of diet that suit them best, and then retire to make
room for some more important correspondent.

"I take it to be a general opinion that they graze, but it is an
erroneous one, at least grass is not their staple; they seem rather to
use it medicinally, soon quitting it for leaves of almost any kind.
Sowthistle, dent-de-lion, and lettuce are their favourite vegetables,
especially the last. I discovered, by accident, that fine white sand is
in great estimation with them, I suppose as a digestive. It happened
that I was cleaning a bird cage while the hares were with me; I placed a
pot filled with such sand upon the floor, to which being at once
directed by a strong instinct, they devoured it voraciously; since that
time I have generally taken care to see them well supplied with it. They
account green corn a delicacy, both blade and stalk, but the ear they
seldom eat; straw of any kind, especially wheat-straw, is another of
their dainties; they will feed greedily upon oats, but if furnished with
clean straw, never want them; it serves them also for a bed, and, if
shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry for a considerable time.
They do not indeed require aromatic herbs, but will eat a small quantity
of them with great relish, and are particularly fond of the plant called
musk; they seem to resemble sheep in this, that if their pastures be too
succulent, they are very subject to the rot; to prevent which, I always
made bread their principal nourishment; and, filling a pan with it cut
into small squares, placed it every evening in their chambers, for they
feed only at evening and in the night; during the winter, when
vegetables are not to be got, I mingled this mess of bread with shreds
of carrot, adding to it the rind of apples cut extremely thin; for,
though they are fond of the paring, the apple itself disgusts them.
These, however, not being a sufficient substitute for the juice of
summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied with water; but so
placed that they cannot overset it into their beds. I must not omit,
that occasionally they are much pleased with twigs of hawthorn and of
the common briar, eating even the very wood when it is of considerable
thickness.

"Bess, I have said, died young; Tiney lived to be nine years old, and
died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a
fall. Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year,
discovering no signs of decay nor even of age, e