NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 109 



people in some places call it the sedge-bird. It sings 

 incessantly night and day during the breeding-time, imitat- 

 ing the note of a sparrow, a swallow, a sky-lark ; and has 

 a strange hurrying manner in its song. My specimens 

 correspond most minutely to the description of your fen 

 salicaria shot near Revesby. Mr. Ray has given an excellent 

 characteristic of it when he says, " Rostrum et pedes in hdc 

 aviculd multb majores sunt qudm pro corporis rationed See 

 letter, May 29, 1769. (Preceding letter, XXIV.) 



I have got you the egg of an cedicnemus, or stone-curlew, 

 which was picked up in a fallow on the naked ground : 

 there were two, but the finder inadvertently crushed one 

 with his foot before he saw them. 



[My Brother sent me your book of fishes, which proves 

 very entertaining & edifying : & I wish that I was better 

 acquainted with the subject : but having never lived near 

 great waters, or the sea, my opportunities of prying into 

 that branch of Nature have been few.] 



When I wrote to you last year on reptiles, I wish I had 

 not forgot to mention the faculty that snakes have of 

 stinking se defendendo. I knew a gentleman who kept a 

 tame snake, which was in its person as sweet as any animal 

 while in good humour and unalarmed ; but as soon as a 

 stranger, or a dog or cat, came in, it fell to hissing, and 

 filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered 

 it hardly supportable. Thus the squnck, or stonck, of 

 Ray's Synop. Quadr. is an innocuous and sweet animal ; 

 but, when pressed hard by dogs and men, it can eject such 

 a most pestilent and fetid smell and excrement, that 

 nothing can be more horrible. 



[When an opportunity offers I shall be glad to look 

 into y r Indian Zoology. Mr. Skinner of C : C : C : & Mr. 

 Sheffield of Worcester Coll : have lately been with me 

 for a fortnight : & are the only Naturalists that I have 

 ever yet had the pleasure of seeing at my house. They 

 are both excellent Botanists : & the latter makes a very 

 rapid Progress in Entomology. There was great satis- 

 faction in walking out with these men : because no bird, 



