The Natural History of Selborne 423 



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 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 im- 

 probable 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 hunts- 

 man 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 un- 



