AUTHOR S PREFACE. IX 



Types of synonyms {Hypotypes). — 127 names (variants not 

 counted) occur iu the synonymy of the recognized forms of 

 Megachiroptera. Eight are noraina nuda, and the types of 

 thirty-nine names have not been traced. The remaining eighty 

 hypotypes are distributed as follows : — 



British Museum, 38; Berlin, 10; Leyden, 7; U.S. National 

 Museum, 6 ; Paris, 5 ; Zi-ka-wei (?), 3 ; two each in the Museums 

 of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Lisbon, Philadelphia, and Sydney ; and 

 one each in Calcutta, Dresden, Stockholm, and Vienna ; while one 

 is probablj* in private possession. 



63 of these SO types have been examined by me, while of two 

 other forms I have seen paratypes. In thirteen other cases I have 

 either had photographs of the skull and dentition of the types, or 

 the t3-pe8 have been examined for me by local zoologists, or I have 

 seen topotypes. The remaining two names are Pteropus masMrinus 

 (= Ft. rodricensis) and Odontonycteris meyeri (= Macroglossus 

 laffocliilus). 



Tlie Catalogue. — Nominally this is a second edition of Dobson's 

 ' Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the British Museum ' (1878^ ; in 

 reality it is an independent work, except of course in so far as 

 every work of this kind must be based on its predecessors. The 

 descriptions are new, the technical names are fixed in strict 

 accordance with the principle of priority, the synonymy is in most 

 cases ■worked out on the basis of an examination of the types and 

 paratypes, and all references to literature have been compiled by 

 myself. It has been my object on the one hand to make the 

 descriptions of the genera, species, and subspecies reasonably com- 

 plete, on the other hand to avoid repetitions as far as possible. For 

 the latter reason I have often preferred to give a differential rather 

 than a full description, that is, I have confined the description of a 

 given form chiefly to those characters by which it differs from its 

 nearest fully described relatives. To render the Catalogue easier 

 for reference the descriptions are, whenever required, subdivided 

 into specially headed paragraphs (Diagnosis ; Skull ; Dentition • 

 Palate-ridges ; External characters ; Sexual differentiation ; Speci-' 

 mens examined ; liange ; Habits ; Affinities ; History in literature ; 

 Type, Nomenclature, and Synonymy, »tc.). Detailed measurements 

 are given of the skull aod external dimensions, and as a rule also 

 of the premolars and molajs, of every form described. 



