46 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



connecting the hind-legs with its posterior margin fringed 

 with stiff hairs ; tail as long as the head and body. Fur very 

 long and dense, on the upper-parts dark brown with light 

 reddish tips ; on the under surface, darker at the base, with 

 the terminal third of the hairs white. Length of head and 

 body about ii inch ; of the tail the same. 



The fringed inter-femoral membrane serves to distinguish the 

 Reddish-grey Bat not only from all the other British species, 

 but likewise from all other members of the genus, with the 

 exception of the West African Welwitsch's Bat, which is re- 

 markable for its orange-and-black wings. 



Distribution. The Reddish-grey Bat seems to be an exclu- 

 sively European species, ranging from Ireland in the west to 

 the Ural Mountains in the east, and from the southern 

 districts of Sweden in the north to the Alps in the south. In 

 England, although somewhat local, it appears to be not un- 

 common in several of the southern and midland counties, but 

 seems to get scarcer as we go north. It is recorded by Bell 

 from near London, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Kent, 

 and Norfolk; Mr. Montagu Browne notes its presence in 

 Leicestershire ; and in the Lake District a colony was dis- 

 covered, according to the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, in the 

 summer of 1886, in an old outhouse at Castletown. In the 

 second edition of Bell's "British Quadrupeds," this species 

 was said to be unknown in Scotland, but there is a specimen 

 in the British Museum from Inverary, Argyllshire, presented 

 by the Duke of Argyll, showing that the statement in question 

 is incorrect. In Ireland it has been taken at least in the 

 counties of Dublin, Cork, Longford, and Wicklow, but is very 

 rare. 



Habits. When on the wing above the observer's head, this 

 Bat may be easily recognised by the light colour of its under- 

 parts ; its whole coloration being, indeed, of a lighter shade 



