LETTER XVI 



TO THE SAME 



SELBORNE, April i8tA, I768. 1 



DEAR SIR, [As I had set my mind on the pleasure of 

 y r conversation, so I was in proportion disappointed when 

 I found that you could not come. But as y r business may 

 be over now I shall still live in hopes of seeing you at 

 this beautiful season, when every hedge and field abounds 

 with matter of entertainment for the curious. If you could 

 come down at the end of this week, or the beginning of 

 next, I should be ready to partake with you in a post-chaise 

 back to town on the second of May.] 



The history of the stone-curlew, charadrius cedicnemus, 

 is as follows. 2 It lays its eggs, usually two, never 



1 Actual date of letter " April 19 : 1768." [R. B. S.] 



2 Thick-Knee is the proper name for this bird. It is not a Curlew (Numenius) 

 at all, the latter bird being allied to the Sand-pipers and Snipes, whereas the genus 

 CEdicnemus belongs to the Plovers ( Charadriina} and not to the Snipes ( Totanimz), 

 two very distinct sub-families of Wading Birds or Limicolez, as they are called. 

 The Thick-Knees are not far removed from the Bustards (Otides). In past years 

 I have seen many pairs on Salisbury Plain and an occasional pair on the downs 

 above Avington, in Hampshire, but near Selborne the species is evidently much 

 less plentiful than it was in Gilbert White's day, for Professor Bell writes: "I 

 have occasionally heard its cry late in the evening as it has passed at a con- 

 siderable height over the village ; but in thirty years I have never seen one, alive 

 or dead" (vol. i. p. 47). 



Mr. Paxton Parkin tells me that he has occasionally heard the cry of the 

 Thick- Knee at night, but has not seen one since he has lived at the Wakes. 



Although rarer in most parts of the south of England than it was formerly, 



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