42 NATURAL HISTORY 



birds frequently coming on board his ship all the way from 

 our channel quite up to the Levant, especially before squally 

 weather. 



"What you suggest, with regard to Spain, is highly proba- 

 ble. The winters of Andalusia are so mild, that, in all likeli- 

 hood, the soft-billed birds that leave us that season may find 

 insects sufficient to support them there. 



Some young man, possessed of fortune, health, and leisure, 

 should make an autumnal voyage into that kingdom; and 

 should spend a year there, investigating the natural history of 

 that vast country. Mr. Willughby* passed through that 

 kingdom on such an errand ; but he seems to have skirted 

 along in a superficial manner and an ill humour, being much 

 disgusted at the rude dissolute manners of the people. 



I have no friend left now at Sunbury to apply to about the 

 swallows roosting on the aits of the Thames : nor can I hear 

 any more about those birds which I suspected were mendce 

 torquatce. 



As to the small mice, I have farther to remark, that though 

 they hang their nests for breeding up amidst the straws of the 

 standing corn, above the ground ; yet I find that, in the winter 

 they burrow deep in the earth, and make warm beds of grass : 

 but their grand rendezvous seems to be in corn-ricks, into 

 which they are carried at harvest. A neighbour housed an 

 oat-rick lately, under the thatch of which were assembled 

 near an hundred, most of which were taken ; and some I saw. 

 I measured them ; and found that, from nose to tail, they were 

 just two inches and a quarter, and their tails just two inches 

 long. Two of them, in a scale, weighed down just one copper 

 halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois: 

 so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this 

 island. A full-grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one 

 ounce, lumping weight, which is more than six times as much 

 as the mouse above; and measures from nose to rump four 

 inches and a quarter, and the same in it's tail. 



We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. 

 Mv thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and an half 

 u See Ray's Travels, p. 466. 



