consisting of cock-birds alone ; these he pleasantly 

 used to call old bachelors. 



There is a propensity belonging to common 

 house-cats that is very remarkable ; I mean their 

 violent fondness for fish, which appears to be their 

 most favourite food : and yet nature in this instance 

 seems to have planted in them an appetite that, un- 

 assisted, they know not how to gratify : for of all 

 quadrupeds cats are the least disposed towards 

 ^ water ; and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to 

 wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element. 



Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious: 

 such is the otter, which by nature is so well formed 

 for diving, that it makes great havoc among the in- 

 habitants of the waters. Not supposing that we had 

 any of those beasts in our shallow brooks, I was 

 much pleased to see a male otter brought to me, 

 weighing twenty-one pounds, that had been shot on 

 the bank of our stream below the Priory, where the 

 rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from Harteley- 

 wood. 



[One of my neighbours shot a ring-dove on an 

 evening as it was returning from feed and going to 

 roost. When his wife had picked and drawn it, she 

 found its craw stuffed with the most nice and tender 

 tops of turnips. These she washed and boiled, and 

 so sat down to a choice and delicate plate of greens, 

 culled and provided in this extraordinary manner. 



Hence we may see that graminivorous birds, 



134 



