NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



97 



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 



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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 



* See Letters XXII., XXVI. The British fauna is indebted to White for the first notice 

 of this species ; it is locally distributed, and although not common generally is found in 

 numbers together, so many as 185 having been taken in one night from the eaves of 

 Queen's College, Cambridge. It was first described by Daubenton, under the name oi 

 La noctule, which name Latinised was afterwards continued, and is prior to White's 

 name of altivolans, which we regret has not been retained, as it is so characteristic oi 

 the habits of the species. 



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