HORSES, HOUNDS. 281 



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 off- 

 spring. This circumstance corrobo- 

 rates 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 ah incident as 

 many have supposed ; and therefore 

 may be a justification of those authors squirrel. 



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.* 



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. 



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 



ornamental ear-tufts are entirely wanting; the whole fur also is then much coarser, more shiuy, 

 and redder; and it is a curious fact that those young ones born in early spring are first clad in 

 the winter livery (which 1 believe they do not the first summer exchange), while the second lit- 



^ ters, which are produced about midsummer, are decked in the summer, coat, and have no ear 



' pencils. ED. 



* At the mention of this, 1 may record a curious fact, which was lately related to me by a 

 person who witnessed it, of a hen, that for many seasons had been accustomed to hatch duck's 

 eggs, being at length suffered to incubate her own offspring, which she immediately led to the 

 pond, as she had been accustomed to do with the ducklings, and, flying to the opposite side, tried 

 every means in her power to induce them to enter. ED. 



