I 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
67 
Again ; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who has often 
told me that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small coveys of 
'MA 
TROUT. 
partridges, 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, unassisted, 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 am- 
phibious : such is the 
otter, which by nature 
is so well formed for 
diving, that it makes 
great havoc among 
the inhabitants 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. 
OTTER. 
p 2 
