ABOUT BATS 67 



of the swallow. Like swallows, they drink on the 

 wing; and they frequent waters, not only for the 

 sake of drinking, but on account of insects, which (for 

 some reason or another) are sometimes found over 

 90 pools and streams in great plenty. White has recorded 

 the entertainment he found in watching the habits and 

 manners of a tame bat which took flies from his hand : 

 ' If you gave it anything to eat, it brought its wings 

 round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its 

 head in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. 

 The adroitness it shewed in shearing off the wings of 

 the flies (which were always rejected) was worthy 

 of observation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed 

 to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw 



100 flesh when offered : so that the notion that bats go 

 down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon seems no im- 

 probable story. While I amused myself with this 

 wonderful quadruped/ he continues, ' I saw it several 

 times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats when down 

 on a flat surface cannot get on the wing again, by 

 rising with great ease from the floor. It ran with 

 more dispatch than I had been aware of, but in a most 

 ridiculous and grotesque manner.' 



In his remark upon bats eating bacon, hung in the 



no capacious chimney to benefit by the smoke of wood- 

 fires, White was not mistaken. They have been 

 known to eat the butter off slices of bread-and-butter ; 

 and, in addition to bats walking or running on the 

 ground, he might have referred to their undoubted 

 ability to swim holding up their heads the while, 

 just like a dog in the same circumstances. 



Nocturnal bats have a sense perception which, even Bats able 



if they were blind, performs in a marvellous way the to f^ at 

 J J a distance. 



E 2 



