its legs: the ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like; and had such a redun dancy of upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is very reason able to suppose that this creature supports itself chiefly by browsing of trees, and by wading after water plants; towards which way of livelihood the length of legs and great lip must contribute much. I have read somewhere, that it delights in eating the nymphæa, or water-lily. From the fore-feet to the belly behind the shoulder it measured three feet and eight inches; the length of the legs be fore and behind consisted a great deal in the tibia, which was strangely long ; but, in my haste to get out of the stench, I forgot to measure that joint exactly. Its scut seemed to be about an inch long; the colour was a grizzly black; the mane about four inches long; the fore-hoofs were upright and shapely, the hind flat and splayed. The spring before, it was only two years old, so that most probably it was not then come to its growth. What a vast tall beast must a full-grown stag be! I have been told some arrive at ten feet and a half! This poor creature had at first a female companion of the same species, which died the spring before. In the same garden was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there might have been a breed; but their inequal ity of height must have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, hoofs, &c. minutely; but the putrefaction precluded all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper

told

me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of a male moose, which had no frontantlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on the edge. 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.

XXIX.

LAST month [April] 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 black-cap and white-throat; and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, 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 eleventh 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.

I have known a dove-house infested by a pair of white owls, which made great havock 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 annoy ance ceased.

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 par tridges, 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 water; and will not, when they can avoid it, deign

R

to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element.*

Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that it makes great havock 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.

XXX.

THE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their natural history. What Linnæus

In the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, on the authority of Dr Darwin, cats fish: he says, Mr Leonard, a very intelligent friend of mine, saw a cat catch a trout by darting upon it in a deep clear water, at the mill at Weaford, near Lichfield. The cat belonged to Mr Stanley, who had often seen her catch fish in the same manner in summer, when the mill-pool was drawn so low that the fish could be seen. I have heard of other cats taking fish in shallow water, as they stood on the bank. This seems to be a natural method of taking their prey, usually lost by domestication, though they all retain a strong relish for

fish."

The Rev. W. Bingley mentions another instance of a cat freely taking the water, related by his friend Mr Bili of Christchurch. When he lived at Wallington, near Car shalton, in Surrey, he had a cat that was often known to plunge, without hesitation, into the river Wandle, and swim over to an island at a little distance from the bank. To this there could be no other inducement than the fish she might catch on her passage, or the vermin that the island afforded.-W. J.

I

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 of 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, an 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 thick-billed 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

This collection must have been very limited, and, of course, the conclusions erroneously drawn from a few species. The muscicapa and sylvia abound in all South America.-W. J.