14O W'lii taker : The Dcvclopnioit of flic Senses in Ihits. 



IS only the focus that is dilTereiU. Kach creature sees and 

 knows what it is most needful that it should see and know. 



These facts we must try to bear in mind whilst briefly 

 reviewing the senses as exhibited in the Cheiroptera. 



First, let us take hearing. This sense appears to be highly 

 developed in the creatures under our notice. When a bat is 

 placed in a cage or box (especiall} if it be a cardboard one) it is 

 interesting to touch the outside at any point lightly with one 

 finger, after it has been undisturbed for some time, and to note 

 the start the little occupant will give, and the rapidity with 

 which it will turn its head towards the place from whence the 

 sound came. If the finger be drawn slowly backwards and 

 forwards, the uneasiness of the bat is still greater. 



In captivity, bats take some little time to get accustomed to 

 the various household sounds. A Noctule Bat {V. noctiila) 

 which I kept in my office for some time last summer, became 

 accustomed to most sounds after a few days, and took little or 

 no notice of them ; but for some reason which I cannot even 

 surmise, as long as I kept it it always started and displayed 

 considerable uneasiness at the sound of tearing paper, though it 

 would quite disregard many much louder noises. During a 

 thunder-storm I observed it, and found that the most sudden 

 and violent concussions did not appear to cause it uneasiness. 



The voices of persons in ordinary conversation it never 

 seemed to take much notice of, but a chirruping or squeaking 

 noise made by drawing in the air through one's closed lips 

 would attract its attention at once, and this was the sound I 

 always made to it when feeding it, and to which it became so 

 accustomed after a few days that it would wake up and come 

 quickly crawling to the cage door as soon as anyone made the 

 noise. 



A low note on the piano or organ it scarcely appeared to 

 notice, but a high one would attract its attention at once. This, 

 of course, is exactly what one would be led to expect from the 

 notes or noises produced by bats themselves, for the noises 

 made b}' any creature are of course always of the pitch and 

 strength best adapted to its own hearing and the hearing of its 

 fellows, and consequently can always be taken as a clue to the 

 scope of the hearing powers. Now the note of bats is 

 exceedingly high in pitch, so much so in fact, that the sound 

 has been comjjared b\- the Rev. J. G. Wood to that produced 

 by drawing a scratchy slate pencil, held vertically, over a slate ; 

 only, he sa}s, the noise of i)ats is several octaves higher. 



N.iturallst, 



