NATURAL HISTORY Of 1 SELBORNE. 26? 



this circumstance of dislike j for vultures,* and kites, and 

 ravens, and crows, etc., were intended to be messmates with 

 dogsf over their carrion, and seem to be appointed by 

 Nature as fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous 

 nuisances from the face of the earth. 



LETTER LIX. 



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 axe, was very pon- 

 derous, 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 



* ' ' Hasselquist, in his travels to the Levant, observes that the dogs 

 and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to 

 bring up their young together in the same place." 



t "The Chinese word for a dog to an European ear sounds like 

 quihloh." 



