484 A Revision of the Genera of Bats ^ 



to the absence^ presence, and number of these appendages. These 

 divisions were adopted by Gmelin (Syst. Nat. 1. 45.), who reduced 

 the genus established by Erxleben to the rank of a section. In 

 1805, M. Geoffroy St Hilaire, who was then employed in naming the 

 Mammalia in the Paris collection, commenced a series of papers in 

 the Annales du Museum, in which he established various genera of 

 these animals, described the different species which he referred 

 to them, and illustrated them with figures. Cuvier in 1817 (Regne 

 Animal,) placed the bats with the insectivorous Mammalia, and 

 divided the insectivorous genera into groups according to the number 

 of the phalanges of the index and middle finger ; and his system has 

 been very generally followed, and from time to time new genera have 

 been added by Dr Horsfield, F. Cuvier, Charles Bonaparte, and 

 others. Dr Leach, in 1822, (Linn. Trans, xiii.) published two pa- 

 pers, in which he described and figured some new genera. One of 

 the papers is on those " bats with foliaceous appendages to the nose ;" 

 and the other for those that were without these organs. In 1823, 

 Spix, in his work on the South American monkeys and bats, adopted 

 these divisions, and gave a Latin name to them, and he has been ge- 

 nerally quoted as the founder of these sections. Such was the state of 

 the science when, in 1826, I published a short paper in the Annals of 

 Philosophy, and in 1829 a second in the Zoological Journal (p. 

 242,) in which I divided the bats into five natural sections ; and 

 in the Philosophical Magazine for the same year I printed a revi- 

 sion of the genera from personal examination, and added to it an 

 artificial table, for the purpose of facilitating the discovery of them. 

 This paper was translated into Latin by Dr Fischer (Synop. Mamm. 

 659,) and into German by Oken in th,e Isis, and into French by Les- 

 son in his Manuel ; and the arrangment has been adopted by Mr 

 Swainson in Lardner's Encyclopaedia; and, lastly, by the anonymous 

 writer on bats in the Penny Encyclopeedia, who, having merely trans- 

 lated the article from Lesson's Manuel, erroneously attributes it to 

 that author, though Lesson quotes me as the author of the tribes. The 

 accompanying paper may be considered as anabridgement of afurther 

 revision and extension of that article; and for the purpose of writing 

 it, I have examined all the bats which have passed through my hands, 

 or that I have been able to see in the English collections and in the 

 Government museums of France, Germany, and Holland ; and I 

 hope, that I shall not now hear persons complain of the difficulty they 

 experience in making out the species, much less the genera of these 

 interesting animals. I believe that the real cause of the difficulty is 

 the little attention that zoologists have paid to them, and, as a proof 

 of this inattention, I am induced to give a sketch of the history of 



