Letter XXXVI
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire

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 measured fourteen inches and an
half, and four inches and an 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