OF SELBORNE. 79 



bird : it abounds in all the campaign parts of Hamp- 

 shire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer, 

 having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. 

 Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They 

 cannot, I think, with any propriety, be classed, as they 

 are by Mr. Ray, among birds, " circa aquas versantes;" 

 for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most 

 dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed 

 from water 5 ; what they may do in the night I cannot 

 say. Worms are their usual food, but tney also eat 

 toads and frogs. 



I can show you some good specimens of my new 

 mice. Linnaeus perhaps would call the species Mus 

 minimus. 



LETTER XVI. 



TO THE SAME. 

 DEAR SIR, SELBORNE, April 18, 1T68. 



THE history of the stone curlew (Charadrius CEdicne- 

 mus) is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never 

 more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, 

 in the field ; so that the countryman, in stirring his fal- 

 lows, often destroys them. The young run immediately 

 from the egg like partridges, &c. and are withdrawn to 

 some flinty field by the dam, where they sculk among 

 the stones, which are their best security ; for their fea- 

 thers are so exactly of the colour of our gray spotted 



5 With the exception of Dr. Latham and Pennant, every ornithologist, 

 until the time of M. Temminck, appears to have adhered to the mode of 

 considering the stone curlew which is here objected to : they have univer- 

 sally classed it, with Linnaeus, among the plovers. Dr. Latham placed 

 it among the bustards, retaining for it the very appropriate name of 

 thick-kneed. M. Temminck regards it as occupying a station interme- 

 diate between the plovers and the bustards. The name of curlew refers 

 of course to a resemblance of colour merely, and by no means implies 

 any near approximation in form to the Numenii. E. T. B. 



