MAMMALS OF THE AIR 



33i 



During the daytime most Bats at any rate devote their time to 

 slumber, resting so that at the gloaming hour they may come forth 

 from their hiding-places in a fresh condition ready to pursue their 

 prey during the silent watches of the night. The insectivorous 

 species prey upon such creatures as moths, beetles, flies, gnats and 

 other insects, and I have observed with interest that the Long-Eared 

 Bat has a partiality for the Stag Beetle and of partaking of its meals 

 in a favourite habitat. One individual over which I kept careful 

 watch resorted at nightfall to the porch of a house for feeding 

 purposes, and every morning the ground was strewn with the dis- 

 carded wings of moths which had been captured during the night. 



The eyes are not developed to any appreciable extent, and con- 

 sequently the sight powers are not great, but the senses of touch and 

 hearing are very remarkable. It is said that so acute is the sense 

 of touch that even the vibrations of the air generated by the strokes 

 of their flying membranes and reflected by surrounding objects is 

 responsible for the instance which has often been alluded to of a 

 Bat having been known to fly in a room from which threads were 

 extended without ever coming into contact with one of them. And 

 this in spite of the fact that the animal's eyes had been covered over 

 with sticking-plaster! Dr. Schmeil says that "the fineness of the 

 threads in the above experiment itself shows how faint such vibra- 

 tions must be. In the same way the animal becomes sensible of 

 the faint air vibrations generated by a flying insect. It feels its 

 prey, as it were, from afar." It differs entirely from insect-eating 

 birds in this respect, for the Spotted Flycatcher, adept as he is, 

 must first see his prey before catching it. 



Has the reader ever heard a Bat utter any sound ? The proba- 

 bility is that the reply is in the negative, and this leads one to 

 observe that the sense of hearing in the Bat is wonderfully acute, 

 for the voice is so fine and high-pitched that many, if not most, 

 people are unable to hear it at all. Yet the Bat itself must be 

 well able to distinguish quiet sounds, and we are told that "the 

 large pinnae, which are movable and capable of being laid back, 

 in fact, represent ear-trumpets. At the commencement of the aerial 

 voyage they are erected, and probably enable the animal to hear 

 sounds inaudible to human ears, such as the flight of a moth, 

 more especially as the animal itself moves without sound." This 

 reminds one of the keen powers of hearing exhibited by the Cat 

 and the Owl, yet the mammal and bird named are themselves 



