THE MUSEUM. 



329 



ing the time. This bat could be taken 

 down and hung up as readily as an in- 

 animate object, yet clearly showed 

 that it was conscious of the disturb- 

 ance to which it was subjected. Once 

 I brought it into a warm room when 

 it revived in thirty minutes and liew 

 about the apartment, but not with a 

 very steady, well-directed flight. 

 When taken again to the attic it re- 

 sponded to the effects of the lower 

 temperature by resuming its former 

 position, after a steady to-and-fro 

 flight from end to end of the attic for 

 nearly an hour. The bat seemed to 

 be wholly aware of the position of the 

 nail in the chimney, and when wearied 

 of its flight turned to it directly and 

 folding its wings about it seized the 

 nail with a tighter grip and hung head 

 down as it had been doing. In two 

 hours I went to it again and found it 

 as indifferent to handling as before. 



The two species of moles so com- 

 mon with us hibernate in quite differ- 

 ent ways, the habit varying as much 

 with them as does the character of 

 their respective habitats. 



The common mole {Scalops aquati- 

 ciis) — which, by the way, is in no sense 

 aquatic — burrows deeply in the dry 

 soils, keeping just beyond the frost- 

 line; and there it remains, without a 

 nest of any kind, until the warmth of 

 the spring.^sunshine melts the frosts, 

 loosens the soil, and sets the subter- 

 ranean prisoner free. If, as some- 

 times happens, the cold is unusually 

 intense and sudden, the ground freezes 

 below the resting-places of the hiber- 

 nating moles, and then th^ey are frozen 

 to death. This, I judge, does not 

 often occur; but the approaching frost 

 rouses them sufficiently to place them 



on their guard, and forthwith they 

 burrow a little deeper. 



It is very different with the mead- 

 ow-haunting, star-nosed mole {Condy- 

 hij-a cristaid). This mammal has 

 more complicated burrows than those 

 of the preceeding, and often one or 

 more openings to them are beneath 

 the surface of the water. At some 

 point in their tangled tunnellings, 

 these moles form commodious nests, 

 placing a good deal of fine grass in 

 them. Here, indifferent to freshets, 

 they remain all winter, and as they 

 can lay up no food, sleep, I suppose, 

 through the entire season. 



The fact that these moles are un- 

 affected by being submerged during 

 the spring freshsts is an interesting 

 fact. So far as I have examined their 

 nests, there was nothing to show that 

 they were water-tight; and I think that 

 the animals must have been thorough- 

 ly soaked for from forty-eight to sev- 

 enty-two hours, the ordinary duration 

 of the high water. If through any 

 cause the period of submergence was 

 prolonged, it is probable that it would 

 prove fatal to the moles. 



The short-tailed schrews {Blarina 

 brcvicauda), on che other hand, which 

 are closely akin to the foregoing; are 

 full of life and activity all winter. No 

 severity of the weather chills their ar- 

 dor, but this is not to be wondered at. 

 Their favorite food is grass-hoppers, 

 and these are to be had in abundance 

 the season through. Every warm day 

 brings hundreds of half-grown, wing- 

 less grass-hoppers to the surface, 

 where they move about verv actively. 

 A few years ago, on Feb. 3, I found 

 literally milHons of them hopping over 

 the dead grass, in the meadows, as 



