LETTER XV. 



'To the same. 



SELBORNE, March $ot/>, 1768. 



EAR SIR, Some intelligent country people have 

 a notion that we have, in these parts, a species of 

 the genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, 

 ferret, and polecat ; a little reddish beast, not 

 much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, 

 which they call a cane. This piece of intelligence 

 can be little depended on ; but farther inquiry 

 may be made. 1 



A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in 

 one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able 

 to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the 

 owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity 

 in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a 



1 There is no such animal known to science in Britain, though gamekeepers 

 and others still stoutly assert its existence in many places. Female weasels and 

 the young, when attempting to escape, have a habit of shrinking into themselves, 

 so as to look very small a peculiarity which doubtless has given rise to the 

 persistent delusion. ED. 



