NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 155 



jured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discolored 

 and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be 

 very large. 



Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and half 

 disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are upon me, 

 I lose all the pleasing notices and little intimations arising from 

 rural sounds ; and May is to me as silent and mute with respect 

 to the notes of birds, etc., as August. My eyesight is, thank 

 God, quick and good ; but with respect to the other sense, I am, 

 at times, disabled : 



" And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 



NOTE 



1 " The same night also I returned from the burial and slept by the wall 

 of my court-yard, being polluted, and my face was uncovered. 



" And I knew not that there were sparrows (swallows ?) in the wall, and 

 mine eyes being open, the sparrows muted warm dung into mine eyes, and a 

 whiteness came in mine eyes ; and I went to the physicians, but they helped 

 me not." TOBIT ii. 10. G. W. 



LETTER XXIII 



SELBORNE, June 8t 

 DEAR SIR, On September 21 st, 1741, being then on a visit, 

 and intent on field-diversions, I rose before daybreak : when I 

 came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clover- 

 grounds matted all over with a thick coat of cobweb, in the 

 meshes of which a copious and heavy dew hung so plentifully 

 that the whole face of the country seemed, as it were, covered 

 with two or three setting-nets drawn one over another. When 

 the dogs attempted to hunt, their eyes were so blinded and hood- 

 winked that they could not proceed, but were obliged to lie 

 down and scrape the encumbrances from their faces with their 

 fore-feet, so that, finding my sport interrupted, I returned home 

 musing in my mind on the oddness of the occurrence. 



As the morning advanced the sun became bright and warm, 

 and the day turned out one of those most lovely ones which no 

 season but the autumn produces, cloudless, calm, serene, 

 and worthy of the south of France itself. 



