ATALAPHA C1NEREA. 
79 
within a few feet of your very eyes. Turning quickly you fire, but 
too late! He has vanished in the darkness. For more than a week 
each evening is thus spent, and you almost despair of seeing another 
Hoary Bat, when, perhaps, on a clear cold night, just as the darkness is 
becoming too intense to permit you to shoot with accuracy and you 
are on the point of turning away, something appears above the 
horizon that sends a thrill of excitement through your whole frame. 
There is no mistaking the species — the size, the sharp, narrow wings, 
and the swift flight serve instantly to distinguish it from its nocturnal 
comrades. On he comes, but just before arriving within gunshot he 
makes one of his characteristic zig-zag side-shoots and you tremble 
as he momentarily vanishes from view. Suddenly he reappears, his 
flight becomes more steady, and now he sweeps swiftly toward you. 
No time is to be lost, and it is already too dark to aim, so you bring 
the gun quickly to your shoulder and fire. With a piercing, stridu- 
lous cry, he falls to the earth. In an instant you are stooping to 
pick him up, but the sharp grating screams, uttered with a tone of 
intense anger, admonish you to observe discretion. With delight you 
cautiously take him in your hand and hurry to the light to feast your 
eyes upon his rich and handsome markings. He who can gaze upon 
a freshly killed example without feelings of admiration is not worthy to 
be called a naturalist. From its almost boreal distribution, and extreme 
rarity in collections, the capture of a specimen of the Hoary Bat must, 
for some time to come, be regarded as an event worthy of congratu- 
lation and record. Although I have been fortunate enough to shoot 
fourteen, 1 would rather kill another to-day than slay a dozen deer. 
During the past season Dr. A. K. Fisher, Walter H. Merriam, and 
myself shot nineteen specimens of this elegant species in and near 
the western border of the Adirondacks. It is not to be imagined, 
however, that the procurement of this extensive series (extensive for 
so rare an animal) was an easy task. Scarcely a suitable evening 
passed, throughout the entire season, that was not devoted to bat 
hunting. From the middle of fune to the middle of July, when there 
