CHIROPTERA 31 



the fact that no one had ever been able to find hibernating 

 individuals of this species in extreme northern countries. 

 Although this bat is believed to breed only in regions lying 

 approximately between 54° and 58° north latitude, it is observed 

 with its young, after the breeding season is over, as far north 

 as 68° or 70°. Blasius, therefore, assumed a change of habitat 

 of at least ten degrees of latitude. It wanders north, however, 

 only at an advanced season of the year, so that, since rough 

 weather sets in at the beginning of October, Blasius supposed 

 that the bats could not remain for more than six weeks before 

 returning to their winter quarters in the south. Corroboration 

 of these facts is highly desirable, especially since the supposed 

 summer migration of the Eastern Pipistrelle ^ to central Europe 

 and Sweden turns out to rest on an error of identification, this 

 bat having been confused with another non-migratory species.^ 



Similar instances, although in different countries, are on 

 record. The Euryale Horseshoe* is plentiful in summer in 

 central France, but Messrs Rollinat and Trouessart in the 

 course of many years' bat-hunting have never once detected it 

 between the months of October and June. If it does not 

 migrate south to pass the winter, it must retire to the depths of 

 caverns which are inaccessible to man — a somewhat unlikely 

 alternative when it is remembered how intermittent is the winter 

 sleep of bats. Farther south Macpherson * believed that in April 

 1 89 1 he saw a small flock of large bats migrating through one of 

 the passes of the Pyrenees, at which point the available evidence 

 ends. Mention must, however, be made of Mr A. H. Howell's 

 suggestion that when migrating bats fly high and by day.^ 



The breeding habits of bats have been but little studied 

 by British naturalists, who have recorded merely isolated 

 observations, from which it would be impossible to piece 

 together a connected history. Continental zoologists^ have, 



■ Piptstrellus abramus. ^ P. nathudi. ^ Rhinolophus euryale. 



« Lakeland, 1892, I. ^ Infra, p. 223. 



8 B. Benecke, Zoologischer Anzeiger, ii., 1879, 304-305 {piptstrellus and auritus): 

 Eimer, op. cit, 425-426 {twctula and pipistrellus) : E. van Beneden and C. Julin, 

 Archives de Biologie, i., 1880, 551-571, pls. xxii. and xxiii. {daubentoni, dasycneme, 

 myosoHs, mystacinus, natlereri, emarginatus) : O. Van Stricht, Anatomischer Anzeiger, 

 xix., Suppl., 1901, 208-210 {noctula, pipistrellus, myosotis): Fries, Ueber die Fort- 

 pflanzung der enheimischen Chiropteren, Nachrichten, K. Gesellsch. der Wissensch, 

 Univ. GotHngen, 1879, 295-298, {noctula, pipistrellus, nathusii, abramus, serotinus. 



