Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/74

50 little captive alive, as it still ignored the mealworms, even when they crawled over its face and wings. On Dec. 5th I fastened a moth's wing to half a mealworm, and moved it about just in front of the Bat's nose. This ruse succeeded admirably; the Bat made a dash at the imitation moth, and speedily devoured the mealworm. From that time it took the mealworms readily, and soon learned to look for them if I held my finger-tips near its face. I fed it nearly every day, and for so small a creature it had an enormous appetite. On one occasion, although it had eaten seven mealworms on the previous evening, it ate, between two and eight o'clock, eight mealworms, a large spider, and six S. dubitata; after which it merely snapped at the moths, but would not eat them. During the ensuing night, however, it ate seven more moths which I had left with it under the bell-jar. On another evening it ate two fragments of raw rabbit, seven mealworms, one S. dubitata, and two thick-bodied moths (Gonoptera libatrix). On Dec. 28th the Bat appeared to be in good health, and ate seven mealworms. I did not feed it on the 29th, and on the morning of the following day it was hanging as though asleep, except that its legs were straight instead of flexed; but, on touching it, I found that it was dead.

The Bat bit me viciously when I took it from the roof of the tunnel and warmed it in my hand, but it never showed any temper subsequently, and in a few days had become absurdly tame. It evinced little disposition for flight, especially after feeding, and if compelled to take wing would, after one or two turns round the room, drop on to the floor, or pitch on a curtain, chair, or my head or body. When settling on a vertical surface it used to pitch head upwards, then quickly shuffle round and hang suspended by its toes in a convenient position for taking wing again. It could rise from a flat surface by making a sudden spring upwards and expanding its wings immediately. Although loth to fly, it seemed never tired of running about among the papers and other objects on the table, and was seldom stationary unless it was eating. The bell-jar in which I kept it was raised above a stand on supports rather more than ¼ in., or, to be exact, just 7 mm. in height, and whenever the perforated zinc guard was removed from the intervening space the Bat would creep out at once. The bright light of the lamp on my table seemed to cause