uld study
insects, could they set out with a more adequate notion of those
distinctions than can be conveyed at first by words alone.

LETTER XXXV.

SELBORNE, 1771.

Dear Sir,--Happening 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 aegogropila_,
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.

LETTER XXXVI.

_Sept._, 1771.

Dear Sir,--The 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