296 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



Eversley Rectory, Winchfield, 



April, 1867. 



MY DEAR NEWTON, 



Terrible hard work and a sad death in our 

 family, have prevented my thanking you and John 

 Clark for your kind correction of my lecture. 



I am very glad to know what the Bearded Tit feeds 

 on and that it is not a Shrike. But most thankful am 

 I for your guess at ficedulse. It is proof of high 

 critical power you should take to editing Greek 

 plays. 



I knew ficedulse was " beccaficos." But thought the 

 French used it for Wheatears and other little birds. 

 But picedulse is a delightful correction. But " hawks " 

 for " auetes " was the printer's error. 



I am well pleased that you found so little fault with 

 the whole. I omitted the antiquity of man, and flint 

 implements : because it was unfair to commit good 

 Norman McLeod, who is a martyr already to his liberal 

 opinions, responsible for the discussing so great a subject 

 in a single paragraph. 



Thank God, the birds are coming which always 

 make my heart grow young again. Chiffchaff, wryneck, 

 wheatear, and garden warbler are here, and I am 

 straining my ears everywhere for that jolly little 

 feathered Bacchus, the black cap. I will see Stevenson's 

 " Birds of Norfolk." I was very sorry to hear of your 

 illness ; but I was told it was gout. 



Ever yours obliged, 



C. KINGSLEY. 



London, 



January 18, 1870. 



DEAR NEWTON, 



Can you inform me if there is any canal you 

 know of in your part of the country with a straight 

 piece (without locks) five or six miles long, or any 

 piece of water of that extent ? I have undertaken (for 

 a heavy wager) to prove by measurement the rotundity 

 of the earth, to one of those strange phenomena who 



