1805.} ‘Connexion between Drynefs.of Senfon——Price of Wheat. 
preying on them.—Has any naturali(t ever 
affigned any reafon why the nightingale, 
is never heard in Devonfhhire and Corn- 
wall? Is it a fade ihat the bird is nat, 
known there? About Bath there are 
multitudes of nightingales. How far 
weft are they heard, and why not in the 
moft weftern counties ? It cannot be be- 
caufe of the climate, and how otherwife 
is the abfence of. thefe birds accounted 
for ?—The tame food mutt be found there 
as in the places they moft frequent ; yet 
in fome parts of the Weald of Suffex, they 
fing in fuch numbers of a night, as to be 
complained of, as much as 1 have heard 
them complained of in Portugal, It any 
of the correfpondents of the Monthly Ma- 
gazine, whofe ftudies are turned towards 
fubjects of natural hiftory, can give me 
any information on thele, it will much 
oblige Toe 
a 
Yo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, : 
HAVE been very much gratified with 
the obfervations. of your ingenious 
Correfpondent ‘Mr. Bevan, of Leighton, 
and hope he will continue his ufetul regif- 
ters; but while he laments, as a matter of 
importance, the want of. water in the 
Grand Junétion Canal, and proves one 
_caufe to’be the decreafe in the quantity of 
rain laft year ; I congratulate the pudlic 
on the profpeét of another year of plenty. . 
For, without the trouble of afcertaining 
the various fucceffion of {pots on the fun, 
as recommended by our firit_altronomer 
Dr. Herfchell, a good opinion of , fucceed- 
ing crops may be formed, by knowing 
the quantity of rain which falls in the 
preceding winter months, fince I am con- 
vinced by long obiervations of my own, 
and the beft authority of others, that in 
proportion to the furplus or deficiency to, 
the average quantity, will be the price of 
wheat. I fhall therefore give fome dif- 
ferent periods, within the recolleétion of 
many of your readers, when the fprings 
were remarkably high, and the following 
years, in conlequence, the price of grain 
exceflive—1756,1765, 177451732, 17945 
and 1798-—and, to go further back, I fhail 
_tran{cribe an extract from the manufcript 
. of an ingenious gentleman, who ~ regif- 
tered remarkable occurrences at the be- 
ginning of lait century—‘* It has been 
often remarked by the inhabitants of this 
neighbourhood, that, when the f{prings 
which compofe the river, are high, or run 
freely, wheat is dear; and on the con- 
trary, when the fprings are low, that it 
48 cheap ;—both which have been verified 
207°! 
feveral times in the memory of man, pars, 
ticularly on. the 2oth day of January 
1709,when they were very high, thirty-two > 
bufhels of wheat, belonging to Wm, El- 
dridge, the elder, of Great Milton, in Ox- 
fordihire, gent. were fold in Wycombe 
market, to Jofeph.Pettipher, a dealer in 
corn, for twenty pounds and eight hhillings, 
being twelve fhillihgs and ninepence. per 
bufhel; and now, on the third. day of 
September, 1714, the fprings being low, 
the beft wheat is only worth four fhilings 
per bufhel.”? I theretore think, Mr. Edi- 
tor, that if regifters, were kept in different 
parts of the kingdom, fo that an accurate 
eftimate could be made of the quantity of 
rain which falls, particularly. in the win- 
ter months; a good judgment..might be 
formed of the fucceeding general crops of 
wheat ;—for that.is a grain chiefly produ- 
ced on ttrong heavy land, which will bear 
abundance in dry feafons, and. vice. ver- 
fa: for example, within my- knowledge, 
the fame kind of foil, which in 1799:and 
1800 yielded no mere than fourteen 
buthels to the acre, in 1802 and 1802 
produced forty bufhels. As there have 
been in the iat century at leaf ten pe- 
riods of fcarcity, and as our population 
has increafed very confiderably, and is 
increafing, too’many obfervations cannot 
be made to provide againft the diftrefs, 
which our unfettled climate will continue 
to bring forrh: but there is one confola-~ 
tion, that the various canals now finifhing 
will always have water, from the fame 
caufe, to diftribute in every direction the 
corn brought to our fea-ports. . At pre- 
fent, by the goodaefs of Providence, no 
fuch trade is neceflary ; for the price of 
corn, in every part of the kingdom, is 
unufually level, and very moderate. K. 
Wycombe, Feb. 3, 1803. b 
a : / 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SiR, ‘, 
AVING obferved a paragraph in: 
your Magazine, for Jaft month, 
ftating the lofs of the Mentor brig, off 
Cerigo, 17th September, 1802, -I think, 
it will bea fatisfaéticn to your numerous 
readers, to know that a confiderable part 
of the cargo has been recovered. ‘The 
vefiel was principally laden with beavtiful 
f{culpture, beloaging to Lord Elgin, taken 
from the Temple of Minerva, at Athens. 
Mr. Hamilton, his Lordthip’s Secretary, 
Captain Leake of the artillery, and Cap- 
tain Squire of the engineers, were paf- 
fengers on board the Mentor, and were 
returning from an interefting tour, thro’ 
Syria and Greece, having coilected a vatt 
2 a deal 
