Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons by Gerald Durrell

Author:Gerald Durrell
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

‘Caught anything?’ she asked when she arrived.

‘No,’ I said, ‘if you discount snails and a rat. But we might get something when it gets lighter.’

Gradually, the sky paled primrose yellow and the light strengthened as we left our snail-eaten hut and moved down to the trees nearer the nets.

‘I can’t understand why they don’t come,’ I said. ‘They must be able to smell that damned Jak fruit in Chicago!’

‘I know,’ said John, ‘what I think is …’

But what he thought was never vouchsafed to us, for he leant forward, peering intently.

‘What’s that?’ he said, pointing. ‘Surely it’s something in the net. Is it a bat?’

We all strained our eyes, staring into the clearing where the mist nets, fine as gossamer, vanished against the trees and shadows.

‘Yes,’ said Ann, excitedly, ‘I can see it. I’m sure it’s a bat.’

‘I think you’re right,’ I said, ‘but how the hell did he get in there without us knowing?’

At that moment, a bat entered the clearing, did a swift and cautious investigation and then flew away, demonstrating first of all the complete silence of its approach and, secondly, the fact that from where our hut was, higher up the hill, we could not have seen it, for once it entered the clearing, it vanished into the broken shadows.

By now, the light had strengthened considerably and, to our excitement, we could see not one, but ten bats hanging in the nets. To say that we were elated was putting it mildly, for, secretly, I think all of us had felt our chances of success were slight.

The bats were hanging, immobile, in the nets and as they were not struggling and panicking, we decided to wait for a while and see if we caught any more before releasing them. Several bats flew into the clearing during the next half-hour, but they were too cautious and kept too high to get entangled in the mist nets. At length, it became obvious that we were not going to catch any more, and so we got our supply of Tantes ready and set about the task of disentangling the ones we had caught.

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