126 WHITE 



white-bellied field-mouse with three or four young clinging to 

 her teats by their mouths and feet. It was amazing that the 

 desultory and rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her 

 litter to quit their hold, especially when it appeared that they 

 were so young as to be both naked and blind ! 



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 

 perversion of the o-Topytf, 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 perverted, 

 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 extravagantly 

 diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself to deter- 

 mine. 



+ I am, etc. 



LETTER XV 



SELBORNE, July 8//fc, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, Some young men went down lately to a pond 

 on the verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young 

 wild-ducks, 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 much pleased 

 with the discovery : this I look upon as a great stroke in natu- 

 ral 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 unaccept- 

 able : About an hour before sunset (for then the mice begin 



