5
supported by his wife, Mildred, to whom our
deep sympathy goes in her loss.
PETER GLASSBOROW
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS - BATS IN ESSEX
The recording of bats in Essex can perhaps be
described as haphazard. The publication of
Victorian naturalists mainly based at Epping
refer to bats found by accident or deliberately
shot to aid identification, whilst the Bar-
bastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) could be
identified in flight and was regularly found in
faggot piles along the rides of Epping Forest!
This rare woodland species has not been seen in
the county since 1969. Doubleday recorded
that he shot a "probable Parti—coloured bat
(Vespertilio murinus) but could not find the
corpse after it had fallen to the ground".
Today this vagrant from Northern Europe has
been recorded just twelve times in Britain.
In the 1850's the first Serotine record for
Esse;; was of one in Coggeshall, at the time the
most northerly record for the country and about
the same time Joseph, later Lord, Lister was
experimenting on the wing of a Noctule
(Nyctalus noctula) to further his medical
studies. Lister's Noctule today resides in
the Passmore Edwards Museum.
In the 1880's the Deneholes at Brays were
explored by members of the Essex Field Club and
5 species of bat were later displayed at an