90 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: such is the 



otter, which by nature is so well 



formed for diving, that it makes 



great havoc among the inhabitants 



of the waters. Not supposing that 



we had any of those beasts in our 



shallow brooks, I was much pleased 



to see a male otter brought to me, 



weighing twenty-one pounds, that Otter * 



had been shot on the bank of our stream below the Priory, where 



the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from Harteley-wood. 



LETTER XXX. To T. PENNANT, ESQ. 

 DEAR SIR, Selborne, August 1, 1770. 



THE French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their 

 natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects 

 holds good in every other branch : " Verbositas prcesentis sceculi, 

 calamitas artis." 



Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new work ? as I admire 

 his Entomologia, I long to see it. 



I forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to 

 insert in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, swims 

 from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North America, 

 in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, saw one 

 killed in the water as it was on that errand in the river St. 

 Lawrence : it was a monstrous beast, he told me ; but he did not 

 take the dimensions. 



When I was last in town our friend Mr. Barrington most 

 obligingly carried me to see many curious sights. As you were 

 then writing to him about horns, he carried me to see many 

 strange and wonderful specimens. There is, I remember, at 

 Lord Pembroke's, at Wilton, a horn room furnished with more 

 than thirty different pairs ; but I have not seen that house 

 lately. 



Mr. Barrington showed me many astonishing collections of 

 stuffed and living birds from all quarters of the world. After I 

 had studied over the latter for a time, I remarked that every 

 species almost that came from distant regions, such as South 

 America, the coast of Guinea, &c. were thick-billed birds of the 



