Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 4 [September 1902]: Illustrated by Color PhotographyVarious
History
Birds and Nature, Vol. 12 No. 4 [September 1902]: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
We closed the shutters of the blind as softly as we could, but it awoke
him, and he began to wiggle and twist. He could not get away and we
lowered the window from the top and grabbed the little fellow.
How he did scold and snap his jaws together! His little teeth were sharp
and he tried his best to bite us.
We put him in a box and put a piece of coarse wire netting over the top.
Mr. Bat did not enjoy being made a prisoner, and did not quiet down
until he found he could hang head downward from the netting.
He was quite a pretty little animal, his body being about two inches
long, with soft, thick, reddish brown fur on its upper and under part
and on his head. His eyes were small and dark, and his head looked like
a tiny bear’s, but there was no hair on his ears.
His wings also were without hair and nearly black in color. When hanging
by his hind legs he kept his wings folded tightly against his body.
The bat’s hind feet were very small, having five tiny toes with the
smallest possible nails. By having one toe around the wire of the
netting he could hold himself suspended in the air.
The little fellow’s mode of walking on the bottom of the box was very
awkward. He would thrust forth the claw at the end of one of his wings
and hook it into the box, then advance the hind foot and tumble forward,
repeating the process with the opposite side, thus tumbling and
staggering along, falling first to one side, then to the other.
If he wanted to hang from the netting he would reach up a hind foot and
gain a foothold in the side of the box, then raise the other, thus
climbing backwards until he could clasp the netting.
In the evening the bat got out of the box and was flying about the room
before we knew he had escaped. He flew round and round in a circle,
sometimes striking the walls of the room. His wings made considerable
noise and he looked many times larger when flying.
We thought we should have to shut him up in the room until morning, but
at last succeeded in catching him by hitting and knocking him to the
floor with a coat, then throwing it over him.
The little fellow struggled and tried his best to get away, but it was
no use. We put him back into the box and put a weight on the netting. He
scratched around in the box and scolded all the evening, but he did not
get away again.
The next morning I thought he would be hungry and tried to get him to
eat and drink. He lapped a little water and a little milk out of a
teaspoon, running out his tiny red tongue and making a little hacking
noise.
He would not be tempted to eat a fly, shaking his head and spitting the
flies out as fast as I could put them into his mouth.
As he would not eat we thought the little fellow would starve if I did
not let him go. I waited until evening and took the box outdoors. He was
hanging to the netting, and I took it off and turned it over so he could
fly. He spread out his wings and away he went, glad to be at liberty
once more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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