OF SELBORNE. 36 



boat from Richmond to Suribury, on a warm summer's even- 

 ing, 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. 



I am, &c. 



LETTER XII. 



TO THE SAME. 



November 4, 1767. 



SIR, 



IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco s 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 diffi- 

 cult task. 



I have procured some of the mice mentioned in my former 

 letters, a young one and 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 domesticus medius 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 the corn above the ground, and 

 sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as eight at a litter, 

 in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or 

 wheat. 



One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially 

 platted, and composed of the blades of wheat; perfectly 

 round, and about the size of a cricket-ball ; with the aperture 

 so ingeniously closed, that there was no discovering to what 



This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinvs ; a variety. 



D2 



