OBSERVATIONS. 



309 



Europe, and flapping one wing, while they present the 

 other to the gale, half sail, half oar, they graze the 

 billows of the Mediterranean with their fattened rumps, 

 and bury themselves in the sands of Africa, that they 

 may serve as food to the famished inhabitants of Zara.* 

 St. Pierre's Studies of Nature, v. i. p. Ql. 



P. 73. Mr. White mentions a notion among the 

 country people in Hampshire, that there exists a species 

 of the ' Genus Mustelinum,' reddish, not much bigger 

 than a field-mouse, called a ^ Cane,' and distinct from 

 the weasel, stoat, &c. This I believe to be a pretty 

 general error among the country people also in other 

 counties. This imaginary animal in Suffolk is called the 

 ' Moiise'hunt,' from its being supposed to live on mice. 

 To discover the truth of this report^ I managed to have 

 several of these animals brought to me ; all of which I 

 found to be the common weazel. The error I conceive 

 partly to have arisen from this animal, like most others, 

 appearing less than its real size, when running and at- 

 tempting to escape, a circumstance well known to the 

 hunters in India, with respect to larger animals, as the 

 tiger, &c. 



P. 74. Mr. White has justly remarked, ' that food 

 has great influence on the colour of animals.' The dark 

 colour in wild birds is a great safeguard to them against 

 their enemies ; and this is the reason, that among birds 

 of bright plumage, the young do not assume their gay 

 colours till the second or third year, as the cygnet, the 

 gold and silver pheasants, &c. The remarkable change of 

 plumage among the gull tribe, is a curious and intricate 



