')
Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had
some notion that stags have four spiracula:
Quadrifidae 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:
'Alcmaeon 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 Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Mark 30, 1768.
Dear Sir,
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 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.
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