NOTES ON THE BATS OF THE GENUS MOLOSSUS. 



By Gerrit S. Miller, Jr., 



Curator, Division of Mammals, United States National Museum. 



Having recently exanained the entire series of bats of the genus 

 Molossus in the United States National Museum,^ I find that the 

 number of recognized forms must be increased from 13 to at least 

 18. Such large areas of South America are still unrepresented, 

 however, that no definitely monographic treatment of the genus is 

 now possible. The following key and brief diagnoses are intended 

 merely to place on record such results as have been reached. 



The systematic history of the genus Molossus begins with a speci- 

 men from Martinique described b}'^ Daubenton under the name 

 "mulot-volanV' in the Memoires of the Royal Academy of Sciences, 

 Paris, for the year 1759.- The same animal appears as an "autre 

 chauve-souris" in Buffon's Natural History, volume 10, pages 84-87, 

 plate 19, figure 1. Here it is accompanied by a smaller individual 

 also called an "autre chauve-souris,"^ but concerning whose history 

 nothing is said. The length of forearm of the larger specimen as 

 represented on the plate exactly agrees with that recorded in the 

 text (p. 86). Assuming that the smaller animal, the dimensions of 

 which were not published, was as carefully treated by the artist 

 De Seve, there is no reason to suppose that it belonged to another 

 species or that it originated elsewhere than in Martinique, since the 

 lengths of the two forearms, 38 mm. and 36 mm., respectively, are 

 within the known extremes of individual variation in the local race 

 occurring on the islands of Dominica and Trinidad, and at Macuto, 

 Venezuela. Therefore until the Martinican animal can be shown to 

 differ from this race such technical names as were based on the two 



1 Dr. J. A. Allen has kindly lent me some important material from the American Museum of Natural 

 History, including the types of Molossus venilli and M. sinaloss. I have also had the opportunity to study, 

 thi-ough the courtesy of Mr. Samuel Henshaw, the specimens in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 whose measurements have been recorded by Dr. Glover M. Allen (Notes on Chiroptera: Bull. Mus. 

 Comp. Zool., vol. 52, pp. 59 and 60, July, 190SJ. 



8 Page 387. Volume published in 1765. 



« Pages 87-88, pi. 10, fig. 2. 



Proceedings U.S. National Museum, Vol. 46-No. 2013. 



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