STONE CURLEW. 51 



cedicnemus, should be mentioned by the writers 

 as a rare bird ; it abounds in all the champaign 

 parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I 

 think, all the summer, having young ones, I know, 

 very late in the autumn. Already they begin 

 clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, 

 with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. 

 Ray, " circa aquas versantes;" for with us, by 

 day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, 

 upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed from 

 water ; what they may do in the night I cannot say. 

 Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads 

 and frogs. 



I can show you some good specimens of my new 

 mice. Linnaeus perhaps would call the species mus 

 minimus. 



XVI. 



THE history of the stone curlew, charadrius 

 cedicnemus, is as follows : It lays its eggs, 

 usually two, never more than three, on the bare 

 ground, without any nest, in the field, so that the 

 countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys 

 them. The young run immediately from the egg 

 like partridges, &c., and are withdrawn to some 

 flinty field by the dam, where they skulk among 

 the stones, which are their best security ; for 

 their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our 

 grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, 

 unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may 

 be eluded. The eggs are short and round, of a 

 dirty white, spotted with dark bloody blotches. 

 Though I might not be able, just when I pleased, 

 to procure you a bird, yet I could show you them 

 almost any day ; and any evening you may hear 

 them round the village, for they make a clamour 

 E 2 



