The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones.

Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with that you saw; and whether you think still that the American moose and European elk are the same creature.

LETTER XXIX.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

SELBORNE, May 12, 1770.

AST month we had such a series of cold turbulent weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and tempest, that the regular migration or appearance of the summer birds was much interrupted.

Some did not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks after their usual time, as the blackcap and whitethroat; and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper lark and largest willow wren.1 As to the flycatcher, I have not seen it: it is indeed one of the latest, but should appear about this time: and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife and war of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves as long ago as the 11th of April, in frost and snow; but they withdrew quickly, and were not visible again for many days. House martins, which are always more backward than swallows, were not observed till May came in.

Among the monogamous birds several are to be found, after pairing-time, single, and of each sex: but whether this state of celibacy is matter of choice or necessity, is not so easily discoverable. When the house sparrows deprive my martins of their nests, as soon as I cause one to be shot, the other, be it cock or hen, presently procures a mate, and so for several times following.

1 The wood wren, Ph. sibilatrix. See note, p. 56.-Ed.

I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls, which made great havoc among the young pigeons. One of the owls was shot as soon as possible; but the survivor readily found a mate, and the mischief went on. After some time the new pair were both destroyed, and the annoyance ceased.1

Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal for the increase of his game being greater than his humanity, after pairing-time he always shot the cock bird of every couple of partridges upon his grounds, supposing that the rivalry of many males interrupted the breed: he used to say, that, though he had widowed the same hen several times, yet he found she was still provided with a fresh paramour, that did not take her away from her usual

haunt.

Again: I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who has often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of partridges, consisting of cock birds alone; these he pleasantly used to call old bachelors.

There is a propensity belonging to common house cats that is very remarkable; I mean their violent fondness for fish, which appears to be their most favourite food. And yet nature in this instance seems to have planted in them an appetite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify; for of all quadrupeds, cats are the least disposed towards

This is contrary to the experience of the late Charles Waterton, who, in his "Essays in Natural History," 1st series, p. 14, says:— "When farmers complain that the barn owl destroys the eggs of their pigeons they lay the saddle on the wrong horse. They ought to put it on the rat. Formerly I could get very few young pigeons till the rats were excluded effectually from the dove cot. Since that took place it has produced a great abundance every year, though the barn owls frequent it, and are encouraged all around it. The barn owl merely resorts to it for repose and concealment. If it were really an enemy to the dove cot we should see the pigeons in commotion as soon as it begins its evening flight! but the pigeons heed it not; whereas if the sparrow hawk or hobby should make its appearance, the whole community would be up at once; proof sufficient that the barn owl is not looked upon as a bad, or even a suspicious character by the inhabitants of the dove cot."-ED.

water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element.

Such is

Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious. the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving that it makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the waters. Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in our shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter brought to me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank of our stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from Harteley Wood.1

1 It is generally supposed that otters live exclusively on fish, but such is not invariably the case. They are carnivorous as well as piscivorous, and have been known to eat ducks and teal, and, while in confinement, young pigeons. Frogs form part of their bill of fare, and even mussels at times furnish food to these animals. Numbers of mussel-shells have been found in an otter's haunt, with the ends bitten off, and evident marks of teeth upon the broken fragments, the position of the shells indicating that the otter, after having crunched off one end, had sucked or scooped out the mollusc, in much the same way as those who are partial to shrimps dispose of that esculent crustacean.-ED.

H

LETTER XXX.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

SELBORNF, Aug. 1, 1770. HE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnæus says with respect to insects, holds good in every other branch: "Verbositas præsentis sæculi, calamitas artis."

Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work? As I admire his "Entomologia," I long to see it.

I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed in the water as it was on that errand in the river St. Lawrence. It was a monstrous beast, he told me; but he did not take the dimensions.

When I was last in town, our friend Mr. Barrington most obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you were then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton, a horn room furnished with more than thirty different pairs; but I have not seen that house lately.

Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked, that every species almost that came from distant regions, such as South America, the coast of Guinea, &c., were thickbilled birds of the Loxia and Fringilla genera, and no Motacilla or Muscicapa were to be met with. When I came to consider, the reason was obvious enough; for the hard-billed birds subsist on seeds which are easily carried on board; whilst the soft-billed birds, which are supported

by worms and insects, or, what is a succedaneum for them, fresh raw meat, can meet with neither in long and tedious voyages. It is from this defect of food that our collections (curious as they are) are defective, and we are deprived of some of the most delicate and lovely genera.'

LETTER XXXI.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

SELBORNE, Sept. 14, 1770.

OU saw, I find, the ring-ousels again among their native crags; and are farther assured that they continue resident in those cold regions the whole year." From whence then do our ring-ousels migrate so regularly every September, and make their appearance again, as if in their return, every April? They are more early this year than common, for some were seen at the usual hill on the fourth of this month.

An observing Devonshire gentleman tells me that they frequent some parts of Dartmoor, and breed there; but leave those haunts about the end of September or beginning of October, and return again about the end of March.

1 Since the foregoing remarks were penned, not only have the means of transport become much more rapid than was the case in White's day, but greater attention having been paid to the importation of foreign birds and animals, and more consideration given to their food, enterprising individuals have succeeded in bringing alive and well to this country many more delicate species than those referred to by our author, and from much greater distances. If he regretted the inability in 1770 to procure a soft-billed bird from the coast of Guinea, how would he have marvelled to see alive in the Zoological Society's Gardens at the present day the insectivorous Australian Pied Grallina, Grallina australis, the Black-tailed Flower-bird, Anthornis melanura, from New Zealand, and the Wood swallow, Artamus superciliosus, from New South Wales.-ED.

2 From our present knowledge of the habits of the ring-ousel, we may infer with little doubt that Pennant's informant must have confounded the dipper or water-ousel with the ring-ousel.-ED.