NATUEAL HISTORY OP SELBOENE. 29 



seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh 

 when offered; so that the notion, that bats go 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 



PIPISTRELLE. LONG-EARED BAT. 



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. 



LETTEE XII. 



TO THE SAME. 



November, <Uh, 1767. 



SIR, It gave me no small satisfaction to hear that fhefalco * 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, shape, size, and manner of nesting, I make 

 no doubt but that the species is nondescript. They are much smaller, 

 and more slender, than the wms domesticus medius of Bay ; and have 

 more of the squirrel or dormouse colour ; their belly is white, a straight 

 line along their sides divides the shades of their back and belly. They 



* This hawk proved to be the falco peregrinus ; a variety. 



