ATALAl'IlA N0VE150RACENSIS. 85 



her captor. The young one, bein^' but half grown, was still too 

 young to take care of itself, and died shortl)' after." * 



Like our other bats, this species frequently hibernates in vast 

 assemblages ; and in regions remote from civilization each colony 

 usually occupies a rocky cavern or hollow tree ; in inhabited dis- 

 tricts they often take up quarters in the ruin of some deserted 

 building, particularly of structures composed of stone and brick. 

 Dr. Godman publishes a letter from Prof. Jacob Green, of Prince- 

 ton, containing an account of the presence and actions of a host of 

 this species in a cave that he visited November ist, 1816. The 

 letter runs as follow^s : "I this day visited an extensive cavern 

 about twelve miles south of Albany, N. Y. I did not measure its 

 extent into the mountain, but it was at least three or four hundred 

 feet. There was nothing remarkable in this cave, except the vast 

 multitudes of Bats which had selected this unfrequented place, to 

 pass the winter. They did not appear to be much disturbed by 

 the light of the torches carried by our party, but, upon being 

 touched with sticks, they instantly recovered animation and activity, 

 and flew into the dark passages of the cavern. As the cave was, 

 for the most part, not more than six or seven feet in height, they 

 could very easily be removed from the places to which they were 

 suspended, and some of the party, wdio were behind me, disturbed 

 some hundreds of them at once, when they swept by me in swarms 

 to more remote, darker, and safer places of retreat. In flying 

 through the caves they made little or no noise ; sometimes upon 

 being disturbed in one place they flew but a few yards and then 

 instantly settled in another, in a state of torpor apparently as pro- 

 found as before. These Bats, in hibernating, suspend themselves 

 by the hinder claws, from the roof or upper part of the cave ; in no 

 instance did I observe one along the sides. They were not pro- 

 miscuously scattered, but were collected into groups or clusters, of 

 some hundreds, all in close contact. On holding a candle within a 



* American Natural History. By John D. Godman. Vol. I, 1842, p. 42. 



