FOURTH WEEK] February 59 



species share this habit of hibernating throughout the 

 winter. 



Look carefully in old, deserted sheds, in half-sheltered 

 hollows of trees, or in deep crevice-caverns in rocks, and 

 you may some day spy one of the strangest of our wood- 

 folk. A poor little shrivelled bundle of fur, tight-clasped 

 in its own skinny fingers, with no more appearance of life 

 in its frozen body than if it were a mummy from an 

 Egyptian tomb; such is the figure that will meet your 

 eye when you chance upon a bat in the deep trance of its 

 winter's hibernation. Often you will find six or a dozen 

 of these stiffened forms clinging close together, head 

 downward. 



As in the case of the sleeping butterfly, carry one of 

 the bats to your warm room and place him in a bird-cage, 

 hanging him up on the top wires by his toes, with his 

 head downward. The inverted position of these strange 

 little beings always brings to mind some of the expe- 

 riences of Gulliver, and indeed the life of a bat is more 

 wonderful than any fairy tale. 



Probably the knowledge of bats which most of us 

 possess, is chiefly derived from the imaginations of artists 

 and poets, who, unlike the Chinese, do not look upon 

 these creatures with much favour, generally symbolising 

 them in connection with passages and pictures which 

 relate to the infernal regions. All of which is entirely 

 unjust. Their nocturnal habits and our consequent igno- 

 rance of their characteristics are the only causes which 

 can account for their being associated with the realm of 

 Satan. In some places bats are called flittermice, but they 



