VESPERTILIONID^ 51 



murinus are thus described:^ — " Dentes primores superiores 

 6, acuti, distantes. inferlores 4. acuti contigui. Laniarii 

 superiores 2. anteriore majore. inferiores 3. antico maximo. 

 Molares utrinque 3. tricuspidati." 



It thus appears that the Vespertilio murinus of Linnaeus, 

 the type of the genus Vespertilio, is a common Skandinavian 

 bat with ears shorter than the head, and with the dental 



formula — 



.2-2^ i-i , i-i ^-3 



I — , c , pm m - — - = -12. 



3-3 I-I 2-2 7^-2, 



The only known Skandinavian bats which combine these 

 characters are the members of the group to which V. serotinus 

 belongs, and which are commonly known as Vesperus in Europe 

 and Adelonycteris in America, but to which Mr Oldfield 

 Thomas applied Rafinesque's name, Eptesicus {Proc. Zool. Soc, 

 London, 1896, 791, ist April 1897). 



The identification of the species murinus amongst the 

 Skandinavian members of the genus Vespertilio, although a 

 matter of considerable difficulty, does not affect the use of the 

 generic name. Nilsson {Skandinavisk Fauna, Ddggdjuren, 17- 

 20, Ed. I., 1847) decided that it must have been the bat to which 

 Natterer later gave the name discolor. He therefore placed the 

 latter in the synonymy of V. murinus of Linnaeus, and reinstated 

 Bechstein's name myosotis (correcting it to myotis), for the Vesper- 

 tilio murinus of Schreber. Nilsson did not recognise Vesperugo 

 as distinct from VespeiHilio. Hence he said nothing in regard 

 to the tenability of the generic names. Ten years later, Blasius 

 (Fatcna Deutschlands, S'dttgethiere, 74, 1857), though admit- 

 ting that the Vespertilio murinus of Linnaeus could not 

 be the bat commonly known by that name, considered the 

 species undeterminable, and therefore reasoned that the 

 name first applied to it might afterwards be properly used 

 by Schreber in a different sense. Thus Blasius continued to 

 apply the name Vespertilio of Linnaeus to the genus to which 

 he had restricted it eighteen years before, notwithstanding the 

 fact that, according to his own statement, it could not be 



* In the first edition the dental formula is the same, except that the lower 

 incisors are said to be five in number, an error corrected in the second edition. 

 ^ In Linnaeus's statement the figures 4 and 6 are evidently transposed. 



