6588 



Notes on the 



learn that you thought the information contained in my last important 

 enough for more general diffusion, and I shall be extremely glad if the 

 contents of this or any succeeding letters are considered worthy of a 

 place in the pages of the ' Zoologist.' 



" Let me first answer the queries in your letter. T am well acquainted 

 with your 1 Naturalist's Sojourn,' and have gained from it all I know 

 about the Bats of Jamaica, independent of my own observations. My 

 list already amounts to ten species, and I have evidently many not 

 included among yours. The little Chilonycteris grisea is very com- 

 mon hereabouts: the boys knock them down aud bring them in. This 

 was one of five species I procured in an immense cave in the limestone 

 of Manchester. Besides this there is another so like it that I conclude 

 it to be a Chilonycteris also, but much larger and with other well- 

 marked distinctions. A species with the tongue protrudible an inch 

 or more beyond the muzzle, furnished with reversed bristles towards 

 the tip, much interested me : the lengthened jaws and round ears, 

 which give it a remarkable likeness to a pig, render it very distinct 

 from any of our other species I am acquainted with. From dissections 

 I have made, especially with specimens taken early in the day, I am 

 inclined to think the pulp of fruits is their nourishment. They are 

 very robust and vivacious, bear confinement extremely well, and are 

 to be found in great numbers in most of the limestone caves of this 

 range of mountains, so that I have had unusual facilities for observing 

 them. They lap water readily with the long tongue, and lick and clean 

 their faces with it up to the ears, and when the first alarm at their 

 position is over, lick the juice from oranges I have given them, but not 

 greedily enough to make me feel satisfied it is their regular food. 

 Artibeus jamaicensis I have never found in any cave, and, from the 

 instances that have occurred to me, T believe it always reposes under 

 the shade of some thicket : the negroes constantly tell me of them in 

 their yams. But A. carpolegus is very abundant in a large cave near 

 Mahogany Hall, the noise of their wings, when disturbed by the ap- 

 proaching light, sounding like the murmur of a distant sea: this large 

 bat brings into its domicile incredible quantities of the kernels and 

 fragments of large fruits, on which it feeds ; the droppings and these 

 remains of their feasts mixed gradually form deposits of great extent 

 and many feet in thickness, on the floors of the caves. I have seen 

 them extend completely through a cave, which could not be less than 

 half a mile in extent, and at intervals in caves of much greater length. 

 This deposit is formed of many species of fruits with which I am yet 

 unacquainted, one especially about three times the size of an ordinary 



