The actual weight was in this
case relatively much greater than in that of the female bat: but then
the opossum never quitted its hold on the tree, and it also supplemented
its hand-like feet, furnished with crooked claws, with its teeth and
long prehensile tail. The poor bat had to seek its living in the empty
air, pursuing its prey with the swiftness of a swallow, and it seemed
wonderful to me that she should have been able to carry about that great
burden with her one pair of wings, and withal to be active enough to
supply herself and her young with food.
In the end I released her, and saw her fly away and disappear among the
trees, after which I put back the two young bats in the place I had
taken them from, among the thick-clustering foliage of a small acacia
tree. When set free they began to work their way upwards through the
leaves and slender twigs in the most adroit manner, catching a twig with
their teeth, then embracing a whole cluster of leaves with their wings,
just as a person would take up a quantity of loose clothes and hold them
tight by pressing them against the chest. The body would then emerge
above the clasped leaves, and a higher twig would be caught by the
teeth; and so on successively, until they had got as high as they
wished, when they proceeded to hook themselves to a twig and assume the
inverted position side by side; after which, one drew in its head and
went to sleep, while the other began licking the end of its wing, where
my finger and thumb had pressed the delicate membrane.
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