A SUMMER DAY AT SELBORITE. 31 



our native isles; sixty times have the beech trees in his beloved "Hanger" 

 put forth their leaves, and sixty times have they strewed the plains; but 

 while sixty years have thus passed away, the names of Gilbert White and 

 Selborne are better known than when the latter contained the former, a 

 living man. 



To carry out a long- cherished desire, on a merry morn in June last 

 we left Clapham by the South-Western Railway for Alton, the nearest 

 point to Selborne by rail. Arrived there; — after going through the village, 

 and immediately after leaving it to the left, you enter into a charming 

 lane, with hedgerows on every side, noble conservatories for the botanist. 

 Walking leisurely along, you here and there get through some opening a 

 glimpse of a beauteous woodland scene, or a field covered by the hop-vines, 

 now climbing vigorously up their poles, or it may be some fallow-field 

 ploughed by the brown oxen, or you have to step aside to allow some 

 joyous Giles to drive past his loaded wain. Amid such rural scenes, amid 

 so much that was pleasing and lovely, many times did we verify the sweet 

 language of Clare. 



"Upon ji molehill oft he dropt him down, 

 To take a prospect of the circling scene, 

 Marking how much the cottage roofs thatch brown 

 Did add its beauty to the budding green 

 Of sheltering trees it humbly peeped between; 

 The stone-racked waggon with its rumbling sound; 

 The windmill's sweeping sails at distance seen; 

 And every form that crowds the circling round, 

 Where the sky, stooping, seems to kiss the meeting ground." 



But time progresses, and so must we. And now, having walked about four 

 miles, crossing a bridge over the Well-head, you ascend a short rise, and 



* The following I think worthy of record, not only as strengthening the fact of the return 

 of the same Swallows to this country, but to the very neighbourhood where they had left 

 the previous season. It is communicated by my worthy friend Thomas Durham "Weir, 

 Esq., of Boghead, Linlithgowshire, a man loved and respected by all who know him: — "The 

 late Professor Maogillivray, of Aberdeen, being very anxious to ascertain if the White-rumped 

 Swallows returned to the same locality, I caught several of them in September, 1838, and 

 put small rings (silver) on their legs. In the beginning of May, 1839, a weaver shot one 

 of these 'joyous harbingers of summer' in the neighbourhood of Whitburn, which is about 

 three miles distant from Boghead. He observed a piece of parchment suspended from its leg, 

 which had attracted his attention. He gave it to Mr. Nairn e Mc Nab, bird-stuffer, in Bath- 

 gate, who sent it to me. I was delighted on discovering that it was one of those Swallows 

 which I had caught during the previous year. To the silver ring there was fixed with a 

 silken thread a small piece of parchment, on one side of which was written distinctly, in a 

 female hand, 'Madrid, 28th. March, 1839,' and on the other side 'Donna Maria;' as some 

 of the letters of the surname were effaced, it could not be deciphered. Below the name 

 there was a flaming heart pierced through by two arrows.— Boghead, 16th. August, 

 1856." • 



