78 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



was a young stag, or red deer, between whom and this 

 moose it was hoped that there might have been a 

 breed; but their inequality of height must have always 

 been a bar to any commerce of the amorous kind. I should 

 have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, lips, 

 hoofs, etc., minutely; but the putrefaction precluded 

 all farther curiosity. This animal, the keeper told me, 

 seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme frost of the 

 former winter. In the house they showed me the horn of 

 a male moose, which had no front antlers, but only a broad 

 palm with some snags on the edge. The noble owner of 

 the dead moose proposed to make a skeleton of her bones. 



Please to let me hear if my female moose corresponds 

 with that you saw ; and whether you think still that the 

 American moose and European elk are the same creature. 



LETTER XXIX. 



Selboene, May 12th, 1770. 

 Last month we had such a series of cold, turbulent 

 weather, such a constant succession of frost, and snow, and 

 hail, and tempest, that the regular migration or appearance 

 of the summer birds was much interrupted. Some did 

 not show themselves (at least were not heard) till weeks 

 after their usual time ; as the blackcap and whitethroat ; 

 and some have not been heard yet, as the grasshopper-lark 

 and largest willow-wren. As to the fly-catcher, I have not 

 seen it ; it is indeed one of the latest, but should appear 

 about this time : and yet, amidst all this meteorous strife 

 and war of the elements, two swallows discovered themselves 



