OF SELBORM']. 65 



whose seat Cressi-hall is, and near what town it lies.' 1 I 

 have often thought that those vast extents of fens have never 

 been sufficiently explored. If half a dozen gentlemen, fur- 

 nished with a good strength of water-spaniels, were to beat 

 them over for a week, they would certainly find more species. 

 There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied 

 more than that of the caprimulgus (the goat-sucker,) as it is a 

 wonderful and curious creature : but I have always found that 

 though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know it does, 

 yet in general it utters it's jarring note sitting on a bough ; 

 and I have for many an half hour watched it as it sat with 

 it's under mandible quivering, and particularly this summer. 

 It perches usually on a bare twig, with it's head lower than it's 

 tail, in an attitude well expressed by your draughtsman in the 

 folio British Zoology. This bird is most punctual in begin- 

 ning it's song exactly at the close of day ; so exactly that I 

 have known it strike up more than once or twice just at the 

 report of the Portsmouth evening gun, which we can hear 

 when the weather is still. It appears to me past all doubt 

 that it's notes are formed by organic impulse, by the powers 

 of the parts of it's windpipe, formed for sound, just as cats 

 pur*. You will credit me, I hope, when I tell you that, as 



a Cressi-hall is near Spaldiny, in Lincolnshire. 



* [In the original letter, as sent to Pennant, the following passage occurs, 

 which is omitted from the book (it precedes the paragraph in the text 

 relative to this bird) : " There is a passage in the article Goatsucker, page 

 247 " [of the * British Zoology '] " which you will pardon me for objecting 

 to, as I always thought it exceptionable ; and that is, l This noise being 

 made only in its flight, we suppose it to be caused by the resistance of the 

 air against the hollow of its vastly extended mouth and throat ; for it flies 

 with both wide open, to take its prey.' Now, as the first line appears to 

 me to be a false fact, the supposition of course falls to the ground, if it 

 should prove so." This statement of Pennant is one of many proofs how 

 imperfect was his own observation of the habits of birds, and how falla- 

 cious and inconsistent was his reasoning. Who could imagine the possi- 

 bility of the mere "resistance of the air " as the bird was flying with its 

 mouth open could produce a noise similar to that of a spinning-wheel, and 

 loud enough to be heard for nearly a mile? This bird is certainly less 

 common in Selborne and its neighbourhood than it was some years ago, 

 and I have neither seen nor heard one for a considerable time past. In 



F 



