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 inequality 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 front antlers, 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.

LETTER XXXIII.

TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON.

SELBORNE, April 12, 1770. DEAR SIR,-I heard many birds of several species sing last year after midsummer; enough to prove that the summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to the music of the woods. The yellow-hammer, no doubt, persists with more steadiness than any other; but the wood-lark, the wren, the red-breast, the swallow, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common linnet, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what I advanced.

If this severe season does not interrupt the regularity of the summer migrations, the black-cap will be here in two or three days. I wish it was in my power to procure you one

*

Through the attention of W. Carruthers, Esq., of Dormont, I have lately received the black-cap, with some others of our summer birds, from Madeira, where it is probable they partly retire, on leaving their breeding places.-W. J.

of those songsters; but I am no bird-catcher; and so little used to birds in a cage, that I fear, if I had one, it would soon die for want of skill in feeding.

Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320; or was it the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's last publication, p. 16?

As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what should be the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws upon insensible perspiration. The case is just the same with blackbirds, &c.; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such times; and the latter, that their rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle frost. But, when frosts are severe and of long continuance, the case is soon altered; for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human constitutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.

When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the first that fail and die are the red-wing fieldfares, and then the song-thrushes.

You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, &c., can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo, without being scandalised at the vast disproportioned size of the supposititious egg; but the brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or number.* For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on her, will sit on a single shapeless stone, instead of a nest full of eggs that have been withdrawn; and moreover, a hen turkey, in the same circumstances, would sit on in the empty nest till she perished with hunger.

I think the matter might easily be determined whether a cuckco lays one or two eggs, or more, in a season, by open

By a wise provision of nature, and to prevent the very circumstar.co which Mr. White here notices, we find the egg of the cuckoo scarcely larger that that of the common chaffinch.-W. J.

But the young cuckoo is, beyond all doubt, larger than the birds that are usually found in the same nest.-W. C. T.

I

ing a female during the laying time. If more than one were come down out of the ovary, and advanced to a good size, doubtless, then, she would that spring lay more than one. I will endeavour to get a hen, and examine.

*

Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song recommences, is new and bold. I wish you could discover some good grounds for this suspicion.

I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl: you were, I find, acquainted with the bird before.

When we meet, I shall be glad to have some conversation with you concerning the proposal you make of my drawing up an account of the animals in this neighbourhood. Your partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do more than is in my power; for it is no small undertaking for a man, unsupported and alone, to begin a natural history from his own autopsia. Though there is endless room for observation in the field of nature, which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow progress ; and all that one could collect in many years would go into a very narrow compass.

Some extracts from your ingenious "Investigations of the difference between the present temperature of the air in Italy," &c., have fallen in my way, and given me great satisfaction. They have removed the objection that always arose in my mind whenever I came to the passages which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic poem for the region of Italy, could never think of describing freezing rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty frequently occurred!

P.S. Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

It may be mentioned in confirmation of the idea of their laying more than one egg, that the American cuckoos deposit several.-ED.

LETTER XXXIV.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

SELBORNE, May 12, 1770. DEAR SIR,-Last 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 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 havoc among the young pigeons:

It is certain that swallows re-migrate; that is, if on some of them arriving in this country the weather is ungenial, they leave it again for a short time. So in the autumnal migrations, swallows, after their flight, will return again to this country if they meet in their passage with adverse winds or storms. An observant naturalist residing near Liverpool has assured me of this fact.-ED.

The celerity with which birds find mates after a male or female has been shot, is very extraordinary. I have observed this among pigeons more particularly.-ED.

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.

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

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 This seems to be a natural

fish in shallow water, as they stood on the bank. 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. Bill, of Christchurch. When he lived at Wallington, near Carshalton, 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.

"These are curious instances," says the editor of the London Literary Gazette, in reviewing a former edition of this volume, "but the following, which may be depended upon as a fact, is still more remarkable. At Caverton Mill, in Roxburghshire, a beautiful spot upon Kale Water, there was a favourite cat, domesticated in the dwelling-house, which stood at two or three