THE NOCTULE 85 



captivity that it is strange that so little is known about 

 its ways. Of all bats, except perhaps the long-eared, this 

 species is the least difficult to keep under artificial con- 

 ditions. It requires no taming process to induce it to 

 feed; it rapidly connects human fingers with the food that 

 they supply, though it does not seem so easily to recognise 

 that the finger itself is inedible . When captured or 

 wounded the noctule bites fiercely, and though its teeth 

 do not make a serious wound they draw blood, for they are 

 exceedingly sharp, and the jaws which can scrunch the 

 hard armour of dor or cockchafer are powerful. For 

 weeks I have kept noctules in a box, releasing them for 

 exercise every evening. There were nineteen in the 

 hollow from which some of my captives came, and of 

 these sixteen were males ; that looks as if the sexes form 

 separate colonies. Almost immediately that the captives 

 were placed in their new home they took food from my 

 hand. The best beloved food was the mealworm, the 

 larva of a beetle ; this they preferred to their natural diet 

 of dors, or big-bodied moths. Mealworms can hardly be 

 looked upon as natural food, for the larvae of beetles can- 

 not come in the way of animals which feed upon the wing ; 

 yet it is the food which, once tasted, no bat can resist. 



In a very short time my noctules would scuttle across 

 the table to my hand when I offered mealworms, but so 

 frequently did they fix their sharp teeth in my fingers 

 that I began to offer the gift from between forceps. 

 There was no suggestion of anger in this attack; it was 

 merely anxiety to get as much food as possible in a short 

 time. But there was one interesting fact apparent : as the 

 bat feeds in flight, it never seemed to realise that it could 

 recover food that it had dropped; it would walk over a 

 maimed and struggling worm to ask for more. The long- 

 eared bat, which often captures insects at rest, would hunt 

 on the floor of its cage for an insect which had escaped. 



