NATCORAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. ii) 
stragglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps 
may rove so far to the southward. 
It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the 
Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a 
distinct species; for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that 
every new species is a great acquisition. 
The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic 
a bird, that it would grace our fewza much. I never was informed 
before where wild-geese are known to breed. 
You admit, I find, that I have proved your /ez salicaria to be the 
lesser reed-sparrow of Ray; and I think you may be secure that I 
am right, for I took very particular pains.to clear up that matter, 
and had some fair specimens ; but, as they were not well preserved, 
they are decayed already. You will, no doubt, insert it in its 
proper place in your next edition. Your additional plates will much 
improve your work. 
De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : but 
still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for 
the reason | have given in the article of the white hare. 
As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, far 
removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was 
curiously lain up in an hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and 
leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes 
regularly stowed, on which it was to have supported itself for the 
winter. But the difficulty with me is how this amphzbius mus came 
to fix its winter station at such a distance from the water. Was 
it determined in its choice of that place by the mere accident of 
finding the potatoes which were planted there; or is it the constant 
practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood of the 
water in the colder months ? 
Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing 
how fallacious it is with respect to natural history; yet, in the 
following instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may 
conduce towards the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned 
before, with respect to the invariable early retreat of the Aczrundo 
apus, or swift, so many weeks before its congeners ; and that not 
only with us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire 
about the beginning of August. 
The great large bat* (which bythe by i is at present a nondescript 
* The little bat appears almost every month in the year; but I have never seen the large 
ones till the end of April, nor after July. They are most common in June, but never in 
any plenty : are a rare species with us. 
