Bats in a Bamboo. 



A large clump of the bamboo Dendrocalamus pendulus 

 Ridley which had died after flowering in the Botanical 

 Gardens Singapore was being cut down in May and one of 

 the coolies while cutting the culms up into lengths and split- 

 ting them noticed a strange noise within a joint. On split- 

 ting it up three or four bats flew out but there being more 

 inside he brought it to me tied up. On taking it to the 

 museum and carefully opening it Dr. Hanitsch and I found no 

 less than twenty-three bats of which four were adult females 

 and nineteen were young ones. One of these was still cling- 

 ing to the mother and sucking/ The joint of bamboo in 

 which these bats were enclosed was a foot in length and the 

 diameter of the hollow inside was 2 inches. The septa at 

 each node were perfect and unbroken, and the only possible 

 entrance was made by a crack on one side which allowed of 

 a narrow slip to be pushed outwards so that a triangular 

 aperture a quarter of an inch across in its widest part appear- 

 ed in the upper septum. 



Through this very small space all these bats must have 

 crept. The inside of the bamboo was wet and dark coloured 

 and there were some dipterous larvae within. 



In another clump of the same kind of bamboo, two other 

 joints containing young bats of apparently the same kinds 

 were opened. In one joint when opened, it having been felled 

 and left for some days in the sun all the bats were dead and 

 decomposed. They nearly filled the joint and were apparent- 

 ly about thirty in number. In the other several bats had 

 escaped but there were a number of young ones and one half 

 grown. Specimens of these bats were sent to the British 

 Museum where Mr. Oldfield Thomas examined them and 

 found them to be Tylonycteris pachypus, (Vesperugo pacliy- 

 pus Dobson). He writes, "This bat has an exceedingly 

 flattened skull and thus many account for its ability to get 



R. A. Soc, No. 50, 1908. 



