of Birmingham ; 1 this is probably. the northern limit of its rangé in Britain.
A Serotine from Tintagel, in Cornwall, is recorded in Dobson’s 'Catalogue of
Chiroptera in the British Museum.’
The Bat which figured in the Nèwcastle-on-Tÿne Museum catalogue as a
Serótine was examined by Mr. W. D. Roebuck, and proved to be, as suggested
by Mr. Harting, a Noctule. Thé species does not appear to occur in Wales,
Scotland, or Ireland.
Habits.— The Serotine, a Bat which was first described by Daubenton in
1759. is crepuscular in its habits, emerging on fine evenings rather later than
many other species; in June and July it does not come forth until a little before
nine. In many of its habits the. Serotine resembles the Noctule, but its flight is
different, being more fluttering and uncertain. It may be distinguished on the
wing by the fact that the tips of the wings are more pointed than in the Noctule.
Like the Noctule it does not always fly in the same way: Mr. Eardley Hall says
that it nearly always flies with a fluttering, uncertain flight, keeping very low
down ; but Colonel Reid tells me that in the neighbourhood of Yalding he has
seen it, on fine evenings, flying at a great altitude. According to my experience
both are, in a measure, right ; when the Bat first emerges from its retreat it fliés
low, hovering above the bushes and the outer branches of trees in order to catch
moths, but as the light fades, it mounts higher and higher, until, just before
darkness sets in, it has ascended far above gunshot. It is not easy to account
for this alteration of altitude, which is, certainly sometimes, reversed in the case
of the Noctule ; but it may be that the Bat ascends to feed upon certain high-
flying and late-appearing insects, or perhaps the insects upon which it feeds at a
low altitude ascend themselves when the light fades. The manner of flight is so
different from that of the Noctule that we can hardly draw a parallel ; but the
latter Bat does not often rise to a great height gradually, but generally, after a
beat or two up and down the glade near its retreat, an altitude of forty feet or so,
mounts rapidly to an elevation of as many yards or more.
A characteristic common to both species is a sudden, oblique, and headlong
dive during flight ; this may be caused by the dart after some prey which is
flying below them, or it may be aerial play—delight in the wonderful power of
flight. This ‘ header ’ is perhaps more noticeable in the Serotine than in the
Noctule; in the former Bat the manoeuvre is frequently repeated. Mr. Oxley
Grabham, writing to the ‘ Field,’ March 29, 1902, says that he has shot a Serotine
1 Zoologist, 1892, p. 403.