134 Daubentoris Bat {Vespertilio Daubentoni). [Sess. 



over upon it. The } r oung bat grew rapidly, and by the morn- 

 ing of the 18th, when it was despatched to Edinburgh, was 

 beginning to be covered with a fine dark down or hair. 



I experienced a difficulty in feeding these animals, and 

 found that although at first they took some of the lean of 

 roast mutton chopped up very fine, they did not appear to 

 care for the diet. Flies were not to be got in sufficient num- 

 bers, but any put into the box in which the bats were confined 

 were neglected until night set in, when they were evidently 

 eaten, as they entirely disappeared. As, however, it was the 

 third day of the bats' captivity before I could procure flies for 

 them, they were no doubt by that time very hungry. It is 

 just possible that it was the mother bat that ate these flies, 

 as what I observed later with male bats of the same species 

 shows that they would not touch flies put into their box after 

 a similar length of confinement. 



As I knew that Mr Eagle Clarke was collecting bats for 

 identification, I wrote offering to send him the bats if he 

 thought it worth while to do so. He answered my letter 

 saying that he would like to see them, so they were sent off 

 by post. On the 20 th July I heard from Mr Clarke that the 

 bats were Daubenton's, and as the locality was a new one he 

 would like me if possible to catch some more. I at once took 

 my boat to the cliff where we had made the capture on the 

 14th July, only to find that apparently all the bats had left 

 the fissure. My boatman and I searched for a long time, but 

 at last discovered, in a fissure in a cliff above 70 feet high, and 

 which descended almost perpendicularly into the water, another 

 colony of bats, or perhaps the one that had flitted. This 

 station is about 200 yards from the one where we first found 

 Daubenton's bat. The fissure was very deep, and we could 

 not get any stick long enough and at the same time small 

 enough in circumference to reach to the end of it. We found 

 the selected branch of a rowan-tree the most successful im- 

 plement at our disposal, but it was not sufficiently rigid and 

 soon broke. The bats may have had this as their abode for a 

 long time, but there was not outwardly much sign of lengthy 

 occupation, such as droppings, or the blackening of the edges 

 of the rock at the entrance to the fissure by the rubbing of 

 their bodies, as was seen at the place where we first found them. 



