140 
THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
To tliese instances of tender attachment, many more of which 
might be daily discovered by those that are studious of nature; 
may be opposed that rage of affection, that monstrous perver- 
sion of the ajopyr], which induces some females of the brute 
creation to devour their young because their owners have 
handled them too freely, or removed them from place to place ! 
Swine, and sometimes the more gentle race of dogs and cats, 
are guilty of this horrid and preposterous murder. When I 
hear now and then of an abandoned mother that destroys 
her offspring, I am not so much amazed ; since reason per- 
verted, and the bad passions let loose, are capable of any 
enormity : but why the parental feelings of brutes, that usually 
flow in one most uniform tenor, should sometimes be so extra- 
vagantly diverted, I leave to abler philosophers than myself 
to determine. 
Selborne, March 26, 1773. 
LETTER LIU. 
TO THE HONOUliABLE DAIXES BARRINGTON. 
Some young men went down lately to a pond on the verge of 
Wolmer Forest to hunt flappers, or young wild-ducks, many of 
which they caught, and, among the rest, some very minute yet 
well-fledged wild-fowls alive, which upon examination I found 
to be teals. I did not know till then that teals ever bred in the 
south of England, and was much pleased with the discovery : 
this I look upon as a great stroke in natural history. 
We have had, ever since I can remember, a pair of white owls 
that constantly breed under the eaves of this church. As I have 
paid good attention to the manner of life of these birds during 
their season of breeding, which lasts the summer through, the 
following remarks may not perhaps be unacceptable : — About an 
hour before sunset (for then the mice begin to run) they sally 
forth in quest of prey, and hunt all round the hedges of meadows 
