EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 255 
bristly hair, and black somewhat flattened spines. No cranial characters are 
given as the specimens were unaccompanied by separate skulls. 
In 1907, Thomas obtained a specimen of this genus from Mt. Victoria, 
British New Guinea, at an altitude of 8,000 feet, the first known from this portion 
of Papua. It was an old female, but the cranial measurements, though large, 
do not exceed those of Gervais’s larger specimen. This specimen is made the 
type of Acanthoglossus bruijnii bartoni and is briefly characterized as having 
fur long and thick, entirely hiding the spines over the whole of the dorsal area 
except on the nape, sides of the neck, flanks, back of rump, and caudal region. 
The general color is black throughout except the hands and feet which are brown 
grizzled with whitish. The spines are white, thin, not exceeding 30 mm., and 
are absent from the belly. It is not clear how this is to be distinguished from the 
race villosissima, except that it is black instead of brown. This difference, 
however, is probably individual. In the same year Thomas (1907a) described 
Acanthoglossus goodfellowi as a new species from the island of Salawatti. This 
specimen was obtained from the natives who may quite readily have brought 
it to this island from the adjacent shores of New Guinea. Salawatti is a rather 
low island separated from Papua by a narrow stretch of mud-flats, and its fauna 
so far as known is not different from that of the Papuan mainland. The species 
is said to be easily recognizable by the predominance of the spines and the almost 
entire suppression of the woolly coat. The longest spines are some 30 mm. 
in length, and are white shading basally to gray. The fur is short and scanty, 
of a uniform black throughout. The skull presents no marked peculiarities. 
All these characters are shown in one of our Papuan examples, so that there 
seem to be no grounds for recognizing a Salawatti race, even in case it should 
be true that the animal naturally occurs there and was not carried thither 
by the natives. Thus though there are currently recognized five varieties of 
the Proechidna the validity of more than the one species is open to serious 
question. 
EXTERNAL CHARACTERS. 
In the eight specimens in the collection of the Museum of Comparative 
Zoodlogy all the characters claimed for these described races are to be found in 
various combinations, yet there seems no good reason for recognizing more 
than one form among them. The color of Z. bruijnii bruijnii, as stated by 
Rothschild, is brownish black or black. The head may be paler than the body, 
or in albinistic individuals may be more or less white. No. 6,722 M. C, Z. is 
