﻿18 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA. 



Fitzinger ^ refers to a ' Taphozotis hraclimanus Godmau ' among the syn- 

 onyms of Lasiiir us ^r u fus^ (= horealis). This name, however, I have been 

 unable to find in any of Godman's writings. 



Vesperides Cones, 1875 (in Coues and Yarrow, Zool. of Wheeler's 

 Exped., p. 83), was proposed as a subgenus of Yesjyeytilio based on Yes- 

 fertUio noctivagans Le Oonte. The name is antedated by Lasionycteris 

 Peters, 1865. 



Vespertilio Linnaeus, 1758 (Syst. Nat., 10th ed., I, p. 31), contained 

 seven species: vampyrus^ f^pecirnm, persinciUainSj spasma^ Jeporimis, 

 auriius^ and murinus. These have all been removed to other genera, as 

 follows: vampyrus to Pterop^is in 1762 (Brissou, Eegn. Anim., ed. II, 

 pp. 13, 153), leporinus to Noctilio in 1766 (LinncTus, Syst. Nat., 12th ed., 

 p. 88), spasma to Megaderma in 1810 (Geoffroy, Ann. Mus. d'Hist. Nat., 

 XY, p. 197), aiirittis to Flecotus in 1818 (Geoffroy, Descript. de l'l5gypte, 

 Mammiferes, p. 112), miiriuus^ to Eptesicus in 1820 (Eafinesque, Annals 

 of Nature, 1820, p. 2), perspicillatus to Artibeus in 1821 (Leach, Trans. 

 Linn. Soc. London, XIII, j). 75), and spectrum to Vampyrus in 1821 

 (Leach, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, XIII, p. 79). 



The only European species are auritus and murinus^ one of which 

 must therefore become the ty])e of the genus. The species auritus was 

 removed to the genus Plecotus by Geoffroy in 18 8, leaving miirinus as 

 type of the genus Vespertilio. The Vespertilio murinus of Linnaeus is, 

 however, a totally different animal from the bat afterwards described 

 under the same name by Schreber. To understand the case fully it is 

 necessary to go back to the first and second editions of Linn;eus's 

 Fauna Suecica. In the first he records only one bat, the 'Laderlapp,' 

 'Fliidermus' or 'Nattblacka,' Vespertilio caudatus, naso oreqiie simplici 

 (No. 18, p. 7, 1716). In the second edition he mentions two, V. caudatus, 

 naso oreque simplim., amnciilis duplicatis, capite majoribtts, and V. cau- 

 datns, naso oreque simplici^ auriculis capite minoribus (No. 2, pp. 1, 2, 

 1761). In the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae these had been 

 given binomial names, Vespertilio auritus and V. miirinns^ respectively. 

 The account of the teeth of the latter in the second edition of Fauna 

 Suecica is as follows : ^ 



Denies primores snperiores 6, acnti distantes. 



inferiores 4, acuti coiitigni. 

 Laniarii superiores 2, anteriore majore. 



inferiores 3, antico niaximo. 

 Molares utrinque 3, tricnspidati. 



» Sitziingsber. K. Akad. Wiss. Wien, LXII, Iste Abtb., p. 402, 1870. 



-Altliongli Rafinesqne did not actually place tlie species murinus in tlie genus 

 'jS]}tesicus lie based the latter on a strictly congeneric form. 



•"^In the first edition the dental formula is the same, except that the lower incisors 

 are said to be five in number, an error corrected in the second edition. 



