Page images
PDF
EPUB

LETTER XXXIII.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, Nov. 26, 1770.

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 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 find 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 Tyrol, without knowing it. For what is his hirundo alpina, but the afore-mentioned bird in other words? Says he,

1 This bird (cypselus alpinus) has occurred on three occasions in England, and once in Ireland. See Yarrell.-T. B.

1

"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, cdicnemus, sends me the

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small]

following account :-"In looking over my Naturalist's Journal for the month of April, I find the stonecurlews are first mentioned on the 17th and 18th,

1 It is in all things like the former bird (the swift), except that it has a white breast; it is a little larger than the former one. 2 It builds its nest in the high rocks of the Alps.

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 sheepwalks 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 earthworms, that are common on sheep-walks and downs. They live 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 3d of September.

When the adicnemus flies, it stretches out its legs straight behind, like a heron,

DEAR SIR,

LETTER XXXIV.

Selborne, March 30, 1771.

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 a 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 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. The eggs produce maggots, called jumpers, which, harbouring in the gammons and best part 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 Linnæus. It is to be seen in the summer in farm kitchens, on the bacon-racks, and about the mantel-pieces, and on the ceilings.

The insect that infests turnips,1 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 posticis crassissimis." In very hot summers they abound to an amazing degree, and, as you walk in the 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 Mouffet, 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 chamaleon. 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 im

1 For a full account of the insects which infest turnips, see a valuable paper, by the late Mr. Yarrell, in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society.-T. B.

2 Stratiomy's Chamæleon.—See Kirby & Spence's Introduction to Entomology, new edition.

« PreviousContinue »