A VISIT TO S EL BORNE. 109 
field. A country of thick shady woods and wide exposed heaths 
will not support such varied life. 
It was in Selborne parish that Gilbert White discovered the 
harvest mouse, then unknown to naturalists, and, if his chief 
observations were made upon birds, it was because of the great 
difficulty of studying the little four-footed vertebrates, creatures 
of such small size, and abroad only in the night time. He 
complains that the fern owl can only be “ watched two hours 
in the twenty-four, and then in a dubious twilight, an hour after 
sunset and an hour before sunrise.” His curiosity led him to 
take a lighted candle to his grass plot on a mild winter night 
to see if the worms were astir ; but the little mammals cannot 
be observed so. There was no lack of diligence on White’s 
part ; and even now we have advanced but little in our know- 
ledge of these creatures ; so effectually do they keep out of our 
sight, that the tiger of India and the bear of the frozen zone are 
more familiar to us than the lesser shrew of our native woods. 
We may picture to ourselves how in the summer midnight the 
hedgerows and country are full of life. When the night Howers 
have opened their blooms and the moths are flying, while the 
fern-owl chases the dor-beetle and the owls beat the glades on 
noiseless wing, then does the badger emerge slowly from his 
hole and the hedgehog shuffles over the dewy grass, the dormice 
climb about the hawthorn bushes and rifle the hazel boughs, the 
mole comes out to drink, and the fox and the weasel seek their 
prey. We can imagine these things, but we shall never see 
them. 
It was by way of Norton farm, famous for its great elm tree 
which is now replaced by a mighty sycamore, that I quitted 
this sweet spot. From this rising ground the view of Selborne 
is perhaps the best ; the background is the wooded Nore Hill, 
“that noble promontory of chalk which sends streams into two 
seas.” A shallow valley connects it with the down under whose 
hanging woods the straggling village lies in the midst of its 
fair enclosures. So I bade farewell to a scene of rural beauty, 
dear in itself and doubly valued by those who cherish the 
memory of Gilbert White. 
A. H. Pawson. 
An Early Nest. — On February 23, as I was walking in the garden, I 
noticed a thrush carrying a piece of moss ; on following it to its destination, I 
discovered that it had commenced a nest in the fork of an evergreen oak, about 
fourteen feet from the giound ; the nest was finished on February 26, and on the 
27th the first egg was laid, and two more were laid the two following days. 
On March 2 I went down to see if the nest was safe, but alas ! the gale during 
the night had blown the tree down in which the nest was placed, and the two 
old birds were sitting close by, looking very disconsolate. The eggs, three in 
number, were luckily not thrown out of the nest, and so, as the birds did not 
return, I took them the following day. 
Milton Chapel, Canterbury. H. S. H. 
