I22 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
lowing incident, which, though mentioned to have happened so 
many years ago, was strictly matter of fact: — As some people 
were shooting in the parish of Trotton, in the county of Sussex, 
they killed a duck in that dreadful winter, 1708-9, with a silver 
collar about its neck,’ on which were engraven the arms of the 
king of Denmark. ‘This anecdote the rector of Trotton at 
that time has often told to a near relation of mine; and, to 
the best of my remembrance, the collar was in the possession 
of the rector. 
At present I do not know anybody near the seaside that 
will take the trouble to remark at what time of the moon 
woodcocks first come ; if I lived near the sea myself I would 
soon tell you more of the matter. One thing I used to ob- 
serve when I was a sportsman, that there were times in which 
woodcocks were so sluggish and sleepy that they would drop 
again when flushed just before the spaniels, nay, just at the 
muzzle of a gun that had been fired at them. Whether this 
strange laziness was the effect of a recent fatiguing journey | 
shall not presume to say. 
Nightingales not only never reach Northumberland and Scot- 
land, but also, as I have been always told, Devonshire and 
Cornwall. In those two last counties we cannot attribute the 
failure of them to the want of warmth; the defect in the west 
is rather a presumptive argument that these birds come over 
to us from the Continent at the narrowest passage, and do not 
stroll so far westward. 
Let me hear from your own observation whether skylarks 
do not dust. I think they do; and if they do, whether they 
wash also. 
The titlark of Ray was the poor dupe that was educating 
the booby of a cuckoo mentioned in my letter of October last. 
Your letter came too late for me to procure a ring-ousel for 
Mr. Tunstal during their autumnal visit ; but I will endeavor 
1 I have read a like anecdote of a swan. — W. 
