68 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
low belly.* How tliey first came down at that depth, and how 
they were ever to have got out thence without help, is more 
than I am able to say. 
My thanks are due to you for your trouble and care in the 
examination of a buck's head. As far as your discoveries reach 
at present, they seem much to corroborate my suspicions ; and I 
hope Mr. may find reason to give his decision in my 
favour ; and then, I think, we may advance this extraordinary 
provision of nature as a new instance of the wisdom of God in 
the creation. 
As yet I have not quite done with my history of the cedicne- 
mus, or stone-curlew ; for I shall desire a gentleman in Sussex 
(near whose house these birds congregate in vast flocks in the 
autumn) to observe nicely when they leave him (if they do leave 
him), and when they return again in the spring : I was with this 
gentleman lately, and saw several single birds. 
LETTER XXI. To T. PENNANT, Esq. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Nov. 28, 1768. 
With regard to the mdicnemus, or stone-curlew, I intend to 
write very soon to my friend near Chichester, in whose neigh- 
bourhood these birds seem most to abound ; and shall urge him 
to take particular notice when they begin to congregate, and 
afterwards to watch them most narrowly whether they do not 
withdraw themselves during the dead of the winter. When I 
have obtained information with respect to this circumstance, I 
shall have finished my history of the stone-curlew ; which I hope 
will prove to your satisfaction, as it will be, I trust, very near the 
truth. This gentleman, as he occupies a large farm of his own, 
and is abroad early and late, will be a very proper spy upon the 
motions of these birds : and besides, as I have prevailed on him 
to buy the Naturalist's Journal (with which he is much de- 
lighted), I shall expect that he will be very ex:act in his dates. It 
is very extraordinary, as you observe, that a bird so common 
with us should never straggle to you. 
And here will be the properest place to mention, while I think 
of it, an anecdote which the above-mentioned gentleman told me 
when I was last at his house, which was that, in a warren joining 
* The warty newt Uriton palustris) .—Ed. 
