92 TlMEHRI. 
Apart from the labour of collecting specimens of the 
group, a very considerable amount of difficulty is met 
with in the determination of the species, owing to the 
scanty and unsatisfactory literature at hand on the 
subject, a state of things that has been aggravated, so to 
speak, by the limited edition that was published of the 
only complete work which has appeared in recent years, 
namely DOBSON's " Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the 
British Museum," a work that has been forsometime outof 
print, though it is but about thirteen years ago that it was 
issued from the press. I would therefore acknowledge 
with special pleasure the kindness of Mr. OLDF1ELD 
THOMAS, F.Z.S., the distinguished Assistant in charge of 
the Mammalia in the British Museum, in naming the 
greater number of species to be mentioned in the following 
pages. 
To a very great number of our colonists, the term " bat" 
at once suggests some so-called vampire or blood-sucker, 
just as the mere mention of the word "snake" is enough 
to arouse against all the innocent members of the group 
all the antipathy rightly to be felt only against the 
poisonous species. In the towns and coast districts gene- 
rally, several species of bats are obtainable, but these are 
chiefly frugivorous and insectivorous, few specimens of 
the blood-sucking bats being known as occurring therein ; 
while in the interior of the country and along the great 
rivers and the more open creeks, these " colony doctors" — 
as they are often termed by the Creole labourers — frequently 
make known their presence by attacks on man and his 
domestic animals, and sometimes, especially in certain 
districts noted for their prevalence, to a dangerous extent. 
To mules and oxen in the forest districts, thev are a 
