1186 Life-histories of Northern Animals 

 ENVIRON- The Red-bat is, above all its kin in our country, a tree Bat, 



MENT 



never frequenting caves. Every specimen that I have seen, 

 and all I have knowledge of, were found hanging from a branch 

 in the woods, generally a very low one, and looking like a 

 rumpled leaf that is prematurely dead but not yet fallen. 

 Merriam speaks' of finding them "asleep in the daytime, 

 hanging by their thumb-nails to small twigs or leaf stems 

 within easy reach." If disturbed on such occasions, they flit 

 away to some other lowly place, apparently not at all incom- 

 moded by the brightness of the daylight. 



C. W. Nash tells me that in Manitoba he has seen them 

 coming out of burrows in the moss. 



sociA- This Bat, like its relative, the Great Hoarv-bat, seems to 



BILITY 



be far from gregarious, in fact almost a solitary species, or 

 seen only in pairs. 



MATING It is not known whether our Bats are polygamous, poly- 



androus, or promiscuous. Rhoads speaks of finding this kind 

 in pairs,^ which is a mite of proof that the species has pro- 

 gressed. The only recorded observation on their mating is 

 the following by Dr. J. A. Allen:' 



"Very little seems to be known respecting the time of copu- 

 lation or the period of gestation of the Bats. From Mr. J. G. 

 Shute, of Woburn (Mass.), I learn a fact in reference to this 

 point observed by him some few years since. Soon after sun- 

 set, one evening in October, he observed a strange object pass 

 him in the air, which seemed to fall to the ground not far from 

 where he was standing. Repairing immediately to the spot, 

 he soon found it, which proved to be a pair of these Bats in 

 coitu. They were captured and thrown into alcohol, and thus 

 forwarded to the Museum of Comparative Zoology." 



Miller mentions" that this Bat breeds at Brownsville, Tex., 

 so that it may breed in all of its range north of that point. 



' Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 182. ' Mam. Pcnn., 1903, p. 213. 



" Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., Vol. I, No. 8, 1869, p. 208. 

 'N. A. Fauna, No. 13, 1897, p. 108. 



