NOTES AND QUERIES. 255 



Whiskered Bat in Carnarvonshire. — In the first week of June 

 I found a male Whiskered Bat, Vespertllio mystacinus, in a short tunnel 

 connected with some disused lead-mines near Abersoch. It was sleeping at 

 a distance of some twenty feet from the mouth of the tunnel, where there 

 was sufficient daylight to enable me to see it without lighting a candle. — 

 Charles Oldham (Komiley, Cheshire). 



Lesser Horseshoe Bat in Denbighshire. — On April 4th I was suc- 

 cessful in finding several specimens of the Lesser Horseshoe Bat, Rhino- 

 lophus hipposlderos, in the Cefu Caves, Denbighshire, and one in a cave at 

 Tremeirchion, Flintshire. I send you one of the former alive, and hope 

 you will receive it all right. — Charles Oldham (Romiley, Cheshire). 



[Unfortunately, when the Bat arrived we had left London to spend 

 Easter in Wiltshire, and on our return it was of course lifeless. — Ed.] 



birds. 



On the Specific Validity of Briinnich's Guillemot. — T do not 

 propose to enter here into the vexed question of what constitutes a species. 

 I simply record my experience and opinion. I have seen thousands and 

 tens of thousands of both Common and Briinnich's Guillemots. The latter 

 I have had abundant opportunities of studying closely, in North Greenland, 

 Spitsbergen, and Novaya Zemlya, and in various parts of the Arctic Seas. 

 I am well acquainted with the Common Guillemot from visiting many of 

 its breeding-places in the British Isles and the Fseroes. In the latter 

 group I have handled hundreds of Common Guillemots that had been 

 captured for food, and in the Arctic Regions I have examined hundreds of 

 Briinnich's Guillemots, shot for a similar purpose. After long and intimate 

 acquaintance with the two birds, I am left with the conviction that I never 

 saw a Common Guillemot that I could for an instant confound with a 

 Briinnich's Guillemot, nor an Uria Bruennichi that I could confound with 

 Uria troile. — H. W. Feilden (Wells, Norfolk). 



I was very much interested in Mr. Oxley Grabham's note on the 

 " Specific Validity of Briinnich's Guillemot," for I also have been puzzled 

 with birds occasionally thrown ashore in winter, not being able to satisfy 

 myself of their identity. I have found specimens on the Enniscrone sands 

 from time to time, and particularly one last winter, that in colour were quite 

 as pure a black on the upper parts as a Razorbill, quite unlike the ordi- 

 nary sooty brown colour of the Guillemot ; but not seeing any apparent 

 greater thickness in the bill, I could not look on it as a typical Briinnich's 

 Guillemot. Like Mr. Grabham, I have picked up specimens with the feet 

 varying in colour: so except for a marked thickness of bill, I cannot see 

 how the bird, if a good species, can be identified. — Robert Warren 

 (Moyvievv, Ballina, Co. Mayo). 



