of Selborne 237 



LETTER LIX 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON 



The fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer-forest is 

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

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

 sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of tliis 

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

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

 apparently 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 {charadrtus a'dicnemus). 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 Dorton ; 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 watchwords 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 they return in long strings from the foraging of the 

 day, and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne-down, 

 where they wheel round in the air, and sport and dive in 

 a playful manner, all the while exerting their voices, and 

 making a loud cawing, which, being blended and softened 

 by the distance that we at the village are below them. 



