AN ACCOUNT 



OP 



A REMARKABLE ACCUMULATION OF BATS. 



BY M. FIGANIEIIRE t. ftlOUAO, AUNISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY FROM PORTUGAL TO THE 



UNITED STATES. 



In the winter of 1859, having purchased the property known as Seneca Point, 

 in the margin of the Northeast river, near Charleston, in Cecil county, Mary- 

 land, we took possession of it in May of the next year. The dwelling is a brick 

 structure, covered with slate, in the form of an _!_, two storied, with garret, cel- 

 lars, and a stone laundry and milk-house attached. Having been uninhabited 

 for several years, it exhibited the appearance, with the exception of one or two 

 rooms, of desolation and neglect, with damp, black walls, all quite unexpected, 

 as it had been but very slightly examined, and was represented in good habitable 

 condition, merely requiring some ^gw repairs and a little painting. 



The boxes, bundles, and other packages of furniture which had preceded us, 

 laid scattered around and within the dwelling; these, with the exception of some 

 mattresses and bedding for immediate use, were hastily arranged for unpacking 

 and placing in order at leisure. The weather, which was beautiful, balmy and 

 warm, invited us towards evening to out-door enjoyment and rest, after a fatigu- 

 ing day of travel and active labor; but chairs, settees, and benches were scarcely 

 occupied by us on the piazza and lawn, when, to our amazement and the horror 

 of the female portion of our party, small black bats made their appearance in 

 immense numbei's, flickering around the premises, rushing in and out of doors and 

 through opened windows, almost obscuring the early twilight, and causing a 

 general stampede of the ladies, who fled, covering their heads with their hands, 

 fearing that the dreaded little vampires might make a lodgement in their hair. 



This remarkable exhibition much increased our disappointment in regard to 

 the habitable condition of our acquisition, and was entirely unexpected, inas- 

 much as the unwelcome neighbors were in their dormant state and ensconced 

 out of sight wheu the property was examined previous to purchase. With 

 their appearance, and in such immense numbers, the prospect of immediate in- 

 door arrangement and comfort vanished ; the paramount the urgent necessity 

 was to get rid of such a nuisance as quickly as possible, and the question was 

 by what means could this be accomplished. Our acienlific friends and acquaint- 

 ances both in New York and Philadelphia were consulted, various volumes of 

 natural history were examined, in order to ascertain the peculiar habits of the 

 vermin, but we derived no efi'ectual consolation from these sources. One of 

 our frieads, indeed, sent us from New York an infallible exterminator in tlie 

 form of a recipe obtained at no inconsiderable cost : strips of fat pork saturated 

 with a subtle poison were to bo hung up in places where the annoying " crea- 

 tures did most congregate"— of this they would surely eat and thus "shuffle 

 off their mortal coil." How many revolving bat seasons it might have re([uired 

 by this process to kill off the multitude, the urgency of the case would not al- 

 low us to calculate, and the experiment was therefore abandoned. 



Evening after evening did we patiently though not complacently watch this 

 periodical exodus of dusky wings into light from their lurking-places one after 



