The house-martins have eggs still, and squab young. The last swift I observed was about the 21st August: it was a straggler.
Red-starts, fly-catchers, white-throats, and reguli non cristati, still appear: but I have seen no black-caps lately.
The House-Martin.
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 20th November.
At present I know only two species of bats, the common vespertilio murinus and the vespertilio auribus.[e8]
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.