NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. if 3 



this horrid and preposterous murder. When I hear now and then 

 of an abandoned mother that destroys her offspring, I am not so 

 much amazed ; since reason perverted, and the bad passions let 

 loose, are capable of any enormity ; but why the parental feelings 

 of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, should 

 sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philoso- 

 phers than myself to determine. 



I am, etc. 



NOTE TO LETTER XIV. 



1 I once saw a small balloon pass just over a large rookery during the nesting 

 time. The rooks "mobbed" the balloon, uttering a terrific clangour, and 

 circling close around it with angry sweeps until it passed well away. 



LETTER XV. 



SELBORNE, July 8M, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, Some young men went down lately to a pond on 

 the verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, 

 many of which they caught, and, among the rest, some very 

 minute yet well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examinatior 

 I found to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred 

 in the south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery : 

 this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history. 



We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls 

 that constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have 

 paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during 

 their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through, the fol- 

 lowing remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable : About an 

 hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run; they sally forth 

 in quest of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows and 

 small enclosures for them, which seem to be their only food. In 

 this irregular country we can stand on an eminence and see them 

 beat the fields over like a setting-dog, and often drop down in tne 



ii 



