Quadrupeds. 2005 



which seemed those of rats, and immediately another just above them, evidently 

 crawling- downwards. I pointed them out to my negro lad, who saw two or three 

 more, and presently, as it became more clear of smoke, the whole sides of the cavity 

 appeared full of curious round faces. I now fired, no longer at random, and had the 

 pleasure of bringing down this beautiful bat, which fell dead. The smoke of this 

 discharge made the others more anxious to come down to the fresh air, and we could 

 see them descending fast, head downwards. As the shot lacerated the membranes 

 considerably, I bethought myself of another plan ; cutting a long switch, with a few 

 twigs at its extremity, I stood at the bottom and whipped one down ; he came sprawl- 

 ing with expanded wings on the ground, apparently with but little notion of flight, 

 although unwounded. On being taken up by the wings he displayed uncommon 

 fierceness, biting savagely and powerfully anything within his reach. Three or four 

 more I obtained in the same manner and brought them home. When thrown up in- 

 to the air in a room, they would not fly, but merely opened the volar membranes to 

 break their fall, as with a parachute. Two, which J kept alive, hung themselves up 

 by the hind-feet from the side of a cage into which I put them, and would not move, 

 except to shift an inch or two ; nor did the approach and arrival of night excite them 

 to activity. One, however, which had contrived to secrete himself in the room, when, 

 having taken both out of the cage, I turned my back for a moment, and which I had 

 vainly searched for, I found at night, by going into the room with a candle : hearing 

 a scrambling, I looked up to the top of the wall, where was my lost bat, endeavouring 

 to suspend himself. On being touched he flew off, but soon alighted, and so repeat- 

 edly ; sometimes, when he failed of taking a hold of the wall, he came to the floor, 

 whence he readily rose, though very obliquely. I was struck with his expanse of 

 wing when performing his noiseless flight around the room, and with his resemblance 

 to a bird, aided by the enormous interfemoral membrane, which, being expanded by 

 the hind-legs and depressed, looked like the broad tail of a flying-bird, and appeared 

 to guide the motion in like manner. While taking some drawings of one, as it hung 

 from the immense hind-feet, I was amused to see how it would thrust its nose into 

 every part of the volar membranes, apparently searching for parasites (of which seve- 

 ral were briskly crawling among the hair) ; and now and then it brought down one 

 hind-foot, and scratched itself with exactly the motion of a monkey: and once I ob- 

 served, after scratching its breast, it delivered something into its mouth. The flexi- 

 bility of the ankle-joint was extreme, so that the foot could reach with ease any part 

 of the body. 



" I presented to one a large cockroach, which he seized greedily and munched up, 

 moving the jaws only vertically. The eating was attended with a loud and very harsh 

 crunching of the teeth — not produced by crushing the horny parts of the insect, for it 

 was equally perceptible when munching a bit of soft flesh. The jaws moved rapidly, 

 but yet the mastication was a long operation, for it appeared to me to be performed 

 almost wholly by the canines. As the insect was progressively masticated, portions 

 were allowed to fall into the cheek-pouches (the one being pretty well filled before the 

 other was used), which when full hung down on each side of the lower jaw, to the 

 depth of three or four lines, like distended bags, displaying a warted surface. When 

 the whole of one cockroach had been masticated and deposited in the pouches, it 

 would take another, which was gradually disposed of in the same receptacles ; then, 

 after a few moments' intermission, by a contortion of the jaw, aided by the motion of 

 the muscles of the pouch, a portion was returned to the mouth, and again masticated. 

 VI H 



