224 VESPERTILIONID^— NYCTERIS 



different from that of a bird. Even where the latter are 

 concerned, the proportion of American visitors detected 

 may be infinitesimal as compared with those which escape 

 recognition ; but the chances that a bat should be discovered, 

 or even that it should survive its passage, are remote. 



Unfortunately, a new complication has arisen, and the 

 matter is not as clear as it might be. Wolley's original 

 specimen is said to be preserved in the University Museum 

 of Zoology at Cambridge, and I am indebted to the late 

 Professor Alfred Newton for bringing the fact under my 

 notice. There is evidently, however, something wrong, since 

 the specimen which now does duty for Wolley's belongs to a 

 species ^ having its habitat in the Sandwich Islands, and does 

 not agree with Wolley's very clear description. After so 

 many years it is impossible to explain the mystery. The 

 Cambridge specimen was dried and not skinned, and its condi- 

 tion would therefore suit the hypothesis that it was taken in 

 the Orkneys. But if so, it is an entirely unlikely species to 

 have arrived there alive, and doubtless never did so on its 

 own wings. On the other hand, it is known, as the Professor 

 informed me, that Wolley's brother, George, returned from 

 the Sandwich Islands in 1856, so that it is possible that he 

 brought this specimen with him, and that it was accidentally 

 substituted for the bat taken at South Ronaldshay. This 

 does not look an improbable solution, for John Wolley only 

 wrote the label in 1858, and, being evidently doubtful of his 

 information, he was careful to mark it with a note of interroga- 

 tion. But if so, it is difficult to understand why George 

 Wolley should have brought home an unskinned bat all the 

 way from the Sandwich Islands, and it is to be feared that 

 the matter cannot now be decided with certainty. 



Two other American bats, both easily recognisable species, 

 perform extensive migrations, and are at least as likely to 

 be blown over to this country as the present species, viz., the 

 Red Bat,^ and the Silver-haired Bat,^ but of these the latter, 

 at least, is stated to have powers of flight inferior to those of the 

 Hoary Bat. J 



' Nycteris semota (Allen). 2 ^_ borealis (Muller). 



^ Lasionycteris noctivagans (Le Conte). 



