Shanghai, March 15.—'"Alice.... went on saying to herself, Do cats eat bats? and sometimes, Do bats eat cats? For, you see, as she couldn't answer either question it didn't much matter which way she put it." I think I have found the answer to one of these questions as the result of a conversation with one of our soldier-boys who takes a vast interest in all matters concerning birds and beasts and fishes and the green things of the earth. He was on duty in the early morning and first noted a bat, caught out beyond the hours of darkness, and flying low in that bemused manner which bats have when they fail to get home before daylight: to his surprise a Falcon suddenly came whizzing down and struck the bat which fell to the ground without being actually killed: the Falcon then came down to examine its prey and was, presumably, just about to tear it up, when a cat came bouncing on to the scene and put the Falcon to flight. The cat then carefully examined the bat, turned it over with its paw and walked off without touching it again! And so, you see, we can now tell Alice officially that cats do not eat bats, and that her second question is held over for further consideration. In completing this story the soldier-friend said that the bat was still moving but was obviously fatally injured, so he gave it the "hoop de grass": a kindly action I am sure, though I never could handle those foreign' languages properly.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.