OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS 353 



offspring. This circumstance corroborates my suspicion, that 

 the mention of exposed and deserted children being nurtured 

 by female beasts of prey who had lost their young, may not 

 be so improbable an incident as many have supposed ; and 

 therefore may be a justification of those authors who have 

 gravely mentioned what some have deemed to be a wild and 

 improbable story. 



So many people went to see the little squirrels suckled by 

 a cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, and 

 in pain for their safety ; and therefore hid them over the ceil- 

 ing, where one died. This circumstance shows her affection 

 for these fondlings, and that she supposes the squirrels to be 

 her own young. Thus hens, when they have hatched duck- 

 lings, are equally attached to them as if they were their own 

 chickens. WHITE. 



HORSE. An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, 

 being taken very ill, ran down into the village, as it were to 

 implore the help of men, and died the night following in the 

 street. WHITE. 



HOUNDS. The king's staghounds came down to Alton, 

 attended by a huntsman and six yeoman prickers with horns, 

 to try for the stag that has haunted Harteley Wood for so long 

 a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended 

 the dogs to see the deer unharbored; but though the hunts- 

 men drew Harteley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrub Wood, 

 and Temple Hangers, and on their way back Harteley and 

 Ward le Ham Hangers, yet no stag could be found. 



The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out 

 before them, never drew the coverts with any address and 

 spirit, as many people that were present observed ; and this 

 remark the event has proved to be a true one. For as a per- 

 son was lately pursuing a pheasant that was wing-broken in 

 Harteley Wood, he stumbled upon the stag by accident, and 

 ran in upon him as he lay concealed amidst a thick brake of 

 brambles and bushes. WHITE. 



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