PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [Dec., 



ON THE COMMON BEOWN BATS OF PENINSULAR FLORIDA AND 

 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 



BY S. N. RHOADS. 



Examination of a series of skins and skulls and alcoholic speci- 

 mens of the Florida Brown Bat, in the author's collection and in 

 the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 shows constant racial differences from typical Eptesicus fuseus of 

 Philadelphia county. These differences are similar and in the same 

 degree and direction as those separating the two forms of Red Bat 

 inhabiting the regions named. The Florida race may be distin- 

 guished as follows: 

 Eptesicus fuseus osoeola subsp. nova. 



Type No. 875, ad. d\ in Coll. of S. N. Rhoads. Taken April 

 29, 1892, at Tarpon Springs, Fla., by W. S. Dickinson. 



Description. Similar in size and cranial characters to fuseus; 

 colors deeper and darker, being of slightly varying shades of dn- 

 namon brown as contrasted with the bistre and sepia of fuseus. 

 This character is uniform in a series of eight dry skins which have 

 never been immersed in a liquid preservative, and is peculiar to 

 them in a comparison with a similar series of fifteen topotypes of 

 fuseus. 



Measurements of type, made by collector from fresh specimen : 

 Total length 101 mm. ; tail 38 mm. ; hind foot 9^ mm. Average 

 measurements of four topotypes, 113-44-10.6. 



The skull of type indicates it to be an old adult, quite as large 

 as adult skulls of fuseus, but the measurements given by the 

 collector are less than a normal average. This average corresponds 

 closely with that of ten specimens of fuseus from Sing Sing, N. Y., 

 as given in Miller's monograph of North American Vespertilionidce. 



Whether this subspecies is found outside the limits of peninsular 

 Florida I am unable to state. As Miller classes the Eptesicus from 

 Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi examined by him under fuseus, 

 I conclude that V. earoliniensis of Geoffroy cannot apply to the 

 Florida race. 



