Hetrospective Criticism, 101 



that he can attest the fact in the case of the islands in the northern lakes. 

 If this be true, as I doubt not, the Havergate hares do not perform such 

 an extraordinary feat as is supposed, when it is asserted that they cross a 

 current, by no means " rapid," at certain stages of the tide, and certainly 

 not so wide as S. V. W. makes it. I wish S. V. W. had gone to Haver- 

 gate ; he might have seen there a more interesting thing than a multitude 

 of hares, and a " formidable aqueous barrier " to keep them from playing 

 the truant : he would have seen what, to a geologist, as he is, would 

 be a pleasing subject of consideration, the unfailing spring of water which 

 bursts up from an immense depth below the island, and which is affected 

 only by the changes in the level of the " barrier " aforesaid. After the 

 hares have been well digested, our diiFerences may be washed down by a 

 draught from the said spring ; but at present I must leave that phenomenon 

 to a more fitting occasion. The only difficulty touching the hares is in 

 the saltness of the water about the island; but salt is good to season 

 criticism withal, as well as to keep hares from becoming amenable to the 

 vagrant act j and, so that S. V. W. is satisfied that I do not mean to hoax 

 your readers, I do not care, if, in a punning humour, he says of me, in the 

 words of Plautus, '* Nee quisquam plus salis, plusque leporis habet." * — 

 W. B. Clarke. Brussels, May 13. 1831. 



P.S. I have only just seen your Eighteenth and Nineteenth Numbers, or 

 I would sooner have requested you to correct a few typographical errors 

 in the letter in Vol. IV. ; such as, p. 190. Leonhard for Lemhard; p. 191. 

 Layham for Logham, &c. — W. B. C. 



Hares taking the Water. — Your more recent Numbers have come to hand ; 

 and I beg to thank your correspondents for helping my unhappy Havergate 

 friends over the stile of S. V. W.'s criticism. I hope he will now spare 

 the " sauce piquante " of his facetious humour, and let my nautical hares 

 take their place on your editorial table, to be dissected and swallowed 

 according to the direction of good Mrs. Glasse, who, when she ordered that 

 " hares" should first" be caught" before "cooked," doubtless never dreamed 

 of shutting them up in an island by way of saving the sportsman the trouble 

 of running after them. Had the Magazine of Natural History been in 

 vogue then, she would probably have written, " First shut up your hares in 

 Havergate Island, and then you can catch them ad libituni,nnd having caught 

 them," &c. &c. &c. I suppose nobody believed Belgians could run, till 

 the other day, when they stretched their legs at Louvain ; but in these 

 days of reform, we shall soon hear of greater wonders than swimming 

 hares or flying soldiers, or of other people as easily mistaking as your ex- 

 insular correspondent. — W. B. C. Brussels, Oct. 15. 1831. 



£ggs cojitaining Chicks not to be successfully hatched if suffered to cool. — 

 I am exceedingly obliged to your travelled correspondent, Mr. Waterton, 

 for his attempted correction of my supposed mistake about hatching, 

 truth being always preferable to hollow authority ; but he can know little 

 of me when he represents me as a book naturalist, deficient in " bog edu- 

 cation." (Vol. IV. p. 517.) Had Mr. Waterton, however, spent a little more 

 time " amongst books " than " in bogs," he might have learnt a little more 

 accuracy ; for his facts brought to prove my " errors " are too vague to 

 support any inference. If he means to say that eggs with chicks in them 

 can be left till they are " cold as any stone " (what degree of the thermo- 

 meter he does not say), and then successfully hatched, I should advise him 

 to take out a patent for hatching eggs without heat. No practical na- 

 turalist will credit the fact. Every naturalist knows that the terns, &c., 

 leave their eggs for whole days uncovered ; but then it is in very warm 

 weather. I cannot pretend to have travelled as extensively as he ; but so 

 far as I have had opportunities, I have been, not a book but a field naturalist, 



* " No one has more of salt [mirth] and hares [pleasantry]." 

 H 3 



