. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture; Agriculture. Washington, D. C. T March, 1926 BATS IN RELATION TO THE PRODUCTION OF GUANO AND THE DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS By Edward AV. Nelson, Chief, Bureau of Biological Survey CONTENTS Page Economic relations of bats 1 The Mexican free-tailed bat 2 Bat caves 4 General habits of the species _- 4 Hibernation 5 Food habits 6 Guano deposits 6' Artificial roosts for bats 7 Buildings occupied : 9 The Florida free-tailed bat 10 Malarial control by bats 10 Summary 11 ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF BATS Much has appeared in the public press in rece
. Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture. Agriculture; Agriculture. Washington, D. C. T March, 1926 BATS IN RELATION TO THE PRODUCTION OF GUANO AND THE DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS By Edward AV. Nelson, Chief, Bureau of Biological Survey CONTENTS Page Economic relations of bats 1 The Mexican free-tailed bat 2 Bat caves 4 General habits of the species _- 4 Hibernation 5 Food habits 6 Guano deposits 6' Artificial roosts for bats 7 Buildings occupied : 9 The Florida free-tailed bat 10 Malarial control by bats 10 Summary 11 ECONOMIC RELATIONS OF BATS Much has appeared in the public press in recent 3^ears about bats, their vahiable deposits of guano, their alle<ii;ed destruction of malarial and other mosquitoes, and the jDossibilities of increasing their use- fulness to man by building artificial roosts for them, and many requests for information on these subjects have come to the depart- ment. O. Howard, chief of the Bureau of Entomology, in a paper on "Mosquitoes and Bats" read before the meeting of the New Jersey Mosquito ^Extermination Association in 1916^ discussed the subjcft chiefly from the viewpoint of the alleged destruction of AnopJipleH in the vicinity of a bat roost near San Antonio, Texi. Further definite information on the life history and general habits of bats is still in demand from entomologists and officials in charge of health administration and general education. 'I'he available information on the bats of North America w^ould fill a large volume, for scattered from Panama and the Antilles to Alaska and Twabiador there iire al)Oiit 200 species and subspecies be- longing to 77 genera and S diUVrenl ramilies. Some of the tropical species are blood-siicking vam])ir('s and others are fi'iiit-eaters, but nearly all the bats of tiie Pnited States and farther north are insectivorous. Still the habils of the dill'ci-ent species often differ as widely as do their structure, appearance, and range, and the useful ' IlppHntf«rK>rtK. vol. .
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