90 BRITISH MAMMALS 



thumb Is rather short, and armed with a somewhat feeble claw^ 

 The fur of the body is long ; deep brown at its base and chestnut 

 on the surface, but tending towards gray on the belly. The 

 colour of this bat varies, however, and English specimens seem 

 to be more chestnut in tone than those of the Continent, which 

 are often a dark sooty-brown. The head of this bat is rather 

 less rounded and blunt than is the head of the noctule. The 

 snout projects markedly over the lower lip. 



The distribution of Pterygistes leisleri is still not very clearly 

 known as regards the United Kingdom. Hitherto it has been 

 recorded from the western midlands of England, the Lake- 

 District, and the north-east and east of Ireland. Outside 

 England, the bat ranges right across Central Europe to Tem- 

 perate Asia, as far south as the Himalayas. It is also found in 

 Madeira and North Africa. 



The flight of this bat is said to be at a higher elevation than 

 that of the noctule, and it flies in a zigzag fashion, as if uncertain 

 as to its direction. This desultory manner of flight appears to- 

 have been remarked in all specimens under observation. 



Genus: PIPISTRELLUS 

 It is not clearly established that the difi^erences between the 

 bats of the preceding genus and those of Pipistrellus are generic in 

 their importance. The author, however, follows Thomas, Miller, 

 and Allen in this arrangement. The upper incisors in Pipistrellus 

 are longer and the inner pair more markedly bifid (grooved into 

 two points), while the first premolar is less reduced and dis- 

 placed than in Pterygistes. 



Pipistrellus pipistrellus. The Common Bat, or Pipistrelle 



The second name of the commonest species of bat in the 

 British Islands is apparently a French dialect name given to this 

 bat in Eastern France, and adopted specifically by Schreber, a 

 German writer on mammals, in 1775. The country name applied 

 to this and other bats in England is " flittermouse," an Anglo- 

 Saxon combination that explains itself, and which is paralleled by 



