STONE-CURLEW ROOKS. 263 



LETTER CIII. 



TO THE HON. 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 this village : this 

 was the butt 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 ax, 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, (chara- 

 drlus oedicnemusJ) Some of them pass over or near my house 

 almost every evening after it is dark, from the uplands of 

 the hill and Northfield, 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 watch-words, to keep 

 them together, that they may not stray or lose each 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, becomes a confused noise or chiding ; 

 or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, 

 and not unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing 

 woods, or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling 

 of the tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony is 

 over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night to 

 the deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember 

 a little girl, who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on 



