30 BATS. 



fondness for different species of gnats has been observed 

 even from the earliest period [from the time of Pliny]; and 

 from the diminutive size of the pipistrelle bat, it is pro- 

 bable that they are its principal food. These, and many 

 other dipterous insects, after having disappeared during the 

 ungenial fogs and rains of the close of autumn, often appear 

 again in smaller numbers, on every fine, warm day, until the 

 severe cold of the depth of winter finally destroys the greater 

 part of them.* The same impulse of hunger equally accounts 

 for its appearance in the day-time at this period of the year, 

 as it is only at that time that the temperature is sufficiently 

 elevated to summon into temporary activity its insect food." f 



I am generally first led to notice bats by hearing the sharp 

 snapping noise they make while they fly about, and which I 

 can compare to nothing so aptly as the noise which accompanies 

 an electric spark. Perhaps, as in the case of the swallow, 

 this snapping noise is caused by the act of shutting the mouth 

 quickly when it has seized its victim. 



It is a very common notion, that if a bat be placed on a table, 

 or other smooth surface, it cannot raise itself into the air there- 

 from, owing to the table preventing it flapping its wings below 

 the plane of its own body; and, doubtless, in this case, when the 

 action of them is thus obstructed, it is not always that they can 

 succeed in doing so. I have once or twice seen a bat remain on 

 a table, and use its wings ineffectually j and Geoffrey says, that 

 the present species is sometimes found on the ground, exhausted 

 with ineffectual efforts to resume its flight, from its not being 

 able, in such a predicament, to fall upon the air and freely 

 expand its wings. It may, however, have happened that these 

 specimens were previously enfeebled, and that others, in perfect 



* " Mr. John Greig, author of the Heavens Displayed, saw a bat flying 

 about in February, in England, during a very hard frost and deep snow." 

 White's Natural History of Selborne, edited by Captain Brown, p. 28. 

 Dr. T. B. Salter says, that while he was riding from Brading to Ryde, in the 

 Isle of Wight, at about half-past five in the evening of February 23, 1839, the 

 weather being warm and serene, he observed three bats flying about. J.H.F. 



f Bell's British Quadrupeds, p. 25. 



