40 HOOPOES. 



As to ihefalco, which I mentioned in town, I shall taka 

 the liberty to send it down to you into Wales ; presuming 

 on your candour, that you will excuse me if it should appear 

 as familiar to you as it is strange to me, Though mutilated, 

 " qualem dices . . . antehac fuisse, tales cum sint reliquics ! ' ' 

 " what would you say it was before, when such are the 

 remains ? " 



It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild 

 ducks and snipes ; but, when it was shot, had just knocked 

 down a rook, which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make 

 it answer to any of our English hawks ; neither could I find 

 any like it at the curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring 

 Gardens. I found it nailed up at the end of a barn, which 

 is the countryman's museum. 



The parish I live in is a very abrupt uneven country, full 

 of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. 



LETTER XI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNF, September 9, 1767. 



IT will not be without impatience that I shall wait for your 

 thoughts with regard to thefalco; as to its weight, breadth, 

 &c., I wish I had set them down at the time ; but, to the 

 best of my remembrance, it weighed two pounds and eight 

 ounces, and measured, from wing to wing, thirty-eight 

 inches. Its cere and feet were yellow, and the circle of its 

 eyelids a bright yellow. As it had been killed some days, 

 and the eyes were sunk, I could make no good observation 

 on the colour of the pupils and the irides. 



The most unusual bir&s I ever observed in these parts 

 were a pair of hoopoes, (upu/pa?)* which came several years 

 ago in the summer, and frequented an ornamental piece of 



* A pair of hoopoes have bred for many years in an old ash tree, on the 

 grounds of a lady in Sussex near Chichester. Numbers of them are sold in 

 the markets in Paris. ED. 



