46 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all 
the summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. 
Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I 
think, with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, ‘‘czrvca 
aguas versantes;’’ for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the 
most dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed from 
water : what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are 
their usual food, but they also eat toads and frogs. * 
I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnzeus 
perhaps would call the species A/us mznzmus. 
LETTER 2. 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, AZrvil 1824, 1768. 
DEAR S1R,—The history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius edicne- 
mus, 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, &c., and are 
withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they sculk among 
the stones, which are their best security ; for their feathers are so 
exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact 
observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be 
eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted 
with dark bloody blotches. Though I might not be able, just when 
I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show you them almost 
any day ; and any evening you may hear them round the village, 
for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile. Cdicnemus 
is amost apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem 
* The winter habits of the stone-curlew have not been described, and White knew it 
only during the breeding time. Most of the plovers and their allies congregate after 
breeding, and delight in the vicinity of water. Any one describing the winter habits of 
the common curlew frequenting the seashore, and going inland to feed at high tide, would 
find the picture very different from that which he would draw when he saw them in their 
subalpine breeding-grounds, having at the same time a different call and flight. It was 
nevertheless a very natural commentary upon Ray’s words, and we now require a good 
description of their habits during winter, after they have returned from their breeding- 
grounds, 
