ing, or snow-fleck, is very amusing;
and strange it is that such a short-winged bird should delight in such
perilous voyages over the northern ocean. Some country people in the
winter time have, every now and then, told me that they have seen two or
three white larks on our downs, but, on considering the matter, I begin
to suspect that these are some stragglers of the birds we are talking of,
which sometimes perhaps may rove so far to the southward.

It pleases me to find that white hares are so frequent on the Scottish
mountains, and especially as you inform me that it is a distinct species,
for the quadrupeds of Britain are so few, that every new species is a
great acquisition.

The eagle-owl, could it be proved to belong to us, is so majestic a bird,
that it would grace our _fauna_ much. I never was informed before where
wild geese are known to breed.

You admit, I find, that I have proved your _fen salicaria_ to be the
lesser reed-sparrow of Ray; and I think you may be secure that I am
right, for I took very particular pains to clear up that matter, and had
some fair specimens, but, as they were not well preserved, they are
decayed already. You will, no doubt, insert it in its proper place in
your next edition. Your additional plates will much improve your work.

De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mouse; but still I am
pleased to find you have discovered it in Lincolnshire, for the reason I
have given in the article of the white hare.

As a neighbour was lately ploughing a dry, chalky field, far removed from
any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously lain up in a
hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the
burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was
to have supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me is
how this _amphibius mus_ came to fix its winter station at such a
distance from the water. Was it determined in its choice of that place
by the mere accident of finding the potatoes which were planted there, or
is it the constant practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the
neighbourhood of the water in the colder months?

Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, knowing how
fallacious it is with respect to natural history, yet, in the following
instance, I cannot help being inclined to think it may conduce towards
the explanation of a difficulty that I have mentioned before, with
respect to the