The 165,000 persons living on the Solomon Islands are mostly Melanesians but some are mixed Papuan, Malay, and Polynesian. These native peoples are notorious for their cannibalistic tendencies; the eating of human flesh usually was related to warfare, although malefactors and human sacrifices accounted for some of the cannibalism (Cranstone, 1961:29). Prior to the Second World War few Europeans visited the Solomons and several islands still remain beyond reach of modern-day technology. For example, Rennell and Bellona islands, south of the main part of the archipelago, are visited only rarely, and then only by a medical officer or the Resident Commissioner. According to Troughton (1936:341), the islanders in the interior of Bougainville as late as 1935, were prone to kill and feast upon strangers. In 1932, Lewis (1951:37) felt that the natives of Malaita Island were especially resistant to outside interference by Caucasians and reported that no "white man or foreigner" was safe on Malaita. Troughton (1936), who listed Melanesian names for mammals, indicated that the native peoples distinguished between kinds of bats that closely resembled one another. Of these, the only bats that seem to be used as food belong to the genus _Pteropus_. GAZETTEER In the following list, currently-used names of islands are given; when available, older names and variant spellings are indicated in parentheses. For certain islands, especially those visited by field parties from the Bishop Museum or those frequently mentioned in previous literature on bats, some descriptive and ecological information also is provided. Latitude and longitude of islands are from publication no. 881 of the Hydrographic Office of the United States Navy Department (Anonymous, 1944); names of islands were checked against a list by Brigham (1900); descriptive information mostly is from reports by Temple and Straatmann (1964, field notes, at the Department of Entomology, Bishop Museum). ALU.--7° 07' S, 155° 54' E. BANIKA.--9° 05' S, 155° 13' E. BARA (Gera).--9° 31' S, 160° 31' E. BELLONA (Bello).--11° 18' S, 159° 48' E. BOUGAINVILLE (Mamamolimo).--6° 12' S, 155° 15' E. This is the largest island in the Solomon Group, being 127 miles long (northwest to southeast) and about 59 miles across at the widest place. The highest elevations are 9850 and 10171 feet, at the tops of active volcanoes. Ecologically, Bougainville is mostly dense rain forest, which is less dense on the summits of higher mountains. BUKA.--5° 15' S, 154° 38' E. CHOISEUL.--7° 04' S, 157° 01' E. This island, formed along a northwest-southeast line of low mountains (maximum elevation of 3500 feet), is about 90 miles long and 20 miles wide. Most collecting was at Malangona (Sasamunga on some maps) on the southwestern coast.