234 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



occasionally in great numbers in holes in decayed 

 trees in the Park, and in no one instance has the 

 condition of their retreat appeared to us entitled to 

 a favorable report from the Inspector of Public 

 Nuisances. That of the Noctule is especially remark- 

 able for a very unpleasant, pungent odour, arising 

 from an accumulation of the deposits of the animal. 

 The ease and certainty with which bats pursue and 

 capture their insect food among the branches of trees 

 and other impediments in the twilight, must have 

 struck the least observant of Naturalists with astonish- 

 ment, and the result of cruel experiments on the poor 

 animals has led to the conclusion that they are not 

 so much dependent on vision for this wonderful faculty, ' 

 as on the extraordinary development of the nervous 

 system in their wing membrane. A blind bat turned 

 loose in a dark room, across which strings are stretched 

 in various directions with rods suspended from them, 

 is capable of winging its way among them for a long 

 time without coming into contact with one ! Those 

 who have only seen a bat on the wing, would be 

 amused with its performance on foot, on a flat surface 

 especially its mode of progression is singularly awk- 

 ward and laborious, it is more at home, however, in 

 climbing a tree or a wall, and, curiously enough, it 

 accomplishes this feat upside down. The female does 

 not appear to be very prolific, often producing one 

 only at a birth, probably never more than two, and, 

 strange to say, the young cling to the mother from 

 the moment of their birth till their power of flight is 

 fully developed, never leaving her during the interval, 

 whether she be suspended by the hooks of her hind 

 feet in the usual attitude of repose, or actively en- 

 gaged in her hunting excursions. 



Night in some latitudes is said to disclose more 

 beauties than it veils ; but as applied to our temperate 

 zone, this statement is not to be accepted without 

 modification. In the autumnal months especially, on 



