SVlll INTRODLXTION. 



immediate use, were hastily arrnu_2:ed for unpacking and placing 

 in order at leisure. The weather, which was beautiful, balmy 

 and warm, invited us towards evening to out-door enjoyment and 

 rest after a fatiguing day of travel and active labor ; but chairs, 

 settees and benches were scarcely occupied by us on the piazza 

 and lawn, when to our amazement, and the horror of the female 

 portion of our party, small black bats made. their appearance in 

 immense numbers, flickering around the premises, rushing in and 

 out of doors and through open windows — almost obscuring the 

 early twilight, and causing a general stampede of the ladies, who 

 fled covering their heads with their hands, fearing that the dreaded 

 little vampires might make a lodgment in their hair. 



" This remarkable exhibition much increased our disappoint- 

 ment in regard to the habitable condition of our acquisition, and 

 was entirely unexpected, inasmuch as the unwelcome neighbors 

 were in their dormant state and ensconced out of sight, when 

 the property was examined previous to purchase. AVith their 

 appearance and in such immense numbers the prospect of im- 

 mediate indoors arrangement and comfort vanished ; the para- 

 mount, the urgent necessity was to get rid of such a nuisance as 

 quickly as possible, and the question was by what means could 

 this be accomplished. Our scientific friends and acquaintances, 

 both in New York and Philadelphia, were consulted, various 

 volumes of natural history were examined in order to ascertain 

 the peculiar habits of the vermin, but we derived no effectual con- 

 solation from these sources. One of our friends, indeed, sent us 

 from Xew York an infallible exterminator in the form of a receipt 

 obtained at no inconsiderable cost : strips of fat pork saturated 

 with a subtle poison were to be hung up in places where the 

 annoying 'creatures' did most congregate; of this they would 

 surely eat, and thus 'shuffle off their mortal coil.' How many 

 revolving bat seasons it might have required by this process to 

 kill off the multitude, the urgency of the case would not allow us 

 to calculate, and the experiment was therefore abandoned. 



" Evening after evening did we patiently, though not com- 

 placently, watch this periodical exodus of dusky wings into light 

 from their lurking places one after another, and in some instances 

 in couples and even triples, according as the size of the holes or 

 apertures, from which they emerged, in the slate roofing would 

 permit. Their excursions invariably commenced with the cry of 



