22 
STATE OF ZOOLOGY 
its defects had been less prominent. Permit me, tlierefore, to 
mention a few of these points, especially as it is an opinion 
which I have elsewhere maintained, that to correct the errors 
of eminent Avriters is the most effectual means to advance 
science, while the great veneration Avhich is entertained for 
Temminck, and his ex cathedra tone, may in some cases 
prove fatal to truth. Not to enter on the discussion of clas- 
sifications and the limitations of groups, which are matters of 
abstract opinion, I Avill here only remark upon species, which, 
beyond all doubt, are matters of fact. His Vespertilio hra- 
chyotus, Baill., is nothing else than the V. pipistrellus. The 
Vespertilio sclireihersi is perhaps the same with Miniopterus 
ursinii of my Fauna Italica, in the description of which he 
considered that the account of the teeth was wanting (of 
Avhich, on the contrary, I gave a most minute description). 
This arose from his not knowing the proper place to seek it, 
for I having given these characters under the genus, could not 
repeat them under the species. The Vespertilio limnophilus, 
published by him as new in Plate 48 of the work, is the Ves- 
pertilio dasycnemus of Boie. In regard to the two European 
species of Plecotus (a most excellent genus, notwithstanding 
his facetious remarks, now that it is restricted within due 
limits), he w^ould have done much better to omit my auritus 
and my hrevimanus, rather than the auritus and the cornutus 
of Faber, which are all one. It is true, that my hrevimanus 
is different from that of Jenyns, which Temminck, with good 
reason, regards as the young of the auritus. He did not per- 
ceive, and I therefore announce it the more readily, that my 
Vespertilio emarginatus, of which he says my figure represents 
it exactly, is in fact the V. nattereri, which I have recently 
discovered also at Sestri. Possibly, there occurred to Tem- 
minck (whose figure is evidently copied from that of Geoffroy), 
that which I confess happened to myself, the failing to recog- 
nise the true emarginatus in the Paris Museum, where I 
made the strictest search in company with Isidore Geoffroy 
St. Hilaire, son of the founder of the species, which I would 
gladly have recovered, as the name of emarginatus ought to 
be retained for the species of Bat described by him. His 
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