Ifliitiom lloteg on Matural |t$tort). 



Vol. II. PROVIDENCE, NOVEMBER 1, 1885. No. 11. 



Entered at the Providence Post-Offiee as Second-Class Matter. 



l|aitbom !f otas on !f atural f isiori|, 



A Monthly Devoted to the Distribution of Use- 

 ful Knowledge Concerning the Various De- 

 partments op Zoology, Mineralogy, and 

 Botany. 50 Cents a Year. 

 Address all communications to 



SOUTHWICK & JENCKS, 

 258 Westminster St., Providence, R. I., U. S. A. 



First Meeting of the Franklin Society 

 Sept. — 1885. 



BY PROF. W. WHITMAN BAILEY. 



They come from the hills, and the bright sunny 



fountains, 

 They come from the rivers, the plains, and the moun- 

 tains, 

 From sea-side and summit our savants return, 

 While we of the laity anxiously yearn 

 To scrape up the bits which by accident fall 

 From the table they spread in their banqueting-hall. 

 How ruddy and brown, too, our travelers look, 

 From lengthened perusal of Nature's own book: 

 'Tis surely salubrious diet they found 

 Wherever they 'stablished their fair hunting-ground. 

 Oil! could we but into their diaries peep. 

 Perhaps we would lind what might well murder sleep. 

 So great would the interest be in the notes 

 Of fossils upturned and of dredging from boats. 

 How the devil fish reared liis extensible arm, 

 How the catamount yelped, how the hare gave alarm. 

 How the screech owl in agony hooted until 

 The timid supposed him the prophet of ill, 

 How the loon o'er the lake like a lost spirit moaned, 

 And how with rheumatics a bed-fellow groaned; 

 Could we see in their boxes, a wealth we'd behold — 

 Fine crystals of quartz and pyrites like gold, 

 Orthoceras shells, and perliaps ammonites, 

 Pterodactyls and mammoths and small trilobites; 

 Here bits of stone pestles and arrows and bones. 

 And here see the rubbish, a mass of loose stones. 

 Now into port-folios we venture to gaze. 

 For this is the botanist's province always, 

 And from the rare weeds and the flowers they press, 

 The resfioii th<^y traveled perhaps we can guess. 

 But sujtpose these thrxmiri are hid from our virw 

 I5v our churlisli companions, what are we to do? 

 We must wait till they turn on their river's of talk. 

 Or give thought expression by pencil or chalk. 

 Bill for one. we must own our impatience is great — 

 Mr. President, start them; we really can't wait. 



Since the writing of the following article 

 on the Hoar\' Bat a fine specimen has been 

 shot in East Providence, R. I., and is now 

 in the possession of Mr. G. W. Field. 



Hoary Bat. 



Atalapha CiNERicA (Bkauvois) Pktkrs. 



Dr. C. Harte Merriam saj's the capture 

 of a specimen of the Hoary Bat must for 

 some time to come be regarded as an event 

 worthy of congratulation and record. 



We cannot boast of having captured one, 

 but have just been so fortunate as to re- 

 ceive one alive from West Freetown, Mass., 

 It has since become the property of Brown 

 University. 



As we have never before seen a living 

 specimen, and no capture has been re- 

 corded for Rhode Island, we can do no 

 better than to quote liberally from a most 

 interesting article by Dr. Merriam in the 

 Transactions of the Linncean Society, Vol. 

 II., p. 77: 



"The Hoary Bat can be recognized, even 

 in the dusk of evening, by its great size, its 

 long and pointed wings, and the swiftness 

 and irregularity of its flight. It does not 

 start out so early as our other bats, and is 

 consequently more difficult to shoot. The 

 borders of woods, water-courses, and rpad- 

 ways through the forest are among its fav- 

 orite resorts, and its nightly range is vastly 

 greater than any of its associates. 



" Imagine for a moment, sympathetic 

 reader, that you are an enthusiastic bat- 

 hunter, and have chanced to visit some 

 northern forest where this handsome species 

 occurs. The early evening finds you, gun 

 in hand, near the border of a lonely wood. 

 The small bats soon begin to fl}', and in the 

 course of fifteen or twenty minutes 3'ou 

 may have killed several, all of which prove 

 to be the silver-haired species ( Vesjjerugo 

 noctivagans) . The twilight is fast fading 

 into night, and your eyes fairly ache from 

 the constant effort of searching into ob- 

 scurit}', when suddenly a large bat is seen 

 approaching, perhaps high above the tree- 

 tops, and has scarcely entered the limited 

 field of vision when, in swooping for an in- 

 sect, he cuts the line of the distant horizon 

 and disappears in darkness below. In breath- 

 less suspense you wait for him to rise. 



