OF SELBORNE. 83 



Again ; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who 

 has often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently 

 taken small coveys of partridges, consisting of cock-birds 

 alone ; these he pleasantly used to call old bachelors. 



There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats that 

 is very remarkable ; I mean their violent fondness for fish, 

 which appears to be their most favourite food : and yet na- 

 ture in this instance seems to have planted in them an appe- 

 tite that, unassisted, they know not how to gratify : for of all 

 quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards water ; and will 

 not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to 

 plunge into that element. 



Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious : such is 

 the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving, that it 

 makes great havock among the inhabitants of the waters. Not 

 supposing that we had any of those beasts in our shallow 

 brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter brought to me, 

 weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on the bank 

 of our stream below the Priory, where the rivulet divides the 

 parish of Selborne from Harteley-wood. 



LETTER XXX. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne, Aug. 1, 1770. 

 DEAR SIR, 



THE French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in their 

 natural history. What Linnaius says with respect to insects 

 holds good in every other branch: " Verbositas prcesentis 

 " sceculi, calamitas artis." 



Pray how do you approve of ScopoWs new work ? As I 

 admire his Entomologia, I long to see it. 



I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to 

 insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, 

 swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North- 

 America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, 



G2 



