OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 333 



CAT AND SQUIRRELS. A boy has taken three little young 

 squirrels in their nest, or drey,* as it is called in these parts. 

 These small creatures he put under the care of a cat who had 

 lately lost her kittens, and finds that she nurses and suckles 

 them with the same assiduity and affection as if they were 

 her own offspring.t This circumstance corroborates my 

 suspicion, that the mention of exposed and deserted children 

 being nurtured by female beasts of prey who had lost their 

 young, may not be so improbable an incident as many have 

 supposed; and therefore may be a justification of those 

 authors who have gravely mentioned, what some have deemed 

 to be a wild and improbable story. 



So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by 

 a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, 

 and in pain for their safety ; and therefore hid them over 

 the ceiling, where one died. This circumstance shows her 

 affection for these foundlings, and that she supposed the 

 squirrels to be her own young. Thus hens, when they have 

 hatched ducklings, are equally attached to them as if they 

 were their own chickens. WHITE. 



HORSE. An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, 

 being taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to 

 implore the help of men, and died the night following in the 

 street. WHITE. 



HOUNDS. The king's stag hounds came down to Alton, 

 attended by a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, 

 to try for the stag that has haunted Harteley Wood for so 

 long a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, 

 attended the dogs to see the deer unharboured ; but though 

 the huntsman drew Harteley Wood, and Long Coppice, and 

 Shrubwood, and Temple Hangers, and, in their way back, 

 Harteley and Ward-le-ham Hangers, yet no stag could be 

 found. 



* The squirrel's nest is not only called a drey in Hampshire, but also in 

 other counties ; in Suffolk it is called a bay. The word " drey," though now 

 provincial, I have met with in some of our old writers. MITFORD. 



f A fox that had lost her cubs, stole and suckled one of the puppies of a 

 sheep dog, in the north of England. It was dug out of the fox's earth, 

 and is now the constant companion and retriever of an officer in the Life 

 Guards. ED. 



