A Municipal Bat Roost.
The only municipal bat roost in the world was recently erected at San Antonio, Texas, and is expected to have an important part in the city fight against malaria and other diseases. The bat has been discovered by Doctor C. A. Campbell, of San Antonio, to be one of the greatest enemies of the mosquito, which is largely responsible for the spread of malarial and similar germs. For this reason San Antonio is not only protecting the bat by law, but has entered into the proposition of its cultivation.
Doctor Campbell has demonstrated that one bat will consume as many as 250 mosquitoes in one night. He[Pg 57] has estimated that the amount of guano that could be collected from a single bat roost, capable of accommodating 250,000 bats, in a season of nine months, would equal about forty tons—and guano, the highest of all fertilizers, is worth forty dollars a ton. It is Doctor Campbell’s idea that the bat roost is a natural hygienic measure, which should be adopted by governments, municipalities, or corporations controlling large bodies of land, and who are financially able to erect enough of the roosts to protect their tenants. The roosts, however, must be constructed from a scientific standpoint, so that they will not only attract bats, but cause them to remain there permanently.