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 that 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 on the white hare.

As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, far
removed from any water, he turned out a water rat, that was
curiously laid up in an 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