THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. . sh 
would not be suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils 
were stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of 
singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free 
respiration : and no doubt these additional nostrils are thrown 
open when they are hard run.1 Mr. Ray observed that at 
Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were 
_ hard worked : for they, being naturally strait or small, did not 
admit air sufficient to serve them when they travelled, or labored, 
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. 
Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that 
goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the con- 
trary: — “ Alemzon does not advance what is true, when he 
avers that goats breathe through their ears.” — History of 
Animals, book I, chap. xi. 
LETTER XV. 
SELBORNE, March 3oth, 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 
1 In answer to this account Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious 
and pertinent reply: —“ I was much surprised to find in the antelope some- 
thing analogous to what you mentioned as so remarkable in deer. This 
animal also has a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened and 
shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one, the creature made as 
much use of these orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, 
and seeming to smell it through them.” — W. 
It seems to be the general opinion of naturalists that the slit in question 
subserves some other sense unknown to us. 
