III.] OF SELBORNE. 37 



though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered : so that the notion 

 that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon seems no 

 improbable story. While I amused myself with this wonderful 

 quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, 

 that bats when down on a flat surface cannot get on the wing 

 again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, 

 with more despatch than I was aware of; but in a most ridicu- 

 lous and grotesque manner. 



Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sipping the surface, 

 as they play over pools and streams. They love to frequent 

 waters, not only for the sake of drinking, but on account of the 

 insects which are found over them in the greatest plenty. As I 

 was going, some years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Richmond 

 to Sunbury, on a warm summer's evening, I think I saw myriads 

 of bats between the two places : the air swarmed with them all 

 along the Thames, so that hundreds were in sight at a time. 



SELBORNE, Sept. 9, 1767. 



LETTER XII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco turned 

 out an uncommon one. I must confess I should have been better 

 pleased to have heard that I had sent you a bird that you had 

 never seen before ; but that I find would be a difficult task. 



I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former 

 letters, a young one arid a female with young, both of which I have 

 preserved in brandy. From the colour, shape, size, and manner 

 of nesting, I make no doubt but that the species is nondescript. 

 They are much smaller, and more slender, than the Mus domes- 

 ticus inedius of Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse 

 colour : their belly is white ; a straight line along their sides 

 divides the shades of their back and belly. They never enter into 

 houses; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves, 

 abound in harvest ; and build their nests amidst the straws of 



