432 ^Ir. K. Andersen on Four 



which have no taiL The words ^^ Eidolon R. do. u queue '^ 

 mean : Eidolon, Raf., name proposed for those species of the 

 genus Pteropus, as hitherto understood, which iiave a [short] 

 taih The abbreviation " Pteronotus R. do. sp." reads : 

 Pteronotus, new generic name proposed by Rafinesque for some 

 species of the genus Pteropus. — Bearing these exphinations 

 in mind, and considering what literature on Chiroptera could 

 be at the disposal of an author writing in 1815, the identi- 

 fication of the genera now becomes an easy matter. 



There is no doubt whatever that, so far as the genera 

 Pteropus, Eidolon, Pteronotus, Phyllostoma, and Vampyrum 

 are concerned, Rafinesque based his arrangement on E. 

 GeofFroy's now classical papers, " Description des Roussettes 

 et des (yephalotes, deux nouveaux genres de la famille des 

 Chauve-souris '' (Ann. Mus. d'Hist. Nat. xv. pp. 86-108 ; 

 1810) and " Sur les Piiyllostomes et les Megadermes, deux 

 genres de la famille des Chauve-souris '^ [ibid. pp. 157-198). 

 The evidence is this : — 



(1) Rafinesque himself writes [op. cif. pp. 50-51) : 

 ". ... les travaux de Cuvier, Geoffroy, Desinaretz [_sic], et 

 Dumeril sur la disposition naturelle des genres et leur forma- 

 tion ont servi de bases aux miens." 



(2) The three genera Pteropus, Eidolon (for the species 

 "a queue"), and Pteronotus correspond precisely to E. 

 Geofi'roy's three sections of "Roussettes [Pteropus)," viz. 

 " Roussettes sans queue '' [op. cit. p. 90 ; including the species 

 Pt. edulis, edwardsi, vulgaris, rubricollis, and griseus), 

 " Roussettes a queue " [op. cit, p. 91 ; the species Pt. stra- 

 mineus, cegyptiacus, ample xicaudatus, marginatus, and mini- 

 mus), and " Roussettes a ailes sur le dos " (p. 98 ; only species 

 Pt. pal\r\iatus). In other words, Rafinesque raised these 

 three sections to the rank of distinct genera, restricting 

 Pteropus to the five species without tail, and proposing 

 Eidolon as a new generic name for the five species with a 

 short tail, and Pteronotus [irrepov, " aile " ; vcStos, "dos") 

 for the " Roussette a ailes sur le dos," viz. Pt. palliatus *. 



Eidolon is technically valid, being sufficiently characterized 

 by the words " [pour les especes du genre precedent] a queue." 



* Tlie same idea, to separate the three sections of " Pteropus " as 

 distinct genera, ^as independently arrived at, fourteen years later, by 

 Gilbert T. Burnett (' The Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature, and 

 Art,' 1829, pt. i. ( April-Juue) p. i/(i9), who restricted the name Pteropus 

 to the tailk'-s -ptcies (oiilv species mentioned: vulgaris, edulis), and 

 proposed Ctn^'i'ti minis lur u.f .-1; -rt-tailed t])ecies {ac/yptiacus, ample.ri- 

 caudatus) , -dud Ti ihunoi'/ionis [Tjiiiicoi', mantle, pal/ ium ; (popos, bearing) 

 for the "Mantled Koussette, {Pteropus:'] desmaresti" (evidently a new 



