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LETTER XXXVI. 



To the same. 



Sept., 1771. 



EAR SIR, The summer through I have 

 seen but two of that large species of bat 

 which I call Vespertilio altivolans, from its 

 manner of feeding high in the air; I pro- 

 cured one of them, and found it to be a 

 male ; and made no doubt, as they accom- 

 panied together, that the other was a female ; 

 but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other 

 likewise, I was somewhat disappointed, when it appeared to 

 be also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great 

 scarcity of this sort, at least in these parts, occasions some 

 suspicions in my mind whether it is really a species, or 

 whether it may not be the male part of the more known 

 species, one of which may supply many females ; as is known 

 to be the case in sheep and some other quadrupeds. But 

 this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination, and 

 some attention to the sex, of more specimens ; all that I 

 know at present is, that my two were amply furnished with 

 the parts of generation, much resembling those of a boar. 



In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen inches 

 and a half; and four inches and a half from the nose to the 

 tip of the tail ; their heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, 

 their shoulders broad and muscular; and their whole bodies 



