NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 39 



animals are supposed to be owing to high, various, and unusual 

 food. 



I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo- 

 pint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks of 

 hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing, 

 with some exactness, myself, and getting others to do the same, 

 we found it was the thrush kind that searched it out. The 

 root of the arum is remarkably warm and pungent. 



Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us. 

 The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by 

 that fierce weather in January. 



In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, 

 a little bird that raised my curiosity : it was of that yellow- 

 green color that belongs to the salicaria kind, and, I think, was 

 soft-billed. It was no parus ; and was too long and too big 

 for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like the largest 

 willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back downwards, 

 but never continuing one moment in the same place. I shot 

 at it, but it was so desultory that I missed my aim. 



I wonder that the stone-curlew, Ckaradriuscedicnemtts, should 

 be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird : it abounds in all 

 the champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I 

 think, all the summer, having young ones, I know, very late 

 in the autumn. Already they begin clamoring in the evening, 

 They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be called, as they 

 are by Mr. Ray, " circa aquas vers antes ; " for with us, by day 

 at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and 

 sheep-walks, far removed from water : what they may do in 

 the night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they 

 also eat toads and frogs. 



I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. 

 Linnaeus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. 



NOTE 



1 The cane is simply a local name for the weasel. It is called mouse- 

 hunter in Norfolk. A peculiarity of the weasel is its curiosity. If you 

 startle it and it runs into a hole, wait a few moments, and it will probably 

 come out again to look at you in a very impertinent kind of way. G. C. D. 



