HO THE NATURAL HISTORY [LETT. 



To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which 

 might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, 

 may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perver- 

 sion of the a-ropyt], which induces some females of the brute 

 creation to devour their young because their owners have 

 handled them too freely, or removed them from place to place 

 Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats 

 are guilty of 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 per- 

 verted, 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 extra- 

 vagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself 

 to determine. 



SBLBORNE, March 26, 1773. 



LETTER LIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAIXES BARRIXGTO\. 



SOME young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of 

 Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-clucks, many of 

 which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet 

 well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found 

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

 south of England, and was rrmch pleased with the discovery : 

 this I look upon as a groat 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 

 following 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 



