109 



place of our Cheiroptera. One evening, as I was crossing the marshes 

 between Spanish Town and Kingston, by the high-road, I was sur- 

 prised at sundown at the sudden rushing out of a stream of bats from 

 the face of a cliiFy hill that rises precipitously from the svvamp. They 

 continued pouring out for some ąuarter of an hour or twenty minutes ; 

 they stretched likę a string for some hundred yards, in consequence 

 of the one-by-one file in ■vvhich they came forth from the crevice, 

 and then dispersed themselves up and down and all about, covering 

 the ■vvhole expanse of the contiguous marsh. The long highway 

 perspective across the swamp ; the level bed of rushes bending in 

 wavelets to the evening wind ; the distant mountains with beetling 

 summits and broken declivities, lighted in angular patches by the 

 setting sun, exhibited a wide, dilated and diversified scene, in which 

 no object rose to interrupt the line made by the flitting swarms as 

 they streamed out from the face of the cliff, and spread their myriad 

 numbers over the plain. I have myself noticed the great depth of 

 the rejectamenta of bats in these cavemed recesses, but a great deal 

 of it consisted of undecayed down, as well as fsecal mutings, and un- 

 devoured fragments of insects.' 



In a subseąuent communication my friend favoured me with a 

 sample of the excremental deposits from a bat-cavern on Swansea 

 estate in the Vale of Luidas ; and I forward it, with this paper, to the 

 Zoological Society. 



I close this article with a few particulars of description, some of 

 which are better observed on the living animal than on specimens 

 dried or in spirit. A malė measured as folio ws : — " Muzzle to inser- 

 tion of tail, 4^ inches ; expanse of volar membranes, 241 ; ear, from 

 posterior base of tragus to tip, 1-^ ; ditto, from anterior base to tip, 

 1 ; tragus, longest side, -^ ; shortest, -^ ; nose to front angle of eye, 

 ■j^ ; nose to front of tragus, ^. Colour varying ; upper parts yellow- 

 brown, more or less bright ; a well-defined narrow line of pale ful- 

 vous runs medially down the back from the head to the tail ; under 

 parts pale fawn, bright fulvous or orange ; face purplish ; the muzzle 

 and chin are much corrugated ; face warty ; the ears fall into elegant 

 curves. The volar membranes are delicately thin, transparent and 

 glossy ; studded with minute, white, papillary glands, vs^hich for the 

 most part follow the course of the blood-vessels, but are largest and 

 most numerous in the vicinity of the trunk. The membranes being 

 attached along each side of the spine, Tvith an interval in the middle 

 of the back of but ^ths of an inch, the body is, to a great extent, 

 free. The wing, when at ręst, has but a single fold, the ultimate 

 joint of the second and third fingers being brought back upon the 

 penultimate. The reproductive organs are large and prominent. At 

 the base of the penis are two follicles, secreting a dark brown sub- 

 stance, dry and lumpy, but friable between the fingers, most insuf- 

 ferably musky, the odour from ^hich is strongly difFused by the 

 animal during life." 



From the width of the gape, the length of the teeth, and the 

 power of the jaws in this species, together with the ferocious eagerness 

 with which my captive specimens snatched at large cockroaches, I 



