SPOKT OF BUTE. 137 



probably have been followed by the great bat 

 Vespertilio altivolans of naturalists. This night- 

 flyer takes the same place among bats that swifts 

 do among swallows. Like swifts, their flight is 

 rapid and high, and the term of their appearance 

 equally short. I have watched them from Henley 

 Bridge coursing over the Thames among the other 

 bats, which looked, in comparison, no bigger than 

 butterflies. They shelter during the day in hollow 

 trees, but never under the slates or leads of houses 

 or out-buildings, the favourite refuge of the two 

 other species of British bat. I have one of the 

 Henley great bats stuffed, and, barring its colour 

 (a rich chestnut), it is precisely like a giant of the 

 smaller common kind. 



The top of the old tower here is a city of bats. 

 On raising the lead sheeting about the beginning 

 of last summer, we discovered hundreds both of 

 long-eared and little bats, each female having her 

 piccaninny attached by its tiny claws to her breast. 

 When hunting in the twilight, they carry their 

 young one too ; and the little creature is so deftly 

 and firmly fastened as not in the least to incom- 

 mode the parent, or hinder her success in moth- 



