THE GREATER HORSESHOE BAT 243 



deserting the caves in which it has spent the winter, and 

 installing itself in small parties in churches and deserted mills. 

 After an hibernation uncertain and liable to interruption by 

 any unusually warm days, it issues forth on mild March days, 

 and frequents, with low and clumsy flight, with momentary 

 accelerations, the corners of woods and parks, the sides of high 

 hedges, or the courses of winding streams and rivers. 



Similarly, in England the bats probably do not hibernate, 

 at least in any strict sense of the word, but are active, and feed 

 whenever the weather is mild, and even in time of frost may 

 shift their positions within the caves, both when disturbed and 

 on their own initiative ; in winter they prefer a position at 

 some distance from the entrance. On these points Mr Coward 

 writes that not only did they change their position, but 

 that colonies which he visited on several occasions gradually 

 diminished in numbers and finally disappeared, having appar- 

 ently been disturbed by his presence, though the bats themselves 

 were not actually molested ; one colony consisted of forty on 

 29th December; on the 31st, when visited after sundown, 

 it contained only eight, and two of these flew out of their 

 own accord. On 3rd January the spot was unoccupied, and 

 no bats made use of this particular position during the four 

 following days on which he was able to watch them. Another 

 colony, consisting of two companies of twelve and eight respec- 

 tively, was two days later reduced to ten, and on the following 

 day to four. A third colony of forty or fifty was similarly reduced 

 on a second visit. Mr Coward found that the bats, at the end 

 of December and beginning of January, were not hibernating ; 

 they woke without artificial stimulus in the caves, took wing, and 

 actually left the caves of their own accord, apparently to feed. 

 Messrs Coward and Oldham watched bats emerge from a hole 

 in one cave, and pass out between 4.40 p.m. and 5.20 p.m. on 

 5th January, and Mr Cummings observed the same thing at 

 Barnstaple, Devonshire, in December and January. 



Mr Coward's notes, although prolonged a week further 

 by Mr Cummings's^ experience near Barnstaple, extend only 

 to 1 6th January. Detailed records for the succeeding months 

 are not yet available, but Couch's account of a Greater 



' Zoologist^ 1907? 288-294. 



