Perhaps because bats are nocturnal in habit, a wealth of thoroughly unreliable legend has grown up about them, and men have made of the harmless, even beneficial little beasts a means of expressing their unreasoned fears. Bats were the standard paraphernalia for witches, the females half of humanity stood in terror that bats would become entangled in their hair. Phrases crept into the language expressing man’s revulsion or ignorance—“Bat’s in the Belfry,” “Batty,” “Blind as a Bat.”