62 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



It would not be at all strange if your bat, which you 

 have procured, should prove a new one, since five species 

 have been found in a neighbouring kingdom. The great 

 sort that I mentioned is certainly a nondescript ; I saw but 

 one this summer, and that I had no opportunity of taking. 



Your account of the Indian grass was entertaining. 

 I am no angler myself ; but inquiring of those that are 

 what they supposed that part of their tackle to be made of, 

 they replied, " Of the intestines of a silkworm." 



Though I must not pretend to great skill in entomology, 

 yet I cannot say that I am ignorant of that kind of know- 

 ledge ; I may now and then perhaps be able to furnish you 

 with a little information. 



The vast rains ceased with us much about the same time 

 as with you, and since we have had delicate weather. Mr. 

 Barker, who has measured the rain for more than thirty 

 years, says, in a late letter, that more has fallen this 

 year than in any he ever attended to ; though from July 

 1763 to January 1764 more fell than in any seven months 

 of this year. 



LETTER XXIII. 



Selborne, Feb. 28th, 1769. 



It is not improbable that the Guernsey lizard and our 

 green lizards may be specifically the same ; all that I know 

 is, that, when some years ago many Guernsey lizards were 

 turned loose in Pembroke College garden, in the University 

 of Oxford, they lived a great while, and seemed to enjoy 



I 



