before eight o'clock in the evening, he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at least he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over the verge of James Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and, by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, spring and fall, induce us greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food; and, though they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

One of the keepers of Wolmer-forest sent me a peregrine

falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The falco peregrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seem in the southern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North Wales.* Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by

nidification; but differs in being one of the latest to arrive of all our summer birds of passage, whence probably it is, generally speaking, so little known. It is seldom heard much before the beginning of May, but does not, as has been said, depart earlier than its congeners. Its eggs are of a grayer tinge than those of the blackcap.-ED.

See my tenth and eleventh letter to that gentleman.

R

the shot it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standing weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine: its breast was plump and muscular; its thighs long, thick, and brawny; and its legs remarkably short and well set the feet were armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow; but the irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on each side: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body: yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a female; but I was not permitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which are usually lean, this was in high case: in its craw were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot: for voracious birds do not eat grain; but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence swallow bones and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and deep snows that had lately fallen. I am, &c.

LETTER LVIII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

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 country for the purpose of being eaten they are about the size of a moderate spaniel; of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on their backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in motion their tails are curved high over their backs like those of some hounds, and have a bare place each on the outside from the tip midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but somewhat singular. Their eyes are jet-black, small, and piercing; the insides of their lips

and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg; the dog has none. When taken out into a field the bitch showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a covey of partridges till she sprung them, giving her tongue all the time. The dogs in South America are dumb; but these bark much in a short thick manner, like foxes; and have a surly, savage demeanour like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they are fed for the table with rice-meal and other farinaceous food These dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn much from their dam; yet they did not relish flesh when they came to England. In the islands of the pacific ocean the dogs are bred up on vegetables, and would not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators.

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp, upright, fox-like ears; and that hanging ears, which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding and cultivation. Thus, in the travels of Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China, the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow-sledges near the river Oby are engraved with prick-ears, like those from Canton. The Kamschatdales also train the same sort of sharp-eared peakednosed dogs to draw their sledges; as may be seen in an elegant print engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be impertinent to add, that spaniels, as all sportsmen know, though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were by instinct, and with much delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touch their bones when offered as food; nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though he is remarkable for finding that sort of game. But, when we came to offer the bones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them with much greediness, and licked the platter clean.

No sporting dogs 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

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chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the more rancid water-fowls, nor indeed the bones of any wild-fowls; nor will they touch the fœtid 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. I am, &c.

LETTER LIX. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

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 labourer of Oakhanger to a carpenter of this village; this was the but-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

* In describing the general disposition of a species of animal, naturalists have too often de duced their remarks from one or two individuals only, which they had had opportunities of studying. Nothing can be more fallacious than such data; as there is just the same original diversity between the natural disposition of different animals of the same species, as we observe to be the case amongst ourselves; a fact which must indeed have been noticed by most who have ever reared up a nest of young birds, or have attended much to the habits of animals of whatever kind. Thus, however wild and savage, and insensible to kindness, may be the ordinary character of the wolf, we have instances on record of their being as tractable, and attached to their owner, as the most faithful dog; and the inverse of this I have had occasion to observe in two or three instances, wherein the dog evinced the usual disposition of the wolf or fox. In this neighbourhood, for two or three years, there was a fine male pointer, which was a great destroyer of game, and, at times, of poultry also, but so extremely wary that the keepers could never entrap it, or even get a shot at the animal. It was not much in the habit of worrying sheep, but appeared to subsist chiefly on hares and rabbits, which it hunted during the twilight. It was at length shot, after several nights tedious watching. Another case occurred in a female greyhound, which derived its sustenance much in the same manner. It was of a very fine breed, so that, on its being entrapped, it was thought desirable to obtain from her a litter of puppies; she was accordingly chained to a kennel, but always remained savage, even to her feeders, and, while her puppies were still very young, she managed to escape to the woods, and never returned. Her progeny, five in number, were accordingly brought up by hand, and three of them grew up to be excellent hounds, but the other two inherited all the wild character of their dam, and, notwithstanding every attention, contrived finally to effect their escape, and were afterwards shot, as was also their dam, for their destructive poaching propensities.-ED.

+ 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. The Chinese word for a dog to a European ear sounds like quihloh.

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 ædicnemus.) 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 the other in the dark.

The evening proceedings and manœuvres of the 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 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.”

I am, &c.

LETTER LX. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. IN 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