which might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the σropyǹ which induces some females of the brute creation to devour their young because their owners have handled them too freely, or removed them from place to place! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am not so much amazed; since reason perverted, and the bad passions let loose are capable of any enormity: but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to determine.

I am, etc.

LETTER XV.

Selborne, July 8, 1773.

DEAR SIR,-Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of Wolmer-forest to hunt flappers, or young wildducks, many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which, upon examination, I found to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery: this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history.

We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls that constantly breed under the eaves of this church.* As I have paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through, the following remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable:About an hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) they sally forth in quest of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and small enclosures for them, which seem to be their only food. In this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop down in the grass or corn. I have minuted these birds with my watch

*It has been stated that the bird has long since left this old haunt,, but it has not gone far away, for we saw one in the spring of 1902 emerge at dusk from an ancient barn nearer our author's old home even than the church.-R. K.

for an hour together, and have found that they return to their nests, the one or the other of them, about once in five minutes; reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every animal is possessed of as regards the well-being of itself and offspring. But a piece of address, which they shew when they return loaded, should not, I think, be passed over in silence. As they take their prey with their claws, so they carry it in their claws to their nest: but, as the feet are necessary in their ascent under the tiles, they constantly

perch first on the roof of the chancel, and shift the mouse from their claws to their bill, that the feet may be at liberty to take hold of the plate on the wall as they are rising under the eaves.*

White owls seem not (but in this I am not positive) to hoot at all all that clamorous hooting appears to me to come from the wood kinds. The white owl does indeed snore and hiss in a tremendous manner; and these menaces well answer the intention of intimidating: for I have known a whole village up in arms on such an occasion, imagining

drop into the grass The bird sometimes

*We have whilst in hiding seen them within three yards of us and catch a mouse. carries its prey in its bill, and at others in its claws.-R. K. The white or screech owl undoubtedly does hoot sometimes.

R. K.

the church-yard to be full of goblins and spectres. White owls also often scream horribly as they fly along; from this screaming probably arose the common people's imaginary species of screech-owl, which they superstitiously think attends the windows of dying persons. The plumage of the remiges of the wings of every species of owl that I have yet examined is remarkably soft and pliant. Perhaps it may be necessary that the wings of these birds should not make much resistance or rushing, that they may be enabled to steal through the air unheard upon a nimble and watchful quarry.

While I am talking of owls, it may not be improper to mention what I was told by a gentleman of the county of Wilts. As they were grubbing a vast hollow pollard-ash that had been the mansion of owls for centuries, he discovered at the bottom a mass of matter that at first he could not account for. After some examination, he found it was a congeries of the bones of mice (and perhaps of birds and bats) that had been heaping together for ages, being cast up in pellets out of the crops of many generations of inhabitants. For owls cast up the bones, fur, and feathers of what they devour, after the manner of hawks. He believes, he told me, that there were bushels of this kind of substance.

When brown owls hoot their throats swell as big as an hen's egg. I have known an owl of this species live a full year without any water. Perhaps the case may be the same with all birds of prey. When owls fly they stretch out their legs behind them as a balance to their large heavy heads; for as most nocturnal birds have large eyes and ears they must have large heads to contain them. Large eyes I presume are necessary to collect every ray of light, and large concave ears to command the smallest degree of sound or noise.

I am, etc.

It will be proper to premise here that the sixteenth, eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first letters have been published already in the Philosophical Transactions: but as nicer observation has furnished several corrections and additions, it is hoped that the republication of them will not give offence; especially as these sheets would be very imperfect without them, and as they will be new to many readers who had no opportunity of seeing them when they made their first appearance.

The hirundines are a most inoffensive, harmless, entertaining, social, and useful tribe of birds: they touch no fruit

in our gardens; delight, all except one species, in attaching themselves to our houses; amuse us with their migrations, songs, and marvellous agility; and clear our outlets from the annoyances of gnats and other troublesome insects. Some districts in the south seas, near Guiaquil,* are desolated, it seems, by the infinite swarms of venomous mosquitoes, which fill the air, and render those coasts insupportable. It would be worth inquiring whether any species of hirundines is found in those regions. Whoever contemplates the myriads of insects that sport in the sunbeams of a summer evening in this country, will soon be convinced to what a degree our atmosphere would be choked with them was it not for the friendly interposition of the swallow tribe.

Many species of birds have their particular lice; but the hirundines alone seem to be annoyed with dipterous insects, which infest every species, and are so large, in proportion to themselves, that they must be truly irksome and injurious to them. These are the hippoboscæ hirundinis with narrow subulated wings, abounding in every nest; and are hatched by the warmth of the bird's own body during incubation and crawl about under its feathers.

A species of them is familiar to horsemen in the south of England under the name of forest-fly; and, to some, of sidefly, from its running sideways like a crab. It creeps under the tails, and about the groins of horses, which, at their first coming out of the north, are rendered half frantic by the tickling sensation; while our own breed little regards them.

The curious Reamur discovered the large eggs, or rather pupa, of these flies as big as the flies themselves, which he hatched in his own bosom. Any person that will take the trouble to examine the old nests of either species of swallows may find in them the black shining cases of the pupa of these insects but for other particulars, too long for this place, we refer th reader to L'Histoire d'Insectes of that admirable entomologist. Tom. iv. pl. 11.

LETTER XVI.

Selborne, Nov. 20, 1773.

DEAR SIR,-In obedience to your injunctions I sit down to give you some account of the house-martin, or martlet; and,

*See Ulloa's Travels.-G. W.

if my monography of this little domestic and familiar bird should happen