52 LIZARD^ STONE-CURLEW. 



I must not omit to tell you (as you have been so lately on 

 the study of reptiles) that" my people, every now and then, of 

 late, draw up, with a bucket of water from my well, which is 

 sixty-three feet deep, a large black warty lizard, with a fin 

 tail, -and yellow belly. How they first came down at that 

 depth, and how they were ever to have got out thence without 

 help, is more than I am able to say.* 



My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the 

 examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries 

 reach at present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions ; 



and I hope Mr may find reason to give his decision in 



my favour ; and then, I think, we may advance this extraor- 

 dinary provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom 

 of God in the creation. 



As yet I have not quite done with my history of the 

 oedicnemusi or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman in 

 Sussex, near whose house these birds congregate in vast 

 flocks in the autumn, to observe nicely when they leave him, 

 (if they do leave him,) and when they return again in the 

 spring : I was with this gentleman lately, and saw several 

 single birds.f 



LETTER XXI. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



SELBORNE, November 28, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, With regard to the oedicnemus, or stone- 

 curlew, I intend to write very soon to my friendnear Chichester, 

 in whose neighbourhood these birds seem most to abound ; 

 and shall urge him to take particular notice when they begin 

 to congregate, and afterward to watch them most narrowly, 

 whether they do not withdraw themselves during the dead of 



* We found a very large specimen of this animal in an old wooden 

 conduit at Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, which had been stopped at both 

 ends for upwards of twenty years. So that the animal must have been, 

 at least, that age, as it was not possible that it could obtain access from 

 the time the conduit was stopped. ED. 



j- This is the oedicnemus crepitans of Tcmminck, the stone-curlew of 

 British authors. It is a migratory species, appearing in the latter end of 

 April, or beginning of May, and leaving Britain early in October. It 

 makes no nest, but lays two eggs on the bare ground ; these are of a light 

 brown colour, blotched and streaked with dusky. This bird confines 

 its range to the southern counties, never having been noticed except in 

 Norfolk, Hampshire, Sussex, and Dorsetshire. ED. 



