OF SELBOKNE. 81 



first a female companion of the same species, which died the 

 spring before. In the same garden was a young stag, or red 

 deer, between whom and this moose it was hoped that there 

 might have been a breed ; but their inequality of height must 

 have always been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. 

 I should have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, 

 lips, hoofs, &c. minutely ; but the putrefaction precluded all 

 further curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, seemed to 

 enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the former winter. In 

 the house they shewed me the horn of a male moose, which 

 had no front-antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags 

 on the edge. The noble owner of the dead moose proposed to 

 make a skeleton of her bones. 



Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds with 

 that you saw; and whether you think still that the American 

 moose and European elk are the same creature. I am, 



With the greatest esteem, &c. 



LETTER XXIX.* 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, May 12, 1770. 

 DEAR SIR, 



LAST month \ve had such a series of cold turbulent weather, 

 such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and hail, and 

 tempest, that the regular migration or appearance of the sum- 

 mer birds was much interrupted. Some did not shew them- 



* [In the original letter sent to Pennant, but not retained in tlie copy 

 sent to the press, is the following paragraph, which appeared to me to be 

 quite worth preserving. 



" Though you are embarked in a more extensive plan of natural history, 

 yet I am glad to find that you do by no means give up the Brit. Zoology. 

 That, I think, should be your principal object; and I hope you will con- 

 tinue to revise it at your leisure, and to retouch it until you have made it 

 as perfect as the nature of the work will admit of. If people who live in 

 the country would take a little pains, daily observations might be made 

 with respect to animals, and particularly regarding- their life and conver- 

 sation, their actions and economy, which are the life and soul of natural 

 history." T. B.] 



G 



