LETTER IV. TO ROBERT MARSHAM, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, NEAR ALTON, Dec. 19, 1791. OUR letter, which met me so punctually in London, was so intelligent, and so entertaining, as to have merited a better treatment, and not to have been permitted to have lain so long unnoticed! That there is no rule without an exception is an observation that holds good in Natural History: for though you and I have often remarked that Swifts leave us in general by the first week in August: yet I see by my journal of this year, that a relation of mine had under the eaves of his dwelling house in a nest a young squab Swift, which the dam attended with great assiduity till September 6th;1 and on October 22nd, I discovered here at Selborne three young martins in a nest, which the dams fed and attended with great affection on to November 1st, a severe frosty day, when they disappeared, and one was found dead in a neighbour's garden. The middle of last September was a sweet season! during this lovely weather the congregating flocks of house martins on the church tower were very beautiful and amusing. When they flew off all together from the roof on any alarm they quite swarmed in the air. But they soon 1 The length of stay which the Swifts make with us in autumn must in some measure depend upon the locality which they frequent during the summer, for in the parish of Harting, Sussex (not a dozen miles from Selborne), I have remarked during the last ten years that these birds invariably remain until the end of the first week in September, or at least a month after the average date of their departure as observed by White at Selborne. See Letter XXXVII. to Pennant (p. 114). -ED. settled again in heaps on the shingles; where preening their feathers, and lifting up their wings to admit the rays of the sun, they seemed highly to enjoy the warm situation. Thus did they spend the heat of the day, preparing for their migration, and as it were consulting when and where they are to go! The flight about the church consisted chiefly of house martins, about 400 in number: but there were other places of rendezvous about the village frequented at the same time. The swallows seem to delight more in holding their assemblies on trees. Such sights as these fill me with enthusiasm, and make me cry out involuntarily, "Amusive birds! say where your hid retreat, For We have very great oaks here on absolute sand. over Wolmer Forest, at Bramshot Place, where I visit, I measured last summer three great hollow oaks, which made a very grotesque appearance at the entrance of the avenue, and found the largest twenty-one feet in girth at five feet from the ground. The largest sycamore in my friend's court measures thirteen feet. His edible chestnuts grow amazingly, but make (for some have been felled) vile shaky, cup-shaky timber. I think the oak on sands is shaky, as it is also on our rocks, as I know by sad experience the last time I built. The indented oaken leaf which you gathered between Rome and Naples was the quercus cerris of Linnæus.3 The yellow oak which you saw in Sussex escaped my notice. Richard Muliman Trench Chiswell, Esq., of Portland Place, and M.P., tells a friend of mine in town that he has an elm in Essex for which he has been bid £100. It is long enough, he says, to make a keel ungrafted for a manof-war of the largest dimensions. As he expressed a desire These original lines occur in "The Naturalist's Summer Evening Walk," which White dedicated to Pennant, see p. 83.-ED. 2 See note 3, to the first letter of the present series, p. 530.-ED. 3 This, the Turkish oak, was introduced into this country about a century ago, from the south of Europe, and is now much planted as an ornamental tree.-ED. of corresponding with me, I have written to him, and desired some particulars respecting this amazing tree. You seem to wonder that Mr. Willughby should not be aware that the Fern-owl is a summer bird of passage. But you must remember that those excellent men, Willughby and Ray, wrote when the ornithology of England, and indeed the Natural History, was quite in its infancy. But their efforts were prodigious, and indeed they were the Fathers of that delightful study in this kingdom. I have thoughts of sending a paper to the R. S. respecting the fern-owl, and seem to think that I can advance some particulars concerning that peculiar, migratory, nocturnal bird, that have never been noticed before. The rain of October last was great, but of November still more. The former month produced 6 in. 49 hund., but the latter upwards of 8 in., 5 of which fell in one week, viz., from Nov. 13th to the 19th, both inclusive! You will, I hope, pardon my neglect and write soon. O, that I had known you forty years ago! I remain, with great esteem, Your most humble servant, GIL. WHITE. My tortoise was very backward this year in preparing his hybernaculum, and did not retire till towards the beginning of December.1 The late great snow hardly reached and was gone at once. us, 1 In previous years this "old Sussex tortoise began first to dig the ground, in order to the forming its hybernaculum, on Nov. 1st" (Letter XIII. to Daines Barrington, p. 172), and "retired under ground about the 20th of November." (Letter XVII. to Daines Barrington, p. 190.) It was not until April, 1780, that White was able to announce to his friend that the animal had become his property. (Letter L. to Daines Barrington, p. 276.) This tortoise survived its master about a year, dying, it is believed, in the spring of 1794, after an existence in England of about fifty-four years, the last fourteen of which were spent at Selborne. Its shell, which is still preserved at Selborne, in the residence of the former owner, is considered by Mr. Bell to be that of Testudo marginata. See antea, pp. 277-278.-ED. LETTER V. TO ROBERT MARSHAM, ESQUIRE. SELBORNE, March 20th, 1792. OU, in a mild way, complain a little of Procrastination: but I, who have suffered all my life long by that evil power, call her the Dæmon of Procrastination, and wish that Fuseli, the grotesque painter in London, who excells in drawing witches, dæmons, incubus's, and incantations, was employed in delineating this ugly hag, which fascinates in some measure the most determined and resolute of men. You do not, I find, seem to assent to my story respecting Mr. Chiswell's elm. There may probably be some misapprehension on my side. I will therefore allow Mr. Chiswell that priviledge which every Englishman demands as his right, the liberty of speaking for himself. "In regard to my tree," says he, "it is a Wych Elm, perfectly strait, and fit for the keel of the largest man-of-war. The purveyor of the navy offered my late uncle £50 for it, although it would have cost as much more to have conveyed it to Portsmouth; and he would have run all risque of soundness. It grows about eleven miles from Saffron Walden, in a deep soil, and near thirty from Cambridge, the nearest place for water-carriage. I will measure it next summer." He adds, "I have been, and am a considerable planter, and have been honoured with three gold medals from the Society of Arts," &c. Thus far Mr. Chiswell. As I begin to look upon you as a Selborne man, at least as one somewhat interested in the concerns of this place, I wish that you could see "The sixth Report of the Commissioners appointed to enquire into the state and condition of the Woods, Forests, &c. of the Crown," &c. This Report was printed February, 1790; though never published, but distributed among the members of the House of Commons, from some of whom you may borrow it, as I have done. This curious survey will inform you, from the best authority, of all the circumstances respecting the advantages, usages, abuses, &c. of our Forest of Alice Holt and Wolmer. Here you will see, that the Forest now consists of 8,694 acres, 107 of which are in ponds; that the present timber is estimated at £60,000,' that it is almost all of a size, and about 100 years old; that it is shamefully abused by the neighbouring poor, who lop it and top it as they please; that there is no succession because all the bushes are destroyed by the commoners around; that your old favourite oak, the Grindstone Oak, is estimated at twenty-seven loads of timber; that the peat cut in Wolmer is prodigious; in the year 1788 in one walk 942 loads, and in another walk the same year 423 loads, besides heath and fern; and in the same year 935,000 turves; &c. &c. &c. Lord Stawell is the Lieutenant or Grantee; whose lease expires in 1811, as I have said in my book. That nobleman did me the honour to call on me a morning or two ago, and sat with me two hours: he brought me a white woodcock, milk white all over except a few spots. 3 My friend at Bramshot Place, where I measured the great 'This survey and valuation was made in 1787. Wolmer, with but two enclosures within its precincts, then extended over 5,949 acres; the royal forest of the Holt, with its enclosures, was found to comprehend 2,744 acres. The timber of the Holt was valued at £61,000. See Letter VIII. to Pennant, p. 27.-ED. 2 The wrong-doers in this case were the poor of the parishes of Binstead and Frinsham, Bentley and Kingsley, who laid claim to the lop and top" in opposition to Lord Stawell, the grantee. "Forty-five of these people his lordship served with actions." See Letter IX. to Pennant, p. 32.—Ed. 3 See antea, p. 357.—Ed. 4 Letter IX. to Pennant, p. 30. On the expiration of the grant to Lord Stawell, the Commissioners of Woods and Forests resumed possession of the Holt. All the lands held by him, and two-thirds of the former open forest were subsequently enclosed and planted.—ED. |