DAUBENTON'S, OR THE WATER BAT 155 



27th April/ Mr Oldham tells me that he has seen it on 

 the wing in Cheshire on the 19th, and Mr Barrington's 

 Lucifer Shoals specimen was caught on the 21st of the 

 same month. Mr Moffat finds it abroad in Ireland at least 

 from 29th March to 29th October, on one occasion with 

 a temperature so low as 42° Fahrenheit, and, judging from 

 its northern distribution in continental Europe, the bat ought 

 to be at least as hardy as the Pipistrelle ; in fact, faecal matter 

 was found by Mr Oldham in the intestines of one taken at 

 Alderley Edge, Cheshire, on 5th December 1894. 



All observers agree that when on the wing this species is 

 silent, but it uses its voice freely for some little time before 

 commencing its evening flight, or when annoyed. Mr Caton 

 Haigh ^ writes of its notes as "very weak and shrill, some- 

 times prolonged into a sort of chatter." Mr Oldfield Thomas 

 thinks them of particularly high tone, while Mr Whitaker noticed 

 of a newly born one that its utterances were very soft and 

 musical, so faint that they were hardly audible at a distance of 

 a foot. 



Daubenton's Bat, like others of its genus, is not known to 

 produce more than one young one at a birth, and it were well 

 to have confirmation of Monsieur Henri Gadeau de Kerville's 

 statement, that the number is even rarely two.^ The earliest 

 young are probably born in June, the latest in July. Kinahan 

 states that one of the females taken at Tankardstown Bridge 

 in the last week of June contained a large embryo. He 

 makes no mention of the other females taken at the same 

 time, so that we are left to suppose that either they were 

 not examined, or that their young had already been born. 

 Mr F. Coburn^ took a large embryo almost ready for birth 

 from the body of a female taken on 14th June. Mr 

 Whitaker had a young one born in captivity^ on the igth,^ 

 while Messrs Coward and Oldham, on the 28th, received two 

 fledglings, as well as an adult female, recently a mother. 



^ Journ. Birmingham Nat. Hist, and Philosoph. Soc.^ Jan. and Feb, 1896, II., i., 7. 



2 Zoologist, 1887, 293. 



3 Faune de la Normandie, i., 149 : Paris, 1888, * Zoologist, 1892, 403. 



^ In an instance observed by Professor R. Collett, the mother hung head down- 

 wards {in lit.). 



^ Naturalist, March 1907, 74 : unfortunately this bat died almost immediately. 



