84 BATS 



four ears, two large and two small, and when the Bat is 

 asleep and the ears are folded, only the tragus is visible, 

 giving the Bat an altogether different appearance to that 

 which is presented when it is awake. When on the wing 

 most insectivorous Bats give vent to short sharp squeaks, 

 and the voice of the Long-Eared Bat is particularly shrill 

 and high-pitched. 



All British Bats feed wholly on flies and other winged 

 insects, gnats and midges in particular being consumed in 

 great quantities nightly. If a Long-eared Bat be kept in 

 captivity it will eat thirty or forty bluebottles in the course 

 of the day, and its appetite is so enormous that no matter 

 what number of flies are placed within its reach at night 

 they will all have disappeared by morning. 



Living exclusively upon insects, with the approach of 

 winter the Bat finds its supplies of food almost, if not quite 

 entirely, cut off. When various insect-eating birds are faced 

 by the same problem, they solve it by migrating to warmer 

 climates where insects abound all the year round. But the 

 Channel debars the Bat travelling further southwards, 

 causing it to take advantage of a peculiar faculty called 

 hibernation. The Bat retires to some dark retreat where 

 quiet and some degree of warmth are attainable ; and there 

 it sinks into a condition that appears to be intermediate 

 between sleep and death, in which the circulation is exceed- 

 ingly languid, not more than one heart beat per second, and 

 there is a total cessation of respiration and digestion. 

 During a torpor that seldom lasts less than three months, 

 and in some cases nearly twice as long, the creature 

 would perish of starvation, but for a wise provision of 

 Nature which insures that just before it retires the Bat 

 becomes very fat, of which there is sufficient to make 

 good the loss of tissue that even the very slow circulation 

 necessarily entails. 



British Bats in particular are useful as one of Nature's 

 checks, reducing the numbers of the insect world in the air 

 just as the Insectivora do upon the earth. Their odour is 

 always more or less disagreeable, and their flesh is of no 

 utility for food. Stoats and owls catch and feed upon the 

 creatures, but a dog will rarely take one up in its mouth. 



