194 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



I have watched these bats on many an evening since the 

 summer of 1888, yet I had no opportunity of examining 

 a specimen until July of the present year. On the 4th of 

 that month, while examining a hawk's nest upon a small cliff 

 at Loch Dochart, my attention was attracted by an animated 

 chirping sound which proceeded from a fissure close by. On 

 peering into the opening I saw several bats clinging to the 

 rock, which, aided by the top-joint of my rod, I endeavoured 

 to secure. When, however, the creatures were touched, they 

 climbed higher, and into the more inaccessible crevices, but 

 not before I had secured several specimens with my landing- 

 net as they flew out. Among my captives was a female 

 with a young one clinging to its back, but afterwards the 

 baby bat lay rolled up in her left wing. The colony was 

 evidently an old established one, for the droppings were 

 numerous and the edges of the fissure were blackened by 

 the constant rubbing against them by the bodies of the bats 

 as they entered and departed. 



A few days later I discovered, in a fissure in a cliff 70 

 feet high and laved by the loch, another colony. This 

 fissure was very deep, and the smell proceeding from it 

 indicated lengthened occupation. I found it difficult to 

 procure specimens from it, as the bats retired during my 

 intrusion to the innermost recesses, beyond my reach. 



At 9.30 p.m. on the 26th of July, when fishing on Loch 

 Dochart, I heard a strange wail come across the water from 

 the other side of the loch. It seemed to ebb and flow and 

 to proceed from the most westerly of the cliffs, about three 

 hundred yards away. On rowing to the place I easily 

 recognised the chirping of bats proceeding from two points 

 in the cliff; one of them the fissure from which I had pro- 

 cured my last specimens, and the other from a new haunt 

 higher up in the cliff and beyond the reach of inspection. 

 From observations I was able to make, I have no doubt that 

 the chirping sound proceeded from the young bats, and that 

 the ebbing and flowing sound, which from a distance resembled 

 a wail, was caused by the arrival or departure of the old 

 bats, who were evidently supplying their young with food. 



I found great difficulty in feeding my captives, for although 

 at first they took some lean roast mutton chopped very fine, 



