BATS — RODENTS 215 



The ancestral forms of the group were no doubt immigrants from the Austro- 

 Malay Archipelago. The purport of the oblique tubes into which the apertures of 

 the nostrils are prolonged still remains unknown, but it is noteworthy that other 

 bats of the Cynopterine section, to which the tube-nosed group belongs, exhibit an 

 imperfect development of the same feature. The only other Australian fruit-bat 

 is Syconycteris austrcdis, a member of a genus with two other species, the 

 collective range of which includes the Moluccas, and New Guinea and the 

 neighbouring islands. It is nearly related to the Asiatic Carponycteris or 

 Macroglossus, and restricted to Queensland. 



Of insectivorous bats the list is very short. It includes the Australian 

 golden bat (Rhinonycteris aurantia), the sole representative of a peculiar genus 

 of the nose-leaved family, Rhinolophidce ; while the great false vampire (Mega- 

 derma gigas) of central Queensland is a member of an Asiatic genus of the 

 family Nycteridai, notable on account of being the largest of all the insect-eating 

 group. In the family Vespertilionidce the typical section of the genus 

 Chalinolobus is restricted to Australasia and New Zealand, where it is represented 

 by C. morio, common to Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, and several 

 other species peculiar to Australia. Very noteworthy is the occurrence in 

 Australia, as well as in Madagascar, of bats which are best regarded merely as 

 local races of Schreiber's bat (Miniopterus schreibersi) of Europe and Asia. 



Apart from bats, the only indigenous Australian land mammals 

 other than marsupials and monotremes are rodents of the family 

 Muridce, of which there is a considerable number of specific representatives, belonging 

 for the most part to peculiar generic or subgeneric groups. In making this state- 

 ment it must be understood that introduced European and Asiatic rats and mice 

 do not enter into consideration. A considerable number of the Australian rats 

 and mice have been generally included in the typical genus Mils, but the generic 

 separation by more advanced naturalists of European groups typified by the 

 black rat, the wood-mouse, and the harvest-mouse has entailed a similar sundering 

 of the Australian species, which are referred to several genera. Referring to 

 these under their original generic designation, mention may be made of the 

 brown-footed Australian rat (Mus fuscipes), notable on account of the similarity 

 between its habits and those of the water-rat of Europe. A Tasmanian species, 

 Mastacomys fuscus, commonly known as Lichtenstein's rat, is the sole repre- 

 sentative of a well-marked genus distinguished from Mus and its subgenera by 

 the greater width of its cheek-teeth, of which it has only four pairs in each jaw. 

 Other rats belong to the genus Uromys, which contains several species of which 

 the collective range extends from Queensland to the Arru Islands, with a single 

 outlying representative in the Solomon group. All these rats differ from Mus by 

 the scales in the skin of the tail forming a kind of mosaic work, with their edges 

 in apposition, instead of one overlapping the other. Highly characteristic of 

 Australia are the jerboa-rats, of which there is a considerable number of species, 

 formerly all included in the genus Conilurus, or Hapalotis, but now split up into 

 four generic groups. The first of these is Notomys, represented by N. mitchelli, 

 iV. cervinus, and N. longicaudatus, in all of which the cheek-teeth are practically 

 similar to those of ordinary mice and rats (Mus), but the hind-feet are much 



