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for I am well assured that many people would study insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.

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LETTER XXXV.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQuire.

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Selborne, 1771.

APPENING to make a visit to my neighbour's peacocks, I could not help observing that the trains of those magnificent birds appear by no means to be their tails; those long feathers growing not from their uropygium, but all up their backs. A range of short brown stiff feathers, about six inches long, fixed in the uropygium, is the real tail, and serves as the fulcrum to prop the train, which is long and top-heavy, when set on end. When the train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but its head and neck; but this would not be the case were those long feathers fixed only in the rump, as may be seen by the turkey-cock when in a strutting attitude. By a strong muscular vibration these birds can make the shafts of their long feathers clatter like the swords of a sword dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet, and run backwards towards the females.

I should tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus agagropila, taken out of the stomach of a fat ox; it is perfectly round, and about the size of a large Seville orange; such are, I think, usually flat.

1 The peafowl is not the only bird in which the feathers of different parts sometimes assume the appearance of a tail. Familiar instances of this peculiarity are found in some of the cranes, notably in the Stanley crane, and in the beautiful Trogon resplendens of Central America.ED.

LETTER XXXVI.

TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

Sept. 1771.

HE summer through I have seen but two of that large species of bat which I call Vespertilio altivolans', from its manner of feeding high in the air: I procured one of them, and found it to be a male; and made no doubt, as

they accompanied together, that the other was a female: but, happening in an evening or two to procure the other likewise, I was somewhat disappointed, when it appeared to be also of the same sex. This circumstance, and the great scarcity of this sort, at least in these parts, occasions some suspicions in my mind whether it is really a species, or whether it may not be the male part of the more known species, one of which may supply many females; as is known to be the case in sheep, and some other quadrupeds. But this doubt can only be cleared by a farther examination and some attention to the sex, of more specimens. All that I know at present is, that my two were amply furnished with the parts of generation, much resembling those of a boar.

In the extent of their wings they measured fourteen inches and a half; and four inches and a half from the nose to the tip of the tail: their heads were large, their nostrils bilobated, their shoulders broad and muscular; and their whole bodies fleshy and plump. Nothing could be more sleek and soft than their fur, which was of a bright chestnut colour; their maws were full of food, but so macerated that the quality could not be distinguished; their livers, kidneys, and hearts were large, and their bowels covered with fat. They weighed each, when entire, full one ounce and one drachm. Within the ear there was somewhat of a peculiar structure that I did

1 This is the noctule bat, Vespertilio noctula, Linn.—ED.

not understand perfectly; but refer it to the observation of the curious anatomist.1 These creatures sent forth a very rancid and offensive smell.

LETTER XXXVII.

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 Scarabæi solstitiales," or fern-chafers. The powers of its wing were wonderful, exceeding, if possible, the various evolutions and quick turns of the swallow genus. But the circumstance that pleased me most was, that I saw it distinctly, 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 its 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

1 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 only 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 Linnæus 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.

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forsaken us sooner this year than usual; for on September the 22nd they rendezvoused in a neighbour's walnut tree, where it seemed probable they had taken up their lodging for the night. At the dawn of the day, which was foggy, they rose all together in infinite numbers, occasioning such a rushing from the strokes of their wings against the hazy air, as might be heard to a considerable distance: since that no flock has appeared, only a few stragglers.

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Some swifts stayed late, till the 22nd of August-a rare instance! for they usually withdraw within the first week.' On September the 24th three or four ring-ousels appeared in fields for the first time this season: how punctual are these visitors in their autumnal and spring migrations!

my

1 See Letter LII. to Mr. Barrington.-G. W.

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