BATS 



returned. Then it ate the thorax, taking care 

 to let the wings fall, and dropped the abdomen, 

 which I picked up, when it finished off its meal. 

 In one case when it dropped part of a fly it 

 began to search my hand for it and bit me quite 

 hard ! Of course its tiny teeth could not make 

 any mark, yet it gave quite a respectable pinch. 

 It appeared to smell and not to see the flies, 

 and no doubt it was the scent of flies on my 

 fingers that made it make the mistake. It was 

 most amusing to see the way it licked its lips 

 with its tiny pink tongue after each morsel, 

 as much as to say, ' Wasn't that good ! ' All 

 the smaller flies were eaten up completely even 

 to the wings, but in the case of the larger ones 

 the wings were bitten off and dropped. One 

 of its troubles when eating was that it was 

 not used to dealing with flies while sitting still. 

 All bats feed when on the wing : they chase their 

 prey, catch it, eat it then and there, and dash 

 on after the next fly or gnat as the case may be. 

 It sounds rather a difficult thing to dispose of 

 your food when dashing through the air as hard 

 as you can go, and it is by no means easy to 

 see how bats manage it ; but if you watch them 

 carefully when they are hawking to and fro 

 you will get some idea of the clever way in 



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