571 
ON THE ORGAN OF JACOBSON IN AN AUSTRALIAN 
BAT (MIFIOPTERUS). 
By R. Broom, M.D., B.Sc. 
(Plate xlvii.) 
In the course of a recent investigation of certain details in the 
comparative anatomy of Jacobson's Organ, the results of which I 
have embodied in a thesis recently presented to Glasgow Uni- 
versity, I discovered in the common little Australian bat, besides 
a number of other interesting points, a well-developed organ of 
Jacobson. 
Jacobson's Organ, as is well known, is found in the large 
majority of Mammals — from the Monotremata, where it is greatly 
developed, to man, where it is rudimentary. In the majority of 
orders it is typically present, but in the higher forms it is 
frequently absent. Herzfeld,* who has examined a very con- 
siderable variety of animals, found it quite absent in two Old 
World Monkeys, Cercopithecus and Inuus, though present in 
the New World genus, Hapale, and also in the Lemur. Among 
the Chiroptera he found the organ to be absent in the flying-fox 
( Pteropus edwardsi), and also absent in a native (German) bat, of 
which unfortunately the species was not determined. From these 
observations it has naturally been concluded that the organ is 
absent in the order Chiroptera. 
Since giving notice of the present communication, and on the 
eve of sending it off, Dr. Elliott Smith, has kindly called my 
attention to a paper just recently published on the Organ of 
Jacobson in the Chiroptera by Mm. Duval and Garnaultf . In 
* P. Herzfeld, " Ueber das Jacobson'sche Organ des Menschen and der 
Saiigethiere. " Zool. Jahrb. 1889. 
t M. Duval and P. Garnault, " L'organe de Jacobson des Chiropteres " ; 
Compt. Rend. Hebd. des Stances de la Soci^te" de Biologic, x. Ser. 28 June, 
1895. 
