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-martins have eggs still, and squabyoung. The last swift I observed was about the 21st of August; it was a straggler.

Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non cristati, still appear; but I have seen no blackcaps lately.

I forgot to mention, that I once saw, in ChristChurch College quadrangle, in Oxford, on a very sunny warm morning, a house-martin 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.*

I was much entertained last summer with a tame

*The number of British bats has been very remarkably increased since the time of White. At least fourteen species are now known, of which figures and descriptions will be found in Bell's "British Quadrupeds." Of the two here spoken of by White, the first is not the true vespertilio murinus, (which, however, is one of the British ones, though very rare,) but the common bat of Pennant, which, though formerly confounded with the V. murinus of Linnæus, and other continental authors, is now ascertained to be the pipistrelle of Daubenton, the V. pipistrellus of Geoffroy. The vespertilio auribus of White is the long-eared bat of English authors, the plecotus auritus of Geoffroy, which, after the pipistrelle, is the most common species in this country.

-L. J.

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 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.

Nov. 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.

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.

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

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

would roll across the table without being discomposed, though it contained eight little mice that were naked and blind. As 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

* The number of crimson tags depends upon the sex and age of the bird. In the female they are not so numerous as in the and in the young they do not appear at all till after the first moult.-L. J.

male;

+ Though occurring at uncertain intervals, this species has been known to visit this country in large flocks on various occasions. Mr. Yarrell observes in his "British Birds," that "there is scarcely a northern county in which it has not been frequently killed, and few collections of birds of any extent which do not include one or more specimens." There are also several instances

Philosophical Letters, that great flocks of them, feeding on haws, appeared in this kingdom, in the winter of 1685.

The mention of haws puts me in mind that there is a total failure of that wild fruit, so conducive to the support of many of the winged nation. For the same severe weather, late in the spring, which cut off all the produce of the more tender and curious trees, destroyed also that of the more hardy and common.

Some birds, haunting with the missel-thrushes, and feeding on the berries of the yew-tree, which answered to the description of the merula torquata, or ring-ousel, were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without success. See Letter VIII.

Query.-Might not Canary birds be naturalized to this climate, provided their eggs were put, in the spring, into the nests of some of their congeners, as goldfinches, greenfinches, &c.? Before winter, perhaps, they might be hardened, and able to shift for themselves.

About ten years ago, I used to spend some weeks yearly at Sunbury, which is one of those pleasant villages lying on the Thames, near Hampton Court. In the autumn, I could not help being much amused with those myriads of the swallow-kind which assemble in those parts. But what struck me most was, that, from the time they began to congregate, forsaking the chimneys and houses, they roosted every

on record of its occurring southwards, though this is less commonly the case.-L. J.