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L E T T E R XXXV.
TO THE SAM E.
D E A R SIR, Selborne, 1771.
H a p p e ™ to make a vifit to my neighbour’s peacocks, I
could not help obferving that the trains of thofe magnificent birds
appear by no means to be their tails; thofe long feathers growing
not from their v.ropyglum, but all up their backs. A range of
Ihort brown ftiff feathers, about fix inches long, fixed in the
v.ropyg'w.ni, is the real tail, and ferves as the fulcrum to prop the
train, which is long and top-heavy, when fet an end. When the
train is up, nothing appears of the bird before but it’s head and
neck; but this would not be the cafe were thofe long feathers
fixed only in the rump, as may be feen by the turkey-cock when
in a flrutting attitude. By a ftrong mufcular vibration theft birds
can make the fhafts of their long feathers clatter like the fwords
of a fword-dancer; they then trample very quick with their feet,
and run backwards towards the females.
I Ihould tell you that I have got an uncommon calculus
agagropila, taken out of the ftomach of a fat o x ; it is perfedtly
round, and about the fize of a large Seville orange; fuch are, I
think, ufually flat.
L E T T E R
L E T T E R XXXVI.
TO THE SAME.
DEAR SIR, Sept. ,771.
T he fummer through I have feen but two of that large fpecies
of bat which I call vefpertilio altivolans, from it’s 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 likewife, I was fomewhat dilappointed, when it
appeared to be alfo of the lame fex. This circumllance, and the
great fcarcity of this fort, at leaft in thefe parts, occalions fome
fufpicions in my mind whether it is really a fpecies, or whether
it may not be the male part of the more known fpecies, one of
which may fupply many females; as is known to be the cafe in
Iheep, and fome other quadrupeds. But this doubt can only be
cleared by a farther examination, and fome attention to the fex,
o f more fpecimens: all that I know at prefent is, that my two
were amply furnilhed with the parts of generation much refem-
bling thofe of a boar. ?
In the extent of their wings they meafured fourteen inches and
an half; and four inches and an half from the nofe to the tip of
the tail: their heads were large, their I noftrils bilobated, their
fhoulders broad and mufcular; and their whole bodies flelhy and
plump. Nothing could be more fleek and foft than their fur,
which was of a bright chefnut colour; their maws were full of
food,