 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELVON Letters 39 to 47 to the honourable Danes Barrington. Dear Sir, among the many singularities attending those amusing birds, the Swifts, I am now confirmed in the opinion that we have every year the same number of pairs invariably. At least, the result of my inquiry has been exactly the same for a long time past. The swallows and martins are so numerous and so widely distributed over the village. That it is hardly possible to recount them, while the Swifts, though they do not all build in the church, yet so frequently haunt it and play and rendezvous round it, that they are easily enumerated. The number that I constantly find are eight pairs, about half of which reside in the church, and the rest build in some of the lowest and meanest thatched cottages. Now, as these eight pairs, allowance being made for accidents, breed yearly eight pairs more, what becomes annually of this increase and what determines every spring which pairs shall visit us and re-occupy their ancient haunts? Ever since I have attended to the subject of ornithology I have always supposed that that sudden reverse of affection, that strange anti-storge, which immediately succeeds in the feathered kind to the most passionate fondness, is the occasion of an equal dispersion of birds over the face of the earth. Without this provision one favourite district would be crowded with inhabitants, while others would be destitute and forsaken, but the parent birds seem to maintain a jealous superiority and to oblige the young to seek for new abodes, and the rivalry of the males in many kinds prevents their crowding the one on the other. Whether the swallows and house-martins return in the same exact number annually is not easy to say for reasons given above, as I have remarked before in my monographies, that the numbers returning bear no manner of proportion to the numbers retiring. Letter 40 to the Honourable Daines Barrington, Selbon, June 2, 1778 Dear Sir, the standing objection to botany has always been that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory without improving the mind or advancing any real knowledge, and where the sciences carry to no further than a mere systematic classification the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this dispersion should be by no means content with a list of names. He should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious herbs, should promote the cultivation, and graft the gardener, the planter and the husbandman on the phytologist. Not that system is by any means to be thrown aside, without system the field of nature would be a pathless wilderness, but system should be subservient to, not the main object of, pursuit. Vegetation is highly worthy of our attention, and in itself is of the most utmost consequence to mankind, and productive of many of the greatest comforts and elegances of life. To plants we owe timber, bread, beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, etc. What not only strengthens our hearts and exhilarates our spirits, but what secures from inclemencies of weather and adorns our persons. Man, in his true state of nature, seems to be subsisted by spontaneous vegetation. In middle climbs, where grasses prevail, he mixes some animal food with the produce of the field and garden, and it is towards the polar extremes only, that like his kindred bears and wolves, he gorges himself with flesh alone, and is driven to what hunger has never been known to compel the very beasts to prey on his own species. The productions of vegetation have had a vast influence on the commerce of nations, and have been the great promoters of navigation, as may be seen in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, beetle, paper, etc. As every climate has its peculiar produce, our natural wants bring on a mutual intercourse, so that by means of trade each distant part is supplied with the growth of every latitude. But without the knowledge of plants and their culture, we must have been content with our hips and whores, without enjoying the delicate fruits of India, and the salutiferous drugs of Peru. Instead of examining the minute distinctions of every various species of each obscure genus, the botanist should endeavour to make himself acquainted with those that are useful. You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly know wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley from another. But of all sorts of vegetation, the grasses seem to be most neglected. Neither the farmer nor the grazier seem to distinguish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could improve the sward of the district where he lived would be an useful member of society. To raise a thick turf on a naked soil would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge, and he would be the best Commonwealth man that could occasion the growth of two blades of grass where one alone was seen before. I am, etc. Letter 41 to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Selborne, July 3, 1778 Dear Sir, in a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale, aspects and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands and champagne fields cannot but furnish an ample flora. The deep rocky lanes are bound with philly seas, and the pastures and moist woods with fungi. If in any branch of botany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in the large aquatic plants, which are not to be expected on a spot far removed from rivers, and lying up amidst the hill-country at the spring-heads. To enumerate all the plants that have been discovered within our limits would be a needless work, but a short list of the more rare and the spots where they are to be found may be neither unacceptable nor un-entertaining. Heliborus fetidus, stinking helibor, bear's foot, or setterworth, all over the Highwood and Coneycroft hangar. This continues a great branching plant the winter through, blossoming about January, and is very ornamental in shady walks and shrubberies. The good women give the leaves powdered to children troubled with worms, but it is a violent remedy, and ought to be administered with caution. Heliborus viridis, green helibor, in the deep stony lane on the left hand just before the turning to Norton farm, and at the top of Middle Dorton under the hedge. This plant dies down to the ground early in autumn, and springs again about February, flowering almost as soon as it appears above ground. Faxinium oxycocos, creeping bilberies or cranberries, in the bogs of Bin's pond. Faxinium myrtillus, wortel or bleberies, on the dry hillocks of Walmer Forest. Drosera rotundifolia, round-leaved sundew. Drosera longifolia, long-leaved ditto, in the bogs of Bin's pond. Comarum pelustre, purple comarum, or marsh sinkfoil, in the bogs of Bin's pond. Hyperican androsemum, tootsand, since John's wort, in the stony hollow lanes. Vinka minor, less periwinkle, in Selborne hangar and shrubwood. Monotropa hippopithis, yellow monotropa or bird's nest, in Selborne hangar under the shady beaches, to whose roots it seems to be parasitical, at the north-west end of the hangar. Chloroperfoliator, blackstonia perfoliator, hudsoni, perfoliated yellow wort, on the banks in the king's field. Paris quadrifolia, herb-paris, true-love or one-bury, in the church-litten copies. Chrysosplenium oppositeifolium, opposite golden saxifrage, in the dark and rocky hollow lanes. Gentiana amorella, autumnal gentian, or felwort, on the zigzag and hangar. Lethrias quameria, toothwort, in the church-litten copies, under some hazels near the footbridge, in trimming's garden hedge, and on the dry wall opposite Grange yard. Dipsicus pelosis, small teasel, in the short and long lith. Lethias silvestris, narrow-leaved or wild lethias, in the bushes at the foot of the short lith near the path. Ophris spirealis, ladies' traces, in the long lith and towards the south corner of the common. Ophris nedus avis, bird's nest Ophris, in the long lith under the shady beaches, among the dead leaves, in great daughton among the bushes, and on the hangar plentifully. Serapius latifolia, heliborine, in the high wood under the shady beaches. Daphne laureola, spurge laurel, in cell-borne hangar at the high wood. Daphne miserium, the miserian, in cell-borne hangar, among the shrubs at the southeast end above the cottages. Like a perdon tuber, truffles, in the hangar at high wood. Stambuchus ebulus, dwarf elder, warlwort or dainwort, among the rubbish and ruined foundations of the priory. Of all the propensities of plants, none seem more strange than their different periods of blossoming. Some produce their flowers in the winter, or very first dawnings of spring. Many, when the spring is established, some at mid-summer, and some not till autumn. When we see the heliborus fetidus and heliborus niga blowing at Christmas, the heliborus hyamelus in January, and the heliborus viridus as soon as ever it emerges out of the ground, we do not wonder, because they are kindred plants that we expect should keep pace, the one with the other. But other congenerous vegetables differ so widely in their time of flowering that we cannot but admire. There shall only be instant at present in the crocus sativus, the vernal, and the autumn crocus, which have such an affinity that the best botanists only make them varieties of the same genus, of which there is only one species, not being able to discern any difference in the corolla or in the internal structure. Yet the vernal crocus expands its flowers by the beginning of March at farthest, and often in very rigorous weather, and cannot be retarded but by some violence offered, while the autumnal, the saffron, defies the influence of the spring and summer and will not blow till most plants begin to fade and run to seed. This circumstance is one of the wonders of the creation, little noticed because of common occurrence, yet ought not to be overlooked on account of its being familiar, since it would be as difficult to be explained as the most stupendous phenomenon in nature. Say what impells amidst surrounding snow congealed the crocus' flaming bud to grow. Say what retards amidst the summer's blaze, the autumnal bulb till pale declining days, the god of seasons whose pervading power controls the sun or sheds the fleecy shower. He bids each flower his quickening word obey, or to each lingering bloom enjoins delay. Letter 42 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Omnibus animalibus reliquis cirtus et unios modae et insuo quicque generi incesus est aves solae vario miatu ferunto et intera et in aeri, pliny natural history. Reader's Note In all living creatures is one means of progression appropriate each to its own genus. Only birds possess different methods of flow-comotion to use on the ground and in the air. End Reader's Note Selbon, August the 7th, 1778 Dear sir, a good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape, on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. For though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some certainty, but a bird in motion. Etvera incesu patuit Reader's Note And the bird that it really was was obvious from its way of flight. End Reader's Note Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings expanded and motionless, and it is from their gliding manner that the former are still called in the north of England, glides. From the Saxon verb glidan to glide, the Kestrel or Windhover has a peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place, his wings all the while being briskly agitated. Hen harriers fly low over heaths or fields of corn, and beat the ground regularly like a pointer or setting dog. Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than the air, they seem to want ballast. There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious. They spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish, and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity. Rooks sometimes dive and tumble in a frolicsome manner. Crows and dores swagger in their walk. Woodpeckers fly velatu andoso, opening and closing their wings at every stroke, and so are always rising or falling in curves. All of this genus use their tails, which inclined downward, as a support while they run up trees. Parrots, like all other hook-clawed birds, walk awkwardly, and make use of their bill as a third foot, climbing and ascending with ridiculous caution. All the galliny parade and walk gracefully and run nimbly, but fly with difficulty, with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wings, and make no dispatch. Herons seem encumbered with too much sail for their light bodies, but these vast hollow wings are necessary in carrying burdens, such as large fishes and the like. Pigeons, and particularly the sort called smiters, have a way of clashing their wings, the one against the other, over their backs with a loud snap. Another variety called tumblers turn themselves over in the air. Some birds have movements peculiar to the season of love. Thus ring doves, though strong and rapid at other times, yet in the spring hang about on the wing in a toying and playful manner. Thus the cock snipe, while breeding, forgetting his former flight, fans the air like the wind-hover. And the greenfinch in particular exhibits such languishing and faltering gestures as to appear like a wounded and dying bird. The kingfisher darts along like an arrow, fern-owls or goat-suckers glance in the dusk over the tops of trees like a meteor. Starlings, as it were, swim along, while missile-thrushes use a wild and desultry flight. Swallows sweep over the surface of the ground and water, and distinguish themselves by rapid turns and quick evolutions. Swifts dash round in circles, and the bank-martin moves with frequent vacillations like a butterfly. Most of the small birds fly by jerks, rising and falling as they advance. Most small birds hop, but wagtails and larks walk, moving their legs alternately. Skylarks rise and fall perpendicularly as they sing. Woodlarks hang poised in the air, and tit-larks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their descent. The white-throat uses odd jerks and gesticulations over the tops of hedges and bushes. All the duck-kind, waddle, divers and orcs walk as if fettered and stand erect on their tails. These are the compadés of Linnaeus. Geese and cranes and most wildfowl move in figured flights, often changing their position. The secondary remedies of tringae, wild ducks and others are very long and give their wings when in motion and hooked appearance. Dab-chicks, moor-hens and coots fly erect, with their legs hanging down and hardly make any dispatch. The reason is plain their wings are placed too forward out of the true centre of gravity, as the legs of orcs and divers are situated too backward. Letter 43 to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Selborn, September the 9th, 1778 Dear sir, from the motion of birds the transition is natural enough to their notes and language, of which I shall say something. Not that I would pretend to understand their language like the vizier, who by the recital of a conversation which passed between two owls, reclaimed a sultan before delighting in conquest and devastation. But I would be thought only to mean that many of the winged tribes have various sounds and voices adapted to express their various passions, wants and feelings, such as anger, fear, love, hatred, hunger and the like. All species are not equally eloquent, some are copious and fluent as it were in their utterance, while others are confined to a few important sounds. No bird, like the fish kind, is quite mute, though some are rather silent. The language of birds is very ancient and like other ancient modes of speech, very elliptical, little is said, but much is meant and understood. The notes of the eagle kind are shrill and piercing, and about the season of nidification much diversified, as I have been often assured by a curious observer of nature, who long resided at Gibraltar, where eagles abound. The notes of our hawks much resemble those of the king of birds. Owls have very expressive notes, they hoot in a fine vocal sound, much resembling the vox humana, and reducible by pitch pipe to a musical key. This note seems to express complacency and rivalry among the males. They use also a quick call and an 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 woods to echo. The amorous sound of a crow is strange and ridiculous. Rooks in the breeding season attempt sometimes in the gaiety of their hearts to sing, but with no great success. The parrot kind have many modulations of voice, as appears by their aptitude to learn human sounds. Doves coo in an amorous and mournful manner, and are emblems of despairing lovers. The woodpecker sets up a sort of loud and hearty laugh. The fern owl, or goat-sucker, from the dusk till daybreak, serenades his mate with the clattering of castanets. All the tuneful parceries express their complacency by sweet modulations, and a variety of melody. The swallow, as has been observed in a former letter, by shrill alarm bespeaks the attention of the other herondines, and bids them be aware that the hawk is at hand. Aquatic and gregarious birds, especially the nocturnal, that shift their quarters in the dark, are very noisy and loquacious, as cranes, wild geese, wild ducks and the like, their perpetual clamour prevents them from dispersing and losing their companions. In so extensive a subject sketches and outlines are as much as can be expected, for it would be endless to instance in all the infinite variety of the feathered nation. We shall therefore confine the remainder of this letter to the few domestic fowls of our yards, which are most known and therefore best understood. At first the peacock, with his gorgeous train, demands their attention, but, like most of the gaudy birds, his notes are grating and shocking to the ear. The yelling of cats and the braying of an ass are not more disgustful. The voice of the goose is trumpet-like and clanking, and once save the capital at Rome, as grave historians assert. His also of the gander is formidable and full of menace, and protective of his young. Among ducks a sexual distinction of voice is remarkable, for while the quack of the female is loud and sonorous, the voice of the drake is inward and harsh and feeble and scarce discernable. The cock turkey struts and gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner. He hath also a pertant, petulant note when he attacks his adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood, she keeps a watch flyer, and if a bird of prey appear, though ever so high in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy with a little inward moan and watches him with a steady and attentive look, and the approach her note becomes earnest and alarming and her outcries are redoubled. No inhabitants of a yard seem possessed of such a variety of expression and so copious a language as common poultry. Take a chicken of four or five days old, and hold it up to a window where there are flies, and it will immediately seize its prey with little twitterings of complacency. But if you tender it a wasp or a bee, at once its note becomes harsh and expressive of disapprobation and a sense of danger. When a pellet is ready to lay, she intimates the event by a joyous and easy soft note. Of all the occurrences of their life, that of laying seems to be the most important, for no sooner has a hen disburdened herself than she rushes forth with a clamorous kind of joy which the cock and the rest of his mistresses immediately adopt. The tumult is not confined to the family concerned, but catches from yard to yard and spreads to every homestead within hearing, till at last the whole village is in an uproar. As soon as a hen becomes a mother, her new relation demands a new language. She then runs clocking and screaming about and seems agitated as if possessed. The father of the flock has also a considerable vocabulary. If he finds food, he calls a favourite concubine to partake, and if a bird of prey passes over, with a warning voice he bids his family beware. The gallant shanticleer has at his command his amorous phrases and his terms of defiance, but the sound by which he is best known is his crowing. By this he has been distinguished in all ages as the countryman's clock, or larrum, as the watchman that proclaims the divisions of the night. Thus the poet elegantly styles him the crested cock whose clarion sounds the silent hours. A neighbouring gentleman one summer had lost most of his chickens by a sparrow-hawk that came gliding down between a faggot pile and the end of his house to the place where the coops stood. The owner, inwardly vexed to see his flocks thus diminishing, hung a setting net adroitly between the pile and the house, into which the cative dashed and was entangled. Resentment suggested the law of retaliation. He therefore clipped the hawk's wings, cut off his talons, and fixing a cork on his bill threw him down among the brood-hens. Imagination cannot paint the scene that ensued. The expressions that fear, rage, and revenge inspired were new, or at least such as had been unnoticed before. The exasperated matrons upbraided, they execrated, they insulted, they triumphed. In a word they never desisted from buffeting their adversary till they had torn him in a hundred pieces. Let'ser 44 to the Honourable Daines Barrington, Selmon Monstrent, quint tantum occhiano properen sei tingere sole iberni, vel quaitardis mora noctibus obstet, readers note. Let them show how the sun's of winter speed to bathe in the ocean, or what slows the slow-moving nights. End, readers note. Gentlemen who have outlets might contrive to make ornaments of servience to utility. A pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to promote science. An obelisk in a garden or park might be both an embellishment and an heliotrope. Any person that is curious and enjoys the advantage of a good horizon might, with little trouble, make two heliotropes, the one for the winter, the other for the summer, solstice. And these two erections might be constructed with very little expense, for two pieces of timber framework about ten or twelve feet high and four feet broader to the base, and, close lined with plank, would answer the purpose. The erection for the former should, if possible, be placed within sight of some window in the common sitting parlour, because men at that dead season of the year are usually within doors at the close of the day. While that for the latter might be fixed for any given spot in the garden or outlet, whence the owner might contemplate in a fine summer's evening the utmost extent that the sun makes to the northward at the season of the longest days. Now nothing would be necessary but to place these two objects with so much exactness that the westerly limb of the sun at setting might but just clear the winter heliotrope to the west of it on the shortest day, and that the whole disc of the sun at the longest day might exactly at setting also clear the summer heliotrope to the north of it. By this simple expedient it would soon appear that there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a solstice, for from the shortest day the owner would every clear evening see the disc advancing at its setting to the westward of the object, and from the longest day observe the sun retiring backwards every evening at its setting towards the object westward, till in a few nights it would set quite behind it, and so by degrees to the west of it, for when the sun comes near the summer solstice the whole disc of it would at first set behind the object after a time the northern limb would first appear, and so every night gradually more, till at length the whole diameter would set north of it for about three nights, but on the middle night of the three sensibly more remote than the former or following. When beginning its recess from the summer tropic it would continue more and more to be hidden every night till at length it would descend quite behind the object again, and so nightly more and more to the westward. Letter 45 to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Selbon Mughire Vidaibus subpedibus terram et discundere montibus ornos Readers note, you can sense the earth groaning beneath your feet and the ash trees sliding down from the mountains. End Readers note. When I was a boy I used to read with astonishment and implicit ascent accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mountains. John Phillips in his Cider alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the splendid Shilling. I nor advise nor reprehend the choice of Markley Hill the apple nowhere finds a kinder mould, yet it is unsafe to trust deceitful ground. Who knows but that once more this mount may journey and his present sight forsaken to thy neighbour's bounds transfer thy goodly plants of horning matter strange for lore debates. But when I came to consider better I began to suspect that though our hills may never have journeyed that far yet the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods leaving in the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nor and Wetham Hills and especially with the ridge between Hartley Park and Wardley Ham where the ground has slid into vast swellings and furrows and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A strange event that happened not long since justifies our suspicions which though it befell in the limits of this parish yet as it was within the hundred of cell-borne and as the circumstances were singular may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature. The months of January and February in the year 1774 were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain so that by the end of the latter month the landsprings or lavantes began to prevail and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor when in the night between the eighth and ninth of that month a considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkely was torn from its place and fell down leaving a high freestone cliff naked and bare and resembling the steep side of a chalk bit. It appears that this huge fragment being perhaps sapped and undermined by waters, founded and was engulfed going down in a perpendicular direction for a gate which stood in the field on top of the hill after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet remained in so true an uprighter position as to open and shut with great exactness just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still standing and in a state of vegetation after taking the same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below is plain also from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill which is free and unencumbered but would have been buried in heaps of rubbish had the fragment parted and fallen forward. About a hundred yards from the foot of this hanging copies stood a cottage by the side of a lane and two hundred yards lower on the other side of the lane was a farmhouse in which lived a labourer and his family and just by a stout new barn. The cottage was inhabited by an old woman and her son and his wife. Many people in the evening which was very dark and tempestuous observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began to heave and part and that the walls seemed to open and the roofs to crack but they all agreed that no tremor of the ground indicating an earthquake was ever felt only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants not daring to go to bed remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion at every moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered edifices. When daylight came they were at leisure to contemplate the devastation of the night. They then found that a deep rift or chasm had opened under their houses and torn them as it were in two and that one end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner that a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse becoming deep at the shallow end and so vice versa. That many large oaks were removed out of their perpendicular rail some thrown down and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees and that a gate was thrust forward with its hedge full six feet so as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the cliff the general course of the ground which is pasture inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile and is interspersed with some hillocks which were rifted in every direction as well towards the great woody hanger as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began and running across the lane and under the buildings made such vast shelves that the road was impassable for some time and so over to an arable field on the other side which was strangely torn and disordered. The second pasture field being more soft and springy was protruded forward without many fishers in the turf which was raised in long ridges resembling graves lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farthest course and terminated this awful commotion. The perpendicular height of the precipice in general is 23 yards, the length of the lap saw slip as seen from the fields below 181 and a partial fall concealed in the coppice extends 70 yards more so that the total length of this fragment that fell was 251 yards. About 50 acres of land suffered from this violent convulsion. Two houses were entirely destroyed. One end of a new barn was left in ruins. The walls being cracked through the very stones that composed them. A hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time neither fit for the plough or safe for pastureage till considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures. Letter 46 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Selbourne Resonant arbusta Readers note The woods resound End readers note There is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furs close to the back of this village well known by the name of the short lithe consisting of a rocky dry soil and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the grillus campestris or field cricket which though frequent in these parts is by no means a common insect in many other counties. As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a naturalist I have often gone down to examine the economy of these grilly and study their mode of life but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy matter to get a sight of them. For feeling a person's footsteps as he advances they stop short in the midst of their song and retire backward nimbly into their burrows where they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over. At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade but without any great success for either we could not get to the bottom of the hole which often terminated under a great stone or else in breaking up the ground we inadvertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so bruised we took a multitude of eggs which were long and narrow of a yellow colour and covered with a very tough skin. By this accident we learnt to distinguish the male from the female the former of which is shining black with a golden stripe across his shoulders the latter is more dusky more capacious about the abdomen and carries a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail which probably is the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and safe receptacles. Where violent methods will not avail more gentle means will often succeed and so it proved in the present case. For though a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement a pliant stalk of grass gently insinuated into the caverns will probe their windings to the bottom and quickly bring out the inhabitant and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without enduring the object of it. It is remarkable that though these insects are furnished with long legs behind and brawny thighs for leaping like grasshoppers yet when driven from their holes they show no activity but crawl along in a shiftless manner so as easily to be taken and again though provided with a curious apparatus of wings yet they never exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion the males only make that shrilling noise perhaps out of rivalry and emulation as is the case with many animals which exert some sprightly note during their breeding time it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the other they are solitary beings living singly male or female each as it may happen but there must be a time when the sexes have some intercourse and then the wings may be useful perhaps during the hours of night when the males meet they will fight fiercely as I found by some which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall where I should have been glad to have made them settle for though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their knowledge yet the first that got possession of the chinks would seize upon any that were obtruded upon them with a vast row of serrated fangs with their strong jaws toothed like the shears of a lobster's claws they perforate and round their curious regular cells having no foreclaws to dig like the mole cricket when taken in hand I could not but wonder that they never offered to defend themselves though armed with such formidable weapons of such herbs as grow before the mouths of their burrows they eat indiscriminately and on a little platform which they make just by they drop their dung and never in the daytime seem to stir more than two or three inches from home sitting in the entrance of their caverns they chirp all night as well as day from the middle of the month of May to the middle of July and in hot weather when they are most vigorous they make the hills echo and in the stiller hours of darkness may be heard to a considerable distance in the beginning of the season their notes are more faint and inward but become louder as the summer advances and so die away again by degrees sounds do not always give us pleasure according to their sweetness and melody nor do harsh sounds always displease we are more apt to be captivated or disgusted with the associations which they promote than with the notes themselves thus the shrilling of the field cricket though sharp and stridulous yet marvelously delights some hearers filling their minds with a train of summer ideas of everything that is rural verdurous and joyous about the 10th of March the crickets appear at the mouths of their cells which they then open and bore and shape very elegantly all that ever I have seen at that season were in their pupa state and had only the rudiments of wings lying under a skin or coat which must be cast before the insect can arrive at its perfect state from whence I should suppose that the old ones of last year do not always survive the winter note, we have observed that they cast these skins in April which are then seen lying at the mouths of their holes end note in August their holes begin to be obliterated and the insects are seen no more till spring not many summers ago the plants plant a colony to the terrace in my garden by boring deep holes in the sloping turf the new inhabitants stayed some time and fared and sung but wandered away by degrees and were heard at a farther distance every morning so that it appears that on this emergency they made use of their wings in attempting to return to the spot from which they were taken one of these crickets, when confined in a paper cage and set in the sun and supplied with plants moistened with water will feed and thrive and become so merry and loud as to be irksome in the same room where a person is sitting if the plants are not wetted it will die letter 47 to the Honourable Danes Barrington Selbourne far from all resort of mirth save the cricket on the hearth Milton's ill pencerosa dear sir while many other insects must be sought after in fields and woods and waters the griller's domesticus or house cricket resides all together within our dwellings intruding itself upon our notice whether we will or know this species delights in new-built houses being like the spider pleased with the moisture of the walls and besides the softness of the mortar enables them to burrow and mine between the joints of the bricks or stones and to open communications from one room to another they are particularly fond of kitchens and baker's ovens on account of their perpetual warmth tender insects that live abroad either enjoy only the short period of one summer or else doze away the cold uncomfortable months in profound slumbers but these residing as it were in a torrid zone are always alert and merry a good Christmas fire is to them like the heats of the dog days though they are frequently heard by day yet it is the natural time of motion only in the night as dusk the chirping increases and they come running forth and are from the size of a flea to that of their full stature as one should suppose from the burning atmosphere which they inhabit they are a thirsty race and show a great propensity for liquids being found frequently drowned in pans of water, milk, broth or the like whatever is moist they affect and therefore often gnaw holes in wet wool and stockings and aprons that are hung to the fire they are the house wives barometer foretelling her when it will rain and are prognostic sometimes she thinks of ill or good luck of the death of a near relation or the approach of an absent lover by being the constant companions of her solitary hours they naturally become the objects of her superstition these crickets are not only very thirsty but very voracious for they will eat the scummings of pots and yeast, salt and crumbs of bread and any kitchen awful or sweepings in the summer we have observed them to fly when it became dusk out of the windows and over the neighbouring roofs this feat of activity accounts for the sudden manner in which they often leave their haunts as it does for the method by which they come to houses where they were not known before it is remarkable that many sorts of insects seem never to use their wings but when they have a mind to shift their quarters and settle new colonies when in the air they move felatu undosa in waves or curves like woodpeckers opening and shutting their wings at every stroke and so are always rising or sinking when they increase to a great degree as they did once in the house where I am now writing they become noise some pests flying into the candles and dashing into people's faces but maybe blasted and destroyed by gunpowder discharged into their crevices and crannies in families at such times they are like pharaohs plague of frogs in their bed chambers and upon their beds and in their ovens and in their kneading troughs note exodus chapter 8 verse 3 end note their shrilling noise is occasioned by a brisk attrition of their wings cats catch half crickets and playing with them as they do with mice devour them crickets may be destroyed like wasps by files half filled with beer or any liquid and set in their haunts for being always eager to drink they will crowd in till the bottles are full the end of section 12 of gilbert whites the natural history of cell-bone section 13 of gilbert whites natural history of cell-bone this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to find out how to volunteer please contact LibriVox.org gilbert whites natural history of cell-bone letters 48 to 58 to the honourable danes barrington letter 48 to the honourable danes barrington cell-bone how diversified are the modes of life not only of incongruous but even of congenerous animals and yet their specific distinctions are not more various than their propensities thus, while the field cricket delights in sunny dry banks and the house cricket rejoices amidst the glowing heat of the kitchen hearth or oven the griller's griller talpa the mole cricket haunts moist meadows and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams performing all its functions in a swampy wet soil with a pair of four feet curiously adapted to the purpose it burrows and works underground like the mole and proceeds but seldom throwing up hillocks as mole crickets often infest gardens by the sides of canals they are unwelcome guests to the gardener raising up ridges in their subterranean progress and rendering the walks unsightly if they take to the kitchen quarters they occasion great damage among the plants and roots by destroying whole beds of cabbages young legumes and flowers when dug out they seem very slow and helpless and make no use of their wings by day but at night they come abroad and make long excursions as I have been convinced by finding stragglers in a morning in improbable places in fine weather about the middle of April and just at the close of day they begin to solace themselves with a low dull jarring note continued for a long time without interruption and it's not unlike the chattering of the fernail or goat-sucker but more inward about the beginning of May there was once an eyewitness for a gardener at a house where I was on a visit happening to be mowing on the sixth of that month by the side of a canal his scythe struck too deep peered off a large piece of turf and laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy ingentum lato dedit ori fenestrum aparet domecentus et atria longer ptescant aparent penetralia readers note he made a large wide-mouthed hole and the interior of the palace was revealed with long halls open to sight the inner chambers were also in view ends readers note there were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind of chamber neatly smoothed and rounded and about the size of a moderate snuff box within this secret nursery were deposited near an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour and enveloped in a tough skin excluded to contain any rudiments of young being full of a viscous substance the eggs lay but shallow and within the influence of the sun just under a little heap of freshly moved mould like that which is raised by ants when mould crickets fly they move cursu undoso rising and falling in curves like the other species mentioned before in different parts of this kingdom people call them fen crickets churworms and eve churs all very apposite names anatomists who have examined the intestines of these insects astonish me with their accounts for they say that from the structure position and number of their stomachs or moors there seems to be good reason to suppose that this and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud like many quadrupeds letter 49 to the honourable Danes Barrington Selbourne made the seventh, 1779 it is now more than 40 years that I have paid some attention to the ornithology of this district without being able to exhaust the subject new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive in the last week of last month five of those most rare birds too uncommon to have obtained an English name but known to naturalists by the terms of hemantopus or loripis and charadrious hemantopus were shot upon the verge of French and pond a large lake belonging to the Bishop of Winchester and lying between Walmer Forest and the town of Farnham in the county of Surrey the pondkeeper says there were three brace in the flock but that after he had satisfied his curiosity he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested one of these specimens I procured and found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary that at first sight one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on to impose on the credulity of the beholder there were legs in caricature and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draftsmen these birds are of the plover family and might with propriety be called the stilt plovers Bryson under that idea gives them the opposite name of Lechasse my specimen when drawn and stuffed with pepper weighed only four ounces and a quarter though the naked part of the thigh and the legs four inches and a half hence we may safely assert that these birds exhibit weight for inches incomparably the greatest length of legs of any known bird the flamingo for instance is one of the most long-legged birds and yet it bears no manner of proportion to the hematopus for a cock flamingo weighs at an average about four pounds avois dupois and his legs and thighs measure usually about twenty inches but four pounds are fifteen times and a fraction more than four ounces and one quarter and if four ounces and a quarter have eight inches of legs four pounds must have one hundred and twenty inches and a fraction of legs that is somewhat more than ten feet such a monstrous proportion as the world never saw if you should try the experiment in still larger birds the disparity would still increase it must be a matter of great curiosity to see the stilt plover move to observe how it can wield such a length of fever with such feeble muscles as the thighs seem to be furnished with at best one should expect it to be but a bad walker but what adds to the wonder is that it has no back toe now without that steady prop to support its steps it must be liable in speculation to perpetual vacillations and seldom able to preserve the true center of gravity readers note there is a miscalculation here first corrected in an edition of 1877 the computation should be made according to the cube root of the weight of the bird end readers note the old name of Himantopus is taken from Pliny and by an awkward metaphor implies that the legs are as slender and pliant as if cut out of a thong of leather neither Willoughby nor Ray in all their curious research is either at home or abroad ever saw this bird Mr. Pennant never met with it in all great Britain but observed it often in the cabinets of the curious at Paris Hasselquist says that it migrates to Egypt in the autumn and a most accurate observer of nature has assured me that he has found it on the banks of the streams in Andalusia our writers record it to have been found only twice in Great Britain from all these relations it plainly appears that these long legged plovers are birds of South Europe and rarely visit our island and when they do are wanderers and stragglers and impelled to make so distant and excursion from motives or accidents for which we are not able to account one thing may fairly be deduced that these birds come over to us from the continent since nobody can suppose that a species not noticed once in an age and of such a remarkable make can constantly breed unobserved in this kingdom letter 50 to the Honourable Danes Barrington, Selbourn April the 21st 1780 Dear sir the old Sussex tortoise that I have mentioned to you so often is become my property I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last when it was enough vacant to express its resentment by hissing and packing it in a box with earth carried it 80 miles in post-shazes the rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that when I turned it out on a border it walked twice down to the bottom of my garden however in the evening the weather being cold it buried itself in the loose mould and continues still concealed as it will be under my eye I shall now have an opportunity of enlarging my observations on its mode of life and propensities and perceive already that towards the time of coming forth it opens a breathing place in the ground near its head requiring I conclude a freer respiration as it becomes more alive this creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April but sleeps great part of the summer for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon and often does not stir in the morning till late besides it retires to rest for every shower and does not move at all in wet days when one reflects on the state of this strange being it is a matter of wonder to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days such a seeming waste of longevity on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest slumbers while I was writing this letter a moist and warm afternoon with the thermometer at fifty brought forth troops of shells snails and at the same juncture the tortoise heaved up the mould and put out its head and the next morning came forth as it were raised from the dead and walked about till four in the afternoon this was a curious coincidence a very amusing occurrence to see such a similarity of feelings between the two ferry or coy for so the Greeks call both the shells snail and the tortoise summer birds are this cold and backward spring unusually late I've seen but one swallow yet this conformity with the weather commences me more and more that they sleep in the winter letter fifty one to the honorable Danes Barrington September the third seventeen eighty one I have now read your miscellaneous through with much care and satisfaction and am to return you my best thanks for the honorable mention made in them of me as a naturalist which I wish I may deserve in some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the house martins do not depart in the winter far from this village I therefore determined to make some search about the southeast end of the hill where I imagined they might slumber out the uncomfortable months of winter but supposing that the examination would be made to the best advantage in the spring and observing that no martins had appeared by the eleventh of April last on that day I employed some men to explore the shrubs and cavities of the suspected spot the persons took pains but without any success however a remarkable incident occurred in the midst of our pursuit while the laborers were at work a house martin the first that has been seen this year came down the village in the sight of several people and went at once into a nest where it stayed a short time and then flew over the houses for some days after no martins were observed not till the sixteenth of April and then only a pair martins in general were remarkably late this year letter 52 to the Honourable Danes Barrington cell-born September the ninth, 1781 I have just met with a circumstance respecting swifts which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of heron deans our swifts in general withdrew this year about the first day of August all save one pair which in two or three days was reduced to a single bird the perseverance of this individual made me suspect that the strongest of motives that of an attachment to her young could alone occasion so late a stay I watched therefore till the twenty fourth of August and then discovered that under the eaves of the church she attended upon two young which were fledged and now put out their white chins from a crevice these remained till the twenty seventh looking more alert every day and seeming to long to be on the wing after this day they were missing at once nor could I ever observe them with their dam coursing round the church in the act of learning to fly as the first broods evidently do on the thirty first I caused the eaves to be searched but we found in the nest only two callow, dead, stinking swifts on which a second nest had been formed this double nest was full of the black shining cases of the hippobosky herunderness the following remarks on this unusual incident are obvious the first is that though it may be disagreeable to swifts to remain beyond the beginning of August yet that they can subsist longer is undeniable the second is that this uncommon event that it was owing to the loss of the first brood so it corroborates my former remark that swifts breed regularly but once since was the contrary the case the occurrence above could neither be new nor rare p.s. once was seen at Linden in the county of Rutland in 1782 so late as the third of September letter 53 to the honourable Danes Barrington as I have sometimes known about making inquiries about several kinds of insects I shall here send you an account of one sort which I little expected to have found in this kingdom I had often observed that one particular part of a vine growing on the walls of my house was covered in the autumn with a black dust-like appearance on which the flies fared eagerly and that the shoots and leaves thus affected did not thrive nor did the fruit ripen to this substance I applied my glasses but could not discover that it had anything to do with animal life as I at first expected but on a closer examination behind the larger boughs we were surprised to find that they were coated over with husky shells from whose sides preceded a cotton-like substance surrounding a multitude of eggs this curious and uncommon production put me upon recollecting what I have heard and read concerning the cockus vitus vinifery of Linnaeus which in the south of Europe infests many vines and is unhorried and loathsome pest as soon as I had turned to the accounts given of this insect I saw at once that it swarmed on my vine and did not appear to be at 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 much inclined to think that it came from Gibraltar among the many boxes and packages and birds which I had formally received from thence and especially as the vine infested grew immediately under my study window where I usually kept my specimens true it is that I had received nothing from thence for some years but as insects we know are conveyed from one country to another in a very unexpected manner and have a wonderful power of maintaining their existence till they fall into a needus proper for their support and increase I cannot but suspect still this cocci came to me originally from Andalusia yet all the while candor obliges me to confess that Mr. Lightfoot has written me words that he once and but once saw these insects on a vine at Weymouth in Dorseture which it is here to be observed is a seaport town to which the coccus might be conveyed by shipping as many of my readers may possibly never have heard of this strange and unusual insect I shall hear transcribe a passage from a natural history of Gibraltar written by the reverent John White late figure of Blackburn in Lancashire but not yet published in the year 1770 a vine which grew on the east side of my house and which had produced the finest crops of grapes for years past was suddenly overspread on all the woody branches with large lumps of a white fibrous substance resembling spider's webs or rather raw cotton it was of a very clammy quality sticking fast to everything that touched it and capable of being spun into long threads at first I suspected it to be the product of spiders but could find none nothing was to be seen connected with it but many brown oval husky shells which by no means looked like insects but rather resembled bits of the dry bark of the vine the tree had a plentiful crop of grapes set when this pest appeared upon it but the fruit was manifestly injured by this foul encumbrance it remained all the summer still increasing and loaded the woody and bearing branches to a vast degree I often pulled off great quantities by handfuls but it was so slimy and tenacious that it could by no means be cleared the grapes never filled to their natural perfection but turned watery and vapid upon perusing the works afterwards of Monsieur de Romer I found this matter perfectly described and accounted for those husky shells which I had observed were no other than the female cockas from whose sides this cock-like substance exudes and serves as a covering and security for their eggs to this account I think proper to add that though the female cocki are stationary and sell them removed from the place to which they stick yet the male is a winged insect and that the black dust which I saw was undoubtedly the excrement of the females which is eaten by ants as well as flyers though the utmost severity of our winter did not destroy these insects yet the attention of the gardener in a summer or two has entirely relieved my vine from this filthy annoyance as we have remarked above that insects are often conveyed from one country to another in a very unaccountable manner I shall here mention an emigration of small aphids longer ago than August the 1st 1785 at about three o'clock in the afternoon of that day which was very hot the people of this village were surprised by a shower of aphids or smother flies which fell in these parts those that were walking in the street at that juncture found themselves covered with these insects which settled also on the hedges and gardens blackening all the vegetables where they are lighted my annuals were discoloured with them most of a bed of onions were quite coated over for six days after these armies were then no doubt in a state of emigration and shifting their quarters and might have come as far as we know from the great hop plantations of Kent or Sussex the wind being all that day in the easterly quarter they were observed at the same time in great clouds about Farnham and all along the Vale from Farnham to Alton letter 54 to the honourable Danes Barrington Dear sir, when I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl I am always pleased with the occurrence because it offers me an opportunity of observing the actions and propensities of those beings with whom we can be little acquainted in their natural state not long since I spent a fortnight at the house of a friend where there was such a vivary to which I paid no small attention taking every occasion to remark what passed within its narrow limits it was here that I first observed the manner in which fishes die as soon as the creature sickens the head sinks lower and lower and it stands as it were on its head till getting weaker and losing all poise the tail turns over and at last it floats on the surface of the water with its belly up most the reason why fishes when dead swim in that manner is very obvious because when the body is no longer balanced by the fins of the belly the broad muscular back preponderates by its own gravity and turns the belly up most as lighter from its being a cavity and because it contains the swimming bladders which contribute to render it buoyant some that delight in gold and silver fishes have adopted a notion that they need no element true it is that they will subsist for a long time without any apparent food but what they can collect from pure water frequently changed yet they must draw some support from any molecular and other nourishment supplied by the water because though they seem to eat nothing yet the consequences of eating often drop from them that they are best pleased with such jazoon diet may easily be confuted since if you toss them crumbs they will seize them with great readiness however bread should be given sparingly lest turning sour it corrupt the water they will also feed on the water plant called lemna, duck's meat and also on small fry when they want to move a little they gently protrude themselves with their pinet pectorales but it is with their strong muscular tails only that they and all fishes shoot along with such inconceivable rapidity it has been said that the eyes fishes are immovable but these apparently turn them forward or backward in their sockets as their occasions require they take little notice of a lighted candle though applied close to their heads but flounce and seem much frightened by a sudden stroke of the hand against the support where on the bowl is hung especially when they have been motionless and are perhaps asleep as fishes have no eyelids it is not easy to discern when they are sleeping or not because their eyes are always open nothing can be more amusing than a glass bowl containing such fishes the double refractions of the glass and water represents them when moving in a shifting and changeable variety of dimensions, shades and colours while the two mediums assisted by the concave convex shape of the vessel magnify and distort them vastly not to mention that the introduction of another element and its inhabitants into our parlours engages the fancy in a very agreeable manner gold and silver fishes though originally natives of China and Japan yet are become so well reconciled to our climate as to thrive and multiply very fast in our ponds and stews Linnaeus ranks this species of fish under the genus of Cyprinus or carp and calls it Cyprinus oratus some people exhibit this sort of fish in a very fanciful way with a bowl to be blown with a large hollow space within that does not communicate with it in this cavity they put a bird occasionally so that you may see a gold finch or a linnet hopping as it were in the midst of the water and the fishes swimming in a circle round it the simple exhibition of the fishes is agreeable and pleasant but in so complicated a way becomes whimsical and unnatural and liable to the objection due to him Diary Cupid Remprodigiality Unam Readers Note who loves to make changes in wondrous manner upon one theme End Readers Note I Am Etc Letter 55 to the Honourable Danes Barrington October 10th 1781 Dear Sir I think I have observed before that much the most considerable part of the House Martins withdraw from hence about the first week in October but that some the latter broods I am now convinced linger on till towards the middle of that month and that at times once perhaps in two or three years a flight for one day only has shown itself in the first week 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 and still I was resolved to pay uncommon attention to these late birds to find if possible where they roosted and to determine the precise time of their retreat The mode of life of these latter herondines is very favourable to such a design for they spend the whole day in the sheltered district between me and the hangar sailing about in a placid easy manner and feasting on those insects which love to haunt a spot so secure from ruffling winds as my principal object was to discover the place of their roosting I took care to wait on them 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 scutted away in great haste towards the south east and darted down among the low shrubs above the cottages at the end of the hill this spot in many respects seems to be well calculated for their winter residence for in many parts it is as steep as the roof of any house and therefore secure from the annoyances of water and it is moreover clothed with beach and shrubs which being stunted and bitten by sheep make the thickest covered imaginable and are so entangled as to be impervious to the smallest spaniel besides it is the nature of Underwood Beach never to cast its leaf all the winter so that with the leaves on the ground and those on the twigs no shelter can be more complete I watched them on to the 13th and 14th of October and found their evening retreat was exact and uniform but after this they made no regular appearance now then a straggler was seen and on the 22nd of October I observed two in the morning over the village and with them my remarks for the season ended from all these circumstances put together it is more than probable that this lingering flight at so later season of the year never departed from the island had they indulged me that autumn with the November visit as I much desired I presume that with proper assistance I should have settled the matter past all doubt but though the 3rd of November was a sweet day and in appearance exactly suited to my wishes yet not a Martin was to be seen though I was forced reluctantly to give up the pursuit I have only to add that were the bushes which cover some acres and are not my own property to be grubbed and carefully examined probably those late broods and perhaps the whole aggregate body of the house martins of this district might be found there in different secret dormitories and that so far from withdrawing into warmer climbs it would appear that they never depart from the village letter 56 to the honourable Danes Barrington they who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct that wonderful limited faculty which in some instances raises the brute creation as it were above reason and in others leave them so far below it philosophers have defined instinct to be that secret influence by which every species is impelled naturally to pursue at all times the same way or track without any teaching or example whereas reason without instruction would often vary and do that by many methods which instinct effects by one alone now this maxim must be taken in a qualified sense for there are instances in which instinct does vary and conform to the circumstances of place and convenience it has been remarked that every species of bird is in the mode of nidification peculiar to itself so that a schoolboy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him this is the case among fields and woods and wilds but in the villages around London where mosses and gossamer and cotton from vegetables are hardly to be found the nest of the chaffinch has not that elegant finished appearance nor is it so beautifully studied with lichens as in a more rural district and the Wren is obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of the little architect again the regular nest of the house martin is hemispheric but where a rafter or a joist or a cornice may happen to stand in the way the nest is so contrived as to conform to the obstruction and becomes flat or oval or compressed in the following instances instinct is perfectly uniform and consistent there are three creatures the squirrel the field mouse and the bird called the nut hatch citta europea which live much on hazelnuts and yet they open them each in a different way the first the squirrel after rasping off the small end splits the shell in two with his long four teeth as a man does with his knife the second the field mouse pulls a hole with his teeth so regular as if drilled with a wimble and yet so small that one would wonder how the kernel can be extracted through it while the last the nut hatch picks an irregular ragged hole with its bill but as this artist has no pause to hold the nut firm while he pierces it like an adroit workman he fixes it as it were in a vice in some cleft of a tree or in some crevice when standing over it we have often placed nuts in the chink of a gate post where nut hatches have been known to haunt and have always found that those birds have readily penetrated them while at work they make a wrapping noise that may be heard at a considerable distance you that understand both the theory and practical part of music may best inform us why harmony or melody should so strangely affect some men as it were by recollection for days after a concert is over what I mean the following passage will most readily explain prahabibat poro vocubus humanis instrumentisque harmonicus musicam ilam avium non quad alia coquinon delectaratur sed quad ex musica humana relinquiratur inanimo contenen quidam attentionemque et somnum conturbans agitatio domus cinti cinti cinti cinti cinti cinti cinti cinti Cinti cinti cinti cinti domus cinti cinti cintiips ostump vari cinti cinti cinti In Vita Pehresky, he preferred the music of birds to the voices of men and of musical instruments. He did also take pleasure in these, but the music made by men caused in his mind a certain agitation, distracting his attention and disturbing his sleep, while the rise and fall and changing of the notes and harmonies kept running through his mind, but the songs of birds which we are not able to imitate to the same extent are less likely to affect our inner senses. This curious quotation strikes me much by so well representing my own case, and by describing what I have so often felt but never could so well express. When I hear fine music, I am haunted with passages therefrom, night and day, and especially at first waking, which by their importunity give me more uneasiness than pleasure. Elegant lessons still tease my imagination and recur irresistibly to my recollection at seasons, and even when I am desirous of thinking of more serious matters. I am, etc. Letter 57 to the Honourable Danes Barrington A rare and, I think, a new little bird frequents my garden, which I have great reason to think is the Pettychaps. It is common in some parts of the kingdom, and I have received formally several dead specimens from Gibraltar. This bird much resembles the white throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breast and belly, is restless and active like the willow wrens, and hops from bow to bow examining every part for food. It also runs up the stems of the crown imperials, and putting its head into the bells of those flowers sips the liquor which stands in the nectarium of each petal. Sometimes it feeds on the ground like the hedge sparrow by hopping about on the grass plots and moan walks. One of my neighbours, an intelligent and observing man, informs me that in the beginning of May, and about ten minutes before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster of house swallows, thirty at least, he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James Knight's upper pond. His attention was first drawn by the twitching of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bow, with their heads all one way, and by their weight pressing down the twigs so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house swallows have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food, and, though they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter. One of the keepers of Walmer Forest sent me a peregrine falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district, as it was devouring a wood pigeon. The falco peregrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. In winter, 1767, one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr Pennant into north Wales. Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen measured above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the shot. It measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standing weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine. Its breast was plump and muscular, its thighs long, thick and brawny, and its legs remarkably short and well set. The feet were armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons. The eyelids and sear of the bill were yellow, but the irides of the eyes dusky. The beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on each side. Its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body, yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a female, but I was not permitted to cut open a specimen. For one of the birds of prey which are usually lean, this was in high case. In its claw were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot, for voracious birds do not eat grain. But when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence, swallow bones and feathers, and all matters indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather, and deep snows that had lately fallen. I am, etc. Letter 58 to the Honourable Danes 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 as are fattened in the country for the purpose of being eaten. They are about the size of a moderate spaniel, of a pale yellow colour with coarse bristling hairs on their back, sharp upright ears and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without any bend at the hawk or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in motion, their tails are curved high over their backs, like those of some hounds, and have a bear place each on the outside from the tip, midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes are jet-black, small and piercing, the insides of their lips and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg, the dog has none. When taken out into a field, the bitch showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the centre of a covey of partridges, till she sprung them, giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in South America are dumb, but these bark much in a short, thick manner, like foxes, and have a surly savage demeanour like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred up in styes, where they are fed for the table with rice-meal and other farinaceous food. These dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn much from their dam, yet they did not relish flesh when they came to England. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean, the dogs are bred up on vegetables, and would not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators. We believe that all dogs in a state of nature have sharp upright fox-like ears, and that hanging ears, which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice-breeding and cultivation. Thus in the travels of the Isbrant Edays, from Muscovita, China, the dogs which draw the tartars on snow sledges near the river Obie, are engraved with prick ears, like those from Canton. The camshad-dales also train the same sort of sharp-eared, peak-nosed dogs to draw their sledges, as may be seen in an elegant print engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage round the world. Now we are upon the subject of dogs it may not be impertinent to add that spaniels, as all sportsmen know, though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were by instinct and with much delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touch their bones when offered as food, nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though he is remarkable for ending that sort of game. But when we came to offer the bones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them with much greediness and licked the platter clean. No sporting dogs will flush wood-cocks till inured to the scent and trained to the sport, which they then pursue with vehemence and to transport, but then they will not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when they are hungry. Now that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no wonder, but why they reject and do not care to eat their natural game is not so easily accounted for, since the end of the hunting seems to be that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the more rancid water fowls, nor indeed the bones of any wild fowls, nor will they touch the fetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage, and indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance of dislike, for vultures and kites and ravens and crows, etc., were intended to be messmates with dogs over their carrion, and seem to be appointed by nature as fellow scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth. Note, Hasselquist, in his travels to the Levant, observes that the dogs and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring up their young together in the same place. The Chinese word for a dog, to a European ear, sounds like quilo. End note. I am, etc. The end of section 13 of Gilbert White's The Natural History of Selvon