( 53 ) 



III. The distinctive Characters of two British Species of Plecotus, 

 supposed to have been confounded under the Name of Long-eared 

 Bat. By the Rev. Leonard Jenpis, M.A. F.L.S. Communi- 

 cated by the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society. 



Read March 4, 1828. 



The subgenus Plecotus, originally instituted by GeofFroy for the 

 reception of the Vespertilio auritus and the V. barbastellus of 

 Linnaeus and Gmelin, has not, that I am aware, met with any 

 Europaean additions from the discoveries of later times. I am 

 on this account desirous of drawing the attention of naturalists 

 to a third British species referable to this group, which may be 

 considered either as entirely new, or at least one which has never 

 been clearly distinguished from the former of the two above 

 mentioned. I am the more anxious to do this, from a strong per- 

 suasion that the smaller species of the Vespertilionida still require 

 much investigation, and that even in our own island many others, 

 besides those recorded, remain to be ascertained. 



This Bat, of which I have never met with more than one spe- 

 cimen, was discovered some years back, in the month of July, 

 by Professor Henslow and myself, adhering to the bark of an 

 old pollard willow, on the edge of G runty Fen, in the Isle of 

 Ely. It is a female ; and, in a general point of view, so nearly 

 resembles the Common Long-eared Bat of English authors, that 

 the two might be easily confounded ; nor, indeed, did I myself 

 conceive it to be anything more than a young individual of that 



species 



