NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 31 



7 There are six kinds of sticklebacks. Every one knows the common 

 three-finned one. One kind builds a nest among the weeds, and guards it 

 with the utmost vigilance. G. C. D. 



8 There seem to be about twenty species of British bats. Four or five 

 species are tolerably common. The squeak made by the bat is so veryy#<?, 

 that while to some ears it is loud, by others it cannot be heard. I once, 

 when a boy, was exploring a hollow tree after owls' nests, when the smell 

 from one particular hole was so dreadful that we put some lighted paper 

 down to see what would come out ; and to our astonishment dozens of large, 

 reddish bats flew out, and dashed madly about in the bright sunlight. The 

 bat has more vermin upon it than any other creature of its size. It seems 

 needless to state that the bat is an animal, and not a bird or an insect ; but 

 I saw it gravely stated in the columns of a local journal by two correspond- 

 ents that it was either of the two latter. G. C. D. 



LETTER XII 



November $th, 1767. 



SIR, It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that \hzfalco 

 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 and a female with young, both of which 

 I have preserved in brandy. From the color, 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 squir- 

 rel or dormouse color ; 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. 1 



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 in- 

 geniously closed, that there was no discovering to what part 



