At 
Eventide. 
(i57) 
THE BIRD WORLD. 
At Eventide, 
For a sort of jugglery of flight a Bat, 
I think, not a bird, comes first. There 
is one of.the larger Bats whose exercises 
on a July evening at sundown are almost 
painful to watch—at least, after the eye 
has strained to follow them closely for 
a few minutes it desires a little respite. 
This Bat I took at first for altivolens, 
the noctule; but, whilst I watched him, 
he was quite a low flier, and he seemed 
to be a little smaller and more agile than 
a noctule. Perhaps he is Daubenton’s 
Bat, which, I believe, I have seen hawk¬ 
ing over the river, or some still scarcer 
species. This Bat is not matchless for 
straightforward speed on the wing. He 
seems no quicker than the little Pipis¬ 
trelle Bat, and is quite without the splen¬ 
did sweep and cut of the Swift—which, 
at a few minutes before nine o’clock, 
has scarcely rushed to roost ere the Bat 
comes out from roost. 
The Action of the Bat. 
He does not curve and glide with the 
Swift’s stateliness; but flips to and fro by 
a number of small, quick wing strokes. 
It is not here that his flight is wonderful 
or worth special mention, but in his 
dives and tumbles and glances to one 
side and the other, and thrusts upward. 
The quickness and suddenness with 
which he makes these movements are 
amazing. When I am near enough, says 
that charming writer, Mr. Dewar, and 
the air is dead calm, often a tiny snap¬ 
ping or clicking sound tells me that one 
of these movements has given the Bat 
an insect. Probably the prey is rarely 
missed. No bird movement on the wing 
is quite like this of the Bat. Swift and 
Sand Martin take their food at a high 
speed, but they do not twist and jerk 
and somersault upon it like this Bat; 
they rush upon it, rise or drop to it, or 
swerve at it with more even, gradual 
action. The Bat is all angles in the 
act of seizure. Apparently he does not 
see the insect till he is all but past it; 
and then, with incredible power to stop 
his straightforward flight—incredible 
although seen—hurls himself at it, to 
right of left, or straight up or straight 
down. 
A Harpy , 
The Flycatcher and the Wagtails, 
quick as are they with their sudden, 
pretty glancings and twists in pursuit 
of an insect, do not touch the Bat in 
this; the only wing exercise of a 
bird that to me resembles it is that 
we sometimes notice when, say, two 
fiery Finches are playing at chaser 
and chased, or when perhaps—a thing 
I have not myself seen—a Dunlin or 
Sanderling is zigzagging for dear life 
from a pursuing Hawk. With the birds, 
however, it is merely blind flight—with 
the poor Dunlin or Sanderling, flight 
“ anywhere, anywhere, out of the world.” 
No accuracy is aimed at by the pursued, 
and again and again the pursuer over¬ 
shoots the mark, even if in the end, with 
ravening persistence, he succeed. With 
the Juggler Bat, on the other hand, there 
is this deadly precision—he takes an 
insect, depend upon it, in the 
course of nearly every one of 
those abrupt feats. For all our 
wonder at the Bats, we cannot be 
friends with them —dirce obscena volu- 
cres. A few, I know, do handle a Bat 
without discomfort, feed him as they 
feed a household pet, get to terms wren 
him. But, for most of us, the Bat lives 
and moves only in the half light of 
things eerie and remote; things that 
scarcely seem to belong to our kind, 
familiar earth. With those membrane 
wings, fingered and clawed, there is 
something that affronts us in the Bat. 
He is harpy of an hour full of fairy 
fancies, a fantastic figure of a world 
neither day nor night. And then those 
monstrous sleeps of the greater Bat! 
