IT. 

 BATS AND SOME OTHER BEASTS. 



By George Hooper, F.Z.S. 



Head at Watford, \Zth Xovember, 1891. 



(Abridged.) 



The Bat is a very wonderful beast ; perhaps, where all are 

 wonderful, the most so of any in the creation, for it alone possesses 

 the principal attribute of birds, the power of flight. No other 

 beast is gifted with this power, and for its exercise the won- 

 derful resoui'ces of nature seem to have been brought into play 

 in an unprecedented manner. The wing of the bat, so-called from 

 its scr^-ing, and admirably serving, the purpose of a wing, is 

 not, properly speaking, a wing at all, to which the presence of 

 feathers would seem to be necessary. The bat's wing is merely 

 the bat's hand. The long slender fingers are elongated, and 

 nnited by a thin elastic substance not unlike indiarubber, which, 

 when the fingers are closed, folds up like the silk of an umbrella. 

 This membrane is exceedingly delicate, being furnished with 

 minute blood-vessels and a system of nerves possessing the most 

 exquisite power of sensation. This power is developed to an 

 extent of which we can form no defijiite idea. The cruel experi- 

 ment has been made of putting out the eyes of a bat, and turning 

 it loose in a room, when it was found that, though flying amongst 

 all sorts of obstacles, it never touched one of them, but would 

 avoid even a thread stretched across its path. At the top of 

 what should be the thumb is a small hook, used by the animal 

 as a means of progress when on the ground or climbing along the 

 walls, hollow trees, or rafters which provide it with a home. 

 The delicate elastic substance which constitutes the wing is 

 continued to the hind feet and beyond, forming a sort of tail, of 

 great use to the insectivorous bats in enabling them to make the 

 sharp turns in the air necessary to catch their prey. In the frugi- 

 vorous bats, of which we have none in this country, this tail is 

 absent, there being no use for it. The hind toes are prehensile, 

 enabling the creature to suspend itself from any inequality in beam 

 or wall, and to take its rest in its favourite attitude, hanging head 

 downwards. 



AVe have in England some sixteen species of bats, such as the 

 "whiskered," " notch- eared," "horseshoe," and "lesser horse- 

 shoe," but three only are likely to come under our observation. 

 These are the great bat ( Vesperuffo noctula), the little bat ( Vesper- 

 ugo jiipistreUus), and the long-eared bat {Vesj)ertilio auritus). Of 

 these the little bat, rere-mouse, or flittermouse, as he is prettily 

 called, is the most common, and the most generally seen. All 

 hybernate, that is, retire into holes and corners, and sleep through 

 the cold weather. "When the swallows migrate, the bats hybernate ; 



VOL. VII. PART II. 4 



