When bats are flying about and hunting for moths they often squeak for joy, and then their voice is quite different. It is so high that some people cannot hear it at all; but you can make a noise just like it by striking two pennies sharply together, and if you can hear that being done when you are several yards away from the person who is doing it, you ought to be able to hear a bat squeak too.
The Lesser Horseshoe Bat in his winter Sleep
He is hanging head-downwards and is completely shut up in his own wings, which, you see, are beautifully folded
You have to watch bats very closely before you can tell one kind from another, and I expect some of you will be surprised to hear that there are more different kinds of bats in England than there are of any other kinds of animals. There are, at least, twelve different kinds of English bats, and, as bats now and then seem to get blown over the sea from France, or be brought in the rigging of ships, quite a strange foreign bat may turn up sometimes.
THE BLUNDERS OF BARTIMÆUS
(MICHAELMAS DAY)
Bartimæus
Bartimæus was simply mole-tired (which is as tired as a beastie can be), and he lay on his side, with his nose tucked into his waistcoat, and dreamed of Nydia, fretfully. Nydia was half a field away, dozing in a snug fortress of her own, with four fat helpless babies to attend to, and not a passing thought for Bartimæus.
Five times within twelve hours had Bartimæus sought her. Five times had he traversed his main-line tunnel, turned eastward at the junction by the fence, and, breasting up the up-grade full tilt, thrust an inquiring nose at Nydia's nest. Why shouldn't he? Why should he stand on ceremony with four fat, squirmy, wrinkled, hairless infants?