DAUBENTON'S, OR THE WATER BAT 149 



known haunt at Christchurch, Hampshire, and who describes 

 its flight with accuracy, was not aware of its distinctness from 

 the Pipistrelle, and the same remark is probably true also 

 of Gilbert White,^ who once met with " myriads of bats " on 

 the Thames between Richmond and Sunbury. Fleming, who 

 obtained it in Fifeshire, and Jenyns, who procured one from 

 Milton Park, Northamptonshire, supposed that they had before 

 them the Notch-eared Bat,^ a species said by its describer 

 to have been obtained near Dover by A. Brongniart, while 

 an albinic example from Durham was believed to be a new 

 species' by Jenyns. Yarrell possessed three taken at Islington, 

 and it was from a study of these, together with others belonging 

 to Jenyns, that Bell was led to add the present species definitely 

 to the British list. Yet the Water Bat was for years regarded 

 as one of the rarest of British Chiroptera, whereas we now 

 know it to be, in its own peculiar haunts, one of the com- 

 monest and most widely distributed of them all ; indeed, the 

 late R. F. Tomes wrote that at certain spots on the Avon, 

 near Stratford, there could not have been fewer than one to 

 every square yard, and this abundance extended over a very 

 considerable space. 



So peculiar are the vespertinal habits of this species, that 

 although it is locally abundant, an ordinary observer may be 

 quite unconscious of its existence. It is essentially aquatic, 

 if such an expression be applicable to an animal which never 

 enters the water. It haunts that element continually, flying 

 so close to it that it is difficult to distinguish between the 

 creature itself and its reflection. The flight, quivering and 

 slow, is performed by very slight but rapid strokes of the 

 wings ; it may, indeed, be said to vibrate, rather than to fly, 

 over the water. It could not well fly in any other manner so 

 near the surface without often striking it, and this it seldom, 

 or perhaps never, does, although it often pauses to dip its 

 nose into the liquid, whether to drink or to pick up some 

 floating food, has never been ascertained with certainty. Mr 

 G. H. Caton Haigh,* however, was on one occasion so for- 



' Letter xi. to Pennant, dated 9th Sept. 1767, original edit., 1789, 32. 

 ^ V. emarginatus of Geoffroy. ^ VespertiUo mdilis. 



* Zoologist, 1889, 434. 



O 2 



