OF SELBOBNU, 
113 
not understand perfectly ; but refer it to the observation of 
the curious anatomist/ These creatures sent forth a very 
rancid and offensive smell. _ . 
LETTER XXXVIL 
TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE 
Selborne, 1771. 
N the 12th of July I had a fair opportunity of 
contemplating the motions of the Caprimulgus, 
or fern-owl, as it was playing round a large 
oak that swarmed with Scarahcei solstitiales^^ 
or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing 
were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolu- 
tions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But the cir- 
cumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it dis- 
tinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on the 
wing, and, by a bend of the head, deliver somewhat into its 
mouth. If it takes any part of its prey with it^ foot, as I 
have now the greatest reason to suppose it does these chafers, 
I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is 
curiously furnished with a serrated claw. 
Swallows and martins, the bulk of them I mean, have 
^ This is termed the tragus ; it is found in all our British bats except 
the greater and lesser horse- shoe bats. In man it exists onlj as a small 
lobe projecting in front over the auditory opening. 
When White first wrote to Pennant on the subject of bats, he knew 
but two indigenous kinds ; the long-eared, and that which he regarded 
as the short- eared : these, in fact, being all that were even known to 
Linnaeus as European. White subsequently became acquainted with 
another ; the great bat of the text. Pennant knew and described a 
fourth, the horse-shoe bat. Many years subsequently elapsed without 
the addition of another. The four indigenous species known in 1771 
have now been increased to at least fourteen distinct species, so great 
have been the advances that have of late years been made in England in 
the search after animals and in the discrimination between them. — Ed. 
2 Amphimalla solstitialis, Latr. 
I 
