. ( 271 ) 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Natterer's Bat in Co. Donegal. — On the 12th June T found a 

 specimen of this bat lying dead on a stone coping by a pond close to my 

 hall-door. To make certain of the species, I forwarded it Mr. A. G. More, 

 and presented it to the Dublin Museum. Acknowledging the receipt of it, 

 Mr. More informed me that he had once received a specimen of this bat 

 from Co. Cork a few years ago, and that previously it was only known in 

 Ireland from a specimen procured in Co. Dublin. Donegal now makes 

 the third Irish county in which it has been obtained. — H. Chichester 

 Hart (Carrablagh, Co. Donegal). 



[Our correspondent has overlooked several other Irish localities in 

 Wicklow, Kildare, Queen's Co., and Cork, mentioned in an article on this 

 species which was published with a life-sized figure of it in ' The Zoologist ' 

 for 1889, pp. 241— 248.— Ed.] 



BIRDS. 



The Wood Warbler in the Midlands.— In Mr. Montagu Browne's 

 book on the Birds of Leicestershire and Rutland (noticed in * The Zoologist,' 

 1890, p. 116), the Wood Warbler, Phylloscopus sibilatrix, is characterised 

 as "a much rarer bird in the Midlands than is supposed," and Mr. Browne 

 adds (p. 57) that he has not seen a specimen for five-and-twenty years. If 

 so, either his opportunities for observation have been very limited, or he has 

 failed to distinguish the Wood Wren from the Willow Wren. When 

 viewed from a little distance, if the birds are silent, these two species, from 

 their resemblance in size and colour, may perchance be confounded ; but 

 no one with an ear for music can possibly mistake the very different songs 

 of these two little birds. Rambling lately in the neighbourhood of Sherwood 

 Forest in company with a well-known observer, Mr. Whitaker, of Rainworth, 

 near Mansfield, I was particularly struck with the abundance of Wood 

 Wrens which on June 14th were in full song everywhere. They were 

 commoner, in fact, than the Willow Wren, or perhaps it would be more 

 accurate to say that the song of the Willow Wren was less frequently heard 

 on this date than the song of the Wood Wren. Our method of observation 

 on hearing the notes of the latter species was to approach very quietly until 

 we could detect the author of the song, and then, adjusting our field-glasses, 

 watch the bird in the act of singing. There could be no mistake at all 

 about it ; the pale green back, the silvery under parts, the long wings, and 

 the characteristic song, all clearly indicated the species before us, and, in 

 one wood, we noted the presence of at least eleven pairs. As Mr. Whitaker 

 has found as many as seven nests of this bird in one day in the woods at 



