XII.] 
OF SELBORNE. 
37 
thougli 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 tlie 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 despatch than I was aware of ; but in a most ridicu- 
lous 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 the 
insects which are found over them in the greatest plenty. As I 
was going, some years ago, pretty late, in a boat from Eichmond 
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. 
Selborne, Sept. 9, 1767. 
LETTEE XII. 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 
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, 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 Mus domes- 
ticus medms of Eay ; 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 never enter into 
houses ; are carried into ricks and barns with the sheaves, 
abound in harvest ; and build their nests amidst the straws of 
