{65} Other instances of albinos are not uncommon, but more among birds than quadrupeds. I find among my notes the following: “Albino shrew mouse caught at Ackworth, near Pontefract, June, 1895; white robin at Whitby, Jan., 1896; ditto at Boston, Sept., 1898; white woodcock nested in Manby Woods, near Louth, with four young of the usual colour, July, 1892; buff woodcock shot at Bestwood, Nottingham, Feb. 1892; white landrail shot at Kedleston, near Derby, Sept., 1892; white thrush caught at Nidderdale, November 1892; cream-coloured skylark shot near Harrogate, Sept., 1891; white jay—two young specimens shot near York, 1893; white sand martin caught at Killinghall, near Harrogate, July, 1898; at Brackenborough, near Louth, there were two coveys of partridges, in the season of 1896–7, with white specimens among them: and at Stonehouse, in Gloucestershire, a covey of mixed white and brown partridges were reported in 1897. A buff hare was shot near Bourne in 1897.” A white black-buck was killed by a friend in Kattiawar, India, in 1897, and I have a stuffed specimen of buff blackbird, caught some years ago in the vicarage garden at Woodhall: the parent birds having buff young two seasons in succession. {67} In the Southdowns, the hills are called “Downs,” and the valleys “Deans,” or sometimes by the Devonshire term “Coomb.” {69} Essays on Natural History, Third Series, p. 169. Ed. 1857. {71a} Gilbert White mentions this habit of “snakes stinking, _se defendendo_. A friend (he says) kept a tame snake, in its own person as sweet as any animal; but as soon as a stranger, a cat, or a dog entered the room, it fell to hissing, and filled the room with such nauseous effluvia as rendered it hardly supportable.” Natural History, Selbourne, p. 90. Ed. 1829. {71b} Brusher, a well-known character in the New Forest, Hampshire, says he has seen hundreds of snakes swallow their young in time of danger. “The New Forest,” by R. C. de Crespigny and Horace Hutchinson. {74} Several kinds of fish which we now think coarse or insipid, would doubtless become, through the culinary skill of the monastic _chef_ “savoury dishes” such as even a lordly abbot’s soul might relish. For the benefit of readers who may like to try the fish of our district under most favourable conditions, I here give two or three recipes for cooking them. Francatelli, no mean authority, says, “a pike cooked properly can hold its own against many fish from the sea.” Boiled with horseradish sauce and mustard it makes an excellent dish. Perch, with sorrel sauce and mayonnaise, is equally good. Carp, fried with butter, is excellent. Chub, taken in frosty weather, are firm, at other times rather flabby, but treated in either of the above ways they are more than palatable. Roach, cooked on a gridiron, with butter, make a nice breakfast. Tench, with port wine sauce, are a luxury. Eels, though despised in Scotland, are very good stewed.