"In the roof of this was a small hole, athwart which lay a stick. After many efforts, we got a string across it, and so hauled up a rope, by which, finding the stick strong enough, we climbed, and with a short exercise of the chimney-sweeper's art, we found ourselves in a third tier of cells, similar to the lower ones, and covered with the undisturbed dust of ages. Behind the chapel was a dark cave, with an entrance eighteen inches high. Having lighted our lantern, we crept in on our faces, and found the place full of human bones and skulls; with dust several inches deep. We were in the burying-place of the Anchorites. Their bones lay heaped, but in undisturbed order, probably as the corpses had been stretched soon after death, and as in the campo-santo of some Italian monasteries, had been desiccated, and in the dry atmosphere had gradually pulverized. The skeletons were laid west and east, awaiting the resurrection. After capturing two or three long-tailed bats, of a species new to us (_Rhinopoma microphylla_), the only living occupants, we crept out, with a feeling of religious awe, from this strange sepulchral cave." This bat is called the Egyptian Rhinopome, and the same species of Bat was found in considerable numbers in the cave at Es Sumrah. Three more species were found in the tombs of the kings, and it is probable that many other species inhabit Palestine. It is certain, at all events, that representatives of three more families of Bats inhabit Egypt, and therefore are most probably to be found in Palestine. THE LION. Frequent mention of the Lion in the Scriptures--Probability that it was once a common animal, though now extinct--Reasons for its disappearance--The Lion employed as an emblem in the Bible--Similarity of the African and Asiatic species--The chief characteristics of the Lion--its strength, activity, and mode of seizing its prey--Various names of the Lion--its courage when roused--its roar and peculiar mode of utterance--Invisibility of the Lion at dusk--The Lion lying in wait--The dwelling-place of the Lion--Its restlessness at night--Passages illustrative of these characteristics--Modes of capturing the Lion--The pitfall and the net--Lions kept as curiosities--The Lion hunt as depicted, on the buildings of ancient Nineveh. Of all the undomesticated animals of Palestine, none is mentioned so frequently as the LION. This may appear the more remarkable, because for many years the Lion has been extinct in Palestine. The leopard, the wolf, the jackal, and the hyæna, still retain their place in the land, although their numbers are comparatively few; but the Lion has vanished completely out of the land. The reason for this disappearance is twofold, first, the thicker population; and second, the introduction of firearms.