96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LET TR Xo ay, 
TO THE SAME. 
SELBORNE, 1771. 
DEAR SIR,—Happening to make a visit to my neighbour’s 
peacocks, I could not help observing that the trains of those mag- 
nificent birds appear by no means to be their tails; those long 
feathers growing not from their wsopyg¢um, but alluptheir backs. A 
range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the 
uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the /z/crum to prop the 
train, which is long and top-heavy when set an end. When the 
train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck ; 
but this would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only 
in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a strutting 
attitude. By a strong muscular vibration these birds can make the 
shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword- 
dancer ; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run back- 
wards towards the females. 
I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus egogro- 
pila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is perfectly round, and 
about the size of a large Seville orange; such are, I think, usually 
flat. 
LETTER. XXAVE 
TO THE SAME. 
Sept. 1771. 
DEAR SIR,—The summer through I have seen but two of that 
large species of bat which I call vesfertzlio altivolans, from its 
manner of feeding high in the air; I procured one of them, and 
found it to be a male; and made no doubt, as they accompanied 
together, that the other was a female ; but, happening in an evening 
