1875.] MR. G. E. DOBSON ON THE GENUS SCOTOPHILUS. 369 
It has been suggested, however, by Dr. W. Peters, who has pointed 
out these facts*, that the name Scotophilus should be retained for 
those Bats inhabiting the Eastern Hemisphere, hitherto known as 
Nycticeji, which differ in many important respects, requiring generic 
separation, from the genus represented in the New World by Nyc- 
ticejus crepuscularis, Le Conte, which possesses, numerically, the 
same dentition. .  * 
I have adopted Prof. Peters’s suggestion, because zoological 
literature is thereby spared the burden of a new generic name. It 
still remains, however, to supplement the very imperfect and mis- 
leading original definition of Scotophilus by one from which the 
characters of this genus may be known and its members readily 
recognized, This is especially necessary; for since a large number 
of species representing very different groups were included by Dr. 
J. E. Gray under the common generic title Scotophilusy, this name 
has been indifferently applied, by English and American zoologists 
especially, to almost every species of Bat belonging to the family 
Vespertilionide of which the dental formula was known or suspected 
to represent less than thirty-eight teeth. 
ScororHiLus. 
Muzzle short, obtusely conical, smoothly rounded off, naked : 
nostrils close together, opening by simple lunate apertures in front 
or sublaterally, their inner margins projecting: ears longer than 
broad, generally considerably shorter than the head, with rounded 
tips, the outer margin terminating behind the angle of the mouth 
in a distinct convex lobe; tragus tapering, generally subacutely 
pointed and curved inwards. 
Tail shorter than the heard and body, contained, except the ter- 
minal rudimentary vertebra, within the interfemoral membrane: 
caleaneum weak ; wings attached or close to the base of the toes. 
Fur generally short and nearly confined to the body; wing- and 
interfemoral membranes very thick and leathery. 
Skull thick, with prominent crests: occipital and sagittal crests 
often forming at their junction behind a thick projecting process 
from which the skull slopes evenly downwards and forwards to the 
end of the nasal bones in front; occiput concave, with prominent 
occipital crest ; facial bones much shortened in front of infraorbital 
foramina, which are large and well defined; the bony palate very 
narrow behind last upper molar, extending backwards as far as the 
middle of the zygomatie arches ; basioecipital between cochlese 
broad ; cochlez partially concealed by the tympanic bulle ; paroc- 
cipital and mastoid processes well developed, prominent. 
one ry Wil Vet mee Bed 
Dentition.—Inc. 3-3 C. 74; Pm.35; M. cae 
Au additional external incisor, on each side, above, in the young, 
Upper incisors long, unicuspidate, acute, close to the canines by their 
* Monatsb. Akad. Wissensch. Berl. 1866, p- 679. 
t “ Revision of the Genera of Bats,” Mag. Zool, & Bot. ii. pp. 497, 498 (1838). 
Proc. Zoou. Soc.—1875, No. XXIV. 24 
