204 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
head downward in her dark retreat or carried 
safely as she flies abroad. Extreme care and 
affection are shown by the little mothers, and 
their babies are-long dependent upon them. 
No animals seem to prey on our bats, but they 
are quarreisome and pugnacious among them- 
selves, and captives are not easily tamed: 
Relations to humanity. Bats’ are not of 
much economic interest in this country—not 
as much as in the eastern tropics, where it is 
.- te impossible, in some places, to raise soft 
tree-fruits unless.the trees are carefully and 
strongly screened. against the big fruit-eating 
fox-bats. Our species, on the other hand are 
wholly beneficial in their feeding habit: from 
our point of view, because their fare con ists 
wholly of flying insects, most of which ar in 
some way injurious or annoying to us. ! is 
delightful to watch their dancing flight ir the 
twilight—the more so when we try to count the 
number of mosquitoes they catch; and it is per- 
fectly foolish for any one to be-afraid of them 
as some women and girls pretend they are. It 
is also charged that they carry bedbugs and 
introduce them into houses. Jn common with 
