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LVm.— NOTE ON THE PAETUKITION OF A WEST-INDIAN 

 BAT. By HENEY A. BLAKE, Governor of the Bahamas. 



[Read, March 16, 1885.] 



On the 2nd June, 1884, when inspecting the caves on the western 

 shore of New Providence Island with Mr. Maynard, an ornitholo- 

 gist from Boston, and Mrs. Maynard, we observed the dome-like 

 roof covered with pendent bats, of which there were about a 

 thousand. We shot ten with our collecting guns, and on pick- 

 ing them up we found that eight had young ones clinging to them. 

 The eyes of one or two were open, though the down had not begun 

 to form, but the remainder had the eyes still closed. On our return, 

 when taking them out of the basket, I found that one of the full- 

 grown bats was a female, apparently unwounded, but so heavy 

 with young that it had fallen down with the concussion and been 

 unable to rise. As I was informed that the manner in which bats 

 were born had never yet been observed, and was a matter of scien- 

 tific interest, I placed the bat in a box about eighteen inches high, 

 with a glass front and wire top, and watched it closely. It hung 

 to the top, where it remained all night. At noon on the 3rd, I 

 observed that the exclusion of the young had commenced. The 

 bat had been hanging by one hind claw for several hours, the other 

 being bent forward at right angles. There weie regular labour 

 paroxysms at intervals of about two minutes, lasting for about 

 four or five seconds. Sometimes it hung by both claws, and bent 

 back or forward, evidently suffering much. At 12.20 the left hind 

 leg of the young bat entirely protruded, being doubled forward at 

 the second joint. Almost the entire time the mother hung by the 

 right hind claw, using the other to scrape from time to time the 

 membranous sac in which the protruded leg was enveloped, or to 

 scrape herself as a relief to the tension. As soon as the left leg of 

 the young had been protruded the mother scraped the sac until it 

 broke, when immediately the protruded leg was straightened and the 

 claw grasped the integument of the mother's "wing." The latter 



