old! you
have brought back to life a beautiful _Euvanessa_, or mourning-cloak
butterfly. Lay it upon the snow and soon the awakened life will ebb away
and it will again be stiff, as in death. If you wish, take it home, and
you may warm it into activity, feed it upon a drop of syrup and freeze it
again at will. Sometimes six or eight of these insects may be found
sheltered under the bark of a single stump, or in a hollow beneath a
stone. Several species share this habit of hibernating throughout the
winter.

Look carefully in old, deserted sheds, in half-sheltered hollows of trees,
or in deep crevice-caverns in rocks, and you may some day spy one of the
strangest of our wood-folk. A poor little shrivelled bundle of fur,
tight-clasped in its own skinny fingers, with no more appearance of life
in its frozen body than if it were a mummy from an Egyptian tomb; such is
the figure that will meet your eye when you chance upon a bat in the deep
trance of its winter's hibernation. Often you will find six or a dozen of
these stiffened forms clinging close together, head downward.

As in the case of the sleeping butterfly, carry one of the bats to your
warm room and place him in a bird-cage, hanging him up on the top wires by
his toes, with his head downward. The inverted position of these strange
little beings always brings to mind some of the experiences of Gulliver,
and indeed the life of a bat is more wonderful than any fairy tale.

Probably the knowledge of bats which most of us possess is chiefly derived
from the imaginations of artists and poets, who, unlike the Chinese, do
not look upon these creatures with much favour, generally symbolising them
in connection with passages and pictures which relate to the infernal
regions. All of which is entirely unjust. Their nocturnal habits and our
consequent ignorance of their characteristics are the only causes which
can account for their being associated with the realm of Satan. In some
places bats are called flittermice, but they are more nearly related to
moles, shrews, and other insect-eaters than they are to mice. If we look
at the skeleton of an animal which walks or hops we will notice that its
hind limbs are much the stronger, and that the girdle which connects these
with the backbone is composed of strong and heavy bones. In bats a reverse
condition is found; the breast girdle, or bones corresponding to our
collar bones and shoulder blades, are greatly developed. This, as i