CLASS MAMMALIA.
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says (Zoologist, 1843, p. 6) that it occurs at Epping. A mild
and gentle creature, it is by no means difficult to tame. This
is the bat most frequently caught in houses, which it enters by
the open window, often much to the consternation of the
female members of the household.
There is no difficulty in distinguishing this bat. Its
remarkable ears, which are fully as long as its body, cause
it to be unmistakable. No other existing animal, so far
as I know, has ears in this undue proportion, except Plecotus
homochrous, which occurs in the Himalayas and is a ques-
tionable species (cf. Dobson's Asiatic Chiroptera, 1876, p. 85).
If this is only a variety, then the animal under consideration
is, in respect of ears, unique. Although so large, the ears do
not strike one as so disproportionate as those of a lop-eared
rabbit, which in comparison are really much smaller.
Group II. VESPERTILIONES, Dobson.
Genus VESPERUGO, Keys and Blas.
Vesperugo serotinus, Gmel. Serotine.
This must be a very rare bat in Essex, as I have never
had the good luck to meet with a specimen. Mr. Miller
Christy, however, has been much more fortunate, and he has
been able to record the occurrence of the only two examples
ever noted in the county. The first he mentions (Zoologist,
1883, p. 173, and Proc. Essex Field Club, vol. iv., p. iv.) was
in the possession of Mrs. Joseph Smith, of Great Saling, and
had been shot, more than twenty years previously, in the
garden of Pattiswick Hall, Coggeshall. The second {Zoologist,
1894, p. 423, and Essex Nat., vol. viii., p. 162) he captured himself,
it having entered his bedroom window at Pryors, Broomfield,
on the night of the 25th August, 1894. These two captures
appear to be the most northerly ones recorded for the species.
Mr. Christy has taken every care that there should be no
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