LETTER XV 



TO THE SAME 1 



SELBORNE, March y>th, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, [Your account of the Moose gives me a 

 great deal of satisfaction ; not only because I am glad to 

 hear that two such animals, so little known, are arrived in 

 this neighbourhood ; but because in it you give me hopes 

 that I may have the Honour of y r Company at Selborne ; 

 and I earnestly desire that you will not disappoint me of 

 that satisfaction. Tho' the direct way to Goodwood from 

 Town is down the Chichester road, yet if you will come 

 the Alton, and so to Petersfield, there will be but a very 

 few miles' difference ; and in y r way to Petersfield you 

 will pass within three miles of my House ; and my 

 Horses shall meet you on the turnpike to carry you to 

 this place.] 



Some intelligent country people have a notion that we 

 have, in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, 

 besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat ; a little 

 reddish beast, not much bigger than a field-mouse, but 

 much longer, which they call a cane. This piece of in- 

 telligence can be little depended on ; but farther inquiry 

 may be made. 2 



A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk- 



1 This letter, as the MS. in the British Museum shows, formed part of the 

 former one of March 14, 1768, and the author must have divided the two and 

 given a new date to the second half, as the subjects treated of were somewhat 

 different. The invitation to Selborne was omitted in the published work, but is 

 here restored, as being of undoubted interest. [R. B. S.] 



2 Professor Bell (vol. i. p. 44 note} says that one Cane or Kine is " nothing 

 more than an unusually small female Weasel, the latter being always considerably 

 smaller than the male ; and it would appear that in some localities it is even 



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