68 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



low belly.* How they first came down at that depth, and how 

 they were ever to have got out thence without help, is more 

 than I am able to say. 



My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the 

 examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach 

 at present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions ; and I 



hope Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my 



favour ; and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary 

 provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in 

 the creation. 



As yet I have not quite done with my history of the (zdicne- 

 mus, or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex 

 (near whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the 

 autumn) to observe nicely when they leave him (if they do leave 

 him), and when they return again in the spring : I was with this 

 gentleman lately, and saw several single birds. 



LETTER XXI. To T. PENNANT, Esa. 

 DEAR SIR, Selborne, Nov. 28, 1768. 



WITH regard to the cedicnemus, or stone-curlew, I intend to 

 write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose neigh- 

 bourhood these birds seem most to abound ; and shall urge him 

 to take particular notice when they begin to congregate, and 

 afterwards to watch them most narrowly whether they do not 

 withdraw themselves during the dead of the winter. When I 

 have obtained information with respect to this circumstance, I 

 shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew ; which I hope 

 will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the 

 truth. This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, 

 and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the 

 motions of these birds : and besides, as I have prevailed on him 

 to buy the Naturalist's Journal (with which he is much de- 

 lighted), I shall expect that he will be very exact in his dates. It 

 is very extraordinary, as you observe, that a bird so common 

 with us should never straggle to you. 



And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think 

 of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me 

 when I was last at his house, which was that, in a warren joining 



* The warty newt (triton palustris) .- ED. 



