From page 5 of the June 6, 1882, edition of Atlanta's The Weekly Constitution:

To prove that was no aberration, from page 3 of the September 2, 1885, edition of the Dublin Post:

It's official! The citizens of Dublin, Georgia, have always been bat-shoot crazy.

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Holy Dead Bats, Man! It seems that some unknown agent (disease or fungus or drugs or the bogey-man) is killing bats in the American Northeast at an astounding rate. (Think "Bubonic Plague for bats" and you're getting the general idea.)

This story caught my attention sometime late last year, and I've been following it periodically. But what causes me to mention it now is a recent New York Times article that referred to the bats' winter domicile as an hibernaculum. When I was on my high school newspaper, I was told to write articles on a 7th-grade level. What 7th-grader, I ask you, knows the word "hibernaculum"? (Even my spell-checker doesn't know that word!) You want people excited? Call it a bat cave. I know I do.

Like all pandemics, what these bats really need is a good press agent to motivate the public to support their cause. Go ahead, sign up a celebrity spokesman. Is there anything they can't do?

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