70 The Natural History 



Why these birds, in the matter of roosting, should differ 

 from all their congeners, and from themselves also with 

 respect to their proceedings by day, is a fact for which I 

 am by no means able to account. 



I have somewhat to inform you of concerning the 

 moose-deer ; but in general foreign animals fall seldom in 

 my way ; my little intelligence is confined to the narrow 

 sphere of my own observations at home. 



LETTER XXVIII 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



Selborne, March, 1 770. 



On Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of 

 the female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, 

 at Goodwood ; but was greatly disappointed, when I 

 arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having 

 appeared in a languishing way for some time, on the 

 morning before. However, understanding that it was 

 not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped : 

 I found it in an old green-house, slung under the belly 

 and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; but, 

 though it had been dead for so short a time, it was in so 

 putrid a state that the stench was hardly supportable. 

 The grand distinction between this deer, and any other 

 species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange 

 length of its legs ; on which it was tilted up much in the 

 manner of birds of the gralla order. I measured it, as 

 they do an horse, and found that, from the ground to the 

 wither, it was just five feet four inches ; which height 

 answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few horses 

 arrive at : but then, with this length of legs, its neck was 

 remarkably short, no more than twelve inches ; so that, 

 by straddling with one foot forward and the other back- 

 ward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest 

 difficulty, between its legs : the ears were vast and lopping, 

 and as long as the neck ; the head was about twenty inches 



