40. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
ers by ponds or water-courses ” ; for with us, by day at least, 
they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep- 
walks, far removed from water: what they may do in the night 
I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they also eat 
toads and frogs. 
I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. 
Linnzus perhaps would call the species M/us minimus. 
LETTER XVI. 
SELBORNE, Afril 18th, 1768. 
The history of the stone-curlew is as follows: It lays its 
eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, 
without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stir- 
ring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run imme- 
diately from the egg like partridges, and are drawn to some flinty 
field by the mother-bird, where they skulk among the stones, 
which are their best security ; for their feathers are so exactly 
of the color of our gray spotted flints, that the most exact 
observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may 
be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, 
spotted with dark bloody blotches. Though I might not be 
able, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could 
show you them almost any day; and any evening you may 
hear them round the village, for they make a clamor which 
may be heard a mile. W@dadicnemus is a most apt and ex- 
pressive name for them, since their legs seem swollen like 
those of a gouty man. After harvest I have shot them before 
the pointers in turnip-fields. 
[On the 27th February, 1788, stone-curlews were heard to 
pipe: and on March 1st, after it was dark, some were passing 
over the village, as might be perceived by their quick, short 
