INTRODUCTION. 13 
the Wild Cat who “sleeps by day” (Merch. of Venice, 
Act ii. Se. 5, and Pericles, Act iii. Intro.) ; “the quarrelous 
Weasel” (Cymbeline, Act iii. Sc. 4, and Henry IV. Part I. 
Act ii. Sc. 3); “the Dormouse of little valour” (Twelfth 
Night, Act iii. Sc. 1); “the joiner Squirrel” (Romeo and 
Fultet, Act i. Sc. 4), whose habit of hoarding appears to 
have been well known to Shakespeare (Midsummer 
Night's Dream, Act iv. Sc. 2); and “the blind Mole,” who 
“casts copp’d hills towards heaven” (Pericles, Act i. 
Sc. 1);*--all these are mentioned in their turn, while 
the Bat ‘with leathern wing,’ t+ “the venom Toad,” “ the 
thorny Hedgehog,’ } “the Adder blue,” and the “ spotted 
Snake with double tongue,” are all called in most aptly by 
way of simile or metaphor. 
We cannot forget Titania’s directions to her fairies in 
regard to Bats :— 
“Some war with rear mice § for their leathern wings, 
To make my small elves coats” 
(Midsummer Night's Dream, Act ii. Sc. 2) ; 
* See also Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. 3. 
+ In the Midland Counties, the bat is often called leathern-wings. Compare the 
high German ‘“‘ leder-maus.” 
Ao . ‘thedgehogs which 
Lie tumbling in my bare-foot way, and mount 
Their pricks at my footfall.” Tempest, Act ii. Se. 2. 
@ ‘* Rere-mouse’’ from the old English ‘‘ Avere-mus," literally a raw mouse. The 
adjective ‘‘ rere’ is still used in Wiltshire for ‘‘raw.’’ The bat is also known as the 
“‘rennie-mouse" or ‘‘reiny-mouse,” although Miss Gurney, in her ‘‘ Glossary of 
Norfolk Words,” gives '‘ranny” for the shrew-mouse. The old name of ‘ flitter- 
mouse,” ‘‘fluttermouse,” or ‘‘fliddermouse,” from the high German, ‘‘fleder- 
maus,'' does not appear in Shakespeare's works. 
