Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/113

Rh stomach, and found in it some soft dark-brown pulpy substance, mixed with a small quantity of wool. "W. R. SMITH, ,

"Okehampton, N. Devon"

$e2$ The fieldfare and red-wing nest among the pines and firs of Norway and Sweden, and arrive in England in large flocks in the winter.

 

LETTER XXVIII.

, March, 1770

Michaelmas-day 1768 I managed to get a sight of the female moose belonging to the Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood; but was greatly disappointed, when I arrived at the spot, to find that it died, after having appeared in a languishing way for some time on the morning before. However, understanding that it was not stripped, I proceeded to examine this rare quadruped; I found it in an old greenhouse, slung under the belly and chin by ropes, and in a standing posture; but, though it had been dead for so short a time, it was in so putrid a state that the stench was hardly supportable. The grand distinction between this deer, and any other species that I have ever met with, consisted in the strange length of its legs; on which it was tilted up much in the manner of the birds of the grallæ order. I measured it, as they do a horse, and found that, from the ground to the withers it was just five feet four inches; which height answers exactly to sixteen hands, a growth that few horses arrive at: but then, with this length of legs, its neck was remarkably short, no more than twelve inches; so that, by straddling with one foot forward and the other backward, it grazed on the plain ground, with the greatest difficulty, between its legs; the ears were vast and lopping, and as long as the neck; the head was about twenty inches long, and ass-like; and had such a redundancy of upper lip as I never saw before, with huge nostrils. This lip, travellers say, is esteemed a dainty dish in North America. It is very reasonable to suppose that this creature supports itself chiefly by