Whitaker: Notes on the Breeding Habits of Bats. 81 
kind of trap, and is pressed against the interfemoral membrane, 
as this portion of the skin is termed, until the bat has overcome 
its struggles and secured a good grip of it. Excellently though 
this little manceuvre works whilst the creatures are flying (as is 
probably always the case in a natural state), it will at once be 
seen that there are difficulties in the way when the bat is on the 
ground; and in captivity, its food is, of course, always given to 
it as it crawls about on the floor of its cage. Under these 
altered circumstances it is séanding upon its feet, and when it 
endeavours to pouch an insect, it curves its tail under the body, 
raises itself upon its wrists, brings the feet as far forward as it 
dare, tucks down the head, and then generally discovers too 
late, as it goes topping over on its back, that it is unable to go 
through the performance without losing its balance. Bats are 
soon ‘rigwelted,’ and its prey is almost always dropped in its 
struggle to regain a normal position. After a bat freshly intro- 
duced to captivity has done this a few times, it seems to fully 
realise the difficulties of its new life, and its excitement and 
annoyance become greater every time the performance is re- 
peated. So that usually, after a short time, every mealworm 
given to a bat results in the little creature losing its centre of 
gravity, and the observer losing his gravity altogether. After 
afew weeks of captivity they become a little more expert ; but 
feeding from the ground is always a difficult matter to some 
species, especially the Pipistrelle. 
Now, my two female Pipistrelles, which had young ones, 
had been feeding themselves from mealworms, which I simply 
threw into the cage for them, so long that I never anticipated 
they would require assistance ; but after a time I noticed that 
they seemed not to consume much of the food that I put in for 
them, and both bats were getting into a rather weak condition. 
This was about a month after the birth of the young ones, and 
from that time I paid a great deal more attention to them, and 
found that the reason of their illness was difficulty in feeding, 
owing to the young ones often clinging to them and hampering 
their movements, and so preventing them from getting sufficient 
food. I was careful after finding this out to feed them again 
by hand, and also to make them take at least thirty minutes 
exercise every day, flying round the room w7¢houd their young 
ones. By these means I managed to bring them both back 
again into good health. But their illness resulted in their 
giving insufficient nutriment and attention to their offspring, so 
that I was bitterly disappointed, just when I was beginning to 
1907 March i. 
EF 
