NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 95 



pounds, that had been shot on the bank of our stream below the 

 Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from 

 Harteley Wood. 1 



NOTE TO LETTER XXIX. 



1 Shy as the otter is, a pair made their home in a hole under some stonework 

 on the banks of the canal at Llangollen, within six yards of several cottages. 



LETTER XXX. 



SELBORNE, 



DEAR SIR, The French, I think, in general are strangely 

 prolix in their natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect 

 to insects holds good in every other branch : " Verbositas prcesentis 

 sceculi, calamitas artis" 



Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work ? As I admire 

 his " Entomologia," I long to see it. 



I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to 

 insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims 

 from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, 

 in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one killed 

 in the water as it was on that errand in the river St. Lawrence : it 

 was a monstrous beast, he told me ; but he did not take the 

 dimensions. 



When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most 

 obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you were 

 then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many 

 strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, at Lord 

 Pembroke's at Wilton, a horn room furnished with more than 

 thirty different pairs ; but I have not seen that house lately. 



Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of 

 stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I 

 had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked that every 

 species almost that came from distant regions, such as South 

 America, the coast of Guinea, etc., were thick-billed birds of the 



