Habits.—Generally speaking they remain in concealment during the day in caverns, ruinous buildings, hollow trees, and such hiding places, and flit forth at twilight or sunset to take their prey. White, in his Selborne,' thus describes the mode of feeding a tame bat: " It would take flies out of a person's hand ; if you gave it anything to eat it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head, in the manner of birds of prey when they feed. The adroitness it showed in shearing off the wings of flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered ; so that the notion that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon, seems no improbable story. While I =tilted myself with this wonderful quadruped I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats, when down on a flat surface, cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more dispatch than I was aware of, but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner." The Large-Eared Bats, collected by Carlisle, refused, according to Shaw, every species of food for four days, as did a large number which were afterwards caught and preserved in a dark box, for above a week. During the day-time they were extremely desirous of retirement and darkness ; and, while con fined to the box, never moved or endeavoured to get out the whole day; and when spread on the carpet they commonly rested some minutes, and then, beginning to look about, crawled slowly to a dark corner or crevice. At sunset the scene was quite changed : every one then endeavoured to scratch its way out of the box ; a continual chirping was kept up, and no sooner was the lid of their prison opened than each was active to escape; either flying away immediately, or running nimbly to a convenient place for taking wing. When these bats were first collected, several of the females had young ones clinging to their breasts in the act of sucking. One of them flew with perfect ease, though two little once were thus attached to her, which weighed nearly as much as the parent. All the young were devoid of down, and of a black colour. One of the most interesting and detailed accounts of the habits of these animals is that made by Mr. Daniell to the Zoological Society of London. The bate consisted of two species, the Pipistrelle Pipistrellua of Ceofftvy) and the Noctulo nods Oa of Schreber). 'Ir. Daniell stated that in July, 1833, he received five specimens, all pregnant females, from Elvetham in Hampshire. Many more were congregated together with them in the ruins of the barn in which they were taken, but all the rest escaped. They had been kept in a tin powder canister for several days, and on being turned loose into a common packing-case, with a few strips of deal nailed over it to form a cage they exhibited much activity, progressing rapidly along the bottom of the box, ascending by the bars to the top, and then throwing themselves off as if endeavouring to fly. They ate flies when offered to them, seizing them with the greatest eagerness, and devouring them greedily, all of them congregating together at the end of the box at which they were fed, and crawling over, snapping at, and biting each other, at the same time uttering a grating kind of squeak. Cooked meat wannest presented to them, and rejected; but raw beef was eaten by them with avidity, and with an evident preference for such pieces as had been moistened with water. This answered a double purpose; the weather being warm numbers of the Blue-Bottle Flies (Mescal vomit oria of Linnaeus) were attracted to the meat; and on approaching within range of the bats' wings were struck down by their action, the animal itself falling at the same moment with all its membranes expanded, and cowering over the prostrate fly, with its head thrust under in order to secure its prey. When the head was again drawn forth the membranes were immediately closed, and the fly was observed to be almost invariably taken by the head. Mastication appeared to be a laboured operation, consisting of a succession of eager bites and snaps, and the sucking process (if it may be so termed), by which the insect was drawn into the mouth, being much assisted by the looseness of the lips. Several minutes were employed in devouring a large fly. In the first instance the flies were eaten entire, but Mr. Daniell after wards observed detached wings in the bottom of the box. These however he never saw rejected, and he is inclined to think that they are generally swallowed. A slice of beef attached to the side of the box was found not only to save trouble in feeding, but also by attracting the flies to afford good sport in obserting the animals obtain their food. Their olfactory nerves appear to be very acutely sensible. When hanging by their posterior extremities, and attached to one of the bars in front of the cage, a small piece of beef placed at a little distance from their noses would remain unnoticed ; but when a fly was placed in the same situation they would instantly begin snapping after it. The beef they would eat when hungry, but they never refused a fly. In the day-time they sometimes clustered together in a corner ; but towards evening they became very lively, and gave rapid utterance to their harsh grating notes. One of them died on the fifth day after they came into Mr. Daniell'a possession ;
two on the fourteenth ; the fourth survived until the eighteenth; and the fifth until the nineteenth day. Each was found to contain a single foetus.
On the 16th of May, 1834, Mr. Daniell procured from Hertfordshire five specimens of Vesper! ilio noctuia—four females and one male. The latter was exceedingly restless and savage, biting the females, and breaking his teeth against the wires of the cage, in his attempts to escape from his place of confinement He rejected food, and died on the 18th. Up to this time the remaining four continued sulky ; but towards evening they ate a few small pieces of raw beef in preference to flies, beetles, or gentles, all of which were offered to them ; only one of them, however, fed kindly. On the 20th one died, and on the 22nd two others. The survivor was tried with a variety of food, and, evincing a decided preference for the hearts, livers, &c. of fowls, was fed constantly upon them for a month. In the course of this time large flies were frequently offered to her, but they were always rejected, although one or two May Chafers (31elolonsha raga ria) were partially eaten. In taking the food the wings were nut thrown for ward as in the Pipistrelle, and the food was seized with an action similar to that of a dog. The water that drained from the food was lapped, but the head was not raised in drinking, as Mr. Daniell had observed it to be in the Pipistrelle. The animal took considerable pains in cleaning herself, using the posterior extremities as it comb, parting the hair on either side from head to tail, and forming a straight line along the middle of the !lack. The membrane of the wings was cleaned by forcing the nose through the folds and thereby expanding them. On the 20th of June this specimen produced a young one. At the time of its birth the young was larger than a new-born mouse, and its hind legs and claws were remarkably strong and serviceable, enabling it not only to cling to its dam, but also to the deal sides of the cage. On the 24th the animal took her food in the morning, and appeared very careful of her young, shifting it occasionally from side to side to suckle it, and folding it in the mein branee of the tail and wings. On these occasions her usual position was reversed. In the evening she was found dead, but the young was still alive, and attached to the nipple, from which it was with some difficulty removed. It took milk from a sponge, was kept care fully wrapped up in flannel, and survived eight days, at the end of which period its eyes were not opened, and it had acquired very little hair. All the species of Cheiroptcra hybernate.
Systematic Arrangement —Among the ancients Aristotle says but little about the Bat, and Pliny is considered to have placed it among the Birds, none of which, he observes, with the exception of the Bat, have teeth. (` Hist. Nat' lib. xi. c. 37.) Again (lib. x. e. 61), he notices it as the only winged animal that suckles its young, and observes on its embracing its two little ones and flying about with them. In this arrangement he was followed by the older of the more modern natu ralists; Belon, Gesner, and Aldrovandus, for instance. The former, after expressing some doubt, places it at the end of the Night-Birds, in his 'Histoire de la Nature des Oyseaux ' (folio, 1555), and it occu pies the same position in the small 4to (1557), with the following quatrain :— "La Souris Mauve est un oisean du nuiet, Qui point ne pond, ains ses petits entante, Lesquels de laict de ses tetins sustante, En petit corps grande vertu reluit." The Bat (Attaleph, of darkness') was one of the unclean ani mals of the Hebrews (Deut. xiv. 18), where it is placed among the forbidden birds.
Under the title Vespertilio,' the fourth and last genus of his first order, Primates, Linnaeus arranged all the Cheiroptera known to him, and the number of species recorded in the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturas' amounts only to six. In the thirteenth edition (Gmelin's) the number of species given amounts to twenty-three. This edition was printed in 1789, and few families afford stronger evidence of the great influx of the new species within the last five-and-forty 1 years than is to be found in the numbers of Cheiroptera which have been described within that period. Of English bats alone Jenyns enumerates sixteen species, and the general numbers have been increased more than six-fold. Cuvier made the Cheiroptera the first family of his third order of Mammifers, placing them next to the Lemurida', which close his second order, Quadrumana. Jenyns, in his Manual of British Vertebrate Animals,' places them under the order Primates, which he makes the second in his arrangement of British Mammalia, the Perm being the first; and they come immediately after the shrews and the hedge-hog.
The classification of the family we propose to follow, is taken in great measure from the French authors, and adopted by Desmarest and Lesson. Galeopithecus, which is the type of the first tribe of Cheiroptera, according to Lesson, we have removed, in accordance with the opinions of other zoologists, from this family ; and though the Vespertilionidce may be divided into two natural sections, the Insectivorous Bats and the Fruit-Eaters, we have, in consideration of the gradual shades of form when the numerous species are brought under observation, followed 31. Lesson's arrangement, with the excep tion above alluded to.