2 BULLETIN 144, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



MATERIAL AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



When the North American Vespertilionidae were reviewed by 

 Miller, 30 years ago/ the available collections, though much better 

 than any previously studied, were still far from suiRcient to elucidate 

 many of the questions as to distribution and relationship of the 

 members of the genus Myotk, 1,322 specimens of which were then 

 enumerated. These were referred to 16 forms. The material on 

 which the present study of this genus is based is much more abundant 

 and well prepared than has ever before been brought together. 

 From North America we have been able to list no less than 4,504 

 specimens, representing 34 forms. So far as this region is concerned 

 we probably have now a fairly adequate knowledge of practically 

 all the species of Myotis, though much work remains to be done on 

 the subject of local races and the exact limits of ranges. With 

 regard to South America the subject is in a less satisfactory state; 

 but it is sufficiently far advanced to make us believe that, for the 

 neotropical species, we have at least a good general picture which 

 later may be filled in with more detail. We have examined 970 

 specimens, referable, in our present opinion, to 12 forms. Of the 

 5,474 specimens of Myotis which have passed through our hands we 

 may say that they represent practically all of the American material 

 available in the larger museums of this continent and a very impor- 

 tant series of South American specimens lent by the British Museum. 



Acknowledgments are gratefully made to the following persons 

 for the loan of specimens belonging to them or in their charge : Mr. 

 H. E, Anthony, of the American Museum of Natural History, New 

 York; Prof. C. D. Bunker, Kansas University Museum of Natural 

 History, Lawrence, Kans. ; Prof. Manton Copeland, Bowdoin College, 

 Brunswick, Me.; Dr. Lee R. Dice, University of Michigan, Ann 

 Arbor, Mich. ; Mr. Donald R. Dickey, 514 Lester Avenue, Pasadena, 

 Calif.; Dr. Joseph Grinnell of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 

 University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; Mr. Samuel Henshaw, 

 director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. ; 

 Miss Mary E. McLellan, California Academy of Sciences, San Fran- 

 cisco, Calif. ; Dr. Wilfred H. Osgood, of the Field Museum of Natural 

 History, Chicago, 111.; Dr. Witmer Stone and Mr. Wharton Huber, 

 of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Pa. ; and Mr. 

 Oldfield Thomas, of the British Museum (Natural History), London, 

 England. The collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 

 Philadelphia contains the types of several of Harrison Allen's 

 species; that of the American Museum includes a number of types 

 of both North American and South American forms; while that of 



'North Amer. Fauna, No. 13, Oct. 16, 1897. 



