THE BATS. 65 



not an owlet's, but the rest of the ingredients seem to be as 

 per recipe. In these materialistic days it is taken for granted 

 that the witch in question is a rat ; but that at least is a 

 delusion. No rat in the flesh could get to a hook situated 

 in the very middle of a smooth ceiling unless it had wings, 

 and we have been spared winged rats. I protest in all con- 

 science they are bad enough with four legs and a tail. No ; 

 few eyes have rested on the embodiment of hideousness 

 from whose foul repast these crumbs have dropped. The 

 demon bat does not go forth to do its deeds of darkness 

 until the shades of night are falling, and as soon as 



' The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, 

 Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat 

 Awake the god of day," 



it retires, like a guilty ghost, to its dark haunt among the 

 rafters of some deserted godown. But in the small hours 

 of the morning I have risen, when I heard its jaws at work, 



"Feeding like horses when you hear them feed," 



and, quietly shutting the windows, have made it a prisoner, 

 and in the morning there it was, hanging from the hook, its 

 hyaena eyes glaring at me and a restless tremor playing over 

 the thin membrane of its enormous ears. Very microphones 



