1907.] WINTEB-HABITS OF CAVE-HAUNTING BATS. 319 



Barnstaple Mr. Cummings found fragments of a flightless Piero- 

 sticluis (possibly, he thinks, P. niger Schall.). Tlie remains of the 

 large cave-spider, Meta inenardi Latr. — fragments of the eephalo- 

 thorax with the legs attached in some cases^were present in the 

 Cheddar caves, and Mr. Cummings found remains of a spider at 

 Barnstaple ; at Cefn, I found a portion of the leg of a Meta in 

 the dung of the Lesser Horseshoe (1). These flightless beetles 

 and sj)iders must have been picked up by the bats from the gi-ound 

 or taken from the walls. It is not certain that the bats always 

 secure their prey when they are flying, and as the Horseshoes are 

 exceedingly agile on the wing I feel sure that they could, by 

 hovering, pick food from the ground or from a vertical surface, 

 such as the wall of a cave, without alighting ; furthermore, in 

 captivity they show a marked tendency to fly low, and will fre- 

 quently alight with outspread wings upon a flat surface, springing 

 therefi'om again with ease. 



The wings of Scotosia duhitata Linn., a moth which hibernates 

 freely in limestone-caves and was abundant at Cheddar, were 

 scattered here and there, as if eaten recently, and also a few wings 

 of Gonoptera libatrix Linn., another species which hibernates, 

 were present. These moths might, of course, have been captured 

 when they were on the wing in summer, but the remains appeared 

 fresher than those of summer- flying moths which do not occupy 

 the caves in winter (for example, Triphcena) which I found. 

 Mr. Cummings found the remains of both these moths at Barn- 

 staple, and also fragments of two large flies, possibly Eristalis 

 tenax and some smaller dipteron. At Cheddar there were many 

 small dipterous insects resting on the walls of the caves ; these are 

 soon aroused to activity by the presence of a light. Mr. Robert 

 Newstead fouiid, in clung which he kindly examined for me, 

 I'emains of certain Muscicke, which, as he points out, are all diurnal 

 insects. We do not, however, know at what hours the bats are 

 on the wing in summer, but even if the times when the bats 

 emerge and the insects retire in the evening, or vice ve^'sd in the 

 morning, do not overlap, the bat which can capture a flightless 

 beetle or spider could take a fly which was at rest. 



In Goatchurch Cavern, at a great distance from and below the 

 entrance, I found a dead Staphylinid beetle of the genus Quedius ; 

 it was damaged by the teeth of a bat. 



The prey of the Greater Horseshoe may be captured on the 



wing, but that it is not, as a rule, devoured whilst the bat is flying, 



seems to be proved by the behaviour of bats in captivity even 



more than by the presence of the fragments of prey in the caves. 



When secured by a snap of the bat's jaws the insect is conveyed 



to some resting-place and there consumed. Two captive Greater 



Horseshoes, one of v/hich survived for 14 days and the other 



for 35 days, were fed almost entirely upon Geoirupes typlicev.s 



Linn., the only beetle I could obtain in sufficient numbers in 



winter. Altogether over 120 beetles were devoured, and in every 



case the behaviour of the bats was practically the same. I usually 



9o« 



