ARTICLE V. 
ON THE GLOSSOPHAGIN 
(Plates VI-XV_) 
BY HARRISON ALLEN, M.D. 
Read before the American Philosophical Society, January 21, 1898. 
Having an impression that the genera of bats are best defined by minute characters 
in the skull, teeth and wing membranes, I am led to review the Glossophaginee—a sub- 
family of the Phyllostomidide, concerning which unsatisfactory accounts exist both as 
to structure and relationship. 
The bats embraced in the group are characterized by a slender protrusile tongue, an 
elongated jaw and a deeply cleft lower lip.* The temporal impression is faintly marked 
and the sagitta is absent or confined to the frontal bone. The thumb and forearm are 
‘long. The olecranon lies on the upper side of the wing membrane. The canine teeth 
are long and the upper molars without hypocone. ‘The incisors are so diminutive as to 
permit the tongue to be freely projected without wide separation of the jaws. 
According to P. Osborne (Proc. Zodl. Soc., 1865, 82) the thumb aids in the seizure 
of small fruits, the teeth tear through the skin and the long tongue extracts the semi-fluid 
contents. As in the Edentata, the elongation of the jaws and tongue has led to the sim- 
plification of the teeth. But reduction in number of the teeth has gone on scarcely at 
all; indeed, the most highly specialized forms are those having the largest number of 
teeth. 
The genera are arranged in three alliances—the glossophagine, the chcernycterine and 
the phyllonyeterine. The first is composed of G'lossophaga, Leptonycteris and probably 
Monophyllus ; they certainly relate closely to the Vampyri. The second of the highly 
specialized and more doubtfully placed group of Chernycteris, Lonchoglossa and Anura, 
oe asin as are indebted to Prof. W. Peters (If. B. Akad., Berlin, 1868), for a revision of the group of the glos- 
sophagine bats. The diagnoses are unfortunately sometimes inadequate and without critical analyses of synonymy. The 
confusion arising from the circumstance last named is to be acknowledged ; as a result, the task of identification when 
not aided by inspection of type specimens is difficult. Dobson in his well-known catalogue of the Chiroptera in the 
British Museum, 1878, follows Peters closely—often indeed merely translating or paraphrasing his language—and on the 
whole shows less acumen than characterizes his admirable work elsewhere. 
