536 NATURAL HISTORY 



out in walks by my father. As the soil is strong, the 

 hedges, which are cut-up, are prodigious. The maples 

 about thirty-five feet in height, and the hazels, and white- 

 thorns twenty, which, when feathered to the ground, were 

 beautiful : but they now, being fifty years old, have rather 

 over-stood their time ; and besides, the severity of Decem- 

 ber, 1784, has occasioned irreparable damages among the 

 branches. Thus much for trees. Lord Stawell has lately 

 sent me such a bird, sprung and shot in his coverts, as I 

 never saw before, or shall again. I pronounced it to be a 

 mule, bred between a cock pheasant and a pea-hen. 1 



You say woodcocks in their passage strike against light- 

 houses on your coast : a gentleman tells me, that at Penzance 

 sea-fowls frequently dash in the night against windows 

 where they see a light. My well is sixty-three feet in 

 depth ; yet in very dry seasons, as last autumn, it is nearly 

 exhausted : yet you would be surprised to see how few 

 inches of rain falling will replenish it again. 2 How do rains 

 insinuate themselves to such depths ? The rains this win- 

 ter have been prodigious ! In November last seven inches ; 

 in December six inches. The whole rain at Selborne in 

 1790 was thirty-two inches. Sure such thunder, and 

 lightning, and winds have never fallen out within your ob- 

 servation in one winter ! Had I known you thirty years 

 ago, I should have been much pleased; because I would 

 have gone to have seen you ; and perhaps you might have 

 been prevailed on when all our timber was standing, to have 

 returned the visit. In the year 1746 I lived for six months 



1 This was a hybrid between the Blackcock and Pheasant. It is 

 noticed in the " Observations on Birds," under the head of " Hybrid 

 Pheasant " (p. 326), where the author states that Mr. Elmer, of Farn- 

 ham, the famous game painter, was " employed to take an exact copy of 

 this curious bird." The picture was subsequently presented to Gil- 

 bert White by Lord Stawell (see Jesse's " Gleanings," second series, 

 p. 159), and was engraved for the second edition of his works, where 

 it will be found in vol. ii. p. 173. ED. 



2 Sixty-three feet is stated to be the average depth of the wells at 

 Selborne, which, when sunk to that depth, seldom fail. See Letter I. to 

 Pennant (p. 4.) ED. 



