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NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Notes on Cave Bats. — On February 22nd, 1905, I found a bunch 

 of Lesser Horseshoes hybernating in one of the lower chambers of a 

 Mendip cave. I have many times searched this cave through the upper 

 as well as the lower chambers purposely for Bats, for I know several 

 species to exist therein, but this particular find was, I should think, an 

 exceptional one ; they occupied a small fissure in the rocks above my 

 head, and were hanging in a bunch one from another. The cavern is 

 very dark and extremely dangerous, as Mr. Rothschild's representatives 

 can well testify, immense gulfs yawning out beneath you every here 

 and there, with perhaps a sheer drop of a hundred feet into the river 

 which flows through and here finds an outlet from the Mendip Hills, 

 the river entering the cavern at the further end of the bottom chamber. 

 Human remains, also bones of the Cave Bear, have been found in this 

 spacious and lofty chamber. Fixing my lighted candle against the 

 rock, I managed with difficulty to take one of the lower specimens, 

 which I sent to Mr. Lydekker, informing him of the find. Five 

 species of Bats live, and no doubt breed, in this cave — the Barbastelle, 

 Greater and Lesser Horseshoes, Noctule, and one other species which 

 I have found and located, but have not yet secured. The Greater 

 Horseshoes are not so easily disturbed as the smaller species during the 

 period of hybernation ; they take but little notice of the light, and 

 seem altogether drowsier, and when touched just lift themselves up a 

 little with a faint squeak, and settle down again. The Lesser Horse- 

 shoes fly about the cave during hybernation, but I think only on 

 account of having been disturbed ; for instance, having found three or 

 six at the commencement of a chamber, we may leave them for the 

 return journey, when we find they are gone. These, I think, are 

 " disturbed flights," but which I have not found with the Greater 

 species. Moths hybernate singly on the boulders of rock here ; this 

 proves that the Bats do not take food, or else that the moths are 

 sufficiently protected from them, their colour so nearly resembling the 

 sandy rock on which they sit. I had been many times to the cave 

 before, when, in company with Mr. Goodson, of Tring, I noticed one of 



