90 GILBERT WHITE OF SELBOKNE 1783 



me much by so well representing my own case, and by 

 describing what I have so often felt, but never could so 

 well express. " Praehabebat porro vocibus humanis, instru- 

 mentisque harmonicis, musicam illam avium : non quod alia 

 quoque non delectaretur ; sed quod ex musica humana 

 relinqueretur in animo continens quaedam attentionemque 

 et somnum conturbans agitatio; dum ascensus, excensus, 

 tenores, ac mutationes illae sonorum, et consonantiarum 

 euntque redeuntque per phantasiam : cum nihil tale re- 

 linqui possit ex modulationibus avium, quae, quod non 

 sunt perinde a nobis imitabiles, non possunt perinde inter- 

 nam facultatem commovere." — De vitd Peireskii per Gassen- 

 dum. 



I am glad that you met with the Star-sluch in Cheshire, 

 after you had examined the Tremella nostoc in Hants. Not 

 that I had any doubt myself but that the former was a 

 vegetable, but because I met with intelligent people who are 

 still perswaded that this substance is a mass of indigested 

 food cast-up out of the stomachs of crows ! and some have 

 told me that they have distinguished the limbs of frogs 

 among it! As to a star-sluch growing on the bough of 

 an oak, this must have been a matter of accident. The 

 seeds of all fungi, you know, are lighter than air, and 

 therefore float about in it; and vegetate only when they 

 happen to fall on a proper nidus. 



J)^ Chandler seemed a good deal chagrined about the 

 behaviour of his prime minister. If he had not come home 

 just in time, a hern would have been born unto him in 

 the vicarage. Sim Etty, tutored by the D'^, runs about 

 the village, and repeats to every one he meets, with great 

 vehemence: — "Mulieri ne credas, ne mortuae quidem." 

 Charles Etty is at the Nore aboard the Duke of Kingston, 

 and is expected every day at Spithead; from whence he 

 is to make a visit here for a day or two before he sails 

 for India. 



