272 THE BAT. 



every kind. It feeds upon these ; but will not refuse meat, 

 whenever it can find it. Its flight is a laborious, irregular 

 movement; and if it happens to be interrupted in its 

 course, it cannot readily prepare for a second elevation ; 

 so that if it strikes against any object, and falls to the 

 ground, it is usually taken. It appears only in the most 

 pleasant evenings, when its prey is generally abroad, and 

 flies in pursuit with its mouth open. At other times it con- 

 tinues in its retreat ; the chink of a ruined building, or the 

 hollow of a tree. Thus this little animal, even in summer, 

 sleeps the greatest part of its time, never venturing out by 

 daylight, nor in rainy weather ; never hunting in quest of 

 prey, but for a small part of the night, and then returning 

 to its hole. But its short life is still more abridged by con- 

 tinuing in a torpid state during the winter. At the ap- 

 proach of the cold season, the bat prepares fog its state 

 of lifeless inactivity, and seems rather to choose a place 

 where it may continue safe from interruption, than 

 where it may be warmly or conveniently lodged. For this 

 reason it is usually seen hanging by its hooked claws to 

 the roofs of caves, regardless of the eternal damps that sur- 

 round it. The bat seems the only animal that will venture 

 to remain in these frightful subterranean abodes, where it 

 continues in a torpid state, unaffected by every change of 

 the weather. Such of this kind as are not provident 

 enough to procure themselves a deep retreat, where the 

 cold and heat seldom vary, are sometimes exposed to great 

 inconveniences, for the weather often becomes so mild in 

 the midst of winter as to warm them prematurely into life, 

 and to allure them from their holes in quest of food, when 

 nature has not provided a supply. These, therefore, have 

 seldom strength to return ; but, having exhausted them- 

 selves in a vain pursuit after insects which are not to be 

 found, are destroyed by the owl, or any other animal that 

 follows such petty prey. 



From Linnaeus we learn, that the female makes no nest 



