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A cross-bill (loxia curvirostra) was killed last year in this neighbourhood.

Our streams, which are small, and rise only at the end of the village, yield nothing but the bull's head,* or miller's thumb (gobius fluviatilis capitatus), the trout (trutta fluviatilis), the eel (anguilla), the lampern (lampetra parva et fluviatilis), and the stickleback (pisciculus aculeatus).

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 frequent our lakes in the forest in hard weather.

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

Salmo fario. Linn.

The tawny or hooting Owl (Surnium aluco), and halfa-dozen names besides, is perhaps the commonest species in the south of England. In a solitary wood, where it is not expected, the tremulous Hu-hoo er re hoo! of this bird of night, for it is strictly nocturnal, is startling enough. Many observers agree that it catches and eats fish as well as the barn owl. Mr. McGillivray found earth-worms in the stomach of one.- ED.

Strix flammea may be looked on as the typical nocturnal owl, whose shriek, if the belief in ghosts had not become extinct, might reasonably enough create feelings of supernatural dread. When taken young from the nest, they are not supposed to be difficult to rear. One or more broods are produced in the season, the bird hatching two eggs, and then laying two more, and again a third time; so that, according to Mr. Blyth, six young owls of different ages frequently occupy the same nest.-ED.

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 twenty-first of August; it was a straggler.

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

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

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

I was much entertained last summer with a tame 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 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 chimnies and gnaw men's bacon, seems no im

Bats are now known to be much more numerous, and probably many remain undiscovered from their timid nocturnal habits. Bell enumerates twelve species, after separating the vespertilio from the plecotus and barbastellus. Vespertilio auritus being a plecotus: Vespertilio murinus and Vespertilio noctula are described in Letter XLVI. as Vespertilio altivolans.-ED.

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probable 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 dispatch 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 the 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.

SELBORNE, Sept. 9, 1767.

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T 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

*This hawk, as already stated, proved to be the falco peregrinus.-ED.

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 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

The harvest Mouse (Mus messorius, Shaw) has been described in various parts of England and Scotland, as well as in Hampshire, where White first discovered it. It is herbivorous, and feeds chiefly on corn; but it does not seem to despise insect food, for Bingley describes an instance where one sprang with great agility along the wires of a cage at a large blue fly buzzing against it. It is the prettiest, as well as the smallest, of British quadrupeds, but is not so easily tamed as the field mouse. Mr. White has minutely described the nest of this little creature; but Dr. Gloger furnished Mr. Bennett with a still more precise account of it. He describes it as beautifully constructed of panicles and leaves of three stems of the common reed, interwoven together, and forming a roundish ball, suspended on the living plants, at a height of five inches from the ground. On the side opposite the stems, rather below the middle, was a small aperture, which appeared to be closed during the absence of the parent, and was scarcely observable when one of the young ones had escaped through it. The inside felt soft and warm, smooth, and nearly rounded, but very confined. It contained five young, but one previously examined by Dr. Gloger sheltered no less than nine. It is supposed to be identical with the mus minutus of Pallas, and probably the mulot nain of F. Cuvier. Its head and body, two inches six lines; its tail, two inches five lines.-ED.

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