NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 40 



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 MeruJce. torquatcz. 



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 nearly a 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 halfpenny, which is about the third of an 

 ounce avoirdupois : so that I suppose they are the smallest 

 quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown Mus 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 tender evergreens were injured 

 pretty much. It was very providential that the air was still, and 

 the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general 

 must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that 

 some days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40. 



I am, etc., etc. 



