OF SELBORNE. 57 



much. Insects seemed to be most ac- 

 ceptable, 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 quad- 

 ruped, 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 ridi- 

 culous 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 Sum- 

 mer'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. 



