COMMON BAT, PIPISTRELLE OR FLITTER-MOUSE 113 



abundant is it that it is often easy to have several bats in view 

 at the same moment, and so familiar that, as far as the dusk 

 will permit, the shape of the wings — despite the extreme 

 rapidity of their motion — may be traced with the eye. The 

 interfemoral membrane appears to be extended nearly horizon- 

 tally, the ears are distinctly visible, and certain indefinable lumps 

 on the wings in front and behind suggest the thumbs and feet, 

 the latter, as far as I can make out, carried projecting backwards. 



It must not be thought, however, that this bat is by 

 any means entirely confined to a lowly or monotonous flight. 

 Sometimes, as R. F. Tomes noticed, it accompanies Daubenton's 

 Bat in its water-patrols, occasionally dipping its nose in 

 the liquid to slake its thirst. At other times, as Mr T. A. 

 Coward informs me, it flutters slow and moth-like around 

 the tops of trees, its wings appearing on such occasions 

 much broader than usual. Its appearance to Mr William 

 Evans, while out wild-fowl shooting amongst the sand-hills 

 of Aberlady Bay, Haddingtonshire, indicates that it may travel 

 to considerable distances in search of food, and may even find 

 its way out to sea, since Mr R. M. Barrington^ reports that 

 one was found dead on the Arklow South Lightship, some 

 miles off the south-eastern coast of Ireland, on 21st September 

 1898. Possibly this particular bat had been blown out to sea, 

 since we have no evidence that the species is migratory. 



As the autumn evenings darken, the Pipistrelle issues forth 

 each night at an earlier hour,^ but its hibernation, at least in 

 the southern districts both of England and Ireland, is a very 

 uncertain and evidently a perfunctory affair. Although, in the 

 north, in all probability, many individuals enter upon their 

 winter sleep before the end of October, there is in the south 

 no night of the year on which, should the weather be pro- 

 pitious, this species or the Whiskered Bat may not be found 

 abroad. These winter flights have often been noticed. 

 Jonathan Couch ^ kept a day-to-day record of them in Corn- 

 wall in the years 1852-53, and Jenyns concluded that they are 

 more frequent before than after Christmas. 



' The Migration of Birds, 284 (R. H. Porter, London, 1900). 

 ^ For some notes of the time of appearance, relative to sunset, see Fauna of 

 Cheshire, 12. 



3 Zoologist, 1853, 3936-3943- 



