42 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked : for they, 
being naturally straight or small, did not admit air sufficient to 
serve them when they travelled, or laboured, in that hot climate. 
And we know that grooms, and gentlemen of the turf, think 
large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running 
horses. 
Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have 
had some notion that stags have four spiracula : — 
TcTpadufjioi pive^i Triavpe? irvoincn 6iav\oi.'" 
" Quadrifidse nares, quadruplices ad respirationem canales." 
0pp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181. 
Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that 
goats breathe at their ears ; whereas he asserts just the con- 
trary : — AkKfiaKDV yap ovk aXrjOrj Xeysi, ^afjLevog avawvsiv rag 
aiyag Kara ra (ora." " Alcmaeon does not advance what is true, 
when he avers that goats breathe through their ears." — History 
of Animals. Book I. chap. xi. 
LETTER XV. To T. PENNANT, Esa. 
DEAR SIR, Selhorne, March 30, 1768. 
Some intelligent country people have a notion that we have, in 
these parts, a species of the genus 
mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat, 
ferret, and polecat ; a little reddish 
beast, not much bigger than a field 
mouse, but much longer, which they 
call a cane. This piece of intelli- 
gence can be little depended on; 
but further enquiry may be made.* weasei. 
* That a fourth species of the subgenus -putorius (subordinate to mustela) , the group-to which 
Mr. White here refers, exists in England, ,1 have found to be a very common opinion in the 
southern counties. I have repeatedly heard of it in Surrey, where it is denominated a kine, and 
it has often been described to me as being very similar to the common weasel, but much smaller, 
the usual argument adduced for its distinctness being, that it has frequently been observed with 
young ones. The fact is, there is considerable disparity of size between the sexes of the common 
weasel, the female being much smaller than the male, so much so as to have given rise to the 
above supposition. We have but three species, nor does western Europe produce more : the fitch- 
weasel, *< polecat,'' or foumart" {mustela-putorius furo) i which in its domesticated state is 
termed the "ferret," the stoat-weasel or ** ermine" {mustela-putorius er'minus)^ and the " com- 
mon," or (as it might be better termed), the dwaif-weasel (mmtela-putorius vulgaris), all of which 
are plentiful throughout the country. Of the typical mustela we have the white-breasted marten 
