306 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



year than the Noctules, and are to be seen at times during the whole 

 summer. Although their appearance on the wing is similar, as you justly 

 observe, the proximity in size and their appearance together has doubtless on 

 many occasions caused the two species to be confounded. To the attentive 

 observer the two species may be readily distinguished. According to my 

 observation, the Serotine never flies at such a height as the Noctule. It is 

 much less rapid in its flight, and its general habit is to hawk about trees 

 and lanes; it sometimes doubles down nearly to the ground, and flies 

 so low that you might strike it down with a whip. I believe the Rev. A. C. 

 Bury must have been mistaken when he wrote of the Serotine the statement 

 quoted in your article (p. 203), wherein he remarked, " As the night got on, 

 they flew higher, and between 9.30 and 9.45 they flew altogether out of 

 gunshot in height." In this case it was probably the Noctules observed out 

 of gunshot. I have watched the Serotine to try to find some corroboration 

 of this, but in every case I have found that it rarely flies higher than the 

 tops of the trees in this neighbourhood, while the Noctule's flight is at a 

 much greater height. The Serotine is often found in pairs hunting in the 

 same neighbourhood. On June 28th I watched them till nearly dark, and 

 the Noctules were abroad at the same time, so that I could easily compare 

 them. The Noctule flies with a more curved and pointed wing, taking a 

 long range, and appearing in the distance something like a Snipe in the 

 air.— George Dowker (Stourmouth, Wingham, Kent). 



C E T A C E A. 



Sibbald's Rorqual on the Irish Coast. — The following particulars 

 respecting the first recorded instance of Sibbald's Rorqual (Balcenoptera 

 sibbaldii, J. E. Gray) on the coast of Ireland, may be acceptable as supple- 

 mentary to those given by Mr. Crouch (p. 215). About the end of March 

 Mr. A. G. More drew my attention to several notices in the daily papers of 

 the stranding of a large whale at the mouth of Wexford Harbour. One of 

 these notices, which appeared in the 'Evening Telegraph,' ran as follows : — 

 11 On Wednesday [March 25th] Edward Wickham, a fisherman, living at 

 the Fort, at the entrance to the harbour, had his attention attracted to an 

 unusual disturbance in the sea just opposite Hantoons, below the Fort. He 

 made out the back and fins of a huge Whale rolling and beating the waves 

 in a struggle apparently to get off the sand-bank, which makes the sea 

 there quite shallow. The pilots at the Fort station also perceived the 

 struggle, and they and Wickham continued to watch the strange animal 

 during the day, and pilots Blake and Saunders and Wickham subsequently 

 put off in a boat with the object of getting a closer inspection, but they 

 did not care to venture too near. On the following morning, however, 

 Wickham ventured to approach in his boat, the struggles of the big whale 

 having become less and less. He managed to get close enough to plunge 



