266 Bihliogra'pMcal Notice. 



they must play in this respect by their enormous quantity on 

 the coasts of Greenland have been described by Captain Holboll 

 in several contributions to Kroyer's treatises. In one place he 

 says, " By letting down a basket containing a dead raven and 

 a piece of the head of a shark to a depth of 75 fathoms, I have, 

 in the course of two hours, got more than six pints of these 

 small animals, although the basket was open and left a broad 

 stream of animals^ like a swarm of bees, that escaped during 

 the hauling-up of the basket" (Naturh. Tidsskr. iv. p. 143). 

 In another place the following occurs : — " The larger species 

 of this genus [Anonyx) are so voracious that they do not 

 cease eating, even if the food is taken out of the water. If 

 several are confined together in a vessel they soon eat one 

 another " {ibid. 2 ser. ii. p. 55). 



[To be continued j. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 



Monograph of the Asiatic Chiroptera, and Catalogue of the Species of 

 Bats in the Collection of the Indian Museum, Calcutta. By G. E. 

 DoBSON, M.A., M.B., E.L.S., &c. 8vo. London : 1876. 



A FEW months ago we published in this journal a sketch of a new 

 classification of Bats by the author of this work, a classification 

 which, without departing very widely from the groupings of pre- 

 vious authors, certainly seems to bring the whole arrangement of 

 these animals into a particularly intelligible form. As a reprint of 

 the article above referred to constitutes the general introduction to 

 the ' Monograph of Asiatic Chiroptera,' it need not be specially 

 noticed here. 



The chief characteristic of the new classification consists in the 

 recognition, in accordance, apparently, with the doctrine of evolution, 

 of a sort of parallelism in the families of the insectivorous Bats 

 {Microchiroptera of Dobson) — the simple-nosed Vespertihonidse and 

 Eraballonuridfe (better, perhaps, Noctilionidse) leading respectively 

 from supposed unknown ancestral forms to the Nycteridae (Megader- 

 mata) and Rhinolophidse on the one hand, and to the Phyllostomidaj 

 on the other, the Pteropidre being regarded (and, we think, with 

 reason) as representing a distinct type or hne of development. It 

 is particularly interesting to find that the discrimination of these two 

 alliances (or lines of descent) is confirmed by so minute a character 

 as the microscopic structure of the hair — the members of the " Vesper- 

 tiliouine aUiance " (Vespertilionida?, Nycteridae, and Rhinolophidae) 

 having the superficial scales of the hairs imbricated, while those of 

 the " Emballonurine alliance" (Emballonuridae and PhyUostomida?) 

 have them whorled and generally acute and projecting ; but we 

 cannot understand how Mr. Pobson can regard the hair of the 



