EPOMopn(jRrs. 51i) 



Hallowell's Pleropus haldemnni, 184G, from " W. Africa " is a 

 tolerably well-marked western and northern race of E. ivtihlhergi. 

 A fifth form was discovered by Peters at Tette, Zambesi, and made 

 known by him in 1852 aa E. crj/pturns. The above, ten nominal 

 (but, as we now know, five really distinguiflhable) forms, was the 

 material which the first reviser of the genus, Tomes (1860 and 

 1861), had to work upon ; he recognized four species, E. macro- 

 cephalus, gamhiamis, Inhintus, and cri/pturus (his E. franqneti is an 

 Epohiops, and the specimens identified by him with E. sclioensh, 

 Iviippell, are Micropteropus pusillus) : like all subsequent writers he 

 failed to see that ynacroceplialus is the male, f/ainhianus the female 

 of one species, and the name crypturris in his monograph covered 

 both that species and ivahlben/i. A few years later (1864) a sixth 

 form was brought home by Heuglin from Bahr-el-Ghazal and 

 described as E. anuriis. Peters's revision in 1867 differed from 

 that of Tomes in no noteworthy respect except the recognition of 

 E. crypturus and waJilbergi as distinct species, but the character- 

 ization of all the species admitted was still exceedingly vague, 

 Gray's E. rnacrocephahis var. angolensis (1870), based on one of 

 Monteiro's specimens from Benguela, is a distinct (seventh) form, 

 his E. rnacrocephahis var. unicoJor, from Hhupanga, synonymous 

 with E. wahlbergi. The first important step toward a better 

 understanding of the species and their differential characters was 

 made by Dobson's revision (1878) ; he erred in recognizing only 

 three forms, E. rnacrocephahis [^ gamhianusl, r/amhiniws [roughly 

 = wahlbergi^, and labiatus (considered only a local form of his 

 ^^ gambianus," in which respect he was in so far right as the two 

 specimens catalogued by him as labiatus are in reality the smaller 

 race of u'ahlbergi),h\\t he was the first to point out the fundamental 

 importance of the arrangement of the palate-ridges as a taxonomic 

 character in this genus. Two years later he added a new (eiglith) 

 form, the small E. minor, discovered by Dr. Robb in Zanzibar. 

 Pocage's E. gidiieensis{\SQS),{rom Bolama, is apparently synonymous 

 with gambianus. Decidedly a retrograde step was Matschie's 

 revision in 1899 ; it was based chiefly on that author's peculiar 

 zoogeographical ideas, with the inevitable result that the safe 

 ground laid by Dobson was abandoned, doubt thrown on any 

 previous record which did not fit in with the leviser's own theories, 

 the distribution and characters of the already described species to a 

 large extent obscured and confused, and a series of untenable 

 " Gebiet "-species created ; so far from acting as a stimulus to furrhtr 

 studies this revision rendered thenceforth the identification of 

 specimens an almost hopeless task and thus very nearly stopped, for 

 more than ten years, all sound systematic work on this genus. Since 

 then one name has been added to the list, Trouessart's E.2'>orts(irguesi 

 (1904), known from a single female from the Shari River, app irentlj' 

 a distinct (ninth) form. 



