The Natural History Of Selborne - free ebook by Gilbert White

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The Natural History Of Selborne

Gilbert White

118 chapters

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118 chapters

INVITATION TO SELBORNE.

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

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SELBORNE HANGER.

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 co

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ON THE RAINBOW.

ON THE RAINBOW.

“Look upon the Rainbow, and praise him that made it: very beautiful is it in the brightness thereof.”— Eccles ., xliii. 11. On morning or on evening cloud impress’d, Bent in vast curve, the watery meteor shines Delightfully, to 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: inspire

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A HARVEST SCENE.

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

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ON THE DARK, STILL, DRY, WARM WEATHER.

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 s

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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

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

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ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

The Author of the following Letters takes the liberty, with all proper deference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history, which, he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as antiquities. He is also of opinion that if stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county-histories, which

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THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE

LETTERS to THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ....

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Letter I

Letter I

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire The parish of Selborne lies in the extreme eastern corner of the county of Hampshire, bordering on the county of Sussex, and not far from the county of Surrey; is about fifty miles south-west of London, in latitude 51, and near midway between the towns of Alton and Petersfield. Being very large and extensive, it abuts on twelve parishes, two of which are in Sussex, viz., Trotton and Rogate. If you begin from the south and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Ems

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Letter II

Letter II

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire In the court of Norton-farmhouse, a manor farm to the north-west of the village, on the white maims, stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured n

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Letter III

Letter III

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire The fossil-shells of this district, and sorts of stone, such as have fallen within my observation, must not be passed over in silence. And first I must mention, as a great curiosity, a specimen that was ploughed up in the chalky fields, near the side of the down, and given to me for the singularity of its appearance, which, to an incurious eye, seems like a petrified fish of about four inches long, the cardo passing for an head and mouth. It is in reality a bivalve of

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Letter IV

Letter IV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular. This stone is in great request for hearth-stones and the beds of ovens: and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar; the sand of which fluxes* and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat like glass, that it is well preserved from

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Letter V

Letter V

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Among the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second; so that they look more like water-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced sixteen or e

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Letter VI

Letter VI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Should I omit to describe with some exactness the forest of Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vegetable; and has often afforded me much entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist. The royal forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from north

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Letter VII

Letter VII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Though large herds of deer do much harm to the neighbourhood, yet the injury to the morals of the people is of more moment than the loss of their crops. The temptation is irresistible; for most men are sportsmen by constitution: and there is such an inherent spirit for hunting in human nature, as scarce any inhibitions can restrain. Hence, towards the beginning of this century, all this country was wild about deer-stealing. Unless he was a hunter, as they affected to c

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Letter VIII

Letter VIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire On the verge of the forest, as it is now circumscribed, are three considerable lakes, two in Oakhanger, of which I have nothing particular to say; and one called Bin’s or Bean’s Pond, which is worthy the attention of a naturalist or a sportsman. For, being crowded at the upper end with willows, and with the carex cespitosa,* it affords such a safe and pleasing shelter to wild-ducks, teals, snipes, etc., that they breed there. In the winter this covert is also frequente

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Letter IX

Letter IX

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles Holt, alias Alice Holt,* as it is called in old records, is held by grant from the crown for a term of years. * In ‘Rot. Inquisit. de statu forest. in Scaccar.,’ 36, Ed. 3, it is 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

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Letter X

Letter X

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire August 4, 1767. It has been my misfortune never to have had any neighbours whose studies have led them towards the pursuit of natural knowledge; so that, for want of a companion to quicken my industry and sharpen my attention, I have made but slender progress in a kind of information to which I have been attached from my childhood. As to swallows (hirundines rusticae) being found in a torpid state during the winter in the Isle of Wight, or any part of this country, I n

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Letter XI

Letter XI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, September 9, 1767. It will not be without impatience, that I shall wait for your thoughts with regard to the falco; as to its weight, breadth, etc., I wish I had set them down at the time; but, to the best of my remembrance, it weighed two pounds and eight ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty-eight inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of its eyelids bright yellow. As it had been killed some days, and the eyes were sunk, I could mak

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Letter XII

Letter XII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire November 4, 1767. Sir, It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco* turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen before; but that, I find, would be a difficult task. * This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus; a variety. I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former letters, a young one and a female with young, both of which I have preserved in bran

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Letter XIII

Letter XIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, Jan. 22, 1768. Sir, As in one of your former letters you expressed the more satisfaction from my correspondence on account of my living in the most southerly county; so now I may return the compliment, and expect to have my curiosity gratified by your living much more to the north. For many years past I have observed that towards Christmas vast flocks of chaffinches have appeared in the fields; many more, I used to think, than could be hatched in any one neig

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Letter XIV

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 it dissected, he would find it furnished with two spiracula, or breathing-places, beside the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the human head. When the deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water, while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a considerable time, but, to obv

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Letter XV

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, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a field mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made. A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter

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Letter XVI

Letter XVI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, April 18, 1768. Dear Sir, The history of the stone curlew, charadrius oedicnemus is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, etc., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by their dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security; for their

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Letter XVII

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 me great satisfaction to find that you pursue these studies still with such vigour, and are in such forwardness with regard to reptiles and fishes. The reptiles, few as they are, I am not acquainted with, so well as I could wish, with regard to their natural history. There is a degree of dubiousness and obscurity attending the propagation of this class of anima

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Letter XVIII

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 was on a visit at a gentleman’s house, where I had neither books to turn to, nor leisure to sit down, to return you an answer to many queries, which I wanted to resolve in the best manner that I am able. A person, by my order, has searched our brooks, but could find no such fish as the gasterosteus pungitius: he found the gasterosteus aculeatus in plenty. This

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Letter XIX

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 your willow-lark.* In my letter of April the 18th, I told you peremptorily that I knew your willow-lark, but had not seen it then: but, when I came to procure it, it proved, in all respects, a very motacilla trochilu

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Letter XX

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 that district produces the greatest variety which is the most examined. Several birds, which are said to belong to the north only, are, it seems, often in the south. I have discovered this summer three species of birds with us, which writers mention as only to be seen in the northern counties. The first that was brought me (on the 14th of May) was the sandpiper, tringa

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Letter XXI

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 to my friend near Chichester, in whose neighbourhood these birds seem most to abound; and shall urge him to take particular notice when they begin to congregate, and afterwards to watch them most narrowly whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead of the winter. When I have obtained information with respect to this circumstance, I shall have finis

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Letter XXII

Letter XXII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, July 2, 1769. Dear Sir, As to the peculiarity of jackdaws building with us under the ground in rabbit-burrows, you have, in part, hit upon the reason; for, in reality, there are hardly any towers or steeples in all this country. And perhaps, Norfolk excepted, Hampshire and Sussex are as meanly furnished with churches as almost any counties in the kingdom. We have many livings of two or three hundred pounds a year, whose houses of worship make little better ap

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Letter XXIII

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 be specifically the same; all that I know is, that, when some years ago many Guernsey lizards were turned loose in Pembroke college garden, in the University of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy themselves very well, but never bred. Whether this circumstance will prove anything either way I shall not pretend to say. I return you thanks for y

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The Naturalist’s Summer-evening Walk

The Naturalist’s Summer-evening Walk

… equidem credo, quia sit divinitus illis Ingenium. V IRG . G EORG . 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 h

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Letter XXV

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 pleases you. You put a very shrewd question when you ask me how I know that their autumnal migration is southward? Was not candour and openness the very life of natural history, I should pass over this query just as the sly commentator does over a crabbed passage in a classic; but common ingenuousness obliges me to confess, not without some degree of shame, that I

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Letter XXVI

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 to examine the natural curiosities of that extensive kingdom, both those of the islands, as well as those of the highlands. The usual bane of such expeditions is hurry; because men seldom allot themselves half the time they should do: but, fixing on a day for their return, post

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Letter XXVII

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 their roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very curious: with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but they deface the waffles in some measure by digging litt

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Letter XXVIII

Letter XXVIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, March, 1770. On Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the morning before. However, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped: I found it in an old green-house, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and i

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Letter XXIX

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 constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time; as the black-cap and white-throat; and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catch

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Letter XXX

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 his Entomologia, I long to see it. I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island t

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Letter XXXI

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

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Letter XXXII

Letter XXXII

T Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, October 29, 1770. Dear Sir, After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I begin to suspect that I discern my brother’s hirundo hyberna in Scopoli’s new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of ‘Supra murina, subtus albida; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere inferno; pedes nudi, nigri; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam plumae dorsales; rectrices remigibus concolores; cauda emarginata, nec forcipata,’ agrees very well with t

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Letter XXXIII

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, some of those short-winged English summer birds of passage, concerning whose departure we have made so much inquiry. Now if these birds are found in Andalusia to migrate to and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed that those that come to us may migrate back to the continent, and spend their winters in some of the warmer parts of Europe. This is certain, that m

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Letter XXXIV

Letter XXXIV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, March 30, 1771. Dear Sir, There is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, which is very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer, getting into people’s skins, especially those of women and children, and raising tumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which we call an harvest-bug) is very 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 on

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Letter XXXV

Letter XXXV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, 1771. Dear Sir, Happening to make a visit to my neighbour’s peacocks, I could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails; those long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the tra

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Letter XXXVI

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 I call vespertilio altivolans, from its manner of feeding high in the air: I procured one of them, and found it to be a male; and made no doubt, as they accompanied together, that the other was a female: but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was somewhat disappointed, when it appeared to be also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great

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Letter XXXVII

Letter XXXVII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, 1771. Dear Sir, On the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with scarabaei solstitiales, or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But the circumstance that pleased me most was that I saw it distinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on

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Letter XXXVIII

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 young martins in their nests nearly fledged; and again, on the twenty-first of October, we had at the next house a nest full of young martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were hawking for insects with great alertness. The next morning the brood forsook their nest, and were flyi

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Letter XXXIX

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 liberty of making the following remarks, that you may, according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I here advance, in your intended new edition of the British Zoology. The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinshampond, a great lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the handle of a plough and devouring a fish: it used to p

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Letter XL

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 and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of confounding the dams with their pulli: and besides, as they were then always in pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different chimneys the one for the other

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Letter XLI

Letter XLI

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire It is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of soft-billed birds, that continue with us the winter through, subsist during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust wryneck (so much resembling the hardy race of wood-peckers) migrates, while the feeble little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest frosts without availing himself of houses or

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Letter XLII

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 the kingdom of Ireland; a new field, and a country little known to the naturalist. He will not, it is to be wished, undertake that tour unaccompanied by a botanist, because the mountains have scarcely been sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so mild an island may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the British dominions. A p

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Letter XLIII

Letter XLIII

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Dear Sir, A pair of honey-buzzards, buteo opivorus, sive vespivorus Raii, built them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the middle of Selborne-hanger, in the summer of 1780. In the middle of the month of June a bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the nest, which had been sat on for some time, and contained the embri

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Letter XLIV

Letter XLIV

To Thomas Pennant, Esquire Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780. Dear Sir, Every incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence will ever be pleasing and agreeable to me. As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, I am much of your mind; and see no reason for making it the origin of the common house-dove: but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have been misled by another appellation, often given to the oenas, is that of stock-dove. Unless the stock-dove in the winter va

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Letter I

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 myself the honour to write to you on the subject of natural history: and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a gentleman of great candour, and one that will make allowances; especially where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one that takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the writings of o

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Letter II

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 the subject of natural history, I sent you a list of the summer birds of passage which I have observed in this neighbourhood; and also a list of the winter birds of passage; I mentioned besides those soft-billed birds that stay with us the winter through in the south of England, and those that are remarkable for singing in the night. According to my pro

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Letter III

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 not displeased with my little methodus of birds. If there was any merit in the sketch, it must be owing to its punctually. For many months I carried a list in my pocket of the birds that were to be remarked, and, as I rode or walked about my business, I noted each day the continuance or omission of each bird’s song; so that I am as sure of the certainty of my

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Letter IV

Letter IV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne, Feb. 19, 1770. Dear Sir, Your observation that ‘the cuckoo does not deposit its egg indiscriminately in the nest of the first bird that comes in its way, but probably looks out a nurse in some degree congenerous, with whom to intrust its young,’ is perfectly new to me; and struck me so forcibly, that I naturally fell into a train of thought that led me to consider whether the fact was so, and what reason there was for it. When I came to recollect and

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Letter V

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 to prove that the summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellowhammer no doubt persists with more steadiness than any other; but the woodlark, the wren, the red-breast, the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I advance. If this severe

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Letter VI

Letter VI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne, May 21, 1770. Dear Sir, The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the regular progress of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40 summer birds of passage were very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east

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Letter VII

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; a sight of the hirundines of that hot and distant island would be great entertainment to me. The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the Annus Primus with satisfaction: for though some parts of this work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations; yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carn

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Letter VIII

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 want to be better understood: witness those vast flocks of hen chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any cocks among them. Now was there a due proportion of each sex, it should seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of th

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Letter IX

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 accounts from various parts of the kingdom seem to justify you in your suspicions, that at least many of the swallow kind do not leave us in the winter, but lay themselves up like insects and bats, in a torpid state, to slumber away the more uncomfortable months till the return of the sun and fine weather awakens them. But then we must not, I th

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Letter X

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 one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls hoot in B flat: but that one went almost half a note below A. The pipe he tried their notes by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch. A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks that the owls about this villa

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Letter XI

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 various kinds of birds, I cannot help admiring at these congregations, and wishing that it was in my power to account for those appearances almost peculiar to the season. The two great motives which regulate the proceedings of the brute creation are love and hunger; the former incites animals to perpetuate their kind, the latter induces them to preserve individ

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Letter XII

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 the sea-banks at Newhaven, near the mouth of the Lewes river, in pursuit of natural knowledge, we were surprised to see three house-swallows gliding very swiftly by us. That morning was rather chilly, with the wind at north-west; but the tenor of the weather for some time before had been delicate, and the noons remarkably warm. From this incident, and from repe

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Letter XIII

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 of November I remarked that the old tortoise, formerly mentioned, began first to dig the ground in order to the forming its hybernaculum, which it had fixed on just beside a great tuft of hepaticas. It scrapes out the ground with its fore-feet, and throws it up over its back with its hin

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Letter XIV

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 its effects. Nor is the violence of this affection more wonderful than the shortness of its duration. Thus every hen is in her turn the virago of the yard, in proportion to the helplessness of her brood; and will fly in the face of a dog or a sow in defence of those chickens, which in a few weeks she will drive before her with relentless cruelty. This a

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Letter XV

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 hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which, upon examination, I found to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery: this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history. We hav

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Letter XVI

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 the house-martin, or martlet; and, if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen to meet with your approbation, I may probably soon extend my inquiries to the rest of the British hirundines — the swallow, the swift, and the bank-martin. A few house-martins begin to appear about the sixteenth of April; usually some few days later

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Letter XVII

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 am pleased to find that my monography met with your approbation. My remarks are the result of many years’ observation; and are, I trust, true on the whole: 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 of this kind are inexhaustible. If you thi

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Letter XVIII

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 all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about the thirteenth of April, as I have remarked from many years’ observation. Not but now and then a straggler is seen much earlier: and, in particular, when I was a boy I observed a swallow for a whole day together on a sunny warm Shrove Tuesday; which day could not fall out later than the middl

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Letter XIX

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 my little history of the swallow with your usual candour: nor was I less pleased to find that you made objections where you saw reason. As to the quotations, it is difficult to say precisely which species of hirundo Virgil might intend in the lines in question, since the ancients did not attend to specific differences like modern naturalists: yet somew

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Letter XX

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 British hirundines; 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 hirundo esculenta. But it is much to be regretted that it is scarce possible for any observer to be so full and exact as he could wish in reciting the circumstances attending the life and conversation of this

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Letter XXI

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 it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April: and in some of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs. The swift, like the sand-martin, is very defective in architecture, making no crust, or shell, for its n

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Letter XXII

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 of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my pleasure, in contemplating the address with which this feat was performed to a consideraable depth in the chimney, was somewhat interrupted by apprehensions lest my eyes might undergo the same fate with those of Tobit.* * Tobit ii. 10. Perhaps it may be some amusement

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Letter XXIII

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 on field-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully that the whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another. When the dogs attem

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Letter XXIV

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 of sexual attachment: the congregating of gregarious birds in the winter is a remarkable instance. Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves: the strongest fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour’s horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he will not bear to be left alone in a strange stable

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Letter XXV

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 of England, and come round in their circuit two or three times in the year. One of these tribes calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of which I have nothing particular to say; but the other is distinguished by an appellative somewhat remarkable. — As far as their harsh gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the name of their clan is Curleo

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Letter XXVI

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 simple piece of domestic Economy, being satisfied that you think nothing beneath your attention that tends to utility: the matter alluded to is the use of rushes instead of candles, which I am well aware prevails in many districts besides this; but as I know there are countries

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Letter XXVII

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 well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to bees; they were his food, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dosed away his time, within his father’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid

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Letter XXVIII

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 with us at a time when they take the fastest hold and make the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage ourselves from them. No wonder therefore that the lower people retain them their whole live

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Letter XXIX

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 one tree will distil in a night’s time by condensing the vapour, which trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the ground below quite in a float. In Newton-lane, in October 1775, on a misty day, a particular oak in leaf dropped so fast that the cart-way stood in pud

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Letter XXX

Letter XXX

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne, April 3, 1776. Dear Sir, Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems persuaded that he has discovered the reason why cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs; the impediment, he supposes, arises from the internal structure of their parts, which incapacitates them for incubation. According to this gentleman, the crop or craw of a cuckoo does not lie before the sternum at the bottom of the neck, as in the gallinae columbae, etc., but immediately behind it

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Letter XXXI

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 heavy and bloated, as it lay in the grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut it up, we found that the abdomen was crowded with young, fifteen in number; the shortest of which measured full seven inches, and were about the size of full-grown earthworms. This little fry issued into the world with the true viper-spirit about them, showing great alertnes

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Letter XXXII

Letter XXXII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Castration has a strange effect: it emasculates both man, beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of the other sex. Thus eunuchs have smooth unmuscular arms, thighs, and legs; and broad hips, and beardless chins, and squeaking voices. Gelt-stags and bucks have hornless heads, like hinds and does. Thus wethers have small horns, like ewes; and oxen large bent horns, and hoarse voices when they low, like cows: for bulls have short straight horns; a

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Letter XXXIII

Letter XXXIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington The natural term of an hog’s life is little known, and the reason is plain — because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of its time: however, my neighbour, a man of substance, who had no occasion to study every little advantage to a nicety, kept an half-bred Bantam sow, who was as thick as she was long, and whose belly swept on the ground, till she was advanced to her seventeenth year; at which period she s

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Letter XXXIV

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 lonely state, may be attached to each other from a spirit of sociality; in this it may not be amiss to recount a different motive which has been known to create as strange a fondness. My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the same time his cat kittened and the y

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Letter XXXV

Letter XXXV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne, May 20, 1777. Dear Sir, Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are always poor; and probably the reason may be because the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects and reptiles are of much more consequence, and have much more influence in the Economy nature, than the incurious are aware of; and are mighty in their effect, from their minuteness, which renders them less an object of attention; and from their numbers and fecundity. Eart

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Letter XXXVI

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 March were very hot days; so sultry that everybody complained and were restless under those sensations to which they had not been reconciled by gradual approaches. This sudden summer-like heat was attended by many summer coincidences; for on those two days the thermometer rose to sixty-six in the shade; many species of insects revived and came forth; som

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Letter XXXVII

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 his birth, 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. This scaly eruption usually broke out twice in the year, at the spring and fall; and, by peeling away, left the skin so thin and tender that neither his hands or feet were able to perform their functi

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Letter XXXVIII

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 hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return the cry of a pack of dogs, the notes of a hunting-horn, a tunable ring of

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Letter XXXIX

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 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 th

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Letter XL

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 that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without improving the mind or advancing any real knowledge: and where the science is carried no farther than a mere systematic classification, the charge is but too true. But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this aspersion should be by no means content with a list of names; he should study plants ph

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Letter XLI

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, and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks and downs, bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields, cannot but furnish an ample flora. The deep rocky lanes abound with filices, and the pastures and moist woods with fungi. If in any branch of botany we may seem to be wanting, it must be in

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Letter XLII

Letter XLII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Omnibus animalibus reliquis certus et uniusmodi, et in suo cuique genere incessus est: aves solae vario meatu feruntur, et in terra, et in äere.—P LIN . 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 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 ha

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Letter XLIII

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 and language, of which I shall say something. Not that I would pretend to understand their language like the vizier of the Spectator , 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 sou

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Letter XLIV

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 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 hel

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Letter XLV

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 such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the Splendid Shilling. I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice Of Marcley Hill: the apple no w

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Letter XLVI

Letter XLVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne. … resonant arbusta … There is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furze close to the back of this village, well known by the name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the gryllus campestris, or field-cricket; which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many other counties. As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a na

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Letter XLVII

Letter XLVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne. Far from all resort of mirth Save the cricket on the hearth. M ILTON’S Il 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 our dwellings, intruding itself upon our notice whether we will or no. This species delights in new-built houses, being, like the spider, pleased with the moisture of the walls; and besides, the softness of the

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Letter XLVIII

Letter XLVIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne. 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 gryllus gryllotalpa (the mole-cricket) haunts moist meadows, and frequents the sides of ponds and banks of streams, performing a

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Letter XLIX

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 the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject: new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive. In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and charadrius himantopus, were shot upon the verge of

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Letter L

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 my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened to express its resentments by hissing; and, packing it in a box with earth, carried it eighty miles in post-chaises. The rattle and hurry of the journey so perfectly roused it that, when I turned it out on a border, it walked twice down to the bottom of my gard

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Letter LI

Letter LI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne, Sept. 3, 1781. I have now read your miscellanies through with much care and satisfaction: and am to return you my best thanks for the honourable mention made in them of me as a naturalist, which I wish I may deserve. In some former letters I expressed my suspicions that many of the house-martins do not depart in the winter far from this village. I therefore determined to make some search about the south-east end of the hill, where I imagined they mig

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Letter LII

Letter LII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Selborne, Sept. 9, 1781. I have just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that species of hirundines. Our swifts, in general, withdrew this year about the first day of August, all save one pair, which in two or three days was reduced to a single bird. The perseverance of this individual made me suspect that the strongest of motives, that of an a

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Letter LIII

Letter LIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort which I little expected to have found in this kingdom. I had often observed that one particular part of a vine growing on the walls of my house was covered in the autumn with a black dust-like appearance, on which the flies fed eagerly; and that the shoots and leaves thus affected did not thrive; nor did the fruit ripen. To this substance I

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Letter LIV

Letter LIV

To The Honourable Daines 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

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Letter LV

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 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 wa

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Letter LVI

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 brute creation 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 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 ofte

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Letter LVII

Letter LVII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington A rare, and I think a new little bird frequents my garden, which I have great reason 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 bird much resembles the white-throat, but has a more white or rather silvery breast and belly; is restless and active, like the willow-wrens, and hops from bough to bough, examining every part for food; it also runs up the stems of the

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Letter LVIII

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 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 backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without an

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Letter LIX

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 piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village, this was the butt-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what pu

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Letter LX

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 the weather from the year 1727 to the year 1748, inclusive, that though there is frequent rain in that district of Devonshire, yet the quantity falling is not great; and that some years it has been very small: for in 1731 the rain measured only 17.266 in. and in 1741, 20.354 in.; and again in 1743 only 20.908 in. P

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Letter LXI

Letter LXI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington Since the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural history, I shall make no further apology for the four following letters, which will contain many particulars concerning some of the great frosts and a few respecting some very hot summers, that have distinguished themselves from the rest during the course of my observations. As the frost in January 1768 was, for the small it lasted, the most severe that we had then known for many years, and was

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Letter LXII

Letter LXII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington There were some circumstances attending the remarkable frost in January 1776 so singular and striking, that a short detail of them may not be unacceptable. The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages from my journal, which were taken from time to time as things occurred. But it may be proper previously to remark that the first week in January was uncommonly wet, and drowned with vast rains from every quarter: from whence may be inferred, as t

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Letter LXIII

Letter LXIII

To The Honourable Daines Barrington As the frost in December, 1784, was very extraordinary, you, I trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars; and especially when I promise to say no more about the severities of winter after I have finished this letter. The first week in December was very wet, with the barometer very low. On the 7th, with the barometer at 28-five-tenths, came on a vast snow, which continued all that day and the next, and most part of the following night; so that by th

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Letter LXIV

Letter LXIV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the northerly climate of England, where the summers are often so defective in warmth and sunshine as not to ripen the fruits of the earth so well as might be wished, I shall be more concise in my account of the severity of a summer season, and so make a little amends for the prolix account of the degrees of cold, and the inconveniences that we suffered from late rigorous winters. The summers of 1781 and 1783

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Letter LXV

Letter LXV

To The Honourable Daines Barrington The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phaenomena; for besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed the different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smokey fog, that prevailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man. By my journa

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Letter LXVI

Letter LXVI

To The Honourable Daines Barrington We are very seldom annoyed with thunder-storms; and it is no less remarkable than true, that those which arise in the south have hardly been known to reach this village; for before they get over us, they take a direction to the east or to the west, or sometimes divide into two, and go in part to one of those quarters, and in part to the other; as was truly the case in summer 1783, when though the country round was continually harassed with tempests and often f

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