iscous
substance. The eggs lay but shallow, and within the influence of the
sun, just under a little heap of fresh-mowed mould, like that which is
raised by ants.

When mole-crickets fly they move "_cursu undoso_," rising and falling in
curves, like the other species mentioned before. In different parts of
this kingdom people call them fen-crickets, churr-worms, and eve-churrs,
all very apposite names.

Anatomists, who have examined the intestines of these insects, astonish
me with their accounts; for they say that, from the structure, position,
and number of their stomachs, or maws, there seems to be good reason to
suppose that this and the two former species ruminate or chew the cud
like many quadrupeds!

LETTER XLIX.

SELBORNE, _May_ 7_th_, 1779.

It is now more than forty years that I have paid some attention to the
ornithology of this district, without being able to exhaust the subject:
new occurrences still arise as long as any inquiries are kept alive.

In the last week of last month five of those most rare birds, too
uncommon to have obtained an English name, but known to naturalists by
the terms of _himantopus_, or _loripes_, and _charadrius himantopus_,
were shot upon the verge of Frinsham pond, a large lake belonging to the
Bishop of Winchester, and lying between Wolmer forest and the town of
Farnham, in the county of Surrey. The pond-keeper says there were three
brace in the flock: but that, after he had satisfied his curiosity, he
suffered the sixth to remain unmolested. One of these specimens I
procured, and found the length of the legs to be so extraordinary, that,
at first sight, one might have supposed the shanks had been fastened on
to impose on the credulity of the beholder: they were legs in
_caricatura_, and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan
screen, we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the
draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and might with
propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives
them the apposite name of _l'echasse_. My specimen, when drawn and
stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the
naked part of the thigh measured three inches and a half, and the legs
four inches and a half. Hence we may safely assert that these birds
exhibit, weight for inches, incomparably the greatest length of legs of
any known bird. The flamingo, for instance, is one of the most
long-legged bi