OF S E L B O R N E. 43. 
I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pinc 
(arum) was frequently fcratched out of the dry banks of hedges, 
and eaten in fevere fnowy weather. After obferving, with fome 
exailnefs, myfelf, and getting others to do the fame, we found 
it was the thruflh kind that fearched it out. The root of the arum 
is remarkably warm and pungent. 
Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forfaken us. The 
blackbirds and thrufhes are very much thinned down by that 
fierce weather in January. 
In the middle of February I difcovered, in my tall hedges, a little 
bird that raifed my curiofity : it was of that yellow-green colour 
that belongs to the falicaria kind, and, I think, was foft-billed. It 
was no parus ; and was too long and too big for the golden- 
crowned wren, appearing moft like the largeft willow-wren. It 
hung fometimes with it's back downwards, but never continuing 
one moment in the fame place. I fhot at it, but it was fo 
defultory that I miffed my aim. 
I wonder that the ftone curlew, charadr'ius oed'icnemus, fliould be 
mentioned by the writers as a rare bird : it abounds in all the 
campaign pa^ts Hampjljire and Suffex^ and breeds, I think, all the 
fummer, 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 called, as they are by Mr. Ray^ 
*' circa aquas verfantes for with us, by day at leaft, they haunt 
only the moft dry, open, upland fields and (beep walks, far re- 
moved from water : what they may do in the night I cannot fay. 
Worms are their ufual food, but they alfo eat toads and frogs. 
I can fhew you fome good fpecimens of my new mice, Linnans 
perhaps would call the fpecies mus minimus. 
LETTER 
