318 MK. T. A. COWARD ON THE [Apr. 9, 



Mr. Oummings, on this evidence, suggests " Tliat the Greater 

 Horseshoe, at the end of December and throughout January, 

 moves freely in the caves, is easily disturbed, and usually hangs at 

 the further end of the boring. That it goes abroad I'egulai'ly in 

 mild weather, but hibernates more or less deeply in frost, and 

 i-einains in the caves during rain or high wind." 



It has been often asserted that in the Greater Horseshoe and 

 other gregarious bats the sexes hibernate apart ; though colonies 

 consisting of bats of one sex only have been found occasionally, 

 both sexes may be found in the same company or cluster. I have 

 found male and female Lesser Horseshoes in the same colony at 

 Oefn, Deabigh, and of the five bats which I took from the forty 

 in the Long Hole on December 29th one was a female and four 

 males. The two bats which I killed as they left the cluster at the 

 mouth of this cave on December 31st were males ; four taken from 

 the upper chamber of the Long Hole on January 6th, the remnant 

 of the company of twenty, were males ; six dislodged by a stone 

 from a congregation on the wall of the Echo Cave were all males ; 

 and five Pipistrelles, Pipistrellus pipistrellus (Schreber), turned 

 out of a crack in the clifi"-wall, outside the entrance to the Long 

 Hole, were also males. The single bats found in difierent places 

 were of either sex, but the majority were males ; their ages 

 varied and there were many which, judging by their grey pelage, 

 were born in 1906. I may, of course, have failed to discover the 

 colonies of females, or some of the bats which we did not touch in 

 the colonies may have been of this sex ; there is, however, 

 another possible explanation, an inequality in the numbers of the 

 sexes, the males predominating. 



The Greater Horseshoe feeds in winter, apparently both within 

 and outside the caves. The floors of all the caves show evidence 

 of the recent movements of bats ; in addition to the piles of dung, 

 Avhich were mostly old and dry, fresh excrement was scattered, as 

 if dropped by the bats either when flying or hanging from the 

 roof. Fragments of the prey, in places in small heaps, were also 

 littered about the floors of the caves. 



The stomachs of two Greater Horseshoes, killed immediately 

 after capture, contained no food, but that of a third, killed as it 

 flew from the bunch at the entrance to the Long Hole, contained 

 a little and there was faecal matter in the intestine. 



Large beetles and moths are apparently the chief food of the 

 Greater Horseshoe. I found elytra of Melolontha vulgaris Fabr., 

 and the heads and elytra of Geotrupes sjyiniger Marsh, and perhaps 

 G. stercorarius Linn. ; these remains were in most of the heaps of 

 dung and were also scattered in the caves ; in the Great Oons I 

 found them more than 100 or 150 yards from the entrance. Both 

 species of Geotrupes are occasionally abroad in mild weather in 

 winter : we found one G. spiniger on horse-dung in the road near 

 the caves ; Mr. Cummings finds Geotrupes in small numbers 

 throughout the winter at Barnstaple. In the Cheddar caves were 

 the elytra of the flightless beetle, Nehria hi^evicollis Fabr., and at 



