June 3, 19x1.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
859 
Bats the Enemies of Insect Pests. 
Toronto, Canada, May 24.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: The value and possible preserva¬ 
tion of our insect-destroying bats is a subject 
of great economic importance. Aside from the 
practical usefulness attaching to it, there is felt 
by ail true sportsmen a keen interest in any re¬ 
searches made in natural history. 
What I have to say chiefly concerns the com¬ 
mon gray bat which, in former years, was so 
numerous in the Northern States and Canada, 
and which of late has practically disappeared. 
The imperative necessity to the fruit grower 
of the bat’s continued existence I shall endeavor 
to show and explain. This bat is a true hiber- 
nator, which remains torpid throughout the win¬ 
ter season. Herein lies the crux of the question, 
for naturalists have shown that all hibernating 
creatures are dependent for existence on the 
preservation of their hibernaculum. To destroy 
this is to exterminate the creature, for they are 
all restricted within the limits of their own zoo- 
geographical districts, which they never leave. 
If some species of bats migrate, we may be sure 
they are not hibernators, and the few that exist 
are not interfered with by the ruthless spoliation 
of man, who in many sections has absolutely 
swept away the bats’ winter homes. 
In those districts where the operations of 
nature have left caves in the ground, or on the 
sides of hills, hibernating bats find all the pro¬ 
tection which is necessary, both from severe co’d 
and daylight. This being the case, the cost of 
constructing artificial places where bats might 
hibernate and multiply would be very little com¬ 
pared to the value derived from the outlay. A 
cave hibernaculum in any fruit district, which 
was made on the side of a hill, having a southern 
aspect, and as large as a farmer's root house, 
would provide a place where colonies of bats 
would take refuge and keep down all the fruit- 
destroying moths in the neighborhood. These 
artificial hibernaculums would take the place of 
the dense cedar swamps, or more properly speak¬ 
ing, ravines, which formerly existed. In con¬ 
structing such places no ventilation would be 
required, for no oxygen is consumed during the 
trance of hibernation, the torpidity extending to 
the lungs as well as to the other parts of the 
body. 
I am surprised to hear that the Biological Sur¬ 
vey at Washington has had difficulty in discover¬ 
ing the nature of the food which supplies suste¬ 
nance to our native bats. 1 have repeatedly seen 
them catching the moths which deposit their eggs 
in various kinds of fruit, and others must have 
had opportunities of observing such a common 
occurrence. If at night you hang a coal oil lamp, 
such as is used by railway conductors, to the 
branch of a plum or cherry tree after the fruit 
has been well formed, you may observe how 
cleverly the bats swoop down from a height 
and catch the moths that gather round the light. 
They do this without ever striking the lamp. It 
may require careful watching to discover what 
the bats are doing, for it is only when a large 
white moth is captured and triumphantly carried 
away that you become aware of what is taking 
place. In former years it was a common prac¬ 
tice to hang a light in a favorite plum or cherry 
tree to save the fruit from the depredations of 
the moths. The explanation given was that the 
moths were so blinded by the light that they 
could not see where to deposit their eggs. The 
device, however, was too troublesome and expen¬ 
sive to come into general use. 
In this vicinity at the present time you would 
have considerable difficulty in verifying this ex¬ 
periment, for the bats have disappeared. The 
moth pest, however, has increased to such an 
alarming extent that fruit growing is becoming 
more difficult every j'ear. To accomplish what 
the bats and birds formerly did for us, constant 
application to the trees of poisonous mixtures is 
necessary. 
This condition of the fruit industry differs 
entirely from that which prevailed in the early 
days of my boyhood. At that time bats were 
seen flying about at night in thousands, and the 
destruction of fruit was not known or spoken 
of. All kinds of fruit grown in the State of 
New York were abundant. Shortly after two 
large cedar ravines were cleared and the trees 
cut down, a great change took place. The sur¬ 
rounding district had been under cultivation for 
at least a century, but the cedar trees had been 
preserved as they originally stood. They were 
of special value, and a few were occasionally 
sacrificed to supply posts for fencing. Ultimately 
they all went for railway ties and telegraph 
poles. 
On one occasion my attention was called to 
an unusual occurrence which took place before 
these primeval ever-green monarchs were cut 
down. A large quantity of brush had been piled 
along the eastern boundary of one of these 
ravines and close to the trees. The wind at the 
time was blowing from the east, and this brush 
had either caught fire or was being purposely 
burned. From the fire dense columns of smoke 
were blown into the trees. The effect of this 
was remarkable. Thousands of bats were seen 
flying about in all directions trying to get back 
to their dark abodes, or to find some other re¬ 
treat that would protect them from the daylight. 
In the older settled districts which have been 
under cultivation for a long period you will not 
find anyone who can describe to you what these 
original cedar ravines were like, or what a bless¬ 
ing they were in affording shade and shelter to 
all animal life. Summer and winter the ever¬ 
green foliage was so dense that it was impos¬ 
sible to get through it unless you followed the 
old deer paths that had been there from time 
immemorial. The heaviest fall of snow could 
reach the ground only in spots, and though the 
mercury might fall many degrees below zero, 
the ground remained unfrozen. 
When the time comes that famine is sore in 
the land, then the public conscience will be 
awakened to what is a national scandal. We 
are all aware of the fact that the pot-hunters 
of the Southern States have nearly exterminated 
every insect-destroying bird that nests in the 
North and migrates to the South in winter. Ex¬ 
cept for the raucous caw of the crow and the 
angry chirping of the English sparrow, the 
Northern woods and meadows are now in many 
places as silent as a deserted village grave yard. 
A returning absentee, who has been away for 
two decades or more, wiil always inquire what 
has become of the droves of gorgeous birds we 
used to see in our country rambles; the multi¬ 
tude of bobolinks, or reedbirds, that were seen 
and heard as they hovered over the clover fields 
and sang their joyous songs in the air; the 
thrushes, the orioles, the highholders (Colaptes 
amatus), the meadow larks, the bluejays and a 
host of other birds too numerous to mention. 
1 he answer is always the same: “They migrate, 
and there is an army of pot-hunters in the 
Southern States who live by slaughtering them 
in thousands and sending them by carloads in 
cold storage to New York. There they are 
served up on toast as snipe and reedbirds for 
dollar-hogs to eat.” 
Here is what that charming naturalist, Wm. 
T. Hornaday, tells us of bats: “The great 
majority of bats are useful to man in destroy¬ 
ing the insects which, without the aid of birds 
and beasts, would very soon overwhelm him. In 
regard to the habits of bats, little is known and 
much remains to be found out. Although they 
are nocturnal feeders, they are by no means 
blind when disturbed at mid-day, for they will 
then fly away to places of security as briskly 
and successfully as so many swallows. We know 
that in winter some of our species live in caves 
in a semi-dormant condition; thousands inhabit 
the Mammoth cave. They fly readily if disturbed 
in summer, but in winter they hang apparently 
lifeless. If knocked from the roof, some of them 
fall to the bottom of the cave and flap about, 
others fly away. In Central Montana, where 
there are no trees, I found a large colony of 
bats inhabiting a cave that a subterraneon stream 
had washed under the prairie.” 
Egjpt has always been a land of plenty, and 
in recent years the production of fruit and cotton 
has been phenomenal. But Egypt is the land of 
bats and birds. If it were not so, the date crop 
would go to the moths and the cotton crop to 
the caterpillars. The old deserted temples pro¬ 
vide habitations where millions of bats take 
refuge from daylight, and migratory birds from 
Northern latitudes visit the country in winter 
in such multitudes that it becomes a marvel to 
imagine where they can all come from. 
In calling attention to this matter I feel as¬ 
sured that I have the sympathy of all true¬ 
hearted sportsmen who do not wish to see hu¬ 
manity expelled from the land and driven into 
those human plasmodiums which are called 
ghettos and are to be seen in all large centers 
of population. A Canoeist. 
Chat and Thrasher. 
New \ ork City, May 23 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: On Sunday last, May 21, I witnessed 
an unusual incident in bird life, and I wonder 
whether it will seem to you worth recording. 
About the middle of the day I had seated my¬ 
self under a spreading apple tree in a brushy 
fence corner to spend a little time looking for 
birds, a pleasure which of late years I have been 
obliged greatly to neglect. The day was warm 
and windless, and the sky overcast. Various 
common sparrows, brown thrashers and black¬ 
birds were about and a few warblers. 
