loo BRITISH MAMMALS 



other species of bats. It is gregarious with its fellows, but very- 

 quarrelsome. In combats which take place amongst these bats, 

 much damage is done by the sharp teeth, strong jaws, and the 

 stout hooks of the thumbs. These combats result in the wing 

 membranes being torn to rags, and even the long arm bones 

 being broken. Moreover, Mr. Lydekker records that specimens 

 of this bat kept in India, in confinement, attacked, killed, and ate 

 their weaker comrades. 



The Common Continental Bat is supposed to have been captured 

 in a Bloomsbury garden in the early part of the nineteenth 

 century, and it is thought that the British type in the posses- 

 sion of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington is 

 one of the bats caught in the vicinity of the British Museum 

 in Bloomsbury. Only one other certain instance occurs of its 

 presence in England — about fifteen years ago, in Cambridge- 

 shire ' — though it has been reported, on probably mistaken 

 evidence, to exist in Dorsetshire and the Isle of Wight. It is 

 such a common bat in France, that, as it is quite able to fly 

 across the Channel at its narrowest, there is no reason why it 

 should not be found in the south of England. It is met with 

 in most parts of Europe and in North Africa, and over the 

 greater part of Temperate Asia. This bat is the Vespertilio 

 murinus of Blasius, Dobson, Lydekker, and other authorities 

 prior to 1898. It is now re-named Myotis myotis. 



Myotis mystacinus. The Whiskered Bat 



This is very nearly as small a bat as the pipistrelle. The 

 length of the head and body is a little over ij in., and the 

 tail is a little less than i^ in. The ears are slightly shorter 

 than the head. Their outer margins develop a notch (through 

 the jutting outwards of the outer fold) not unlike that which is 

 seen in the species next to be described. The tragus is erect and 

 somewhat pointed, and a little more than half the length of the 



1 This specimen has been identified by Mr. J. Lewis Bonhote, to whom 

 I owe the information. 



