THE GREATER HORSESHOE—A PIG THAT DOES FLY
The Long-eared Bat
His ears are more than twice as long as his head, and beautifully pink and transparent when seen in the right light
The Greater Horseshoe Bat
Hanging head downwards. Except when he is flying he always carries his tail cocked up over his back, as you see it.
I think I will leave the pictures to show you the ugliness of Bats generally, though I have purposely put one picture in to show you that all Bats are not ugly—for I am sure you will agree with me that the little white-fronted Natterer's Bat, has quite a pretty face. I must tell you a little more, though, about Bats' ears and noses.
When we were turning, in imagination, our small boy into a Bat, we did not trouble ourselves about his ears and nose, but we ought to have done so, for there are some very wonderful differences between Bats' ears and noses, and the ears and noses of human beings. If you will look at anybody's ear carefully you will see that in front of, and just a little below the ear-hole, there is a small lump of flesh which points backwards across the opening. It is not much to look at in a human being, and does not seem to serve any particular purpose, but in many Bats it is evidently very important, for it is quite large and takes all sorts of curious shapes. It is called the "earlet." Sometimes it is pointed, sometimes square, and sometimes rounded. Sometimes it is long and thin and tapering like a dagger, and sometimes it is short and thick and blunted like a kidney-bean. You will see several of its different shapes in the pictures, and you will also see that the leaf-nosed Bats, who have such queer ornaments on their noses, do not have it all. Now some wise folk think that the ornament on the face of a leaf-nosed Bat, which makes him appear so very ugly to our ideas (though I have no doubt his wife thinks it very beautiful) may give him a kind of sixth sense which is neither seeing, nor smelling, nor hearing, nor feeling, nor tasting: a sense, that is, like that which blind people often seem to possess and which helps them, poor souls, through their world of darkness. If this is so (but you must remember that we can only guess about it), it may be that the earlets of Bats do much the same, and that, therefore, Bats with earlets have no need of leaf-noses, and Bats with leaf-noses have no need of earlets.
The Pipistrille
A small Bat and one of the commonest