ALLEN—BANDING BATS 
57 
teen were males and nineteen were females, averaging 52.5 mm. in length. 
They had very black skin, almost naked, what hair they had being 
pale brown. The second size, of which there were twenty-one males 
and fifteen females, averaged 60.8 mm. in length. They wore a thin 
covering of hair, more sparse on the venter, more buffy in color than 
that of the adults. The third size, of which there were thirteen males 
and nineteen females, averaged 72.8 mm. in length. They were fully 
haired, the color being much darker than that of the adults. 
A few females were found accompanied by two young of the smallest 
and largest sizes and a few others that contained embryos were accom- 
panied by medium-sized young which seemed to be nursing, indicating 
the possibility of more than one fitter in a season. There is a bare 
possibility that in the confusion resulting from my disturbance some of 
the young might have become frightened and clung to the wrong 
mother. I am inclined to the belief, however, that this species never 
has but a single young at a birth and that it has two fitters a season. 
The red bat, the silvery-haired bat, and the pipistrelle, on the other 
hand, normally bring forth two young and have but one fitter. 
I did not succeed in capturing all of the bats in this roost as there 
were many crevices from which I could not force them. In all, how- 
ever, I secured 101 young and 135 adults. Of these 48 of the young 
were males but only four of the adults were males, indicating that 
while the sexes are normally of about equal number, they segregate 
during the season of gestation and care of the young. The presence of 
a few males may indicate that the males rejoin their mates for a short 
time between fitters. 
There is a popular superstition that bats carry bedbugs and during 
my stay in the attic I had plenty of opportunity to verify this belief 
as well as that they have innumerable fieas and mites. I made quite a 
collection from the bodies of the bats but unfortunately they were lost 
in transit and never identified. I have since, however, taken speci- 
mens from the large brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus, a photograph of 
which accompanies this article, which were identified for me by Mr. 
Van Duzee as Cimex pilosellus Horvarth, a species which never seems to 
infest man. I can supplement this statement by the fact that though 
I was in the attic for nearly two hours and saw them crawling all 
around, I received no bites, and careful examination of my clothes 
failed to reveal a single specimen. 
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
