176 VESPERTILIONID^— MYOTIS 



respects it approaches nearer to Natterer's, but the cih'ated posterior 

 margin of the interfemoral membrane and the relatively longer tragus 

 of the latter are diagnostic. Its closest ally is, perhaps, M. myosotis of 

 continental Europe, a much larger bat, with relatively shorter ear, 

 cigar- not sickle-shaped tragus, and wing arising slightly above the 

 base of the toes. 



This handsome and striking species is probably the 

 rarest of undoubtedly British bats, and was for long known in 

 this country solely from a specimen now in the British Museum, 

 taken in the New Forest before 1837 by Millard. Its occur- 

 rence in this locality was verified by Mr E. W. H. Blagg, 

 who in a somewhat laconic note,^ written two years after the 

 event, described his good fortune in having in July 1886 

 discovered a colony of about a dozen in a hole made by a 

 woodpecker. Of these he secured two, and has since presented 

 them to the British Museum. Another, an old male, was shot 

 by Mr W. C. Ruskin Butterfield near Normanhurst, Battle, 

 Sussex, on 28th July 1896.^ This bat was examined by 

 the late Sir William Flower, and was lent to the Corpora- 

 tion Museum at Hastings in 1898. Unfortunately it has 

 been mislaid, and is not at the present time forthcoming ; Mr 

 Butterfield writes me that he fears that it has been acciden- 

 tally destroyed. Then, in March 1901, Mr J. G. Millais found 

 an adult male in Mr Heatley Noble's chalk cavern near 

 Henley-on-Thames.^ Lastly, on 31st July 1909, Mr Percy 

 Wadham captured an adult male near Newport, in the Isle 

 of Wight.* It was sent to Mr H. G. Jeffery for preservation, 

 and was identified by that gentleman and by him sent to the 

 British Museum for verification, with a female taken by Mr 

 Wadham at the same place on 14th August. I am indebted 

 to the owner and to Mr Jeffery for the opportunity of examin- 

 ing these two bats, which have been set up by Mr Jeffery for 

 Mr Wadham's collection. Other British records have proved 

 to be erroneous, viz., that of two examples taken at Preston, 

 near Brighton, and identified with this species by Frederick 



' Zoologist, 1888, 260. 2 Sussex, i., 301. 



^ In Berkshire, not Oxfordshire (see A. H. Cocks, Zoologist, 1910, 74). 

 * Recorded by J. E. Harting, Field, 20th Nov. 1909, 889 ; and by J. E. Kelsall, 

 Zoologist, 1 9 10, 30. 



