Quadrupeds, 7 



serving the comparative powers of flight of the two animals. Quick 

 as were the evolutions of the swallows, they were clumsy compared 

 with those of the bat. The more it was pestered by its numerous op- 

 ponents, the more gracefully did it twist, and turn, and try to escape, 

 which it was evidently desirous of doing, and this its superior power 

 of wing soon enabled it to accomplish, leaving its pursuers far behind, 

 — J. TV. Douglas; 4, Waterloo Place, Cohourg Road, June 16, 1842. 

 Anecdote of a Mole. In the spring of 1839 I was by the side of a 

 large piece of water, and saw the earth heaving up, evidently the 

 effect of the working of a mole ; and having read a good deal about 

 moles taking the water, I thought I would try if this one could swim. 

 I therefore put down a stick into the earth, on one side of the mole, 

 and elevating it suddenly with a jerk, threw the animal into the water 

 twelve or fourteen feet. It immediately swam in a straight line to 

 wards the edge, using its feet with great rapidity, and proceeded about 

 four feet, when it turned and described a circle, and continued to do 

 so for some time, the circumference becoming less every revolution, 

 until the mole became quite exhausted, remained stationary, and soon 

 ceased to exist. Meanwhile my endeavours to reach it, and if pos- 

 sible save it from its impending fate, were vain ; I could not get it in 

 time to save its life, and regretted that I had sacrificed it to my curi- 

 osity ; its manner in the water, however, satisfied me that a mole can 

 swim, but it probably would not do so voluntarily. — Id. 



Notice of a ^History of British Quadrupeds, including the Ceiacea.' 

 By Thomas Bell. London : Van Voorst. 



" Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant 

 Sic nos." — Lucretius, 



The geographical distribution of vertebrated animals is one of the 

 most interesting branches of Natural History. The causes by which 

 the increase or decrease — the introduction or extermination of a spe- 

 cies is governed, are often obvious or easily ascertained ; at other 

 times they are lost in the obscurity of past ages or dimmed by the in- 

 tervention of fiction. Most of those changes of which we can obtain 

 positive evidence are due to the intervention of man : while others — 

 those remote changes of which the geologist tells us, recorded only by 

 evidences exhumed from the bowels of the earth, seem to have taken 

 place long before the commencement of man's irresistible influence. 

 The changes of which the record is within oiu* reach, would appear 



