T'he Natural History of Se I borne 51 



last swift I observed was about the 2ist of August: it was a 

 straggler. 



Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non cris- 

 tati, still appear : but I have seen no blackcaps lately. 



I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church 

 College quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, 

 a house-martin flying about, and settling on the parapet, so 

 late as the 2oth of November. 



At present I know only two species of bats, the common 

 vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auritus. 1 



I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, 

 which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it 

 anything to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, 

 hovering and hiding its head in the manner of birds of prey 



1 It is not probable that White had seen the true Vespertilio murinus t 

 which is a very rare bat ; what he mistook for it must have been the 

 Pipistrelle. His other species was doubtless the long-eared bat, Plecotus 

 auriius. E D. 



