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FIELD NOTES. 
MAMMALS. 
Note on Bats.—In the ‘ Naturalist’ for January (p. 28) Mr. 
H. B. Booth has a note on ‘the small quantity of air necessary 
to sustain life in a bat.’ The following may be of interest to 
Mr. Booth and others who are studying these physiologically 
puzzling animals :— 
W. Derham, in his ‘Physico-Theology’ (London, 1737), 
Book I., Chap. i, p. 28, gives the results of some experiments 
on many animals. ‘Birds, dogs, cats, rats, mice, etc., when 
placed under the receiver of an air pump, died in less than half- 
a-minute, counting from the very first exsuction. A mole.... 
died in one minute.... <A bat (although wounded) sustained 
the pump two minutes, and revived upon the re-admission 
of air. After that he remained four-minutes-and-a-half and 
revived. Lastly, after he had been five minutes, he continued 
gasping for a while, and after twenty minutes I readmitted air, 
but the bat never revived.’ A frog lasted eleven hours, and 
certain invertebrates twenty-four hours. Besides suffering from 
lack of oxygen, these subjects would probably be damaged by 
exploded or distended vessels and tissues. 
In a footnote on p. 71, in Vol. I. of the English translation 
of Cuvier’s ‘Animal Kingdom’ (1834) there is an account of the 
observations of Dr. Marshall Hall on the lethargic sleep of 
several hibernating mammals which ‘can bear with impunity 
the abstraction of atmospheric air.’ This faculty ‘enabled a 
bat to preserve life for eleven minutes when immersed in water.’ 
—Frep Stusss, Oldham, April 18th. 
==2 © 3== 
BIRDS. 
Water-rail and Gannett at Mablethorpe.—About a week 
ago a water-rail entered, by the open window, the dining-room 
of Mr. J. H. Joyce, of Mablethorpe. On examination it was 
found to be almost foodless. About the same date a Solan 
Goose, or Gannet, was found dead from exhaustion about two 
miles from Mablethorpe.—J. Conway WALTER, Langton, Lincs., 
April 2oth, 1907. 
Naturalist, 
