82 
NATURAL HISTORY 
often told me that foon after harveft he has frequently taken frnall 
coveys of partridges, confifting of cock-birds alone ; thefe he 
pleafantly ufed to call old bachelors. 
There is a propenfity belonging to common houfe-cats that is 
very remarkable ; I mean their violent fondnefs for fifli, which 
appears to be their moll favourite food : and yet nature in this 
inftance feems to have planted in them an appetite that, unaffifted, 
they know not how to gratify : for of all quadrupeds cats are 
the leaft difpofcd towards water; and will not, when they can 
avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much lefs to plunge into that 
element. 
Quadrupeds that prey on filh are amphibious: fuch is the 
otter, which by nature is fo well formed for diving, that it makes 
great havock among the inhabitants of the waters. Not fuppofmg 
that we had any of thofe beafts in our (hallow brooks, I was much 
pleafcd to fee a male otter brought to me, weighing twenty-onq 
pounds, that had been (hot on the bank of our ftream below the 
Priory, where the rivulet divides the parifli of Selhorne from, 
Harieley-zvood. 
LETTER XXX. 
TO THE SAME. 
DEAR SIR, Selborne, Aug. i, 1770, 
The French, I think, in general are llrangely prolix in their 
natural hiftory. What Llnnaus fays with refped: to infeds holds 
good in every other branch : Vcrhofitas prafenth facidl, calamitas 
** arihJ^ Pray 
