STICKLEBACKS-OWLS.

27

We are twenty miles from the sea, and almost as many from a great river; and, therefore, see but little of sea birds. As to wild fowls, we have a few teams of ducks, bred in the moors where the snipes breed; and multitudes of widgeons and teals, in hard weather, frequent our lakes in the forest.

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 what 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 the brown owl will eat indiscriminately all that is brought snails, rats, kittens, puppies, magpies, and any kind of carrion or offal.

The house-martens have eggs still, and squab young. The last swift I observed was about the 21st of August; it was a straggler.

Redstarts, flycatchers, white-throats, and reguli non cristati, still appear; but I have seen no black-caps lately.

I forgot to mention, that I once saw, in Christ Church College quadrangle, in Oxford, on a very sunny, warm morning, a house-marten flying about, and settling on the parapet, so late as the 20th of November.

At present, I know only two species of bats, the common vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auribus.*

each with the greatest rapidity; biting, (their mouths being well furnished with teeth,) and endeavouring to pierce each other with their lateral spines, which, on these occasions, are projected. I have witnessed a battle of this sort, which lasted several minutes before either would give way; and, when one does submit, imagination can hardly conceive the vindictive fury of the conqueror, who, in the most persevering and unrelenting way, chases his rival from one part of the tub to another, until fairly exhausted with fatigue. From this period an interesting change takes place in the conqueror, who, from being a speckled and greenish looking fish, assumes the most beautiful colours; the belly and lower jaws becoming a deep crimson, and the back sometimes a cream colour, but generally a fine green; and the whole appearance full of animation and spirit. I have occasionally known three or four parts of the tub taken possession of by these little tyrants, who guard their territories with the strictest vigilance, and the slightest invasion brings on invariably a battle. A strange alteration immediately takes place in the defeated party: his gallant bearing forsakes him; his gay colours fade away; he becomes again speckled and ugly; and he hides his disgrace among his peaceable companions." It is the male fish only which are so pugnacious. .ED.

* Seven species of bats have now been ascertained; namely, the horse-shoe bat, (rhinolophus ferrum-equinum of Geoffroy,) discovered by Colonel Montagu, in caverns, at Torquay, Devonshire; the lesser

I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it any thing 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 shewed in shearing off the wings of the flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me much. Insects 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 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 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 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.

LETTER XII.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ.

November 4, 1767.

Ir 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.

horse-shoe bat, (r. hipposideros,) discovered by the same gentleman in Wiltshire and Devonshire; the common bat, the emarginated bat, (vespertilio emarginatus,) discovered by Dr Fleming in Fife; the great bat, (v. noctula,) of our author; the eared bat, (plecotus auritus,) of Pennant; and the barbed bat, (p. barbastellus,) found in Devonshire by Colonel Montagu, and at Dartford, in Kent, by Mr Peel. — ED.

Mr John Greig, author of the Heavens Displayed, &c. saw a bat flying about in February, in England, during a very hard frost and deep snow. ED.

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

MICE GERMAN SILK-TAIL.

29

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 domesticus medius of Ray, 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 the corn above the ground, and sometimes in thistles. They breed as many as eight at a litter, in a little round nest composed of the blades of grass or wheat.

As

One of these nests I procured this autumn, most artificially platted, and composed of the blades of wheat; perfectly round, and about the size of a cricket-ball; with the aperture so ingeniously closed, that there was no discovering to what part it belonged. It was so compact and well filled, that it would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. this nest was perfectly full, how could the dam come at her litter respectively, so as to administer a teat to each? Perhaps she opens different places for that purpose, adjusting them again when the business is over; but she could not possibly be contained herself in the ball with her young, which, moreover, would be daily increasing in bulk. This wonderful procreant cradle, an elegant instance of the efforts of instinct, was found in a wheat field suspended in the head of a thistle. A gentleman, curious in birds, wrote me word that his servant had shot one last January, in that severe weather, which he believed would puzzle me. I called to see it this summer, not knowing what to expect; but, the moment I took it in hand, I pronounced it the male garrulus bohemicus, or German silk-tail, from the five peculiar crimson tags, or points, which it carries at the ends of five of the short remiges. It cannot, I suppose, with any propriety, be called an English bird; and yet I see, by Ray's Philosophical Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this kingdom in the winter of 1685.*

* This beautiful bird (the ampelis garrula of Temminck) is a frequent visitor of Britain, and always appears in flocks. The Rev. Perceval Hunter mentions a flock of them having been seen in Kent in 1828. Bewick remarks that great numbers were taken in Northumberland in the years 1789 and 1790. In 1810, large flocks were dispersed through