a favourite Tom cat seated on a table near the window, beside a narrow-necked cream-jug containing milk: no person was in the kitchen. He was smelling the milk and endeavouring to reach it with his tongue, but could not; at last he inserted one of his fore paws and withdrew it, the fur saturated with milk; after he had licked it clean he dipped it again, and kept repeating the process as long as I remained observing him, which I did for several minutes, and then left him to his employment, for I thought he had well deserved his reward by his ingenuity.—James Bladon; Pont-y-Pool, December, 1842.
Note on some species of Bats occurring near Teignmouth. As bats have already engaged the attention of your correspondents, a short notice of those found in this neighbourhood may perhaps be acceptable. The best w r ay of procuring them is by a common mothing net, in which they may easily be taken; this is much preferable to shooting them, both as it saves the time which would otherwise be employed in finding the dead ones, and a useless destruction of their lives is thereby avoided, since the common kinds may be suffered to escape again. The species found in this neighbourhood are the following:—the greater horse-shoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum), scarce; the lesser horse-shoe bat (R. hipposideros), one specimen; the barbastelle (Vespertilio barbastellus), scarce; the long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus), and the mouse-coloured bat (Scotophilus murinus),[1] both common. One evening I caught for a friend a female of Plecotus auritus; in the morning there was a young one in the cage with it: on the next day, when I called to enquire after the captive, he took it out of the cage to show me his new acquisition, when the mother, finding herself at liberty, immediately flew away, carrying her young one hanging to her breast, and seeming in no manner inconvenienced by the burden, since she flew so far that it was entirely out of our power to capture her again.—Robert C.R. Jordan; Teignmouth, January 17, 1843.
Anecdote of Bats flying by daylight. The following fact relative to the bat (Vespertilio Pipistrellus) I do not find to have been mentioned by writers on Natural History. On referring to my journal of 1837, I find that this animal had made its appearance as early as the 27th of April, at which time it was busily flitting about at noon-day, the sun shining brightly at the time. From that period to the present I have frequently observed it under similar circumstances, up to the end of December. Daubenton's bat I also shot whilst flying about in
- ↑ Does our correspondent mean the common bat? There is, unfortunately, much confusion at present in the nomenclature of this tribe.—Ed.
