212 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



great bat soars high, well above the tree-tops, where 

 it can prey upon the high-flying great moths. It is 

 one of the most beautiful, as well as the rarest, of our 

 bats, being found in the East only in the spring or 

 fall migration. It wears a magnificent furry coat as 

 beautiful as that of the silver fox, but, like all of its 

 race, it is cursed with the homeliest face ever worn by 

 an animal. It is this hobgoblin face which, in spite of 

 a blameless life and useful habits, makes the flitter- 

 mouse, whatever its species, universally hated. 



However, handsome is as handsome does, and the 

 boy who kills a bat has killed one of our most useful 

 animals and deserves to be bitten by all the mos- 

 quitoes, and bumped by all the June bugs, and crawled 

 over by all the cockroaches, and to have his clothes 

 corrupted by all the moths, that the dead bat would 

 have eaten if it had been allowed to live. 



After I had supposedly finished this chapter I 

 was reading it aloud at the dinner-table to the de- 

 fenceless Band, one Sunday afternoon about two 

 o 'clock, on a freezing day in December. Just as I was 

 in the midst of the masterpiece, one of my audience 

 suddenly woke up and said, "There's a bat!" Sure 

 enough, outside, in the glass-enclosed porch, was 

 flying a large brown house-bat. Back and forth it 

 went through the freezing air, as swiftly as if it were 

 summer. I was much touched by this beautiful 

 tribute to my authorship, and went out and managed 

 to catch my visitor when he alighted. The bat how- 

 ever was ungrateful enough to bite the hand that 

 had praised him, and I will end this account by writ- 



