bo 
XVI DISTRIBUTION OF PTEZROPUS 525 
The inner margin of the nostrils projects, a preparation for the 
tubular nostrils of Harpyia. The tail is absent. The pre- 
molars are three and the molars two. The pyloric region of the 
stomach is extended and twisted upon itself. Of this genus 
there are nearly sixty species, extending from Madagascar to 
Queensland. Thirty species inhabit the Australian, twenty the 
Oriental region. Madagascar has seven, and one species just 
enters the Palaearctic. The occurrence of this genus in India 
and in Madagascar is one of those facts which favour the view 
supported, on these and other grounds, by Dr. Dobson and Dr. 
Blanford, that a connexion between India and Madagascar must 
once have existed; for these slow-flying creatures could hardly 
be believed capable of traversing vast stretches of ocean by 
their unaided efforts. 
Pteropus is represented in the Ethiopian region by the allied 
genus Lpomophorus. Of this there are perhaps a dozen species. 
Fic. 257.—Flying Fox. Pteropus poliocephalus. x}. 
The teeth are reduced to two premolars in the upper jaw, 
1 See Dobson, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) xiv. 1884, p. 153. 
