56 The Irish Naturalist. [ March, 



While this paper is in the press, Mr. C. Oldham (xxiv.), 

 publishes a very interesting account of a Whiskered Bat which 

 he kept for five weeks in captivity. 



On September 30 of last year I came across a male specimen 

 of this species in a chink between two huge stones (/. Nat., 

 p. 272, 1898), and conveyed it to Merrion, where it lived till 

 November 1. As this is unusually long for the Whiskered 

 Bat to survive in captivity, some details may be of interest, 

 though it must be admitted that the habits of bats under 

 these circumstances afford very slight indications of what 

 happens in more natural conditions of life. 



The cage in which it was kept had two compartments, a 

 large and a small, the former with cress wires for the bat to 

 hang from. This it never did — unlike the Long-eared Bat 

 subsequently — but walked about this compartment when 

 awake, preferring to sleep in the smaller, though this was 

 barely 1 inch in width. 



At first this bat was pretty lively, and exhibited an 

 excusably bad temper, biting at everything and everybody. 

 Raw meat it bit at and then rejected, but masticated and 

 swallowed little morsels of raw fish. Later on it ate flies, one 

 day it despatched two blue-bottles and sixteen other flies of 

 various kinds, and still seemed hungry. Its method of feeding 

 was entertaining in the extreme. It would solemnly stalk the 

 fly round the cage, always unsuccessfully, until at length my 

 patience would be exhausted, and I held the fly for it. It then 

 made a frantic grab at the fly, sometimes falling over in its 

 eagerness, and ate it openly — wings, legs, and all. 



On October 7 the bat became quiet and sleepy, in the 

 course of the next day or two passing into a very typical state 

 of hibernation, the respirations falling from 120 per minute to 

 10 in 7 minutes. In hibernation as in sleep it preferred the 

 smaller compartment as a resting-place, clinging close to the 

 side of the cage, the tail partly drawn over the abdomen, 

 the knees pointing forward, and the wings folded up by 

 the side. It moved its place occasionally, and twice was 

 aroused by the process of being photographed, waking up 

 in the manner already described. 



I had hoped to be able to keep it alive during the winter, 

 but it was found dead on the floor of the cage on November 

 1st. 



