RETURN OF SUMMER BIRDS. 117 



Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious ; such is the 

 otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that it 

 makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the waters. 

 Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in our shallow 

 brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter brought to 

 me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the 

 bank of our stream, below the Priory, where the rivulet 

 divides the parish of Selborne from Harteleywood. 



LETTER XXXV. 



TO THE HON. DAESTES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, May 21, 1770. 



DEAR SIR, The severity and turbulence of last month so 

 interrupted the regular process of summer migration, that 

 some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and 

 others are apparently thinner than usual; as the white- 

 throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well 

 remember that, after the very severe spring in the year 

 1739-40, summer birds of passage were very scarce. They 

 come probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it 

 blows between those points ; but, in that unfavourable year, 

 the winds blew the whole spring and summer through from 

 the opposite quarters. And yet, amidst all these disadvan- 

 tages, two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared 

 this year as early as the llth of April, amidst frost and 

 snow ; but they withdrew again for a time. 



hundred yards from the mill. When the mill-work ceased, the water was, as 

 usual, stopped at the dam-head, and the dam below consequently ran gradually 

 more shallow, often leaving trout, which had ascended when it was full, to 

 struggle back with difficulty to the parent stream ; and so well acquainted had 

 puss become with this circumstance, and so fond was puss of fish, the moment 

 the noise of the mill-clapper ceased, she used to scamper off to the dam, and, 

 up to her belly in water, continue to catch fish like an otter. It would not 

 be very easy to cite a more curious case of animal instinct approaching to 

 reason, and overcoming the usual habits of the species." 



