Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Hi. (1908), No. 1|. 



XI. Notes on the Greater Horseshoe Bat, Rhinolophus 

 ferrum-equinum (Schreber), in Captivity. 



By T. A. Coward, F.Z.S. 



{Received and read February 2^th, igo8). 



In the winter of 1906-7 I paid a short visit to Cheddar, 

 Somerset, in order to study the habits of the Greater 

 Horseshoe Bat, and brought back with me two Hving 

 bats, obtained in one of the caves on January 6th, 1907, 

 for observation at home ; one of these survived a fortnight, 

 the other five weeks. I published an account of my 

 observations and conclusions (i), and propose to give an 

 epitome of my paper, as it has considerable bearing upon 

 my more recent notes. 



In the Cheddar caves I found numbers of Greater 

 Horseshoe Bats scattered singly or in colonies. They 

 were not in profound sleep, and moved their positions 

 from time to time ; they were, in the evening, occasionally 

 on the wing in the caves. On two or three evenings I 

 saw bats emerge from a fissure in the roof of one cave and 

 fly further into the cave, and on one night — January 6th, 

 1907 — Mr. C. Oldham, who had then joined me, and I 

 watched bats emerge from this fissure and pass out of the 

 cave into the open. On the floors of the caves, sometimes 

 scattered and sometimes in little heaps, were the rejected 

 portions of insects which had been devoured by the bats. 

 These consisted of wings and other parts of moths, 

 evidently captured in summer, and fragments of beetles, 

 and of a cave-spider, Meta ntoiardi, Latr. The beetle 

 remains consisted of the head, prothorax and first pair of 



April 2 IS.', igo8. 



