OF SELBORNE 219 



LETTER LIX. 



TO THE SAME. 



The fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer-foresl is not yet all 

 exhausted ; for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. 

 I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger 

 to a carpenter of this village ; this was the but-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 make out till lately. I 

 am assured now that it is the Stone-curlew {ckaradriits oedicnemus). 

 Some of them pass over or near my house almost every evening 

 after it is dark, from the uplands of the hill and North Jield, away 

 down towards Dor! on ; where, among the streams and meadows, 

 they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are 

 obliged to be noisy ; their notes often repeated become signals 

 or watch-words to keep them together, that they may not stray 

 or lose each the other in the dark. 



The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are 

 curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they 

 return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and rendezvous 

 by thousands over Selborne-dotvn, where they wheel round in the 

 air, and sport and dive in a playful manner, all the while exerting 

 their voices, and making a loud cawing, which, being blended 

 and softened by the distance that we at the village are below 

 them, becomes a confused noise or chiding ; or rather a pleasing 

 murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and not unlike the 

 cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing 

 of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly 

 shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day, 

 they retire for the night to the deep beechen woods of Tisted and 

 Ropley. We remember a little girl who, as she was going to bed, 

 used to remark on such an occurrence, in the true spirit oiphydco- 



