(394 CAPT.T. HUTTON ON HIMALAYAN BATS. [June 4, 



Plains they both may well do ; but to reach Dehra they must either 

 cross the Siwalik range of hills, from 3000 to 3500 feet high, or 

 thread their way for miles through the passes leading into the Doon, 

 though even then we may ask with amazement how, when they are 

 approaching the Siwaliks, they can tell that there is fruit some twenty 

 miles in advance of them ! To reach the valley of Nipal at 6000 

 feet of elevation they must ascend and descend the mountains ; and, 

 wonderful yet to say, they penetrate no further into the hills, 

 neither do they ascend from the Doon to Mussooree, apparently 

 instinctively knowing that they will find no guavas further in the 

 hills ! Almost equally astonishing is it that having thus feasted in 

 the Doon and in Nipal they should be able to find their way back 

 again through forests and hills for thirty or forty miles to their 

 natural haunts in the plains. 



Genus Rhinolophus. 



Characters. — Muzzle above furnished with a complicated series 

 of membranes, forming a facial crest, in which the nostrils are 

 situated ; interfemoral membranes of moderate size, enveloping the 

 tail ; ears large, lateral, erect ; the facial crest on the muzzle in the 

 form of a horseshoe ; a central raised process and a somewhat 

 lanceolate narrow crest behind all. 



3. Rhinolophus luctus. 



Rhinolophus perniger, Hodgson, J. A. S. B. xii. 414 ; xiii. 484 ; 

 Blyth, Cat. Mam. Mus. A. S. B. 



Rhinolophus luctus, Temminck. 



Hab. Lower regions of the hills ; also Dehra Doon and other 

 parts of India ; Nipal, &c. 



This is a large species, occurring plentifully in Mussooree and 

 Dehra. Mr. Hodgson mentions that in Nipal it is restricted to the 

 forests, shunning the habitations of man. This, however, in the 

 north-western hills is certainly not the case, as I have taken it at 

 5500 feet, while hanging from the roof of an outhouse in which 

 rabbits and firewood were kept, looking, with its ample black wings 

 folded round it as a cloak, somewhat like a large black cocoon. 

 The fact is that these larger-sized Bats could not pursue their flight 

 in the thick forests away from the habitations of men ; they require 

 room, and find their prey in the open forests or forest glades, 

 or over the cultivated fields and gardens ; and even where man 

 does not dwell, there are always plenty of open spaces even in forest 

 tracts where they can wheel around the trees, and seize the beetles 

 that are humming round them or feeding on the leaves. 



Mr. Blyth seems inclined to separate this species from Mr. 

 Hodgson's Rhinolophus perniger, because, as he says, the facial 

 membranes which form the nose-crest are less complicated in the 

 latter than in the R. luctus of Temminck ; but these membranes 



