OF SELBORNE. 
The evening proceedings and manoeuvres of the rooks arc cu- 
rlons and amufing in the autumn. Jufl before dulk they return 
in long firings from the foraging of the day, and rendezvous by 
thoufands over Selborne-dozvn, where they wheel round in the air, 
and fport and dive in a playful manner, all the while exerting 
their voices, and making a loud cawing, which, being blended and 
foftened by the diilance that we at the village are belov/ them, 
becomes a confufed noife or chiding ; or rather a pleaiing mur- 
mur, very engaging to the imagination, and not unlike the cry of 
a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rufliing of the 
wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly Ihore. 
When this ceremony is over, with the laft gleam of day, they retire 
for the night to the deep beechcn woods of Tifted and Ropley. 
We remember a little girl who, as flie was going to bed, ufed to 
remark on fuch an occurrence, in the true fpirit o{ phyfico-theology^ 
that the rooks were faying their prayers ; and yet this child was 
much too young to be aware that the fcriptures have faid of the 
Deity— that " he feedeth the ravens v/ho call upon him/' 
I am, 8cc. 
O O 2 
LETTER 
