THE BATS OF EPPING FOREST. 135
places, or, if nocturnal pursuits have any charm for you, to fish for
them with a rod and line ; a common fishing-rod, or even a hazel
wand, will do very well. The line must be a short piece of string,
and the bait a head of burdock, previously prepared by dipping in
whitewash and drying by the fire. The bat mistakes this for a moth,
dashes at it, clutches it in his arms, and the little hooks of the
burdock fasten in his wings and render him a helpless, hopeless
prisoner."
Mr. Newman enumerates seven species of Cheiroptera as occur-
ring in the Forest, all belonging to the family :
Vespertilionidae.
1. Scotophilus Noctula. The Noctule or Great Bat.
The Noctule is the largest of all, the boldest, the highest flyer ; it
is the swift among bats. Sometimes a party of six or seven will fly
in company, squeaking or chirping so loud and distinctly that you
may hear them coming when yet a hundred yards away. Sometimes
the Noctule flies so high that one wonders what it finds to eat up in
the sky hawking about, as though insects would be silly enough to
fly up there only to be eaten by bats. Sometimes it dashes up and
down the main street of Epping quite low, as though its prey was
also keeping near the ground. Sometimes—but this is confined to
May and June—it will continue flying round the taller trees in search
of cockchafers, the big chafer in May and the little one in June ;
and this diet is varied in autumn and early spring by an occasional
dor-beetle.
Every now and then, even in its most rapid flight, the Noctule
will seem to tumble head-over-heels, throwing a kind of somersault
in the air like a tumbler pigeon. Some have supposed that at every
tumble it catches a cockchafer, and stops to stuff the captive into its
mouth ; but if this is really the case, its consumption of cockchafers
must be prodigious and its digestion amazingly rapid. I have often
observed the wing-cases of cockchafers and dor-beetles on the ground
under the trees, and have given the Noctules full credit for eating
the bodies. The Noctule seldom reposes by day in human habi-
tations, but betakes itself to hollow trees, and is very fond of com-
pany. Mr. Bond saw sixty-nine Noctules routed out of one hollow
tree, and in the bright sunshine, too ; and they did not seem offended