THE GREATER HORSE-SHOE BAT 



The tail is usually kept in a recurved position over the back and 

 with its membrane does not serve as a pouch when a beetle or other large 

 insect is grappled, as with most other Bats. Mr. T. A. Coward, who has 

 devoted much time to the study of these animals, observed that the Greater 

 Horse-shoe on such occasions uses instead the wing membrane as a kind 

 of bag. 



The teeth are thirty-two in number. 



The Greater Horse-shoe Bat is widely distributed over the temperate 

 parts of Europe, is found also in North Africa, and ranges eastwards to the 

 Himalayas, China, and Japan. In the British Islands it is distinctly a 

 southern species and unknown in Scotland and Ireland. 



It appears to be confined chiefly to the southern and south-western 

 counties in England and to certain parts of Wales. According to Major 

 Barrett- Hamilton [A History of "British Mammals, part v. p. 230) the most 

 northerly record for England is Whitchurch, near Ross, Hereford, while 

 more to the eastwards specimens have been taken in Berkshire, and Mr. De 

 Winton, as Mr. Millais states, has on several occasions seen it hawking for 

 food in the Zoological Gardens of London. It is fairly numerous in 

 Devonshire, Somersetshire, Gloucester and Hampshire, including the Isle 

 of Wight. 



Dr. Latham was the first to discover the Greater Horse-shoe Bat in 

 England, when he captured one in the powder-mills at Dartford, Kent, an 

 account of which was first published by Pennant in the fourth edition of his 

 'British Zoology in 1776. Kent's Hole, Torquay, has long been known as 

 a resort of this species, and among other places there is a colony under the 

 roof of Wells Cathedral, whence I obtained the specimen for the Plate. 



As a retreat, this Bat loves the darkness and obscurity of natural caverns, 

 underground workings in limestone, or sometimes recesses in old buildings. 

 Describing its flight, Mr. Millais says {Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland, 



3 



