96 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XXXV. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, 1771. 



DEAR SIR, Happening to make a visit to my neighbour's 

 peacocks, I could not help observing that the trains of those mag- 

 nificent birds appear by no means to be their tails ; those long 

 feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A 

 range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the 

 ziropygmm, is the real tail, and serves as \^ fulcrum to prop the 

 train, which is long and top-heavy when set an end. When the 

 train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck ; 

 but this would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only 

 in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a strutting 

 attitude. By a strong muscular vibration these birds can make the 

 shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword- 

 dancer ; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run back- 

 wards towards the females. 



I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus agogro- 

 pila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox ; it is perfectly round, and 

 about the size of a large Seville orange ; such are, I think, usually 

 flat. 



LETTER XXXVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



Sept. 1771. 



DEAR SIR, The summer through I have seen but two of that 

 large species of bat which I call vespertitto altivolans, from its 

 manner of feeding high in the air ; I procured one of them, and 

 found it to be a male ; and made no doubt, as they accompanied 

 together, that the other was a female ; but, happening in an evening 



