196 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
grasses seem to be most neglected ; neither the farmer nor the 
grazier seem to distinguish the annual from the perennial, the 
hardy from the tender, nor the succulent and nutritive from 
the dry and juiceless. 
The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a 
northerly, and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could 
improve the sward of the district where he lived would be a 
useful member of society: to raise a thick turf on a naked soil 
would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge; and he 
would be the best commonwealth’s man that could occasion 
the growth of “two blades of grass where one alone was seen 
before.” 
LETTER XXXVII. 
SELBORNE, Aug. 7th, 7778. 
* All animals have a certain definite gait peculiar to their species ; 
birds alone bear themselves in a varied manner both on the ground 
and in the air.” Pun. Wat. Hist., lib. x. cap. 38. 
A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by 
their air as well as by their colors and shape; on the ground 
as well as on the wing ; and in the bush as well as in the hand. 
For, though it must not be said that every species of birds has 
a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most 
genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them, and 
enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with 
some certainty. Put a bird in motion “and it is truly betrayed 
by its walk.” 
Thus kites and buzzards sail round in circles with wings 
expanded and motionless; and it is from their gliding manner 
that the former are still called in the north of England gleads, 
from the Saxon verb g/idan, to glide. The kestrel, or wind- 
hover, has a peculiar mode of hanging in the air in one place, 
