58 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



August, I found one sticking to a post near some 

 water, from which one might infer that the species 

 was still about at that period. This individual was 

 under size, and appeared to be the young of the 

 year. In a previous year, on the 14th of September, 

 I found some in a hollow tree that was evidently 

 intended to be their winter-quarters. These were in 

 a reduced state, and had not, as I imagined, taken 

 food for some time. 



Pipistrelle. I have known two or three instances 

 in which this species has been taken on wing, with 

 the young adhering to the breast. On one occasion, 

 an individual fell dead at the feet of a gentleman, 

 who was out in a thunderstorm near Cambridge, im- 

 mediately after a flash of lightning, as if struck by 

 the electric fluid ; a young one was clinging to the 

 teat at the time, and still alive, apparently unin- 

 jured.* 



* I have already mentioned this circumstance in a note in my 

 edition of White's Selborne (Lett. XIV. to Daines Barrington). I 

 reinsert it here, with the view of referring the reader to some in- 

 teresting remarks, which I had not then seen, by M. Pouchet, a 

 French naturalist, on the mode in which the female bat carries its 

 young. These remarks are contained in L'Institut for 1842, p. 43, 

 and relate to the horse-shoe bat, of which species he met with im- 

 mense quantities in the subterranean vaults of an old abbey. The 

 following is a translation of some part of his communication. 



" M. Pouchet, having taken four females which had their 

 young still clinging to their bodies, was able to observe in what 

 manner they adhered, and resisted the sudden movements of these 

 animals in their flight. Each female had but one young one, 

 which adhered firmly to the mother by means of its hind-feet, 

 in a reversed position. It embraced her indeed so closely, 

 that, at first sight, the two animals, the forms of which were in a 



