ALLEN — BANDING BATS 
55 
as absent or very rare during winter in California, but with us it is the 
only species for which we have definite winter records. On several 
occasions I have seen them fiying about in the day time during Feb- 
ruary or March, and, nearly every winter in January or February, one 
comes out of hiding and flies about the halls of the Zoology building 
at Cornell University. All these facts point to the need for further 
study of these interesting little beasts. The valuable results that are 
now being obtained by banding birds could no doubt be duplicated 
with bats if only enough persons would cooperate in the project of 
banding. 
Illustrating the ease with which the banding can be done when the 
opportunity offers, I discovered this year a cluster of pipistrelles clinging 
to the gable of my barn; holding an insect net beneath them, I touched 
one of them with a stick and instantly the whole eighteen dropped into 
the net. This was on June 5 and I observed that sixteen of the num- 
ber were females heavy with young. (The pipistrelles, in this locahty, 
normally bear two young.) Each of these bats was banded as described 
above and liberated. Most of them returned to the barn sooner or 
later as the size of the cluster seemed to be about the same a few days 
later. They cling so closely to one another that it is impossible to 
count them and, at this time, close observation of them was made 
impractical by their roosting beside a large hornets^ nest. Between the 
first and the middle of July, apparently, the young were brought forth 
but it was impossible to tell exactly. On the night of the fifteenth, 
however, two of the young were large enough to be left alone, for when 
I scanned the gable with the aid of a flash light, I discovered them 
hanging where the whole cluster had been during the day. On the 
twenty-fifth of the month the pipistrelles had moved away from the 
hornets^ nest and the young seemed to be of good size so I again held 
the net beneath the cluster. This time I did not hold it quite so care- 
fully and two of the old bats escaped. Ten adults and sixteen young 
were captured, however, and of these nine of the adults bore the bands 
that had been placed upon them the fifth of June. The bands were 
somewhat scratched, probably by the bats’ teeth, but the skin showed 
no signs of abrasion by the bands. All the young but one could fly, 
and they were much darker and grayer than their parents. Nine were 
females and seven were males. If each of the twelve females had 
had two young and there were but sixteen left, it bespeaks a rather 
high mortality, doubtless at the stage when they were learning to fly. 
The young were banded and all were released. After that time there 
