256 Analytical Notices of Books. 



The Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. Volume XVI. 

 Part the Second. 



In the present part of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, the 

 contents are partly botanical and partly zoological ; the former somewhat 

 exceeding the latter in extent. The zoological papers are from the pens 

 of the Rev. L. Jenyns, Mr. Yarrell and Mr. Jeffreys, and these we shall 

 proceed to notice in the order of the subjects to which they are respectively 

 devoted. 



" Some Observations on the Common Bat of Pennant: with an 

 " attempt to prove its identity with the Pipistrelle of French authors: by 

 " the Rev. L. Jenyns," first claim our attention. The Common Bat of 

 our country, as the authour remarks, has been uniformly referred by British 

 writers to the Fesp. murinus of Linnaeus; but difficult as it would be to 

 determine with any thing like certainty the precise species originally 

 intended by this denomination, it is yet probable, from the reference 

 made by Linnaeus to Brisson, that the Bat so designated was larger than 

 our Common English species. Such is the one known on the continent 

 as the Vesp. murinus, which differs from our Common Bat not merely 

 in absolute size, but also in colour and general appearance, in the shape 

 of the auricle and its operculum, and in some of its relative dimensions. 

 The difference in size is indeed most striking, the length of the body 

 in the continental Vesp, murinus being three inches and a half, and the 

 extent of wing fifteen inches; while in the Common English Bat 

 the length is only one inch and seven lines, and the extent of wing rarely 

 exceeds eight inches and a half. 



With the continental species the name of Vesp. murinus may well be 

 suffered to rest, rather than with our own Common Bat. The former has 

 been repeatedly well described and accurately figured, but the latter, 

 originally imperfectly described at a period when the necessity of minute 

 investigation was less evident than at present, has since been confused 

 and rendered almost unintelligible by the errors of copiers and compilers. 

 But by what name should the latter be designated ? Arguing from the 

 improbability that a species so common here should be unknown on the 

 continent, Mr. Jenyns concludes that it can scarcely have escaped the 



