46 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNR. 



champaign parts of Hampshire 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 

 thinlc, with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, " 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 : what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are 

 their usual food, but they 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. 



SELBORNR, April i8/A, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, The history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius ccdicnc- 

 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 fallows, 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 withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they sculk among 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 feathers are so 

 exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact 

 observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be 

 eluded. The eggs are short and round ; of a dirty white, spotted 

 with dark bloody blotches. Though I might not be able, just when 

 I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could show you them almost 

 any day ; and any evening you may hear them round the village, 

 for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile. CEdicnemns 

 is a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem 



* The winter habits of the stone-curlew have not been described, and White knew it 

 only during the breeding time. Most of the plovers and their allies congregate after 

 breeding, and delight in the vicinity of water. Any one describing the winter habits of 

 the common curlew frequenting the seashore, and going inland to feed at high tide, would 

 find the picture very different from that which he would draw when he saw them in their 

 subalpine breeding-grounds, having at the same time a different call and flight. It was 

 nevertheless a very natural commentary upon Ray's words, and we now require a good 

 description of their habits during winter, after they have returned from their breeding- 

 grounds. 



