CHIROPTERA 5 



British area. Two others, the Pygmy Bat of Leach and the 

 Lesser Long-eared of Jenyns himself, were based on errors 

 of identification, and have since been reunited with the 

 Pipistrelle and the typical Long-eared. Jenyns' list therefore 

 included sixteen species, amongst which were all those now 

 recognised. 



Two years later Bell, by the separation of the Notch-eared 

 from Daubenton's, swelled the British list to its maximum of 

 seventeen species, but in 1838 MacGillivray, by the suppression 

 of the Pygmy and Lesser Long-eared, reduced it to fifteen. It 

 has since dwindled to its present dimensions, the few specimens 

 of the Mouse-ear and of the Parti-coloured Bat captured 

 in Britain having been either escaped captives or stragglers 

 from across the Channel, while the inclusion of the Notch-eared 

 was an error due to confusion with Daubenton's. 



Classification and Nomenclature: — The present work has 

 nothing to do with general relationships, and, although care 

 has been taken to follow the most natural grouping, for the 

 present purposes the various British genera may be regarded as 

 isolated and unconnected. Here, again, knowledge has found 

 her way blindly, step by step, and those now best qualified to 

 judge reverse Dobson's dictum of 1878 that the Horseshoes are 

 the highest of their order, and, amongst British bats, have 

 transferred the long-winged members of the genus Nyctalus, the 

 high-flying swifts of their kind, to the head of their tribe, with 

 Myotis as the most primitive vespertilionid genus, and the 

 family Rhino lop hides as of still lower organisation. 



So late as 1874, three authorities no less weighty than 

 Alston, Bell, and R. F. Tomes, united in one genus such dis- 

 similar animals as the thirty-four toothed Noctule and Pipistrelle 

 with the thirty-two toothed Serotine. The remainder of Bell's 

 arrangement was in accordance with modern ideas of relation- 

 ships, but, the rules of nomenclature not yet having crystallised 

 into definite shape, his names of genera and species were applied 

 with what would now be considered deplorable inaccuracy. The 

 researches of Mr Miller resulted accordingly in much re-sorting 

 of names, the elimination of Scotophilus and Vesperugo, the 

 transference of Vespertilio from the thirty-eight toothed to the 

 thirty-two toothed bats, and the reinstatement of the long and 



