OF 8ELB0B.NE, 
295 
bones of any wild-fowls ; nor will they toucli tlie foetid bodies 
of birds that feed on offal and garbage : and indeed there 
may be somewhat of providential instinct in this circnmstance 
of dislike ; for vultures/ and kites^ and ravens, and crows, 
&c. were intended to be messmates with dogs^ over their 
carrion ; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow- 
scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face 
of the earth. 
LETTER LIX. 
TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 
HE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer 
Forest is not yet all exhausted ; for the peat 
cutters now and then stumble upon a log.^ 
I have just seen a piece which was sent by a 
labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this 
village ; this was the but- end of a small oak, about five feet 
long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently 
been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, 
and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what 
purpose he had procured it, he told me that it was to be 
sent to his brother, a joiner at Farnham, who was to make 
use of it in cabinet work, by inlaying it along with whiter 
woods. 
Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, 
in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird 
passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short quiclc 
note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could 
^ Hasselquist, in his *' Travels to the Levant," observes that the dogs 
and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to 
bring up their young together in the same place. — G. W. 
2 The Chinese word for a dog to a European ear sounds like 
quihIo7i.—G. W. 
3 See Letter VI. to Pennant, p. 19, note 1. — Ed. 
