Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/662

642 when I was a boy, and the details have escaped me, but the main facts are as follows:

One of our common bats (probably either the "little brown bat," Vespertilio subulatus, or the "little red bat") 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 overpowered 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. Nor did this fierce demeanor soften in the least daring the day, and when night approached I was about to let it go, but the sight of a big fly upon the window suggested an attempt to feed the captive. Held by the wings between the points of a pair 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 engulfment of beetles by a hungry young robin.

A second fly went the same road. The third was more deliberately masticated, and I ventured to pat the devourer's 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, dropped the moment my fingers touched the head of the bat.