OOS ON MAMMALS FROM WESTERN JAVA. Bye 
6. Ona Collection of Mammals from Western Java presented 
to the National Museum by Mr. W. EH. Balston. 
By Otupriznp Tuomas, F.R.S., F.Z.8., and R. C. 
Wrovecuton, F.Z.8.* 
[ Received February 27, 1909. | 
Up toand during the earlier part of the last century no tropical 
country in the world had more attention paid to its zoology than 
the Island of Java, quite a considerable number of species being 
described from there, firstly by the French, who received 
specimens from Diard and Duvaucel, then by Dr. Thomas 
Horsfield, who in 1824, under the auspices of the East India 
Company, published a special work f on the subject, and finally 
by the Dutch authors Schlegel and Miiller, who included many 
Javan animals in their general work { on the Mammals of the 
Kast Indian Archipelago (1839-44). 
But from the latter date to the present time almost nothing 
has been done, and but few specimens have been collected except 
those that have gone to Leyden; and workers in the other 
principal Museums have been often embarrassed by the absence 
of good Javan specimens, representing the early described species, 
for comparison with examples from other localities. 
Of late, in the working out of Bornean and other Malay 
material, the want of Javan collections has been severely felt, and 
we are therefore proportionately indebted to Mr. W. E. Balston 
for enabling the well-known collector Mr. G. C. Shortridge to 
make a collecting-trip to Java after he had finished the work in 
Western Australia of which Thomas had previously given an 
account in our ‘Proceedings.’ 
Mr. Shortridge found the island extremely favourable for 
collecting, and by the kind assistance of Mr. M. C. Kirkpatrick, 
of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, and of the local Museum 
authorities, he was enabled to visit many interesting localities and 
to make one of the finest collections that we have ever received 
from any one region. 
In all, Mr. Shortridge obtained over 1500 specimens in the 
island, the majority of which, however, were Bats, a group 
in which Java is astonishingly rich. The species number 74, of 
which we have found it necessary to describe six as new. In 
addition, good series were obtained of a large number of species 
which were either not in the Museum collections at all, or else 
only represented by specimens from Dr. Horsfield’s collection, 
which had been first to the East India Company’s Museum and 
then transferred, mostly in 1879, to the British Museum. These, 
while of extreme value as types or historical specimens, are 
* Published by permission of the Trustees of the British Museum. 
+ ‘ Zoological Researches in Java,’ 1824. 
~ In Temminck’s ‘Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke Geschiedenis der 
Nederlandsche overzeesche bezittingen, 1839-44. 
