60 NATURAL HISTORY 
were assembled near a hundred, most of which were 
taken, and some I saw. I measured them, and 
found that, from nose to tail, they were just two inch. 
es and a quarter, and their tails just two inches long. 
Two of them, ina scale, weighed down just one cop- 
per halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce 
avoirdupois, so that | suppose they are the smallest 
quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown mus me- 
dius domesticus weighs, | find, one ounce, lumping 
weight, which is more than six times as much as 
the mouse above, and measures from nose to tail 
four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. 
We have had a very severe frost and deep snow 
this month [Jan., 1768]. My thermometer was 
one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freez- 
ing point, within doors. The tender evergreens 
were injured pretty much. It was very providen- 
tial that the air was still and the ground well coy- 
ered with snow, else vegetation in general must 
have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to be- 
lieve that some days were more severe than any 
since the year 1739-40. 
LETTER XIV. 
Selborne, March 12, 1768. 
Dear Sir,—Ir some curious gentleman would 
procure the head of a fallow deer and have it dis- 
sected, he would find it furnished with two spiracu- 
Ja, or breathing-places, besides the nostrils ;_ proba- 
bly analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the hu- 
man head. When deer are thirsty, they plunge their 
