356 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



be described as a flying mole, or the mole as a burrowing 

 bat. 



5. When I was a boy, one of our common bats flew into 

 the house one evening and was caught under a hat. It 

 squeaked and snapped its little jaws so viciously that all 

 efforts toward closer acquaintance were postponed until 

 morning. When uncovered the next day it seemed as fierce 

 as before, but less active in its movements, probably over- 

 powered by the glare of daylight. When touched, its jaws 

 opened wide, the sharp teeth were exposed, and from its 

 little throat came the sharp steely clicks so characteristic 

 of our bats. 



6. Nor did this fierce demeanor soften in the least dur- 

 ing the day, and when night approached I was about to 

 let it go, but the sight of a big fly upon the window sug- 

 gested an attempt to feed the captive. Held by the wings 

 between the points of a 2)air of forceps, the fly had no 

 sooner touched the bat's nose than it was seized, crunched, 

 and swallowed. The rapidity of its disappearance accorded 

 with the width to which the eater's jaws were opened to 

 receive it, and, but for the dismal crackling of skin and 

 wings, reminded one of the sudden ingulfment of beetles 

 by a hungry young robin. 



7. A second fly went the same road. The third was 

 more deliberately masticated, and I ventured to pat the 

 devourers head. Instantly all was changed. The jaws 

 gaped as if they would separate, the crushed fly dropped 

 from the tongue, and the well-known click proclaimed a 

 hatred and defiance which hunger could not subdue nor 

 food appease. So at least it seemed, and I think any but a 

 boy-naturalist would have yielded to the temptation to fling 

 the spiteful creature out of the window. Perhaps, too, a 

 certain obstinacy made me unwilling to so easily relinquish 

 the newly formed hope of domesticating a bat. At any 

 rate, another fly was presented, and, like the former, 



