NATTERER'S BAT 185 



allowing so near an approach as to be identified while on the 

 wing. Its flight when feeding was by no means rapid, but on 

 leaving one tree for another at a little distance it flew much 

 faster, yet never so rapidly as the Pipistrelle or high-flying 

 Noctule. So far as could be ascertained without actual 

 examination of the prey captured, its food appeared to con- 

 sist principally of small flies and moths, which it captured not 

 only on the wing, but snatched ofl the leaves on the outside 

 branches of the trees with great dexterity. Just as a dog will 

 " bolt " a rabbit and catch it before it has gone many yards, so 

 one would disturb a small moth and seize it within a few inches 

 of the leaf or twig on which it had been resting. Apparently 

 the bat is noisy while on the wing, since its voice recalled to Mr 

 Harting the well-known lines in Collins's " Ode to Evening " :— 



" Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed Bat 

 With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing." 



At Colchester the peculiar squeak is heard more frequently by 

 Dr Henry Laver than the voice of any other species. 



Mr Harting has noticed Natterer's Bat on more than one 

 occasion feeding in bright sunshine, as early as 3 p.m. in 

 August. His observations are confirmed by Mr J. Ffolliott 

 Darling,^ who once caught one in April in County Cork flying 

 about a wood in bright sunlight at about the same hour, and 

 by Messrs T. A. Coward and Charles Oldham, who obtained 

 a good view of one outside the Cefn Caves, near St Asaph, 

 Wales, again at 3 p.m. on 2nd December 1905. The last, 

 however, had possibly been disturbed from the caves. 



The young, the number of which, according to Blasius, does 

 not exceed one each year, are found in summer in the mixed 

 colonies of their elders. Mr J. Backhouse, jun.,^ received several 

 already well-grown from the ruins of Harlech Castle, north 

 Wales, in July (Mr Oxley Grabham writes me that the exact 

 date was the 25th), and this agrees with Mr Proger's state- 

 ment that in south Wales they are usually born towards the 

 end of June, on the 22nd of which month he once caught a 

 female bearing her young on the wing.^ 



' Zoologist, 1883, 294- ^ Ibid., 1898, 493. 



' Paper read before the Biological and Geological Section of the Cardiff 

 Naturalists' Society, March 1905, 5 ; also in MSS. 



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