176 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



eye-witness; for a gardener at an house where I was on a visit, 

 happening to be mowing, on the 6th of that month, by the side of a 

 canal, his scythe struck too deep, pared off a large piece of turf, and 

 laid open to view a curious scene of domestic economy : 



Tngentem lato dedit ore fenestram : 



Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt : 

 Apparent penetralia." 



There were many caverns and winding passages leading to a kind 

 of chamber, neatly smoothed and rounded, and about the size of a 

 moderate snuff-box. Within this secret nursery were deposited near 

 an hundred eggs of a dirty yellow colour, and enveloped in a tough 

 skin, but too lately excluded to contain any rudiments of young, being 

 full of a viscous substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the 

 influence of the sun, just under a little heap of fresh-mowed mould, like 

 that which is raised by ants. 



When mole-crickets fly they move " cursu undoso" rising and falling 

 in curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts 

 of this kingdom people call them fen-crickets, churr-worms, and eve- 

 churrs, all very apposite names. 



Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects, 

 astonish me with their accounts ; for they say that, from the structure, 

 position, and number of their stomachs, or maws, there seems to be 

 good reason to suppose that this and the two former species ruminate 

 or chew the cud like many quadrupeds ! 



LETTEE XLIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, May 7th, 1779. 



IT is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to 

 the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the 

 subject : new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept 

 alive. 



In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too 

 uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists 

 by the terms of himantopus, or loripes, and charadrius himantopus,* 

 were shot upon the verge of Frinsham-pond, a large lake belonging to 

 the Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Woolmer-forest and the 

 town of Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The pond keeper says 

 there were three brace in the flock : but, that after he had satisfied his 

 curiosity, he suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. One of these 

 specimens I procured, and found the length of the legs to be so extra- 

 ordinary, that, at first sight, one might have supposed the shanks had 



* " Himantopedes loripedes quidam, quibus serpendo ingredi natura est" 

 lfjt.dC: vTara-ous, name of a ti-ibe of ^Ethiopians, used by Pliny. 



Himantopus melanopterut of modern ornithologists. It has been known as an 

 occasional visitant to Britain since the time of Sibbald, but may yet be considered 

 as one of our rarest species. We have no good detailed account of its habits. 



