402 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 
CAT AND SQUIRRELS: 
A boy has taken three young squirrels in their nest or drey* as 
it is called in these 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 justification of those authors who haye gravely 
menticned what some have deemed to be a wild and improbable 
story. 
So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by a cat 
that the foster-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 fondlings, 
and that she supposes the squirrels to be her own young. Thus 
hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are equally attached to 
them as if they were their own chickens.— WHITE. 
HORSE: 
An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken 
very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to implore the help of 
men, and died the night following in the street.—WHITE. 
HOUNDS. 
The king’s stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a 
huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for the stag 
that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a time. Many hundreds 
of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the deer un- 
harboured ; but though the huntsmen drew Hartley Wood and 
* Mitford observes, “* Drey is not peculiar to Hampshire only, and in Suffolk they call it 
a bay.’ Mr. Herbert observes that “‘in the north of Hampshire, a great portion of the 
squirrels have white tails.’’ It is said that 20,000 squirrels are annually sold in London, 
