NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 41 
I have no acquaintance, at present, among the gentlemen of the 
navy; but have written to a friend, who was a sea-chaplain in the 
late war, desiring him to look into his minutes, with respect to birds 
that settled on their rigging during their voyage up or down the 
channel. What Hasselquist says.on that subject is remarkable ; 
there were little short-winged birds frequently coming on board his 
ship all the way from our channel quite up to the Levant, especially 
before squally weather. 
What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly probable. 
The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likelihood, the 
soft-billed birds that leave us at that season may find insects suffi- 
cient to support them there. 
Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, should 
make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom; and should spend a 
year there, investigating the natural history of that vast country. 
Mr. Willughby * passed through that kingdom on such an errand; 
but he seems to have skirted along in a superficial manner and an 
ill-humour, being much disgusted at the rude, dissolute manners of 
the people. 
I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the 
swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames: nor can I hear any 
more about those birds which I suspected were Merule torquate. 
As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though they 
hang their nests for breeding up amidst'the straws of the standing 
corn, above the ground ; yet I find that, in the winter, they burrow 
deep in the earth, and make warm beds of grass: but their grand 
rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into which they are carried at 
harvest. A neighbour housed an oat-rick lately, under the thatch 
of which were assembled near an hundred, most of which were 
taken, and some I saw. I measured them; and found that, from 
nose to tail, they were just two inches and a quarter, and their tails 
just two inches long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just 
one copper half-penny, which is about the third of an ounce avoir- 
dupois ; so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this 
island. A full-grown Jus 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 
* See “‘ Ray’s Travels,” p. 466. 
