of Selborne 33 



have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent 

 you a bird that you had never seen before ; but that, I 

 find, would be a difficult task. 



I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my 

 former letters, a young one and a female with young, both 

 of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour, 

 shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but 

 that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller 

 and more slender than the mus domestics s 7nedius of 

 Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour : 

 their belly is white, a straight line along their sides 

 divides the shades of their back and belly. They never 

 enter into houses ; are carried into ricks and barns with 

 the sheaves ; abound in harvest, and build their nests 

 amidst the straws of the corn above the ground, and 

 sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as eight at 

 a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of 

 grass or wheat. 



One of these nests I procured this autumn, most 

 artificially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat ; 

 perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with 

 the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no 

 discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact 

 and well filled, that it would roll across the table without 

 being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice 

 that were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly 

 full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively 

 so as to administer a teat to each? perhaps she opens 

 different places for that purpose, adjusting them again 

 when the business is over : but she could not possibly 

 be contained herself in the ball with her young, which 

 moreover would be daily increasing in bulk. This 

 wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the 

 efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat-field, suspended 

 in the head of a thistle. 



A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his 

 servant had shot one last January, in that severe weather, 

 which he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it 

 this summer, not knowing what to expect : but, the 

 moment I took it in hand, I pronounced it the male 



c 



