120 BATS. 



not understand perfectly ; but refer it to the observation of 

 the curious anatomist. These creatures send forth a very 

 rancid and offensive smell.* 



LETTER XL VII. 



TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. 



SELBORNE, 1771. 



DEAR SIR, On the twelfth of July, I had a fair opportunity 

 of contemplating the motions of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl, 

 as it was playing round a large oak that swarmed with scarabcei 



* Mr Jesse says, " Bats seem to be gregarious animals. Vast numbers 

 of them were lately found under the roof of an old building in Richmond 

 Park. I had two sorts of them brought to me, nearly similar in shape, 

 but one very considerably larger than the other. This latter is probably 

 the vespertilio altivolans, mentioned by Mr White, in his Natural History 

 of Selborne, answering to his description of it. It measured nearly 

 fifteen inches from the tip of one wing to that of the other. These larger 

 bats were quite as numerous as the smaller species. A great number of 

 them were also found in an old building in Combe Wood, adjoining Rich- 

 mond Park ; and, subsequently, ten of them were discovered in a decayed 

 tree in that park." This is pretty strong evidence against the migration 

 of the bat in question. Several of these were sent by Mr Jesse to the 

 Zoological Societies of London. 



A workman employed in the repairs of Cardinal Wolsey's hall, Hamp- 

 ton-Court Palace, found the skeleton of a bat at the end of one of the 

 rafters of the ceiling, which is calculated to have been nearly as large as 

 a pigeon when alive. 



Bats are possessed of a sense with which we are yet unacquainted, that 

 of avoiding objects in the dark. Spallanzani hung up some cloths across 

 a room, with holes cut in them at various distances, large enough to allow 

 a bat to fly through. He deprived the poor animals of light, and stopt 

 their hearing as much as possible. These animals on being turned loose, 

 flew through the perforations with as much correctness as if they had had 

 the use of their eyes. 



Respecting the hybernation of the bat, the following fact is very curious : 

 " In the beginning of November, 1821, a woodman engaged in splitting 

 timber for rails in the woods close to the lake at Haining, a seat of Mr 

 Pringle in Selkirkshire, discovered in the centre of a large wild cherry 

 tree, a living bat, of a bright scarlet colour, which, as soon as it was 

 relieved from its entombment, took to its wings and escaped. In the 

 tree there was a recess sufficiently large to contain the animal ; but all 

 around the wood was perfectly sound, solid, and free from any fissure 

 through which the atmosphere could reach the animal. A man employed 

 in the same manner at Kelsall, in December, 1826, met with a similar 

 phenomenon, and allowed the bat to escape, under the influence of fear, 

 protesting that it was not a ' being of this world. ' " BlackwoocTs 

 Magazine, vol. viii. p. 467. ED. 



