Whitaker: The Hatry-Armed Bat. 387 
coloured or the reverse, might be most unreliable. Take a 
Noctule in the hand and blow back the fur anywhere, above or 
below, and the place thus disturbed will show lighter in colour 
than the surrounding fur, the base of every hair being paler 
than the tip. Do the same with a Leisler’s bat, and exactly 
the opposite will be the case, especially on the under surface of 
the creature, where the pelage becomes almost black towards 
the roots. Of course there are several other differences between 
the two species, as in the relative size of the feet, which are 
smaller and weaker in Leisler’s bat, and in the dentition ; but 
as these points would be unintelligible to some readers and un- 
interesting to most, it is not necessary to go into them here, 
especially as the above method of recognition is the easiest to 
remember and to apply. 
Of the six Hairy-Armed bats we obtained, I decided to try 
to keep a pair, in captivity, in order to learn a little more of 
their habits, I got them to take food from my hand the evening 
following their capture without any difficulty. Like most bats, 
they seemed to show no particular fear of human beings, only 
a certain amount of anger and irritation at being handled, and 
this quickly disappeared when they began to associate the 
event with ‘feeding time.’ During the first week I got a few 
pretty severe nips from them, though they never succeeded in 
drawing blood, as a Noctule often does. Their method of 
feeding was identical with that of the Noctule; they would 
snatch the meal-worm or other insect from my forceps or 
fingers if it were held within three-quarters-of-an-inch from their 
nose, but if it were more than an inch away they did not seem 
to realise its vicinity at all. They made no attempt to ‘ pouch’ 
their food, but ate it quite openly, with the head slightly 
raised, moving the jaws very rapidly, and making a decided 
‘champing’ noise. Sometimes the whole of the insect would 
be consumed, and at other times the head and legs would be 
rejected, If one of the bats got hold of a mealworm crosswise, 
it would usually jerk it along until it got the end. It would 
then masticate the part in its mouth rapidly, and, with a 
slight jerk of its head, secure a further portion, repeating this 
process until the whole had disappeared ; occasionally it would 
commence to eat in the centre, but this generally resulted in one 
or both ends being lost. I always noted that the more nearly its 
appetite was satiated the more careless it became in consuming 
its food, larger and larger portions of the insects given to it 
being dropped. It would keep on snatching fresh ones, how- 
1907 November 1 
