OF SELBOBNE. 
65 
I wonder that the stone curlew [Gharadrius oedicnemus^) , 
should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird ; it 
abounds in all the campaign parts of Hampshire and 
Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer, having young 
ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they begin 
clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any 
propriety, be classed, as they are by Mr. Ray, among birds 
circa aquas versantes for with us, by day at least, they 
haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep- 
walks, far removed from water; what they may do in the 
night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they 
also eat toads and frogs. ^ 
I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. 
Linnaeus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. 
LETTER XVI. 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE. 
Selborne, April 18, 1768. 
HE history of the stone curlew {Gharadrius 
oedicnemus) is as follows. It lays its eggs, 
usually two, never more than three, on the 
bare ground, without any nest, in the field ; 
so that the countryman, in stirring his fal- 
lows, often destroys them. The young run immediately 
from the egg like partridges, &c. and are withdrawn to 
some flinty field by the dam, where they skulk among the 
stones, which are their best security ; for their feathers are 
so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the 
most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young 
* CEdicnemus crepitans^ Temm. 
^ The stomachs of several stone curlews which we have examined 
at different times, were fiUed chiefly with the remains of beetles, but in 
one we found the remains of a long-tailed field mouse. — Ed. 
