CHAPTER IX. 



BATS. 



In the preceding chapters the more important of the 

 farmer's friends and foes have been treated of, and it only 

 remains for the writer to take up the threads of the subject, 

 so to speak, and in the present contribution to notice those 

 creatures — small, it may be, but none the less harmful or 

 beneficial — which have not yet come under examination. 



Chief among these is the family of bats, and it is pleasant 

 to be able to say that the influence they exert is an 

 altogether beneficial one. 



The importance of this family will at once be seen when 

 it is stated that there are fifteen or sixteen diff"erent species 

 found in Britain, and that they are all more or less feeders on 

 insects — insects, moreover, which are by no means friends to 

 the farmer. We are apt to call a bat a bat, but the fallacy 

 of this would be seen at once if only we were to watch more 

 closely the flitter-mice " which are constantly flying about 

 our homesteads. Of the sixteen indigenous species alluded 

 to, all belong to the insectivorous division of the order, and 

 are either crepuscular or nocturnal in their habits. Every- 

 where about us one may see the admirable precision in the 

 ordering of nature ; and in the present case we notice that 

 the regular emerging of the Cheiroptera from their winte r 

 quarters is contemporaneous with that of the insect hosts 

 in spring. 



It is unnecessary here to go elaborately inio the life- 

 history of the British bats, and it will be sufficient to 



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