Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, 

 seems to have had some notion that stags have four 

 spiracula : — 



TeTpadvfjLoi 'p7p€s, frl<Tvp€s iruoi'fj(TL BiauXoi.'' 



Quadrifidte nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." 



0pp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. iSi. 



Nostrils spHt in four divisions, fourfold passages 

 for breathing.") 



Writers, copving from one another, make Aris- 

 totle sav that g-oats breathe at their ears ; whereas 

 he asserts just the contrary: WX/cfialcov yap ovtc 

 a\r}6r} Xeyet, (^dfievo^ avdirveLV rd^ alyd^ Kara rd (bra. 



Alcm^eon does not advance what is true, when he 

 avers that goats breathe through their ears." — His- 

 tory OF Animals, Book i, ch. xi. 



Selborne, March 12, 1768. 



LETTER XV. 

 To Thomas Pexxaxt, Esq. 



Some intelligent country-people have a notion 

 that we have in these parts a species of the genus 

 viustelinuDi. besides the weasel, stoat, ferret, and pole- 

 cat ; a little reddish beast, not much bigger than a 



much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, 

 and seeming to smell it through them." — White. 



57 



