ricks, into which they are carried at harvest. ˆ A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were taken; and some I saw. I measured them; and found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois: so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above; and measures from nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and ahalf below the freezing point, within doors. The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40.

SELBORNE, Jan. 22, 1768.

F some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with

two spiracula, or breathing-places, besides the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta iachrymalia in the human head.* When deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a considerable time: but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention; and which has not, that I

The celebrated Dr. Hunter, acting probably on the hint of his friend Mr. Pennant, investigated this subject, and even prepared models of the head; these prove that no such breathing places exist. Professor Owen distinctly states that the structure of the glandular cavities, of which the orifices are here alluded to, precludes the possibility of their being used as accessory respiratory passages or organs of smell; but he does not reject another suggestion thrown out by Mr. Bennett, that they are organs of sexual sympathies. -ED.

know of, been noticed by any naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free respiration and no doubt these additional nostrils are thrown open when they are hard run.* Mr. Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked: for they, being naturally strait or small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses.

Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some notion that stags have four spiracula:

“ Τετραδυμοι ρίνες, πίσυρες πνοιήσι δίαυλοι.”

"Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem

canales."

Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181. ("Nostrils split in four divisions, fourfold passages for breathing.")

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary:-"Aλnuaíar yáp oin

* In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious and pertinent reply:-" I was much surprised to find in the antelope something analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one, the creature made as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell it through them."-WHITE.

ἀληθὴ λέγει, φάμενος ἀνάπνειν τὰς αἰγὰς κατὰ τὰ ὦτα.” "Alcmæon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their ears."HISTORY OF ANIMALS, Book I. chap. xi.

SELBORNE, March 12, 1768.

LETTER XV.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

HOME intelligent country people have a notion that we have, in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a field mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane.' This piece of intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made.

*

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milkwhite rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was

There are only four of the British mustela, and the cane is a provincial name of one of them, the common weasel; the mouse-hunter being another. The animal in running, like other beasts of prey, looks thinner than it really is-a circumstance well known to the Indian tiger-hunter, and this probably is the origin of the mistake. The female being a fourth smaller may also have led to the notion of there being a fifth mustella.-ED.