24 INTRODUCTION 



places, supported by direct observations of captive individuals 

 by Mr Coward, show that they usually prefer to alight to feed. 

 The weak interfemoral membrane of the Horseshoes, correlated 

 as it is with great perfection, but not rapidity, of flight and 

 remarkable development of nasal sensory organs, is worthy of 

 more than a passing notice, and is probably, as in the Barba- 

 stelle, connected with very special habits : in this connection 

 it should be remembered that the whole sub-order of fruit-eating 

 bats are unprovided with an interfemoral membrane. 



In the whole order the powers of flight^ are distinctly 

 superior to those of birds, especially, as Mr Hahn observes, in 

 the power of checking momentum. Their remarkable agility 

 when hunting, and the hours at which they appear, make bats, 

 as a rule, safe from the attacks of predatory creatures. But 

 instances are on record of their pursuit or capture by a stoat, ^ 

 or by hawks ^ or owls.* On one occasion a small bat and a 

 large beetle were observed to fall to the ground together, 

 having probably come into collision accidentally ; ^ while Mr 

 Lionel E. Adams writes me that he once saw a bat fly into a 

 bicycle. The position of the wings when in action differs, as 

 Osburn ^ pointed out, from that of birds, the arc formed by the 

 tip scarcely rising above the plane of the body, beneath which 

 the wings seem to meet in their downward stroke. 



The observation of their habits is somewhat complicated 

 by the fact that sometimes members of a colony may 

 remain inactive all night. Subject to such exceptions, how- 

 ever, it is now definitely known that most bats, such as the 

 Pipistrelle, Daubenton's, and Long-eared, normally continue 

 their flight, no doubt with intervals for rest, throughout the 

 night. Others, represented in Britain by the Noctule and 

 Leisler's, take their flying exercise twice a day, contriving to 

 secure all the food that they need in the course of two headlong 

 careers of from eighty to one hundred and twenty minutes each, 



^ On this subject, see Baron Francis Nopcsa's " Ideas on the Origin of Flight," 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. (London), 19th Feb. 1907, 223-236. 



2 George WoUey, Zoologist, 1846, 1204. 



3 G. J. Talbot, Field, loth Oct. 1903, 635 ; F. J. Montgomery, Field, 26th Sept. 

 1903, 532. An African hawk is said to feed on bats — see C. J. Andersson's Birds of 

 Damara Land, London, 1872, 23, and for the hobby, John Sclater, Zoologist, 1875, 453^ : 

 in British Columbia the large rainbow trout leaps at and probably catches them — 

 John Macoun, quoted by E. Thompson Seton, ii., 1181. 



* Zoologist, 1887, 426-427. ^ J. H. Wilmore, Zoologist, 1886, 242. ^ Op. cit. 



