114 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



to add some fresh dung. From out of the side of this bed leaped 

 an animal with great agility that made a most grotesque figure ; nor 

 was it without great difficulty that it could be taken ; when it proved 

 to be a large white-bellied field-mouse with three or four young 

 clinging to her teats by their mouths and feet. It was amazing that 

 the desultory and rapid motions of this dam should not oblige her 

 litter to quit their hold, especially when it appeared that they were so 

 young as to be both naked and blind ! 



To these instances of tender attachment, many more of which might 

 be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature, may be 

 opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perversion of the o-ropy)), 

 which induces some females of the brute creation to devour their young 

 because their owners have handled them too freely, or removed them 

 from place to place ! Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of 

 dogs and cats, are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. 

 When I hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys her 

 offspring, 1 am not so much amazed; since reason perverted, and the 

 bad passions let loose, are capable of any enormity ; but why the 

 parental feelings of brutes, that usually flow in one most uniform tenor, 

 should sometimes be so extravagantly diverted, I leave to abler philoso- 

 phers than myself to determine. I am, &c. 



LETTEE XV. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, July 8th, 1773. 



DEAR SIR, Some young men went down lately to a pond on the 

 verge of Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of 

 which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet well- 

 fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found to be teals. I 

 did not know till then that teals ever bred in the south of England, 

 and was much pleased with the discovery : this I look upon as a great 

 stroke in natural history. 



"We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls that 

 constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have paid good 

 attention to the manner of life of these birds during their season of 

 breeding, which lasts the summer through, the following remarks may 

 not perhaps be unacceptable : About an hour before sunset (for then 

 the mice begin to run) they sally forth in quest of prey, and hunt all 

 round the hedges of meadows and small enclosures for them, which 

 seem to be their only food. In this irregular country we can stand 

 on an eminence and see them beat the fields over like a setting-dog, 

 and often drop down in the grass or corn. I have minuted these 

 birds with my watch for an hour together, and have found that they 

 return to their nest, the one or the other of them, about once in five 

 minutes ; reflecting at the same time on the adroitness that every 

 animal is possessed of as far as regards the well-being of itself and 

 offspring. But a piece of address, which they show when they 



