xii Introduction 



go by. It was my lot to deliver a lecture to the Selborne 

 Society in Birmingham, in the centenary year of White's 

 death, now twelve years ago. Alluding to this calendar, I 

 remarked that any person who had noted down the events of 

 that year would have had to record that wild roses and hips 

 of the same year's growth were to be seen side by side on 

 the same tree, and that strawberries, grown in the open, 

 were exhibited for sale in the shops in November, all facts 

 of considerable interest, as showing the extraordinary mild- 

 ness of the season, yet facts which I had entirely forgotten 

 until I came to look up my notes for the purpose of this 

 present introduction. Another point of great interest in 

 White's observations is his account of the birds, now extinct, 

 which were then inhabitants of England. Take the bustard, 

 for example. This was the largest of British birds, and was 

 exceedingly shy. White himself remarking that the smallest 

 British bird, the golden-crested wren, will stand unconcerned 

 until you come within three or four yards of it, while the 

 bustard, the largest British land-fowl, does not care to admit 

 a person within so many furlongs. This fine bird was once 

 exceedingly common, for the Rev. Mr. Chafin, in a book 

 written in the earlier part of the last century, says that he 

 once put up twenty-five at one time between Andover and 

 Salisbury. The Wiltshire downs was a favourite place for 

 them, and there was an inn, now a private residence, no 

 very great distance from Stonehenge, which went by the 

 name of " The Bustard." The hoopoe is a beautiful bird 

 with a magnificent crest, which it erects from time to time. 

 It is sometimes called the child of Solomon, because of a 

 legend that the hoopoe formed part of the cargo of the ships 

 of Tarshish. Further, the legend relates that the crest on 

 the head was at one time really of gold. This was far from 

 being a benefit to the hoopoes, for the accursed thirst for that 

 metal led to their wholesale slaughter. Accordingly they 

 petitioned Solomon, who understood the language of birds 

 as he did so many other things, to relieve them of their 

 dangerous burden, which he did by converting the gel 1 into 

 feathers. White says, " the most unusual birds which I ever 

 observed in these parts were a pair of hoopoes which came 



