Rough on the Bats One would have thought that in
these troubled times the more resistant to atomic radiation one was, the better. It hasn't worked out like that for the bats of America. Because their resistahce is (they tell me) 300 times greater than the resistance of rats, they are in brisk demand for the laboratories of the Atomic Energy Commission, a bat on (so to speak) the hoof being worth 35 cents in the open market. As if that was not enough, many of the caves in which they congregate have been acquired by banks and business houses as deep shelters in which to store archives and other impedimenta if the worst comes to the worst. I would have supposed that in so spacious a country there were enough caves to provide both funk-holes for bankers and dormitories for hats; but the American Society of Mammalo- gists, who have reason to suppose otherwise, view the clash
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