30 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



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 twentieth of November. 



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

 vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auritus. 



I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, 

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

 gave it any thing to eat, it brought its wings round before 

 the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of 

 birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed 

 in shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always 

 rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me much. 

 Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not 

 refuse raw flesh when offered : so that the notion that 

 bats go down chimnies 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 dispatch 

 than I was aware of ; but in a most ridiculous 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 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. 



I am, etc. 



