Occasional notes. IV. Uronycteris cephalotes, Pallas
Abstract
On the mainland of Australia this peculiar and unmistakeable Bat has been recorded only from Cape York, and the evidence of its occurrence on the Continent rests apparently on a specimen in the British Museum. It is pleasing therefore to record further examples, one from Queensland, received from Mr. George Hislop, who secured it on the Bloomfield River, near Cooktown, in 1897, and another within the limits of our own State, which was obtained under rather curious circumstances. On the 6th April last Mr. Henry R. Elvery forwarded the Bat from Alstonville on the Richmond River, remarking that he had never observed anything like it before, and that it was taken by Mr. A. O. Ponton who caught it on a barbed wire fence.
In his catalogue, Dobson used the name Harpyia, Illiger (1811), for this genus, but Ogilby pointed out that it had been bestowed by Ochsenheimer, the preceding year, in Insecta; he therefore reverted to Uronycteris, Gray (1862). Two years ago Trouessart again used Harpyia, but later adopted Cephalotes, Geoff. (1810), preoccupied by Dumeril in Fishes (1806). I do not see that any name other than Uronycteris can be used for this bat.
