No sporting dog will flush woodcocks till inured to the scent and trained to the sport, which they then pursue with vehemence and transport; but then they will not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when they are hungry. Now, that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no wonder; but why they reject, and do not care to eat their natural game, is not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting seems to be, that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the more rancid water-fowls, nor indeed the bones of any wild fowl; nor will they touch the foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage: and indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance of dislike; for vultures,* and kites, and ravens, and crows, &c. were intended to be messmates with dogs over their carrion; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth. SELBORNE. Hasselquist, in his "Travels to the Levant," observes that the dogs and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring up their young together in the same place. HE fossil wood buried in the bogs of Wolmer-forest is not yet all exhausted, for the peat-cutters now and then stumble upon a log. I have just seen a piece which was sent by a labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village; this was the butt-end of a small oak, about five feet long, and about five inches in diameter. It had apparently been severed from the ground by an axe, was very ponderous, and as black as ebony. Upon asking the carpenter for what purpose he had procured it; he told me that it was to be sent to his brother, a joiner at Farnham, who was to make use of it in cabinet work, by inlaying it along with whiter woods. Those that are much abroad on evenings after it is dark, in spring and summer, frequently hear a nocturnal bird passing by on the wing, and repeating often a short quick note. This bird I have remarked myself, but never could make out till lately. I am assured now that it is the Stone-curlew (charadrius oedicnemus). Some of them pass over or near my house, almost every evening after it is dark: from the uplands of the hill and North field, away down towards Dorton; where, among the streams and meadows, they find a greater plenty of food. Birds that fly by night are obliged to be noisy; their notes often repeated become signals or watch-words to keep them together, that they may not stray or lose each other in the dark. The evening proceedings and manœuvres of rooks, are curious and amusing in the autumn. Just before dusk they return in long strings from the foraging of the day, and rendezvous by thousands over Selborne-down, where they wheel round in the air, and sport, and dive, in a playful manner, all the while exerting their voices, and making a loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by the distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a confused noise or chiding; or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and not unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods; or the rushing of the wind in tall trees,* or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly *They usually select for their breeding-place, a cluster of tall trees, in the neighbourhood of some old mansion-house, to which they have attached themselves. 66 Sable tenants of five hundred years, These nests, where the trees are not numerous, are sometimes crowded in masses, as many as five or six and twenty, on three or four large trees. M'Gillivray visited a rookery at night, and was surprised, when four hundred yards distant, to hear the rooks uttering a variety of soft, clear, modulated notes, very unlike their usual cry. As he approached he perceived the male birds perched on the twigs in great numbers. Presently a loud croak from a distance gave warning to the whole community, when they removed, but with much less elamour than would have been used during the cay.-ED. shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night to the deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley. We remember a little girl who, as she was going to bed, used to remark on such an occurrence, in the true spirit of physico-theology, that the rooks were saying their prayers; and yet this child was much too young to be aware that the Scriptures have said of the Deity —that "He feedeth the ravens who call upon him." LETTER CIV. TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTO N reading Dr. Huxham's Observationes de Aëre, &c. written at Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate remarks, which contain an account of the weather from the year 1727 to the year 1748, inclusive; that though there is frequent rain in that district of Devonshire, yet the quantity falling is not great; and that some years it has been very small: for in 1731 the rain measured only 17inch-266thou, and in 1741, 20-354; and again in 1743 only 20-908. Places near the sea have frequent scuds, that keep the atmosphere moist, yet do not reach far up into the country; making thus the maritime situations appear wet, when the rain is not considerable. In the wettest years at Plymouth, the Doctor measured only once 36; and again once, viz. 1734, 37-114: a quantity of rain that has twice been exceeded at Selborne in the short period of my observations. Dr. Huxham remarks, that frequent small rains keep the air moist; while heavy ones render it more dry, by beating down the vapours. He is also of opinion that the dingy, smoky appearance in the sky, in |