1906.] LESSEU llORSESJiOK BAT. 851 



provocation/' when tlie temperature in the cave was slighth' ahove 

 48^ F. twenty yards from the entrance (6). It is, however, difficult 

 to say what is hibernation and what merely diurnal sleep. The 

 summer diurnal sleep of bats is profound, and the phenomena 

 incidental to hibernation are present during noi-mal sleep — tlie 

 heart's action and respiration are hardly perceptible and the 

 temperature falls considerably. A sleeping bat in summer is 

 almost as cold and lifeless as a bat which is hibernating, and 

 is frequently as difficult to rouse. 



If then tliese Ijats, during at any rate the earlier montlis of 

 theii' retii-ement, are not in a profound wintei- sleep, do they 

 occasionally go out to feed oi- procm-e food in the cavei-ns ? If 

 the latter is the case, what is their mode of feeding ? The first 

 question we are as yet unable to answer ; we liave no certain 

 information about the duration of their activity in the summei- 

 months, but we have i-eason to believe that in the winter months, 

 the months dm-ing which the bats occupy the winter i-etreats 

 (I prefer this term to hibei-nacula), food is taken. 



Prof. Kinahan (2), in Vigo cave, on April 1st found two bats 

 which had not been in the same positions on March 22nd; and, as 

 already mentioned, we found the bats at Cefn on November 18th 

 so lively that they flew before being touched. Hardly without 

 exception the bats captui-ed at Cefn and Tremeirchion defecated 

 when thoroughly awake ; and two captui'ed in Maicli and chloro- 

 formed at once, had faecal matter in the intestine, and one had 

 half-digested matter in its stoniach. (Jn the floor of the cave^ 

 beneath hanging bats, and below certain cracks in the lime- 

 stone which we could not reach into or examine, were quantities 

 of exci'ement. In August this excrement was dry and mouldy. 

 Init in March, April, and November it was undoubtedly fi-esli. 

 and in the last-named month there was cei-tainly more fi-esh 

 excrement than in the earlier months. 



Ill wintei' there is an abundance of insect-life in the caves ; 

 two moths {Scotosia duhitata and Gonopiera llhatrix) hibernate in 

 the caverns, and a large number of small Diptera rest upon the 

 walls, some being apparentlj^ in a comatose state, othei's flying at 

 once towards om- candles. A lai-ge cave-haunting spider [J/eta 

 menardi) is also abundant. 8omeof the bats' excrement coUecteil 

 in April and examined by Mr. Xewstead (6), '"showed that they 

 had been feeding, almost exclusively, upon the smaller species of 

 Lepidoptera," but there were fragments of other insects. From 

 this we should conclude that in April the bats had been outside 

 the caves, though they had not changed theii- retreats. .Sub- 

 sequently Mr. Newstead found the remains of Diptera and one 

 fragment of a leg apparently of the spider Meta menmxli, which 

 certainly must have been taken in the cavern itself. Mr. Mitchell 

 informed the Rev. H. A. ^Macpherson (3) that there were heaps 

 of refuse near the mouth of the cave in which he obtained the 

 Greater Horseshoe Bats, which contained pai'tly-eaten cockchafers, 

 dorbeetles, scavenger- beetles, and other Coleoptera, as well as 



