X.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
33 
to you as it is strange to me. " Though mutilated, such as you 
would say it had formerly been, seeing that the remains are 
what they are," " qualem dices . . . antehac faissc, talcs cum sini 
reliquice ! " 
It haunted a marshy piece of ground in quest of wild ducks 
and snipes ; but when it was shot, had just knocked down a rook, 
which it was tearing in pieces. I cannot make it answer to any 
of our English hawks ; neither could I find any like it at the 
curious exhibition of stuffed birds in Spring Gardens. 1 found 
it nailed up at the end of a barn, which is the countryman's 
museum. 
The parish I live in is a very abrupt, uneven country, full of 
hills and woods, and therefore full of birds. 
August 4, 1767. 
[In severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and tit- 
larks resort to watered meadows for food; the latter wades up 
to its belly in pursuit of the pupae of insects, and runs along 
upon the floating grass and weeds. Many gnats are on the 
snow near the water ; these support the birds in part. 
Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour, 
for though white currants are a much sweeter fruit than red, yet 
they seldom touch the former till they have devoured every 
bunch of the latter. 
Eedstarts, fly- catchers, and blackcaps arrive early in April. 
If these little delicate beings are birds of passage, how could 
they, feeble as they seem, bear up against such storms of snow 
and rain, and make their way through such meteorous turbu- 
lences as one should suppose would embarrass and retard the 
most hardy and resolute of the winged nation ? Yet they keep 
their appointed times and seasons ; and in spite of frosts and 
w^inds return to their stations periodically, as if they had met 
with nothing to obstruct them. The withdrawing and reappear- 
ance of the sliort-winged summer birds is a very puzzling 
circumstance in natural history ! 
When the boys bring me wasps' nests, my bantam fowls fare 
deliciously, and when the combs are pulled to pieces, devour the 
I) 
