110 THE NATUEAL HISTOEY 



This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at 

 Selbome. In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks ^ 

 (loxioe curvirostrcB) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves 

 belonging to this house ; ^ the water-ousel ^ is said to haunt the 

 mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven ; and the Cornish chough * 

 builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Sussex shore. 



I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ousels (my 

 newly discovered niigraters) scattered, at intervals, all along 

 the Sussex downs from Chichester to Lewes. Let them come from 

 whence they will, it looks very suspicious that they are cantoned 

 along the coast in order to pass the channel when severe weather 

 advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem, in 

 their return ; and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It 

 is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to have no 

 manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun. 

 There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone.^ No 

 doubt you are acquainted with the Sussex downs : the prospects 

 and rides round Lewes are most lovely ! 



As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look out in 

 the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, 

 have discovered some of the sununer short-winged birds of 

 passage crowding towards the coast in order for their departure : 

 but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a redstart, white- 

 throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, &c.^ And I re- 



on bare boughs incessantly summons her by his cry of cuckoo. At last, in mid- 

 summer, he rewards her by killing and eating her. When thus deprived of her 

 care, he gets a living by preying upon small birds and insect-larvag, such as that 

 of the cabbage butterfly ; it is not true, however, that he is transformed into a 

 hawk."] 



1 [See Letter XVII. to Harrington.] 



2 [The letter is dated from Ringmer, near Lewes.] 



'*[The water-ouzel, or dipper {Cinclus aquaiicus, Bechst.), is d. rare visitor to 

 south-eastern England.] 



•> [See Letter XXXIX. to Pennant.] 



^ [Mr. Hartinghas the following note: "The great bustard has long ceased to 

 frequent the South Downs except as a rare and accidental visitant. Amongst various 

 extracts from Gilbert White's MS. diary, published by Mr. Jesse in the second 

 series of his GUanings in Natural History, is one (p. 164) wherein the author 

 states that on November 17, 1782, he spent three hours at a lone farmhouse in the 

 midst of the downs between Andover and Winton, where ' the carter told us that 

 about twelve years ago he had seen a flock of eighteen bustards at one time on that 

 farm, and once since only two'. Further on (p. 180) he adds: 'Bustards when 

 seen on the downs resemble fallow-deer at a distance' ". 



The bustard is now extinct in the British Isles, except as a rare casual visitant.] 



^ [White does not mention the exact date of his ride near the coast ; but his 

 letter is dated October 8. If the ride was early in October, he might well have 

 been too late for the mass of redstarts, etc., which are usually gone by the end of 



