LEISLER'S BAT 99 



to fall back upon Blasius' statement, that in Germany it is 

 pregnant in June, and that the young may be seen flying 

 with their parents before autumn. Tomes ^ examined two 

 females each containing one foetus, and another now in the pos- 

 session of Mr Barrington, and taken at Crum Castle, County 

 Fermanagh, Ireland, in June, had attached to her a single 

 young one ; so that it is probable that, as with the Noctule, 

 whatever may be the case in Germany, the number of young 

 in Britain is usually one. 



Again, as regards the relative numbers of the sexes and 

 their association or separation when in hibernation, there is 

 nothing to add to what has already been stated in the article 

 on the Noctule. A party of six females, found by Mr Whitaker ^ 

 in a hollow tree in Yorkshire on 22nd August, may be supposed 

 to have just finished rearing their young. 



The habits of Leisler's Bat, or of its representatives, would 

 appear to differ somewhat in the different parts of its range. 

 Thus, in Germany, according to Blasius, it may be observed 

 on the wing in the shade of thick woods, where it always flies 

 at mid-day ; a remark which is fully borne out by the series of 

 the Azorean form' obtained by Messrs W. R. Ogilvie-Grant 

 and the Hon. N. C. Rothschild, and which were shot while 

 flying in or near pine-woods, between the hours of noon and 

 dusk, and frequently in bright sunshine. No similar observa- 

 tion has been recorded for Britain, except that of Mr P. E. 

 Freke,* who near Milltown Bridge, County Dublin, at half-past 

 ten o'clock on the morning of 22nd June 1881 watched 

 a bat (which from his description could not well have been of 

 any species other than the present) hawking for flies on the 

 river Dodder, in company with numbers of swallows and swifts. 



British naturalists who take an interest in mammals should 

 search carefully -for this mysterious bat, which even a practised 

 observer finds difficult to distinguish from the Noctule when 

 on the wing. Mr Coward, one of the few English naturalists 

 since Tomes who has had opportunities of comparing the 

 two, informs me that its flight is slower and more erratic 

 than that of the dashing and rapid Noctule, but even he is not 



' Zoologist, 1854, 4365. ^ Naturalist, 1907, 385-6. 



^ N. azoreum. * Zoologist, 1882, 16. 



