THE SEROTINE. 205 



has seen specimens from the Isle of Wight and from Folkestone 

 which were of a decided greyish tinge, and of somewhat greater 

 size than usual. 



Further to the westward than the Isle of Wight, and perhaps 

 the opposite coast of Hampshire, we cannot hear of it, and all 

 attempts to discover this bat in the Midland counties or further 

 north have been hitherto unsuccessful. It is either not known, 

 or not distinguished from the Noctule. 



The only point north of London at which, so far as we are 

 aware, its occurrence has been noted, is Coggeshall, in N.E. 

 Essex. In a communication made to this journal in April, 1883 

 (Zool. 1883, p. 173), Mr. Miller Christy wrote as follows :— 

 "Although the bats found in the county of Essex have received 

 in the past a fair share of attention at the hands of Yarrell, 

 Doubleday, and Messrs. Joseph Clarke and Henry Laver, the 

 occurrence of the Serotine, F. serotinus, has not hitherto been 

 recorded, having perhaps been confounded with the Noctule. 

 I am glad therefore to be able to state that Mrs. Joseph Smith, 

 of Great Saling, has in her possession a specimen of this bat 

 which was shot more than twenty years ago [i. e. prior to 1863] 

 in the garden of Pittiswick Hall, near Coggeshall. It is so shrunk 

 through bad stuffing that it is useless to give its dimensions." 



There is said to be a specimen of the Serotine in the Museum 

 at Newcastle-on-Tyne, which was taken at Cleadon in 1836, and 

 presented by Mr. W. A. Swinburn (Meynell & Perkins, Cat. Mam. 

 Northumb. Trans. Tyneside Nat. Field Club, vol. vi. 1864, p. 164), 

 but it is more likely to be the Noctule, which is not included in 

 the same Catalogue. 



The specimen from which our illustration was taken was 

 kindly forwarded to us for identification by Mr. George Dowker, 

 of Stourmouth House, Wingham, Kent, on the 1st August, 1890, 

 having been shot in that neighbourhood the previous evening. 

 It was at once despatched to Mr. G. E. Lodge, who was thus 

 enabled to take its portrait while still in a perfectly fresh condi- 

 tion, a matter of no small importance. Should this figure (which 

 is on a much larger and more useful scale than that given by 

 Bell), and the accompanying remarks, enable some of our readers 

 to identify the species in districts where it has been undetected, 

 our chief object in penning these lines will have been gained, 

 and we shall hope to be made acquainted with the result. 



