NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 17 



formerly abounded with subterraneous trees ; though Dn Plot says 

 positively,* that " there never were any fallen trees hidden in the 

 messes of the southern counties." But he was mistaken : for I 

 myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose 

 timbers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which 

 the owners assured me they procured from the bogs by probing 

 the soil with spits, or some such instruments : but the peat is so 

 much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, that 

 none has been found of late.t Besides the oak, I have also been 

 shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour, and softer nature, 

 which the inhabitants called fir : but. upon a nice examination, 

 and trial by fire, I could discover nothing resinous in them ; and 

 therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, 

 or some such aquatic tree. 



This lonely domain is a very agreeable haunt for many sorts of 

 wild fowls, which not only frequent it in the winter, but breed 

 there in the summer ; such as lapwings, snipes, wild-ducks, and, as 

 I have discovered within these few years, teals. Partridges in vast 

 plenty are bred in good seasons on the verge of this forest, into 



* See his " History of Staffordshire." 



f Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they have dis- 

 covered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the 

 space where they are concealed than in the surrounding morass. Nor does 

 this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. Dr. 

 Hales saith, "That the warmth of the earth, at some depth under ground, has 

 an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a 

 freezing to a thawing state, is manifest from this observation, viz., Nov. 29th, 

 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morn- 

 ing, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in several places in 

 Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with earth, on which the 

 snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry ; as also 

 where elm-pipes lay under ground : a plain proof this, that those drains inter- 

 cepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths below 

 them ; for the snow lay where the drain had more than four feet depth of earth 

 over it. U continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the tops of walls." 

 See Hale's "Haemastatics," p. 360. QUERY, Might not such observations 

 be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discoveiy of old obliterated 

 drains and wells about houses ; and in Roman stations and camps lead to the 

 finding of pavements, baths and graves, and other hidden relics of curious 

 antiquity ? 



