NA TURAL HISrOR Y OF SELBORNE. 35 



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, &c. 



LETTER XII. 



' TO THE SAME. 



November tfh, 1767. 



SIR, It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the /a/co* 

 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 pre- 

 served in brandy. From the colour, 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 vms domesticiis 

 medins of Ray ; and have more of the squirrel or dormouse colour ; 

 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. 



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 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 discomposed, 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 respectively so as to administer a 



* This hawk proved to be \h& falco peregrinus ' t a variety. 



