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I am, etc.
Letter XXXII
T Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, October 29, 1770.
Dear Sir,
After an ineffectual search in Linnaeus, Brisson, etc., I begin to
suspect that I discern my brother's hirundo hyberna in Scopoli's
new discovered hirundo rupestris, p. 167. His description of ' Supra
murina, subtus albida; rectrices macula ovali alba in latere inferno;
pedes nudi, nigri; rostrum nigrum; remiges obscuriores quam
plumae dorsales; rectrices remigibus concolores; cauda
emarginata, nec forcipata,' agrees very well with the bird in
question; but when he comes to advance that it is 'statura hirundinis
urbicae,' and that 'definitio hirundinis ripariae Linnaei huic quoque
convenit,' he in some measure invalidates all he has said; at least
he shows at once that he compares them to these species merely
from memory: for I have compared the birds themselves, and find
they differ widely in every circumstance of shape, size, and colour.
However, as you will have a specimen, I shall be glad to hear what
your judgment is in the matter.
Whether my brother is forestalled in his nondescript or not, he will
have the credit of first discovering that they spend their winters
under the warm and sheltery shores of Gibraltar and Barbary.
Scopoli's characters of his ordines and genera are clear, just, and
expressive, and much in the spirit of Linnaeus. These few remarks
are the result of my first perusal of Scopoli's Annus Primus.
The bane of our science is the comparing one animal to the other
by memory: for want of caution in this particular, Scopoli falls into
errors: he is not so full with regard to the manners of his
indigenous birds as might be wished, as you justly observe: his
Latin is easy, elegant, and expressive, and very superior to
Kramer's.*
(* See his Elenchus vegerabilium et animalium per Austriam
inferiorem, etc.)
I am pleased to see that my description of the moose corresponds
so well with yours.
I am, etc.
Letter XXXIII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Nov. 26, 1770.
Dear Sir,
I was much pleased to see, among the collection of birds from
Gibraltar, some of those short-winged English summer birds of
passage, concerning whose departure we have made so much
inquiry. Now if these birds are found in Andalusia to migrate to
and from Barbary, it may easily be supposed that those that come
to us may migrate back to the continent, and spend their winters in
some of the warmer parts of Europe. This is certain, that many
soft-billed birds that come to Gibraltar appear there only in spring
and autumn, seeming to advance in pairs towards the northward,
for the sake of breeding during the summer months; and retiring in
parties and broods towards the south at the decline of the year: so
that the rock of Gibraltar is the great rendezvous, and place of
observation, from whence they take their departure each way
towards Europe or Africa. It is therefore no mean discovery, I
think, to fund that our small short-winged summer birds of passage
are to be seen spring and autumn on the very skirts of Europe; it is
a presumptive proof of their emigrations.
Scopoli seems to me to have found the hirundo melba, the great
Gibraltar swift, in Tirol, without knowing it. For what is his
hirundo alpina but the afore-mentioned bird in other words? Says
he, 'Omnia prioris' (meaning the swift); 'sed pectus album; paulo
major priore.' I do not suppose this to be a new species. It is true
also of the melba, that 'nidificat in excelsis Alpium rupibus.' Vid.
Annum Primum.
My Sussex friend, a man of observation and good sense, but no
naturalist, to whom I applied on account of the stone curlew,
oedicnemus, sends me the following account: 'In looking over my
Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, I find the stone curlews
are first mentioned on the seventeenth and eighteenth, which date
seems to me rather late. They live with us all the spring and
summer and at the beginning of autumn prepare to take leave by
getting together in flocks. They seem to me a bird of passage that
may travel into some dry hilly country south of us, probably Spain,
because of the abundance of sheep-walks in that country; for they
spend their summers with us in such districts. This conjecture I
hazard, as I have never met with any one that has seen them in
England in the winter. I believe they are not fond of going near the
water, but feed on earth-worms, that are common on sheep-walks
and downs. They breed on fallows and lay-fields abounding with
grey mossy flints, which much resemble their young in colour;
among which they skulk and conceal themselves. They make no
nest, but lay their eggs on the bare ground, producing in common
but two at a time. There is reason to think their young run soon
after they are hatched; and that the old ones do not feed them, but
only lead them about at the time of feeding, which, for the most
part, is in the night.' Thus far my friend.
In the manners of this bird you see there is something very
analogous to the bustard, whom it also somewhat resembles in
aspect and make, and in the structure of its feet.
For a long time I have desired my relation to look out for these
birds in Andalusia; and now he writes me word that, for the first
time, he saw one dead in the market on the 3rd of September.
When the oedicnemus flies it stretches out its legs straight behind,
like an heron.
I am, etc.
Letter XXXIV
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, March 30, 1771.
Dear Sir,
There is an insect with us, especially on chalky districts, which is
very troublesome and teasing all the latter end of the summer,
getting into people's skins, especially those of women and children,
and raising tumours which itch intolerably. This animal (which we
call an harvest-bug) is very minute, scarce discernible to the naked
eye; of a bright scarlet colour, and of the genus of Acarus. They are
to to be met with in gardens on kidney-beans, or any legumens; but
prevail only in the hot months of summer. Warreners, as some have
assured me, are much infested by them on chalky downs; where
these insects swarm sometimes to so infinite a degree as to
discolour their nets, and to give them a reddish cast, while the men
are so bitten as to be thrown into fevers.
There is a small long shining fly in these parts very troublesome to
the housewife, by getting into the chimneys, and laying its eggs in
the bacon while it is drying: these eggs produce maggots called
jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best parts of the
hogs, eat down to the bone, and make great waste. This fly I
suspect to be a variety of the musca putris of Linnaeus: it is to be
seen in the summer in the farm-kitchens on the bacon-racks and
about the mantelpieces, and on the ceilings.
The insect that infests turnips and many crops in the garden
(destroying often whole fields while in their seedling leaves) is an
animal that wants to be better known. The country people here call
it the turnip-fly and black dolphin; but I know it to be one of the
coleoptera; the 'chrysomela oleracea, saltatoria, femoribus posficis
crassissimis.' In very 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 Linnaeus, 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 Geoffrey, 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, oeconomy, 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 Linnaeus; for I am well assured
that many people would study insects, could they set out with a
more adequate notion of those distinctions that can be conveyed at
first by words alone.
Letter XXXV
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
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 those 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 sword-dancer; 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
aegogropila, 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 XXXVI
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Sept. 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 wale 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
not understand perfectly; but refer it to the observation of the
curious anatomist. These creatures send forth a vary rancid and
offensive smell.
Letter XXXVII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, 1771.
Dear Sir,
On the twelfth of July I had a fair opportunity of contemplating the
motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, as it was playing round a
large oak that swarmed with scarabaei solstitiales, or fern-chafers.
The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the
various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But the
circumstance that pleased me most was that I saw it distinctly,
more than once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and, by a
bend of the head, deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any
part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to
suppose it does these chafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its
middle toe, which is curiously furnished with a serrated claw.
Swallows and martins, the bulk of them, I mean, have forsaken us
sooner this year than usual; for, on September the twenty-second,
they rendezvoused in a neighbour's walnut-tree, where it seemed
probable they had taken up their lodging for the night. At the dawn
of the day, which was foggy, they arose ad together in infinite
numbers, occasioning such a rushing from the strokes of their
wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to a considerable
distance: since that no flock has appeared, only a few stragglers.
Some swifts staid late, till the twenty-second or August --a rare
instance! for they usually withdraw within the first week.*
(*See Letter LIII to Mr. Barrington.)
On September the twenty-fourth three or four ring-ousels appeared
in my fields for the first time this season: how punctual are these
visitors in their autumns and spring migrations!
Letter XXXVIII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, March 15, 1773.
Dear Sir,
By my journal for last autumn it appears that the house-martins
bred very late, and staid very late in these parts; for, on the first of
October, I saw young martins in their nests nearly fledged; and
again, on the twenty-first of October, we had at the next house a
nest full of young martins just ready to fly; and the old ones were
hawking for insects with great alertness. The next morning the
brood forsook their nest, and were flying round the village. From
this day I never saw one of the swallow kind till November the
third; when twenty, or perhaps thirty, house-martins were playing
all day long by the side of the hanging wood, and over my fields.
Did these small weak birds, some of which were nestlings twelve
days ago, shift their quarters at this late season of the year to the
other side of the northern tropic? Or rather, is it not more probable
that the next church, ruin, chalk-cliff, steep covert, or perhaps
sandbank, lake or pool (as a more northern naturalist would say),
may become their hybernaculum, and afford them a ready and
obvious retreat?
We now begin to expect our vernal migration of ring-ousels every
week. Persons worthy of credit assure me that ring-ousels were
seen at Christmas 1770 in the forest of Bere, on the southern verge
of this county. Hence we may conclude that their migrations are
only internal, and not extended to the continent southward, if they
do at first come at all from the northern parts of this island only,
and not from the north of Europe. Come from whence they will, it
is plain, from the fearless disregard that they show for men or guns,
that they have been little accustomed to places of much resort.
Navigators mention that in the Isle of Ascension, and other such
desolate districts, birds are so little acquainted with the human
form that they settle on men's shoulders; and have no more dread
of a sailor than they would have of a goat that was grazing. A
young man at Lewes, in Sussex, assured me that about seven years
ago ring-ousels abounded so about that town in the autumn that he
killed sixteen himself in one afternoon: he added farther, that some
had appeared since in every autumn; but he could not find that any
had been observed before the season in which he shot so many. I
myself have found these birds in little parties in the autumn
cantoned all along the Sussex-downs, wherever there were shrubs
and bushes, from Chichester to Lewes; particularly in the autumn
of 1770.
I am, etc.
Letter XXXIX
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Nov. 9, 1773.
Dear Sir,
As you desire me to send you such observations as may occur, I
take the liberty of making the following remarks, that you may,
according as you think me right or wrong, admit or reject what I
here advance, in your intended new edition of the British Zoology.
The osprey was shot about a year ago at Frinshampond, a great
lake, at about six miles from hence, while it was sitting on the
handle of a plough and devouring a fish: it used to precipitate itself
into the water, and so take its prey by surprise.
A great ash-coloured butcher-bird was shot last winter in Tisted-
park, and a red-backed butcher-bird at Selborne: they are rarae aves
in this country.
Crows go in pairs the whole year round.
Cornish choughs abound, and breed on Beachy-head and on all the
cliffs of the Sussex coast.
The common wild-pigeon, or stock-dove, is a bird of passage in the
south of England, seldom appearing till towards the end of
November; is usually the latest winter bird of passage. Before our
beechen woods were so much destroyed we had myriads of them,
reaching in strings for a mile together as they went out in a
morning to feed. They leave us early in spring; where do they
breed?
The people of Hampshire and Sussex call the missel-bird the
storm-cock, because it sings early in the spring in blowing showery
weather; its song often commences with the year: with us it builds
much in orchards.
A gentleman assures me that he has taken the nests of ring-ousels
on Dartmoor: they build in banks on the sides of streams.
Titlarks not only sing sweetly as they sit on trees, but also as they
play and toy about on the wing; and particularly while they are
descending, and sometimes as they stand on the ground.
Adamson's testimony seems to me to be a very poor evidence that
European swallows migrate during our winter to Senegal: he does
not talk at all like an ornithologist; and probably saw only the
swallows of that country, which I know build within Governor
O'Hara's hall against the roof. Had he known European swallows,
would he not have mentioned the species ?
The house-swallow washes by dropping into the water as it flies:
this species appears commonly about a week before the house-
martin, and about ten or twelve days before the swift.
In 1772 there were young house-martins in their nest till October
the twenty-third.
The swift appears about ten or twelve days later than the house-
swallow: viz., about the twenty-fourth or twenty-sixth of April.
Whin-chats and stone-chattel stay with us the whole year.
Some wheat-ears continue with us the winter through.
Wagtails, all sorts, remain with us all the winter.
Bullfinches, when fed on hempseed, often become wholly black.
We have vast flocks of female chaffinches all the winter, with
hardly any males among them.
When you say that in breeding-time the cock-snipes make a
bleating noise, and I a drumming (perhaps I should have rather said
an humming), I suspect we mean the same doing. However, while
they are playing about on the wing they certainly make a loud
piping with their mouths: but whether that bleating or humming is
ventriloquous, or proceeds from the motion of their wings, I cannot
say; but this I know, that when this noise happens the bird is
always descending, and his wings are violently agitated.
Soon after the lapwings have done breeding they congregate, and,
leaving the moors and marshes, betake themselves to downs and
sheep-walks.
Two years ago last spring the little auk was found alive and unhurt,
but fluttering and unable to rise, in a lane a few miles from
Alresford, where there is a great lake: it was kept a while, but died.
I saw young teals taken alive in the ponds of Wolmerforest in the
beginning of July last, along with flappers, or young wild-ducks.
Speaking of the swift, chat page says 'its drink the dew'; whereas it
should be 'it drinks on the wing'; for all the swallow kind sip their
water as they sweep over the face of pools or rivers: like Virgil's
bees, they drink flying, 'flumina summa libant.' In this method of
drinking perhaps this genus may be peculiar.
Of the sedge-bird be pleased to say it sings most part of the night;
its notes are hurrying, but not unpleasing, and imitative of several
birds; as the sparrow, swallow, skylark. When it happens to be
silent in the night, by throwing a stone or clod into the bushes
where it sits you immediately set it a-singing; or in other words,
though it slumbers sometimes, yet as soon as it is awakened it
reassumes its song.
Letter XL
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Sept. 2, 1774.
Dear Sir,
Before your letter arrived, and of my own accord, I had been
remarking and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow,
and this ere any young broods appeared; so that there was no
danger of confounding the dams with their pulli: and besides, as
they were then always in pairs, and busied in the employ of
nidification, there could be no room for mistaking the sexes, nor
the individuals of different chimnies the one for the other. From all
my observations, it constantly appeared that each sex has the long
feathers in its tail that give it that forked shape; with this
difference, that they are longer in the tail of the male than in that of
the female.
Nightingales, when their young first come abroad, and are helpless,
make a plaintive and a jarring noise: and also a snapping or
cracking, pursuing people along the hedges as they walk: these last
sounds seem intended for menace and defiance.
The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.
Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.
Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes
caught in mole-traps.
Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows' nests, and the
kestrel in churches and ruins.
There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The
threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the
generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.
Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.
When red-starts shake their tails they move them horizontally, as
dogs do when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail, when in motion,
bobs up and down like that of a jaded horse.
Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in
breeding-time; as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very
piping plaintive noise.
Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume their
notes again in September; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark,
willow-wren, etc.; hence August is by much the most mute month,
the spring, summer, and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing
again because the temperament of autumn resembles that of spring
?
Linnaeus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics,
grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar
circles; no doubt animals may be classed in the same manner with
propriety.
House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather
becomes hotter they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees
and apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build
in rooks' nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks'
nests.
As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his dogs
devoured all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected
the common mice: and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing
the red.
Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The
reason that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two
first seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general
chorus; in the latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many
songsters of the autumn seem to be the young cock red-breasts of
that year: notwithstanding the prejudices in their favour, they do
much mischief in gardens to the summer-fruits.*
(* They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the
euonymus europaeus, or spindle-tree.)
The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint
notes, like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse: the great
titmouse sings with three cheerful joyous notes, and begins about
the same time.
Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.
House-martins came remarkably late this year both in Hampshire
and Devonshire: is this circumstance for or against either hiding or
migration ?
Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long
continued draught, like quadrupeds.
Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no grey crows
were ever known to breed on Dartmoor: it was my mistake.
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