I 



Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, 

 seems to have had some notion that stags have four 

 spiracula : — 



" TerpaSv/xol 'pTues, -ffiaupes irvoiiiffi SlavKoi." 



" Quadrifidce nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." 



Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. i8i. 



('' Nostrils split in four divisions, fourfold passages 

 for breathing.") 



Writers, copying from one another, make Aris- 

 totle say that goats breathe at their ears ; whereas 

 he asserts just the contrary: " 'AX/^yitatW yap ovk 

 ak7)6r) Xeyei, (pafievo^; avdirveiv Ta<; alya^; Kara ra (hra.' 

 " Alcmaeon does not advance what is true, when he 

 avers that goats breathe through their ears." — His- 

 tory OF Animals, Book i, ch. xi. 



Selborne, March 12, 1768. 



LETTER XV. 

 To Thomas Pennant, Esq. 



Some intelligent country-people have a notion 

 that we have in these parts a species of the genus 

 musteliniim, besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and pole- 

 cat ; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a 



much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, 

 and seeming to smell it through them." — White. 



57 



