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AUTHOR'S PEEFACE. 



SpECiMhw.s EXAMiXED. — III 1843, wheii J. E. Gray published his 

 ' List of the Specimens of Mammalia in the British Museum,' the 

 Megachiroptera were represented in the National Collection by 

 69 specimens. Thirty-five years later (Dobson's ' Catalogue of 

 Chiroptera,' 1878) the number had increased to 425. After 

 another period of thirty-four years (this Catalogue) the total 

 reaches 1470. The skins enumerated in this volume amount to 

 956, the specimens preserved in alcohol to 444, and the skulls to 

 1228. Exactly half a century ago (Gerrard's 'Catalogue of the 

 Bones of Mammalia in the British Museum,' 1862) the number of 

 skulls was only 39 ; in 1878 it was 82. That the number of 

 specimens is now three and a half times, but that of skulls fifteen 

 times, greater than in 1878 is due to the fact that during the 

 preparation of this Catalogue the skulls have been extracted from 

 nearly all the old skins in which they had hitherto been left as 

 well as from about 60 per cent, of the alcoholic specimens. In 

 Dobson's time there were separate skulls of only half the number 

 of species of Megachiroptera then in the Collection, whereas now 

 every species and subspecies in the Museum, with one exception, 

 {Pteropus arncnsis), is represented by at least one and often by a 

 series of skulls. 



Besides the specimens preserved in the British Museum I have 

 had for inspection a large number from other Collections, and 

 during two visits (in 1907 and 1909) to the Museums of Leyden, 

 Berlin, and Paris I had the privilege of going through nearly 

 the whole of the series of Megachirojjtera in those Collections, 

 so that the total number of specimens examined for the purpose of 

 this Catalogue amounts to about 2400. 



