Descriptions of Five Species of Vespertilio that inhabit the 

 E?ivirons of the City of New- York. By William Coopek. 



Read February G, 1837. 



The difficulty of determining the species of Bats is well 

 •known to zoologists. It is but recently that those belonging to 

 Europe have been settled with some degree of accuracy, and 

 it is not to be expected that the American species should be 

 already so well known as to leave ho room for further investi- 

 gation. The Mammalogie of Desmarest, the latest general 

 catalogue, contains descriptions of but three species from the 

 continent of North America, those published by Rafinesque 

 being considered by that author as too little known and too 

 imperfectly described to be included in his text. Subsequent 

 writers, especially Say, Le Conte, Harlan, have made known 

 several others, so that the list of nominal species of Cheiroptera 

 belonging to the United States now comprises thirteen, without 

 including those of Rafinesque, or the Rhinopoma carolineims 

 of G. St. Hilaire, which has not been since observed, and is 

 admitted by the author himself to be very doubtful as an Ame- 

 rican species. These thirteen species have been referred to 

 the genera Vespertilio, Nycticeitts, Taphozons and Plccotus.* 



My object in the present communication is to establish and 

 clear up the synonymy of several species which I have ob- 

 served in this vicinity, and by means of more extended de- 



* In a report on the Zoology of North America, read to the British Associa- 

 tion by Dr. Richardson, at their late meeting in August 1836, he assigns sixteen 

 species of Cheiroptera to North America. Not less than twenty-four have been 

 described or indicated under separate names by authors, of which eleven are by 

 Rafinesque. 



