38 NATURAL HISTORY OP SELBORNE. 



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 salicaria 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 some- 

 times 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, Chamdrius cedicnermts, 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. Kay, " 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. Linnaeus 

 perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. 



LETTER XVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, April ISth, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, The history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius cedicnemus, 

 is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than three, on 

 the bare ground, without any nest, in the field ; so that the countryman, 

 in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately 

 from the egg like partridges, &c., and are withdrawn to some flinty 

 field by the dam, where they sculk among the stones, which are their 

 best security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey 

 spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of 



but it is not generally a very common plant in Scotland. The circumstance 

 mentioned above is worth attending to, and observers who may read this edition 

 should now notice and corroborate, if they can, White's remarks. 



* The winter habits of the stone-curlew have not been described, and White 

 knew it only during the breeding time. Most of the plovers and their allies 

 congregate after breeding, and delight in the vicinity of water. Any one de- 

 scribing the winter habits of the common curlew frequenting the seashore, and 

 going inland to feed at high tide, would find the picture very different from that 

 which he would draw when he saw them in their subalpine breeding-grounds, 

 having at the same time a different call and flight. It was nevertheless a 

 very natural commentary upon Ray's words, and we now require a good descrip- 

 tion of their habits during winter, after they have returned from their breeding- 

 grounds. 



