OF SELBORNE. 77 



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 frooby 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 barn, and was surprised to find that their 

 bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white 2 . 



A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on 

 a down above my house this winter: were not these 

 the snow-flake, the Emberiza nivalis of the British 

 Zoology? No doubt they were. 



A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, 



1 This I believe to be a pretty general error among the country people 

 in other counties also. This imaginary animal, in Suffolk, is called the 

 mouse-hunt, from its being supposed to live on mice. To discover the 

 truth of this report, I managed to have several of these animals brought 

 to me ; all of which I found to be the common weasel. The error I con- 

 ceive partly to have arisen from this animal, like most others, appearing 

 less than its real size, when running, and attempting to escape, a circum- 

 stance well known to the hunters in India, with respect to larger animals, 

 as the tiger, &c. MITFORD. 



The cane is a provincial name for the female of the common weasel, 

 which is usually one-fourth smaller than the male. Young females of 

 the year, frequently seen during harvest, are not much larger than a full- 

 sized field-mouse. W. Y. 



2 White, pied, and cream-coloured varieties of the rook occasionally 

 occur. A gentleman, in the year 1816, had a young rook of a light ash- 

 colour, most beautifully mottled all over with black, and with the quill and 

 tail-feathers elegantly barred. This curiosity he was naturally anxious 

 to keep : but, upon the bird moulting, all its mottled plumage vanished 

 entirely, it became a jet black rook, and in this state was suffered to join 

 his sable tribe as a fit companion in the fields. Hunt's British Birds 

 (Norwich). W. Y. 



White individuals, both as varieties merely and as albinoes, occur in 

 many birds. Instances are familiar in the sparrow, the chaffinch, the 

 magpie, &c. and, a contradiction in terms, white blackbirds are occasion- 

 ally met with. One such, captured in Northamptonshire, is now living 

 in the Zoological Society's Gardens. E. T. B. 



