320 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
under part and head — an action far from ungraceful. The foot is then cleaned quickly with the teeth 
or tongue, and restored to its first use,” of suspending the animal. A little after sundown, according to Mr. 
Osburn, the roof is alive with movement, betrayed by squeaks and a scuffling shuffle over the boards, and 
the Bats scramble eagerly up the shingles, and escape through any opening they may find, shooting off 
with great rapidity in search of their insect prey. In March they made their exit about half- 
past six o’clock in the evening, returning to their dwelling-place about eight or nine o’clock. “ It is 
then,” says Mr. Osburn, “ they are so particularly annoying to the inhabitants of even the most care- 
fully kept Jamaica houses. The great majority return to thereof; but one or two vigorous little 
fellows come into the room, and ilap about in the most unmeaning way. Nothing is more remarkable 
than the agility with which a dozen, in the early part of the evening, skimmed and glided by every 
article of furniture. But now they bang themselves against the ceiling and walls, drop on the table, 
get up again, when the Cat, by j limping, catches them a pat, and they fall on the floor, not much 
hurt, to judge by their liveliness, for Grimalkin, having performed the feat, sits down, her paws tucked 
under, and gravely watches the hurry of the alarmed Bat shuffling over the floor. They disturb the 
harmony of the evening by becoming the occupants of, and making an escapade beneath, a gentleman’s 
coat collar, ora great sensation by getting hopelessly entangled in a lady’s hair, and bite more furiously 
than effectively during the process of release.” These restless little fellows, which must at least add 
considerably to the liveliness of an evening reunion in those parts of Jamaica where they abound, 
remain very active in their quarters all night, and start out in search of their breakfast so early that 
they return home again by five or six o’clock. They then seem to amuse themselves, before 
retiring to their own repose, by breaking the slumbers of the people whose evening hours they have 
enlivened as above described, by flying about the bedrooms with a rushing sound and many squeaks. 
The species is exceedingly common in Jamaica, and seems always to inhabit houses. Mr. Gosse 
(“ Naturalist in Jamaica,” p. 159) also describes the habits of this Bat, which he calls the Chestnut 
Mastiff Bat.* 
THE SMOKY MASTIFF BAT.f 
In this abundant American Bat the fur is generally of a smoky-brown colour, with the bases of 
the hairs whitish ; on the lower surface some of the hairs are entirely white, and the rest brown, with 
the base and apex whitish. The length of the head and body is from three and a half to four and a 
half inches, and that of the tail about two inches, nearly half of which projects beyond the membrane. 
The heel-spurs are very long. In this and the other species of Molossus, the intermaxillary bones are 
united, and the upper incisors close together in front . t 
The Smoky Mastiff Bat is a well-kno wn South American species, and extends also into the West 
Indian islands. In Jamaica it was observed and described by Mr. Gosse under the name of the Monk 
Bat, in allusion to the fact that he found the species living in large communities, but always of one 
sex. Mr. Osburn also observed it in the same island, and has given a long account of its habits. In the 
house in which he was living at Shettlewood, these Bats swarmed in the roof, and during the breeding- 
season, his bedroom, situated immediately below, was rendered so offensive by their peculiar odour, 
that he was compelled to have every window left wide open at night. The Bats passed out from the 
roof under the eaves, but not unfrequently small parties of them would come in through the windows 
and take a short flight round the room. A man sent up into the roof brought down four or five 
quarts of the Bats, all of which proved to be males. These Bats also live in holes in dead stumps of 
cocoa-nut trees, and Mr. Osburn describes as follows the results of felling one of the stumps thus 
occupied. He says : — u It was broken into fragments by the fall, and among them a perfect hecatomb 
of these little Bats, scattered into two distinct heaps, corresponding to a high and a lower storey in the 
tree. There must have been at least 150 or 200 altogether. The heap which occupied the upper hole 
were exclusively males ; those in the lower, females, in large proportion, though there seemed a male 
here and there among them.” Mr. Osburn’s observations thus strikingly confirm those of Mr. Gosse 
* In a recent paper on the group Molossi, Mr. Dobson distinguishes in all twenty-one species of the genus Nyctinomus , 
mostly inhabitants of the Eastern hemisphere. Three species besides the one above described are found in America. 
f Molossus nasutns . 
X Mr. Dobson ( Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1876) describes nine species of Molossus, all from tropical America. 
