lO Coward, Greater Horseshoe Bat in Captivity. 



had been high during the previous 24 hours, neither bat 

 awoke, but on the night of the i ith, when the temperature 

 had been, for the room, decidedly low, both bats awoke 

 and fed. When the average temperature had been practi- 

 cally the same on the three nights of nth, 12th, and 

 13th, both awoke on one night, one on the next, and 

 neither on the third. 



Sight, in the Greater Horseshoe, is, as I have said, 

 apparently not acute. When we compare the small eyes, 

 almost buried behind the facial ornaments, with the large 

 prominent eyes of the Long-eared Bat, Plecotus aiiritiis, 

 Geoffr., a species which apparently uses its eyes when 

 feeding, we can hardly imagine that they are of much 

 service to the animal. Nevertheless it not only locates 

 flying food with remarkable certainty (I have suggested 

 by sound), but can at once discover the exact situation 

 occupied by another bat. Frequently when both bats 

 were at liberty in the room, and one had pitched and was 

 quiet, the other would fly to it without hesitation and 

 pitch beside it or actually upon it. On such occasions 

 there was nothing to suggest that the one bat heard the 

 other, but when one was crunching a beetle, and the other 

 hovered round it, pitched near it, and, as happened more 

 than once, took a portion of the uneaten beetle from the 

 mouth of the original captor, it may easily have been 

 guided by sound. 



The normal position of the sleeping Greater Horse- 

 shoe is similar to that of the Lesser Horseshoe (4), which 

 has been frequently described, but the tail is often more 

 visible, standing out at an angle of about 30°. When the 

 bat is disturbed in sleep it draws itself up by bending the 

 legs (as shown in the photograph taken in a Cheddar cave), 

 and when slowly awakening will hang with the legs bent 

 and the wings slightly unfolded. The bat pants and 



