October 18, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



525 



there are several lantern slides illustrating the 

 laboratory buildings of the world. The system 

 of classification is thus made elastic. 



John W. Harshberger 

 The Univeesity of Pennsylvania 



THE NEW CATALOGVE OF CBIEOPTEBA 

 IN TSE BBITISE MUSEUM 



During the past twenty-five years the study 

 of recent mammals has been pursued with an 

 activity unprecedented in the history of other 

 groups of vertebrates. Collections aggregating 

 hundreds of thousands of specimens have 

 been brought together, mostly by three or 

 four museums, and the number of known 

 forms whose existence was previously unsus- 

 pected has increased so rapidly that only a 

 few specialists are fully aware of what has 

 been taking place.' The trustees of the Brit- 

 ish Museum have recently issued the first vol- 

 ume of a second edition of the Catalogue of 

 Chiroptera.° This is the first monographic 

 treatment of a large group of mammals in 

 which the systematic activities just alluded to 

 are adequately summarized. Its interest is 

 therefore twofold: to systematists an account 

 of the technical matter which it contains, and 

 to general zoologists as the first definite indi- 

 cation of the extent to which currently ac- 

 cepted ideas regarding the world's mammal 

 fauna must be revised. 



The volume now issued, containing more 

 than 900 pages, is by Mr. Knud Andersen, 

 who has spent nearly seven years in its prepa- 

 ration. It deals with the Megachiroptera, the 

 old world fruit-bats, only. No group of mam- 

 mals has ever been treated in such detail, and 

 it is doubtful whether any work of similar 

 size on any group of vertebrates contains so 

 large and so well arranged a mass of original 



' The field work which has led to this result was 

 made possible by the invention of several types of 

 small traps, not originally intended for scientific 

 purposes. 



•"Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the Collection 

 of the British Museum," second edition, by Knud 

 Andersen. Vol. I., Megachiroptera. London, 

 printed by order of the trustees, etc., 1912. Actual 

 date of publicaition, March 23, 1912. 



observations. The number of forms recog- 

 nized is 228, distributed among 38 genera and 

 subgenera. These are represented in the 

 British Museum by 1,470 specimens and all 

 but 21 of the species and subspecies.' In the 

 first edition of the catalogue (Dobson, 1878) 

 the Megachiroptera occupy 98 pages, with 

 78 forms and 13 genera and subgenera, repre- 

 sented by 425 specimens. This increase of 

 nearly 300 per cent, is probably less than may 

 be expected among the " insectivorous " bats 

 (Microchiroptera). Mr. Andersen's studies of 

 the Microchiropterine genus Ehinolophus re- 

 sulted in an increase of from 21 to 105 or 

 more, while his " Monograph of the Chirop- 

 teran Genera Vroderma, Enchisthenes and 

 Ariibeus" shows the old genus Artiheus with 

 its six forms, as understood by Dobson, to 

 consist of 32 forms representing three distinct 

 genera. The number of bats known to Dob- 

 son was about 440; it is to be expected that 

 the number recorded in the new edition of the 

 catalogue will exceed 2,000. The significance 

 of this increase will be understood when it is 

 recalled that the entire number of living 

 mammals is generally supposed to be about 

 5,000, a total in which the bats form about 

 one tenth. 



In general plan the present volume agrees 

 with the original edition and with the well- 

 known form of the British Museum " Cata- 

 logues." With the increase of fineness in dis- 

 crimination, however, greater detail of treat- 

 ment has become necessary. To take an ex- 

 ample at random: in the original edition the 

 account of Pteropus " medius " occupies two 

 pages; in Mr. Andersen's volume it covers 

 seven and a half without counting two de- 

 voted to . a race not recognized by Dobson. 

 This increase is due chiefly to the more elab- 

 orate description of characters, but it is partly 

 the result of greater detail in the bibliographic 

 citations : for the period covered by three lines 

 under the name medius by Dobson 25 lines 

 are iere required. Perhaps the most striking 



' About 1,000 specimens in other museums were 

 also examined. All of this outside material is care- 

 fully designated in the text or in footnotes. 



