166 ON THE NEW-GUINEA MAMMALS. 



9. Bdelygma aello Thomas. 



In 1900 (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. Ttt Series, Vol. 

 V, p. 216) Thomas distinguished under the name aello 

 the Bdelygma major in Meek's collections from Milne-bay. 

 He cannot see sufficient reason for subdividing the genus 

 Cephalotes (now Nyctemene) as Matschie did. Aello is most 

 nearly allied to major, but larger, much more prominently 

 striped dorsally and with a shorter (if this organ is per- 

 fect) tail (Thomas). 



10. Dohsonia paliata Geoffroy. 



This at present is the name for the bat formerly known 

 as Cephalotes Peronii. My colleagues may be right by 

 rejecting a preoccupied name and by replacing it by an 

 earlier given name, detected often by hap-hazard in some 

 rare old book, however I would ask: are we not on the 

 way to make our science what in "Nature" has been called 

 some time ago "an impossible science"? Every post so to 

 say brings us new surprises and I am convinced that 

 within short we all will make lot of blunders. And if this 

 will be so, what perplexing impression must it make up- 

 on the str. s. not scientific nature-loving public to hear 

 for instance that the Orang Oetan, Simla satyrus, is not 

 an animal from Sumatra and Borneo but from West-Africa, 

 and that the Gorilla is living in the Dutch colonies ; that 

 Cynocephalus is a winged animal and not a Baboon and 

 therefore it yields its scientific title Cynocephalus to the so 

 well known Galeopithecus, so that the latter must now be 

 called Cynocephalus volans, meanwhile it belongs not more 

 to the Galeopithecidae or Dermoptera but to the Colugidae, 

 a family-name made from the name Colugo, by which the 

 Galeopithecus on the Philippines is known among the nati- 

 ves (Palmer); Gray (Catalogue a. s, o., 1870, p. 97) called 

 Galeopithecus volans ^'the Colugo" and G. philippinensis 

 ^Hhe Broad-headed Colugo'\ The confusion increases when 



Notes from the Leyden IMuseuixt, Vol. XX.VIII. 



