96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



draughtsman in the folio British Zoology. This bird is most 

 punctual in beginning it's song exactly at the close of day ; 

 so exactly that I have known it strike up more than once 

 or twice just at the report of the Portsmouth evening gun, 

 which we can hear when the weather is still. It appears 

 to me past all doubt that it's notes are formed by organic 

 impulse, by the powers of the parts of it's windpipe, formed 

 for sound, just as cats pur. 1 You will credit me, I hope, 

 when I assure you that, as my neighbours were assembled 

 in an hermitage on the side of a steep hill where we drink 

 tea, one of these churn-owls came and settled on the cross 

 of that little straw edifice and began to chatter, and con- 

 tinued his note for many minutes ; and we were all struck 

 with wonder to find that the organs of that little animal, 

 when put in motion, gave a sensible vibration to the whole 

 building ! This bird also sometimes makes a small squeak, 

 repeated four or five times ; and I have observed that to 

 happen when the cock has been pursuing the hen in a 

 toying way through the boughs of a tree. 



It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you 

 have procured, should prove a new one, since five species 

 have been found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great 

 sort that I mentioned is certainly a non-descript ; I saw but 

 one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of taking. 2 



Your account of the Indian-grass was entertaining. I 

 am no angler myself ; but inquiring of those that are, what 

 they supposed that part of their tackle to be made of ? 

 they replied, " Of the intestines of a silkworm." 



[And here I beg once for all that you would please to 

 remember, that tho' I should not just immediately take 



1 Professor Bell reproduces in a footnote (vol. i. p. 65) the original part of 

 White's letter, and adds : "This statement of Pennant's is one of many proofs 

 how imperfect was his own observation of the habits of birds, and how fallacious 

 and inconsistent was his reasoning. Who could imagine that the possibility 

 of the mere 'resistance of the air,' as the bird was flying with its mouth open, 

 could produce a noise similar to that of a spinning-wheel, and loud enough to be 

 heard for more than a mile ? This bird is certainly less common in Selborne and 

 its neighbourhood than it was some years ago, and I have neither seen nor heard 

 one for some years past," &c. [R. B. S.] 



2 See Letters XXVI, XXXVI, and note(postea, pp. 114 and 152). 



