104 BATS. 



De Buffon, I know, has described the water shrew-mous 

 but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Li 

 colnshire, for the reason I have given in the article of 

 white hare.* 



As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky fie] 

 far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, th 

 was curiously laid up in an hybernaculum, artificially form* 

 of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay about 

 gallon of potatoes, regularly stowed, on which it was to ha 

 supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with i 

 is how this amphibius mus came to fix its winter station 

 such a distance from the water. Was it determined in i 

 choice of that place by the mere accident of finding t] 

 potatoes which were planted there ? or is it the consta: 

 practice of the aquatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood 

 the water in the colder months ? 



Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, kno^ 

 ing how fallacious it is with respect to natural history ; y 

 in the following instance I cannot help being inclined 

 think it may conduce towards the explanation of a difficul 

 that I have mentioned before with respect to the invariab 

 early retreat of the hirundo apus, or swift, so many wee] 

 before its congeners ; and that not only with us, but also 

 Andalusia, where they begin to retire about the beginnii 

 of August. 



The great large batf (which, by the by, is at present 

 nondescript in England, and what I have never been ab 

 yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summe 

 it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a differe] 



* Lepus variabilis. "W. J. 



J* The little bat appears almost every month in the year ; but I have rie\ 

 seen the large ones till the end of April, nor after July. They are mi 

 common in June, but never in any plenty : are a rare species with us. 



The great bat, vespertilio noctula or altivolans, certainly winters 

 England, as they have been found in winter in old buildings near Kingston-c 

 Thames, and at Wimbledon. They congregate, in summer at least, for a flo 

 of from twelve to fifteen of them were seen to take possession of an old tr 

 ill Hampton Court gardens in which was a nest of young starlings, neai 

 fledged. These the bats soon destroyed and probably fed on. I turned the 

 out of the tree several times in the day-time, but they invariably returned 

 it for three weeks, when they finally abandoned it. They fled high in t 

 day-time although the sun was shining. ED. 



