50 VESPERTILIONID^ 



In default, then, of the present arrangement, it is entirely open 

 to question what generic term could be used, and in any case 

 the trend of modern opinion is strongly against the retention 

 in one crenus of two such dissimilar animals as serotinus and 

 nodula. If the separation of noctula and leisleri from true 

 pipistrellus be refused, the generic name Nyctalus must, by the 

 laws of priority, be applied to all three ; but this question will 

 be treated below. The transference of the name Vespertilio 

 from the group of bats with thirty-eight teeth, as used by Bell, 

 to that with thirty-two, is due, as is the rest of the present 

 system, to the researches of Mr Miller, who showed i^Ann. and 

 Mag. Nat. Hist., October 1897, 379-385) that much of our 

 previous classification and nomenclature was based either upon 

 laxity or upon intentional disregard of the laws of priority. 

 Mr Miller remarks that Linnseus's genus Vespertilio (Systema 

 NaturcB, I., x., 31-32, 1758), included seven species — vampyrus, 

 spectrum^ perspicillatus, spasma, leporinus, auritus, and murinus, 

 only two of which, auritus and niuri^tus, are European. As 

 a non-exotic species illustrating most closely the original 

 meaning of the author should be retained as the type of the 

 genus, one of these two must be selected. The species 

 auritus was removed to the genus Plecotus by Geoffroy in 18 18 

 {^Description des Mainmiferes . . . en Egypte, 112). Thus murinus 

 is left as the type of the genus Vespertilio. The true Vespertilio 

 murinus, however, is a totally different animal from the one 

 formerly known by that name. To understand the matter 

 fully it is necessary to refer to the two editions of the Fauna 

 Stcecica, in the first of which Linnseus mentions only one bat, 

 the " Laderlapp," " Fladermus," or " Nattblacka." This he calls 

 *' Vespertilio caudatus, naso oreque simplici''' (No. 18, p. 7, 1746). 

 In the second edition two species are mentioned. No. 18 of 

 the first edition (here numbered 2) and No. 3, the Long-eared 

 Bat ' Vespertilio auritus naso oreque simplici, auriculis duplicatis 

 capite majoribus' (pp. 1-2, 1761). These had already received 

 binomial names, Vespertilio murinus and V. auritus respec- 

 tively, in the tenth edition of the Systema Nature, where the 

 following diagnosis of V. murinus is given : ''V. caudatus, naso 

 oreque simplici, auriculis capite minoribus'' (p. 32, 1758). In 

 the second edition of the Fauna Suecica the teeth of V. 



