IIII!.] 



OF SELBORNE. 





and from themselves also with respect to their proceedings by 

 day, is a fact for which I am by no means able to account 



I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the moose- 

 deer ; but in general foreign animals fall seldom in my way ; 

 my little intelligence is confined to the narrow sphere of my 

 own observations at home. 



SELBORSE, FA. 22, 177". 



LETTER XXXII. 



TO TUOUAS PEXXAXT, ESQ. 



O.v Michaelmas-day, 1708, I managed to get a sight of the 

 f.-male moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Good- 

 wood; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the 

 spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a languishing 

 way for some time, on the morning before. However, under- 

 standing that it was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this 

 rare quadruped : I found it in an old green-house, slung under 

 the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture ; but, 

 though it bad been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid 

 a state that the stench was hardly supportable. The grand dis- 

 tinction between this deer, and any other species that I have 

 ever met with, consisted in the strange length of its legs ; on 

 which it was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of 

 the grallcE order. I measured it, as they do an horse, and found 

 that, from the ground to the wither, it was just five feet four 

 inches, which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth 

 that few horses arrive at : but then, with this length of legs, 

 its neck was remarkably short, no more than twelve inches ; so 

 that, by straddling with one foot forward and the other back- 

 ward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, 

 between its legs : the ears were vast and lopping, and as long as 

 the neck ; the head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like ; 

 and bad such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, 



