Now it is clear that a creature of this kind, able to chase insects in the air, even in the darkest night, can secure much food that the running insect-eaters can never reach. When the little common English bat, the Pipistrelle, awakes from his day’s sleep, which he has been taking, head downwards, hanging by his feet in some old tree or under the roof of a barn, he finds the gnats and flies abroad, and begins his chase in the twilight--up and down, from side to side he flits, and his wide-open mouth takes in insects at every turn. And by-and-by, as the dark nights come on, the Long-eared Bats begin gradually to stir from their clusters in the barns and old buildings, and, unfolding their wings so as to display their ears as long as their bodies, commit sad havoc among the night-moths. All night long their shrill squeak may be heard, but before day dawns they are away again, and may be found hanging in dense masses by their hind legs to the timbers of some old church belfry, or in caves, or even under the roofs of houses, where they find an entrance by some hole, and go in by hundreds to hang from the rafters. Many accounts are given in American writers of the thousands of bats collected in the caverns which abound in the Western States, while in the Egyptian catacombs they hang in myriads. For of all things a bat dreads the light when beasts of prey are abroad, and next to that he fears any position near the ground where weasels, wild cats, or other flesh-eating animals may seize him in his sleep. Nay, the smaller bats live in constant fear of the larger ones, for they feed upon one another with evident relish. Yet in spite of dangers the bat family, aided by its power of flight, has spread all over the world, from the Arctic Circle to the Equator, east, west, north, and south. In cold countries they hang by their feet in the winter, or sometimes by their clawed thumbs, and sleep in dark recesses, scarcely breathing till the warm weather and the insects return; but in warm countries they are active all the year, sleeping by day and feeding by night. In England and North America they are content chiefly with insect food, but in South America the Vampires, among the leaf-nosed bats, fasten on to large animals and suck their blood. Mr. Darwin had his servant’s horse bitten and disabled for two days by a vampire in Chili; while Mr. Wallace, when on the Amazon River, was himself twice bitten, once upon the great toe, and once on the tip of his nose while asleep! A bat is a grotesque-looking animal at best; but some of these leaf-nosed bats are simply hideous, with their wide-open mouth, sharp teeth, and the skinny leaves sticking up round their nose.