OF SELBOBNE. 
89 
De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse : 
but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lin- 
colnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of the 
white hare. 
THE EAGLE OWL. 
As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, 
far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that 
was curiously laid up in an hybernaculum artificially formed 
of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay above a 
gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to have 
supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me 
is how this amphihius mus came to fix its winter station at 
such a distance from the water. Was it determined in its 
choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the 
potatoes which were planted there ; pr is it the constant 
practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood of 
the water in the colder months ? 
