the Genus Acerodon. 21 



p^ of most species and in p^ of A. humilis, Jubatus, and 

 hicifer) ; a corresponding cusp indicated in certain species of 

 Pteropus, but never as well developed and sharply differen- 

 tiated as in u!^ceroc?b?i : (3) molariform teeth above and below 

 (^*, m^, 2^^, mi, m^j ratiier shorter and broader, and main 

 cusps with more trenchant edges : (4) m^ rather less reduced : 

 (5) upper incisors slenderer and more acutely pointed*. — 

 Skull and external characters not differing. from those of 

 Pteropus. 



Original description of genus. — Palmer f gives as primary 

 reference for the genus Acerodon, ^o\wdi&\\, the"Ann. Sci. 

 Nat., Paris, 2^ s^r., viii, Zool. 369-370, Dec. 1837," and as 

 secondary reference the " Comptes Kendus, Paris, vi, 3, 

 1838.''' To this it must be remarked, first, that these two 

 papers give, the one exclusively, theother chiefly, F. Cuvier's 

 " Rapport" and critical remarks on a memoir by Jourdan, 

 and that therefore, really as well as formally, not Jourdan but 

 F. Cuvier is the author of the two papers referred to by 

 Palmer ; second, that in both of these papers the name of the 

 present genus occurs only in its French form (Acerodon), 

 and therefore cannot, technically, date from these papers ; 

 third, that prima facie it appears unlikely that F. (Javier's 

 " Rapport," which was read before the Paris Academy, 

 should have been published earlier in the " Annales des 

 Sciences Naturelles' than in the 'Comptes Rendus ' of the 

 meetings of the Academy. In these circumstances I have 



* Some of the differential characters of Acerodon given by Miller in 

 his highly useful ' Revision of the Families and Genera of Bats' (p. 59, 

 1907) prove, on examination of a larger material of Pteropus and 

 Acerodon than that studied by Miller, to be untenable. "Lower incisors 

 [Miller writes] differing from those of Pteropus in tlie much greater con- 

 trast in size between the inner and outer tooth of each pair." In Acerodon 

 ?2 is in cross-section of the crown from twice to three times the bulk of tj ; 

 practically the same is the case in a majority of species of Pteropus, 

 while in others (e. g. Pt. lombocensis, soUtariiis, samo'ensis, anetianus, 

 pselaphon, pilosus, tuberculatus) the disproportion in the size of these teeth 

 is greater than in any Acerodon, i^ being sometimes four, live, or six 

 times the bulk of t\. "Canines much shoitened as compared with 

 Pteropus, the mandibular canine little exceeding the height of pm^." 

 There is in Pteropus e\ery intergradation from short, stout, and distinctly 

 recurved, to very long, slender, and nearly straight canines. " Though 

 reduced in length the canines retain their thickness, and the cingulum is 

 even better developed than in the related genus." The numei'ous species 

 o{ Pteropus show any intermediate stage from a very narrow to an exces- 

 sively broad cingulum of the canines (the latter extreme exhibited by 

 Pt. samo'ensis, anetianus, j)selaphon, pilosus, tuberculatus, insu/aris, phceo- 

 cephalus) ; the cingulum of the canines is in these species of Pteropus 

 much broader than in any Acerodon, 



t Index Gen. Mamm. p. 73 (1904). 



