XXXYI.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
107 
quadrupeds, among whom, in their younger days, the sexes 
differ but little ; but, as they advance to maturity, horns and 
shaggy manes, beards and brawny necks, &c., strongly discrimi- 
nate the male from the female. We may instance still further 
in our own species, where a beard and stronger features are 
usually characteristic of the male sex ; but this sexual diversity 
does not take place in earlier life, for a beautiful youth shall 
be so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be 
discernible : — 
" Queni si puellarum insereres choro, 
Mire sagaces falleret hospites 
Discrimen oLscuruin, solutis 
Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu." 
IIoR. (i[. V. 2i-24.) 
" A fellow wlio, if 3^011 put him among a parcel of girls, the difticulty of 
distinguishing him from them would puzzle a very quick-sighted host, 
thanks to his long hairs and smooth ambiguous face." 
Selborne, May 21, 1770. 
LETTER XXXVI. 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 
The French, I think, in general are strangely prolix in their 
natural history. What Linnaeus says with respect to insects 
holds good in every other branch : " Verbositas prsesentis sa?culi, 
calamitas artis." *' The verbosity of the present generation is the 
calamity of art." 
Pray how do you approve of Scopoli's new^ work ? as I aduiire 
his " Entomologia," I long to see it. 
1 forgot to mention in my last letter (and had not room to 
insert it in the former) that the male moose, in rutting time, 
swims from island to island, in the lakes and rivers of North 
America, in pursuit of the females. My friend, the chaplain, 
saw one killed in the water as it was on that errand in the river 
St. Lawrence ; it was a monstrous beast, he told me ; but he did 
not take the dimensions. 
