L 
NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 65 
squeak, repeated four or five times ; and I have observed that to 
happen when the cock has been pursuing the hen in a toying way 
through the boughs of a tree. 
It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you have pro- 
cured, should prove a new one, since five species have been found 
in a neighbouring kingdom. The great sort that I mentioned is 
certainly a nondescript ; I saw but one this summer, and that I had 
no opportunity of taking.* 
Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining. I am no 
angler myself; but inquiring of those that are, what they supposed 
that part of their tackle to be made of ?—they replied, ‘‘Of the 
intestines of a silkworm.” 
Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, yet I 
cannot say that I am ignorant of that kind of knowledge; I may 
now and then perhaps be able to furnish you with a little inform- 
ation. 
The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time as with 
you, and since we have had delicate weather. Mr. Barker, who 
has measured the rain for more than thirty years, says, in a late 
letter, that more has fallen this year than in any he ever attended 
to; though from July 1763 to January 1764 more fell than in any 
seven months of this year. 
* See Letters XXVI., XXXVI., and note. 
