NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 85 



thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and 

 winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people 

 are passing all day long. 



Wall-fruit abounds with me this year ; but my grapes, 

 that used to be forward and good, are at present backward 

 beyond all precedent : and this is not the worst of the 

 story ; for the same ungenial weather, the same black cold 

 solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, 

 and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops 

 promises to be very large. 



Frequent returns of deafness incommode me sadly, and 

 half disqualify me for a naturalist ; for, when those fits are 

 upon me, I lose all the pleasing notices and little intima- 

 tions arising from rural sounds ; and May is to me as silent 

 and mute with respect to the notes of birds, &c., as August. 

 My eyesight is, thank God, quick and good ; but with re- 

 spect to the other sense, I am, at times, disabled : 



" And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out." 



I actually saw a Wood-Pigeon sitting on the arm of a workman and taking food 

 from his hand. The same man fed the Sparrows in the Tuileries Gardens, and 

 the little birds took food from his fingers. [R. B. S.] 



