96 MR. K, ANDERSEN ON BATS [May 16, 
sense of the term*, there are only two alternatives: it is either 
Rh, rowwi or a species of the Ah. acuminatus section, I have 
not the slightest hesitation in referring the name as a synonym 
to the former species. As, however, Dobson himself later on 
applied the name to two Bats of the aewminatus section, it will 
only be necessary to give evidence, from his own description, that 
he was mistaken. The only important points in the description 
of “ Rh. petersi” as given by Dobson in 1872 and 1876, i.e. at the 
time when he had access to the type specimen, are the following 
(the italics are mine)—(1) The nose-leaves are “as in Lh, 
acuminatus, except the upper border of the posterior connecting 
process, which is much less acute.” This statement alone would 
be sufficient. In acwminatus the shape of the sella and lancet is 
very much as in rouwai, but the connecting process, both in 
acuminatus and in all its allies (swmatranus, calypso, wudax), 1s 
projecting and pointed; there is, in this respect, no difference 
between the species of the aewminatus section, and there is also no 
appreciable individual variation. When, therefore, Dobson in this 
decisive point (the chief character of the whole group to which 
acuminatus belongs) declares his Rh. petersi to be very different 
from acuminatus, it may safely be said that it has nothing to do 
with that group. Dobson had evidently before him an example 
of Rh. rouxi with a slightly raised connecting process (‘‘ much less 
acute” than in acwminatus); such individuals are by no means 
rare ; there are severalin the British Museum, and the peculiarity 
is purely individual. Dobson found, quite naturally, that this 
peculiarity recalled that shape of the connecting process which had 
been described, one year earlier, by Peters in a species called by 
him Rh. acuminatus Tt, and, consequently, he compared it, in his 
paper, with this latter species, at the same time emphasising that 
there was a considerable difference. (2) The figure (side view) in 
Dobson’s ‘ Monograph,’ however bad it is, can scarcely represent 
the shape of the connecting process in acwminatus. Dobson has, 
no doubt, called the attention of his artist to the connecting 
rocess of the specimen to be figured as 2h. petersi, and the artist, 
in due obedience, has made his best to ‘‘emphasise” that point : 
this may account, I think, for the process being somewhat more 
exaggerated than in ordinary individuals of rowxi; but it is still 
not the process of an acuminatus. (3) The measurements of 
petersi are, without any exception, perfectly like those of several 
unquestionable specimens of rowai measured by myself ; there is not 
the slightest indication of a difference. (4) The type of petersi is 
from “ India, precise locality unknown.” The aewminatus section 
is distributed over Sumatra, Engano, Java, and Lombok. When 
Dobson wrote his ‘Monograph,’ there was not, in the Calcutta 
Museum, any specimen.of any species of Rhinolophus from 
those islands; so that, if RA. peterst were a member of the 
acuminatus section, the type, without locality, would have been 
* Dobson, J. A. S. B, xli. pt. ii. (Dece 22, 1872) p. 337; id., Monogr. Asiat. Chir. 
(1876) p. 49, text-figs. a, b. 
+ Peters, MB. Akad. Berlin, 1871, p. 302. 
