AN EPISCOPAL SELBORNIAN. 
223 
East Sussex, and squared the balance. It was two years’ rent 
in one. The Bishop wrote, April 18, 1894 ■ — “ O terque quater- 
que beatus — the shepherd that found so gigantic a morel ! I 
am bound to say, after due hearty and experimental proof, that 
the fungus was not quite so ‘ sapid ’ as some smaller congeners 
sent to me from our southern hills, but he was abundantly good, 
and approved of by connoisseurs. This heavenly rain has, I 
trust, set all your birds free, your grass a-growing, and made 
your hedges vocal. I have not heard the nightingale, but she 
has been heard here, and at Clapham, near Worthing ; nor can 
I see a swallow. I shall try to-day to go in quest of the St. 
George’s mushroom — it ought to be now seen, and is worth 
seeking and eating.” 
In 1894, Cadenabbia, on the Italian lakes, one of the 
Bishop’s party observed that an eagle — most probably a rough- 
legged buzzard — had taken up a serpent in his beak, and carried 
it off to the mountains. The Bishop applied his telescope and 
saw the whole transaction, exclaiming, as the eagle took the 
serpent down gingerly, “ He swallowed him up like maccaroni ! ” 
In 1892, at the Conference at Chichester, the Bishop, then 
ninety years of age, gave a most excellent address on cottage 
gardens, and their proper sort of fruit ; at the same time making 
the suggestion that the County Councils might help to sell fruit 
— plentiful in some parts of their districts — in the other parts, 
where it was scarce ; and apologising for enlarging on the matter 
of gardens : — “ the subject was too tempting.” And in this very 
year he wrote : — 
“ Have you seen a notice that the County Council have 
approached the proper authority to effect the preservation 
and protection of owls in Oxfordshire ? Why should not our 
County Council (Sussex) be moved to do the same thing for owls, 
white and brown, and why not include other birds that need pro- 
tection — kingfishers, for example ? A lady told me to-day that 
last night she observed quite late a white owl sitting on the top 
of the porch outside the rectory (Selsey). The building hard by 
was clothed with ivy. Presently she heard a great flutter among 
the sparrows nesting there ; the owl had flown into their abode, 
and no doubt selected a sparrow or two for supper. The owl 
does the same for starlings on their perch and for pigeons in our 
cathedral. I do not know whether he takes jackdaws.” The last 
word of the last of a series of letters, full of guidance in the 
best sense, as well as of natural history, is dated June 14, 1895, 
three months before his departure : — “ Do the nightingales, 
when they have ceased to sing, croak like hoarse frogs ? I 
think they do.” H. D. Gordon. 
The excellent portrait which stands as frontispiece to 
our volume is reproduced by permission of Messrs. Fry of 
Brighton. 
