A Home Study in Natural History. 207 



A HOME-STUDY IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



"FREE TENANTS." 



By Dr. Felix L. Oswald. 



(Read November i, 1887. See proceedings.) 



The Spaniards have a proverb that " no gardener gardens for 

 himself alone,'" and it is equally true that a considerable nnmber of 

 unbidden guests come in quest of lodging, as well as of board : 

 " Man ! all things love thee, near thee love to stay, 

 To thee they hasten on their God-ward way," 



rhymes old Tauler, who must have heard the ecstatic galloping of 

 rats after the discovery of a Dutch cheese in a dry, snug pantry ; 

 and if God's vice-regent did not assert his supremacy by such 

 belligerent methods his dwellings would often harbor as many free 

 tenants as that Cingalese cave-temple where Sir Stanford Raffles 

 found eight varieties of reptiles and six species of quadrupeds, be- 

 sides birds and cats. No joiner's skill can wholly obviate such in- 

 truders. They enter through windows and cellar doors, through 

 broken shingles and even through smoke flues, like the " chimney 

 sweeper," as our Southern farniers call a variety of swift {Cypsehis 

 pelagica) that utilizes the crevices of rough-built stone chimneys, 

 without being at all particular about a bit of sinoke. In school- 

 houses, used only in wintertime, swallows often build their nests on 

 the inner walls, and, like the witches of mediaeval folk-lore, use the 

 chimney as a convenient thoroughfare, unless a broken window 

 should afford collateral means of access. 



Bats introduce themselves to still smaller crannies. About an 

 hour after sunset my Texas landlord used to light a bonfire for the 

 benefit of the Brazos river gnats, and in the glare of that con 

 fiagration I repeatedly watched a pair of spoon-ear bats that 

 seemed to have their nest somewhere in the rafters of the loft. Af- 

 ter a ten minutes' raid on the insect population of the night air 

 they would alight on the tipper edge of the weatherboards, close 

 under the caves of the roof, and squeeze themselves through a chink 

 apparently just big enough for a cockroach. In the next minute 

 the low, piping squeak of their youngsters would be heard from 



