the branch facing south, and was about six inches long by two and a-half wide, with its greater length horizontal. The cavity within was roughly five inches in diameter and about eighteen inches long. We could count five bats huddled together filling the end of the cavity, and we left them, intending to come back on a moonlight evening to observe them. Two days later when passing the tree we found that the bats had gone, and though we looked into the hole whenever we passed for the next fortnight, they had not returned. The colour of their fur, which was the same as that of a mouse and lighter than that of the long-tailed bat, and their large rounded ears led us to believe that they were short-tailed bats. I had taken with me to the island some aceytlene lamps with large motor-car headlight reflectors to use in the identification of petrels in the air at night, and when using these on one occasion from 10 p.m. to midnight on an open point of land we saw several bats flit by close to the ground. At odd times, too, one would fly past us when we were out at night in the bush, but always close to the ground. We did not see a great many, but none that we did see was flying higher than ten feet above the ground. We never saw one at dusk nor before it was quite dark, say, 10 p.m. (summertime). The flight is not so rapid as that of the long-tailed bat, nor is it so twisty; but the artificial light by which all our observations were made may have accounted partly for this difference. Another most interesting point is that this bat does not (on Solomon Island, at any rate) fly about at dusk, but only after dark, and continues to do so until midnight. This habit may be due to the fact that at dusk—the normal flight-time of bats in general—the air is too full of flying mutton-birds for the bat's comfort. One evening we were sitting in the hut when a bat flew in at the open door, fell into the edge of the low fire burning on the hearth, and fluttered to the side of the fireplace. I jumped up to catch it, but it flew out of the door again before I could reach it. In another hollow rata some distance from the bats' tree there was a morepork's nest with young, and I used to examine the contents of this nest whenever I passed to get an idea of the diet of the birds. One day I found, besides the remains of two diving petrels, a fine specimen of a short-tailed bat, dead, but with only a small claw-puncture in its neck. Ten days later we were passing bat tree, and, looking in, saw the cluster of bats at the end of it. We cut an entrance into the cavity and took out the bats, of which there were seven, males and females. They bit our fingers with their needle-like teeth and gave vent to shrill squeakings, opening their large rounded mouths and threatening us. It was in the late afternoon when we found them, and they were very sluggish in their movements, with the webs of their wings cold to the touch; indeed, their whole demeanour suggested that they were stiff and semi-comatose as a result of cold, although it was not an unusually cold day for the locality. They livened up considerably on the way back to the hut, and when we got there they were lissome and active and quite warm to the touch. We put them in a box with a wire-netting front, and they became most active in their efforts to escape. They run, head first, with a