66 ABOUT BATS 



The long- come out only after sunset, and hawk after insects all 



and/to!? night 10Dg * They are tmly nocturnal > like the owls 

 bentorfs among birds, and they sometimes get in the way of 



B at - the owls, to their own misfortune. If they do not see 



Nocturnal so well as the bats of the twilight (the pipistrelle and 



ats ' the noctule), they seem to be compensated by nature 



for defect of vision with superior fineness of hearing, 



smell, and perhaps touch. The apparatus known as GO 



nose-leaves, and the duplicate ear-cloaks of the night 



bats give them a grotesque appearance which is not 



captivating; but nature did not mean to make them 



ridiculous or repulsive, but to provide them with 



serviceable means of attaining their ends. 



A well-known proverbial simile refers to the blind- 

 ness of the bat, and another to that of the mole. It is 

 right enough in regard to the mole, which, whatever 

 sensitiveness it has of hearing, feeling, and smell, has 

 only a rudimentary organ of sight enabling it to dis- TO 

 tinguish light from darkness ; but it is so far wrong 

 in regard to the bat that its vision (though the 

 creature, like the owl, is dazzled by broad daylight) is 

 unusually keen in the twilight, and serves it well in 

 The food its pursuit of flies, moths, and beetles, which constitute 

 of Bats. ^e ma i n p ar t o f jfcg food. There are varieties of the 

 bat, chiefly found in tropical regions, that live mostly 

 on fruit; and others, of which the vampire bat is 

 a notorious example, are sanguinary in their tastes ; 

 but in our country the value of the bat in destroying so 

 insects in the interest of the agriculturist much out- 

 weighs the loss it occasions the fruit-grower. Gilbert 

 White one evening near Richmond observed hundreds 

 of bats in sight at one time hawking after insects 

 along the Thames with quite the speed and activity 



