OF SELBORNE 141 



tioned to have happened so many years ago, was strictly 

 matter of fact : — ^As some people were shooting in the 

 parish of Trotton, in the county of Sussex, they killed a 

 duck in that dreadful winter 1708-9, with a silver collar 

 about its neck,* on which were engraven the arms of the 

 king of Denmark. This anecdote the rector of Trotton 

 at that time has often told to a near relation of mine ; 

 and, to the best of my remembrance, the collar was in 

 the possession of the rector. 



At present I do not know anybody near the sea-side 

 that will take the trouble to remark at what time of the 

 moon woodcocks first come : if I lived near the sea 

 myself I would soon tell you more of the matter. One 

 thing I used to observe when I was a sportsman, that 

 there were times in which woodcocks were so sluggish 

 and sleepy that they would drop again when flushed just 

 before the spaniels, nay just at the muzzle of a gun that 

 had been fired at them : whether this strange laziness 

 was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey I shall not 

 presume to say. 



Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland 

 and Scotland, but also, as I have been always told, 

 Devonshire and Cornwall. In those two last counties 

 we cannot attribute the failure of them to the want of 

 warmth : the defect in the west is rather a presumptive 

 argument that these birds come over to us from the 

 continent at the narrowest passage, and do not stroll so 

 far westward. 



Let me hear from your own observation whether sky- 

 larks do not dust. I think they do : and if they do, 

 whether they wash also. 



The alauda pratensis of Ray was the poor dupe that 

 was educating the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my 

 letter of October last. 



• I have read a like anecdote of a swan. 



