382 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 55 



Distribution and habitat. These wide-ranging bats cover the 

 greater part of the United States and much of Canada in their breed- 

 ing and migration ranges. In Oregon specimens have been collected 

 at various seasons over practically the whole State (fig. 98). Their 

 breeding range, however, is apparently restricted to the Transition 

 and Canadian Zones. 



General habits. More than almost any other bat these are forest- 

 dwelling animals, especially in the breeding season. During their 

 long and irregular migrations they may be ,found in any of the open 

 valleys and low country on their way to caves or wintering grounds 

 farther .south. In early summer they are one of the commonest bats 

 in the mountain forests where they fly at night among the branches 

 of the trees and usually spend the day in hollow trees or under the 



loose bark of dead trees. 

 They come out rather late 

 in the evening and are 

 not easily shot against 

 the evening sky as they 

 fly from one grove to 

 another in quest of their 

 winged prey. 



On May 29, 1896, Preble 

 secured 3 specimens as 

 they flew among the yel- 

 low pines near Elgin in 

 the Blue Mountains, and 

 on June 10, 2 were col- 

 lected in the timber north 

 of old Camp Harney. 

 Another was secured on 

 the Ochoco River, 20 miles east of Prineville, one evening in June, 

 probably close to its breeding ground. At the little town of 

 Sisters, in the yellow pine on the east base of the Cascades, Luther 

 Goldman collected several specimens late in July, and another 

 at Bend on August 3. On August 25, 1896, Merriam secured a 

 specimen among the yellow pines east of Mount Thielsen. R. H. 

 Becker collected a half -grown young just able to fly at 6,000 feet 

 altitude in the Kiger Gorge in the Steens Mountains, on August 

 21, 1916. He reported them as fairly common among the aspens in 

 the canyon, but difficult to shoot as they came into the open for only 

 a brief instant in their rapid flight. In western Oregon M. E. Peck 

 secured specimens in Douglas County near Anchor and Reston in 

 July and August 1916. On August 2, 1912, he had collected a 

 specimen at Belknap Springs on the Upper McKenzie River and 

 another in the Blue Mountains at Meacham on July 21, 1915. In the 

 agricultural college collection at Corvallis there is a specimen col- 

 lected in that vicinity on October 13, 1919, by Bitney and H. E. 

 Feller, and in the Merriam collection 1 from Beaverton collected by 

 A. W. Anthony in 1884, but without specific date. In the Jewett 

 collection are specimens from Remote, taken September 10, 1922, and 

 the West Fork of Wallowa River taken July 22, 1925, and in the 

 University of Oregon collection are 1 from Sisters, taken July 25, 

 1914, and 1 from Triangle Lake, Lane County, taken May 29, 1912. 



FIGUBB 98. Range of silver-haired bat, Lasionycteris 

 noctivagans, in Oregon. 



