HORSES, HOUNDS. 
281 
drey as it is called in these parts. These small creatures he put 
under the care of a cat who had lately lost her kittens, and finds 
that she nurses and suckles them with the same assiduity and 
affection, as if they were her own off- 
spring. This circumstance corrobo- 
rates my suspicion, that the mention 
of exposed and deserted children 
being nurtured by female beasts of 
prey who had lost their young, may 
not be so improbable an incident as 
many have supposed ; and therefore 
may be a justification of those authors 
who have gravely mentioned, what some have deemed to be a 
wild and improbable story. 
So many people went to see the Uttle squirrels suckled by a 
cat, that the foster mother became jealous of her charge, and in 
pain for their safety ; and therefore hid them over the ceihng, 
where one died. This circumstance shows her affection for these 
fondUngs, and that she supposes the squirrels to be her own 
young. Thus hens, when they have hatched ducklings, are 
equally attached to them as if they were their own chickens.* 
HORSE. 
An old hunting mare, which ran on the common, being taken 
very ill, ran down into the village, as it were, to implore the help 
of men, and died the night following in the street. 
HOUNDS. 
The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a 
huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for the 
stag that has haunted Hartley Wood for so long a time. Many 
hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the dogs to see the 
ornamental ear-tufts are entirely wanting:; the whole fur also is then much coarser, more shiny, 
and redder; and it is a curious fact that those young ones born in early spring are first clad in 
the winter livery (which 1 believe they do not the first summer exchange), while the second lit- 
ters, which are produced about midsummer, are decked in the summer^ coat, and have no ear 
pencils. — £d. 
* At the mention of this, 1 may record a curious fact, which was lately related to me by a 
person who witnessed it, of a hen, that for many seasons had been accustomed to hatch duck's 
eggs, being at length suffered to incubate her own offspring, which she immediately led to the 
pond, as she had been accustomed to do with the ducklings, and, flying to the opposite side, tried 
every means in her power to induce them to enter. — Ed. 
