Sir,
It gave me no small satisfaction to find that the Falco which I sent you proved an uncommon one.
I must confess I should have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had never seen before: but that, I find, would be a most difficult thing to do.
I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former lettersthis references the Harvest Mouse
, a young one, & a female with young, both of which I have secured in brandy. From the colour, shape, size, & manner of nesting I seem to make no doubt but that they are a non-descript species. They are smaller & more slender than the Mus domesticus vulg: seu minor of Ray: their eyes not so prominent; their ears naked, & standing out above the fur: their tails long, & sparingly covered with hair: their back is redder than that of the Mus domesticus medius of Ray, & more inclinable to the dormouse aspect: their belly is white: a straight line along their sides divides the colours of their back & belly. They never enter houses; are carried into ricks, & barns in the sheaves; abound in harvest; & (which seems to be their best specific distinction) build their nests between the straws of the standing corn above the ground; & some times in thistles.
They breed as many as eight at a litter in a little round nest Composed of the blades of grasses.
A Gent: curious in birds, wrote me word that his Servant had shot one last January in that severe weather, which he believed, would puzzle me. But the moment I took it in hand I pronounced it to be the Garrulus Bohemicus, or German silk-tail, from the five crimson tags, or points which it has at the ends of five of the short remigesflight feathers. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety be called an English Bird: & yet I see by Ray's
Philos: letters
that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, were seen in this kingdom in the winter of 1685. The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of that wild fruit so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation. The ease is the same with regard to acorns & beech-mast. For the same severe weather in the spring which cut off the produce of the more tender & curious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy & common.
Some birds, haunting with the misslethrushes, & feeding on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to the description of the Merula torquate, were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without any success. This species of Merula belongs properly speaking to the northern & more mountainous countries; & has nothing to do with Hants but by accident.
Quæ: might not Canary-birds be naturalized to this climate provided their eggs were put in the spring into the nests of their congeners, such as sparrows, chaffinches, &c? Before winter perhaps they might be hardened, & able to shift.
About ten years ago I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which is one of those beautiful villages lying on the Thames near Hampton Court. In the autumn I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallow-kind (I might perhaps say millions) which used to assemble in those parts! But what struck me most was, that from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys, & eeves of the houses, they roosted a nights in the ozier-beds of the aights of the river. Now this resorting towards the water at that season of the year seems to give some countenance to the Northern opinions of their retiring under water. A Sweedish NaturalistWhite here is refering to Alexand. Mal. Berger's 'Calendar of Flora' from Upsal in 1755. This was published in Benjamin Stillingfleet's
'Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Natural History, Husbandry, and Physik'
. The September entry(p284), as White relates, reads simply '*SWALLOW goes under water' https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5276615. is so much perswaded of that fact, that he talks in his Calendar of Flora as familiarly of the Swallow going under water in the beginning of Septembr: as he would of his poultry going to roost before sunset.
An observing Gent: in London writes me word that he saw marten on the 23:rd of last Octobr: flying in & out of it’s nest in the Borough. And I myself on the 29:th of last month (as I was travelling through Oxõn) saw four or five swallows hovering round, & settling on the roof of the County-hospitals of that City. Now it is likely that these poor little birds (which perhaps have not been hatched many weeks) should at that very late season of the year, & from so midland a county, attempt a voyage to GoreeSee Adamson’s voyage to Senegal, or Senegal, almost as far as the Æquator? I acquiesce entirely in yr opinion, that tho’ most of the Swallow-kind do migrate; yet that some do stay behind, & hide with us during the winter.
As to the short-winged, soft-billed birds, which come swooping in such numbers in the spring, I am at a loss even what to suspect abut them. I watched them narrowly this year, & saw them abound ‘till about Michaelmass, when they disappeared. Subsist they^
can not openly among us, & yet eludes the eyes of the inquisitive: & as to their hiding, no man pretends to have found any of them in a torpid state in the winter. But with regard to their migration, what difficulties attend that supposition, that such weak, & bad flyers should be able to traverse vast seas, & continents in order to attain milder climes amidst the regions of Africa?
As to what I sent you word about the Lampestra cæca being found in our streams, I desire to retract it; having reason to suppose that those I saw were the lampestra parva
Dr Claude B. Renaud (Research Associate (Ichthyology), Canadian Museum of Nature) considers that here White is refering to
L. planeri (the Brook Lamprey) as 'parva means small in Latin and the Brook Lamprey is notably smaller than the River Lamprey (L. fluviatilis)(by email to James Maclaine (senior curator (fish) Natural History Museum, London) 18th November 2023, & fluviatilis of Ray. Nothing would vex me more than to find I had misled by my inaccuracies a Gentleman who intends to favour the world with his researches into natural history.
Loches abound in the stream that runs by Ambersbury in Wilts: & that rare fish the rudd or finscale I have seen procured from the Charwell near Oxford.
P.S. What parts of England does the gosshawk frequent?
Begging the continuance of yr most agreeable correspondence I conclude with great esteem,
Your most obedient Servant
Gil: White.