434 Mr. O. Thomas on Mammals from 



XLTX. — On ^fammah from Manit a Island Admiraltn Groups 

 and Ruk Island, I3ismarch Archipelago. By OldfiELD 

 Thomas. 



(Published by permission of the Trustees of the British INtuseum.") 



By the kindness of the Hon. Walter Rotlischild the Britisli 

 Museum has had the opportunity of acquiring two collections 

 o£ mammals, mostly bats, which had been obtained on the 

 islands mentioned in the title by Mr. A. S. Meek and his 

 brother-in-law Mr. Eichhorn. 



With the exception of the few specimens collected by the 

 ' (yhallen,2;er ' Expedition in 1875 (including the original 

 series of Pleropus admiralitatum) the British Museum 

 possessed no mammals at all from the Admiralty Islands, 

 and from the Bismarck Archipelago only those got by the 

 Rev. G. Browni on " Duke of York Island and the neigh- 

 bouring shores of New Britain and Now Ireland," and 

 therefore little adapted for exact work on the insular distri- 

 bution of the species. The two present collections are 

 therefore extremely acceptable. 



Curiously enough, there proves to be practically no 

 difference between the corresponding species of the two 

 collections ; so that it would appear tiiat there is one common 

 f;iuna througii the whole crescent of islands, from tlie 

 Admiralties, through the main islands of the Bismarck 

 Archipelago, to its extreme southern member link Island. 



Most of tiie species occurring in the two collections are 

 already known from the larger Bismarck Islands, but in tiie 

 case of Dobsom'a anderseni it is possible tliat the similar-sized 

 D. pra^datn'x may prove to rejiresent it in the intermediate 

 islands, even though it does belong to a different group of 

 the genus. 



The whole series consists of 43 specimens, belonging to 16 

 species, of which 4 have proved to need description as new. 

 Some other new Austrahisian sj)ccies which have now become 

 evident are described in the succeeding paper. 



1. Pter(>j>ns neoJiibernicus, Bet. 

 Two from Manus and one froni Ituk. 



2. Pteropus cajn'slralus. Pet. 



Two from Ruk. 



These additional specimens of thi.s rare and beautiful fruii- 

 l)at are very welcome. 



