live for three generations of an eagle, six The 

 generations of a stag, and nine generations of Summer 

 a man. With less poetic exactitude I have era s ' 

 been told that it lives thirteen years in flight 

 and thirty -three years in all ! ... though 

 equally authentic information avers that the 

 average life of the bat is twenty-one years. 

 A forester told me once that he did not think 

 any bat lived longer than nine years, but he 

 thought fifteen as likely as nine. On the 

 other hand, he himself spoke, and as though 

 for all he knew it might well be so, of an 

 old tradition that a bat lives to a hundred 

 years. This, I may add, I have heard again 

 and again. The other day a fisherman from 

 the island of Lismore gave the unexpected 

 answer : ' How old will the ialtag be ? 

 Well, now, just exactly what the age of 

 Judas was the hour he kissed Christ and 

 betrayed Him, and not a day more and not a 

 day less.' Nothing explicit as to that, 

 however, could be obtained. A gardener 

 told me once a rhyme about how to get at 

 the age of man, but I have forgotten it except 

 that it was to the effect that a losgunn (a 

 toad) was twice the age of an easgunn (an 

 eel), and that a dialtag (bat) was twice the 

 age of a losgunn, and that amfiadh (the stag) 

 was twice the age of a dialtag, 'and put ten 

 '53 



