WHITE'S SELBORNE vii 



alert, is listening to the mysterious humming as of bees in 

 the air, which follows him from the Money Dells to his 

 avenue gate, though not one insect is to be seen. Perchance 

 from his eyry, beneath the beeches of the Hanger, he is 

 watching a file of rooks wending their way to the Tisted 

 Woods ; or, threading a rocky lane, he stoops to admire the 

 lovely fronds of the hart's-tongue fern. Or, amid the gloam- 

 ing of a bland midsummer's evening, one fancies him strolling 

 to the Plestor, where he may trace the graceful wheels of the 

 churn-owl, hawking round the giant oak in pursuit of fern- 

 chafers, yet ever most intent in observing the migrants, and 

 in following swift and swallow as they 



" in rapid, giddy ring, 

 Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing." 



The grasshopper-lark sounds his sibilous whisper, and the 

 smallest willow-wren his shivering noise in the tops of tall 

 woods, and he is there to hear ; the lesser whitethroat comes 

 to probe the nectaries of his crown-imperials, and he is pres- 

 ent to perceive. He turns over on his pillow at night to 

 mark the stone-curlews uttering their short, quick note while 

 passing overhead, a watchword that they may not stray and 

 lose their companions. He knew the habits, haunts, and 

 food of every feathered inhabitant of his parish, from the 

 bustard, the largest British land fowl, to the golden-crested 

 wren, the smallest of the British avifauna. The sight or call 

 of some strange visitant, like the stilted plover, was to him as 

 the draught of some marvelous vintage, or the ecstasy of the 

 collector who discovers a hidden Raphael or Rembrandt. He 

 had, moreover, a retinue of boys of whom there were a 

 goodly number in the village at his constant beck and call, 

 to climb trees for him in search of the birds' nests and eggs 

 he coveted, as well as to destroy the wasps' nests, the denizens 

 of which devoured the produce of his garden. 



" The parish I live in," he says, " is a very abrupt, uneven 

 country, full of hills and woods, and therefore full of birds." 

 In close proximity are the Sussex Downs, the climate is tem- 

 pered by the near vicinity of the sea, while numerous streams 



contribute to 



" the chalky Wey that rolls a milky wave." 



