Out of the Belfry

THE WORLD OF BATS. Photographs by Nina Leen, text by Alvin Novick. 171 pages. Holt, Rinehart & Winston. $23.95.

Photographer Nina Leen and Physiologist Alvin Novick have freed the oat from the ignominy of Dore infernos and Transylvanian castles. Myths and tears concerning these shy nocturnal mammals are gently and gracefully blown away with the turning of each page in this unique contribution to the literature of natural history.

Of the 1,200 known varieties of bats the vampire, for example, turns out to be one of the easiest to domesticate. Weighing but an ounce, it requires only a tablespoon of blood a day. It will sip this ration either cold from a dish or warm from a small, painless bite it makes in a convenient extremity of its sleeping provider. Contrary to Draculan film fantasies, the vampire does not fly but tiptoes to its midnight snack in a semierect position. Judging from Miss Leen's photos of the procedure, the creature bears far more resemblance to Lon Chancy hamming up his wolf-man act than to Bela Lugosi spiraling in for an elegant neck shot. Aside from the remote possibility of contracting rabies (bats, like most mammals, can transmit the disease), the only danger from a vampire's nip is botfly larvae, parasites that cradle in superficial wounds. People need not fear, however. For the timid vampire almost never bites humans.

Gargoyles. There are bats that feed exclusively on fruit and bats that lap nectar from flowers. The bulldog bat of Central and South America catches fish in its claws, an act Miss Leen has caught in a series of strobe-light photographs. Most bats, however, feed on insects. And "most" adds up to quite a few billions. In addition, the order Chiroptera (Greek for hand-wing) contains the second largest number of species among mammals. First are the rodents, to whom bats bear only a remote taxonomical resemblance.

Bats are descended from an extinct species of Insectivora. But because of their dexterous hands and feet they were grouped with the Primates by early taxonomists. The unsettling resemblance of bats to humans is readily apparent in many of the book's pictures. Such resemblances have overheated imaginations for centuries. Gargoyles, those batlike grotesqueries designed to draw off water and scare the devil from cathedrals in the Middle Ages, were undoubtedly inspired by ths real things that hung timidly in medieval spires.

Exterminators. The guano bats of Mexico and the U.S. Southwest prefer caves, where their bodies carpet the walls and ceilings in quivering fur and leatherous membrane. Their droppings provide one of the world's richest fertilizers. The air in guano caves is stifling. Miss Leen recalls having once been overcome by the ammoniated atmosphere, but not before taking some unusual baby pictures.

In addition to providing fertilizer, guano bats are exceptional exterminators. It has been estimated that Texas guanos alone consume 6,600 tons of insects each year. Although a few bat varieties hunt by sight and smell, most rely on echo location, a natural sonar system. The bat emits high-frequency beeps that rebound when they strike any object, allowing the animal's receiver system to compute direction, velocity and distance instantly.*

As Novick repeatedly notes, many important bat facts remain to be pried from caves, treetops and attics. It is to be hoped that this work will not be done too quickly. At the rapid rate at which facts are appropriated by popular commerce these days, it would be all too short a flight from the belfries of our subconscious to the candied rafters of Disneyland.

* Contrary to old wives' tales, bats do not get tangled in ladies' hair. Some species shrink from people, some just lie around and ignore them, none attack.

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