OF SELBOKNE. i>07 



procured it ; he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, 

 a joiner at Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet 

 work, by inlaying it along with whiter woods. 



Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, in 

 spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird passing 

 by on the wing, and repeating often a short quick note. 

 This bird I have remarked myself, but never could make out 

 till lately. I am assured now that it is the Stone-curlew, 

 (charadrius oedicnemus.) Some of them pass over or near 

 my house almost every evening after it is dark, from the 

 uplands of the hill and North field, away down towards 

 Dorton; where, among the streams and meadows, they find a 

 greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged to 

 be noisy; their notes often repeated become signals or watch- 

 words to keep them together, that they may not stray or lose 

 each the other in the dark. 



The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are 

 curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they 

 return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and 

 rendezvous by thousands over Selborne-down, where they 

 wheel round in the air, and sport and dive in a playful 

 manner, all the while exerting their voices, and making a 

 loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by the dis- 

 tance that we at the village are below them, becomes a 

 confused noise or chiding; or rather a pleasing murmur, very 

 engaging to the imagination, and not unlike the cry of a pack 

 of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing of the 

 wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly 

 shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of 

 day, they retire for the night to the deep beechen woods of 

 Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl who, as she 

 was going to bed, used to remark on such an occurrence, in 

 the true spirit of physico-theology, that the rooks were saying 

 their prayers ; and yet this child was much too young to be 

 aware that the scriptures have said of the" Deity that "'he 

 feedeth the ravens who call upon him." 



I am, &c. 



