VESPERTII.IO SUBULATUS. 97 



different color, its w^holc body being of a very pale )ellowish-bro\vn, 

 almost inclining' to gra)' on the belly.* 



Mr. Figanierre E' Morao, Minister Plenipotentiar)- from Portugal 

 to the United States, published, some years ago, an account of a 

 colony of bats that caused him great annoyance. This paper con- 

 tains so much of interest that a few pertinent extracts from it are 

 here introduced : — 



"In the winter of 1859, having purchased the property known 

 as Seneca Point, in the margin of the Northeast River, near 

 Charlestown, in Cecil County, Maryland, we took possession of it 

 in May of the next year. . . . Having been uninhabited for 

 several years, it exhibited the appearance, with the exception of one 

 or two rooms, of desolation and neglect. . . . The weather, 

 which was beautiful, balmy and warm, invited us towards evening 

 to out-door enjoyment and rest, after a fatiguing day of travel and 

 active labor ; but chairs, settees, and benches were scarcely occupied 

 by us on the piazza and lawn, when, to our amazement, and the 

 horror of the female portion of our party, small black bats made 

 their appearance in immense numbers, -flickering around the 

 premises, rushing in and out of doors and through open windows. 

 Evening after evening did we patiently though not 

 complacently watch this periodical exodus of dusky wings into 

 light from their lurking-places. . . . Their excursions invari- 

 ably commenced with the cry of the ' whippoorwill,' both at coming 

 evening and at early dawn, and it was observed that they always 



* Concerning the number of young produced at a birth, et cetera, by ]^espertilio stcbiilatiis, Dr. 

 A. K. Fisher writes . " Of ten pregnant females wliich we examined last June, i8So, each con- 

 tained two young. Prof. Burt. G. Wilder (Pop. Sci. Mo., No. 42, p. 651) examined twenty 

 females in June, 1S74. Each contained two little bats, though Dr. C. C. Abbott states (Geology 

 of New Jersey, Appendix, p. 752), that they bring forth a litter of three to five. We consider this 

 number unusual, as all the specimens examined by us never contained more nor less than two. The 

 abdomen of the female is not so prominent, but very much broadened, a foetus developing in each 

 horn of the uterus. The uterine walls at term are very thin, the entire organ weighing only about 

 a centigramme. The placenta of this species is circular, measuring nine millimetres in diameter, 

 the umbilical cord being twelve millimetres long. A young one taken from a female whose 

 mamm;v contained milk, weighed 1,350 milligrammes " (Forest and Stream, \'ol. XVI, No. 25, 

 July 21, 1880, p. 490.) 



