NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 33 



a wide latitudinal extent. It is migratory in northern United 

 States and southern Canada; hence perhaps one may assume 

 that the ancestor of the Hawaiian form reached that group of 

 islands by flight over sea at some time in the distant past, 

 coming from the American continent, Although at one time 

 believed to be the same as the continental L. grayii of Chile, 

 the Hawaiian form is darker, and in the red phase lacks to a 

 large extent the hoary tips to the hairs of the upper surface 

 found in that race and in the North American L. cinereus. 



In the Hawaiian hoary bat the color of the fur above may 

 be either gray as in L. cinereus or dark red, almost blackish 

 brown, with the middle portions of the hairs dull whitish, 

 showing through if the fur is disturbed. On the lower flanks, 

 legs, and interfemoral membrane above, the color of the back 

 in the red phase passes gradually into a bright chestnut or 

 mahogany red, with practically no white tipping to the hairs. 

 Below, the color is paler, with chin and upper throat buffy 

 white, and an indistinct half-collar of darker, set off by white 

 tips to the hairs, from the dull-brown belly. Fur along the 

 under side of forearm and at base of fingers clear buffy. A 

 minute tuft of short white hairs #t base of thumb and of digit 

 5, and a third white tuft on the inner side of the forearm just 

 beyond the elbow. Forearm measures about 50 mm. (in the 

 original description it is given as 40, but G. S. Miller, Jr. 

 (1939) shows that this is a misprint for 50 as shown by an 

 examination of the lectotype in the U. S. National Museum). 



This bat was first reported from the Hawaiian Islands by 

 J. E. Gray in 1862, who, however, believed it identical with 

 the Chilean race, which Tomes had earlier named Lasiurus 

 grayii. Harrison Allen in naming it as a distinct form, had 

 eight specimens from the "Sandwich Islands," only two of 

 which had the more precise locality of Kauai. Perkins (1903, 

 p. 465) writes that it chiefly frequents the mountains where, 

 presumably, more forested areas remain. He adds that it is 

 locally common in the uplands of Hawaii, and he has seen it, 

 though rarely, on the islands of Kauai and Oahu. Bryan, 

 writing in 1915, says: "They have always been rare, but are 

 apparently still to be seen in the uplands of Hawaii." There 

 are four specimens in the museum at Tring, England, from 

 Hawaii taken in 1891, and the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology has a specimen taken in 1937 at Waimea, island of 



