80 THE BERMUDA ISLANDS. 



seems not unlikely in view of certain anomalies of distribution 

 which are presented by the Bermudian fauna, 



Up to the present time there have been recorded from the 

 Bermudas four species of bats, two of which, the silver-haired 

 bat ( Vesperugo noctivagans) and the hoary bat (Atalapha cinerea), 

 are common North American forms, while the remaining two 

 (Tracliyops cirrJtosus a vampire and Molossus rufus, var. 

 obscurus) are more stricth 7 tropical, ranging over much of 

 South America and the West Indian Islands. Specimens of 

 the last two, coming from the Bermudas, are in the collections 

 of the British Museum, and appear in Mr. Dobson's Catalogue 

 (1878). These animals must, however, be of extremely rare 

 occurrence in the islands, since they were unknown to both 

 Mr. Jones and Mr. J. L. Hurdis, the latter a fourteen years 

 resident. The silver-haired bat is about equally rare, as but 

 a single specimen seems to have been noticed in the island group, 

 and that one nearly forty years ago.* Even the commoner 

 form (Molossus obscurus) is very uncommon, and appears only 

 in the autumn months, when the westerly storms bring over 

 numbers of American birds. So rare, indeed, are these 

 animals generally that they are seemingly unknown to the 

 majority of the inhabitants, and even among the older resi- 

 dents I found but little knowledge of cheiropterology. It is 

 singular, in view of the scarcity of these animals, that Capt. 

 Nelson should have considered the " red earth " of the Ber- 

 mudas, and also of the Bahamas, to have been formed largely 

 as an accumulation of the rejectamenta of bats, which in- 

 habited "once-existing caverns" (Journ. Geol. Soc. London, 

 IX, p. 209). We observed 110 bats in any of the caves or 

 caverns which we visited, nor did u ancient " guardians of these 

 caverns know anything about such animals. The very rare 

 occurrence of bats in the islands, and the circumstance that 

 they are most conspicuous during the periods of heavy storms, 

 prove almost conclusively that these animals are merely in- 

 blown stragglers. 



*Jones, Mammals of Bermuda, op. cit., p. 145- 



