OF SELBOENE. 



89 



De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : 

 but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lin- 

 colnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of the 

 white hare. 



THE EAGLE OWL. 



As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, 

 far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that 

 was curiously laid up in an hybernaculum artificially formed 

 of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above a 

 gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to have 

 supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me 

 is how this amphilrius mus came to fix its winter station at 

 such a distance from the water. Was it determined in its 

 choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the 

 potatoes which were planted there ; or is it the constant 

 practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood of 

 the water in the colder months ? 



