GILBERT WHITE AND HIS SUSSEX CONNECTIONS. 445 



and multitudes of Buntings at the foot of Mt. Caborn. Rooks 

 visit their nest-trees every morning just at the dawn of day, being 

 preceded a few minutes by a flight of Daws ; and again about 

 sunset. At the close of the day they retire into deep woods to 

 roost (Ringmer). Dec. 15, Findon : large Gulls on the downs. 

 Some Bustards are bred in the parish of Findon. Fieldfares. 

 The shepherds do not take any Wheatears west of Houghton 

 Bridge. Dec. 16, Chilgrove : Chaffinches; many cocks among 

 them. Black Babbits are pretty common on Chilgrove Warren. 



" The parish well in Findon village is 200 feet deep. At 

 Moutham on the down the well is full 350 feet. Mr. Wood's well 

 at Chilgrove is 156 feet deep, and yet in some very wet seasons 

 is brimfull ; his cellars are sometimes full." He reaches Selborne 

 Dec. 18th. It should be added that in 1773, June 22nd— 24th, 

 " The King (George III.) came down to Portsmouth to see the 

 fleet. The firings at Spithead were so great that they shook this 

 house (The Wakes, Selborne). They were heard on those days 

 at Ringmer, two miles east of Lewes, in Sussex, and at Epsom, 

 in Surrey." 



In 1774 there is apparently no mention of the South Downs 

 and Sussex. 



1775. March 31st. Gilbert White is again at Midhurst. 

 June 24 : Here we have an anecdote apparently picked up at 

 Midhurst: "A person assures me that Mr. Meymott, an old 

 clergyman at Northchapel [near Petworth] , in Sussex, kept a 

 Cuckow in a cage three or four years, and that he had seen it 

 several times, both winter and summer. It made a little jarring 

 noise, but never cryed 'cuckow.' It might perhaps be a hen. 

 He did not remember how it subsisted." This anecdote, which has 

 been paralleled in Sussex again by the Cuckoo kept at Westbourne 

 Workhouse for three years, half tame, — and silent, as reported to 

 the ' West Sussex Gazette,' 1886, by Dr. F. H. Arnold,— is not 

 mentioned in the Nat. Hist of Selborne. As an instance of the 

 great care with which the compilation was made, it may be noted 

 that the mentor, probably T. White, writes in red pencil : " Is 

 Mr. Meymott or any of his family alive, who might confirm the 

 above account ? " No reply is entered, and the story is accord* 

 ingly suppressed. The diary continues: "1775. Chilgrove, 

 Aug. 2 : Wheat harvest is general all along the downs. When 

 I came just beyond Findon I found Wheatear traps which had 



