. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. 86 THE WING-HANDED ANIMALS. tions show. This explorer one winter found forty- five sleeping Bats in a cavern. They were, for the most part, Long-eared Bats and Lesser Horseshoe Bats all of which he captured and placed in a spa- cious room, where they were left to settle down at their own pleasure. A few days later the naturalist wished to introduce his collection to a friend, and found to his great surprise that six of the Horseshoe Bats had been d
. Brehm's Life of animals : a complete natural history for popular home instruction and for the use of schools. Mammalia. Mammals; Animal behavior. 86 THE WING-HANDED ANIMALS. tions show. This explorer one winter found forty- five sleeping Bats in a cavern. They were, for the most part, Long-eared Bats and Lesser Horseshoe Bats all of which he captured and placed in a spa- cious room, where they were left to settle down at their own pleasure. A few days later the naturalist wished to introduce his collection to a friend, and found to his great surprise that six of the Horseshoe Bats had been devoured, nothing being left of them but the claws and the tips of their wings ; while one had its head mutilated in a shocking manner. Nu- merous blood spots, bloody muzzles and swollen stomachs seemed to point out the Long-eared Bats as the murderers, and when one of them was killed and its stomach examined, every doubt on this score was set at rest. The wings of the Long-eared Bats. WELWITSCH'S BAT. This Bat, first discovered by the late Dr. Welwitsch, is noteworthy for the bright and variegated coloring of its wings which near the body are brown dotted with black, and beyond this blackish brown with curved lines of yellow dots, while bands of dark orange dotted with black follow the course of the forearm and three of the fingers. It inhabits the vicinity of Angola. (Scotophilus â wel-witschn.) showed fresh wounds near the body, whose margins had a swollen appearance ; and these Bats were sus- pended from the ceiling in clusters, while the Horse- shoe Bats had retired singly to the darkest nooks and corners. The conclusion from these facts is very simple. The two species were not on friendly terms and had given each other battle during the night. While the Long-eared Bats were enjoying their first sweet slumber, the Horseshoe Bats had come and sucked their blood ; the wounded Bats during the regular interval of their nightly slumbers had avenged themselves and devoured the c
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjecta, booksubjectmammals
