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way, where yet the ftars are not very fmall, they are fo crowded, that in the year 1792, August 22, I found by the gages that, in forty-one minutes of time, no less than 258 thoufand of them had paffed through the field of view of my telescope.

It seems, therefore, upon the whole, not improbable that, in many cafes, ftars are united in fuch close systems as not to leave much room for the orbits of planets, or comets; and that confequently, upon this account alfo, many ftars, unless we would make them mere uleless brilliant points, may themselves be lucid planets, perhaps unattended by fatellites.

POSTSCRIPT.

The following obfervations, which were made with an improved apparatus, and under the most favourable circumftances, fhould be added to those which have been given. They are decifive with regard to one of the conditions of the lucid matter of the fun.

November 26. 1794. Eight fpots in the fun, and feveral fubdivifions of them, are all equally depreffed..

The fun is mottled every where.

The mottled appearance of the fun is owing to an inequality in the level of the furface.

The fun is equally mottled at its poles and at its equator; but the mottled appearances may be feen better about the middle of the difc than toward the circumference, on account of the fun's fpherical form.

The unevennefs arifing from the elevation and depreffion of the mottled appearance on the furface of the fun, feems, in many places, to amount to as much, or to nearly as much, as the depreffion of the penumbræ of the spots below the upper part of the fhining fubftance, without including faculæ, which are protuberant.

The lucid fubftance of the fun is neither a liquid, nor an elastic fluid; as is evident from its not inftantly filling up the cavities of the spots, and of the unevenness of the mottled parts. It exifts, therefore, in the manner of lucid clouds fwimming in the tranfparent atmofphere of the fun; or rather, of luminous decompofitions taking place within that atmosphere.

PARTICULARS IN THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. CONCLUDED FROM PAGE 552.

Stone Curler.

ON the 27th of February 1788, Stone Curlews were heard to pipe; and on March ift, after it was dark, fome were paffing over the village, as might be perceived by their quick fhort note, which they use in their nocturnal excurfions by way of watchword, that they may not ray and lofe their companions.

defcend in the night to ftreams and meadows, perhaps for water, which their upland haunts do not afford them.

The smallest Willow Wren.

THE fmalleft uncrested or Willow Wren, or chiff chaff, is the next early fummer bird which we have remarked; it utters two fharp piercing notes, fo loud in hollow woods as to occafion an echo, and is ufually first heard about the 20th of March.

Thus, we fee, that retire whither foever they may in the winter, they Fern Owl, or Goat Sucker. return again early in the fpring, and THE Country people have a notion are, as it now appears, the first fum- that the fern-owl, or churn-owl, or mer birds that come back. Perhaps eve-jarr, which they alfo call a puckethe mildness of the feafon may have ridge, is very injurious to weanling quickened the emigration of the curlews calves, by inflicting, as it strikes at this year. them, the fatal diftemper known to They spend the day in high elevated cow-leeches by the name of puckefields and fheep-walks; but feem to ridge. Thus does this harmless, ill

fated

fated bird fall under a double imputation, which it by no means deferves; in Italy, of fucking the teats of goats, whence it is called caprimulgas; and with us, of communicating a deadly diforder to cattle. But the truth of the mater is, the malady above-mentioned is occafioned by the aftrus bovis, a dip. terous infect, which lays its eggs along the chines of kine, where the maggots, when hatched, eat their way through the hide of the beaft into the Ach, and grow to a very large fize. I have juft talked with a man, who fays, he has more than once ftripped calves who have died of the puckeridge; that the ail or complaint lay along the chine, where the flesh was much fwelled, and filled with purulent matter. Once I myself faw a large rough maggot of this fort fqueezed out of the back of a cow. Thefe maggots in Effex are called wornils.

The leaft obfervation and attention would convince men, that these birds neither injure the goat-herd nor the grazier, but are perfectly harmless, and fubfift alone, being night birds, or night infects, fuch as fearabai, and phalene; and through the month of July moftly on the fearabaus folflitialis, which in many districts abounds at that feafon. Thofe that we have opened, have always had their craws stuffed with large night-moths and their eggs, and pieces of chaffers: nor does it anywife appear how they can, weak and unarmed as they feem, inflict any harm upon kine, unless they poffefs the powers of animal magnetifm, and can affect them by fluttering over them.

A fern owl, this evening, (Auguft 27.) fhowed off in a very unusual and entertaining manner, by hawking round and round the circumference of my great fpreading oak, for twenty times following, keeping moftly close to the grafs, but occafionally glancing up amid the boughs of the tree. This amuling bird was then in purfuit of a brood of some particular phalena belonging to the oak,

of which there are feveral forts; and exhibited on the occafion a command of wing fuperior, I think, to that of the swallow itself.

When a perfon approaches the haunt of fern-owls in an evening, they continue flying round the head of the ob truder, and by striking their wings together above their backs, in the manner that the pigeons called fmitters, are known to do, make a fmart snap : perhaps at that time they are jealous for their young; and this noise and gesture are intended by way of menace.

Fern-owls have attachment to oaks, no doubt on account of food; for the next evening we faw one again, feveral times, among the boughs of the fame tree; but it did not fkim round its ftem over the grafs, as on the evening before. In May these birds find the fearabaus melolontha on the oak; and the scarabaus folftitialis at Midfummer. Thefe peculiar birds can only be watched and obferved for two hours in the twentyfour; and then in a dubious twilight, an hour after fun-fet and an hour before fun rife.

On this day, (July 14, 1789,) a woman brought me two eggs of a fernowl, or eve-jarr, which the found on the verge of the hanger, to the left of the hermitage, under a beechen fhrub. This perfon who lives just at the foot of the hanger, feems well acquainted with thefe nocturnal fwallows, and says fhe has often found their eggs near that place, and that they lay only two at a time on the bare ground. The eggs were oblong, dusky, and streaked fomewhat in the manner of the plumage of the parent bird, and were equal in fize at each end. The dam was-fitting on the eggs when found, which contained the the rudiments of young, and would have been hatched perhaps in a week. From hence we may fee the time of their breeding, which correfponds pretty well with that of the fwift, as does alfo the period of their arrival. Each species is usually seen about the beginning of

May. Each breeds but once in a fummer; each lays only two eggs.

July 4, 1790. The woman who brought me two fern-owls eggs last year on July 14, on this day produced me two more, one of which had been laid this morning, as appears plainly, be. 'cause there was only one in the nest the evening before. They were found, as laft July, on the verge of the down a bove the hermitage under a beechen shrub, on the naked ground.-Last year thofe eggs were full of young, and juft ready to be hatched.

Thefe circumstances point out the exact time when these curious nocturnal migratory birds lay their eggs, and hatch their young.

Fern-owls, like fnipes, ftone curlews, and fome other birds, make no neft. Birds that build on the ground do not make much of nests.

Sand Martins.`

March 23, 1788. A GENTLEMAN who was this week on a visit at Waverley, took the opportunity of examining fome of the holes in the fandbanks, with which that district abounds. As thefe are undoubtedly bored by bank-martins, and are the places where they avowedly breed, he was in hopes they might have lept there alfo, and that he might have furprised them juft as they were awaking from their win. ter flumbers. When he had dug for fome time, he found the holes were horizontal, and ferpentine, as I had obferved before; and that the nefts were depofited at the inner end, and had been occupied by broods in former fummers: but no torpid birds were to be found. He opened and examined about a dozen holes. Another gentle man made the fame fearch many years ago, with as little fuccefs.

These holes were in depth about two feet.

March 21, 1790. A fingle bank or fand-martin was feen hovering and playing round the fand pit at Shortheath, where in the fummer they a bound.

VOL. LVIII.

April 9, 1793. A fober hind affures us, that this day, on Withhanger common, between Hedleigh and Frinfham, he faw feveral bank-martins playing in and out, and hanging before fome neft holes in a fand-hill, where these birds ufually nestle.

This incident confirms my fufpicions, that this fpecies of hirundo is to be feen firft of any; and gives great reason to fuppofe, that they do not leave their wild haunts at all, but are fecreted a mid the clefts and caverns of those abrupt cliffs where they ufually spend their fummers.

The late fevere weather confidered, it is not very probable that these birds fhould have migrated fo early from a tropical region, through all these cutting winds, and pinching frosts: but it is eafy to fuppofe, that they may, like bats and flies, have been awakened by the influence of the fun, amid their fecret latebræ, where they have spent the uncomfortable foodless months in a torpid ftate, and the profoundest of slumbers.

There is a large pound at Wishhanger, which induces these fand-martins to frequent that diftrict. For I have ever remarked that they haunt near great waters, either rivers, or lakes.

Congregating, and Disappearance of Swallows.

DURING the fevere winds that often prevail late in the fpring, it is not eafy to fay how the hirundines fubfift: for they withdraw themselves, and are hardly ever feen, nor do any infects appear for their fupport. That they can retire to reft, and fleep away thefe un comfortable periods, as the bats do, is a matter rather to be fufpected than proved or do they not rather spend their time in deep and fheltered vales, near waters, where infects are more likely to be found? Certain it is, that hardly any individuals of this genus have at fuch times been seen for several days together.

September 13, 1791. The congre 5 P gating

IVagtails.

Bating flocks of hirundines on the Thefe fwallows looked like young Church and tower are very beautiful ones. and amufing. When they fly off all together from the roof, on any alarm WHILE the cows are feeding in moist they quite fwarm the air. But they low paftures, broods of wagtails, white foon fettle in heaps, and preening their and grey, run round them, clofs up to feathers, and lifting up their wings to their nofes, and under their very bellies, admit the fun, seem highly to enjoy the availing themselves of the flies that fetwarm fituation. Thus they fpend the tle on their legs, and probably finding heat of the day, preparing for their e- worms and larvæ that are roufed by migration, and as it were confulting the trampling of their feet. Nature is when and where they are to go. The fuch an economist, that the most inconflight about the church feems to confift gruous animals can avail themselves of chiefly of house-martins, about 400 in each other! Intereft makes strange number; but there are other places of friendships. rendezvous about the village, frequented at the fame time.

It is remarkable, that though most of them fit on the battlements and roof, yet many hang or cling for fome time, by their claws, against the furface of the walls, in a manner not practised by them at any other time of their remain ing with us.

The fwallows feem to delight more in holding their affemblies on trees.

November 3, 1789. Two fwallows were seen this morning at Newton vicarage house, hovering and fettling on the roofs and out-buildings. None have been obferved at Selborne fince October 11. It is very remarkable, that after the hirundines have difappeared for fome weeks, a few are occafionally feen again. Sometimes, in the first week in November, and that only for one day. Do they not withdraw and flumber in fome hiding place during the interval? For we cannot fuppofe they had migrated to warmer climes, and fo returned again for one day. Is it not more probable that they are awakened from fleep, and, like the bats, are come forth to collect a little food? Bats appear at all feasons, through the autumn and spring months, when the thermometer is at 50, because then phalænæ, moths, are stirring.

Wryneck.

THESE birds appear on the grassplots and walks; they walk a little as well as hop, and thrust their bills into the turf, in queft, I conclude, of ants, which are their food. While they hold their bills in the grafs, they draw out their prey with their tongues, which are fo long as to be coiled round their heads.

Großbeak.

MR B. fhot a cock grofbeak, which he had obferved to haunt his garden for more than a fortnight. I began to accufe this bird of making fad havoc among the buds of the cherries, gooseberries, and wall fruit, of all the neighbouring orchards. Upon opening its crop or craw, no buds were to be feen; but a mafs of kernels of the ftones of fruits. Mr B. obferved, that this bird frequented the fpot where plumb-trees grow; and that he had feen it with fomewhat hard in its mouth, which it broke with difficulty; these were the ftones of damfons. The Latin ornithologifts call this bird coccothraußes, i. c. berry-breaker, because with its large, horny beak, it cracks and breaks the fhells of ftone fruits for the fake of the feed or kernel. Birds of this fort are rarely seen in England, and only in winter.

OBSERVATIONS ON DANCING, AS AN IMITATIVE ART. BY THE LATE ADAM SMITH, L. L. D.

THE imitative powers of dancing mental mufic, and are at least equal, are much fuperior to those of inftru- perhaps, fuperior, to thofe of any other

art..

art. Like inftrumental music, however, it is not neceffarily or effentially imitative, and it can produce very agreeable effects, without imitating any thing. In the greater part of our common dances there is little or no imitation, and they confist almost entirely of a fucceffion of fuch steps, geftures, and motions, regulated by the time and measure of mufic, as either difplay extraordinary grace, or require extraordinary agility. Even fome of our dances, which are faid to have been originally imitative, have, in the way in which we practise them al most ceased to be fo. The minuet, in which the woman, after paffing and repaffing the man feveral times, first gives him up one hand, then the other, and then both hands, is faid to have been originally a moorish dance, which em blematically reprefented the paffion of love. Many of my readers may have frequently danced this dance, and, in the opinion of all who faw them, with great grace and propriety, though neither they nor their fpectators once thought of the allegorical meaning which it originally intended to exprefs.

A certain measured, cadenced step, commonly called a dancing step, which keeps time with, and as it were beats the measure of the mufic which accompanies and directs it, is the effential characteristic which diftinguishes a dance from every other fort of motion. When the dancer, moving with a step of this kind, and obferving this time and mea, fure, imitates either the ordinary or the more important actions of human life, he fhapes and fashions, as it were, a thing of one kind, into the resemblance of another thing of a very different kind: his art conquers the difparity which nature has placed between the imitating and the imitated object, and has upon that account fome degree of that fort of merit which belong to all the imitative arts. This difparity, indeed, is not fo great as in fome part of those arts, nor confequently the merit of the imitation which conquers it. Nobody would compare the merit of a good imi

tative dancer to that of a good painter or ftatuary. The dancer, however, may have a very confiderable degree of merit, and his imitation perhaps may fometimes be capable of giving us as much pleasure as that of either of the two artifts. All the fubjects, either of statuary or of history painting, are within the compafs of his imitative powers; and in reprefenting them, his art has even fome advantage over both the other two. Statuary and hiftory painting can represent but a fingle inftant of the action which they mean to imitate: the caufes which prepared, the confequences which followed, the fituation of that fingle inftant are altogether beyond the compass of their imitation. A pantomime dance can reprefent diftinctly those causes and confequences; it is not confined to the fituation of a fingle inftant ; but, like epic poetry, it can reprefent all the events of a long story, and exhibit a long train and fucceffion of connected and interefting fituations. It is capable therefore of affecting us much more than either statuary or painting. The ancient Romans used to shed tears at the reprefentations of their pantomimes, as we do at that of the most interefting tragedies; an effect which is altogether beyond the powers of statuary or painting.

The ancient Greeks appear to have been a nation of dancers, and both their common and their stage dances seem to have been all imitative. The ftage dancers of the ancient Romans appear to have been equally fo. Among that grave people it was reckoned indecent to dance in private focieties; and they could therefore have no common dances. Among both nations imitation seems to have been confidered as effential to dancing.

It is quite otherwife in modern times: though we have pantomime dances upon the ftage, yet the greater part even of our stage dances are not pantomime, and cannot well be faid to imitate any thing. The greater part of our common dances either never were panto5 P 2

mime.

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