FARMERS' REGISTER— NATURAL IIISRORY. 



421 



f?ate, Avhich stood in the field on the top of the 

 hill, after sinking Avith its posts for thirty or forty 

 feet, remained in so true and upriglit a position as 

 to open and shut with great exactness, just as in 

 its first situation. Several oaks also are still stand- 

 ing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the 

 same desparate leap. 



That great part of this prodigious mass was ab- 

 sorbed in some gulf below, is plain also from the 

 inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is 

 free and unincumbered, but w^ould have been bu- 

 ried in heaps of rubbish, had the fragment parted 

 and fallen (brward. About an hundred yards from 

 the foot of this hanging coppice stood a cottage by 

 the side of a lane ; and two hundred yards lower, 

 on the other side of the lane, was a farm-house, in 

 which lived a*laborer and his family ; and just by, 

 a stout new barn. Tlie cottage was inhabited by an 

 old woman and her son, and his wife. These peo- 

 ple, in the evening, which v/as very dark and tem- 

 pestuous, observed that the brick floors of their 

 kitchen began to heave and part, and that the walls 

 seemed to open, and the rooi's to crack; but they 

 all agree that no tremor of the ground, indicating 

 an earthquake, was ever felt, only that the wind 

 continued to make a most tremendous roaring in 

 the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabi- 

 tants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the ut- 

 most solicitude and confusion, expecting every mo- 

 ment to be buried under the ruins of tlieir shatter- 

 ed edifices. Wlien daylight came, they were at 

 leisure to contemplate the devastations of the night. 

 They then foi;nd that a deep rift, or chasm, liad 

 opened under their houses, and torn them, as it 

 were, in two, and that one end of the barn had suf- 

 fered in a similar manner ; tliat a pond near the 

 cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becoming 

 deep at tlie shallow end, and so vice versa ; that 

 many large oaks were removed out of their per- 

 pendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen 

 into the heads of neighboring trees ; and th.at a 

 gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six 

 feet, so as to require a new track to be made to it. 

 From the foot of the cliff, tlie general course of the 

 ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate 

 descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with 

 some hillocks, which were rifted, in every direc- 

 tion, as well towards the great woody hanger as 

 from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began, 

 and, running across the lane and under the build- 

 ings, made such vast shelves that the road was im- 

 passable for some lime; and so over to an arable 

 field on the other side, which was strangely torn 

 and disordered. The second pasture field, being 

 more soft and springy, was protruded Ibrward with- 

 out many fissures in the turf, which was raised in 

 long ridges resembling graves, lying at right an- 

 gles to the motion. Afthe bottom of this enclo- 

 sure the soil and turf rose many feet against the 

 bodies of some oaks that obstructed their far- 

 ther course, and terminated this awful commotion. 

 The perpendicular height of the precipice, in ge- 

 neral, is twenty three yards : the length of the 

 lapse, or slip, as seen from the fields below, one 

 hundred and eighty one: and a partial fall, con- 

 cealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more ; 

 so that the total length of this fragment that fell 

 was two hundred and fifty one yards. About fifty 

 acres of land suffered from this violent convulsion ; 

 two houses were entirely destroyed ; one end of a 

 new barn was left in ruins, the walls being crack- 



ed through the very- stones that composed them ; 

 a hanging co[)pice v/as clsanged to a naked rock : 

 and some grass grounds and an arable field so bro- 

 ken and rifted by the chasms, as to be rendered, 

 for a time, neither fit for the plough nor safe fen- 

 pasturage, till considerable labor and expense had 

 been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling 

 in the gaping fissures. 



EXTRACTS FKOM WHITE S NATURAL HISTO- 

 RY OF SELBORNE. 



Tame J3at. 



I was much entertained last summer with a tame 

 bat, which would take fiies out of a person's hand. 

 If you gave it any thing to eat, it brouglit its wings 

 round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its 

 liead in the manner of birds of prey when they 

 feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the 

 wings of tlie flies, \\hich were always rejected, was 

 worthy of observation, and pleased me much. In- 

 sects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did 

 not refuse raw flesh when offered ; so that the no- 

 tion, that bats go down chimneys 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, 1 observed, with more des- 

 patch than I was a\vare of; but in a most ridicu- 

 lous and grotesque manner. 



Bats drink on the wing, like swallows, by sip- 

 ping 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 sum- 

 mer's evening, I think I saw myriads of bats be- 

 tween the two places ; the air swarmed with them 

 all along tlie Thames, so that hundreds were in 

 sight at a time. 



Harvest Mouse. 



I iiave 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 

 In-andy. 1< rom 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 squirrel 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 har- 

 vest ; and build their nests amidst the straws of 

 the corn above the ground, and sometimes in this- 

 tles. 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 

 v.heat; perfectly round, and about the size of a 

 cricket-ball ; with the aperture so ingeniously 

 closed, that there was no discovering to what part 

 it belonged. It was so compact and well filled, that 

 it would roll across the table without being discom- 

 posed, though it contained eight little mice that 

 were naked and blind. As this nest was perfectly 

 full, how could the dam come at her litter respec 



