JOURNAL- 



OF THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL. 



Part IL— NATURAL SCIENCE. 

 No. III.— 1887. 



XVII. — On the Chiroptera of Nepal. — By J. SCULLT. 

 [Received July 28th ;— Read Aug. 3rd. 1887]. 



The local distribution of our Indian Mammalian fauna is nob only 

 of special interest to naturalists in this country, but is also important to 

 those who are mainly concerned with questions of general geographical 

 distribution. To be of real use, local lists should be founded on speci- 

 mens actually captured in the region under review ; less direct evidence 

 should rarely be accepted. And nowhere, perhaps, in this great country 

 is greater precision required in assigning a station to the forms which 

 inhabit it than in the case of the Himalayas. For not only does the 

 fauna of these mountains differ markedly according to the elevation 

 above sea-level, but it also varies strikingly as we proceed from east to 

 west in them. We have, moreover, in the Himalayas a meeting ground 

 of Palaearctic, Indian, and Malay forms ; and, for the elucidation of the 

 complex questions of station and habitat of species, strict accuracy is 

 required in lists of forms inhabiting merely political divisions of the 

 Himalayas. 



In view of the considerations above mentioned, the expression so 

 often affixed to a species of " Habitat, Nepal " might be only a degree 

 less vague than " Habitat, Himalayas," were it not for what may be 

 called an accident. The term " Nepal " may mean either the whole 

 State of Nepal, or a very small part of it, the Nepal Valley. The 

 State of Nepal is about 500 miles in length, and has an average breadth 

 of about 100 miles ; part of this country differs in no way from the 

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