214 VESPERTILIONID^— BARBASTELLA 



Jenyns knew of its occurrence in Cambridge ^ and Northampton ; Lord 

 Lilford in the latter county {Journ. cit,. 1894, 187), and in Hunting- 

 don {Journ. ciL, 1894, 395); Steele Elliott in Bedford; and Montagu 

 Browne in Leicester (y(9?/r«. aV., 1885, 215). Tomes found it not very 

 rare, although by no means abundant, in Warwick. Upton-on-Severn, 

 Arrow near Alcester, and Weston-on-Avon are mentioned as Wor- 

 cester localities (Jenkinson,/(??^r/^. cit., 1857, 5590, see also Tomes). North 

 of the Wash, Caton Haigh's description {Journ. cit., 1887, 144) of a " rather 

 large dark-coloured Bat," frequently observed " flying low over grass- 

 land, so low as only just to clear the higher stalks of grass . . ." mov- 

 ing " heavily with slow flaps of its wings, and . . . generally seen in the 

 neighbourhood of trees " — suggests this species as a regular member of 

 the Lincoln fauna. A male in the British Museum, labelled Cheshire 

 but without further data (cited as a female by Dobson, Catalogue 

 of Chiroptera, 177), and two examples captured near Carlisle, are the 

 only known specimens from the north of England. The latter are 

 stated by Macpherson to have been skinned for T. C. Heysham ; after 

 his death they were purchased by Bond, in whose house Macpherson 

 examined them in March 1886, Since August 1889 they have been in 

 the possession of Harting, who writes me that the details given above 

 are confirmed by Bond's own handwriting on the labels. 



The species was not known from Wales until, on 13th June 1904, Rev. 

 D. E. Owen sent two for identification to Forrest from Llanelwedd, near 

 Builth, on the Brecknock border of Radnor : they proved to be members 

 of a definite and well-established colony (Forrest, Zoologist, 1904, 262; 

 Trans. Caradoc and Severn Valley Field Club, iv., i, 52-54, 1905, Jan. 1906). 



The interpretation of the records is a matter of some difficulty, but 

 the fact that the bat is well-known, although not abundant, in Essex, 

 Norfolk, and Warwick ; that it has definite colonies in Somerset and 

 Worcester ; and has been taken at intervals within the area of every 

 county south of the Wash and east of the Dee, suggests that further 

 observation will show it to be widely distributed in small numbers, at 

 least within the above limits, with outposts beyond them, as in mid- 

 Wales. The record from Carlisle may point to a gradual extension of 

 range or to wandering habits : Macpherson attributed it, although with- 

 out definite grounds, to migration. There is nothing in the bat's 

 European distribution to suggest any inherent improbability of its 

 occurrence in the north of England or even in Scotland. 



Distribution in time : — This bat is not known as a fossil. 



The breeding habits are unknown. 



Description : — The general form and appearance of this remarkable 

 bat are typically those of its genus. 



The ear (Fig. 2, No. 9, p. 7) when stretched forward reaches slightly 



^ A record recently confirmed by A. Whitaker, who examined two caught at 

 Faversham on 17th May 1910 {^Naturalist, 1910, 424). 



