OF SELBORNE 31 



LETTER XII 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 



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 ricks 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 arti- 

 ficially 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 dis- 

 covering 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 fuU, how 

 could the dam come at her litter respectively so as to 

 administer a teat to each .? perhaps she opens different 

 places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the 

 •This hawk proved to be xiit falco peregrinus ; a variety. 



