The natural history and antiquities of Selborne : in the county of Southampton / by the Rev. Gilbert White ; the standard edition by E.T. Bennett ; thoroughly revised, with additional notes, by James Edmund Harting ; with ten letters not included in any other edition of the work ; illustrated with engravings by Thomas Bewick and others.

Gilbert White

Date:: 1889

Credit: The natural history and antiquities of Selborne : in the county of Southampton / by the Rev. Gilbert White ; the standard edition by E.T. Bennett ; thoroughly revised, with additional notes, by James Edmund Harting ; with ten letters not included in any other edition of the work ; illustrated with engravings by Thomas Bewick and others. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$I wonder that the stone curlew {Gliaradrius oedicnemus^), shotild be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird; it abounds in all the campaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, ail the summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be classed, as they are by Mr. Eay, among birds “ circa aquas versanies f’ for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep- walks, far removed from water; what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads and frogs.* * I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnaeus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. LETTER XVI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIEE. Selborne, April 18, 1768. ][HE history of the stone curlew {Gharadrius oedicnemus) is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field ; so that the countryman, in stirring liis fal- lows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, &c. and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they skulk among the stones, which are their best security ; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young * (Edicnemus crepitans, Temm. * The stomachs of several stone curlews which we have examined at different times, were filled chiefly with the remains of beetles, but in ouc we found the remains of a long-tailed field mouse.—Ed.$

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