154 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol. no 



resembles the coloration of the more prunitive subgenera Idionycteris 

 and Plecotus. 



Remarks: Referring to a visit to the "lower parts of the Ohio, the 

 Wabash, Green River, Barrens, Prairies, and the States of Indiana, 

 Illinois, etc.," Rafinesque (1818, p. 446) described nine species of bats, 

 ten mice and shi-ews, and a number of snakes and fish. Four of the 

 nine species of bats and a number of the mice and shrews cannot be 

 related to species known to occur in the lower Ohio Valley. The de- 

 scription of one of the bats, Vespertilio megalotis, suggests what we 

 now know as Plecotus: "Vespertilio megalotis. R. (Big-eared bat.) 

 Tail three-eighths of total length, body dark gray above, pale gray 

 beneath, ears very large, duplicated, auricles nearly as long. Length 

 4 inches, breadth 12 inches." Most of Rafinesque's contemporaries 

 thought his V. megalotis was related to Eurasian Plecotus. Lesson 

 (1827, p. 96) paraphrased Rafmesque's description of V. megalotis 

 and renamed it Plecotus rafinesquii. He stated that it was "perhaps 

 only a variety of our long-eared bat [European PlecotusY^ 



After a brief period of use, V. megalotis and P. rafinesguii fell into 

 obscurity, and Plecotus macrotis of LeConte (1831, p. 431) came into 

 universal usage as the name for the big-eared bat of the eastern 

 United States. 



A. H. HoweU's (1909, p. 68) collection of a second species of big- 

 eared bat at Burkes Garden in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia 

 in 1908 led to G. M. Allen's resurrection of the name V. megalotis. In 

 his revision of the genus (now subgenus) Corynorhinus, Allen (1916, 

 p. 339) wrote: 



The discovery of a Corynorhinus (sic) distinct from C. macrotis, from extreme 

 western Virginia, westward, in the eastern United States was wholly unexpected. 

 It is the eastern representative of the desert-colored pallescens of west-central 

 United States, from which it chiefly differs in its somewhat darker, more drab, 

 coloration. 



On the basis of specimens from Vu-ginia, Kansas, and Colorado, 

 Allen supposed that this Plecotus, distinct from P. macrotis, had a 

 range continuous across the Ohio and upper Mississippi valleys from 

 Virginia to Kansas and Colorado. His Kansas and Colorado specimens 

 were somewhat paler than those from Virginia, indicating, Allen 

 thought, intergradation with the western pallescens. He presumed 

 that specimens from Kentucky and Indiana, recorded in literature as 

 P. macrotis, had been misidentified, and were actually representatives 

 of the newly discovered second species. With the range that he 

 envisioned for the second species, Allen's choice of Rafinesque's old 

 name, Vespertilio megalotis (type locality, lower Ohio River), as the 

 name for it was a logical step. In the absence of material from the 



