THE LONG-EARED BAT 199 



Few creatures have been more persistently misrepresented 

 by writers of books than this beautiful and abundant bat. 

 Although figured by Albin in 1 740, and known to Gilbert White 

 at least as early as 1767, it met with very scanty treatment in 

 the works of our earlier naturalists, such as Pennant and 

 Donovan. Bingley alone described its habits at any length, 

 although, like his contemporaries, he fell into the picturesque 

 error, supposed to have originated with Edwards, that the 

 lesser ear may possibly serve as a valve to close the larger 

 in the sleeping state of the animal. It was not until Messrs 

 N. H. Alcock and C. B. Moffat^ undertook to write its 

 natural history that an adequate account of it from first-hand 

 study became available. 



The large and beautiful ears are developed to such an 

 extraordinary degree as at once to strike the most incurious 

 observer, and yet probably their actual comparative magnitude 

 is not fully recognised. But it needed not the unnecessarily 

 cruel experiments of certain foreign naturalists ^ to show that 

 they must have some intimate connection with the animal's 

 safe progress by night through the arboreal obstacles amongst 

 which it delights to wander, but whether as organs, directly 

 tactile or merely sensory, has not been exactly ascertained. 



The ears are usually folded ^ under the arms during sleep, 

 especially if the sleep be profound, and this is also the case 

 during hibernation ; the long traguses then stand up, and the 

 animal has the appearance of having short and slender ears. 

 Indeed, a person who had not seen it in the act of folding its 

 ears, would never imagine it to be the same species when they 

 are fully expanded. At other times they fold outwards and 

 sideways almost like the horns of a ram, the traguses in this 

 case reflexed. They frequently move independently in a 

 curious manner, a bat in an attitude wherein one ear projects 

 forwards and the other is folded beneath its arm, being a 

 somewhat remarkable object. In flight the ears are directed 

 forwards. 



A great preponderance of observers have testified that 

 this bat is one of the most arboreal species, and not, as 



' Irish Naturalist, 1901, 241-251. ^ See Introduction, pages 40, &c. 



^ The folding is well described by A. H. Cocks, Buckingham. 



