NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 77 



stragglers of the birds we are talking of, which sometimes perhaps 

 may rove so far to the southward. 



It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the 

 Scottish mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a 

 distinct species ; for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that 

 every new species is a great acquisition. 



The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic 

 a bird, that it would grace our fauna much. I never was informed 

 before where wild-geese are known to breed. 



You admit, I find, that I have proved yourf&i salicaria 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, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : but 

 still I am pleased to find you have discovered 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 lain up in an hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and 

 leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes 

 regularly 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 explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned 

 before, with respect to the invariable early retreat of the hirundo 

 apits, or swift, so many weeks before its congeners ; and that not 

 only with us, but also in Andalusia, where they also begin to retire 

 about the beginning of August. 



The great large bat* (which by the by is at present a nondescript 



* The little bat appears almost every month in the year ; but I have never seen the large 

 ones till the end of April, nor after July. They are most common in June, but never in 

 any plenty : are a rare species with us. 



