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OBSERVATIONS

ON

VARIOUS PARTS OF NATURE,

FROM MR. WHITE'S MSS.

WITH REMARKS, BY MR. MARKWICK AND OTHERS

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HE sheep on the downs this winter (1769) are very ragged, and their coats much torn; the shepherds say they tear their fleeces with their own mouths and horns, and that they are always in that way in mild wet winters, being teased and tickled with a kind of lice.

After ewes and lambs are shorn, there is great confusion and bleating, neither the dams nor the young being able to distinguish one another as before. This embarrassment seems not so much to arise from the loss of the fleece, which may occasion an alteration in their appearance, as from the defect of that notus odor, discriminating each individual personally; which also is confounded by the strong scent of the pitch and tar wherewith they are newly marked; for the brute creation recognise each other more from the smell than the sight; and in matters of identity and diversity appeal much more to their noses than to their After sheep have been washed there is the same confusion, from the reason given above.

eyes.

RABBITS.

RABBITS make incomparably the finest turf; for they not only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no bents to rise: hence warrens produce much the most delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of grasses.

CAT AND SQUIRRELS.

A BOY has taken three little young squirrels in their nest, or drey as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and affection as if they were her own offspring. This circumstance corroborates my suspicion, that the mention of exposed and deserted children being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have sup

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posed; and therefore may be a justification of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild and improbable story.

So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, and in pain for their safety; and therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance shows her affection for these foundlings, and that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to them as if they were their own chickens.

HORSE.

AN old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were to implore the help of men, and died the night following in the

street.

HOUNDS.

THE king's stag hounds came down to Alton, attended by a huntsman and six yeoman prickers, with horns, to try for the stag that has haunted Harteley Wood and its environs for so long a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the deer unharboured; but though the huntsman drew Harteley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers; and in their way back Harteley and Ward-le-ham Hangers, yet no stag could be found.

The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out before them, never drew the coverts with any address and spirit, as many people that were present observed: and this remark the event has proved to be a true one. For as a person was lately pursuing a pheasant that was wing-broken, in Harteley Wood, he stumbled upon the stag by accident, and ran in upon him as he lay concealed amidst a thick brake of brambles and bushes.

OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS.

BIRDS IN GENERAL.

N severe weather, fieldfares, redwings, skylarks, and titlarks, resort to watered meadows for food: the latter wades up to its belly in pursuit of the pupa of insects, and runs along upon the floating grass and weeds. Many gnats are on the snow near the water; these support the birds in part.

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