THE WEATHER. 
245 
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, m 
spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird passing by 
on the wing, and repeating often a short quick note. This bird 
I have remarked myself, but never could make out till lately. 
I am assured now that it is the stone-curlew, (charadrius (zdic- 
nemusj Some of them pass over or near my house almost every 
evening after it is dark, from the uplands of the hill and North 
field, away down towards Dorton ; where, among the streams 
and meadows, they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that 
fly by night are obliged to be noisy ; their notes often repeated 
become signals or watch-words to keep them together, that they 
may not stray or lose each the other in the dark. 
The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks are 
curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they 
return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and rendez- 
vous by thousands over Selborne-down, where they wheel round 
in the air, and sport and dive in a playful manner, all the while 
exerting their voices, and making a loud cawing, which, being 
blended and softened by the distance that we at the village are 
below them, becomes a confused noise or chiding ; or rather a 
pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and not 
unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, 
or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the 
tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony is over, with 
the last gleam of day, they retire for the night to the deep 
beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl 
who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on such an occur- 
rence, in the true spirit of physico-theology, that the rooks were 
saying their prayers ; and yet this child was much too young to 
be aware that the scriptures have said of the Deity — that " he 
feedeth the ravens who call upon him." I am, &c. 
LETTER LX. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
In reading Dr. Huxham's Observationes de Aere, &c., written at 
Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate remarks, which 
contain an account of the w^eather from the year 1727 to the 
