402 The Natural History of Selborne 



Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, 

 even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest trees. Last 

 winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all my 

 guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest boughs 

 of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great clamour : I 

 ordered them to be driven down lest they should be frozen to 

 death in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected with- 

 out much difficulty ; they being very unwilling to quit their lofty 

 abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so much frozen 

 that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how to account for this, 

 unless it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow on the 

 ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot climate. 



Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls 

 them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the 

 power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease ; 

 an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's 

 menagerie, where the summer duck, anas sponsa, flew up and settled 

 on the branch of an oak-tree in my presence : but whether any 

 of them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by any 

 author that I am acquainted with. I suppose not, but that, like 

 the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds of 

 this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from the 

 following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood a 

 few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was 

 found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were 

 several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam 

 into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, 

 which, being most powerful in his own element, buffeted the fox 

 with its wings about the head till it was drowned. MARKWICK. 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 

 with her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to get 



