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NOTES AND QUERIES. 

MAMMALIA. 
The Noctule (Pipistrellus noctula).—‘ Hast Anglian Daily Times,’ 
May 8th, 1912:—‘On Monday, May 6th (time, 7.30 p.m.), counted 
ninety-one large Bats flying out of the end of cottage on this estate. 
I think this must be record. — AtrrepD Taytor (Ixworth Abbey 
Hstate Yard).” 
“Your correspondent, Mr. Alfred Taylor, asks if ninety-one large 
Bats seen flying out of a cottage is not a record? There is a colony 
of large Bats (Noctules) here, and I went this evening to count them 
as they came out. I was rather late, but I counted 125. One even- 
ing last summer I counted 196, and many times numbers between 
170 and 190. Bell, in his ‘ British Quadrupeds,’ says the Rev. Dr. 
Buckhouse saw 185 taken in one night from the eaves of Queens’ 
College, Cambridge, but it was a question if they were all one species. 
—R. H. Eve (Maldon, May 9th, 1912).” 
The above instances of unusually large assemblages of this species 
at their diurnal retreats, the one in Hast Essex, and the other in 
North-west Mid-Suffolk, may be worth recording. In both counties 
the Noctule is fairly abundant, especially in the river valleys. On 
April 18th two of these Bats were flying, and to all appearance 
hawking for insects, over the River Alde, near Langham Bridge, at 
between 11 and 12 a.m., in brilliant sunshine. Again, on the 20th of 
that month, I noticed one at the same place and at about the same 
hour, the sky being cloudless and the sun particularly bright and 
glaring. Possibly some insect for which these Bats have a special 
liking may have been on the wing just at that time, affording sufficient 
attraction to tempt these animals out by day. It is no uncommon 
occurrence for the Pipistrelle to come abroad in the daytime in 
pursuit of gnats, especially in the winter, instances of which appear 
year by year in country newspapers. It seems wonderful that the 
eyesight of Bats should be so adjusted as to enable these animals to 
catch their prey on the wing, both in the dim twilight and in the full 
glare of the sun at midday.—G. T. Rope (Blaxhall, Suffolk). 
