OUR LARGEST AND RAREST BAT 
VII 
OUR LARGEST AND RAREST 
BAT. 
A Magnificent Specimen of the Great 
Northern Hoary Bat Captured 
in Sound Beach. 
Mr. Charles Ditman, gardener for 
Mr. James W. Brice of Sound Beach, 
captured and presented to The Agassiz 
Association a magnificent specimen of 
the hoary or great northern bat 
( La-si uriis cinereus). This bat is in this 
vicinity only in migrations from its 
summer northern home to the warmer 
south for winter. 
This particular specimen measures 
one foot three and one-half inches from 
tip of wing to tip ; is four and one-half 
inches in length, and one and three- 
quarters inches across the back. The 
fur is beautifully tipped with silver 
from which it takes its name, hoary 
bat. The head, eyes and ears are of 
unique and beautiful appearance, far 
excelling the common red bat in every 
respect. Almost every one has seen 
the red bat at least in flight in early 
twilight, but the hoary bat is seldom 
seen anywhere by any one, as even in 
the northern home it flies only after 
twilight. 
“American Animals” (Stone and 
Cram) says: 
“The hoary bat is the largest bat of 
the Northern and Middle States, and 
is the rarest of all our Eastern species. 
Even in the North, where they make 
their home among the forests and 
mountain wildernesses, they are seen 
only occasionally, and still less fre- 
quently are specimens secured. 
“To the southward of the Canadian 
fauna the hoary bat occurs only as a 
migrant during the winter months, 
early spring and late autumn, and it is 
here, if anything, a rarer sight than in 
its true home to the northward. I have 
known of specimens being secured 
about Philadelphia, but in spite of 
many evenings spent in looking for it 
at times, when its occurrence seemed 
most likely. I have never been success- 
ful in obtaining a glimpse of this in- 
teresting bat.” 
Dr. C. Hart Merriam gives a graphic 
description of the difficulty of even see- 
ing one in the far northern home, and 
the almost impossibility of securing 
one, even when it “shoots by seeming- 
ly as big as an owl within a few feet 
of your eyes.” 
Dr. Edward F. Bigelow, who chloro- 
formed this specimen at ArcAdiA, says 
this is the first he has ever seen. 
Mr. Paul G. Howes of Shippan Point, 
who is mounting it for the Bruce Mu- 
seum, says he has previously seen only 
one — about five years ago. 
Mr. John Schaler, taxidermist, Stam- 
ford, says be has seen only two and 
both of those were many years ago. 
One he saw at night flying around a 
near-by ice house and shot it. The 
other he found clinging to his Lima 
bean vines. 
Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton says in 
“Life Histories of Northern Animals: 
“The Bat is one of the masterpieces 
of Creation. It exemplifies, in high de- 
gree, the perfect beast with perfect 
senses, equipped with perfect flight, so 
there be few indeed that in the scale 
outrank it. And the Prince among these 
winged ones is the magnificent Hoary- 
bat, whose imperfect history is before 
us. To the general and generous gifts 
of its tribe it adds great size, with 
corresponding higher power, a furry 
robe of exquisite beauty — a combina- 
tion indeed of Sable, seal, and Silver- 
fox — and last, a blameless life.” 
The “Distant Husband” and the Bear. 
The following missive was received 
by the forest ranger of the Pasadena 
district and read recently at the annual 
dinner of the Sierra Club in Los An- 
geles : 
“Kind and Respected Cir: 
“I see in the paper that a man 
named J S was atacted and et 
up by a bare whose cubs he was trying 
to git when the she bare came up and 
stopt him by eatin him up in the moun- 
tains near your town. What i want to 
know is did it kill him or was he only 
partly et up and he from this place and 
all about the bare. I don’t know but 
what he is a distant husband of mine. 
My first husband was of that name and 
I supposed he was killed in the war but 
the name of the man the bare et being 
the same i thought it might be him 
after all and i thought to know if he 
wasn’t killed either in the war or by 
the bare for I have been married twice 
since and their ought to be divorce 
papers got out by him or me if the bare 
did not eat him all up. If it is him you 
