have been glad to have examined the teeth, tongue, 

 lips, hoofs, &c., minutely ; but the putrefaction pre- 

 cluded all further curiosity. This animal, the keeper 

 told me, seemed to enjoy itself best in the extreme 

 frost of the former winter. In the house they showed 

 me the horn of a male moose, which had no front- 

 antlers, but only a broad palm with some snags on 

 the edge. The noble owner of the dead moose pro- 

 posed to make a skeleton of her bones. 



Please to let me hear if my female moose corre- 

 sponds with that you saw ; and whether you think 

 still that the American moose and European elk are 

 the same creature. 



Selborne, March, 1770. 



LETTER XXXIII. 

 To THE Honourable Daines Barrington. 



I HEARD many birds of several species sing last 

 year after Midsummer; enough to prove that the 

 summer solstice is not the period that puts a stop to 

 the music of the woods. The yellow-hammer, no 

 doubt, persists with more steadiness than any other; 

 but the woodlark, the wren, the redbreast, the swal- 

 low, the white-throat, the goldfinch, the common lin- 

 net, are all undoubted instances of the truth of what 

 I advance. 



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