ATALAl'IIA CIXEREA. 79 



within a few feet of your very eyes. Turning quickly you fire, but 

 too late! He has v^anished in the darkness. For more than a week 

 each evening is thus spent, and you almost despair of seeing another 

 Hoary Bat, when, perhaps, on a clear cold night, just as the darkness is 

 becoming too intense to permit you to shoot with accuracy and you 

 are on the point of turning away, something appears above the 

 horizon that sends a thrill of excitement through your whole frame. 

 There is no mistaking the species — the size, the sharp, narrow wings, 

 and the swift flight serve instantly to distinguish it from its nocturnal 

 comrades. On he comes, but just before arriving within gunshot he 

 makes one of his characteristic zig-zag side-shoots and you tremble 

 as he momentarily vanishes from view. Suddenly he reappears, his 

 flight becomes more steady, and now he sweeps swiftly toward you. 

 No time is to be lost, and it is already too dark to aim, so you bring 

 the gun quickly to your shoulder and fire. With a piercing, stridu- 

 lous cry, he falls to the earth. In an instant you are stooping to 

 pick him up, but the sharp grating screams, uttered with a tone of 

 intense anger, admonish you to observe discretion. With delight you 

 cautiously take him in your hand and hurry to the light to feast your 

 eyes upon his rich and handsome markings. He who can gaze upon 

 a freshly killed example without feelings of admiration is not worthy to 

 be called a naturalist. From its almost boreal distribution, and extreme 

 rarity in collections, the capture of a specimen of the Hoary Bat must, 

 for some time to come, be regarded as an event worthy of congratu- 

 lation and record. Although I have been fortunate enough to shoot 

 fourteen, I would rather kill another to-day than slay a dozen deer. 

 During the past season Dr. A. K. Fisher, Walter H. Merriam, and 

 myself shot nineteen specimens of this elegant species in and near 

 the western border of the Adirondacks. It is not to be imagined, 

 however, that the procurement of this extensive series (extensive for 

 so rare an animal) was an easy task. Scarcely a suitable evening 

 passed, throughout the entire season, that was not devoted to bat 

 huntini^ From the middle of June to the middle of July, when there 



