BATS. 59 



Long -eared bat. The sexes of this species would 

 seem at certain periods to keep separate. On the 

 7th of September, 1825, I found a large number of 

 individuals in the roof of a house, of which all that 

 I examined proved to be females. 



I never observed this bat abroad during the winter 

 months, any more than the noctule. Like the last 

 species, it appears to retire early. The pipistrelle 

 I have seen on wing regularly every evening during 

 a mild December. 



manner confused, had a most strange appearance. When the 

 group was carefully examined it appeared, that the young one was 

 fixed to its mother by means of the sharp claws of its hind-feet, 

 each of which was hooked on to the sides of the body beneath the 

 axilla, in such a way that the belly of the young one was in con- 

 tact with the abdomen of the female that carried it: its head 

 looked backwards, and reached beyond the membrane which ex- 

 tends from the feet to the tail. M. Pouchet presumes that the 

 mother, in order to allow of its suspending itself with more ease, 

 must necessarily pass its tarsi beneath the bend of the wing of its 

 young one. 



" The adherence of these young bats to their mother was 

 such, that the most violent shocks did not detach them. We 

 may also imagine, that, by means of this close union, the mother, 

 although carrying its offspring, is able to fly without inconvenience, 

 and to go in search of food ; only it would be necessary for 

 it then to make much more strenuous exertions in order to 

 sustain itself in the air, since it would often carry a burden, the 

 weight of which is enormous in relation to its own, and which in 

 the end must nearly equal it. In fact, the bats which M. Pouchet 

 observed measured sixty millimetres in length from the nape to 

 the root of the tail, and weighed twenty grammes ; while their 

 young ones, which appeared far from being able to abandon their 

 mother, w/ere already forty-five millimetres in length, and weighed 

 twelve grammes" 



