COMMON BAT, PIPISTRELLE OR FLITTER-MOUSE 119 



he saw, and, perhaps, thought that bats passing close to the 

 wall were returning to their den. The probable truth of the 

 matter is that neither the Pipistrelle nor any other bat is 

 absolutely tied down to habit, but we may be quite sure that its 

 flight is continued off and on throughout the night. That inter- 

 ruptions may be frequent is averred by Mr Arthur Whitaker, who 

 assures me that he has more than once observed a short day- 

 break flight in this species, a fact which I can myself corro- 

 borate, having on one occasion observed a Pipistrelle active for 

 about five minutes just before sunrise. It is quite likely that in 

 inclement weather, or where there is a large colony, the bats 

 may come and go throughout the night, perhaps to visit and 

 feed their young or to devour more safely some large insect. 



The Pipistrelle is by no means fastidious in its choice of a 

 place of concealment. No kind of crevice, crack, or aperture, 

 whether of tree or building, within or without, comes amiss to 

 it, and in such places it lives either singly or, more particularly 

 in summer, in large parties, the membership of which is not 

 always restricted to its own species ; it has no objection to the 

 noisy companionship, of man in the neighbourhood of its 

 sleeping-place. The inside of an old and disused wooden 

 pump has on occasion furnished a somewhat remarkable 

 resting-place, a bat having been seen to emerge from the 

 spout. It has been asserted that trees are much less frequented 

 by this species than by some others, but, apart from Mr 

 Moffat's experience, instances are known of its having been 

 discovered hiding behind pieces of loose bark and amongst 

 ivy. The bats sometimes show a preference for some par- 

 ticular retreat; thus Mr Oldham informs me that on i6th 

 June 1888, he took an adult male from behind a window- 

 shutter at a farmhouse in Wisbech Fen, Cambridgeshire. On 

 the 1 8th he found an adult female on the wall in precisely the 

 same spot, and on the 19th and 21st two other Pipistrelles, 

 also adult females. 



If there be any situation to which this bat apparently 

 objects it is to the interior of caves, resting within which, so 

 far as I am aware, it has been but rarely detected, although 

 Mr Coward has found it in secluded rock crevices just outside 

 a cave. It was not amongst the species found by Dr E. A. 



