Whitakcr: The Flight of Bats. 381 



any other species. It is quite aquatic in its habits, and where 

 it occurs, must be looked for fifty minutes to an hour after 

 sunset, frequenting- canals, large ponds, reservoirs, and still 

 stretches of river, or water generally. 



It flies with a slow, straight, and tremulous sort of flight up 

 and down over the surface of the water, seldom rising above a 

 few inches from it, and ever and anon actually dipping lightly, 

 and causing a little ring of widening circles marking the point 

 where it touched. These dips are so frequent that they appear 

 to be made for the purpose of picking insects from the surface 

 of the water rather than for that of drinking. When dipping, 

 tlie wings of the bat are raised motionless over the bat, at a V 

 angle. When several of these bats are frequenting a sheet or 

 stretch of water, they seem usually to keep fairly close together 

 in a small party. On a long stretch of water they will travel 

 for a considerable distance before retracing their flight, and 

 thus they often pass one place going in a certain direction, and 

 do not return, coming the opposite way, for many minutes. 

 They can only be seen clearly where the light of the sky is 

 reflected in the water, and it frequently happens that the shadow 

 or reflection in the water is more conspicuous by far than the 

 bat itself. They are practically invisible when flying where the 

 water reflects trees, etc. I have netted this bat as it approached 

 near to the side of the water to prove positively that it was 

 Daubenton's bat which flew in this manner. When knocked 

 into the water accidentally with the net, it will lie still on the 

 surface for a second or two, and then jump out with a clean 

 spring and fly away. This is a very quiet bat, seldom making 

 any audible noise when flying, and there is something par- 

 ticularly eerie in its manner of wandering slowly and silently 

 over the still surface of the water. 



Nothing could very well be more misleading than the opening 

 remarks on the habits of the Long-eared Bat {Plecotiis aiiritus) 

 made by Mr. Lydekker in his ' Handbook to the British 

 Mammalia,' where he refers to this species as ' essentially a bat 

 of the open country, and not resorting to the neighbourhood of 

 trees and plantations.' It would be difficult to write anything 

 more contradictory to my experience or the experience of most 

 people who have observed this interesting and common little 

 bat. 



It is fond of trees, and feeds principally among their 

 branches, and in the day time may often be found resting in 

 crannies of their trunks, or behind pieces of sprung bark in the 



J906 November i. 



