204 FATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE, 



the fruitful parent of three hundred pigs — a prodigious 

 instance of fecundity in so large a quadruped 1 She was 

 killed in spring 1775. 



r; LETTER XXXTV. 



Sblbokne, May 9th, 1776. 



"... admdrunt ubera tigres." 



We have remarked in a former letter* how much 

 incongruous animals, in a lonely state, may be attached to 

 each other from a spirit of sociality ; in this it may not be 

 amiss to recount a different motive which has been known 

 to create as strange a fondness. 



My friend had a little helpless leveret brought to him, 

 which the servants fed with milk in a spoon, and about the 

 same time his cat kittened and the young were dispatched 

 and buried. The hare was soon lost, and supposed to be 

 gone the way of most foundlings, to be killed by some dog or 

 cat. However, in about a fortnight, as the master was 

 sitting in his garden in the dusk of the evening, he 

 observed his cat, with tail erect, trotting towards him, and 

 calling with little short inward notes of complacency, such 

 as they use towards their kittens, and something gambolling 

 after, which proved to be the leveret that the cat had 

 supported with her milk, and continued to support with 

 great affection. 



Thus was a graminivorous animal nurtured by a 

 carnivorous and predaceous one ! 



* Letter XXIV. 



