BATS. 27 



THE PIPISTRELLE, COMMON BAT, FLUTTER-MOUSE, 

 or RERE-MOUSE. (Vespertilio pipistrellus.}* 



The common bat is two inches and three-quarters in length 

 from the head to the tail, and eight inches and one-third in the 

 extent of its membranes. Mr. Jenyns says, that in young 

 specimens the fur is entirely of a dusky brown or brownish 

 grey, in some instances almost black, without any tinge of red, 

 which appears to come afterwards, and to increase in intensity 

 with the animal's age and size. 



During the warmer season of the year, this bat comes forth 

 every evening ; but during the severity of winter, it remains in 

 a state of torpidity. 



The usual places of retirement, during the day-time, of those 

 bats which fly about our dwellings, are under the roofs of 

 houses, or behind the leaden water-pipes, or in the crevices of 

 old brick walls; but those which live in unpopulated places 

 remain, during that time and the winter, in the hollows of old 

 trees and in caverns. That they conceal themselves naturally in 

 the hollows of trees would be proved, in the absence of all other 

 evidence, by the circumstance of their having been often found 

 dead inside timber when it has been sawn through. Mr. Jesse 

 says, that ten bats were found some time since in an old tree 



* In most zoological works, our common bat is erroneously called the 

 Vespertilio murinus of Linnaeus, which, in fact, is very rare in Britain (having 

 been caught only in the garden of the British Museum), although it is common 

 on the Continent. The Rev. L. Jenyns, a zealous and acute zoologist, has 

 satisfactorily proved, however, that the common bat of Great Britain is the 

 Vespertilio pipistrellus, described by Geoffroy, Desmarest, Daubenton, Buffon, 

 Kuhl, and other foreign naturalists. J. H. F. 



