2 Coward, Greater Horseshoe Bat in Captivity. 



legs, and often with the mesothorax and elytra or one 

 elytron attached, but the abdomen and wings had been 

 in almost every case devoured. There was old dry dung 

 in heaps, and more recently-dropped dung scattered about. 

 Mr. R. Newstead examined the dung on my behalf, and 

 found that the pellets dropped in summer contained about 

 equal proportions of fragments of Lepidoptera and 

 Coleoptera, and that about 44% of the coleopterous 

 remains were those of some species of Geotmpes. The 

 dung dropped in winter was almost entirely composed of 

 remains of Geotrupes, and many of the rejected fragments 

 found in the caves were of Geotrupes spiniger, Marsh. The 

 elytra of a flightless beetle were also present in a few 

 places in the caves. 



" The prey of the Greater Horseshoe," I wrote, " may 

 be captured on the wing, but that it is not, as a rule, 

 devoured whilst the bat is flying, seems to be proved by 

 the behaviour of bats in captivity even more than by the 

 presence of fragments of prey in the caves. When secured 

 by a snap of the bat's jaws the insect is conveyed to some 

 resting-place and there consumed." Over 120 beetles — 

 Geotrupes typJiceus, Linn. — were eaten by my two captive 

 bats, and in every case the behaviour of the bats was 

 practically the same. " I usually held the bat in my hand 

 until it had snatched the beetle and then released it ; — 

 The released bat, holding the beetle securely, — flew to 

 some favourite foothold, and there hung until the beetle 

 was devoured. I never heard the sound of champing jaws 

 as the bats were flying, but when they were at rest the 

 noise of crushing the hard armour of the beetles was 

 plainly audible. The interfemoral membrane was never 

 used as a pouch, as it is in the Vespertilionidae (2), but 

 the beetle was invariably pushed against the interbrachial 

 membrane, as I observed was the case in the Lesser 



