TnE CAFE. 59 



that goats breathe at tlieir ears, whereas he asserts just the 



contrary : — AXKjxaicov yap ovk (WrjBrj Xe'yfi, (^dfieuos avairvHv ras 



alyai Kara tu oara. " Alcmseoii does not advance what is true, 

 wlien he avers that goats breathe through their ears." — 

 History of Animals, Book i. chap. xi. 



LETTER Xy. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, March 30, 1768. 

 Deae Sie, — Some intelligent country people have a no- 

 tion that we have, in these parts, a species of the genus 

 mustelimun, 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 intel- 

 ligence can be little depended on ; but farther inquiry may 

 be made.* 



also on account of some other and peculiar attraction. The same cause which 

 induced the retention bj- this individual of the immature colours, and which 

 arrested the perfect growth of the horns, has also, I do not hesitate in believ- 

 in;,', checked the development of the suborbital sinuses and rendered them 

 usfless. 



I am not disposed, on this occasion, to enter farther into the speculations 

 which might be founded on the facts just recorded with respect to the subor- 

 bital siims in the Indian antelope ; and I quit the subject, for the present, with 

 the remark th;it they seem to me to justify the observation with which I 

 commenced. More numerous facts, and more full consideration of them, will 

 determine befoie long the degree of value that should be attached to this view 

 of the subject. 



By a letter which I have just received from Mr. Hodgson, I find that he has 

 has had his attention excited by the observation of the antelopes which he has 

 kept alive in Nepaul; and that he also has been led to the conclusion that 

 tliere exists a relation between these sinuses and their secretions and the other 

 functions referred to. His continued observation, favourably as he is circum- 

 Btanccd for the acquisition of inforaiation on all subjects of Nepaulese zoology- 

 will doubtless tend to elucidate this yet unsettled point, on which Dr. .Tacob, 

 at the meeting of the British Association in Dublin, in 1835, laid before tha 

 aiembers assembled some valuable observations. — E. T. B.] 



* The caiie is the common weasel. It is the provincial name for it. — En, 



