hot summers, they abound to an amazing degree; and, as you walk in a field, or in a garden, make a pattering like rain, by jumping on the leaves of the turnips or cabbages.

There is an oestrus, known in these parts to every ploughboy, which, because it is omitted by Linnæus, is also passed over by late writers; and that is the curvicauda of old Moufet, mentioned by Derham, in his Physico-Theology, p. 250: an insect worthy of remark, for depositing its eggs, as it flies, in so dexterous a manner on the single hairs of the legs and flanks of grass horses. But then, Derham is mistaken when he advances that this oestrus is the parent of that wonderful star-tailed maggot which he mentions afterwards; for more modern entomologists have discovered that singular production to be derived from the egg of the musca chamaeleon. See Geoffroy, t. 17, f. 4.

A full history of noxious insects, hurtful in the field, garden, and house, suggesting all the known and likely means of destroying them, would be allowed by the public to be a most useful and important work. What knowledge there is of this sort lies scattered, and wants to be collected: great improvements would soon follow, of course. A knowledge of the properties, economy, propagation, and, in short, of the life and conversation, of these animals, is a necessary step to lead us to some method of preventing their depredations.

As far as I am a judge, nothing would recommend entomology more than some neat plates, that should well express the generic distinctions of insects according to Linnæus; for I am well assured that many people would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.

he was so eaten by the maggots, that his death seemed inevitable. After clearing away, as well as they were able, these shocking vermin, those who found courage conveyed him to Asbornby, and a surgeon was immediately procured, who declared that his body was in such a state, that dressing it must be little short of instantaneous death and, in fact, the man did survive the operation but a few hours. When first found, and again when examined by the surgeon, he presented a sight loathsome in the extreme; white maggots of enormous size were crawling in and upon his body, which they had most shockingly mangled, and the removing of the external ones served only to render the sight more horrid."- .ED.

LETTER XLIV.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

SELBORNE, 1771.

DEAR SIR,-Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could not help observing, that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails, those long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A range of short, brown, stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before, but its head and neck; but this would not be the case, were these long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey cock, when in a strutting attitude.* By a strong muscular vibration, these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sworddancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards towards the females.

I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus @gogropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox. It is perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange : such are, I think, usually flat.

LETTER XLV.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, August 1, 1771.

DEAR SIR,- From what follows, it will appear that neither owls nor cuckoos keep to one note. A friend remarks that many (most) of his owls hoot in B flat; but that one went almost half a note below A.. The pipe he tried their notes

* The female peacock, like the hen of the domestic fowl and the pheasant, has sometimes been known to assume the plumage of the male. Lady Tynte had a favourite peahen, which at eight several times produced chicks. Having moulted when eleven years old, the lady and her family were astonished by her displaying the feathers peculiar to the other sex, and appearing like a pied peacock. In the process the tail, which was like that of the cock, first appeared. In the following year she moulted again and produced similar feathers; in the third year she did the same, and then had also spurs resembling those of the cock. The hen never bred after this change of plumage. -ED.

L

by was a common half-crown pitch-pipe, such as masters use for tuning of harpsichords; it was the common London pitch.

A neighbour of mine, who is said to have a nice ear, remarks, that the owls about this village hoot in three different keys, in G flat or F sharp, in B flat, and A flat. He heard two hooting to each other, the one in A flat, and the other in B flat. Query: Do these different notes proceed from different species, or only from various individuals? The same person finds, upon trial, that the note of the cuckoo (of which we have but one species) varies in different individuals; for, about Selborne wood, he found they were mostly in D; he heard two sing together, the one in D, and the other in D sharp, which made a disagreeable concert; he afterwards heard one in D sharp, and about Wolmer Forest, some in C. As to nightingales, he says, that their notes are so short, and their transitions so rapid, that he cannot well ascertain their key. Perhaps in a cage, and in a room, their notes may be more distinguishable. This person has tried to settle the notes of a swift, and of several other small birds, but cannot bring them to any criterion.

As I have often remarked that redwings are some of the first birds that suffer with us in severe weather, it is no wonder at all that they retreat from Scandinavian winters; and much more the ordo of gralle, who all, to a bird, forsake the northern parts of Europe at the approach of winter. * "Gralle tanquam conjurata unanimiter in fugam se conjiciunt; ne earum unicam quidem inter nos habitantem invenire possimus ; ut enim æstate in australibus degere nequeunt ob defectum lumbricorum, terramque siccam; ita nec in frigidis ob eandem causam," says Ekmark the Swede, in his ingenious little treatise called Migrationes Avium, which by all means you ought to read, while your thoughts run on the subject of migration.-See Amanitates Academica, vol. iv. p. 565.

Birds may be so circumstanced as to be obliged to migrate in one country, and not in another; but the gralla (which procure their food from marshes and boggy ground) must, in winter, forsake the more northerly parts of Europe, or perish for want of food.

*In the very severe winter of 1799, immense flocks of redwings resorted to the west of England, where a sudden fall of snow, unusually deep in that quarter, cut off these poor birds from all supply of food; and being reduced to too great weakness to attempt a passage over the ocean to some more congenial climate, thousands of them, as well as fieldfares, were starved to death. -ED.

I am glad you are making inquiries from Linnæus concerning the woodcock; it is expected of him that he should be able to account for the motions and manner of life of the animals of his own Fauna.*

Faunists, as you observe, are too apt to acquiesce in bare descriptions, and a few synonyms: the reason is plain; because all that may be done at home in a man's study; but the investigation of the life and conversation of animals, is a concern of much more trouble and difficulty, and is not to be attained but by the active and inquisitive, and by those that reside much in the country.

Foreign systematists are, I observe, much too vague in their specific differences; which are almost universally constituted by one or two particular marks, the rest of the description running in general terms. But our countryman, the excellent Mr Ray, is the only describer that conveys some precise idea in every term or word, maintaining his superiority over his

* The woodcock is found in all parts of the old Continent, from north to south. In some places, it is said to remain the whole year, only changing its haunts, in the breeding season, from the plains to the mountainous districts. The habits of all the woodcocks hitherto discovered-only two or three in number- are alike: they are observed to make partial migrations from north to south during the breeding season. The woodcock is among the few winter birds that occasionally breed in Britain. Besides what we have mentioned at page 106, young birds have been killed in August, and eggs found in June. In the year 1795, the Rev. Mr Wheatear, of Hastings, found a nest, with four eggs, in a wood near Battle, in Sussex. In 1802, Mr Foljamb possessed a specimen of a half fledged bird, taken in Broodsworth Wood, near Doncaster; and, in 1805, a brood of four were hatched in a wood at Shucoaks, near Worksop. The nest from which these last were taken, consisted of moss, bent, and dry leaves. On the 19th May, 1828, James Smith, keeper to John Chetwood, Esq. of Ansley, near Naneaton, shot two young woodcocks in a wood called Hore Park, in that neighbourhood; and, on the following day, an old bird was shot by Smith, at the same spot. The young ones are said to have been dry and bad when brought to table, but the old bird was excellent. John Wigson, woodman to W. Dilke, Esq. discovered a woodcock sitting on four eggs, in Regton Wood, near Coventry, in the beginning of May, 1829. From some cause, however, the nest was deserted, and several of the eggs destroyed. On breaking one that remained, it was found to be nearly ready to hatch; a fact proving that the adults must have commenced the business of nidification about the beginning of April, which is earlier than many individuals of this species leave Britain for northern climates; thus affording pretty strong evidence in favour of woodcocks pairing previous to their departure. On the 8th August, 1828, a woodcock was shot in Florida demesne, county of Down, Ireland, which must have remained through the summer.-ED.

followers and imitators, in spite of the advantage of fresh discoveries and modern information.

At this distance of years, it is not in my power to recollect at what periods woodcocks used to be sluggish or alert, when I was a sportsman ; but, upon my mentioning this circumstance to a friend, he thinks he has observed them to be remarkably listless against snowy foul weather: if this should be the case, then the inaptitude for flying arises only from an eagerness for food, as sheep are observed to be very intent on grazing against stormy wet evenings.

LETTER XLVI.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

September, 1771.

DEAR SIR,-The summer through, I have seen but two of that large species of bat which I call vespertilio altivolans, from its manner of feeding high in the air. I procured one of them, and found it to be a male, and made no doubt, as they accompanied together, that the other was a female; but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was somewhat disappointed when it appeared to be also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great scarcity of this sort, at least in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a species, or whether it may not be the male part of the more known species, one of which may supply many females, as is known to be the case in sheep, and some other quadrupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination, and some attention to the sex, of more specimens. All that I know at present is, that my two were amply furnished with the parts of generation, much resembling those of a boar.

In the extent of their wings, they measured fourteen inches and an half, and four inches and an half from the nose to the tip of the tail their heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular, and their whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could be more sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut colour; their maws were full of food, but so macerated, that the quality could not be distinguished; their livers, kidneys, and hearts, were large, and their bowels covered with fat. They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm. Within the ear, there was somewhat of a peculiar structure, that I did