OF SELBORNE. 75 



The root of the arum is remarkably warm 

 and pungent. 



Our flocks of female chaffinches have 

 not yet forsaken us. The blackbirds and 

 thrushes are very much thinned dow^n by 

 that fierce w^eather in January, 



In the middle of February I discovered, 

 in my tall hedges, a little bird that raised 

 my curiosity ; it was of that yellow-green 

 colour that belongs to the salicaria kind, 

 and, 1 think, was soft-billed. It was no 

 parus ; and was too long and too big for 

 the gloden-crowned wren, appearing most 

 like the largest willow-wren. It hung 

 sometimes with its back downwards, but 

 never continuing one moment in the same 

 place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory 

 that I missed my aim. 



I wonder that the stone curlew, chara- 

 drius oedic7iemus, should be mentioned by 

 the writers as a rare bird ; it abounds in all 

 the campaign parts of Hampshire ^iH^Sussex, 

 and breeds, I think, all the Summer, having 

 young ones, I know, very late in the Au- 

 tumn. Already they begin clamouring in 



