The natural history of Selborne . ea notion that we have in these parts a species ofthe genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat,ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not muchbigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, whichthey call a cane. This piece of intelligence can belittle depended on ; but farther inquiry may bemade. A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, find-ing them before they were able to fly, threw themdown and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner,who would have been glad to have preserved sucha curiosity in h
The natural history of Selborne . ea notion that we have in these parts a species ofthe genus mustelinum, besides the weasel, stoat,ferret, and polecat; a little reddish beast, not muchbigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, whichthey call a cane. This piece of intelligence can belittle depended on ; but farther inquiry may bemade. A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, find-ing them before they were able to fly, threw themdown and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner,who would have been glad to have preserved sucha curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myselfnailed against the end of a barn, and was surprisedto find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws weremilk-white. A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larkson a down above my house this winter: were notthese the emberiza nivalis, the snowflake of the ? No doubt they were. OF SELBORNE. 63 A few years ago I saw a cock Bullfinch in acage, which had been caught in the fields after it. was come to its full colours. In about a year itbegan to look dingy, and, blackening every succeed-ing year, it became coal-black at the end of chief food was hempseed. Such influence hasfood on the colour of animals ! The pied andmottled colours of domesticated animals are sup-posed to be owing to high, various, and unusualfood.* I had remarked, for years, that the root of (arum) was frequently scratched outof the dry banks of hedges, and eaten in severesnowy weather. After observing with some exact-ness myself, and getting others to do the same, wefound it was the thrush kind that searched it root of the arum is remarkably warm and Our flocks of hen chaffinches have not yet for- * Birds are much influenced in their choice of food by colour;for, though white currants are a much sweeter fruit than red, yetthey seldom touch the former till they have devoured e trery bunchof the latter. 64 NATURAL HISTORY saken
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