THE WHISKERED BAT i6i 



In Scotland this bat has been taken twice — in the first instance 

 by Hardy, on the road to Pitlochry, about four miles from Ran- 

 noch, Perth, in June 1874. The specimen, which is in the Owens 

 College Museum, Manchester, long lay unrecorded, but, happening 

 to attract the attention of Kelsall, was by him mentioned to Harting 

 and alluded to by the latter writer {pp. cit., 165), a clue which 

 enabled W. Evans to work out its entire history {Mammalian Fauna, 

 Edinburgh District, 23-24). For the second record we are again 

 indebted to the activity of Evans, who received from George Pow an 

 example taken at Dunbar, Haddington, on 20th March 1893 {Ann. 

 Scott. Nat. Hist., 1893, 146). No other Scotch specimens are known, 

 Millais' allusion to a third record being an error, so there is as yet 

 no means of estimating the exact status of this species in North 

 Britain. 



In Ireland the species was first taken by J. R. Kinahan, by whom 

 one, caught by a cat at Treakle, Co. Clare, in August 1852, was 

 presented to the Dublin Natural History Society, in February 1853 

 {Nat. Hist. Review (Dublin), i., 24, 1854; see also, vi., 383, 1859). This 

 was at first recorded as an example of AT. daiibeyitoni, but the mistake 

 was corrected at a meeting of the same Society on 12th May 1854 

 {Nat. Hist. Review (Dublin), i., 148, 1854). In 1897 {Irish Naturalist, 38- 

 39) Jameson was able to add the counties of Fermanagh and Louth as 

 within its habitat, it having been taken in three separate localities 

 within the former county, and being, in his own experience, prob- 

 ably not uncommon in the latter. It has since been detected in 

 Dublin (Welland, /(3Z^r;2. cit., 1898, 272; AXcock, Journ. cit., 1899, 57). 

 including Lambay Island (Baring, Journ. cit., 1907, 19) : Down (Lett, 

 Proc. Belfast Nat. Field Club, 20th March 1900; R. Patterson, Irish 

 Naturalist, 1900, 162): Wexford iJAo^dX, Journ. cit., 1902, 103; Barrett- 

 Hamilton, Journ. cit., 1908, 207) : and Carlow (Pack Beresford, Jourji. 

 cit., 1906, 16); in most cases more than once in the same county, a 

 fact which, as in the case of so many other species, seems to indicate 

 defective human knowledge rather than rarity. 



M. mystacinus is found in the Yorkshire hills to a height of 1400 feet 

 in the Washburn Valley (Storey, MSS.), and in Cheshire it ascends to 

 heights little inferior in the Longdendale and Goyt Valleys, as I am 

 informed by Coward and Oldham. 



Distribution in time : — See under M. da?ibentoni. 



The period of gestation is unknown, and the number of young, in 

 Britain at least, is believed not to exceed one, usually born in June or July. 



Description : — The general form and appearance of this bat are 

 those of its genus, exclusive of the group Leuconoe, and it is thus readily 

 distinguished from the Pipistrelle, than which it is larger. It is smaller 

 than M. daubentoni. 



