REMARKS ON SOME RACES OF CYNOPTERUS. 



By Dr. KNUD ANDERSEN akd G. BODEN KLOSS. 

 " TN a paper on a collection of mammals from the Siamese Province 

 of Bandon recently published in ' Journal, Federated Malay- 

 States Museums.' (Vol. V., p. 115 ; 1915) Messrs. Robinson and 

 Kloss raise the question whether it would not ' be m.ore logical 

 to regard angulatus as a sub-species of C. sphinx rather than of 

 C. brachyotis.' Perhaps I may be allowed to say a few words in 

 elucidation of this subject. If yon desire to separate C. sphinx (all 

 forms taken together) as a species from G. hrachyotis (all forms), 

 then you must evidently draw at least a tolerably clear line between 

 them. That is what I have tried to do by placing all the longer- 

 eared forms together under the heading C. sphinx and all the 

 shorter-eared under C. hrachyotis. Destroy that line, as drawn 

 by me, and so far as I can see, you destroy every possible line of 

 demarcation between C. sphinx and C. hrachyotis as species^ for I can 

 find no other clear character binding all the forms of sj)hinx together 

 as contrasted with all the forms of hrachyotis 'i\\&n the difference 

 in ears. But destroying that line, that is exactly what you do in 

 the moment you transfer angulatus (a shorter-eared form) to C. sphinx 

 (the longer-eared group). This, therefore, is not a question of 

 whether you would like to see angulatus placed under sphinx rather 

 than under hrachyotis still keeping sphinx and hrachyotis as separate 

 species, but whether you svill leave matters as they stand or rather 

 bring all the forms of sphinx and hrachyotis together under one 

 specific name. 



" But it may reasonably be asked, why not unite them all ? 

 Because it would, at least over one large geographical area (and 

 possibly over more than one, when we know the fauna of Indo- 

 Malaya better), lead to a rather awkward result. In Sumatra you 

 would have three different sub-species of the same species occurring 

 together, tittha^cheilus, angidatus and hrachyotis, 1+ is a thing 

 I have succeeded in avoiding: so far, and which I think certainly 

 ought to be avoided if possible. Quite apart from that, place the 

 three forms, a titthsecheilus, an angulatus, and a hrachyotis in g, series,. 

 together with their skulls, and few, if any, would hesitate for a 

 moment in declaring that angulatus and hrachyotis are obviously 

 much more intimately related to each other than they are to 

 titthiGcheilus, or to put the same thing in other words, that angulatus 

 and hrachyotis are offshoots from one (the hrachyotis) branch of the 

 genus, titthsecheilus from a certainly related but clearly different 

 branch (^sphinx). Angulatus and hrachyotis are bound together not 

 only by the relatively shorter ears, but also by the relatively shorter 

 cranial rostrum (less than one-fourth of skull), in both of which 

 characters they differ from sphinx and titthsecheilus. But if that 

 is so, if our material seems clearly to indicate the existence of two 



