NyCTIMKXi:. 



Sexual differeatlatio.i. — Adult individuals of both sexes have 

 been available only of live (of the twelve known) species, viz. : 

 N. papiianus, cephalotes, geminus, major, and scitulus. Adult males 

 of M. pajjuanus (probably also of alhivenier, minntus, varius, and 

 cyelotis) differ from females by the much brighter (ochraeeous- 

 cinnamou, tawny-cinnamon) colour of the sides of the neck, fore- 

 neck, chest, and flanks ; this sexual colour-difference is practically 

 the same as in Cjinopterus. But in N. cephalotes, geminus, major 

 and scitulus (probably also in IuUuIck, perhaps in rohinsoni) the 

 differentiation of the sexes, so far as colour is concerned, is carried 

 further than in any other Fruit-bats ; adult males are, generally 

 speaking, fawn-brown or fawn-drab or ashy-drab above, adult 

 females cream-buff or cream-white above ; beneath, males of these 

 species are conspicuously darker than females, but the bright 

 ochraceous-cinnnmon colour of the foreneck and flanks distin- 

 guishing the males of papuamis is represented only by a more or 

 less pronounced suffusion with tawny-olive or pale raw-umber. 



liange. — Like Dohsoiiia, the present genus is eminently charac- 

 teristic of the Austro-Malayan subregion, the geographical boun- 

 daries of which are, very nearly, the same as those of the area 

 inhabited by this genus. To the west it nowhere transgresses 

 Wallace's line, Celebes and Timor being the extreme western 

 localities from which it is known (it probably ranges over some of 

 the Lesser Sunda Islands west of Timor) ; eastward it extends to 

 the Solomon Islands, possibly over the whole of that Archipelago, 

 but so far not recorded from the islands east of Guadalcanar ; to 

 the south it has stepped a little beyond the boundaries of the sub- 

 region, into the north-east corner of the Australian continent. 



