OF SELBOENE. 295 



bones of any wild-fowls ; nor will they touch the foetid bodies 

 of birds that feed on offal and garbage : and indeed there 

 may be somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance 

 of dislike ; for vultures, 1 and kites, and ravens, and crows, 

 &c. were intended to be messmates with dogs 2 over their 

 carrion ; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow- 

 scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face 

 of the earth. 



LETTER LIX. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON.. 



HE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer 

 Forest is not yet all exhausted ; for the peat 

 cutters now and then stumble upon a log. 3 

 I have just seen a piece which was sent by a 

 labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this 

 village -, this was the b-ut-end of a small oak, about five feet 

 long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently 

 been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, 

 and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what 

 purpose he had procured it, he told me that it was to be 

 sent to his brother, a joiner at Farnham, who was to make 

 use of it in cabinet work, by inlaying it along with whiter 

 woods. 



Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, 

 in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird 

 passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short quick 

 note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could 



1 Hasselquist, in his " Travels to the Levant," observes that the dogs 

 and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to 

 bring up their young together in the same place. G. W. 



2 The Chinese word for a dog to a European ear sounds like 

 quihloh.G. W. 



3 See Letter VI. to Pennant, p. 19, note 1. ED. 



