﻿ic Oldham, On some Habits of Bats. 



carried quite straight, in a line with the body, as in 

 Natterer's Bat {Myotis nattereri), or more or less decurved, 

 as in the Noctule, the Whiskered Bat, and other species. 



The Long-eared Bat, the Pipistrelle, and indeed all 

 the Vespertilionidae which I have had in captivity, alight 

 on a vertical surface, such as a wall, a picture-frame, or a 

 curtain, by pitching head uppermost. They then shuffle 

 round instantly, and hang by their feet, in a convenient 

 posture for another flight. But the Lesser Horseshoe Bat 

 is infinitely more adroit. Immediately before it reaches 

 the wall, or the object on which it desires to rest, it turns 

 a somersault, timing its action with such nicety that it 

 clutches the object with its feet, and is at once in the atti- 

 tude for taking flight again. The bat by performing this 

 manoeuvre can suspend itself, in the act of alighting, from 

 a horizontal surface such as a cave roof, as readily as from 

 a vertical wall. Two individuals which I had under obser- 

 vation used after each flight to disappear beneath a couch, 

 where I always found them suspended from the webbing 

 which supported the seat. By lying on the floor with my 

 head under the couch, and then disturbing the bats, I 

 was able on their return to witness this feat of aerial 

 gymnastics, which is perhaps unequalled among the higher 

 animals. Mr. Coward informs me that a Natterer's Bat 

 which he had at liberty in his study used, as a rule, to 

 alight in the normal manner, by pitching head upwards, 

 but that in order to settle on the tine of a deer's antler on 

 the wall, it sometimes adopted the tactics of the Lesser 

 Horseshoe Bat. This, however, it did with less agility, 

 and but indifferent success, for it often failed to secure a 

 foothold, and fell. 



After alighting, and when hanging at rest, the Lesser 

 Horseshoe Bat often bends its head upwards and back- 

 wards, and turns it from side to side, as though taking 



