£HE MAMMALIAN FAUNA OF CHESHIRE. 167 



common bat in the district," and Mr. Newstead also states that 

 it is the commonest species. Personally we have only obtained 

 the Pipistrelle in Dunham Park, where it is abundant. It appears 

 about the same time in the evening as the Noctule, and generally 

 flies low under the trees, although Coward has shot it flying 

 round the tops of high beeches. 



V, noctula (Schreb.) ; Noctule ; Great Bat ; Fox Bat. — Pro- 

 bably common wherever there is old timber. Byerley states that 

 " Mr. Mather remembers having stuffed specimens taken from 

 Birkenhead Abbey many years ago, before the additional building. 

 Once or twice from other localities. If now in the neighbour- 

 hood it is very scarce"; but Mr. Newstead says it is " common 

 and generally distributed." There is a specimen in the Grosvenor 

 Museum, Chester, from Manley, dated 1889. We have seen 

 Noctules on the wing at Lymm, Hatchmere, Mouldsworth, Higher 

 Peover, and Capesthorne, and have obtained specimens from 

 Timperley, Knutsford, and Dunham Park. In this last locality, 

 where it is exceedingly plentiful, it spends the day in the cavities 

 of the old oaks, which abound in the park, and usually leaves 

 these resting-places about forty minutes after sunset. At first 

 these bats fly very high, squeaking and chasing one another 

 around and above the tree-tops. During summer they frequent 

 the open glades, generally flying high ; but towards the middle of 

 September they resort in great numbers to the water-meadows by 

 the river Bollin, flying up and down alongside the park-wall, 

 often not more than ten or twelve feet from the ground. When 

 shooting at them they will often suddenly dart down and almost 

 touch the muzzle of the gun. On dissecting two Noctules which 

 Mr. G. O. Day sent us, taken from a house-roof in Knutsford on 

 March 19th, 1894, we found a mass of half-digested beetles and 

 flies in their stomachs, from which it was inferred that they 

 had been recently on the wing. In Cheshire we have not seen 

 this species later than Sept. 18th, though Coward has observed 

 it in Derbyshire on the 22nd of that month, and in Surrey on 

 Oct. 1st. 



Vespertilio daubentonii, Leisler ; Daubenton's Bat.— Occurs in 

 several localities, and is probably generally distributed. Byerley 

 states that nine out of two or three dozen were taken by Mr. 

 Nicholas Cooke, of Warrington, from their lurking-place in a 

 hollow tree in Delamere Forest, and one of them was identified by 



