IS*^?.] NOMENCLATURE OF INDIAN MAMMALS. 63/ 



P. (Pffi/ptiacHS, and P. stramineus oi Geoffroy Bt.-Hilaire, P. collaris, 

 llliger, and some other species. In the British Museum Catalogue 

 of the Chiroptera, p. 70, Mr. Dobson gives his reason for reJ3cting 

 the earher title Eleutherura of Gray, proposed in 1844 for Pteropua 

 hottentota = collaris. 



I think another term of Gray's, Xantharpyia, has priority over 

 Eleuthenira. Botli appear together, it is true, in the Mammalia of 

 tlie Voyage of the 'Sulphur,' p. 29, where Eleutherura was first 

 proposed ; but Xantharpyia had been published in the previous year, 

 1843, in the ' List of the Specimens of Mammalia in the Collection 

 of the British Museum,' pj). 37, 38, and applied to the three species 

 Pteropus amplexicaudatus, P. agyptiacus, and P. stramifieus. It ia 

 true that no description of the genus was given, but this is not 

 essential. 



XI. On HiPPOSiDERus and Phyllorhina. 



It is, I fear, impossible to admit that the name PhyllorhinU c;m 

 be used for the group of Leaf-nosed Bats to which the term has 

 been applied by Bonaparte, Peters, Dobson, and others. The 

 reference given by both Peters and Dobson for the original de- 

 scription of the genus is to Bonaparte's ' Saggio di una Distribuzione 

 nietodica degli Animali vertebrati,' Rome, 1831, p. 16. In this 

 work, which contains no descriptions, and is a mere list of generic 

 names, the genus Rhinolophus is divided into two subgenera thus, — 



Rhinolophus, Leach. 

 Phyllorhina, Leach. 



For a long time 1 was unable to discover where these genera of 

 Leach were published ; but Mr. Waterhouse, the Society's librarian, 

 has succeeded in finding the names in that author's ' Systematic 

 Catalogue of the Specimens of the Indigenous Mammalia and Birds 

 in the British Museum,' a small pamphlet issued in 1S16 and 

 reprinted by the Willughby Society. In this, immediately following 

 Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum, is " Phyllorhina minutn, small Leaf- 

 nose ; Torquay, Devon." It is manifest that the genus Phyllorhina 

 was proposed by Leach for Rhinolophus hipposiderus, and conse- 

 quently cannot be applied to the genus for which it has been used 

 by Peters, Dobson, and others. 



Bonaparte, it is true, in his ' Iconografia della Fauna Italica,' a work 

 published at intervals between 1832 and 1841, proposed to transfer 

 Leach's generic name from the smaller Horseshoe Bat to the first 

 section of the genus Rhinolophus in Temminck's ' Monographic de 

 iMammalogie,' ' vol. ii. pp. 10 et seq., and this section corresponds 

 to the genus Phyllorhina of later writers. Bonaparte's remarks 

 occur in the article describing Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum. But 

 to admit a change of this kind would lead to endless confusion. 



1 As the date of this volume ranges from 1835 to 1841, Bonaparte's appli- 

 cation of tlie generic term VkijUorhina to the section delined by Temminek 

 can scarcely have been published before 1836. 



Proc. Zool. Soc— 18^7, No. XLII. 42 



