gossamer, is, that, strange and superstitious as the notions about them
were formerly, nobody in these days doubts but that they are the real
production of small spiders, which swarm in the fields in fine weather
in autumn, and have a power of shooting out webs from their tails so as
to render themselves buoyant, and lighter than air. But why these
rapturous insects should that day take such a wonderful aerial
excursion, and why their webs should at once become so gross and
material as to be considerably more weighty than air, and to descend
with precipitation, is a matter beyond my skill. If I might be allowed
to hazard a supposition, I should imagine that those filmy threads,
when first shot, might be entangled in the rising dew, and so drawn up,
spiders and all, by a brisk evaporation into the region where clouds
are formed: and if the spiders have a power of coiling and thickening
their webs in the air, as Dr. Lister says they have [see his Letters to
Mr. Ray], then, when they were become heavier than the air, they must
fall.
Every day in fine weather, in autumn chiefly, do I see those spiders
shooting out their webs and mounting aloft: they will go off from your
finger if you will take them into your hand. Last summer one alighted
on my book as I was reading in the parlour; and, running to the top of
the page, and shooting out a web, took its departure from thence. But
what I most wondered at, was that it went off with considerable
velocity in a place where no air was stirring; and I am sure that I did
not assist it with my breath. So that these little crawlers seem to
have, while mounting, some loco-motive power without the use of wings,
and to move in the air, faster then the air itself.
Letter XXIV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Aug. 15, 1775.
Dear Sir,
There is a wonderful spirit of sociality in the brute creation,
independent of sexual attachment: the congregating of gregarious birds
in the winter is a remarkable instance.
Many horses, though quiet with company, will not stay one minute in a
field by themselves: the strongest fences cannot restrain them. My
neighbour’s horse will not only not stay by himself abroad, but he will
not bear to be left alone in a strange stable without discovering the
utmost impatience, and endeavouring to break the rack and manger with
his fore feet. He has been known to leap out at a stable-window,
through which dung was thrown, after company; and yet in other respects
is remarkably quiet. Oxen and cows will not fatten by themselves; but
will neglect the finest pasture that is not recommended by society. It
would be needless to instance in sheep, which constantly flock
together.
But this propensity seems not to be confined to animals of the same
species; for we know a doe still alive, that was brought up from a
little fawn with a dairy of cows; with them it goes afield, and with
them it returns to the yard. The dogs of the house take no notice of
this deer, being used to her; but, if strange dogs come by, a chase
ensues; while the master smiles to see his favourite securely leading
her pursuers over hedge, or gate, or stile, till she returns to the
cows, who, with fierce longings and menacing horns, drive the
assailants quite out of the pasture.
Even great disparity of kind and size does not always prevent social
advances and mutual fellowship. For a very intelligent and observant
person has assured me that, in the former part of his life, keeping but
one horse, he happened also on a time to have but one solitary hen.
These two incongruous animals spent much of their time together in a
lonely orchard, where they saw no creature but each other. By degrees
an apparent regard began to take place between these two sequestered
individuals. The fowl would approach the quadruped with notes of
complacency, rubbing herself gently against his legs; while the horse
would look down with satisfaction, and move with the greatest caution
and circumspection, lest he should trample on his diminutive companion.
Thus, by mutual good offices, each seemed to console the vacant hours
of the other: so that Milton, when he puts the following sentiment in
the mouth of Adam, seems to be somewhat mistaken:
Much less can bird with beast, or fish with fowl,
So well converse, nor with the ox the ape.
I am, etc.
Letter XXV
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Oct. 2, 1775.
Dear Sir,
We have two gangs or hordes of gypsies which infest the south and west
of England, and come round in their circuit two or three times in the
year. One of these tribes calls itself by the noble name of Stanley, of
which I have nothing particular to say; but the other is distinguished
by an appellative somewhat remarkable. — As far as their harsh
gibberish can be understood, they seem to say that the name of their
clan is Curleople; now the termination of this word is apparently
Grecian: and as Mezeray and the gravest historians all agree that these
vagrants did certainly migrate from Egypt and the East two or three
centuries ago, and so spread by degrees over Europe, may not this name,
a little corrupted, be the very name they brought with them from the
Levant? It would be matter of some curiosity, could one meet with an
intelligent person among them, to inquire whether, in their jargon,
they still retain any Greek words: the Greek radicals will appear in
hand, foot, head, water, earth, etc. It is possible that amidst their
cant and corrupted dialect many mutilated remains of their native
language might still be discovered.
With regard to those peculiar people, the gypsies, one thing is very
remarkable, and especially as they came from warmer climates; and that
is, that while other beggars lodge in barns, stables, and cow-houses,
these sturdy savages seem to pride themselves in braving the severities
of winter, and in living sub dio the whole year round. Last September
was as wet a month as ever was known; and yet during those deluges did
a young gypsy-girl lie-in in the midst of one of our hop-gardens, on
the cold ground, with nothing over her but a piece of blanket extended
on a few hazel-rods bent hoop-fashion, and stuck into the earth at each
end, in circumstances too trying for a cow in the same condition: yet
within this garden there was a large hop-kiln, into the chambers of
which she might have retired, had she thought shelter an object worthy
her attention.
Europe itself, it seems, cannot set bounds to the rovings of those
vagabonds; for Mr. Bell, in his return from Peking, met a gang of these
people on the confines of Tartary, who were endeavouring to penetrate
those deserts and try their fortune in China.*
* See Bell’s Travels in China.
Gypsies are called in French, Bohemians; in Italian and modern Greek,
Zingari.
I am, etc.
Letter XXVI
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Nov. 1, 1775.
Dear Sir,
Hic … taedae pingues, hic plurimus ignis
Semper, et assidua postes fuligine nigri.
I shall make no apology for troubling you with the detail of a very
simple piece of domestic Economy, being satisfied that you think
nothing beneath your attention that tends to utility: the matter
alluded to is the use of rushes instead of candles, which I am well
aware prevails in many districts besides this; but as I know there are
countries also where it does not obtain, and as I have considered the
subject with some degree of exactness, I shall proceed in my humble
story, and leave you to judge of the expediency.
The proper species of rush for this purpose seems to be the juncus
effusus, or common soft rush, which is to be found in most moist
pastures, by the sides of streams, and under hedges. These rushes are
in best condition in the height of summer; but may be gathered, so as
to serve the purpose well, quite on to autumn. It would be needless to
add that the largest and longest are best. Decayed labourers, women,
and children, make it their business to procure and prepare them. As
soon as they are cut they must be flung into water, and kept there; for
otherwise they will dry and shrink, and the peel will not run. At first
a person would find it no easy matter to divest a rush of its peel or
rind, so as to leave one regular, narrow, even rib from top to bottom
that may support the pith: but this, like other feats, soon becomes
familiar even to children; and we have seen an old woman, stone-blind,
performing this business with great dispatch, and seldom failing to
strip them with the nicest regularity. When these junci are thus far
prepared, they must lie out on the grass to be bleached, and take the
dew for some nights, and afterwards be dried in the sun.
Some address is required in dipping these rushes in the scalding fat or
grease; but this knack also is to be attained by practice. The careful
wife of an industrious Hampshire labourer obtains all her fat for
nothing; for she saves the scummings of her bacon-pot for this use;
and, if the grease abounds with salt, she causes the salt to
precipitate to the bottom, by setting the scummings in a warm oven.
Where hogs are not much in use, and especially by the sea-side, the
coarser animal oils will come very cheap. A pound of common grease may
be procured for four pence; and about six pounds of grease will dip a
pound of rushes; and one pound of rushes may be bought for one
shilling: so that a pound of rushes, medicated and ready for use, will
cost three shillings. If men that keep bees will mix a little wax with
the grease, it will give it a consistency, and render it more cleanly,
and make the rushes burn longer: mutton-suet would have the same
effect.
A good rush, which measured in length two feet four inches and an half,
being minuted, burnt only three minutes short of an hour: and a rush
still of greater length has been known to burn one hour and a quarter.
These rushes give a good clear light. Watch-lights (coated with
tallow), it is true, shed a dismal one, ‘darkness visible’; but then
the wicks of those have two ribs of the rind, or peel, to support the
pith, while the wick of the dipped rush has but one. The two ribs are
intended to impede the progress of the flame, and make the candle last.
In a pound of dry rushes, avoirdupois, which I caused to be weighed and
numbered, we found upwards of one thousand six hundred individuals. Now
suppose each of these burns, one with another, only half an hour, then
a poor man will purchase eight hundred hours of light, a time exceeding
thirty-three entire days, for three shillings. According to this
account each rush, before dipping, costs 1/33 of a farthing, and 1/11
afterwards. Thus a poor family will enjoy 5&1/2 hours of comfortable
light for a farthing. An experienced old housekeeper assures me that
one pound and a half of rushes completely supplies his family the year
round, since working people burn no candle in the long days, because
they rise and go to bed by daylight.
Little farmers use rushes much in the short days, both morning and
evening in the dairy and kitchen; but the very poor, who are always the
worst economists, and therefore must continue very poor, buy an
halfpenny candle every evening, which, in their blowing open rooms,
does not burn much more than two hours. Thus have they only two hours’
light for their money instead of eleven.
While on the subject of rural oeconomy, it may not be improper to
mention a pretty implement of housewifery that we have seen no where
else; that is, little neat besoms which our foresters make from the
stalk of the polytricum commune, or great golden maiden-hair, which
they call silk-wood, and find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is
well combed and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, it becomes of
a beautiful bright chestnut colour; and, being soft and pliant, is very
proper for the dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, etc. If
these besoms were known to the brushmakers in town, it is probable they
might come much in use for the purpose above-mentioned.*
* A besom of this sort is to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum.
I am, etc.
Letter XXVII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, December 12, 1775.
Dear Sir,
We had in this village more than twenty years ago an idiot-boy, whom I
well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to bees;
they were his food, his amusement, his sole object. And as people of
this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted
all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dosed away
his time, within his father’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of
torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney-corner; but in the
summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields, and on
sunny banks. Honeybees, humble-bees, and wasps, were his prey wherever
he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would
seize them nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and
suck their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would
fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these
captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very
merops apiaster, or bee-bird; and very injurious to men that kept bees;
for he would slide into their bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the
stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the bees as
they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of
honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making he
would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he
called bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with
his lips, resembling the buzzing of bees. This lad was lean and sallow,
and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favourite pursuit,
in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of
understanding. Had his capacity been better, and directed to the same
object, he had perhaps abated much of our wonder at the feats of a more
modern exhibitor of bees; and we may justly say of him now,
… Thou,
Had thy presiding star propitious shone,
Should’st Wildman be. …
When a tall youth he was removed from hence to a distant village, where
he died, as I understand, before he arrived at manhood.
I am, etc.
Letter XXVIII
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Jan. 8, 1776.
Dear Sir,
It is the hardest thing in the world to shake off superstitious
prejudices: they are sucked in as it were with our mother’s milk; and
growing up with us at a time when they take the fastest hold and make
the most lasting impressions, become so interwoven into our very
constitutions, that the strongest good sense is required to disengage
ourselves from them. No wonder therefore that the lower people retain
them their whole lives through, since their minds are not invigorated
by a liberal education, and therefore not enabled to make any efforts
adequate to the occasion.
Such a preamble seems to be necessary before we enter on the
superstitions of this district, lest we should be suspected of
exaggeration in a recital of practices too gross for this enlightened
age.
But the people of Tring, in Hertfordshire, would do well to remember,
that no longer ago than the year 1751, and within twenty miles of the
capital, they seized on two superannuated wretches, crazed with age,
and overwhelmed with infirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft; and, by
trying experiments, drowned them in a horse-pond.
In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at this day, a
row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down
their sides, manifestly show that, in former times, they have been
cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and
held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were
pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by such a
process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as
the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered
with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and
soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed
with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but, where the cleft
continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove
ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not long since, I cut
down two or three such trees, one of which did not grow together.
We have several persons now living in the village, who, in their
childhood, were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony,
derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who practiced it before
their conversion to Christianity.
At the south corner of the Plestor, or area, near the church, there
stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash,
which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a
shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when
gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the
pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the
part affected: for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful
and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it
horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel
anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against
this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident
fore-fathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once
medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made
thus: * — Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an
auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged
in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As
the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer
understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to
subsist in the manor, or hundred.
* For a similar practice, see Plot’s Staffordshire.
As to that on the Plestor,
The late vicar stubb’d and burnt it,
when he was way-warden, regardless of the remonstrances of the
by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its
power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been
Religione patrum multos servata per annos.
I am, etc.
Letter XXIX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, Feb. 7, 1776.
Dear Sir,
In heavy fogs, on elevated situations especially, trees are perfect
alembics: and no one that has not attended to such matters can imagine
how much water one tree will distil in a night’s time by condensing the
vapour, which trickles down the twigs and boughs, so as to make the
ground below quite in a float. In Newton-lane, in October 1775, on a
misty day, a particular oak in leaf dropped so fast that the cart-way
stood in puddles and the ruts ran with water, though the ground in
general was dusty.
In some of our smaller islands in the West-Indies, if I mistake not,
there are no springs or rivers; but the people are supplied with that
necessary element, water, merely by the dripping of some large tall
trees, which, standing in the bosom of a mountain, keep their heads
constantly enveloped with fogs and clouds, from which they dispense
their kindly never-ceasing moisture; and so render those districts
habitable by condensation alone.
Trees in leaf have such a vast proportion more of surface than those
that are naked, that, in theory, their condensations should greatly
exceed those that are stripped of their leaves; but, as the former
imbibe also a great quantity of moisture, it is difficult to say which
drip most: but this I know, that deciduous trees that are entwined with
much ivy seem to distil the greatest quantity. Ivy-leaves are smooth,
and thick, and cold, and therefore condense very fast; and besides
evergreens imbibe very little. These facts may furnish the intelligent
with hints concerning what trees they should plant round small ponds
that they would wish to be perennial; and show them how advantageous
some trees are in preference to others.
Trees perspire profusely, condense largely, and check evaporation so
much, that woods are always moist: no wonder therefore that they
contribute much to pools and streams.
That trees are great promoters of lakes and rivers appears from a
well-known fact in North America; for, since the woods and forests have
been grubbed and cleared, all bodies of water are much diminished; so
that some streams, that were very considerable a century ago, will not
now drive a common mill.* Besides, most woodlands, forests, and chases
with us abound with pools and morasses; no doubt for the reason given
above.
* Vide Kalm’s Travels to North America.
To a thinking mind few phenomena are more strange than the state of
little ponds on the summits of chalk-hills, many of which are never dry
in the most trying droughts of summer. On chalk-hills I say, because in
many rocky and gravelly soils springs usually break out pretty high on
the sides of elevated grounds and mountains; but no person acquainted
with chalky districts will allow that they ever saw springs in such a
soil but in valleys and bottoms, since the waters of so pervious a
stratum as chalk all lie on one dead level, as well-diggers have
assured me again and again.
Now we have many such little round ponds in this district; and one in
particular on our sheep-down, three hundred feet above my house; which
though never above three feet deep in the middle, and not more than
thirty feet in diameter, and containing perhaps not more than two or
three hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known to fail, though it
affords drink for three hundred or four hundred sheep, and for at least
twenty head of large cattle beside. This pond, it is true, is over-hung
with two moderate beeches, that, doubtless, at times afford it much
supply: but then we have others as small, that, without the aid of
trees, and in spite of evaporation from sun and wind, and perpetual
consumption by cattle, yet constantly maintain a moderate share of
water, without overflowing in the wettest seasons, as they would do if
supplied by springs. By my journal of May 1775, it appears that ‘the
small and even considerable ponds in the vales are now dried up, while
the small ponds on the very tops of hills are but little affected.’ Can
this difference be accounted for from evaporation alone, which
certainly is more prevalent in bottoms ? or rather have not those
elevated pools some unnoticed recruits, which in the night time
counterbalance the waste of the day; without which the cattle alone
must soon exhaust them ? And here it will be necessary to enter more
minutely into the cause. Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances,
from experiment, that ‘the moister the earth is the more dew falls on
it in a night: and more than a double quantity of dew falls on a
surface of water than there does on an equal surface of moist earth.’
Hence we see that water, by its coolness, is enabled to assimilate to
itself a large quantity of moisture nightly by condensation; and that
the air, when loaded with fogs and vapours, and even with copious dews,
can alone advance a considerable and never-failing resource. Persons
that are much abroad, and travel early and late, such as shepherds,
fishermen, etc., can tell what prodigious fogs prevail in the night on
elevated downs, even in the hottest parts of summer; and how much the
surfaces of things are drenched by those swimming vapours, though, to
the senses, all the while, little moisture seems to fall.
I am, etc.
Letter XXX
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, April 3, 1776.
Dear Sir,
Monsieur Herissant, a French anatomist, seems persuaded that he has
discovered the reason why cuckoos do not hatch their own eggs; the
impediment, he supposes, arises from the internal structure of their
parts, which incapacitates them for incubation. According to this
gentleman, the crop or craw of a cuckoo does not lie before the sternum
at the bottom of the neck, as in the gallinae columbae, etc., but
immediately behind it, on and over the bowels, so as to make a large
protuberance in the belly.*
* Histoire de l’Academie Royale, 1752.
Induced by this assertion, we procured a cuckoo; and, cutting open the
breast-bone, and exposing the intestines to sight, found the crop lying
as mentioned above. This stomach was large and round, and stuffed hard
like a pin-cushion with food, which, upon nice examination, we found to
consist of various insects; such as small scarabs, spiders, and
dragon-flies; the last of which we have seen cuckoos catching on the
wing as they were just emerging out of the aurelia state. Among this
farrago also were to be seen maggots, and many seeds, which belonged
either to gooseberries, currants, cranberries, or some such fruit; so
that these birds apparently subsist on insects and fruits: nor was
there the least appearance of bones, feathers, or fur to support the
idle notion of their being birds of prey.