THE NATURAL HISTORY 
[LETT. 
where the snipes breed ; and multibudes of widgeons and teals 
frequent our lakes in the forest in hard weather. 
Having some acquaintance with a tame brown owl, I find 
that it casts up the fur of mice and the feathers of birds in 
pellets, after the manner of hawks : when full, like a dog, it 
hides wliat it cannot eat. 
The young of the barn owl are not easily raised, as they 
want a constant supply of fresh mice : whereas the young of 
HdOPoF.'s K(i(i. 
tlie brown owl will eat indiscriminately all that is brought ; 
snailS; rats, kittens, puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion 
or offal. 
The house-martins have eggs still, and squab-young. The 
last swift I observed was about the twenty-first of August; it 
was a straggler. 
Eed-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and gold-crested wrens, 
reguli non cristati, still appear ; but I have seen no blackcaps 
lately. 
I forgot to mention that I once saw, in Christ Church college 
quadrangle in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house- 
martin flying about, and settling on the parapet, so late as the 
twentieth of November. 
At present T know only two species of bats, the common 
Vespertilio mnrinus, and the Vespertilio auritns. 
I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which 
would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it anything 
to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering 
and hiding its head in the manner of birds of prey when they 
feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of 
flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of observation, 
and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, 
