250 CORRESPONDENCE OF GILBERT WHITE 



us, the most lovely of all forest trees, thrive wonderfully on 

 steep, sloping grounds, whether they be chalk, or free stone. 

 I am in possession myself of a beechen steep grove on the 

 free stone, that I am persuaded would please your judicious 

 eye ; in which there is a tree that measures 50 feet without 

 bough or fork, and 24 feet beyond the fork : there are many 

 as tall. I speak from long observation when I assert, that 

 beechen groves to a warm aspect grow one-third faster than 

 those that face to the N. & N.E., and the bark is much more 

 clean and smooth. About thirty or forty years ago the 

 oaks in this neighbourhood were much admired, viz., in Hart- 

 ley wood, at Temple, & Blackmoor *. At the last place, the 

 owner, a very ancient Yeoman, thro' a blameable partiality, 

 let his trees stand till they were red-hearted & white-hearted 3 

 or 4 feet up the stem. We have some old edible chest-nut- 

 trees in this neighbourhood ; but they make vile timber, being 

 always shakey, & sometimes cup-shakey f. 



As you seem to know the Fern-owl, or Churn-owl, or Eve- 

 jar ; I shall send you, for your amusement, the following ac- 

 count of that curious, nocturnal, migratory bird J. The country 

 people here have a notion that the Fern-owl, which they also 

 call Puckeridge, is very injurious to weanling calves by in- 

 flicting, as it strikes at them, the fatal distemper known to 

 cow-leeches by the name of puckeridge. Thus does this harm- 

 less, illfated bird fall under a double imputation, which it by 

 no means deserves ; — in Italy of sucking the teats of goats, 

 where it is called Caprimulgus ; & with us, of communicating 

 a deadly disorder to cattle. But the truth of the matter is, 

 the malady above mentioned is occasioned by a dipterous in- 

 sect called the oestrus bovis, which lays it's eggs along the 

 backs of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their 

 way thro' the hide of the beast into it's flesh, & grow to a large 

 size. I have just talked with a man, who says, he has been 

 employed, more than once, in stripping calves that had dyed 



* [See Letter I. to Pennant, Vol. I. p. 4.] 



t [See the observations on chestnut timber, Vol. I. p. 471. — T. B.] 

 % [This subject is fully treated of in the '• Observations on Birds, 

 Vol. I. p. 430, and in a letter to Mr. Churton, Vol. II. p. 213.— T. B.] 



