242 NATURAL HISTORY 
“ Viridi feetam Mavortis in antro 
Procubuisse lupam: geminos huic ubera circum 
Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem 
Impavidos : illam tereti cervice reflexam 
Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua.” 
LETTER XXXI. 
Selborne, May 20, 1777. 
Dear Sir,—Lanps that are subject to frequent 
inundations are always poor, and probably the rea. 
son may be because the worms are drowned. The 
most insignificant insects and reptiles are of much 
more consequence, and have much more influence 
in the economy of Nature than the incurious are 
aware of; and are mighty in their effect, from their 
minuteness, which renders them less an object of 
attention, and from their numbers and fecundity. 
Earthworms, though in appearance a small and 
despicable link in the chain of Nature, yet, if lost, 
would make a lamentable chasm. For, to say 
nothing of half the birds and some quadrupeds 
servations: ‘A boy has taken three little young’ squirrels in 
their nest, or eyry, as it is called in those parts. These small 
creatures he put under the care of a cat who had lately lost her 
kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles them with the 
same assiduity and affection as if they were her own offspring. 
This circumstance corroborates my suspicion, that the mention 
of exposed and deserted children being nurtured by female beasts 
of prey who had lost their young may not be so improbable an 
incident as many have supposed, and, therefore, may be a justi- 
fication of those authors who have gravely mentioned what some 
have deemed to be a wild and improbable story. So many peo- 
ple went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat, that the fos- 
ter-mother became jealous of her charge and in pain for their 
safety, and therefore hid them over the ceiling, where one died. 
This circumstance shows her affection for these foundlings, and 
that she supposed the squirrels to be her own young.” 
