96 DUBLIN NA TUBAL HISTOET SOCIETT. 



We had not long lighted our candles, and proceeded into the gloom, 

 when my companion captured a lesser horse-shoe bat, hanging from a 

 crevice in the side-walls of the cave. The daylight was visible at this 

 point. In our progress to the end of the cave, he captured another spe- 

 cimen of the same species, hung nearly at the ground. When we 

 reached the lofty chamber, already spoken of, we found the traces of the 

 presence of bats very abundant; and indistinctly through the gloom we 

 could make out the form of one or two, seemingly of considerable size, 

 hanging from the roof, but far out of reach. On our return, another 

 specimen was found near the place where the second specimen had been 

 captured ; and after the lights were extinguished, in the very mouth of 

 the cave, in broad daylight, Mr. Foot detected a fourth. All these spe- 

 cimens were of one sex, being males. The only other living thing seen 

 in the cave was a moth, Tephrosia crepuscularia, which was by no means 

 rare, and found in all parts of the cave, even the darkest. 



We next proceeded to the plantations on the western shores of the 

 lake. Here, in a cliff, covered in profusion with ferns, especially that 

 lovely variety of the common polypody, to which the names of Hiher- 

 nicum, Semilacerum, ajid Fseudocamhricmn, &c., have been given, are two 

 caves of small extent, not being more than a few yards deep, and facing 

 northward and eastward, their mouths being hung with trees. In the 

 first of these we did not meet any bats ; in the second, which is ex- 

 tremely small and dirty, I found two bats, and numbers of a large mot- 

 tled spider. Both the bats were males, and both were visible in the 

 daylight. This cave is moderately dry. 



A few days afterwards, we examined some caves near Kilcorney. 

 The first of these scarcely deserved the name of a cave, being a large 

 open chink in the face of the cliff, totally destitute of trees, open 

 throughout to the full blaze of the sunlight, insomuch that the sides of 

 the cave were hung with maiden-hair spleenwort. 



The second cave — par excellence, the cave of Kilcorney — is of very 

 great extent ; the mouth is small, and so narrow at one part, that we 

 could only squeeze and wriggle in sideways, and a fashionable lady 

 would certainly have stuck. The roof of some of the passages is so low, 

 that one requires to crav/1 in flat. It is a fine example of an under- 

 ground river ; the roof exhibited many traces, such as straws, &c., of 

 the recent passage of water, which had gained access by the numerous 

 vertical clefts and shafts with which the roof abounded ; and the pebbles 

 and rocks on the floor were rounded and water- worn, like those in the 

 bed of a brook. The heavy rain which Vas falling outside rendered the 

 examination of this cave hazardous, as floods come on very rapidly. We 

 therefore spent only about an hour in the cave, during which a consi- 

 derable number of jfassages were examined, but fruitlessly as regarded 

 bats, the only living creature met with being a small frog, found by me 

 at the farthest point, carried in probably by the winter floods. The 

 absence of bats is not to be wondered at, as during winter floods a strong 

 stream issues out of, and completely fills, the mouth of the cave ; and a 

 farmer in the neighbourhood told us, that only two days previously to 



