OF SEL BORNE. 129 



so majestic a bird, that it would grace our Fauna 

 much 2 . 



I never was informed before where wild geese are 

 known to breed. 



You admit, I find, that I have proved your fen Sali- 

 caria to be the lesser reed sparrow of Ray : and I think 

 you may be secure that I am right; for I took very- 

 particular pains to clear up that matter, and had some 

 fair specimens ; but, as they were not well preserved, 

 they are decayed already. You will, no doubt, insert 

 it in its proper place in your next edition. Your 

 additional plates will much improve your work. 



De Buffon, 1 know, has described the water shrew- 

 mouse: but still I am pleased to find you have dis- 

 covered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I have given 

 in the article of the white hare. 



As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky 

 field, far removed from any water, he turned out a 

 water rat, that was curiously laid up in an hybernacu- 

 lum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one 

 end of the burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regu- 

 larly stowed, on which it was to have supported itself 

 for the winter. But the difficulty with me is how this 

 amphibius mus came to fix its winter station at such a 

 distance from the water. Was it determined in its 

 choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the 

 potatoes which were planted there ; or is it the constant 

 practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood 

 of the water in the colder months ? 



Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, 

 knowing how fallacious it is with respect to natural 

 history ; yet, in the following instance, I cannot help 

 being inclined to think it may conduce towards the 



fur consists of only one kind of hair, and is useless as an article of com- 

 merce : a test which affords strong evidence of the distinction of the Irish 

 from the English hare.- E. T. B. 



2 The eagle owl (Bubo maximus, GER.) has been shot in Yorkshire 

 and Suffolk, as well as in Scotland. Montagu, Orn. Diet. 



K 



