26 THE NATUEAL HISTORY 



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 it's wings round before the mouth, hovering 

 and hiding it's head in the manner of birds of prey when they 

 feed. The adroitness it shewed 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, &c. 



LETTER XII. 



TO THE SAME. 



November 4, 1767. 



SIR, 



IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that thefalco 1 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. 



himself added the Noctule (Vesperugo noctula, Schreb.) to the list of Selborne 

 (and British) bats. It had been described, with a figure of its head, by Daubenton 

 in 1759, while Buffon had included it in his Histoire Naturelle. Fifteen British bats 

 are now known.] 



1 This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus ; a variety. [See Letters X. and 

 XI. to Pennant.] 



