94 The Irish Naturalist. [ April, 



faeces, and also with the rejected wings of insects. The river- 

 course itself, though at the time of my visit dr}^ is after heavy 

 rains traversed by a mountain torrent, which evidently floods 

 right up to the roof, as debris of all kinds, branches of trees, 

 sods of turf, &c., were jammed into all crevices, even in the 

 roof. Consequently no animals of the typical cave-fauna were 

 to be found. 



We entered at the end of the cave where the stream dis- 

 charges itself, and noticed that just inside the exit, where ex- 

 posure to weather had enlarged the calibre of the cave, there 

 were two colonies of Daubenton's Bat ( Vespertilio Dazibeiitonii), 

 clustered together in crevices in the roof like swarms of bees. 

 I captured five specimens with some difficulty ; they were all 

 males, and two of them can now be seen in the Science and 

 Art Museum, Dublin. 



The invertebrates found in this cave had evidently been 

 accidentally brought in by floods, with the exception of two 

 large spiders, Meta Menardii and ]\Ieta Meriaiice, which Mr. 

 Carpenter, who has kindly identifled the invertebrates col- 

 lected, tells me often inhabit the entrances to caves. The 

 other invertebrates were a water-bug, ]/elia ac7're7is, and two 

 flies belonging to the genera Erioptern and Molophilus. 



On leaving this cave Mr. Knight invited me to lunch at the 

 Rectory, and, when there, showed me a Bat that he had killed 

 in his room on the previous night. This proved to be the 

 Whiskered Bat ( Vespertilio Diystacinus), another of our rarer 

 Irish species. This specimen, a male, is now in the Science 

 and Art Museum, Dublin. Some time after I left Enniskillen 

 Mr. Knight sent me a specimen of the Hairy- armed Bat 

 ( Vesperugo Leisleri) taken in his house, a female Daubenton's 

 Bat, and a lyOng-Kared Bat {Plecottcs auritus) captured in the 

 dry cavern to which I have already referred. 



After lunch we explored Coolarkin, a cave of considerable 

 dimensions, and one which must once have been traversed by 

 a' river of large size. All that now remains of the river is a 

 small stream that sinks into the floor of the cave close to the 

 entrance, meeting no doubt some watercourse at a greater 

 depth. But, from the presence of flood-rubbish further in, I 

 infer that in floods a stream of some kind traverses it, though 

 the gi!i^ater part is always dry. Any stream rising in the neigh- 



