Evening star., 1944-02-26
This and That
By Charles E. TraceueH
IDAHO AVENUE.


Dear Sir:
Greetings and best wishes!
rs not bat in February an unusual
sight?
"One appeared at our window yester-
day The temperature was around 80
degrees and suspect he had been
blown from his chimney liberation by
high winds.
Unable to get into the room the
creature snuggled up between the win
daw frame and wall. Next morning he
was gone.
"Once we killed bat His death cry
was pathetically human.
Sincerely yours, S. j. H."
The common brown bat is one of the
least understood of all mammals.
Now that man has taken to fight, the
bat should come into his own, in pop
ular opinion, for he has flown for CEN
turies.
Although but about AZ inches long,
the animal has wing spread of foot
or more, usually about 13 inches.
The flying membrane enables him to
soar like bird and to make quick
changes in direction.
This erratic flight is not as strange
as it seems. Every time he makes a
dip, or sharp veer. he catches an insect.
The work the bat does for use in de-
stroying insects should make him pop
ular. but an age-old smear campaign"
coming down from biblical days, has
wrecked whatever chance he had
Popular superstition endows him with
despised insect parasites and his little
eyes and ears do, indeed, make him look
too human for the taste of some per-
sons.
The fact that he flies mostly by night
tends to make him unpopular, too, and
the zenith of his unpopularity comes
when he invades sleeping apartments
He has no desire to fly in but gets in
solely when he makes sudden change
of direction and slants his wing directly
into the opening.
It is because he comes in sideways
that he is able to get into such small
crevices and this also is the reason why
he cannot get out
Mankind has always been afraid of
1lOCtul lldl
When this habit OF the bat is coupled
with the fact that blood sucking bats,
or vampires, inhabit the tropics, we see
that millions of persons fear him as If
by instinct.
Being active only at night, he is little
known to daylight-loving man.
Scientists tell US that no living crea-
ture is less known.
A bat Is not blind in any sense.
He can see well in daylight just as
the owl can.
Nor is 1t unusual for him to be seen
in winter, especially when blown from
hiding place, where he has been
alternating.
At such time one specimen will lie
still, while another will fly.
The wings of bat are highly sensi-
tive and warn the animal in some way
unknown, that he is running into an
obstacle.
That is why bat seldom strikes any,
thing inimical to him; why he is able
to get into the slightest crevice
In some bats there is a "hiberating
gland" as it is called, mass of fat stu
ated some place near the head. Other
animals, also have this queer mass,
whose function is not well known, al
though 1t Is supposed to supply a small
amount of food to the hiberating an
imal.
Scientists have tried to trap bats into
flying into thin wires and threads in a
dark room, but although the bats fiew
wildly, not a wire sounded and not q
thread was cut.
It is believed that they somehow
make use Of short waves as well as the
delicate sense Of touch, or whatever it
Is, in their flying membranes.
Even a jittery woman who is afraid
that bat will get in her hair ought
: to be able to understand that here we
are dealing with one of the most in
teresting and mysterious of living things.