94 DUBLIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



THREE DAYS AMONG THE BATS IN CLARE. BY J. R. KINAHAN, M.D., M. R.I. A., 

 E. L. S., HON. SEC. 



[Read June 7, 1861.] 



So few are the opportunities naturalists enjoy of studying the habits of 

 bats in their native haunts, that, without further apology, I venture to 

 lay before this meeting details of three days' researches in some 

 caves situated in the northern extremity of the county of Clare with 

 Mr. F. Foot, who had the good fortune, in March, 1859, to discover 

 and to record for the first time in Ireland, the lesser horse-shoe bat 

 [Hhinohphtcs hipposideros), a full account of which discovery has al- 

 ready appeared in our Proceedings. 



In one or two minor points I find that Mr. Foot's deductions from 

 his own researches were too general ; but in the main the observations 

 which he has published are fully borne out by those made during the 

 tour at present described. As will appear, during these researches only 

 one species, that quoted above, was met, although the localities exa- 

 mined are far apart. They are all situate in the same geological horizon 

 — the limestone. This rock is drilled and bored with water-worn 

 caverns, often of great extent, with many passages and windings, and 

 serving in many cases as water-courses for the "buried" rivers, which 

 give rise to the sinh-holes and turloughs for which the district of the 

 Burren is remarkable. Whether it is to the presence and abundance of 

 these caverns, or to the peculiar position of the district, that the occur- 

 rence of this species of bat in such numbers is due, may be a question. 

 My own judgment, however, leans to the latter solution, judging by the 

 and animals which are found in the district in question. 



The Burren may be reckoned one of the most interesting of Irish 

 districts, whether we look to its geological formation, or its inhabitants, 

 — ^hundreds of acres of a formation seen no where else in Ireland — I had 

 almost said, in Great Britain — to such an extent, without seemingly a 

 fault or break, bearing on its surface the manifest ti'aces of ocean action 

 in high water-worn cliffs, and coves far inland, in its surface, nearly 

 entirely destitute of soil, and its picturesque scenery. On its surface, 

 wherever a plant can grow, the botanical features exhibited are such as 

 are seen no where else in Ireland. The Maiden-hair fern (Admntum 

 Capillus Veneris), growing in extreme luxuriance, and by the acre ; 

 that remarkable plant, the Potentilla fruticosa, met elsewhere only in 

 Galway ; Aj. pyramidalis, hitherto only met in the Isles of Arran ; 

 and other plants of a similar kind, with which I need not delay you ; 

 and even plants met elsewhere here growing in such luxuriance as no 

 other part of Ireland can display ; the Hart's-tongue fern, filling every 

 nook and cranny, exhibiting a luxuriance of growth and a variety of 

 form which I have never seen approached, far less equalled, in any one 

 district I have been in. 



The Maiden-hair spleen wort, the "Wall rue, and Black-stalked 

 spleenwort, all braving the extreme fury of the western ocean blasts, 



