The Natural History of Selborne 441 



CAT AND SQUIRRELS. 



A BOY has taken three young squirrels in their nest or drey 

 as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put 

 under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, and 

 finds that she nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity 

 and affection as if they were her own offspring. This circum- 

 stance 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 ceiling, 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 ducklings, 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 stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a 

 huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for the 

 stag that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a time. 

 Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs 

 to" see the deer unharboured; but though the huntsmen 

 drew Hartley Wood and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and 



