40 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER Xn 



November 4, 1767. 



Sir, 

 It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco * 

 turned out an uncommon one. I must confess I should 

 have been better pleased to have heard that I had sent 

 you a bird that you had never seen before ; but that, I 

 find, would be a difficult task. 



I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my 

 former letters, a young one and a female with young, both 

 of which I have preserved in brandy. From the colour : 

 shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make no doubt but 

 that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller 

 and more slender than the mus domesticus medius of 

 Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour : 

 their belly is white, a straight line along their sides 

 divides the shades of their back and belly. They never 

 enter into houses ; are carried into i-icks and barns with 

 the sheaves ; abound in harvest, and build their nests 

 amidst the straws of the corn above the ground, and 

 sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as eight at 

 a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of 

 grass or wheat. 



One of these nests I procured this autumn, most 

 artificially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat ; 

 perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with 

 the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no 

 discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact 

 and well filled, that it would roll across the table without 

 being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice 

 that were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly 

 full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively 



* This hawk proved to be the /alco pcrcgrinus ; a variety. 



