288 UPLAND AND MEADOW. 



bats, if disturbed i in mediately after gathering togetlier, 

 are as resentful as when captured during raidsuiniuer ; 

 and not until three or four days have elapsed do they be- 

 come insensible to disturbance. If this be very violent, 

 and the creatures roused suddenly, a curious condition 

 of aimless activity ensues, but lasts for a short time 

 only, and often ends in death. 



On the other hand, I have very frequently found soli- 

 tary bats in curiously out-of-the-way places, where they 

 were so protected that they could not have suffered from 

 the severity of the season, however intense. In such 

 cases the torpor was never profound, the temperature 

 of the body but little reduced, and the heart's action 

 almost normal. For instance : a single dusky bat slept, 

 or hibernated, as described, for thirteen weeks in the 

 attic of my house. It clung to a nail driven into the 

 wall of the chimney, and was protected by a piece of 

 woollen cloth hanging from a beam above it. The 

 chimney retained a little of the warmth derived from 

 the three smoke-flues which passed through it, and 

 which were in constant use during the time. This bat 

 could be taken down and hung up as readily as an in- 

 animate object, yet clearly showed that it was conscious 

 of the disturbance to which it was subjected. Once I 

 brought it into a warm room, when it revived, in thirty 

 minutes, and flew about the apartment, but not with a 

 very steady, well-directed flight. When taken again to 

 the attic it responded to the effects of the lower tem- 

 perature by resuming its former position, after a steady 

 to-and-fro flight from end to end of the attic for nearly 

 an hour. The bat seemed to be wholly aware of the 



