LETTER LIX 



THE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Woolmer forest is 

 not yet all exhausted ; for the peat-cutters now and then 

 stumble upon a log. 1 I have just seen a piece which was 

 sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this 

 village ; this was the but-end of a small oak, about five 

 feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had ap- 

 parently been severed from the ground by an axe, was 

 very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the 

 carpenter for what purpose he had procured it ; he told 

 me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner at 

 Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet work, by 

 inlaying it along with whiter woods. 



Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, 

 in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird 

 passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short, quick 

 note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could 

 make out till lately. I am assured now that it is the Stone- 

 curlew (charadrius ozdicnemus)? Some of them pass over or 

 near my house almost every evening after it is dark, from 

 the uplands of the hill and North field, away down towards 

 Dortony where, among the streams and meadows, they find 

 a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged 

 to be noisy ; their notes often repeated become signals or 

 watch-words to keep them together, that they may not stray 

 or lose each the other in the dark. 



The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks 

 are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk 



1 See vol. i. p. 21. [R. B. S.] 



a (Edicnemus adicnemus. See vol. i. pp. 59, 61, 78, 90 [R. B. S.] 



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