46 THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



naturally strait or small, did not admit air sufficient to serve 

 them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot cliimite. 

 And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think 

 large nostrils necessary, and a perfection in hunters and run- 

 ning horses. 



Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have 

 had some notion that stags have four spiracula : 



" TfTpaSvpOl pllffS, 7Tl<TVpfS TTVOtJjCTl SulvAot." 



" Quadrifidse nares, quadruplices ad respirationcm canales." 



Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181. 



(" Nostrils split in four divisions, fourfold passages for breath- 

 ing.") 



Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that 

 goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the contrary : 

 " 'A\K/j.ai<av yap OVK aXydr) Xeyet, <f>d(j,evo<; avaatvetv rat a^as 

 KOTO. TO, WTO." " Alcmseon does not advance what is true, when 

 he avers that goats breathe through their ears." HISTORY OF 

 ANIMALS, Book i. ch. xi. 



SELBORNE, March 12, 1768. 



THK EGG UK THK Jl All. 



