The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2

Dear Sir,--Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some ve...

Dear Sir,--In obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some account of the house-martin, or martlet; and if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird s...

Dear Sir,--I received your last favour just as I was setting out for this place, and am pleased to find that my monography met with your approbation. My remarks are the result o...

Dear Sir,--The house-swallow, or chimney-swallow, is undoubtedly the first comer of all the British hirundines; and appears in general on or about 13th April, as I have remarked...

Dear Sir,--I received your favour of the 8th, and am pleased to find that you read my little history of the swallow with your usual candour; nor was I the less pleased to find t...

Dear Sir,--The sand-martin, or bank-martin, is by much the least of any of the British hirundines, and as far as we have ever seen, the smallest known hirundo; though Brisson as...

Dear Sir,--As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British _hirundines_, so it is undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing befor...

Dear Sir,--By means of a straight cottage chimney I had an opportunity this summer of remarking, at my leisure, how swallows ascend and descend through the shaft; but my pleasur...

Dear Sir,--On September 21st, 1741, being then on a visit, and intent on field-diversions, I rose before daybreak: when I came into the enclosures, I found the stubbles and clov...

Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a field by themselves: the strongest fences cannot restrain them. My neighbour's horse will not only not stay...

Dear Sir,--We have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the south and west of England, and come round in their circuit two or three times in the year. One of these tribes...

Dear Sir,--I shall make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a very simple piece of domestic economy, being satisfied that you think nothing beneath your attention th...

Dear Sir,--We had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to bees; they were his food, his a...

Dear Sir,--It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious prejudices: they are sucked in, as it were, with our mother's milk; and growing up with us at a time w...

Dear Sir,--In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are perfect alembics; and no one that has not attended to such matters can imagine how much water one tree wil...

Dear Sir,--Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems persuaded that he has discovered the reason why cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs; the impediment, he supposes, arises...

Dear Sir,--On August 4th, 1775, we surprised a large viper, which seemed very heavy and bloated, as it lay in the grass basking in the sun. When we came to cut it up, we found t...

Castration has a strange effect: it emasculates both man, beast, and bird, and brings them to a near resemblance of the other sex. Thus eunuchs have smooth, unmuscular arms, thi...

The natural term of a hog's life is little known, and the reason is plain--because it is neither profitable nor convenient to keep that turbulent animal to the full extent of it...

Dear Sir,--We have remarked in a former letter {83} how much incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to each other from a spirit of sociality; in this it may not...

Dear Sir,--Lands that are subject to frequent inundations are always poor; and probably the reason may be because the worms are drowned. The most insignificant insects and repti...

Dear Sir,--You cannot but remember that the 26th and 27th of last March were very hot days--so sultry that everybody complained and were restless under those sensations to which...

Dear Sir,--There was in this village several years ago a miserable pauper, who from his birth was afflicted with a leprosy, as far as we are aware of a singular kind, since it a...

Dear Sir,--In a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. Many we have discovered that return the cr...

Dear Sir,--Among the many singularities attending those amusing birds the swifts, I am now confirmed in the opinion that we have every year the same number of pairs invariably;...

Dear Sir,--The standing objection to botany has always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the fancy and exercises the memory, without improving the mind or advancing any rea...

Dear Sir,--In a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale, aspects, and soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants should be found. Chalks, clays, san...

Dear Sir,--A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape, on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as...

Dear Sir,--From the motion of birds, the transition is natural enough to their notes and language, of which I shall say something. Not that I would pretend to understand their l...

Gentlemen who have outlets might contrive to make ornament subservient to utility: a pleasing eye-trap might also contribute to promote science: an obelisk in a garden or park m...

When I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and implicit assent, accounts in "Baker's Chronicle" of walking hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his "Cyder,"...

There is a steep abrupt pasture field and interspersed with furze close to the back of this village, well known by the name of Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and i...

Dear Sir,--While many other insects must be sought after in fields, and woods, and waters, the _gryllus domesticus_, or house-cricket, resides altogether within our dwellings, i...

How diversified are the modes of life, not only of incongruous, but even of congenerous animals; and yet their specific distinctions are not more various than their propensities...

It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject: new occurrences still arise as lo...

Dear Sir,--The old Sussex tortoise, that I have mentioned to you so often, is become my property. I dug it out of its winter dormitory in March last, when it was enough awakened...

I have now read your miscellanies through with much care and satisfaction; and am to return you my best thanks for the honourable mention made in them of me as a naturalist, whi...

I have just met with a circumstance respecting swifts, which furnishes an exception to the whole tenor of my observations ever since I have bestowed any attention on that specie...

As I have sometimes known you make inquiries about several kinds of insects, I shall here send you an account of one sort which I little expected to have found in this kingdom....

Dear Sir,--When I happen to visit a family where gold and silver fishes are kept in a glass bowl, I am always pleased with the occurrence, because it offers me an opportunity of...

Dear Sir,--I think I have observed before that much of the most considerable part of the house-martins withdraw from hence about the first week in October, but that some, the la...

They who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which in some instances raises the brute creation, as it were, above...

A rare, and I think a new, little bird frequents my garden, which I have great reason to think is the pettichaps: it is common in some parts of the kingdom; and I have received...

My near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch of the Chinese breed from Canton, such as are fattened in that...

The 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...

In reading Dr. Huxam's "Observationes de Aere," etc., written at Plymouth, I find by those curious and accurate remarks, which contain an account of the weather from the year 17...

Since the weather of a district is undoubtedly part of its natural history, I shall make no further apology for the four following letters, which will contain many particulars c...

The most certain way to be exact will be to copy the passages from my journal, which were taken from time to time, as things occurred. But it may be proper previously to remark...

As the frost in December 1784 was very extraordinary, you, I trust, will not be displeased to hear the particulars, and especially when I promise to say no more about the severi...

As the effects of heat are seldom very remarkable in the northerly climate of England, where the summers are often so defective in warmth and sunshine as not to ripen the fruits...

The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phenomena; for, besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunderstorms that affrighted and...

We are very seldom annoyed with thunderstorms: and it is no less remarkable than true, that those which arise in the south have hardly been known to reach this village; for, bef...