he discovered a great cluster of house-swallows, thirty at least, he supposes, perching on a willow that hung over James Knight's upper-pond. His attention was first drawn by the twittering of these birds, which sat motionless in a row on the bough, with their heads all one way, and by their weight, pressing down the twig so that it nearly touched the water. In this situation he watched them till he could see no longer. Repeated accounts of this sort, in spring and fall, induce me greatly to suspect that house-swallows have some strong attachment to water, independent of the matter of food; and, though they may not retire into that element, yet they may conceal themselves in the banks of pools and rivers during the uncomfortable months of winter.

One of the keepers of Wolmer-forest sent me a peregrine-falcon, which he shot on the verge of that district, as it was devouring a wood-pigeon. The falco peregrinus, or haggard falcon, is a noble species of hawk seldom seen in the southern counties. In winter 1767 one was killed in the neighbouring parish of Farringdon, and sent by me to Mr. Pennant into North-Wales.* Since that time I have met with none till now. The specimen mentioned above was in fine preservation, and not injured by the shot: it measured forty-two inches from wing to wing, and twenty-one from beak to tail, and weighed two pounds and a half standard weight. This species is very robust, and wonderfully formed for rapine: its breast was plump and muscular; its thighs long, thick, and brawny; and its legs re

See my tenth and eleventh Letters, pages 43 and 46.

markably short and well set: the feet were armed with most formidable, sharp, long talons: the eyelids and cere of the bill were yellow; but the irides of the eyes dusky; the beak was thick and hooked, and of a dark colour, and had a jagged process near the end of the upper mandible on each side: its tail, or train, was short in proportion to the bulk of its body: yet the wings, when closed, did not extend to the end of the train. From its large and fair proportions it might be supposed to have been a female; but I was not permitted to cut open the specimen. For one of the birds of prey, which are usually lean, this was in high case: in its craw were many barley-corns, which probably came from the crop of the wood-pigeon, on which it was feeding when shot for voracious birds do not eat grain ;* but, when devouring their quarry, with undistinguishing vehemence they swallow bones and feathers, and all matters, indiscriminately. This falcon was probably driven from the mountains of North-Wales or Scotland, where they are known to breed, by rigorous weather and the deep snows that had lately fallen.

*Spallanzani pursued a series of experiments which satisfied him that the falcons could be brought to live on grain; but their structure and talons certainly lead to other conclusions.-ED.

Y near neighbour, a young gentleman in the service of the East India Company, has brought home a dog and a bitch of the

Chinese breed from Canton; such as are

fattened in that country for the purpose of being eaten they are about the size of a moderate spaniel; of a pale yellow colour, with coarse bristling hairs on their backs; sharp upright ears, and peaked heads, which give them a very fox-like appearance. Their hind legs are unusually straight, without any bend at the hock or ham, to such a degree as to give them an awkward gait when they trot. When they are in motion, their tails are curved high over their backs like those of some hounds, they have a bare place each on the outside from the tip midway, that does not seem to be matter of accident, but is somewhat singular. Their eyes are jet-black, small, and piercing; the insides of their lips and mouths of the same colour, and their tongues blue. The bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg; the dog has none. When taken out into a field, the bitch showed some disposition for hunting, and dwelt on the scent of a

covey of partridges, till she sprung them, giving tongue all the time. The dogs in South America are dumb; but these bark much in a short thick manner, like foxes; and have a surly, savage demeanor like their ancestors, which are not domesticated, but bred up in sties, where they are fed for the table, with rice-meal, and other farinaceous food. These dogs, having been taken on board as soon as weaned, could not learn much from their dam; yet they did not relish flesh when they came to England. In the islands of the Pacific Ocean, the dogs are bred up on vegetables, and would not eat flesh when offered them by our circumnavigators.

We believe that all dogs, in a state of nature, have sharp, upright fox-like ears; and that hanging ears, which are esteemed so graceful, are the effect of choice breeding and cultivation. Thus, in the travels of Ysbrandt Ides from Muscovy to China, the dogs which draw the Tartars on snow-sledges near the river Obey are engraved with prick-ears, like those from Canton. The Kamschatdales also train the same sort of sharp-eared peaked-nosed dogs to draw their sledges; as may be seen in an elegant print engraved for Captain Cook's last voyage round the world.

Now we are upon the subject of dogs, it may not be impertinent to add, that Spaniels, as all sportsmen know, though they hunt partridges and pheasants as it were by instinct, and with much delight and alacrity, yet will hardly touch their bones when offered as food; nor will a mongrel dog of my own, though he is remarkable for finding that sort of game. But, when we came to offer the bones of partridges to the two Chinese dogs, they devoured them with much greediness, and licked the platter clean.

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No sporting dog will flush woodcocks till inured to the scent and trained to the sport, which they then pursue with vehemence and transport; but then they will not touch their bones, but turn from them with abhorrence, even when they are hungry.

Now, that dogs should not be fond of the bones of such birds as they are not disposed to hunt is no wonder; but why they reject, and do not care to eat their natural game, is not so easily accounted for, since the end of hunting seems to be, that the chase pursued should be eaten. Dogs again will not devour the more rancid water-fowls, nor indeed the bones of any wild fowl; nor will they touch the foetid bodies of birds that feed on offal and garbage: and indeed there may be somewhat of providential instinct in this circumstance of dislike; for vultures,* and kites, and ravens, and crows, &c. were intended to be messmates with dogs over their carrion; and seem to be appointed by Nature as fellow-scavengers to remove all cadaverous nuisances from the face of the earth.

SELBORNE.

Hasselquist, in his "Travels to the Levant," observes that the dogs and vultures at Grand Cairo maintain such a friendly intercourse as to bring up their young together in the same place.