1190 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



single flock were of the same sex, though another flock might 

 yield all of the opposite sex. One year specimens are recorded 

 on four days, on two days only males, and on two only females. 

 So far as they go, these observations suggest that the sexes 

 perhaps separate during autumnal flights, as birds commonly 

 do." 



Following along their route further south, we come into 

 the observational region of another good naturalist, S. N. 

 Rhoads, who writes :'- 



"I have observed this species returning from apparently 

 extensive flights over the ocean on the New Jersey coast in the 

 early morning before sunrise. On one or two occasions in 

 September single individuals have been observed flying directly 

 towards the shore, so exhausted as to make little progress 

 against a land breeze, and alighting on the nearest object as 

 soon as land was reached. It is possible that these had been 

 blown to sea during their migrations along the coast." 



A gale so trying to the Red-bat must have been disastrous 

 to the birds. For this is one of the swiftest and strongest fliers 

 of its tribe. Oftentimes in the evening one has the chance to 

 compare the flight of the Little Brown-bat with that of the 

 chimney-swift, and never does one incline to give inferior 

 rank to the Bat. But the Red-bat is superior to its twilight 

 brother as a flier; not only is it swift as the swift itself, but it can 

 turn and twist and dash within a hair-breadth of destruction, 

 or through a hole that is not half its wing-extent, and perform 

 a hundred feats of power that are far beyond any but birds 

 of the longest and strongest wings. 



It has, indeed, achieved a consummate mastery of the 

 realms of air, a conquest at least as complete as that attained 

 by swallow, swift, or hawk, a fact that should have its meed 

 of comfort for those hopeful human aeronauts who have long 

 been told in scorn that feathers are the only means to perfect 

 flight. 



" Mam. Pcnn., 1903, p. 213. 



