NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 91 



stomach, and found in it some soft dark -brown pulpy substance, mixed with a 

 small quantity of wool. 



"W. R. SMITH, GAMEKEEPER, 



" Okehampton, N. Devon" 



2 The fieldfare and red-wing nest among the pines and firs of Norway and 

 Sweden, and arrive in England in large flocks in the winter. 



LETTER XXVIII. 



SELBORNE, March t 1770. 



ON Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the 

 female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood ; 

 but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find 

 that it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some 

 time on the morning before. However, understanding that it 

 was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped ; 

 I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under the belly and chin 

 by ropes, and in a standing posture ; but, though it had been 

 dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the 

 stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction between 

 this deer, and any other species that I have ever met with, con- 

 sisted in the strange length of its legs ; on which it was tilted up 

 much in the manner of the birds of the grallce order. I measured 

 it, as they do a horse, and found that, from the ground to the 

 withers it was just five feet four inches; which height answers 

 exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive at : but 

 then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no 

 more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with one foot 

 forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, 

 with the greatest difficulty, between its legs ; the ears were vast 

 and lopping, and as long as the neck $ the head was about twenty 

 inches long, and ass-like ; and had sucn a redundancy of upper 

 lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers 

 say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is very 

 reasonable to suppose that this creature supports itself chiefly by 



