AND THE REV. R. CHURTON. 21] 



LETTER XVI. 



FROM MR. CHURTON TO GILBERT WHITE. 



Malpas, July 31, 1789 



Dear Sir, 



Since my last I have heard of many instances of the 

 great havoc which the long frost of last winter made; with fish 

 in ponds. My brother says he has observed them in former 

 frosts when a hole was made in the ice, appear at it almost 

 dead, and after continuing there a short space, swim away 

 very alertly. But last winter was far worse. I should have 

 been glad to have seen your Goossander and Dun-diver, if they 

 were as beautiful in plumage or as curious in their formation 

 as the speckled diver which I did see ; and more beautiful or 

 more curious I think they hardly could be. At Whitsuntide 

 I went to Cambridge to examine old manuscripts ; but when 

 I was there I saw some other curiosities ; and amongst the 

 rest I was pleased to see the skeleton of a speckled diver in 

 the anatomy school. Dr. Harwood *, the Professor of Anatomy . 

 shewed me this among his collections ; and I think it was 

 done by himself. The feet with their web were entire. * 



Mr. Gough's i Camden ' I have only had leisure just to look 

 into, but it seems a truly Herculean opus. Mistakes are un- 

 avoidable in much shorter works ; so that if this have some, as 

 it is said to have, it is far from being wonderful. He was of 

 Bene't College, Cambridge, and I am not certain whether the 

 master did not tell me that he was a pupil of his. His father 

 died when he was young, and his mother was a rigid presby- 

 terian, and he was brought up among persons of that stamp. 



* [Sir Busick Harwood, M.D., of Christ's College, Cambridge, was 

 Professor of Anatomy in the University from 1785 to 1814. Ou his 

 death his private collections were purchased by the University, and with 

 them originated its present Anatomical Museums. His osteological speci- 

 mens were not numerous, and that spoken of above no longer exists.— 

 A. N.] 



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