eeth and the broad red tongue, which curls outward
to a surprising length. Then comes the most curious process of all.
Drawing up one leg, the little creature deliberately wraps one hand with
its clinging web around the leg and under the arms, and then draws the
other wing straight across the body, holds it there a moment, while it
takes a last look in all directions. Then lifting its fingers slightly, it
bends its head and wraps all in the full-spread web. It is most
ludicrously like a tragedian, acting the death scene in "Julius Caesar,"
and it loses nothing in repetition; for each time the little animal thus
draws its winding sheet about its body, one is forced to smile as he
thinks of the absurd resemblance.

But all this and much more you will see for yourself, if you are so
fortunate as to discover the hiding-place of the hibernating bat.

Our little brown bat is a most excellent mother, and when in summer she
starts out on her nocturnal hunts she takes her tiny baby bat with her.
The weird little creature wraps his long fingers about his mother's neck
and off they go. When two young are born, the father bat is said sometimes
to assume entire control of one.

After we come to know more of the admirable family traits of the
_fledermaus_--its musical German name--we shall willingly defend it from
the calumny which for thousands of years has been heaped upon it.

Hibernation is a strange phenomenon, and one which is but little
understood. If we break into the death-like trance for too long a time, or
if we do not supply the right kind of food, our captive butterflies and
bats will perish. So let us soon freeze them up again and place them back
in the care of old Nature. Thus the pleasure is ours of having made them
yield up their secrets, without any harm to them. Let us fancy that in the
spring they may remember us only as a strange dream which has come to them
during their long sleep.

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MARCH

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FEATHERED PIONEERS

In the annual war of the seasons, March is the time of the most bitterly
contested battles. But we--and very likely the birds--can look ahead and
realise what the final outcome will invariably be, and, our sympathies
being on the winning side, every advance of spring's outposts gladdens our
hearts. But winter is a stubborn foe, and sometimes his