CHIROPTERA. 



BATS. 

 Sub-order MICROCHIROPTERA. 



INSECT-EATING BATS.i 



The twelve British species are all included in the great sub- 

 order of insect-eating bats or Microchiroptera. They fall into 

 two families — the Vesper HlionidcF, or typical simple-faced, and 

 the Rhino lop hi dcB, or horseshoe-nosed bats. 



History :— British naturalists have not been quick to 

 distinguish the various species, and even at the present time 

 there are few who boast expert knowledge of not the least 

 interesting group of British mammals. Appreciation of dis- 

 tinctions grew, in fact, so slowly, that for original descriptions 

 of our native species we are in every case indebted to con- 

 tinental naturalists, the chief honours being shared by 

 Daubenton of France and Leisler and Kuhl of Germany. 



Of British writers, Merrett, in his Pinax [\66o), and Ray, in 

 his Synopsis (1693), made no attempt to diagnose species, but 

 Albin, in his Natural History of Birds'^ (1740), gave a place 

 to three — the "small common sort," the Double-eared (namely, 



* For many references to the literature of these animals, see N. H. Alcock's 

 paper on the vascular system of bats in Froc. Zool. Soc. (London), 1898, 58. 

 Dobson's Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the Collection of the British Museum is still 

 the main authority for the order as a whole, but will probably be replaced by degrees 

 by Knud Andersen's review of the order now in progress. G. S. Miller's (jun.) 

 "The Families and Genera of Bats" {Bull. 57, U.S. National Museum, 29th June 

 1907), is also invaluable, and has been largely drawn upon for the purposes of 

 this chapter. Since my account of British Bats was written, I have received W. L. 

 Hahn's important American paper, " Some Habits and Sensory Adaptations of Cave- 

 inhabiting Bats" {Biol. Bull. Marine Biol. Lab., Woods Holl, Mass., xv., June to 

 November igo8, 135-193). 



- iii., 95. 



3 



