Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Bat

BAT, or Vespertilio, an animal which seems to fill up the chasm between quadrupeds and birds; with the latter, however, it has in common only the power of flying, as Nature has provided it with a smooth gauze-like web, serving the purpose of wings.

There are twenty-eight species of this animal, of which only four are natives of Britain. The common bat is nearly the size of a mouse, and flies about, in quest of moths and other insects, in fine summer evenings, with a rapid and irregular motion, resembling that of a butterfly. When it alights on the ground, it is unable to fly again, till it has crawled to some height. It remains torpid during the winter in some subterraneous retreat, revives in the beginning of spring, and the female brings forth from two to five young at a time, which it suckles like other mammillary animals.

As the bats of our climate are frequently troublesome, by infesting chimneys, and annoying the neighbourhood of dwellings, we shall communicate a method of destroying them, nearly in the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Take the flower-cups of burdock, whiten them with chalk, and throw them up into the way of their flight: thus attracted by the whiteness of the substance, the bats injure their membraneous wings by the hooks of the bur, and fall to the ground.

In our opinion, these animals are more useful than injurious; as they devour a multitude of insects; though they likewise prey upon bacon, and other animal food suspended in chimneys. But having very formidable natural enemies in the owls, which chase them into hollow trees and obscure holes of walls, there will be little occasion for persecuting them with the burdock.