covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some days were more severe than any since the year 1739-40.

I am, &c. &c.

LETTER XIV.

DEAR SIR;

TO. THE SAME.

SELBORNE, March 12, 1768.

Ir some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow deer, and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two spiracula, or breathing-places, besides the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia in the human head. When deer are thirsty they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a considerable time: but, to obviate any inconveniency,

they can open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention; and which has not, that I know of, been noticed by any naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures 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.* Mr. Ray observed that, at Malta, the owners slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked: for they,

* In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious and pertinent reply. "I was "much surprised to find in the antelope something

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analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in "deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath "each eye, which can be opened and shut at plea

sure. On holding an orange to one, the creature "made as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell it through them."

being naturally strait 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 :

Τετράδυμοι ῥινες, επισυρες πνοίησι διαυλοι”

"Quadrifidæ nares, quadruplices ad respirationem

canales."

Opp. Cyn. Lib. ii. 1. 181.

Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say that goats breathe at their ears; whereas he asserts just the contrary:

Αλκμαιων γαρ ουκ αληθη λεγει, φαμενος αναπνειν σε τας αίγας κατα τα ωτα. "Alcmaon 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 THE SAME.

DEAR SIR;

SELBORNE, March 30, 1768.

SOME intelligent country people have a notion that we have, in these parts, a species of the genus müstelinum, 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 intelligence can be little depended on; but farther inquiry may be made.

A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and

was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milkwhite.

A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down above my house. this Winter: were not these the emberiza nivalis, the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool.? No doubt they were.

A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had been caught in the fields after it was come to its full colours. In about a year it began to look dingy; and, blackening every succeeding year, it became coal-black at the end of four. chief food was hempseed. Such influence has food on the colour of animals! The pied and mottled colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be owing to high, various, and unusual food.

Its

I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoo-pint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it out.