ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIEIY OF ONTARIO. 17 



Unfortunately the term " insectivorous " as applied to a bird or a mammal seems to 

 imply that the food of the species in question is in some way necessarily confined to what 

 we call it jurious insects. As a matter of fact little or no discrimination between bene- 

 ficial and injurious insects has been ascertained as being made by any of our mammals in 

 the choice of their food. 



A skunk, foraging through the damp and shady wood, will, on finding one, munch a 

 golden Calosoma with the same avidity that it crushes a May beetle. Most of our- 

 terrestrial insects, good and bad as we classify them, are no doubt held to be invariably 

 good by the hungry shrew lucky enough to capture them. From the bat point of view, 

 the raison d' etre of night flying insects is quite likely enough considered simply as an 

 essential requirement in order to keep the old and exclusive bat family in its proper 

 position at the head of all living things. Nevertheless much good may be done without 

 conscious discrimination ; the farmer may derive a benefit from an act performed by a, 

 creature not dreaming of his existence. If it can be shown that the despised bat, the 

 misunderstood shrew and the persecuted mole, from an economic point of view, " do good 

 by stealth and blush to find it fame," it may be accepted as sufficient justification for the 

 appeaiance of this paper in the pages of an entomological report. 



The Bats. 



The Bats, as an order, are very distinct from any other mammalian group. The 

 most casual observer recognizes these uncanny-looking noctural swallows as simply 

 flying mammals, and thus far no other mammals than bats have been found adapted for 

 true flight. 



Their relationship to other groups has never been clearly elucidated. No scientific- 

 explanation of their origin is afforded by the investigation of their fossil remains. In 

 short any fossil hitherto discovered has been either all bat or no bat at all. While they 

 are thus easily separated from all other groups, when we come to the consideration of 

 how many species we have, the greatest difficulties are at once encountered. 



In previous reports of this Society our able Curator, Mr. Moffat, has put with force 

 the pertinent query, " What constitutes a species 1 " 



That this question presses with peculiar force on any one attempting the classification 

 of our bats is admitted by that eminent authority, Dr. Harrison Allen, from whose 

 monograph — "The Bats of North America " — I quote, "The difficulties acknowledged 

 in identifying the American species (Vespertilio) are apparently innumerable, so great is 

 the range of variation in the proportions of the ears, thumbs, feet, tail and phalanges of 

 the manus and in the coloration of the fur and the membranes. If the purposes of 

 zoological science should end with the identification of species, the student might well 

 be discouraged in his studies in this field. But, fortunately, the very intricacies of the 

 subject suggest problems in the attempts to solve which his knowledge of the life and 

 structure of these little organisms cannot fail to be increased." 



Owing to the courtesy of W. E. Saunders, Esq., I have had the opportunity of 

 making an extended study of a series of bats collected by him, chiefly in the vicinity of 

 London. As I feel quite unable with the space at my disposal to give a non-technical 

 description that would prove of practical value, I simply give a list of species with short 

 notes on their distribution, etc. 



All our species belong to the family Vespertilioni'Jm, are pre-eminently insectivorous 

 and apparently hold the same relation to the night-flying insects that our swallows do to 

 those insects which fly by day. 



1. Vespertilio gryphus (Fr. Cuvier), The Little Brown Bat. Five specimens. One 

 of our commonest species, ranging in different forms from the north-eastern United 

 States to Hudson Bay, and west to the Rocky Mountains. Pastoral in local distribution 

 as contrasted with the more urban Brown Bat. 



2 Lasionycteris noctivagans (Leconte), The Silvery Bat. Four specimens. Common 

 throughout North America. Partial to waterways and known to be a good swimmer. 



2 EN. 



