8 BROOKLYN INSTITUTE MUSEUM. SCIENCE BULLETIN 2. I. 
The Brown Bat is not uncommon on the western end of Long 
Island, especially in the large parks and cemeteries of Brooklyn, 
but throughout the rest of the island it is generally not common. 
They fly later in the year than most of our bats, and are said 
to come out sometimes on mild evenings even in mid-winter They 
hibernate abundantly within city buildings. The authors have seen 
many specimens taken in Brooklyn houses and church steeples- 
One sent to the senior author last winter was evidently an aged ani- 
mal, for the teeth, once crowned with needle-like cusps, were worn to 
short, rounded stumps- Surely any creature with more enemies than 
a bat would be weeded out by nature before it had reached such 
decrepitude. About the tall tower of the artesian well in Prospect 
Park many of them may be seen late on summer evenings, and within 
it they probably hide themselves throughout the day. They do not 
appear until dusk, and then they hunt well into the night. 
Like many other species, the Brown Bat is much given to feeding 
over water. It also hunts about street lights. One was seen about 
ten o'clock in a night early in November, flying round and round 
at great speed under an arc light and circling in exactly the same 
orbit for twenty-five minutes. Probably few or no insects were 
flying at the time; the Bat was merely "making speed" in a ring 
perhaps forty yards in diameter. A stick was held up in its path, 
but it dodged to one side and then went directly on in the same circle. 
4. RED B.\T 
Lasiurus borealis (Miiller) 
Length 11.25 centimeters (4.40 inches). Teeth: incisors !^j, canines J^j, premolars 
Irf, molars ^3, =32. Color usually tawny, sometimes grayish, more or less tipped 
with whitish. Upper surface of the interfcmoral membrane, base of wing membranes 
and base of ears furred. Ear short. 
During most of the summer a bat seen anywhere on Long 
Island is, nine times out of ten, a Red Bat. The species is abundant 
from the busy streets of Brooklyn to Orient and Montauk, between 
the first warm spring days and the twilights of October- On mild 
afternoons they fly even later in the year and there is a Statcn Island 
record for December 5. They appear a little before or after sunset. 
according to weather conditions, and feed on various crepuscular 
insects, among which beetles, certain gnats and flies, and even the 
larger night-flying moths have been identified. 
