116 
BATS 
afraid of those slippery chasms, feeling with both hands on 
the dirty rocks for a skinny furry bat. It takes a long time, 
but at last I feel what I am after. Yes ... it is a bat . . . 
then I did hit him ! 
The boys come down from the dread darkness up above 
and together we clamber out to the daylight, all glad to leave 
that fit abiding place for Apollyon. 
And what does the prize prove to be ? It proves to be 
a new species of Mountain Fruit bat, and I think we have 
earned it. 
In different places I pursue different methods. In the 
forest I hang up a fine silken net at evening. In the open 
country I take my stand with a small gun at sundown prepared 
for the passing of the bats from sleeping quarters to feeding 
places. The natives I send out at the same time with thin 
sticks having a few thorns or twigs left at the top ends, to 
work such havoc as they may. We ransack old hut roofs. 
We wander in and out among the banana plantations with 
sticks, stones and gun. I offer all and sundry natives a price 
for each dead bat brought to me. 
So we get them, perhaps one by one, or maybe a basketful 
of shivery, shaky dead bats all at once. 
Then comes the making of them into specimens ! With 
wings nearly folded and not outstretched, and the labels 
recording measurements and data tied on. 
For bats are an interesting branch of natural history. 
Less limited in their geographical movements than terrestrial 
animals, but more restricted than migratory birds, they 
present problems for solution and theories to puzzle at unlike 
any other branch of life. 
Much remains to be done in collecting and examining 
specimens from remote parts of the world — islands and con- 
tinents, tropical and temperate — before our knowledge can 
near completion. 
Their skeletons, teeth, and exterior characteristics are 
the principal details by which they may be classified. No 
bat has less than twenty teeth or more than thirty-eight 
teeth. No bat yet known possesses twenty-two teeth. 
One thousand forms, more or less, are known from through- 
