Mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above; and measures from nose to rump four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freezing-point, within doors. The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40.* I am, &c. &c. LETTER XIV. TO THE SAME. SELBORNE, March 12th, 1768. DEAR SIR,-If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow-deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two spiracula, or breathing-places, besides the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the human head. When deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water, while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a considerable time: but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention; and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of singular service * See Letters LXI., LXII. to Mr. Barrington. + This short letter is devoted entirely to one subject, to which White's attention was most probably directed by his visits to the deer in Woolmer Forest; it is one of those which requires explanation, especially in a popular work so much read as "Selborne," and the very error into which White has fallen with his remarks will lead to the future explanation of a structure which even at this time is not completely understood. The statement in the letter, "When deer to beasts of chase, by affording them free respiration: and no doubt these additional nostrils are thrown open when they are hard run.* Mr. Ray observed that at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked for they, being naturally straight or small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate. And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses. Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some notion that stags have four spiracula: 66 “Τετραδυμοι ῥινες, πισυρες πνοιησι διαυλοι.” Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary :—“Aλкμαιων γαρ ουκ αληθη λεγει, φαμενος αναπνειν τας αιγας κατα τα ωτα.” "Alcmæon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their ears." History of Animals." Book I. chap. xi. 66 LETTER XV. TO THE SAME. SELBORNE, March 30th, 1768. DEAR SIR,-Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have, in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made.+ are thirsty," &c., is quite correct so far as "they plunge their noses," but the nostril is then not used, and the whole will is exerted in quenching a thirst at the time excessive. These other orifices are glandular cavities, and so far as we know or can judge, have reference to the season of rutting, and have no connexion whatever with respiration. They exist in greater or less development in all the deer and antelopes, and also in the common sheep, and a peculiar secretion may be seen to exude from it, having also a peculiar odour. Some animals have glandular secretions in other parts of the body-musk, civet, zibet, &c.-known as perfumes, and the peculiar utilities of these glands, except in secreting a strong scent, is unknown. * In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious and pertinent reply. "I was much surprised to find in the antelope something analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one, the creature made as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell it through them." Such is the case at the present time. Most game-keepers insist that there is another beast different from the weasel or stoat; young and female weasels appear very small when running, and in reality look scarcely bigger than a large mouse, A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milkwhite rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milkwhite.* A shepherd saw, as WEASEL. he thought, some white larks on a down above my house this winter : were not these the Emberiza nivalis, the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool.? No doubt they were. A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had been caught in the fields after it was come to its full colours. In about a year it began to look dingy; and, blackening every succeeding year, it became coal-black at the end of four. Its chief food was hempseed. Such influence has food on the colour of animals! The pied and mottled colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be owing to high, various, and unusual food. I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it out. root of the arum is remarkably warm and pungent.+ The ARUM. the form being a little more lengthened. These do not agree with the weasels and stoats taken in traps, &c., and hence the delusion is kept up. Mitford has the following note in his edition. "This I believe to be a pretty general error among the county-people, also in other counties. This imaginary animal in Suffolk is called the mouse hunt,' from its being supposed to live on mice. To discover the truth of this report, I managed to have several of these animals brought to me; all of which I find to be the common weasel. error I conceive partly to have arisen from this animal, like most others, appearing less than its real size, when running or attempting to escape, a circumstance well known to the hunters of India, with respect to larger animals, as the tiger," &c. The * We possess a large rookery, and although we have never had an entire white or cream coloured variety, scarcely a year passes without some young being observed with more or less white in the plumage, and in these the bill and feet, as well as the claws, are also white. † We have not observed the roots of the arum scratched for as mentioned, Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us. The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by that fierce weather in January. In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall hedges, a little bird that raised my curiosity: it was of that yellow-green colour that belongs to the salicaria kind, and, I think, was soft-billed. It was no parus; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like the largest willow-wren. It hung sometimes with its back downwards, but never continuing one moment in the same place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed my aim. I wonder that the stone-curlew, Charadrius ædicnemus, should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird: it abounds in all the champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds, I think, all the summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, "circa aquas versantes ;” for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed from water: what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads and frogs.* I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnæus perhaps would call the species Mus minimus. LETTER XVI. TO THE SAME. SELBORNE, April 18th, 1768. DEAR SIR,-The history of the stone-curlew, Charadrius ædicnemus, is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, &c., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they sculk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of but it is not generally a very common plant in Scotland. The circumstance mentioned above is worth attending to, and observers who may read this edition should now notice and corroborate, if they can, White's remarks. *The winter habits of the stone-curlew have not been described, and White knew it only during the breeding time. Most of the plovers and their allies congregate after breeding, and delight in the vicinity of water. Any one describing the winter habits of the common curlew frequenting the seashore, and going inland to feed at high tide, would find the picture very different from that which he would draw when he saw them in their subalpine breeding-grounds, having at the same time a different call and flight. It was nevertheless a very natural commentary upon Ray's words, and we now require a good description of their habits during winter, after they have returned from their breedinggrounds. |