90 VESPERTILIONID^— NYCTALUS 



a kind of zigzag manner, apparently uncertain where to go, 

 generally, though not always, at a considerable elevation, and 

 in a few minutes it is gone." 



Such was the meagre sum total of our knowledge, until 

 in June 1868 Mr R. M. Barrington happened upon a large 

 colony in the beech woods at Tandragee, County Armagh, 

 Ireland.^ Thence he procured specimens in 1874 and again 

 in 1889, in spite of which the bat remained for many years 

 immersed in an obscurity which was at length only dispelled by 

 the labours of Mr H. Lyster Jameson ^ on its distribution, 

 and by the excellent original observations on its habits by 

 Dr N. H. Alcock^ and Mr C. B. Moffat/ The latter was 

 probably the first British naturalist to undertake a series of all- 

 night watches in the haunts of the bats, thus proving beyond 

 question the existence of two short flights, the one vespertinal, 

 the other matutinal, in this species, exactly as Mr Charles Oldham 

 has since shown to be also the case with the Noctule. 



Like the Noctule, Leisler's Bat is usually an inhabitant of 

 woods, ^ where it frequents, often in large parties, the cavities of 

 hollow trees, communicating to them an odour which, how- 

 ever, is much less perceptible than that of its congener. Its 

 numbers evidently rival those of the Noctule, since Mr 

 Barrington estimated the strength of one band at from eighty 

 to a hundred, the combined squeaking being sufficient to cause 

 their discovery. In addition to trees, it retires also to the 

 roofs and recesses of buildings or walls. Mr Barrington*' 

 found great numbers in the roof of a boat-house in County 

 Fermanagh ; Mr P. W. Finn sent me one taken from a hole 

 in a barn in Carlow, while a party for some time occupied 

 a hole in the stable wall at Kilmanock, County Wexford.'^ 

 Extreme darkness would not appear to be a necessity for 

 its comfort, since the colony discovered at Tandragee were in 

 full view from without, and Mr Finn's specimen was discovered 



^ Zoologist, 1874, 4071-4074. - Irish Naturalist, 1897, 41- 



3 Ibid., 1899, 169-174, and map. "» Ibid., 1900, 235-240 ; 1905, 99-101. 



^ Arthur Whitaker found a den in Yorkshire, in an oak at a height of about forty 

 feet from the ground, which elevation he states to be greater than any Noctule den 

 known to him {Naturalist, 1907, 385). If it should prove that this bat has a preference 

 for inaccessible retreats, its reputed rarity might thus be to some extent explained. 



^ Zoologist, 1883, 116. " Irish Naturalist, 1900, 134. 



