NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 33 



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 upon 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. 



LETTER XII. 



November 4th, 1767. 



IT gave me no small satisfaction to hear that the falco 

 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 preserved in brandy. From the colour, 



294 



