254 General Notes. 



MYOTIS LUCIFUGUS IN KAMCHATKA. 



The United States National Museum contains a specimen of a bat from 

 Petropavlovski, Kamchatka, which is of considerable interest. The f^peci- 

 men (No. iyjfl) i^ preserved in alcohol and is in bad condition but practically 

 all the diagnostic characters and measurements can still be determined. 

 A careful examination shows that this bat is not closely related to any 

 known Palaearctic species and tliat it does not appear to differ in any 

 essential way from the Mt/otix lucifiigus of North .\merica. 



Some doubt has existed as to the correctness of the data for tliis specimen 

 because no collector's number or label was attached to it and because the 

 locality given in the Museum catalogue is Petropavlovsk, Alai^ku. Thanks 

 to the kindness of Dr. W. H. Dall, I have been able to obtain for it a record 

 as complete and authentic as that attaching to any alcoholic specinie;i 

 collected before field labels came into general use. The bottle label is one 

 of those used to indicate specimens received from the Western Union 

 Company's Overland International Telegraph Expedition. The data on it : 

 "Bat, Petropavlovsk, F. Whymper," is in the handwriting of Dr. Dall who 

 has also been good enough to look through his note books for the years 

 during which he was connected with the expedition. He finds that a bat 

 was picked up by one Nicolai Fletcher, a resident of Petropavlovski who 

 had never been in America, and given to Mr. Whymper and finally trans- 

 mitted to the National Museum througli Dr. Dall. That this was the 

 specimen now under consideration there can l>e no doubt. 



So far as I am aware no species of land mammal is known to occur on 

 both sides of the North Pacific. True Myulis lucifugus is not known to 

 occur on the west coast of North America anywhere excepting in the 

 vicinity of Kodiak Island and the Alaska Peninsula. Is it possible that 

 its range may extend out over the Aleutian Islands and thence to Kam- 

 chatka? It seems much more probable that the specimen obtained by Mr. 

 Whymper was only an accidental visitor carried over in the liold of a ship ; 

 but the northwestward distribution of the species is a question worthy of 

 the attention of natui-alists and collectors who visit this region. — Walter 

 fj. Ha]m. 



MASTODON REMAINS IN THE YUKON VALLEY. 



Through the efforts of J. B. Tyrrell of Dawson, Yukon Territory, the 

 U. S. National Museum has come into possession of a well-preserved 

 tooth of a mastodon from the Pleistocene of the Klondike region. It 

 was found beneath 25 feet of "muck" and gravel on claim No. 14, Gold 

 Run Creek. Mis. Dr. Wills, of Dawson, secured possession of it and trans- 

 ferred it to Mr. Tyrrell and he has kindly sent it to me with the request 

 that it be examined and deposited in the Museum. It is a last lower 

 molar and so far as I can detect does not differ in any important respect 

 from corresponding teeth of the common mastodon {Mamuiut americanum), 

 so many remains of which have been found in the United States. 



The best known record of the occurrence of mastodon remains north of 



