Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/78

54 pitching for an instant and dashing away again eight times. Others kept dropping in until 9.38, when I left. At 8.49 three or four were dashing round the tree at once. Intermittent squeaking in the den as the Bats returned.

Sept. 4th.—Fine moonlight evening; no wind. The first Bat was out at 6.56. Twenty-three more followed before 7.1. No further sign of Bats until 7.53, when one arrived; two others at 7.59. From then until 8.30 many came. Twice in that time there were three or four at once. On the whole the Bats returned much earlier than last night, although there was no apparent difference in the atmospheric conditions.

Sept. 5th.—Another fine still evening; moonlight. Twenty-seven Bats left the den between 6.59 and 7.4. The first returned at 7.58, the second at 8.4. From then until 8.50 many returned, singly and by twos and threes. Others put in an appearance until 9.20, when I left, but there was a marked falling off in the frequency of the arrivals during the last half-hour.

It may be that the period of activity is not limited to a short vespertinal flight of from one to two hours, and that the Bats leave their den again before daylight; but I do not think so, and for this reason. A captive Noctule which I had for some weeks during the summer used to wake up between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening, and become very active, climbing about the box in which it was confined, and squeaking vigorously. When, as sometimes happened, I was unable to feed it until two or three hours later, it relapsed into the lethargic sleep which characterizes Bats in the daytime, and I had to rouse it again by warming it in my hand.

Noctules scuffle and squeak for half an hour or more before leaving their dens in the evening, and this squeaking may be heard sometimes even at midday. In Alderley Park, at noon on July 15th, Bats, presumably of this species, were squeaking in a Woodpecker's hole in a tall beech, and during the morning of Aug. 5th the noise made by the Bats in the hollow Scotch fir on the Edge was very noticeable.

This species changes its feeding-grounds at different times of the year. For some weeks about midsummer Noctules may be counted by scores on almost any evening along the road which skirts the foot of Alderley Edge on the north, but in spring and