104 BATS. 



De Buffon, I know, has descriBed the water shrew-mouse ; 

 but still I am pleased to find you have discovered it in Lin- 

 colnshire, for the reason I have given ia the article of the 

 white hare.* 



As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field, 

 far removed from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that 

 was curiously laid up in an hybernaculum, artificially formed 

 of grass and leaves. At one end of the burrow lay about a 

 gallon of potatoes, regularly stowed, on which it was to have 

 supported itself for the winter. But the difficulty with me 

 is how this ampMlius mus came to fix its winter station at 

 such a distance, Irom the water. "Was it determined in its 

 choice of that place by the mere accident of finding the 

 potatoes which were planted there ? or is it the constant 

 practice of the aqiiatic rat to forsake the neighbourhood of 

 the water in the colder months ? 



Though I delight very little in analogous reasoning, know- 

 ing how fallacious it is with respect to natural history ; yet 

 in the following instance I cannot help being inclined to 

 think it may conduce towards the explanation of a difiiculty 

 that I have mentioned before with respect to the invariable 

 early retreat of the hirundo apus, or swift, so many weeks 

 before its congeners ; and that not only with us, but also in 

 Andalusia, where they begin to retire about the beginning 

 of August. 



The great large batf (whicb, by the by, is at present a 

 nondescript in England, and what I have never been able 

 yet to procure) retires or migrates very early in the summer: 

 it also ranges very high for its food, feeding in a different 



* Lepus variabilis. — W. J. 



•f" The little bat appears almost every month in the year; but I have never 

 seen the large ones till the end of April, nor after July. They are most 

 common in June, but never in any plenty : are a rare species -with us. 



The great bat, ■vespertilio noctula or alfivolans, certainly winters in 

 England, as they have been found in winter in old buildings near Kingston-on- 

 Thames, and at "W"imbledon. They congregate, in summer at least, for a flock 

 of from twelve to fifteen of them "vvcre seen to take possession of an old tree 

 in Hampton Court gardens in -which was a nest of young starlings, nearly 

 fledged. These the bats soon destroyed and pvobably fed on. I turned them 

 out of the tree several times in the day-time, but they invariably returned to 

 it for three weeks, when they finally abandoned it. They fled high in the 

 day-time although the sun was shining. — Ed. 



