NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 95 



ment in your description of the heronry at Cressi-hall ; 

 which is a curiosity 1 never could manage to see. Fourscore 

 nests of such a bird on one tree is a rarity which I would 

 ride half as many miles to have a sight of. Pray be sure 

 to tell me in your next whose seat Cressi-hall is, and near 

 what town it lies. 1 I have often thought that those vast 

 extents of fens have never been sufficiently explored. If 

 half a dozen gentlemen, furnished with a good strength of 

 water-spaniels, were to beat them over a week, they would 

 certainly find more species. 



[I often take up y r zoology for an hour, & entertain 

 myself with comparing your descriptions with those of the 

 authors that have written on the same subject; & am pleased 

 to find that my friend has thro' the whole acquitted himself 

 so much to advantage. Your treatise in particular on 

 migration I admire much, & think that if it is enlarged as 

 more information comes in, it will contribute much to 

 the advancement of natural knowledge. But there is a 

 passage in the article Goatsucker, page 247, which you 

 will pardon me for objecting to, as I always thought it 

 exceptionable : & that is, " This noise being made only in 

 its flight, we suppose it to be caused by the resistance to 

 the air against the hollow of its vastly extended mouth & 

 throat for it flies with both open to take its prey." Now 

 as the first line appears to me to be a false fact ; the 

 supposition of course falls to the ground, if it should 

 prove so.] 



There is no bird, I believe, whose manners I have studied 

 more than that of the caprimulgus (the goat-sucker), as it is 

 a wonderful and curious creature : but I have always found 

 that though sometimes it may chatter as it flies, as I know 

 it does, yet in general it utters it's jarring note sitting on a 

 bough ; and I have for many an half hour watched it as it 

 sat with it's under mandible quivering, and particularly this 

 summer. It perches usually on a bare twig, with it's head 

 lower than it's tail, in an attitude well expressed by your 



1 Cressi or Cressy Hall is near Spalding, in Lincolnshire. Mr. Harting says 

 that the Heronry has long since been destroyed. [R. B. S.] 



