OF AN INSECT-HUNTER. 39$ 



It was at six o'clock in the evening of the seventh" day of 

 the month of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand 

 live hundred and seventy-one,^' that the wonderful movement 

 of this hill began to take place, and it was not till twelve 

 o'clock at noon on the following Monday that the hill again 

 stood still. The earth opened along the brow of the hill on 

 both sides, with a mighty bellowing noise, which resounded 

 along the earth and re-echoed in the air, and was heard at the 

 distance of hundreds of miles ; and then a huge rock heaved 

 up from beneath more than twenty acres of the hill, and lifted 

 it to a great height; and when it had so lifted it, the trees that 

 grew upon it remained upright, and there were cattle grazing 

 in the fields, and sheep in their folds. When it was lifted, it 

 began to move forwards ; and passing along, it came to 

 Kinnaston Chapel, and threw it down, and crumbled it to 

 atoms, and buried it. And it still pressed forwards, and tore 

 up the trees in the fields, and destroyed the crops, and buried 

 the cattle, and the horses, and the sheep : and two public king's 

 highways were wholly buried beneath its mass ; and they were 

 afterwards made altogether afresh, in far different directions, 

 more than three hundred feet from where they originally were. 

 At last it stood still in its present situation, having marched 

 forwards for the space of two-and-forty hours. And the gap 

 from^whence it first rose remained empty, and was forty feet in 

 breadth, and more than four hundred feet in length. 



vespertinam : ante septimam verb insequentis diei matutinam ; quadriginta passus 

 processerat, obvia quaeque secum deferens et propellens, oves suis in ovilibus, 

 sepimenta arboresque : quai'uni aliae prostrates feruntur, aliae quae in piano antea 

 sitae nunc in locum superiorem et ipsum mentis clivum elatge firmiter increscunt: 

 quae ad ortum positce, in occasum versae sunt ; et vice versa, ab occasu in ortum 

 permutatione facta translatae. Quo quidem motu suo, Kinnaston Capellam 

 funditus evertit, publicasque sive regias vias duas tercentum fere pedes e con- 

 suetis suis tritisque tramitibus divertit. Solum ipsum quod hunc in modum iter 

 (ut ita dicam) fecit ; viginti plus minus jugera occupavit : quod sese aperiens 

 cum saxeis Rupibus et quibuscunque intra suum ambitum perpetuo motu terrae 

 raolcm pras se spatio mille ducentorum pedum protrusit : relictis postse arvorum 

 loco pascuis, arvisque pascuorum viriditate jam obductis. Tandem vero, 

 obrutis prorsus inferioribus suis partibus, in molem surrexit, ad duodecim orgyi- 

 arum altitudinem, atque ibi post triduanum iter suum requievit. Specimen san6 

 et argumentum illius qui huic Ilu})i nianum immisit suam, cujus potentia monies 

 etiam et colles bilance sua libravit." 



s Sir Richard Baker, in his " Chronicles of the Kings of England," gives the 

 17th of February as the date, but still says it was Saturday evening. 



'' Camden, in his " Britannia," dates this event 1575, but afterwards corrects 

 this and substitutes 1571, the date given by Speed and Baker. 



