F 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

The celebrated Dr. Hunter, acting probably on the hint of his friend Mr. Pennant, investigated this subject, and even prepared models of the head; these prove that no such breathing places exist. Professor Owen distinctly states that the structure of the glandular cavities, of which the orifices are here alluded to, precludes the possibility of their being used as accessory respiratory passages or organs of smell; but he does not reject another suggestion thrown out by Mr. Bennett, that they are organs of sexual sympathies. -ED.

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 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 strait 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:

“ Τετραδύμοι ρίνες, πίσυρες πνοιήσι δίαυλοι.”

"Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem

canales."

Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181.

("Nostrils split in four divisions, fourfold passages for breathing.")

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary:—

Αλκμαίων γάρ οὐκ

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."-WHITE.

ἀληθὴ λέγει, φάμενος ἀνάπνειν τὰς αἰγὰς κατὰ τὰ ὦτα.” "Alcmæon does not advance what is true, when he avers that goats breathe through their ears."HISTORY OF ANIMALS, Book I. chap. xi.

SELBORNE, March 12, 1768.

LETTER XV.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

OME 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.

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

There are only four of the British mustella, and the cane is a provincial name of one of them, the common weasel; the mouse-hunter being another. The animal in running, like other beasts of prey, looks thinner than it really is-a circumstance well known to the Indian tiger-hunter, and this probably is the origin of the mistake. The female being a fourth smaller may also have led to the notion of there being a fifth mustella.-ED.

surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milkwhite.

[Rooks are continually fighting and pulling each other's nests to pieces: these proceedings are inconsistent with living in such close community. And yet if a pair offer to build on a single tree, the nest is plundered and demolished at once. Some rooks roost on their nest trees. The twigs which the rooks drop in building supply the poor with brushwood to light their fires. Some unhappy pairs are not permitted to finish any nest till the rest have completed their building. As soon as they get a few sticks together, a party comes and demolishes the whole. As soon as rooks have finished their nests, and before they lay, the cocks begin to feed the hens, who receive their bounty with a fondling tremulous voice and fluttering wings, and all the little blandishments that are expressed by the young, while in a helpless state. This gallant deportment of the males is continued through the whole season of incubation. These birds do not copulate on trees, nor in their nests, but on the ground in the open fields.*]

A shepherd saw, as 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

After the first brood of rooks are sufficiently fledged, they all resort to some distant place in search of food, but return regularly every evening, in vast flights, to their nest trees, where, after flying round with much noise and clamour, till they are all assembled together, they take up their abode for the night.-MARKWICK.

F