nowthis maxim must be taken in a qualified sense; for there are instances in whichinstinct does vary and conform to the circumstances of place and convenience.

It has been remarked chat every species of bird has a mode of nidificationpeculiar to itself; so that a schoolboy would at once pronounce on the sort ofnest before him. This is the case among fields and woods, and wilds; but, inthe villages round London, where mosses and gossamer, and cotton fromvegetables, are hardly to be found, the nest of the chaffinch has not thatelegant finished appearance, nor is it so beautifully studded with lichens, asin a more rural district: and the wren is obliged to construct its house withstraws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity and compactness soremarkable in the edifices of the little architect. Again, the regular nest ofthe house-martin is hemispheric; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornicemay happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to theobstruction, and becomes flat or oval, or compressed.

In the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and consistent. Thereare three creatures, the squirrel, the field-mouse, and the bird called thenut-hatch (sitta Europaea), which live much on hazel nuts; and yet they openthem each in a different way. The first, after rasping off the small end,splits the shell in two with his long fore-teeth, as a man does with his knife;the second nibbles a hole with his teeth, so regular as if drilled with awimble, and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extractedthrough it; while the last picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill: but asthis artist has no paws to hold the nut firm while he pierces it, like anadroit workman, he fixes it, as it were in a vice, in some cleft of a tree, orin some crevice; when, standing over it, he perforates the stubborn shell. Wehave often placed nuts in the chink of a gate-post where nut-hatches have beenknown to haunt, and have always found that those birds have readily penetratedthem. While at work they make a rapping noise that may be heard at aconsiderable distance.

You that understand both the theory and practical part of music may best informus why harmony or melody should so strangely affect some men, as it were byrecollection, for days after a concert is over. What I mean the followingpassage will most readily explain:

‘Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instrumentisque harmonicis musicamillam avium: non quad alia quoque non delectaretur; sed quod ex musica humanarelinqueretur in animo continens qaemdam, attentionemque et somnum conturbansagitatio; dum ascensus, exscensus, tenores, ac mutationes illae sonorum etconsonantiarum euntque redeuntque per phantasiam: — cum nihil talerelinqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quae, quod non sunt perinde a nobisimitabiles, non possunt perinde internam facultatem commovere.’ —GASSENDUS in Vita Peireskii.

This curious quotation strikes me much by so well representing my own case, andby describing what I have so often felt, but never could so well express. WhenI hear fine music I am haunted with passages therefrom night and day; andespecially at first waking, which, by their importunity, give me moreuneasiness than pleasure: elegant lessons still tease my imagination, and recurirresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when I am desirous ofthinking of more serious matters.

I am, etc.

Letter LVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

A rare, and I think a new little bird frequents my garden, which I have greatreason to think is the pettichaps: it is common in some parts of the kingdom,and I have received formerly several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This birdmuch resembles the white-throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breastand belly; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from boughto bough, examining every part for food; it also runs up the stems of thecrown-imperials, and, putting its head into the bells of those flowers, sipsthe liquor which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds onthe ground, like the hedge-sparrow, by hopping about on the grass-plots andmown walks.

One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, informs me that, in thebeginning of May, and about ten minutes before eight o’clock in theevening, he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at least hesupposes, perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James Knight’supper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds,which sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and,by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. Inthis situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Repeated accountsof this sort, spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallowshave some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food; andthough they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselvesin the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

One of the keepers of Wolmer-forest sent me a peregrine falcon, which he shoton the verge of that district as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The falcoperegrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in thesouthern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed in the neighbouring parish ofFaringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales.* Since that time Ihave met with none till now. The specimen measured above was in finepreservation, and not injured by the shot: it measured forty-two inches fromwing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and anhalf standing weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed forrapine: its breast was plump and muscular; its thighs long, thick, and brawny;and its legs remarkably short and well set: the feet were armed with mostformidable, sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow;but the irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a darkcolour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on eachside: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body: yetthe wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its largeand fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a female; but I was notpermitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which areusually lean, this was in high case: in its craw were many barley-corns, whichprobably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding whenshot: for voracious birds do not eat grain; but when devouring their quarry,with undistinguishing vehemence swallow bones and feathers, and all matters,indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of NorthWales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and deepsnows that had lately fallen.

* See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman.

I am, etc.

Letter LVIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

My near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the East-India Company,has brought home a dog and a bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton; such asare fattened in the country for the purpose of being eaten: they are about thesize of a moderate spaniel; of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristlinghairs on their backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them avery fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without anybend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait whenthey trot. When they are in motion their tails are curved high over their backslike those of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the outside from thetip midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but somewhat singular.Their eyes are jet black, small, and piercing; the insides of their lips andmouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The bitch has a dew-claw oneach hind leg; the dog has none. When taken out into a field the bitch showedsome disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a covey of partridgestill she sprung them, giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in South Americaare dumb; but these bark much in a short thick manner, like foxes; and have asurly, savage demeanour like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, butbred up in sties, where they are fed for the table with rice-meal and otherfarinaceous food. These dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned,could not learn much from their dam; yet they did not relish flesh when theycame to England. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean the dogs are bred up onvegetables, and would not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators.

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp, upright fox-likeears; and that hanging ears, which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect ofchoice breeding and cultivation. Thus, in the Travels of Ysbrandt Ides fromMuscovy to China, the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow-sledges near theriver Oby are engraved with prick-ears, like those from Canton. TheKamschatdales also train the same sort of sharp-eared peak-nosed dogs to drawtheir sledges; as may be seen in an elegant print engraved for CaptainCook’s last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs it may not be impertinent to add, thatspaniels, as all sportsmen know, though they hunt partridges and pheasants asit were by instinct, and with much delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touchtheir bones when offered as food; nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though heis remarkable for ending that sort of game. But, when we came to offer thebones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them with muchgreediness, and licked the platter clean.

No sporting dogs will flush woodcocks till inured to the scent and trained tothe sport, which they then pursue with vehemence and transport; but then theywill not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when theyare hungry.

Now, that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such birds as they are notdisposed to hunt is no wonder; but why they reject and do not care to eat theirnatural game is not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting seems tobe, that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the morerancid water-fowls, nor indeed the bones of any wild-fowls; nor will they touchthe foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage: and indeed there maybe somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance of dislike; forvultures,* and kites, and ravens, and crows, etc., were intended to bemessmates with dogs** over their carrion; and seem to be appointed by nature asfellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of theearth.

* Hasselquist, in his Travels to the Levant, observes that the dogs andvultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring uptheir young together in the same place.

** The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like quihloh.

I am, etc.

Letter LIX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

The fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer-forest is not yet all exhausted,for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piecewhich was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village, thiswas the butt-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches indiameter. It had apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was veryponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what purpose hehad procured it, he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner atFarnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet work, by inlaying it along withwhiter woods.

Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, in spring and summer,frequently hear a nocturnal bird passing by on the wing, and repeating often ashort quick note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could make outtill lately. I am assured now that it is the stone curlew (charadriusoedicnemus). Some of them pass over or near my house almost every evening afterit is dark, from the uplands of the hill and North field, away down towardsDorton; where, among the streams and meadows, they find a greater plenty offood. Birds that fly by night are obliged to be noisy; their notes oftenrepeated become signals or watchwords to keep them together, that they may notstray or lose each the other in the dark.

The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are curious and amusing inthe autumn. Just before dusk they return in long strings from the foraging ofthe day, and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne-down, where they wheel roundin the air, and sport and dive in a playful manner, all the while exertingtheir voices, and making a loud cawing, which, being blended and softened bythe distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a confused noise orchiding; or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and notunlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing ofthe wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore. Whenthis ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night tothe deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl who, asshe was going to bed, used to remark on such an occurrence, in the true spiritof physico-theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers; and yet thischild was much too young to be aware that the scriptures have said of the Deity— that ‘he feedeth the ravens who call upon him.’

I am, etc.

Letter LX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

In reading Dr. Huxham’s Observationes de Aere, etc., written at Plymouth,I find by those curious and accurate remarks, which contain an account of theweather from the year 1727 to the year 1748, inclusive, that though there isfrequent rain in that district of Devonshire, yet the quantity falling is notgreat; and that some years it has been very small: for in 1731 the rainmeasured only 17.266 in. and in 1741, 20.354 in.; and again in 1743 only 20.908in. Places near the sea have frequent scuds, that keep the atmosphere moist,yet do not reach far up into the country; making thus the maritime situationsappear wet, when the rain is not considerable. In the wettest years at Plymouththe Doctor measured only once 36 in.; and again once, viz., 1734, 37.114 in.: aquantity of rain that has twice been exceeded at Selborne in the short periodof my observations. Dr. Huxham remarks, that frequent small rains keep the airmoist; while heavy ones render it more dry, by beating down the vapours. He isalso of opinion that the dingy, smoky appearance of the sky, in very dryseasons, arises from the want of moisture sufficient to let the light through,and render the atmosphere transparent; because he had observed several bodiesmore diaphanous when wet than dry; and did never recollect that the air hadthat look in rainy seasons.

My friend who lives just beyond the top of the down, brought his three swivelguns to try them in my outlet, with their muzzles towards the Hanger, supposingthat the report would have had a great effect; but the experiment did notanswer his expectation. He then removed them to the Alcove on the Hanger: whenthe sound, rushing along the Lythe and Combwood, was very grand: but it was atthe Hermitage that the echoes and repercussions delighted the hearers; not onlyfilling the Lythe with the roar, as if all the beeches were tearing up by theroots; but, turning to the left, they pervaded the vale above Combwood-ponds;and after a pause seemed to take up the crash again, and to extend roundHarteley-hangers, and to die away at last among the coppices and coverts ofWard le Ham. It has been remarked before that this district is an Anathoth, aplace of responses or echoes, and therefore proper for such experiments: we mayfurther add that the pauses in echoes, when they cease and yet are taken upagain, like the pauses in music, surprise the hearers, and have a fine effecton the imagination.

The gentleman above mentioned has just fixed a barometer in his parlour atNewton Valence. The tube was first filled here (at Selborne) twice with care,when the mercury agreed and stood exactly with my own; but being filled againtwice at Newton, the mercury stood, on account of the great elevation of thathouse, three-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at this village, andso continues to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what it may. The plate ofthe barometer at Newton is figured as low as 27; because in stormy weather themercury there will sometimes descend below 28. We have supposed Newton-house tostand two hundred feet higher than this house: but if the rule holds good,which says that mercury in a barometer sinks one-tenth of an inch for everyhundred feet elevation, then the Newton barometer, by standing three-tenthslower than that of Selborne, proves that Newton-house must be three hundredfeet higher than that in which I am writing, instead of two hundred.

It may not be impertinent to add, that the barometers at Selborne standthree-tenths of an inch lower than the barometers at South Lambeth; whence wemay conclude that the former place is about three hundred feet higher than thelatter; and with good reason, because the streams that rise with us run intothe Thames at Weybridge, and so to London. Of course therefore there must belower ground all the way from Selborne to Sough Lambeth; the distance betweenwhich, all the windings and indentings of the streams considered, cannot beless than an hundred miles. I am, etc.

Letter LXI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

Since the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural history, Ishall make no further apology for the four following letters, which willcontain many particulars concerning some of the great frosts and a fewrespecting some very hot summers, that have distinguished themselves from therest during the course of my observations.

As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small it lasted, the most severe thatwe had then known for many years, and was remarkably injurious to evergreens,some account of its rigour, and reason of its ravages, may be useful, and notunacceptable to persons that delight in planting and ornamenting; and mayparticularly become a work that professes never to lose sight of utility.

For the last two or three days of the former year there were considerable fallsof snow, which lay deep and uniform on the ground without any drifting,wrapping up the more humble vegetation in perfect security. From the first dayto the fifth of the new year more snow succeeded; but from that day the airbecame entirely clear; and the heat of the sun about noon had a considerableinfluence in sheltered situations.

It was in such an aspect that the snow on the author’s evergreens wasmelted every day, and frozen intensely every night; so that the laurustines,bays, laurels, and arbutuses looked, in three or four days, as if they had beenburnt in the fire; while a neighbour’s plantation of the same kind, in ahigh cold situation, where the snow was never melted at all, remaineduninjured.

From hence I would infer that it is the repeated melting and freezing of thesnow that is so fatal to vegetation, rather than the severity of the cold.Therefore it highly behaves every planter, who wishes to escape the cruelmortification of losing in a few days the labour and hopes of years, to bestirhimself on such emergencies; and, if his plantations are small, to availhimself of mats, cloths, pease-haum, straw, reeds, or any such covering, for ashort time; or, if his shrubberies are extensive, to see that his people goabout with prongs and forks, and carefully dislodge the snow from the boughs,since the naked foliage will shift much better for itself, than where the snowis partly melted and frozen again.

It may perhaps appear at first like a paradox; but doubtless the more tendertrees and shrubs should never be planted in hot aspects; not only for thereason assigned above, but also because, thus circumstanced, they are disposedto shoot earlier in the spring, and grow on later in the autumn than they wouldotherwise do, and so are sufferers by lagging or early frosts. For this reasonalso plants from Siberia will hardly endure our climate: because, on the veryfirst advances of spring, they shoot away, and so are cut off by the severenights of March or April.

Dr. Fothergill and others have experienced the same inconvenience with respectto the more tender shrubs from North America; which they therefore plant undernorth walls. There should also perhaps be a wall to the east to defend themfrom the piercing blasts from that quarter.

This observation might without any impropriety be carried into animal life; fordiscerning bee-masters now find that their hives should not in the winter beexposed to the hot sun, because such unseasonable warmth awakens theinhabitants too early from their slumbers; and, by putting their juices intomotion too soon, subjects them afterwards to inconveniences when rigorousweather returns.

The coincidents attending this short but intense frost were, that the horsesfell sick with an epidemic distemper, which injured the winds of many, andkilled some; that colds and coughs were general among the human species; thatit froze under people’s beds for several nights; that meat was so hardfrozen that it could not be spitted, and could not be secured but in cellars;that several redwings and thrushes were killed by the frost; and that the largetitmouse continued to pull straw lengthwise from the eaves of thatched housesand barns in a most adroit manner, for a purpose that has been explainedalready.

* See Letter XLI to Mr. Pennant.

On the 3d of January, Benjamin Martin’s thermometer within doors, in aclose parlour where there was no fire, fell in the night to 20, and on the 4thto 18, and the 7th to 17.5, a degree of cold which the owner never since saw inthe same situation; and he regrets much that he was not able at that junctureto attend his instrument abroad. All this time the wind continued north andnorth-east; and yet on the eighth roost-cocks, which had been silent, began tosound their clarions, and crows to clamour, as prognostic of milder weather;and, moreover, moles began to heave and work, and a manifest thaw took place.From the latter circumstance we may conclude that thaws often originate underground from warm vapours which arise; else how should subterraneous animalsreceive such early intimations of their approach? Moreover, we have oftenobserved that cold seems to descend from above; for, when a thermometer hangsabroad in a frosty night, the intervention of a cloud shall immediately raisethe mercury ten degrees; and a clear sky shall again compel it to descend toits former gauge.

And here it may be proper to observe, on what has been said above, that thoughfrosts advance to their utmost severity by somewhat of a regular gradation, yetthaws do not usually come on by as regular a declension of cold; but often takeplace immediately from intense freezing; as men in sickness often mend at oncefrom a paroxysm.

To the great credit of Portugal laurels and American junipers, be it rememberedthat they remained untouched amidst the general havoc: hence men should learnto ornament chiefly with such trees as are able to withstand accidentalseverities, and not subject themselves to the vexation of a loss which maybefall them once perhaps in ten years, yet may hardly be recovered through thewhole course of their lives.

As it appeared afterwards the ilexes were much injured, the cypresses were halfdestroyed, the arbutuses lingered on, but never recovered; and the bays,laurustines, and laurels, were killed to the ground; and the very wild hollies,in hot aspects, were so much affected that they cast all their leaves.

By the 14th of January the snow was entirely gone; the turnips emerged notdamaged at all, save in sunny places; the wheat looked delicately, and thegarden plants were well preserved; for snow is the most kindly mantle thatinfant vegetation can be wrapped in; were it not for that friendly meteor novegetable life could exist at all in northerly regions. Yet in Sweden the earthin April is not divested of snow for more than a fortnight before the face ofthe country is covered with flowers.

Letter LXII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

There were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost in January 1776 sosingular and striking, that a short detail of them may not be unacceptable.

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages from my journal,which were taken from time to time as things occurred. But it may be properpreviously to remark that the first week in January was uncommonly wet, anddrowned with vast rains from every quarter: from whence may be inferred, asthere is great reason to believe is the case, that intense frosts seldom takeplace till the earth is perfectly glutted and chilled with water;* and hencedry autumns are seldom followed by rigorous winters.

* The autumn preceding January 1768 was very wet, and particularly the month ofSeptember, during which there fell at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, sixinches and an half of rain. And the terrible long frost of 1739-40 set in aftera rainy season, and when the springs were very high.

January 7th. — Snow driving all the day, which was followed by frost,sleet, and some snow, till the 12th, when a prodigious mass overwhelmed all theworks of men, drifting over the tops of the gates and filling the hollow lanes.

On the 14th the writer was obliged to be much abroad; and thinks he neverbefore or since has encountered such rugged Siberian weather. Many of thenarrow roads were now filled above the tops of the hedges; through which thesnow was driven into most romantic and grotesque shapes, so striking to theimagination as not to be seen without wonder and pleasure. The poultry darednot to stir out of their roosting-places; for cocks and hens are so dazzled andconfounded by the glare of snow that they would soon perish without assistance.The hares also lay sullenly in their seats, and would not move until compelledby hunger; being conscious, poor animals, that the drifts and heapstreacherously betray their footsteps, and prove fatal to numbers of them.

From the 14th the snow continued to increase, and began to stop the roadwaggons and coaches, which could no longer keep on their regular stages; andespecially on the western roads, where the fall appears to have been deeperthan in the south. The company at Bath, that wanted to attend the Queen’sbirth-day, were strangely incommoded: many carriages of persons, who got, intheir way to town from Bath, as far as Marlborough, after strangeembarrassments, here met with a ne plus ultra. The ladies fretted, and offeredlarge rewards to labourers, if they would shovel them a track to London; butthe relentless heaps of snow were too bulky to be removed; and so the 18thpassed over, leaving the company in very uncomfortable circumstances at theCastle and other inns.

On the 20th the sun shone out for the first time since the frost began; acircumstance that has been remarked before much in favour of vegetation. Allthis time the cold was not very intense, for the thermometer stood at 29, 28,25, and thereabout; but on the 21st it descended to 20. The birds now began tobe in a very pitiable and starving condition. Tamed by the season, skylarkssettled in the streets of towns, because they saw the ground was bare; rooksfrequented dunghills close to houses; and crows watched horses as they passed,and greedily devoured what dropped from them; hares now came into men’sgardens, and, scraping away the snow, devoured such plants as they could find.

On the 22nd the author had occasion to go to London through a sort ofLaplandian-scene, very wild and grotesque indeed. But the metropolis itselfexhibited a still more singular appearance than the country; for, being beddeddeep in snow, the pavement of the streets could not be touched by the wheels orthe horses’ feet, so that the carriages ran about without the leastnoise. Such an exception from din and clatter was strange, but not pleasant; itseemed to convey an uncomfortable idea of desolation:

… ipsa silentia terrent.

On the 27th much snow fell all day, and in the evening the frost became veryintense. At South Lambeth, for the four following nights, the thermometer fellto 11, 7, 6, 6; and at Selborne to 7, 6, 10; and on the 31st January, justbefore sunrise, with rime on the trees and on the tube of the glass, thequicksilver sunk exactly to zero, being 32 degrees below the freezing point;but by eleven in the morning, though in the shade, it sprung up to 16.5 *— a most unusual degree of cold this for the south of England! Duringthese four nights the cold was so penetrating that it occasioned ice in warmchambers and under beds; and in the day the wind was so keen that persons ofrobust constitutions could scarcely endure to face it. The Thames was at onceso frozen over both above and below bridge that crowds ran about on the ice.The streets were now strangely incumbered with snow, which crumbled and troddusty; and, turning grey, resembled bay-salt; what had fallen on the roofs wasso perfectly dry that, from first to last, it lay twenty-six days on the housesin the city; a longer time than had been remembered by the oldest housekeepersliving. According to all appearances we might now have expected the continuanceof this rigorous weather for weeks to come, since every night increased inseverity; but behold, without any apparent cause, on the 1st of February a thawtook place, and some rain followed before night; making good the observationabove, that frosts often go off as it were at once, without any gradualdeclension of cold. On the second of February the thaw persisted; and on the 3dswarms of little insects were frisking and sporting in a court-yard at SouthLambeth, as if they had felt no frost. Why the juices in the small bodies andsmaller limbs of such minute beings are not frozen is a matter of curiousinquiry.

* At Selborne the cold was greater than at any other place that the authorcould hear of with certainty: though some reported at the time that at avillage in Kent, the thermometer fell two degrees below zero, viz., 34 degreesbelow the freezing point. The thermometer used at Selborne was graduated byBenjamin Martin.

Severe frosts seem to be partial, or to run in currents; for, at the samejuncture, as the author was informed by accurate correspondents, at Lyndon inthe county of Rutland, the thermometer stood at 19: at Blackburn, inLancashire, at 19: and at Manchester at 21, 20, and 18. Thus does some unknowncircumstance strangely overbalance latitude, and render the cold sometimes muchgreater in the southern than in the northern parts of this kingdom.

The consequences of this severity were, that in Hampshire, at the melting ofthe snow, the wheat looked well, and the turnips came forth little injured. Thelaurels and laurustines were somewhat damaged, but only in hot aspects. Noevergreens were quite destroyed; and not half the damage sustained that befellin January, 1768. Those laurels that were a little scorched on the south-sideswere perfectly untouched on their north-sides. The care taken to shake the snowday by day from the branches seemed greatly to avail the author’severgreens. A neighbour’s laurel-hedge, in a high situation, and facingto the north, was perfectly green and vigorous; and the Portugal laurelsremained unhurt.

As to the birds, the thrushes and blackbirds were mostly destroyed; and thepartridges, by the weather and poachers, were so thinned that few remained tobreed the following year.

Letter LXIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

As the frost in December, 1784, was very extraordinary, you, I trust, will notbe displeased to hear the particulars; and especially when I promise to say nomore about the severities of winter after I have finished this letter.

The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer very low. On the7th, with the barometer at 28-five-tenths, came on a vast snow, which continuedall that day and the next, and most part of the following night; so that by themorning of the 9th the works of men were quite overwhelmed, the lanes filled soas to be impassable, and the ground covered twelve or fifteen inches withoutany drifting. In the evening of the 9th the air began to be so very sharp thatwe thought it would be curious to attend to the motions of a thermometer: wetherefore hung out two; one made by Martin and one by Dollond, which soon beganto show us what we were to expect; for, by ten o’clock, they fell to 21,and at eleven to 4, when we went to bed. On the 10th, in the morning, thequicksilver of Dollond’s glass was down to half a degree below zero; andthat of Martin’s, which was absurdly graduated only to four degrees abovezero, sunk quite into the brass guard of the ball; so that when the weatherbecame most interesting this was useless. On the 10th, at eleven at night,though the air was perfectly still, Dollond’s glass went down to onedegree below zero! This strange severity of the weather made me very desirousto know what degree of cold there might be in such an exalted and nearsituation as Newton. We had therefore, on the morning of the 10th, written toMr. ——, and entreated him to hang out his thermometer, made byAdams; and to pay some attention to it morning and evening; expecting wonderfulphaenomena, in so elevated a region, at two hundred feet or more above myhouse. But, behold! on the 10th, at eleven at night, it was down only to 17,and the next morning at 22, when mine was at 10. We were so disturbed at thisunexpected reverse of comparative local cold, that we sent one of my glassesup, thinking that of Mr. —— must, somehow, be wrongly constructed.But, when the instruments came to be confronted, they went exactly together: sothat, for one night at least, the cold at Newton was 18 degrees less than atSelborne; and, through the whole frost, 10 or 12 degrees; and indeed, when wecame to observe consequences, we could readily credit this; for all mylaurustines, bays, ilexes, arbutuses, cypresses, and even my Portugal laurels,*and (which occasions more regret) my fine sloping laurel hedge, were scorchedup; while, at Newton, the same trees have not lost a leaf!

* Mr. Miller, in his Gardener’s Dictionary, says positively that thePortugal laurels remained untouched in the remarkable frost of 1739–40. So thateither that accurate observer was much mistaken, or else the frost of December,1784, was much more severe and destructive than that in the year abovementioned.

We had steady frost on to the 25th, when the thermometer in the morning wasdown to 10 with us, and at Newton only to 21. Strong frost continued till the31st, when some tendency to thaw was observed, and, by January the 3rd, 1785,the thaw was confirmed, and some rain fell.

A circumstance that I must not omit, because it was new to us, is, that onFriday, December the 10th, being bright sun-shine, the air was full of icyspiculae, floating in all directions, like atoms in a sun-beam let into a darkroom. We thought them at first particles of the rime falling from my tallhedges; but were soon convinced to the contrary, by making our observations inopen places where no rime could reach us. Were they watery particles of the airfrozen as they floated; or were they evaporations from the snow frozen as theymounted ?

We were much obliged to the thermometers for the early information they gaveus: and hurried our apples, pears, onions, potatoes, etc., into the cellar, andwarm closets; while those who had not, or neglected such warnings, lost alltheir stores of roots and fruits, and had their very bread and cheese frozen.

I must not omit to tell you that, during those two Siberian days, myparlour-cat was so electric, that had a person stroked her, and been properlyinsulated, the shock might have been given to a whole circle of people.

I forgot to mention before, that, during the two severe days, two men, who weretracing hares in the snow, had their feet frozen; and two men, who were muchbetter employed, had their fingers so affected by the frost, while they werethrashing in a barn, that a mortification followed, from which they did notrecover for many weeks.

This frost killed all the furze and most of the ivy, and in many placesstripped the hollies of all their leaves. It came at a very early time of theyear, before old November ended; and yet it may be allowed from its effects tohave exceeded any since 1739–40.

Letter LXIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the northerly climate ofEngland, where the summers are often so defective in warmth and sunshine as notto ripen the fruits of the earth so well as might be wished, I shall be moreconcise in my account of the severity of a summer season, and so make a littleamends for the prolix account of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniencesthat we suffered from late rigorous winters.

The summers of 1781 and 1783 were unusually hot and dry; to them therefore Ishall turn back in my journals, without recurring to any more distant period.In the former of these years my peach and nectarine-trees suffered so much fromthe heat that the rind on the bodies was scalded and came off; since which thetrees have been in a decaying state. This may prove a hint to assiduousgardeners to fence and shelter their wall-trees with mats or boards, as theymay easily do, because such annoyance is seldom of long continuance. Duringthat summer also, I observed that my apples were coddled, as it were, on thetrees; so that they had no quickness of flavour, and would not keep in thewinter. This circumstance put me in mind of what I have heard travellersassert, that they never ate a good apple or apricot in the south of Europe,where the beats were so great as to render the juices vapid and insipid.

The great pests of a garden are wasps, which destroy all the finer fruits justas they are coming into perfection. In 1781 we had none; in 1783 there weremyriads; which would have devoured all the produce of my garden, had not we setthe boys to take the nests, and caught thousands with hazel twigs tipped withbird-lime: we have since employed the boys to take and destroy the largebreeding wasps in the spring. Such expedients have a great effect on thesemarauders, and will keep them under. Though wasps do not abound but in hotsummers, yet they do not prevail in every hot summer, as I have instanced inthe two years above mentioned.

In the sultry season of 1783 honey-dews were so frequent as to deface anddestroy the beauties of my garden. My honey-suckles, which were one week themost sweet and lovely objects that the eye could behold, became the next themost loathsome; being enveloped in a viscous substance, and loaded with blackaphides, or smother-flies. The occasion of this clammy appearance seems to bethis, that in hot weather the effluvia of flowers in fields and meadows andgardens are drawn up in the day by a brisk evaporation, and then in the nightfall down again with the dews, in which they are entangled; that the air isstrongly scented, and therefore impregnated with the particles of flowers insummer weather, our senses will inform us; and that this clammy sweet substanceis of the vegetable kind we may learn from bees, to whom it is very grateful:and we may be assured that it falls in the night, because it is always seenfirst in warm still mornings.

On chalky and sandy soils, and in the hot villages about London, thethermometer has been often observed to mount as high as 83 or 84; but with us,in this hilly and woody district, I have hardly ever seen it exceed 80; nordoes it often arrive at that pitch. The reason, I conclude, is, that our denseclayey soil, so much shaded by trees, is not so easily heated through as thoseabove-mentioned: and, besides, our mountains cause currents of air and breezes;and the vast effluvia from our woodlands temper and moderate our heats.

Letter LXV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full ofhorrible phaenomena; for besides the alarming meteors and tremendousthunder-storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of thiskingdom, the peculiar haze, or smokey fog, that prevailed for many weeks inthis island, and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was amost extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man.By my journal I find that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23 toJuly 20 inclusive, during which period the wind varied to every quarter withoutmaking any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as aclouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured ferruginous light on the ground, andfloors of rooms; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising andsetting. All the time the heat was so intense that butchers’ meat couldhardly be eaten on the day after it was killed; and the flies swarmed so in thelanes and hedges that they rendered the horses half frantic, and ridingirksome. The country people began to look with a superstitious awe, at the red,louring aspect of the sun; and indeed there was reason for the most enlightenedperson to be apprehensive; for, all the while, Calabria and part of the isle ofSicily, were torn and convulsed with earthquakes; and about that juncture avolcano sprung out of the sea on the coast of Norway. On this occasionMilton’s noble simile of the sun, in his first book of Paradise Lost,frequency occurred to my mind; and it is indeed particularly applicable,because, towards the end, it alludes to a superstitious kind of dread, withwhich the minds of men are always impressed by such strange and unusualphaenomena.

… As when the sun, new risen,
Looks through the horizontal, misty air,
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations, and with fear of change
Perplexes monarchs….

Letter LXVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington

We are very seldom annoyed with thunder-storms; and it is no less remarkablethan true, that those which arise in the south have hardly been known to reachthis village; for before they get over us, they take a direction to the east orto the west, or sometimes divide into two, and go in part to one of thosequarters, and in part to the other; as was truly the case in summer 1783, whenthough the country round was continually harassed with tempests and often fromthe south, yet we escaped them all; as appears by my journal of that summer.The only way that I can at all account for this fact—for such it is —is that, on that quarter, between us and the sea, there are continualmountains, hill behind hill, such as Nore-hill, the Barnet, Butser-hill, andPorts-down, which somehow divert the storms, and give them a differentdirection. High promontories, and elevated grounds, have always been observedto attract clouds and disarm them of their mischievous contents, which aredischarged into the trees and summits as soon as they come in contact withthose turbulent meteors; while the humble vales escape, because they are so farbeneath them.

But, when I say I do not remember a thunder-storm from the south, I do not meanthat we never have suffered from thunder-storms at all; for on June 5th, 1784,the thermometer in the morning being at 64, and at noon at 70, the barometer at29, six-tenths one-half, and the wind north, I observed a blue mist, smellingstrongly of sulphur, hanging along our sloping woods, and seeming to indicatethat thunder was at hand. I was called in about two in the afternoon, and somissed seeing the gathering of the clouds in the north; which they who wereabroad assured me had something uncommon in its appearance. At about a quarterafter two the storm began in the parish of Hartley, moving slowly from north tosouth; and from thence it came over Norton-farm, and so to Grange-farm, both inthis parish. It began with vast drops of rain, which were soon succeeded byround hail, and then by convex pieces of ice, which measured three inches ingirth. Had it been as extensive as it was violent, and of any continuance (forit was very short), it must have ravaged all the neighbourhood. In the parishof Hartley it did some damage to one farm; but Norton, which lay in the centreof the storm, was greatly injured; as was Grange, which lay next to it. It didbut just reach to the middle of the village, where the hail broke my northwindows, and all my garden-lights and hand-glasses, and many of myneighbours’ windows. The extent of the storm was about two miles inlength and one in breadth. We were just sitting down to dinner; but were soondiverted from our repast by the clattering of tiles and the jingling of glass.There fell at the same time prodigious torrents of rain on the farmsabove-mentioned, which occasioned a flood as violent as it was sudden; doinggreat damage to the meadows and fallows, by deluging the one and washing awaythe soil of the other. The hollow lane towards Alton was so torn and disorderedas not to be passable till mended, rocks being removed that weighed 200 weight.Those that saw the effect which the great hail had on ponds and pools say thatthe dashing of the water made an extraordinary appearance, the froth and spraystanding up in the air three feet above the surface. The rushing and roaring ofthe hail, as it approached, was truly tremendous.

Though the clouds at South Lambeth, near London, were at that juncture thin andlight, and no storm was in sight, nor within hearing, yet the air was stronglyelectric; for the bells of an electric machine at that place rang repeatedly,and fierce sparks were discharged.

When I first took the present work in hand I proposed to have added an AnnusHistorico-naturalis, or the Natural History of the Twelve Months of the Year;which would have comprised many incidents and occurrences that have not fallenin my way to be mentioned in my series of letters; — but, as Mr. Aikin ofWarrington has lately published somewhat of this sort, and as the length of mycorrespondence has sufficiently put your patience to the test, I shall heretake a respectful leave of you and natural history together; and am,

With all due deference and regard,
Your most obliged,
And most humble servant,

GIL. WHITE.

Selborne,
June 25, 1787.

Related articles