64 THE HALCYON, OR KINGFISHER 

 EXERCISES 



1. What personal knowledge have you of the Kingfisher ? 

 Write an account of it. 



2. Can you explain how the suspended body of a dead King- 

 fisher answers the purpose of a weather-vane ? 



3. Contrast the colouring of the Kingfisher with its form. 



4. Describe its habits, nesting-place, nest, eggs, &c. 



5. Find the passage in King Lear where reference is made to 

 the Kingfisher. Find out the connexion between the Halcyon 

 and Alcyone. 



ABOUT BATS 



THE sight of a flying bat on a mild evening in March 

 is something of a phenomenon, but the appearance of 

 this curious creature in December is a rarer pheno- 

 menon still. And yet its visibility or invisibility 

 in our country is merely a question of temperature, 

 for it hibernates (or goes to sleep) in cold weather ; 

 and the wonder is less that the bat comes abroad 

 sometimes in winter than that in the winter season 

 we have occasionally days of summer warmth. 



Though the bat has a natural power of continued 10 

 locomotion in the air, it is not a bird; it is really 

 a quadruped, like the mouse, but with a remarkable 

 provision, especially in the forelegs, for flying : it is 

 a small flying mammal. The old Anglo-Saxon names 

 of ' flitter-mouse ' and 'rere-mouse' are perhaps the 

 best popular names the creature could have, as at 

 The once describing its most conspicuous features and 



and the being passably scientific. But to Science the common 

 Noctule. or little bat is known as the pipistrelle, and the large 



