Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/430

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Rabbits make incomparably the finest turf, for they not only bite closer than larger quadrupeds, but they allow no bents to rise hence warrens produce much the most delicate turf for gardens. Sheep never touch the stalks of grasses.—.

A boy has taken three young squirrels in their nest or 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 offspring. This circumstance corroborates 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 little 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 ceiling, where one died. This circumstance shows her affection for these fondlings, 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.—.

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.—.

The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a huntsman and six yeomen prickers, with horns, to try for the stag