GEOGBAnilCAL DISTKlBCTIoX. XCl 



As might be expected New Guinean affinities are predominant, no 

 less than five of the eight 6])ccies pointing in their origin, eitlier 

 nndouhtcdiy or at leiist ])robably, toward the great neighbouring 

 island ; PUrojms cons/ncillaivg and Nyctlmene pajmunKs are direct 

 iinehan.i^ed inva lers from New Guinea ; Plerojnis polioccpludas is 

 probably the Australian representative of Ft. ejinlarius (New 

 Guinea) and Pt. macroiis (Aru Islands) ; Nyct'imene robhisonl, a 

 ratlicr peculiar species, is perhaps most closely related to A', ganinus 

 (New Guinea) and N. hdluJo' (Woodlark Island) ; and iiyconyderis 

 auslralis differs only in -trivial characters from S. crassa, a species 

 which, differentiated into several local forms, ranges over New 

 Guinea and its satellites, west to the Amboina group. Two 

 Australian species of Pkropus, scajndatus and hvunneus, have, so 

 far as known, no equivalent in New Guinea, but related forms 

 inhabit the Solomon Islands {luoodfonU; cohnus and nolomonis). 

 And one species, Pteropus goiddi, points toward the Lesser Sunda 

 Islands and Celebes, being very closely allied to Ft. cdecto. No 

 Fruit -bat has been recorded from AVestern Australia, south of tlie 

 Kimberley Division, or from Southern Australia, west of Melbourne ; 

 and the single record (by Temminck, but contradicted by Gould) 

 of a Fruit-bat from Tasmania {Pteropus ]JolioccpTudus) remains 

 unsupported by recent evidence. 



Polynesian sulre<jion. 



Pteropus (18 species) and Notopteris (2) are the only genera 

 represented. All species of Pteropus, as Avell as the genus JVoto- 

 pteris, are pecirliar. The eighteen species of Pteropus represent 

 live natural groiips of the genus : the Pt. luj pomeJanus group has 

 s]iread only to New Caledonia (one species) and the Loyalty Ishinds 

 (another); tlie closely related Pt. maviannus group covers (with 

 seven species) ])ractically the whole of the subregion, so far as 

 inhabited by Fruit-bats, except the lioniu Islands, and the group is 

 entirely Polynesian, except for one species that has established itself 

 in the South Liu-Kiu Islands; the Pt. Jombocensis group is represented 

 only in the Carolines (one species) ; the Pt. pselaplton group ranges 

 (with five species) over north-western Polynesia, from the Boniii 

 Islands, south through the Pelew Islands and Carolines, to tho 

 Santa Cruz Islands, and is again entirely Polynesian, e>icept for 

 one species inhabiting the Pl\ili])pincs ; farther south and east in 

 Polynesia (New Hebrides, Fijis, Samoas) it is replaced by the 

 related and purely Polynesian Pt. samoensis group (three species). 

 Each of the eighteen species is (so far as knowu) confined to one 

 group of islands, except Pt. tjeddiei, which is common to the New 

 Hebrides and the neighbouring New Caledonia, and Pt. ionymnis, 

 which is common to the Fijis, Tongas, and Samoas. The autochtho- 

 nous genus Notoj^teris has its closest relatives in the Solomon Islands 

 (Nesonyctcris) and the Eismarck Archipelago and Ncm' Guinea 

 ( Melon ycteris) : it has thus far been recorded from the Carolines in 

 the north, and New Caledonia, New Hebrides, and Fiji Islands in 

 the south. 



