1922. Moffat. — The Habits of the Long-eared Bat. iii 



It is a little rema.rkable that Mr. O. V. Aplin (who seems 

 to have studied the Long-eared Bat's feeding habits in a 

 similar nocturnal retreat to that frequented at Ballyhyland, 

 though he regarded it simply as a " dining-hall " of the 

 animals) also includes the Buff Ermine, without mentioning 

 the White, among the moths whose wings were dropped by 

 the diners.^ The White Ermine is, however, to my 

 knowledge sometimes eaten in large numbers by bats whose 

 species I have failed to ascertain, and who are probably 

 less fastidious than the Long-eared kind. 



The only non-lepidopterous insect whose wings I found 

 on the passage floor was the large spotted crane-fly Tipula 

 gigaiitea, which was also noticed by Mr. Aplin as preyed 

 on by his bats in Oxfordshire. Very small wings would, 

 in any case, escape notice, and many such are certainly 

 crunched up and swallow^ed with their possessors. 



Before closing I should state that when hours are 

 mentioned in this paper I have not followed any of the 

 changes that have been made in our statutor}^ time since 

 the summer of 1915. '' Summer Time " (introduced in 

 1916) was, of course, never intended to be followed in 

 scientific notes ; and the change from Irish to Greenwich 

 time, coming later, would, if followed, introduce further 

 complications into a comparison between notes taken before 

 and notes taken after the change. I prefer, therefore, in 

 all records of natural history observations in which hours 

 have to be mentioned, to adhere to old Irish time, and 

 use the term "12 o'clock " (instead of 1.25 a.m.) for the 

 true middle of a summer night. 



Dublin, 



1 Zool., 1889, p. 382. 



