Species of the Genus Epomops. 101 



specimen of Epomops, will rather too often have made the 

 experience that they had better give it up, for the specimen 

 would agree with neither of the diagnoses offered in that book. 



Dobsiii's method of discri binding E. comptus //-am E. fran- 

 qufti. — Dobson gave the following brief diagnoses of the two 

 " species " (his reference to the different " mode of attach- 

 ment of the wings to the toes" may be left quite out of 

 consideration here ; the insertion of the membranes is the 

 same in all forms of Epomops). E.con,ptus\ third palate- 

 ridge complete, undivided ; a single pair of upper incisors in 

 adults. E. franqueti : third palate-ridge developed on sides 

 only [«'. e. broadly separated in middle] ; outer incisors 

 wanting only in very old individuals. As these diagnoses 

 have been universally accepted, without or with (Matschie) 

 hesitation, for more than thirty years, it may perhaps be of 

 some interest to trace them back to their origin. It is evident 

 that Dobson cannot have taken them from Tomes's or Allen's 

 descriptions, for neither of these authors mentions the palate- 

 ridges ; nor can he have known the palate-ridges from personal 

 examination of the types nor from secondhand information, 

 for in both of the type-skulls the soft palate has been 

 destroyed. The explanation is this: — 



Dobson's material of Epomops was exceedingly limited, 

 only lour specimens, one from Sierra Leone, two from 

 Gaboon, and one without locality, all adults. In one of 

 these, a female from Gaboon (Cat. Chir. p. 14, specimen 

 "a"), he found only one pair of upper incisors; as this 

 character agreed with Allen's description of E. comptus 

 (i-| incisors], he naturally identified this specimen with 

 E. comptus, and finding in the same specimen the third palate- 

 ridge continued uninterrupted across the palate, he co.nbined 

 these two facts into the diagnosis of E. comptus referred to 

 above: third ridge undivided, only one pair of upper incisors 

 in adults. In two of the three other specimens (the third is 

 senile and has lost all incisors above and below), as well as 

 in Tomes's figure of the type skull of E. franqueti (or perhaps 

 by actual examination of this latter during one of his visits 

 to Paris), he found two pairs of upper incisors, and in one of 

 the specimens, viz. that from Sierra Leone (p. 13, specimen 

 "a"), the third palate-ridge broadly intenupted in the 

 middle; this is the basis of his diagnosis of E. franqueti : 

 third ridge divided, outer upper incisors present " except in 

 very old individuals." But he overlooked the important fact 

 that in two of the three specimens referred by himself to 

 E. franqueti (p. 13, "6" and :< c ") the third ridge is, contrary 

 to his diagnosis of that species, undivided in the middle! 



