NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 87 



amusing ; and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should 

 delight in such perilous voyages over the. northern ocean ! Some 

 country people in the winter time have every now and then told 

 me that they have seen two or three white larks on our downs 

 but, on considering the matter, I begin to suspect that these are 

 some 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 fauna much. I never was informed 

 before where wild-geese are known to breed. 



You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen 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 I have given in the article of the white hare. 



As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, far 

 removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was 

 curiously lain up in a 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 ampJiibius 

 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 neighbour- 

 hood 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 



