Long-eared Bats 307 



so regularly do. From the marked difference in size 

 sometimes noticeable amongst individuals upon the wing, 

 it is very easy to understand how the species came to be 

 divided into two, the Greater and Lesser Long-eared Bats. 

 This difference must, I think, be due to age, rather than 

 sex, unless it constitutes a racial distinction, which does 

 not seem to be admitted, for the large individuals are 

 always bolder, and much swifter upon the wing, than small 

 ones ; they are, also, generally less numerous. I have 

 sometimes seen parties consisting entirely of one or the 

 other, and large specimens examined have generally been 

 paler in colour than small ones ; I have, however, seen 

 young ones, before they had left the nest, in which the fur 

 was of a mousy grey colour all over, without any shade 

 of red. 



A pair of Long-eared Bats had their abode in the chimney 

 of a house in the village, and as no crevice was visible on 

 the outside, I concluded that they must go down the chimney 

 for some distance, as swallows sometimes do, notwithstanding 

 the fact that smoke was constantly issuing from it. There 

 was no pot upon the stonework, and the entrance was fairly 

 wide. One of the old Bats had the misfortune to fall down 

 the chimney into the house ; and though it escaped the fire, 

 it succumbed to the injuries it had received in the catching, 

 as it flew about the room, before it was brought to me, 

 carried with the kitchen tongs. It was so carried by the 

 children, because they were afraid to touch it, their parents 

 believing the bite of any Bat to be poisonous, a lack of 

 knowledge which is excusable in persons of their position, 

 when there are still so many educated ladies, who abhor the 

 sight of the harmless creature flitting past them as much 

 as they dread the appearance of a mouse in their room. 

 The idea is that the Bat " will get into their hair " (about 

 the last place such a creature would wish to be in, one 

 would suppose), and " they would never be able to get it 

 out again " ! What the origin of the superstition (for it 

 is really nothing less) can have been, it is difficult to 

 imagine ; but as it exists over a large part of the country, 

 and was, I found, in 1906, being taught, as a fact, as part 



