120 
NATURAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE. 
legs covered with soft downy feathers down to their toes,* They are no 
songsters; but twitter in a pretty inward soft manner in their nests. 
During the time of breeding they are often greatly molested with fleas. 
I am, &c. 
LETTEE XVII. 
TO THE SAME. 
RiNGMER, near Lewes, Dec. 9th, 1773. 
Dear Sir, — I received your last favour just as I was setting out for 
this place ; and am pleased to find that my monography met with your 
approbation. My remarks are the result of many years observation ; 
and are I trust true in the whole, though I do not pretend to say tliat 
they are perfectly void of mistake, or that a more nice observer 
might not make many additions, since subjects of this kind are 
inexhaustible. 
If you think my letter worthy the notice of your respectable society, 
you are at liberty to lay it before them ; and they will consider it, I 
hope, as it was intended, as an humble attempt to promote a more 
minute inquiry into natural history ; into the life and conversation of 
animals. Perhaps, hereafter, I may be induced to take the house- 
swallow under consideration ; and from that proceed to the rest of the 
British hirundines. 
Though I have now travelled the Sussex Downs upwards of thirty 
years, yet I still investigate that chain of majestic mountains with fresh 
admiration year by year ; and I think I see new beauties every time I 
traverse it. This range, which runs from Chichester eastward as far as 
East Bourn, is about sixty miles in length, and is called the South 
Downs, properly speaking, only round Lewes. As you pass along you 
command a noble view of the wild, or weald, on one hand, and the 
broad downs and sea on the other. Mr. Ray used to visit a family + just 
at the foot of these hills, and was so ravished with the prospect from 
Plumpton Plain, near Lewes, that he mentions those scapes in his 
" Wisdom of God in the Works of the Creation " with the utmost satis- 
faction, and thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest 
parts of Europe. 
For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly sweet and 
amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk-hills in preference to 
those of stone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. 
Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so happy as to 
convey to you the same idea ; but I never contemplate these mountains 
without thinking I perceive somewhat analogous to growth in their 
gentle swellings and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, 
* And a separate genus has been made for it in consequence, which is adopted 
by some ornithologists. f Mr. Courthope of Danny. 
