34 CHIROPTERA. 
Cosmaloapan (Boucard, Mus. Berol.), Guanjuarto (Dugés®), Oazaca, City of Mexico, 
Tehuantepec (Sallé, Boucard, Mus. Brit.®); Guaremana, Duefias ( Salvin, Mus. 
Brit.®) ; Costa Rica (Mus. Brit.®), Plateau of San José (Frantzius, Mus. Berol.*). 
—Soutu America (to Chili)>; Wusr Inpizs°. 
This is the widest-ranging and apparently the most abundant of all the American 
Molossi, being found from the Southern States of the Union to Chili. It also extends 
to the West Indies, where, under the name of WV. nasutus, its habits have been well 
described by the late Mr. W. Osburn*. According to his account, it is almost exclu- 
sively an inhabitant of houses, where it hangs in clusters under the shingled roofs, issu- 
ing forth in pursuit of prey about sundown, but soon returning to their retreat, They 
do not go to sleep, however, but are active all night, scrambling and shufiling about, 
and thus rendering themselves obnoxious to their human fellow-lodgers. They are 
abroad again long before sunrise, returning to roost in the grey of the dawn. Their 
voice is a sharp “ click-click.”’ 
After an examination of the types, Professor Peters has united the Molossus meai- 
canus’ and WM. aztecus® of M. de Saussure with this species. His specimens were obtained 
on the tableland and among the mountains of Mexico, one being killed on the Coffre 
de Perote at an elevation of 13,000 feet, others at the foot of the Volcano of Popo- 
catepetl. 
Fam, III, PHYLLOSTOMIDA. 
1. CHILONYCTERIS. 
Chilonycteris, Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. iv. p. 4 (1839). 
With this genus we enter on the last of our three families of Central-American Bats, 
an exclusively Neotropical type, which may be regarded to some extent as taking the 
place of the Flying-Foxes (Pteropodidee) in the New World. As defined by Mr. Dobson, 
the Phyllostomide are Bats with cutaneous appendages surrounding or close to the. 
nostrils, with moderate or large ears, well-developed tragus, three phalanges in the 
middle finger and one only in the index. Varying greatly amongst themselves in 
dentition, and differing much in their habits, they include purely insectivorous, largely 
fruit-eating, and exclusively blood-sucking forms. The Phyllostomide thus present 
great variations in structure, united by gentle intergradations; and it is consequently 
very difficult to arrange them in genera. ‘The systematist must either place together 
forms which in any other order of Mammalia would be regarded as belonging even 
to distinct families, or he must accept a large number of very closely allied genera. 
Mr. Dobson, in his recent work, appears to me to have succeeded on the whole in 
keeping the middle path; and I have therefore followed his arrangement. 
* P.Z.8, 1865, pp. 65-67. 
