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NATURAL HISTORY. 
Another curious but by no means agreeable peculiarity of this species remains to be noticed. 
Across the base of the neck, immediately in front of the breast, there is a great pouch, formed 
apparently by a fold of the skin, which receives an oily secretion from a large gland, regarded by Pro* 
fessor Temminck as perhaps analogous to the thyroid. In the male this gland is very broad, and 
divided into two lobes, and the fluid secreted by it passes into the pouch by a great number of small 
pores. In the female the apparatus is smaller, but more complicated ; the gland is composed of two 
small lobes, but between these there is a membranous pouch or reservoir, in which the oily fluid seems 
to become concentrated, forming a brown, granular, fatty matter, which passes into the great throat* 
pouch through a single large opening. This secretion possesses an odour so strong as to be still per- 
THE COLLARED RAT. (After Temminck.) 
ceptible after the animals have been preserved in spirits for several years ; and Dr. Salomon Muller 
states that his artist, M. van Oort, when engaged in making a drawing from a living specimen, was 
affected with a headache and nausea so violent that he had much difficulty in completing his task. It 
appears that the fetid fluid gets diffused over the hairs bordering the throat-poucli, and thus readily 
passes off into the air, and spreads to a long distance round the places inhabited by the Bats, and may 
thus serve, as Professor Temminck suggests, to enable these creatures to find each other in the dark 
retreats which they frequent. This would apply to other species which diffuse a peculiar odour, 
although none of them seem to possess so powerful an odoriferous secretion as the Collared Bat. 
THE NEW ZEALAND SHORT-TAILED BAT.* 
We have already noticed the occurrence in New Zealand of a species of Bat nearly allied to the 
common Bats of Europe, although differing from them in certain characters which have led to the 
* Mystacina tuberculata. 
