THE SEVEN SLEEPERS 209 
carrying it in his hand. As he passed near the place 
where it was caught, the mother bat appeared and 
followed the boy for two squares, flying around him 
and finally lighting on his breast, until the boy 
allowed her to take charge of her little one. 
The bat has but few enemies. They are occasion- 
ally caught by owls, probably taken unawares or 
when hanging in some dark tree. In fact, virtually 
the only enemies a bat has are fur-lice, which breed 
upon them in enormous quantities. It is this mis- 
fortune, and the fact that a bat has a strong rank 
smell like that of a skunk, which keep it from being 
popular as a pet. 
A friend of mine once, however, kept a little brown 
bat, which had been drowned out from a tree by a 
thunder-storm, for a long time under a sieve as a 
pet. The bat became tame and would accept food, 
and it was most interesting to see the deft, speedy 
way in which he husked millers and other minute 
insects, rejecting their wings, skinning their bodies, 
and devouring the flesh only after it had been pre- 
pared entirely to its liking. He would wash himself 
with his tongue and his paw, like a cat, using the 
little thumb-nail at the bend of his wing, and 
stretching the rubbery membrane into all kinds of 
shapes, until it seemed as if he would tear it in his 
zeal for cleanliness. 
A bat always alights first by catching the little 
hooks on its wings. As soon as it has a firm grip with 
these, it at once turns over, head downward, and 
hangs by the long, recurved nails of the hind feet, 
