NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 43 



of hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After 

 observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting others 

 to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that 

 searched it out. The root of the arum is remarkably warm 

 and pungent. 



Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us. 

 The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down 

 by that fierce weather in January. 



In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, 

 a little bird that raised my curiosity : it was of that yellow- 

 green colour that belongs to the salicari'a kind, and, I think, 

 was soft billed. It was no parus ; and was too long and 

 too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like 

 the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back 

 downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same 

 place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed 

 my aim. 



I wonder that the stone curlew, Charadrius oedicnemus, 

 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. 

 Linnoeus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. 



