56 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



houses. The long-eared bat* resorts in great num- 

 bers to churches, and the roofs of houses; in which 

 last situation they may often be observed in great 

 numbers, congregating in the angles formed by the 

 meeting of the timbers, and hanging in clusters 

 of twenty or thirty together, like swarms of bees: 

 I have once or twice only taken solitary indivi- 

 duals of this species from hollow trees. The pipis- 

 trelle f delights especially in the crevices of decayed 

 brickwork, in the cracks of old gateways and door- 

 frames, or behind the leaden pipes frequently at- 

 tached to buildings for carrying off the rain. In 

 these situations they sometimes collect in astonish- 

 ing quantities, several hundreds having been counted 

 coming out, one after another in quick succession, 

 from the same hole on a summer's evening. J 



Noctule. On the 14th of June, 1842, I received 

 from Mr. Henderson, of Milton Park, Northampton- 

 shire, three old female noctule bats, one having two 

 young ones at the breast, and each of the others one. 

 They were taken, he informed me, from a hollow 

 tree. The young hung at the teats, the mother 

 wrapping them round with her wing, so as almost to 

 conceal them from view : occasionally, however, they 



* Plecotus auritus, Geoff. 



+ Vesper tilio pipistrellus, Gmel. 



t The habits, however, of bats, in this respect, vary a little in 

 different places. Mr. Bell has had Natterer's bat, the whiskered 

 bat, and the long-eared bat, all brought him from a chalk cavern 

 at Chiselhurst, where they were found at the bottom of a shaft 

 seventy feet in depth. The barbastelle, (Barbastellus daubentonii, 

 Bell) was taken in the same place. 



