xyctiment:. OhI 



New Guinea is the only island possessing representatives of all 

 fclic four groups into wliieh tlie genus is here provisionally divided 

 (see table of geographical distribution, p. 69U); the second and 

 fourth of these groups are as j'et monotypic (N. cycloiis charac- 

 terized by the reduced m' and xa^ and its unusually broadly rounded 

 ears ; N. aeUo by its more proclivous premaxiliie and externally at 

 once recognized by its very broad spinal streak) ; of the two others, 

 the pa^j'(«HMs group is central, western, and southern in distribu- 

 tion, ranging from New Guinea west to Celebes and south to 

 Queensland, while the cephcdotes group covers practically the whole 

 area of the genus with the possible exception of the Gilolo Aichi- 

 pelago. Both groups are represented in Celebes, Burn, Amboina, 

 and Coram; of the two species known from N.E. Australia, the 

 one {papiianus) is an unmodified immigrant from New Guinen, the 

 other (rohinsoni) jirobably a peculiar large-eared form of the cephi- 

 lotes group, perhaps most nearly related to N. hiUnh-e (Woodlark 

 Island). The only species inhabiting the Solomon Islands {scitulus) 

 is very closely allied to the New Guinea representative of the 

 cephalotes group (iV. qeminus). 



Habits. — The ventricle of a N. cephalotes examined by Salomon 

 Midler was found to contain exclusively fragments of Coleoptera 

 and Liptera (I. s. c. 1811-44). This appears to be the only 

 published note on the habits of this genus. 



AJJinities. — NyctimeneiB an offshoot from the Cynopterine branch 

 of Eruit-bats. In several important characters it is quite or 

 nearly on the same level as Cynopterus (or allied genera), viz., in 

 the general shape of the skull and mandible, the shortening of the 

 rostrum, the inconspicuous deflection of the basicranial axis, the 

 tendency to disappearance of the postorbital foramina, the number 

 of cheek-teeth (m^ and mj absent), the general outline of the cheek- 

 teeth, the arrangement of the palate-ridges, and the strong develop- 

 ment of odontoid papillae on the inner side of the lips. In one 

 respect it is a little more primitive than the other living genera of 

 the Cynopterine group ; in all of these the tail is very short or 

 (juite obsolete, whereas Nyctimene has the same number of caudal 

 vertebra? as the longest-tailed species of Rousettus, and, in so far as 

 the individual vertebrae are rather less reduced in length {i. e. less 

 degenerated), may even be said to stand, in this single character, 

 slightly lower than Rousettus. Nycthnene, therefore has probably 

 originated from a point of the Cynopterine branch at which all the 

 essential Cynopterine characters of the skull, dentition, palate- 

 ridges, and lips were already fully developed (of course no inner 

 cingulum cusj) in the upper canines and no surface-cusps in the 

 lower cheek-teeth, both characters secondarily acquired by the 

 living genus Cynopterus), but the tail still very nearly on the 

 liousettine stage. From this point it has in certain respects 

 followed its own line of development. The peculiar characters 

 are, first of all, the long tubular nostrils aud the (somewhat 

 Dohso Ilia -like) modilications of the front teeth (incisors and 



•2 Y > 



