THE NOCTULE, OR GREAT BAT y^ 



length on the third day, after she had been induced to eat 

 and was no longer hungry, it was accepted. " She first seized 

 It quite roughly in her mouth, and taking no notice of its 

 vigorous squeaking and struggling, proceeded to give it a good 

 wash and brush, much after the style of a Cat washing its 

 kitten. She then tucked it away under the skin between the 

 shoulder and thigh, pushing it so far round that it appeared 

 only as a protuberance on her back. This I found later was 

 the invariable method of carrying the young one, who was 

 packed away like this, head downwards, all along, and suckled 

 from this position by merely stretching its neck a little. For the 

 first week my Noctule always kept the young one tucked under 

 her right wing, as far as I saw, and I believe it suckled from 

 that side only. Later it put it under either wing indifferently." 



The young bat was quite capable of hanging by itself in 

 its cage, but sometimes the mother carried it with her, "in 

 which case the young one clung to her with its teeth 

 and was dragged along under her, trying to walk, with its 

 hind feet projecting from under its mother and close to 

 hers, so that she seemed to have four back feet, all working 

 out of time. The effect was decidedly comical. In spite 

 of this, the 'baby' did not seem to hamper its mother's 

 movements very much when she was crawling. When 

 disengaged from its mother the young one would cling with 

 extraordinary tenacity to the gauze sides of its cage, or to a 

 handkerchief on which we once or twice photographed it, and 

 great care was necessary to remove it without injury from any- 

 thing of which it had got a firm hold." 



When on one occasion allowed to fly with her young one, 

 the mother " hesitated a long while before making the attempt, 

 and when she did so only flew the length of the room, and 

 then dropped rather heavily upon the floor, the young one 

 remaining under her right wing all the time." 



After eleven days the young one, captivity having prob- 

 ably delayed its development, was still blind and naked, and 

 unfortunately on the night of that day, the mother having 

 escaped, it disappeared under circumstances suggesting that she 

 herself came back to the cage and stole it away. 



According to British observations, the period of gestation 



