ATALAPII A NOVEBORACENSIS. 
85 
her captor. The young one, being but half grown, was still too 
young to take care of itself, and died shortly after.” * 
Like our other bats, this species frequently hibernates in vast 
assemblages ; and in regions remote from civilization each colony 
usually occupies a rocky cavern or hollow tree ; in inhabited dis- 
tricts they often take up quarters in the ruin of some deserted 
building, particularly of structures composed of stone and brick. 
Dr. Godman publishes a letter from Prof. Jacob Green, of Prince- 
ton, containing an account of the presence and actions of a host of 
this species in a cave that he visited November ist, 1816. The 
letter runs as follows : “ I this day visited an extensive cavern 
about twelve miles south of Albany, N. Y. I did not measure its 
extent into the mountain, but it was at least three or four hundred 
feet. There was nothing remarkable in this cave, except the vast 
multitudes of Bats which had selected this unfrequented place, to 
pass the winter. They did not appear to be much disturbed by 
the light of the torches carried by our party, but, upon being 
touched with sticks, they instantly recovered animation and activity, 
and flew into the dark passages of the cavern. As the cave was, 
for the most part, not more than six or seven feet in height, they 
could very easily be removed from the places to which they were 
suspended, and some of the party, who were behind me, disturbed 
some hundreds of them at once, when they swept by me in swarms 
to more remote, darker, and safer places of retreat. In flying 
through the caves they made little or no noise ; sometimes upon 
being disturbed in one place they flew but a few yards and then 
instantly settled in another, in a state of torpor apparently as pro- 
found as before. These Bats, in hibernating, suspend themselves 
by the hinder claws, from the roof or upper part of the cave ; in no 
instance did I observe one along the sides. They were not pro- 
miscuously scattered, but were collected into groups or clusters, of 
some hundreds, all in close contact. On holding a candle within a 
* American Natural History. By John D. Godman. Yol. I, 1842, p. 42. 
