162
Houfe-martihs are diftingniflied from their congeners by having
their legs covered with foft downy feathers down to their toes.
They are no fongfters; hut twitter in a-pretty inward foft manner
in their nefts. During the time of breeding they are often greatly
molefted with fleas.
I am, &c.
L E T T E R XVII.
'TO T'ft'E S A M E .
D E A R S IR , RingmEr, near L eWes, Dee. 9, i77ji.
I r e c e i v e d your laft favour juft as I was fettingout for this placet
and am pleafed to find that my monography met with your appro*
bation. My remarks are the refult of many years ohfervat-ion;
■ and are, I truft, true in the whole : though I do not pretend to
fey that they are perfeftly void of miftake, or that a more nice*
obferver might not make many additions, fince fubjedts of this
kind are inexhauftible.
I f you think my letter worthy the notice of your refpedtable
fociety, you are at liberty to lay it before them; and they will con-
fider it, I hope, as it was intended, as an humble attempt to pro*
mote a more minute inquiry into natural hiftory; into the life and
converfation of animals. Perhaps hereafter I may be induced to,
take the houfe-fwallow under confideration.; and from that proceed
to the reft of the Britijh himndines...
Though-.
Though I have now travelled the Sujjix-dozcus upwards of
thirty years, yet I ftill inveftigate that chain of majeftic mountains
With frelh admiration year by year; and think I fee sew beauties
every time I traverfe it. This range, which runs from Chlchejler
Baft ward as far as Eq/l-Bourq, is about fi^ty miles in length, and
is called The South Dorris, properly {peaking, only round Lewes,.
As you pafs along you command a noble view of the wild, or
weald, on one hand, and the broad downs and fea on the other.
Mr. Ray ufed to vifit a familyd juft at the foot of thefe hills, and
was fo ravfthed with the profpedt from Blumpton-pMnr near Lewes,
that he mentions thofe fcapes in his MS Wifdom of God in the
“ Works of the Creation” with the utmoft fatisfadtion, and thinks
them equal to any thing he had feen in the fineft parts of Europe.
For my own part, I think there is fomewhat peculiarly fweet and
amufing in the lhapely figured afpedt of chalk-hills in preference to
thofe of ftone, which are rugged, broken, abrupt, and flhapelefs.
Perhaps I may be Angular in my opinion, and not fo happy as
to convey to you the fame idea; but I never contemplate thefè
mountains without thinking I perceive fomewhat analogous to
growth in their gentle fwellings and fmopth fungus-like protuberances,
their fluted fides, and regular hollows and flopes, that
carry at once the air of vegetative dilation and expanfion —
-----Or was there ever a time when thefe immenfe maffes of
calcarious matter were thrown into fermentation by fome adventitious
moifture; were raifed and leavened into fuch fhapes by fome
plaftic power; and fo made to fwell and heave their broad backs
into the Iky fo much above the lefs animated d a y of the wild
below ?
* Mr. Courtbope o f Dannj.
Y a By