LESSON XLV.

A FLYING MAMMAL.

“Silent they rest in solemn salvatory,Sealed from the moth and the owl and the flitter-mouse.”

“Silent they rest in solemn salvatory,

Sealed from the moth and the owl and the flitter-mouse.”

—Jean Ingelow.

We have been studying together these wonderful creatures, the manatee, the whale, and the seal. These are not the only mammals that live in the sea; the sea-lion, porpoise, dolphin, and others are also sea-mammals. In a book like this we cannot discuss all the animals of any large order, and now we turn from these huge citizens of the sea, to learn something about a small but equally curious flying mammal, a citizen of the air,—the bat. It is a little beast, universally disliked, even feared; let us hope to clear away some of the foolish notions which surround it, and place it where it belongs, among harmless and interesting animals.

One evening last summer, as we sat on the veranda, a dark, winged creature with an uncertain, zigzag flight swept above us. “Oh! Oh! the horrible thing,” screamed Mabel, putting her hands to her head; “he will get tangled up in my hair. Bats always do that.”

“Mabel,” I said, “I don’t think you ever saw a person in whose hair a bat had become tangled. I never did. It would be as unusual an incident as to find that a toad had hopped into your pocket.”

A few minutes after we saw in the moonlight, on the gravel walk, a small, dark object, moving in the most clumsy, hobbling fashion. “It is that bat,” shouted Rex. “Where is a stick? Let me kill him.”

“Let him be,” I said. “I can tell you some very delightful things about him.” In fact, I told Rex such wonders that he became interested in bats, and happening the next day to find a young, half-grown bat in the smoke-house, he concluded to take it to school, to ask for further information from his teacher. To do this, he put it in a pasteboard box, with the cover left partly off to give the creature air. The little bat cried, and the mother bat came flying in haste to her child. As she could not get into the box to her baby, she clung to the outside with her head to the opening, making little encouraging squeaks; and thus Rex actually carried both bats to school. The teacher put them into a small cage, and fed them bread, milk, and sugar for several days; then one evening they were set free.

Now let us see what Rex learned about bats. The bat has a number of names; the English peasants call it a “flitter-mouse,”from its jerky, uneven flight. The Germans and Dutch give it the same name; the Swedes call it a “leather-mouse,” from its parchment-like wings; Goldsmith used to call it “a mouse with wings.”

The bat is a four-legged, hairy creature, with teeth set in sockets in the jaws; it suckles its young; in addition to these characteristics of a mammal, it has wings and truly flies. Were it not for the wings it would have been put in the order of insect-eaters, but its wings have secured for it an order for itself. The name of this order is the “wing-handed,” or “hand winged,” and to it belong the bats, vampires, and flying foxes, all of them truly bats, under varied names.

The lemurs, flying squirrels, and a few other animals have extensions of the skin mantle-wise along the body and legs, to bear them up for a little in the air, as they make long leaps; but they do not really fly. The bat, on the contrary, has good wings, and flies. The bat reminds us a little of that winged reptile which was in the ancient world long before men appeared on the earth. That was a reptile with a large, skin-like wing; a bat is a mammal with two skin-covered wings.

The structure of the bat’s wing is very different from that of a bird.[85]The bones and muscles of a bird’s wing are set with stiff feathers, which can be folded together as a fan is furled. When spread they form an elastic instrument for beating the air, and sending the bird forward, upward, downward, wherever it may choose to direct its flight.

The body and head of the common bat are very likethose of a mouse; it has bright black eyes, a mouth full of tiny white teeth, a covering of gray or reddish hair over all its body. A mouse has a long, scaly tail; a bat has a very short tail; the ears of a mouse are small and pointed; the bat’s ears are large. The nostrils have a fold or ruffle of skin about them, which is supposed to improve the sense of smell.

The fore legs, or rather the arms, are very wonderful. If we had the skeleton of a bat we should see that the bones of the arm and forearm are long and slender, and instead of two bones in the lower part or forearm, there is but one which represents the smaller bone in the human arm. The bat’s hand has five distinct fingers. The first of them, the thumb, is short, but the other four are very long, much longer than all the rest of the bat, and they are also very slim. Upon these fingers, as upon a frame, the thin, leather-like double membrane of the wing is stretched on each side of the extended hand, enclosing the finger-bones, thus the two arms have become a pair of wings.

This membrane is extended from the fingers to the sides of the body, then passes back to the hind legs, and covers them up to the ankles, and so round enclosing the little tail. Thus the bat has an enormous spread of wing for its size. The long forefinger of the hand extends to the tip of the wing, and the middle finger runs close to it, making this part of the wing strong. When the bat closes its wings the bony frame shuts together like the wires of an umbrella, and the skin hangs in folds as the covering of the umbrella hangs in folds between the closed wires. The thumb of the bat’s hand is left free, and the nail is a large, hooked claw.

The flight of a bat is strong and tireless, but it is not in straight lines, nor in easy curves or sweeps like that of a bird; it is restless and flitting, with sharp turns and jerky motions.

When the bat alights on the ground, as it but seldom does, it shows itself a genuine quadruped. It draws its fingers together, throwing the membrane of the wing into folds, and so the free, strongly clawed thumb projects, and on this claw, and the hind feet which are free to the ankles, the bat walks, but as you might expect, its gait is very awkward.

The bat is a night-flying creature. Its sight is better suited for night than daylight; it prefers twilight, or dark caverns. Like the owl and the moth it sleeps by day, and comes out after sunset. As it eats insects it frequents shady places where insects can be found; during the day it rests in cool, dark places where there is some rough surface to which it can cling. Thus, dark woods, hollow trees, old barns, abandoned houses, church towers, and caves are the choice haunts of the bat.

From its habit of hiding, its night-flying, its uncouth motion, its mouse-like body and unfeathered wings, which are so unhandsome that artists have copied them when they wish to show demons, witches, dragons, harpies, and evil angels with wings, the poor bat has derived its unlucky reputation, and the general dislike with which it is regarded. In truth, there is scarcely any creature so frail, defenceless, harmless, friendly, gentle, and timid as a bat. It has no weapons, and its only hope of defence lies in its quick, erratic flight.[86]

During the day in its dark shelter, the bat sleeps in astrange fashion. It hangs itself up on some projecting stone or twig, as you would hang a cloak on a peg, or an umbrella by the crook on the handle. It hangs head down, using the large hooked claws on the hind-feet to cling by, and queer as the position is, it seems to suit very well. Bats are social in nature, and live in large flocks or bands. A cave or tower may have its walls quite covered with them, hanging close together. Sometimes, especially in winter, they cling one to the other in a curious, compact mass.

Bats hibernate, or sleep, through cold weather, hiding themselves in tree-caves or other dark places early in the autumn, and coming forth when the spring is fully opened and has brought their insect food. When the bat goes abroad it spends all its time in hunting for insects. Our common bat is a most useful creature, destroying thousands of insects which would be harmful to our garden and fruit trees. In a season, a bat eats myriads of gnats, midges, moths, beetles, cockroaches, crickets, and grasshoppers.

The great bat, or noctule,[87]has a spread of wing of twelve or fourteen inches, while its body is only three inches long. Its mouth can open with a wide gap like that of a swallow. When it catches a beetle, it has to hold it to its mouth by its thumb claw while it eats it, as a boy would eat a pear. To bring the thumb around to its mouth the bat must partly close the wing; as it does this it drops a foot or so; then it gives a stroke or two of its wings as it chews the bite it has taken, and rises again; then it takes another bite of beetle, and so on. All the time it is hunting it gives shrill squeaks or cries.

Not only is the free thumb of the bat’s hand useful for holding food, but it is of great service in walking, as its method is to extend the arm, catch hold of the ground by the claw of one free thumb, and pull itself forward; then make the same motion with the other arm and thumb, the free feet following these movements. Thus it proceeds in a zigzag, moving first to one side and then to the other. Although this is such an awkward method of progress the bat can run rapidly.

Bats are not great travellers; they haunt the same locality year after year. The mother bat has seldom more than one young one at a time, and this is born early in the spring, before the bats begin to fly abroad. The baby bat is smaller than a small bean, is blind and hairless. The mother bat folds up a part of her wing membrane into a cradle or nest for this tiny creature; she seems very fond of it, smooths and brushes it, and keeps it warm and clean.

The little creature has from the first strong claws, and uses them to hold fast to its mother. For several weeks this little one clings to its mother, is fed by her milk, and when she goes out to hunt she carries it along and never lets it fall. Even after a young bat can fly and catch insects for itself, it keeps near its mother, and she watches over it, and timid as she is by nature, she will die in its defence.

Bats are found in nearly all parts of the world, and may be divided according to their food into insect-eating and fruit-eating bats. The insect-eating bats belong generally to cold or mild climates, and the fruit-eaters to the tropics. The fruit-eating bats are much larger than the insect-eaters, andthey are destructive and troublesome, while the common bats are useful.

The four most famous bats are the common bat, which we have described; the long-eared bat, which has ears so enormous that they are as long as the creature’s entire body; the flying-fox, a bat of India, very lazy, and having a fox-like face. Flying-foxes are found in India, Africa, and the Oceanic Islands. In Java the fruit trees must be protected with bamboo nettings, to prevent the depredations of these creatures. The fourth notable bat is the vampire of Southern and Central America. These are very large bats given to blood-sucking, and while their bites and blood-sucking do not occasion death, they are very troublesome to both men and beasts.

One of the most wonderful things about the bat is its ability to guide itself in flying in perfectly dark places, and even when it is blind. A blind bat flies just as swiftly and safely as one with good eyes. It seems that the sense of touch is remarkably acute, so that even without contact, they can tell when a solid body, even of small size, is near them. Although the bat does not seem to need its sight to direct it in flying, its eyes are remarkably keen, as is shown by its insect-catching. So the phrase “as blind as a bat” is a poor comparison.

Bats can be easily tamed and become very friendly, eating insects from one’s hand, coming when called, perching on an extended finger, and seeming quite at home in a room. In captivity they eat insects, raw meat, sugar, cake, and bread soaked in milk.

FOOTNOTES:[85]Compare Nature Reader, No. 3, Lesson 28.[86]When alarmed by being caught and held, bats sometimes bite, but the bite is not very severe.[87]Common in England.

[85]Compare Nature Reader, No. 3, Lesson 28.

[86]When alarmed by being caught and held, bats sometimes bite, but the bite is not very severe.

[87]Common in England.

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