Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/48

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NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE.

issue forth in little parties (for in their natural state they are all birds of the night), to feed in the brooks and meadows; returning again with the dawn of the morning.

Wild Ducks.

Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy.

Yet neither its extent, nor the clearness of its water, nor the resort of various and curious fowls, nor its picturesque groups of cattle, can render this meer so remarkable as the great quantity of coins that were found in its bed about forty years ago. But, as such discoveries more properly belong to the antiquities of this place, I shall suppress all particulars for the present, till I enter professedly on my series of letters respecting the more remote history of this village and district.



LETTER IX.

By way of supplement, I shall trouble you once more on this subject, to inform you that Wolmer, with her sister forest Ayles